listen
beloved
i dreamed
  it appeared that you thought to
  escape me and became a great
  lily atilt on
  insolent
  waters    but i was aware of
  fragrance and i came riding upon
  a horse of porphyry    into the
  waters i rode down the red
  horse shrieking    from splintering
  foam caught you clutched you upon my
  mouth
listen
beloved
  i dreamed    in my dream you had
  desire to thwart me and became
  a little bird and hid
  in a tree of tall marble
  from a great way i distinguished
  singing and i came
  riding upon a scarlet sunset
  trampling the night    easily
  from the shocked impossible
  tower i caught
  you strained you
  broke you upon my blood
listen
  beloved i dreamed
  i thought you would have deceived
  me and became a star in the kingdom
  of heaven
  through day and space i saw you close
  your eyes    and i came riding
  upon a thousand crimson years arched with agony
  i reined them in tottering before
  the throne and as
  they shied at the automaton moon from
  the transplendant hand of sombre god
  i picked you
as an apple is picked by the little peasants for their girls

PERSONIFICATIONS.

Boys.            Girls.
  January.                February.
  March.                  April.
  July.                   May.
  August.                 June.
  October.                September.
  December.               November.

  Robin Redbreasts; Lambs and Sheep; Nightingale and
  Nestlings.

  Various Flowers, Fruits, etc.

  Scene: A Cottage with its Grounds.


[A room in a large comfortable cottage; a fire burning on
the hearth; a table on which the breakfast things have
been left standing. January discovered seated by the
fire.]


          January.

Cold the day and cold the drifted snow,
Dim the day until the cold dark night.

                    [Stirs the fire.

Crackle, sparkle, *****; embers glow:
Some one may be plodding through the snow
Longing for a light,
For the light that you and I can show.
If no one else should come,
Here Robin Redbreast's welcome to a crumb,
And never troublesome:
Robin, why don't you come and fetch your crumb?


  Here's butter for my hunch of bread,
    And sugar for your crumb;
  Here's room upon the hearthrug,
    If you'll only come.

  In your scarlet waistcoat,
    With your keen bright eye,
  Where are you loitering?
    Wings were made to fly!

  Make haste to breakfast,
    Come and fetch your crumb,
  For I'm as glad to see you
    As you are glad to come.


[Two Robin Redbreasts are seen tapping with their beaks at
the lattice, which January opens. The birds flutter in,
hop about the floor, and peck up the crumbs and sugar
thrown to them. They have scarcely finished their meal,
when a knock is heard at the door. January hangs a
guard in front of the fire, and opens to February, who
appears with a bunch of snowdrops in her hand.]

          January.

Good-morrow, sister.

          February.

            Brother, joy to you!
I've brought some snowdrops; only just a few,
But quite enough to prove the world awake,
Cheerful and hopeful in the frosty dew
And for the pale sun's sake.

[She hands a few of her snowdrops to January, who retires
into the background. While February stands arranging
the remaining snowdrops in a glass of water on the
window-sill, a soft butting and bleating are heard outside.
She opens the door, and sees one foremost lamb, with
other sheep and lambs bleating and crowding towards
her.]

          February.

O you, you little wonder, come--come in,
You wonderful, you woolly soft white lamb:
You panting mother ewe, come too,
And lead that tottering twin
Safe in:
Bring all your bleating kith and kin,
Except the ***** ram.

[February opens a second door in the background, and the
little flock files through into a warm and sheltered compartment
out of sight.]

  The lambkin tottering in its walk
    With just a fleece to wear;
  The snowdrop drooping on its stalk
      So slender,--
  Snowdrop and lamb, a pretty pair,
  Braving the cold for our delight,
      Both white,
      Both tender.

[A rattling of doors and windows; branches seen without,
tossing violently to and fro.]

How the doors rattle, and the branches sway!
Here's brother March comes whirling on his way
With winds that eddy and sing.

[She turns the handle of the door, which bursts open, and
discloses March hastening up, both hands full of violets
and anemones.]

          February.

Come, show me what you bring;
For I have said my say, fulfilled my day,
And must away.

          March.

[Stopping short on the threshold.]

    I blow an arouse
    Through the world's wide house
  To quicken the torpid earth:
    Grappling I fling
    Each feeble thing,
  But bring strong life to the birth.
    I wrestle and frown,
    And topple down;
  I wrench, I rend, I uproot;
    Yet the violet
    Is born where I set
  The sole of my flying foot,

[Hands violets and anemones to February, who retires into
the background.]

    And in my wake
    Frail wind-flowers quake,
  And the catkins promise fruit.
    I drive ocean ashore
    With rush and roar,
  And he cannot say me nay:
    My harpstrings all
    Are the forests tall,
  Making music when I play.
    And as others perforce,
    So I on my course
  Run and needs must run,
    With sap on the mount
    And buds past count
  And rivers and clouds and sun,
    With seasons and breath
    And time and death
  And all that has yet begun.

[Before March has done speaking, a voice is heard approaching
accompanied by a twittering of birds. April comes
along singing, and stands outside and out of sight to finish
her song.]

          April.

[Outside.]

  Pretty little three
  Sparrows in a tree,
    Light upon the wing;
    Though you cannot sing
    You can chirp of Spring:
  Chirp of Spring to me,
  Sparrows, from your tree.

  Never mind the showers,
  Chirp about the flowers
    While you build a nest:
    Straws from east and west,
    Feathers from your breast,
  Make the snuggest bowers
  In a world of flowers.

  You must dart away
  From the chosen spray,
    You intrusive third
    Extra little bird;
    Join the unwedded herd!
  These have done with play,
  And must work to-day.

          April.

[Appearing at the open door.]

Good-morrow and good-bye: if others fly,
Of all the flying months you're the most flying.

          March.

You're hope and sweetness, April.

          April.

            Birth means dying,
As wings and wind mean flying;
So you and I and all things fly or die;
And sometimes I sit sighing to think of dying.
But meanwhile I've a rainbow in my showers,
And a lapful of flowers,
And these dear nestlings aged three hours;
And here's their mother sitting,
Their father's merely flitting
To find their breakfast somewhere in my bowers.

[As she speaks April shows March her apron full of flowers
and nest full of birds. March wanders away into the
grounds. April, without entering the cottage, hangs over
the hungry nestlings watching them.]

          April.

  What beaks you have, you funny things,
    What voices shrill and weak;
  Who'd think that anything that sings
    Could sing through such a beak?
  Yet you'll be nightingales one day,
    And charm the country-side,
  When I'm away and far away
    And May is queen and bride.

[May arrives unperceived by April, and gives her a kiss.
April starts and looks round.]

          April.

Ah May, good-morrow May, and so good-bye.

          May.

That's just your way, sweet April, smile and sigh:
Your sorrow's half in fun,
Begun and done
And turned to joy while twenty seconds run.
I've gathered flowers all as I came along,
At every step a flower
Fed by your last bright shower,--

[She divides an armful of all sorts of flowers with April, who
strolls away through the garden.]

          May.

And gathering flowers I listened to the song
Of every bird in bower.
    The world and I are far too full of bliss
    To think or plan or toil or care;
      The sun is waxing strong,
      The days are waxing long,
        And all that is,
          Is fair.

    Here are my buds of lily and of rose,
    And here's my namesake-blossom, may;
      And from a watery spot
      See here forget-me-not,
        With all that blows
          To-day.

    Hark to my linnets from the hedges green,
    Blackbird and lark and thrush and dove,
      And every nightingale
      And cuckoo tells its tale,
        And all they mean
          Is love.

[June appears at the further end of the garden, coming slowly
towards May, who, seeing her, exclaims]

          May.

Surely you're come too early, sister June.

          June.

Indeed I feel as if I came too soon
To round your young May moon
And set the world a-gasping at my noon.
Yet come I must. So here are strawberries
Sun-flushed and sweet, as many as you please;
And here are full-blown roses by the score,
More roses, and yet more.

[May, eating strawberries, withdraws among the flower beds.]

          June.

The sun does all my long day's work for me,
  Raises and ripens everything;
I need but sit beneath a leafy tree
    And watch and sing.

[Seats herself in the shadow of a laburnum.

Or if I'm lulled by note of bird and bee,
  Or lulled by noontide's silence deep,
I need but nestle down beneath my tree
    And drop asleep.

[June falls asleep; and is not awakened by the voice of July,
who behind the scenes is heard half singing, half calling.]

          July.

     [Behind the scenes.]

Blue flags, yellow flags, flags all freckled,
Which will you take? yellow, blue, speckled!
Take which you will, speckled, blue, yellow,
Each in its way has not a fellow.

[Enter July, a basket of many-colored irises slung upon his
shoulders, a bunch of ripe grass in one hand, and a plate
piled full of peaches balanced upon the other. He steals
up to June, and tickles her with the grass. She wakes.]

          June.

What, here already?

          July.

                  Nay, my tryst is kept;
The longest day slipped by you while you slept.
I've brought you one curved pyramid of bloom,

                        [Hands her the plate.

Not flowers, but peaches, gathered where the bees,
As downy, bask and boom
In sunshine and in gloom of trees.
But get you in, a storm is at my heels;
The whirlwind whistles and wheels,
Lightning flashes and thunder peals,
Flying and following hard upon my heels.

[June takes shelter in a thickly-woven arbor.]

          July.

  The roar of a storm sweeps up
    From the east to the lurid west,
  The darkening sky, like a cup,
    Is filled with rain to the brink;

  The sky is purple and fire,
    Blackness and noise and unrest;
  The earth, parched with desire,
      Opens her mouth to drink.

  Send forth thy thunder and fire,
    Turn over thy brimming cup,
  O sky, appease the desire
    Of earth in her parched unrest;
  Pour out drink to her thirst,
    Her famishing life lift up;
  Make thyself fair as at first,
      With a rainbow for thy crest.

  Have done with thunder and fire,
    O sky with the rainbow crest;
  O earth, have done with desire,
    Drink, and drink deep, and rest.

[Enter August, carrying a sheaf made up of different kinds of
grain.]

          July.

Hail, brother August, flushed and warm
And scatheless from my storm.
Your hands are full of corn, I see,
As full as hands can be:

And earth and air both smell as sweet as balm
In their recovered calm,
And that they owe to me.

[July retires into a shrubbery.]

          August.

  Wheat sways heavy, oats are airy,
    Barley bows a graceful head,
  Short and small shoots up canary,
    Each of these is some one's bread;
  Bread for man or bread for beast,
      Or at very least
      A bird's savory feast.

  Men are brethren of each other,
    One in flesh and one in food;
  And a sort of foster brother
    Is the litter, or the brood,
  Of that folk in fur or feather,
      Who, with men together,
      Breast the wind and weather.

[August descries September toiling across the lawn.]

          August.

My harvest home is ended; and I spy
September drawing nigh
With the first thought of Autumn in her eye,
And the first sigh
Of Autumn wind among her locks that fly.

[September arrives, carrying upon her head a basket heaped
high with fruit]


          September.

Unload me, brother. I have brought a few
Plums and these pears for you,
A dozen kinds of apples, one or two
Melons, some figs all bursting through
Their skins, and pearled with dew
These damsons violet-blue.

[While September is speaking, August lifts the basket to the
ground, selects various fruits, and withdraws slowly along
the gravel walk, eating a pear as he goes.]

      

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!

Tottering. Tottering.

Tottering on the brink

of illiteracy,

was a man once known,

for his intellectual proficiency.

For brilliant no more he was,

as those days were long gone!



Once upon a time he was well known,

for his many exponential technologies,

From portable video projection hardware,

reconstruction surgical devices for the cochlear,

to software able to extract the deepest of thoughts.

Now, there he lay. There he lay!

Daily perpetuating and recapitulating the most misanthropic of idiocies.

I feel like a toddler
Teetering and tottering as I take my first brave steps
Into the unknown.
We often fear what we do not understand,
But I think that instead we should try
And color our skin with hues that cannot be seen
In the standard visible spectrum.
We're making a rainbow connection,
You and I.
Can't you see the bright bridge we've built across the sky?
My shining *** of gold at the other end
Is filled to the brim with your laughter,
And I cannot wait until I can dive inside
And swim.

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen *******,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones--
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone--
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.--
Are then regalities all gilded masks?
No, there are throned seats unscalable
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate
A thousand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe--
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
Our piece of heaven--whose benevolence
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
She unobserved steals unto her throne,
And there she sits most meek and most alone;
As if she had not pomp subservient;
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
Waiting for silver-footed messages.
O Moon! the oldest shades '**** oldest trees
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
Within its pearly house.--The mighty deeps,
The monstrous sea is thine--the myriad sea!
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.

  Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.
Where will the splendor be content to reach?
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion.

                  On gold sand impearl'd
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy veils
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:--when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.

                      Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox;--then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

  "What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move
My heart so potently? When yet a child
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance,
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing spright
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top--the sage's pen--
The poet's harp--the voice of friends--the sun;
Thou wast the river--thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast--thou wast my steed--
My goblet full of wine--my topmost deed:--
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized tune
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Myself to immortality: I prest
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss--
My strange love came--Felicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away--
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby power
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
My sovereign vision.--Dearest love, forgive
That I can think away from thee and live!--
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
For as he lifted up his eyes to swear
How his own goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the sea
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
And his white hair was awful, and a mat
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans
Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar
Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell
To its huge self; and the minutest fish
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
And show his little eye's anatomy.
Then there was pictur'd the regality
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd
So stedfastly, that the new denizen
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

  The old man rais'd his hoary head and saw
The wilder'd stranger--seeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
Echo into oblivion, he said:--

  "Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
In peace upon my watery pillow: now
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc'd and stung
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?--
I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a whale
To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly sweep
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
Where through some ******* pool I will be hurl'd
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
I bow full hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!" Endymion started back
Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the rack
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to die
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to draw
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!--
O Tartarus! but some few days agone
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, and--ah, ripe sheaves
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner'd. I must stoop
My head, and kiss death's foot. Love! love, farewel!
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
Would melt at thy sweet breath.--By Dian's hind
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!"

  He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look'd high defiance. Lo! his heart 'gan warm
With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

  "Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
I know thine inmost *****, and I feel
A very brother's yearning for thee steal
Into mine own: for why? thou openest
The prison gates that have so long opprest
My weary watching. Though thou know'st it not,
Thou art commission'd to this fated spot
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown power
I had been grieving at this joyous hour
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task."

  So saying, this young soul in age's mask
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd sands
Took silently their foot-prints. "My soul stands
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,--
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,--and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!--Is it then possible
To look so plainly through them? to dispel
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one's own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings all
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading ****,
The which I breathe away, and thronging come
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

  "I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
And left me tossing safely. But the crown
Of all my life was utmost quietude:
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
And never was a day of summer shine,
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
For I would watch all night to see unfold
Heaven's gates, and Aethon snort his morning gold
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

  "Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
To feel distemper'd longings: to desire
The utmost priv

I remember tottering
in too-high heels,
and rolling through
the Hollywood Hills.

I remember the tide,
pummeling the pier,
as your saline lips
pressed against my cheek.

I remember coffee
and candy apples
and cole slaw
and swisher sweets.

I remember
mellow-minded sugar drops
and static-energy power pills.

I remember your smell
on my skin
and your tingle
on my tongue.

In case you haven’t realized,
Our society is constantly teeter-tottering on the border between pure brilliance and tragic defeat.
A constant struggle that has left a sour taste on the tip of common tongues and has left this nation burnt out and lazy.

Somewhere along the line,
The sparks inside of people’s bellies trickled out into a dull roar and America decided to give up.
They gave up on prosperity.
They gave up on life.
They gave up on each other.

Somewhere along the line,
The common man concluded that failure was an option and responsibility was irrelevant.
That the only essence of life lied within an 8x10 cubicle,
And it was ok to conform to a system that led us into debt,
A system that led us into war,
And a system that led us into a borderline depression.

Masses decided that indulgence was greater than integrity.
It wasn’t their responsibility to make.
A
Difference.

But, Somewhere along that same bitter line,
The burning flame that is our generation, pushed through the social sidewalk.
We began to walk,
We began to talk,
And we began to show a greater for the future than anyone could have hoped to imagine.

In the midst of a rocky start, we forgot who were.
We masked themselves in Abercrombie and Hollister
To hide the fact that we are something better then a text message,
A clique,
Or Facebook.

It became “uncool” to actually know what you’re talking about.
We filled our sentences with lots of “likes” and “you knows?”
We tend to attach an upward inflection to the end of every declarative sentence.
You know, even if it’s not like and question, you know??

On our own we learned to speak
With
Conviction.

With that conviction,
Hold your own,
Know your name,
And say what you need to say even if it makes your heart pound,
Your hands sweaty.

Simply, because we are the people of tomorrow.
It is our job to fix brainless society.
But it cannot and will not work,
Unless we know what we stand for.

There is no misconception of the work we have cut out for us.
There will be troubled times, there will be tears,
There will be hard work,
And some of us will be lost along the way.

But our story is just unfolding and we have the power to
Change
The
World.

We’ve all heard the skeptic’s tale.
Skeptical teachers,
Skeptical parents,
And nonbelievers.
Raising doubts that we are too young,
That we are too naïve,
And that we’re utterly indifferent and careless to ever be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Well, talk is cheap.
Make no mistake that there is beauty and potential in every
Single.
One of us.
Wake up today knowing that we've made it,
Know that the time has come to start living,
Changing,
But keeping true to our hearts.

Wild splashes of beaming

Azure brushing back and forth

Tottering briskly on granite rocks

Enlightening excitement to our eyes

Radiance of teal drops sprinkle salt

Follicles misting up the atmosphere

Activating a rushing rippling of waves

Lashing playfully with each other

Looping to a sensational surprise

SECRETS OF THE STONEHENGE IN VERSE
Dear Readers, I present a simplified version of the true story of the Stonehenge, on the Salisbury plains of Southern England, with over a million visitors every year. Declared as a World Heritage Site since 1986.Left out many technical details to curb the Length!
Hope you find this interesting to read.  Thanks, - Raj

SECRETS OF THE STONEHENGE IN VERSE
                     BY RAJ NANDY
                
                     INTRODUCTION
Shrouded in ancient legend, rituals and mystery,
Forming a part of ancient History, in the County of
Wiltshire on the rolling Salisbury plains,
Thirty miles north of the English Channel, stands the
megalithic structure  - The Stonehenge.
Dating back to some 3000 BC during the Neolithic Age,
Long before the Egyptian pyramids got made!
Some of its secrets have finally been unraveled by
Archeologists of our time and age.
It was a period when early humans changed over
from being nomadic hunter- gatherers,
To cultivate land and domesticate animals, to
become settled farmers.
This ushered in a new social change in the history
of Human progression,
Which got reflected in huge stone structures to
mark this advancement and occasion.
For these megalithic structures were bigger than
the tribes of men or the community;
Marked burial mounds and places for performing
sacred rites and magical healing rituals, for the
entire community.
Stonehenge was aligned to the mid-Summer and
mid-Winter Solstice, with the rising and the setting
Sun.
Served as an astronomical calendar for the turning
of Seasons, when crop cycles also begun.
Some scholars opine that it was used as a Lunar
Calendar as well,
Since Moon worship predates Sun worship by
Pre-historic men!
It was long before the invention of the wheel,
written script, and even metal implements.
This monumental structure speak of Stone Age
Briton’s greatest achievement!
(Period covered is from Late Stone Age to the brink of
Bronze Age.)

BRIEF LAYOUT OF THE STONEHENGE
Cutting across myths and legends archeologists
and geologists have tried to piece together the
Stonehenge Story,
Which stood like an enigmatic puzzle for the
last Five Thousand Centuries!
Scholars say construction commenced around
3000 BC, but progressed only in stages spread
over the next fifteen centuries.
Initially, a large earthwork or a ‘Henge’ with a
circular ditch and a bank was made,
With 56 timber posts around the inner perimeter
on the windy Salisbury plains.
Used by primitive man as a burial place, but for
rituals later got linked to other smaller sites.
With processional avenues leading to River Avon,
to honor dead ancestors with sacred rites!
Entrance to the ‘Henge’ was marked by a pair of
upright Slaughter Stones weighing 28 tones, and
6.6 meters tall.
But only one remains today lying flat on the ground
after its fall!
Some 256 feet from center of the ‘Henge’ on the NE
Avenue once stood the Heel Stones 7.6 meters high!
As a marker for the Summer Solstice showing the
position of the rising Sun in the Midsummer sky!

          BLUE STONES FROM WALES:
Some 1000 years later, 82 Blue Stones were brought
from the Prescelli Mountains of Southern Wales;
And the earlier timber posts with these Blue stones
was replaced.
Each stone weighing around 4 tones, was brought
over a distance of some 250 miles to the plains of
Salisbury,
Loaded on hollowed out log boats fashioned like a
mini barge, to sail during high tide into the Bristol
Estuary!
Pulled over land on greased wooden rollers, and
loaded again on mini barges down the River Avon.
Since Avon flowed closer to the ‘Henge’ site in those
ancient days, which is now known!
(Some Scholars feel that the Blue Stones were swept down
closer to the Salisbury plain, during the close of the last Ice
Age! These Stones were believed to have powers of magical
cure too!)

              THE SARSAN STONES
During its final phase of development came the larger
23 ft tall Sarsan Stones, weighing some 44 tones.
From 20 miles north of the ‘Henge’ area dragged on
sledges and rollers from Marlborough Downs.
These stones now formed the outer ring capped with
stone lintels, replacing the Blue Stones;
And the Blues Stones were moved inwards and
rearranged in the horseshoe and circle shape, as
presently seen and known!
(NOTE: Sheer muscle power used to drag the stones with ropes
made from plant fiber of the indigenous lime bark soaked in
water for weeks. Stone lintels were sculpted in the shape of an
arc to cap the SARSAN Stones to form the outer circle. Wooden
scaffolding & ramps were used to hoist and position the heavy
stone lintels horizontally on top of upright stones! Sarsan Stones
were hard sandstones tougher than granite! However many of the
stones of this Ancient Ruin are missing, leaving some unanswered
questions behind.)

        CONCLUDING THIS TRUE STORY
Archeologists and scholars using radiocarbon dating
have tried to recreate the Stonehenge Story.
This ancient ruin with many unanswered questions,
now remain protected as an Iconic Monument of
British History!
It stands as an astronomical time clock and is also of
spiritual significance;
It also symbolizes the ingenuity of Human Mind, its
power, and endurance.
I conclude with a an extract from a poem by TS Salmon
about the STONEHENGE here below:-
“Warpt in veils of time’s unbroken gloom,
Obscure as death and silent as the tomb.
Where cold oblivion holds her dusky reign,
Frowns the dark pile on Sarum’s lonely plain.
Yet think not here with classic eye to trace,
Corinthian beauty or Ionian grace.
No pillored lines with sculptured foliage crowned,
No fluted remnants deck the hallowed ground.
Firm, as implanted by some Titan’s might,
Each rugged stone up rears its giant height.
Whence the poised fragment tottering seems to throw,
A trembling shadow on the plain below.”
(*Sarum = old name for Salisbury.)
Thanks dear Readers for your kind attention span ,
I have simplified by cutting short many details the
best as I can!
ALL COPYRIGHTS WITH RAJ NANDY OF NEW DELHI
E-mail: rajnandy21@yahoo.in

Could the sun be
    just
    a hole up there—
    that if I could leap
    would enter that breach of light

Someone!
   Throw me a line!
   Give me a reason
   There’s never enough
   in this life of breathing!

Someone!
   Explain why dreams roll a soul
   toward the cliffs of day
   Wakes to ache
   then stuffs its mouth
   with necessary same
  
Inhale—
   button shirt—brush hair
Exhale—
   necessary glance in the mirror
   (yes, still there)    

A lifetime!
   in a shallow instant’s stiff clear water
   (Yeah— still there)  
   in endless caverns of tired eyes
   above mouth still trying
   to say SOMETHING!  
   from ever smaller eternities
   in the glass-flat empty....

Please! Someone explain!
   this draw of breath
   one forcing itself upon another's
   life
   of beating —
   Violence in my chest!

Why hearts don’t sleep—

and I wind up watching
again and again—till
I am the ******...

...Morning lies
   in the mists of a humid *****
   who moans and sweats
   and boils her hips—
   and I wind up watching!?

“Will someone please…!"

   ...and I wind up watching
   bedspread, bed sore, death bed
   till you’re breathing easy
   when she sits and picks
   her collapsed bouffant
   damning the makeup
   that got crushed in the sheets

…Morning
Lies--

   with no expectancy
   both tired of knowing...

   ...The Devil lost his balance
   in my presence one night

...tired of knowing—

THE WILL!  
THAT WILL!

  ...walk away
   or continue to play

   I could open this screen!
   watch the world STEP BACK!
                                 SLAP FLAT!
   as trees and dwellings flush like quail
   to prop their tottering panic
   against the blue—

You—assume composure...
   compose assumptions
   Await my next—

Move like a spy

"23: July 24"
"24: October 5"
"25: February 19"
"26: December 14"
  
The words went right to the pit of my stomach.
All doubt was gone.
I'd graduate/be drafted in June.
By September
I'd be in Vietnam.
  
My high school gym teacher had been an Army sergeant.
He stepped on our stomachs as we did sit-ups,
"toughening us up".
I've had a problem with authority
(unsuited, temperamentally,
to obeying unconditionally).
I'd be a poor soldier in the best of wars.
  
But if a job required some independence/ingenuity --
a pilot or a spy, say --
and if the cause was right
(World War II, for instance),
I could fight as well as another guy.
  
I don't like fighting,
but I'm not so naive as to think it's never a necessity.
There's always someone who, given the chance,
will take our possessions and make us their slaves.
So who should decide
if a particular war is justified?
This seemed to be my own responsibility.
  
Vietnam? I decided it wasn't.
Weren't we protecting a democracy?
No. Thieu lacked popular support.
Wouldn't Thailand and India fall?
No. The domino theory was questionable at best.
Weren't our national interests at stake?
No, not really.
I'd decided I shouldn't fight;
They'd decided to make me fight.

The physical was set for March.
Unless I failed,
I'd go to Vietnam,
go to jail for seven years,
or go to Canada for the rest of my life.
  
In studying Army regulations,
I found a fascinating chart.
It showed for each particular height
the greatest and the smallest weight
the Army would accept.
I'd heard of people who'd gotten out
by injuring themselves intentionally.
Some exaggerated a minor back pain.
Others faked insanity.
Losing weight seemed nobler;
lying/mutilation, not required.
  
The low for me was 118;
lose twenty pounds and I'd be out.
(At 5'10", that's pretty thin.
Could I do it and not get sick?)
My parents thought for sure I'd die.
  
Help from doctors was out of the question;
on my own I studied nutrition.
Cut down on calories,
maintain needed nutrients
(protein, essential fats, vitamins, and minerals).
Once I found a working combination,
I stuck to it without exception.
Cottage cheese, wheat germ, and fish were staples.
Bored fat cells chose self-immolation.
My weight dropped to one hundred and twenty.

In cases where the weight was close
I'd heard the Army sometimes winked:
("Oh we'll fatten this guy up").
I decided to lose to one hundred and ten.
  
Contrary to my parents' fears --
though vigorous exercise made me dizzy --
I really wasn't sick at all.

The Army sent a special bus
to take us to the physical.
Once there, we stripped to underpants,
moved like cattle from each room to the next.
I weighed 110.
They classified me 1-Y
(examine again in a year;
if still unfit, reject).
Losing again would be inconvenient,
but free of worry since I knew that it worked.
  
I'd brought some food.
I drank and ate it ravenously.
  
So what did I feel on that bus heading home?
Triumph? Elation? No.
Relief, sadness, and guilt.
Relief because finally I was free of this mess.
Sadness and guilt because someone else
would be made to go and fight in my place.
It's true this person, on some level,
had chosen not to escape --
but maybe he just hadn't thought it through. . . .
  
Now for a bold statement from a slimy ex-draft-dodger --
I'm sure you'll think this hypocritical -- :
Each of us must be ready to serve.
Responsibility for protecting things we love
can not lie solely with the professional military.
(Future wars could overwhelm them.)
  
Service isn't always guns.
Service might be joining the Peace Corps
or electing leaders who effectively distinguish
false threats from real ones -- and pre-empt war.
  
Wars should be rare, ****** upon us.
No more propping up tottering dictators.
No more shoving "Democracy" down people's throats.
No more sacrificing 10,000 soldiers so we can pay a
      quarter less for gasoline.
  
Wars should be necessary and just;
everyone should serve.

She had stopped crying.
All evening in her black-mesh coup de voodoo.
On the plane she had been crying
For her Summer pal. Yesterday she had been to market
Big brown bags and white bags, little pink bags filled with crimsony scents,
Capricornia, looseleaf newsprint, postcards, and colored pencils,
She had hands full of handles, bags bundled, stitched in strict Saturday fashion.
He could barely break a step, he could fake dance with her feet on his tip toes.
She was only three quarters the perfect size to fit inside his frame.
The grand disappearing act. And she was only ifs and suicides.
A stranded ray of sun-draped hair on a cooly porcelain forehead, the segments were all just wrong,
Something so wrong, trembling heart cries over a mute coo through a flattened tongue.
The sickle tongue, dodgy on Tuesday's, She had a simple mug, oh! But so cute and soothing, the nape
That wrapped around, my arm lapped its hands in a clapping ginormous duck's bill!
Lapping rhythmically. Thwack! Thwack!
Like no crying I had ever heard. Nor Earthen beauty I had never seen.
Her little lamb legs lumbered over, her awkward thinness and long limbs spilt on top of her,
Her tiny shoulders searching for support from her hips. White aurulent doll head on a stick,
She had sad defeated eyes, whimpering, pathetic,
Too small, and she shuttered and she shook,
And she shivered out every teardrop her body ever made. And she fell back on her bottom, and looked
Up as if to see a white steed standing with her guy striking a poised hand down to her,
He split down the middle, stammering, broken pieces of words crumbling out of his mouth
With eager intentions. He was too weak
To give her his feet, or pull her up in, he hadn't the gumption. He was fully occupied standing,
He wept too; then shuffled a little
Towards where she had fallen. He knew she wasn't right
She couldn't get the devil out of her piercing blue pupils, she couldn't
She lied.
Then she just piled on top of her knees and fumbled as if to rise like a demure lamb trying to rise off its Newborn legs, she just curled her legs,
So stiffly built, and narrow footed, built with such inequality to her siblings,
She got in the way of herself, a little lamb that could not manage.
Too whittled for him, he tried, he really tried, but three years had drained his strength, no real help.
When he sat her upright on her bottom, she opened her eyes, and for a moment smiled, grabbed for His hand but then after awhile she was lost, she lost interest, her pupils wandered.
He was orchestrating everything.
A real project, much more urgent and important. By nightfall she could not stand. It was not
That she couldn't smile or laugh or love, she was born
With everything but the will to live -
That cannot be destroyed, just like a love.
Melancholy was more important to her.
Life could not get her attention.
So she died, with her handles still in her hands, green grass stains her legs.
She did not survive another warm summer night.
And then he wept uncontrollably again.
"The wind is oceanic in the elms
And the blossom is all set."

2

The boy has come back
From the seashore, and atop the plateau.
The woes of women are like a genocide
In the morning, when the killing is over,
And the heat begins, and the bodies lie,
And stark life moves for its sobbing bones,
The curved women move with fire.
Father Father Father the girls
Are weeping, and crying and I cannot resist that gentle frailty
They are shucked in their skin suits rising from their soporific slumbers
In decadent leathers and frou frou dresses. They cling to bold faces,
Nothing can escape that cold crying of women weeping for their princes.
Blood-letting rage cannot overthrow the meadow from the pebble brook,
As a laden head bleats its tarnished tongue across a milky breast, it cannot
Escape the sounds of blue-stained teardrops cascading across the plains,
The sounds of woolbirds braying while their skins are sheared against the
Sluicing sound of water rushing through the flume.
All summer they have lamented, gorging on melancholy, tottering their cotton pyramid heads,
Shaking their cries in deliberation, bald skinny victim women screaming out!
Cotton-mouthed clams yaffing, hearts in panic, wholes of bodies clambering in a *** of woe.
They roost useless, pollard and wethered, jealous
Squinting out the last droplets of desperation from their eyes, screaming their mouths in awful
Togetherness, this cacophony of tortured tongue-song
They curdle the last notes of despair out under knotted breaths
With every inch of strength left inside them, they bray this way and that.
Their mothers scream out in wretched despair, ahhh!
On distant cliffs, on scrawny legs
Their stiff pain goes on and on in the September heat.
"Only slowly their hurt dies, cry by cry,"
Whipped bodies toting wergeld on a shore.

The Day She Died

Was the gloomiest day of the new century,
The first of calamitous, unfortunate autumns to come,
The first dying breath from piceous lungs.

That was yesterday. Early morning, soft rime droplets
Frosted to every blade of grass, not like any other
Earlier June day we've ever had. In the deep twilight
The syzygy announced the moon and demoted the sun.

The Earth-crisp frost nuzzled snow droplets.
Black bands of ravens whipping. Martens littering
Fresh kills of red-eyed rabbits on stark white stale
Summer lawns. A fox grayed, its cold bones
Mapped by ravaged feasts. A possum prowling
In a spot of tawny light.

The concrete spread into a maze
Of black veins ripening in the acute niello
Destitution of its widening cracks,

And when the summer left
It left without her. It will have to accept,
In the paley dim light of this vengeful wilderness -
She is gone.
But for now the warmth has not returned but a naked, half-pomegranate
Rotten moon for us two.
And a great vacancy in our memory.

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
  “Whose heart-strings are a lute;”
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
  Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above
  In her highest noon,
  The enamoured Moon
Blushes with love,
  While, to listen, the red levin
  (With the rapid Pleiads, even,
  Which were seven),
  Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
  And the other listening things)
That Israfeli’s fire
Is owing to that lyre
  By which he sits and sings—
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,
  Where deep thoughts are a duty—
Where Love’s a grow-up God—
  Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
  Which we worship in a star.

Therefore, thou art not wrong,
  Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
  Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live and long!

The ecstasies above
  With thy burning measures suit—
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
  With the fervor of thy lute—
  Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
  Is a world of sweets and sours;
  Our flowers are merely—flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
  Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
  Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
  A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
  From my lyre within the sky.

She stunned me when I first saw her looks
Never seen like her even in books

An angel who dropped from the sky
To say to me "Sam! Hi!"

She instantly got my full attention
And I at once shown no pretention

She lives now in the corridors of my mind
You won't find a lady so gentle and kind

Now I miss her as I miss the air when I stop breathing
She lives in me, so God help me her seeing

Sam Burton (C)


Today is Friday, Oct. 10, the 289th day of 2014 with 82 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.



Quotes for the day:



"Correction does much, but encouragement does more."



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



"The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary."



Thomas A. Edison



POETRY

Israfel





Edgar Allan Poe



In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute";
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings -
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty -
Where Love's a grown-up God -
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit -
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute -
Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely - flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.



BEAUTY AND HEALTH TIP

Strengthen your nails



Before you go to bed every night, use a nail-strengthening cream on your nails (and under, if they're long). This also keeps them hydrated, which is essential for healthy nails.



Trivia

Where did the name “Revlon: come from?



Nail polish distributors Charles Revson and his brother Joseph, along with nail polish supplier Charles Lachman, who contributed the "L" in the Revlon name, gave birth to the Revlon cosmetics company in 1932. Starting with just one nail product a nail enamel unlike any before it the three men pooled their paltry resources and developed a unique manufacturing process. Using pigments instead of dyes, Revlon was able to offer to women rich-looking, opaque nail enamel in a wide variety of shades never before available. In only six years, the company became a multimillion dollar organization, launching one of the most recognized cosmetics names in the world.



How many atoms are there in the universe?



Astronomers believe that the universe contains one atom for every 88 gallons of space.



How do animals influence the weather?



Living creatures create tiny weather systems called microclimates in their nests and burrows. For instance, bees fan their wings at the hive entrance during hot weather. This makes a cooling draft blow through the hive.

VOCABULARY



Splenetic

adjective



:


marked by bad temper, malevolence, or spite



Examples:



I know David was in a bad mood all day, but the splenetic tone of his reply to Brenda’s question was not necessary.



"If he were 10 or 15 years younger (or at least looked like he was), [Charlie] Sheen would be perfect as the splenetic, screed-spouting anti-hero of John Osborne’s 'Look Back in Anger.'" — From an article by Ben Brantley on the New York Times Arts Beat blog, May 26, 2011



Did you know?



In early Western physiology, a person's physical qualities and mental disposition were believed to be determined by the proportion of four ****** humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The last of these was believed to be secreted by the spleen, causing feelings of disposition ranging from intense sadness (melancholia) to irascibility. This now-discredited association explains how the use of "splenetic" (deriving from the Late Latin "spleneticus" and the Latin "splen," meaning "spleen") came to mean both "bad-tempered" and "given to melancholy" as well as "of or relating to the spleen." In later years, the "melancholy" sense fell out of use, but the sense pertaining to ill humor or malevolence remains with us today.





Courtesy of Merriam-Webster, Inc.



JOKES



Female Comebacks



Man: Haven't I seen you someplace before?
Woman: Yes, that's why I don't go there anymore.

Man: Is this seat empty?
Woman: Yes, and this one will be if you sit down.

Man: Your place or mine?
Woman: Both. You go to yours, and I'll go to mine.

Man: So, what do you do for a living?
Woman: I'm a female impersonator.

Man: Hey baby, what's your sign?
Woman: Do not enter.

Man: How do you like your eggs in the morning?
Woman: Unfertilized.

Man: If I could see you naked, I'd die happy.
Woman: If I saw you naked, I'd probably die laughing.

Man: Your body is like a temple.
Woman: Sorry, there are no services today.

Man: I would go to the end of the world for you.
Woman: But would you stay there?





Seminars for MEN




(Prepared and Presented by Females)

1. Combatting stupidity

2. You too can do housework

3. ***: Learn when to keep your mouth shut

4. How to fill an ice tray

5. We do not want ****** underthings for Christmas: give us money

6. Understanding the female response to your coming in drunk at 4am

7. Wonderful laundry techniques (formerly titled, "Don't wash my silks")

8. Parenting: It doesn't end with conception

9. Get a life; learn to cook

10. How not to act like a ******* when you're obviously wrong

11. Spelling: Even you can get it right

12. Understanding your financial incompetence

13. You: The weaker ***

14. Reasons to give flowers

15. How to stay awake in public

16. Why it is unacceptable to relieve yourself anywhere but the bathroom

17. Garbage: Getting it to the curb

! 18. You can fall asleep without it if you really try

19. The morning dilemma if IT is awake: Take a shower

20. I'll wear it if I **** well please

21. How to put the toilet lid down (formerly titled "No, it's not a bidet")

22. "The weekend" and "sports" are not synonyms

23. Give me a break: Why we know your excuses are bull

24. How to go shopping with your mate and not get lost

25. The remote control: Overcoming your dependency

26. Romanticism: Ideas other than ***

27. Helpful postural hints for couch potatoes

28. Mothers-in-law: They are people too

29. Male bonding: Leaving your friends at home

30. You too can be a designated driver

31. Seeing the true you (formerly titled, "You don't look like Mel Gibson when naked")

32. Changing your underwear: It really works

33. The attainable goal: removing "****" from your! vocabulary

34. Fluffing the blankets after flatula! ting is not necessary

35. Techniques for calling home before you leave work





The Bacon Tree



There are two guys who have been lost in the desert for weeks, and they're at death's door. As they stumble on, hoping for salvation in the form of an oasis or something similar, they suddenly spy, through the heat haze, a tree off in the distance.

As they get closer, they can see that the tree is draped with rasher upon rasher of bacon. There's smoked bacon, crispy bacon, life-giving juicy nearly-raw bacon, all sorts. "Oh my, Pepe" says the first bloke. "It's a bacon tree!!! We're saved!!!" "You're right!" says Pepe.

So Pepe goes on ahead and runs up to the tree salivating at the prospect of food. But as he gets to within five feet of the tree, there's the sound of machine gun fire, and he is shot down in a hail of bullets. His friend quickly drops down on the sand, and calls across to the dying Pepe.

"Pepe! Pepe! What on earth happened?"...

With his dying breath Pepe calls out...

"Ugh, run, run!... it's not a Bacon Tre! e...

Scroll Down...













...it's a Ham Bush"





HAVE A SUPER NICE FRIDAY and a GORGEOUS WEEKEND!

November 5, 2010 at 2:59 am

{Inspired by Dr. Boshra 3agban, Nizzar Qabani}


You're a woman;
created from the Greek myths,
wrapped in the veil of my fantasies,
Reborn from all the phoenix ashes,
You're the history of my life, miss;
it bounds u not..no years no seas,
you grant the moon those glaring flashes,
So I never sleep at nights to see thy gypsy eyes,

It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams,

You're a woman;
Carved by an angel's hands,
& made from the diamonds of verse,
Veiled in the golden cloak of my dreams,
A deity from some mystic lands,
Glowing through my murky universe,
Born from heaven's springs & streams,
Your tidal dormant waves through me they arise,

You're a woman;
Greater than Aphrodite & Athena,
You're the endless music of the lyre of pan,
You're the gauzy clouds that may make spring a winter eve,
Picturing you ..Tottering...is the ****** of me,
Thy swift stalk...gazing at you; forever I span,
arrayed in thy mantle of every hyacinth's leaf,
That sings the odes of love in me heart they incise,

You're a woman;
Caring not for time or years,
Neither aging nor death can touch thee,
You're the eternal rose of all the nerieds,
Knowing not no pains or fears,
Thy treads' rhythm lurks through me,
Your love's a religion, belief & a creed,
& my prayers from now forth art thy drowsy sighs,


It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams,

You're a woman;
Drest in the Elysium stars,
With pinions of an angel of life,
Fretting on waters of rivers of Eden,
Healing my feeble searing scars,
Heaping my ardent fires that thrive,
With dewy kisses That're unforgotten,
I've never lived before...now I realize,

You're a woman;
Of wavy hair & wavy weather,
Of blushy cheeks, like of the primrose,
Nestling these lips gushing with love,
I pledge my heart & soul for a feather,
Of thy wing that flips & shows,
Sublimity with that dimpled smile of a dove,
That holds all the answers & whys...


It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams....

Can I tell you how seriously I take this poem!
_
Could the sun be
    just
    a hole up there—
    that if I could leap
    would enter that breach of light

Someone!
   Throw me a line!
   Give me a reason
   There’s never enough
   in this life of breathing!

Someone!
   Explain why dreams roll a soul
   toward the cliffs of day
   Wakes to ache
   then stuffs its mouth
   with necessary same
  
Inhale—
   button shirt—brush hair
Exhale—
   necessary glance in the mirror
   (yes, still there)    

A lifetime!
   in a shallow instant’s stiff clear water
   (Yeah— still there)  
   in endless caverns of tired eyes
   above mouth still trying
   to say SOMETHING!  
   from ever smaller eternities
   in the glass-flat empty....

Please! Someone explain!
   this draw of breath
   one forcing itself upon another's
   life
   of beating —
   Violence in my chest!

Why hearts don’t sleep—

and I wind up watching
again and again—till
I am the ******...

...Morning lies
   in the mists of a humid *****
   who moans and sweats
   and boils her hips—
   and I wind up watching!?

“Will someone please…!"

   ...and I wind up watching
   bedspread, bed sore, death bed
   till you’re breathing easy
   when she sits and picks
   her collapsed bouffant
   damning the makeup
   that got crushed in the sheets

…Morning
Lies--

   with no expectancy
   both tired of knowing...

   ...The Devil lost his balance
   in my presence one night

...tired of knowing—

THE WILL!  
THAT WILL!

  ...walk away
   or continue to play

   I could open this screen!
   watch the world STEP BACK!
                                 SLAP FLAT!
   as trees and dwellings flush like quail
   to prop their tottering panic
   against the blue—

You—assume composure...
   compose assumptions
   Await my next—

Move like a spy


1990


Take careful note:  

Why I don’t play chess or any other game
for that matter.    
    
“...and when you're really out there
the windows all have opened onto nothing...
Death having long since-- left the scene.
When you get really out there
it's all--
and nothing…”

(A Virginia Legend.)

The Planting of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

His fear was on the seaport towns,
The weight of his hand held hard the downs.
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and black,
For a red flame in the sea-fog's wrack
Was all of their ships that might come back.

For all he had one word alone,
One clod of dirt in their faces thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

His name bestrode the seas like Death.
The waters trembled at his breath.

This is the tale of how he fell,
Of the long sweep and the heavy swell,
And the rope that dragged him down to hell.

The fight was done, and the gutted ship,
Stripped like a shark the sea-gulls strip,

Lurched blindly, eaten out with flame,
Back to the land from where she came,
A skimming horror, an eyeless shame.

And Hawk stood upon his quarter-deck,
And saw the sky and saw the wreck.

Below, a **** for sailors' jeers,
White as the sky when a white squall nears,
Huddled the crowd of the prisoners.

Over the bridge of the tottering plank,
Where the sea shook and the gulf yawned blank,
They shrieked and struggled and dropped and sank,

Pinioned arms and hands bound fast.
One girl alone was left at last.

Sir Henry Gaunt was a mighty lord.
He sat in state at the Council board;
The governors were as nought to him.
From one rim to the other rim

Of his great plantations, flung out wide
Like a purple cloak, was a full month's ride.

Life and death in his white hands lay,
And his only daughter stood at bay,
Trapped like a hare in the toils that day.

He sat at wine in his gold and his lace,
And far away, in a ****** place,
Hawk came near, and she covered her face.

He rode in the fields, and the hunt was brave,
And far away his daughter gave
A shriek that the seas cried out to hear,
And he could not see and he could not save.

Her white soul withered in the mire
As paper shrivels up in fire,
And Hawk laughed, and he kissed her mouth,
And her body he took for his desire.


The Growing of the Hemp.

Sir Henry stood in the manor room,
And his eyes were hard gems in the gloom.

And he said, "Go dig me furrows five
Where the green marsh creeps like a thing alive --
There at its edge, where the rushes thrive."

And where the furrows rent the ground,
He sowed the seed of hemp around.

And the blacks shrink back and are sore afraid
At the furrows five that rib the glade,
And the voodoo work of the master's *****.

For a cold wind blows from the marshland near,
And white things move, and the night grows drear,
And they chatter and crouch and are sick with fear.

But down by the marsh, where the gray slaves glean,
The hemp sprouts up, and the earth is seen
Veiled with a tenuous mist of green.

And Hawk still scourges the Caribbees,
And many men kneel at his knees.

Sir Henry sits in his house alone,
And his eyes are hard and dull like stone.

And the waves beat, and the winds roar,
And all things are as they were before.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And nothing changes but the grass.

But down where the fireflies are like eyes,
And the damps shudder, and the mists rise,
The hemp-stalks stand up toward the skies.

And down from the **** of the pirate ship
A body falls, and the great sharks grip.

Innocent, lovely, go in grace!
At last there is peace upon your face.

And Hawk laughs loud as the corpse is thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

Sir Henry's face is iron to mark,
And he gazes ever in the dark.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the world is as it always was.

But down by the marsh the sickles beam,
Glitter on glitter, gleam on gleam,
And the hemp falls down by the stagnant stream.

And Hawk beats up from the Caribbees,
Swooping to pounce in the Northern seas.

Sir Henry sits sunk deep in his chair,
And white as his hand is grown his hair.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the sands roll from the hour-glass.

But down by the marsh in the blazing sun
The hemp is smoothed and twisted and spun,
The rope made, and the work done.


The Using of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

He sailed in the broad Atlantic track,
And the ships that saw him came not back.

And once again, where the wide tides ran,
He stooped to harry a merchantman.

He bade her stop. Ten guns spake true
From her hidden ports, and a hidden crew,
Lacking his great ship through and through.

Dazed and dumb with the sudden death,
He scarce had time to draw a breath

Before the grappling-irons bit deep,
And the boarders slew his crew like sheep.

Hawk stood up straight, his breast to the steel;
His cutlass made a ****** wheel.

His cutlass made a wheel of flame.
They shrank before him as he came.

And the bodies fell in a choking crowd,
And still he thundered out aloud,

"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"
They fled at last. He was left alone.

Before his foe Sir Henry stood.
"The hemp is grown, and my word made good!"

And the cutlass clanged with a hissing whir
On the lashing blade of the rapier.

Hawk roared and charged like a maddened buck.
As the cobra strikes, Sir Henry struck,

Pouring his life in a single ******,
And the cutlass shivered to sparks and dust.

Sir Henry stood on the blood-stained deck,
And set his foot on his foe's neck.

Then from the hatch, where the rent decks *****,
Where the dead roll and the wounded *****,
He dragged the serpent of the rope.

The sky was blue, and the sea was still,
The waves lapped softly, hill on hill,
And between one wave and another wave
The doomed man's cries were little and shrill.

The sea was blue, and the sky was calm;
The air dripped with a golden balm.
Like a wind-blown fruit between sea and sun,
A black thing writhed at a yard-arm.

Slowly then, and awesomely,
The ship sank, and the gallows-tree,
And there was nought between sea and sun --
Nought but the sun and the sky and the sea.

But down by the marsh where the fever breeds,
Only the water chuckles and pleads;
For the hemp clings fast to a dead man's throat,
And blind Fate gathers back her seeds.

Pocketbook

Transformational intercepts,
messages to the brain.

Time babe, it's time,
to take a next step.
change the bulb
to a higher power.

100 watts insufficient to light
the forward motion of a
Great Leap Forward,
like in a prior writ, when,
limitation awareness
was a borderline crossed.

Like learning to walk without tottering;
We probably don't know we passed a line,
invisible to ourselves,
but all clear to everybody else,
on that special day, one,
that just came and went:
when you could no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

We were accessorized with body parts
most useful to make our way thru life,
but our exterior-designer
neglected to provide pockets knowing
full well that fashion acessorizing
was more that just a way to carry tools;

Individuation, maturation, needed,
a way to communicate I've arrived

Ain't no child no more,
double negatives
a thing of the past,
cause once you leave the
comfort of the abode with
handbag corpuscles inhaled,
from that day onwards,
you could no longer:

Walk these feminine streets,
leave home,
without a pocketbook,

Judgement day becomes
Every day, nowadays, so,
when from the cave you emerge,
and face the world:

Gonna need what ya gonna need,
to negotiate the way through,
don't matter what's
inside your handbag
or your head,  
if you are eight or
eighty eight,
you know,
you believe, you need
in handbags,
as much as you believe in god

I am incomplete,
my body undressed for all to observe
If I walk down the street
after that day,
that came and went,  
when you could no longer
leave home without a pocketbook

Amusing ditty,
nah that's not my speed,
this is a treatise on
serious matters,
when changes in our lives occur,
when we earn a stripe on our sleeves

Pilgrim progress to
a feeling of vive la difference!
who I am is not who I was,
awoken from a previous dream,  
marks on my body will come,
some wanted,
some unwanted,
some happily dismissed
like the curse of braces

Free at last,
free at last to forget
a painful child's past,
sometime it's losing,
sometimes it's adding on,
but for sure, the day I changed,
was the day,
when you could
no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

Oh boys,
don't think you are excluded
from this rite de passage,
I'm one of you and I know
what we kept secreted
in our over stuffed wallets.

Ain't referring to our student org. card
or the emergency folded twenty
Dad gave you in case,
somehow you got
on the wrong bus and
ended up on the
wrong side of town
where bad things
could be found,
somewhat more easily.

Like the comic book store,
next door to the tattoo parlor,
next to where the
Nice Jewish Boys
where never supposed to go,
and the Stars of David and crosses
were removed discreetly prior to arrival,
like Portnoy foretold in
Technicolor detail.

I know you well recall
that bar mitzvah party, school dance,
When the bottles fell to the floor
unbroken, spinning, pointing to you,
When you realized it was that day,
When you could no longer
leave home without a wallet

Times they don't change
all that much,
and pocketbooks now called
Handbags I am told,
and year old babies play
with iPads like they were
born knowing how!

but I ain't impressed that much,
cause I know that it may  
come sooner as the world changes,
there still,  always be,
a day of  painful,
transformational,
generational passing,
when indelible, invisible
birthmarks somehow
became both visible and erased.

Though they may
come different ways than they use to,
in case new parents need guidance,
**It is still that day when
their little girl,
can no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

A knife cuts clean the jugular of Greece,
Sun-shattered Autumn spurts in breezes,
Her face falls like crumpled sails of the trireme
~This is the sound of sinking clouds, mammatus~
The slow tottering head sinks into itself,
The arm of once-command lies lengthwise
Next to the sea, as waves erase all her form,
And the drear and maddened moon in its cage of stars.

Tottering across her farmhouse floor,
Fixing breakfast,
Baking muffins,
Frying liver and onions,
Caring for her "boys";

Sitting on her purple walking chair,
Asking how the cattle are,
And what I'm going out today to do;
She's crippled up, but she's not through.

She barely has the "oomph" these days
To lift her legs into the truck,
Her body hunched over,
Head barely at the window level,
To ride to town to see the doctor
Or go to church and wait
While I shop and run my errands,
Before we head back home again.

Things move slowly now as time grows short;
The walker crawls across the floor;
Simple tasks become her tedious chores,
But still she cooks and cleans between short naps.
She worries more, but I have watched her praying,
Sitting by her bed, hair up in a cap,
Squinting hard to read her Bible,
Lips moving as she goes to prayer...
My name and many others whispered there.

You will be argonaut
one more of the supernumerary
trodding upon the cindered ones
come before you
limbs wooden and somite
encircling a moon
tumescent and blue
in permafrost garrote
on constellations edge
tottering over synapse
mocking
like a mime on highwire
your guilt
lupine in its longing
sawtooth timberline in vivisect night
down promontory
to frozen wave
the broken spoke of your step
on sleetslick carapace
past the preterit
embalmed hide of the world
into the silent millstone
berserk
to return emptyhanded
and changed

Wishy Washy.

Tumbling,

Between high and low,

Hot and cold.

Am I delicate like the load of whites? do I need to refresh my color with a strong drink- bleach?

Or am I tough and resistant like denim? toss me in for an hour, shove soap down my throat, and I'll come out like new?

Maybe I'm a mixed load, balancing between the two; teeter-tottering from feeling to feeling.

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." -Charles Bukowski in Notes from a ***** Old Man (1969)

It's always been like this.
The intellectual and the artist
ripping each other to shreds in my head
like wolves in winter, so desperate to eat.

The teeter-tottering back in forth
has left me as barren as my ambition.
Soulless homunculus. A perfect rendition
of a man, but still lacking.

Will I ever find a balance
between emotional and intellectualistic
murmurs? These unheard whispers
whistle in the dark while I weep alone.

Notus in fratres animi paterni.
                       Hor. Carm. lib.II.2.

A blesséd lot hath he, who having passed
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those agéd knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisp’d its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend!
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb Life’s upland  road,
Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

  To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispens’d
A different fortune and more different mind—
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix’d
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life
Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from life’s pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropped the collected shower; and some most false,
False and fair-foliag’d as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E’en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mix’d their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poison’d! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend,
Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,
I’ve rais’d a lowly shed, and know the names
Of Husband and of Father; not unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering Voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours!
                                               Yet at times
My soul is sad, that I have roam’d through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest Friend!
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a father’s eye;
And boding evil yet still hoping good,
Rebuk’d each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow’d in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,
That Being knows, how I have lov’d thee ever,
Lov’d as a brother, as a son rever’d thee!
Oh! ’tis to me an ever new delight,
To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when, as now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequester’d orchard-plot
Sit on the tree crook’d earth-ward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirr’d by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o’er our heads!

  Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,
When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest’s swell!

                                                These various strains,
Which I have fram’d in many a various mood,
Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper Age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!

I EITHER WRITE IN ALL CAPITALS OR NONE AT ALL
and yes, i smoke every ****** cigarette to the filter
yet my sadness never fades
i have bent and creased my sorrows into tiny origami butterflies
and sometimes when it rains i am the happiest  i've ever been
and when the sun runs away
i am the only one here on earth
everyone is teeter-tottering on the moon  
i truly feel alive

and no,
i cannot take away what others have given
and no,
i cannot find solace in my own words

we are all together in this cosmic game

when your favourite pen runs out of ink,
i hope you think
of me.

A suite of fourteen poems

for Alice, always

I

Cutting for Silage

Seen
on the path close to the field edge
a swathe of green grass cut,
Left
in the wake of the machine
to dry in the hopeful sun,
Rich
in a profusion of grasses,
glimmers of wind flowers,
weeds and tares.

Seen from afar
the cut fields partition this landscape
with stripped overlays
packaging the valley,
dark green rows revealing
the camber and roll of
a naked field shorn,
Dark upon light.

II

Walk to Porth Oer

Where the sand whistles
and windy enough today
for the tinnitus to set in,
we’ll walk the curve of its dry fineness
left untouched by the tide’s daily passage
up and back

before
and along cliff paths,
from the mountain
past secret coves
whose steep descents
put the brake on all
but the determined,
beside shoulders of grasses
bluebelled still in almost June
now hiding under the rising bracken
up and down

we’ll walk to a broad view
of this whispering bay
where below on the sandy shore
dots of children
tempt the slight waves.


III

Cold Mountain

Whether  a large hill
or officially a mountain
it’s cold on this higher place
wrapped in a land-mist,
the sea waiting in breathless calm
where the horizon has no line,
no edge to mark the sky.

Any warmness illusory,
in sight of sun brightening a field
far distant, but not here,
where waiting is the order of the day,
waiting for grass to shine and sparkle,
for bare feet to be comforted
by sweet airs.

Meanwhile the sheep chomp,
the lambs bleat and plead,
the choughs throaty laugh
a shrill punctation, an insistence
that all this is how it is.


IV


China in Wales

In my hermitage
on this sea-slung place,
a full-stop of an island
back-lit illuminated always,
I view the distant mountains,
a chain of three peaks
holding mist to their flanks,
guarding beyond their heights
a gate to a teaming world
I do not care to know.


V


Wales in China

O fy nuw, I thought
my valley only owned such rain,
but here it teams torrential
taking out the paths on this steep
mountain side. Mud
everywhere it shouldn’t be.
Everything I touch damp and dripping.
No promise of pandas here.
And there’s this language like the chatter of birds,
whilst mine is the harsh sibilants of sheep
on the hill, the rasp of rooks on the cliffs.


VI


Boy on the Beach

Heard before seen
the boy on the beach,
a relentless cry
of agrievement, of
being badly done to.
This boy on the beach

following his mother
at a distance
then no further.
‘I hate you, ‘ he screams,
and stops,
turning his back on the sea,
folding his arms,
miserableness unqualified,
no help or comfort
on the horizon he cannot see.
It is attrition by neglect.
He becomes silent, and called
from a distance, relents
and turns.


VII


The Poet

Austere, his mouth
moved so little when he spoke,
you felt his words
were always made in advance,
scripted first
and placed on the auto-cue.
Ask a question: and there’s a long pause

as though there lies
the possibility of multiple answers
and he’s running through the list
before he speaks, his antenna
trained on the human spirit,
full of doubt, doubting even
belief itself.


VIII


A Gathering

Thirty, maybe forty
and not in a lecture room
but a clubhouse for the sailing
look you. And we did,
out of the patio doors
to the sun-flecked sea below us,
here to honour a poet’s life and work
in this village of the parish he served
at the end of the pilgrim’s path .

Pilgrims too, of a kind, we listened  
to the authoritative words
of scholarship where ironing
the rough draft found in the bin,
explaining the portrait above the bed,
balancing the anecdotal against the interview,
reading the books he read
become the tools of understanding.

But the poems, the poems
silence us all, invading the space,
holding our breath like a fist.



IX


In the Garden

He came alone to sit in the garden
and remember the day
when, with the intimacy of his camera,
he took her, deep into himself;
her look of self-possession,
of calmness and confidence,
augmented by butterflies
motionless on the wall-flowers,
and the soft breath of the blue sea,
her soft breath, her dear face,
freckled so, his hand trembling
to hold the focus still.


X


The Couple from Coventry

Young beyond their years
and the house they had acquired
but only to visit at weekends for now,
they drove four hours to open the gate
on a different life, a second home
requiring repairs on the roof
and replastering throughout.

With their dog they were walking
the mountain paths, checking out the views,
returning to the quiet space
their bed filled in an upstairs room
echoing of birth and death:
to experiment further with loving
before the noise and distraction
of children swallowed up their lives.


XI


On Not Going to Meeting

There was an excuse:
a fifteen mile drive
and a wet morning.
He had a book, a journal
that might focus his thoughts
towards that communion of souls:
a silence the meeting of Friends
sought and sometimes gathered.

These experimental words
of a man who felt he knew
‘I had nothing outward
to help me,’ who then, oh then,
heard a voice which said,
‘There is one, even Christ Jesus,
that can speak to my condition
. . .  who has the pre-eminence,
who enlightens and gives grace
and faith and power.’


XII


New Life

From behind its mother
the calf appeared
tottering towards the gate,
but after a second thought,
deeming curiosity inappropriate,
turned back to that source
of nourishment and life.


XIII


A Walk on Treath Pellech

Good to stride out.
Good to feel unencumbered
by the unconfining space
of beach and sea, a shoreline
littered with rocks and shallow pools,
sea birds flocking at the tide’s edge.

Alone he sought her small hand
and wished her there over time and space
so to observe what lay at his feet,
that he might continue to look
into the distance with a far-flung gaze.


XIV


The Owl Box

James put it there.
One of forty
all told but
empty yet.
‘We live in hope,’
he said.

Slung from a bough,
bent and bowed,
on a wind-shaped tree,
a hawthorn blossoming still,
(inhabited by choughs a’nesting)
the box hangs waiting
for its owl, her eggs,
her fledgling young
who are not hatched together
but are staggered as though
to give the mother owl some
pause for thought.

Meanwhile the nesting choughs
tear the air with tiresome croaks,
a bit of rough these black characters,
neighbours soon to the delicate mew,
the cool, downy white of the Athene noctua.

Delicate,
yet rough
It hangs precariously
tips,
sways

perches in false peace
tottering
deftly shifting
above danger,
safe

Just a glance
a misplaced smile
a misdirected embrace
a poorly-aimed laugh--
right?

Surely the mark was missed--
it all belongs to me!
but it tips again;
a sharp thought
a bitter contempt

Tips,
sways,
a maddening burden
it hangs precariously
delicate,
yet rough.

what folly
you cruel temptress;
can you not hold your own?
so uneven,
****** jealousy.

He wore a wide brim hat

That and his other clothes dated him a character was crisscrossing our land was he human or angelic he
Seemed to be changeless it easy to trust someone who remains steady no matter what he will still say
The same thing it is called truth he even wrote it down in his travels he carries a flat leather case he
Hangs it down with a long ******* his side I was honored to read some of what he wrote the title on the
Page it said                                                       I Shall Not Want

He chose here to shift time and place but with the greatest regard and respect he wanted to speak to all
Americans and within the frame work of a people they could identify with and respect in the time of
John Wesley and George Whitfield there were a certain group of people here they are called miners
There they called them colliers of necessity John and George starting preaching in the open fields out in
The country side as George started preaching to a group that was gathered his booming voice carried
Undoubtedly close enough to the open holes that it was easily carried to those laboring below well it
Wasn’t long until the field was full of these blacked faced men and as this firebrand for God poured out
His soul revival fire leapt on all present but this was the sight hard working God fearing men stood
Before this preacher and as he expounded the love of the lamb butchered at Calvary rivulets of tears
made their way down those black faces and made the heart break to see the white tracks left as these
Honorable men found more than just back breaking work and toil with small rewards they found a love
That gave them equality peace a sense of being of unfathomable worth it all so was the greatest need
Of England she was coming apart at the seams because of the curse of Gin it had made its way into the
Church with the priest found lying drunk within its walls the scourge reached this level of contemptible
Behavior a young mother slays her child throws it in a ditch and then went and sold the clothes for Gin
What did righteous loving God do he sent his love into this cesspool it was heavy with his tears it was
Capable because of His awesome power it saved a nation tottering on the brink well what does that
Have to do with America we are not lost in that manner of madness he answers this way drugs alcohol
Deviant behavior in all of our history there hasn’t been such violence against women and children no one
Seems able to stem this tide and then we are financial slaves to a debt that staggers the mind this was in
The near political past but that can be like a soap opera stop watching for weeks and it’s still just the
Next Day and one time when politicians were baring their souls for the better of the country they said it
Takes a spiritual answer the intangibles these powerful entities will laugh and destroy as they were in
England it would have been a reordered world if it weren’t for God’s move in that country we need him
We have dirt and grime on our faces honest hard work but we find ourselves undercut by so much that
Is a travesty to decency it’s not slowing down it only picking up speed read history Rome fell and so many
Other powerful nations as well they perished from immoralities rot our soldiers and military wins
Because of a rear guard of praying people you want a future worth living for your selves your children
And your grand children this nation’s history has been built and succeeded on this bedrock and no other
Family altars at home and in the local church a man or a woman can attain no higher beauty than to
Bow in surrender to majestic love that makes them free and in turn it will free this nation from every
Chain that now has it bound the greatest power is love and you are its radiant recipient go in love and
Be victories the rest of this man’s journal will be decided by you individually that’s what America is
All about anyway what a privilege we have exorcise it!

the telephone rings at eleven on a weeknight
and i can see you
huddling over a stranger's phone in the streetlamp glare
your skeletal fingers slow and stained with nicotine
pupils shrunken
deer in the headlights
what do you need

the telephone rings at eleven on a weeknight
and i can see you
plucking pills from carpet fibers
scraping your hands through the couch cushions
snatching my allowance from beneath my mattress
prince of thieves
what do you need

the telephone rings at eleven on a weeknight
and i can see you
smiling for the kodak
cooing sonatas against her cold pretty ear
nervous fingers tying the corsage
casanova
what do you need

the telephone rings at eleven on a weeknight
and i can see you
peeking out behind worn fort walls
sketching monsters over saturday morning cartoons
fishing pole in hand
sweet thing
what do you need

the telephone rings at eleven on a weeknight
and i can see you
rewind the tape
first tottering steps
gummy smile
child of love
what do you need

the telephone rings at eleven on a weeknight
and i can hear you
hello
yes
what do you need

grit sand conglomerate binds
friction holding - heel steady
tottering
navy lace snags
upon brick dipped in night
save for - street lamps poignantly
establishing form to
lips seeking
to traverse the topography of your structure
tongue craving - salivary essence about mine

my curls remember being dragged
across,
- then –
pressed firmly against the brick
snagging
on vertical groove and red clay
your pelvic bone
ground deep – pressurized
into dust against my own

Serotonin, oxytocin fuse
Blown -  
Neural patina – thick
Pompeii to Vesuvius
Diffuse
Carbon filament lattice
Clings - to
ancient couple
cuddling
in ashen grave

Compressed densely

Perchance time will compress this grit
creating friction under sole.

I dream of you
A stranger with your face, like a mask, in front of mine
He has your strong jaw line, your brown eyes
Walks with your confident stride
But the emptiness I feel as he kisses me goodbye brings me to reality every time
A jolt like a ligatured body cascading to a halt…
A brutal surprise

Days do not pass, uneclipsed by need for rationalization
Teeter tottering from acceptance to dissent
Memories like worn film,
Played and replayed
Longing for the ending to change

I was crying in answer to subjugation  
Unable to watch your mouth move as it formed syllables
Strung eloquently into carefully chosen words
Ultimately to assert our relationships Goodbye
I held my breath as you lingered at my doorframe
Felt the warmth of tear stained salty lips once last occupying yours
I watched you drive away
I waited knowing your headlights would soon fade

I dream of you
Infinite minutes of fantasy or fallacy
Made to blur factuality  
Reverie in which no matter of the stories distortion
You stayed

Drop kick your wit
Into something more fitting
Something forgetting, lace up your ego
And step outdoors, **** that ***** down the street wit his hood up?
Nah he’s too good wit his hood up
Doin nothin but good and good alone
Until one day, evil has shown
Up on the front porch, with heavy hearts and pitch forks
Pork slow roastin on the back of the grill
****
You hear that
Another one bites the rust of the rimless curb of this never ending, but slightly always pending circle of ****, of life
Christ, why do bad things happen to good people
While evil still is a struggle that’s real
Feels, those feels bro, you got me on my feels, rocking on my heels
Avoiding all eyes and prying little flys on the wall
Waiting for that slip up, that stick up, that trick up the sleeve on the eve of your last wish.
Wishes, I have three, one, to never be loved by a shadow of a figure who never knew how to love or figure if love isn’t real, then what’s the waste in time
Time is número dos, time so far in the spectrum of speed and yet, almost comatose. Let me have this time on this rock, pose as a breathing, living, forgiving and seething with life type human, or three will never be for me, humanity. Wish number three, the salvation of man
Because god can, can’t,
Maybe wont, but left in his hands it isn’t, it’s up to the working man, who’s hands are capable with cans, do’s, wills, and preservation
Perspiration, perspire the desire to salvage this green and blue vessel, scavenge this land, back to the roots of our roots in our mother earth. Who’s ground is fertile from the plow and hearth. Seed it with love, time, and the offer of human empathy,
The human experience, fierce with pent up fenced up aliens, feeding off each others brothers, every boy and mothers negativity
That negativity creates negative energy, ******* up the synergy that is the human race for lust, passion, and the same story from times of the dust
Bowl, whole again, manifest density was only applicable in a time where destiny still had the sparkle of a child’s sparkler on Fourth of July.
Lights burst upward, celebrating ever changing forward motion, downward, backwards never ending commotion, two steps forward, three steps back, this roller coaster of insufferable emotion continues onward, forward 3 times now, how rendering change and pain and all that came along with the letters,
F
R
E
E
D
O
M
F for four score and so many years, tears were shed and blood ran fuller than the old miss
R, river, the ever lasting forgiver of time, flowing endlessly and uncaring of the work its sharing, while its purity waxes and wanes, secrets come with battered shame, carried downwards into the open famed arms of the abyss.
E, endless energy and growing conservation of mass media and concentration of governing persuasion and invasion
E, excavation of the once great nation, under all those layers of of white hair and high airs, layers peeled back, revealed the
D, dominating, pervading, intimate lives of the common man, as the not so common wig takes big sips of the white collar melting ***, hands deep in the pockets of the rotting underclass, tee tottering on the edge of what seems like a never ending, case of innovating but not so innovative backwards progression,
O, omit the hand that feeds, heed this, and feed yourselves, provide a nurturing seed for those in dire need, if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, if you teach a man to fish, he’ll wish it wasn’t so hard to discard the simple facts and facets of true personal reward. Teach a different man to fish, he’ll wish no one else heard word of this gift, there’s
M, money to had in this type of ish. Money made and the lesser fade out into sea to dwell with the rest, never sinking , but barely afloat while the fish scoff at the ironic twist of fate.
Dears, peers, the ones with fears of hate, hear this, wait, your time will come, theres a fine line between the past and the present and that line is today. This day, Sunday, Monday, fill in the blank day, 24 hours per day, waste whats left of life away or take initiative, begin to wish, are you among men, or among fish, will you be seving the one whos eating, or will you be on the silver lined dish, garnished with yesterdays didnts and “maybe tomorrow’s” real pain, sorrows, will follow you into the future of all tomorrows, but you can create, levitate in mid air, hold it there, an image of what you could/couldnt stand to bear, to manage, not take, make, create what’s yours is yours, not mine, hook, line, and sinker.