Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Noandy Jan 2016
Hotel Saudade*
Sebuah cerita pendek*

“Ceritakan padaku,”
Aku yakin semua orang pernah mendengar perintah, atau permintaan itu; diikuti dengan waktu senyap dan getir setelah diminta untuk bercerita dan mencoba menata tutur sedemikian rupa. Menata tutur untuk menyanyikan, dan menuliskan (jika dalam surat,)  pengalaman, senda gurau, romansa, kehilangan,
Rindu, yang entah bagaimana caranya,
Sepi.

Beberapa mengakui bahwa setelah bercerita, mencurahkan isi hati, mereka merasa lega seolah ada beban yang terangkat. Tapi, cerita tidak hanya dapat diutarakan hanya dalam bentuk sepatah kata, sepanjang tangis, pun dalam tawa. Pada sebuah perjalananku (pertamakalinya aku berpergian sendiri, menggantikan ayahku untuk merancang dan menggambar iklan salah satu perusahaan kenalannya.) Aku bertemu seseorang yang memutarbalikkan pandanganku mengenai cerita pengalaman pribadi.
Aku tak tahu siapa dirinya,
Aku belum tahu siapa dirinya—
Namun pria ini mengaku bahwa ia tak memiliki cerita,
Cerita apapun.

Inilah cerita yang kupunya untukmu, cerita yang aneh,
Bukan aneh dalam artian mengerikan.
Malam itu kereta sampai terlalu larut, dan niatanku untuk mencari penginapan yang lebih dekat dengan pusat kota telah lenyap; aku sudah lelah. Sebenarnya aku dapat datang besok, tapi aku memilih untuk datang 2 hari lebih awal dari hari yang dijanjikan agar dapat bersantai.

Aku menjinjing tasku keluar stasiun dan membenarkan topiku, melihat kanan dan kiri dengan was-was sebelum bertanya pada orang-orang sekitar apakah ada penginapan di sekitar sini. Kau tahu betapa canggungnya aku bila bertanya ini dan itu, aku tak biasa berpergian sendiri! Namun karena keadaan mendesak, ya beginilah jadinya. Aku mendapat rujukan bahwa dengan berjalan kaki (sedikit jauh, tapi tak sejauh bila harus menjelajah malam atau menjadi angkutan untuk ke pusat kota) aku dapat sampai ke sebuah penginapan yang namanya terlalu puitis—Hujung Malam.
Apa maksudnya? Penghujung malam?
Apalah yang ada dalam sebuah nama, yang penting aku dapat tidur tenang malam ini, dan berganti penginapan keesokan harinya!

Dinginnya malam kala itu membuat mantel dan bajuku yang berlapis mejadi tidak berguna. Aku sedikit berlari melintasi trotoar yang digenangi beberapa kubangan air kecil, terlihat bak emas disinari pantulan lampu jalan. Sesekali menggosok lensa kacamata bulatku dengan sarung tangan hitam yang kukenakan. Ranting-ranting gemeretak, seolah merasakan juga dingin yang menusuk tulang. Setibanya di sana, aku tidak menyangka bahwa bangunan penginapan satu lantai ini terlihat lebih tua (tapi sangat terawat) dan lebih besar dari kelihatannya. Aku diantar ke kamarku yang terletak pada lorong yang tepat mengelilingi sebuah taman besar.

Setelah mempersilahkan keluar pegawai penginapan yang terlalu ramah bagiku, aku membuka pintu dan memperhatikan keadaan taman kala malam; didepan tiap kamar diletakkan dua buah kursi dan meja kecil. Sebuah pohon besar berdiri gagah di sudut taman, pada bagian tengahnya terdapat air mancur yang dikelilingi patung-patung pualam kecil; malaikat, anak-anak, dan bidadari tak berhati.

Aku mulai memperhatikan keadaan sekitar (yang tak biasanya kulakukan) dan barulah aku menyadari bahwa aku tidak sendirian.
Tidak, tak ada hantu.

Hanya ada sayup-sayup suara harmonika tak sumbang, yang dimainkan dengan tepat dan sedih pada pedihnya malam dingin.
Aku tahu lagu ini,
Greensleeves.
Lagu zaman Tudor itu, lagu orang-orang yang ditinggalkan.

Aku menoleh seolah digiring oleh angin yang baru saja berhembus, beberapa kamar kosong (kupikir itu kamar kosong, lampunya dindingnya tak menyala) duduk seorang pria berambut panjang, digelung rapi ke belakang, hanya mengenakan kemeja dan rompinya.

Ia ramping, namun pakaiannya tidak lebih besar dari tubuhnya dan justru terpasang pas pada tubuhnya. Rambut bagian depannya yang panjang dan tak ikut terikat rapi ke belakang berjatuhan, membingkai tulang pipinya yang terlihat jelas. Pria itu sibuk dengan alat musiknya dan memejamkan matanya tanpa menyadari kehadiranku. Aku juga sibuk, sibuk memperhatikannya bermain dan mengingat bagaimana Greensleeves selalu menyayat hatiku. Ini kali pertamanya aku mendengar lagu itu dimainkan pada harmonika.

Setelah ia menyelesaikan musiknya, aku menyapa dari kejauhan sambil memegangi gagang pintu kamarku,
“Greensleeves?”
Ia hanya menatap ke depan tanpa menoleh atau menjawab, duduk di kursi depan kamarnya dengan kaki kanan disila pada lutut kaki kirinya. Aku hanya dapat melihat hidungnya yang mancung dan matanya yang dibayangi gelap, ia terlihat cantik, dan sepi. Setelah menunggu sedikit lama dan masih tetap diabaikan, aku menghangatkan diriku di kamar. Aku akan berpindah penginapan besok siang.

Ternyata esok berkata lain.
Aku membuka pintu kamarku untuk sarapan dan mendapatinya lagi di tempatyang sama, seolah ia tidak beranjak semalam suntuk.
“Selamat pagi,” sapaku canggung.
“Kau selalu di sini?”
Ia tidak menjawab, hanya menatapku, dan saat itulah aku melihat matanya yang tidak lebih redup dari matahari senja di laut kala mendung.

Ia tidak menjawab, dan aku malah menggeret kursi dari depan salah satu kamar kosong untuk kutempatkan disebelahnya. Kami duduk bersebelahan dalam diam, hanya ditemani rintik hujan yang tak hentinya menghujat; ia mulai memainkan harmonikanya.

Aku beranjak untuk sarapan, dan memperpanjang masa sewa kamarku sampai beberapa hari ke depan.

Setelah aku kembali, ia masih tetap duduk disana, benar-benar tak berpindah dan terus memainkan harmonikanya. Aku tak dapat memperhatikannya lebih lama, aku harus beristirahat dan bersiap-siap untuk besok.

Hari berikutnya tidak banyak yang berubah, pagi masih tetap dirundung hujan dan pria itu masih duduk termenung menghadap taman. Aku bergegas untuk sarapan sebelum pergi ke kota dan menyempatkan diri untuk bertanya mengenai pria yang tak beranjak dari tempatnya. Ada yang bilang bahwa ia dulunya buronan, teman pemilik penginapan yang lalu diberi tempat tinggal disini. Yang lainnya mengatakan bahwa ia dahulu pelancong yang akhirnya memutuskan untuk tinggal dalam penginapan setelah diberi kamar oleh bapak pemilik penginapan yang terkesima olehnya.

Sepulang dari kota aku mengeringkan payungku yang basah kuyub dan mantel yang bagian depannya basah karena terkena air dari kereta kuda yang mendadak lewat didepanku. Bagian bawah gaunku penuh lumpur, dan aku tak tahu apa jadinya sepatuku ini. Aku tak ambil pusing dan kembali keluar kamar untuk sekali lagi mencari tahu tentangnya.
Entahlah, ada hal yang membuatku merasa tertarik. Mungkin karena lagu Tudor itu, mungkin karena ia sama sekali tidak berbicara dan beranjak dari kursi kecil itu. Hanya sesekali melepas ikatan rambutnya, dan membuka jam kantungnya.

Aku sekali lagi menduduki kursi yang kuletakkan di sebelahnya, dan langsung melontarkan pernyataan dan pertanyaan,
“Mereka bilang kau dulunya buronan,” ia terus memandangi jam kantungnya,
“Kenapa kau selalu duduk di kursi ini?”
Aku kira ia takkan menjawabnya, namun malah sebaliknya.
“Memangnya kau tahu kalau aku selalu di sini?”
“Karena aku selalu melihatmu di sini.”
“Itu hanya sebagian bukan keseluruhan.” Ia mengangkat bahunya. “Karena kau selalu melihatku duduk memandangi taman bukan berarti aku selalu melakukannya.”

Aku mengintip jam kantung yang di genggamannya, belum ia tutup. Jarum detiknya tak berjalan, begitu juga jarum panjang dan pendeknya. Namun derasnya hujan dan gema suaranya membuat kesan bahwa jam itu terus berjalan mengejar rindu. Ia mengutak-atik sedikit jamnya, dan jam itu mengeluarkan suara kotak musik. Tapi ini bukan jam kantung dengan kotak musik yang biasa kita lihat, jarum jamnya berputar secara terbalik.

“Boleh aku tahu siapa namamu?” aku mencoba mengajaknya berkenalan.
“Aku membuatmu teringat akan apa?”
“Apa? Entahlah.”
“Bukannya kau berlagak seolah mengenalku? Mengatakan aku selalu di sini.”
“Kau mengingatkanku pada senja di laut saat mendung.”
“Kalau begitu, namaku Laut. Aku selalu di sini seperti laut, kan? Ia tidak berpindah dari tempatnya.”

Percakapan kami terhenti di situ karena hujan makin deras dan aku harus kembali ke kamar untuk menyegerakan gambarku. Aku tidak ke kota lagi esok hari, dan menghabiskan waktu menggambar iklan itu di kursi kecil yang menghadap taman tanpa sepatah katapun, disamping orang yang mengakui dirinya sebagai Laut dan dibawah lindung hujan deras. Kami tidak berbicara pun berbincang, tapi aku menikmati kesepiannya seolah ada rindu yang belum dilunasi.
Tapi entah mengapa aku justru memulai pembicaraan,

“Ada yang bilang kau pelancong, apa kau mau bercerita sudah pergi ke mana saja?”
“Kau jarang berpergian?”
“Sangat.”
“Kau jarang berpergian, dan aku tak punya cerita.”
“Tak punya cerita?”
“Tak ada yang menarik untuk diceritakan. Tak akan ada yang merasakan sebuah cerita seperti penuturnya.”
Aku menyelesaikan gambarku, dan bersiap untuk menyetorkannya keesokan harinya.

Sore hari setelah aku kembali ke penginapan dengan keadaan yang sama, basah, terguyur hujan. Senja dalam hujan kembali ku habiskan bersamanya tanpa sepatah kata dan ia kembali memainkan nada-nada pada harmonikanya. Lagu yang sama dengan yang diputar oleh jam kantungnya. Lagu soal sunyinya malam ditengah laut, menunggu rintik dan bulan yang tak kunjung datang.

“Lagu apa itu? Sama seperti di jam yang kemarin.”
“Pesan Malam.”
“Aku belum pernah mendengarnya.”
“Aku yang membuatnya, wajar kau tidak tahu.”
“Sayang lagunya pendek, lagu yang indah.”
Ia hanya mengangguk,
“Aku akan pulang besok. Terima kasih telah menemaniku disini.”
Ia tak menjawab, dan terus memainkan harmonikanya tanpa menoleh. Seperti suara rintik hujan yang tak tentu, bingung akan apa yang ia tangisi, pria disebelahku tak memiliki cerita, tak bisa bercerita. Namun ia dapat berkisah, kisahnya tertuang pada lantunan nada dan lagu-lagu yang ia mainkan. Aku memejamkan mata, mendengarnya fasih menyihir suara menjadi sebuah fabel dan parabel, berharap dapat menyisihkan kisah-kisah yang tak diutarakan secara tersurat dan harfiah.

Aku undur diri untuk tidur lebih awal, dan menulis sebuah pesan dalam secarik kertas; lagunya mengingatkanku akan bagaimana caranya mengingat dan rindu. Aku harus pulang, tapi entah mengapa aku ingin kembali ke sini.

Dalam hening tidur malamku, ada sebuah lagu yang berulangkali dimainkan tanpa henti. Lagu di penghujung malam, lagu sunyi laut. Aku terbangun, dan dentingnya masih berputar dalam kepalaku.
Sayangnya aku harus kembali sebelum jam 12 esok hari, dan ketika terbangun, aku sayup-sayup sadar akan ketukan halus di pintu kamarku. Aku membukanya setelah memakai mantel, dan memejamkan mata pada keadaan yang sama sambil meluruskan gaun malamku. Hujan masih rintik, malam masih gelap, lampu-lampu menyala beberapa saja, dan hanyalah satu perbedaan; pria itu tak duduk pada kursi kecilnya.

Aku kembali masuk, linglung. Siapa yang tadi mengetuk pintu kamarku? Tanganku meraba gagang pintunya yang sudah menghitam dan saat itulah aku melihat sebuah jam kantung tergantung lesu pada lampu dinding didepan kamarku. Jam kantung yang selalu ia lihat, yang jarum jamnya berputar terbalik.

Tidurku tak kulanjutkan. Aku mengutak-atiknya sesperti yang ia lakukan tadi, dan menyadari bahwa bukan hanya ada satu lagu di situ, namun beberapa lagu pendek. Tiap lagu memiliki suasanya dan warna nada yang berbeda, membangkitkan berbagai macam bentuk ingatan dan kisah-kisah yang dapat kita bayangkan sendiri tanpa dipacu cerita dari siapapun. Hanya sebuah lagu, dan seuntai suasana.

Aku tak dapat terlelap lagi setelahnya. Aku membereskan barang-barangku dan beranjak untuk meninggalkan penginapan. Aku ingin berpamitan padanya dahulu, mengembalikan jam kantungnya, dan berterimakasih atas kisah-kisah yang ia ceritakan secara tersirat dalam senandung sepi. Tapi ia tak di sana, tidak pada kursi kecilnya. Tidak dengan harmonikanya, tidak menatap taman. Ia tak ada dimanapun untuk saat ini, dan aku mengitari taman serta koridor untuk mencari tanda-tanda kehadirannya untuk hasil yang nihil.

Ketika aku menuju serambi depan penginapan barulah aku melihatnya lagi, di ujung koridor, menatap kosong kearahku lalu tersenyum simpul. Senyum yang tak lama langsung sirna. Ia dibalut jas yang biasanya hanya ia selampirkan di kursi kecil dan ia mengurai rambutnya. Aku menyematkan secarik kertas kecil pada telapak tangan kiri beserta jam kantungnya, namun ia enggan menerima jam kantung yang kukembalikan.
“Simpan, dan jaga baik-baik.”
“Aku akan kembali.”
“Kembali kemana?”
“Ke tempat ini.”
“Untuk apa?”
“Bertemu denganmu. Lagi.”
“Bagaiamana kalau aku sudah pergi?”
“Aku akan tetap datang kesini.”
“Terserahmu.”
Ia meninggalkanku dalam remang-remang lorong kosong, sambil menggumam setelah melihat tulisan kecil di kertas yang kuberikan.
“Aku tidak paham puisi.”

Aku tak menoleh ke belakang saat ia berjalan melewatiku; yang kutahu, saat aku membalikkan badan untuk melihat apakah ia duduk di kursi kecil yang sama atau tidak, ia sudah tak ada, dimanapun. Bahkan tak ada suara pintu dibuka yang menandakan apabila ia memasuki kamarnya. Tidak ada lampu dinding didepan kamar yang menyala, hanya aku dan sunyi. Aku, sunyi, dan jam kantung yang putarannya terbalik mengindikasikan kisah masa lampau.
Sebagaimana ia memberi pesan di malam hari, aku mengirimkan secarik surat dalam bentuk sajak;

Untuk pesan malammu,
Yang tiap barisnya menari
Perih dalam benak,
Biarkan tanyaku dirundung rindu
Dan menjadi alasan
Untuk tertawa pada angan yang terlalu luluh
Mereka berhantu,
Dan akan kembali—
Sebagai sesayat serpih
Untuk melabuhkan kisah yang lain
Dalam seuntai surat malam

Memang tidak ada perlunya aku kembali, sayangnya lagu itu berputar-putar terus di kepalaku. Seolah nada-nadanya nyata mengirimkan pesan dan kisah yang berubah pada tiap bunyinya; fana, hanya dalam benak.

Mungkin cerita memang tidak selalu harus diutarakan secara tersurat begitu saja; akan banyak emosi yang terkikis habis, tidak tersalur secara utuh dalam penyampaiannya. Kisah yang disampaikan akan mati. Namun dalam lagu-lagu yang ia pahat abadi dalam jam itu, dan yang ia lantunkan dengan alat musiknya, ia menggiring hati yang tersesat dalam imaji untuk menguraikan kisah-kisah sendiri berdasarkan benak serta pedih. Dan tiap lembaran kisah itu,
Mereka membara,
Dalam kasih dan hidup yang belum pernah kita jalani,
Bahkan sekalipun.

Aku akan kembali, setelah membawa kidung-kidungnya pulang bersamaku. Bukan kembali pulang, namun kembali menemuinya di kemudian hari. Aku yakin, percaya, ia akan tetap disana—Menatap taman dan hujan. Entah bermimpi, entah bercerita dalam asa. Karena ia seperti laut, yang selalu disana dalam gelagap rindu, selalu ada dalam dahaga dan dan sejuknya malam. Juga seperti hujan, yang datang kala sepi dan tak kunjung pulang jua. Menemani dengan gesit suaranya, dalam tiap rintih fana.

Aku akan kembali,
Dan ia akan ada di sana.
everly May 2017
where it seemed like i’d pick a
flower for every
worry
every anxiety
every flaw i saw
but didnt have.
The few succulents
would
soothe my nine and a half year old
mind.
the cool wind
that would uptake
my body when i was
flying
in the local park swings.
i swore i was soaring.
i’d close my eyes
and if i could just lean
to touch the blossoming tree over the gate
and at least pull a little flower bud off-
id look like a real angel.
tudor park,
where id run
sweat beading all over,
stopping at moments
panting like a big dog to cool off and then
I’d start all over again.
forgetting about how sick i felt
forgetting the big news i heard
about my mom
forgetting i’d have to be a
big sister for the third time.
just running.
not thinking.
getting lost at times
and being fully content with it.
i want to go back to these days
at tudor park
tudor park,
when my dad was done
playing basketball
i remember,
he’d asked me what i’d been doing
by the bed of flowers
I’d stay silent,
gathering a flower out of the soil
one by one
and he’d say i’d turn out to be just
like my mother.
I have her eyes.
He didnt know how right he was.
Tudor Royals.   (An Acrostic)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tough times the Tudor King endures
Undecided on his bold armorers
Due to hots for miss Anne Boleyn
Ordered aside the maid of Aragon
Removed poor Anne’s head for Darling Jane

Rare son to Jane but childbirth was a pain
On death we see the shrewdest Ann o Cleaves
You know they didn’t get on or consummate
A fifth in Katherine Howard a **** for sure.
Lost her head , took Kath Parr to bed
Six was five too many for a King named Henry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip.
November 10th 2018.
The six wives of Henry VIII .. Katherine of Aragon.
Anne Boleyn ,Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleaves,
Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr.
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2018
Steven my boy,

We coasted into a medieval pub in the middle of nowhere in wildest Devon to encounter the place in uproarious bedlam. A dozen country madams had been imbibing in the pre wedding wine and were in great form roaring with laughter and bursting out of their lacy cotton frocks. Bunting adorned the pub, Union Jack was aflutter everywhere and a full size cut out of HM the Queen welcomed visitors into the front door. Cucumber sandwiches and a heady fruit punch were available to all and sundry and the din was absolutely riotous……THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS UNDERWAY ON THE GIANT TV ON THE BAR WALL….and we were joining in the mood of things by sinking a bevy of Bushmills Irish whiskies neat!

Now…. this is a major event in the UK.

Everybody loves Prince Harry, he is the terrible tearaway of the Royal family, he has been caught ******* sheila’s in all sorts of weird circumstance. Now the dear boy is to be married to a beauty from the USA….besotted he is with her, fair dripping with love and adoration…..and the whole country loves little Megan Markle for making him so.

The British are famous for their pageantry and pomp….everything is timed to the second and must be absolutely….just so. Well….Nobody told the most Reverend Michael Curry this…. and he launched into the most wonderful full spirited Halleluiah sermon about the joyous “Wonder of Love”. He went on and on for a full 14 minutes, and as he proceeded on, the British stiff upper lips became more and more rigidly uncomfortable with this radical departure from protocol. Her Majesty the Queen stood aghast and locked her beady blue eyes in a riveting, steely glare, directed furiously at the good Reverend….to no avail, on he went with his magic sermon to a beautiful rousing ******….and an absolute stony silence in the cavernous interior of that vaulting, magnificent cathedral. Prince Harry and his lovely bride, (whose wedding the day was all about), were delighted with Curry’s performance….as was Prince William, heir to the Throne, who wore a fascinating **** eating grin all over his face for the entire performance.

Says a lot, my friend, about the refreshing values of tomorrows Royalty.

We rolled out of that country pub three parts cut to the wind, dunno how we made it to our next destination, but we had one hellava good time at that Royal Wedding!

The weft and the weave of our appreciation fluctuated wildly with each day of travel through this magnificent and ancient land, Great Britain.

There was soft brilliant summer air which hovered over the undulating green patchwork of the Cotswolds whilst we dined on delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, from an elevated position in a medieval country inn..... So magnificent as to make you want to weep with the beauty of it all….and the quaint thatched farmhouse with the second story multi paned windows, which I understood, had been there, in that spot, since the twelfth century. Our accommodation, sleeping beneath oaken beams within thick stone walls, once a pen for swine, now a domiciled overnight bed and pillow of luxury with white cotton sheets for weary Kiwi travellers.

The sadness of the Cornish west coast, which bore testimony to tragedy for the hard working tin miners of the 1800s. A sharp decrease in the international tin price in 1911 destituted whole populations who walked away from their life’s work and fled to the New World in search of the promise of a future. Forlorn brick ruins adorned stark rocky outcrops right along the coastline and inland for miles. Lonely brick chimneys silhouetted against sharp vertical cliffs and the ever crashing crescendo of the pounding waves of the cold Atlantic ocean.

No parking in Padstow….absolutely NIL! You parked your car miles away in the designated carpark at an overnight cost….and with your bags in tow, you walked to your digs. Now known as Padstein, this beautiful place is now populated with eight Rick Stein restaurants and shops dotted here and there.

We had a huge feed of piping hot fish and chips together with handles of cold ale down at his harbour side fish and chip restaurant near the wharfs…place was packed with people, you had to queue at the door for a table, no reservations accepted….Just great!

Clovelly was different, almost precipitous. This ancient fishing village plummeted down impossibly steep cliffs….a very rough, winding cobbled stone walkway, which must have taken years to build by hand, the only way down to the huge rock breakwater which harboured the fishing boats Against the Atlantic storms. And in a quaint little cottagey place, perched on the edge of a cliff, we had yet another beautiful Devonshire tea in delicate, white China cups...with tasty hot scones, piles of strawberry jam and a huge *** of thick clotted cream…Yum! Too ****** steep to struggle back up the hill so we spent ten quid and rode all the way up the switch back beneath the olive canvass canopy of an old Land Rover…..money well spent!

Creaking floorboards and near vertical, winding staircases and massive rock walls seemed to be common characteristics of all the lovely old lodging houses we were accommodated in. Sarah, our lovely daughter in law, arranged an excellent itinerary for us to travel around the SW coast staying in the most picturesque of places which seeped with antiquity and character. We zooped around the narrow lanes, between the hedgerows in our sharp little VW golf hire car And, with Sarah at the helm, we never got lost or missed a beat…..Fantastic effort, thank you so much Sarah and Solomon on behalf of your grateful In laws, Janet and Marshal, who loved every single moment of it all!

Memories of a lifetime.

Wanted to tell the world about your excitement, Janet, on visiting Stoke on Trent.

This town is famous the world over for it’s pottery. The pottery industry has flourished here since the middle ages and this is evidenced by the antiquity of the kilns and huge brick chimneys littered around the ancient factories. Stoke on Trent is an industrial town and it’s narrow, winding streets and congested run down buildings bear testimony to past good times and bad.

We visited “Burleigh”.

Darling Janet has collected Burleigh pottery for as long as I have known her, that is almost 40 years. She loves Burleigh and uses it as a showcase for the décor of our home.

When Janet first walked into the ancient wooden portals of the Burleigh show room she floated around on a cloud of wonder, she made darting little runs to each new discovery, making ooh’s and aah’s, eyes shining brightly….. I trailed quietly some distance behind, being very aware that I must not in any way imperil this particular precious bubble.

We amassed a beautiful collection of plates, dishes, bowls and jugs for purchase and retired to the pottery’s canal side bistro,( to come back to earth), and enjoy a ploughman’s lunch and a *** of hot English breakfast tea.

We returned to Stoke on Trent later in the trip for another bash at Burleigh and some other beautiful pottery makers wares…..Our suit cases were well filled with fragile treasures for the trip home to NZ…..and darling Janet had realised one of her dearest life’s ambitions fulfilled.

One of the great things about Britain was the British people, we found them willing to go out of their way to be helpful to a fault…… and, with the exception of BMW people, we found them all to be great drivers. The little hedgerow, single lane, winding roads that connect all rural areas, would be a perpetual source of carnage were it not for the fact that British drivers are largely courteous and reserved in their driving.

We hired a spacious ,powerful Nissan in Dover and acquired a friend, an invaluable friend actually, her name was “Tripsy” at least that’s what we called her. Tripsy guided us around all the byways and highways of Britain, we couldn’t have done without her. I had a few heated discussions with her, I admit….much to Janet’s great hilarity…but Tripsy won out every time and I quickly learned to keep my big mouth shut.

By pure accident we ended up in Cumbria, up north of the Roman city of York….at a little place in the dales called “Middleton on Teesdale”….an absolutely beautiful place snuggled deep in the valleys beneath the huge, heather clad uplands. Here we scored the last available bed in town at a gem of a hotel called the “Brunswick”. Being a Bank Holiday weekend everything, everywhere was booked out. The Brunswick surpassed ordinary comfort…it was superlative, so much so that, in an itinerary pushed for time….we stayed TWO nights and took the opportunity to scout around the surrounding, beautiful countryside. In fact we skirted right out to the western coastline and as far north as the Scottish border. Middleton on Teesdale provided us with that late holiday siesta break that we so desperately needed at that time…an exhausting business on a couple of old Kiwis, this holiday stuff!

One of the great priorities on getting back to London was to shop at “Liberty”. Great joy was had selecting some ornate upholstering material from the huge range of superb cloth available in Liberty’s speciality range.

The whole organisation of Liberty’s huge store and the magnificent quality of goods offered was quite daunting. Janet & I spent quite some time in that magnificent place…..and Janet has a plan to select a stylish period chair when we get back to NZ and create a masterpiece by covering it with the ***** bought from Liberty.

In York, beautiful ancient, York. A garrison town for the Romans, walled and once defended against the marauding Picts and Scots…is now preserved as a delightful and functional, modern city whilst retaining the grandeur, majesty and presence of its magnificent past.

Whilst exploring in York, Janet and I found ourselves mixing with the multitude in the narrow medieval streets paved with ancient rock cobbles and lined with beautifully preserved Tudor structures resplendent in whitewash panel and weathered, black timber brace. With dusk falling, we were drawn to wild violins and the sound of stamping feet….an emanation from within the doors of an old, burgundy coloured pub…. “The Three Legged Mare”.

Fortified, with a glass of Bushmills in hand, we joined the multitude of stomping, singing people. Rousing to the percussion of the Irish drum, the wild violin and the deep resonance of the cello, guitars and accordion…..The beautiful sound of tenor voices harmonising to the magic of a lilting Irish lament.

We stayed there for an hour or two, enchanted by the spontaneity of it all, the sheer native talent of the expatriates celebrating their heritage and their culture in what was really, a beautiful evening of colour, music and Ireland.

Onward, across the moors, we revelled in the great outcrops of metamorphic rock, the expanses of flat heather covering the tops which would, in the chill of Autumn, become a spectacular swath of vivid mauve floral carpet. On these lonely tracts of narrow road, winding through the washes and the escarpments, the motorbike boys wheeled by us in screaming pursuit of each other, beautiful machines heeling over at impossible angles on the corners, seemingly suicidal yet careening on at breakneck pace, laughing the danger off with the utter abandon of the creed of the road warrior. Descending in to the rolling hills of the cultivated land, the latticework of, old as Methuselah, massive dry built stone fences patterning the contours in a checker board of ancient pastoral order. The glorious soft greens of early summer deciduous forest, the yellow fields of mustard flower moving in the breeze and above, the bluest of skies with contrails of ever present high flung jets winging to distant places.

Britain has a flavour. Antiquity is evidenced everywhere, there is a sense of old, restrained pride. A richness of spirit and a depth of character right throughout the populace. Britain has confidence in itself, its future, its continuity. The people are pleasant, resilient and thoroughly likeable. They laugh a lot and are very easy to admire.

With its culture, its wonderful history, its great Monarchy and its haunting, ever present beauty, everywhere you care to look….The Britain of today is, indeed, a class act.

We both loved it here Steven…and we will return.

M.

Hamilton, New Zealand

21 June 2018
Dedicated with love to my two comrades in arms and poets supreme.....Victoria and Martin.
You were just as I imagined you would be.
M.
Geraldine Taylor Jun 2017
Let a new age commence, unrest shall now cease

King Henry VII, the bringer of peace

Merchants will travel, trade will now flourish

Descendants of which epitomise courage



A land of writers, a progress of arts

Embedded into the Tudor’s hearts

Embroidered gowns, heads and tales

The elegant wear of farthingales



A Tudor house, a college, a school

Established wealth of Tudor rule

Towns of old, constructed new

Merchants traded, places grew



Refined timber, a solid room

Within the attic, a weaving loom

Wattle and daub, between the frame

A home preserved, set to remain

  

Furnished halls and window glaze

Estates abound, knot garden maze

Food aplenty, peacock and swan

Iron skewers, with meat upon



Send a fleet, out to defend

A kingdom of which lives depend

Aboard with cannons, Mary Rose

We shall arch with longer bows



Parish churches of the ‘Reformation’

A coat of arms, our declaration

Henry VIII, the Supreme Head

The King’s schools, of which he lead



A ‘Globe’ performance, a Shakespeare show

Shall we stand where ‘groundlings’ go

A theatre set to entertain

Yet monasteries sit in poor remain



Upon thy hill, now let us mount

To thus reflect with fresh account

A prominent history of which to lend

Thy Queen Elizabeth I to end



Written by Geraldine Taylor ©
CK Baker Apr 2017
to exonerate the clippings
they took the back road to oswega
the tudor house rabbits
had long lost their heads
(presumably to the *****)
and what remained
of the landscape
was dead
and dry
and orange

that happy home
on the brink
of cattle loop
was now gull grey
the needles
and stragglers
from shady bay
remained (in growing numbers)
on the outskirts
of the driven back park

the once fabled town
of horse drawn tours
and dignitaries
was stone washed ~
on the back of it's
government docks
sat decrepit toppers
set against the high tide
beside the lighthouse
and its measured song

flutes and fiddlers
and acoustic sitars
ride the accompaniment
nose rings
and signage
in the hands of
staged protesters
the sickly spit strewn
with tidal run
and ocean bags

hedgerows trimmed
along the sea side
rolling hills fade
adjacent the chuck
mint juleps
and flop hats
peak on the parade
clydesdales
and royals
blinded in the back
Danny C Mar 2013
My house was built in 1926
It was plastered with white stucco
framed within a blue trim, once green
which still shows through chips of paint
flaking off like a scab
from a curious child's playground wounds

This house fended off storms and fires
for nearly one hundred years
and stood tall and strong even when
my family fell to pieces

Dad should have left a long time ago
No one could sleep with him around
as he snored through our tragedy:
A mother and a father who hated
each other, both too stubborn to leave

I had dreams at 4AM, when I could sleep,
of the house collapsing, and these walls caving in
burying us alive in dusty white gravel

Mom wanted to be free like she was
when she would smoke cigarettes in her 20's
with young men lucky enough to have her

Dad didn't want the world to see us destroyed
So he stayed inside our little white tudor
tearing down the walls as we all fell apart
and were buried beneath the wreckage
that tore us all to pieces
Taylor St Onge Nov 2015
1611: Emilia Lanier became the first Englishwoman to publish and collect patronage from her original poetry with the publication of fifteen poems, all about or dedicated to particular women, in her “booke,” titled in Latin, Hail, God, King of the Jews.  She was the fourth woman in England to publish her poetry, but the first to demand payment in return for it.  The first to see herself as equal to the paid male authors of the era.

This was the same year that the King James Bible was first printed.  This was eight years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I.  This was 180 years after nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

                                                               ­      +

The Querelle des Femmes is “the woman question.”
Frenchmen of the early fifteenth century created a literary debate: what is the role and the nature of women?  Is it stemmed within a “classical” model of  human behavior; gnarled and rooted with misogynistic platonic tradition?  Should women actually be allowed into politics, economics, and religion?  There are scholars that say this debate radiated across several European countries for three centuries before finally fizzling out.  

                                                         ­                   But it is still there; has crossed
continents, has crossed oceans, is sizzling, sparking up fires, flaring out
into the night, leeching onto the trees, onto buildings, onto people, onto
anything flammable.  It is burning down monarchs and their thrones.  It is
raking back the blazing coals.  
                                                   Exposing the charred corpses.  
                 Proving their death.  
                                                   Burning and burning and burning them
                                              twice more to prevent the collection of relics.
                 It is chucking the ashes into the Seine River.

Lilith: who was made at the same time, at the same place, from the same earth, from the same soil as Adam, got herself written out of the Bible because she thought herself to be Man’s equal. Because she got bored of the *******.  Because she wanted to be on top during ***.  Lilith was replaced in the book of Genesis with a more-or-less subservient woman that was made from the rib of man instead of the same dirt and dust.  She was replaced with a woman that Adam named “Eve.”  She was replaced with a woman who served as nothing more than the scapegoat for Man’s downfall.
                                       The original Querelle des Femmes.

                                                                     +

1558-1603: Queen Elizabeth I ruled England in what is considered to be a masculine position. Although a woman can take the throne, can wear the crown, can wield the scepter, can run the country, the actual divine task that goes along with being a part of the monarchy, being a god on Earth, is thought to be the duty of a man.

Nicknamed The ****** Queen, Elizabeth never married,
                                                     never found a proper suitor,
                                             never produced a direct Tudor heir,
                                   (but this is not to prove that she was a ******).  
Chastity, especially of women, is a virtue.  ((To assume that she never had ***
simply because she never married
                                                                ­ is another Querelle des Femmes.))

For nearly forty-five years, Queen Elizabeth I did not need a man by her side while she lead England to both relative stability and prosperity; did not need a man by her side while she became the greatest monarch in English history.  
                                                She held the rainbow, the bridge to God, in her
                                                                ­                     own small hands just fine.

                                                          ­           +

Saturday, February 24, 1431: Joan of Arc was interrogated for the third time in her fifteen-part trial in front of Bishop Cauchon and 62 Assessors.  During her six interrogation sessions, she was questioned over charges ranging from heresy to witchcraft to cross-dressing.

At age twelve Joan of Arc began seeing heavenly visions
                                                                ­               of angels and saints and martyrs;
age thirteen she began hearing the Voice of God—was told to
purify France of the English,                          to make Charles the rightful king—
age sixteen she took a vow of chastity as a part of her divine mission.  

When the court asked about the face and eyes
that belonged to the Voice, she responded:
                                                      ­                      There is a saying among children, that
                                                         “Sometimes one is hanged for speaking the truth.”


Joan of Arc was declared guilty and was killed by the orders of a Bishop during a time when men were beginning to question the role and nature of women in society.  They thought women to be deceitful and immoral.  Innately thought Joan of Arc to be deceitful and immoral.  (Perhaps she was one of the catalysts for the Querelle in the first place.)

((The church blamed Eve for the
fall of mankind.  Identified women as
                                                                     temptation:
                                                               the root of all sins.))

Twenty-five years later she was declared innocent and raised to the level of martyrdom.
The Catholic Church stood back,
saw the blood,
                          the ashes,
                                            the thick smoke and stench of burned body that
                                                                ­               covered their hands, their clothes,
                                                                ­                    their neurons, their synapses;
        a filth that couldn’t be washed off by Holy water—
can’t be washed off by Holy water.

Four hundred and seventy-eight years later Joan of Arc was blessed and gained entrance to Heaven.  Four hundred and eighty-nine years later she was canonized as a saint.

                                                         ­            +

Lines 777-780, “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women,” Emilia Lanier, 1611:
                         But surely Adam can not be excused,
                         Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame;
                         What Weakness offered, Strength might have refused,
                         Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame…


Adam, distraught and angered that his first wife, Lilith, had flew off into the air after he had refused to lay beneath her, begged God to bring her back.  God, taking pity on his beloved, manly, creation, sent down three angels who threatened Lilith that if she did not return to Adam, one hundred of her sons would die each day.  

                              (This is where the mother of all Jewish demons
                                         merges with the first wife of Man.)  

She refused, said that this was her purpose: she was
created specifically to harm newborn children.  This legend,
dated back to 3,500 BC Babylonia, describes Lilith as a
                                                                       winged feminine demon that
                                                     kills infants and endangers women in childbirth.

In the Christian Middle Ages, Lilith changed form once more:
she became the personification of licentiousness and lust,
she became more than a demon, she became a sin in herself.  Lilith
and her offspring were seen as succubae, were to blame for the
wet dreams of men.  Taking it a step further, Christian leaders then
                                                                ­                           wed Lilith to Satan;
                                                                ­                              charged her with
                                                                ­               populating the world with evil,
                                                   claimed she gave birth to
one hundred demonic children per day.

Lilith is considered evil in the eyes of the church because she was insubordinate to Adam.  Both she and Eve are considered disobedient; are too willful, too independent in the way that Lilith wanted to be on top and Eve wanted to share a knowledge that Adam could have refused.  They are perceived as a threat to the divinely ordered happenings that men see to be true.

Men wrote the history books because only their interpretation was right.  
Emilia Lanier writes:
                                       Yet Men will boast of Knowledge, which he took
                                           From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned Book
(807-808).

The Querelle des Femmes is not just a literary debate in the fifteenth century.  It is a way of life.  It is the divine portion of Queen Elizabeth I’s job being fit for men, and men alone.  It is Joan of Arc being a woman and hearing the Voice of God; it is Joan of Arc being burned three times by the same Catholics that revered in Jesus, a man who, too, heard the Voice of God.  It is Lilith being deemed a demon for not wanting to have *** in the *******.  It is Eve having to apologize in the first place for sharing the apple, for sharing knowledge with her partner.  It is women holding positions of power and yet still feeling powerless to men.  

The Querelle des Femmes is wanting to use gender
to keep one group of people above another.  The Querelle des Femmes
is continually thinking that the ***** is greater than, but
never equal to, the ******. The Querelle des Femmes is
                                                       not understanding the difference between
                                                                ­       ***          and          gender
                                                                ­              in the first place.  
The Querelle des Femmes is me,
burning your dinner and telling you to eat it anyway.
This is part of a larger project that I am working on pertaining to the Querelle des Femmes.
Third Eye Candy Apr 2013
knitting with scissors you run with.
will get you there. but you can't buy a house. i'm sorry.
you might, miiiiight get the Edwardian Tudor for a mansion in false claim
but you keep your gaze, your weary gaze ....and slumber not so sweet, my sweet.
knitting with false gods will get you everything
but  Not the Other Thing
that gnaws at the substance of your gut
where the heart resides like a lion
addicted to Aesop Fables -
and dry humors that decimate with bounty
flooding the bleak with our windmills !
you and i are regardless.

knitting with shopping carts and dead batteries. washing ashore.
lick your lips at the foam
of our hysterical event. pitch a ******* tent.
and eat more stars than you came in with.

sew the hole
with a hole and
answer the phone sometimes,
****.

i ain't got all day but you might take your time
like an aspirin.
Donall Dempsey Mar 2018
THE TALK OF THE TUDOR WORLD

It is the talk of
the Tudor World.

But  - the Hello Magazine
Time Machine

has managed to gatecrash
the "Princelye Pleasures

of the Queens
Majesty

and her Sommery
Progress."

It is the July
of 1575.

Trump wanted to go
but we said: "NO!"

He's messed up our Future
don't want him to mess up this Past.

Took a hairy Irish
poet instead.

So here we be
at Killing Worth Castle

Warwick Sheer, where
"All loves meet...

...to create one soul!"
as Mr. Decker has it.

Leicester and Eliza
dance the Volta

with lewd look
in eye.

The paparazzi
wet themselves!

The Queen deports
her self "in full sight!"

The famous fountain
spurting with "such vehemency!"

as to "moysten"
we time travellers

"...from top to toe!"

Already our passions
enflamed by carved erotica.

Such "rich and hard
white Marbl."

Oh that naughty Ovid
and his wicked tales.

The great fireworks
reflected in Eliza's eye.

Her Majesty skips
and dances high.

Leicester's hand
beneath her bust

takes her and turns her
with the lifting ******

of his mighty thigh
against the ******'s Royal backside.

Well...we never!

"Oh!" and ". . .ooooh!"
the Queen cries.

Sweet sweat trickles
through her make-up.

Three weeks of wooing
a Queen's hand

although it is rumoured he has
had  much more than that!

The wondrous artificial lake
mirrors the falling sky.

Scotland and Ireland
are in uproar.

Eliza's  "pirates"
attacking Spanish silver convoys.

Her procrastinating over Mary's fate
her famous "answerless answers."

Screams from the Tower.
Another turn of the rack.

Time to be gone
methinks!

Set the controls
for 2001.
Dancing, sayeth Philip Stubbes in 1583, is altogether a “horrible vice”. In his infamous work THE ANATOMIE OF ABUSES.

Stubbes ranted.... “what clipping, what culling, what kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering of one another: what filthy groping and unclean handling is not practised everywhere in these dancings... provoketh lust, and the fires of lust and once conceived…burst forth into the open action of whoredom and fornication.”

So dancing allowed certain libertien to be taken with the opposite *** but the dance that scandalised the then known world was the one and only ***** Volta  -which of course made it a hit with the Elizabethan court. It had the inbuilt indecency of highly intimate contact between man and woman.

A guide to the dance advised that “if you wish to dance the volta…you must place your right hand on the damsel’s back, and the left below her bust, and, by pushing her with your right thigh beneath her buttocks, turn her”.

Slow and stately movements  ruled the roost before the volta made its entrance.

Totally condemned throughout Europe among certain circles. In his 1592 work,‘A Godly Treatise on the Ungodly Dance’, Johann von Münster fumed that even kings were promoting the wicked dance:

“In this dance the dancer with a leap takes the young lady – who also comes to him with a high jump to the measures of the music – and grasps her in an unseemly place…With horror I have often seen this dance at the Royal Court of King Henry III in the year 1582, and together with other honest persons have frequently been amazed that such a lewd and unchaste dance, in which the King in person was first and foremost, should be officially permitted and publicly practiced.”

A century later, Johannes Praetorius, condemned the volta in his book on the practices of witchcraft, Blockes-Berges Verrichtung. He wrote:

“A new galliard, the volta ...a foreign dance in which they seize each other in lewd places and which was brought to France by conjurors from Italy… a whirling dance full of scandalous, beastly gestures and immodest movements…responsible for the misfortune that innumerable murders and miscarriages are brought about by it”.

In 1575, poor old Dudley still had hopes of winning Elizabeth and he staged an elaborate three week festival that was pretty much his last ditch do or die effort to impress her.

Her time was completely filled up with all of her favorite passions, elaborately choreographed.;There was dancing, riding, and hunting; as well as more public festivals and pageants

The cost was staggering – well over £1000/day, and was on a scale never before seen in England

There was one where a mechanical dolphin rose out from the water and concealed within were musicians and a singer

.A huge fireworks display lit up one night, there were new gardens with fountains built, and Elizabeth stayed in the new state apartments that Leicester built.

Even though Dudley was unsuccessful in his quest to win Elizabeth, the festival he created was the talk of the Tudor world for some time.

Now all we needed was a time machine and Hello magazine. Oh and one hairy Irish poet!
You are as tender as a tudor rose at sunsets goodbyes
you are my blushing beauty with crimson hues
and as night falls all around us
you transform to match the complexion of the moon

Your companionship is a blessing heaven sent
all my admiration and dedication is to you
if I ever wrong you,may I be cast to the gates of hell
for I follow your mission to our great ambitions

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Odysseus is angry without knowing what reason scared hopeless longing not a good student teachers raise suspicions Mom claims he is mentally not right in third grade parents send him to well-known psychiatrist conducts many tests finds Odysseus’s i.q. scores quite high doctor’s diagnosis is learning disabilities emotional anxiety recommends weekly appointments Odysseus continues to see various psychiatrists all the way through college in late 1950’s early '60’s psychiatric field is somewhat unreliable one downtown child’s psychiatrist chats about other patients then gives Odysseus baby ruth candy bar another psychiatrist with office in Wilmette tells him parents need therapy advises he will someday live independent of parents free of their influences

Odysseus Penelope Ryan Siciliano play in undeveloped land across from Schwartzpilgrim’s apartment building there is big tree they often climb near corner of commonwealth and surf streets Ryan is going on about his favorite actor errol flynn and movie “they died with their boots on” suddenly two bigger older boys approach bully them down from tree Odysseus does not recognize older boys from neighborhood bigger older boys push Penelope to ground then elbow trip Odysseus punch Ryan in stomach panic shoots through all three of them bigger older boys glare down with taunting eyes after terrifying moment Ryan then Odysseus jump up flee across street they hide beneath parked cars in underground garage of Odysseus’s building hearts pound in terror hearing footsteps on concrete grow louder they hold their breaths voice speaks out "they’re not here they’ve gone Odys where are you?" Odysseus and Ryan crawl out from under cars feel ashamed of their cowardice in front of Penelope and putting own self-preservation before her protection Ryan is particularly disturbed explains his family are sicilian code of conduct Ryan insists Odysseus swear never to divulge their weakness Odysseus promises later Penelope tells Mom

harper is broad-minded exceptional school housed in old english tudor building on second floor along hall is long glass cabinet displaying among other things 9 large jars each containing developing stages of fetus girls wear uniforms of navy blue skirts with knee socks white blouses blue sweaters which are school colors boys are allowed to wear blue jeans and shirts in good taste Miss Moss teaches fourth grade classroom is duplex with stairs leading up to balcony directly under stairs is secret meeting place and beneath balcony are classmate cubbyholes there is sunroom facing south overlooking entrance stairs to school where older students hang out Odysseus thinks Miss Moss is pretty wonders why she is not married she has deep blue eyes dark thick eyebrows premature graying hair she wears in bun he has crush on Miss Moss thinks she is best teacher he has ever known she teaches greek mythology assigns each member of class character in ancient greek mythology Odysseus is appointed Hermes son and messenger of Zeus Hermes has affair with Aphrodite resulting in child Hermaphroditus Hermes also fathers Pan rescues Dionysus saves Apollo’s son there is voice speaks inside Odysseus’s head no one can hear voice except Odysseus it is voice of smart-*** disobedient twisted child when Miss Moss says “where shall we begin today?” Odysseus automatically answers in his thoughts “how about up your sweet ***?” it is uncontrollable voice for his amusement only often he tries to ignore voice but sometimes it speaks out when voice speaks out Odysseus gets in trouble his friends think voice is funny adults get offended when he reflects on classmates at Harper and distinction of their privilege he wonders what went wrong they are troubled class in fifth grade they cause miss penteck to have nervous breakdown and retire other classes produce famous actors playwrights renowned restaurateurs prosperous investment bankers leading doctors Odysseus’s class produces delinquents gangsters social dropouts drug addicts suicides they take their privilege and run it straight to hell

creature inside Odysseus can be little monster teaches Penelope how to go berserk going berserk involves entering strange residential building in neighborhood elevator up getting off about middle floor pushing all elevator buttons scrambling down stairs knocking over umbrella stands spilling ashtrays ringing doorbells pounding doors running out lobby doors escaping uncaught Penelope is good warrior princess brother and sister can be little terrors

Ryan Siciliano and Odysseus go to see “the magnificent seven” at century theater they head south along broadway street college-age girl with large bouncing ******* appears walking north Ryan and Odysseus glance at approaching girl then nod to each other no plans uttered as college girl passes both Odysseus and Ryan reach up grab her ******* pet squeeze then run do not look back keep running laughing all the way to theater they watch movie with jaws hanging open mcqueen is brilliant all seven are so groovy movie inspires both Odysseus and Ryan.

in 1960 Mom and Dad send Odysseus and Penelope to sunday school at temple shalom teacher calls him aside "Schwartzpilgrim what do you want to be when you grow up?" Odysseus answers "architect or maybe an indian warrior" teacher says "do you know story of judas maccabi? he was a great warrior leader learn about the festival of lights and wield your sword wisely Odys Schwartzpilgrim" Odysseus replies "yes sir" two weeks later he gets kicked out of sunday school for pulling seat out from under girl during solemn religious service he never learns hebrew nor is he bar mitzvahed

Odysseus is hyper-sensitive about race and religion knows he comes from race of people who once were born into slavery nazis systematically exterminated millions of them at aushwitz-birkenaub belzek chelmno majdanek sobibor stutthof treblinka black and white photographs of faces emaciated children adults flicker before his thoughts knows jews are hated not considered caucasian in europe and russia not allowed to own land for many centuries what does it mean to be member of race of people who are despised and blamed? he sympathizes with all minorities particularly negroes who were forced from homeland collared into slavery and native americans who were cheated out of land and slaughtered by white people
Francie Lynch May 2015
I was up to my fingertips
Doing humanitarian shtick,
Visiting a nursing home
Where they're more dead
Than sick;
Playing and singing
And doing my licks
For those with clocks
Near the last tick.
They didn't mind
My performance was sick.

The woman occupying
The bed next door,
Would curse and swear
Like a Tudor *****:
Together we were
Rocking the floor.

Just then the P.A
Called Code Blue,
I played on through what ensued..
What was I to do?

Then we heard
Code Red, Code Red,
The one next door yelled,
****, I'm dead?

I heard her screech,
Code Pink, Code Pink!
I caught the refrain,
Played a chord,
The Tudor and I
Were in full accord.
What was I to think?

Code Brown, she bellowed,
Code Brown, she hollered,
Hitting the ground
Just near the toilet.

*Code Green,
Code Yellow,
Code White,
Code Black,
I'm the victim of a Rainbow attack.
**** it! ****! I'm gonna die!
Don't they know I'm colour blind.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
and i'm watching this spectacle... and i agree:
  female tennis is probably more
enjoyable than
  male tennis... there's so much
dialogue involved...
   and oh god, i am but a simple man,
i like my klinik, and my wumpscut
and my other fringe altars
of culture...
but i really like watching the 7 rectangles...
isn't a tennis court a case of 7 rectangles?
no? i thought it was...
  1 at the beginning, 2 are the side,
2 either side, and 2 for the served into "square"
across the net, service, 1st serve, net-first-service...
15 - love...
                then i watch a video by
black pigeon speaks and i'm fired up...
not that i have anything planned
in a year to come,
i'm too wrapped up in the bewilderment of
being able to **** out a bottle of wine,
but seem to never be able to **** out a bottle
of whiskey...
  dunno: it just happens...
i spent the past few hours cleaning the slates
of the bathroom from feline diarrhoea...
    so you know: i'd love to reach the summits
of gucci perfumes, if you'd care to
         allow me...
i really should wait for my ego to turn into
a phallus of slumbering pride,
but given the current situation in Sweden
    and me reading history of the deluge of Poland
by the Swedes, i'm sort of: hands in the air
with four thumbs signifying: i don't care.
   i like watching tennis,
it's the one sport where watching women is more
entertaining than watching men,
and it's not that you're even forced into it...
             women make more rallies in a match...
women tend to play with a double-handed forehand...
      but it really is a game based about 7 rectangles...
i'd love to see it as: Dali, dictates the rhombus
  at the Australian Open!
             i'd love to see it,
and i'd also love to see Oslo...
             but i'm not that bothered,
for all the media frenzy concerning western Europe,
i see Poland as a buffer zone smokescreen...
      the happenings at Ełk proved a point...
the dream of community translated into western
europe came so pronounced...
   people actually botehred to create a lynch mob...
the good "samaritan" had to die...
  and yes, the moroccan yielding the knife
was taken to a prison cell...
   but i guess knowing the polish language
i should feel more nationalistic pride in sweden being
gang-*****... it's an actual shame that i know
english and can't ingest the full potency of seeing
Sweden as it is... as i already said:
the deluge... by henry sienkiewicz...
    and later the recount by an incompetent king
in the works of kraszewski...
             but my: the tennis! it's spell-binding...
and the wine i made? it's digesting my brain to a proper
dehydration... and i love it!
              7 rectangles... and if the 7 rectangles
     were a circle, i'd be yearning for sumo!
           but no no, no... i'm, looking at these rabbits
represent a π radius squared movement,
given the matchsticks...
      i love tennis... it makes more sense watching
a female tennis match than it does a male one:
where it's always all about a fast serve and
           a quicker return... 7 rectangles, and these
fleshy vectors moving about the parameters...
           if i din't know a germanic language
i'd be gleeful, actually applauding the demise of
Sweden, having learned of the devestation
done to Poland by the Swedes in the deluge and
partition of the country, due to the House of Vasa...
it's a joke and i know it's a joke:
say i moved back to Poland and stirred up
    the national ghost?
                                     ha... ha ha... that would be
something...
          i'm a disciple of wine these days,
and i like watching tennis...
                         human history always meant
too much a case of: getting out of bed...
and hence my addiction: sleep...
as odd as it might sound, i'm actually addicted to it...
i'm a lion that pets two bonsai tigers...
    i have enough mane to laugh out a bellowing
word: lion! ha ha...
              but i sometimes like to retreat into
origins, and given i am highly volatile in my use of
english as an acquired tongue, i sometimes love to
re-acquire my ethnicity, and read a little bit of it...
how the Swedes desecrated Poland once upon a time...
how the Germans malnurished her with world war ii
and i... and i sort of love how Islam (for me), is
nothing but a chisel, a hammer... a useful idiot
that speaks more testicles and western female uninhibition
than anything... of boy... do i come across of grossly
nationalistic? i might have... oh gee!
   what a terrible plight!
                         but there's a secret theatre being staged
in Europe, most Americans don't know of it,
unless they managed to ask Joyce to **** his way
around a good translation of Finnegans Wake and
a whiskey bar in Krakow...  or ów... however you speak it...
     depends how you hide or don't hide
or expose the consonants...
                    and that's funny, most people find
the works of Kraszewski boring... to me they're the one
source of sanity having spent 3 weeks in Poland
over the holidays...
and why i invested my person in being bilingual...
   odd scare tactic: the usual typo of ****...
                        if you find the culture you're assimilating
into folding (in a poker sense), remain true to
the culture of your birth, keep the language...
you never know, you might have to move back
to the country of your birth... but only when you
see the host culture as *****-whipped... as England
is... or wait... antagonise the situation,
wait until they give up their capital,
and on the preiphery turn ultra-nationalistic in vox...
   i kept my native tongue, now i'm playing truant...
i have no symphany for the Swedes,
  and sympathy for England? well... if even events
in 1997 didn't happen... i might have more than
enough...
                   a Pole looks at the influx of Muslims to
Germany... and quiet frankly laughs...
                       it's not even a debate...
like the muslims talking about post-colonial
deconstructionalism...
                                     no wonder Russia has
come from the shadows to be the pawn-broker
of at least remaining true to the hunger
of media outlets... it just has to be there...
        so yeah, if you read kraszewski
and sienkiewicz, you might know a thing or two
about the Swedish deluge, that hit Poland
when John Casimir, of the house of Vasa
     "ruled" Poland at the time of the Cossack
uprising, magnified by the leadership of
      Khmelnytsky -
                but then again, all you hear in England
is the fate of the harem of the house of Tudor...
and how Charlie got shaved from owning a head,
and how Charlie Seconds had that
bad-*** poet in his pocket... john wilmot...
who i vaguely remember having cited
made epigram more noteworthy than an epitaph:
     we have a pretty witty king,
     and whose word no man relies on,
     he never said a foolish thing,
     and never did a wise one...

    great words demand the most despicable people
to invoke them... fortunately i live in a time
when great words can't be said,
because there are no great people to be surrounded with
in order that they might be despised...
   well, that is said in where i find solace,
exietential philosophy, for i do say: "fortunately",
as if i am borrowing something...
how can you write a poem, about a monarch,
when the monarch, as has happened with the english
crown, bid more toward philanthropy
than lechery? give me something i might want to esteem
in seeking out the basis for the basic human
depravity! you give me a monarch worth a penny's
toss into a hand of a pauper, you give me
a philanthropic king, and not a lecherous king...
you have sealed your existency,
by gauging out my eyes and giving them to worms,
and cut off my tongue, and lodged it, in the mosque
of a donkey's gob!
David Barr Nov 2013
Although the experience of trauma is a certain force with which to be reckoned, one can frame its power within the realms of a problem or a possibility.
Consider the bond of brickwork in Massachusetts, as it resembles structures of olde, where the witch trials were an extension of ******* Catholicism.
Please acknowledge that there is lead in the windows of rickety black-and-white buildings of Tudor establishment, which must remain if its integrity is to be preserved.
It truly is a long way to the top of Australasian rebellion.
Oliver Philip Nov 2018
Tudor Royals.   (An Acrostic)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tough times the Tudor King endures
Undecided on his bold armorers
Due to hots for miss Anne Boleyn
Ordered aside the maid of Aragon
Removed poor Anne’s head for Darling Jane

Rare son to Jane but childbirth was a pain
On death we see the shrewdest Ann o Cleaves
You know they didn’t get on or consummate
A fifth in Katherine Howard a **** for sure.
Lost her head , took Kath Parr to bed
Six was five too many for a King named Henry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip.
November 10th 2018.
A historic lesson into personal relationships
He was one of those guys who marry money.
And you can grok that in any sense you desire.
But be forewarned, my friend,
I am well-versed in a multitude of
Marry-For-Money manifestations.
Take, for example, marrying the Boss' daughter.
Come with me, for illustration's sake,
Join me in one such dis-functional household:
George & Martha's place on campus--
A classic Tudor-revival home,
Ivied & plushly-appointed,
A coveted faculty perk
Which goes along with the gig.
And the gag, for that matter.
I speak, of course, of Edward Albee's
Two perversely miserable humans,
Married to each other, to wit:
George & Martha, leading lives of
*****-scratching desperation, in
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
She's the only daughter--
Daddy's precious jewel--
Only girl-child of the President
Of a small, rural college.
He's the middle-aged professor
With no great pedagogic or research prowess.
His working-class perspective,
Viewing the quiet academic life to be
A significant step up in genteel existence.
Except--and there's the rub:
Mere existence is a far cry from
Living the good life Dan Draper &
The rest of Satan's Mad Men minions
Taught him to take for granted.
So George & Martha,
In terms of core values,
Have little in common;
More like opposites, in fact:
His starvation diet as a child &
Her helping out Mom at the
Food Bank on Saturday mornings.
It's those formative razzmatazz years,
He lacked the behavior blueprint,
The overwhelming fatigue of acting.
He's perpetually memorizing lines,
Practicing ****** expressions &
Physical gestures & phrases.
Guard up, another Oscar-worthy performance,
Burton is superb & Elizabeth Taylor
Showing us precisely why she is &
Will continue to be revered as an actress.

George knows she has his number.
The thing about the play is the
Intense malice the couple feel for each other.
For the audience, an experience in stage drama
Best classified as an intensely painful morality play.
A good thing to remember: Live Theater
Adds value to a community.
Give generously, please!
But I digress.
Adele Sep 2018
Years had passed
I see yonder,
Withered leaves on the ground
And dyed coffee envelopes
With an old Paris stamp that marks the date of 1934
It sits beside a dismal brown bitten apple
In a small abode
In the mammoth province of Branderburg Prussia
The rickety Tudor house cries in silence
The ghost of the past beseeched to be free
Cobwebs stifled my hands
In opening the forgone mail
Bundles that haven’t received by the receiver
“Let’s ride the rails”, he said
The young deep voice echoed in my head
My weak knees quivered
“We should get going” the two ladies in white scrubs held my arms
One step at time, we went in the wheels
That would take me back to this new place
I could never call home
The declination of the economy and the war broke us
But the memory didn’t die, it never did
Hayley Siebert Jan 2017
I'm a feminist.
I'm a feminist because 85000 women are ***** every year
I'm a feminist because domestic violence will effect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men
I'm a feminist because a woman has a right to wear no make up and a man has a right to wear make up
I'm a feminist because if a woman faces difficulty in terminating a pregnancy why doesn't the man for leaving in the first place?
I'm a feminist because a father has as much rights to his children as the mother
I'm a feminist because 1 in 5 women aged between 15 and 59 have experienced ****** assault
I'm a feminist because I believe in equal pay regardless of race, religion and gender
I'm a feminist because a 1/3 of people blame the victim for their **** or assault
I'm a feminist because 12000 men are ***** every year
I'm a feminist because I believe it is ok for men to cry!
I'm a feminist because male victims of abuse deserve the same support as females
I'm a feminist because most women in the UK do not have access to a **** crisis center
I'm a feminist because what I do with my ****** shouldn't determine my self worth
I'm a feminist because there are 5700 cases of FGM in the UK alone
I'm a feminist because a women has a right to cover or uncover her body
I'm a feminist because middle aged men are the at the highest risk for suicide
I'm a feminist because who you fall in love with shouldn't be a sin
I'm a feminist because crimes against properties receive harsher punishments than crimes against a person
I'm a feminist because everyone has a right to say "No"
I'm a feminist because my position as a woman shouldn't be determined by whether I breed or not
I'm a feminist because no ones gender determines their career in life
I'm a feminist because my ****** shouldn't prevent or deter me from body modifications
I'm a feminist because women are far more likely to be assaulted or killed by their partners or ex partners
I'm a feminist because everyone has a right to education and health care
I'm a feminist because everyone has a right to practice their religion
I'm a feminist because being a man is not determined by the size of his ***** nor the amount of women he has ******
I'm a feminist because men can be pampered too
I'm a feminist because fathers deserve as much time as mothers off work to be with their children
I'm a feminist because manspreading is pathetic and sexist
I'm a feminist because of the Suffragette movement
I'm a feminist because of Elizabeth Tudor, Anne Boleyn, Boadicea , Cleopatra.
I'm a feminist because I needed no father to learn how to be strong, loud and powerful
I'm a feminist because my Mother raised me on her own
I'm a feminist because my mother inspired me to be as loud and as crazy as her
I'm a feminist because my father beat my mother
I'm a feminist because my uncle committed suicide
I'm a feminist because my brother is branded a freak for his mental illness
I'm a feminist because my sister is branded a scrounger for being a mother
I'm a feminist because I buy my boyfriend flowers and pay for meals and treats
I'm a feminist because the man who sexually abused me walked free
I'm a feminist because the ex that abused me branded me a *****
I'm a feminist because I can be as brutal as any man in the metal scene
I'm a feminist because songs shouldn't glorify **** or violence against women
I'm a feminist because being blonde doesn't mean I'm dumb
I'm a feminist because no one should touch anyone or grab their *****!
I'm a feminist because my pads and tampons are not a luxury but a necessity as I control control the bleeding from my womb
I'm a feminist because my breast tissue is no different from a mans yet why must I be shamed for uncovering them?
I'm a feminist because no ones bodies should be sexulised against their will
I'm a feminist because I shouldn't be made to wait until 25 to have a smear test
I'm a feminist because I came from no man's rib but a woman's womb!
I'm a feminist.

"I will have but one mistress here! And no master!"
How beautiful the sunrise when it came ,
for I had waited so long ,
In vain,
how lonelineses. sweet tears I feel ,
down my cheek so bitter the pain .
Yet I walk were emporers once stood ,


Londiniam lies abandoned .
the Classis lit long since sailed ,
their. Masts beat against the wind .
The  river Thames glistened from the morning sun ,
Past it’s banks and statues of gods ,
Monuments to Caesar and suns of the gods  lie face down in the sun
broken in two ..

Why should I return for there is nothing here ?
And yet ,
the girls with yellow hoods shunned by the graceful good ,
call me back with their come to bed eyes .
and here I am ,
with ladies of wanton jewelled hair .
For now the Tudor warehouses of
Commerce swell what was once forgotten.

Matchsticks piled one on another ,
and look at them all too full of pride ,
to stupid to see .
Women with weasels in their hair ,
So elegant and fair ,
for the ladies in their yellow hoods say “ beware “

Now the suns rays that lie low ,
a ball of red ,
were quiet embers burnt and flowed ,
Only to find that ,

her Queen awaited
the suns rays of majestic glory ,
as if all of England looked to its shores .
her Golden Hind .
Monsters of the deep ,
Dragons ,
Serpents. ,
Demons from hell itself ,
yet
the evil seas could not swollow this ship ,
or return it’s bounty to whence it came ,

and the women with the yellow hoods hid their faces in shame .
martin Oct 2016
A bumpy track led to the old cottage. The place hadn't been lived in for quite a while but was intact, a perfect timber-framed Tudor cottage. Even the old thatch didn't leak. Just two rooms downstairs with a small lean-to on the back, the kitchen still had a Dutch oven and an old copper for hot water. A kite-winder staircase followed the central chimney up to two bedrooms.

The place was coming up for auction. Desperately I wanted it. At the auction it made four times what I could afford. The buyer did not move in however. There was a story about him being in prison. At this time the farmers used to dispose of waste straw after combining by burning it in the fields, a practice now banned. That's how the thatch caught alight. There was no attempt to fight the fire because no-one even noticed it. Gales later blew in the gable ends, then the chimney crumbled, brambles grew over it until there was hardly a visible trace of the place left.

I wish I could have saved it. It would have been beautiful. Instead I bought a little terrace, then a detached needing renovation, then the one we have today. I got what I wanted eventually, but I still think about that old place sometimes, and how I wanted it.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
what's with these juicy bits?
got talking to a cashier at a supermarket
because i wanted cash-back
rather than using the automated till,
she was part of a book club,
her grandchildren, something something,
oh yeah, into tudor english,
prope'h east ender but more into
o romeo o romeo why art thou bits of slicing
the butcher's expression, tudor english...
'so what do you do?
finish work early? work in
a slaughterhouse of mammon
and his slot machines?'
'i've only just begun, i'm an
adolf ****** of poets according to w.h. auden,
i mean, wait wait, i can make a calypso's worth
of sound with rhyme, and look ironically intelligent too!
i have ~40 adamant readers elsewhere,
yes,  had to look for a publisher on the continent.'
you know, all that jazz & bass talk,
when you're buying whiskey laconically day to day,
and we both agreed: it's nice to leave an imprint
on someone, somewhere else, far far away,
rather than just an echoing footprint of a pacified
stranger passing en route on a shopping spree;
so don't up your game thinking writing is
a mind game of ups and ups...
it's a task like anyone else's, although it doesn't
pay out bundles of Ferraris or ******...
there ain't not glamour in it...
you only get recognition in terms of the numbers
doing it after you're dead...
because it looks easy, because it looks like
a granny in an armchair...
what's that, 30 poems in and finito -
             carpe diem hasta la vista baby?
strap me rigid on that train, i'll pay with all my
teeth being punched out to see where this is going;
juicy bits my ***.
it seems that in moving the body we can free the mind, from one place to another. slightly out of focus.



time is moving forward.

that is the theory……



sbm.
Bruce Adams Jul 2019
She collected lolly sticks,
        The ones with jokes on them:
        Why did the chicken cross the road?-type stuff,
Which she stained brown and used as floorboards
in her magnum opus.

The Tudor house was the best one.
It had servants’ quarters
And a kitchen with little hessian potato sacks made
of something or other she salvaged from
somewhere or other;
And the floorboards looked so real:
        painted lolly sticks
        but almost evoking the smell of varnish,
        layers of polish on a floor trodden by centuries
        in perfect miniature;
                                                Almost­.

This was the last of the three
                                                or four
                                                        doll­s’ houses she built;
The devil’s work for her idle widow’s hands.
She built this one while you were entering your final
        stalemate
that doomed dance that sits so permanently
on your conscience
like a sack of compost
full of water.
        (I choose this simile only because
        I found this in my garden yesterday,
        and it was ******* heavy.)
On paper it was simple:
        You gave her your house,
        She gave you hers.

And so her house shrunk around her and
became a dolls’ house of your own making,
Irrationally
                        she saw your god-hands reaching in
to manipulate and
extort her.

She was wrong, of course.

You were making good on your promise.
You would come through for her in her frailty.
You did – but

it was a promise you made more to yourself than her,
And she let her illogical mind
        never analytical to begin with
        now razed and blinded by grief and loneliness
                        (there was nothing to work with)
poison your good deed,
you were both dolls now.

Eight years later she died lovelessly.

She retreated into her sitting room
        the only part of the house that stayed the same
        after you moved in –
                the walls closed in to contain it
                constrict it
a hospital bed and vinyl chair with commode,
and the brown laminate floor
        just like
        her lolly sticks.

You administered painkillers
Admitted the nurses
Negotiated with your estranged brother.

but her paranoia rotted everything
and your hands cared with compassion but not love.

Gone, now,
the dolls’ houses remain.
An inheritance of clutter
in a house you bought.

You answer the phone
                                        breathlessly
      ­                                  aggressively.
You have been heaving the big one up the stairs
        that sack of compost
        that heavy conscience of yours.

You will be heaving those ******* dolls’ houses around
until I have to buy your house and care for you.
But I am telling you now:
        I am putting them in a skip
        the moment I have the chance.

They are not imbued with the joy they gave her
any more than
                        by keeping them safe from landfill
                        you can imbue them with the love you withheld.

They are painted lolly sticks and sewn hessian.
They don’t contain any more of her
than the bits of paper she kept
        passwords and bank balances
        dates and instructions for the Sky box
There is nothing left of her to protect now.

Open up the hinged false front,
                tip out the miniatures
                let the little figures be free,
                                be landfill
                                (isn’t that what dying is anyway?)
all the tangible things she touched and loved
are not avatars for her touch and her love.

The past is not present through the preservation of objects.
The past is not erased by the advancement of time
                nor can it be undone by corrective action.

Now she is on the other side of the road,
        (why did the chicken
        behave.)
She has no further use for the things she left behind.
Robin Carretti Jun 2018
As her eyes feasted
on the spectrum of * colors

Fighting the love dust she
speared a smile traced quite
a while
like sartorial

Pardon me if this isn't love
What could be traceable
We need to face out fear
“Facebook” pictorial.

Seeing wings clean_ lines of elegance.

Whole again or fall again world negligence

Depending on someone like an alliance

To do something dependent or trust reliance

She flicked open her fan midsummer night dream

All she could see was the dust of his  jacket
and seam, ((Judy Jupiter))
My mom the tailor seamstress

Her angelic feathers coming
out of his pocket

Exquisitely detailed he towers over her locket

He traced her fingers felt
plug-in software delicate care

Hotwire too many people swear or ridicule

Biblical sense of satire molecule he traced your fire
and desire "Saint Andrews" cross

Sal-tire flames building caught inside
Bruce Spring teen fire

Women of the fairies mound of
ghost felt superior

Fairies Emperor of any kind to boast
But why so inferior was it written inside
the interior
Those chandeliers she was sung
like their musketeers

Supercilious with an arrogance, not quite a host.

Red ****** heart wine toast.

Cruel to be kind love her madly composition.

“Like Dust” modern ages better times ammunition

“He Seeks” her let it be.

Ancient Greeks nymphs Eve me
Apple Jubilee so "Glee"
So fumble he doing the crossword jumble

Further away fairies French art- traceable
  so notably
pulled you a noticeable
another trace of her divine waist

He lifted her torso how he admired you
felt his breeze like the instrument Mastro

Took the bad spirits away he sneezed.

Wickedly shadow face he lurks on the wall dark ages,
English Tudor in fairy of stages rock and roll ages
He wasn't the bread sourdough  so much to plow
poppy seeds like a paradox pardon me I never promised
you
Fairy Rose garden or lovely maiden
That salmon  solitude soft and moist
She loves surfing for foes and fairies
The winner  medieval sword suitor  
Being fed by the lover

Emails flew like dust things were as
old as rust
lingered all around Robin Redbreast
What eggs of a fairy nest

So traceable he touched you lovable

computer flickered tinker bell

Swift steps Nutcracker Ballet
from Vancouver to ponder over

Celestial Fairies around Mystical

Blowing in the wind speaks of the
dust of a click

Scarlet fever resolution in flocks

Like Monk reunion wings spread to live it

Just breath it traces of another angelic face
To be reborn again the revelation

How it enhanced transformed digital form slick

Strong spiritual being she’s picked

Her name was Joan of Ark

“Robin Good-fellow” shined over the Lunar

Like her chosen fairy of the tooth all marked

Those fairies always near us to guide us and tell us

Who we really are
The world unknown who cares?

Shakespeare to be or not to be
Let it be fairies, diaries. Monasteries,
Please freshen my Blueberries, Sherri babies
Four seasons fairies traceable or their wings
pulling me back
Love uncontrollable, my feather pillows remarkable,
What eludes like a prelude to the faires the
Epcot  center middle of attention her
drawing you could see the lines incredible
40 winks of fairies the Grecian oceans
Smiles in one blink unstoppable

The fairies powerful hands to trace

All over your good spirited complexion face
Fairies are all around us don't you think so? But you are so fire flamed need to be desired and well tamed. Are we well behaving all satires and fairy divine smiles how long do they last  are they wishful more hopeful or our wings are traced by someone that is fearful
Right off of the 7 train,
Irish Catholic schoolgirls spilling
out of Jahn's like marbles
Their plaid skirts against exposed brick
bellies full of kitchen sink

The produce stand next door
eggs .60 a dozen, milk one dollar
Now converted into a bodega
or maybe even a small
Muslim prayer room

I bought my first album
at a record store on 82nd
The brown paper bags, thin as bible pages
It spun on the Victrola in my
parents' Tudor

The yellowing wallpaper smelled of
my mom's Virginia Slims
And sounded of my dad's Vermouth
His own liver fried
with onions, just as he liked it
Alaric Moras Nov 2020
You waded through memories
on your throne
All of us look on, smiling,
False courtiers, pretend lovers
To the hag who was queen
Your Tudor eyes crinkle

As you pretend joy
At this false homage
From this worthless court,
All bows and manic grins
shining winter twilight coldly on you

You see Death in their eyes
As once before in your sister's
When her Spanish heart
Sent yours to the Tower

But your head did not roll on its green,
As your mother's once did
For tearing Christendom in two
For daring
To think
That a woman
Could have
A voice

You stroke Queen Anne's jewels
With her fingers,
The ones she gave you
When she loved your father
Despite all it cost the world

We, the victors of the Elizabethean age
Laugh at you, Elizabeth, aged,
****** Queen
Whose lover's letters litter
The back of her tear-stained pillow

When your cold Tudor eyes finally close
And end the dynasty first founded
On a woman's vicious piety,
Know that you,

Lilibeth,
Liquid eyes
that sunk a Thousand Ships,
Tinkling laughter
that tore men asunder,
Iron fist
that quashed a myriad hopes,
will not be mourned.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2017
oh! woe is me and woe is thee,

this noble, royal but blighted line,
this now benighted House of York,
its reign hath ended,
its famous, familiar format felled by an
enhancing, advancing Tudor technology blade,
and now lays bloodied in Bosworth Field,
both Richard III and
his Boswell biographer,
Sir Eliot of York,
no more,
unto history's flocculent dust of bones and
lost manuscripts
now forever
consigned

the lathe of mocking shouts of
"Long Live the King,"
cut the fingertips still searching too many
pull down menus,
all penned in a modern
faint hearted font

these guides,
some above and some below,
their exact location discoverable
only by the pain of new childbirth,
not worthy Maestro,
of the indignity
of trial and error

'pon my soul, these menus,
alas, give no guidance intuitive on
how to save this, my newest folio,
in the lady-in-waiting status of
draft

history is a usurping, scheming Mother Queen,
seeking power advantageous for her own issue,
but new bloodlines gain ascendancy inevitable,
but this focal turning point,
came upon us yeoman folk unannounced,
like a medieval black plague slaughtering
our poetic composure -
why were we not consulted?

hath England not taught us plainer folks,
the singular lesson of tradition,
the value immense of retaining
what has gone before,
that all hallowed must be kept,
and some changes
turned aside,
another cheek of change,
must be refused!
  
'tis no accident of fate
that the Crown Jewels
in the Tower
do reside,
the selfsame place many other
Kings and Queens
were Tudor dispatched to meet a ****** end

the smiling, soothing sayers
gentle the troubled masses,
with whimsy and whimpers of
"this too shall pass,"
and promises that the contempt of familiarity,
shall soon enroll and enfold
all untended and now untenured objections

but my memories yet mourn the loss of
simpler times and a simple place that welcomed an Ameddican
back in nought '13, and where he has placed his trust
in its servers and its Yorkshire servant to keep his
thousand plus poems pillowed safe

so no more changes,
by your leave,
do not forget the no longer mighty Tudors,
were themselves felled by times childless ravages,
no more emendations,
if you please,
lest these hoary hairs mine yet turn,
a whiter shade of pale

surely undesired,
yet one more revolution
from these formerly
English shores to come arising,
haunting thine
venerated palaces of poetry!
seriously, I like the new format though I must say finding my way around on a small iPhone is not trial and error, but trial by fire!
Donall Dempsey Jul 2018
"BE NOT AFRAID OF THEM THAT **** THE BODY."
( for Wendy Falla  )

Perotine Massey
is giving birth

amidst the flames
of 1556.

Her belly bursts open
with the fire's ire

and her fair-haired man child
is born in Death's embrace

"to be consumed
to ashes."

A man named House
snatches the new born from the flames.

But the child is ordered to be
thrown back!

Birth and Death
the same to him.

A born martyr.

An horrendous Herodian act
by this "...graceless generation

of Popish tormentors..."
this the era of Mary ****** Tudor.

Now over 400 years away
I stare into the Past

the heat of this summer's day
making my skin blsiter

a yellow butterfly alights upon
the Commemorative bronzed words

held in place
by a spider's web

it trembles every
now and then

in both past
and present

flying between
both times

"...faithful unto
death..."
Guillemine Gilbert and Perotine Massey were sisters, who lived with their mother, Catherine Cauchés (sometimes given as "Katherine Cawches"). Perotine was the wife of a Norman Calvinist minister, who was in London, possibly to avoid persecution. The three women were brought to court on a charge of receiving a stolen goblet. Although they were found to be not guilty of that charge, it emerged that their religious views were contrary to those required by the church authorities. They were returned to prison in Castle Cornet and later found guilty of heresy by an Ecclesiastical court held in the Town Church and handed over to the Royal Court for sentencing where they were condemned to death.

The execution was carried out on or around 18 July 1556.[2]:39 All three were burnt on the same fire; they ought to have been strangled beforehand, but the rope broke before they died and they were thrown into the fire alive. John Foxe recorded that Perotine was "great with child" and that "the belly of the woman burst asunder by the vehemence of the flame, the infant, being a fair man-child, fell into the fire".

The baby was rescued by a W. House and laid on the grass] taken by the Provost to the Bailiff, Hellier Gosselin who ordered that "it should be carried back again, and cast into the fire."

On the death of Queen Mary (1558), the Bailiff and the Roman Catholic élite of the island were subjected to a series of commissions and investigations encompassing not only the circumstances of the execution of the women, but also embezzlement; James Amy, the Dean, was committed to prison in Castle Cornet and dispossessed of his living. Gosselin was dismissed from his post in 1562 but along with the Jurats managed to obtain a pardon from Elizabeth I.

Reactions to the executions played a role in the rise of Calvinism in the Channel Islands.

In 1567 Thomas Harding criticized Foxe's account, not for his description of the event, for which Foxe quotes eye-witnesses and official documents, but on the grounds that Perotine Massey was responsible for the death of her own child; had she revealed in court that she was pregnant, the execution would have had to have been postponed until after the birth.

A memorial plaque to the martyrs can be found on the Tower Hill steps in Saint Peter Port, near the site of the execution. It was unveiled at a commemorative service on 24 April 1999.

"Be not afraid of them that **** the body.."
(MATTHEW 10:28)

Faithful unto death........Rev 2:16
John F McCullagh Jun 2013
We all have heard of Lady Jane,
A Queen of England who briefly reigned.
Then Mary Tudor took the town
And soon thereafter took her crown.

There’s been Queens like Liz
whose reigns won’t end.
Disposable Queens like Anne Boleyn.
These days, with thrones in short supply
It’s the crown of Beauty
For which girls vie .

Denise Garido had thought that she
had won cosmetic Royalty.
They gave her roses
and placed her crown.
Then one day latter
It all came down.

“A error in math!” the pageant proclaimed.
A drunken judge had misspelled names.
Far from being Queen as thought
Ms. Garido had come in fourth!

It’s Humiliation of a sort
To find out one is an afterthought
To be named Queen just for one day,
Then have the honor stripped away..

The actual winner was quite buff
and had gone to Vegas in a huff.
At least Denise, you needn’t cry
You beat out the Transgendered guy!.
Denise Garido stripped of her title as Miss Canada Universe after a reign of 24 hours
The Noble Soul Has Reverence For Itself

Some saw steel as a hurdle
A material, creatively, infertile
It had no use in a Tudor Chapel
As void an object as Eve’s apple

Innovation died with, past, ingenuity
A true lost sense of congruity
This defined the apparent nature of a coward
A form vacant in Howard
…(A car electric powered,  Clear history soured.)

P.S Eter Ellers

Walked in, mud on his shoe
The substance looked like a mound of poo
Cleaned it off in a decorative pool
Down river, ran the stool

Birdie Num Nums scattered about
Soaked with water from a concrete spout
Furniture moves with a life of it’s own
The will to which is hardly known

An invited pest
An awkward guest
Painted skin
The Party is FIN

Futuristic Nostalgia**

Two are split by the same division
A line drawn with accurate precision
One's caught in the hands of a time piece running fast
Frightened by setting it too far past
Another’s caught in a backwards flock
Allowing time to tenderly stalk
Neither finds it clear to see
Present tense is the place to be
Terry Collett Jun 2015
Lizbeth finds
dinnertimes
a right chore

sitting there
at the oak
table with

her moody
mother there
facing her

her father
glum as hell
beside her

and Lizbeth
trying hard
to ignore

both of them
its beef stew
thick gravy

and drowned out
vegetables
you're quiet

Mother says
anything
wrong with you?

nothing's wrong
Lizbeth says
gazing at

the beef stew
you've a mood
I can tell

Mother says
if the girl
wants silence

why complain
Father says
I know her

and you don't
Mother says
to Hubby

Lizbeth stares
at Mother
I'm just on

nothing else
Lizbeth moans
on the rag

Auntie's come
sandwich week
THAT'S ENOUGH

Mother shouts
rattling
the windows

I won't have
you talking
like that here

at mealtimes
it's not nice
Lizbeth stares

at Father
as he mouths
the beef stew

in silence
did you know
Lizbeth says

that Tudor
King Henry
the 7ths

mother was
married at
12 years old

and had him
at 13
Mother sighs

your point is?
that's my age
she sprouted

her king sprog
at my age
Mother glares

at her child
with her dark
angry eyes

Lizbeth thinks
of Benny
pretending

he's upstairs
in her room
stark naked

all waiting
eat your stew
Mother says

no more talk
of those things
outside it's

countryside
fluttering
butterflies

a bird sings.
LIZBETH AND HER PARENTS A MEAL AND A ROW IN 1961
Cody Edwards Feb 2010
***
Face all of crag
Lined out in youth
And smoothed where Time thinks best.
Parenthetical mouth.
Asterisk-ine blush spreads
Where Doubt lingers.
Question marks pronounced
Exquisitely through lips.
Like a tactile symphony,
No harsh chord exists.
Not in the lines of the face
Though it looks as if its
Planes were imported from disparate periods.
From a Baroque cheek
To a Tudor brow
And a smirk that even James would be
Hard-pressed to translate.

To my initial A. Long may he reign;
For I feel in truth whatever he may feign.
© Cody Edwards 2010
marieLIZ forte Jul 2018
remember when i was a female jew in tudor england ?
i spoke to rabbi julia neuerberger recently and she said
i dress so much more flamboyantly now than i did then
we wondered if it wasn t because gibbets don t line the streets now like they did then
they re in government and civil service departments
but they do a PR job that could confuse you if you weren t already mad
with so many spilled lakes of blood ,angry faces ,painful intrusions ,violent assaults and verbal conflicts
and you just anticipate the rippling of a cold stream
and the contact of a cats' tongue on the nape of your neck
i wonder if we could diffuse like iodine in vituperative vapour
and perfect the hiding technique we acquired in tudor times but forgot to adopt last century
HIDE DON T SEEK
THERE ARE NO ANSWERS
c marie forte
John F McCullagh Nov 2011
King Richard and his honor guard
saw advantage slip away.
Northumberland betrayed his king
and stayed out of the fray.


King Richard spied his rival's arms
on Bosworth field that day.
Lord Stanley on the sidelines stood
as if in Richmond's pay.

Richmond did not care to fight.
His men struck Richard down.
They stabbed at him repeatedly
till blood royal soaked the ground.

The battered and contested crown
-found in a thornbush there
-was placed on Henry Tudor's head.
as Henry knelt in prayer.

The naked body of his foe
was tied across an ***.
Had ever a King of England
been so dishonored once he'd passed?

Two princes of the House of York
were in the Tower Lodged
Their deaths ascribed to Richard's hands
the truth- known but to God.
August 22, 1485 The battle of Bosworth Field. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (house of Lancaster) defeats Richard Plantagenet III -house of York) and founds the Tudor dynasty
Peter Cullen Oct 2014
The Spanish navy strong enough,
maybe too strong for their worth.
Led with the cross and then the sword.
Never questioning their Lord.

The infantry, the Tudor reign,
grabbing at what's there to gain,
As history repeats itself,
living as a helpless serf.

The Tribesman who once conquered all,
dying with the lions roar.
As history repeats itself,
nothing ever making sense.

The Christians, Jews,
Muslims, all,
each one shall forever fall.
Upon their blades,
those raised in hate,
Each one to their own sweet faith.
Francie Lynch Sep 2015
We've all heard the story about Bonnie and Clyde
How they met, eloped and died.

And we're tired of hearing
About Henry and Ann,
And their shameless lives
Back in Tudor England.
When their marriage broke,
Ann lost her head,
With one stroke.

I won't bother you with the story
Of Napoleon and Josephine,
And that messy business
With the guilotine.

You know Caesar and Cleo
Put on quite a show,
They had a long distance relationship
From Rome to Egypt.
But it ended badly.
She by a snake bite,
Him by Marc Antony.

These famous couples didn't tarry;
They were harried
Before they married;
They met and wed,
But were too soon dead.

Now Byron and Colleen
Met when teens,
Byron was sixteen,
Colleen just fifteen.

They lived together,
To begin,
He loved her,
She loved him.
This wasn't living
As they say, “In sin.”
No rings lingered
On wedding fingers:
No bands of gold
To wear 'til old.
No license, no Registrar,
No vows were spoken,
But their silent vows
Were never broken.
They didn't need
A wedding token.
The cost was never the issue here,
Although Byron always claims he's poor.

And thus they carried on.
Boy, did they carry on.
In a romantic spree.
First came Jordan,
Then Jamie.
And thus they passed
Their years together,
In seeming status quo;
A happy well-matched couple,
For all intents, and show.
They lived well,
Ate well too,
Dressed and drove,
Worked and strove
For friends and family.
And all along,
The two of them
Have been our pleasure
To know.
After all, they're behind
Their doors,
That's all we we need to know.
And thus, they carried on.
Boy, they carried on.

Years down the road
They honey-mooned,
And after this, they married;
Like Benjamin Button
All seems reversed.
Should they continue
This backward style,
Then in awhile,
Following this reception,
They'll probably meet
At their conception.
Should they continue
In this fashion,
Their marriage should end
With their parents' ******.

This is
The Ballad of Byron nd Colleen,
and if truth be told,
You're still just teens.
My friends got married after 40 years together. Read at their reception.

— The End —