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Anais Vionet Sep 2023
I bought the shroud of Turin
the vatican had a sale
they have legal expenses
and priests that needed bail.

It was just an old dusty cloth
so I put it in the wash
that Tide detergent, never fails
all the smudges and stuff washed off.
don’t get excited, i was raised a catholic
Chapter XXI
Hegira to Patmos

They dropped their moorings from Cala Cogone early, when the tide seemed to be separated from the waters like a head distanced from its body. On a lavish and romantic day they went to Genoa, to continue the logistics of the trip to Piacenza. During the trip Etréstles was stretched out in the bow under a Sun that seemed to be fearsome as it was a digestive task that would make him ingest his own dream, which perhaps he aspired to be more than a journey. While he slept, at the helm Etréstles dressed in a black robe and the comrades also sleeping with dreams that they painted with sign gestures on their faces.

Dream of Etréstles: "With the memory off-center ..., I was still in Izzana, dancing by the clouds on gray tulles of the layers of the sky that tried to stop being a Kingdom without a Crown and Sword". They glimpsed the stones melting and turning into gauze juxtaposed to the aerosolites that unfolded from the Sorcery, landing on the hands and heads of Vernarth and Himself. As he continued his dreamy journey, he dialogued with the auxiliary legate of his own dream. “He tells her that he sees them beyond where their liturgies collide. They cross eroding the vanished and itinerant reason”. He gets up and takes the moorings of the ship and ties them to his neck. Then everyone cooperates to walk along the edge of the ship, which all moved barefoot. This is how I would wake up!

Vernarth tries to wake him up, shakes him, but doesn't wake up. And when he tried to avoid him from sleep, he saw that he had the moorings around his neck, along with two Unicorns who were escorting him and were looking towards infinity, auspicious that Genoa was already coming in front of their horns. The others began to wake up and ate reclining, almost as if without any desire to get up from the deck full of self-sliding linen, which allowed everyone to pass their own meals, including those that were semi-consumed rolling on the deck. Etréstles,  transferred the dream to Vernarth, once he went to his bedroom to rest before they touched the roadstead at the foot of the homonymous promontory, 36 km from Genoa.  Portofino, close to the hydro form of the Portofino Regional Natural Park.  Being able to find different entrance doors through S. Rocco, Portofino Vetta and Nozaregoino  that led you to paths with different levels of accessibility and landscape. On the route of the path that traveled from Northwest to Southwest on the same promontory, he received the full beauty of the Mediterranean vegetation, with its beautiful pines, bluish and clean waters of the Mediterranean, which filled his lungs and especially his stem, which silenced of peace to those who accompany you through this interesting and beautiful Natural Park with deep blue eyes.
Vernarth is wrapped with two layers of linen and stands in between eclipsing each of the Unicorns. They pass her horn through her pectoral, as if wanting to insinuate affection. But her propitiated gesture was to crown her with the Power of her phalanx, the impetus in Gaugamela, an Onyx Crown, to lighten the burden of sleep and wake up before reaching the shores of Genoa.
Calling in Genoa, they all descend in a separate part and say goodbye from afar, gesturing with their hands. Their ramblings revealed multi-level radiographs of the resolved aura that invited them to an enclave hostel, to re-enter the world of their daily chores. The Unicorns who would return back to Sardinia stayed on the ship that was in the blue bay. They positioned themselves at the bow one and at the stern the other, to lighten the sails and return to Izzana.

Vernarth and Etréstles walked with their bags, letting go of their feet towards La Via ** Settembre, they travel in an east-west direction, next to Corso Italia, the promenade that runs along the promenade, which is one of the favorite places to reform the destination of Piacenza. From this road they moved near the adjacent carriage station to the Caruggio neighborhood in Sottoripa. Here they entered an inn to eat and drink liqueurs made from natural herbal recipes and sweet citrus, some fish with bread, sauce and Genovés sourdough. to satisfy their hunger.
They had dinner and opened the exit to the terminal. Before, they went to the Ponte Monumentale where the church dedicated to Santa Rita is, called Iglesia de la Consolación, whose entrance, at the level of the old streets, is slightly lower than the current street. They pass a porch and enter. "Almost like a grand cloister sensation they perceived during their stay, as if centuries had passed, but which never ended in the wanderings of any secular period. It was the impression once entered and soaked on this road, which still remains active. From this original cloister, the invocation of images on the sides placed towards the church towards Via ** Settembre, as well as the closed portal in the market access plaza on Via Galata, recur, while the other two sides are they completed attractions to admire when the eastern market in Genoa appeared before them ”.

When they entered, the masks were passed over the bones of their faces, indulgent towards both faces of the visitors, under a freshness of gravitational atmospheric fragrance, perhaps from the connected baptismal font or the lateral nave or the three naves separated by square pillars illuminating them. This is where Vernarth places his right hand on his forehead and his mouth, as a sign of catechesis detached from The Vault, the central nave and the counter-facade that were painted in fresco in 1874 by Giuseppe Isola, after reading about the intertextual verifying thus Vernarth. (Visioni dell'Apocalisse, Gloria di Nostra Signora della Consolazione and Giuditta rientra trionfante in Betulia), while Etréstles frenziedly admitted the frescoes through the side aisles that are the work of Giovanni Quinzio at an angle close to him. Observing everything, he was already indoctrinating to reprint new vigor to enter Piacenza triumphantly and head to the Region of Patmos. Giuseppe Isola's fresco was the great motive that struck his reason for being where he was to continue the threads upon threads of his lineage as the great Commander of the troops of Gaugamela and his Phalanges. Here is the church in its first tune with the duty of limitlessness before its steps to dominions that will make it recover their powers, from where they were first seen dressing in the clothes of an innocent child.


In the apse, there was the choir singing baroque pieces, and followed by elaborate wooden stalls from the 17th century. In the Altars on the left, on the Fifth Altar, Etréstles, captures a simultaneous vision. From that moment when it was the disappearance of this Santa Maria della Pace church, which could have been one structure on top of the other, perhaps in ruins but if the columns could go further from where their originals are born. Until then both had separated from each other, and they would meet again here in the apse, where they never lose sight of each other again, to turn towards the exit that required them to leave the sacred precinct. In the terminal, a grayish float awaited them, with silver trim on the edges of the structure, at the top of the front roof it said "Where you must never go and be". It was just the transport of an allegorical float. They were theatrical traveling artists, who had places available for travelers to Piacenza. The one that they just approached to move to the home, where they had to register at their own will and rejoin this excellent session "Parapsychological Regression".The Trebbia valley, a few kilometers from Piacenza. Vernarth noted that a shaft of the chariot made a strange sound. To which he notified the driver, telling him what he caught on the rear axle of the carriage. They go down to inspect all; not being able to detect anything that it would suppose would be an anomaly of filming of the instrumental east. Etréstles sees that some steeds were grazing on some meadows and he tells them all. Vernarth warns him and immediately heads to them. It reaches only a sorrel that was running its tongue over its hoof. The others flee. Vernarth approaches, and notices that he had a wound in his left hoof, noticing that in the center there was a strip of Green color, He takes his leg, and examines it. He takes out his dagger and begins to remove the stake that was inserted into his damaged leg. The others were gone, restarting the trip to Piacenza. Etréstles managed to climb a steed, and followed him - The float remained without them supposedly to arrive safely at Piacenza. But at 5 km, before reaching the city they are struck by a lightning bolt from a sudden storm. What misdirects his route - the passengers were left intact, only fatally suffered the loss of the driver. (It was verified by Vernarth when he arrived at his home in Piacenza).   As  Vernarth rode fast in the storm, trying to catch up with the carriage. Stress them towards the same to reach their brother. They rode propagating the pastures that passed near the forests of Val Trebbia. When the storm intensified instantly, it was wise to take refuge and wait for the flood to decrease. They were always close to each other. Etréstles about 18 km from Vernarth, they did not know it, but the horses sensed each other. They already distinguished, that they were close to each other, but it was necessary to take care of the horse, and have to check its hoof again. He checks it and notices that it had a green stripe in the four parts, like a pigment already placed concentrically in the middle of each hoof.


Ellipses Gaugamela - Final War
Vernarth bids farewells farewell. Once the Achaemenides are surrendered, he prepares to review them. Walk with Alikanto across the ****** plain. Reviewing his five hundred dead and three thousand wounded, he goes to recirculate in the footsteps of the attack, manages to see lead as a sentinel gathered wounded horses, but not serious. He approaches him and says Khaire; asking what unit they came from. He tells them of the Hosts of the command of Hefestion. The sentinel tells him, that he was enraptured by the fact before his eyes to see that all the horses of the line of Hefestion, Alexander the Great and Vernarth, to fascinate him that they had a green stripe on his left hoof. Wedge riders are formed, lining up the stable, towards the court of the guards and Macedonian monarchs. She dismounts from Alikanto and checks the chestnut trees, managing to insinuate that it could be Medea's ploy of the smiling charm towards her Hetairoi dancers, whose elite had bracelets on each leg on each chestnut. Also with the offensive weapon, they acted as the Macedonian's personal guard. Vernarth recalled that, before starting the offensive, with his blessed Xifos he inflicted light wounds on the left foot of his Phalanges in the act of "overtaking them before being stained by the enemy"

Vernarth says: Here is the cavalry that has received so much praise for «hammer» in the strategies, because it crushed the enemy units retained by the «anvil» or the «phalanx» that I had to command and lead the charge, intoning the riders. And even more the circumcisions that he gave them before entering combat. With the Hetairoi I was organizing squadrons of 200 to 300 soldiers, while they were checking the chestnut trees. In the campaign, they would ride the best horses, ******* or on the blanket, they were awarded the best weapons available. Each carried his long throwing spear Xyston, accompanied by a Kopis sword, for hand-to-hand combat, which in the interlude would defend his flax and bronze breastplate, with respective protective armbands and helmet, before lightly tackling his aggression . The horses were also partially protected, but not their hooves! I gave them the final instruction by decree to take them to the altarpieces and attend to them, so that they check their left hoof.Thus giving signs of great concern about the green stripe on each of its left hooves. Sentinel Hetairoi, with some of his servants, gather the animals and transport them where they have been ordered to tend and examine them. As the designs collapse over the night in gloomy litanies, Medea bursts into a great green outfit saying:

Medea: Vernarth, rancid are on my memory the potions and designs of those who want to talk about me or offer me in their lust.Where the zeal of anxiety deceives the wishful arms that welcome the victorious pleasure. Hooves are my skeptics and famous decisions, because I am weak in will but not in character. Green is the pouring of my converted powers into the veins of the horses. They were carriers in their eloquent ferocity. Instead of blood, I had sap from the magic vessels that I transferred to them so as not to doubt the doubts. Their object is that a green band was encased in their hooves as a sign of the Hipnos promontory through their Son Clovis, to plunge all the forests of the raging underworld, towards the heart of each "Valiant Hetairoi".


Outside ellipsis / near Piacenza
Vernarth and Etréstles in a post-storm clearing, a soft breeze greets them and they meet again, they greet Khaire! And together they reroute to the empty pastures, which would gradually begin to venture them through the farthest forests of the Val Trebbia. On some brown plains with poor colors that visited him falling as they faded on his mirage. From this unusual crossroads they will supremely perceive the closeness of Piacenza in their breathing.
Now they are in the vicinity of the Cimitero de Piaceza. Then they will have to go home on the Via Giovanni Codagnello, on the calendar of January 2020. The Parapsychological Regression continues.


Piacenza Cemetery, January 20, 2020
Vernarth and Etréstles entered the necropolis long before sunset. They were carrying a cake to celebrate Vernarth's birthday. Night Patrol joined the visit. In particular, they followed a night watch service that was active, trusting their guide Piacenza or the surrounding area, with 3 internal night patrol passages 365 days a year, for the rest of lives beyond all material life, perhaps turned into marble statues.
They hired a special service dedicated to the approved service for 2 people .; They were active during the caretaker's office opening hours (the same opening hours as the cemetery). With this service they overcame difficulties to walk after so much traveling. They leave the green-hoofed horses, now turned into statues. They request authorization from the entrance cemetery offices, to honor their belonging and to please those who visit them on their behalf. In Genoa, after having passed through the exterior without entering, they were ecstatic with the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa (the most monumental in Italy).But if they enter the Piacenza, where the sanitary monumentality passed through the real function of such an enclosure in the contingency. It was commented by the neighboring offices that the migration of corpses from Bergamos were moved to Modena, Acqui Terme, Domodossola, Parma, Piacenza to carry out the respective ceremonies. Due to the great Viral Pandemic that decimated a great majority of Italian citizens in these areas. Vernarth became aware of the current reality, saw how a gravedigger conversed with the crowds, there was a nurse, a doctor and a prodigal man who concentrated on uploading moods to those who were there, almost like a caster, to relieve them of this transitory despite humanity.
They continue past the pyramidal pines, to the central pavilion. They sit on the edge of some flagstones, and take the cake to celebrate their birthday. They sing a hymn and they both enjoy it lovingly. Etréstles saw that he had a little cream left on his nose and cheekbone, running his hand to remove it. In the instant, the guard calls them; it was time to go because it was time to close the compound. They say goodbye with a monumental hug paying tribute to their brother!


Etréstles says: Honors Vernarth, for your immeasurable Valor! It is a great contribution that we divide our work and commitments. From here I go to the Messolonghi Cemetery. I will only wait for the crescent moon to meet the Charioteer, then leave with him and my beloved Drestnia. My Xifos Sword in my right hand and the head that I cut off in my left hand, in Gaugamela before that rugged fate! Khaire, My honors Commander Etréstles!. It remains in the shadow of some pyramidal pine trees of this sublime night, and then they distance themselves. Vernarth leaves the compound heading towards his house relatively close to the cemetery, on the Via Giovanni Codagnello.


Final session in Vía Codagnello, Piacenza:
Vernarth enters opens the door and everyone is waiting for him. Huge groups of friends, work colleagues, family, their pets, and especially the Parapsychologist, who had commanded this whole great session. They all approach her and in the instant, Vernarth awakes abruptly from the parapsychological session. They stabilize it and check your vital signs. There were many days of this odyssey. His awakening was mediatic, since they were attentive to him to question him and confess everything, but he was clear that his purpose would lead him to the confines of Patmos along with Raeder and Petrobus. It remained only to wait for the tenuity of a simple immortal warrior to assist in the services of John the Evangelist. The parapsychologist says you have to wake up, you can no longer be AND stay here in this temporary tube!
Once he has refused to wake up, he takes the itinerary to return to Macedonia. The visibly worn and stunned parapsychologist demands that he give up and obey his command. The effort was unproductive, only letting himself be carried by the grip of his right hand, taking his other with great vigor to remove it from shamelessness, from whom he does not suppress his pride to who still remains wounded by the swords that bleed his soul in Gaugamela. "Everyone is amazed and resigned !, pointing out that he must have always been in the surroundings of his beloved Macedonia, cutting the bursts of succulent insolence on the same temperate cliffs, where some variation of the sounds of the wind would make him saddle his Alikanto to acclaim the gods who came looking for him ”

Vernarth is engulfed in ambivalence, almost celebrating his birthday and waking up from his parapsychological journey. Both will take place, but the session will continue irrevocably. After a few days close to the first day of the crescent moon, he greeted him from a privileged place on his house Etréstles de Kalavrita who was with the Charioteer in his car and Drestnia, they went in that masterful car to join the chores of the Koumetrium Messolonghi (Editorial Palibrio - USA) .So returning to Messolonghi, to meet his disciples and essences of the foundation of his naturalness.


Hegira to Patmos
On a gray day in July 1820. Piacenza slept under the ambush of the revolution, in Italy there was a situation similar to that of another European nation. Vernarth was preparing his last details with the parapsychologist, to undertake his Hegira to Patmos, since he was a revolutionary and this was of great motivation to emigrate from this constant stage of Wars and sociopolitical processes. Manage to be a participant in this revolt in the Piedmont area. Its ideological axes were liberalism and nationalism. Given that the most affected countries were those of southern Europe (episodes from other areas, such as Germany or France, were much less important), with Spain as epicenter of a movement that extended to Italy and Portugal, and on the other hand Greece; It has been called the Mediterranean cycle as opposed to the Atlantic cycle that had preceded it in the previous generation (the first liberal revolutions or bourgeois revolutions, produced on both sides of the ocean: the Independence of the United States -1776- and the French Revolution -1789- ). As compromised great principalities of much of Europe were banned, it participates in great dissolution of collisions and invasions that involved it. In this way he would liberate his Homeland, especially his province of Piacenza.

Although the "Kingdom of Italy" as such did not exist, there were two great kingdoms that participated in the Revolutions of 1820: the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Piedmont. However, most of the revolutionary movements were driven by secret societies, such as coal. The Kingdom of Piedmont was also one of the most affected, since it was at the epicenter of Italian nationalism. It was controlled by Víctor Manuel I, member of the House of Savoy and defender of the Old Regime. The monarch had only been on the throne for 6 years, since he returned to Turin in 1814 due to the defeat of Napoleon. Since his return, various factions within the country advocated for a unification of all the Italian kingdoms. The unstable situation of its neighbor, the Kingdom of Naples, caused the carbonarians within Piedmont to revolt in March 1821.

Conclusive Hegira ellipsis to Patmos:
After this great conflict, he orders his parapsychologist to resume his final session in Patmos; he begins the procedure for the era that he had to trespass anachronistically, returning to the era of the Macedonian Empire. The parapsychologist asks him time, place, dates, clothing, customs, and manages to meet his request. He enters the portal, and in the backwaters of Messolonghi he meets Raeder and Petrobus. They were close to this heroic land, Messolonghi in the Gulf of Patras, the capital of Aetolia-Acarnania. Nothing less than in the land of his Brother Etréstles "Koumeterium Messolonghi".


"They all approach the vicinity, pray three times to heaven, and manage to be abducted to the underworld of Messolonghi. When they were snooping through the catacombs, they make out the surroundings of a luminous vault, thus distinguishing a woman passing by with others. It was the beautiful nymph Eurydice inaugurating The Constitution of a new Government”.
Eurydice and the gravediggers worked for the new government to be instituted. They were reviewing the last ground plans that converged on the tenth cemetery.
Eurydice ...: with the absence of Etréstles and Drestnia we will make her awakening continue, whose awakening phase closely relates to her wife.
Grave ...: Where do we start?
Eurydice ...: by the southwestern statue of Ashurbanipal, to pay tribute to Botsaris. Then, we will go up to receive the cordoned off tomb of Bramante and Ghiberti, so that the latter can advise us regarding the work to be erected.
They climb the northeast pavilion to the foundations of a mausoleum. They approach the slab of Ghiberti, who was loosening his fingers, sitting on the shore of a Pyramid-shaped cypress. Bramante vanished into the gray beams of light...

Ghiberti ...: I already know your mission. I am summoned to the Council on the day of the sailors' return. To start, they went to the mines to look for precious stones, stones to build Markos Botsaris.
Eurydice ...: Good! Well, in nine moons and nine suns they will return from the coasts of Morocco, the last docking point, so that they can then return. At the moment they are already warned.
Just back, there was a Lover with her right hand holding her chin.

Inamorada In Love ...: Five centuries ago I awaited my awakening, my lover promised to return ... with these verses...:
"I want to be different,
I want to take you my love...
and tell you that by missing you
there is no greater sadness than not seeing you ...
Forgive me for not coming back...
before my absence caused your death,
Wait for me ... I'm going to tell you ... how I miss you
Along with my immortality of feeling...!  How I miss you...!!

... He still tells me this, but from here, under the embankment of the cemetery I feel that he is far away and I can do nothing. Also, I have it in my memory and one day we will meet here. The Enamorada continues to sit and watch armies of soldiers being thrown into graves, their bodies severed. As she continues; ... there is more life here than on the surface, and the trenches replace the concave wombs, as vessels! As everything here lives, even the flowing and hallucinatory invocations are perceived from the Poets, Alchemists and Astronomers. They make the invisible go in a formidable adventure to the site of their magical hallucinations.
Eurydice ...: Stay on your stone, with your chiffon dress; here you will see the arrival of Etréstles. He will bring news from other lands to answer you. Now dispense if we delay, sadness will fall on the other beings who are being buried and transhumated. The Enamorada remained on the stone with her knees resting on her chest. Eurydice and her assistants went to their rooms. "
All this they manage to witness, and then go in search of Etréstles on the same tenth cemetery floor. Raeder and Petrobus were laughing and at the same time they were impressed, as if wanting to remember him when they have to leave directly from Messolonghi to Patmos, towards the Dodecanese region. In the meantime Vernarth was searching for his brother in all the nearby areas of the catacombs flashing penetrating light, unable to find him. He arrives at the ninth cemetery and is fascinated by a feminine image that would seem like a phantasmagorical chimera ..., it was Drestnia moistening some ferns on some crypts making gestures to see them already grown, even if they had just been planted...!

They approach her intimacy and ask her greetings, Drestnia answers them abstractedly that Etréstles traveled to Patmos to applaud the maiden ceremonies that would be wed in the spring in the nearby meadows. Being able to settle in The Monastery of Zoodochos Pigi, and who later went to the hills of Castelli, as it has been known that everything has been celebrated on a hill that many hundreds of years ago has sheltered our historical fragrances in the unity of the ethereal until the present. Such ruins among some works as well as the Temple of Apollo that will continue to survive with its prevailing mystery not revealed.
Etréstles gives them their congratulations and wraps his arms around Drestnia. They evacuate the cemetery, remaining abstracted in the internal darkness of the catacombs with fewer lights than a feasible twilight of darkness, as if immediately leaving Etréstles to be with him in the spring, shedding light on herself taking them to the Castelli hills, which they would figure in the sweetened exaltation of the pollinations of the nymphs on the maternal and ****** maidens.

They go out and spread their impulses over the promontory of the Koumeterium of Messolonghi with Raeder and Petrobus on Raeder's shoulders. Vernarth invoked the north with her staff where Alikanto would appear with her hooves with greenish stripes.

Raeder says:  Let's go. On those warm currents to follow we will not unite you Vernarth. Smiling, the fantastic boy danced, forming figures that enlivened him to hold on to the legs of Petrobus. They both stared at Vernarth and raised high above the warm clouds. Beneath the Messolonghi miniature, she had Vernarth's sights on them; she was putting reins and her Hoplite tunic, to mount Alikanto. He looks around and makes a big sign to Raeder to follow him to where he was, they suspend themselves and manage to go back to the highest mass of misty airs that would take them against the clock towards Patmos to meet Saint John and Etréstles.
HEGIRA TO PATMOS  /  COPYRIGHT
Ian Beckett Nov 2012
Is a million memories ...

Like your favourite Beatles track,
Like breakfast coffee in a Turin bar,
Like the old friends that never grow old,
Like your favourite Italian pasta in Rome,
Like summer swims in warm sea with cold rain,
Like the aria which sends shivers down your spine,
Like the magical taste of Gaja Barberesco for lunch,
Like coming home to a smiling face after a long trip,
Like your child buying you dinner for the first time,
Like how beautiful she was on your wedding day,
Like your first date movie being on TV again,
Like capturing a moment in a photograph,
Like rereading your favourite book,
Like watching Casablanca again,
Like publishing your first book,
Like living every moment...

... And a million more to come.
Third Eye Candy May 2013
learn your questions.
discern the myriad as One, and console your misery with service.
pour your fumes into the heart of mars; press pause when your gods
make you nervous.  and when they don't exist, you whistle while you hurt...
as if
the Master Plan
had jokes.

but know this.
your cathedrals have killed people, and your faith was crushed -
whenever sincere. so i
bid you peace. a peace with
tranquil thoughts and night lemmings;
squealing
right over the Cliffnotes to Oblivion, in vapid terror and happy herds.
their little parachutes; cumbersome, with snapped threads to a forum, that unpack, once filled
with air and
parents .
you inherit
the edge of your vague notions.... that expand
upon dissent .
heretic tick
BOOM !

then make love, all day Wednesday

learn your questions. gain the gist
of your out-risible ignorance and invent the humor of  "precise submission"
as humility will boast , enthroned above the kingdom of desire
aching hermetic in a mob. but knobs -
that turn,  despite severed hands
turn Truth's *****.

learn your throat.
hold only the notes to your music
to a golden standard !
Brandish your exile, like a rogue -
from it's sheath of Turin
[ and flash! ]   it's blade of grasp
in Walt Whitman's
Verile Phase...

face your loved ones, but only
with the face
that got away.
return...
return unbridled and
unkempt. more windswept
than lost and found  
haunted...

and remember

eat whatever
you **** well please
because
" **** Dr. Phil, Really ? "
Have you ever  seen an anorexic
Buddha ?

and bought that one ?

if you have...
you might be
ascetic.
Michael Siebert Jan 2013
I pierced my septum
with a magic bullet.
Is Texas really the reason
the president’s dead?
I’d give anything for a scotch
despite never having had one.
I loaded my gun with Pall Malls
and shot my brother dead in the woods.
That ******* is the Able
to my Cain,
the scissors to my paper.
Pap has no son.
**** Huckleberry,
lying *******.
I scratched my *** with steel wool.
I drew blood,
(in pencil haw haw)
I’m tired,
despite being well-rested.
I ****** everyone in Gomorrah
over spring break.
Add salt to my pillar.
And you say I’m *******
immature.
Get loaded
in Bozeman.
I hate that you hate me.
The KKK wasn’t
this spiteful.
Dying on a burning cross,
I confess my sins
to Richard Dreyfuss
and ******* on
Judas.
He wipes it off
with the Shroud of Turin
but the streak is still there.
I sold my brand and licensing rights
for thirty pieces of silver.
I ******* came on Judas.
I never did anything to you
that you didn’t do to me.
My dad is bigger than
yours.
I’d abort myself
just to get a reaction.
I’m going to hell,
but at least I’ll finally eat
at the cool kids’ table.
I’m done fighting
with people I don’t speak to.
So how about you just hit me,
you just
*******
hit
me.
I’ll launch into whatever the **** I want.
I’ll ******* SOAR,
like a ******* 747,
I’ll **** birds into my engines
and spray their guts wherever
I please,
because I’m finally done being manipulated.
****, I don’t think
I even started.
Boston Sydney Oslo London Berlin Montreal Ibiza Stockholm Lisbon Dublin....where are you?..Chicago Madrid Turin Liverpool....I need you home!....Tokyo India Rio Helsinki Milan Botswana....please come home....Gibraltar Alice Springs Zurich Tel Aviv St Helier Jerusalem....I really miss you x
Dionne Charlet Nov 2016
Sands traverse oceans to envelop me
within the coercion of a dream of Egypt
as I search the turquoise of the medallion in my hands
to match the gray-blue of his eyes.

Too long have I willed for him
to sail the Atlantic,
stride through the door,
and sweep me from haunting this view of London.
But for now I am left
to my own image and a pane,
so I muster the meat of my palm
within this sleeve of lace
to brush it across the glass for a clearer look,
yet my efforts have revealed
no more than engorged eyelids reflected…
manacles of me.

Behest of self,
maniacal I am slated
to perform involuntary tedium,
hopeful to unlock deeper meaning
within each hieroglyph,
once so purposefully etched in a semblance of bronze.

I long to surrender
to the warmth of the taste of iron
caught in his sights over a tomb blanketed in gold.

I will come for you, Daughter of Heaven and Earth.

Spontaneous peristalsis of phrase
connects with the drop
gurgling through the candid quiet
and I wonder
if the image that now reflects would indulge him,
or if he might ****** the lock of dark hair
that he cropped from my neck with the skill of an assassin
when our paths first crossed in Cairo.

Time has softened the image I hold of him;
his eyes are satin,
burning like a flag still waving
as his army advances over our forbidden dig.

There is something
sensation-like in downfall…
copious saline embodies the fractal curve.

I found no scrolls of the Book of the Dead.

Here in my olive skin I rot like a peach
that’s been left in a satchel
forgotten to dust of the ages
disturbed by picks and axes
that strike with the determination of discovery.
A peach, never to be savored;
never to nourish or to pleasure,
or be trampled by insects
and carried off in pieces
to the hollow of the ant queen.

My eyelids are hard to turn like wet pages
forced to envision a river that is not the Nile
where I am held within the binds of propriety,
corsetted, bustled, and locked out of Egypt
dammed from the salvation
of even an intermittent Dutchman’s finger
by dunes and shores and footfalls
to find words that stream in liquid resonance
where firm succumbs to self and
I can feel passion writhing through my intangibles.

Thusly, clouds form over a city that blackens and distorts
the way a river's reflection of my face
would ripple from the plunging body of a dove,
belly-up, encased in wings,
and two thousand miles from him.

Arousal is a moccasin seethed in spasms
of peristalsis and musculature
toward the beckoning pulse of breast.

Any hope for contact collapses into flesh,
venom sheathes each corpuscle,
and a woken neck flails in judgment
before the truth in his eyes
under the shadow of the Great Pyramid
where Ramses II lies supine
across the Turin Papyrus.

I imagine the other side of me
and where she might reflect when
all that there is in such a study
contributes to my wanting
to wreak my bellied freedom
beneath crevices that sink as crevices do
in downward angled layers
to withstand the ages.

Dark hair gleams in contrast,
more for strip of scalp
than the trickle of red down my back.

Breached like sugar that candid—
starburst wings of Monarchs dripping ancient like sunsets
over magenta and milky mauve in the reeds—
my ankles revealed and inverted to the sky they glean, yet...

his arrival is delayed
when the pistol ***** three times.
The still of my breast compounds
with the steady union of the dark, and
somewhere denial flows with the sands.

So cycles change, like a fable for Eternal.

“Daughter of Heaven and Earth,” written by Dionne Charlet, appears in print in Cairo by Gaslight, the second anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books.  Books in the series include New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528).  Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie. Look for the upcoming anthology Paris by Gaslight, which will feature a poem of the same title by Dionne.
A steampunk narrative poem of adventure and love lost in Cairo.
We can all spit on those tablets of stone,
the trinity's on hiatus,
the devil's alone,
School's out for training
it's raining hell fire and the bishops
are recording the antediluvian choir.

Noah's going to Goa,
A lot safer than here,
they say Indian beer's the best.
With his wood and an axe and
several packs of cool Cobra, he sails
into the wind and ends up in the Gobi.

On the edge of a rainbow
'jump Noah',
'don't go',
two people are shouting,
somebody's outing the sailor.

The choir got wrecked on microdot specks and
suspecting the worst, the bishops in Rome
all spit on the tablets hacked out from rough stone,
it was a quiet day in the Vatican, no miracles pronounced
in Perpignan, no Lady of Lourdes, no shroud of Turin,
only the blessing of Geneva dry gin.
Angels with harps all ****** as farts and
the devil sits alone.
Westley Barnes May 2012
NIETZCHE  YOU ****
YOU'VE RUINED MY LIFE

I was once so innocent Without You.

Now I can hardly contemplate the light of day
from staring into the abyss for so long.
How can I ever forgive you?
Cynic-master, who taught me how to think for myself
who taught me how to speak with such lucid contempt
Now I can never trust the government
Now I can never have faith in anyone's heavanly aspirations,
The sun having long set on any protests of idealism.

And yet I still find you remarkable Nietzsche
You never fail to make me laugh
at the times when I need it the most.
You're the rebel friend who I can
never introduce to my parents.
Yours is the poster which should adorn every angry teenagers' wall
With quotes highlighting The Will to Power and violent determination.
A hopeful voice in a godless world.
I'm reminded of you in the girl that speaks
or stealing every crucifix in her former convent school
after her friend was expelled.
I'm reminded of you with every protester
who throws a Molotov cocktail at armed police
I'm reminded of you
in eery artist who does'nt follow formality
in every caged bird who continues to sing.

For all your anger
I must thank you Nietzsche
Even if I can never be as happily ignorant as I once was
For wasn't the very crux of modern life challenged by you?
All of Humanity
All the cruelty
All the spit Fullness
All the Hatred
when you threw yourself in front of that horse
being beaten in Turin
and for losing your mind
Just to prove a point.
The German post-enlightenment philosopher Frederick Nietzche (1844-1900) often cited by scholars as "the father of modern thinking" was the author of such groundbreaking texts as Human,All Too Human (1878) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886).
igriegazeta Apr 2010
Cheers from inside the catacombs of just-alive vagabonds & miscreant self-delusions of sagacious sabotage & pyrrhic moonscapes, brandishing our eternal return

a tabula rasa for respect & character - bottoms up, too. Mona Lisa
Shroud of Turin, ******* on a trunk. Gamble 66
for trays, dealing steam carrots.

Gag reflex to polite televangelists giving viewers auspicious immunity.

Habits cede to Power, acquiesce to Power, love power.
Peculiarity can recognize & organize to displace.
Something suspicious may run amok , antithetical to the divide & conquer trite.
Defeating paragons, i , Plumed Serpent of release & capture beats, borrowing color from a skylark in forever-flight, conjure remedial winds
Guide inimical bows subsumed in a cosmo-prole dew against the fasces of a few.
Jon Tobias Dec 2011
She kicked me out of bed first thing in the morning
I didn’t even have time to make us breakfast
Not that she was hungry
She seemed satiated enough
So I left
and later met a friend for lunch

He was kicked out of bed first thing in the morning
He didn’t even have time to make his new lover breakfast
Not that he would have eaten
He seemed satiated enough
So my friend left
And he met me for lunch

Our attempts at fuckery find us
Not too far from one another
It is the distance of a coffee table in a diner
After we make our way to the wayside again

We both have water
And it washes our pallets clean
Of the liquor
And the cigarettes
And her mouth
And his mouth

Still lingering a little bit bitter
So we sip some more

These are sheets we leave behind so stained
That you hope the passion will stay
Until there are so many it doesn’t matter anymore
These one night stands will never feel any less *****

The spots of sweat and memory
That still won’t wash out
So many
They look like constellations
As the sheets hang to dry

I imagine they trace out your body
Not just your body
Any body

So generic now
It makes The Shroud of Turin
Look the aftermath of Babylon’s midnight bustle

These are the ways that love leaves you
Hanging you wet to dry
Stained and *****
And equally alone again

Forgive me for the way my mind wanders
I am still with you
I just didn’t want to *** yet

These are the ways my body leaves me
And then you
The morning after I accidentally told you I love you
Even though we just met

I have found and lost love
Enough times to secure my spot in hell by now
I mean
My fear of death his hell enough
To love you as much as I can

Forgive my neuroticism
As I leave again
Finding myself where my fuckery leaves me

At lunch
With a friend
Who is equally awkward
As we make way to the wayside again
Break from finals studies. One and a half weeks left. It is 1am. I can't wait to come back to this site fully. I feel like I am missing so much.
As adolescent night falls
He drifts in my dreams
His harsh and angry words
Causing hardness
Leave Turin stencils on my sheets
The feared bruising of our lips
In geometry of circular mouths
Does not stop our history
Prompts navigation
Leaves pleasure un-distilled
Dan Aug 2018
Everyone is anxious
For Chekhov’s gun is still on the wall
It has not been fired
And we are soon approaching the next act

What do they wait for?
A provocation?!

Dear college age white boy
(Not unlike myself)
Your pseudo-nihilism bores them
We all know these things are just for show
Besides we see how much of an elitist you are
And how little you understand the words you are saying
If Nietzsche’s life were recast
You’d be the man beating the Turin Horse

Why does he say such things?
Does he understand the human mind, the human condition?!

We all wait for the collapse to come
And all of its children to return home
For we are already all aliens to each other
And we know what sweet flowers can grow from ashes
If life is to be a garden
I intend to be a worm

Does he really mean that?
We can see in his eyes he is not convinced

How long have we been going in these circles?
Or is it true that I am unique in this regard alone?
Every philosopher
Every poet
Every self perpetuating artist has their bag of tricks
I have whatever I can pillage

Everything that can be said
Has already been said
He am going back into the gallery
And drawing mustaches on all the faces

And as the audience leaves
Chekhov’s gun remains untouched, suspended by a thread

And this time only
There are no deeper meanings
As adolescent night falls
He drifts in my dreams
His harsh and angry words
Causing hardness
Leave Turin stencils on my sheets
The feared bruising of our lips
In geometry of circular mouths
Does not stop our history
Prompts navigation
Leaves pleasure un-distilled
Josiah W Menzies Mar 2013
You may look for me on Oxford Street
At dawn or dusk or night.
Or downtown where the down-and-outs meet
To drink and sleep and fight.
You may catch my shadow lurking on the curb
In the rainy middle-class suburbs.
(You’ll be chewing on the cud and on the curd,)
And they’ll all think you quite absurd,
And pass you by without a word
Without a care.
You won’t find me.
No, I’m not there.

You might get a glimpse at sundown
Of me and The Sundance Kid,
Riding onto Cape Town,
Or sliding through Madrid,
Or stealing through the byways of Turin –
Winking at the bottom of your glass of bitter gin,
Breathing through your window, on your skin,
Guessing what I think, just like a twin
But I swear,
You won’t find me,
No, I’m not there.

Chase my name to the horizon
Or the shores of Timbuktu;
Just be sure to keep your eyes on
Those two feet in-front of you.
I’ll be biting at your heels,
The stinging citrus scent of the fruit you peel,
The whirling hub of your bicycle wheel,
The hassock you fall upon when you come to kneel
In prayer.
But you won’t find me,
No, I’m not there.

Do not think that I will answer
When you ask or shout or call.
The figure of the folk dancer
Will not be me at all.
I’ll be the one that you’re not looking at,
Sitting in the place where you just sat,
Wiping from my face what you have spat,
Sleeping in every dark empty pocket of every new coat that
You wear.
Oh, you won’t find me,
I’m not there.

In every crowd and every gathering
You will turn around to see
That where I am not standing
Is not where you want to be.
Somewhere between you waking and your sleep
I swim the deepest secrets that you keep,
Silently catching the tears you weep,
In the kitchen cooking the food you eat
Minding what you sow you reap!
I am one step ahead of a sentient sweet
And fair.
But you will not find me.
I am not there.
C S Cizek Sep 2014
Do you reject Satan?
...
Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth?
**** no.

If you believe in God,
how pathetic do you feel
praying to the clouds
like there's someone above
them? What do you do when
your *prayers
aren't answered
and Mom dies of a botched surgery
at forty-eight?
Do you know what *prayers

really are? They're excuses.
AND THEY DO NOT WORK.
If your sister needs a new kidney
and you're a donor match, give
her your ******* kidney, you selfish
*****. Don't get on your *******
knees and ask a Lie in white robes
to do it. God only exists in this world
because we created him to feel better
about ourselves. We're all going
to lie down in a satin-lined coffin
and rot in the ground one day.
Don't think yours is going to have
a higher thread count than mine
just because you spent your whole
life swaddled in the Shroud of Turin.

God isn't going to save you.
No one is going to save you.
Fight me, go ahead. With how passionately ****** I get on this subject, I could write a million poems about my own experiences with the church.
To her who knows who she is.

I realize If you Donetsk in this world you don’t get,
so I thought about it Turin those nights away.
My mind would Rome.
As in to walk Cologne down Rhodes
my feet haven't wandered Faro while.

It seems you have the Kiev my heart,
Zagreb a Piza it in the Palma your hand,
Nevada let go but to keep for all time.

I’d been longing for York kiss,
Hungary to have you Lyon next to me;
thinking how Nice it would be
for you to Guinea your arms,
And wrap them around my Jersey.

Reno that in the Split of distance,
we are hanging on to;
‘We Chelsea how it goes.’
I Bern a little Kos knowing
Havana wait for those crucial words means
I don’t get to Hanover a love
you’d never get Bordeaux having.  

When Ireland and you Symi
you’ll see that I don’t Minsk my words.
You’ll sea I was never in the-Nile,
so Danube worry about that.
I want to Brighton your days
and Tokyo somewhere we could be
kings and Queens.

I hopes that where this Texas;
we’d be eventually
Edinburgh place to call home.

Gdansk and Lodz of love….


You know who
E A Bookish Feb 2016
Dear God
What time is it?
Late, or Early
Depends on how you think
Or how your circadian rhythm winks
And then goes crazy
I can’t even think (not even a new rhyme)
Too tired
Thinking this for hours
Envying my family
Wrapped warm in their own dreams
While I’m wrapped in silence
But for the rain drumming
And the dog barking
And the refrigerator humming
In the other room…
No point in lying about
Don’t need no lights to see my way around
This is a comfortable blind man at home
Shuffling about, around, drunk on fatigue
And not just tired, but tired of this
As the kettle whistles, hush!
And I pour black coffee
By red and green appliance lights
And smoke a secret cigarette
Trying to count the stars
As endless as sheep
Mysterious as Turin’s Shroud
Cover me
Let me sleep
I beg, I scream-though silently
(‘cos I’d rather deal with well slept babies)
And sigh
As I watch the sun rise
Dear God,
No rest for the wicked, it seems
Nor me.
Upon (die) re rhea ding previous poem
     All In The Name Of "Progress" zen
a glaring, leering,
     and twittering left par wren
     dared to a right (i.e. bribe)
     corrective punctuation measure
     slyly slipping Special Ops symbol ")"
     for so many yen,

thus see slipped thru my excellent
     proof reading, when
lo and behold consternation,
     inconsideration, and perturbation
I thought to take a page
     from playbook of Sylvia Plath,
     and stick my head in the oven
but lo, a sardine recipe

     (though a bit fishy),
     could be found necessitating cauldron
     only available for purchase in Turin
thus donned with a shrouded cape,
     aye didst make whoosh,
     hence, went there and came back
     and frankly tubby earnest,
     thence began stir'n

a bubbling concoction brew
though duration for perfect consistency
     aye lacked any clue
thus, needed to contact
     Hannibal the cannibal
     asper what to do
in order (I explained)
     to sever livingsocial,

     and forever hang my head in shame
     cuz, accidentally omitting
     one right parenthesis too few
hence, esteemed flawless glory,
     (sans error free grammarian
     reputation pitched downward
     where careless evinced
     Kamikaze nosedive, where

     matter of fact gross humiliation
     instantaneously grew
and the only viable option
     forced me to hew
admitting to egregious, fatuous, abhorent
and readily confesses
     compunction viz, grievously
     blatant Anglo Saxon

     Horrifying transgression
involving backward curved "C" sin bent
a most execrable,
     incorrigible, and unforgivable
     literary faux pas incurring
     major cosmic event
stripped of title special
     Das Scribe double bubble "A" gent!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Upon complying never to err again
Matthew Scott Harris since
     accepted plea bargain
accepting sentence resting his chin
til indelible necklaced "U" lettered grin
forever visible to kith and kin.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
i didn't want to be displaced, thanks to the slobbering pope who only became a saint because he was dying in a full public spectacle drooling on the throne... he wouldn't be a saint right now if he decided to become a pope emeritus and gave his death a privacy, no, instead it was "baby papa want a napkin or the shroud of turin to wipe that agony off, the slurred punctuation of papa's speech?"*

it made sense to confiscate crimea,
after all st. petersburg
was the out-dated "window into europe"
after being replaced by kaliningrad,
so russia's need for a window into asia minor
with the poked eye capacity of crimea;
all that sea, all that sea before us,
you can dig underground tunnels
and still see for miles across the black sea!
Turnin' in the grain again
The bells began to charge
Time she sangs
There's no turin' back
Keep your eyes on the track
Through the fields
Somewhere there's blue
Oh time will tell
She'll see us through
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2022
Nietzsche finally a blessing
But a catastrophe at first
I remember Melanie Fritz
And I remember the Dublin nurse

I said her accent was musical
She said only when we're drunk
I Ain't Gonna Work on Maggie's Farm No!
Maggie was a punk

I would like to visit Heidelberg
At times I live Without a Why
Abgeschedenheit at night
Thanksgiving pecan pie

            Ay! Ay! Ay!
The cold has moved in, uninvited..
yet not swallowed us completely..
crackling branches under my feet,
scratches from the vicious Turin
that disturb the un-rushed few..
Julie Grenness Mar 2017
Once there was Golgotha, when,
A God walked amongst men,
Is He coming back again?
He walks with our feet,
With our smiles He greets,
He works with our hands,
A friendship for many lands,
His ghost looks like His shroud of Turin,
Is He ever coming back again?
Feedback welcome.
Ryan O'Leary Jul 2018
Re-vision
    Euro
  ( 2020 )

Mmmmm
Messi,
especially
when it
comes to
Dough
even
Ron-
Al-
Do.
Because
now he has
Turin over
to the Juve's
in Italie,
easier to
get a pound
of flesh !

Ask Portia.
Voilà que tout cela est passé... Mon enfance n'est plus ;
Elle est morte, pour ainsi dire, quoique je vive encore.
Saint Augustin, Confessions.


I.

J'ai des rêves de guerre en mon âme inquiète ;
J'aurais été soldat, si je n'étais poète.
Ne vous étonnez point que j'aime les guerriers !
Souvent, pleurant sur eux, dans ma douleur muette,
J'ai trouvé leur cyprès plus beau que nos lauriers.

Enfant, sur un tambour ma crèche fut posée.
Dans un casque pour moi l'eau sainte fut puisée.
Un soldat, m'ombrageant d'un belliqueux faisceau,
De quelque vieux lambeau d'une bannière usée
Fit les langes de mon berceau.

Parmi les chars poudreux, les armes éclatantes,
Une muse des camps m'emporta sous les tentes ;
Je dormis sur l'affût des canons meurtriers ;
J'aimai les fiers coursiers, aux crinières flottantes,
Et l'éperon froissant les rauques étriers.

J'aimai les forts tonnants, aux abords difficiles ;
Le glaive nu des chefs guidant les rangs dociles ;
La vedette, perdue en un bois isolé ;
Et les vieux bataillons qui passaient dans les villes,
Avec un drapeau mutilé.

Mon envie admirait et le hussard rapide,
Parant de gerbes d'or sa poitrine intrépide,
Et le panache blanc des agiles lanciers,
Et les dragons, mêlant sur leur casque gépide
Le poil taché du tigre aux crins noirs des coursiers.

Et j'accusais mon âge : « Ah ! dans une ombre obscure,
Grandir, vivre ! laisser refroidir sans murmure
Tout ce sang jeune et pur, bouillant chez mes pareils,
Qui dans un noir combat, sur l'acier d'une armure,
Coulerait à flots si vermeils !

Et j'invoquais la guerre, aux scènes effrayantes ;
Je voyais en espoir, dans les plaines bruyantes,
Avec mille rumeurs d'hommes et de chevaux,
Secouant à la fois leurs ailes foudroyantes,
L'un sur l'autre à grands cris fondre deux camps rivaux.

J'entendais le son clair des tremblantes cymbales,
Le roulement des chars, le sifflement des balles,
Et de monceaux de morts semant leurs pas sanglants,
Je voyais se heurter au ****, par intervalles,
Les escadrons étincelants !

II.

Avec nos camps vainqueurs, dans l'Europe asservie
J'errai, je parcourus la terre avant la vie ;
Et, tout enfant encor, les vieillards recueillis
M'écoutaient racontant, d'une bouche ravie,
Mes jours si peu nombreux et déjà si remplis !

Chez dix peuples vaincus je passai sans défense,
Et leur respect craintif étonnait mon enfance.
Dans l'âge où l'on est plaint, je semblais protéger.
Quand je balbutiais le nom chéri de France,
Je faisais pâlir l'étranger.

Je visitai cette île, en noirs débris féconde,
Plus ****, premier degré d'une chute profonde.
Le haut Cenis, dont l'aigle aime les rocs lointains,
Entendit, de son antre où l'avalanche gronde,
Ses vieux glaçons crier sous mes pas enfantins.

Vers l'Adige et l'Arno je vins des bords du Rhône.
Je vis de l'Occident l'auguste Babylone,
Rome, toujours vivante au fond de ses tombeaux,
Reine du monde encor sur un débris de trône,
Avec une pourpre en lambeaux.

Puis Turin, puis Florence aux plaisirs toujours prête,
Naples, aux bords embaumés, où le printemps s'arrête
Et que Vésuve en feu couvre d'un dais brûlant,
Comme un guerrier jaloux qui, témoin d'une fête,
Jette au milieu des fleurs son panache sanglant.

L'Espagne m'accueillit, livrée à la conquête.
Je franchis le Bergare, où mugit la tempête ;
De ****, pour un tombeau, je pris l'Escurial ;
Et le triple aqueduc vit s'incliner ma tête
Devant son front impérial.

Là, je voyais les feux des haltes militaires
Noircir les murs croulants des villes solitaires ;
La tente, de l'église envahissait le seuil ;
Les rires des soldats, dans les saints monastères,
Par l'écho répétés, semblaient des cris de deuil.

III.

Je revins, rapportant de mes courses lointaines
Comme un vague faisceau de lueurs incertaines.
Je rêvais, comme si j'avais, durant mes jours,
Rencontré sur mes pas les magiques fontaines
Dont l'onde enivre pour toujours.

L'Espagne me montrait ses couvents, ses bastilles ;
Burgos, sa cathédrale aux gothiques aiguilles ;
Irun, ses toits de bois ; Vittoria, ses tours ;
Et toi, Valadolid, tes palais de familles,
Fiers de laisser rouiller des chaînes dans leurs cours.

Mes souvenirs germaient dans mon âme échauffée ;
J'allais, chantant des vers d'une voix étouffée ;
Et ma mère, en secret observant tous mes pas,
Pleurait et souriait, disant : « C'est une fée
Qui lui parle, et qu'on ne voit pas ! »

1823.
S A Marshal Feb 2021
The Verge
S. A. Marshal
15 Jan, 2021

Hey! Look, it's me!
Not at verge
nor for your mercy,
and certainly not at urge.
I too dream
a presidential hope.
To ideate a creation
from deep kaleidoscope.
From within my ingenuity,
I colour the skies of Aurora.
I know how far I can go
to challange the Zeus'  Pandora.

Look! It’s me,
not a roadside verge.
You may think to
not to merge.
For I too think
no life in you.
To create a stanza,
for rhythmic tempo
needs to beat a super-hit,
but it cannot be the you,
so off you go, shoo shoo.

And hey, it’s me!
Not at verge
but about to center
a time of surge.
Where you'll see
chants of my people.
My pride-vibrant in glory of ripples.
Lights and flashes,
stages that sounds
to see of my last
at Turin another shroud.
At some point, you get used to it all,
the dull buzzing of a heaving sky,
silicon drops falling from dead clouds,
maroon and lavender moons burning up.
Some days, you can taste the desperation,
clinging hard to your mother’s *******,
but you can hear them through the metaphors,
some knife slicing dark from the night.

They’re still dragging knuckles in the mud,
dreaming of disembodied constellations
painted onto a tapestry made of nothing
and hung up high by sheer willpower.
Some look, hoping it’s still where it should be,
some ***** heaven made of antimatter,
touch it you’ll annihilate it and yourself,
so you leave it be and chew your tongue.

At some point, it gets too much for you,
all that noise dragonflying on a war,
bombarding the rigor mortis of sleep,
sapphire and grey pools of romance.
They don’t **** like they do in the movies,
rituals of sweat drained completely of blood,
martyrs of love framed on the walls,
cadavers in bedsheets, shrouds of Turin.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2018
the zenith and crux had to come one day,
perhaps with a: being awake outside
the domain of the healthy concern for
night as associated with sleep,
   and day - with at least the bare minimum
of cooking a **** tasty dinner -
         namely wanting to improvise on
chapati bread...
                                since came upon me a pain,
left me sliding off my bed,
  and repenting, laying myself on a hard
wooden floor, repenting since outside
   the window: June finally woke to ascribe
to itself both the seekers of shade,
as the ones seeking
                           skin gilded in copper,
inverting the niqab with a pair of sunglasses...
my virtual diet of youtube videos
started to become: claustrophobic,
      even the algorithm spoke back to me
based upon my choice of videos:
                  nothing new was seen since
    the beginning of June, the latest:
            ending on the 20th...
                          thus i remembered that
   i own john frusciante's:
              when shadows collide with people...
can't exactly express what happened
lying on that hard wooden floor...
                        sweating and toiling by
            keeping count of falling dominos...
swelled in john's oeuvre and felt like
i regained my momentary loss of sanity...
notably from being click-baited...
           and youtube was never supposed
to be a free-listening station
    in a ****** megastore, like the ones
on oxford street?
                      don't worry... i'll buy it...
i much care about ownership...
               but even in a ****** megastore
you could test-listen a compact
before buying it...
                        as long as there is:
                     no translation of mobility
from a static thing, to the well hidden,
            compact of a pocket, taking a stroll...
i honestly can't remember the last
time i talked through a mobile phone
that was my possession...
         upon landing at Stanstead this past
May i authentically asked for
   a pay-phone... the employee looked
dazzled and confused...
                so i had to resort to borrowing
a stranger's phone for a speed-dial
   and an exchange of familiar voices with:
i'm here...
                      the bread making
exercise?
                     just a chapati bread...
      infused with a pinch of salt,
         a double pinch of sugar, black pepper,
a dry chilli crumbled... cumin seeds...
            turmeric powder...
                       and mighty hot flat gypsy
frying pan...
                     the sort that requires you
to grip the handle with a cloth...
                      evidently even this famous
canadian dr. can become exhausting...
  why?
              why i am among an audience...
listening to him:
              when i ****** well know that
     i'm probably going to be the only person
who has already read some of the books
he's inviting the remaining members of
the audience to read? but who evidently will
not, because they'll just regurgitate
the lecture: in video.
       only some time ago i discovered this
rotten youtube commentary people...
        last time i checked...
             all i ever used it for was to sample
         music, before i would buy a hard copy...
what a rotten diet!
               i almost lost my pleasure from reading...
not that i might disagree with
      the canadian herr doktor herr professor...
yet: to perpetuate being a student...
           thank god i was taught some higher
technicality in chemistry...
       because, listening to these lectures...
              no wonder pubescence is extended
well beyond the biological reality...
                        plus the company of sophists
and not drunk poets...
        ah... you know... you're always looking
for a stiff one, a sharpshooter to numb
the pain of being crammed with intellectual custard...
i too have read some BIG books...
       but talking about them is like:
an inability to think with them.
          hence the art of necromancy -
it's not "supposed":
       when you're sitting in a room,
   with a library that might as well be regarded
as a graveyard...
        oh this ******'s dead,
   so's this one, and this one...
                    ****! i'm the only one around
here doing the graveyard shift!
and let me tell you:
      it's a gemini schematic -
            one hand feeds the other as
does the other caress the hand that's feeding it...
you can't escape a desire to write,
without keeping an equilibrium
with a desire to read...
                you can't wish to write more
than you read...
                 or feel inclined to do so...
   doesn't exactly require grand books,
                civilisation pillars and door-stops...
i just had to read one book review,
then run back to reading my current
lecture of Heidegger's ponderings VII - XI...
perhaps that's how it goes...
      but i must have been insane for
about a week devouring herr doktor's lectures,
strapped to an outer-looking
                      america and canada...
              the **** does that even matter
from where i'm sitting?
               you want a "clever" little fact?
   you know why the Polacks played such a ******
world cup, in russian?
                 shh...
                the Russians actually played,
the ENTIRE POLISH ANTHEM! (almost)
             no, seriously,
                          even i was brought to tears!
but being in company of another person,
i did a sly whimpering and didn't want
to show the aqua pearls...
            Poland vs. Colombia -
  the Russian organisers allowed for the entire
hymn to be sung... not just the first
stanza like at the olympics or in other
countries...
      mazurek dąbrowskiego to the Russian,
which is more than it is to
the Zakopane fued and throng:
a second stanza!
    przejdziem Wisłę, przejdziem Wartę,
    będziem Polakami.
    dał nam przykład Bonaparte,
    jak zwyciężać mamy.

          i'm even suspicious of the fact
that there might have even been
a third stanza!
                   HENCE THE EMOTIONAL
RESPONSE!
        if you're supposed to "keep"
a memory of only one stanza from
the anthem? why bother...
    unlike the English: bog-standard...
let's get on with it!
                if... i heard, the anthem
in its entire... form?
                           i'd break down crying
listening to it...
          like now...
       listening to john frusciante's
                                 unreachable
                  from the album the empyrean...
thank you very much, Russian,
can you please excuse "my" national team
from not going further than
  the group stages of your grand tournament...
we have more pressing matters
back home -
                       i would like to write
a personal note to Mr. Putin for allowing me
this rare insight...
           thank you for the second stanza
(and third, if i'm not mistaken)
                              of my anthem to be sang
in the presence of other nations;
                     thank you...
                                        for plucking this
from my heart.
                      double down on:
               yes... they plaid **** because they
were emotionally disorientated...
                            as any ****** would be...
having to sing an extra bit...
                          of what's otherwise
           a shorter-script of the anthem recognised
by the olympic community...
                  i know why they failed like
a **** in a bog of mud...
                                     if i almost cried
hearing the extended anthem...
                    how the hell do you think
                          a footballer would feel...
                      kamil grosicki....
                  crying...
                       ­ that's not ******* gazza...
getting booked in the semi-finals
                            in Turin... knowing he would
miss playing in the final!
        this is group stages football!
                 now i can show you a part of
Russian collective psychological "manipulation":
i call it that,
              because i've gained more from
it, than if the Polish team,
   did even something as ridiculous as
                                      play in the semi-final...
it's football...
             after all...
                     the team consisted of mainly
nearing-retirement players
   who were plagued by injury...
                     namely jakub błaszczykowski...
ah! those Russians...
                 they know how to turn a man's
heart back on into a natural rhythm...
                         so...                   no biggie;
if things settle...
                      we'll allow Senegal
                                   and Colombia through.
Jeff Teasdale Jun 2017
It excludes strangers

It excites suspicion

Pass the baton

I think I'm ready

Complex

Crisis

Ignorance of contex

Disregard the past

Tick from a list

No stop look

Right on the edge of what's possible

Bad memories make for good alchemists

A secret code

I'm no Turin

No intention to say solve

No intention to say love?
The idea of Friendship Day originated
in the United States in 1919,
proposed by Joyce Hall,
the founder of Hallmark cards.

It gained official recognition
when the U.S. Congress
proclaimed the first Sunday
of August as National Friendship Day in 1935.

Unlike this papa akin
to being racked, raided,
and raked with hot coals
during his adolescence devoid of
a social network and academic goals
if possible to magnify
psyche, one would see
mostly a torn (Turin) shred of holes.

Thy youngest (of deux) daughters
afflicted with developmental delay
did not overtly agitate
as much as myself, asper being
emotionally isolated, a miserable fate,
she participated with
supportive services how grate
full (this once psychologically dead papa),
progeny of his did not experience
chronic severe hate
Shana (Punim) blessed by fate

while a Lower Merion
High School student did great
fully experienced positive
munificent interpersonal bounty,
she didst illustrate
with smiles all around her countenance,
which sophomore socialization better late
than never, which friendlessness
(that didst plague this papa),
thee progeny didst obviate
thus, this poem

(to no one in particular),
expresses how I appreciate
the plethora of supportive
services, to ameliorate
bugaboo sans inferiority complex,
(ran rampant within self)
where mine imaginary
pals did commiserate
nevertheless, aye envy thine
woefully begotten Harris heiresses,
whose self esteem positively

of mine bolstered,
when as little girls
their needs and wants gave me purpose
ensure ring a confidential boost,
and now doth demonstrate
how remedial, and extracurricular activities
during and after class respectively,
combatted cognitive delay,
warding off bullies,
who did grate, humiliate
and interrogate, this middle aged
(he's a jolly good) fellow,

Johnny come late
lee to the "NON FAKE"
thrown into game of life
changing strengthened soul asylum
primary, secondary, and tertiary grades
where whipsawed,
pejoratively emasculated, jackknifed,
oppressed, traumatized, and yoked  
hoary golem, unstintingly
bruiting, browbeating
and bamboozling gremlins
wrought zealous destruction.

— The End —