O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now,
While time was, our first parents had been warned
The coming of their secret foe, and ’scaped,
Haply so ’scaped his mortal snare:  For now
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss
Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell:
Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place:  Now conscience wakes despair,
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun,
Which now sat high in his meridian tower:
Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began.
O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Lookest from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven’s matchless King:
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome still paying, still to owe,
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then
O, had his powerful destiny ordained
Me some inferiour Angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition!  Yet why not some other Power
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heaven’s free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
O, then, at last relent:  Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent.  Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of Hell.
With diadem and scepter high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery:  Such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore?  Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall:  so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging, peace;
All hope excluded thus, behold, in stead
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;
Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with Heaven’s King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.
Thus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face
Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;
Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld.
For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear.  Whereof he soon aware,
Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first
That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge:
Yet not enough had practised to deceive
Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down
The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount
Saw him disfigured, more than could befall
Spirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce
He marked and mad demeanour, then alone,
As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
Access denied; and overhead upgrew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;                        

Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed:
On which the sun more glad impressed his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed
That landskip:  And of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair:  Now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.  As when to them who fail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambick, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest; with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:
So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,
Who came their bane; though with them better pleased
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse
Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill
Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;
But further way found none, so thick entwined,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed
All path of man or beast that passed that way.
One gate there only was, and that looked east
On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,
Due entrance he disdained; and, in contempt,
At one flight bound high over-leaped all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet.  As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles:
So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regained, but sat devising death
To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only used
For prospect, what well used had been the pledge
Of immortality.  So little knows
Any, but God alone, to value right
The good before him, but perverts best things
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.
Beneath him with new wonder now he views,
To all delight of human sense exposed,
In narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea more,
A Heaven on Earth:  For blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by him in the east
Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
Of where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telassar:  In this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordained;
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden-mould high raised
Upon the rapid current, which, through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Watered the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears,
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy errour under pendant shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrowned the noontide bowers:  Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste:
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall
Down the ***** hills, dispersed, or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
Her crystal mirrour holds, unite their streams.
The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal Spring.  Not that fair field
Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove
Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired
Castalian spring, might with this Paradise
Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle
Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,
Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,
Hid Amalthea, and her florid son
Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye;
Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard,
Mount Amara, though this by some supposed
True Paradise under the Ethiop line
By Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock,
A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote
From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend
Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind
Of living creatures, new to sight, and strange
Two of far nobler shape, ***** and tall,
Godlike *****, with native honour clad
In naked majesty seemed lords of all:
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,
(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,)
Whence true authority in men; though both
Not equal, as their *** not equal seemed;
For contemplation he and valour formed;
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him:
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil, down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved
As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.
Nor those mysterious parts were then concealed;
Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame
Of nature’s works, honour dishonourable,
Sin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind
With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,
And banished from man’s life his happiest life,
Simplicity and spotless innocence!
So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight
Of God or Angel; for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair,
That ever since in love’s embraces met;
Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
Under a tuft of shade that on a green
Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side
They sat them down; and, after no more toil
Of their sweet gardening labour than sufficed
To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease
More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite
More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,
Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs
Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline
On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:
The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,
Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;
Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems
Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,
Alone as they.  About them frisking played
All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
In wood or wilderness, forest or den;
Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw
Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,
To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed
His?kithetmroboscis; close the serpent sly,
Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine
His braided train, and of his fatal guile
Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass
Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,
Or bedward ruminating; for the sun,
Declined, was hasting now with prone career
To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale
Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:
When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,
Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.
O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!
Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,
Not Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright
Little inferiour; whom my thoughts pursue

In my childhood rumors ran
   Of a world beyond our door—
Terrors to the life of man
   That the highroad held in store.

Of mermaids' doleful game
   In deep water I heard tell,
Of lofty dragons belching flame,
   Of the hornèd fiend of Hell.

Tales like these were too absurd
   For my laughter-loving ear:
Soon I mocked at all I heard,
   Though with cause indeed for fear.

Now I know the mermaid kin
   I find them bound by natural laws:
They have neither tail nor fin,
   But are deadlier for that cause.

Dragons have no darting tongues,
   Teeth saw-edged, nor rattling scales;
No fire issues from their lungs,
   No black poison from their tails:

For they are creatures of dark air,
   Unsubstantial tossing forms,
Thunderclaps of man's despair
   In mid-whirl of mental storms.

And there's a true and only fiend
   Worse than prophets prophesy,
Whose full powers to hurt are screened
   Lest the race of man should die.

Ever in vain will courage plot
   The dragon's death, in coat of proof;
Or love abjure the mermaid grot;
   Or faith denounce the cloven hoof.

Mermaids will not be denied
   The last bubbles of our shame,
The Dragon flaunts an unpierced hide,
   The true fiend governs in God's name.

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wreteched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin;
Poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads;
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
These many crowded about me; with shouting,
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
Unsheathed the narrow sword,
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in the sepulchre, since toils urged other.
Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:
“Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
“Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping ******?”
        And he in heavy speech:
“Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Crice’s ingle.
“Going down the long ladder unguarded,
“I fell against the buttress,
“Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
“But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
“Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
“A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
“And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.”

And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
“A second time? why? man of ill star,
“Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
“Stand from the fosse, leave me my ****** bever
“For soothsay.”
        And I stepped back,
And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus
“Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
“Lose all companions.” Then Anticlea came.
Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,
In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.
And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outwards and away
And unto Crice.
        Venerandam,
In the Cretan’s phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
Girdle and breat bands, thou with dark eyelids
Bearing the golden bough of Argicidia. So that:

“poetry choose you for us to sheaf through and find love among your words” (Pradip)

did you think that I forgot your message,
which is more than mere message, more a significant missive,
****** upon my shoulders, again, even more, a mission,
an owner’s responsibility that I choose to herein bare,
but a charge, too onerous, too awesome, to willingly bear

what skilled knowledge of this in my possess is narrow based,
more gained by loss or absence, or even conspicuous struggle,
than any vast success, thus, to be viewed with skepticism,
rather than any glory gained through a vanquisher’s scepter

more and better have essayed and assayed the
requisite sheafs that may give forth results useful to yourself,
this itinerant investigator’s ramblings are not to be deemed trustworthy or investable

that poetry hath chosen me, if correct, woe-betide me
this be more curse than blessing, for the secrecy of love
yields not its clear and present insights to my declining sight

the sheafs of which you speak so numerous
that a whole lifetime such engaged could not dent its
maidenhood and here do I both confess, here I do plead guilty
to trying and to failing, and in the confines of words,
honestly advance to all the proposition that I know nothing

to recognize and diagnose the symptoms almost too easy,
thus I designated myself foolishly as onlylovepoetry,
but recognition does not yield easy the cure of real cognition

nearing midnight and it is easier to pen than to sleep,
even a dreamless sleep, the great restorative,
make not the pen mightier than the wounds love inflicts;
both my scars and my many smooth, unused unpierced skin patches
speak only of the abscesses of true trials and
the too long absences of emotions that make
life unbearable, bearable and the happy exhaustion of near misses,
the try in try, try again

finding love in words a fool’s errand, though words offer us
seduction and definitions to our errant emotions, words
are just words and by definition, a hallmark of failure,
a precursor to cursing failings

only this I know, that to make love occur, do not hope to
stumble into it, or to find or mine its riches, for it requires of you,
both somber preparation and wild optimism,
and this contradiction controversy so inherently embedded,
will provoke more pain infusions and more poetry in
a human chain that came from the smithy new and yet, nearly broken

pay attention to thy surroundings and thy attitude and altitude
love is above ground though deep buried, the mystery scent
so faint it missed by most, myself a chief of mistaken mistook

meanwhile the pile of sheaves grows deeper and despairing

what I thought I knew I mistook and what I thought I felt,
well, let it suffice to say love can n’ere be found in thought
but lives in deed and actions and happy disbelief

put down the pen, gown thyself in coats of many riotous colors,
banish ‘never’ and ‘hope’ from thy lexicon, and begin with a smile always a smile as you walk the streets as if to say
open open says me, open sesame and let the
good works begin, for having found your captains of the muses,
your Calliope, your rosebud, lucky you,
you will need not write another word


11:37pm  January 14

Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess
Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down
                                                           ­                    John Lennon

A carnal muse and fallen sprite
I’ll paint for you, in flattering light.
My model’s sensuality
Shall trump all dull reality;
Inspired by Womankind’s raw truth,
Life-drawing class heats up, uncouth.
Still, I am sure some stiff-necked *****
Shall smear my heartfelt lay as lewd.

Edenic exile sought by men,
Receive this tribute from my pen
And keyboard, played inexpertly
By one who knows you rapturously
As a muse of Aztec/Latin race
Prodigious in your works and grace:

Born Ruth Ayon, in God-Knows-Where,
She overwhelms in underwear—
And shedding that, turns good men bad,
Makes angels fall and gods go mad.
Los Angeles (and that’s the joke)
Is where this cherub went for broke
Cashing in her soul for action,
Soreness, ***** and tumefaction.

Laurie Vargas, mouth full of ***,
Spread for us now your Aztec ***
Your sultry contours hypnotize;
The laughter in your ******* eyes
Brings music from Tenochtitlán
And opens windows to Aztlán
You smile, unlike those other *****
Who merely grimace. Gringa butts
Are less audacious than your own . . .
Their charms are better left unknown.
Your cheeks in tan proportion shine
Embodying some rare truth divine.
(Through Poetry, I’ll make them mine.)

I must speak forth of what I found—
Though standing on unholy ground,
Here I behold your lively art . . .
Your unpierced flesh has lanced my heart.
Whereas most stars are tattooed, jaded
Your bright aspect shines, unfaded.
Clad in campesina thread
While moaning on your torrid bed,
Adorned in homespun broidered blouse
In some vaquero‘s rancho-house
Or naked as Mexica dawn,
Bespattered like a dewdropped lawn,
Spurting with some panting plumber
In an endless *****-summer,
You glow, like honey dipped in light
And undulating Latin night.
Your burning bush, much-trafficked place,
Recalls the Red Sea’s parted space
No less than your beatific face.

An unrepentant Magdalene,
You plunge into each graphic scene.
Madonna of the varied act
You swell, engorge, dilate, contract
And play the part with crazy wit
Suckling madly at your own ***.
The way you can accommodate
What barely seems to satiate
With pure abandon, leaves us awed,
As mesmerized, your name we laud,
(With one hand—harder to applaud !)

Will you survive to have regrets
When raw desire no longer gets
Your body hot with inner flame?
When *** has ceased to call your name?
I wonder if you’ve found such paths
Of flesh and pimping sociopaths
A route to riches, gain, and pleasure
Or mere sacking of your treasure.
At the end of your sweaty day,
Is there more than a harlot’s pay?

I wish you well—and hope in time,
When life has left you less sublime,
You’ll find your way to God through Christ
And learn of what was sacrificed
To free you from your sordid fame
Where sinners hail your glorious shame.

At living nights! Today I saw again my Helsinki;
What a dazzling sight, bathed in its citadels of light,
At which time, didst I spend more grateful hours
That may have come and sought me after dawn.
I was dreaming fast by then, lulled by yon sleepy
rain striding down outside, with a softened cheer;
A mild one, more like kind water’s affluent soul,
Had the skies no more repelled its sight, with beer
And the remnants of their rebuked past sins,
Which once kept feeding on mere tyrannous thoughts
That the sun too emitted; but how didst such coldness
Let itself be corrupted, maintained by the amiss main
And savage terrain of the sun, and be sorely divided
once more across its terrible sphere, and wonder:
How couldst no cold remain, whilst ‘tis England;
And thus no evil couldst be new wherein,
nor regarded as trembling nor filthy anew—
In the hours that hath faded, by their uneven minutes;
And there is no honour left to revolt against its wit,
While all transforms into an unripened fatal mistake,
And there is no joy left to witness its new form,
And the remnant of love gone in its disposition,
When, one by one, the most propitious beam awakes
Offering one of its most precarious gleams,
But so shakes me by the impatience of the heat;
The poet has so to run to escape its crunching wit,
Forgetting the poem, forsaking what’s been writ;
And what is left but a sorrow from the merciful night,
The poetry too lost its favourable Knight.

Where is but the Helsinki I hath loved, about me?
The Helsinki that hath been in love with me;
And shyly flirted with me, stealing my love for days.
All my past that hath come to a halt, and with its shadow apace
I hath not one right to reclaim my solid thoughts;
I want to be the radiant snow again, mild at all paces
Haunted by ev’ry cold breath so divine, and taste
The hieroglyphics of my sad visions so succinctly;
And the philology of our violent youth so fervently.
For such sunless hauntings too are painfully severe,
And such nightmares that existed shan’t be spare,
And those shan’t I suffer myself by the pores of such dreams;
And with a radiant finger shalt I send back which see me—
The eyes of our promising heaven have now awakened,
I can see their unpierced veins through thy hands, o Helsinki!
Why is it that salubrious remembrance of such sullen hours
to give me the unwanted comfort, and unwritten silence,
I might not be worthy of thine alone, ah, but who shalt shine
During my windblown summers here, whenst the short-lived heat
Hath but been too much, and ringing through a tampered light;
I hath lost the list of odes that thou canst cast on my soul.
What an everlasting shame, to lay here alone without thee;
But who is a scattered leaf like me to complain, but to hide,
I hath lost all my steadiness to the Northern Light.

To the blue concave by yon awesome nullified cavern;
And the lifted nectar tree behind the cedar grove,
And the rippling summer river with its yellow brook
That hath been lovely to me and my wintry shine;
And the gate with such illustrious paints that illumine
Every wandering sight, righteous in whose last morals,
How happy I am, to be amidst such wondrous sighs!
How shalt I but stand about and entertain my feet,
The itchy feet that shan’t stand to the euphoria about me,
But feelest the slightest thought of thine with hesitation,
But in dreams, upset again to behold thee gone.
What a consoled hysteria I hath but made, o Helsinki!
A little further, my love, didst I tell my love silently,
Although all remains a whisper in t’is hesitant chest,
That shan’t be resistant again once it meets its fate;
A sweet fate that shan’t one steer nor disapprove,
For such a fate is neither sick nor faulty, at once,
For at such a view all shalt be put at ease, or in delight,
The moon cheers at their apparition forms and starlights.
And for my love shalt I wait at seven tonight,
An hour that is close to my Helsinki’s sweet entrance,
For hath England halted and my frightened love ceased,
And sweetened what was not sweet for my love and me,
And as bitter to my hope and hungered cleavage once.
I am, as ever, faltering in my speed like an innocent child;
I am to play from bough to bough, that I can comfort
And jump from leap to leap, as I wish to bring back alive
The thousand weeds and summer squirrels that used to
cry bitterly. They cried a lot in the open space, at night;
Oft’ didst I hear their florid steps across the unseen clearing
And voices weep through the wronged greenery, wailing.
I wouldst be good to them as I hath been good in dreams,
To make ‘em all precious darlings, and set back forth, o sweet
Waking into the night of moonlight and the Northern Lights
To comfort the scratch, and all that injures within me
And to bring justice to those who wronged in thee,
That all can sleep again amidst the high strolling distance;
I wouldst behold my love again, and beneath the confined air,
To live and love on yon gifted ege, laden with art and care.
On a ground so deep, and tunnel so rich with ice and ease,
Hath I been in too much haste, to resemble the mortal rose,
Hath I been ungrateful to my robbed love, and prose;
Hath I loved my youth in such a dizzy way, in a daze;
Hath I deserted such myths, and failed my task to praise.

They all bid me fly away and leave, but fly to thee;
Those sons of dark innocence, unvirgin bones to every sigh.
What is love to them, but a silvery, captivating moan?
What is love but two robes unchained, all too ******,
What is love but a hastened sight, a hurried moon,
What is love but not wedded, nor one to grown—
What is love but unchaste, too frenetic to love,
Not a painful comfort, nor a happy sacrifice,
Not a bough so pendulous and fair, nor a fall so weird,
Not a bizarre ecstasy; yet an ecstasy that quenches,
Not a bard, nor any of the throes in his fine poems,
Not even a wing of love itself, that often cries in bareness,
Not a humble show that fulfills, in its drop of moral rain;
Not a reminiscence of dust, nor a soap of remembrance.
Love, being a dire sight to ‘all, those cross creatures,
Love in there never held me by my hand, nor my ill chest,
All the love there—a pale pain, a bland mast of mess,
And all greasy misery is not pain, but a beheld love,
A love to see, a love that grows not in flooded snow.
All the love there—a blank sight, a tasteless life,
A love that feels not the feeble, but stainless souls!
A love that is too mean that none canst hear me,
And who guesses but such a meadow cannot see me,
Nor catch my sight by the ballade of innocuous thoughts.
O, Helsinki, I hath but such vast words in my throat,
O, Helsinki, hail us poets with the fall of ****** snow!
May us be weird, and boast to the condemned world,
May us be heat, may us bring whom a liar curse!

Every fantasy of the night stills beneath me;
Crushed within the glossy bark of yon midnight heat,
Closed by the laughter of a dominant brutal heart,
Chained by its own sinful soul, that cannot love.
And never by the night turns into uncounted falls;
Nor grows into a more promising canto in my sonnet,
For who is heat but an untold chaos, even to a baby’s ears,
There is no shelter but wanted by the gone England,
Nor a further fate to come, to be run across its river.
All English gold hath but revolted its noble thoughts,
And most of the time, ‘tis only daggers and swords
That make, and foragingly confuse its infused time;
I hath outnumbered the shrieking sins within me,
And too my art, attaching itself to me by the faltering light,
But now the most seen, the most bewitching and heartfelt.
While I hold thee to my heart, and feel there the lightest thought
That thou art the sole gathering of joys one sought
Propelling the night to stop its frozen tears, and listen;
That there is a song in such fair air, there is heaven.
And who shalt sink into the stars on the grass, but me;
Who shalt hear with my seas with love, but my poetry,
Who seals me better but my nauseous books, and lose
Who in its villainous imagination but hears me, my prose.

I shalt come back to my sanguine night in the cold,
To retreat and release back the dim saluted forms,
That oft’ fade and show themselves again in one’s poems.
Who says ‘tis not found there—a dazzling melody;
That such a beauteous parody is not from Paradise,
That a blushed cheek is ever proud and wise,
That fresh air is unseen, and honour cannot be felt;
Here, but not with the English nor American melody,
Nor couldst I be tempted by the tunes aloof in their air,
Who else than I think they are not a fair society,
Who else than I think they own not their riches,
Who else than I think a colour as which shan’t burn.
Who else there is not a tune in an idle poem;
Who else shan’t tune in, as though poems were not poetry.
Who else than turns to love me, by the slumber
o’ such lyrics, who shall be with me forever;
I want to bury myself in such charms, o mine,
To show the sun the honest hours of every love,
Though love itself canst become faulty at times!
Ah, Helsinki, all is abashed and yet not too bashful;
All that was bashful hath grown beastly, outside of us,
And so what is preaching now but a fatal lyrical sight,
And what is speech but a forgotten poem alight,
Who is Anonymous, who are they to teach them right;
Who is loneliness, who shall perish and faint with fright,
Who shall disappear, and such despair entertains the sea,

Who am I, but a doubted truth on my solitary voyage;
Who are the dusks aglow, but an obsolete sight and dish,
Who are the young scarlet tides to fade, before the buds,
Who are the dusky little lilacs to resemble the rose.
Who are the pure white tints that ice showed me,
But the hidden pinks the evils want not to see,
And the inherited northern youth, who shalt be with me.
Who shalt I be, but a silent poet to thee, o Helsinki,
Who am I to have, but such reminiscent little words of me.
To have and have not visions, the one found in my rhymes;
To writ and writ not again, as speech may haunt me,
To hear and hear not words, as thoughts come to follow,
But to read and writ again, as dreams decipher my verse.
To discharge all epics unreal, whilst they are sublime,
To emit all that remains, all visible and verbal emotions,
May I be absorbed in all my wonderings, and my dismay;
To be with the Northern Light, and the vanished world of days.

What if eyes never
Opened?
What if lungs never
Breathed?
What if the sun never
Rose?
What if you never
Woke?

What if mother found
Your lifeless body
Drowned.

If sister cried
If father died
Inside.

What if your wrists stayed
Unpierced?
What if lungs stayed
Dry.

What if you stopped
And breathed?
What happens if you never
Die?

Please
I say.

Please don't go,
            I beg my grandmother
        when her breath wavers
                   and her milky eyes
                                land on me.
Please don't tell them,
                   I cry to my teacher
                when she caught me
                  smoking a cigarette
              on the empty rooftop.
Please don't break my heart,
                     I whimper to him
                       when he cradles
                               my wet face
                               in his hands
              which feels like home.      

Thank you
I say.

Thank you for coming,
                    I greet the visitors
                        dressed in black
                  when they whisper
         and peer at my dry eyes.
Thank you for everything,
                       I tell my parents
                    when they left me
            at the boarding school.
Thank you for the gift,
                         I smiled at him
                     when he gave me
                           pearl earrings
                                     to adorn
                  my unpierced ears.

Of course,
        Please and Thank you
can be
                            beautiful too.

Please
I say

Please keep him safe,
                        I plead to God
            when my brother left
                     to join the navy.
Please come again,
I called out to the customers
              when they stroll out
               of my bustling café.
Please buy me ice cream,
                     I grinned at him
               when he waved me
                                  goodbye
                      ­   over the fence.

Thank you
I say.

Thank you my dear,
     I chuckled at the little girl
           who said I looked like
                                       a fairy
            in my wedding dress.
Thank you for the surprise,
  I cried with my best friends
       when they bounced into
                                 my home
                             with pots of
                          birthday food
                      made with love.
Thank you for life,
        I whispered to the trees,
                              flowers,
                   ­      sun,
                    chocolates,
               myself.

They are manners,
but they are also much more.
     tell someone
          please
    and thank you

today.

too much feeling
too much hiding
way too many fake smiles
invisible to the naked eye.
go ahead and shatter my skull
break my bones
i'll lend you the hammer.
because, darling
this is nothing compared to the hurricane of contradictions in my head.
i have a war zone that's burning itself alive.
so break me down
with your words and sharp tongue
maybe i'll build myself back up
if i'm feeling bored.
because no matter if i'm still broken
or i'm restoring my fractured pieces
the outside,
will always remain the same.
unpierced
and untouched
still smiling through the pain.

- a.g.

Jesus brought himself to the cross, gasping
It had to be this way
This way, the only way
Because Jesus is the Way.
All that was essential in Jesus had to die
So that in death all that is important to God may live.
Everything that mattered to God
Had to go through the cycle of death
For life to be restored.
They put the crown of thorns on him.
Some crown if it was all thorns.
The jewels were pointy.
Not pointing toward God.
But pointing in God.
Piercing him.
Releasing the blood that was ignoring by the whippings.
And the beatings by man’s hands.
These rough men called on the sharpness of a tree.
The Word says he was pierced for us
But why God does it have to be so much?

Then he had to shoulder the cross
Up to where he would die.
Like a soldier carries a gun.
Only this weapon would **** the God of War.
Pierced by men who simply do battle.
God was stabbed by nails, thorns, and spears
To win the only conflict that matters.
He arrived and they put him on the cross
With nails
Or more accurately, spikes
The little nails used for housework would not do.
When God was the one about to clean house.
They were spikes that went into his arms.
And in his legs.
No part of his body was left unpierced.
The Word says he was wounded for us
But his body was now all gaping wound.
Why God did it have to be so?

Then the Roman soldier passed by.
The one to make sure the Christ was dead.
He put his spear into his side.
Other stories told of how gods were inflicted pain.
This soldier actually did it
By God’s consent
With God’s approval
Because God wanted mankind to be free.
It was better for Christ to be pierced and wounded
Than for mankind to be enslaved and tormented.
So when Christ told Thomas to touch his side
And feel the nails in his hands
The Son of Man who was all wound
And the eternal sacrifice
Became my healing salvation
Christ conquered the affliction
That stood in the way between me and my Father.
So as Christ’s side was torn
The veil was torn as well
And I am free.

As I walk into the night,
as white as a milk cat,
as pure as a cauldron of snow,
I walk blindly.
Not knowing my own potentia.
But when they see me, spotless vellum, unpierced velum, a lamb,
They whisper snatches of carnal knowledge in my ear.
They make me Eve and Pandora,
But I am Ophelia,
and I am Proserpine:
I wear her pomegranate in my hair.