The belated summer sky is alive
with a  D r a g o n f l y ballet

Beneath,.. the rain parched sod
lay sullied, cracked open
by an unsated thirstiness
awaiting the painted autumn days
and the cleansing rain's renewal

A lace-winged hatch rises skyward
— meandering  airborne —
drifting upwards like a burst of dust
dissipating in an invisible cloud
of eventide's silent breath

Darting shadows hover
above a seeker's curiosity
    just this side the  
softening sunset backdrop

A synthesis of fluid motion
  – darting kinesis –
    swift agile fliers
steal away over the thirsty pond;
their mesmerizing beauty enchants
as the dimming dusk falls silent —-
embellishing the unrelenting ending
   another summer's
 imminent curtain call;

reminding how inexorable-time
is only a contrived human notion,
a recurring extrapolation
  of passing  seasons

Heightening awareness:
how we too are only
passing through these
unholdable moments
   coming to know
    we cannot stop
   how life unfolds

The raindrops will quench
the pond's aching thirst
again one fall someday...

  — hereafter —
there will be another
beauty of dragonflies
some other eyes will see
preying on another burgeoning
gossamer-winged hatch

          and
another beckoning autumn
when the dragonflies hover
below the gazing totems
     in the treetops


Jesse Stillwater ... September 2018                                                 .

consider O
woman this
my body.
for it has

lain
with empty arms
upon the giddy hills
to dream of you,

approve these
firm unsated
eyes
which have beheld

night’s speechless carnival
the painting
of the dark
with meteors

streaming from playful
immortal hands
the bursting
of the wafted stars

(in time to come you shall
remember of this night amazing
ecstasies     slowly,
in the glutted

heart fleet
flowerterrible
memories
shall

rise,slowly
return upon the
                  red elected lips

scaleless visions)

Hear me, Lord of the Stars!
For thee I have worshipped ever
With stains and sorrows and scars,
With joyful, joyful endeavour.
Hear me, O lily-white goat!
O crisp as a thicket of thorns,
With a collar of gold for Thy throat,
A scarlet bow for Thy horns!

Here, in the dusty air,
I build Thee a shrine of yew.
All green is the garland I wear,
But I feed it with blood for dew!
After the orange bars
That ribbed the green west dying
Are dead, O Lord of the Stars,
I come to Thee, come to Thee crying.

The ambrosial moon that arose
With ******* slow heaving in splendour
Drops wine from her infinite snows.
Ineffably, utterly, tender.
O moon! ambrosial moon!
Arise on my desert of sorrow
That the Magical eyes of me swoon
With lust of rain to-morrow!

Ages and ages ago
I stood on the bank of a river
Holy and Holy and holy, I know,
For ever and ever and ever!
A priest in the mystical shrine
I muttered a redeless rune,
Till the waters were redder than wine
In the blush of the harlot moon.

I and my brother priests
Worshipped a wonderful woman
With a body lithe as a beast's
Subtly, horribly human.
Deep in the pit of her eyes
I saw the image of death,
And I drew the water of sighs
From the well of her lullaby breath.

She sitteth veiled for ever
Brooding over the waste.
She hath stirred or spoken never.
She is fiercely, manly chaste!
What madness made me awake
From the silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
That her poisonous body held?

By night I ravished a maid
From her father's camp to the cave.
I bared the beautiful blade;
I dipped her thrice i' the wave;
I slit her throat as a lamb's,
That the fount of blood leapt high
With my clamorous dithyrambs
Like a stain on the shield of the sky.

With blood and censer and song
I rent the mysterious veil:
My eyes gaze long and long
On the deep of that blissful bale.
My cold grey kisses awake
From the silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
That her beautiful body held.

But --- God! I was not content
With the blasphemous secret of years;
The veil is hardly rent
While the eyes rain stones for tears.
So I clung to the lips and laughed
As the storms of death abated,
The storms of the grevious graft
By the swing of her soul unsated.

Wherefore reborn as I am
By a stream profane and foul
In the reign of a Tortured Lamb,
In the realm of a sexless Owl,
I am set apart from the rest
By meed of the mystic rune
That reads in peril and pest
The ambrosial moon --- the moon!

For under the tawny star
That shines in the Bull above
I can rein the riotous car
Of galloping, galloping Love;
And straight to the steady ray
Of the Lion-heart Lord I career,
Pointing my flaming way
With the spasm of night for a spear!

O moon! O secret sweet!
Chalcedony clouds of caresses
About the flame of our feet,
The night of our terrible tresses!
Is it a wonder, then,
If the people are mad with blindness,
And nothing is stranger to men
Than silence, and wisdom, and kindness?

Nay! let him fashion an arrow
Whose heart is sober and stout!
Let him pierce his God to the marrow!
Let the soul of his God flow out!
Whether a snake or a sun
In his horoscope Heaven hath cast,
It is nothing; every one
Shall win to the moon at last.

The mage hath wrought by his art
A billion shapes in the sun.
Look through to the heart of his heart,
And the many are shapes of one!
An end to the art of the mage,
And the cold grey blank of the prison!
An end to the adamant age!
The ambrosial moon is arisen.

I have bought a lily-white goat
For the price of a crown of thorns,
A collar of gold for its throat,
A scarlet bow for its horns.
I have bought a lark in the lift
For the price of a **** of sherry:
With these, and God for a gift,
It needs no wine to be merry!

I have bought for a wafer of bread
A garden of poppies and clover;
For a water bitter and dead
A foam of fire flowing over.
From the Lamb and his prison fare
And the owl's blind stupor, arise
Be ye wise, and strong, and fair,
And the nectar afloat in your eyes!

Arise, O ambrosial moon
By the strong immemorial spell,
By the subtle veridical rune
That is mighty in heaven and hell!
Drip thy mystical dews
On the tongues of the tender fauns
In the shade of initiate yews
Remote from the desert dawns!

Satyrs and Fauns, I call.
Bring your beauty to man!
I am the mate for ye all'
I am the passionate Pan.
Come, O come to the dance
Leaping with wonderful whips,
Life on the stroke of a glance,
Death in the stroke of the lips!

I am hidden beyond,
Shed in a secret sinew
Smitten through by the fond
Folly of wisdom in you!
Come, while the moon (the moon!)
Sheds her ambrosial splendour,
Reels in the redeless rune
Ineffably, utterly, tender!
Hark! the appealing cry
Of deadly hurt in the hollow: ---
Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Ay!
Smitten to death by Apollo.
Swift, O maiden moon,
Send thy ray-dews after;
Turn the dolorous tune
To soft ambiguous laughter!

Mourn, O Maenads, mourn!
Surely your comfort is over:
All we laugh at you lorn.
Ours are the poppies and clover!
O that mouth and eyes,
Mischevious, male, alluring!
O that twitch of the thighs
Dorian past enduring!

Where is wisdom now?
Where the sage and his doubt?
Surely the sweat of the brow
Hath driven the demon out.
Surely the scented sleep
That crowns the equal war
Is wiser than only to weep ---
To weep for evermore!

Now, at the crown of the year,
The decadent days of October,
I come to thee, God, without fear;
Pious, chaste, and sober.
I solemnly sacrifice
This first-fruit flower of wine
For a vehicle of thy vice
As I am Thine to be mine.

For five in the year gone by
I pray Thee give to me one;
A love stronger than I,
A moon to swallow the sun!
May he be like a lily-white goat
Crisp as a thicket of thorns,
With a collar of gold for his throat,
A scarlet bow for his horns!

Weather Advisory: A long one*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited

written two years ago and a bit, but suits still....

Weather Advisory: A long poem pouring ahead

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited

To say the darkness
Does indeed
Dwell inside of me
Becomes the pride of me
Would underscore
The fact
That the madman’s eyes
Loosens my lunatic tongue
The scowling beast
His drooling jowls
The anguished cries
How he howls
The hunger
Left unsated
The feast
For which he waited
The beast will have his
Ways with
Life and all of her bounties
And then what lies within
Will settle once again
The foaming mouth will pass
The hunger is not meant to last
And I will be me
Once more

She saw..
The greed for peace, unsated forever,
The need for love, unabated however,
Emptying vast emptiness,
She saw in me..

I write, you paint, they sing,
She..
She cried,
Sat there, with me in her eyes,
She cries..

She told..
Tol' me of the hollow hollows,
She had to tell..
A piece of my heart,
She had to take..
To make it right,
she took the left..
Kissed my fingertips,
she cried and left;
Left a hole in me, where her tears fell..

She left.. and..
The Greed for Peace, abated forever,
The Need for Love, unsated.. still... however..

Marooned  land-locked
    on  island  earth

Born with an orphan’s
    unknowable ache

Born with an empath heart
– always feeling too much –
mystic receptors wide awake
    in a highly sensitive soul

It’s as if I've walked along
      forever alone,
    one step at a time,
    lost in a restless nebula
from the earth to the moon

Consciously dreaming
      to steal away, 
bearing the weight of the sky, 
upwards over the mountain,
away from these chains
         that bind

    The maelstroms echo
behind silenced, probing eyes
with an unsated thirst
      to be wanted
    dead or otherwise:

Never understanding
    the reasons why,
spinning around in my head;
where "once upon a time"
        was hidden,
        buried alive              

A lifetime spent trying
    to unlearn the things
    I wish I’d never
    sought to know,
    clinging to the love
I've touched in my life
  evermore enwombed
       in my heart

    Passing milestones:
walking another barefoot mile
passing so many locked doors
    without keyholes
– way outside the lines –

    Choking on all
    the latent words
      lay fallow, 
      left unsaid 
Always looking for
something dreamt
but seldom manifest 

Growing so tired and weary
with no one standing by my side;  
no one to lay down beside me
    to take a rest for awhile

Just another chapter
in a timeless same old story;
  another dark star
      burned – out
      – vanished –
into the utter obscurity
of a sky so close and yet
       so far away...


Jesse Stillwater ... August 22, 2018

Her irises darting, probing.
Her tastes floated and churned behind mine.
Brushed, warm, wet
lips and tongues.
We kissed until it burned,
numbed but unsated.
Fear, passion, pheromones blended
flammabley
and ignited on a fire of psychotic teen heartbreak.
Stalking, trembling, steering my soul
past it
(but always dragging it behind)

You followed down through the gathered pages
to the  labyrinth that leads back through the changes
A long and twisted line of unmapped rivers,
*** holed low-roads and tattered mileposts
glancing homeless back-alleys as dark as lonely crossroads

Past the broken wings that fell from skyward treetops
scattered feathers amongst rose petals wilted
at the hand of tear stained faded photos
of frozen black and white faces;
hidden ghosts in the closet that fell from grace

The pathway narrows where the traces dissipate
passing under burning bridges, beneath locked stairwells
A fickle feather floating upon rivers ragging
like the hubris disconnectedness of time rolling out to sea ―
Shadows growing darkest as you reach the blackest silence
and you kept the answers to all the questions at arms length
hidden in the darkness ― where you saw love disfigure me

It was then and there I knew I'd dreamed of someone like you
looking for someone more than I could ever be
Just an unsated curiosity,    trying to see beyond
your own misunderstanding,   to feel and touch
an unknown depth beyond  reach

As sunset pales the distantness, the night is yours alone
when  tomorrow's  morning  rain
hangs  on  the  falling  leaves       ―       I’ll  be  gone
Just a wayfaring loner in a lonely world

Where rivers are only water
                                         and love was once a flowing river
I thirst to swallow ― 
                                         to wash away these tracks of my tears ...


                                      rivers ... 2017

.
The sensual caress
          twilight mist impearled flesh
          alighting a feral desire
          within blossoming spring petals

The newness of uncovered skin
          a sweetness on unsated lips ,
          the taste of passion and salty *******;

          with hastened breath
          sighs do brush with warm ****** breeze  
                               across my naked chest

          wild feathers sweeten
          tender touch
                                ... emanating
          sensual awakenings

Arousing buried desires

          unable to hold back
          constant cravings

          the inevitable currents
          pummeling shameless floodgates
with arising untamed springtides swell

Fleshly enslaved yen --  
energy sprouts tingling sensations

          nascent buds blossoming deeply
          flourishing exploding flames  
          bursting flush
                                       ... deliciously white hot

In an unstoppable carnal moment
          passion betides
          like the surging sea ;


Rising and falling crescendos
          unleashed waves crashing ,
          drowning in the rhythmic undertow

          interlaced bodies heaving adrift in the moment 
          like entangled seaweeds
                                            in a riptide

         as the rolling thunder storm 
         dances across invigorated tides
         with a surging cadence of cresting waves bloom
         caught in the Rhythm and the Sea


                           ✩ ✩ ☼ ✩ ✩

I pull out your picture
Smooth skin and hazel eyes
Even in photographs they hypnotize
Calling my name in whispers
Pounding at my *****
Electric shocks to the groin
Waking the senses
Feeling revived
Revitalized, alive
There, ever unchanged
Your gaze upon mine
Motionless, emotionless
Frozen, in time
When you realized I was she
Perfection
Unwavering
An alternate reality
Returning affection
A two way street of romantic love
Unseen. Unnoticed. Unrealized
Yet real just the same
Innocent, unthinking
With no one to blame
Knowing you want me
That you always did
Nothing but glimpses
Of an awkward kid
Turned man
Turned desire
Lascivious by design
Liquifying resistance
Wasting no time
A bit of shy
A hint of coy
Vanish all remnants
Of that innocent boy
By the light of the screen
I lay here
Alone
Feeling the heat of you
Making me moan
Desire unabated
I finish unsated
Abusing your picture
In ways you condone

Whatever happened to the happiness,
from all those early childhood days.
Where laughter. joy and sunshine,
filled all of imaginations endless plays?

What became of the joyous music,
giving beat and harmony to the world.
When dream and hope could exist,
and all possibilities could be unfurled?

When did all this darkness fall,
to lay shadow so dark upon the lands,
as a dense foreboding that has been
summoned by greeds unsated demands?

When did dream and hope become,
just mere folly and wasted thought.
What happened to the morals and the ethics,
that as kids we valued and were taught?

When and where did all this go,
for everywhere I look such is just not there.
All has been replaced by a selfish world
of greed, hatred and down-trodden despair.

I know that in the course of time,
I am meant to see an old man's view.
But what worth and value of a world,
where hate and lies are sold as true?

Death and hatred fill this world,
in every rank corner that I see,
and in silent, desperate fear I wonder,
why we stood-by and let it come to be?

The trap was set by the light of the winter blue moon ;
just a simple blank sheet of paper and a pen
The Antique Cherry carved poster bed stood alone ,
adorning four Bordeaux colored silk pillowcases ,
fluffed feather pillows impatiently laying in wait
The stone cold down comforter that blanketed the loneliness
was neatly turned down from where it lay tucked and rolled ...

I close my eyes with a surrendering sigh ;
the cold touch of solitude brings a breathtaking shiver
Curling up in a fetal ball for a sense of closeness ,
like a tiny abandoned child, waiting for the sandman
to steal away the remains of another lonely day ...

In the imperative silence of the moonlit stillness ,
you could hear the blood running through my veins
The pounding heartbeat is reluctantly softened
quietly drifting off into a dream ...

The first arousing whisper broke the silence ,
as musings tiptoed through the silent reverie
Songs danced throughout the secret places ,
safely kept out of the wilderness' nocturnal voyeurs eyes
Words murmured expose an unsated caged yearning ;
an insatiable thirst that aloneness can not quench ...

Emotions ebb and flow within the twilight depths
of our thickly breathed word play
Intertwined in the infinite beauty
of enchanting moonstruck conjured delights ...

We glide speechlessly in the starlit moon dust,
levitating blissfully like giddy adult playmates
with  an  uninhibited  wanton  glee
Mesmerized by a rousing romantic essence
stirring up an urgent swooning breeze
If only this recurring dreamfulness
could reach out beyond reach a bewitching dream
to tenderly touch another impassioned heart of soul ...  

                                 ~

The sweat soaked sheets are now tangled ,
twisted traces of ecstasy tossed and turned
Awakened flesh trembling with the uncovered morning chill
A body drained and exhausted
as if there were never a moments sleep ...

The trap was set by the light of the winter blue moon ;
perfectly placed to catch the spilled secrets
of a moonstruck midnight spell
Awakening to find a paling illusion’s memory
laid bare in words, stranded on the cotton sheets of dawn ~

In the heat of the night these three simple words 
were clearly scribbled, trapped on the once blank sheet of paper ―
                       to remind me in ink blue ...

                               It  is You !!!

                                    and

               " I breathe you in my dreams "


             harlon rivers ….❤  happy belated St. Valentines day ☽

Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjur'd up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
How oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd
The distant plough slow moving, and beside
His lab'ring team, that swerv'd not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminish'd to a boy!
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along its sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in his bank,
Stand, never overlook'd, our fav'rite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
Displaying on its varied side the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow'r,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the list'ning ear,
Groves, heaths and smoking villages remote.
Scenes must be beautiful, which, daily view'd,
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.
Praise justly due to those that I describe....


But though true worth and virtue, in the mild
And genial soil of cultivated life,
Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there,
Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,
As to a common and most noisome sewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land.
In cities foul example on most minds
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In gross and pamper'd cities sloth and lust,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,
Or seen with least reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there
Beyond th' achievement of successful flight.
I do confess them nurseries of the arts,
In which they flourish most; where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye
Of public note, they reach their perfect size.
Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd
The fairest capital of all the world,
By riot and incontinence the worst.
There, touch'd by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes
A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees
All her reflected features. Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips....


God made the country, and man made the town.
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threaten'd in the fields and groves?
Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue
But that of idleness, and taste no scenes
But such as art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only ye can shine,
There only minds like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve
The moonbeam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the music. We can spare
The splendour of your lamps, they but eclipse
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scared, and th' offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;
It plagues your country. Folly such as yours,
Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, which enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you,
A mutilated structure, soon to fall.

some of us walk insistently,
instinctively, and instantly to
and upon the edged path,

this physical nexus & abstract mental locus,
a cliffside enticing rock strewn trail,
drawn of men, by men, for men

(yes, men are people too, still)

enthralling views,
down to the riverside,
where eyes intuit the
beauteous aroma of
precious precocious
precarious precipices
and the near-stench of
mortality

amidst
wafting scents of inane undesirable need,  
hints of destruction, or,
alternating eager relief,
like a ****** infused, instant attractiveness,
making weakness in the knees, all too real,
trembling with a delicious accented edge of
a fresh, familiar scent, fresh baked bread,
an all enveloping consumption need now!

to
crave what we fear,
to fear what we crave
our cravings are craven,

this twisted sense, annuls
our common sensibility, yet,
titillates our pleasured imagined relief,
releases, our unsated, even better,
our insatiable curiosity to tremble,
an entire body enjoined by vibrato~
enticing tremulations, shaken and stirred,
this danger choice releases something primordial,
escape? a reckless wrecking so deeply designed,
it has its very own designation…death wish

multitudes of easy choices afforded my senses,
and by accident, all mine chosen, all nearby,
I travel the esplanade près de the East River,
where even if calm is the sole visiblilty,
undercurrents and the unpredictable passage
of container wakes and the larger freighters
will hand you down, so easy, to become parcel
to a littered river bottom of centuries’ artifacts

but even more tempting, the balcony,
a hop, skip and a jump unlocked,
mere ten steps, no need for a running start
why it’s the “height of convenience,”
he ruefully winces, and not even any
TSA lines or inconveniencing “conveniences”

Why this calamity seems so desperately desirable,
Why this unabrogated feat so featured, nay, even
feted in our hot? cold? bloodstream

“Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.”

Do you remember when love was uncomplicated
Hand-holding, lonely fingers grasping,
Longingly, perfecting their grip?

And do you remember the honeymoon
Highs, up and up, dizzily clambering up,
Exploring new horizons?

And do you remember, precisely, when love emerged,
From clouds of chalked up experiences,
Foreboding as a mountain,
Where lonely fingers grasped,
Longingly, for fresh hand-holds?

The quest for loves summit rises,
Peak to higher peak,
Each conquered height unveiling a new vista,
Revealing loves perilous truth,
That each peak is surpassed by two more
And the summit remains elusive.

The fool will climb up and up,
Leaving a devastated trail of overlooks,
Ever unsated,
Ever yearning,
Ever lonely.

The sage will make camp behind a large rock,
Still aware of the mountains hidden presence,
But settled with a lightness of heart,
To enjoy just one wonderful view.

I taste sweet nectar
each night I sleep without you
clawing at the fabric of my dreams
seeding my subconscious with self-doubt

Mr Resentment and Mrs Regret
my erstwhile lovers
one, cajoling and seductive
the other, spooning and insistent
together, sleep-deprived and unsated
we made for a corrupt ménage à trois

I taste sweet nectar
every night I spend with you
my new bedfellow
Ms Forgiveness

...

Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjur'd up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
How oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd
The distant plough slow moving, and beside
His lab'ring team, that swerv'd not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminish'd to a boy!
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along its sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in his bank,
Stand, never overlook'd, our fav'rite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
Displaying on its varied side the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow'r,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the list'ning ear,
Groves, heaths and smoking villages remote.
Scenes must be beautiful, which, daily view'd,
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.
Praise justly due to those that I describe.

...

But though true worth and virtue, in the mild
And genial soil of cultivated life,
Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there,
Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,
As to a common and most noisome sewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land.
In cities foul example on most minds
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In gross and pamper'd cities sloth and lust,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,
Or seen with least reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there
Beyond th' achievement of successful flight.
I do confess them nurseries of the arts,
In which they flourish most; where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye
Of public note, they reach their perfect size.
Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd
The fairest capital of all the world,
By riot and incontinence the worst.
There, touch'd by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes
A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees
All her reflected features. Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.

...

God made the country, and man made the town.
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threaten'd in the fields and groves?
Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue
But that of idleness, and taste no scenes
But such as art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only ye can shine,
There only minds like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve
The moonbeam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the music. We can spare
The splendour of your lamps, they but eclipse
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scared, and th' offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;
It plagues your country. Folly such as yours,
Has made, which enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you,
A mutilated structure, soon to fall.

When doors were crushed
With fires breath
and 30,000
marched to their death
When screams rang bright
And hate rang true
And souls ran black
as midnight's hue

When books were burned
And shelves were bare
And  broken glass glittered
Through  winter's air
And cries rang out
despair and fear
unsated hate
unending tears


then chants resound
And rooms are bared
And dried blood glitters
In street lamps' glare
And cries ring out
both loud and true



When rockets flew
And silence blared
and bombs blew
Through autumn air
Yet all is fair
Yet all is fine
For hate
is war is love
Is just

Whence comes thy ill? Thy brooding bitter pill
Ploughed deep in fertile soil, sprouting to seed
Snake-like tendrils crawling to sprawl and spill,
Choking lush verdant fields with poisoned ****;
Wilted young peaches, withered pears dying,
Irises blinded, red chrysanthemums
Faded to white, strewn petals borne on sighing
Dark fitful clouds rend'ring the landscape numb;
Oh bitter pill, thy loathsome poisoned thrill
Afflicts one tainted by unsated need
To wilt and wither, blinded, faded, ill
Craving for thee with hollowed hateful greed;
    Sweet bitter pill, thou will be coveted
    Till once ripe lush and verdant fields lay dead.

ironies usurp courage
adventure scowls unsated
Times New Roman ****
pixels unconsummated
similes sin-taxed for hits
stale nefarious negging
all heros on the page
reality waits begging




- - - - - -

sweet decay
everything is
rotting away
slowly
as we sway
sedated
seduced
ever unsated
life and death
eternally mated
time wished away
is oxygen wasted

It is a sad, sad story
for the successes of the past do not fare to serve us in the present
the logic of the bully is a nationalist sigh of relief
and the arc of our world is divided by invisible lines that cross borders
but across which only poverty ****, recorded and scored, shall pass
when the successful liar is preferred to the lonely sage
are we not prepared to accept that which we serve
are we not prepared to eat from the plate we have earned
to sup on anarchistic attitudes, imbibe narcoleptic morality
then purge our selective brutality on the servers
for we have earned this, that which fell into our laps
a modern life made tolerable by the indictments of demagogues
for freedom’s a blight in the nightmares of demagogues
shopkeepers made frightful by the incitement of demagogues
we don’t need rights when we’ve the rightness of demagogues
we know they are liars, but are they successful liars?
we know they start fires so they can be better seen
presiding over the funereal pyre of our former freedom
some bishop of hate and self-interest raised up by our fear
to a pulpit of nations drawn low by wage slavery
to a podium impatient for their arrogant knavery
to a rostrum of hatred unsated by gross economic products
to a minbar frustrated by allegations and false prophets
It is a sad, sad story
for our past failures, our careless disregard will not serve us in the present
the logic of the bully is the demagogues rise to belief
we are weakest only when we are weak
and no backs will lift this burden but our own
A sad story indeed

How the thirst for love can rack the heart!
"Just a drop will do," it softly screams;
Ah, but what solace could one drop impart
To this torrid wasteland of parched dreams?

My gasping heart is struggling for breath
As panic stirs the dust of despair;
A cry for compassion (a plea for death?)
Leaves my lips as I kneel down in prayer

But prayers do not comfort my distress --
Pleadings turn profane upon my tongue,
Prodding me to silence my loneliness
And trudge on with my sorrows unsung

But my thirsting heart begs to be heard,
And its yearnings I dare not suppress;
(What inspires these rhymes and each dauntless word?
The obscure blessings of loneliness!)

Loneliness and its unsated thirst
Cause thoughts to take flight on tattered wings,
And the rationale of a heart accursed
Results in the worst imaginings

Now the hour's late, soon my sun will set,
Hope is waning like a smoldering fire,
And my thirst for love now provokes regret
For each empty dream and vain desire

My search for love was an ill-fated dream
That drifted on the wings of despair
As Life slowly unveiled its tragic theme ---
And so it found its destiny there

Spring teaches us
About innocent romance
Summer
About unsated lust
Autumn
About a lover's warming embrace
And winter
About the art of smoking cigarettes slower
For humidity tends to **** up tobacco's flammability.

Just take a good look at me;
My frame is attractive!
It does the unsated
appetite of the chauvinist
fuel.
My curves and your fantasies
are mutually inclusive!
Without them, dreams
are truncated.
But I am an *******
symbol.
The self opinionated chauvinist
designs me in his sub-conscious
to serve and be utterly subservient.
I am incarcerated as a chef,
and timeless baby sitter.
A baby machine for a
patriarchal dynasty.
My education is a threat to chauvinist ego.
My ignorance hones his misogynist confidence,
whilst my erudite head
retards his self esteem and worth.
The illiterate ******* symbol is his
ideal and virtuous woman.
The smarter and more professional
is the age-old Jezebel.
My chastity and virginity
are twin virtues of a
mutilated genitalia.
My restrained *** urges are
designed for his unrestrained
proclivities and gratification.
I must be restrained,
for him to be unrestrained,
because, share him I must
with two or three others of
my kind.
But take another good look at me,
and see a versatile womb-man!
Translate each prejudice of yours'
and see my remarkable antonyms.

Wouldn’t it be perfect
If "we" all became one?
No "I" or "You" or “They”
Just one giant indomitable I
Tall and selfless like the palm tree
Wouldn’t it be liberating if I would
Unify the rift between truth and lie?
If I would cross the fence and pull the plug
On the conflict between good and the need for doing good?
If I would break the horrifying silence of the hibiscus
Stimulating the unsated thirst of the butterfly
If I would make every cloudy face break open like the morning sun
If I would be as liberal as the sun,as cleansing as the rain
If I would be as receptive and meek as the moon
We would be one indomitable “I

Bring out the reams of broken dreams
so we can charter buses to hell.
Do tell, my friend,
of promises fallen to shade.
Ancient tales of rust,
of lust left unsated.
Holes dug left unfilled.
A vacant grave for words left unspoken.

I am no judge of good character
(think I am the greatest poet-***-bf ever)

I used to be a sharp dresser,
(then to the time twisted testing,
t'is of tiny import sense succumbed)

I used to love woman by the score
(Ha! fooled ya, still do, will dying do so,
but caught in a single spider's heartweb,
I read, and I love, and cheat only nowadays
with weak eyes and strong words)

I used to be young in heart,
(self impressed at my talented prose,
but then my eyes grew keener,
the more I read, the older I got,
the more others led me faster,
sweeter to the promised land)

so I trip 'n skip in the waterfall pool,
that forms where the poems cascading
are laid down to peaceful repose to keep,
and too oft, sad uneyed loneliness

yet, I see a graffiti on the clear bottom,
white paint upon an earthen rock,
wipe away the eddys, put aside the ego,
lift it, lift me up, that stone,
with caressing care to read:

So Jo Was Here

oh indeed indeed in deed another poet,
who blues my heart with words modest,
in combinations that say to me
you knew that, but not till now!

how did she know that

words and words and -
ironies usurp courage
adventure scowls unsated
Times New Roman ****
pixels unconsummated
similes sin-taxed for hits
stale nefarious negging
all heros on the page
reality waits begging

I read and I think
did I not write these words?

love is a bittersweet borrowed lie
time is a slowly emptied sigh
deception is the sharpest yet rustiest lance
and rage the slowest, saddest dance
while truth's just polished-up confusion
with words - the slipperiest illusion

But I did not!
nope but I read them cause

So Jo Was Here

stoked and croaking,
addicted, I read on
only to find my mirror image
once again, one mo' time crime

But I was held unknotted only,
oblivion teetering on the pinch
of a thumb and forefinger.

Until slowly but cynically,
gasp by gasp,
all was forced out, and when
the moment came to go,
there was nothing left to go on

so it is written, so it will be read

then you can say too,
as I did, as I here confess,
in my recesses unexplored,
trembled to find,
overjoyed to be
me revealed
cause:

*So Jo Was Here