I gave into a subtle beating,
Wrought once by Eros’ tasked -entreating,
The winds confound I lost my heart and…
…she of black-haired, eyes, dark beauty;
warm-rosined cheeks of nature gladdened.
For Pallas' claim, -said we both were saddened.
And me a farmer, she a princess,
I of yoked-labor, while her suitors, -the best.
Doth Father-King did mantic challenge, that challenge being sought in no jest.

Accosted me the low-ly suitor,
He gave of me a challenge -the worst. He sent me to the serpent’s folly.
With dagger and heart, whirlwind passion, sought I did the guiles’ jolly.
Up the cragged wind-swept mountain, past laurel berries, trees of holly,
Into white polished marble temple to the folly of a lair-born beast.
Gave my most but just a farmer, heart of swelling beat untempered.
As he set out, devour meal thus conquered, came she the dark-haired raven beauty, with shrieks and wails doth shocked the serpent, he surprised I plunged my dagger. Serpent dead she held her finger to my lips and then did whisper;

“We of Pallas judgment true did, find our love rise from ash-field –lister.
Tell of this you will to no one, you the boy who captures fair-heart,
To father you shall be a hero, deception we of female -impart,
Cleverness you must now fashion, must fashion your will to a high art,
Something of a nature now you must know,
Like the serpent-challenge dealt your passion a blow,
Apples will not save you once and,
Once as King and you my hus-band,
We the two of Pallas’ favor, love forever shall we savor,
I the half of you shall sing, you the half shall make me King,
We together, rule forever, we of two sides brawn and clever,
No serpent ever come between us, now that we a love -Athena’s!
Go now and this be our se-cret, marry me and never re-gret, all is yours and I your egret!”

Of this I did sit and ponder, on that hill of temple, off at yonder,
Me of fields, dirt-laden squire, she at court make of me a liar,
Is her beauty, hand a console -to the surety and loss of my soul?
Run I did to the city my way, storm gates to the court and did say;

“These, the teeth of folly’s serpent and she will be my wife on this day!”

Aged now and sit here, grumble...

Kingdom of deceit into which I crumble;
Woe to me how didst I tumble?

In rush to love perhaps did stumble?
In later years now here I humble;

...love was not worth all the trouble.

Upward-curled, gleam of white
But as yet, something missing
“I swear, I’m quite alright!”
My wonder turns to stressing.
Is she really quite alright?

No-one wears their shoes,
Socks upon the carpet
Browning fog turning loose,
But purple mist diffuses.
Is she really quite alright?

My wonder turns to worried health,
I turn my focus to myself,
I pull a beer down from the shelf,
Indulging still our failing health,
She smiles, as if to say that she’s alright.

Trading sweat between our hands,
A greeting shared from man to man
We speak ambition, WE ARE PROUD
Our cigarettes, they make no sound.
They know that it will soon be their turn.

To be or not… I have forgot.
Our wasteland, wasted, seems alright
It skips my mind I’m all I’ve got
I’ve never put up much a fight
I hope I’ll quickly be all right.

But there are NO PROMISES
And no safe-houses.
smoke arouses surety,
But holds the door for vanity.
But as for me,
I highly doubt she's feeling free.

Charging, useless, up the hill,
The last endeavor of it's kind,
Cry peace, peace, but peace is killed,
Fulfill the end of southern mind.
There is no way that she's okay.

As men in grey
Lay on the ground
Bleeding with untempered sound
I cast my eyes about the house
I find her broken, fading lips
Pressed limp against assailant’s kiss

Those pearls that were
Her sentient eyes,
They cast upon me smiling sighs
She clings the arm of shifty eyes
And leaves the party, new inside.
And now I know she’s not alright.

But then again, nor am I.

The blood comes dilute, as if to refute
What is, or was ever at all
To challenge the must,
The is and the thus
The ever, the will, and the Fall

The Winter, the Spring, the Summer that brings
A freedom, an illusion anew
A time to recline--in dreams and unwind
The idea that you can, that you will

The will, O the will, O the untempered can
Of worms which one opens and finds
Full to the brim, before and again
"Reality"" which tries to unbid

The self from the mind
The meaning from line
The reason from rhyme
And the is from all time

Separates Us: from passion
From Trust.
From belief in ourselves
From love
From true wealth

From magic. From tragic
At least in true measure
Dulling the pain,
But denying the pleasure

The Roar and the Ring
A Hell of a Thing
To make the time pass or
To fill up Your Glass.

~D.B. Guy
August 15, 2011 12:11AM PDT

In this, my last hour of rhyme,
with stains uncontainèd by shaking hands
Spreading like red soldiers running wartime
untempered by generals shouting commands
Then laughing like drunkards, drowning in wine
that rich purple spills out from its barrels
Then lying on bartops, eyes shine porcine
and unheard soft voices hiss curses and carols.

O, woe be on me if I speak out of time;
out-tumbling come innards, spewed from a mouth
Which whispered sad prayers in corners of grime:
hints of spring-season on trips to the south;
Watch them out-tumble, watch horri-divine
like the death of the tragic, acted but true
Yet laughing old minstrels declare it quite fine:
and friends ensure royal-men breathe not from the blue.

Hours fly past on wings of the Sun
who turns misted eyes from child-fight below
And lives lives of many, but cares not for none
not least merchant servants, throttled in the snow.
I fade and I fade: a blossom once watered
and love of the stage is clogging my throat
It changes my words: I fight it, I fought it
and hot-wet floods up with drowning and choke.

This minute, these words: I defy death.
And cold, outward slipping: my slow final breath.

Science is governed by theorems and laws, but I think its more important to learn, live, and love from nature’s flaws.  Ideal reactions exist on paper created by pencils, but really its nothing more than a flawed man’s stencil.  Something unable to exist in freeform untempered by the creative storm and unblemished by the perfect mistakes that prove its not fake.  Thats not of what I partake.  

You make my world spin and keep my gravity down.  It’s just the physics of our situation, is this our mind or the worlds creation?  Einstein was the founder of relativity but I’m sure of our brevity.  A whirlwind thats almost out of control, the dance of days that composes our souls.  Linked rhythmically together no longer singularly apart joined at the heart never to depart and so we start.  I’m not sure how this equation functions but its a positive conjunction.  I want to linearly progress without regress never to suppress or obsess but to travel and caress but I digress with my interest to express.  

I haven’t done the math but I’m almost positive one heart plus one heart equals one heart.  Thats real arithmetic, a force surely kinetic.  Attracted and reacted to form a singular product of an environment construct.  You make my world spin and keep my gravity down.  It’s just the physics of our situation.

You see it coming and keep watching
In thought that you may survive.
Crossing over your imaginations
And in your face; a present of misfortune.
It's better to stay but rather watch from afar
And better not to run...
......Never hide forever.

Even when you climb high, nature
Commands you to the flow
To be safe is to be on standby
The sooner it comes, the earlier the better
It later goes in the air invisible to human sight
You're a solvent/ vapour

It is not hopelessness.
Simply the realness.
Cold and fully factual,
Empty,
Merciless.
Unhindered by
Untempered by
The heart's softening.
Logical
Calculated
Weighed and measured.
It is
As always
No more than that
It is what it is
And no less.

A man born without wings into the ashes of a forest
dead leaves and a valley of butterflies
Bleached to be ethicless
effortless as it is
To go without pursuit of question

A mind of matter
Wherein death lies one doesn't know
You're feeling all these expectancies
all these dependencies
Energy of yours, unhinged

The screens written
with the bastardisation of simple truths
Rhythmic as a creature
as spoken wavelength navigating
A wondering memory standing in front of the collectives

Transcendence above the impermanence
A palace on the grounds among us, but separated
dangerous minds of a phenomenon, in sequencing
Unceasing in divinity and untempered
by the indignation of his companions

Free to be, among the meadows of ourselves.

The lack of fame
  my spirit free

A bird uncaged
  amongst the trees

Its weight not lifted
  and never there

My breath in sequence
   above the air

The lack of fame
  art’s greatest gift

My oath to no one
  allegiance kept

As thoughts go hither
  and feelings yon

My soul untempered
  —my words to song

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)

Anger

The simplest
And most complicated
Of emotions

His anger is celebrated
A mirage of strength
Power
Control

Her anger is ridiculed
A loss of control
Inconvenient
Emotion without reason

Neither view is complete
Or completely wrong
For all of us

We feel righteous in our anger
Full
And complete

But anger can be an illusion
Of power
Control

Sometimes it pops
                                   Like a bubble
                                                          ­     A balloon of hot air

And we are left feeling empty
Drained
Sometimes full of regret
And shame

Even when it is justified
And full
                  of substance

It can only be an important step in a journey
But never a home
                                    worth living in

Use anger as a tool
A sign
“Injustice may live here”
Worthy of further exploration

But even in its most righteous form

Anger alone cannot solve problems
It can fuel action
Incite support
                               In the moment of outrage

But avoid the quicksand
Of rage untempered by reflection
That way leads to despair
Inaction
Silence

Beware anger as a shield
Against feeling

Pain
Guilt
Regret
Fear

These emotions are necessary steps
To continue any journey
To grow

Feel your anger
Seek to understand it
Then look beyond

Find strength
And power
In feeling
In seeking
                    shared vulnerability
                                                   ­          empathy
                                                        ­                        and joy

My insides are raging
Like my feelings are on fire
From my fingertips to my toes
Untempered, this flame will be dire

The way I see it now
Is that if I share my feelings
They can make me fly
But if I keep them to myself
My own fire might burn me
Until I die

I go up in a flash of flames
I'm afraid my feelings will burn me
They are so painful
I feel like I can't just be

So I fly with my flames
Instead of just fighting the truth and sitting
I share my light with the world
Instead of flames just licking and spitting

I resurrect from this hole
Like a Phoenix, I  light the sky
My flames turn darkness to light
So from fire, I fly*

~JLH~

The moon mocks with distilled grace.
Its light bleeds through panes of glass
to reveal her to Heaven's judgement.
She lies upon waves that cannot cleanse her,
upon sheets of abandon
with devils dancing in deranged
circles around her mind.

She is naked save for the remains
of ripped vestures of white that once
contained all of her purity.

The harlots outside laugh with sardonic voices,
the drunkards laugh at the jokes that spike their liquor,
and the thieves laugh at their spurious wealth.
But they all laugh at her.

She hears the voices of another world
and even they speak to dismantle her;
to haul her down from her untempered flight
on facile wings of wax.
Flirtatious voices whisper
with the strength of God's divinity
but burn with the intent of the Devil.

A cruel air reigns over the room
and stifles her in its dominion.
She holds a handful of the deluge
and her mind is absolved of reality,
but she discerns no creases upon her paradise.
God's angels observe
and bewail her.

satellite skies (3 months of love)

satellite soaked skies
stars to unknowing eyes
crossed moonbeams
not quite as they seem
a mistaken cosmic sign
astral bodies do align
our bodies do align

starbursts on leavened tides
I see it as nebulae collide
star to star you + me
the colours my eyes do see
hues myriad your love gifts me

eyes closed sighs aflame alight
you're burning me up so bright
as nebulae collide this night
setting my skin on fire
untempered desire

you
you
you
my love
set all the stars to collide
love shine crystalline in your eyes

infinite fires burn in my heart
our love stands a universe apart
you loved me back from deep gloom
this love is no love in a vacuum

J.C. honey-baby 25/2019

The steps outside
That trace a fear
An aching in the heart
When your own consciounce
Betrays you
Leaves you to be consumed
By untempered thoughts

I never say sorry when I mean it
Just vomiting it out into the clean ceramic
After a binge
Of misunderstanding and bone shaking rage
My stomach drops sorry into the moments where I need the screaming to stop
Sorry is a pacifier
A ramp onto the high road
anything I can say to be left alone
Conflict running like tracks leaving bruises over my body
Familiar as the desire to hide and never be found
Yet I am always the one who spills sorry
A snake handler under the bed again
Yesterday I was not sorry
and my sorry could not stop the water from sluicing down the drain to leave me shaken and shaking
in the bath
But your sorry, hours later, after the trees felled have sent the electricity wires writhing within me
After you have manned the tank and rolled over me only to reverse and do the same again
After I have prostrated myself for your flagellation that continues through the night
your sorry means This is over.
Your sorry is a demand for a sweeping brush and a rug, for untempered forgiveness.
And I am not sorry
That my answer is no.

The small gods of mediocrity worship me
In glimmering shades of opaque vanity
And a quantity of quietly suspended sanity
For believing in me is me deceiving in thee
Cos’ nothing exists inside an empty mirror
Everything is but a shallow showy business
An’ vanity’s the perfect anaesthetic to criticism
It has a certain cachet of symmetrical insecurity
Which protects one from the whips and scorns
Of the too, too solid clever clogging creatures
And their insistence upon a useless authenticity
And several types of other irredemptive features
If thickness was a virtue they’d be geniuses
As things stand they’re an average ordinary
Overburdened by the extremes of modernity
And the necessity to dwell in the sin of originality
No such burden afflicts this untempered soul
A pickpocket in heaven is a smart career move
There are so many treasures in eternal garments
Looking better on me than any famous other
They may have originality but I possess the sin
Tailored to perfection of a finely cut deception
Wrapped in the vestments of deceitful beauty
So befitting on this prince of thieving vanity                                            .
If you have been where I have always been
You could’ve written the Faerie Queen
And several iniquitous verses in between
The fame and fortune of writing anything
It’s a difficult business being someone else
At least on paper and preferably in private
An’ don’t you just love an innocent abroad
Loneliness is always my singular attraction
And sadness isn’t without capricious merit
They’re the essential requirements of being
A phantom haunting in the raiment of deceit
I could shake the scene but only for an hour
Why does everybody know that second-rater
Or some warbling barbed wire singer-songer?
The blowing wind of his twice solid injustice
Denies me my princely literary inheritance
I’ve got more Faust than a beggar’s banquet
I could be them, but they could never be me
So who is the real genius at the literary feast?
That’s the question that they refuse to answer
I’m the prince of all the borrowed tomorrows
And the silver-buckled trampling of history
Who are they compared to me, the thief of faces
A genius at my very own seditious practices?
Skylarks, nightingales and ****** red roses
There’s no purchase there for a born deceiver
Pirouetting upon the landscape of deception
My ancient trade, a slave to modern ambition
And isn’t wealth so comfortably in fashion
Filthy lucre for filthy booker is my very passion
A flattering self obsession can be so expensive
Plundering souls to satisfy a scribbling ego costs
Much more than your average literary bargain
Writing’s cheap and writers are even cheaper
That’s why I became this born-again deceiver
Transient fame and eternal blame’s my passion
Who cares about fifteen minutes of ignominy?
I’ll do it all tomorrow in another stolen name
Addiction thrives by being exposed to shame
Any fool can pen their play or scribe a novel
The romantics always scribble in their hovel
Whilst the past is a very lonely day tomorrow
And written failures drown in present sorrow
But my notoriety is a timeless endless furrow
Ploughed and planted in each passing season
Harvesting the festival of my sweetened treason
And I’m compelled to a very summer’s day
An’ winter springing another written disguise
Favouring my fortune by a winning surprise
Beggaring the belief of a charitable donation
To the swollen coffin of my self infatuation  
Ferreting in the trashcans of the famous
For those half-forgotten reject slips
Nothings too worn or useless for my audience
Even less for my insatiable appetite
To be appreciated as a literary genius
Even if it lasts for only fifteen minutes
In the company of an utterly innocent audience
I’m neither proud nor even vain glorious
It’s just part of my addictive insouciance
I just love that moment in my significance
When I can be seen as someone not average
Not much to ask and even less to deliver
It doesn’t take a genius to be just clever
That’s a joy that I can always joyfully deliver
Twice on Saturday provided one’s a matinee
I will venture on this shadowy way forever
Harming no one except a ripped off author
They should be grateful for the plunder
After all it is a kind of literary flattery
I have standards in my taste for literature
I’d never rob your average written writer
If they’ve mugged themselves, why bother?
A long lost great or an undiscovered genius
Is more my taste and appreciated flavour
New wine is fine but truth is there to be told
I’ll drink anything especially if it can be sold
To any old innocently paying punter
Desperation travels in the company of deceit
And much of it is right up my street
Not quite the boulevards of the ancients
And there I go along the road of the living
Avoiding life’s cul-de-sac dead end
A place to spend a life seriously avoiding
Even if it means inhabiting other people’s clothing
The wearing and the tearing is a riot
An’ God won’t send me to Hades for borrowing
The silken garments of the truly wonderful
But he sure as hell gets mad if I copyright it.

Filling The Glass ,Tipping the Glass

We all drink from the same cup, sent daily items of old or new to partake

By the drop or a great flood how we receive always open to how we perceive

Some deviation fills it to over flow with frustration, leaving the faucet open is often our mistake

Whether a P-ism or O-ism overthinking leaves less time for drinking, when always full which side do we believe

View often distorted if not open to what was reported, will this elixir be clear or opaque

Often coursing with ice cold fluid mixed with hot untempered solvent, when we mix this to warm the flow won't burn or freeze

Pint pitcher tub, puddle pond lake, brooks streams rivers flow into seas or oceans all will wash us, optional to drown or apply a brake

Paths lead many places, fumbling stumbling will sunlight brighten, enlighten or will it always be midnight with moonlight blocked by the trees

How we each view a concept is nothing new, always a task coming to fast, taking life in leaves a head in a spin, internally we sift real from fake

Awash in a wasteland that has become our over flowing mind, as it fills avoid those chills positive negates negative, face hurricanes as though it were a summer breeze

Finding my glass half full an easier task ,less burden or questions to ask, given a choice reason to rejoice, absorbing that other half shows a reason for that empty space

Playing mind games often reveals our pains, Liquid turns living steel into rust how fast is up to us, new mission requires clear vision, will we stand stall or be left on our hands and knees R.C.

we are water and oil, old friend
you move freely, untempered by those who try and control you
I make things unstable, make others see warped forms of themselves
stuck in the same ***, but never mixed together, no matter how hard we tried
when the heat is on, you're the first to boil yet i try to control your splash
we're no longer in the same ***, and while i'm glad you've finally left, i wish to spend one more day with you

The beauty of a child is a curious thing
Untempered, like solar flares- Aurora Borealis
Naive and innocent
so pure
the white of their eyes



The glow they exhume when they smile
And how honest they question the world around them



It is a wonderful scene to behold
Heartbreaking- for it is not to last



Sunshine and rainbows
Colours and shapes
They only last but for a moment



Saddening, as we all wish to remain a child
To be beautiful
To see beauty in everything, in everyone



To be curious and careless
To smile and refract light
To cry and raise frenzy
With a gesture the world moved



Painfully, it is not meant to be
For there is darkness in this world
The night and many terrors
Hell- the devil and demons work too hard for any brightness, whiteness or beauty to last.

Upon the vandalized wall speaks an aged truth.
Where their scars break old meaning to fill untempered law.
Hold bound by promised taste of their life, yield their fruit.
Their temptation to attain an enlightened mind, whether clawed or naught.

crisp, green grass
uncountable as the grains of sand
like the memories in the corners of my mind
untouched by time
untempered by wisdom
of what was once divine
of what is now common
come what will the grass still greens