"vanquishing" poems
“Oh you’re Irish?” he said.
“Did you learn the language much?” he said.
Honestly, what can I tell him? I was raised in the North - a ****** wasteland for such a naïve question.
Vague memories of fumbled classes where our secret history was ditched just to get straight into the basics (Cad é mar atá tú?)
No – seriously - I was not tied to it – it was anonymous to me at that age.
Forgotten like some distant echo of once visiting Coole House as a child.
Sure, we knew it was “important”, “our national language”, “heritage” etc. and we were warned it was quickly slipping into the drain of Western hegemony.
But it was baffling, unsexy and only the blunt-faced humorless IRA thugs amongst us were in any way keen.
Then it was gone, just like the faded memories of “The Children of Lir” from my primary school.
Looking back I wonder, what was the point?
A half-full measure paying lip service to our identity.
Teachers and headmasters terrified of the grand colonial reveal that the lessons might have hinted at (were they trying to stop us being Provos-in-waiting?).
And all of this against the awful shame of a common tongue that had no foe yet was slowly vanquishing from our shores.
It could have all been so different.
Rather than rushing to get something in our empty skulls, they could have given us a sense of joy, pride & belief in our own culture.
Calling on Yeats, Behan, Heaney and others to drown us in the language of our ancestors.
Telling the stories of old that only the academics & hippies were keeping from us then.
You know, it might kept us all on the same beautifully illuminated page.
We might have been comfortable in our skins and open to others,
not looking deep into our worthlessness and lashing out at them.
Language is being and language is connecting, I’ve learnt.
But that’s not something I got from my secondary school.
June-July 2018
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
*Enchanting sunrises and sunsets
capture my heart and soul
Is one more breathtaking than the other?
no, I don't think so
truly, I feel both are uniquely beautiful
and so breathtaking
Come let's see peeping above the horizon
a divine beauty to behold
A sunrise so glorious with heavenly sunrays
lighting, touching, and caressing the sky
Sunrays vanquishing the darkness
as only sunrays know how*
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:15 PM UTC
Cherubim, Seraphim
Watching from above, afar a flying dove; crepuscular
Peace of mind in you we find, arcane
Playing amongst the darkness, what we were I forgot
Bairn devine,
Define;
Angelic promises, Demonic pride
Cosmic tears, is it to ourselves we lie?
Through my eyes I see the mirror of indifference
Aeon-Antiquity
Shadows illuminated by night, the moon the bringer of light
Corona, soul.
Angelic promises made in hell!
Deistic dipterous demons within thee; watch 'de'skies',
Demonic pride facing fears vanquishing friend or fiend
The belligerent zenith a conflagerated nirvana.
Inside ourselves we die, we lie for salvation; trying.
You watched us in thy darkness-
You took away the light;
Now know more, shadows shed pain
An acrimonial heaven built upon the burning of sepulchre.
Tear drops of eternal rain
Splashing on the doorstep of purgatory
Like dew on a rose
Dawn arisen,
Ethereal ebullience the dream of cornucopia;
An Elysian asphodel
Cerulean, Azure.
1997 ELEETE J MUIR
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 9:59 AM UTC
To all of the songs
that creep upon and seize me
vanquishing the world.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 8:15 PM UTC
Ötzi
Even in my long sleep,
I dreamed of this.
A waking by strangers
A grasping of my wrist
And I wrench it back from them!
My dreams beneath the ice
Were warm, in summer vales,
Where children played
Under my watch, old but hale.
An easy thing, my guard was then.
I tend sore limbs as supper warms,
And aching joints inflamed,
And muscles tough as ibex horn;
For a while I can be lame.
And see my copper ax in the red-gold flame.
I dream of how it came to me,
After vanquishing a headsman.
Intruders fell before me!
And I earned this talisman.
Weapon, scepter, power of my clan!
Then I was sent across the mountain,
A lone journey I knew well.
To trade with kinsmen in a the northern glen,
With gifts, arrow shafts and tales to tell,
Never guessing betrayal that walked behind.
Alone upon the highest peak
I ate my last meal by the fire.
To me the gods seemed trying to speak,
As men I knew climbed higher.
We had words, but they were my kin!
In my long sleep I wonder why
These false friends turned to hate.
I’d watched over them, yet they cried
That my rule was done, and it was too late,
So I turned from them and faced my doom.
I crossed the last protruding rock
And now felt safe from them.
But then a blow, beneath my heart: a shock!
I fell in a soft, snowy glen,
And then a dull pain in my skull…and black.
Beneath me, I can feel the ax;
They’d never take that from me!
Nor my arrows, quivers and packs;
And risk the fury of the gods.
They’d taken my power and left a naked soul.
Five-thousand years I spent beneath the frost,
Until I was found and freed.
My scattered ions watched, angry and lost.
They dragged my body from its bed
And my soul from another life.
Now part of me lies in a crypt
Another frozen tomb.
If only I hadn’t run and slipped,
All those ages ago,
I would now lie in sacred ground,
Back in the earth to which all are bound.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 10:16 AM UTC
Momentary lapses of shyness within pretentiousness the size of a non-la-hat
offering shade from the sweltering sun,
confused the boy still residing beneath an
exterior of brashness. A wooing of rose or
lotus petals? Did she not enjoy such frivolity?
What of a bard letting words slide through
the air like silk, for I didn't possess such
romantic poetry.
____
Instead, I embarked upon a journey of false-heroism, took a bullet, figured it to shape me
into a man. I showed off the wound, blood soaking through the bandages--you seemed far from impressed by this display of stupidity.
Yet you played coy, bending over,
letting sunlight play through a thin
summer dress, highlighting inner thighs,
lines arching up into a dome of dizzy-
delirium so sensual it almost appeared sinful.
At night you'd undress before a naked
window, let shadows flirt across moonlit dew.
It was all I could do to keep eyes averted,
instead, living on dreams of unwrapping gifts
under the influence of feverish waves,
even though I never forgot to take quinine.
And after all the games, I had only to stay
still long enough for you to complete another sketch, take its lines, breathe together a new poem, unleashing torrents of words into my ear. A funny sort of unconventional, tactile courtship. You wanted for me to listen,
to test my patience, and once your head
was emptied out, heat arose from the bloom, enveloping me in soft petals, vanquishing
my fever, with a different feverish embrace.
Your eyes almost felled me with their complexities of virginal innocence and a whorish lust. The thrusts,
lips and fingers, the blended push-pull
of rhythm and wild abandon
caused me to lose myself long enough,
to find your soul drifting alongside my own,
amongst the stars that had always been shining amongst the light already written
before our birth.
Aug 2, 2012
Aug 2, 2012 at 11:59 PM UTC
THE HEARTACHE OF TIME
I CAME TO A POINT IN THE WOODS OF MY MIND
AS ABOVE SO BELOW IN THE HEARTACHE OF TIME
AND I WISHED FOR A STOP TO THE MADNESS OF MEN
AND I WISHED FOR A STOP IN THE ACQUISITION OF SIN
ALONE DID I JOURNEY ONWARD FOR DAYS
LOST IN THE SILENCE THE WOODS AND THE HAZE
ALL MANNER OF CREATURE I SAW AS I WENT
REBUKED BY THE LORD AND ****** TO REPENT
ALL MANNER OF WOMEN THAT MOANED LIKE THE BEAST
REBUKED BY THE LORD AND OFFERED AS FEAST
AND I CRIED FOR ALL CREATURES LOST TO THE NIGHT
WHO KEPT ON SURVIVING BY VANQUISHING LIGHT
AND IT IS I TO THEM THAT OWE ALL MY THANKS
FOR MAKING ME SEPARATE OUTSIDE OF THEIR RANKS
I KEPT FAST TO MY CROSS AS I EMPTIED THE WOODS
FOR BEHIND AND A-FRONT CREPT MANY WITH HOODS
DEAD AND YET WALKING AND HATING ALL LIGHT
DEAD AND YET WALKING ARE THE CREATURES OF NIGHT
I CAME TO A POINT IN THE WOODS OF MY MIND
AS ABOVE SO BELOW IN THE HEARTACHE OF TIME
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 11:22 AM UTC
I think it's pretty easy to see
That i could fall apart from what's in front of me
But i won't- i am valiant
The only nightmare that exists is me vanquishing them as a whole
I wish i could ease the pain in greater increments
And prevent loss and death forever
A hundred lives lost by another act of terrorism
How long is it going to take for us to take care of this threat?
Maybe far down the stretch
Maybe never
Let's go with the first option.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 6:05 PM UTC
"Every time I look into a mirror I see the eyes of the devil".
The perpetual flame of life
A new dawn, an enlightening dusk;
The translucent sun
The convection of eternity,
Abysmal adversary,
The convocation of co-eternal legions!
''Every time I cry I see the face of God".
Influencing twilights perfection,
Hells paradise devouring
The ardent fervour of the carmine flame
Piercing the atmosphere,
Constantly tantalising the air- fuelling.
The forests engulfed, bellowing from the apse shaped canopies
Violet blue threads of of ribbon;
Wofting unto nothingness
Vapourising smoke.
Natures delightful beauty, casting a shadow
The conflagration immanently consuming lands;
Raging across the earth
Dehydrated and scorched.
Baptismal tears vanquishing the fire,
Heavens standing ovation, applauding
A contained flame,
The sound of rain the fires lamentation.
1997 ELEETE J MUIR
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 12:38 PM UTC
She speaks in tongues and earthwards—
Angels fall listening how to know divinity
From lips that open and close as do tides
Slip, blooming with the face of the moon.
She walks in airs of splendour and light—
Shoulders kin, her child riding on a beam
Vanquishing the sun with celebrated night
Set in reflection on lake waters, little moon.
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
12 BARS
Twelve brazen bars, one frozen lock!
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc
endures inside a barren cage,
her catacomb in sundown sage.
Of former days there is no trace
except displays of fallen grace –
Twelve dreams, abiding in her place,
are free, inhabit yawning space:
12 DREAMS
... of wings unfurled, and seething eyes
that dredge the depths of dawning skies,
devining clouds that cling below,
once ice, dissolved in morning’s glow;
... of clutching winds that carry free
above an anguished leaden sea,
dispersing dust of distant stars
midst chunks of chain in slave bazaars;
... of swooping to a silent shore
to perch beside the ocean’s roar,
at last to feel the sobbing breeze
message the leaves of rooted trees;
... of stalking strays and twilight tramps
within the fog of lighthouse lamps
that blink forlorn through caldron nights
in search of shades of errant Kites;
... of darkling vast deserted lands,
with shadowed stones on windswept sands,
where ghosts of Moorish maidens lost
disgorge faint groans in mourning frost;
... of blotting out the bloated moon
while feathers beat a banshee tune
and glimmers dance and prance aglow
upon a pearly pale plateau;
... of tasting cool torrential rains,
beyond the realm of binding chains,
and sipping freedom they exude
in quite drops of solitude;
... of vanquishing a galley crew
aboard a ship in midnight dew,
beneath the pierce of seagulls' screams
that mock the strands of scarlet streams;
... of sating once an aching craw
with tearing beak, with ripping claw,
and echoed by an eldritch screech
while feasting on abandoned beach;
... of restive thoughts and weary wings
that drift on haze in smoky rings,
obscured within the opal shroud
of her resemblance in the crowd;
... of croaking caws in broken rhyme
in winter woe, in summer clime,
while building nests of sundown sage
beyond outside a barren cage.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 8:28 AM UTC
Another sleepless night Im having
Bothered by these unfair thoughts.
Crippled by the guilt im feeling
Destroying my once lovely dreaming.
Every time I see her face
Fear rips through my tightened chest.
Gentle laughter now forgotten
Hatred for myself still blooming.
I feel as though Im always followed
Jumping at each and every noise.
Keeping to myself and crying
Learning to hide from my nightmares.
Maybe one day I'll be just fine
No longer blaming myself.
Or perhaps I will never change
Possibly only becoming worse.
Quizzical is my way of thinking
Ridiculous I have become.
Sulking in my darkened shadow
Teetering on the line of insanity.
Unwanted pain fills my soul
Vanquishing my beautiful memories.
Withering away from everybody
Xenophobe I now have become.
Zealous I will never be again.
-ARI
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
I wish I could be brave.
The dragon leers it's angry head,
throwing flames so hot they peel paint,
scorch my heart,
and yet instead of donning my helmet and vanquishing the beast,
I clamber at it,
clumsily,
my armor too big,
my sword a child's toy.
Can it really be as hard,
as my quivering knees tell me it is?
In the movies,
the beast is defeated effortlessly by the lockers in school corridors.
"Hey, I've seen you around, fancy doing something sometime?"
But this is not the movies.
I ask the question
"What's the worst that can happen?"
but the visual replies that flicker through my mind are so unbearable,
I shut them off.
Instead, I stay mute.
I live a thousand lives,
a thousand moments,
with all the different dragons I encounter,
but the coldness I feel when the dragon and his flames have gone,
tell me I've missed my chance again.
I have a voice.
I can speak.
So why do the words elude me?
Just as I go to stutter something out,
my tongue a diving board of could be's,
the dragon roars
and warms my cheeks red,
my hands clammy.
Perhaps I first need to
love myself
before I can offer my being,
and my love,
to another.
But then again,
don't these sick,
twisted dragons enjoy
a girl with insecurities?
Instead,
I best stay silent.
Instead,
I best first conquer the beast within me.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 12:12 PM UTC
Remnants of firecrackers litter parkgrass, splitting seams once encasing them;
exposed twine ribs attached, stretched out beneath shade like sunken reliquiae
dashed against the earth, as freedom is, withered paper husks abound.
What explosions in the sky were heard
above the quietus of patient submission?
Tracing the dotted white clouds to our horizon with thread and colored cloth,
held breath until nighttime, expelling then
-- as wind does each languishing puff of smoke--
from our lungs, sordid smells of Summer; vanquishing the past.
Isolating each other, like memories on kodak prints
we separately cling to that sleek filmy acquaintanceship of proximity and hue
-- disavowed pariahs and hearts lit anew.
Fused inside one sallow skull-box, which doubled once for holding shoes, we linger.
Ideas, impulses and infringements on the eye, until-- once--
bound, unbroken, encased and unspoken,
our ribs unwind with dew-- after,
unstitching seams outlined from heaven and inundating visions with brightness
we descend.
Violent fumes of childhood intercede amidst our shaking fuses lit.
--and BANG!
Jul 7, 2011
Jul 7, 2011 at 4:19 PM UTC
.
She speaks in tongues and earthwards—
Angels fall listening how to know divinity
From lips that open and close as do tides
Slip, blooming with the face of the moon.
She walks in airs of splendour and light—
Shoulders kin, her child riding on a beam
Vanquishing the sun with celebrated night
Set in reflection on lake waters, little moon.
.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 11:05 PM UTC
It's a travesty to tolerate
The ugly mores of men,
When everyone's allowance
Condones release for them.
Where everywhere provision
Is made for man to shove,
And woe betide the meek
Who don the feathers of a dove
The world applauds the forceful,
Rewards are rich for he
Who tramples over daisies
And holds aloft the key.
Who forces his attentions
And speculates the win,
Despite the devastation wrought
In winning it for him.
It's a travesty to tolerate
This bovine charge of man
When all can be achieved
With an accommodating plan,
When compromise and levity
See consideration's way
Where success can be attained
With out bloodletting on the day.
I hear the snort of your derision,
Feel the snigger in your smile,
See the curl of lip descending
With your slit eyes of defile.
For this portraiture is global
The fighting man is King
And he who deviates
Is left bereft and vanquishing.
Sadness is the matador
Who casts his scarlet cloth,
To be shredded and impaled
By a maddened bullock's wrath.
To be tossed aside, asunder
Like a lifeless ragged doll,
Like mankind's brute tomorrow
When the final drums do roll.
Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
29 November 2009
Nov 28, 2009
Nov 28, 2009 at 7:17 PM UTC
like a thief in night
his words evaporated;
vanquishing hearts
emotive caliber, yet,
love still lingers upon
flesh like a breeze
traipsing through
trees
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 8:21 PM UTC
with jealousy,
the water memorizes the embezzled sky
and copies it with every spark.
the insects have awoken
rising from their grasses and bark.
with a pulsating surge,
the night breathes.
smitten with the silence, the birds
are sighing, killing the quiet.
this is where the night lives,
this is where it waits.
with the joy of a child, the twilight
bursts across the horizon
killing the fear of darkness.
wildflower fumes intoxicate the air,
vanquishing inhibitions and disguising them
for romance.
the night is wild with static,
but there's nothing to fear.
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 4:40 PM UTC
Scintillating shades of brilliance absorb into my pores
Opulently bathing me in a radiant light
Flowing through my senses, appealing to my soul
An incandescent energy of pure delight
Tranquil beads of silken dew form upon my skin
Expressing adoration for the light
Pleasing drops of exultation, tears of joy divine
Sending darkness into the swiftest flight
A renewal of my spirit, eagerly blooming intensity
Persuasion of the sweetest kind
Is found in this release, the delightful peace I keep
Bathing in the brilliant light I find
An incandescent energy is flowing from my senses
Sending darkness fleeing from my soul
Tranquil beads of light are beaming from my spirit
Sweetly smiling, as darkness loses hold
Aug 22, 2010
Aug 22, 2010 at 9:45 AM UTC
my desperate gears grind
in hopes of vanquishing
the soft shoe shuffle
and sly smile serenade
but i am a stranger in
this clockwork land
and a fire now begins to burn
in the foundations of this folly
i have built
bitter taste now follows
her sweet furrowed brow
and rampant doubts flee the slow fear of
her eyes
as i cast myself headlong
at each broken future to repair
futile hope
she hastens behind gathering up
each spent medicine we laboured
to heal our lives with
desperate gears grind into the night
and our sweating bodies entwined in this
intoxicating brew of false hopes and twisted visions
soft shoe shuffle of moving ever forward
soft sly smile serenade calling us to the bright future
they are a slow death that envelopes us
save her please
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 4:43 AM UTC
Thump thump
What is that?
Thump thump
There it is again
Thump thump
It's coming from inside
Thump thump
I'm starting to feel alive
Thump thump
Ice is falling from my skin
Thump thump
Is this a sign?
Thump thump
Shall I begin?
Thump.....
I see this face
It's beautiful
Desirable
Inconceivable
Intangible
Fantastical
It's radical
How this image
Takes a hold of me
A *****
Veritably vanquishing
This viciously vile
Vortex
And yes
I feel alive
At my door
I hear as opportunity knocks
Taking the form
Or figure
Of a fox
Slyly slithering
In to my thoughts
Eating away
My cage
And I awake
Was it just a dream?
I don't thinks so......
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 11:14 PM UTC
The moon's glow holds nothing special tonight,
As someone so brilliant glimmers before my eyes.
It is captivating the way green eyes sparkle in moonlight,
The way rosy lips lightly release quiet sighs.
I am transported to other places, when there I gaze,
And you remain at my side wherever I roam.
You peel away the pain that has lingered like a haze,
Deciding that you will never leave me alone.
And on quiet nights, when there are no sounds in the air,
My mind wanders to the holder of my love.
Ponders green eyes that mesmerize as they stare,
Invalidating the glowing moon above.
I close my eyes on those quiet nights, and you appear,
Existing beside me to calm my shaking form.
Your embrace vanquishing my fear,
Calming this tumultuous storm.
Jul 24, 2016
Jul 24, 2016 at 10:48 PM UTC
Our future was built on revolution.
A mythos of courageously vanquishing the empire.
Such is the birthright of our citizens.
Our history created us in its image.
Villains seeking conciliation
must bear the title and charge
of treason.
Wielders of swords and rifles
stand immortalized in every town square.
Liberty or Death proclaims the stone and bronze
in which they are cast.
What will be the names of these great black men,
who crush the oppression of the old revolution?
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
Myopic we see
Blinded by our civility
Just as there are hidden microscopic worlds
There are lands hidden from our eyes of roaming, gigantic gods
Jesus came into the earth
and silenced the gods of ancient Rome
No longer do they sing under the Tuscan Sun
Desert Gods now roam the land, the battle they have won
The Roman Gods once alive, and life giving, are no more, their ways gone, and their people permanently converted.
Forgotten Buildings
Broken Statutes
Copied Notes
The bones of dead gods
Jesus, The Destroyer of Gods, experienced life on the level of immortals
in a way we will never understand
Vanquishing foes of hidden lands
And today, the Gods battle for supremacy, for allegiance
Darkness and Efficiency
Nature and Tranquility
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
A SOLDIER
A man born from flesh and blood
Ordered to **** with no regret
As the giant cannon ***** fly, screams of terror hollow in the distance trenches
In the blistering heat
He trudges through the valley of lost souls
Looking at death straight in the eye
Knowing deep inside there is no surrender
Adreline begins to pump through his veins with great heist
The sharp splintered ammunition waiting to feed the hungry giant spring gadgets
Waiting to rip flesh from bone
Behind the trigger he lays analysing the ****** field before him
He sees the paralysesd faces of small children, running towards him arms open wide
His thinks what can I do
He closes his tired eyes for a second, he runs screaming get down
Nothing happens, blood starts to flow from his jagged wound
He cries out for help lying in empty hole, as vultures fill the clouded sky
He knows now his on his own
As darkness prevails vanquishing the perfect light
He lays his head down to sleep.
Droplits of blood soak through morning mist
the smell of burnt flesh fills the air
He awakes from his deathly sleep to fight another day
LARRY A STUART 09
Feb 2, 2010
Feb 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM UTC