On Hellespont, guilty of true love’s blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoin’d by Neptune’s might;
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
And offer’d as a dower his burning throne,
Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
The outside of her garments were of lawn,
The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;
Her wide sleeves green, and border’d with a grove,
Where Venus in her naked glory strove
To please the careless and disdainful eyes
Of proud Adonis, that before her lies;
Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.
Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,
From whence her veil reach’d to the ground beneath;
Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves,
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives;
Many would praise the sweet smell as she past,
When ’twas the odour which her breath forth cast;
And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
And beat from thence, have lighted there again.
About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone,
Which lighten’d by her neck, like diamonds shone.
She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind
Would burn or parch her hands, but, to her mind,
Or warm or cool them, for they took delight
To play upon those hands, they were so white.
Buskins of shells, all silver’d, used she,
And branch’d with blushing coral to the knee;
Where sparrows perch’d, of hollow pearl and gold,
Such as the world would wonder to behold:
Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,
Which as she went, would chirrup through the bills.
Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin’d,
And looking in her face, was strooken blind.
But this is true; so like was one the other,
As he imagin’d Hero was his mother;
And oftentimes into her ***** flew,
About her naked neck his bare arms threw,
And laid his childish head upon her breast,
And with still panting rock’d there took his rest.
So lovely-fair was Hero, Venus’ nun,
As Nature wept, thinking she was undone,
Because she took more from her than she left,
And of such wondrous beauty her bereft:
Therefore, in sign her treasure suffer’d wrack,
Since Hero’s time hath half the world been black.

Amorous Leander, beautiful and young
(Whose tragedy divine MusÆus sung),
Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none
For whom succeeding times make greater moan.
His dangling tresses, that were never shorn,
Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,
Would have allur’d the vent’rous youth of Greece
To hazard more than for the golden fleece.
Fair Cynthia wish’d his arms might be her sphere;
Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there.
His body was as straight as Circe’s wand;
Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand.
Even as delicious meat is to the taste,
So was his neck in touching, and surpast
The white of Pelops’ shoulder: I could tell ye,
How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly;
And whose immortal fingers did imprint
That heavenly path with many a curious dint
That runs along his back; but my rude pen
Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men,
Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice
That my slack Muse sings of Leander’s eyes;
Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his
That leapt into the water for a kiss
Of his own shadow, and, despising many,
Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.
Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen,
Enamour’d of his beauty had he been.
His presence made the rudest peasant melt,
That in the vast uplandish country dwelt;
The barbarous Thracian soldier, mov’d with nought,
Was mov’d with him, and for his favour sought.
Some swore he was a maid in man’s attire,
For in his looks were all that men desire,—
A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye,
A brow for love to banquet royally;
And such as knew he was a man, would say,
“Leander, thou art made for amorous play;
Why art thou not in love, and lov’d of all?
Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall.”

The men of wealthy Sestos every year,
For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis, kept a solemn feast.
Thither resorted many a wandering guest
To meet their loves; such as had none at all
Came lovers home from this great festival;
For every street, like to a firmament,
Glister’d with breathing stars, who, where they went,
Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem’d
Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem’d
As if another Pha{”e}ton had got
The guidance of the sun’s rich chariot.
But far above the loveliest, Hero shin’d,
And stole away th’ enchanted gazer’s mind;
For like sea-nymphs’ inveigling harmony,
So was her beauty to the standers-by;
Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star
(When yawning dragons draw her thirling car
From Latmus’ mount up to the gloomy sky,
Where, crown’d with blazing light and majesty,
She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood
Than she the hearts of those that near her stood.
Even as when gaudy nymphs pursue the chase,
Wretched Ixion’s shaggy-footed race,
Incens’d with savage heat, gallop amain
From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain,
So ran the people forth to gaze upon her,
And all that view’d her were enamour’d on her.
And as in fury of a dreadful fight,
Their fellows being slain or put to flight,
Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead-strooken,
So at her presence all surpris’d and tooken,
Await the sentence of her scornful eyes;
He whom she favours lives; the other dies.
There might you see one sigh, another rage,
And some, their violent passions to assuage,
Compile sharp satires; but, alas, too late,
For faithful love will never turn to hate.
And many, seeing great princes were denied,
Pin’d as they went, and thinking on her, died.
On this feast-day—O cursed day and hour!—
Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower
To Venus’ temple, where unhappily,
As after chanc’d, they did each other spy.

So fair a church as this had Venus none:
The walls were of discolour’d jasper-stone,
Wherein was Proteus carved; and over-head
A lively vine of green sea-agate spread,
Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung,
And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung.
Of crystal shining fair the pavement was;
The town of Sestos call’d it Venus’ glass:
There might you see the gods in sundry shapes,
Committing heady riots, ******, rapes:
For know, that underneath this radiant flower
Was Danae’s statue in a brazen tower,
Jove slyly stealing from his sister’s bed,
To dally with Idalian Ganimed,
And for his love Europa bellowing loud,
And tumbling with the rainbow in a cloud;
Blood-quaffing Mars heaving the iron net,
Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set;
Love kindling fire, to burn such towns as Troy,
Sylvanus weeping for the lovely boy
That now is turn’d into a cypress tree,
Under whose shade the wood-gods love to be.
And in the midst a silver altar stood:
There Hero, sacrificing turtles’ blood,
Vail’d to the ground, veiling her eyelids close;
And modestly they opened as she rose.
Thence flew Love’s arrow with the golden head;
And thus Leander was enamoured.
Stone-still he stood, and evermore he gazed,
Till with the fire that from his count’nance blazed
Relenting Hero’s gentle heart was strook:
Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is over-rul’d by fate.
When two are stript, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows, let it suffice,
What we behold is censur’d by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight?

He kneeled, but unto her devoutly prayed.
Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said,
“Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him;”
And, as she spake those words, came somewhat near him.
He started up, she blushed as one ashamed,
Wherewith Leander much more was inflamed.
He touched her hand; in touching it she trembled.
Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled.
These lovers parleyed by the touch of hands;
True love is mute, and oft amazed stands.
Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts entangled,
The air with sparks of living fire was spangled,
And night, deep drenched in misty Acheron,
Heaved up her head, and half the world upon
Breathed darkness forth (dark night is Cupid’s day).
And now begins Leander to display
Love’s holy fire, with words, with sighs, and tears,
Which like sweet music entered Hero’s ears,
And yet at every word she turned aside,
And always cut him off as he replied.
At last, like to a bold sharp sophister,
With cheerful hope thus he accosted her.

“Fair creature, let me speak without offence.
I would my rude words had the influence
To lead thy thoughts as thy fair looks do mine,
Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine.
Be not unkind and fair; misshapen stuff
Are of behaviour boisterous and rough.
O shun me not, but hear me ere you go.
God knows I cannot force love as you do.
My words shall be as spotless as my youth,
Full of simplicity and naked truth.
This sacrifice, (whose sweet perfume descending
From Venus’ altar, to your footsteps bending)
Doth testify that you exceed her far,
To whom you offer, and whose nun you are.
Why should you worship her? Her you surpass
As much as sparkling diamonds flaring glass.
A diamond set in lead his worth retains;
A heavenly nymph, beloved of human swains,
Receives no blemish, but ofttimes more grace;
Which makes me hope, although I am but base:
Base in respect of thee, divine and pure,
Dutiful service may thy love procure.
And I in duty will excel all other,
As thou in beauty dost exceed Love’s mother.
Nor heaven, nor thou, were made to gaze upon,
As heaven preserves all things, so save thou one.
A stately builded ship, well rigged and tall,
The ocean maketh more majestical.
Why vowest thou then to live in Sestos here
Who on Love’s seas more glorious wouldst appear?
Like untuned golden strings all women are,
Which long time lie untouched, will harshly jar.
Vessels of brass, oft handled, brightly shine.
What difference betwixt the richest mine
And basest mould, but use? For both, not used,
Are of like worth. Then treasure is abused
When misers keep it; being put to loan,
In time it will return us two for one.
Rich robes themselves and others do adorn;
Neither themselves nor others, if not worn.
Who builds a palace and rams up the gate
Shall see it ruinous and desolate.
Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish.
Lone women like to empty houses perish.
Less sins the poor rich man that starves himself
In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf,
Than such as you. His golden earth remains
Which, after his decease, some other gains.
But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone,
When you fleet hence, can be bequeathed to none.
Or, if it could, down from th’enameled sky
All heaven would come to claim this legacy,
And with intestine broils the world destroy,
And quite confound nature’s sweet harmony.
Well therefore by the gods decreed it is
We human creatures should enjoy that bliss.
One is no number; maids are nothing then
Without the sweet society of men.
Wilt thou live single still? One shalt thou be,
Though never singling ***** couple thee.
Wild savages, that drink of running springs,
Think water far excels all earthly things,
But they that daily taste neat wine despise it.
Virginity, albeit some highly prize it,
Compared with marriage, had you tried them both,
Differs as much as wine and water doth.
Base bullion for the stamp’s sake we allow;
Even so for men’s impression do we you,
By which alone, our reverend fathers say,
Women receive perfection every way.
This idol which you term virginity
Is neither essence subject to the eye
No, nor to any one exterior sense,
Nor hath it any place of residence,
Nor is’t of earth or mould celestial,
Or capable of any form at all.
Of that which hath no being do not boast;
Things that are not at all are never lost.
Men foolishly do call it virtuous;
What virtue is it that is born with us?
Much less can honour be ascribed thereto;
Honour is purchased by the deeds we do.
Believe me, Hero, honour is not won
Until some honourable deed be done.
Seek you for chastity, immortal fame,
And know that some have wronged Diana’s name?
Whose name is it, if she be false or not
So she be fair, but some vile tongues will blot?
But you are fair, (ay me) so wondrous fair,
So young, so gentle, and so debonair,
As Greece will think if thus you live alone
Some one or other keeps you as his own.
Then, Hero, hate me not nor from me fly
To follow swiftly blasting infamy.
Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath.
Tell me, to whom mad’st thou that heedless oath?”

“To Venus,” answered she and, as she spake,
Forth from those two tralucent cisterns brake
A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face
Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace
To Jove’s high court.
He thus replied: “The rites
In which love’s beauteous empress most delights
Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel,
Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil.
Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn
For thou in vowing chastity hast sworn
To rob her name and honour, and thereby
Committ’st a sin far worse than perjury,
Even sacrilege against her deity,
Through regular and formal purity.
To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands.
Such sacrifice as this Venus demands.”

Thereat she smiled and did deny him so,
As put thereby, yet might he hope for moe.
Which makes him quickly re-enforce his speech,
And her in humble manner thus beseech.
“Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve,
Yet for her sake, whom you have vowed to serve,
Abandon fruitless cold virginity,
The gentle queen of love’s sole enemy.
Then shall you most resemble Venus’ nun,
When Venus’ sweet rites are performed and done.
Flint-breasted Pallas joys in single life,
But Pallas and your mistress are at strife.
Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous,
But heal the heart that thou hast wounded thus,
Nor stain thy youthful years with avarice.
Fair fools delight to be accounted nice.
The richest corn dies, if it be not reaped;
Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept.”

These arguments he used, and many more,
Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.
Hero’s looks yielded but her words made war.
Women are won when they begin to jar.
Thus, having swallowed Cupid’s golden hook,
The more she strived, the deeper was she strook.
Yet, evilly feigning anger, strove she still
And would be thought to grant against her will.
So having paused a while at last she said,
“Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?
Ay me, such words as these should I abhor
And yet I like them for the orator.”

With that Leander stooped to have embraced her
But from his spreading arms away she cast her,
And thus bespake him: “Gentle youth, forbear
To touch the sacred garments which I wear.
Upon a rock and underneath a hill
Far from the town (where all is whist and still,
Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand,
Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land,
Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus
In silence of the night to visit us)
My turret stands and there, God knows, I play.
With Venus’ swans and sparrows all the day.
A dwarfish beldam bears me company,
That hops about the chamber where I lie,
And spends the night (that might be better spent)
In vain discourse and apish merriment.
Come thither.” As she spake this, her tongue tripped,
For unawares “come thither” from her slipped.
And suddenly her former colour changed,
And here and there her eyes through anger ranged.
And like a planet, moving several ways,
At one self instant she, poor soul, assays,
Loving, not to love at all, and every part
Strove to resist the motions of her heart.
And hands so pure, so innocent, nay, such
As might have made heaven stoop to have a touch,
Did she uphold to Venus, and again
Vowed spotless chastity, but all in vain.
Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings,
Her vows above the empty air he flings,
All deep enraged, his sinewy bow he bent,
And shot a shaft that burning from him went,
Wherewith she strooken, looked so dolefully,
As made love sigh to see his tyranny.
And as she wept her tears to pearl he turned,
And wound them on his arm and for her mourned.
Then towards the palace of the destinies
Laden with languishment and grief he flies,
And to those stern nymphs humbly made request
Both might enjoy each other, and be blest.
But with a ghastly dreadful

i slipped out
into the waves of watercolour
that broke themselves upon the shore
of the horizon
and i disappeared
as they darkened into black

i escaped through the sunset
as words were climbing up my legs
setting fire to my ears
and forcing me to retreat away
from the choking letters and sinking ink
that tattooed all this sound into my skin

at first, the sunset saved me
and the waves that gently hit the dock felt like a heartbeat
telling me that this was how it would always be

but soon, i began to miss the panic
just for the simple fact that it was a feeling
and the sunset had stolen them all from me
leaving me bare, black and stretched high above
unable to land on the ground again
unable to even blink stars down onto the grass
unable to do anything
other than wait for the sun to rise again

but solstice has already passed
and the dark hours grow longer again
and i am pulled thin, veiling a world
that accepts me as the night
and doesn't even miss the stars

I weep for Adonais—he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!”

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

O, weep for Adonais—he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend;—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania!—He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished—
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal.—Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!—
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law
Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.

O, weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams,
The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not,—
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries,
“Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.”
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!
She knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

One from a lucid urn of starry dew
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;
Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem
A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit,
That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,
And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp death
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

And others came… Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp;—the moving pomp might seem
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aereal eyes that kindle day;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,
Or herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day;
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
Than those for whose disdain she pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds:—a drear
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,
Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,
For whom should she have waked the sullen year?
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both
Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere
Amid the faint companions of their youth,
With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.

Thy spirit’s sister, the lorn nightingale
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun’s domain
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year;
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;
The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season’s bier;
The amorous birds now pair in every brake,
And build their mossy homes in field and brere;
And the green lizard, and the golden snake,
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean
A quickening life from the Earth’s heart has burst
As it has ever done, with change and motion,
From the great morning of the world when first
God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed,
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;
All baser things pant with life’s sacred thirst;
Diffuse themselves; and spend in love’s delight
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender,
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;
Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath
By sightless lightning?—the intense atom glows
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

Alas! that all we loved of him should be,
But for our grief, as if it had not been,
And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!
Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene
The actors or spectators? Great and mean
Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow.
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!
“Wake thou,” cried Misery, “childless Mother, rise
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart’s core,
A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs.”
And all the Dreams that watched Urania’s eyes,
And all the Echoes whom their sister’s song
Had held in holy silence, cried: “Arise!”
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs
Our of the East, and follows wild and drear
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings,
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier,
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania;
So saddened round her like an atmosphere
Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

Our of her secret Paradise she sped,
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,
And human hearts, which to her aery tread
Yielding not, wounded the invisible
Palms of her tender feet where’er they fell:
And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they,
Rent the soft Form they never could repel,
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,
Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath
Revisited those lips, and Life’s pale light
Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.
“Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,
As silent lightning leaves the starless night!
Leave me not!” cried Urania: her distress
Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress.

“‘Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning brain
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,
With food of saddest memory kept alive,
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art!
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

“O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear?
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,
The monsters of life’s waste had fled from thee like deer.

“The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;
The obscene ravens, clamorous o’er the dead;
The vultures to the conqueror’s banner true
Who feed where Desolation first has fed,
And whose wings rain contagion;—how they fled,
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped
And smiled!—The spoilers tempt no second blow,
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

“The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then
Is gathered into death without a dawn,
And the immortal stars awake again;
So is it in the world of living men:
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight
Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit’s awful night.”

Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame
Over his living head like Heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument,
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow; from her wilds Irene sent
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,
And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue.

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,
A phantom among men; companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness,
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray
With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness,
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift—
A Love in desolation masked;—a Power
Girt round with weakness;—it can scarce uplift
The weight of the superincumbent hour;
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,
A breaking billow;—even whilst we speak
Is it not broken? On the withering flower
The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone,
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew
Yet dripping with the forest’s noonday dew,
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart
Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew
He came the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter’s dart.

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan
Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band
Who in another’s fate now wept his own,
As in the accents of an unknown land
He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned
The Stranger’s mien, and murmured: “Who art thou?”
He answered not, but with a sudden hand
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,
Which was like Cain’s or Christ’s—oh! that it should be so!

What softer voice is hushed over the dead?
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
What form leans sadly o’er the white death-bed,
In mockery of monumental stone,
The heavy heart heaving without a moan?
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one,
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs,
The silence of that heart’s accepted sacrifice.

Our Adonais has drunk poison—oh!
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown
Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe?
The nameless worm would now itself disown:
It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone
Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong,
But what was howling in one breast alone,
Silent with expectation of the song,
Whose master’s hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!
Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name!
But be thyself, and know thyself to be!
And ever at thy season be thou free
To spill the venom when thy fangs o’erflow:
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt—as now.

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled
Far from these carrion kites that scream below;
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now—
Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow
Back to the burning fountain whence it came,
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow
Through time and change, unquenchably the same,
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—
He hath awakened from the dream of life—
’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife
Invulnerable nothings.—We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

He lives, he wakes—’tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais.—Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air
Which like a mourning veil

bypassing the 502 error: title - whiplash...
body... cream...

original intent:

they're doing road works on a stretch of road
where the brothel sits:
house of the rising sun or whatever you want
to call it... i'm not ready for the thrist:
for the plunge that will extend into half a decade's
worth of not *******...
i'll give it a week or so... before i take the plunge:
proper... mind you... i've already found
the perfect formula for drinking...
the cheapest bottle of australian wine...
at 14%... mixed into the glorious Mayan drink
of the gods' that's kalimotxo...
and if i'm still not "feeling it": i'll top myself
off with some slender-man's whiskey glug-glug...
it worked so well for 4 years without
touching a woman's body...
what the hell prompted me?
to wake up from this slumber?
oh... right... i own two maine **** cats
and when i was grooming the female...
she stuck up her brunt right into my hands...
it felt like: trans-species ******* for a while...
a cog in my brain went loose...
for days i cycled in the night into central London
looking at the flesh market:
of the free peoples of the western world...
what prompted me...
i was grooming my maine **** cat and she
was tempting me with a: ******* hairy apple...
no... wrong... just plain wrong...
perhaps i swing around beard envy & ha...
***** envy (well... imagine a rabbit ******* an elephant...
big **** genre of: and how deep is that...
ahem... hole? standard kama sutra...
not one size fits all)
but when your cat starts to imitate getting it...
**** me... the night... cycling... sweating it off...
until you have to touch the antonym...
but suppose you come across a timid girl
and you get a case of erectile dysfunction...
while you end up caressing her: timidly kissing
her because she's timid...
pointing at her eyebrows... nose... eyes...
ears... pimples... freckles and moles...
the mirror... fingers... elbow... knees...
and asking her to say the Romanian words for them...
sure... a momentary lapse in sanity:
the reason(s) was already self-evident...
take a woman like Ava Lauren...
now... my god... by god... that's a ****-machine...
an *** like a Lamborghini and a body
like a leather armchair...
and she stuck through it... a mandible body
of the extension of the jaw...
some people are born to be boxers...
she was built to be ****** in the confines of
orthodoxy...
dead pornstars though... i.e. Shyla Stylez...
it's really a joke if i ask: would it be necrophilia
if i'm doing it to images of a dead pornstar?
"doing it": best on the toilet...
no... no scented candles... no eager kangaroo *****
no webcam... no thrill...
3 birds:  1 stone: on throne of thrones...
no better way and all the best excuses to later
jump under the shower and get on with the dead...
sorry.. day...
4 years i did... grooming a cat awoke in my a thirst
i thought i had long forgotten...
- kinks: mostly foreplay...
       kissing after all that 2nd base foreplay
while she's on top of you veiling you with her
Turkic raven hair...
immediately after the act: all that virility...
now... dilution...
            kinks: i still tend to rub my hands against
a brick wall before i enter their abode...
i rub my hands against bricks
to demand more from when i'm touching
flesh... nothing can come close when standing
at the altar of a woman's naked body
in dim lighting... with at least 2 mirrors on the wall...
reassurances of cleanliness are highly
welcome... even though by a tonne load of surprises
she would perform ******* with the rubber
commoner of promiscuity...
- kinks: any body attired in latex...
  that's the height: ms. gimp...
                          well... there's that or me endowed
with a cockerel sized endowment about
to **** a maine **** cat during grooming...
as "sick" as finding out you've been doing
the nos. 1, 2 & 3 on the throne of thrones
to a dead pornstar like Shyla Stylez...
in third person: lover-boy all smooches
and octopus tentacles reading the geography
like he might pick up the braille of all the grooves
and hinges...
interruption: i'm no pornographer!
although there's this one allusion:
    Venus in Furs... ol' Leo von Sacher-Masoch...
on the tip of my tongue:
at the tip of my fingers...
to turn stone in skin...
   - i remember being in a strip-club once...
i had to fly to Athens for that one...
i walked into a market sq. and met up with
some random... Greeks... Algerians...
Medi- olive skinned folk...
complete strangers... we drifted around the nightclubs
and watched the girls coming out...
how's that scale of nought through to ten?
below average... and highly demanding...
the four of us decided: **** it...
we climbed into a car and drove to the outskirts
of Athens to a strip-club...
unlike a dog that's chasing cars
i couldn't just... look... a few drinks down
and still eyeing the prize
i had two women around my arms
and my face buried in one's *****:
while some demon-she look on from
the other side of the platform of lost clothing...
another put a green peg on the table
informing me i could have more...
by then i was out of debit... my card was
returned... a bouncer escorted me to the nearest
cash machine in a hotel... started talking
to the receptionist while i was pretending to
withdraw money i didn't have...
right there and then i became a child:
******* my clothes... excitement, fear... both...
dunno... drunks have this build in GPS...
Athens... a city i only just arrived in...
blind drunk mad with love...
i managed to find my way back to the hostel...
**** the guiding beacons into my dreams...
eh... a ******* is never going to be a brothel...

i don't like the argument of:
look... but don't touch... touch... but don't taste...
taste but don't... what comes after taste?
if ever i catch myself watching pornogrpahy
it has to be classic Italian flicks...
on silent...
i can never be fully absorbed:
i'll wait for a real experience to come
with the flood of the senses...
i can't give myself to simulation with all
the sense...
after all... i was probably one of the last
boys who bought a ***** mag in a shop
with... actual expedience of trade...
it was still in the open...
i might have died of shame but at least
i didn't hide it...

                  no shame in Belgium though...
we were visiting world war I graveyards
and the trenches... but at the same time
we were looking for the best brothel in Ypres
while i was the only boy buying a ***** mag...
all ****... shaved... unshaved...
no *******: because a man's imagination
was still fertile... you had a woman's body
impose itself on your psyche like
an x-ray... and you had all that imagination
to subsequently have to swallow...
third party ***** weren't involved:
you never felt like a cul de sac ******...
oddly enough... limp **** hey presto:
can't perform when asked...

ooh... ol' Turkic raven hair:
all her talents in the foreplay...
and all the smooching during *******...
thank god i could never marry...
father children...

4 years it has taken me to wake up to this...
"repressed" reality...
repressed or... even the Teutonic Order
had a brothel in their capital-citadel of Malbork...
Marienburg...
for the love of women who also love:
cleanliness... and the aesthetics of arousal...
for all that's love and all that's not love...
for all that beside love: intimacy without question:
but all the answers...
for two bodies imitating slugs or serpents
where no words are exchanged or given
toward *******: autonomous bodies reaching
for braille with eyes wide open...

- the road to the brothel was closed...
the guys doing the road works cut it off...
not tonight... tonight i'm going to bemoan how:
well... when you start writing...
don't expect to have the same sort of privacy rules
implicit of... whatever the hell you do besides...
why wouldn't a plumber raise these words
from the domain of thought that's probably
his most cherished freedom?
people can still pretend to hide in anonymity
on the internet...
but... why would you... write bogus comments
and troll...
before words become carbon on paper: pencil...
the circus of thinking ought to be enough...
unless: like me... you're going at it like a bull...
i don't think i can have "privacy" anymore...
not that that bothers me...
i'll wear a mask when i put my face on...
but literacy so squandered for the upper-hand
in slighting someone anonymously...

                    ha!           someone would have
written a confession: Anne Sexton brush-up on:
what's important... Anne Sexton... now there was
a ***** that if she was willing could make you
dream all day and night...

why are so many pornstars so... ******* attractive
that you'd wish to push them
into bird-cages with the parrots
or adorn them with white linen niqabs?
as much as i want:
my words are not sacrosanct:
but they're also no Mammon slot-machine
golden-goose mine: perhaps when i'm dead:
something might trickle down into the coffers...
but i doubt that...
words never become shapes or colours
or therefore paintings...
words burn... words and all that becomes
collateral as they dig and drown into
the unconscious: of course... no motive...
just a motif...
    
brother Balaam: fellow diviner of the god
of the Hebrews...
brother Balaam... give me the strength of purpose
to chase more shadows: more more more!
speak to me from under the depths
of the sea of death...
they have left these northern lands...
and as they now stand: proud in their multitude:
and still persist in their clinging to the diaspora:
for i will not glutton myself over
the accomplishments of but one Hebrew:
when i can glorify their deity!

literacy has been squandered:
best strip these people of their "knowledge"
of letters: letter by letter:
let them return to smearing **** on cavern ceilings!
hostile barbarians: paradoxically:
the Vikings were renowned in their celebration
of "effeminate" males: poets...
i could warn a dog or two to bark as i thus:
howl...
               little creatures of dispute...
little belittling lords of shovel ****!
hey! prompt! all verb no noun...
something these leeches might understand... "might"...

all this lubricated tongue has made me think
of something else that happened today...
beside me revisiting the cinema of memory...
grandfather and i: the hyenas of the graveyard:
although even he pronounced that
he was unable to laugh: i guess i started to laugh
for the both of us... eagerly, proper:
with the vowel catcher of the first
arm of the tetragrammaton: HA HA...
while the "other" vowel catcher would
smother the vowels in sighs: AH AH!
exasperated... almost...

       call it PR or whatever you want to call it:
i'd rather stack shelves in a supermarket
than work at a call-centre...
the deceit and the Peter Pan *******
i said: it's not the Shetland Islands...
it's the South East...
i was rummaging on an internet speed
of... 0.1Mbps (megabytes per second)
for a while... i reached a zenith of 0.6 - 0.8(Mbps)...

for a year... if not longer...
and there she was: she came...
this bleached-blonde pchła of a... she did put on just
enough mascara...
obviously taken...
i don't think *** entered my thoughts
when... she... didn't... parade her keychain
that involved a picture of her and her child...
pchła: an endearing term for a girl
of timid build... a body my shadow at noon
could break like a walnut...
i called her an engineer...
she wasn't going to construct a bridge...
she was going to fiddle with my router...
my internet connection...
a woman who had desire for fiddling with:
"dead" things: shadows...
arteries... veins... a concept of a heartbeat...

i just admired her hair...
obviously not natural... bleached...
     she was a body occupying a space...
a welcome intrusion nonetheless...
i sort of enjoyed the silence i surrounded her with...
"sort of": i clearly did...
best be on your way...
a female engineer...
well... from 0.1Mbps... coming up for air
now standing at... 5.6Mbps...
she asked: how did "we" manage?
we just watched a lot of the show live...
but... there were more important things to mind...

the bothersome truth is that:
you can't exactly dig into: pristine good...
this girl who became a "cable guy" engineer...
engineer: "engineer": "tech. support":
i'm not trying to demean her purpose:
i'm the one doodling words on a makeshift
canvas...
i'm no painter or mind having
enough nepotistic authority of: father painter
so i become a fashion designer... etc.

i pin-pointed the proper term though: no?
nepotism?
you just can't objectify certain women...
both of us beguiled having internet providers:
so... shouldn't they penalize the companies
that are all software and bar users?
will the software providers turn off my...
electricity?
the PR Peter Pan stunts... as i told her:
you being the engineer and me being the customer...
we can talk... face to face...
but over the phone?
put me in a confessional booth
with a woman from Mecca and her... double take
on what's to be seen: what's to be heard...
what's to be ******... what's not to be seen / heard...
eaten...

an eager *****: if a ***** is going to give...
but if... she's... this occupied presence...
it's impossible to penetrate her with words...
all i have is:
bleached blonde hair...
heavy mascara... something insinuating combating
nervousness: i am what i am: sorting out cables:
i reassured her: the aesthetics will be dealt with...
a drowning man will cling to a razor's edge to save
himself...
why do i feel so hardly alone
around people who invest so much
in... having children?
it's not like i'm expecting 3rd party sources
to come and salvage me: when completely decrepit...

a woman completely devoid of any ****** advances:
perhaps performing the role of a dentist:
a surgeon: it's already exploited by me
when it comes to: seeing her most ******
parts: her hands... at the grace of a supermarket cashier...
let her be... she's already averting her eyes:
i might insinuate a receding question:
there's the moon... the forest...
come autumn...
maybe i'm focusing on exaggerating myself...
i am: exaggerating myself...

toward a focus of timidity...
as best i can...
    i am a dead end joy-**** at best...
an underperformer at least...
              my own very self worn down
skipping barefoot in memory
right now probably better adorned by a straightjacket...
but who's fooling who...
the readied ***** or this girl working out
cables?

i can respect this one without a need
to pressurise her with a... ******* niqab...
until she might bloat over:
over-suckled... fat... nothing more than
a speed machine for *****-count...
something that doesn't deserve limbs:
is all torso and belongs
to the cult of the bone tomahawk cannibals...

that one motto cited by all Arabs
and pseudo-Arabs: there no water in the desert...
spoken in dearest of the dear that's England:
this green and pleasant land...
where's the ******* desert?!
shovel! both a verb and a noun...
how rare.... perhaps not so much...
        proverbs from the Middle East...
******* to the Middle East and let me
riddle my own: better a sparrow in your
hand than a dove on your roof...
how's that?

better joy in the immediacy of your own:
than peace among your closely associated.
******* H'arab...
you're no Jew... esp. when sitting
on Dino-Lamborghini juice...

castles in the sky: so the psychiatrists says...
or cities built on sand...
every Pakistani / Bangladeshi knows this
proverb...
the times of appeasing the "forever" sober
Arab and his sober-Arab libido...
i'll wait... are now... like i once said:
the horrible has already ah-happened...

and if it hasn't: then i'm still... pretty much
taking a proper role in being the only watchman
on a sly of a kipper...
n'est ce pas?

irritation culminates with:
when you make your own wine...
but don't have the filter equipment...
all that excess "fibre" probably gets your more
drunk than expected...

i haven't had enough to my liking to
somehow dissolve the pledge
to keep at least 72 ****** on a leash...
all that's eternity: given all that's
available and will be:
within the confines of un-chartered space...
send me a postcard from the eye of Jupiter...
i'm more than asking:
imploring: i'm... sort of making:
chain you to me: demands...

tomorrow's a sober head:
tonight... i'll be drunk with both wine
of my own making and...
the memory of a naked body of a woman...
exactly: if she's an engineer: "engineer"
fiddling with my phone socket...
she has a photograph of her and her child
on her keychain...
i wouldn't even dream of...
usurping her... status...

            looking at her felt like eating...
oats... something wholesome...
i met up with you... herr grey...
i did't find any child-fiddling bits...
what... were... you... hiding?!
i will laugh: if you tell me: a heart...
melt my stony enclave...
burn the whole world while you're at it!
there was never going to be any sacrifice
in the crucifix pose:
only purpose for focus: for... submission...
as someone devoid of wanting to continue....
he didn't die for "our" sins...
he died in order to be worshipped...
**** him... let him hang on... father of proselytes...

- point of closure...
for now... i never rose high enough
to suddenly turn cold-turkey: goosebumps
on the *******... still... dead...
i wasn't born into a Buddhist harem...
therefore i sometimes relapse into
the gimmick of the tease...
periodically... every half a decade....
i drink unfiltered self-made wine
and talk about hardly the ******
"exploits":
i come across magnets equivalent to
timid schoolgirls...

some supposed ****** revolution happned:
lob-sided...
given how the girls took the strap-on off
and shoved the **** down
the ******* brains of their bank account
squadron...
     the ******: "******" revolution came out
***-****-side first: thirst:
lopsided: the girls have all their fun...
we die... they come close to old age:
it continues: men tend to think throughout:
that period of concern: supposedly-deemed:
life...

the feminine agony of old age...
grandma's apple pie: **** grandma's apple pie!
i want to drink my wine
with... blisters and...
dis-ingestion...
              
         sucker punch:
            suckle toward a knuckle that might just...
make creases with caresses.

Monotonous existence
I am veiling my daydreams
I am drowning it seems

Alive I am dead
Ignoring thoughts in my head
Monotonous existence

To the niqab girl whom I met in Cagaya De Oro City
You were in front of me as we waited in line for hours
We smiled first politely and then we began to talk,
We Shared different insights in almost everything:
Your face veiling practice in Islam fascinated me
My headcovering as Christian piqued your curiosity
Conversations turned to fashion, extremism, and Filipinos,
You saw my face and I saw your beautiful eyes
Yet we never asked each other's names or Facebook accounts,
We were different yet somehow we mirrored each other;
Different religions yet linked by passion to serve God
Different ethnicity and language yet tied by nationality.

It's been weeks since the Marawi siege and I think of you
Hoping that every niqab girl I see in Iligan is you
We were strangers that rainy afternoon of June 2016
Yet I grieve for your loss - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Words are not enough to comfort you sister of the stars but
May your Allah guide and protect you in these times
May my Jesus cover you with His precious Holy blood,
To the niqab girl whom I met in Cagayan De Oro City
Perhaps we'll never see each other again in the future but
Thank you for letting me see the beauty of cultural diversity
And that coexistence is possible if we have open minds
And living in harmony is attainable if we open our hearts.

A slow walk up Centennial
and I still can’t find the place
it's menacing cold, and muted
and the street sweeper and winter breeze
move the Turkish blend and dust pack

A novice mixed duet plays
Brahms on broken strings
the erhu and overcoat
veiling a blue heeler and sphinx

Maggianos is settled in the center block’s
luminance and seasonal drape
it's festive warmth bringing home Bedford Falls;
the flavour and character and social circles

Annie’s playing and the keeper's singing
(his word pool and slander
raising everyone in arms!)
the crowd chants and mayhem breaks
as crawlers and contemporaries
smash their steins

Dark alleys and dripping holes
hold a grim reminder of the pierced underside
paddies flutter and forge their words
with a broad manifesto

Night gardens come alive
(slowly sapping the respite)
hunched figures and ladies in lace
shuffle inside the big orange door

heavy, deep and dark.
louder, louder;
the twofold pounding
of clockwork respiration.

thud, (thud-thud)
goddess arms hang
into the abyss, like
dead weight.

depth obscures,
lesser life forms
meander on their own,
unaware of the wayward colossus.

/lonely/

a shroud of antiquity
suspended --
veiling the secret
of ages.

thud, [thud-thud]
percussive life
continues alone,
out of time.

evolving

longing

Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights, now dead,
                 where I’ll muse as her shadows ascend.

                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she teases the mirror with green Spanish eyes;
her serape entangles her brooches and bangles
                 like lace on the sorcerer’s looms,
and her cape of the night, she drapes tight to excite,
                 and her fan is embellished with plumes.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as spectators savour her green Spanish eyes;
taming wild concertinas, the dark ballerina
                 performs on the music hall stage,
but she shies from the sound of ovation unbound
                 like a timorous bird in a cage.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she quickens the pit with her green Spanish eyes;
as the cymbals shake, clashing, the floodlights wake, flashing,
                 igniting the wild fireflies,
and the piccolo piper’s inviting the vipers
                 to coil neath the cold caldron skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the shimmering shadows in green Spanish eyes
as I rise from my chair and proceed to the stair
                 with a hesitant sip of my wine.
Though she doesn’t deny me, she wanders right by me
                 with neither a look nor a sign.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the stage with her green Spanish eyes,
(for her senses scoff, scorning the biblical warning
                 of kisses of Judas that sting,
with her pierced ears defeating the echoes repeating)
                 and smiles at the magpie that sings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching faint embers a’ stir in her green Spanish eyes,
for a soft spoken stranger enveloping danger
                 has captured the rhyme in the room
as he slips into sight through a crack in the night
                 midst the breath of her heavy perfume.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she gauges his guise through her green Spanish eyes
– from his gypsy-like mane, to his diamond stud cane,
                 to the raven engraved on his vest –
for a faraway form, a tempestuous storm,
                 lurks and heaves neath the cleav’e of her *******.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the caravels cruising her green Spanish eyes;
with the castanets clacking like ancient masts cracking
                 he whips ’round his cloak with a ****
and without sacrificing, at mien so enticing,
                 she floats with her face facing his.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the vertigo veiling her green Spanish eyes,
while the drumbeat pounds, droning, the rhythm sounds, moaning,
                 of jungles Jamaican entwined
in the valleys concealing the vineyards revealing
                 the vaults in the caves of her mind.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching life’s carnivals call to her green Spanish eyes,
and with paused palpitations the tom-tom temptations
                 come taunting her tremulous feet
with her toe tips a’ tingle while jute boxes jingle
                 for jesters that jive on the street.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she rides ocean tides in her green Spanish eyes,
and her silhouette’s travelling on ripples unravelling
                 and shaking the shipwracking shores,
as she strides from the light to the black cauldron night
                 through the candlelit cabaret doors.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she dances till dawn flashing green Spanish eyes,
with her movements adorning a trickle of morning
                 as sipped by the mouth of the moon,
while her tresses twirl, shaming the filaments flaming
                 that flow from the sun’s oval spoon.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she masks for a moment her green Spanish eyes.
Then the magpie that sings ceases preening her wings
                 and descends as a lean bird of prey –
as she flutters her ’lashes and laughs in broad splashes,
                 his narrowing eyes start to stray.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching fey carousels spin in her green Spanish eyes,
and the porcelain ponies and leprechaun cronies
                 race, reaching for gold and such things,
even being reminded that only the blinded
                 are fooled by the brass in the rings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she shepherds the shadows with green Spanish eyes,
but as evening sinks, ebbing, the skyline climbs, webbing,
                 and weaves through the temples of stone,
while the nightingales sing of a kiss on the wing
                 in the depths of the dunes all alone.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the music and magic in green Spanish eyes,
as she dances enchanted, while firmly implanted
                 in tugs of his turbulent arms,
till he cuts through the strings, tames the magpie that sings,
                 and seduces once more with his charms.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, the citadel steams in her green Spanish eyes,
but behind the dark curtain the savants seem certain
                 that nothing and no one exists,
and though vapours look vacant, the vagabond vagrants
                 remain within mythical mists.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as lightning at midnight in green Spanish eyes
kindles cracks within crystals like flashes from pistols
                 residing inside of the gloom
as it hovers above us betraying a dove as
                 she flees from the fountain of doom.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, distilling despair in her green Spanish eyes,
and the bitterness stings like the snap of the strings
                 when a mystical  mandolin sighs
as the vampire shades **** the life from charades
                 neath the resinous residue skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the ledge with her green Spanish eyes,
for the terrace hangs high and she’s thinking to fly
                 and abandon fate’s merry-go-round.
At the edge I perceive her and rush to retrieve her –
                 she stumbles, falls far to the ground.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the sparkles a’ spilling from green Spanish eyes.
As I peer from the railing, with evening exhaling,
                 I cry out a lover’s lament –
there she lies midst the crowd with her spirit unbowed,
                 but her body’s all broken and bent.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she beckons me hither with green Spanish eyes,
and I’m slightly amazed being snared in her gaze
                 and a’ swirl in a hurricane way,
but the seconds are slipping, my courage is dripping,
                 the moment is bleeding away.

Ah Consuela! I touch her - she weeps tender tears from her green Spanish eyes;
as the breezes cease blowing, her essence leaves, flowing,
                 in streams neath the ambient light,
and the droplets drip swarming, so silent, yet warming,
                 like rain in a midsummer night.

Ah Consuela! I hold her, am hushed by the hints in her green Spanish eyes,
while her whispers are breathing the breaths of the seething
                 electrical skeletal winds,
and the words paint the poems that rivers a’ slowin’
                 reveal where the waterfall ends.

Ah Consuela! I’m fading in fires a’ flicker in green Spanish eyes,
as she plays back the past, she abandons and casts
                 away matters that no longer mend.
           .
                  .
And she reached out instead, as she lifted her head,
                 and we kissed as she parted, my friend.
           .
                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m tangled, entombed, trapped in tales of your green Spanish eyes,
in forsaken cantinas beyond the arenas
                 where night-time illusions once flowed,
for the ash neath my shoulder still throbs as it smoulders
                 some place near the end of the road.

117

In rags mysterious as these
The shining Courtiers go—
Veiling the purple, and the plumes—
Veiling the ermine so.

Smiling, as they request an alms—
At some imposing door!
Smiling when we walk barefoot
Upon their golden floor!

What joy calls Silent Noise plagues me too

As the new love in young hides behind the sun
The House of Monaco burns
it is a simple matter
and  joy pretends in two and three

She accuses that it is all in the eyes
Loosely veiling self doubt  in the idealism of love
Complexity contradicts and she gives up
Preferring to live inside

It wants what it wants and Joy succumbs
drinking water she knows is poison

You are not  a hopeless romantic Joy
You are a Romantic

You are all Woman
And twice as amazing

-The Zone
Your **** has torn my hinges off..... obliterated my door

midnight dark
is my true love’s kiss
of clove and citrus scented

cradled in the subtle
woven voices
of the conspiratorial night wind

soft as the silver-blue
edges of light
cast from nocturnal lanterns

sharing in silent thunder
secrets held in coffers
of crimson jade

blazing with the vibrance
of constellations
blown before celestial storms

full as skyward Luna
rounded and buxom
heavy with desire

veiling my worldly sight
so her truth can pierce me

blinding me
that I may see

Remind me not, remind me not,
  Of those beloved, those vanish’d hours,
    When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
  Till Time unnerves our vital powers,
    And thou and I shall cease to be.

Can I forget—canst thou forget,
  When playing with thy golden hair,
    How quick thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet,
  With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
    And lips, though silent, breathing love.

When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
    As half reproach’d yet rais’d desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
  And still our glowing lips would meet,
  As if in kisses to expire.

And then those pensive eyes would close,
  And bid their lids each other seek,
    Veiling the azure orbs below;
While their long lashes’ darken’d gloss
  Seem’d stealing o’er thy brilliant cheek,
    Like raven’s plumage smooth’d on snow.

I dreamt last night our love return’d,
  And, sooth to say, that very dream
    Was sweeter in its phantasy,
Than if for other hearts I burn’d,
  For eyes that ne’er like thine could beam
    In Rapture’s wild reality.

Then tell me not, remind me not,
  Of hours which, though for ever gone,
    Can still a pleasing dream restore,
Till thou and I shall be forgot,
  And senseless, as the mouldering stone
    Which tells that we shall be no more.

When he’s alone in the night,
In the absence of the light
And the presence of the sight,
There, begins the tearing blight:
Dark veiling dark, light veiling light.

(What am I doing?
Poetry-dwelling
In these dunes of salt
With five syllables?)

When he's alone in the night
In the half-presence of the light
There, begins the specular fight –
The scarlet mutiny within.

© LazharBouazzi, December 12, 2016

Insouciance     first   fall
   we    took    the   night      half-illuminated
   dreamy     stereo     sketchy   static
   through     ear’s  round   bell

smile  we    owe   it  
      slanted,     bendable   light  moon
  becomes    another    genre

   to    listen     lilt
  even     before     methods   of   lip
   procure     shaded    meaning   cohered
  on     a    closed    door –  opened
finding    a    semblance    of Sun
     there,     veiling
a     traffic   of     cirrus
    in     the       elongated    road
   of          blue     skies

it    was    time
   to     point-source   a   home
taller    than    grass    in  Summer
     pinpointing   scenes    to     exact
a    long   divide    and    make    it
     by      punishing    it    post-peak,
let    it       drift    with    unrelenting
     quickness
       past     mouthed    rivers     and   from
the       lessening   fog
           of       the     same     morning
i
     will     puncture
it   true,      eyes     set   forth
    into     your   absence

*you’ll
bloom
you’ll
bloom.

I accept and digest,

The changes being fed.

A necessary medication,

Essential to the operation.

Sequential,

But not complete.

Heard skipping on repeat.

Temptation lingers slowly,

Beneath the darkness,

The mask.

Sheathing,

Veiling,

Protecting fragile skin.

Because the pain that truly ruptures us,

Ignites from within.

In sin,

In harmony,

In truth.

Cast upon the world at large,

Stand alone.

It’s you.

Inside me,
unfurling currents
adrift in confusion;
uprooted and unsure.

Silent leanings
Undeclared,
without reason,
Unstable and yet
seeking balance,
go tilting towards
secret places that
lie tender and unexplored.

So softly stroking the bowed back
of my subconscious,
a lover's caress of the mind.
The slow hand of thought
flowing across
the dark curtain of doubt.
Veiling, with sly intent,
obscure fears.
Spreading delicate tendrils
of uncertainty.
I am silent.

Spellbinding sparkling queues of pearly faces
Seethe in a gemstone sea of lips and beaks.
Veiling night, my Nirvana, leads us places
Fraught with clandestine lies and feathered peaks.
The hidden eyes reflect the burning light
Rampant within the painful lifelong dance
And swivel southward, scorched with silent fright;
Parades of fiends swing by at ev'ry glance.
Burn the voiceless witches! Condemn the dead!
Slash the hopeless visages to the night!
Raccoons, exposing drooling mouths unfed--
Charming music conceals their true delight.
I, the regisseur, perform my role
Then fade behind the mask that chokes my soul.

All yesterday it poured, and all night long
I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
Upon the grass like running children's feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
And nestled soft against the earth's wet breast.

But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
And I was blind with hunger for your love.

I stand on the shore, my feet sinking in the sands
My hair tousled wild in winds hustling hands
Covering my face, veiling my eyes
Distantly, I hear the seagulls, their yearning cries.
I grip firmer and hold myself tight
In dusk's diminishing, dwindling twilight.

I watch the waves lunge at me -
Overwhelming, menacingly.
But as they race to the shore, reaching my feet
They drench me, turn back and then recede.

I see another wave, I yearn to move a step behind
Fear and uncertainty fill my troubled mind.
But I still stand, stand my ground,
Unmindful of the sounds
Of the winds and the waves
In a trance, lost, nature's slave.

I nearly fall, my balance lost
Taken by surprise, by waves tossed
But I still stand, stand with unsteady feet
Where the land and waters meet.

I, on the seashore, a speck, besides a sea so vast -
I know that each wave will rest and it too shall pass.

Coyote’s mournful howl echoed
in the new moon’s enchanting sultry ether;
breathing the living harmony of the wilderness rhythm

He seemed to sense a soul reincarnation
      within a pervasive spirit light
      an oft misunderstood
      common thread shared
      this hallowed land’s night

An uncommon Zen stirring from within,
              stifling apathy ..,
. . . of rumble deep beneath
      a dormant volcano reawakening ;
      that which lies undiscovered
      just before the ruptured moment ..,
      liberation of release ―
      dust and ashes taking flight

Through open window              insomnia churns
                          fifty shades of blue ..,
      cast in shadowed hues of broken silence

Coyote stirred the stillness
      with a hauntingly familiar cry
      reading the ridge-top echoes
      like the book of my mind

" YIP YIP   A ―W O O H !!! " . . . the somber plea

For it is in these final hours chosen chore
      the recurring torn
      these chains and things

Coyote was going there ―
      to stand these watermark crossroads
      this hour of need

Accepting brother has always been lonely
      sometimes anything
      means something - -
and so it goes ..,

Coyote communes in pulse
      from ancient realms
      this sacred blood ..,
                Om
         the lost chord

      wounded healers ,
. . . one mutual spirit
      runs marrow deep
      where dogs run free

The moan of doves whisper to the impending dawn
. . . always known these days
      too soon do come and gone

What once was a life well lived ,
      s l o w l y     e v a n e s c i n g
      like the summer river’s flow

some say ..." you never miss the water
      'til the well runs dry "
. . . regrets a waste of time - -

Rumination, a loathsome silent reverie
      a taunting unsolved koan

      an unplanned oxymoron ,  
      beget of a deafening silence
. . . dust sleeps with indifference
      veiling a beautiful handmade
      unstrung guitar
      muted - - abandoned,
      tone poems, unsung

and so "re-begins" the task ...
      come what may rise up
      into the dark star's light ...

Coyote was going there - -
      a dawning metamorphosis
      under another nebulous sky

. . . refreshed by Luna's potent alchemy bestrewn
      in her spellbinding lambent moonlight elixir of life ...


harlon rivers  ... 5. 21. 2015

Beautiful pair of dove
Veiling their head in neck
Avoiding the hearty gaze
Love That's beyond love
With the twit in the beak
They twitch, Twirl and toss
From Rome, Italy to Paris
In the sky of Candy floss
Like a snow covered dame
And the snowman in the veldt
Forms the heart of snow
In which the atmosphere melts
Windy air and ****
Cooing voice and bliss
Beautiful pair of dove
Veiling their head in neck
Avoiding the hearty gaze
Love that 's beyond the love

Tiare Tahiti

MAMUA, when our laughter ends,
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,
Are dust about the doors of friends,
Or scent ablowing down the night,
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,
Comes our immortality.
Mamua, there waits a land
Hard for us to understand.
Out of time, beyond the sun,
All are one in Paradise,
You and Pupure are one,
And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
There the Eternals are, and there
The Good, the Lovely, and the True,
And Types, whose earthly copies were
The foolish broken things we knew;
There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;
The real, the never-setting Star;
And the Flower, of which we love
Faint and fading shadows here;
Never a tear, but only Grief;
Dance, but not the limbs that move;
Songs in Song shall disappear;
Instead of lovers, Love shall be;
For hearts, Immutability;
And there, on the Ideal Reef,
Thunders the Everlasting Sea!
And my laughter, and my pain,
Shall home to the Eternal Brain.
And all lovely things, they say,
Meet in Loveliness again;
Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet,
And the hands of Matua,
Stars and sunlight there shall meet,
Coral's hues and rainbows there,
And Teura's braided hair;
And with the starred 'tiare's' white,
And white birds in the dark ravine,
And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night,
And jewels, and evening's after-green,
And dawns of pearl and gold and red,
Mamua, your lovelier head!
And there'll no more be one who dreams
Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff,
Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,
All time-entangled human love.
And you'll no longer swing and sway
Divinely down the scented shade,
Where feet to Ambulation fade,
And moons are lost in endless Day.
How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,
Where there are neither heads nor flowers?
Oh, Heaven's Heaven! -- - but we'll be missing
The palms, and sunlight, and the south;
And there's an end, I think, of kissing,
When our mouths are one with Mouth. . . .
'Tau here', Mamua,
Crown the hair, and come away!
Hear the calling of the moon,
And the whispering scents that stray
About the idle warm lagoon.
Hasten, hand in human hand,
Down the dark, the flowered way,
Along the whiteness of the sand,
And in the water's soft caress,
Wash the mind of foolishness,
Mamua, until the day.
Spend the glittering moonlight there
Pursuing down the soundless deep
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.
Dive and double and follow after,
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,
With lips that fade, and human laughter
And faces individual,
Well this side of Paradise! . . .
There's little comfort in the wise.

Rupert Brooke, Papeete, February 1914


. The Great Lover

I HAVE been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; -- - we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: -- - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -- - we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .
These I have loved:
                            White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, færy dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such -- -
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
                            Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -- -
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
---- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
                            But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
                            Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Rupert Brooke, Mataiea, 1914


. Heaven

FISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- - Death eddies near -- -
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.


. There's Wisdom in Women

"OH LOVE is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,
"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head,
And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she;
So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.
But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own,
Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young,
Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?


. A Memory (From a sonnet-sequence)

SOMEWHILE before the dawn I rose, and stept
Softly along the dim way to your room,
And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,
And holiness about you as you slept.
I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept
About my head, and held it. I had rest
Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.
I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.
It was great wrong you did me; and for gain
Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,
And sleepy mother-comfort!
                            Child, you know
How easily love leaps out to dreams like these,
Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so
Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

Rupert Brooke, Waikiki, October 1913


. One Day

TODAY I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.
So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and ****** done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.

Rupert Brooke, The Pacific, October 1913


. Waikiki

WARM perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
      Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
      Somewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
      Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
      And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.
And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
      And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
      Of two that loved -- - or did not love -- - and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.

Rupert Brooke, Waikiki, 1913



OTHER POEMS

The Busy Heart

NOW that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
      I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
      I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
      And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
      And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
      And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
      Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.


. Love

LOVE is a breach in the walls, a broken gate,
      Where that comes in that shall not go again;
Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate.
      They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then,
When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking,
      And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying
Of credulous hearts, in heaven -- - such are but taking
      Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying
Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost.
      Some share that night. But they know love grows colder,
Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most.
      Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder,
But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss.
All this is love; and all love is but this.


. Unfortunate

HEART, you are restless as a paper scrap
      That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;
      Saying, "She is most wise, patient and kind.
Between the small hands folded in her lap
Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,
      And find forgiveness where the shadows stir
About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,
      Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!" . . .
She will not care. She'll smile to see me come,
      So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.
      She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,
           And open wide upon that holy air
The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,
           Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.


. The Chilterns

YOUR hands, my dear, adorable,
      Your lips of tenderness
-- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
      Three years, or a bit less.
      It wasn't a success.
Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
      Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
      By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
      As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
      The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
      Forgotten at the last;
      Even Love goes past.
What's left behind I shall not find,
      The splendour and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
      And the brave sting of rain,
      I may not meet again.
But the years, that take the best away,
      Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
      For none to mar or mend,
      That have themselves to friend.
I shall desire and I shall find
      The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
      That soothes the darkening shires.
      And laughter, and inn-fires.
White mist about the black hedgerows,
      The slumbering Midland plain,
The silence where the clover grows,
      And the dead leaves in the lane,
      Certainly, these remain.
And I shall find some girl perhaps,
      And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
      And lips as soft, but true.
      And I daresay she will do.


. Home

I CAME back late and tired last night
      Into my little room,
To the long chair and the firelight
      And comfortable gloom.
But as I entered softly in
      I saw a woman there,
The line of neck and cheek and chin,
      The darkness of her hair,
The form of one I did not know
      Sitting in my chair.
I stood a moment fierce and still,
      Watching her neck and hair.
I made a step to her; and saw
      That there was no one there.
It was some trick of the firelight
      That made me see her there.
It was a chance of shade and light
      And the cushion in the chair.
Oh, all you happy over the earth,
      That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
      And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room,
      All night I could not sleep.



. Beauty and Beauty

WHEN Beauty and Beauty meet
      All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
      And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
      With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
      After -- - after -- -
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
      Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
      And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
      And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
      After -- - after -- -


. The Way That Lovers Use

THE way that lovers use is this;
      They bow, catch hands, with never a word,
And their lips meet, and they do kiss,
      -- - So I have heard.
They queerly find some healing so,
      And strange attainment in the touch;
There is a secret lovers know,
      -- - I have read as much.
And theirs no longer joy nor smart,
      Changing or ending, night or day;
But mouth to mouth, and heart on heart,
      -- - So lovers say.


1908 - 1911

Sonnet: "Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire"

OH! DEATH will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,
One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam -- -
Most individual and bewildering ghost! -- -
And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.


. Sonnet: "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true"

I SAID I splendidly loved you; it's not true.
Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
On gods or fools the high risk falls -- - on you -- -
The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.
Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.
Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.
But -- - there are wanderers in the middle mist,
Who cry for sh

Oh how I tire of the games that are played.
The useless lies veiling truth.
In shrouds of weakness.
How the fear overcomes reason.
Foolish as they can be.
We allow their fantasy to remain.
Standing our ground.
Holding strong to what we know.
Waiting with patience and persistence.
As we always have since the beginning.
Maybe once they open the blind eyes.
To the reality presented before them.
They'll see how to mature and evolve.
Into a superior being.
Only then will they learn true happiness.

Church bells ring of voices silenced
a darkened Moon is hanging low
crickets stop to hear the empty
as loving waters overflow

As angels call in voices singing
notify my heart goodbye
as deafened ears are opened up
no more tears are left to cry

Dying leaves, a crimson carpet
indigo ink at levied banks
waters flood my aching heartbeat
raising hands to you in thanks

Cloaking eyes, I'm in the shadows
petitioning  you another dance
whispering the coming reaper
if only I could have a chance

Softly come draped in darkness
ebony casts a ghostly glow
lovely bones in alabaster
putting on a secret show

Taking off the heavy waiting
holding down my paper heart
a poets voice cannot be silenced
by ticking hands you pushed apart

Silver tears they fall in quiet
in rivers taken right or wrong
releasing me & painful weighting
and sing me as I come along

Violins they speak so mellow
calling me as I go home
morning comes a glowing ember
left for you an Earthly loam

As the leaves outside are falling
and thickened air bids me farewell
whispering of my departure
& secrets I may never tell
although in this...
you mustn't dwell

Waving you off
in slow motion
blinking lashes bid adieu
darkened cloakroom,
veiling... hiding
memories of loving you

the only love
I  really wanted
the one I never... really knew.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

I'm hurt

I'm hurt
I'm hurt

I'm hurt
Because I just realized

You were hurt
By someone that didn't deserve you
By someone that didn't respect you
By someone that didn't see your beauty

By someone that didn't appreciate you

All your grandeur, he didn't see
And that was your cue

I'm hurt because
When you were hurt

The only way you saw healing

Was by masking your hurt
Not caring who you gave yourself to...
What you gave of yourself
To all that fitted the shoe

So you stacked them up
In the hideous name of "not catching feelings"

You let them do as they wish
Touch you as they saw fit
I'm not saying there is one without blemish
But how can this pass without anguish
When one is truly supposed to love you
To see a queen live like a peasant.
And not cry to sleep in anguish,
When they're in awe of the queen within.

So many have grappled
On this emerald
That you became numb.

Can you even feel that?
My warm hand on your heart.

You say it was about keeping Her happy
How true is that?
How happy was Kylie?
How long did you keep her happy for?
How long did your satisfaction last for?

He dug a hole
You tried to fill it with sinking sand
Now whoever dares to tread
Is actually walking on a thin thread
Slowly slipping
Into the hole you didn't make whole

You sing "men are trash"
As if they are the ones you didn't give Kylie to.
I'm sorry if this is coming off too harsh
Because I want to love Kylie too.
But you gave her away
Turned a blind eye

Put conviction in your reason,

Camouflaged the tears,
Like putting sunglasses on blind eyes.

You sing "men are trash"
"Men ain't ****"

Yes, we make the lyrics
But sometimes women play the instruments

And this, some horrific genre

That we play on social media...

And parties

That we enjoy
With a little bit of intoxication
We enjoy the band play
With a few likes and DMs
We enjoy the band play

You sing "men are trash",
You tell me I'm trash.

When all I'm here for is to love you,

To truly love you of a few.

Not for a motel night's crash
But for a home.
Not for a bottle and some musical trash
But for some Shiraz, soulful indie music and romantic dancing in the dark.
Not to take advantage of Kylie

But to love her too.

You tried to heal
But you didn't.
And I see your beauty
I appreciate you
I respect you...
I see how special you are
How magnificent your mind and soul are.
Your glimmering smile
Your astronomical eyes
All that grandeur,
I see it.

I relish it.

I'm hurt
Because you're still hurt.

I feel like I'm sinking
And you're watching me
Like it's fine because this is the farthest anyone has come in this sinking sand

I want to love you.
I'm trying to love you.
But the hurt you let define you.
Is now veiling what I harbour for you

I'm hurt
Because I want you to stop hurting.
And to help you
I must help myself...
So that I can lift this veil.
For together we can take control of the helm;
Enabling what is meant to be,
Be.

I drove dad’s Chevy for the first time one morning
In a storm.
His old, blue, dented, beat-up, ninety-seven Chevy,
Worn tires tractionless on wet asphalt,
Raindrops veiling the windshield like the comforter
That keeps me warm and safe during the nights I
Spend at home, thick and grey with a glint of silver, and
Pintucked stitching littering the middle.
The lines on the road, like the seams of the comforter,
Break evenly and cleanly, stretch on forever.
My knuckles, like little snow-capped mountains,
Gripped the steering wheel as I did the covers during a nightmare.
Dad, on the other hand,
Was as calm as the breeze curling around the trees on
Any day but today;
Relaxed as if the forecast were fine as the
Silk of the duvet.

Reality is hostile.
It isn’t set in stone but it is written in ink,
Easily smudge-able and difficult to interpret.
Personality is rude.
It comes and goes as it pleases,
Without posing for pictures or saying goodbye.

Wit is forlorn.
Never quite certain are the wise,
And boasting of answers are the foolish.
Beauty is evil in disguise.
Veiling the insides of the honest,
Uncovering the lies of the cowards and the tricks,
So the opposites may be seen.

And so it’s hard to find someone like you,
Who is all that’s hard to find.
A real kind of entity, who opposes all transparency.
A true beauty with no disguise, rather a virtue not to feminize.
A person with that on inside and out.

**That is why I Love You.

embroidery is your means of communication
sophistry is your way at edification
your veracity is a misrepresentation
rejection to you is manifestation
veiling your faults in meaninglessness
your poetics show your indecision
your own impulses have created an addiction
evasion from the truth has become your nightmare
affection turns to desolation after boredom sets in
your disconnection with happiness has always been
you float in a cycle built from the misfortune of your past
yet you wear your beauty and pride like a mask
one day your castle of fabrication will come crumbling down
and this time I wont be there to catch you
before you hit the ground

goodbye


© 2006 joshua deathdealer

it is high noon
and white sunlight blazes the sky
the air becoming a wall of heat
it is a miracle anything survives

at the bottom of the sky,
long blades of grass climb upwards
rustling with movement
veiling all life in shadows

mother cat is promenading
striding with babies in her belly
they push against their mother
her stomach expanding gently like a rock

somewhere beneath the canopy
a shifty dragon lies
his snarling tongue is sniffing for something alive
slowly crawling towards a dent in the grass

a newly born litter of kittens
their mother still wandering for shade
their life snuffed out before they’ve opened their eyes
do they feel the sun kiss their sleeping heads goodnight?

I wish that our tongues would finally match
when we spoke from our flesh,
that you would brush my shoulder
like you do when
you aren't a machine,
and when we'd look at each other,
that our eyes
would actually meet.
but you can't get under
keeping it simple,
and I still end up over-
explaining.

While I gaze in your eyes, cool cerulean blue,
Sifting night, straining stars through morning’s sweet dew,
I can fathom the depths of empyreal skies,
Angels fluttering by, riding wild butterflies

While I gaze in your eyes, changing, aqua-blue greening,
I’m ****** into chasms, cascading, careening,
And yield to enticements which meekly disarm,
Seeping virtuous beauty, sad sensuous charm

While I gaze in your eyes, bleeding fiery blue
Ever tempting with treasures, with pleasures for two,
Being caught at the core of a blazing sapphire
Possessing, enthralling, aflame with desire

While I gaze in your eyes, misty emeralds, deep green,
Veiling laughter and banter, and echoes between,
Then I dream, so it seems, in whatever the place,
Of your scent, of your breath, of your radiant face

While I gaze in your eyes, at times placidly blue,
Near’ as calm as the weirs in the woods all bedewed,
Forty winks relegate to a shimmering lake,
Gently floating on lilies, while waiting to wake

While I gaze in your eyes, caught engulfed in the greens
And consigning my fate unto verdant ravines,
My reactions, at length, become shyer and shyer
Reminiscent of ravens at risk in the briar

While I gaze in your eyes, restless, hesitant blues
Overwhelming sensations with turbulent hues,
I’m succumbing to waves of a storm battered sea,
Being cast like a plank, never meant to be free

While I gaze in your eyes, shadowed, Midnight Lake green
Glowing hazy with dreams, misty thoughts so serene,
Sudden silence befalls me, a fast sinking stone,
Looming lost in your eyes, I am never alone

While I gaze in your eyes, saddened, lachrymal blue,
Spilling trickles of rain, pearls obscuring your view,
I’ll attend to your anguish and feelings morose,
Lightly kissing your tears, touching, holding you close

While I gaze in your eyes, pulsing infinite green
Of the earth and of heaven and all in between,
It is simple to see that my hands can hold all
Of the treasures I find which so humbly enthral

While I gaze in your eyes, when they’re bountifully blue,
I’m reminded, love’s lightning is granted to few...

While I gaze in your eyes, when they’re blindingly green,
I’m reminded, love’s lightning cannot be foreseen...

Yet I hope... and I wait...

I wear a crown invisible and clear,
   And go my lifted royal way apart
   Since you have crowned me softly in your heart
With love that is half ardent, half austere;
And as a queen disguised might pass anear
   The bitter crowd that barters in a mart,
   Veiling her pride while tears of pity start,
I hide my glory thru a jealous fear.
My crown shall stay a sweet and secret thing
   Kept pure with prayer at evensong and morn,
   And when you come to take it from my head,
   I shall not weep, nor will a word be said,
But I shall kneel before you, oh my king,
   And bind my brow forever with a thorn.