"vestal" poems
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot,
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 2:41 AM UTC
Flora and Fauna, the sisters of Season
Of Spring and of Summer
Allow now our drummer
To drum out the beat
For the feet of the sisters
To glide and to creep
Like the encroaching sleep
Which may perch on your shoulder if we cannot keep you awake
And on the edge of your seat, sir.
Now the former, sweet Flora, will finger the flute
While the other continues to glide and to slide
Like a sequined Venetian harlequin bride;
And now Fauna will mimic the movements of bird and of beast
As she graces the work of our landscape artiste
And all is completely unfeasible
Completely lacks reason
We guarantee.
Presently
In the eye of the beholder
Sweet Flora seemingly draws from the aether a lyre
And with flourishing fingers she plucks from the heavens
A song of the seasons, a pagan ode to Pan!
Behold! No aid of hoops, no strings
The vestal-virgin-harlot sisters sing
Of beautiful Persephone
And with unseen damselfly wings
Ascend from mediocrity
All melody forgotten
All the drums create cacophony
And you will find serenity in chaotic monotony
Now let this climaxing crescendo banish all your sorrowing!
No more that light; no more that sacred realm
Life’s door was dappled gloam; now all is black.
A man of wax with saintly, hollow eyes
Devoid of sin, devoid of love and light
That golden room is lost – you can’t turn back.
Now love has lost its lustre - lust lost joy
And coy eyes turn to watch the empty man
Struck by eternal beauty, and condemned
To haunt the broken world of mortal men;
And shrilling wind caresses empty hand.
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 12:01 PM UTC
To behold the daybreak!
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass
In days like this one,
when rain drops so light
& everything dips
into weeping grey
my sanity longs for memories.
My sanity longs
like impulsive recalling
of plummeting sadness
in greying day
sashaying mournful recollects
from sunrise to daybreak.
Remembering vanishes
in the joyful marrow of life.
There, forgetting lives.
Tell me the last time
bliss comforts your soul.
It is a transient tick
too stiff to evoke.
What about the last time
pain feigns your saneness.
Memories turned into bullets
slitting shrapnel
warping into my soul.
Happiness lasts for a second.
Sadness, a lifetime.
Tell me how to get rid
the hurting clout of ache
existing as a blunt fragment
benign yet reminisced.
Daybreak pours so hard
and my sanity like a waning light
crawls back in a miasmatic cave
along the river known
to be a home of a witch
& her cursing narrative
of throwing silver saucers
making her a spotless shadow
through vestal times
never again a thriving spirit.
Forget Blake. Forget Whitman.
Only in daybreak
where everything
churns into life,
my sanity shrinking back
collapsing
into surreal gaps.
Here & there,
my sanity longs for memories.
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 10:31 PM UTC
Here comes the bride
Proud down the aisle;
If she knew what I know
She wouldn't smile.
Here comes the groom
Such a handsome gent;
But I know his secret
He's warped and he's bent.
*(Refrain)
Fountains of beauty
Such a handsome pair;
I hope someone told them
To wash their ***** hair.*
There stand the couple -
See them plight their troth
Shall I tell you something?
I've had them both.
There stands the priest,
Dressed like a swell;
He's nothing special:
I've ****** him as well.
*(Refrain)
May blessings from Heaven
Downwards descend;
But don't let the best man
Catch you if you bend.*
**(Final Chorus)
Here comes the bride
Legs open wide
She's no vestal ******
As I think I have implied.**
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 1:06 PM UTC
If the Sacred Fire of Vesta went out, it meant one of two things:
meant
1. Rome was in danger;
meant
2. A Vestal ****** a guardian of the flame, was having ***
Chastity and fire
are two attributes that are directly correlated. If one is lost,
the other will follow. Trust me. This is fact:
only ****** women
can be celebrated.
The ****** Mary,
the ****** goddesses,
the way **** was seen as a crime
against the father, not the daughter:
women
must
remain
pure.
Do not eat the pomegranate seeds,
do not touch the fruit of knowledge. A
statue of a young boy
holding an apple
does not hold
the same connotation
as a woman holding an apple. Offering it to a man who
could have refused. Getting blamed for the fall from Eden.
A woman
with a snake draped around her body is not Eve,
is Lilith, but it’s close enough. They are both to blame for
all the evils of the world, so what does it really matter anyway? Women
are more susceptible to wavering in their faith in God,
to worshipping the devil, to practicing witchcraft—
The flames are out. Rome is not safe. A ****** is buried
alive for her sin. Lilith is slaughtering women in childbirth.
Babies are dying. A man is celebrated for his multiple
lovers. **** shaming in 79 AD. The beds in Pompeii
brothels are made of stone. St. Cecilia is face down in the
dirt. Women on the same level as slaves, if not lower. The
goddess Vesta as a housewife.
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 10:47 AM UTC
Come, my darling, let us dance
To the moon that beckons us
To dissolve our love in trance
Heedless of the hideous
Heat & hate of Sirius-
Shun his baneful brilliance!
Let us dance beneath the palm
Moving in the moonlight, frond
Wooing frond above the calm
Of the ocean diamond
Sparkling to the sky beyond
The enchantment of our psalm.
Let us dance, my mirror of
Perfect passion won to peace,
Let us dance, my treasure trove,
On the marble terraces
Carved in pallid embroeideries
For the vestal veil of Love.
Heaven awakes to encompass us,
Hell awakes its jubilance
In our hearts mysterious
Marriage of the azure expanse,
With the scarlet brilliance
Of the Moon with Sirius.
Velvet swatches our lissome limbs
Languid lapped by sky & sea
Soul through sense & spirit swims
Through the pregnant porphyry
Dome of lapiz-lazuli:-
Heart of silence, hush our hymns.
Come my darling; let us dance
Through the golden galaxies
Rhythmic swell of circumstance
Beaming passion’s argosies:
Ecstacy entwined with ease,
Terrene joy transcending trance!
Thou my scarlet concubine
Draining heart’s blood to the lees
To empurple those divine
Lips with living luxuries
Life importunate to appease
Drought insatiable of wine!
Tunis in the tremendous trance
Rests from day’s incestuous
Traffic with the radiance
Of her sire-& over us
Gleams the intoxicating glance
Of the Moon & Sirius.
Take the ardour of my impearled
Essence that my shoulders seek
To intensify the curled
Candour of the eyes oblique,
Eyes that see the seraphic sleek
Lust bewitch the wanton world.
Come, my love, my dove, & pour
From thy cup the serpent wine
Brimmed & breathless -secret store
Of my crimson concubine
Surfeit spirit in the shrine-
Devil -Goddess ****** *****
Afric sands ensorcel us,
Afric seas & skies entrance
Velvet, lewd & luminous
Night surveys our soul askance!
Come my love, & let us dance
To the Moon and Sirius!
2.9k
The conjugate of idolatry,
The alchemy of flame,
The Astarte of pure harlotry-
And nomenclature'd name.
The lode-stone of sly coquetry,
The compass-stone of hearth,
The balanced stoichiometry-
Broken waters of birth.
The Vestal of impurity,
The perfidy of shame-
My blood in you runs truer red;
This craving never tames.
Oct 5, 2011
Oct 5, 2011 at 8:03 PM UTC
***** of echoes, the virile resonance quaking lust -
Throbbing caverns shudder to ****** inciting vestal musk
Entranced of nocturnal bedevilment - barefaced in galactic greens,
Spores ethereal yet concealed to the Queen
Sumptuous omphalos; her ecstatic womb engulfing the bloom,
Carnal reckonings devoid of Mosaic release as panting creatures swoon
Vigorous pollination morphing the nectarean sheath
Roused stamen shrivel in an animus induced retreat
Again we'll rise to salute our idol
In burning continuance:
Fertility extolled
With pleasure recompensed.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 7:51 PM UTC
The Emperor Octavian, called the August,
I being his favorite, bestowed his name
Upon me, and I hold it still in trust,
In memory of him and of his fame.
I am the ****** and my vestal flame
Burns less intensely than the Lion’s rage;
Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim
The golden Harvests as my heritage.
2.3k
When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead,
And that thou think’st thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see;
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleep will from thee shrink,
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
A verier ghost than I.
What I will say I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’d rather thou shouldst painfully repent
Than by my threat’nings rest still innocent.
2.1k
Your cruel crimson lips
Blood dripping from your finger tips
My love a shattered work of art
The result of my broken heart
Splatters of scarlet hope
Mark the sheets where we eloped
My love a discarded virginity
The result of my mistaken affinity
Garnet was the decadent shade
Of the dress that veiled my vestal glade
My love a slippery hemline
The result of my relentless pine
The rusty curls on your head
Delivered me willingly into the bed
My love a handful of tangled hair
The result of my wanton affair
The flowers he sent were red
Reluctantly, I told him you were dead
My love a half-hearted lie
The result of my wandering eye
A ring offered, of ruby and gold
Silver is better, but I was sold
My love a rehearsed song
The result of my doing wrong
A burgundy kiss for a charming knight
A wedding of chastity white
My love a perfected role
The result of my injured soul
An artificial cherry-flavored ***********
Sloppy second copulation
My love a feigned first
The result of my unquenched thirst
The sheet is stained with merlot
Out with the trash, then he will never know
My love a memorized line
The result of my spilled debaucherous wine.
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 4, 2013 at 2:53 AM UTC
Mad politicians threaten nuclear war
While madder religious maniacs
Send suicide bombers to **** and destroy.
Bombers brainwashed into believing
That vestal virgins await them in heaven.
Children starve
While adults fight
For bits of land.
A world divided.
Plagued by hate and distrust.
Governments killing their own people
Except when tied by nameless bureaucrats.
Forests and wildlife being cleared away
For the sake of gold or drugs
Or other means of making Money.
It’s a mad, mad world.
In which everyone is born to die.
What use is that?
Perhaps already we are living in
Hell.
Just Saying.
Paul Butters
(C) PB 1\5\2017. 2 new lines added 8\5\17.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 9:02 AM UTC
Descry the glittering sand,
Every coin is vestal, unused.
He cast unto the well,
Uttering a spell
That dwindled on his aching lips.
Amiss, his voice does not graze
Her conscious divination.
A thousand times again,
He strives-
Just for a spare thought.
But the fool, consumed, controlled
Wallows in the walls
She sculpts around him.
He begins to work away the vines
Of her honied tendrils.
Yet, each finger twined of gossamers,
Drenched in delirium.
Nay, she rejects his presence.
But grants her endless visitations
As a specter, with a Faustian kiss.
He drinks of her,
To parch his arid throat.
Remote, he holds the seed
Which festers within.
Forever.
Jan 30, 2021
Jan 30, 2021 at 9:00 PM UTC
It was so hard to put in words
Tho I spoke to you when idle ears were far from my lips
When words flowed like a river
Like a river yes and still but your beauty is my sun
In your presence only steam pours from me
Your heat burning the shell from my heart
You make me weak
My Venus
I wanted to plough your fertal pastures
Like a good stuard
For its own benefits before my own
You were sharp and curious
Listened intently to my ranting and stared into my eyes
I thought myself weak but you understood better than my pupils
Your apatites reached my ears as a warning but iticed me instead
Your history no surprise or mark against you
I wanted all of you for mine
To make perfect an only slightly tarnished vestal
To complete you in hopes you could complete me
But your eyes cut my soul like a knife without ever seeing it
Your voice crushed my bones to dust with a whisper
Pity
Gref
How low we were when heavens bowed before us
I would have given myself to you in no unbinding terms
But you could not offer the same and I could tell you wanted too
I value your honesty and wish you had lied
Should fate spit on us again in this way
We're I to find myself in your shoes
I suposse I'd recomend Polyamory
I wouldn't take you up on it for him
Then I'm not gay and you never did discriminate
Just saying the world could be my harum
Time and space at my Mercy
A machine in the next room to customize entitys for company
You would be my bottom ***** for life
Given that's as bigoted as an analogy gets
It's coming from a good place
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 6:36 AM UTC
.....
...
.
how cunning
this tiny trickle of red
how horrid
this leakage of the dead
don't look at me
with plump red lips
go hide and flee
I might not resist
in dark-ruby richness
it lures the foggy mind
in acrid taste of thickness
it tempts our undead kind
pulsing in the wrist
the scent of human juice
our bloodlust is a feast
an ancient broken truce
so hold your breath
and gaze into my eyes
oh what a shame
a vestal sacrifice
close your eyes
your dreams will end tonight
you will rise
a graceful grandiose sight
.
...
......
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
The Saturday night crowd, all here to see Dave Van Ronk,
sit huddled in the fashion of Antwerp diamond cutters,
sipping cinnamon/marshmallow coffee at the tables.
Caffe Lena is Saratoga's happening place in the 60's and
we're here to forget the war and civil strife in the ghettos.
Sister Mary Katherine, sans frock, is the warmup act,
but no one really gives her any mind,
as she struggles to seat herself upon the stool
intended for the six-foot plus Van Ronk.
Joan Baez prepare to eat your heart out!
Without so much as introduction, she
breaks into a high soprano Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
Heads pivot like synchronized swimmers toward the stage.
Her silken voice emits notes blinking
into reality from quantum fluctuations in space/time.
Every quivering high-C grafts the audience together.
She's spinning veils of sound,
the like of which our ears are unfamiliar.
The quavers in her throat match the tremors in my coffee.
In the back of the cafe a drunken Van Ronk passes out.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 8:49 PM UTC
my darling
i will visit you in your boudoir
tumescent Satan, I
you, a goddess, your body-- the temple it was built for
our hermetic union,
two bodies entwined on the hearth,
the argent moon looking on, clutching her vestal livery
heathens, heathens!
how can something so exquisite be a turpitude?
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 12:31 PM UTC
Tourist, who gave her eyes
to the fishes and the sharks.
Ingenue queen of the lingering darkness.
Tourista, chain smoking in the rain.
Perfumed winds blow from her mouth
dizzying the Phoenician sailors with longing for her shores.
And the moths circle,
searching for her cable knit heart.
And I will go back to my darling,
my darling tourista,
when you my darling are gone.
Us being strangers of the night
and enemies in hollow places.
Tourista prays to ooze juicily
at last round the bearded lips of God.
Tourista swallows sleep
and swallows deep.
Tourista lost in translation
between valley girl slang and punk rock idols.
Pushing pushing pushing, push em.
Tourista of the long white neck, neglected.
Free of love nibbles and nicotine kisses.
Though she longs for their ghosts
and strokes the scars of their cousins.
Her screaming, rolling head full of tinder and ready to ignite.
Like the loveliest of hand grenades.
Tourista who's heart swells and empties with the tides,
all Jackson Pollucked up inside.
The punch line of every joke. The object of every desire.
And tourista rattles with wheezing.
Tourista vacant. Accepting reservations.
Calling dimly she prays to the highway dogs
and hound dogs and squealing pups.
Tourista of the pure soul, sprinkling ****** lamplight
like vestal seeds.
Though she implores every living thing to dampen the flame.
Hold tight, says tourista, happiness is surely near.
But she hides it away in her bedside table and hopes she will forget.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 1:41 AM UTC
Vestal shores of youth,
Life! -Render once forth
Coasts, before every home.
Turn castles to glass,
Liken ivory to stone.
Our long mass, come to close-
Hunger no more.
What is achieved, at last;
The peace found within,
Begins to unfold.
Aug 28, 2023
Aug 28, 2023 at 3:08 PM UTC