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vf Feb 2015
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovreign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Opon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let it’s pleasure through...
-Emily Dickinson*

And I do smile, the white bright Colgate chiclets
stretch under my lips. The crooked thing, the
clever turn of my mouth,
we all pass a point in life when this is a means to an end.
Stop. Do not collect 200.
Again. Again, I thought "Send me straight to hell"
because it's not fair for me to feel this way any more.
I want to shoulder the brunt of it and throw it up and down,
white linens to the wind.
A dramatization of who I have come to be,
fueled and fired by alcohol and lack of sleep.

A stuck Lipton in the vending machine,
"I want to start a social movement of direct experience"
Sure. We'll do that. Let me get back. . .
let me get back to this blue screen for a bit. I want a change.
I want to see some change! Let's throw our
phones away and start over. Depression falicitates our  
efforts, but I had my pleasure. I had my kicks though.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2015
Mountain bleeds fire
Falling to sea, dark gold streams
Sun behind her hair
Seán Mac Falls Jun 2016
Mountain bleeds fire
Rose gold streams falling to sea
Sun behind her hair
754

My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—
In Corners—till a Day
The Owner passed—identified—
And carried Me away—

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods—
And now We hunt the Doe—
And every time I speak for Him—
The Mountains straight reply—

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow—
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through—

And when at Night—Our good Day done—
I guard My Master’s Head—
’Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow—to have shared—

To foe of His—I’m deadly foe—
None stir the second time—
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye—
Or an emphatic Thumb—

Though I than He—may longer live
He longer must—than I—
For I have but the power to ****,
Without—the power to die—
Seán Mac Falls Aug 2012
Mountain bleeds fire,
Falling to sea, dark gold streams—
Sun behind her hair.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2013
Mountain bleeds fire,
Falling to sea, dark gold streams—
Sun behind her hair.
Alessander Jul 2016
Lying in your arms
Is my vacation

Your eyes are the stars over Paris
Your lips my Spanish sangria
Your scent like Persian jasmine

When you nuzzle into my neck
And rapid kiss me, laughing
Then rest your eyelids
Lightly on my pulse

I transport to that ashen couple
As the Vesuvian magma oozes over
Forever in terrestrial communion
Embracing - as we do now
Seán Mac Falls Dec 2012
Mountain bleeds fire,
Falling to sea, dark gold streams—
Sun behind her hair.
mûre Feb 2013
Unspoken words drift snowly white
Ashes from this Vesuvian relationship
First they blanket, then they catch fire,
As she slips away from the embalmed desire.
Megan Sherman Jun 2018
On golden wings of blazing fire
Burnished with colours of desire
The angel Lennon grafts, aspires
With beauty suffice to be sung to lyres
I let my mind swim with golden sight
Climbed his wings, took nascent flight
Skies burnished with colours of delight
Aura in the sparkling night
To stratosphere I swooped, sweet soar
With that boy irresistible to adore
Ferried to seismic heavenly shores
As inspiration from the ether pours
We twisted, twirled beyond stratosphere
Where earthen angels rain their tears
Untainted by bludgeon of times years
Immortal dears soothe mortal fears
All four John Blake Buddha and Ganesh
Hearts with luscious light enmeshed
To them all pray in their distress
For mercy, pity, peace and bless
Upon a light beam we met angels of the sky
Chasing light that follows where those bonny angels fly
Mesmerised as they pirouette resplendently
Sirens snaring mortals to hear sweet eternity
Trumpet my arrival as I stand with Shiva, God
Pensive at the font of time, his wisdom I applaud
The true divine creator hidden behind religious fraud
Of his sublime divinity I, pilgrim, am assured
Then to cosmic churning to hear divinely truth
The music madly burning with its beauty rare forsooth
Transcendent destination borne of sultry spiritual path
And now the wisdom of heaven I in earnest surely hath
The churning music sang to me:
NO YOU, NO I, ONLY ONE HEART, WE
Embroils with my mind seismically
As truth knell out resplendently
Ascended from that churning ocean
In all its glorious commotion
To Kali dance in incessant motion
Ending my hearts trepidation
Vesuvian woman in golden O
Hath me mesmerised rapt in throe
She the deva see how she go
A heavenly rainbow to and fro
The golden O the Buddhist crown
Of enlightenment in which I drown
The snub of which the sages frown
A knowledge heart not head to own
Zoomed back to earth to take my place
As ambassador for angelic race
In us the light of love apace
A force to vanquish evil disgrace
Nirvana came a state of mind
Lucid gorgeous and refined
Time and love both intertwined
As in its clime I to the Bodhi tree bind
This my tale of an eternal door
Shown by boy irresistible to adore
He is a legend in modern lore
Sang end of war, could love no more
Saved me from a devils hand
On oppressed shore and oppressed sand
Helped a fallen spirit stand
Fixed her with his wanton wand
Lennon is the friend of sages
With wisdom felt not read from pages
Vanquish hell transcend the ages
Unlock the dark satanic cages
Alex Zhang May 2018
I eat my corn dog
ketchup on my chin,
and the frogs croak,
while the crickets chirp,
warm air pressing gently on my skin.

A cool breeze tugs my shirt,
carrying a faint smell of cinnamon.

The cries and laughs of children
heard vaguely in the distance.

The birds' singing dies down
as the sun begins to set,
resting for another round,
as it hides its gilded coronet.

Yet the lights of the carnival
reflect like little stars
on the pond's surface,
dainty and novel,
shining without a purpose.

Just for that moment
I am unable to move,
for the night air takes my breath
and my body the darkness soothes,
so that all my pain melts away
as does this passing day,
and I let go of my regret.

I stop pondering whether I'm still sane,
for this moment I wish to remain
petrified like a Vesuvian
and all my worries, I soon forget.

And in those delicate seconds of clarity,
I feel like I truly understand
the meaning of my humanity,
of this abstraction that I perceive as actuality
what it is I really demand.

Everything in harmony
brimming with lucidity;
in utter awe of life,
constant serendipity.
Michael Marchese Mar 2017
She still makes her mark
On these pages, a cast
Mending my broken heart
When it shattered like glass

Into pieces of puzzles
That just didn't fit
In the deep blue sea puddles
We couldn't admit

Though I melted like snow
In your summer sun smile
It's howling moon glow
Ne'er eclipsing denial

For you were the tune
To my violin strings
Rain drops to the bloom
Of my free phoenix wings

On peregrinations
To bring us together
New born consummations
To give you forever

Still you couldn't see
My mushroom cloud skies
Explode with a beauty
That rivaled your eyes

Or echo the sound
Of my metalcore chamber
Quaking the ground
With Vesuvian anger

To hell with the heavens
My goddess is here
What more divine presence
Than love did you fear

When you left me insane
From my star-trips in space
By warping my brain
With your black hole embrace

Where your face now condemned
To each moment I spend  
On eternities penned
'Til I see you again
Julian Sep 9
Cynegetic scollardical cymaphens reticulated through gradgrinded lavaderos pinpoints the sycomancy of sciophilous garbology the schwerpunkt nidus of all nimonic nomology of alamodes eruciform in regardant espaliers estranging abvolts while appointing the abseil of maskirovka abroach of every finicky virgation such that indomitable agathism truckles dancette at the ventrad extreme of camarillas of plenary azoth intermediary to alacritous svedbergs transposed by avocets backfiring because of autecology in gnotobiology the auncel of many wellaways. Pivoting from provenance to the entelechy of providence seeks to decimate by aucupation anisothenic because of aduncated helms of adscription reasting importunate insubordination as admaxillary heaving in  onocrotal obsequent dragoons underscoring termagant obeluses undergirding the izzat of fretful katzenjammer such that ixia browbeats iters, irokos, jabirus and other gossypine jockos of the bosket might the skeletonized skullduggery isotropic to such a steep extent of isorhythm that interpunction is vouchsafed by militating tacenda and tangible tatamae sweltering urmen orchestrated by stibadium of stereopsis manifest as sprags apotheosized by spinney sapwood tholing ulterior docimasy (a spikenard of maritodespotic bascule). Ocreated jansky instituted to the benefit of satraps of jannock ponderation of psephology vivat in atomkent bernaggles ****** with primposition abetting abaft gamidolatry twiring upon the turtleback as the rapknock trimkoppa usufruct of martingale mortmains more mortiferous than sanguine because of steep annihilation of tutiorism turncocking thymogenic and algedonic optimization of subaltern structuralism vitiated by stivers of egestuous morality esteemed as the linchpin of ratheripe syndicalism. Rendevation is allied with elastane garbology that maybe the sennet treacles wiggletempers wuthering willowish slimmerbacks to prevent trykling vecordy in verglas iceblinks of angstroms of stacking bagging bareges and galeres of galericulated eloquence shapely in vernalized pulchritude tziganology manufactures with trucage and facture among factotum sinecures dainty with coy sobriquets of vesuvian vestas whirling around koines of lavolta knouting with donnybrooks of hilasmic kitthoge kirking in intrepid earwiggery the keffel of noisome ratomorphism projicient to commiserate with reedbuck morkins of grampus reclamed as vorticism for rectitudinous flavors of soteriological varietism dignified against nihilist trillops rather sanctified by numinous albenture. The riometers of rhinocerial quandaries rapt in skewbald stereopsis roodging ever wase of wanchancy scavaged from rampick vestiges of delignated sapwood among vinsky and propriety the cathead bangtail pulchritude of despised cicisbeo persiflage intermediate to entelechy equipoise isonomy steeped on catastrophism is nasute enough to forage apodictic enumeration of nimiety in binturong notaphily by bergamask delegation of bayadere pretense lavished upon stalwart batten. Thereby, a bypassed lavadero choused by baragnosis in macropicide by barracoons depaysed by bonanza compital with ochlesis in sybaritic windfalls ocreate because of throttled octothorpian usufruct because of swooning elflock ulmaceous in unstercorated scofflaw ultraism the linchpin upstay of covert interpunction parlayed into implodent acmes that the pesky urchin mortmains counterfoiling imprimatur latitudes of morrises entangled in mazopathia designates the interdigitation of ulterior sophism specious by design to abet the interramification of ixiodic cimelia in perdurable olivasters of categorical imperative. Because of these whilom stipulations, isochrone bandobasts of flagrant bontbokian architectonics entangled in aquarelles lionized as the persiflage of videndum visibilia apophasis  constrained by the pilloried aplanatic interpretation of megalography apical and foudroyant at the forefront of all mutual endeavor dripping with apostils aquiline in biotaxy among halibiotic bucentaur shenangos adscripted by Hakenkreuz.

Emphatic hadal asphyxiation  of haemataulics wandering in venostasis handseling nomogeny bocking in magpiety and harking every sederunt endeared by abbozzo surging into composite ampelography (the venue of the obvious humdingers and sockdolagers egelidation appoints commonplace) effulgent upon oystercatcher eyeservice of habanera to harpoon tympanies of mackintosh forestalled by adiathermic alamodes (cavorting still today with their own lavolta) beyond the stanjant capacities of jiggermasts omnified by sociogenic thremmatology of seminal haecceity. Redoubled by eluetherian energism tainted by egoism, the duende of barasingha Boanerges magnetized to omphalism disorbed by crass cryptadia martingales (the chronobiology of emphatic kymatology) the ambit of focal cockshies is predictably invariant within narrow ranges of cliometric servitude to windcheater keystone mainstays of revalorized kith governed by imperious woonerf. Every punctilio carracks esteem ceraceous in the Baedeker espouses  concubinal nympholepsy with the numbats of umbrose stoping stunsails of megacerine stupulose macroscian vorticism sidelined in primeval eisegesis idiorhythmic to bubaline skeletonized briquets that betise every gigantomachy the batten tries to proscribe in a whack-a-mole shifty enthymemes of fretful epilations mobilized in exigency by adynaton scofflaw swashbuckling affreux monetized alidade always repined but never eradicated because of eruciform demand for brehon.

        Although directly ignorant of traves of allemain known only by the allemande, the alnagers of cisvestism--the alpenstockers of cultural vitiation by joggling virgation of whittawers of striga--ambagious and anaclastic in submerged analgia milked by reedbuck poldering wharfingers of transpontine beblubbered sentimentalism sublated from specious sophistries and casuistries into pseudo-coherent aporia enlisting accidia to rankle and cadge deadwood ideologies into deadeye bronteums tethered to davenport miscegenation of dancette and dageraad by tamaraw juggernauts of austringer auncels of cultural mismatches attorn by ateknia corroded by asterisms become extremely macroseismic svedbergs of turtleback iceblinks manufactured as ad hoc ashplant soteriology among arrendators indelible in houndstooth oreillet. Thereby, opsigamy turncocks opodeldoc oniscoids sublineating the perverse subreption against any given stritch that outfoxes simple carnal maximalism examines the subfocal mensuration of cryptotype embedded in pycnostyle genizah gamboling with cribbled sophomoric crampons couveusing cordwainers into covert mirlitons ignorant of contecking urgency because wertfrei boweries pullulate with Jesuitical jarveys of psaphonic dearth into zugzwang wroth easily enthused on suboptimal garbology of elastane manufacture.

    The woolpack of fundamental fantasia is designed by eurythmics uxorious to windlasses of caprice engineered by zazzy woodreeves zebrine by umbrilizing protanopia revolting against ukase bonanzas never deferent to synoecized synartesis of Sarvodaya because of nosebag boondoggles of rannygazoo nonage of finitism aggrieved by nolitions negentropized which fuels insipid upaithric blandishment and nebulized futilitarianism ignorant of the demarcated set of nautic operations permissible by rigorous interramification against birling bickerns of bodaches suborned by inculcated onolatry cretifying nidifugous miasma despite enriching the briquet rather than outmoding hierarchies of substratose balanism integral to selfsame caesarapropism.  A mackintosh optimized with gradgrind statoliths of emacity in stegmonths macarized by vasotribes against schmeggegy enriches rivages of choregus plight in paxillose rifacimento of inveterate agiotage corralled by cliometric restraint of revolute revanche shroffed in shambolic spancels of revalorization hindered by simultagnosia of echards versus umstrokes and chevets narrowcast to the morioplasty of dyvors backbitten by bewildered and marooned mobilism rather than enriched by psaphonic laxisms of vaccimulgent latitude. In this varsal gestalt picture it becomes axiomatic that jiggery-pokery belongs to antebellum agathism by jerkinhead moralism dispossessed by jannock wuthering in vesuviation of woolfell vestiges windgalled wedeln by cordwainer oystercatchers of dogwatch domett of doucs of subsultus brackish stockinette omnified by drabbles against the very dowitchers obedient to lampas limpkin vastation lapatic in transformation of the corrugated jamdani forefront zebrine in favor of rheotaxis defeated by the zelotypia of arriviste hawseholes hinnable against circumjacent kitsch because of hodiernal hogshead wirewoven pycnostyle promulgated by hopsack betises in nimonic optimization against plucky quagmires of neutrosophy (the horme of ulterior huggery attempting gezellig for schmeggegy) neutered by huckabuck stridulation.

    The hederaceous-vulpecular merger of hulchy subfocal hylomania delegating abrasive hypaspist by cultural Zollvereins entrusting the zenana of nomogeny degaging algedonic overdrive because the dedans prefer predictable syntalities orchestrated by dabchick autecology endeared to aurilave upbringing trapezing over nodalities and nolitions by adept alnageria alpenstocking amnicolists of the seediest verisimilitude of vogue jarveyed substandard by design. We can therefore conclude that acerbated pleochroic aasvogels gifted with enjambment use encaustic docimasy to throttle fretful emunctory empasm to the octroi of stannaries’ designed as impudent isostasy milking the Ishan of Hakenkreuz and the ushabti of bahuvhri into a composite stricture beneficent to swanskin because of privileged sycomancy about abroach virgations vastation prefers appointed to the promachos sulcalization of pleonasm in metaplasm metapolitical because of wapentake pandering. This incentivizes the sastruga of opodeldoc sarods marinated by the sarinda of aftershaft draconian dragoons which becomes an impediment to saltus surreys saginating sybotic sederunts to rackrent bareges impeded by bannock as chatelaines who adscript against cryptotype maraud in celsitude wuthering bletcherous in the wroth of contrition. Maritodespotic muliebrity wroxing virility further strained by exigent conditions wrawls when winklers yeuk rimose yelm into narrischkeit zugzwang yawing pupated policies against the puckery of bagging jarveys of psittacist stokehold inertia as midwives and proxenetes of boyau and bowline iberis the psaltery of nebels probanding pinguefied pataphysics. The relict of remigation for phonascus in unanimity thereby deposed by the provincial attitudes of omnicompetent authors of strigine thremmatology in onocrotal resignation sweltering in barms become feckless in every modality save opisthenar dippoldism wagered against yaraks by yirding niccolic oppidan strictures easily refuted by collective opsiometry limited in efficacy because of surdomute organdie on the twiring turtleback of opprobrium constitutes a larger minority of psephological brunt of osmol channeled through ablegated aboulia of abessive bannock monopolized by bodach acrotism of oxtered naivety coauthored by vintage adamitism gradately detraque against the sloyd of snaffling scaldabanco thus wagered against pathetic sondation debunked by arduous contortions of syllepsis enumerated syllabatim emphatic about swapes of edgy suretyships sundogs to humane scholastication rather than inane schmegeggy. Scialytic polemics must unearth the axiomatic fallacies undergirding the scilicet scissure cobaltiferous to both scop (the protectorate of subternatural lionization of epigones) and scumble (the affairs of apotropaic propriety resorting to stultification of seedy seahogs sanctioned by bontboks of trespass rather than authenticity) primarily because seersucker semioviparious serpentry (staked on iridaceous interpellation of exploitative wapenshaws doytining with washball protervity among wastelot polders coffling rather than coacervating headlong imperatives of collective perdurable jannock) gravitates jawhole nidamental sophistry on perverse baized notandum (counterfeit backpieces of bagnio rotocracy) to pullulate among degrees of fundamental baryecoia stipulated on maladroit bavardage by prominent odalisque gammerstang squintifegos eager to beeskep the patriarchy by wayspaying all virility with such stang (commodified svedbergs of rackrent immoral self-mortgage) that statuvolism entrenches synchysis despite self-aware brisures of ochlesis informed of both its duplicity and noxious futility. Debased structuralism incumbent upon any sociogenesis stodged by podlec fracklings often of a nyejay persuasion traindeque both toonardical bodaches and permeable victims of cisvestism because, as chorizonts of benevolent nativism because of chlamydate outliers and simultaneously  neovitalism because of pushful atheism, they derelict (because of pauperized nimiety to narrischkeit nihilism) the fundamental conjugates to a predicate of stark realism integral to univocal science waygone by suboptimal syndyasmia of ecdysiast spuddled saprogenic quidlibets gorgonized by tanquams of batten morigeration (modish only at the periphery of perusal manque to eximious stridulation beyond coemptive tantiemes of mandarist sophistry) embodies the marasmus of higher education--lustrated of useful heterodoxy cogent in parallelism to truth.
  
     The doyen libken formative to docile inquiry coagulates lemmas idiosyncratically because imperious laxism is gnotobiological in autecology and sedimentary to epigones of isagoge of subsequent interrexes of social sciences incondite in handfast geoscopy to gangues of both coherent pretense and redundant tortivinity somewhat approximate of truth but subjoined to tegular tropophilous ginglymus virgated by tangential suborning tephra (a tautomerism of specious pragmatica) paroxytone by tamburitza professors jockeying for sematic acclaim with sententious deliberative neglect or endorsement of tribuloid quodlibertarianism. Imprinted agitprop slanted by backpieces and defiant tresayles against patriotic fervor become the tournures of tootle or the testudo of flagrant dogmatism which verges into terramara guff gowking adduced historical liturgy of either gavelkind naivety or grognard misprision of true militated mizzenmasts of supersolid vis because of varsal epergne kneaded into mockado mulisms of mumpsimi tangential more obtusely to linear truths than acute in vraisemblance to centripetal axioms of bandelet assuaged not by only seniority or by seniority at all but rather dignified by the rigor of nutation survived as the cockshies of gestalt tangible noesis by the nepholemetry of plenary genius rather than prima facie parvanimity. The inchoate period of neutrosophy existed in septiferous nidamental fragments that entrenched many nimbose nivial of peremptory iberis (far before iconomachy became necessary) waged in internecine mutualism of gridlock between idiorhythmic utility and ignicolist illutation compounded into imparidigitation impleaching entire disciplines by interspersing indign paragons and oryx osnaburg overlock as the predicates of easement dissembled as alloquy alepines to auncels leading to both bonanza and academic akinesia as stipulated by the same gammon handfast to ahimsa and other deontology subternatural to such a grave extent that agoge became improbable. The aglet of adiaphorous nimiety screwball with anteric agistments of redoubled agathism must always concede to the damson which utterly belittles widgeons of the polder’s deadwood ambitions devalled in noyade in the dolabration of stratified tegular doits met with austere dometts against draffish kitsch falsidical in oppositive nesh facetiae quopped arrosive in psychotaxis reiterated by baseline banality into ashplant evulsion eruciform in only the gaudiest neglect of moral enthalpy.

One of the more importunate quandaries vitiating lyceums is warped emotivism disdainful in elutriation of alembicated elentic capacities corrugated to such revolute strain of ekistics that ecrevisse isorhythm of post-graduate isopach groomed by isochrone maximalism used in frenzied undinism in profane ukase authored by spurriers behooved by resourceful sprags buddling with enmity against bodkin proxemics that evolve into bisontine blackmasters of substandard competency inculcated often by berceuse (only to the afterclap of incredulity among the vast majority) bavians of academic bavardage insulated from bickerns of astute nidology primarily because of jocko niaiserie conformed to chatoyant chamfrains that prefer projicient procrypsis to dutiful moya. The mowing subservience of academia (even hederaceous institutions) to demolish oikonisus is flagrant that ineptly mottles morphallaxis of synsematic opinions outside the arena of their original context to misprision because of metapolitics for mercedary menticide heaving the vestiges of prescriptivism to upstage coherent probands only because of hamstrung pseudogyny and psittacist yawing yelms wed to the annihilation of wilding albenture in socially contingent disciplines bent by witchknots into jettatura by jimswinging yaraks privy to the jud and sudd of domestic academic canque casefied into catacoustics to sustain sabbatical bordars by bobstaying incondite blunges of post-modern ****** adduced from nebulized dogmatism of socialist monotroch nimbose in heyday decay never again as preeminent as it was prima facie. Diseased socialism is a spindrift smellfungus minatory paideutic enterprise berating the cockshy phrontisteries as martext asylums against mainsail livedo levanting moral valor iracund against the hyperbulia of tribuloid heterodyne haecceities more accurate than quacksalver pantagamies of upstaged gynics gaumless in pedestrian platitudes in footling shibboleths of academic macarization pilloried by sulcalized thinkers gnapping at every seamy flothery of goliardy compaginated from apocryphal comprachios disfigured by celation into tyrannical eisegesis rarely challenged because scacchic engrenage anticipates acrasia in etypical honesty against cotquean niffs of supercilious athenaeum nilling truth because of the pules of the turtleback amenable to the fondink of bowdlerization often apologetic about moonraker decimation ignored by the empaths that sublimate the notandum of commiseration so steeply misinformed about cladogenesis and so aggrieved by cittosis and cisvestism that they manufacture bugaboo cirripeds chirking caudling jiggery-pokery “color-blindness” jeremiads of jeofail in jarveys against nappes whipstaffing internecine irredentism yomping fecklessly and fretfully bereft of chiasmus into the traulism of mismatched narrischkeit.

TO BE CONTINUED....
Dawnstar Aug 2019
head poundings
thick broom tidings
jovial jungles
standing atop
little dark city
white shoe brings
moon death to
vesuvian-whipped
crater polis.
ConnectHook Sep 2023
Sworn to **** the Church (or at least forestall),
Reviling Jesus, Christians, and Saint Paul,
The Pharisees finally blow their cover.
Things in Rome are starting to boil over;
Vesuvian rumblings portend Pompeii . . .
Judah await their Messianic day—
       But Claudius plans to expel all Jews . . .

Hateful superstitions cloud their views:
Torah with Talmud their rabbis confuse.
Not-so-Abrahamic agitation
Fails again to unify the nation;
Waiting for Moses/Elijah/David
Some expectations are waxing fervid
       And Claudius moves to disperse the Jews.

Zionist riots make the nightly news
Every Roman synagogue now must choose:
Goyim government tells them to desist—
Caesar demands incense—and some resist.
For subversion (or just causing trouble)
Imperial power rewards them double.
       Meanwhile, Claudius expels the Jews.

Failing empire demands what saints refuse;
They wait for Babylon to pay her dues . . .
Forced to pack up and leave, all Israel flees.
No plagues, no Passover, no exit fees.
Like Lot, they had to leave in a hurry;
Enriched by God in interest, gold and worry.
       Now why would Claudius banish all the Jews?

Stand historically in Josephus’ shoes.
Rabbis babble on while Rome’s legions lose . . .
Empires die. It’s agonizingly slow.
You think it happened suddenly—but no.
In retrospect, not different from today.
And History will have the final say:
       Why then did Claudius expel the Jews?
Acts 18:2
And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome) . . .
Rachel Thomas Aug 25
I am a blue-eyed daughter of the North and yet
the fire of Hephaestus burns in my chest.
My blood flows hot as Vesuvian lava

In my world the flowers have tongues
and smell of cinammon and myrrh
The trees sizzle with cicadas,
and the air glitters with Saharan sand,
like gold dust wafted over the sea
from an Oriental fairy tale.
On every horizon shimmers a pink mirage

I never understood those cool swans
who glide across life's waters without a ripple
or feather ruffled.
in a landscape of alabaster palaces and polished moons

I want to smash the waters into a million crystal drops,
dive in deep and yank the lilies from their roots
There is gold to be sifted
and there are pearls to be trawled
And I want to make ripples that blossom until the edge of time!

— The End —