"visage" poems
BLESSED be this place,
More blessed still this tower;
A ****** arrogant power
Rose out of the race
Uttering, mastering it,
Rose like these walls from these
Storm-beaten cottages --
In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
HaIf dead at the top.
Alexandria's was a beacon tower, and Babylon's
An image of the moving heavens, a log-book of the
sun's journey and the moon's;
And Shelley had his towers, thought's crowned powers
he called them once.
I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare
This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my
ancestral stair;
That Goldsmith and the Dean, Berkeley and Burke
have travelled there.
Swift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind
Because the heart in his blood-sodden breast had
dragged him down into mankind,
Goldsmith deliberately sipping at the honey-pot of his
mind,
And haughtier-headed Burke that proved the State a
tree,
That this unconquerable labyrinth of the birds, cen-
tury after century,
Cast but dead leaves to mathematical equality;
And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a
dream,
That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its
farrow that so solid seem,
Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its
theme;
Saeva Indignatio and the labourer's hire,
The strength that gives our blood and state magnani-
mity of its own desire;
Everything that is not God consumed with intellectual
fire.
III
The purity of the unclouded moon
Has flung its atrowy shaft upon the floor.
Seven centuries have passed and it is pure,
The blood of innocence has left no stain.
There, on blood-saturated ground, have stood
Soldier, assassin, executioner.
Whether for daily pittance or in blind fear
Or out of abstract hatred, and shed blood,
But could not cast a single jet thereon.
Odour of blood on the ancestral stair!
And we that have shed none must gather there
And clamour in drunken frenzy for the moon.
IV
Upon the dusty, glittering windows cling,
And seem to cling upon the moonlit skies,
Tortoiseshell butterflies, peacock butterflies,
A couple of night-moths are on the wing.
Is every modern nation like the tower,
Half dead at the top? No matter what I said,
For wisdom is the property of the dead,
A something incompatible with life; and power,
Like everything that has the stain of blood,
A property of the living; but no stain
Can come upon the visage of the moon
When it has looked in glory from a cloud.
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You choose a sepia filter
To match your timeless visage
To match the clothes you've wandered into today
But it is not a selfie.
Your eyes pierce them through their iPhone screens
Your smile is casually not directed towards anyone in particular
Your outfit is recklessly on point
And it is not a selfie.
It is a punch in the gut
to everyone who has ever
said you are not good enough.
It is not a selfie.
The wings by your eyes will go out of style.
The dye in your hair will wash down the drain.
The clothes will wear out and you will take pictures again.
But you have fabricated a moment.
You are smiling towards yourself.
Slap your image onto every social media you know
Next to the supermodels and Kardashians and words of self hatred
This is the fulcrum with which you will lever the world.
This is not a selfie.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 6:10 AM UTC
The truest bliss you impart upon me
sends a shiver down each column of my spine,
etching track marks over all my body,
a drug no-one can perfect or refine.
Your visage leaves lightning bolts on my eyes
and a heart palpitating in my chest.
Your body silhouetted in night skies
melts my deepest poetry to mere jest.
When we touch, it smashes my composure
into oblivion and far beyond.
When we lock eyes, I'm chilled from exposure
but for certain, only I feel this bond.
Although I strive for a day we would meet,
with the others, I could never compete.
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 1:46 AM UTC
Valorous visage,
rivulets of gore seep
glory blooms.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 7:32 AM UTC
A late hour indeed, darkness over land, but
A bright light shines from a moon above
As a shadow sweeps across the surface.
For a moment, it stands emblazoned, precarious
Adumbrated phoenix in the sky,
But it does not flare out.
Sweeping lower, the form resolves,
Alights narrowly on a fine branch.
For a moment, it struggles for balance
But soon it finds a niche, stands true;
Visage of wisdom in the night
But not without flaw
Not the swiftest, lacking in grace
Lost territories in cunctation.
Still, secure in its plumage,
Into the night, ready to fly:
Hunter poised in the trees
It soars aloft
Nearby, another branch inhabited
Not a vision this one, a voice.
A lighter weight, a softer presence
Harmonious to the calm
Tones of beauty to the air
It rings forth
Awhile, this one too struggled
It tried the songs of the mockingbird
Some rang esthetic, others strange,
But now its own song found:
Anthem sung for the heart
Chorus all may hear
Birds of the night. Dark to dawn
Their habits thus have been.
Now with the new morning,
A change in the season;
Mind and Song together to the sky
Light out for the lit horizon …
~D.B. Guy (May 2008)
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:23 AM UTC
Replaying a riff four times perfectly
One missed fret and the entire day ends disastrously
Replaying moments of kindness and warmth
To overcome the feverish idea that I hold no heart
Every fourth step, threes end in ******
Maimed images constantly creep
This subconscious ludovico technique
These thoughts come and go in no particular order
A seat at the table and a serviette on my lap
What if I leapt out my chair and suddenly attacked?
What if I aimed the knife towards my hand?
I constantly question if that’s who I am
I will have a picnic with her today, all joy and cheer
When these intrusive thoughts will inexplicably get near
And terrorize my attitude as well as my image
Disassociating with a perplexed and horrified visage
I’m so incredibly tired of existing
A cruel and ironic fate
I’ve missed out on so many opportunities
All because of this miserable headspace
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 1:05 PM UTC
Im a calm, cool collected cucumber underneath this fandangled, wiry, wrinkled visage.
Ive escaped the clutches of the tangled snare of my image.
Where and when I belong and to whom is no matter.
I pass by groups and clans and grimace inquisitively at thier chatter.
To my ears its an alien clamour of clashing egos and look at me's.
They'd all be happier in a lonesome cross legged position enjoying the breeze beneath the trees.
With ease I float through my day passionately.
Expanding and contracting with the waves of existence.
I sway indefinitely.
Yield to and renounce the question arisen from the back of the mind "what does it mean to be me"
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 12:32 PM UTC
Through the country paths, I lazily loitered,
watching Nature in its changing hue
straying farther into the interiors,
sundry and sublime vistas came into view.
in response to zephyr’s warm embrace,
the silvery leaves joyously fluttered.
the bees busied themselves collecting pollen
and birds on tree tops merrily chattered
it was the *** end of verdant spring.
summer’s sun stood behind my head.
bleat of sheep was heard from far.
‘Good day to you’….. Someone said.
There stood on the hill, a boy around fifteen
obviously he was of tribal breed.
with a beaming smile, he greeted me
but on walking to him, he ran like a steed
I saw him disappear behind the trees
and enter into a hut tiny as a nest
he lived in the lap of Mother Nature,
far from the city and its sooty dust
being coaxed, he hesitantly came out.
my tone of assurance and pleasing smile,
seemed to have won his confidence
as to a friend, he shared his eventful tale.
pointing to the sheep grazing in the slope,
he said, he earned a living caring the flock.
he stayed in the woods all day long,
feeding and tending his master’s sheep.
from dawn to dusk, through woods and meads,
he leads his sheep, calling them by their name.
un vexed, with simple pleasures he is content
and with a nomad’s life, he seems to be tame
he said, at home he has his invalid mother.
bringing her back to health is his mission in life
on referring to his mother, I watched his eyes glitter
nothing other than her illness posed to him a strife
from every utterance, I could sense his filial love.
even in abundance, while shadows line many faces,
on his visage, hope lingered as a dancing flame
to me he seemed above many, rich in other graces!
While parting, I handed him a little money
pausing unbelievably, with moist eyes
he accepted it, when a breeze passed caressing us
as if over a kind gesture, Nature seemed to rejoice!
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 9:23 AM UTC
Still running, never ceasing, she screams silently.
the breath escapes as a wisp.
Remembering the past command:
Take the demon carefully,
his sting is heavily laden with sweet
addiction.
*** soaks through the front of her gown
and the bloodied fabrics drain rusty shades
into the tepid moon water
she spilled before.
Break her chains
she will not thank you
she will despise her freedom and lay waste to paradise
with her filthy torn wings.
Let her know of her once-natural beauty
she will hiss in derision
that she is not still stunning as the rose.
BLEED, child.
You of all creatures were fantastic in visage
You have put to waste the precious fragility of your frame
Your yellowing teeth speak volumes
your mouth should stay sealed.
We have no use for ingrate angels
that roll in the muck
cheaply selling ******* and chemical highs.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 1:58 PM UTC
Picnic
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My friends laugh elsewhere on the beach
while I sit here, alone, counting the waves,
writing and rewriting your name in the sand ...
Confession
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Your image overwhelmed my vision.
As the long nights passed, I became obsessed with your visage.
Then came the moment when I quietly placed my lips to your picture ...
Rain
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Why shiver alone in the rain, maiden?
Embrace the one in whose warming love your body and mind would be drenched!
There are no rains higher than the rains of Love,
after which the bright rainbows of separation will glow with the mysteries of hues.
My Body's Moods
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I long for the day when you'll be obsessed with me,
when, forgetting the world, you'll miss me with a passion
and stop complaining about my reticence!
Then I may forget all other transactions and liabilities
to realize my world in your arms,
letting my body's moods guide me.
In that moment beyond boundaries and limitations
as we defy the conventions of veil and turban,
let's try our luck and steal a taste of the forbidden fruit!
Moon
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
All of us passengers,
we share the same fate.
And yet I'm alone here on earth,
and she alone there in the sky!
Vanity
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
His world is so simple, so very different from mine.
So distinct—his dreams and desires.
He speaks rarely.
This morning he wrote: "I saw some lovely flowers and thought of you."
Ha! I know my aging face is no orchid ...
but how I wish I could believe whatever he says, however momentarily!
Keywords/Tags: Perveen Shakir, Urdu, translation, Pakistan, love, passion, picnic, beach, vision, confession, rain, rainbow, hues, forbidden fruit, body, *** orchid, mrburdu
What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch
What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ...
Both worlds grow obscure.
Published by ByLine, Mandrake Poetry Review, Poetically Speaking, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Little Brown Poetry, Little Brown Poetry, Triplopia, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, PW Review, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mindful of Poetry, Poetry on Demand, Poet’s Haven, Famous Poets and Poems, and Bewildering Stories
May 17, 2020
May 17, 2020 at 11:29 PM UTC
Dear diabolic debutante / Spawn of the unfathomable abyss of blackness / Daughter of dreadful dead desire / Black-shrouded sinister sister of celestial gloom before whose imperious gaze the heavens fall silent / Whip-lash girl-child of the graves whose pallid visage kindles the myriad infernal fires / Autocratic vampiress of lunar doom whose winding-cloth enfolds the thousand horrors of blood-drenched nightmare / Thou that wanderest the cypress-crested hills of funereal necropolises / Whose icy glance cracks the ungraven tombstones of utter desolation / Empress of night and madness / Who stalks the locked and shadowed hallways of unhallowed thought / Whose burial-boat glides the still waters over Lethe’s silent depths to the unglimpsed isle of eternal mourning / Whose parapets tower above the fiefdoms of quotidian banality / Whose flying buttresses overlook the Stygian waters of the forgotten drowned denizens of damnation / Whose unshackled dungeons open to worlds of regal splendor / Whose spires pierce dark skies where oblivion buries the ruined cities of revelry under the drifting clouds of leaden time / Oh maiden of melancholic alchemy whose petrified passions transmute base metal into pure gold…
May the gibbous moon of equinox shine its baleful eye upon you; may you tread in sacramental calm the winding starlit paths of somnolent cemeteries; may my unmixed metaphors unveil in delirium their parabolic mysteries before the smoldering altar of your uninterpretable allegory; may the favor of your scorn forever lay me out, embalmed, undead, on the cold stone of merciless reality. Behold: in cryptic script of spectral apparition, in tracery of coded illumination, amidst the dawning rays of torment I write thine unknown name on the threshold of daylight. And from within the mortared wall of self I speak forth from my sepulcher the Sibylline utterance,
unsought, unheard, undreamt:
JUST WANTED TO SAY ‘HI’ !
☻
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
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Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise
Three times, ’tis said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company—
For he is grasped of God.
The Maker’s cordial visage,
However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it,
Like an adversity.
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•
*
I.
Ohh, longsuffering,
This love cure all the aches,
Replaced with surety.
II.
Yearning and longing,
Are heightened each precious days,
Thirsty for your lips.
III.
I hunger for you,
Your warmth and touch I dreamed of,
You, so close to me.
IV.
Angelic visage,
Played in my heart, mind and soul,
Each single moment.
V.
Vision of future,
Lock fingers with you my love,
Conquering the evil.
VI.
Together with God,
Praying, praising Him always,
This love to exist.
VII.
These tears there'll be none,
Our love covers it with joy,
Pure and bona fide.
VIII.
Oh thank God above,
For heaven inside our hearts,
Keeping us stronger.
IX.
No storm can vanquish,
No trials can separate,
Invincible love.
X.
Jointly, me and you,
Bonded for everlasting,
Brandon & Earl Jane.
*
with love <3 <3
© Earl Jane
♥ E.J.C.S.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 9:03 AM UTC
Enigma entity’s ethology entelechy as it relates to clairaudience clairvoyance.
Everyone has a personal futurity fatidic or existential metaphysique.
What we need is a universally acceptable form of id conclusion.
Unfortunately we can’t even agree on the social stigmatisms of ego’s expression.
We are relatively extraneous interpolations of adhesively practical extremity that succeed in a hierarchy of functionally integrateable forms.
There is no functional deontology, even though its visage would seem to portend cogently fecund probity for all.
We are not ethereally sublime, we are corporeally preternatural.
Objective is individual; obligation to each other is not a mandate.
Though many might find it inherently indispensible to some it impedes success.
The depths of debauchery this debacle ensues are almost intrinsically endemic to our race.
How am I going to get there becomes more important than ‘what are we fighting for’.
So, if there’s no unity of purpose how do we decide who we are fighting for.
Will it be good for all or lead to oligarchy and subjugation, the seemingly inescapable byproduct of capitalism, the inherent decadence of socialism.
It’s times like this that make me love the constitutional fortitude of Americanism.
Theoretically I have an inalienable right, hypothetically this leads to anarchy so I’m not allowed to mess with your rights.
This is mandate.
The republic for which we stand.
Mendacious tales of unity, not merely the obstinate tenacities of I, but also the cogent fecundity in the infamous we-ness of us.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 6:04 PM UTC
That morning, when I awoke, I had not a clue,
That the things you claimed you'd never do,
Were exactly what my day was leading too,
Though, as we shared that bed, my alarm was right on cue,
And as I got up, I noticed I smelled like you.
I told my best friend about that night,
That for once, holding someone was comforting, felt right,
Laying there, with you clinging to me so tight,
Was the first time intimacy didn't come with a shock of fright.
But, of course, the truth comes out,
Stunned, standing, the visage of a lout,
So lost in all that's come about.
That afternoon, when I got home, what was I to do?
So many thoughts, so many feelings to get through,
I turned on the shower, watching the dancing water spew,
And, just before the water touched me; deja vu,
I noticed that I smelled just like you.
This couldn't stand, and I scrub and washed till I felt alright,
Dirt, regret, and your scent wash away in the dim daylight
At last I didn't smell like that night,
And didn't reek of lack of foresight.
Now, I'm left with only an internal emotional bout,
Wondering if I can even shake this doubt,
To decide whether or not to keep you in, or out.
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 3:21 PM UTC
When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
0 love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?
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His bicycle let out a little yelp as he slowed to a stop,
The lady was dressed the same as the night before.
He could have cycled on but he had intentions he would not drop,
For he had heard stories of such beings from old wives' lore.
It was important for him to address this spectre.
Motivated by the advice he had received from his dad.
To never succumb to fear if a spirit he should ever encounter,
For the fear would consume and eventually drive him mad.
He was brimming with confidence as he spoke,
"Hello there again, I see that you are still in a fix".
He was determined not to be made again the joke
He had sworn to not be taken in by the imp's mischief and tricks.
A sweet fragrance lingered in the air,
Teasingly inviting him to greedily inhale it all in.
A gentle gust blew, caught and played with the strands of her hair...
Enamoured by her visage, he secretly gasped as if the air grew thin.
Her face was still partially obscured by her black flowing hair.
She turned to him before she gave her reply,
*"Would you please give me a lift, dear sir...kind and rare...
I do not wish to be stranded alone, unsheltered under the moonlit sky"*.
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 7:25 AM UTC
Puissant piquant and predatory
And observant from afar
He looks down on your slumber
Like a door that's left ajar
Plying with his manly vice
A reckless male visage
A rogue of masculine device
Seeks entrance to your mind
He saunters with a swagger
A macho savvy moxie
To personify virility's incarnate
His dream zone's metier
He sifts your ****** entourage
In search of sprawls recumbence
To tantalize climactic fervor
With lambent photic scenes
Grasping at your revelries
He spies the wanton lust
With swanky strut appealing
Your primal urge to sate
He leaves undone resistance
With innate resilience seized
The lavish wayward implications
Of unrequited livid deeds
Like passion's lurid lecheries
An insatiable torrid sooth
You wrestle with his adamance
Your carnal ecstasies revealed
You pounce on his exsertion
You splay your agile form
wriggling like a supple nymph
You accept his blatant storm
You writhe in your abandon
In a euphoric supplication
His machismo ****** enveloping
Your wildest latent needs
With no regrets or reticence
you awaken from this dream
To find yourself alone again
Like it had never been
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 9:51 PM UTC
"When a person is born it's a blessed time,
Albeit a person is in love it's a splendid era,
When that person perishes it is a bereaved era,
Albeit Love of two people expires it's a cataclysm,
Vestige as we used to sit there on the littoral,
As the dusk of the winds would blow the sand,
The sand pursues into your long black hair,
Visage your dark green eyes and a beauty of a smile,
All times I have enjoyed greatly also suffered greatly,
Times you loved me and alone on the shore,
It is an perpetual power that as my utopia,
Is me ichorous of our love moments together,
Afore us lies the port and a skimming ocean liner,
As we slowly see an alluvion gloom in the darkness,
Legions of souls drudged here in day and night,
Above gusting drifts the rainy constellation of stars,
As we gambol in our fervor of cognizance of love in our
Utopia Ichorous"
By Andrew Guzaldo 08/03/2018 © Posted HP/
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 10:10 PM UTC
Avert your eyes
from looking directly
at the monster.
Look only through
that reflective shield,
that glowing rectangle
that parades a
distorted vision of
the objective self,
that which in
dark moments may
suddenly shut off,
revealing one’s face:
inverted, expressionless, petrified—
like when the
mirror of Perseus
at last revealed
Medusa’s horrifying visage.
Jan 17, 2017
Jan 17, 2017 at 3:19 AM UTC
He stand alone by the river
With his broken wings
Head bowed in shame
Tears carving its way through his face
Crying in the agony
With clothes tattered and knees scraped
Bruises and scars covering his visage
Blood splashing in water
In darken heaven
Seeing his own reflection
Soul wounded by rejection
Growing cold, sulking within
Drowning in river of own sin
No longer able to fly
Not completely
But losing his angelic side
Against his will
Unleashing his devil side
Blamed by fiend
Betrayed by loved ones
Who didn't even took time to know
In spite of being loyal
Destroyed and ignored
Now good person in him is lost
What you see a man in disguise
Is a devil
But remember that devil was once an angel
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 1:52 PM UTC
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
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Portia and Bassanio
Brave Portia's lot was cast
Inside a mocking case of lead,
Morrocco came and passed,
Then Arragorn, arrived and left, forlorn.
A list of louts came, failed, and went
Before Bassanio played his turn...
Poor rich Portia's patience spent,
Nerissa's lady solace yearned
Antonio, Bassanio, a troubled pair
A wily shark a loan arranged,
Whose bite, though small,
Beyond compare aimed deepest
To the matters of the heart.
Antonio, about to lose his fortune,
Bemoaned the losing of a friend,
The foiling of a fortune, sunk.
Shylock, certain of his pound of flesh,
Summarily dismissed by gentile gender-bending,
Played as a fool by a woman posing as a man,
Who drove a lawyer's visage in a Portia.
All ended well, at least for "Christian" men...
Life sweetened by the turning of a Jew,
No matter his conversion at duress...
Straight away Portia and Nerissa turned back
A ******* borrower who had landed on his feet,
And sprang their traps to tame their husbands' heat.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 11:52 PM UTC
Creature of myth, you have to be real
I know you're there, I know you exist
Can't see nor touch but indeed I feel
That should suffice to say the least
No one I know has seen this mythical creature
I stand by my beliefs... I simply just do...
This being unknown to aged texts or ancient scriptures
Allow me to document, I'll keep it true
*"A magnificent neck that tapers into a head
Much like a halo, wearing a luminescent crown
Azurite for eyes like many have said
A golden mane majestically cascading down
Almond shaped face, with cheeks slightly scaled
In the centre were dimple-like nostrils
From it's mouth, a voice; demure and frail
Speaks in verses from a time frozen still
Within the cage right under its chest
I know that calmly there lay beating
A huge, magnanimous heart does rest
Embedded deep within a physique so beguiling
Its spine is perfect, as if forged by a divine mould
Limbs are long, but with gait so light
Non terrestrial wings that into nothing they fold
Stretched around is smoothened skin milky white"*
That is all I have got to offer so far
Matched the words to my mind's bewitching visage
No one has seen it; thus ensured that they cannot mar
In my head will forever be etched the image
Creature of myth... Please be real
Know that I am blinded, I just want to see
Not for the others, you don't reveal
I do believe... I just need to convince me...
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 1:19 PM UTC