All is NOT well in the grasslands.
The animals are fit to be tied.
The actions of the crafty wolves
Have left the rest of them horrified.

"How will we EVER be able
To keep democracy afloat,"
The antelope asked, "if the wolves
Don't allow us all to vote?

"In many sections of these grasslands,
Shameless wolves are doing their best
To hold voter registration
Hostage, keeping voters suppressed."

"They aim to control voter turnout,"
The deer added. "That's their hope.
Their sneaky ways to manipulate
Elections push the envelope!

“They stall and seek petty reasons
To take names off voting lists.
Fair and honest elections are
In jeopardy if this persists.”

"It's so close to election day,
Our courts are reluctant to raise objections,"
The buffalo said. "Some of the wolves
Are even running in the elections!

"Humph! They stole a Supreme Court justice.
Then they rammed another one through.
Now they're still suppressing voters.
What more damage will they do?"

"Winnowing down voter rolls!
Their strategies should be illegal!"
The fox chimed in. Looking around,
He asked, "Where is our dear friend Eagle?"

The absent eagle wanted no
Responsibility tied to her name.
She couldn't stop the out-of-control
Wolves, and hid her head in shame.

-by Bob B (10-19-18)

Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into
the water and got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep
on board and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind.
Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that blew
dead aft and stayed steadily with us keeping our sails all the time
well filled; so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear and
let her go as the wind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails
were full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went
down and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep
waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the
Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays
of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down
again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long
melancholy night. When we got there we beached the ship, took the
sheep out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came
to the place of which Circe had told us.
  “Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my
sword and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering
to all the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and
thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the
whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising
them that when I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren
heifer for them, the best I had, and would load the pyre with good
things. I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have a
black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks. When I had prayed
sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep and let
the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts came trooping up
from Erebus—brides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil,
maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been
killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood; they
came from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange
kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. When I saw
them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the
two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same
time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I
was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts
come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my questions.
  “The first ghost ‘that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he
had not yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body
unwaked and unburied in Circe’s house, for we had had too much else to
do. I was very sorry for him, and cried when I saw him: ‘Elpenor,’
said I, ‘how did you come down here into this gloom and darkness?
You have here on foot quicker than I have with my ship.’
  “‘Sir,’ he answered with a groan, ‘it was all bad luck, and my own
unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the top of Circe’s
house, and never thought of coming down again by the great staircase
but fell right off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul down to
the house of Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have
left behind you, though they are not here, by your wife, by the father
who brought you up when you were a child, and by Telemachus who is the
one hope of your house, do what I shall now ask you. I know that
when you leave this limbo you will again hold your ship for the Aeaean
island. Do not go thence leaving me unwaked and unburied behind you,
or I may bring heaven’s anger upon you; but burn me with whatever
armour I have, build a barrow for me on the sea shore, that may tell
people in days to come what a poor unlucky fellow I was, and plant
over my grave the oar I used to row with when I was yet alive and with
my messmates.’ And I said, ‘My poor fellow, I will do all that you
have asked of me.’
  “Thus, then, did we sit and hold sad talk with one another, I on the
one side of the trench with my sword held over the blood, and the
ghost of my comrade saying all this to me from the other side. Then
came the ghost of my dead mother Anticlea, daughter to Autolycus. I
had left her alive when I set out for Troy and was moved to tears when
I saw her, but even so, for all my sorrow I would not let her come
near the blood till I had asked my questions of Teiresias.
  “Then came also the ghost of Theban Teiresias, with his golden
sceptre in his hand. He knew me and said, ‘Ulysses, noble son of
Laertes, why, poor man, have you left the light of day and come down
to visit the dead in this sad place? Stand back from the trench and
withdraw your sword that I may drink of the blood and answer your
questions truly.’
  “So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank of
the blood he began with his prophecy.
  “You want to know,’ said he, ‘about your return home, but heaven
will make this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape the
eye of Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you for
having blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get home
if you can restrain yourself and your companions when your ship
reaches the Thrinacian island, where you will find the sheep and
cattle belonging to the sun, who sees and gives ear to everything.
If you leave these flocks unharmed and think of nothing but of getting
home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm
them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and
of your men. Even though you may yourself escape, you will return in
bad plight after losing all your men, [in another man’s ship, and
you will find trouble in your house, which will be overrun by
high-handed people, who are devouring your substance under the pretext
of paying court and making presents to your wife.
  “‘When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and
after you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you
must take a well-made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a
country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even
mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and
oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain
token which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and
will say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your
shoulder; on this you must fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a
ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune. Then go home and offer hecatombs
to an the gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, death
shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very
gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people
shall bless you. All that I have said will come true].’
  “‘This,’ I answered, ‘must be as it may please heaven, but tell me
and tell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother’s ghost close by
us; she is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I am
her own son she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me, Sir,
how I can make her know me.’
  “‘That,’ said he, ‘I can soon do Any ghost that you let taste of the
blood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not
let them have any blood they will go away again.’
  “On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, for
his prophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I was
until my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at once
and spoke fondly to me, saying, ‘My son, how did you come down to this
abode of darkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing for
the living to see these places, for between us and them there are
great and terrible waters, and there is Oceanus, which no man can
cross on foot, but he must have a good ship to take him. Are you all
this time trying to find your way home from Troy, and have you never
yet got back to Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?’
  “‘Mother,’ said I, ‘I was forced to come here to consult the ghost
of the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near the
Achaean land nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothing
but one long series of misfortunes from the very first day that I
set out with Agamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight
the Trojans. But tell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die?
Did you have a long illness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy
passage to eternity? Tell me also about my father, and the son whom
I left behind me; is my property still in their hands, or has some one
else got hold of it, who thinks that I shall not return to claim it?
Tell me again what my wife intends doing, and in what mind she is;
does she live with my son and guard my estate securely, or has she
made the best match she could and married again?’
  “My mother answered, ‘Your wife still remains in your house, but she
is in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both
night and day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property,
and Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertain
largely, as of course he must, considering his position as a
magistrate, and how every one invites him; your father remains at
his old place in the country and never goes near the town. He has no
comfortable bed nor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor in
front of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but in
summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in the
vineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown anyhow upon the ground. He
grieves continually about your never having come home, and suffers
more and more as he grows older. As for my own end it was in this
wise: heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house,
nor was I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wear
people out and **** them, but my longing to know what you were doing
and the force of my affection for you—this it was that was the
death of me.’
  “Then I tried to find some way of embracing my mother’s ghost.
Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but
each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom,
and being touched to the quick I said to her, ‘Mother, why do you
not stay still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms
around one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our
sorrows even in the house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay a
still further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom
only?’
  “‘My son,’ she answered, ‘most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not
Proserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when
they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together;
these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has
left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now,
however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note
all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.’
  “Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the
wives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered in
crowds about the blood, and I considered how I might question them
severally. In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the
keen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all
drinking the blood at once. So they came up one after the other, and
each one as I questioned her told me her race and lineage.
  “The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of
Cretheus the son of ******. She fell in love with the river Enipeus
who is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she
was taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her
lover, lay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave
arched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god,
whereon he loosed her ****** girdle and laid her in a deep slumber.
When the god had accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand in
his own and said, ‘Tyro, rejoice in all good will; the embraces of the
gods are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins about this time
twelve months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go
home, but hold your tongue and do not tell any one.’
  “Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Pelias
and Neleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might.
Pelias was a great ******* of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the other
lived in Pylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely,
Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer.
  “Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast of
having slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him two
sons Amphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates,
and built a wall all round it; for strong though they were they
could not hold Thebes till they had walled it.
  “Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove
indomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon,
and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon.
  “I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king OEdipodes whose awful lot
it was to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married her
after having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole
story to the world; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief
for the spite the gods had borne him; but Epicaste went to the house
of the mighty jailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the
avenging spirits haunted him as for an outraged mother—to his ruing
bitterly thereafter.
  “Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, having
given priceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphion
son of Iasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos.
She bore Nestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore that
marvellously lovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the country
round; but Neleus would only give her to him who should raid the
cattle of Iphicles from the grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was a
hard task. The only man who would undertake to raid them was a certain
excellent seer, but the will of heaven was against him, for the
rangers of the cattle caught him and put him in prison; nevertheless
when a full year had passed and the same season came round again,
Iphicles set him at liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles of
heaven. Thus, then, was the will of Jove accomplished.
  “And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous
sons, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Both
these heroes are lying under the earth, though they are still alive,
for by a special dispensation of Jove, they die and come to life
again, each one of them every other day throughout all time, and
they have the rank of gods.
  “After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace
of Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were
short lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this
world, and the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine years
old they were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the
chest. They threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried
to set Mount Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the
top of Ossa, that they might scale heaven itself, and they would
have done it too if they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto,
killed both of them, before they had got so much as a sign of hair
upon their cheeks or chin.
  “Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the
magician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens,
but he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed her
in the island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her.
  “I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her own
husband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to name
every single one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw,
and it is time for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew,
or here. As for my escort, heaven and yourselves

Melting Sarcoma
Cell Division
Warfare Conjugates a mission
And dares the fates to corrugate


Hurricanes of plated windows reflect as they shatter, their torment, drunken stupor invoked by habit.
They congregate as ashes, winnowing.

What of exactly is a friendship lost?
Over minute trifles so easily tossed?
Or one that disbands in the cataract of Time?
Something worth pain and blood? Which is absolute and wonderful?
And so, too, can it be asked,
To which man is authority given,
Of such astute austerity endowed,
The man to pass such judgment in good faith and conscience,
Is none other than the crowd.
But, irrelevancies, I totter!
The worst is to be discussed,
For far beyond the scope of reason,
Have these travesties been concussed.
For here, I give to you the corpse of this bond,
This once turgid child of innocence
So, perhaps, its unadulterated substance may quickly manifest
Yet, I pray, I hope, I wonder, its marred and tattered mien profess
The noxious tonic it did consume,
Of ancient spleen and venomous ardor,
To rend its former pulchritude, to hands of untouched fury placed,
It suffered the most insufferable fate to befall upon any beast:
To reanimate, to thrive, to live once more,
In the hands of a tyrant and aimlessly exist
Necrotic at its very core.
This beast, this creature of hated stock,
Was my burden, my cross, to bear,
One, I weep to recollect, of part and parcel of my own flock.
But, I did this, I bore this, along with many others,
In spite of righted timbers,
In spite of rationale,
In spite of my fiber and moral code, that kept us forcibly constrained
For the sake of you, authority
For the sake of tranquil minds
I stood obstinate at the lineaments, between those contrasting foes,
In the self-imposed, childish Purgatory,
Completely indisposed.
Between the shining, gleaming face of holiness, and precipice of spite
For manner of serenity and cowardice perpetual,
Confronted this creature, I did not,
For the sake of you, dear authority, for the sake of stable place.
Children we were, yes, but no less severe the gravity,
For the winnowing of unity, at the yoke of caprice, is to blame.
A real friendship will endure, endure through the boreal,
Endure through the malice, the vitriol,
Will breathe new and longing appetite for breadth, for universality,
Of which all parts must maintain accountability.
It must stand resolute no matter how formidable the ballast,
It must be calm, objective, and outlast the harrowing feelings change may accompany,
Will sacrifice and encourage wellbeing,
It must imbue recollection, a past so beautiful,
Be a comfort in the presence of shame and humility,
Its essence, a friend itself.
But I can no longer pay, at the cost of sanity,
I can no longer give what little remnant humanity to forge another bond,
One made of dead and long-forgotten parts,
I can not, I will not,
I am sick, I am weary for all of the injustices I have done
To watch as the seed of hatred continues to bloom,
The veil of falsehood walk without shame,
To see her stride of perverting intent, tainting the world with touch,
Is a miserable folly to me,
A crime which I let permit,
A coward I was to not stop this, to not lay this matter to rest,
No,
My beleaguered hands put this evil in the ground, and left it to the tides of fate,
It grew, beyond my capture, beyond my strength to control,
Into this horrid ****, this miserable plant,
Which, still!, it grows sans disannul
To take responsibility to this, on me, I cannot err
But, naturally, none to the plant, it seems,
And this is only fair.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close *****-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Euryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her
dear husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and
her feet were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent
over her head to speak to her. “Wake up Penelope, my dear child,”
she exclaimed, “and see with your own eyes something that you have
been wanting this long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home
again, and has killed the suitors who were giving so much trouble in
his house, eating up his estate and ill-treating his son.”
  “My good nurse,” answered Penelope, “you must be mad. The gods
sometimes send some very sensible people out of their minds, and
make foolish people become sensible. This is what they must have
been doing to you; for you always used to be a reasonable person.
Why should you thus mock me when I have trouble enough already-
talking such nonsense, and waking me up out of a sweet sleep that
had taken possession of my eyes and closed them? I have never slept so
soundly from the day my poor husband went to that city with the
ill-omened name. Go back again into the women’s room; if it had been
any one else, who had woke me up to bring me such absurd news I should
have sent her away with a severe scolding. As it is, your age shall
protect you.”
  “My dear child,” answered Euryclea, “I am not mocking you. It is
quite true as I tell you that Ulysses is come home again. He was the
stranger whom they all kept on treating so badly in the cloister.
Telemachus knew all the time that he was come back, but kept his
father’s secret that he might have his revenge on all these wicked
people.
  Then Penelope sprang up from her couch, threw her arms round
Euryclea, and wept for joy. “But my dear nurse,” said she, “explain
this to me; if he has really come home as you say, how did he manage
to overcome the wicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number
of them there always were?”
  “I was not there,” answered Euryclea, “and do not know; I only heard
them groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and
huddled up in a corner of the women’s room with the doors closed, till
your son came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found
Ulysses standing over the corpses that were lying on the ground all
round him, one on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you
could have seen him standing there all bespattered with blood and
filth, and looking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled
up in the gatehouse that is in the outer court, and Ulysses has lit
a great fire to purify the house with sulphur. He has sent me to
call you, so come with me that you may both be happy together after
all; for now at last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your
husband is come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and
to take his revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so
badly to him.”
  “‘My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “do not exult too confidently
over all this. You know how delighted every one would be to see
Ulysses come home—more particularly myself, and the son who has
been born to both of us; but what you tell me cannot be really true.
It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great
wickedness, and has made an end of them; for they respected no man
in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, who
came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of
their iniquity. Ulysses is dead far away from the Achaean land; he
will never return home again.”
  Then nurse Euryclea said, “My child, what are you talking about? but
you were all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your
husband is never coming, although he is in the house and by his own
fire side at this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof;
when I was washing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave
him, and I wanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom he would not
let me, and clapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I
will make this bargain with you—if I am deceiving you, you may have
me killed by the most cruel death you can think of.”
  “My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “however wise you may be you can
hardly fathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in
search of my son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the
man who has killed them.”
  On this she came down from her upper room, and while doing so she
considered whether she should keep at a distance from her husband
and question him, or whether she should at once go up to him and
embrace him. When, however, she had crossed the stone floor of the
cloister, she sat down opposite Ulysses by the fire, against the
wall at right angles [to that by which she had entered], while Ulysses
sat near one of the bearing-posts, looking upon the ground, and
waiting to see what his wife would say to him when she saw him. For
a long time she sat silent and as one lost in amazement. At one moment
she looked him full in the face, but then again directly, she was
misled by his shabby clothes and failed to recognize him, till
Telemachus began to reproach her and said:
  “Mother—but you are so hard that I cannot call you by such a
name—why do you keep away from my father in this way? Why do you
not sit by his side and begin talking to him and asking him questions?
No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had
come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having
gone through so much; but your heart always was as hard as a stone.”
  Penelope answered, “My son, I am so lost in astonishment that I
can find no words in which either to ask questions or to answer
them. I cannot even look him straight in the face. Still, if he really
is Ulysses come back to his own home again, we shall get to understand
one another better by and by, for there are tokens with which we two
are alone acquainted, and which are hidden from all others.”
  Ulysses smiled at this, and said to Telemachus, “Let your mother put
me to any proof she likes; she will make up her mind about it
presently. She rejects me for the moment and believes me to be
somebody else, because I am covered with dirt and have such bad
clothes on; let us, however, consider what we had better do next. When
one man has killed another, even though he was not one who would leave
many friends to take up his quarrel, the man who has killed him must
still say good bye to his friends and fly the country; whereas we have
been killing the stay of a whole town, and all the picked youth of
Ithaca. I would have you consider this matter.”
  “Look to it yourself, father,” answered Telemachus, “for they say
you are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other
mortal man who can compare with you. We will follow you with right
good will, nor shall you find us fail you in so far as our strength
holds out.”
  “I will say what I think will be best,” answered Ulysses. “First
wash and put your shirts on; tell the maids also to go to their own
room and dress; Phemius shall then strike up a dance tune on his lyre,
so that if people outside hear, or any of the neighbours, or some
one going along the street happens to notice it, they may think
there is a wedding in the house, and no rumours about the death of the
suitors will get about in the town, before we can escape to the
woods upon my own land. Once there, we will settle which of the
courses heaven vouchsafes us shall seem wisest.”
  Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. First they
washed and put their shirts on, while the women got ready. Then
Phemius took his lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and
stately dance. The house re-echoed with the sound of men and women
dancing, and the people outside said, “I suppose the queen has been
getting married at last. She ought to be ashamed of herself for not
continuing to protect her husband’s property until he comes home.”
  This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that
had been happening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed
Ulysses in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva
made him look taller and stronger than before; she also made the
hair grow thick on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like
hyacinth blossoms; she glorified him about the head and shoulders just
as a skilful workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan
or Minerva—and his work is full of beauty—enriches a piece of silver
plate by gilding it. He came from the bath looking like one of the
immortals, and sat down opposite his wife on the seat he had left. “My
dear,” said he, “heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding
than woman ever yet had. No other woman could bear to keep away from
her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of
absence, and after having gone through so much. But come, nurse, get a
bed ready for me; I will sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as
hard as iron.”
  “My dear,” answered Penelope, “I have no wish to set myself up,
nor to depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I
very well remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail
from Ithaca. Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed
chamber that he himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and
put bedding upon it with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.”
  She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said,
“Wife, I am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has
been taking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have
found it a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless
some god came and helped him to shift it. There is no man living,
however strong and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for
it is a marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands.
There was a young olive growing within the precincts of the house,
in full vigour, and about as thick as a bearing-post. I built my
room round this with strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them,
and I made the doors strong and well-fitting. Then I cut off the top
boughs of the olive tree and left the stump standing. This I dressed
roughly from the root upwards and then worked with carpenter’s tools
well and skilfully, straightening my work by drawing a line on the
wood, and making it into a bed-prop. I then bored a hole down the
middle, and made it the centre-post of my bed, at which I worked
till I had finished it, inlaying it with gold and silver; after this I
stretched a hide of crimson leather from one side of it to the
other. So you see I know all about it, and I desire to learn whether
it is still there, or whether any one has been removing it by
cutting down the olive tree at its roots.”
  When she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly
broke down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his
neck, and kissed him. “Do not be angry with me Ulysses,” she cried,
“you, who are the wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us.
Heaven has denied us the happiness of spending our youth, and of
growing old, together; do not then be aggrieved or take it amiss
that I did not embrace you thus as soon as I saw you. I have been
shuddering all the time through fear that someone might come here
and deceive me with a lying story; for there are many very wicked
people going about. Jove’s daughter Helen would never have yielded
herself to a man from a foreign country, if she had known that the
sons of Achaeans would come after her and bring her back. Heaven put
it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought to that sin,
which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now, however, that you
have convinced me by showing that you know all about our bed (which no
human being has ever seen but you and I and a single maid servant, the
daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and
who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I have been I
can mistrust no longer.”
  Then Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and
faithful wife to his *****. As the sight of land is welcome to men who
are swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship
with the fury of his winds and waves—a few alone reach the land,
and these, covered with brine, are thankful when they find
themselves on firm ground and out of danger—even so was her husband
welcome to her as she looked upon him, and she could not tear her
two fair arms from about his neck. Indeed they would have gone on
indulging their sorrow till rosy-fingered morn appeared, had not
Minerva determined otherwise, and held night back in the far west,
while she would not suffer Dawn to leave Oceanus, nor to yoke the
two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear her onward to break the day
upon mankind.
  At last, however, Ulysses said, “Wife, we have not yet reached the
end of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to
undergo. It is long and difficult, but I must go through with it,
for thus the shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day
when I went down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my
companions. But now let us go to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy
the blessed boon of sleep.”
  “You shall go to bed as soon as you please,” replied Penelope,
“now that the gods have sent you home to your own good house and to
your country. But as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it,
tell me about the task that lies before you. I shall have to hear
about it later, so it is better that I should be told at once.”
  “My dear,” answered Ulysses, “why should you press me to tell you?
Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like BOOK
it. I do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and
wide, carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people
have never heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food.
They know nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a
ship. He gave me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He
said that a wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a
winnowing shovel that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my
oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to
Neptune; after which I was to go home and offer hecatombs to all the
gods in heaven, one after the other. As for myself, he said that death
should come to me from the sea, and that my life should ebb away
very gently when I was full of years and peace of mind, and my
people should bless me. All this, he said, should surely come to
pass.”
  And Penelope said, “If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier
time in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from
misfortune.”
  Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took
torches and made the bed ready with soft coverlets; as soon as they
had laid them, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest,
leaving the bed chamber woman Eurynome to show Ulysses and Penelope to
bed by torch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went
back, and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed.
Telemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and
made the women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep
in the cloisters.
  When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell
talking with one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in
seeing the house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had
killed so many sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many
casks of wine. Ulysses in his turn told her what he had suffered,
and how much trouble he had himself given to other people. He told her
everything, and she was so delighted to listen that she never went
to sleep till he had ended his whole story.
  He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached
the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the
Cyclops and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his
brave comrades; how he then went on to ******, who received him
hospitably and furthered him on his way, but even so he

1

The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.

2

Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh
Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?
But soon I put the foolish fancy by:
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.

3

Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing
A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;
He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?
And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?

I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close *****-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
       To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
       For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
       Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
       Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

III
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
       And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

A poem is built with sounds
Liberally littered with alliteration
Rhyming reason
Aspiring assonance
Up metaphorical mountains.

Each letter plays its part.
A cast of cascading chords
Making mystical music
For the discerning ear.

Operatic musicals from the Muse:
A crescendo of noise
Or sometimes
Whispers in the winnowing wind.

I write because I must,
Because I need to
In answer to
The Call.

Paul Butters

What other woman could be loved like you,
Or how of you should love possess his fill?
After the fulness of all rapture, still,—
As at the end of some deep avenue
A tender glamour of day,—there comes to view
Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill,—
Such fire as Love’s soul-winnowing hands distil
Even from his inmost arc of light and dew.

And as the traveller triumphs with the sun,
Glorying in heat’s mid-height, yet startide brings
Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs
From limpid lambent hours of day begun;—
Even so, through eyes and voice, your soul doth move
My soul with changeful light of infinite love.

the lizards sit cautiously in the sun

as I sit across the lanai grinding placidly

for a word to embellish my journal

they blink and wait for bugs



I sit and write, write and sit

winnowing down the day

wasting time on poetry

oh but what a way



a ******* born in Paradise

sits winding down the day

grinding out more poetry

blinking life away



the lizards sit cautiously

warming in the sun

I sit and write in Paradise

and wait for night to come



I write and sit, sit and write

winding down the day

wasting time on poetry

oh but what a way


**originally posted to my blog https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com on 4/26/2014

every year she cut the biggest and brightest
keeping them in a brown bagged pantry to dry out
reaching in to crumble them at season
winnowing the chaff to wind
like her mother and aunties before her
back home in their island paradise

a magical notion
jostling seeds in slow motion
looking like crests on the ocean
neither too high nor too low
broken petals fly free
as seeds fall back of their own gravity

the kids would come ‘round
as projects kids do
to watch and maybe try something new
she would pass them an old melamine plate
a small handful of crumblings to ply
tossing and scooching to catch them again

crimson reds and magentas
lemony yellows
monarch butterfly oranges
violet and lavender purples
crowning petals layered
resembling elizabethan collars

they caught the morning
protected by snail and slug repellent
people came from all around
to admire her oversized zinnias
occasionally picking one and running
garden’s variety of dine and dash

we gifted them to mourners
small packets of zinnia’s seed
extolling them as one of her favorites
soil, water and sunshine
all you need to sow and grow
and watch the memories bloom

Why doesn’t that bed,
Have a patient.
Why pay for nature,
When it wants us dead.

Smell the fresh air,
Enjoy the colours.
Those evolved scents,
Placate places we do not feel.

Build over it,
Put another clinic in.
Where will we go,
To remember ourselves though.

Does not matter,
Clink followed clank.
Automation winnowing expertise,
Life is what we make it.

Universal unction
A beatific box
Friction in the function
A tutorial. A talk.

We winnowing the worship
We wiser for to seek
Here harrowing through
Hardship
We winkle out the "weak".

How holy is the hilltop
Which cannot help at all
How horrible the House of Pride
Which cannot help but FALL.

Please pray for persecution
Let them not stay their hand
GOD BLESS the repercussions!
The ground on which to stand.

I beg that I won't barter
Without nor yet within
I pray that I won't falter
I'll stand against the sin.

For the Church as it emerges
From underneath the waves
Surfeit in the surges
Gamboling in her grave

Wreaks havoc on true holiness
Divides doctrine "uncouth"
Gutting out the Bible
Laying waste the TRUTH!

The "Universal Union"
"All for one, and one for all"
"All roads lead to Rome"
How the mighty fall!

There are, in truth, just 2 roads
At the tolling of the bell.
The narrow to eternal life...

... and the broad road straight to

HELL.


SøułSurvivør
(C) 10/31/2017

2020 - day 136

Friday, May 15, 2020
10:54 AM

Cognitive Success:
A Consequentialist Account of Rationality in Cognition,
- I read page one, for the definition, I am sure they may be right.
-- ask, what is known about this in ratio to that, in balance,
with gravity the law being obeyed,
tip-toe, through the tulips,
balancing enpoint, pirrouette, and fly
right
off the handle. Cognosis in sequence of fortuitous slap in the face
palm to brow moments of aha, drop jaw,
eureka and so on, this is it. This is life as a thinking thing,
with no rational reason to cease,
we on a roll...
's'alldownhill from here,
save habitual itches unscratched,
don't...
once scratched, we start feeling these
habitual itchings
begin to bleed, and, as the O tangere tangible
chem sigstraight through the blackbox tag
- the magic sig in the vascular lumen, as the
blood scabs to staunch the flow
infected with what ever was itching to invade my peace of mind.
Into the penetralium, unwilling to settle
for half knowing:
vascular endothelial cells line the entire circulatory system, from the heart to the smallest capillaries.
These cells have unique functions that include fluid filtration, such as in the glomerulus of the kidney, blood vessel tone, hemostasis, neutrophil recruitment, and hormone trafficking.
--sourced from Wikipedia... neural link via fingers on the ends of my arms,
guided by actual muscle memory, mirror neuronic bits

Life is reasonless cried the executable, swallowed up in truth, as we
overflow on accident, ha,

irony is not lying, it is accusing.
The gift of aitia gates set up in corpus colustrum. Truth provokes irony,

we get it, and in getting it, we agree... this is a strange state to be in.
Half, or more, of the politicians believe, by faith, we, the people, are heedless of inclusions to the classified files, they
having never done the
microscopy on their physical container, vessle, amphora stuck in a square hole in the belly of the ship of state,
**, shipwreck in the middle terra puddle,
lift my default mind wandering state, to the heights of hearty compression into
comprehensive gripper ligand/receptor transister- ping platlets,magic

Co-gnosis Success, bluffing teleosis,
saying I saw this
bet,
I bet, life is a
habit, wait,
habit-uate, make a habit,
form a habit thinking the impossible
at a be seen de-ift
moment as if it were a
never,
a place of impossible anything,
a place filled with emptiness,
and uncategorical nothing,
in you.
Imagine
you are nothing.
Here.
Did I disappear?

Inhabitual gnosis, ****** into a vaccuum,

umph, squeeze a normative
thought through one final ought to be
a
thought, where a vaccuum is no more.

A we, a me and thee, with one breath,
shared,
I suppose, I feel alone in you,

but is and ought gnosis of success
seems senseless, after ever began never ending.

The singularity, the point
from which
to which,

we touch.
you, dear, high-value, judge,
me, unknown word slinger;
we touch
and sense a next, another unknown,

at this point, we are. Here being as
a we of only me and only you,
we may aggregate,
stick
to this point, our singularity of one
moment,
some time ago, or we may
say I have no idea you lack, mypoint
no gem to balance your mainspring,
when you get it.

Intuit altruism pushing next into position,
suppose, posit now as past,
knowing enough to get by,
past that previous point of no return,
as the signal loops down the vagus nerve,
swirling field effect from the aortal pump
encouraging wordsform a grin,
say this e-qualiates that, on a judicious right balance
--- non since you noticed, yes
sense
reasoning is balancing why next is
accepted as the only
choice,
all things considered.
We stop the bleeding.
Acheive scab-state,i.e.
hemostasis, hole-e-plugged,
via the
platlets, touched almost instantly after an injury to the blood vessel
has damaged the endothelium lining
the blood vessel.
Exposure of blood to the subendothelial space
initiates
two processes: (wait, by whose authority?)
changes in platelets, and
the exposure of subendothelial tissue factor to plasma factor VII, which ultimately leads to cross-linked fibrin formation.

-- all on auto pilot, intentionally. Artists hate interupption.

Simple. If any part of that fails, you die.

No AI, no artistic intuition needed to imagine design,

-- unless
-- you lieve me be a ******* oughtical,
opticalwizard who can link you to the lit, with a click
cliche, itching ear, afflicted with the need
to know, from
that
fabledforbiddenfruitthunderwordeverybody
hears
deepdowninside saying, how long will you love
simplicity? how long must I suffer thee knowing,
whatever
beyond a shadow of a doubt, the whole truth and nothing but

-- an itch from a gazillion
-- rube goldberg master pieces,
aligning from the very blood vessle lining that
seems to be using the ash of a mitochondrial ATP
apt to be intentionallypopping off phosphates
destined to aid in the fibren
transforming
-- hap to keep us from bleeding out,

automatic blood clotting with balance
maintained by internal algorithms


Paying attention intuitivey, after a
while,
specifically longer than a glance, whiles
accumulate attention quantvalue,
and the watcher
is credited for attention paid, based on

sci used by the I-language, in composition

of now, from pieces of our past,
stored as fact,when only impulses from
some
pre known set of signals flash

intuitio, ladrones y patrones, solo la bueno

we are integral ideas, we been tagged,

we touch the secret me in you button,
tic,
we be you as far as you can tell, and

self-evidence, not,
withstanding, you make an Artist's Intuition call,

A.I. has never been artificial, as in
artificial sweet-called nutritional substitutes,

there is an art to surviving reinsanitation after fifty years
in plastic

Normal minds may wander in pursuit of happiness.
The process is analgous, to panning gold,
or winnowing a golden fleece,
winnowing and shaking and washing and combing,
fining in the wind.

only an English Lord would burn the fleece
and sift the ash for ***** gold in need of fining fire seven times.

Slow
thunk. Sound of mind, thunk, thunk grind
whodathunkit
ha hap happen stance, stuck upright cheer, see look up
a little stone venus, stuck in the gears

the mother of goodness, cornocopius provision,
she we see worthy of all our attentions,
we serve the supplier of life... and his prophet... s
is that an addendum dum be dum did lieve be true,

run, spot, run that madman has irrational intentions

consequentially, being as how,
the reader says it is written?

if you did not know it then you know it now.

Really, your idea of some will being done on earth;
whose will was that, in your heart/mind/gutlumenlinings,

where all your common senses integrate and strive to keep
your dream alive,

but life don't woik dataway, 'cept a seed fall down and die,

it waits. Everlasting pro verbs, provocalizing good,

that works. Wait and see, no trick. This is hell,

for those who can't imagine realization is a mortal function
of living words.

Wombed man at the well, point was the living water source,
not the racist reaction that puzzled the apostles.

--- did you just, as in iustnow say, This is hell?
for those who can't imagine realization is a mortal function
of living words
sure did copy paste valid 2020 tech, backoff quill boy, we
ain't scratchinshitout, this is

the fabled stream of sci using ness with right reason balanced
on every chiral level a quark can imagine,
being determined
to go no
other way, the truth, to myself as a funda-mental part-itty-bitty
part, one in about ten-billion, when we're done...

patience, you lost? Pick up a thread and choose a polarity,

thy will being done on earth is not the question,
you conversing in your inner language with mature comprehension,
as if you knew to whom true rest goes after ever starts
-- can you redeem words like as, aren't those intuitive?

as, from the infamous like as Winston ads,
whom, from the equally infamous Johnny Carson
Who/whom do you trust? ads added authoritative definitions,
intended to leave idle words instead of statuary,
to save on programming costs.
Smart,
single syllable logos can carry some deep meaning
AI know,
details as meaningful as any, tiny stops pivoting gems
in a 21 jewel Buluva full of wheels within wheels tickingtime
to the longitudinalsecond,
the 1950s were loaded with persuasions to wish for ever more,

but Poe loosed that one word,
nevermore in ironic acknowledgement
earth as my witness, we have gone astray, ever more,

today is our conscious limit,
we can not realize
yonder from now,

but with my fathful time piece, we can say, whole heartedly
this is called today,

whenever you find yourself, here, in these lines
this is the daily flow, 2020.

It is set to be commercial as all hell in 2040, wait and see.



A day unayyachedmissing keys tt

and AI suggests I relax, inner AI,
my artist's intuition
I call 'im Al
with permission
I am an art-ist
as that other guy is a
cons-equational-ist rationality
in a realm where time is an arrow.

Here,
he makes no sense.
If words did not live, how would you know?

I could be, no, I am as immortal as the epic

you find most familiar.

I am of the storytellers bound to corn mother.

I live in bardic lore left in wind, for a spell.

Then
a tipping point, first one of the vessles filled with all the messages
Daniel sealed. Messages classified, end times.

All the stuff we never knew till recently,
which, I apologize, polis-wise, I mean recently,
politically speaking,
post Voltarian conversation rule.
Define my terms if I would converse with you.

Ever, prior to the key being agreeing on terms,

terminative points where meaning makes a story
from a song,

bardic-pre- polilingual operatic outbursts

Amen.

---

Dare? Nay, care not. Are you feeling

strange?

I. You wrote no manuscripts but somehow, whenever I move to inch myself over the sofa, I can feel your soft blow indent me over the edge of this quiet. The quiet disquiets the quiet – is something you would have said over *******, over lamenting the death of a lamppost outside, over wanting to be stranded underneath the awning of a dilapidated canopy of trees outside. Over the slowdance and the turntable, over Belle and Sebastian.

II. I left the faucet running just in case you were to be awakened by a myoclonic ****. It helps to hear the sound of water gushing as it protrudes calmness. I would have intruded you, but your absence first lifted into the vacuity of rooms unspoken of. I inspected the impressions left on the bed and left the tousled sheets as they were. Questions discerned. Answers disarmed. Somewhere between inquiry and certainty, there is a body hauled right out of the alarming bedazzlement. We were both gutting each other as the light from the television spilled right onto our naked bodies, stuck in a fucklock. And then I got up to the slain body of the morning.

III. I muse you over Wittgenstein – separated by a makeshift bookshelf. I felt a revulsion for slender straps for watches. The face you wore that day was white. Now you’re as pale as a July tapestry.

IV. I bought new venetian blinds today.

V. Somewhere along the steep ***** I heard the machination of an arrival. The dogs were randy outside. It must be you, approaching. I fingered the slats to reveal a little source of Sun. It was the daily paper. I have forgotten all arrivals are the same.

VI. If I were to blueprint this house with my sentiments – we would be sleeping apart. Your bed, of cold metal. Mine, of sandalwood. Erasures last longer than revisions. I know your presence as the familiar clangor of the same instruments you use for preparations are the same ones fondled. Right after the investigation, your immaculate neglect transfers itself into a sly translation of perfume from a day’s work, winnowing my faculties.

VII. I made a blueprint of this house with my sentiments – you somewhere in the outskirts of town, I deep within the suburban. I have a question for balconies I do not want to answer. At what height should be a balcony situated? What if the scrumptious fall is but elevation?  Will the intensity of the Sun pulverize the very fixated shadow on the corner of my parched shoulder? If not, should I take the balcony down?

I wanted to revise the blueprint, but no. Erasures last longer than revision – I dream of cities expunged
when the day ends.

Oh laughing maid of carefree days held in sunlight’s last embrace,
You’ve shed your hues of emerald green,
Dawned earthy tones and hide your face.
Behind a veil of falling leaves,
I no longer see sweet summer’s blush,
Gone is she that twined the flowers,
And brought forth the warbling hymn of the thrush.
The winnowing winds replace your song,
Scattering mortal leaves away,
As billowing clouds condense above,
You cannot keep the cold at bay.
Beneath your new bower of crisp pine,
You sit enthroned in gold and red,
Gone is the laughing child of the sun
A regal woman sits in her stead.
Yet do not mourn for what you were,
Stately autumn holds a new delight,
You hang ripe fruit upon the tree,
And paint the ground with ice at night.
And if perhaps you still while away,
Dreaming of the mirthful joy lost,
Know that the sweet girl of the light,
Will be borne again from winter’s frost.

WALK THROUGH

Awake at 4 AM in a dark and silent house
There are ghosts and wraiths afoot in other rooms
And chimera dance across the walls.
Time has worn it’s foot steps into paths that lead the way
From one space where the sun shines morning rainbows
Through leaded beveled diamond glass
To rooms with shadows in the silent corners of regret
That fail to yield to hopes and promises of light.

Walls newly shorn of photographs and art
Stand in mute recrimination of the crime
That robbed them of the proof that people prospered here.
People blessed with messy lives that ricochetted like
Pinballs through the good times and disasters.
People who never learned to cheat but studied how to care,
Who gave a measure and a half for a quarter measure’s pay.
People who walked the narrow road until it ended in abyss
And now they have to find a way to to finish out life there.

The smell of tears still lingers in the lattice covered
Meditation bower in a corner of the garden
The little fountain proves unable to provide the only falling water
And the tiny pet grave markers remain resting there in peace

A bulky box with double doors commands most of the driveway
And things too valuable to leave are prisoners inside.
Clutter is trapped in cartons sealed with packing tape
Or hidden in the cupboards no one dares to open.
Untidyness moans softy in the newly emptied spaces
And the dust no longer has a place to land.

The winnowing is almost done and things will find new homes
In a sad bazaar of letting go the past
And turning to the East to meet the rising sun
Where somehow in a diferent place they all will learn to dance.
ljm

We can't take a thing on our tumbling rabbit hole trip into the opulence of recompense

Even our book of deeds exists there before a warm breeze lifts on that great day of winnowing

Yet you lie like Moses in a willow basket in the depths of the earth in that dress that made you look slimmer

Your nails are the blood of the Nile during that failed first plague and your eyeliner sits like Pharaoh's kohl

Nothing matters but what is written and the grace of the all graceful

yet a constellation of young stars
sit on your ring finger

and above your heart the name of Allah glows yellow from a pendant like the oil lamp of a lighthouse

I REMEMBER LOOKING FOR MY PARENTS BEFORE I WAS BORN... MY MOM AND DAD.
BEFORE I WAS BORN INTO THE WORLD OF MAN, FLOWERS, LITTLE PEOPLE LIVING ALONG CREEKS AND MAGIC...IN GOODNESS AND BAD...THE FLAWS OF HUMANNESS.
THE ABSOLUTE ANSWERS OF LIFE SELF HEALING FROM VARIABLES OF KINDNESS, SONGS, AND FEASTS OF PURE WATER… SYMBOLS GROWN IN, ON, AND THROUGHOUT MOTHER EARTHS FLESH. BEFORE I WAS BORN I WAS IN THE STARS, I WAS IN MY OWN HEAVEN.
I WOULD DANCE IN THE SKY AND SING AS LOUD AS I COULD…
IN THE FOREVER OF INFINITY’S OF STARS AND DARKNESS OF TRAILS AND PATHS.
THE GOURDS I DANCED WITH SPARKED OF COLORS AND GLITTERS LIKE SUNLIGHTS TRAPPED IN MELTING ICICLES IN APRIL SHOWERS.
STARS SHIFTING THROUGH THE UNIVERSE LIKE DRIED PLUM PITS FALLING SCATTERING IN A LONG WINTER NIGHTS GAME… LIKE BROKEN HULLS FROM WILD RICE SHIFTING WINNOWING CARRYING AWAY IN FALL BREEZES…
STAR CONSTELLATIONS, MIRRORS REFLECTING DIRECTIONS...TRAILS FOR WINDS TO FOLLOW...PROMISES OF OUR DAILY LIVES TOLD IN THE SUN'S JOURNEY.
STARS WOVEN WITHIN WEBS OF WATER DROPS LIKE ON A DREAM CATCHERS DELIGHT...LIKE SPIDERS ART WOVEN WITH DYED PORCUPINE QUILLS TIED DOWN SEWN WITH LOVE AND COMPASSION ON SOFT RABBIT SKINS.
MEDICINE SCATTERED ACROSS THE SKY..ACROSS THE FACE OF MOTHER EARTH, UNDERWATER, ON PRAIRIES, IN HOT DESERT SANDS, IN WOODS IN FAR FAR AWAY LANDS.. IN BIRCH BARK PATTERNS AND NEWBORN FINGERTIPS.
WITHIN RED SKY NIGHTS AND SHOOTING STARS I SEARCHED FOR PORTALS..
PORTALS LIKE TUNNELS THROUGH TIME..PORTALS OF CAREFULLY PLACED TWISTED TIPI POLES..PORTALS OPEN THROUGH BOWLS OF PEACE PIPES CARRIED WITH LOVE LIKE A CHILD WRAPPED IN SACRED BUNDLES...PORTALS OF PRAYER...PORTALS TO CONNECT TO CREATIONS CREATOR AND EVERYTHING THAT MIRRORS CONSTELLATIONS...PORTALS FROM THE DUST OF CORN POLLEN..PORTALS OF  WALLEYE OFFERINGS FROM DEEP LAKES WITH DEEP MONSTERS...PORTALS OF SALTY TEARS AND THE UPRISING SMOKE OF LITED SAGE AND SWEETGRASS...PORTALS IN THE SOUND OF YOUR ZIPPERS GOIN DOWN ON THOSE BADASS BOOTS...PORTALS OF HOW YOU LICK THOSE GLOSSY Pink LIPS.. AND ALL THOSE BUTTERFLIES THAT FLY WHEN YOU BLINK YOUR EYES.. PORTALS OF CRIES FROM HOMELESSNESS, ADDICTIONS, OVERDOSES..PORTALS OF FISTS AND SCRATCHES, PORTALS OF TWISTED ZIGZAG PAPERS, ORIGAMI MAGIC, SMOKE RINGS THAT FORM INTO HEARTS AND ARROWS...PORTALS FROM DESPERATE BOOTS OF SYRINGE NEEDLES...PORTALS OF BROKEN BOTTLES AND SHOTGUN TWISTED BEER CANS…
LINES OF RAILS OF CRUSHED POWDERY CRAZINESS...PORTALS OF SYNTHETIC **** AND SYNTHETIC HOPES AND SYNTHETIC REALITIES.. THEY BITE AND STING LIKE PORTALS OF SHARP BLADES...CUTTING THROUGH YOUR OH SO BEAUTIFUL SKIN...PORTALS OF YOUR OFFERING OF PAIN CUZ ITS THE ONLY THING THAT’S REALLY OURS TO OWN AND OFFER...WHIRLWINDS OF VORTEX MADNESS...PORTALS LIKE THE ONE ALICE FELL INTO… IN HER WONDERFUL BUT VERY SCARY WONDERLAND...PORTALS LIKE THE ONE WE MAY OR MAY NOT EVER FALL INTO...WAY DEEP INSIDE OURSELVES.

This old dog out of dogdom,
   in all of bones scattered elsewhere remaining
   to be unseen, hidden in old glory and flushed lives

In all their shapes and sizes they have
   their bow-legs and their collarbones dangerously
   recoiling in and out as if to ****** fully bare
   for me to see -- invisible hands for invisible reapings they go ******* clad else there was wind
    in all rooms winnowing to make good use of
    my time and unhinge the doors to toss them out
    of their senses and into mine
    letting them wear me thin like paint to turpentine,
    in this house that refuses to let go
    of fragrances underneath this cold rondure

I have forgotten how it was to love
    and clad myself fat with flattened foolishness
     not having loved enough to remember their
      weights crushing my bones so dearly feigned
      my eyes and skins love-crumbled and
      positioned to surpass their flow amidst breaths
      held like ******* or my collected body going
      into another's and completely vanishing
      in a thick scent of fluids so virulent and mundane,
       putting a smile on my face and an anchor
      to my wrongness as if to drag along ineluctable
      and loveless down the stream of many names
       i will confess to my first-born son

   so we can fill parks and stare at them once more,
     laughing at how they have broken us.

Autumn by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close *****-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Dip your brush in crimson letters,
Add a dab of red-gold blush,
Paint a landscape of upsetters,
Those who need a soul to crush.

Those of hollow form of flesh
Those whose soul has left 'n fled
As they seek out weak to thresh
Till last drop of blood has bled

Here a sphere o' fire setting
'Midst a blood-hued sky,
There the haunting silhouetting
Tree with branches high.

Grasping, scratching air ephemeral,
Swaying to the sounds of death,
Knocking at the gates empyreal,
Clutching at pure babies' breath.

The dead not-living swarm like dusk
Crushing sweetest sprout
Winnowing ripe corn from husk
Winnowing the life-force out

Hear the hunted sheep begetting
Howl and wail and cry,
Watch the darting bats bloodletting
As Lord Life slips by.

Covered by dark guise of nature,
Everlasting bides his time
Safe as no nomenclature
Can guess his pantomime