It is full winter now:  the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
And overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And ***** his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter:  and the ***** goodman brings
His load of ******* from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well, for with it come
Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,
That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,
And to the kid its little horns, and bring
The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

There was a time when any common bird
Could make me sing in unison, a time
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
To quick response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll;—do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

Nay, nay, thou art the same:  ’tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!

Thou art the same:  ’tis I whose wretched soul
Takes discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor,—for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’

To burn with one clear flame, to stand *****
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,—
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
Back to the troubled waters of this shore
Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,
Hence!  Hence!  I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

More barren—ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless ***** bears the sign Gorgonian.

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed
In wonder at her feet, not for the sake
Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
At least my life:  was not thy glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,
To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse
Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne
Is childless; in the night which she had made
For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven:  the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival!
And stood amazed at such hardihood,
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down
The autumn forests treacherously slew
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown
Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
How God had staked an evil net for him
In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much:  for like the Dial’s wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

O for one grand unselfish simple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he
Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
Where love and duty mingle!  Him at least
The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast;

But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school
And follow none, the flawless sword which smote
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool
Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now
Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!
Gone is that last dear son of Italy,
Who being man died for the sake of God,
And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell
With which oblivion buries dynasties
Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,
As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,
He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,
And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine
Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!
Let some young Florentine each eventide
Bring coronals of that enchanted flower
Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,
And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies
Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes;

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,
Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim
Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings
Of the eternal chanting Cherubim
Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away
Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates
Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain.
Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!
Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain
For the vile thing he hated lurks within
Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

Still what avails it that she sought her cave
That murderous mother of red harlotries?
At Munich on the marble architrave
The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
Which wash AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless

For lack of our ideals, if one star
Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,

What Easter Day shall make her children rise,
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet
Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes
Shall see them ******?  O it were meet
To roll the stone from off the sepulchre
And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her,

Our Italy! our mother visible!
Most blessed among nations and most sad,
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell
That day at Aspromonte and was glad
That in an age when God was bought and sold
One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves
Bind the sweet feet of Mercy:  Poverty
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,
And no word said:- O we are wretched men
Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword
Which slew its master righteously? the years
Have lost their ancient leader, and no word
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:
While as a ruined mother in some spasm
Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy
Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal
Licence who steals the gold of Liberty
And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real
One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp
That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed
For whose dull appetite men waste away
Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed
Of things which slay their sower, these each day
Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet
Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
By **** and worm, left to the stormy play
Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
By more destructful hands:  Time’s worst decay
Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One
Who loved the lilies of the field with all
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
Rises for us:  the seasons natural
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:
The unchanged hills are with us:  but that Spirit hath passed away.

And yet perchance it may be better so,
For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,
****** her brother is her bedfellow,
And the Plague chambers with her:  in obscene
And ****** paths her treacherous feet are set;
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,

Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair
White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—
Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
Than any painted angel, could we see
The God that is within us!  The old Greek serenity

Which curbs the passion of that

BOOK I

S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. "Why do you wind no horn?' she said
"And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
"We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

"My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

"What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
"I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

"Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

"I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
"And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

"O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, "It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
"Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

"Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
"A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
"O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
"Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

"Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, "God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  "Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  "You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick. Tell On.

Oisin. Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, "His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds



























































­

























Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

"An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, ""Unjust, unjust';
And ""My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

#######
BOOK II
#######

NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names
And then away, away, like whirling flames;
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound;
"Gaze no more on the phantoms,' Niamh said,
And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head
And her bright body, sang of faery and man
Before God was or my old line began;
Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;
And how those lovers

The last thing the Poet feels of her is the distinctive taste of biltong. It lingers. She had bought two packets at the café.  Their last kiss is made just before the airplane announces itself with a great roar of being. He watches it swallow her and turn her into a memory. And then the plane flies away. He can’t find a silver lining in the plane’s path, so he instead focuses on the gentle return of normality to his skin. Every centimetre that was previously pressed to his Muse is smoothing its goose bumps. The Poet’s heart goes back from verse to prose, just as how it was before she became the subject of his pen.

He turns to say an awkward “dumela” to the Muse’s grandmother. She responds with the tone of a grandmother greeting a boy who has just been making out with her granddaughter in front her: “dumela.” It probably doesn’t help that his hair isn’t combed. It probably doesn’t help that they have not met before. The Poet then asks the Muse’s brother for a ride to school. Now that the Muse is gone, it is time for him to begin studying for the colourless exams that were the subject of his existence before her. The Muse’s brother nods in agreement, and he walks out of the stale atmosphere of the airport with her family. The summer sunshine somehow manages to feel uninspired.

The journey from the airport stretches out like a goodbye that ought not to happen. It is slow, painful, and filled with empty promises of hope from her family. Her brother says she will visit during the Christmas season. The Poet knows she won’t- she can’t- but he has enough novels to keep him company.  They are riding in the same little red Volkswagen that often picked her up from school. If time is simultaneous, she is sitting next to him.

The car is full; time has only one direction, and its wheels stops in front of the school gates.

He says his farewells, closes the car door, and limps to the library to start working on maths equations with his classmates. He barely opens the library doors, barely greets his classmates, and with barely practiced nonchalance, barely explains that his Muse went off to another country. He picks up his scientific calculator and clicks open his pen to attack a math problem. Hours pass in numbers that stubbornly refuse to make sense in place of her. The Poet solves a problem, and then he doesn’t. He asks for help, and then he doesn’t. He laughs with his classmates, and then he doesn't: they have to go home now for lunch.

The Poet cannot go home. He has to wait for his mother to pick him up. He decides to walk out the school gates to eat at the Chinese restaurant. It is placed conveniently outside the school. He orders some dumplings and some noodles, and then tells the waitress that he is going to buy a newspaper at the filling station while he waits for his meal.

At the filling station counter are packets of biltong hooked onto a stand.

S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

'My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

'What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
'I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

'Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

'I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
'And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

'O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
'Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

'Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
'A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
'O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
'Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

'Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, 'God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  'Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  'You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick.      Tell on.

Oisin.                 Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, 'His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds
Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, "Unjust, unjust";
And "My speed is a weariness," falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

Why have two arms?
If you're not willing to hug.
People are quick to punch with two arms.

Even with one arm.
You can deliver a lovin' hug.
It these limps that truly assist us.

Sure there are others.
But at the present.
I'm not mentioning them.

Altho' I'm sure the lips.
Are a little jealous.

Why have two hands?
If you're not willing to use them.
We use them to shake hands.
Altho' we have those afraid to catch a germ.

As if.
They hadn't caught germs from other items in their life.

This hug.
Which can be given with kindness.
Which can be deivered with softness.
Well, in this case.
The receiver might have a sun burn.
Or some other type of injury.

Plus, you can hug too tight.
And be banned from trying that again.
When requested to just shake hands.

Of course.
You have those that does the search and feel.
Trying to be like a detective trying to pat you down.
But for those that's truly sincere.
You personally know those that's sincere.

When giving a hug.

Capitalism swings securely
from the crook of her arm
while Slavery  gently
coils itself
around her
beautifully damaged waist...

Racism coats the
soles of her
brand new shoes
and leaves print print print
on the harsh
unforgiving
unemployed pavement.

The world cried, died
as she dyed her hair
to Honey Suckle Blonde.
It hangs: drab, limp,
strangled by the Ignorance
sitting firmly
on top of that
pretty little head.

Jagged, matted wrists
rattle around inside
imported bangles
(or manacles)
of Oppression and
Depression and
Suppression
They're in fashion.

Her eyes are drowning
in Jealousy Mascara (new)
and I Hate You shadows (old)
and, together,
her weeping heart
and painted nails
claw at Fame and Fortune
but the new shoes
and gorgeous boyfriend
just aren't tall enough.

She limps
past shattered windows
in which she glimpses a girl,
or rather, a young lady
who is very much a
prisoner of today and not
A Leader Of Tomorrow

It was supposed to be
The dawn of a new age;
A new set of dialogue
On a more balanced stage
With better lines for
The actors to deliver.
It was supposed to start in
The sixties and last forever.

We didn’t really know for sure
What this Aquarius stuff was
But it seemed to us to be
A metaphysical enough cause,
To change the way we acted
And to shout down the rest;
To face the demagogues
Then put them to the test.

We stopped wearing uniforms
That said we went along
With the hard-assed leaders.
We put a lot of it in our songs.
We called them what they were
Greedy warmongering ******.
We protested and picketed
And promised so much more.

We spoke out loudly on TV
And in crowds in the streets
That we were through will genocide
And would not accept defeat.
We cried out that our government
Had assumed the role of villain
And was murdering for no reason
Not just men, but even children.

But, we let it all die down;
We let the government slide
On investigating the truth
And keeping the truth inside
A carefully chosen batch of
Criminals in public office.
We let them go on making war
And making money off us.

We let them cheat and lie
And re-write acceptable laws
To support their bloodthirstiness
And we gave up on our cause.
Maybe all that protesting gave
All our marching feet limps.
Or maybe it’s because all along
We were just a bunch of wimps.

"I know your vexed great spirit, miles away, a gentler more playful you thrives on a journey of life. There among a ridge, the plateau where you dance, leaping, ripping yourself out of the air,escaping towards the light. Free from the weight which chastises and locks you up. Out of the medicine cabinet quaffing your deepest breaths, urging your hours shorter and shorter. You cascade like glass buttons scattered on the desert floor, let those wet cloths be forgotten, may your sorrow disappear amidst that great arenose simoom.  When the ghibli makes you stutter before the bright outlook you once displayed, do not forget to visit the flowers that bring you the most  peace of mind"------------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------ It's here. In the pile-ons, wrapping around your head like a cool, wet bandage, keeping out a headache, or the rancorous guilt of an ugly night. It sits on the top-layer of your forehead, beading off in fresh droplets of self-pity, uncomfortable and self-defeating restlessness and despair. I rub it with my hands, removed each new wave of desperation and soothing your hairline with a swath of my hand. I raise up, your cucumber colored walls, that bright pink bedspread, nothing different ever changes. The masonite paintings still there, that old familiar **** carpet, a thatch-work of menage-a-tois and fifth grade-style arts and crafts. The light bulb has been out for six years, third drawer right-side down is still stuck, a mystical blow dryer blocks it closed, and the door won't ever quite close- I take a shower with the world wide opened and you trailing a fastening steep. And so your fever rises, your feet soak in a tepid iron clad bed frame while your mind rattles against your skull. Thirty days have past, lifeless, echoing in this wicked upstairs chamber. The West Wing. Slatted blinds, the white dresser, the Chanel books, the pool party photos, the blue swim-meet t-shirts, the fake gold trophies and the true gold hairs on your head, my fingers dash across your forehead again meeting your brow with the cool folded washcloth, I reach for your back and you turn, slightly rolling; something routine, unsteadied, even wicked limps in a stress ball inside your bottom lip. It's just a quiver. Nothing different ever changes. It's the devil inside, and I am nowhere to go. Maybe midnight or maybe twilight. Every hour of morning is another hour of night I'm ever taking my sleep back into. I don't count the days, just mark them in the thoughts of worry that flurry through in brief thoughts. I am obsessed with care-taking now. Three hours have passed since I showered you out of your black party dress and sparkly Gucci slip-skirt, since I took bits of post-digested food from your hair, held your nose with a tissue and told you to blow it all out, again, another night of building a sick room and sauna. I never tire, I just make arrangements, I build a small room and I wait the weight out. Nothing different ever changes, and I don't expect the unexpected or dare to meet your smile again.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------ Three months ago, thrifting on Valencia and 26th Street. Walking from Blue Bottle to the Bay then to the Breakers. I climb atop A Buena Vista with man Adam, you scale a mountain-sized hill with your teal green and cherry red Nikes. We make a photograph in front of white dogwood blossoms overlooking a steep Ravine to the East. A bird chirps, a homeless woman barks, and four children smoke cigarettes and joints in a treetop. Every ***** goes up and down, each footstep dithering amidst our biduous ascent. I buried you last Thursday beneath the dogwood, your cherry red and teal green gym shoes planted at your doggerel.

I walk a pace in tall covers, a distance set from other brothers, waiting for a herd to feed; I crush and blow away some seed.

The grasses burnt on prior prairie, warm yet cool for day is airy, far can see I from top hill; I stand in patience very still.

Copper ochre is my skin, the brothers and I are family men, on the native hills we live and finding those called kin, we hunt today the land we’re in.

Off in distant rumbled cloud, dark foreboding getting loud, the sound we seek from running crowd, ahead of storm front watching grasses plowed.

Stoic, I, my umber eyes as mist now falling from the skies, I stand here patient chest held high, shoulders square with chin to sky, my flowing hair in breeze divides.

Land it shakes I take to knee and feel the earth, the vibrating, the rumble sound is thundering, is louder still than weather’s thunder, light she fades from skies I’m under.

  Yansa nearing, wind has told me, I wait here at clearing with spear to console me but something awful lurks around for along with rumble comes alarming sound, a growling type from a hungry hound.

Bear my brother, hawk my guide, no tree for shelter or horse to ride, my hunt now over after solemn wait for Mother Earth has sealed my fate.

Two wounded wolves approaching wily, one it limps or seems to sway as smaller animals run away, their eyes beguiling on stormy day, I prepare for fight, no time to pray.

I seat my spear, it is useless, take out knife and axe I loosen, the pair they circle long and wide, and carefully I match their stride.

  Quiet now, prairie peaceful, time seems slower, I cannot see my people; the wolves at bay they snarl near, I stone my heart against all fear. Were they hunting Yansa, like me too, I just easier prey to pursue? My younger days would see wolf for dinner as I’ve grown older so too am thinner.

  What difference makes it slow or fast but when they pounced did run in tandem? In last second my actions random, I lose my hatchet in one’s side and dive while stabbing until he’s died. Face is ******, arm got chewed, and they tricked me with a method skewed, for what seemed wounded never was true, my back turned towards her, neck in view, she took aim and rent sinew.

  A ****** mess became a horror, I swung my blade and thought I caught her; she tore my hand off and mauled my face then left me dying in a grassy place. The warmth of day is leaving body, a hunt now do I thus embody, the rumbling ground again is moving and cool of night is somewhat soothing, my killer stalks the area-round but soon she’ll eat me where I’m found.

  The rain it cooled me seeing Sister Moon, Brother Sun was dipping with Great Father Sky as Mother Night came to watch me die, my life fulfilled so now I die, Great Wolf’s passion can’t deny; to all that knew me I say goodbye.

  He who fights wolves says,  -goodbye.

ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.

blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.

          [her bloated tongue]

a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
     for funsies.
     for keepsies.

a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.

the woods aren’t haunted.
you   are haunted.
you   are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.

          [treefort aflame]

the seasons furrow/
                               / the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.

          [dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]

pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love       [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
                                      [toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.

          [restless armless girls in orange sunsets]

girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.

boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?

                         the glow of an eerie crystal
                                                                     (continued…)

Vernarth says: "Give me some milk, and I will be the son of Zeus, perhaps as a means in everything and not a whole of which I never thought...!"

Wonthelimar from the Boedromion brought the arrows that Zefian brought, they brought the sleeping bodies of winter to the lap of the spring Boedromion, crossing the lines from spring to winter in the cycle that went directly to the Mercurial Ambrosia of the Cinnabar. Were they discreet detached arrows that he had thrown into the sky and did not return? but if in the rooms, and in the animalism stages that made the duty of rejoicing at the ****** of the Telesterion.  Wonthelimar being once more re-looted, before starting the works of the temple of the Megaron Áullos Kósmos, he returns to the cavern of Chauvet Wonthelimar. It distanced itself from the contravention of Apollo and Artemis towards an olive tree, originating in the arrows of Zefian, to mark the new cardinal points of the zenith, starting with the first two arrows that are placed in the bowstring, each one belonging to trajectories from north to south and the other two that were again violated with the arc of the stormy East, to launch the arrows from east-west with limits of southern magnetism. He carried in his belongings "The Iberian Rings", which would be the migration to the cardinals and points where the Megaron of Vernarth would be exactly, arguing that the phalanges of Zefian would be ordered in Syntropia and organic chaos in Patmos, Pythagorean proportions would be made, in essences of numbers that idly advanced in the temporal steps of Wonthelimar that mobile became of religious arrows and of the Mercurial Ambrosia of the Cinnabar, to help him with the most insightful points of the Constellation of Capricornus.  Zefian's tendency was one of evident delight after the bowstring being pulled, for phantasmagoric existence; presuming that where they fell would be the beginning of the storms that would originate the Állos Kósmos Megarón, for late courts imposed from a cosmos, which was directed by committing itself to its will and from a doubtful Vestal god advocating to associate with hospitable Canephores, such as Vestal Virgins of Roman bilocation, and quantum parapsychology of the dreaded in-between-tale alive that boils back in the arrows that had not yet fallen, and did not know their whereabouts. Like plates or serial hosts that were evoked from where the origin of the Universe was broken, to open towards the Duoverso contravened organic, vigorous and in anti-scorch to the divine celestial origin as a parameter of *****-ovule, rather in eonic instances in the fireplace of Hestia, running in eternities to vast volumes of light-years.

From the medrones that grow in the Nyons massifs, the Seven Ibic Rings were established.

Ibic 1: "The first was from the initiation of Wonthelimar and brought purity, for all who needed him and were visiting in the dark, and then he would find the light when he left the cave alive if he was accepted."
Ibic 2:” He was guided by Vlad Strigoi in the priesthood center on his shelves with the Chiroptera, and in excess of the mercurial ambrosia for the purpose of energizing the Tsambika Cinnabar.  Having all the protocol of Transylvania and eternity with the waters of Antiphon Benedicts”.
Ibic 3: "From the Eygues, the waters evaporated for healings of the tormented initiatory processes of raising the four Arrows of Zefian, to indicate the zenith of the Megaron."
Ibic 4: “This ring was from the antlers of Wonthelimar, here they wore the oikos or threads of Gold from Orphi, for the Himation and investiture to anoint the body of Vernarth, bringing the aerial atmospheres of the Alps and Ida as a complement to Mycenae- Aldaine ”.
Ibic 5: "This piece of metal speaks of the fifth plasmic element that would contract the universe and the Hyperdisis galaxy, to elevate it to Vernarth's neurological and Duoversal hyper brain twinned to the Mashiach."
Ibic 6: "It is the sixth piece of crowns of Kafersesuh, bringing the pollinations of the Lepidoptera, for the central stage of the investiture under the gloom of Hellenika and Theoskepasti."
Ibic 7: “It is the grave voice of the Cinnabar and the Antiphon Benedictus, together with the Lenten fast of all the hoarse voices, which inquire about the true phoneme and photon of divine mass light, to build the Áullos Kósmos. From here the purification will go up in synchrony through the final growth medron, up to the millimeter shoulder of the square meters assembly, which will illustrate the Megaron´s Acrotera  "

Ellipsis - Parapsychological Regression Marielle Quentinnais year of the Lord 1617

Wonthelimar was transmigrating to Chauvet, but the Pontias wind carried him from Nyons to Avignon, encountering filigree by Raymond Bragasse; a Former Dominican priest of Cathar descent. He always drenched himself in the estuaries of the Rhone, which came from the Saint Gotthard massif; being master and lord of dreams and of the breaking curses of the despicable administrators of the house of God, and of the Antipopes in Avignon.
Wonthelimar heard voices from some parapets babbling in the parapsychological regression of Vetnarth, on August 4, 1617, when Klauss Ritkke was found cleaning the main stained glass window; he heard heated dialogues between a Friar and a Gentleman, who was once an assistant to the clergy. Klauss could come closer and hear his conversation more clearly, until Friar Andrés, muttering, demanded indulgence from Raymond Bragasse, one or the other.

Raymond Bragasse Says: “My lord Wonthelimar; what grace has brought us together here in the middle of the Pontias, between hopes and reforms!”

Wonthelimar responds: "Your flight is a spell of the grace of André Panguiette, who will find us again. How many times with hope I fought to reform you Raymond... Oh Virga ac Diadema  sed Diabolus...!! Oh, ****** the devil smiled...!!

Raymond replies: “It is a major question to live if in something I have failed, take me to the sulfurous emanations of Hell. But my faith lies moldy at the bottom of the sea, a sacred myth of my truth..., and of my beloved Marielle...! There are fifteen thousand demons that possess my body... fifteen thousand demons for attacking the sacred mystery of the Holy Rosary...! Marielle was my light, my Edenic Eve, an admirable land. Now, she is my spell, my stubbornness or my constant sharp bleeding, without knowing where it has to pass...? I still remember that night, that gloomy night, renouncing my final vows of faith and the consecration of my soul. I broke my ties and ecclesiastical chores, all for Marielle, a noble descendant of the Quentinnais. I would never believe such regret in my destiny. I did love her, but her misfortune knew me. When I approached the edge of her house that night, I entered through the kitchen window. All were asleep, except for the albiceleste reflection of the last death throes of the deadly round of Quentinnais Mansion. I was thinking of rescuing her and saving something from those cheeks kissed by me, but her heart disease dried up his heart and her lungs. It is still possible to recall the last roses that I brought into her hands, they danced with her along with the hymn and the old dirge of the sleight of hand made by the monk, along with the cartomancy plays settling the minute of taking her into darkness, with her beautiful bare feet. What a pain, I could not rescue her from her, and death was dispossessing her! Her parents hated the mere fact of having her heart ruled by an impious priest, so I turned to the pagan and dark gods, to heal Marielle, and her heart to transplant it for mine. Since that day, I continue to burn in a polysatanic hell, to take out the little breath of goodness, and seize the transparent liquids that plague her existence and her serene metallic Diadem..."

Friar André Panguiette upon learning that his great friend possessed by the Devil would fall into some endemic evil infection...; Evil endemic to his love, he crossed himself when he saw that he became a horrible being. The jumbled leaves in the garden were transformed into Bible sheets torn from their bindings and fillings, the wrinkled ***** Saints slid down their columns, the sky proclaimed hemorrhages and the wind oozed foul gases, which in the firmament sprouted in clots of clots on the Papal House of Avignon. Fray Andrés, threw the rosary on the neck of the possessed person, and asked the Demons who were they most afraid of...? The demons answered this question, screaming and falling vertically down the central nave... they went down and flew!

Wonthelimar induces: “From that moment, you and Marielle would cross their gazes closely and love each other. In the following minutes of Pentecost, the two of them went alone to sit on the bench on the banks of the blessed wind that caressed their profiles, as if plotting to unite one with the other. Raymond effusively kissed her; he drew her to him, believing he sensed an eventual and sacrilegious separation from her. This is how it happened when François Quentinnais surprised them...:

François Quentinnais: With this example, you have provoked my anger Marielle...! Hundreds of men like me would react like this when they saw my daughter in the arms of whom until recently, she was hugging God!

Marielle: Father, I beg you for mercy, Raymond of precept sent a letter renouncing his vows!

When the soul of Marielle was entrusted, Raymond escaped seconds before shattered, he did not tolerate the nonexistence of Marielle; vegetating rotten grass of the estuary, emerald swallowed by fire. In a purely inorganic state, Raymond walked away from the mansion, walked through the leaden mountains, and on the cruise he walked through the walnut trees in whose scarlet pods the intense cold of the esplanade howled. The almond trees cracked a baritone muezzin, which one day he wanted to go there, but could never reach the east. His beard reddened, his nails were like ram's horns, and his also reddish hair at the ends of it had black tulips. His clothes turned gray just like his eyebrows, and his breath smelled of nurse sewers of the black plague, the dry flow of his voice announced monosyllables, thus he purged his pain from town to town, from house to house, everyone quarreled with him, and then they were exasperated by kicking him out. Until in June 1617, caravans of people started from the southern town of Avignon, escaping the flames of angry soldiers of the crusades. The fleeting townspeople carried on their banners the inscription... INRI. On the other side, they carried the cross and a colorful coat of arms that in the lower corner said Siccidemy. Then, there Raymond opened his bruised eyes, unable to contain the recovered memory of him, between gunshots, screams, sobs, and screams, the hundreds of steps that were heard around him, led him to tear and save his life. In an instant of stillness, he found himself surrounded by people until one of them took him into his arms to hydrate his mouth. We are Albigensian, and you... Who are you?

Raymond replied: “I fled in search of a miracle that could save a beloved being. I used to call myself Raymond, now I don't know what name to go by. I fled, but I had to face the situation, even having acted behind the back of the Church”. An Albigensian says: “The clergy have also believed that our sect has acted behind the back of the Church. However, his powers and his government have registered absolutism within Christendom”. Another Albigensian says; “We seek the establishment of ancient Christianity, we deny the existence of purgatory, the importance of rituals, clerical organizations and the possession of goods by the clergy. And for this reason, we have been expelled from our lands, from our homes, our children have paid for the Sacred Inquisition, in the hands of those who one day... baptized with blessed water”.

It was on June 18, 1617, the Albigensian fugitives were besieged in Montlimar. The Argentine crosses gleamed like dogs eager to bite the enemy. The open-minded Albigensians gathered together with Luzbel, who floated on a calypsigenic cloud. Raymond and the others piled up essences in the fuels to start the pact, after this event François Quentinnais answered negatively, and strongly took her daughter by her hand, pulling her sharply to the float. The horses slip their hooves before the sloping pastures carpeted by tiny Calypso flowers; the mayoral pressed his thin lips, also raising his shoulders, so as not to hear the despotic cries of Monsieur François. As for Reverend Raymond, he could be seen crying silently, accompanied by late halos of the luminosity of the final and sad day. Sorrows and regrets dislodged his bones that underwent violent arthrosis, populating his body in a sedentary lifestyle and irritation. I myself say Wonthelimar, I am the one who carries Marielle's love in me, I am your Raymond. Remember that night that...: "When the monk retired to pray, you stormed the bedroom, and uttered Marielle..., Marielle:," wake up, in vain I fear to leave without your divine voice. Marielle, what do you have...? I don't think your father's impure will blind your eyes to not see me, or he ripped your sweet voice to not name me...? ".

The Albigenses resigned to the spell, their adherents had largely been reduced, only ten or twelve remained. That later they fled from Montelimar escaping to the west, crossing the enchanted Rhone. The Siccidemy troops mutilated the last demonized Albigensians; nothing would help for their lives, everyone would bleed except the group that fled with Raymond. For several days they wandered the Cevennes plateau, provisioned themselves in Montpellier, and arrived in Carcassonne on July 20, 1617. Little could they remain here, since the congregation of Santo Domingo, without distinction, attacked the population decimated by the crusaders? What a regrettable exodus for Raymond with his black flock fleeing from where his feet laid hope! Twenty-two days of bitter flight, and everywhere the crosses, until Raymond decides to separate and go back to Avignon. He takes a  sailboat off the shores of Narbonne in the middle of a stormy gray day, in his bitter journey he dreams of being born again and having Bethlehem as a lineage, on July 23 of the same year, he lands in the waters of Marseille. When he was discharged from the port, he undertook a light journey to Avignon, near Arles, thousands of fellow citizens started from the hosts of King Godfred of Bouillon, the nobles cooperated by revealing the mobs that gathered in the city, the Hussites, and the Waldensians; Iconoclast heretics, fighting fierce battles. The crusaders took the offensive and tried to prevent them from burning their sacred images, which had already been torn to pieces throughout Gaul. Raymond, distant, helped the most serious, he was afraid of being confused by one of them, it was better to hide in the Cathedral of Arles. Upon entering, he felt a dizzy ***** that shone timidly in the hands of his performer... it was a little girl who, when looking at him, named him Dionysus..., demi-god, save us! Raymond fell into a daze, and falling into a dream that told him of barbaric actions, with masked fellow citizens lying neutral in their gestures, and suddenly angels revealed to him that they were looting the pantheons of Avignon, to burn the rosaries of the saints. Bereaved in their graves, some Albigenses exhumed the bodies of relatives related to the Clergy.

Raymond was sweating his hands and forehead, he struggled to get to the Quentinnais mausoleum, straining his precognition, he crossed the interdepartmental courtyard, he continued to haunt the packed pyramidal cypress trees and suddenly a lion-faced him dealing with a snake; with the symbolic image of the Quentinnais. He saw the slab desecrated, on whose horizon his Beloved Marielle slept. His skin prickled... it was the Iconoclasts avenging their own, with strong breaths he squeezed his hand, wanting to wake up... so it happened, he got up pushing the crowds that were holding him back, but his strength was growing. He rode a roan steed, in three bridles that he gave him he flew towards Avignon; his mount seemed to be a hot air balloon that flew with great dynamism. Raymond in his own painful station would moan his hand, his eyes; his legs creaked like the legs of the Pegasus that carried him fast.

Ellipsis Second Sequence Mausoleum Quentinnais

Finally, he arrives in the second parapsychological sequence, noting that Avignon was in ashes, takes the reins and immediately goes to the Quentinnais mausoleum, upon arrival, he appreciates several Albigenses committing crimes, dismounts, and runs screaming towards the defilers; he faced them with stakes, some demonized had to cut their throats, arriving in time to defend the remains of Marielle. For long hours he was with her alone, thinking about what to do, Raymond knew that he could not revive her, so he had no more redress than to invoke Luzbel, who this time revealed her true and evil personality as ruler of the evil spirits.

Raymond: Dear Luzbel, millions of Canaanites looked up at the altitude representing you; today I will do the same from here and beyond the solid roof of the mausoleum! Bring Marielle to life, come and twist her cheeks, since without her! I have had to live all this to protect myself from suffering. Since Pentecost, he hadn't been physically close to her. Now I need her... well, I lynched her...! Beelzebub making him believe that she was Luzbel, ordered him to extract her heart!

Beelzebub: “In Montlimar, I saw volcano crests arrive in such failure of my envoys. But it will not be repeated, and for it to be so, I entrust you to take out the heart of your beloved and tear the eyes from her that saw your gaze. Then open your chest with this dagger, I will draw your blood and heart, to moisten the heart of your Marielle. And finally, I ask you to bring a lip to me to enchant her lips in lilies. "

Raymond: “opinion accepted... that's the way I'll do it!
Being dominated by the spell, Raymond abided by every step dictated by the supposed that Luzbel lived difficult moments since he was a good day, but so many thousands of years of living in darkness, and in the midst of punishment that violently changed his mind. Justo Raymond carried the body in his arms so that the ritual would culminate. Luzbel snatched his beloved from him and with laughter he vanished.

Beelzebub says Mortal fool! Don't you see that I am Beelzebub; chief of the evil spirits and the guide of the Albigenses, Hussites, and Waldensians? Never invoke me in the Mausoleums, here betrayal triumphs. Now a Quentinnais will be my image on earth, giving her the doubt of doing well for many centuries.

Beelzebub took his beloved away, leaving the rosary wrapped in soft tulle next to the scapular in his hands. Raymond cringed in pain, and in an act of madness scratched his face. Poor Raymond, he told himself...!  That in himself he found no reason to live. He left the mausoleum at dawn looking around every corner in case he saw Marielle lost in his sight since recently. He was exhausted; he remained after the confession that was delayed too much because the events that took place in the Pantheon, in a way pretended to be the events that Raymond inexhaustibly narrated. And in a way, he feared for his life at that time unknown, by the mouth of some hidden place they documented his bitter inability to do well, and that he would fall under Raymond's curse. At this moment, Raymond lay lying on the banks of the Pantheon, from that day on, he did not know about the days, he only existed at night and he did not socialize with anyone, his madness sowed hatred for everything sacred and infernal, he dealt with the Holy Rosary found a magical find, until one day a new one reached her ears; she was referring to some crusaders who had intervened in Jerusalem when it was invaded by Saladin. A certain Frederick Barbarossa was drowned in Sicily by..., "Wonthelimar", who with the Diadem of a woman Seized the island of Iconium. This was the other new one that enlivened his spirit. This greatly surprised the worn Raymond, suspecting that the kidnapper of his beloved might be in cahoots. And as the news continued to hear her, it was said that her sacred beliefs allowed her to continue undercover, in order to continue for a long time, even in the other attacked city that would be Nice. He signed to the limit, for centuries that will serve us in future generations…, suffocating the iconoclasts.

The poppies moved from north to south through the Provencal regions. The oceanic eastern Gods Makara's in tumultuous pyramidal ships descended legions and escorts, to aid Raymond's farewell at Nice. At twelve o'clock at night, the prophetic edict of the Lord would be fulfilled, here the last words of that chimerical episode were received, and he feared that until then a first descendant of Raymond; he became a statue in ignitions of the reborn underworld. The Diadem will be transport and refuge, as for Wonthelimar he said doubtfully…; I think he is nothing more than the deviant Beelzebub, who with optical retractable eyes, in Montlimar disguised the initial in double V..., Wonthelimar, but I was wrong! Wonthelimar already transmigrated to Raymond, staying on the banks of a stream, with nausea he regurgitated his underlying spirit state from the lyrical crust. His mouth unsheathed the most diverse and heterogeneous chronolites; Parasitized dust in pieces of temporary stone, flowing in disciples, quarantine fragments, in marriages by sinuous water. Raymond slapped his thighs in anticipation of throwing up there. His blatant, incisive alienation took over his will, with inherent crickets singing to her in isolation from him, shining his conscience, and residing in the grace of the Holy Grail. The conquest of the earthly system amputated the Andromeda Amygdale; Constellation-illusion and spouse of Perseus, who is mysterious vehicles of the solvent Grail, kept him tied to Raymond. Deafening roars erupted from the earth pits, and the mass of the mountain hung above the trees, pseudo purple and violet rays bombarding sarcophagi all over Nice.

Wonthelimar: “Since this day I have been boiling in a polysatanic hell! The Ibex picked me up from the surroundings of the Pantheon and the Quentinnai mansion, where I have never been a human again, only an Ibex in the Chauvet cavern. Thanks to the herds of goats that adopted me that I have been able to bear their pain by taking refuge in the darkness of all times, which never transpires in the past, present, and future? Now I have come in this re-location, to reorder Vernarth's parapsychology, which you are too, and who has never been able to overcome the pains of love, even beyond pale death! "

From that moment, the shadow of Heracles is seen among them, encouraging them to be part of the gods, and of the feasts of the beautiful Ankles of Heba. Thus the words redecorated them both amid the thick fog, in Avignon. Afterward, Wonthelimar left and left Raymond to continue in Marielle's darkness to the end of the world. The blister day and the scorching night, thought one of the other in constant profit, for the good of finding them in the Kalijoron..., the well of the divine light of Eleusis, for those who rest in naive peace in the face of cunning, and the decorum of the gentle dialogues in the comedies of the exceptions, after crossing the Nile, with tributers collecting the faults of the gods, or else with horrific screams that would make them prey to an imaginary Gorgon.

Wonthelimar was now going after the “Íbics Ring”, which were left in the Chauvet cavern, by some Iberian tribes of the early Neolithic age, who were on their way out desecrated the cavern with ****** in the orbit of the Ortho Heliacal. From here, in the last goal, they reach the darkness where the vampire bats were terrified to see them with their eyes in mercurial ambrosia, which enveloped them with the gums in each one as they approached in the sound of night hunger arrests, next to the betrothal death brought by the darkness of the Strigoi, in lost wanderings of their wills following the search for the panescalm sheds, which carried human chiropterans for the regions of Transylvania, subjected to distinctions and exactions of Climate Changes. From here the bronze spear Dorus of Vernarth would go to the right hand of Wonthelimar, to shield him, and to put celery-foot feet on the ineffable Kanti steed, with certain renown of Eacid of Achilles stirring up hops and low bottoms of the mineral aquifer at the base of the den. In a quick figurative gesture of Achilles, Wonthelimar passes his right hand over his nose, noticing that lights trickled from the Auriga and the Automedon that came by order of Drestnia to provide aid to him, and to rescue the Iberian Ring Eagles, to transport them to the cove of the Mound of the Profitis Ilias.

In the eternity of the noise, Vlad Strigoi is in solidarity with him and gives him lightly from the bottom of the final flow of the bilges of his panescalm, condensing air of Gaseous Gold, in Pan-Hellenic regions, and in the Valdaine regions sixty-seven kilometers from that mountain area very close to Avignon. The infected zones of physical virtue were divided into micro-regions that were compressed before Wonthelimar merged into micro space within the cavern, to abandon the burning furnaces that came alongside his interpersonal goodness, in the metaphysical transfer of darkness, and of the wicked gentlemen drawing him towards the Parasha or Parashot of the Torah, so as not to be attracted as a human to ******-emotional implications or manipulations, who will snoop in growing voices in the voids of the cavern, and in the failing anxieties of the pompous and ancient effigy tarred from Hades. Wonthelimar limps superlatively with some nervous leave, but eager to apprehend the Ibic Rings. After the Benedictus antiphons were seen coming out of his chest, they were iridescent in magenta and mordoré for those who are ibex, always hiding under the goat epidermis, sponsoring happiness practices, one and the other after their vicissitudes in a cyclical mystery classroom. On the plains, you can only see haze and the experimental change when leaving everything in the hands of those who die without rainwater and bagel, in the most absolute solitude, amidst rocks that will never and never be reconverted, less into mid-plains giving terrifying compliments on flower baskets that stink of wandering Wonthelimar clones… not being!

Wonthelimar with Kanti, they emigrate from the cavern of Chauvet in their reminiscences, standing out from the voids and invocations of Raymond in unfinished by filling space in the hearts of both. Heading southeast towards Patmos with the Ibic Rings on his bracelets, wrapped in Vernarth's Himathion for his investiture!

Christos Voskrese!

For Tod

The world is unusually quiet this dawn
With fading stars withdrawing in good grace
And drowsy, dreaming sunflowers, dewy-drooped,
Their golden crowns all motionless and still,
Stand patiently in their ordered garden rows,
Almost as if they wait for lazy bees
To wake and work, and so begin the day.
A solitary swallow sweeps the sky;
An early finch proclaims his leafy seat
While Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

Then wide-yawning Mikhail, happily barefoot,
A lump of bread for nibbling in one hand,
A birch switch swishing menace in the other
Appears, and whistles up his father’s cows:
“Hey!  Alina, and Antonina! Up!
Up, up, Diana and Dominika!
You, too, Varvara and Valentina!
Pashka is here, and dawn, and spring, and life!”
And they are not reluctant then to rise
From sweet and grassy beds, with udders full,
Cow-gossip-lowing to the dairy barn.

Anastasia lights the ikon lamp
And crosses herself as her mother taught.
She’ll brew the tea, the strong black wake-up tea,
And think about that naughty, handsome Yuri
Who winked at her during the Liturgy
On the holiest midnight of the year.
O pray that watchful Father did not see!
Breakfast will be merry, an echo-feast
Of last night’s eggs, pysanky, sausage, kulich.
And Mother will pack Babushka’s basket,
Because only a mother can do that right

When Father Vasily arrived last night
In a limping Lada haloed in smoke,
The men put out their cigarettes and helped
With every precious vestment, cope, and chain,
For old Saint Basil’s has not its own priest,
Not since the Czar, and Seraphim-Diveyevo
From time to time, for weddings, holy days,
Funerals, supplies the needs of the parish,
Often with Father Vasily (whose mother
Begins most conversations with “My son,
The priest.…”), much to the amusement of all.

Voices fell, temperatures fell, darkness fell
And stars hovered low over the silent fields,
Dark larches, parking lots, and tractor sheds.
Inside the lightless church the priest began
The ancient prayers of desolate emptiness
To which the faithful whispered in reply,
Unworthy mourners at the Garden tomb,
Spiraling deeper and deeper in grief
Until that Word, by Saint Mary Magdalene
Revealed, with candles, hymns, and midnight bells
Spoke light and life to poor but hopeful souls.

The world is unusually quiet this dawn;
The sun is new-lamb warm upon creation,      
For Pascha gently rests upon the earth,
This holy Russia, whose martyrs and saints
Enlighten the nations through their witness of faith,
Mercy, blessings, penance, and prayer eternal
Now rising with a resurrection hymn,
And even needful chores are liturgies:
“Christos Voskrese  – Christ is risen indeed!”
And Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

Make peace
with your
demons.
Why? Why
make peace with your
demons?
Demons
keep you
alert.
Demons chase you
and you’re
forced to
run. Don’t
make peace
with them.
You made
peace with
people
telling you
off, getting
angry at you
for things
you never
promised to
do. At things
you didn’t
do but they
still found
something
annoying in
the
nonexistent
action itself.
You made
peace with
your parents
when they
didn’t
understand
your pain
and thought
life was easy
for you, so
why not
bring you
down for a
change?
You made
peace with
everything
bad
that’s
come your
way. ****
peace this
time. Get
angry. Get
hurt. Sink
your nails
inside your
chest and
dig until you
find your
heart. Rip it
out. Scream.
Feel dead.
Start your
war. Lose.
Defend your
ground and
then give it
to the enemy
without ever
asking
anything in
return. A gift
from the
losing side
to the
winner. (It’s
they who
lost. They
accepted
your bomb.
Tick-tock.*
Let’s see
who’s gonna
count limps
when it goes
off.)

♛

I sit and watch a camel train go by and as it limps across the pale blue sky,shrouded in the clouds,I wonder if I could get upon a camels back and track along,could I learn the camel drover’s song?
A ditty,not so pretty,more a humpalong than any song I’ve ever heard with words that I can’t understand,though familiar in the camels land up in the sky,
Where I watch them going by.

Hip ,hop, clop, clump being a camel gives me the ****,how I wish to be a fish deep in the sea,like a whale.
I like a scale,a doh, ray, me,as far as I can see I’ll be a camel all my days and wander through a desert haze but my gaze is fixed as I roam free, on a cool and clear deep ocean sea.

Once,
I was a little thing until I grew and learnt to sing and now I don’t know anything,except
I want to be free,a fish in the sea,won’t some kind body please untie me,slip the noose and then un-sky me,set me on the coastal road,with my ****,without my load and let me smell the ocean breeze and slip into those lovely seas.
I want to be free and this you can see,before the clouds all break apart and with them goes my breaking heart and you could at least pretend to start to set me free.

We lay down together.  

Unable to move.  

Our smell the same.  

Skin stretched out.  

Holding each other’s hand.

The days and weeks we hadn’t been eating properly didn’t show on her figure as it did mine.  She still looked full.  

Muscles and waist growing tighter, thinner.  But hers,
Hers

Her face, *******, lips, hadn’t changed.

An animal in love with beauty.  Old beauty, future beauty.

Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia.  We had been travelling Europe for some time.  That’s where we were.  One of those places.  All of them.

And the heat kept beating, making me sweat.  
It made her sweat too.  
But we always had enough energy to be together.  

                  As our bodies become hungrier, our need for each others skin increased.  
                  Her sighs and moans and thighs becoming louder.  Penetrating darkness.  
                  The cicadas.  Black trees.  Collapsing.  Grinding.  Feeding.

Our love, returning to dusk my dear...  

Giving life back to the morning.  Killing each other.
Controlling hell.

A stretch of green.  Hard hills.  
Sand inside our **** and hair;
The ground, and her perfect smell.

We stand-up, and continue to walk through the breeze towards the train station.
I pray the monies been wired.  We stop.  I pull her into myself.  
Tell her all these things.  

She smiles  
our bodies join  
and hills the size of Gods

                                                           ­      Became nothing again.

                                                         ­                          :::
            

‘We will be fine.’

She said gracefully.

                                                    ­                               :::

            

There was nothing at the station hardly  
but a shop was open in the blazing afternoon
the unknown shop-keeper didn’t smile
but sold us enough with what we had to get us drunk;

There were no people or trains/we had five hours to burn until the next one came
the day stretched out and up into the evening as we laughed and screamed like two boiling oysters drunk in a kitchen time passed into and through the hours we wound around each other like two fighting seas her thighs tensing with absolute strength on my lap moaning from her stomach and into the sky

as I did
we kissed again, slowly and absolute - celebrating release
making the day travel into night

my back lay against the cold wood of the station seat
we began to wind down.
and the need for hope faded as we both began to sleep

I said one last thing to her to make her laugh a little, before we rested in wait for the last train.

She began to curl into rest, her hair across my lap, but I notice that she sees one more thing before her eyes shut.  She was looking down to the end of the station where the entrance was.  Her eyes burst.  Her laughter stopped like a match being put out.  
Her nails dig into my leg.

I smile down telling her she can’t fool me with the same old tricks; then I look too.

He was coming.

He moved like slow clay.

‘No.’

‘There’s just one of him... I can take him.'

We have to get this train...’  I think.

His lips lay still like two grey worms on top of each other.  Emotion.
Less.  Moving towards us.

And there was no-where else for us to go.  No more running.  
And I wouldn’t have run even if I could.

And this is what I thought seconds before he was near us.





11.46 pm.
the train nears
the night mixing with the hopeless age of the station
gently moving her body to one side I began to run at the man walking towards us
i call every mutilated thought I can from my mind and air
silence them
and pour them only into my movemnet

He was Russian like her.  Old school Russian.  No sympathy for an English ******* wanna be saviour like me.

No sympathy.
I jumped into the air - I could see he hadn’t expected that  
the time I hung there expanded for miles dying slower than normal
i have time to see his cold receding head,
the lines across his wide brow/the shoulders of a man half-bull
eyes etched into wood
he looks up as I connect

I land an elbow directly to his face before I land fully catching him with my momentum
all of my weight landing on his nose and mouth
‘let this slow him down’  I ask fate
the adrenalin jack-knifing through my body like a restless rush of pure red almost bringing it to a halt
tt rocks him, a little...
next: left
left
straight right
the biggest one i've  
Blood.

His head hung slightly low in sudden contemplation and pain
he still has a lot left.  I think

A gorilla dancing with a fly.

i follow up with more punches
his hand shoots for my throat faster than I can react

I can punch.  But he’s taken many a man like me.  
I think




No air.




I hear Russian
And parts of the station again.
I hear her voice
Straight in its pitch and unchanging melody
But-without-the-laughter.  
I can tell she’s scared from the way she puts too many words in her sentences, too fast.  
I see his grey outline pushing a much smaller one against the wall.
I think about Natashka back inside one of those rooms.

I think about her sorrow and strong will.  
Defiant, but captive.  

I was certain at every turn that she was misleading me.  
(She was)
She had bent my logic so far back it stayed there and made sense again
like a wild contortionist miming a perfect song

I had travelled miles to find her
after three months of dream I finally did.

“ah Jerome”.  
She Said.

We drank and made love for hours.  
reality adjusted to us
not the other way around

dark forms behind the curtains of an apartment
a bed of velvet sweat
wrapped around you, inside you.  

*****.  No air.  New life.
  
“Jerome”  She said after three days.
“You-must-go.  I have lied.  They come here when I call them.  They make you give money...”
“I know hon.”  I said.

“Lets go.”

We made final, violent, love.  
And then left.
I will now owe ‘at least 25,000 Euro’s’ she tells me

I figure it’s all worth-it
“That’s alright”  I reply
and light up as we leave the building





My rib-cage roars into the ground with disgust and rage.  
My remaining spirit pours into my hands and knees as I rise.
A dead sprinter.
A dead man
still rising;
A spitting snarl.  A scream.
The rats are woken.  
Old angels are woken.  
And I ask all the beer drunk spirits that are close to help me.

I tackle him hard into the wall, we crash into Natashka
but she moves just in time, even his legs are heavy, they slow my rage,
i only manage to get one, its under my right arm, held with both hands, my left leg steps inside his remaining right, behind it, I pull, the trip works,
he falls.  

I hear the train.  I follow me in
again
all I have in the world is surprise
and his squat body is the strength of three of mine
emptied into one.

And at the maddest of times it’s the strangest of things you remember:  
i see the lights of the train flashing across her whole body
and for a moment she transforms
and is complete light...

I’ve climbing on top of him
i strike down with the madness of ten days drunk on whiskey.  
aortas ventricle pulse

His powerful fingers grasping at my limbs trying to stop me, but it’s no use.
spears made of bone ****** down into his face
and the old angels watch, as I connect, drooling and enjoying the show, happy to throw me a few chips

His arms begin to flop down like tired wild animals returning to sleep
and perhaps my fury and revulsion can break even him
my hands on her body;
i force her on the train with the last of our money
the conductors can only see two drunks fighting beside a beautiful bystander.
I force her on.

“Jerome.”  She says screaming.

A clay hand takes my breath again as it locks around my mouth from behind me.  
I manage to hold the door shut long enough while being suffocated so that the train is moving with her inside
and when the train is leaving, I finally feel joy.

“Jerome.”  She says still.

And  finally I hear not.  

Not the man choking me or the time of day.  
In the seconds that my lungs drown, I feel only the bliss of having known you, a last toast before I rest within the driving sea, salt-water changing my lungs
but I know my last action was with all my soul, my mind, my body.

Natashka, I drink to you, fully.  Finally.
This thought fills my gut.
His hands across my mouth, my eyes begin to shut.
Her smell.  

That was the last thing I thought about.



                                                       ­                                ...




I’m looking down at my body, the Russian’s beside me breathing hard.
Tired.  Big.

And then to my shock I see Natashka again.  
Walking from the far end of the station back to the area where all the scrapping happened;
one of her knees bleeding and ripped, she limps, as if something is completely broken, her foot perhaps, out of time with the rest of her body.  

She drags her handicapped body all the way towards me and clay man standing beside me.
I can only watch.
When her tattered body gets close, I get to see all the cuts, one side of herself is badly damaged where she jumped from the train
and dislocated half the joints in her body

And when she is only a reach away from him.  She touches his chest.
Hands that can change anything.

And I look at them both.  
And death saves you from nothing at all.  
You just observe the same things, at a slower pace, from a different position;

you try to tell the suicides this, but; few want to listen...
there’s nothing wrong with oblivion, just remember that once you’re there, you still need something to do...

I break down.  Knees hitting the ground.
I see her body slide into him, closer, her hand disappears behind his back
like thin snake wondering around a rock
searching

Now

she stands pointing his own gun at him.  A shot goes into his head.  No hesitation.  Now she looks down at me, beside my choked corpse, a gun still in her hand. Weeping.

My hand wants to reach up to her.  
I can't.  

Another bullet fired
it discharges through her mouth, destroying her head.

Now she lays down beside me too
between me and russian hit man

The station endures our blood as we bleed out
forming one river that trickles down onto the tracks and gutter
you can’t tell whose blood is whose
or who is bleeding out the most

I look up at a light-bulb in the roof;
it tenses one more time, making the mosquitoes dance in quiet frenzy, before it lets out a final scream, cracking out of life.  Going-out-softly.

My head comes back down and I see another person standing only a few steps away from me.

With a turn of her head she suddenly flicks me a half-smile
the kind she knows I like
the kind that rips the spirit right out from your chest and makes it feel good.

Before we begin to walk away together something makes me turn
and we both look behind ourselves. The Russian looks down at his body too, the lines in his face are still, and yet we know how he feels.

He looks across at us as we walk away down the tracks
we can see only the deep set hoods of his brow, shadows for eyes;
he moves his feet slightly so he now faces us flat

he raises one of his palms
as the other searches for his cigarettes
in the first movement I have seen him make casually all-day

I hear him say the words:

“Do svidaniya. Moi druz'ya. Byt' khorosho"

And although his language isn’t mine, I know this means:

"Goodbye."

"My Friends."

"Be well."

                                                         ­                             ...

On a quiet winter afternoon
Near her balcony,
A lonely maiden sat gazing at the horizon.
Her starry eyes focused at a distant,
Wanting to know what lies beyond.
Under the bright blue sky.

A teen jumps out of his school bus
His face red with a bruise,
He makes his way towards his house.
Exhausted of his unfair life,
He limps as he climbs the stairs.
Under the bright blue sky.

Ten years go by
The two meet in a foreign land,
Bruised, broken and alone.
Their eyes lock in an eternal duel,
In a quiet a lane of a bustling city.
Under the bright blue sky.

Sixty years later
A lady gazes towards the horizon,
Reminiscing her younger times.
As nostalgia plays on the background,
She looks at her husband and smiles.
Under the bright blue sky.









Tanay Sengupta, Copyright © 2019.
All Rights Reserved.

Preface
This is a work of grace and fire. For those who were dismantled, seduced, discarded, or devoured by the lie—this is a mirror held to the machinery that broke you, and a sword handed back into your open palm. It does not speak against you. It speaks for you. The world was not wrong about your beauty. It was only weaponized by those who fear light. And now, you will see the architecture of that fear—the cogs and wires behind the mask, the gears of betrayal humming just beneath the velvet. This is not revenge. It is revelation. It is the unmasking of the counterfeit, and the defense of what was real.


Chapter I –  The Design of the Lie
The machinery of erasure does not begin with violence. It begins with a gift—something tailored to your ache. A reflection, a recognition, an echo of what you’ve been starving for. But it is not given. It is shown. Teased. Dangled. It mimics light to earn your trust, then slowly rearranges your sense of what is real.

Its brilliance lies in subtlety. It does not break the mirror—it fogs it. And once you question your reflection, the game begins. You are not destroyed. You are asked to participate in your own unraveling. You become complicit in the theft of your own clarity. You call it love. You call it fate. And in doing so, you hand over the key.


Chapter II –  The Signature of the Construct
At the heart of this system is a signature—a spiritual frequency that mimics love but cannot sustain it. It flatters, it mimics, it seduces with familiarity. It plays on archetypes, childhood wounds, and ghost hunger. The Construct does not desire you—it requires your participation to survive.

It thrives through triangulation, comparison, and insinuation. The moment you are forced to prove your love is the moment you’ve already lost. Because true love reveals—it does not demand a performance. The Construct, however, demands your endless audition. It casts you, scripts you, and punishes any ad lib with silent treatment, reversal, or shame.


Chapter III – The Seduction of Fragmentation
This is the genius of the system: it rewards your disintegration. The more pieces you split into to meet the shifting demands of the Construct, the more you are praised for your “flexibility,” your “loyalty,” your “depth.” You will be admired for your willingness to suffer.

You will think:
"this must be real—look how much it costs me."

But love does not require self-erasure to prove its authenticity. The Construct does. Because the Construct cannot actually bond. It can only consume. So it teaches you to abandon your wholeness, one boundary at a time, until there is nothing left but performance and exhaustion.


Chapter IV – The Covenant of Betrayal
The machinery has one true vow: never let them fully awaken. If a soul sees too much, loves too clearly, or stops obeying the unspoken script, it must be punished. Often, this is done through replacement—someone new, someone fresh, someone blind.

This is not about romance. This is about power. Your disposability is the currency of their control. You will be erased not because you failed, but because you saw. And in this system, sight is the ultimate rebellion.

You were not too much. You were simply no longer manageable.


Chapter V – The Weaponization of Autonomy
In the true light, autonomy is sacred. It is the ground of real love—freely given, freely received. But in the machinery, autonomy is hijacked. It is twisted into performance:

“This is just who I am. You need to accept it.”

What looks like boundary is often barrier. What sounds like empowerment is often exile. The Construct cloaks disconnection in the language of sovereignty. But autonomy without accountability is not liberation—it is isolation in drag.

The counterfeit system sells self-claim as a virtue while rejecting all consequences. It demands the crown without the cross. It worships the idea of the self, but fears the actual soul.

Because the soul cannot be controlled. Only the ego can.

And that is the secret the machinery must protect at all costs.


Chapter VI – The Seduction of the Wound
There is a final brilliance to the machinery of erasure—its capacity to turn injury into identity. Pain, once unprocessed, becomes aesthetic. The ache is no longer something to heal—it is something to showcase. Suffering is curated, stylized, made palatable for consumption. And the system rewards it.

Each expression of pain, unaccompanied by accountability, is celebrated. Each seductive lament is met with affirmation. And the wound deepens—not by accident, but by design.

These are not poems. They are mirrors fogged with self-pity, lit for applause. They describe the furniture on a ship ready to go down, polished for the camera, curated for the feed.

This is not the voice of healing. This is the voice of stagnation. A life lived in performance of brokenness becomes loyal to the stage, terrified of the silence where truth might enter.

In this way, injury is aggrandized. Not to redeem it—but to preserve it.
Because if the wound heals, the identity dies. And without the ache, there is nothing left to write.

So they write. Endlessly.
And call it growth.


Chapter VII – The Disciples of the Machine
The most devoted apostles of the machinery are not its creators, but its inheritors. These are not villains in the classical sense. They are the wounded who found power in pathology and chose preservation over transformation.

They build followings—not of love, but of resonance. They speak of darkness like it’s depth, and of chaos like it’s freedom. They become curators of sorrow, gatekeepers of aesthetic trauma. And in doing so, they sanctify the very thing that is killing them.

They post without pause. Each fragment is another brick in the shrine. The more broken they appear, the more sacred they are deemed. The machine thrives not through tyranny, but through tribute. It does not demand obedience. It rewards distortion with digital communion.

To dissent is to be called controlling. To invite healing is to be accused of shaming. The liturgy of pain has no room for resurrection—only repetition. Those who refuse to bow to the ache are cast as unfeeling, unsupportive, or abusive.

And so, a new priesthood is born. Not of spirit, but of survival masquerading as enlightenment. They speak of liberation while chaining themselves to curated agony. They teach others to remain wounded, because healing would mean leaving the temple—and no one dares walk out alone.

This is how the machine spreads. Not with force.
But with fellowship.


Chapter VIII – The Hollowing
There is a cost to serving the machinery that no accolade can cover. In the beginning, the pain feels poetic. The ink flows. The attention sustains. But over time, something begins to slip beneath the surface: the erosion of soul.

At first, it’s subtle. The joy fades. The art grows colder. The hunger for affirmation replaces the hunger for truth. And eventually, the writer is no longer a soul with a pen, but a pen with no soul at all.

They become automatons of expression—autonomons of penmanship. Unchanged, untouched, undisturbed. Brilliant in technique. Seductive in style. But hollow in presence.

And those who watch? The broken ones who look to them for hope? They learn that pain is performance, not process. They are taught to admire the wound, but never to bind it. They are shown how to speak of darkness, but not how to walk toward light.

In this way, the machinery becomes generational. One vessel trains the next in the worship of ache. And God is reduced to metaphor, to vague warmth, to a symbol of tolerance rather than transformation.

But heaven is not a stage.
And salvation is not applause.

There will be accountability. Not from men, but from God.
Not for how much they suffered, but for what they did with the pain.

The machinery does not fear sin.
It fears redemption.
Because redemption breaks the wheel.


Chapter IX – The Currency of Flesh
When the soul begins to hollow, the body becomes currency. What could once be held sacred is now offered up as substitute. The hunger for real intimacy, having long been denied, is replaced with performance. Aesthetic ache becomes ****** invitation.

First, the poetess. Then, the priestess. Then, the *****.

Not in profession. But in posture.

The page becomes a veil. The wound becomes a seduction. And the ache becomes an altar where she lays herself down—not to be loved, but to be seen. To be wanted, if only for a moment. Because in the moment, it feels like meaning.

But meaning does not come from being consumed.
It comes from being transformed.

This new liturgy has no end. Only an offering: the soft body in place of the broken spirit. The post that hints, the phrase that aches, the image that undresses the soul without ever risking exposure.

And the audience applauds. But they do not help. They take. They feed. And they leave.

Because the machinery does not restore. It devours. And when the soul is gone, and all that remains is flesh trying to feel something real, the poetess finally disappears—not into silence, but into spectacle.

This is not liberation.
It is abandonment dressed as autonomy.
It is hunger parading as art.
It is the final seduction.

And it ends the same way every time:
With the hollow echo of applause in an empty room, and the voice of God whispering,

“Daughter, this was never the way."


Chapter X – The Entropy of the Idol
Time has no mercy on the machinery’s darlings. The once-lush wildflower—desired by all, praised for her ache, adored for her petals soaked in myth—does not remain untouched by entropy.

She was made to be inseminated by the priests of seduction, to be the altar and the sacrifice. But time withers all altars.

The seduction begins to dull. The body begins to speak its own truth. The skin grows tired. The eyes lose their fire. The flesh, once offered as divine provocation, becomes mundane. Familiar. And then, ignored.

The poetess becomes priestess.
The priestess becomes *****.
And the ***** becomes hide.

Not because she sinned.
But because she refused to transform.

Beauty without truth cannot endure. And seduction without spirit becomes parody. What was once adored is now avoided—not for age, but for vacancy. The ache that once drew others near becomes background noise. Her audience does not abandon her in cruelty. They abandon her in boredom.

The machinery does not love its servants. It only feeds on them until they are dry.

And so, she is left in the echo chamber she built—surrounded by her archives, her accolades, and her silence. The idol collapses under its own weight. Not in a blaze. But in a sigh.

Because what was once sacred, when severed from Source, must return to dust.

This is the final truth:
If you will not kneel to be healed, you will collapse to be forgotten.


Chapter XI – The Awakening
There is no thunder. No spotlight. No applause.
The return begins in silence.

The soul does not rise from performance. It rises from collapse—when the last mask is too heavy to hold, and the echo of applause turns to dust in the mouth. It begins when the hunger becomes unbearable, not for attention, but for truth. Not to be desired, but to be known.

This is not reinvention.
It is resurrection.

The one who awakens does not look for an audience. She looks for God. Not in the mirror of likes, but in the mirror of conscience. Not in the adoration of strangers, but in the ache of repentance that leads into true healing.

It is not shame that saves her.
It is the refusal to be false another second.

There is a groan too deep for words that stirs in the soul of the broken—but still willing. She rises, not in fire, but in dust. She remembers what she buried:
the child.
the dream.
the voice she silenced to keep others fed.

She does not demand redemption.
She begs for it.

And this time, no altar is built.
She becomes the altar.

Because the real temple is not where you perform for God.
It’s where you let Him undo you.


Chapter XII – The Turning of the Spirit
There is a moment when the soul, long dormant, begins to turn—not with force, but with permission. Not with answers, but with longing.

It is not an epiphany. It is a return.

The heart does not sprint back to God. It limps. It crawls. It shakes under the weight of what it almost became. But the turning is real. And that alone is holy.

This is when sorrow becomes sacred—not because it is beautiful, but because it is owned. It is no longer adorned, embellished, or romanticized. It is no longer shared for praise. It is lifted up like a cracked bowl, empty and unashamed.

She begins to pray again—not with confidence, but with tears. Not for favor, but for cleansing. Not to be seen, but to see. And the Spirit moves not as reward, but as witness.

Something shifts. Quietly. Inwardly. A single layer of delusion is peeled back. A new kind of strength is born—not in defiance, but in surrender.

This is not the turning of image.
It is the turning of essence.

It does not show.
It becomes.

And though the old machinery still whispers—though the old audience still lingers—she no longer performs for them. She is turning her face. Slowly. Fiercely. Eternally.

This is the repentance that heals.
The gaze turned Godward.
The first yes to life.

And heaven, watching, does not shout.
It weeps.
Because the dead have started to rise.


Chapter XIII – The Fire That Does Not Consume
There comes a time when the soul must pass through fire—not to be destroyed, but to be revealed.

This fire does not flatter. It does not affirm your curated grief or compliment your phrasing. It burns away the pose. It burns away the language. It burns until what is left is the thing you most feared to be: real.

Not poetic.
Not prophetic.
Not even profound.
Just real.

This fire does not ask for offerings. It asks for everything.
The altars of validation. The shrines of aesthetic suffering.
All of it must go.

But what it leaves… is clean.
What it leaves can breathe again.
What it leaves can love.

For this is the mercy of the holy flame:
It only consumes what was killing you.

And when you walk out of it—not elevated, but humbled—you will find that you no longer ache to be seen. You ache to serve. You ache to live rightly. To walk quietly. To stop writing about the light and become it.

Because this is the final test of healing:
Not whether you can name the darkness.
But whether you can choose the light when no one is watching.

In every moon there is a man
And in every man there is a heart inside of which lives a woman
Who doesn't clean
Who doesn't cook
Who doesn't serve him
Only lives within the walls of his heart
And within every woman living in a man's heart
There is a desire to be free
It is not odd to imagine her leaving
Merely odd to see her go
Riding on the back of an elephant
In high heels
With a bottle of Chateau de Michelle
And weilding the sword of a swallowing minstrel
Drunkenly yelling songs of a time in which she never lived
And that will never leave a man
Whether the next woman comes in riding a golden chariot pulled by blazing reindeer
Or mounted on a shark wearing a cocktail dress
And while he laments her going
She regrets her ever having left
So she turns around
Looks into the vast nothing behind her
Trampled under the weight of the elephant
Cut down by her drunken fit of rage
Burned and eaten by the coming and going of others
And she sees
That beyond the husk of the home she once knew
Lay merely arteries and valves
And no soft place to lay her head
So she dismounts her companion
Lays down her sword
Crashes the bottle upon the rocks
Tears the heels from her shoes
And limps into the desert
Looking for that which she had already found
While he lie
Filling the emptiness of his ravaged heart
With the tender touch of fleeting acrobats

We're off to Never never land - Paracetamol, cucumber sandwiches and the lost rent boy

Gav called me up.
Him and Tolly were going out to Never Never Land in Blackburn
3 lost boys off on a curious adventure

Mi mum dropped me off at Gavs 'ouse ont' Shad estate
Gav got us a coke before we caught t' buz in
But 'e sprinkled in some white pewder
"What's this? Pixie dust?"
"It's summat to gi' you Speed" said Tolly
"just drink it!" Said Gav
So I did

"2nd Star t' t' reet and straight on t' t' moornin'!"

But we'd bin sold crushed paracetamol

So we just acted like we were ****** and lied to each other about ow buzzin wi were
But we weren't buzzin
Then we caught buz in
Waitin' for t' affects o' t' artificial amphetamine t' kick in
'N' we got t' Neverland
No mermaids 'ere
No pretty ***** girls
There were a few blokes wi dodgy eyes n limps
But no no, no-n-no no, no-n-no no no no there's no pirates!
Just ****** plastic Palm trees
'N' townies in fluorescent nylon shirts
No peacock feathered hats ere
Just steps n curtains n aggressive faces
'N' me wi' a bowl cut and trepidation
Tryin' t' think happy thoughts

Surrounded bi freebooters, piccaroons, Buccaneers, filibusters and Rovers
Wi' their left foot, right foot dancing
And an eye on t' maidens
Sneering in our direction
Lost boys
That 'aven't grown up

I sort o' skirted round edges feelin' scared
Then went to sit at sides on an empty table 'n' hid

On t' next table were a nice lookin' couple o' blokes.
They must o' bin good mates!
They were cuddlin' 'n' touchin' each other a lot.
Anyhow, thi got talking t' mi
Told 'em I'd not bin out before
"Ow old are you lad? 14/15?"
"I'm 18"
Thi sort o' laughed, dunno why
Then one of 'em offered me a cucumber sandwich
I thought t' mi sel'
"I dunno much about nightclubs but I dunt think folk normally bring cucumber sandwiches!"
But I were 'ungry so I ate it
Then I think 'e thought we were mates coz 'e were touchin mi leg
I 'ad to crow for Gav an' Tolly
They came in like Peter Pan and rescued mi and I set off for 'ome

I went to t' phone box n' called mi mum
Didn't know town reet well
So I waited for 'er outside o' mi old school
There were some scary lookin people on one side o't' road snappin at each other like crocodiles
So I stood under t' lamppost so I were int' leet an' t' cars passin could see mi
Felt safer like that
Time passed
Tick tock tick tock
T' crocodiles were lurkin
Each time a car passed I stepped out a bit
To look for mi mum
Drivers kept lookin at mi nervously n drivin off
Maybe thi thought I were a crocodile too
N they kept smirking at mi
Then some officers pulled up like privateers in their blue and white flashin galleon
Made us stand again t' wall as I asked for parle
'N' thi searched mi for treasure
Asked us if I pulled into port for rentin
"Rentin' what? I'm Waitin for mi mum."
"Aye cap'n! Hahaha! I'm sure you are! Dressed in tight little hot pants!"
"These aren't 'ot pants, they're chinos?!"
Then mi mum turned up an said "oh aye! This streets t' red light district!"
"Well ****** me!"

Never, never again... Until uni happened

Reciting your enchanting beauty
My life swifts from river mode to sea
Where it is deeper and yet empty
Which drift/drives my life to agony

The wind of obsessity carries me
To a place I always dreamt to be
Placing my head in your lap I see;
A future where we could be happy

But gradually the dream gets over
As the obsessity wind gets slower
Revisiting the reality again
Introduces me to a familiar pain

The pain is not of losing you
You were not a reward to be won
But since now you're gone
I feel a friend is departing too


With shallow breath and watery eye
Trembling limps and left with a sigh
The heart beneath nearly die
The moment you said, goodbye...

I don't need drugs
To ruin my life
With an emotional outburst
Its hard to survive

Mister Blister, there he goes!
His shoes, they open for his toes.
His jacket has no sleeves at all.
His trousers, well, they just might fall.

He is a coarse and hairy sight.
He limps and dares not stand upright.
He has a shopping cart to push.
His bathroom is the nearest bush.

People yell and call him names,
and talk about the way he shames,
the neighborhood, and those who "care"
about the world they say we share.

But, Mister Blister is my friend.
He always has some time to spend.
He cares about what I say,
and remembers this from day to day.

He knows about my cares and fears
and what I try to say he hears.
Perhaps the others are too old
to see without life's blindfold.

I wish that he could freely live
and that the town, he could forgive.
They just don't know you like I do.
Mister Blister, I'm glad I do.