I. Song of the Beggars
"O for doors to be open and an invite with gilded edges
To dine with Lord Lobcock and Count Asthma on the platinum benches
With somersaults and fireworks, the roast and the smacking kisses"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And Garbo's and Cleopatra's wits to go astraying,
In a feather ocean with me to go fishing and playing,
Still jolly when the **** has burst himself with crowing"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And to stand on green turf among the craning yellow faces
Dependent on the chestnut, the sable, the Arabian horses,
And me with a magic crystal to foresee their places"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And this square to be a deck and these pigeons canvas to rig,
And to follow the delicious breeze like a tantony pig
To the shaded feverless islands where the melons are big"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And these shops to be turned to tulips in a garden bed,
And me with my crutch to thrash each merchant dead
As he pokes from a flower his bald and wicked head"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And a hole in the bottom of heaven, and Peter and Paul
And each smug surprised saint like parachutes to fall,
And every one-legged beggar to have no legs at all"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.

Spring 1935

II.
O lurcher-loving collier, black as night,
Follow your love across the smokeless hill;
Your lamp is out, the cages are all still;
Course for heart and do not miss,
For Sunday soon is past and, Kate, fly not so fast,
For Monday comes when none may kiss:
Be marble to his soot, and to his black be white.

June 1935

III.
Let a florid music praise,
The flute and the trumpet,
Beauty's conquest of your face:
In that land of flesh and bone,
Where from citadels on high
Her imperial standards fly,
Let the hot sun
Shine on, shine on.

O but the unloved have had power,
The weeping and striking,
Always: time will bring their hour;
Their secretive children walk
Through your vigilance of breath
To unpardonable Death,
And my vows break
Before his look.

February 1936

IV.
Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts today,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.

Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other's necks
Inert and vaguely sad.

What hidden worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out.

March 1936

V.
Fish in the unruffled lakes
Their swarming colors wear,
Swans in the winter air
A white perfection have,
And the great lion walks
Through his innocent grove;
Lion, fish and swan
Act, and are gone
Upon Time's toppling wave.

We, till shadowed days are done,
We must weep and sing
Duty's conscious wrong,
The Devil in the clock,
The goodness carefully worn
For atonement or for luck;
We must lose our loves,
On each beast and bird that moves
Turn an envious look.

Sighs for folly done and said
Twist our narrow days,
But I must bless, I must praise
That you, my swan, who have
All the gifts that to the swan
Impulsive Nature gave,
The majesty and pride,
Last night should add
Your voluntary love.

March 1936

VI. Autumn Song
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last,
Nurses to their graves are gone,
But the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbors left and right
Daunt us from our true delight,
Able hands are forced to freeze
Derelict on lonely knees.

Close behind us on our track,
Dead in hundreds cry Alack,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Scrawny through a plundered wood,
Trolls run scolding for their food,
Owl and nightingale are dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Clear, unscalable, ahead
Rise the Mountains of Instead,
From whose cold, cascading streams
None may drink except in dreams.

March 1936

VII.
Underneath an abject willow,
Lover, sulk no more:
Act from thought should quickly follow.
What is thinking for?
Your unique and moping station
Proves you cold;
Stand up and fold
Your map of desolation.

Bells that toll across the meadows
From the sombre spire
Toll for these unloving shadows
Love does not require.
All that lives may love; why longer
Bow to loss
With arms across?
Strike and you shall conquer.

Geese in flocks above you flying.
Their direction know,
Icy brooks beneath you flowing,
To their ocean go.
Dark and dull is your distraction:
Walk then, come,
No longer numb
Into your satisfaction.

March 1936

VIII.
At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my friend, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of the migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

April 1936

IX.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

April 1936

X.
O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; "O Johnny, let's play":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Matinee Charity Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
"Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver or golden silk gown;
"O John I'm in heaven," I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
"O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away.

April 1937

XI. Roman Wall Blues
Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,
My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone.

Aulus goes hanging around her place,
I don't like his manners, I don't like his face.

Piso's a Christian, he worships a fish;
There'd be no kissing if he had his wish.

She gave me a ring but I diced it away;
I want my girl and I want my pay.

When I'm a veteran with only one eye
I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

October 1937

XII.
Some say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like classical stuff?
Does it stop when one wants to quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn' in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories ****** but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on the door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

January 1938

Ah, Yorkshire, thou art purer than Coventry;
and thy promises whiter; than my fluid poetry.
Thou art braver, prudent, and all the way more intelligent;
thy lands are mightier; and perhaps in every possible way-more imminent.
Thou art sincere-and so more delicate than wine, and thoughtful;
Thou adored my words, and made everything else healing, and more beautiful.

In my heart but there might have been no Yorkshire at all-
had I attended not one Coventry last fall.
I witnessed not-at t'at time, all t'is rude twilight-and toughness and madness;
and every chapped breath it had in its roughness, and hilarious-though indeed fake, felicity.
No soul has even bits of a heart, here, to forgive others' soreness,
No being wants to share; no human lives in joy, nor simplicity.
No delight indeed; as I stream my way through every roads;
Everyone is either busy with their selfishness or their coats.
No living is cared for; for humans are phantoms at night and on morns;
Vulnerability is mocked, and demised and often slyly torn.
Ah! Coventry is but a sphere of hell!
For even hell is still lighter when has it not hellfire;
As well cities are, when there is no scoundrel nor liar;
But Coventry is not at all tender;
Its wicked gasp is alive, and never to heartily surrender.
It falls for glory; it bows to such fears for pleasure;
And wanes by the light of whose death; the end of whose allure.
But thou art true-thou art as shy as every flash of virtue;
Thou art indeed-everything t'at is solemnly agreeable and brand new.
Ah, and just now-I had dreams of a fine image of thee;
Smiling within thy fullest verdure, bushes, and lavish undergrowth.
And thy summer is but vivid and friendlier;
Healing every sore heart, and turning 'em all, merrier.
Thou adored the nouns and verbs I wrote,
and admired such simple notions I quoted;
Thou shine upon me-asthe light that shall makest me grow
and the promising dim, faraway region, that lets me glow.
O, Yorkshire, this is still but too early in the transparent evening;
But I am deeply endorsed yet, by t'is poetry writing-
And with thy soul that remains but too witty,
Tearing me away, but with loveliness-
from my cautious present engagement,
Thy charms might be just too hard to bear,
for thy tongue is too sweet;
and thy veracity too chaotic, ye' imminent.
In thee shall I find peace-of that I am convinced,
Peace whose soul is calm, neat and on all occasions, careful-
Unlike t'is bustle which is at times perpetual, and sorrowful;
Unlike t'is very city of Coventry,
Which is damp with exultant bareness, and haziness,
In many ways exalted, but indeed too proud;
And its tongue which is blurred with sin and poison-
Its all-too-loud excitement makes everything but faint,
And at times sends my heart to exile, sends my heart to pain,
In every possible way too unlike thee,
With an imagery, and coaxing voices so sweet
Thou shall leave all my poems bright and freshly lit,
Even though I am still here, even though we are still yet-to meet.

Coventry is too proud and vibrant-yes, too vibrant,
Amidst its own foolishness, which sadly made itself formerly too elegant.
Too elegant to me-in various shapes, and keenly cloaked in unseen deceit,
But only by some beings, whom I was to meet, and my breath to greet.
And as I wake up to an early morning hour,
the plain summer strangely makes me thirst for honest water.
And should I love still-one intelligence t'at is so bitterly repugnant?
I shall certainly not; I shall turn to thee, Yorkshire, who is truer ye' far above, tolerant.
Ah, Yorkshire, but honesty is something Coventry promises not;
for its soul has been maliciously beheaded, and twitched,
It has been paled, corrupted, and despaired-
by its own claws, derived from the jaws of those evil souls
Veiled by their even still inhuman, disguises,
And shall still be wicked, otherwise.
In t'is sea of hate, and these waves of despondency,
I shall think of thee with tantalising depth and scrutiny,
Though thou art still imprisoned in my soul,
Thou who hath flattered and accepted me as a whole.
But Coventry is-still, accidental with some of its bindings,
For mortal as thou art, itself, and is unable to escape its fate,
Still I canst think only of the beauty of thy linings,
And upon thy lands shall I venture to fill my plate.
Ah, Yorkshire, remember that virtue is in thy hand,
but neither is vice-thy dormant enemy, is in its therein,
Virtue who is vile to all of t'is world's inconsolable men,
like in Coventry, as deemed it is, unreasonable and ungenerous, within.
Virtue which is tragically abandoned, in its pursuit of honour;
virtue which was rich, but flattened, and dismayed and disfigured
within the course of one unsupervised hour.
Ah, York, Yorkshire, when shall I ever taste the grandeur
And the very superiority of thy dignity?
For in yon picture, thou art still but a comely neighbour,
Which endorses and attests to my mute, yet unaffected-virginity.

Ah, but Coventry shall despise thee, and with its stubbornness
and overwhelming pride, shall jostle and taunt thee;
Shall defect and isolate thee-when I am but by thy side,
But God be with me still, and blind shall not, my virtuous sight.
Detesting and confronting thee for the remainders of years-as 'tis to be,
Which for thee lie ahead; as how hath it deluded me-just now!
I, who, disconcertingly, placed my heart within its sacred vow,
hath been robbed of my satisfactions, and utmost fortune,
All were perused in centuries and gone in one moon.
Ah, Yorkshire, shall I continue my poetry here-but call out endlessly to thee?
And shall I abandon this tiny caprice of mine-which is a fine, tiny desire of glory
And let myself on the loose, and for evermore be in search
of thee, whom I shall've lost-under the very indulgence of their mirth?
O, I think not!
For I shall mount my poetry-and achieve my silent dreams,
I shall take him with me, if allowed am I-to conquer him,
And make him and thee mine, just like I hath made my poetry,
And be thy light; and thy spiritual and endless reciprocal adoration
All day and night, at the end of our quest for destiny
Wherein I shall dwell, and thrive as my intellect be granted-its long-lost coronation.
O, Yorkshire, for within thy hands now I shall lie my faith-
and trudge along thy forking paths, unto the light of my fate.

Ah, Yorkshire, I am infatuated with these paintings-
these very paintings of thy lush green lands,
And of myself wandering and skulking idly about thy moors;
With my best frock, and his fingers, the one I love, entwined in my hand
As lights procured and on our storming out of yonder wooden doors.
I am shining like a bee is-upon the sweet finding of its honey;
but in whose tale 'tis like thee-to sweet and unpardonable to me.
Be with me, Yorkshire, and be with me forever, only,
As I leave behind this faint malice and commence my journey;
I shall be with thee, and my poems shall be free,
And t'is bitterness of winds shall be no more tormenting me,
Furthermore-be them what they desire to be;
But let me write; and play my song as beautifully as yon naive bee.

Ah, Yorkshire, and wait, wait again for me;
But before let me sink again into a deep sleep,
and tease thee again in my dreams;
Read me once more-the very passages of thy indolent poetry,
Take me out of my stiffness; swing me out of abhorrent Coventry.
Coventry shall be envious, and waiting forever for thy demise;
but honesty is honesty-and one that has no lies,
for thy virtue is clear as thy Western gem,
which is to God, shall always be virtue, all the same.

And indeedst, thou mourneth once more
When th' lover who is to thine become
Returneth not, in thy own brevities-of love and hate,
As t'is chiding ruthlessness might not be
thy just fate.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Shalt thy soul ever weepest for me?
Weep for t'ese chains of guilt and yet, adorable clarity
T'at within my heart are obstreperously burning
I thy secret lover; shrieks railing at my heart
Whenever thou lurchest forwards
and tearest t'is strumming passion apart.

And t'ere is one single convenience not
As I shalt sit more by northern winds; and whose gales
upon a pale, moonlit shore.
Cleopatra, play me a song at t'at hour
Before bedtime with thy violin once more
And let us look through th' vacant glasses;
at clouds t'at swirl and swear in dark blue masses.

Ah, my queen, t'ese lips are softly creaking
and swearing silently; emitting words
of which I presume thou wouldst not hear.
On my lonely days I sat dreamily
upon t'at hard-hearted wooden bench,
and wrote poems of thee
behind th' greedy palm trees;
They mocked me and swore
t'at my love for thee was a tragedy;
and my poem a menial elegy
For a soldier I was, whom thy wealth
and kingdom foundeth precisely intolerable.
How I hate-t'ose sickly words of 'em!
Ah, t'ose unknowing, cynical creatures!
I, who fell in love with thee
Amongst th' giggling bushes,
stomping merrily amongst each other
and shoving their heads prettily on my shoulder
As I walked pass 'em;
I strapped their doom to death,
and cursed their piously insatiable wrath
Until no more grief was left attached
To th' parable summer air; and rendered thou as plainly
as thou had been,
but bleak not; and ceremoniously unheeded
Only by thy most picturesque features, and breaths.
Thou who loved to wander behind th' red-coated shed,
and beautiful green pastures ahead
With tulips and white roses on thy hand,
And with floods of laughter thou wouldst dart ahead
like a summer nightingale;
'fore stretching thy body effortlessly
amongst th' chirping grass
Ah, Cleopatra, thou looketh but so lovely-
oh, indeedst thou did; but too lovely-too lovely to me!
A figure of a princess so comely,
thou wouldst but be th' one
who bringst th' light,
and fool all t'ose evils, and morbid abysses;
Thou shalt fill our future days with hopes,
and colourful promises.

And slithered I, like a naive snake
Throughout th' bushes; to swing myself into thee
Even only through thy shadow,
I didst, I didst-my love, procured my satisfaction
By seeing thee breathe, and thrive, and bloom.
I loveth her not, t'is village's outrageous,
but sweet-spirited maiden;
a dutiful soldier as I am,
my love for thee is still bountiful,
ah, even more plentiful t'an t'is cordial one
I may hath for my poor lover. Not t'at I despise
her poorness, but in my mind, thou art forever my baroness;
Thou art th' purest queen, amongst all th' virgins
Ah, Cleopatra!
To me, if rejection is indeedst misery,
thine is but a glorious mystery;
for whose preciousness, which is now vague,
by thy hand might come clear,
for within my sight of thee
All t'ese objections are still ingenious,
within thy perilous smile,
t'at oftentimes caresses me
With relief, whenst I am mad,
and corrupts my conscience-
whenst I am sad;
Even only for a second; and even only
for a while.
But if thy smile were all it seemeth,
and thy perfection all t'at I dreameth,
Then a nightmare could be mirth,
and a bitter smile could be so sweet.
Just like everything my eyes hath seen;
if thy innocence was what I needest,
and thy gentleness th' one I seekest,
then I'd needst just and ought, worry not;
for all thy lips couldst be so meek
and thy glistening cheeks
wouldst be so sleek.

Oh, sweet, sweet-like thee, Cleopatra!
Sweet mournful songs are trampling along my ears,
but again, t'ey project me into no harmony-
I curse t'em and corrupt t'em,
I gnaw at t'em and elbow t'em-
I stomp on t'em and jostle t'em-
th' one sung by my insidious lover,
I feel like a ghost as I perch myself beside her.
Whilst thou-thou art away from me!
Thou, thou for whom my breath shalt choke
with insanity,
thou who wert there and merrily laughed with me-
just like last Monday,
By yon purple prairie and amber oak trees
By my newest words and dearly loving poetry.
Oh, my poetry-t'at I hath always crafted so willingly,
o, so willingly, for thee!
For thee, for thee only, my love!
Ah, Cleopatra, as we rolled down th' hoarse alley t'at day,
and th' silky banks by rueful warm water-
I hoped t'at thou wouldst forever stay with me,
like th' green bushes and t'eir immortal thorns,
Thou wouldst lull me to sleep at nights,
and kiss me firmly every dewy morn.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Ah, and with thy cherry-like lips
Thou shalt again invite me into thy living gardens,
With thy childish jokes and ramblings and adventures
To th' dying sunflowers, thou wert a cure;
and thy crown is even brighter t'an their foliage,
For it is a resemblance of thy heart, but
thy vanity not;
Thou art th' song t'at t'ey shalt sing,
thou art th' joy t'at no other greatness canst bring.

Ah, Cleopatra, look-and t'is sun is shining on thee,
but not my bride;
My bride who is so impatiently to withdraw
her rights; her fatal rights-o, I insist!
And so t'is time I shall but despise her
for her gluttony and rebellious viciousness.
T'at savage, unholy greed of hers!
How unadmirable-and blind I was,
for I deemed all t'ose indecipherable!
How I shalt forever deprecate myself,
for which!
Ah, but whenst I see thee!
As how I shall twist my finger into hers,
(Oh! T'is precocious little harlot!)
Thou art th' one who is, in my mind, to become my lover,
and amongst tonight's all prudence and marriage mercy
I shall dreameth not of my wife but thee;
Whilst my wife is like a cloaked rain doll beneath,
and her ******* shall be rigid and awkward to me-
unlike thee, so indolent but warm and generous
with unhesitant integrity;
Ah, I wish she could die, die, and be dead-by my hands,
But no anger and fury could I wreak,
for she hath been, for all t'ese years,
my single best friend.
Or she was, at least.
Oh Cleopatra, thou art my girl;
please dance, dance again-dance for me in thy best pink frock,
and wear thy most desirous, fastidious perfume;
I shall turn thee once more, into a delicious nymphet,
and I standing on a rock, a writer-soldier husband to thee-
Loving thee from afar, but a nearest heart,
my soul shalt become tender; but passionately aggravated
With such blows of poetic genuinity in my hands-
by t'ese of thee-so powerful, and intuitive sonnets.

Oh, my dear! T'is is a ruin, ruin, and but a ruin to me-
A castle of utmost devastation and damage and fear,
for as I looketh into her eyes behindeth me,
and thine upon thy throne-
so elegant and fuller of joy and permanent delight
Than hers t'at are fraught with pernicious questions,
and flocks of virginal fright,
I am afraid, once more-t'at I am torn,
before thy eyes t'at pierce and stun me like a stone,
an unknown stone, made of graveyard gems, and gold
Thou smell like death, just as dead as I am
On my loveless marriage day
And as I gaze into th' dubious priest
And thee beside him, my master-o, but my dream woman!
Oh, sadly my only dream woman!
Th' stars of love are once more
encompassing thine eyes,
and with wonder-oh Cleopatra, thou art seemingly tainted
with sacrifice, but delightfully, lies-
As I stareth at thee once more,
I knoweth t'at I loveth thee even more
just like how thou hath loved me since ever before
And thy passion and lust rooted in mine
Strangling me like selfish stars;
and th' moon and saturated rainbows
hanging up t'ere in troubled, ye' peaceful skies, tonight.

I want her not, as thou hath always fiercely,
and truthfully known,
so t'at I wriggle free,
ignoring my bride's wise screams
and cries and sobs uttered heartbreakingly-
onto th' gravel-and gravely chiseled pavement outside,
'fore eventually I slippeth myself out of my brownish
soldier's uniforms.
Thou standeth in surprise, I taketh, as I riseth
from my seat-my fictitious seat, in my mind,
for all t'is, pertaining to my unreal love for her,
shalt never be, in any way, real-
All are but th' phantom and ghost
of my own stories; trivial stories
Skulking about me with unpardonable sorries
Which I hate, I hate out of my life, most!
As to anyone else aside from thee
I should and shalt not ever be-married,
and as I set my doleful eyes on thee once more,
curtained by sorrow and unanswered longings,
but sincere feelings-I canst, for th' first time,
admire thy silent, lipped confession
Which is so remarkably
painted and inked throughout
thy lavish; ye' decently translucent face;
t'at thou needst me and wouldst stick by me
in soul, though not in flesh;
but in heaven, in our dear heaven,
whenst I and thou art free,
from all t'ese ungodly barriers and misery,
to welcome th' fierceness of our fate,
and taste th' merriment of our delayed date.
Oh, my love!
My Cleopatra! My very own, my own,
and mine only-Cleopatra!
My dear secret lover, and wife; for whom
my crying soul was gently born, and cherished,
and nurtured; for whose grief my heart shall be ripped,
and only for whose pride-for whose pride only,
I shall allow mine to be disgraced.
Cleopatra! But in death we shall be reunited,
amongst th' birds t'at flow above and under,
To th' sparkling heavens we shall be invited,
above th' vividly sweet rainbows; about th' precious
rainy thunder.

Prose is unpretentious, that's its attraction. Avoids bombast of line breaks but forgoes -- what -- perfect rest. Anyway today, a November day in February, no chance getting rest with the poor clay I'm made from.

With my mother this weekend, her dementia proceeding according to what plan. Saturday the kind of day I never have. Actually read three stories by Updike. One extraordinary -- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth -- which I chose from his Complete through 1975 for the reference to Macbeth and in it he so humanely, sympathetically explains through the high school English teacher's thoughts Shakespeare's mid-life bitterness or disappointment realizing few men achieve their potential in the face of history, society and their personal flaws. Making for tragedy. Hard to be humorous about that although Updike finds in Shakespeare's late plays, especially The Tempest, a resolution amounting to wisdom that there can be contentment with imperfection and partial achievement. Updike took some of the starch out of my contention that all Shakespeare's plays are comedies, impossible to take Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth and Othello seriously. Certainly not Romeo and Juliet. It is a consolation that Updike's and even Shakespeare's achievements are imperfect although it would be wringing blood from a rock for me to achieve as much. The other two stories by Updike assured me that prose story-telling is as hit or miss as poetry. Bulgarian Poetess and How to Love America and Leave It At the Same Time made me think how fortunate I had been to find Tomorrow on the first try.

Not so much luck. I was attracted like a bee to a blossom to Shakespeare's lines in my personal anthology. No anthology and the poetry dependency it has created and I might have passed over the story. But now there is this conversation between me and all other writers. The anthology helps me know what I like but now I am tempted to try to articulate why I like what I like. Like the calendar, time and all else man lays his mind to it is a matter of bringing order from chaos by naming things according to our observations.

First, I like to understand what's going on in the poem. Not paraphrase it but describe the action. In Yeats' Lapis Lazuli, in the first paragraph, strophe or stanza, he talks about a community, a city or country, in which people, the women especially, high-toned maybe?, are upset about a political or wartime situation and are too hysterical for art or grace. Then he talks about actors playing Hamlet and Lear holding it together even though their characters die at the end of the play. No shouting, no crying. Then a paragraph or stanza about how whole civilizations are transitory too. Finally, in a reference to one of our oldest civilizations, two old Chinamen and their retainer are in the mountains. From their perspective, calm acceptance and longevity, perhaps some sadness, they look on all of history and non-history with something like gladness.

From there we can appreciate the artistry -- in Yeats' case the interesting rhymes and variable line lengths -- recognizing, however, that the artistry is not so much a demonstration of skill or a performance as the particular vehicle or discipline by which this artist discovered the content of his mind. It little matters whether verse is free, rhymed, blank, or formed as long as it is understandable and meaningful. Understandable to anyone, meaningful to someone.

The oldest formulation I have is Pound's -- the great themes of literature can be written on the back of a postage stamp. Until recently, I thought you could do it but you'd have to write very small. Now I know you can do it in your normal handwriting. I think they are Love (how we come into the world), Death (how we leave the world) and Governance (how we live in the world together). It may be possible to group Love and Death together, coming into and going out of life being similarly unknowable mysteries. The ways of talking about this one same mystery are apparently endless and endlessly fascinating. We cannot leave it alone. Almost all the greatest poems are about this mystery. Life is but a dream.

Then there is Governance -- how we live in the world together -- about which there are far fewer great poems. And usually they are about how our failure to live together leads back into the unknowable mystery through premature and sometimes mass death. Siamanto's The Dance comes to mind. I think the best poems of this type are written by so-called oppressed people.

Many poems treat both themes. But on the question of content, Pound is where I begin. My anthology -- Whole Wide World -- has a section which I'll call Double & Triple Features: Poems to Read Together, which pairs and groups poems according to my feeling that they share something -- theme, voice, structure -- in common. Subject matter is, I think, the commonest sharing. If I tried to name each pairing or grouping I might then have a hundred or more themes. Naming them adequately would be difficult to impossible. But why? And why not try? It would be a necessary start to talking about the poems: I read these poems together because....

Prose doesn't have to be beautiful, sometimes it's best when it's flat as Hemingway conclusively proved and one of its attractions is you can run on and on as long as the mind goes on following a thought without a stop sign for a whole page of books like Proust or Faulkner or Joyce.

Auden's is the second useful formulation that comes to mind (besides his chummy reverence for Shakespeare in naming him Top Bard). He classifies poems five ways:

            1. A good poem that's meaningful to him;
            2. A good poem that's not meaningful to him;
            3. A good poem that may someday become meaningful to him;
            4. A bad poem that's meaningful to him;
            5. A bad poem that's not meaningful to him.

I find I do about the same. But I discard all poems, good and bad, that are not meaningful to me. I have little taste for artistry for art's sake. The poem must speak to me or awaken me. Dickinson's formulation -- takes the top of your head off -- is the same as We can't define ******* but we know it when we see it.

A short aside: it feels inappropriate to answer the question What do you do? by saying I'm a poet. It would be like saying I'm a leader or I'm a prophet. You cannot anoint yourself a poet, a leader or a prophet -- others must do it for you. I wonder if I would be more comfortable if I had a larger audience (following) like Billy Collins for example. I think not. It would be like being a rock star, not a composer.

It's much more acceptable to say I'm a writer. Then when you answer the question Oh, what do you write? with Poetry, you are not self-aggrandizing, merely irrelevant, effete. Being a poet is viewed as being a flasher or nudist, exposing parts of yourself others would rather not see, at least not up close and personal, providing more information than others need or want to have. Maybe that's a good definition of a bad poet. Self-revelation dressed in verbal prowess is acceptable but naked, abject confession is unpardonable, tedious.

Although content is requisite for a poem to be meaningful, a poem is not really a communication like fiction or essay. It is more like an object, like a painting or sculpture, and perhaps like a musical score, sheet music. Yet I would still instruct students of poetry to first read each poem by the sentence, not the line, to derive its meaning, understand its argument, visualize its action. Then one might ask how and why is it sculpted, structured, with line breaks and strophes. Ultimately, the form of the poem is nothing more or less than the method by which the poet discovered his meaning. Although it is arbitrary -- it could have been said another way -- it is the only way it could be said by this person in this time and place. I have always liked the idea of a sculptor carving away stone or wood to reveal the form inside the block.

The poem lives on as an object, recognized by many or few or none. Like art or furniture, most are briefly useful then are moved to the attic or shed where they gather dust and mouse turds then break, dry and decay and find their way to the dump, the dust heap of history, only not even human history, just your personal history.

The anthology has made me an antiquarian -- one who cares as much for objects made by others as if I had made them myself.

So how can one talk about poems? The argument that any attempt to discuss or describe a poem is better served by simply reading the poem, perhaps memorizing it, has merit. Except in one respect -- the process can take you to undiscovered and half-discovered country within yourself. Always, first, you must understand the action otherwise we are just re-reading ourselves in our own tried and untrue ways. We must not mistake an old dog dying for a puppy being born. Misunderstanding the words is like constructing a science experiment with a flawed methodology and then using the results to shape or live in the world. It can be dangerous. Therefore reading poetry is a mental discipline worthy as the scientific method itself. It takes you out of yourself.

The fun of criticism comes in examining why and how the poem made you feel or think as you did. You can read closely for the chosen words, rhythms, lines and stanzas. You may admire the skill or wit of the poet. And you can refer to your own experience to understand your reaction. You can even disagree with the poet's thought or perception, or reject the sentiment. You can say that's him, not me.

Then there are Bloom's formulations of which I am wary, he being a critic not a poet. Yet here they are. Three sources of healthy complexity or difficulty in poems: 1) Sustained allusiveness -- cultural references that require the reader to be educated beyond the poem's content, for which he cites Milton as an example and could have Dante; 2) Cognitive originality -- leaps of perception and depths of understanding that startle, enlighten and take off the top of your head, for which he cites Shakespeare and Dickinson as examples and to which I would add much of what is memorable in modern poetry; and 3) Personal mythmaking -- whereby the poet constructs over time a system of images and personal (more than cultural) references that with familiarity become understandable and meaningful, citing Yeats and Blake as examples. How to make this formulation useful.

A second formulation by Bloom discusses poetic figures or the indirect means by which poetry uncovers truth, dancing with and romancing language rather than wrestling and pinning it down like philosophy tries. There are four: 1) Irony or saying one thing and meaning another, usually the opposite; 2) Symbol (synecdoche) or making one thing stand for another; 3) Contiguity (metonymy) or using an aspect or quality of something to represent the whole; and 4) Metaphor or transferring the qualities or associations of one thing to another.

Meanwhile, here's my **** poetica:

1) Poetry is an acquired taste, like golf or wine, with no obligation to appreciate it.

2) Poetry is divination; prose explains what we think we know but poetry discovers what we didn't know we thought.

3) Poetry is one of many man-made systems, like baseball or the scientific method, for producing knowledge, meaning and pleasure. Or are they all natural as ***?

4) Of all the other arts, poetry is most like sculpture; the word "poem" comes from the Indo- European root meaning "to make, to build."

5) It is impossible to write exactly what you mean or be accurately understood; poetry uses this to its advantage.

6) Line length -- enjambment -- is the single most important feature of poetry.

7) Poems are made from ideas; poetry is philosophy but where philosophy wrestles language down, poetry romances language.

8) Meaning is the most important product of poetry but it's completely personal; poems almost always say one thing and mean another but the poet often doesn't know what he meant.

9) It is almost impossible not to rhyme or write rhythmically in English or any other language.

10) The forms poets use are how the poet gets to his truth and are basically arbitrary choices.

11) Poems may be difficult and complex and irrational but they must be comprehensible.

12) Just describing the action of the poem will take you where you need to go.

I encourage you to abandon your faith
imagine the uncondonable
do the unpardonable
and rest in the arms of father mountain

I encourage you to go beyond your thoughts
appeal to your animalistic self
let go of your inhibitions
and tear me up in bed

I encourage you to try the impossible
reach the corners of your body
where pleasure is indigenous
where there will never be colonization

I encourage you to learn a new language
to not be patriotic
and worship your own flesh
resist majoritarian temptation
and dig an altar to yourself

I encourage you to love me
without strings, with no chains,
corral me, make me struggle,
and deep your soul within my veins

love me whole
sin fragmentations
love me across borders
without concessions
with negotiations
and complications

I encourage you to love.

There's nothing worse on God's green earth
Than a woman with ultimate power
She'll time you when you sit on the throne
And it better not take an hour

Imagine if there was a Woman ******
Man would we be *******
You know, a woman who thinks she knows it all
But you would still swear she's a dude

A dinky little mustache beneath her nose
And a unibrow that looks like it's winkin'
I never noticed but the stubble on her chin
Kinda looks a little like Abraham Lincoln

This Woman ****** will change the world
And make slaves of all the men
She'd make a decloration that watching football
Would be the unpardonable sin

I bet you didn't know if you rearrange the letters
She's known to one and all
Just rearrange the letters in Woman ******
It's gonna spell Mother in law

******.
A symbol of denial, congeniality, and assurance of love;
the fate of maternity, motherhood, that is witnessed
and cherished from afar.
From a sacred little haven;
from a struggle of motherly defense.

O ******!
Temptations are to you never a bother,
in the tempests of lush dreams,
the draining of purity,
and veritable sensations.
Steadiness is your notion;
it barely leaves your mind
you may be deeply hurt
but never hurt,
you may be a stranger
but your grace is your power.

Truth that is unpardonable,
veraciousness at my simplest words,
clarity that is gleaming in your eye,
a token of pleasure but indestructible affection;
adorable as you are,
serenity is beyond question;
dreams are but inseparable from your docile life.
O ******, the sweetness and gentleness of thy eyes
are my irreplaceable silence,
my appraised soul,
and my most resolute
and irrepressible invocation.

O ******, one that is so rare a rose
Many as in the May-day dance are tainted;
marks of annoyance, omens of indulgence.
With hunger for nothing but moans;
unsober groans, and quickening breaths in paces of outward satisfaction;
intoxicated desires but unloving movements;
on the grounds for endless dancing;
there is the thirst for grips, the grossest of stateliness!
Voluptuous romance, perfidious touches, and
false-hearted toys!
In the wakeful dreams of which
I long for you, a handful of thy chastest kisses!
I pray for your hands, so delicate
as mine, how they shall fit into each other!
I long for your lips, your spotless, uncorrupted cheeks,
My demand is for your hands;
for sanity, and sincerest cordiality
Despite of my guilt and former unconsciousness
I shall amend my grief for you,
for you only,
for oureth perfect, unconquerable happiness,
and the union of our souls
in a day of holy matrimony.

I am the master of my own mind
I beset my tears, I conquer my sadness
I am devoted to this world
To this very world in which I dwell
and to which my soul is admitted
Sometimes I hear my words
Fly around and again
within t'ese violent shades
about my head: as I walk by curious moonlight,
sunbeams, in 'ose solitary moods and emblems
of t'is silent quiet of th' night.
How can I be so lonely-and bathed in distress-
in t'is lovely yet calamitous winter?
How can I be so destitute and untouchable-
unlovable-unaffectionate, indeed!-without my very own
admired thee?
My soul is dejected; condemned and cursed
by th' entirety of destiny-oh, how I am accustomed to
t'is pain, and its inflamed tongue, burning mercilessly
in t'ose succulent perambulations throughout
th' volatile streets-yes, upon and across th' bridge-
what a vile remembrance, where but t'is poem
is my only vivid 'muchness'-and consolation. If only a wren
could be deemed my messenger, let her but decoy t'is
dubious fate-and bring me to slip into her arms-
thin and steep but with a fond predilection for my desires-
with consideration for our feelings-and carry within her wings
a letter from these longings, beneath
the cradling hands of the moon-yes, t'at hectic,
vivacious moon-who is lurking behind me
like a moronic shadow. Its chaotic abode-aye,
chaotic as it once was, is now unamused-and plastered
into th' surly noon, it is despaired-utterly despaired,
and deprived of love-look at how t'at wealth of serene eyes
swim around thirst, in such unwonted lullabies, and its
famished shrine! What a dejected old
sanctuary it must be-infamous and credulous to oddity, but again
fuels my anger on, amidst th' moonbeam t'at is now gone.
But I still can't find thee, querida.

Tell me, then, how shalt I spend t'is azure night without thee?
Without thee, querida, my soul is but solemn and vain;
as though I've lost my brain-and my shell's 'bout to drain-
yes, 'tis t'at no delight, but worries-in me.
And no shield is to protect t'at,
as thou, my love, art in a dream, but far, far away.
I am only consoled by t'ese remnants, o, of my infatuation-
of t'is incarcerated, forbidden love-for thee!
My very thee, who should be curling up comfortably-
like a childish moist in my arms-
in my simpering abyss, and therefore sends it into
flickers, and doesth it die-hence, forces its dread, and stubbornness
to obey! O thee, th' fixated spirit to my wondrous imagination-
and th' anxious bits of my sublime inspiration-truthfully, indeed!
How in this quieted recluse
I long for but one piece of shine-yes, just
one piece of which-to be my guiding star,
and the torch of my robbed path.
My stolen state-and luminous gravity, as dim as the mocked
aspiration, is but never to shower again-
t'at earth with smiling rain-and th'  invigorating soil 'neath
my feet-upon which I trample in deadly haste.
But my hands are scanty-and my heart is dry; that is
but admiringly undeniable;
I am indulged by my own fear, abhorrence,
and dangerous imagination. I am but without my lover-
o, thee, o my solitary prince, doth thou heareth of my
wail? I scream and scream in t'is unforgiving agony,
but thou hath not been here, lost in th' middle of nowhere
like an unnamed being-but belonging to some other's
charms, I know! But still I crave for thee-just thy eyes,
yes-those dripping blackness whose temptation is like
a cave, an invitation to deep, deeper soliloquy down its
poisonous hole. How I am shrinking into this dream again-
a wild, wild dream of seclusion, which I look upon
in frustrated reproof; thou art the symbol of its daintiness-
and thorns of delicacy-but t'at someone else! Some other
dame whose heart dearly belongs to thee-and o, how enviable t'is
object of endurance might be. How deserving of my remorse-unwilling
as my being might be, to give it. Still , out of even the shallowest comprehension-
when the sun glows over me, I will long for but thee-over the morning dews
of the river, far from insanity, will I stand there anew,
and in freshness glint at thy stateliness
in unpardonable profusion.

On t'is very still do I sit, with t'at grumpy book in my lap-
words carved nearly are as picturesque as th' beautiful heaven.
I hope but thou could heareth me-thou whose voice is like a
hint of lavender-painted in th' ballads of my heart forever.
My song, my song! Undergone a faithful revision-
towards a masculine spring of reason,
and demands a sudden but mature completion.
How I still sing for thee!
Like a bee who chases a loveless but unbending sunflower,
sipping all its empowering delight-that is but how I shall wait for thee-
in t'is passion and strong conviction for truth-
that thou wilt embrace me, as thy own queen of ardour
beneath t'is forthcoming spring, o, my knight-
and all t'is love, and love indeed-as th' very endlessness
of thy splendor.

an unpardonable aberration
in possession of an adrenalized
dynamism of energy
which emerges
like that of the dirt on my face
but cannot hide
the strangulation of my hair
nor the red that fires my fingers
nor the desire or physical location
of my marvellous sexuality
or the ink that bleeds from my nose
when the excitement of creation
reaches its unmonitored theft  
of psychophysical *******
of writing upon the page
those elusive words that once written
become an imagined ****** fantasy
blurred but cannot be retained
for the words must be free
free to be the poem, to be themselves
to be ourselves

Thou said I'd killed thee-then haunt me! The murdered do look for their murderers. Do find me, capture me, and seize me-until I am no more! Until all t'ose resentments are conquered; and th' due satisfaction is approached! How I am but ready for 'tis-for I now can see even t'ose roaring flames in thy *****-thy lifeless, inanimate *****-o, thy ghost! My poor-dreary love! But why doth thou hath just to release it right now? Thou wert no more than a vapour. A silence! An undreamed thought-yes, despite how I sobbed over thy ignorance, thy blandness towards me! I who was unjustly a piece of willful visage in thy mind-a fracture on th' soil thou mercilessly cracked-a wailing fragment, unheard by t'ose passers-by, unrecognised by th' wind! Terrified in t' steepness I could look around-but insignificant as I was, I hath no right to claim any attention-I was by birth a stone to t'ose young buds-leaning against their flower mothers so tightly, so scared and petrified were their looks-upon my gently-but alarming, steps! How I was a crust to warmth, unbinding and unyielding in every step, glowered at by t'ose thirsty stems-and their green abodes! How crushed I was by my own nature-and to my despondency, by my own fiery passion! Thou wert so distant to me-thou wert a prince from a faraway castle-unreachable to my loveless realm-I could only, in t'ose wakeful jests-dream of thee! T'ose solitary walks we took, as part of our serene perambulations, but in every retrospect, also part of my wildest dreams! At those silent, barbaric hours! And how I regretted when which wert admonished! How my waves of anger would be roused against me-and my lilac-scented pillow-I wanted, in those wraths-grasped my little gun-t'at very kind, and sometimes sweaty-lil' gun, with t'ose uncomprehending steel layers, and strangle th' neck of each of th' intruder: I was glowing with fury! Insidious and pernicious my soul was-but inevitable as to the love I nurtured. The love that would be adequate to me, and its loss hath left me in 'tis shameful, disgraceful, and unpardonable lifelong longing, and incarceration. How isolated I hath been now-for t'ose unimaginable y'rs-how unfair! Resentful ist my heart-grudge is th' only will it can beareth! O my lost love! My prince! My young, mirthful treasure! But I recall how solemn thou wert to me-and cold-tempered in thy redolent sophistication-thou neglected me! Thou killed the flame that had been lighting up my mindth-thou wert the one who fled from me! Aye! Thou wert the one who relented-who adversely tore t'ose flo'ers of my heart; thy quietness sent them into a hurried, mysterious death! Like an earthquake flitting apart th' moons at a blissful night-and enduing th' soil with bursts of cold horror-thou passivity in t'ose very moments-wert but tragic yet unmistakably obscure! O my soul that was ripped apart-just as thine! How dead we became-and still, areth now-how inanimate! Of bliss have our languid joys have been deprived, its remains doth we have no more-no, in our but only dying embers. And how their momentary torch mocks us! How bashful, and unlovable! O but my love is torn. Wholly torn. As how a pool of blood is th' produce of a sword of honour-that is how it is now-and was it swerved astray from its cherry, back then-its very own romance-which hath been so full of ****** youth, to taste agony! Agony as it was-but th' only reward to my suffered love, when I could feed on thy sight no more-thy movements were a nameless leave-threatened by the glaring autumn, and killed by th' ragged winter-my holy love was slaughtered! Now that thou hath known how dead I am-and my feelings are, how I am unseen by most of yon ingress and egress of t' others-t'ose vile, and reprehensive b'ings-with t'ose unthoughtful, and abhorred shortcomings-pallidness and sickly merriment in t'ose eyes-o, what falsehood, what falsehood! I despise th' sight o' 'em-daemons they are, hellish are their souls! **** me, my darling, slander me now, and bring me back into thy world! For th' world I belong to is th' one with thee, my dearest-I do not mind being a ghost, and am unafraid of its vagueness-I'm not! And together shall we traverse th' earth-enjoy but only our keenly desired brambles-t'ose ones we could not partake of, as healthy refreshments to our souls-in t'ose sickly, tumultuous lifetimes-t'ose brazen years! I am thus indebted to thee-t'ese guilt and pleasure, as both thy own'th remorse and treasure-I declare as thine, only thine! Be with me always, since we'll occupy ourselves together-and taking any form, we'll drive each other mad by our passioneth-and grasp all 'ose happiness we've always wanly desired! Love me back, o love me back, my prince! Only don't leave me alone in 'tis abyss, where I cannot find thee...'

If I could blame it all on the weather,
the snow like the cadaver's table,
the trees turned into knitting needles,
the ground as hard as a frozen haddock,
the pond wearing its mustache of frost.
If I could blame conditions on that,
if I could blame the hearts of strangers
striding muffled down the street,
or blame the dogs, every color,
sniffing each other
and ******* on the doorstep...
If I could blame the bosses
and the presidents for
their unpardonable songs...
If I could blame it on all
the mothers and fathers of the world,
they of the lessons, the pellets of power,
they of the love surrounding you like batter...
Blame it on God perhaps?
He of the first opening
that pushed us all into our first mistakes?
No, I'll blame it on Man
For Man is God
and man is eating the earth up
like a candy bar
and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean
for it is known he will gulp it all down.
The stars (possibly) are safe.
At least for the moment.
The stars are pears
that no one can reach,
even for a wedding.

Perhaps for a death.

Once they were remembered
As beauteous blue-eyed angels
Who assiduously
Served the creator
Once thought of as the holy ones
Who shone the brightest
Free will and they chose evil
The fallen and their father
Whose actions
Gave way to torment
All the unpardonable sins
They committed
In the age
When atrocity prevailed

Now all they seek
Is retribution
Sparse and angry
Gliding in the skies
With rayless halos
And ruptured wings
Listen as God cries
At what has become
Of his creation.

in the hall, I listen as she calls out
his name

not aware I am there,
nor would she care

if I open the door without making
a sound,

I purloin a few seconds to watch her
before she sees me

when her eyes catch mine,
she looks away

the morning sun makes a sympathetic effort
to light our room

"our" room which from which I have
been excommunicated

the drapes she sewed only last summer
are never open

that is her world, staring through
baby blue curtains

which mute the half light of morning,
though not enough

not enough to blind her to the spot
where her son's crib waited

until I committed the unpardonable
sin of taking it to the cold cellar

only a fortnight after our stillborn child
was placed in the ground

What sins have we committed, what unpardonable crime
To have brought such desolation to this once fertile plain?
(The only time we’ve ever known has been this burlap time.)

We receive no epiphanies, no glimpse of the sublime;
Just great black walls of dust and grime again and yet again.
What sins have we committed, what unpardonable crime?

The wind and dirt makes madness of our days and our nighttime
For reasons that our governors and preachers can’t explain.
(The only time we’ve ever known has been this burlap time.)

We’ve topped the dead with crosses, covered dead stock with lime.
From whom should we seek redress,to whom do we complain?
What sins have we committed, what unpardonable crime?

And so we’re left this Sisyphean peak to try and climb;
There’s no rainfall to save the crops, no cash to purchase grain
(The only time we’ve ever known has been this burlap time.)

We’ve lost interest in the answers, the reason or the rhyme;
God has, it seems, forsaken us, has forsaken the rain
What sins have we committed, what unpardonable crime?
(The only time we’ve ever known has been this burlap time.)

As the fire burns me alive, it feasts upon my skin
greedily ******* the oxygen from my lungs
I can feel the heat licking at my body
It started at my feet
But it won't stop there...
I can feel the Smoke filling me
With every gasp my weak body forces me to take
I'm given no choice
As the Smoke saunters into my airways
Slithers down my lungs
Down to the very last alveolus.

As the endless coughing begins, I ponder my actions
I think of what I did to deserve this
I know what I did
I sinned
An unpardonable sin

I was me

The flames continue, though I ignore them
Although the trepidation inside me burns just as badly.

I will not regret.
Why would I regret doing the only thing I was ever good at?
I was me.

I cannot beg for mercy
But I can stare into their eyes
Into their judgmental souls
I see what they do not:
They are not them.
Not a single person among them is true to self.

I smile

I breath in this staunch air, heavier than the blanket
of breathlessness that I've been enveloped in
for days now
Maybe years even
I'm sure
I think

A single tear tries to offer me one last aqueous solace
Before it withers in the heat

I still can't believe it all had to go this far

I cannot beg for mercy
I won't pretend I'm sorry
I won't let myself down

It's my turn now.
I will light the way.

We have become a nation of Tennessee fainting goats,
muscles freezing in the panic of social discord,
poised on the cusp of dread, eyeing a mass grave.

In the end no one really dies, the only dilemma being unpardonable
poverty, needless hunger and children born with drug addiction,
pawns in a chess game of life lacking raison d'etre.

And shall I live my span leaving no mark upon history?
What occlusion obstructs human decency in this land of riches,
barricades the impassable gulf, as if echoing a distant waterfall?

I have walked this sidewalk to where it ends and seen the destitute.
How the poet in me shudders and like the fainting goat,
collapses in the sadness of our mutual story, our personal holocaust!

Dark places of the earth,
hearts of wild men
were all there,
guarding the door of Darkness.
Faithless pilgrims,
gand of virtue,
inspired uneasiness.
There is a taint of death
a flavor of morality
in this strange world.
Is it not frightful
all this energy was wasted
to the hidden evil
to the profound darkness
in its heart.
You lost your way,
the unpardonable sin,
evil or truth
black shadow of disease
inhabited devastation of
God-Forsaken wilderness.
Devil,
Devil of Greed,
Devil of Desires,
let an avenging fire consume
the earth.
(Cannibals)
How out of touch
a Fiend was in there.

Surrogate thoughts on unpardonable parchment / A counterfeit of reason / The Bastion of idiocy/

Dark places of the earth,
hearts of wild men
were all there,
guarding the door of Darkness.
Faithless pilgrims,
gand of virtue,
inspired uneasiness.
There is a taint of death
a flavor of morality
in this strange world.
Is it not frightful
all this energy was wasted
to the hidden evil
to the profound darkness
in its heart.
You lost your way,
the unpardonable sin,
evil or truth
black shadow of disease
inhabited devastation of
God-Forsaken wilderness.
Devil,
Devil of Greed,
Devil of Desires,
let an avenging fire consume
the earth.
(Cannibals)
How out of touch
a Fiend was in there.

Though I’m no thief - officially,
I did steal - and that was recently,
seizing a golden opportunity
as a moment of greed overtook me!
Oh woe is me!

I have no excuse for what I did,
my conscience was asleep or hid:
with no reason except - heaven forbid,
sensing the moment ripe.  I did!
Oh woe is me!

I make no excuses for my transgression:
or say it was nothing but obsession,
but please, exercise a degree of discretion,
when reading this public confession.
Oh woe is me!

When judging me, espouse no platitude,
rectitude, or ‘holier than thou’ attitude,
but by granting me a degree of latitude,
you’ll receive my everlasting gratitude.
Oh woe is me!

Though without prior intent to steal,
having the chance to think, and feel
the opportunity was there, my zeal
overcame my conscience’s appeal.
Oh woe is me!

You may well ask for a reason why
I allowed myself to steal?  I’ll not lie!
It was a moment which, in the by and by,
was perfectly opportune, and why I cry:
Oh woe is me!

Admittedly, the timing was prime.
Even so it was an unpardonable crime,
with effects affecting me, for a long time,
so I feel neither secure nor sublime!
Oh woe is me!
I no longer think it a minor infraction,
so a confession is my chosen action.
Taken to absolve myself, there’s no retraction
of this statement: no matter what the reaction!
Oh woe is me!

What may be the effect of my sinful intent:
or what may be considered just punishment,
by those who sit in righteous judgement
upon my fall from grace?  Never meant!
Oh woe is me!

My sin? I stole some ‘Time’ to write this verse!
Should you consider it bad, or even worse,
I must live with the knowledge this was a curse
to steal, even for reasons deviously perverse!
Oh woe is me!

I had an urgent need to write this rhyme,
on which I have spent the stolen “time”!
Perhaps you thought it a more heinous crime?
If so?  Shame on you!  You’re no paradigm!
I declare: Oh woe is thee!

Rhymer.  June 16th, 2018.

When they see you and guy a-walking,
They call it courtship;
When they see you and a guy a-talking,
They pass knowing smiles and well-meaning quips.

When both of you are a-quarrelling,
They say that the rough must come with the smooth;
Before long, one is a-sorrowing –
Not for the row (as they think) but over a lost tooth.

And then both of you stop seeing each other,
They think it such an unpardonable crime;
All that time trying to bring you together…
‘Tis a shame the wedding bells are ne’er to chime.

Heal the world with your magical touch O Savior,
Your supreme creation has become tired and ill.
For the sake of the old and the new
You come down,we have become weak.

We realised our wrongdoings as we have darkened your blue sky..
We choked your mighty oceans with plastics.
We filled your pure air with toxic fumes
We made your green world barren
Now we deserve to be rebuked

We are your transgressor

Our mistakes are unpardonable
Our sins are grave

But O Lord!
We need your forgiveness for those who have done good,
Sheltered the needy and saved the sick and offered food.
We need you for those who are born today
We need you for the mankind to stay.

Come down O Krishna in any form as we are in deep pain,
Come down ... O bountiful we need you again!!

Bina Mukherjee

Remember to keep walking, one foot in front of the other swiftly before they know you've left.
When you speak do not mouth the secretive mouthful, vain.
When you speak do not taste the vinegar coated words of your mother's pain.
Do not verbalize the syllable stitching your every idea together, you must maintain your body a simple shadow.
The temptation of your very own purple glossed nail,
The black sludge that lay inside your chest prohibited from moving but still steadily enveloping each cracking,decrepit bone and useless muscle given the smallest second guess.        
Dead on arrival you were but out with a bang; your throat holds one, two, three, four, five, six, seven blue finger prints that scream second best.
The unpardonable, aforementioned
Black sludge begging to leak out of all orifice's including your chapped lips -
Inevitably- will.
Cotton Candy sugar coated words and polite smiles beg not to be but are a continuous parade of premeditated happiness in a room that is filled.
When you speak dehumanize the thought process or you will surely stumble over misspoken words the way you tumble over the top step in a drunken stupor every Tuesday morning.
Determine through a handful of restless eyes the other flight risks competing with the sheep of the room who's uniform reply to your greeting may always be, "I've been alright."
Do not let on of the train derailing the tracks of the already unstable minds,
Do not let on of the shark toothed thoughts that bounce from cell to cell until complete consumption of the brain because you will then surely be left behind.

Tonight, the full moon looks so beautiful
that I am crying. I have lapsed on my knees,
the pulp of every love- shared. subscribed- streams
through follicles of unpardonable zest.
Nobody should know, but they end up aware
of the malpractical jingling pulling us
into the cartoon turbine that wants us first,
into the scratched longing poised in our collars.
Nobody should know, but they end up aware
of the unplanned lobotomy of wrong-
with opaque grunting, sure, maybe,
the necklaced ash-bath, the causal antibiotic for dummies
who dream about a bite instead of the consequence
of our bodies.
There's a full moon, and nobody should miss
on the engine-knock of our throat;
we've not loved for a while, but we still hug warmly
before we leave, smile at the odor of food,
spill it like the children we have never hated or loved but were,
clean up like the hankies we became.