Classic Poetry

Goddess Áine

Unfortunate clouds gather me from you

From you I perpetually flee

Tho’ once I in perpetuum flew

To your castle garden so well tended

And I a welcome guest

Now stand idealizing

Unmended without rest

I the God who strayed your path

Delve into my psyche of lang syne

Yesterdays and years away

I cannot find a way for us to begin

I cannot find a way for us to end

So feeble you have been

My hand effortlessly wraps around your wrist

Your hair a boyish cut shows thro’

The truest nature of the tryst

My winter evenings have been torrid

At the weak points of my thoughts 

Why is it that the season I can no longer wait for

Comes named as you whom I wreaked havoc

Broke arrow thro’ and sought

Try as I may to change and alter meanings

Of things been and things being

It will ne’er more succeed

Than these clouds you hold up letting me down gently

Gently I ask you

Gently I pray

Our sanctions misty and echoing actions of the deceased

Merge freely from your open head

We will not speak and yet it is thus

That I am we

Poets Sold 

Among the ebony

In papyrus sweetly snared

I divvy the confabulation

They find it witty-

I find it marred

I pen it out in gold

For the gods of reason

In my logic to clearly see

Unblighted by the words of geniuses

Büchner, Bakunin, Baggini-

Each iamb is a versification of the Divine

I feel the rise and fall of pulsation

Hands upon hands in every line

Avast!

My ship hits cove and I,

Lonely captain and armored knight,

Return from the holy-less crusade

A blank and ebbing paper

The kings and queens will at no time read;

Or scan, or skim, or take any heed

I sailed in twelve hundred and sixty one

Further west from the feudalists

And the Byzantine monks

Until Time outran me uncounted years

When I arrived, there was but a tree

Varnished in pure human originality

Wrapped and coiled to the heavens

In papyrus and Roman ebony

To plead “Father tell me not that my verse is unworthy!”

The common man came from far and wide

To tear its limbs and transform it how he likes

Sawing and gluing

Standing back with his thumb out

To see that he got it just so, just right

I threw my arms out to protect it enraged

“If things can be,

They can be!”

A Fallen Frame

The empty hallway lay barren

Musk and webs intoxicating every millimeter, centimeter;

Inches

Not far from Rome over the southern sea

Italianate and luminescent

A palace frail does lie

Over rocks and above trees gathering to perform their witchcraft

What beauty is this-

The waving of a single tree where there are many;

The wind will choose its favorites;

A crack straight through the frescoes

Orange and red of midnight suns and colors faded in Arabic hands;

Modern-day Persia and its grandeur

A past relic the palace in essence beholds

Balconies that stretch to yonder treetop and yonder cove

Alas the insects creep away by day and by night

The blood-thirsty screech inanely to Beelzebub

And the tree creatures retire to the coves and wander

Closely to the balconies outreaching miles

We dance and plight away the hours on untiring toes

Toes nimble and quick to lift us above the tiled floors

Over the mess of squirming leaves brushing deadly

Over pallid cheekbones dry and human-less

Yes, we rest before the sun and after

We ride the gusts of air

Wandering aimlessly through our gowns of dust and mold

Feeding off the living;

Living and breathing emotions of a forgotten era

We fill in cracks as we float past the frescoes

Cleansing the stairs of washed up limbs

Tilting the portraits just so

Removing the fallen frames of winter to make room;

Make way for our season of gold

Archetypal Existence

Wasted on this last pearl of liquid stench

In my nostril fills a rumor subtle on the wind

Hard against the pavement, ribs digging in

To the iron streetlamp

Jump at sounds, and startled at sounds

My eyelids flicker

Logic sees opaquely and vaguely that the world is barren

I hope my pages are still scattered in the street

A rustle reassuring at my head

Myriads of words to tell you plainly

The living and the dying were never

Are never deceiving

I sit against this post whence light spills

From where I know not

All the same I watch with the reflections in my retina

Filling over like tears of white starch

Papers pour in and around me

In and around to bury me

A living breathing being to consume me

Assume me in all of it’s shame

For not once receiving anything devoid of false recognition

So crumpled and inane

My scribbles came to be

Flowing freely of the world’s veins

To never circulate into the hands of another

I, keen and closely, contemplate callously

The movement of these leaves

Like leaves to be torn and tread upon

It is the thought of walking that makes

Their footsteps exist

And I remember once when I walked upon reality

The humans reading and thinking all that was not me

And I a collective unknown

Her Ivory Skin

Her ivory skin I ne’er saw nor touched

She being very real appeared to me

On a screen of black and white sound;

A mere photograph moving

Coerced by the lightest of dark magic

I have seen her as many characters

I have seen her and grown old

When I was a child her thin limbs and black hair

Attracted me in each role

Against her I am but a disgrace to my gender

A gender portrayed as angelic and bold

Bold, perhaps

If I could but cut my spirit from my soul

By hard and hankered knife

Release a blood that in her would be the same

In her ivory skin I could remain

Of all the people her skin hath folded over

The writer- passionate and rare

A scene of books old and attics strewn

With paper thoughts and fancies-

Would undoubtedly set me afire

But to walk as her;

In her;

Not about her or below her

Not beneath the floorboards

Stretching fingers to her toes

Even as the voice interpreting these thoughts speaks

Her voice is the ink and ebony of this paper

And I am the puppet attached to the strings

That pour from one master who has played as all

I could live a lifetime writing solemnly

As the bones entangled and moving

Beneath her ivory soul

King of Guile

Almighty Tippet hanging just over the throne

Preordained to be silken around my gullet hung

O Religion I condemn thee!

All that is the salt of the Earth-

Your wanton acceptance of asinine fancies

When He docked on the Native shores in 1498

Were they viably there?

For we must be among the Dichter und Denker

For the sake of our conscience

And you cannot see beyond the trepid end of your nose

How you wipe the smear of false innocence

Over the hairs of your enemies

In court you would swear friends

The monks in your honor and fear of your scourge

Repaint the only book ever sold

For those that are brothers up front

And in back the serfdom of old

How I cower being ever so close to the fire

That many hands has set ablaze

Athwart states from Parma to Sicily

O their most holy cause is ventured

That will ne’er bring back their holy ghost

But to die and find not another day awaken

Beyond that in which was stolen their breath

Over which you shadow; swarming desert locus

I myself would gladly kneel to welcome your smite

To say aloud amidst the herd “If not we know

How is it right?”

Ode to Black Adder

Ode to Black Adder

Ode to the ode-less

Satirical soothsayer who has foreseen my woes

How it strains thee to be superior

With common intellect not so reciprocal

It too strains myself

You are a thief and a shyster

Which does not say much whereas we all are

The concoction of plant and animal and parasite

Tell me by what method we are not

Threadbare for a culture to prey upon with laughter

I laugh at you dear sir

As we should all take merriment of our beings

Being daft all around

That I am not

What makes a saint

No one who would gladly shake hands with a leper

And I, being no leper, must be a saint

The common wealth of the world

Would have a saint be noble and one-track minded

Though they sin with the flies and the beetles

The asses and the mares

Why should Zeno and Epicurus not be saintly

I would hand them my hands on a silver platter

My hands that transfigure these cast out thoughts

Into things material

O Adder Black

How heinous we exist

For seeing all but what the faithful see

For seeing that we will not see pre- or postliminary

Death does not concern us

Because as long as we exist

Death is not here

And when it does come

We no longer exist

Over the Clouded Palisade

Yonder this hellish palisade

Of demon clouds you fill anew

Cannoned by the past I abetted within your breast

Strikingly unstricken I am with fear

I beg to embrace your angel’s skin and blush

Watercolor Hair and eyes so simple and mourning

The morrow will not awaken

The pale that bones of lilies shine thro’

Were once laid out across a marshy field

And I too holy would not reason to lay beside you

The Kings of Guile

Part 1

A jaded man tousled in earthen rags

Crouches thro’ crackling berry shrubs 

To emissary a procession of horned figures wading 

Betwixt the nightly wood and the hutch 

Where the men martyred his gentle wife

For calling saint to her aid and giving no fief  

“Halt thee, scoundrels!” the Jaded Man calls

The horned figures round with a slash

Not a sword missed his head 

And he falls

The Lowbrows cross over a stone hill

Where they enter and latch a wooden door outside 

One by one they take seats ‘round a dirty table

There is no king and amongst them they must decide

“Righteous Marasmius will live forever in our hearts!”

The thieves all cry

“He would deem I the rightful leader!”

“Tush and Poppycock! I di’nt lose this eye for nothing!” 

“Now men, now really. Who was it that struck that 

cackling old hag and her miser?”

“Why you scoundrel! That ‘twas I!”

“‘Twas I!” 

“‘Twas I!” 

“‘Twas I!”

Part 2

A frightened maiden breaks among the trees and the brook 

In flight from her master that would have both hands

For the spilling of a bucket 

O she must run quick 

Head over heels she falls and tumbles 

A man lay in her stead with wet earthen rags 

Which she pulls and she tugs off his stiff dead limbs

Just swiftly enough to roll herself into the bushes

As the lord’s seneschal rides by

Fair maiden trudges on towards a stone hill

A resounding echo of screams in the night air

Horrid drunk men to hide herself amidst 

She cuts to her shoulders every long tuft of hair

The seneschal’s horse having gone a divergent path

Now materializes galloping past as she throws up the latch

And the door carries wind through the archway

Thrusting her down upon its close 

“Scoundrel! Sleuth! Of with his head!”

“No! Wait, please!”

The maiden trimmers and broods a cunning appeal

“I know I have sinned!

I know I am a thieving minstrel 

That does no good!

I know I have killed a poor farmer and his wife!

Yet I beseech thee to spare me!

For I am a wayward soul!”

The barbarians pass a horrifying look around the table 

The two that stood with sword in hand hoist her up

And seat her at the far end

Then all kneel at their swords and hurrah to the heavens

“This is our king! The King of Guile!

Praise the king! The King of Guile!”

A gush of air swifts below the door

The seneschal drops from his horse and throws it open wide

“Hear you maiden! My master will not stand for this!”

A dozen swords now surround her neck

Terror-stricken she yields to the floor 

And grants them take her and sling her over a horse

The seneschal remains dumbstruck within the den’s archway

The thieves gallop away to the distance

Where the English Castle stands

A moat they cross and yell to the guards

“A traitor we do hold!”

And enter to the bailey where the guillotine hides

The maiden pleads “My hands, take my hands!”

As the men release the blade by rope

Ever so slowly and painfully she dies  

The Library of Saint Saëns

On a lowland within the valley

Betwixt mountainous green against pallid sky

I came forth thro’ trees of pine and needle

A dear novel grasped firm and unbending;

Rucksack clenched in my white-fired hands

A watery mirror received me at the lake edge

I did not appear, only still gray fragments overhead;

The fragments began to shatter

As my eye hobbled over the thought of a breaking earth above

The water moved at my torn leather feet

The wavelets curled alike fiery strands of pearls

And the far off illumination of lanterns dotted the forest behind 

Undaunted I sat astutely on knee at the brink

When a hand of Adam’s ale lifted my book from my loosened body

The halloos of hunters and dogs materialized;

Peripherals of time impinged ever so slightly

In the quick avast of echoes

The men were no more

Alone with the water I strew my bag aside

And held my hand over the stolen echoes of the lake

The waters ceased to tremble at my touch

Deep in the icy hallow my finger bled

Seemingly the blood of a needle prick

The gray was ever fainter with the ensuing night

Black as all deep and hidden places a spire rose;

A magnificent iron gate towered aloft

Encircling the lake and all of its wonders

Amidst the silence of the sharp black rod-work

A castle unlike any surviving grew

Like weeds of the sea it reigned into the dark

When all at once the rays finally vanished

And I was knee-deep at the entrance without a footing I could see

My ears resounded the creaking of the gate

My ears called upon my feet at the marble flooring

When I entered through the mysterious doors

Two flames wrought from a tall stone column lit my entrance

I walked as torches and candelabras flared upon my steps

The castle was simple and mirrored like stray glances

To and fro past wooden doors yet no staircases;

A towering frame and blank elegance;

An extensive great hall

Until belatedly the last lights lighted

Did the stairs reveal themselves unto me

Delved into a round niche curving high into worldly tapestries

I jauntily gained the steep incline

The persons unknown woven and unmoved whispered

Progressively as I scaled the firm tower walls

Not once did I turn to face them eye to eye

But as they spoke, the unmoved augmented motion

At the landing a door not of wood but of glass yielded

I paused with my fingertips on the knob-less frame

No light followed my path to here

And I could see only a faint reflection of windows

Moon rays gallivanting over silhouetted figures

Rectangular and high-reaching

As the glimmering glass unfolds the room to me

I find shelves of books caressing oaken planks

Volumes of intrigue and the subtle wonder

Of the happenings of my novel

Like a tunnel upward the outer shelves coiled from my reach

Colorful leather binding obscured by iron-hatched glass

Where the smoke of the torches rose to

I knew not

I found a ladder and slid my feet into its rungs

Ever surpassing it became

And where one ended another began

The top no matter how I would beg would not descend

Alas I grew weary of my bounding

Alas the ethereal fires I left below gathered around me

As I fell backwards watching the books ascend to the moonlit roof

Landing airily over the feather waves

Sinking tiredly into the crystal sand on the watery bottom

Through the veiling and unveiling of the ringlets of moon

I last glimpsed the fading image of Saint Saëns’ library

The Palace on the Fall

Panes reflect drab blue and brown hues

From the sun setting on the silent tide

The edge of the fall spills over

Around the dungeon the water rides

Swiftly yet it dances

In the panes of crystalline

Spires so sharp reach above the aqueduct

That lines the edge of the watery plateau

A solemn rock emerges to catch the steps

That lead to the barren courtyard below

You wind thro’ towers and under cramped stair cases

You wind thro’ dimly lit libraries and astrological nooks

Not so close to the top you look out

From around the roman clock

Three well-kept trees among the courtyard

All you can see along the skyline

As if the trees are indeed afloat

No gentler breath of sea-air hath come

From anywhere but the rocks undertow

So shallowly laid

So far from the green lands that sway

Shadowy charades at evensong

The castle is but a whisper

A whisper of the clouds that make you circle

If you stand fearfully close to the edge

A hand firmly grasping one of the trees

O do not venture over

O do not give it but a glance

Walk westward into the corridor that deepens in its gloom

As the sun lays down its mighty rays to rest

Panes so luminescent at the moment it fades

And the burning wax guides you

Thro’ every window that is a painting

Showing the most elegant tapestries and furnitures

Showing images of people in the vagrant runes

The incessant voices of the libraries old

Books bound in you with a story beyond each door

The knowledge of what is past the wide and falling river

Is haunting, lying in the tapestries on every wall

The moon shivers over the dimming candles

They are not needed with such arrant light

But O the brilliant tiled halls with luminous chandeliers

How it all towers before your feet

Seems to gobble up your toes

And where the servants might have been

You are alone yourself

Yet at ease with the way your golden hair

Seeps into the pillows of the colorful cushioned tower

Higher than the others

Where thoughts even more lofty are your dower

Down, down, it all goes

At an end in the morning river wavelets

Clear and burning yellow like the candles

The tips caressing each stone

One day, one room, the next another

You live as someone else to pass the time

And script out letters on every inner cover

To drift without drifting too far awry

You run and leap just to see the patterns behind you fly

As you once flew

Into the flocks of Mediterranean birds

That weave about the aqueduct when the shore flowers

Do bloom

Too quickly you lose provisions

Too often the woods adjure you

Riding out atop the quaking arches into the animal kingdom

Returning with bow in hand and pheasant in satchel

Or perhaps overlooking the courtyard

Walking keenly upon its edges

How abruptly you will find your doom