Poetry

An Irish Airman foresees his Death

I KNOW that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Song of a Goatherder.
(To my neighbor Theocritus of Syracusa.)

Here I lie, sick to my stomach —
Eaten by bugs.
And over there still light and noise:
I hear them dancing.

At this hour, she wanted
To sneak off with me:
Like a dog I wait —
But no sign comes!

She swore on the cross!
How could she lie?
Or does she run after everyone,
Just like my goats?

Where's her silken skirt?
Ah, my pride —
Does it still live as many a ram
In these woods?

How curled and poisonous love
Makes one in the waiting —
Like toadstools, in the stifling night,
Growing in the garden.

Love consumes me
Like a seventh hell —
I eat almost nothing,
Onions, farewell!

Into the sea the moon wanes,
The stars fade away,
Along comes the gray day —
I would like to die.

Ghazals of Hafiz

352. Separation

May none be shattered like me by the woes of separation;
My life has passed by wasted by the throes of separation.

Exited stranger, lover, heartsick beggar, mind bewildered;
I've shouldered brunt of Fortune and blows of separation.

If ever separation should fall into my hand I will kill it;
With tears, in blood, I will pay all the dues of separation.

Where to go, what to do, who to tell my heart's state to?
Who gives justice, who pays out, for those of separation?

From the pain of separation not a moment's peace is mine;
For the sake of God, be just, give the dues of separation.

By separation from Your Presence I'll make separation sick,
Until the heart's blood flows from the eyes of separation.

From where am I and from where are separation and grief?
Seems my mother bore me for grief that grows of separation.

Therefore, at day and at night, branded by love, like Hafiz,
With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs, woes of separation.


Translator: Smith, P. Divan of Hafiz.

A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Love in this country

Love in this country
is not a matter of passion,
the high romance
that best-selling novels might be written about,
or adolescent sulks
made better with pop candy and counselling.

No, none of that.

Love in this country
is purely about survival,
and that is a matter of passion.

It is what a woman feels
seeing her man off to battle,
wanting him to win
and hoping he won't get killed doing it.

It is what a man thinks
when he crouches with his rifle
and prays that his home isn't in ruins
and his family lost or butchered.

And it is in a tin of food
a roll of bandages
a syringe of penicillin
a drink of water.

Anything.

Even in teaching that naked toddler
we found in the holocaust
how to wipe her own backside.


Colin Mackay, Cold Night Lullaby

Darling let us wean a type
Of mixture of us 2.
Offer up your genotype
& shuffle our codes anew
Let me extend my phenotype
Deep inside of you


https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins

Hemorrhaging

That from which the pulse beats
As drums bashing repeatedly
With a wild stare, an accompanied blush
The distant scape beckons

Raw energy, expansive space
Running forwards, spinning
Waving arms in all directions
Felling trees, launching an axe

This is when the adrenaline really spouts
Now racing straight
Continuing past the fires
Snake veins and an eight stroke heart

Spent scapes left behind
Along an unseen path
Demarcated, well demarcated
Unseen through bloodshot eyes

....

"My Goddddddddd, this takes me to eternity and back"
Shuffling and coiling, along the red production line
Steam and grease and iron spinning
Past waking hours, lust knows no rest

Work, as a door, fist marks, indentations
Then, as the pavement, head marks, concussions
What's left for sleep is passed over
Bricks bashed in with the face

"Maaaaake it more, take more, mooorree, Goddamn...."
Head, hands, face peeling time from the mold
A bat and a screaming headache
Spinning Visage, broken drywall

Pulling the strings above
Stilted motions of strength
Making them move
To pull the roof in

....

Then that which stopped short
Standing still next to a rail and a river
Carefully observing it flow
In increasingly predictable streams

No purpose
Empty, as if anemic
Waiting silently even to death
Still, watching, listening

How do we recreate the early year when we were so light, and do so that our heaviness may melt as the snows did with the approach of Spring?

----------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FfTMh_Ytv0

From March 2013:

When you've reached the southern barrier you can stay
You can stay there, white sand and the shore
I did, many days, many nights, on white sand
Dreams sprinkled in the night of the shore
There too when I awoke
When teetering in the front of the southern barrier
Feel free to sway to each side
You are there, don't lose your balance

It was too much for me, the sea's rowing waves
I turned from the southern shore
It was the hardest thing I ever did
I looked northward and back
I could tell you what I saw then
As I walked away for the final time
My head turned back all the way

Sometimes you steal away in the night
In your dreams
When before you were on the shore
I can't fathom that, tell me if you know
I walked away, head turned back
Sparkling waters did not cease to dance
They didn't cease to charm the final moment
As the pass stooped over the bend
'Please look at what you are leaving
Look that we have accommodated you now'

Never had the water been so green
And they would whisper from afar
'These waters are now yours
You only live once, white sand green water'
Maybe not to return
I thought the hills were what I wanted
I would take them
I thought they were what lied in the southern barrier
The hills were elsewhere and they weren't what I wanted
I wanted the shore, damnit
But, I left it because I must have,
Don't laugh; I must have knew something that I didn't
Maybe a smile'll be ok
Damnit the shore's waves still haunt me

Sometimes I wake up in the morning
My dreams flowing in rythm with the shore
I've never experience the physical pain that some have
But, curses don't do justice to that morning aching
My life, I've know hate, I have, I do hate
No one deserves this though
To wake with the salt water still in your mouth

The desperate rush of the summers in your youth bleeding in your heart
I am now too dull a person to enjoy them, why must they bleed me
Tell me you've experienced worse, tell me that I know nothing
Let many years on a burning stake quinch those fires, those waves
Don't tell me they lie ahead for me, don't tell me you would dare
Let me lie, let me wake, but never, never tell me they will return
Just please, tell me.... tell meeee......... those dreams
Those mornings will stop

Tell me I'll never wake up with a sunburn on my cheek
Let me live, damnit, let me live without them
Memories so aquataneous they seer pain from my pours
Let me be crass, let me never wake up to them
I write this now afraid to go to sleep
Bastards, they go in cycles, I can never anticipate them

----------

"Heaven must of been beautiful then." - There Will Be Blood

When we're disposable beings, why do we lament the closing of Summer into Fall?

Muse tell of the winds and the stormy rains that swept down our sails and challenged the fine makings of our boats.
We were sailing ahead for the lands of unspoiled boar and bosomed women who are revered
and our hearts were full of the scent of salt which made us breathe faster and yearn for flesh
and the older men in the back of the boat cooked the fish they had caught, black fish with white meat
Wine was poured to bless the fish and the boat swerved suddenly and one man fell overboard
and then the lightning cracked open the cloud and before the thunder rolled I spoke
Muse tell of the winds and the stormy rains that swept down our sails and challenged the fine makings of our boats
Tell of the heroic lad who jumped the boat to rescue his kin and who used rope and was helped by Poseidon
And we drew the oars from underneath the benches and we rowed with great speed
The wind was in our favor after having ripped up our sails and we sung the song of the Windgod
The Skygod the Great god, the Mighty ruler of men who was born from the Wrathful Father
the king of the Bulls and the Eagles and all the fertile creatures who course in chase of their prey down long fields and skies, Zeus
Who gives us our daily feasts, for whom we make sacrifices, who gives noble men honor and holds sway over the immortal Gods.
Sing of us muse who were favored by the Windgod to reach the lands of the unspoiled boar
And by his brother who swallows men, whose anger is deep and rolls with everlasting vehemence.

Dying Like the Sun

There is the Rembrandt that hangs on the wall
To be something like the dust in
The corners of a wooden floor room that don’t
Serve anything useful

And the trees that bear leaves of some purpose
To be given a name and the roots that reach
To a limited ideal just to function

Of course there are the animals branching off into
Displays of pursuit and the selections made in
An either/or fashion just so the continuity
May transcend itself and become a mind
Or it could become something greater

And the wind at times twitches and there is
Not so much the feel of it as there is the
Remembrance of what it is
Like salt
Like water
Like death

Of course the words come
Only as a whisper though

And the rivers move to the sea where the earth
Still has potential and something might still
Be there but it won’t be an answer

And the overcast takes long tumultuous enormous
Strides and makes more promises than the Goddess
And the weight of it is soft and devouring
My eyes wander
My heart aches
And I wonder why I am still here.

**********************

Captains

Even when we didn’t understand why
We became outcasts to a world we
Had already mastered and drawn into our
Flasks for the steadfast journey away from
Their circles of black and white
We walk among the ruins denying every
Yolk we were born into because it created
Our destiny

We trekked those barren treacherous
Terrains that were abandoned by
The many and found nourishment
Untouched by the forced hands of
Mental bondage
Enduring with each and every step
The assault of the Sun’s harshest rays
Leathering our faces into stone
And the eagles discovered a
Reincarnation of their kin in us

Resisting because of nature not because
Of God
Simplicity puts us ahead of the curb
While complexity makes us more
Appreciative of it

Even while we acknowledge our
Limitations, our unbreakable
Tolerance for trying to cure them,
Is what sustains our reserve
But we do not need a cure
We long for one,
Our own

Always,
Always our own
So we walk into the blinding
Sun, eyes narrowed, callus hands grinding
Against the whipping wind
Knees and feet and bones and muscles
Aching with mockery
Our minds like mountains so vast they
Touch upon many things at once
Principles are like faith
Ours just differ by absolution
Sometimes, or most of the time
If we don’t want to,
We then become soldiers

Side by side we walk
Away from the palaces and
The sultans and the harps and the
Fruit and the silk spinning in the air
Away, and then against

Against the executioner and the
Ankle ball and chain and the wheel
Of chaos
Against the word
Against theory and conclusion and
Salvation
Against our most inner spirit
Because it is a universal one

Conflict is our sustenance
And when we rest underneath
A painted sky
And our words echo in an
Abyss,
And even if we don’t have an answer,
We grin
*************************
Lone Wolf

Trekking miles of the barren isolation of his soul-a metamorphosis,
He becomes a wolf among the idea of wolves,
A strange anomaly, a rift in the placidity of the water,
Detected only faintly like the memory of a pleasant scent,
The exception becomes the opposition,
The vague sense of his presence intrigues and his reluctance of inclusion,
Confuses;
The ambivalence of the pack becomes resentment,
Necessity is the only reason to persecute him,
His eyes disturb the union of the pack,
His distant howl speaks of its essence,
He is needful but also accursed with the capacity to overcome,
The streams offer more than the quench of thirst but the camaraderie
Of peace and even freedom,
The resemblance of the pack takes on that of the sheep,
His existence becomes determined by the preservation of himself,
Against all despair and challenges he endures,
He endures himself.

Quote :

Crow Blacker Than Ever

When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven,
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing heaven and earth together-

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank-
A horror beyond redemption.

The agony did not diminish.

Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony

Grew.

Crow

Grinned

Crying: "This is my Creation,"

Flying the black flag of himself. [Ted Hughes]

Lethe

Come to my heart, you tiger I adore.
You sullen monster, cruel and speechless spirit;
Into the thickness of your heavy mane
I want to plunge my trembling fingers' grip.

I want to hide the throbbing of my head
In your perfume, under those petticoats,
And breathe the musky scent of our old love,
The fading fragrance of the dying rose.

I want to sleep! to sleep and not to live!
And in a sleep as sweet as death, to dream
Of spreading out my kisses without shame
On your smooth body, bright with copper sheen.

If I would swallow down my softened sobs
It must be in your bed's profound abyss -
Forgetfulness is moistening your breath,
Lethe itself runs smoothly in your kiss.

My destiny, from now on my delight,
Is to obey as one who has been sent
To guiltless martyrdom, when all the while
His passion fans the flames of his torment.

My lips will suck the cure for bitterness:
Oblivion, nepenthe has its start
In the bewitching teats of those hard breasts,
That never have been harbour of a heart. [Baudelaire]

Bitch
—by Conghalaigh

i was inlove once
have proof
words
written in the scent of you
words
damn
i was hardcore in love
fool
eejet a madman
damn you life
for the lesson
for all that pain
to make me who i am
ohbloody
THINGS
youbitch whore of a life
could i not
just be a shepherd
herding sheep
inlove with me land
with its lore
and never scrambled by
the love of a woman
good
bad
hell
using excuses of humanity
for acts of faithlessness
eachone says
that first bitch ruined you for the rest of us
but hey honey
come here
listen up
YOU'RE A BITCH TOO
oh yeah
you love me
but i have seen love
and yourbrand is
typical
almost
1
2
3
love him
get him weak
then bite his head off
then wonder why i don't know how to love anymore
Bitch

can you hear me say i love you, with my hand shielding my face?
—by Conghalaigh

what's sad
is that i cannot write freely of love anymore
i tried it
in the naive past
love poems
and notes tucked in going-away bags
and was laughed off
was flat out ignored
you didn't rob me
because i gave me heart freely
but now
the fear is there
turning love poems
into regret
and unbelieving hope
wistful wishes

"If"
by: Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Kvasir, I'd appreciate it if you posted more of your poems.

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

In The Desert  -Stephen Crane

-----

I prefer the breaks like this...

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands, and ate of it.

I said, 'Is it good, friend?'

'It is bitter -- bitter,' he answered; 'But I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart.'

Summer 2012

Written to Thomas Newman's "Angels in America", youtube.com/watch?v=-FlI3EBbSUc

AAAaaaaaaahhhhhh
Smith spring
I see it the Smith Spring
Coraleery Keeper
Kadrudadeer Sleeper
By the Smith Spring
Take your time my friend
Then jump in
Take your time my friend
When you're alone
By the Smith Spring
Look into the droadorluminary waters
Take your time my friend
Look into the droadorluminary waters
Like you see clear reflections of truth
You Coraleery Keeper
You Kadrudadeer Sleeper
Take your time my friend
No other but Santalalay seeker
Jump in

I washed ashore many years ago
Strayed anext luminary waters
Smith Spring was on my mind
When as a Kadrudadeer Sleeper
I the Coraleery Keeper

Rivers lead to the sea
That which you find and lose
Laswordaday trecker
Laswordaday trecker
I climbed the highest mountain
Laswordaday trecker

I fell and rolled
Shining spinning flux
Drunacoryfor sweeper
Down the mountain side
Drunacoryfor sweeper
Into a river

I found the Smith Spring
Streams and rivers
Drunacoryfor sweeper
Coraleery Keeper
Kadrudadeer Sleeper
Jump in my friend
Jump in

Present

Now I walk along side the river
Which leads to the lake
No longer do I walk down river

And I climb in when the trail dims
I swim, with every sigh sweeping me down
The road elevates, the valley illuminates

Possibilities below are an illusion
No, they are a certainty
The mountain above I climb

My last ounce of energy to reach the top
If I can, or at least I would have tried
Or farther even....

The river tells me more
Than I've capable of understanding
Let the spring be my life end's final trek

If I can live with it's knowledge
Still the water will take me in time
If I stay near

My heart doesn’t have a nine to five
It doesn’t wear practical shoes
Or dress in conservative clothes
It doesn’t wear glasses or a watch
Doesn’t carry a compass or a map
This heart doesn’t have owls eyes
It can’t extinguish candlelight
Or piece together scraps of paper
It forgets to wear a hat in winter
Loves a worn sweater in summer
Hears notes between melodies
Writes volumes of jumbled words
Believes it’s got eagles wings
Elephants feet
And lions teeth
A muscle car motor
With a open sun roof
Sings haunting silent beauty
Hangs artwork in tree branches
Drowns poems tied to rocks
This heart is many things
Asking tough questions
Challenging normalcy
Testing assumptions
Dodging perceptions
Not faithful but honest
Everyone blames me
For things they didn’t ask for
But this heart isn’t synced
Wasn’t build for knowing
It needs to explore
Test waters
Go off the path
Change the conception
It lives by the rule of no rules
If you had stopped to listen
You could have heard it beating

Drums of Summer

The thought of you, musing on my sodden brain
Splayed like an overweight grease ball on a filthy couch
Taunting me with a maggoty morsel of rotted heart
To fill my hunger with insolent and caustic contempt
There are no grey hairs that streak my aged soul
No fondness or motes of wisdom in regards to you
I cannot turn myself inside out in futile hope
That I can change a past that isn’t worth it
You played out your love on the beat of my heart
With your crude clubs of insecurity and cowardice
The droning rhythm, like a war song for marching
All the while, your cavalry circled and retreated
And I stood at the ready, when I heard the shot
Fired from behind, across the corpses of dead hope
My dreams lay like an army of men in hospital beds
Casualties and a heart as battered as a poets journal

Rainer Maria Rilke

I Live My Life In Widening Rings

I live my life in widening rings
which spread over earth and sky.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but that is what I will try.

I circle around God, the primordial tower,
and I circle ten thousand years long;
and I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm,
or an unfinished song.


Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling from far away,
as though a distant garden died above us;
they fall, fall with denial in their wave.

And through the night the hard earth falls
farther than the stars in solitude.

We all are falling. Here, this hand falls.
And see — there goes another. It’s in us all.

And yet there’s One who’s gently holding hands
let this falling fall and never land.

Henry Quirk wrote:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

In The Desert  -Stephen Crane

-----

I prefer the breaks like this...

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands, and ate of it.

I said, 'Is it good, friend?'

'It is bitter -- bitter,' he answered; 'But I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart.'

I like this a lot.

Viking

He’s ready to the storm the castle gates,
These swollen muscles raging on possessed limbs.
And not even all the heavens’ fastened fates
Are ready for this inflamed moment where life brims.

Now birds of prey circle glowing hot flesh,
Ripe with the season of death’s fresh catch.
So many bodies bloody with courage fresh
Feed a flight too free for cowards to ever match.

Now pound your chest and hear the raven’s song,
Perching yourself far away from those happy endings.
Valhalla still needs its agents of timely death strong
to sing from the eternal heart at all battlefield weddings.

So pickup your sword and don’t mind these skulls
That litter the field like washed up empty seashells.
Death might wash away but it never lulls,
So listen to the full wisdom that exposed bone yells.

Now flex your talons and sharpen those eagle eyes,
And dive straight into the vision that never dies.

I'd built you a train
If I could promise
That the stations
You could visit
Were filled with
Memories of my childhood
Lost from your mind
In the distance now
I see the water rise on the bay
Taste salt spray from my eyes
Feel the weight of the rocks
Sad that those moments
Slipped out of your tide
I can do nothing
But watch you drift
Paddling furiously
The anchor tied tightly
Around my heart
I stare at my wall
The lithograph of you
With sails of white silk
Gliding, guided by the stars
That navigate my synapses
Faded paper images
Of you in the sun

12.16.2014

How you crowd my thoughts when you are near or far,
Innocent flower who bends space like some greedy star.
Every path flows from you with delicate outstretched petals
And leads back to the heart hot enough to burn pure metals.



How many tired stars pass through this isolated midnight station
Where words too poetic spiral down into endless cups of coffee
This place, dark enough to glow with a known mysterious affiliation
Offers the stillness of night where dreams may unwind into something lofty.

Now a cool mist opens to a warm inward lit window
Where two lovers exchange glimpses into an untold story,
So heavy that it keeps fading back into a wandering shadow
Until two cloud curtains close again on this light leading allegory.

Shaking touch and erratic wind
Of pregnant life on painted veil
Mirror a storm so undisciplined
Stillness appears born to prevail.

---

Spring, happy to sing this wounding
That turns into my side and won’t be defeated,
Because only your voice, sounding
Sweeter than blood, restores everything depleted.

---

My first movement, where did you begin?
Only in longing did you give birth
To an overflowing stream found in sin,
And rescued back to the deepest earth.

---

She wants you to find what can never be lost so you can keep returning at any cost. And now life floats back again to a gold surface, sovereign, free to lose itself in the ocean’s royal service.

Dwell like a rock.
Spring like a flower.
And sing and mock
With unmoved power.

---

Still like endless night
Beasts wait hungry to conquer
Waves of fresh pure light
That can’t feed the dark proper.