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Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.

quote by Hilaire Belloc
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An Alliterative Amorous Answer

Alliterative Love Letter

Adored and angelic Amelia. Accept an ardent and artless amourist’s affections, alleviate an anguished admirer’s alarms, and answer an amorous applicant’s avowed ardour. Ah, Amelia! all appears an awful aspect! Ambition, avarice and arrogance, alas are attractive allurements, and abase an ardent attachement. Appease an aching and affectionate adorer’s alarms, and anon acknowledge affianced Albert’s alliance as agreeable and acceptable.

Anxiously awaiting an affectionate and affirmative answer, accept an ardent admirer’s aching adieu. Always angelic and admirable Amelia’s admiring and affectionate amourist, Albert
Wit and Wisdom 1826

An Alliterative Answer

Artless Amelia Acme’s answer adamantly admonishing artful Albert Acne’s announced amorous ambitions, and assertive advances, actively advocates appropriate alternatives. Also, attesting abhorrent Albert’s attempted abduction, Amelia asks an adequate aureate award. Advance “ amical ” arrangements are altogether abjured.

Adieu Albert!

Abused Amelia, an adorable angel, aghast and askance, acknowledges agile apostate Albert’s apparently avuncular, albeit astonishingly audacious application, and, as alleged affiancement alliances and anticipations are absent, appends an acceptable, accurate answer.

Aggressively accosted, Amelia acts advisedly, asking an acceptably authentic apology affirming all Albert’s avowed affiancement allegations as archetypal authoritarian autocratic attempts at annulling Amelia’s autonomy. Also, Albert’s absolutely alarmingly acquisitive ambitions afford anguish, anxiety, and, afterall, acute anger. All are anathema, as Albert, an adder, assumed angelic approbation after an abject attempt at abrogating and appropriating all Amelia’s assets.

Agamous Albert’s age, adiposity, and abnormally abrasive accents also argued against amorous agglutination. Agamy appeared advisable as Amelia always aspired at attaining an absolute amour, assiduously avoiding ambiguity. Ardent admiration activated Albert’s appetite as Amelia’s allure and accomplishments attracted all-round applause.

Amelia and Albert are at an apogee. Alliance anticipations are antilogical as Amelia’s aplomb and articulateness, and Albert ’s anthropomorphic antics are as antipodes apart as Aphrodite and an anthropoid ape. Acataleptic Albert, Amelia’s antithesis, acting almost as an aggressive animal, abused Amelia’s adolescent acquaintance, Anabelle, an alluring afro actress, - actually auditionning as an aria alto, - adventuring affront abruptly abbreviated.

Albert’s apologists are accomplices aiding and abetting an attack (after anticipating advantages agreed aforehand) .... At Ashcloth Abbey altar agnostic Albert asked Assyriac Abyssinian Archdeacon Ahasuerus and Arabian acolyte Abdul abn Abdulaziz abn Abdullah Abu an aboveboard absolution although Abbott Abraham Allsaints’ anterior abjuration altered all accomodating actions.

Apprehending arrogant acquiline Albert’s arbitrary approach, Amelia appositely acted appropriately, adjusting apparel. Applause and approbation are apropos.

Albert abusively alledges aristocratic alabaster Amelia’s assent - an assumption as absurd as an ass astride an advocate assiduously assembling an ascorbic acid apparatus!

Abstemious Amelia’s abilities attract acclaim - above all admirable administrative aptitudes, artistic aims, analytical assurance, amiability and amenability. Altruistic Amelia amalgamating agreeableness and authority, always assists aliens.

Alcoholic Albert’s abominations abound, as aforementioned as all adults agree, admonishing an aggressive ambiance........Albert apes affability!

Abusive adulation appalls, accelerates aversion and attracts adverse acknowledgements alienating affirmative adhesions. Allegorical accolades, artificially addressed, accumulate absurdities. although amiable acolytes are acceptable additions. Argot argues against acceptance as avid adventurers assume affected accents -, acquiring added artificial accomplishments.

Addressing amoral Albert, and apprehending amorphous arrangements, Amelia advises acrimonious Albert’s accepting any alternative Abigail, Alice and Anabella, as affianced amourette. Auburns are also admired as are armed assegaie’d ashanti, andalousian, algonquin, anabaptist and amerindian amours:

Abigail, Ada, Adrienne, Adriana, Adelaide, Agatha, Aglaë, Alice, Aliette, await Albert,
Aline, Alison, Amy Amanda, Amandine Andrea, Angela, Angelica, Ann, anticipate Albert
Anna, Annabelle, Anne, Annette, Angelina, Annick, Annie, Andrée, Anthea, alleviate Albert
April, Ariane, Ariane, Arlette, Armande, Armelle, Ashley, Astarte, Ava, appreciate Albert
.....And Albert annoys Amelia! - aggravating!

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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True Confession

1
Today, recovering from influenza,
I begin, having nothing worse to do,
This autobiography that ends a
Half of my life I'm glad I'm through.
O Love, what a bloody hullaballoo
I look back at, shaken and sober,
When that intemperate life I view
From this temperate October.
To nineteen hundred and forty-seven
I pay the deepest of respects,
For during this year I was given
Some insight into the other sex.
I was a victim, till forty-six,
Of the rosy bed with bitches in it;
But now, in spite of all pretexts,
I never sleep a single minute.

O fellow sailor on the tossing sea,
O fleeting virgin in the night,
O privates, general in lechery,
Shun, shun the bedroom like a blight:
Evade, O amorous acolyte,
That pillow where your heart can bury -
For if the thing was stood upright
It would become a cemetery.

I start with this apostrophe
To all apostles of true love:
With your devotion visit me,
Give me the glory of the dove
That dies of dereliction. Give
True love to me, true love to me,
And in two shakes I will prove
It's false to you and false to me.

Bright spawner, on your sandbank dwell
Coldblooded as a plumber's pipe -
The procreatory ocean swell
Warming, till they're over ripe,
The cockles of your cold heart, will
Teach us true love can instil
Temperature into any type.

Does not the oyster in its bed
Open a yearning yoni when
The full moon passes overhead
Feeling for pearls? O nothing, then,
Too low a form of life is, when
Love, abandoning the cloister,

[...] Read more

poem by George Barker
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There is a bright spot or two for the Spaniards. French toast has become freedom toast on the Air Force One breakfast menu, but the Spanish omelet is still a Spanish omelet.

quote by Suzanne Fields
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from 'Ragas For Krishna

A little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:

'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'

A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,

You may shout if you wish to wake

the Temple for the cow cannot speak -

Wake up! Awake! Make haste!

Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,

the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!

Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!

There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.

After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.

'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?

\Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.

from 'Ragas For Krishna'

poem by Warren Falcon
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Of Ancient Mastodon, Sleepy Bee & Young Men Who Leap Too Soon From Bridges - Nightingale Confesses Into Straighter Teeth

'...descend, and of the curveship lend a myth to God.' - Hart Crane

Pueri aeterna, septem cadens
Etiam plures ad

The boys eternal, seven falling
Too many more to come

Jamey Rodemayer
Tyler Clementi
Raymond Chase
Asher Brown
Billy Lucas
Seth Walsh
Justin Aaberg

Sub olivae, pacem
Ut vos omnes adoremus orientatio

Under the olive trees, peace
May you all adore this orientation

******

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their
hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once
hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

- James Baldwin

'Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood

Do not ask me to see it! '

- Federico Garcia Lorca*

1

Even the pigeons on my stoop are silent now.

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Sleepy Bee, He Is Rising Beneath Me, The Hidden God Is Pleased

Sleepy Bee, He Is Rising Beneath Me, The Hidden God Is Pleased

for Karthik

Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased

'...descend and of the curveship lend a myth to God.' - Hart Crane

The boys, seven falling: Jamey Rodemayer, Tyler Clementi,
Raymond Chase, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg

Oh Valdosta,

He is busy preparing a repast for many paying guests who will watch him cook sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born, who will hear him sing their praises...Krishna was over yesterday more radiant than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian spice and food shop not easily hidden below the sidewalk, such aromas cannot to be tucked away like the shop is beside and below the avenue.

Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.

If you serve, said he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.

And so we began our time together, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, the cooking lessons, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I to shall fall but in this way:

I shall fling back the curtains
Open the window
Throw cut sleeves for years
gathered, hidden, to the street.
Shouting out names of lovers,
I shall then leap openly into life
land softly upon the Autumn
ginkgo leaves and, golden,
kiss every parked car
on the street leaving
lips like leaves and all
the cut sleeves in love
with all the world and if
not all the world then
all the cars and a fiddle
dee dee for the fall of me

Yesterday I coached him how to slow down as he speaks (his accent is thickly, richly Tamil) , how to enunciate each syllable. He had several stories to choose from which he may relate to the guests, all of which he related to me, a sweet one of him as a little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:

'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'

A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,

You may shout if you wish to wake

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
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Death and survival, and theories....

Those who struggle so hard
in order to live for a number of years more
are admirable

They fight their wars
and Just don't surrender that easily,

Those who want to end their lives
Finding it absurd
Those who hit their heads hard against the wall
and Bleed and die
Upon their own will
I say,
They too are admirable

They have guts.

Death is a state, but the door towards it
is painful. Those who embrace pain, contrary to norms,
must deserve our honor.
Theirs is that dignity to end their lives
at will.

Life is precious they say. It is a gift.

But life has no meaning sometimes.
One simply gets short of more reasons in order to continue the journey of sorrow and grief
and occasional joys of living.

One kicks hard against the storms.
The other stretches his hands to touch the sky.
Others let them be.

Those who are afraid, and non committal,
simply leave their lives in the hands of God.

They too have their own reasons,
They rest their destinies to Fate

or Faith,
And they too, must be admirable
or honorable.

I am this spectator still trying to fathom
the truth about this right or wrong.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Retrospective of an Honest Man - after Clark Stillman

RETROSPECTIVE OF AN HONEST MAN
By night: fight, flight
quite out of sight.
By day: mayday
in way on site,
blight; bite, spite, slight.
Payday: heyday
way O.K. … right?
Tight, slight respite.

6 January 2010
Parody Clark STILLMAN 1905_1995 Autobiography of an honest man

6 January 2010
ROBIN Jonathan 1947_20xx robi03_1945_stil01_0001 PWX_JLX
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN HONEST MAN
During the night
I was out of sight;
During the day
I was in the way.

STILLMAN Clark 1905_1995
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllll

poem by Jonathan Robin
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T2

the green tiles of the garage
reinvent this old house

it is more livable now
the hammock newly washed

the shoes newly brushed and
the table newly painted

this house has reinvented itself
into something more admirable

decent, confident, renewed,
this could be a start

as you must begin to recreate
what you once was too

do not be just yourself
go beyond what is admirable

reinvent your mind
dye your hair, polish your nails

scent your soap and
wash your hands.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters. We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable. Of course, the optimum for a person is to possess both an easy temperament and a strong character, but this is a rare combination, and few of us are that lucky.

quote by Sydney J. Harris
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A Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty

Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights,
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights
Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights;
I fain to tell the things that I behold,
But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.

Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Spright,
From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow,
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of thine eternal truth, that I may show
Some little beams to mortal eyes below
Of that immortal beauty, there with thee,
Which in my weak distraughted mind I see;

That with the glory of so goodly sight
The hearts of men, which fondly here admire
Fair seeming shews, and feed on vain delight,
Transported with celestial desire
Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher,
And learn to love, with zealous humble duty,
Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty.

Beginning then below, with th' easy view
Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye,
From thence to mount aloft, by order due,
To contemplation of th' immortal sky;
Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly,
That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath,
Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe.

Then look, who list thy gazeful eyes to feed
With sight of that is fair, look on the frame
Of this wide universe, and therein reed
The endless kinds of creatures which by name
Thou canst not count, much less their natures aim;
All which are made with wondrous wise respect,
And all with admirable beauty deckt.

First th' earth, on adamantine pillars founded,
Amid the sea engirt with brazen bands;
Then th' air still flitting, but yet firmly bounded
On every side, with piles of flaming brands,
Never consum'd, nor quench'd with mortal hands;
And last, that mighty shining crystal wall,
Wherewith he hath encompassed this All.

By view whereof it plainly may appear,
That still as every thing doth upward tend,

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poem by Edmund Spenser
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An Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty

Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights,
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights
Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights;
I fain to tell the things that I behold,
But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.

Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Spright,
From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow,
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of thine eternal truth, that I may show
Some little beams to mortal eyes below
Of that immortal beauty, there with thee,
Which in my weak distraughted mind I see;

That with the glory of so goodly sight
The hearts of men, which fondly here admire
Fair seeming shews, and feed on vain delight,
Transported with celestial desire
Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher,
And learn to love, with zealous humble duty,
Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty.

Beginning then below, with th' easy view
Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye,
From thence to mount aloft, by order due,
To contemplation of th' immortal sky;
Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly,
That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath,
Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe.

Then look, who list thy gazeful eyes to feed
With sight of that is fair, look on the frame
Of this wide universe, and therein reed
The endless kinds of creatures which by name
Thou canst not count, much less their natures aim;
All which are made with wondrous wise respect,
And all with admirable beauty deckt.

First th' earth, on adamantine pillars founded,
Amid the sea engirt with brazen bands;
Then th' air still flitting, but yet firmly bounded
On every side, with piles of flaming brands,
Never consum'd, nor quench'd with mortal hands;
And last, that mighty shining crystal wall,
Wherewith he hath encompassed this All.

By view whereof it plainly may appear,
That still as every thing doth upward tend,

[...] Read more

poem by Edmund Spenser
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That Pain Remains the Doer's Own

That time to apologize,
For what has been done...
Has passed.
Acts of forgiveness and regret...
Are admirable.
But what truthfully can be accomplished now?
Those wounds inflicted have healed.
The anguish of betrayal has diminished
From its initial intent.
A mindset once narrow has broaden.
And the expression of fresh empathies...
Are as meaningless,
As the desire of one who is haunted by a guilt,
That another does not live with!
Especially since the one who currently suffers...
Will do it much longer,
Than the one who was meant to feel undue sorrow.
And a pain...
Each hour of each day of those yesterdays,
Have taken away!

That time to apologize,
For what has been done...
Has passed.
Acts of forgiveness and regret...
Are admirable.
But those confessions 'today'
Fall on deaf ears!
That person who needed to hear
What is being expressed now...
Does not sit where those 'proclamations'
Will lift a remorse now felt by the doer!
That pain remains the doer's own!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Wizard Way

[Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]

Velvet soft the night-star glowed
Over the untrodden road,
Through the giant glades of yew
Where its ray fell light as dew
Lighting up the shimmering veil
Maiden pure and aery frail
That the spiders wove to hide
Blushes of the sylvan bride
Earth, that trembled with delight
At the male caress of Night.

Velvet soft the wizard trod
To the Sabbath of his God.
With his naked feet he made
Starry blossoms in the glade,
Softly, softly, as he went
To the sombre sacrament,
Stealthy stepping to the tryst
In his gown of amethyst.

Earlier yet his soul had come
To the Hill of Martyrdom,
Where the charred and crooked stake
Like a black envenomed snake
By the hangman's hands is thrust
Through the wet and writhing dust,
Never black and never dried
Heart's blood of a suicide.

He had plucked the hazel rod
From the rude and goatish god,
Even as the curved moon's waning ray
Stolen from the King of Day.
He had learnt the elvish sign;
Given the Token of the Nine:
Once to rave, and once to revel,
Once to bow before the devil,
Once to swing the thurible,
Once to kiss the goat of hell,
Once to dance the aspen spring,
Once to croak, and once to sing,
Once to oil the savoury thighs
Of the witch with sea-green eyes
With the unguents magical.
Oh the honey and the gall
Of that black enchanter's lips
As he croons to the eclipse
Mingling that most puissant spell

[...] Read more

poem by Aleister Crowley
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An Anthem Of Earth

Proemion.

Immeasurable Earth!
Through the loud vast and populacy of Heaven,
Tempested with gold schools of ponderous orbs,
That cleav'st with deep-revolting harmonies
Passage perpetual, and behind thee draw'st
A furrow sweet, a cometary wake
Of trailing music! What large effluence,
Not sole the cloudy sighing of thy seas,
Nor thy blue-coifing air, encases thee
From prying of the stars, and the broad shafts
Of thrusting sunlight tempers? For, dropped near
From my remov-ed tour in the serene
Of utmost contemplation, I scent lives.
This is the efflux of thy rocks and fields,
And wind-cuffed forestage, and the souls of men,
And aura of all treaders over thee;
A sentient exhalation, wherein close
The odorous lives of many-throated flowers,
And each thing's mettle effused; that so thou wear'st,
Even like a breather on a frosty morn,
Thy proper suspiration. For I know,
Albeit, with custom-dulled perceivingness,
Nestled against thy breast, my sense not take
The breathings of thy nostrils, there's no tree,
No grain of dust, nor no cold-seeming stone,
But wears a fume of its circumfluous self.
Thine own life and the lives of all that live,
The issue of thy loins,
Is this thy gaberdine,
Wherein thou walkest through thy large demesne
And sphery pleasances,--
Amazing the unstal-ed eyes of Heaven,
And us that still a precious seeing have
Behind this dim and mortal jelly.
Ah!
If not in all too late and frozen a day
I come in rearward of the throats of song,
Unto the deaf sense of the ag-ed year
Singing with doom upon me; yet give heed!
One poet with sick pinion, that still feels
Breath through the Orient gateways closing fast,
Fast closing t'ward the undelighted night!

Anthem.

In nescientness, in nescientness,

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poem by Francis Thompson
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The Odyssey: Book 20

Ulysses slept in the cloister upon an undressed bullock's hide, on
the top of which he threw several skins of the sheep the suitors had
eaten, and Eurynome threw a cloak over him after he had laid himself
down. There, then, Ulysses lay wakefully brooding upon the way in
which he should kill the suitors; and by and by, the women who had
been in the habit of misconducting themselves with them, left the
house giggling and laughing with one another. This made Ulysses very
angry, and he doubted whether to get up and kill every single one of
them then and there, or to let them sleep one more and last time
with the suitors. His heart growled within him, and as a bitch with
puppies growls and shows her teeth when she sees a stranger, so did
his heart growl with anger at the evil deeds that were being done: but
he beat his breast and said, "Heart, be still, you had worse than this
to bear on the day when the terrible Cyclops ate your brave
companions; yet you bore it in silence till your cunning got you
safe out of the cave, though you made sure of being killed."
Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he
tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in
front of a hot fire, doing it first on one side and then on the other,
that he may get it cooked as soon as possible, even so did he turn
himself about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single
handed as he was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as
the wicked suitors. But by and by Minerva came down from heaven in the
likeness of a woman, and hovered over his head saying, "My poor
unhappy man, why do you lie awake in this way? This is your house:
your wife is safe inside it, and so is your son who is just such a
young man as any father may be proud of."
"Goddess," answered Ulysses, "all that you have said is true, but
I am in some doubt as to how I shall be able to kill these wicked
suitors single handed, seeing what a number of them there always
are. And there is this further difficulty, which is still more
considerable. Supposing that with Jove's and your assistance I succeed
in killing them, I must ask you to consider where I am to escape to
from their avengers when it is all over."
"For shame," replied Minerva, "why, any one else would trust a worse
ally than myself, even though that ally were only a mortal and less
wise than I am. Am I not a goddess, and have I not protected you
throughout in all your troubles? I tell you plainly that even though
there were fifty bands of men surrounding us and eager to kill us, you
should take all their sheep and cattle, and drive them away with
you. But go to sleep; it is a very bad thing to lie awake all night,
and you shall be out of your troubles before long."
As she spoke she shed sleep over his eyes, and then went back to
Olympus.
While Ulysses was thus yielding himself to a very deep slumber
that eased the burden of his sorrows, his admirable wife awoke, and
sitting up in her bed began to cry. When she had relieved herself by
weeping she prayed to Diana saying, "Great Goddess Diana, daughter
of Jove, drive an arrow into my heart and slay me; or let some
whirlwind snatch me up and bear me through paths of darkness till it

[...] Read more

poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
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The Belief Of The Wick

Detached, unstipulated, under stimulated
With prejudice, I demand to be filled
Alas, without
Lust!
Lust, a prenatal configuration
Of two intolerable humans
Alas, without
Heed!
Heed not onto this wild act
Of one intolerable weakling
I would break like the thinnest of glass
While I re-puncture my wounds
Perhaps with that very glass shard
Broken
Old becoming new, never healing
My scabs flickering away
Like the belief of the wick

poem by Allie Edson
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Seventh Book

'THE woman's motive? shall we daub ourselves
With finding roots for nettles? 'tis soft clay
And easily explored. She had the means,
The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace,
In trust for that Australian scheme and me,
Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands,
And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed,
She served me (after all it was not strange,;
'Twas only what my mother would have done)
A motherly, unmerciful, good turn.

'Well, after. There are nettles everywhere,
But smooth green grasses are more common still;
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud;
A miller's wife at Clichy took me in
And spent her pity on me,–made me calm
And merely very reasonably sad.
She found me a servant's place in Paris where
I tried to take the cast-off life again,
And stood as quiet as a beaten ass
Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up
To let them charge him with another pack.

'A few months, so. My mistress, young and light,
Was easy with me, less for kindness than
Because she led, herself, an easy time
Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass,
Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most.
She felt so pretty and so pleased all day
She could not take the trouble to be cross,
But sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe,
Would tap me softly with her slender foot
Still restless with the last night's dancing in't,
And say 'Fie, pale-face! are you English girls
'All grave and silent? mass-book still, and Lent?
'And first-communion colours on your cheeks,
'Worn past the time for't? little fool, be gay!'
At which she vanished, like a fairy, through
A gap of silver laughter.
'Came an hour
When all went otherwise. She did not speak,
But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes
As if a viper with a pair of tongs,
Too far for any touch, yet near enough
To view the writhing creature,–then at last,
'Stand still there, in the holy Virgin's name,
'Thou Marian; thou'rt no reputable girl,
'Although sufficient dull for twenty saints!
'I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said;
'Confess thou'lt be a mother in a month,

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Unknown Eros. Book I.

I
Saint Valentine’s Day

Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold
In vestal February;
Not rather choosing out some rosy day
From the rich coronet of the coming May,
When all things meet to marry!

O, quick, prævernal Power
That signall'st punctual through the sleepy mould
The Snowdrop's time to flower,
Fair as the rash oath of virginity
Which is first-love's first cry;
O, Baby Spring,
That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth
A month before the birth;
Whence is the peaceful poignancy,
The joy contrite,
Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight,
That burthens now the breath of everything,
Though each one sighs as if to each alone
The cherish'd pang were known?
At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart,
With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day's heart;
In evening's hush
About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush;
The hill with like remorse
Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course;
The fisher's drooping skiff
In yonder sheltering bay;
The choughs that call about the shining cliff;
The children, noisy in the setting ray;
Own the sweet season, each thing as it may;
Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace
In me increase;
And tears arise
Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes,
And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss,
Ask from Love's bounty, ah, much more than bliss!

Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet
Of dear Desire electing his defeat?
Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope
Uttering first-love's first cry,
Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh,
Love's natural hope?
Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury!
Behold, all amorous May,
With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows,

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poem by Coventry Patmore
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In Memoryt Of Saretta Deakin

_Who Died on October 25th_, 1899.

THERE was a day,
A horrible Autumn day,
When from her home, the home she made for ours
And that day made a nightmare of white flowers
And folk in black who whispered pityingly,
They carried her away;
And left our hearts all cold
And empty, yet with such a store to hold
Of sodden grief the slow drops still ooze out,
And, falling on all fair things, they wither these.
Tears came with time--but not with time went by.

And still we wander desolate about
The poor changed house, the garden and the croft,
Warm kitchen, sunny parlour, with the soft
Intolerable pervading memories
Of her whose face and voice made melodies,
Sweet unforgotten songs of mother-love--
Dear songs of all the little joys that were.
We see the sun, and have no joy thereof,
Because she gathered in her dying hands
And carried with her to the fair far lands
The flower of all our joy, because she went
Out of the garden where her days were spent,
And took the very sun away with her.

The cross stands at her head.
Over her breast, that loving mother-breast,
Close buds of pansies purple and white are pressed.
It seems a place for rest,
For happy folded sleep; but ah, not there,
Not there, not there, our hardest tears are shed,
But in the house made empty for her sake.
Here, in the night intolerable, wake
The hungry passionate pains of Love still strong
To fight with death the bitter slow night long.
Then the rich price that poor Love has to pay
Is paid, slow drop by drop, till the new day
With thin cold fingers pushes back night's wings,
And drags us out to common cruel things
That sting, and barb their stings with memory.
O Love--and is the price too hard to give?
Thine is the splendour of all things that live,
And this thy pain the price of life to thee--
The sacrament that binds to the beloved,
The chain that holds though mountains be removed,
The portent of thine immortality.

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poem by Edith Nesbit
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