While Everyone

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While Everyone

I wanna meet her

while everyone is dancing

and dance with her

while everyone is leaving

and whisper with her

while everyone is sleeping

and walk with her

while everyone is driving

and sing to her

while everyone is eating

and listen to her

while everyone is talking

and kiss her

while everyone is fighting

and fight her 

while everyone is fucking

and love her

while everyone is watching

and bury her

while everyone is crying

and remember her

while everyone is moving

and forget her

while everyone is meeting

and then

everyone is dancing again

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There you have it, post number twenty-one. (approach with trepidation)

Alone

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Alone

when I'm alone

I drink

and dance

like you wouldn't believe

even if I told you

I sway and sweat

slain in the spirit

when the music touches me

I go where it wants

to take me

when there's no one around

to shake their head

then I shake and cry

and laugh and spasm

all at once

because what's the difference?

you don't have enough skin

to tattoo what I'm feeling

under

it's a horrible means

as I throw myself

around in most dramatic fashion

to a wonderful end

I destroy a little of myself

with a smile

so I can create.

Because they say you die twice

you know

it's a wonderful end

I can't help but wonder

if this comfort doesn't lessen

my chances at trying it another way

if I had all my wasted hours back

would I rather waste them with you?

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That was...difficult, but maybe more true than anything I've written in a long time. I may be on to something here. No promises, but stay tuned. 

There you have it, post number twenty. (approach with trepidation, I mean it)

Let someone else talk

I now ask that with trepidation you approach not works of my own, but works of men far older, more talented, and deader than I. The following are not my poems, but poems I love and have cherished for a long time through my own experience with writing. Please enjoy, and I will resume normal, non-stolen postings hereafter.

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ANARCHY.
JOHN HENRY MACKAY.

Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell--but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!

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INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.
ROBERT BROWNING

 I.

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
  A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
  Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
  Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
  Oppressive with its mind.

 II.

Just as perhaps he mused "My plans
  "That soar, to earth may fall,
"Let once my army-leader Lannes
  "Waver at yonder wall,''---
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
  A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
  Until he reached the mound.

 III.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,
  And held himself erect
By just his horse's mane, a boy:
  You hardly could suspect---
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
  Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
  Was all but shot in two.

 IV.

"Well,'' cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace
  "We've got you Ratisbon!
"The Marshal's in the market-place,
  "And you'll be there anon
"To see your flag-bird flap his vans
  "Where I, to heart's desire,
"Perched him!'' The chief's eye flashed; his plans
  Soared up again like fire.

 V.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently
  Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother-eagle's eye
  When her bruised eaglet breathes;
"You're wounded!'' "Nay,'' the soldier's pride
  Touched to the quick, he said:
"I'm killed, Sire!'' And his chief beside
  Smiling the boy fell dead.

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The Hollow Men

T. S. ELIOT

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

      A penny for the Old Guy

      I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

      II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

      III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

      IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

      V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

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There you have it, post number nineteen. (approach with trepidation)

Shivers

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Shivers

your skin, susurrus, susurrus, 

curls smokey around my outline

between ill-at-ease and shivers

I've been looking like hell for quite some time

the condition of my spine

is not your business business

but demurity could ply my tongue

cap ti vay ted by your fitness

I'd be lying if I said I didn't

rant and rave about you when I'm 

knee-deep inside my bottle

climbing rooftops to catch 

a breath of air to converse with

because our world has been on fire

when I shake murmurous murmurous

like I've caught the holy ghost

who's gonna exercise me?

slapping my hand against the post

I wish I could put you in a vial

for when I crave that comeliness comeliness

oh your sugar on my tongue

and not our derelict lilting dalliance

and I'm building an updated

version of me, out of

a sturdier material, I hope

kicking in doors bruised

shins and shadows stapled

to the floor for their mischief

The worst part of it all

Is I can see you sitting

calmly smiling 

hoping that I'm rising 

to the occasion

While I might as well be

sitting paralyzed

with fear 

playing operation

on the living room

floor

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There you have it, post number eighteen. (approach with trepidation)