With the Saints

The pensive King's bad little Mamma
lies on the railroad tracks she paints
and holds her mirror of the summer:
the world is dying with the saints.

The pauper's brother's gentle daughter
swims in her tears, and as she faints
her uncles gather in the water:
the world is dying with the saints.

The Servants of Themselves are frowning
at me as their princess acquaints
me with the man whom I'll be drowning:
the world is dying with the saints.

And did I live on peaches only
and bathe in roses every day?
The heights of dawn are cold and lonely,
the other peaks too far away.

As large as Life, it's three foot seven
and comes in portions hardly known;
too far from Earth, too far from Heaven,
it has a level of its own.

In wild pretence I pull my dagger
while all the knights of darkness sing:
for seven nights I was a beggar,
for seven days I was a king.

When the number of passion was seven,
red the colour of Love's heatless flame,
I heard harps that resounded in heaven
and a voice that was calling my name.

So I left my abode and my haven,
over mountains and valleys I came,
and I heard the sharp cry of the raven
and the voice that was calling my name.

There's no change in the seasons of yearning,
and my hunger and love is the same,
and there still is a temple that's burning,
and the voice is still calling my name.

I will not put my thought in a paper,
I will not put the world in a frame;
as a bird shan't be caged, I won't taper
off the voice that is calling my name.

But one night all the larks will be crying,
and the tigers and wolves will be tame -
that's the night everything will be dying
but the voice that is calling my name.

And I know not my name and profession,
and I feel neither pity nor shame,
for I follow the cast of my passion
and the voice that is calling my name.

There's a talent in the water
with the wings of silver breasts,
and the mountain's smoky daughter
builds upon the moon her nests.

Satin lips and eyes of leather
and a tail of golden scales
match the silence of the feather
that she drops in lonely vales.

No, she never heard of thunder,
brain or of the love of man,
but when she is sitting under
her own shade, she hears the fan.

And her leather eyes would glisten
close behind those iron bars,
and devoutly she would listen
to the falling of the stars.

Six Badgers in their burrows think
of what a bat might like to drink.
The first replies while pinching flow’rs:
‘What business would that be of ours?’

The second one won’t stay inside
and takes his banshee for a ride,
the third agrees to herd the sheep
and takes his in-laws’ lunch and jeep.

The fourth one doesn’t care at all,
turns in his hammock, and he’ll fall
asleep before the barn’s decay
will welcome yet another day.

The fifth is too afraid to talk
and far too busy eating chalk,
but one bids house and home adieu
to sail around the world with you.

Like a chieftain in the night
water colours come and go,
and the train is long and slow
that will bring our heart’s delight,
and the moment falls to rhyme
like another drop of time.

Hands and elbows out of sight,
traders bring the thoughts they know,
and the winds of Hades blow
hard in Aphrodite’s spite,
and the moment falls to rhyme
like another drop of time.

Willows gather in the light
where the sleepy poppies grow,
and the tender lilies show
merciless extremes in flight,
and the moment falls to rhyme
like another drop of time.

Unbidden guests invaded my
delicate brains today at four
and had a party, claiming I
at two times twenty should know the score.

I left them where they were and took
my mental diary to the dome
and told the dancers: ‘Come and look -
I’m going insane: I’m going home!’

Lift the ban on Swedish girls,
that the sky may seize the mind,
and the exterrainian pearls
find their place in humankind!

From the heavens of the fields
clamp the frogs between the sun,
that the heathen bottle shields
every shoulder that is one!

And the hucklebuck shall fill
every creature with dislike,
so the oceans will be still,
and the lark can ride his bike!

Then we'll fly across the nuts
with our shovels on our eyes,
and from our abandoned huts
see the things that we despise!

Shun the desk of vivisection,
leave your herdish past behind,
and desert the road of action:
hold the Harvest of the Mind!

With the hawthorn and the laurel,
with our breasts and souls entwined
we will sing the lunar choral
at the Harvest of the Mind.

He who walked in silk wears cotton,
he who once could see is blind,
he who worried has forgotten
at the Harvest of the Mind.

Liberating from its fetter
everything that was defined,
we will make it strange and better
at the Harvest of the Mind.

We will gather crops of pleasure,
two or five of every kind,
and our labour is our leisure
at the Harvest of the Mind.

We will harvest without reaping,
we will search and never find:
dreamers who are never sleeping,
hold the Harvest of the Mind!

Once I sat by the light of the candle
with a billion strange thoughts in my head,
and the priest I'd invited played Händel
or some other composer who's dead.

And the tune was a breeze on the islands,
and the grandfather clock at the wall
ceased its ticking and listened in silence,
not to tick from that evening at all.

On the vessel of sadness I floated
where the pensive composer did pause,
for he must have been loved when he wrote it,
wishing I could have been where he was.

In Times of Hundred Joys I take my lyre
and sing the sources of my lasting joy
with tunes that move me backwards towards the fire
which gives me warmth and comfort to destroy.

In Times of Noble Deeds I take my sword
and swiftly walk across the empty hall,
where ladies chant my praise with one accord,
to hang it on its place upon the wall.

In Times of Rippled Love I take my heart,
and take it firmly, and I change its form;
a song upon my lips, I hone the dart
and call the gods of Thunder, Fire and Storm.

In Times of Virgin Grief I take my eyes
and bathe them in the beauty of a thing
and let my lifeless pupil exercise
the triumph march around the deadly sting.

In Times of Hollow Fiends I take a pin
to interrupt their dwelling at the pole,
and with the mind with which I let them in
I open all the windows of my soul.

In Times of Constant Change I take my past
(even the parts that don't belong to me),
and, knowing that my present will not last,
I keep on changing, changing constantly.

In Times of Nine Abodes I take the tenth
(the tenth is what we claim for tender care),
and Passion's longest measure is its length,
its width the calm a single world can bear.

In Times of Lust's Embrace I drop my pen

With sweaty foreheads from our poaching
we’re riding in the Sun of Death
and see another group approaching
- hold the horses, hold your breath!

Now blow the horn (don’t worry which) -
here comes the train of Dooh Nibor,
the brave defender of the rich
and prosecutor of the poor!

He knows not what a logic bomb is
and doesn’t use his parachutes -
he is a man of many a promise,
a fine designer of birthday suits.

But when I beheld his lady,
all my fears subsided soon
as she led me to her shady
camp beneath the virgin moon.

And she took me to her bridal
crypt and softly tucked me in;
I was feeling suicidal
and a little peregrine.

We lay down and worshipped Luna,
and I felt her bosom swell
o’er the cavernous lacuna
her left breast concealed so well.

At the shore the reminiscent
waves caressed the sleeping boats,
and enchantedly we listened
to the singing of the goats:

‘Death is a handyman. He has a butler,
a row of crossbones on his window sill,
a sable coat that couldn’t be much subtler
and eighty bedrooms in his mansion still.’

‘Sometimes I wish I was a psychopath,
at peace with my disturbed mentality,
enveloping this planet in my wrath;
I’d set my latent demon soldiers free
today and take a blood-and-bowel-bath,
commemorating those who messed with me!’

The Fates have shown their faces,
the gods have swapped their places,
the sirens spread their graces,
and passion is no sin!

Here I shall lick and taste you,
here I shall trick and baste you,
here I shall flick and waste you
unless you let me win!

The stories are narrated,
the zeppelins inflated,
the girls intoxicated,
the party can begin!

The bells will be ringing
in autumn and spring,
the elms will be swinging
when Harvey is King.

The crabs will be bringing
the scissor-like thing
to which they are clinging
when Harvey is King.

The priest will be flinging
the house on the wing,
the doves will be stinging
when Harvey is King.

The dogs will be whinging,
the bluebird will sing,
the cats will be cringing
when Harvey is King.

A bird is nesting in my brains
and keeps on picking the remains
of what they call the ratio;
she seems so merry and so gay
and sends her fledglings out to play
on my subconscious’ patio.

Their rapture is an awful sight.
I watch them every day and night,
a-cursing and a-grunting;
tonight I’ll leave, like sun and star,
the front door of my mind ajar
to let my cat go hunting.

Arise! Arise and cover
your eyes in mild despair,
for you will find your lover,
the empress of the air.

Arise and be alerted
for hundred years or more;
the belfry is deserted,
forgotten oral lore.

Arise and tell your people
that you have seen your head
circling around the steeple
and mingling with the dead.

Arise, Atlantic floater,
and search the Velvet Rose:
Hell can not be remoter,
and Heaven is too close.

Arise and sing your dirges
until the mornings break
with swans beneath the birches
and clouds above the lake.

Arise, arise from under
the blooming willow tree
to hear the mermaids thunder
and feel the rambling sea.

Arise from peaceful runnels,
from mountains wide and deep,
arise from Grecian tunnels,
arise to restless sleep.

To games with Master Lonnard
arise, and you'll be thrilled:
the losers will be honoured,
the winners will be killed.

From here to other places
Elvira's fame has spread;
arise to her embraces
in spirit or in bed.

And yet the coaches linger
around the barren field;
arise! Arise, my singer,
and say we'll never yield.

Who was around when raging waters foamed
against the wizards of the broken dreams,
when Irish moose and Celtic tiger roamed
the plains and forests of a thousand screams,
when hunting woodnymphs cast their poisoned spears
and put an end to all their victims’ fears?

Who cared about the fantasies that died
in the trenches of the war of sexes, who
reversed the changes of the ice age, cried
for poverty in times of plenty, knew
that nothing would undo the miller’s spell
unless one sent his daughters straight to hell?

It doesn’t matter. Things will never change,
and if they do, they wont; it’s all too late,
yet it might take some time to rearrange
the foundations of the earth. And while we wait,
I want you to approach on bended knee
and let me know you’ll spend the night with me.

I walk beside the bridge since you are gone,
I fly along the traces of the swan
and laugh at harmless faces.

I breathe the scarlet air of anarchy:
I want my velvet passion to be free,
my one and sole possession.

I send my flowers out from here to late;
alone I drop the curtain of my fate,
for fate alone is certain.

I hug the cushion of my bravery,
fight for my right to live in slavery,
betrayed and unforgiving.

For no more woman I will ever fall:
I curse their stubborn fickleness and call
the doctor with the sickle.

So holy was the hour we parted,
so playful was our last goodbye,
that every new thing that we started
reminds us of the heron's cry.

And from the island of the gifted
we hear the smoke; it sounds the same
as in the days we gladly drifted
in silver clouds to play the game.

And from the mountains we are stealing
the blossoms that no man can see,
the incarnation of a feeling,
too real to be reality.

And playful still is every moment
a lover tells me we are through,
and holy still is every moment
I think of love and you.

Sinful Dreamer, in your peaceful
sleep I saw a lustful smile
that adorned your face with craving
like the flood adorns the isle.

From the bright lights of the city,
from the shadows of the past,
from the battlefields of yearning
comes the dream that has to last.

Now the pictures on the table
and the way they say your name
and the monkey in the garden
nevermore will be the same.

Since the rose of Sharon flowered
in your eye, that holy ground,
all my memories are buried
deep beneath this thirsty mound.

You may sleep or you may rise now,
I am everything you see:
Sinful Dreamer, drink your Lethe,
Sinful Dreamer, dream of me.

Shut the day! I'll have no more;
lest the dragons should return
and their sacrifices burn -
shut the day, I'll have no more!

Call the night! My only friend
waited for the sun to drown
in the ocean of my frown -
call the night, my only friend!

Leave the dreams! For they are mine;
I will close my eyes and live
what the day refused to give -
leave the dreams, for they are mine!

The sun is setting, and a day of beauty
comes to an end; only the poet's eye
will make this day immortal. For this duty
I need a glass of whiskey waiting by.

'The day was sunny' - yes, that sounds immortal,
'and early daisies flowered in the grass.'
That's excellent: I'm standing at the portals
of poet's fame and of another glass.

'The birch was bending down to touch the lily,
and touched her with the softness of a lamb';
that's lovely, though it sounds a little silly,
and with a sigh I fill the glass again.

'The blackbird's house was covered with weeds and shabby,
his virgin daughters were stern and wild' -
George Byron never thought of that! I'm happy,
and once again the tiny glass is filled.

'From the floods a king bee was ascending
and spread the mountain's penetrating odour,
but silently her husband was lamenting' -
once again I fill the glass once more.

'The stars shone darkly in the midday heavens,
the purple sun was green with yellow spots',
and now I have to see dots on the paper where there were no dots
and pour the glass of rest into the whiskey.

'The buzzing bees were buzzing with a buzzer' -
yes, that is a very brilliant line, I know;
I will continue this next year tomorrow,
but now it's bed to time to go.

The embrace of the city seems lighter
as we thrive on her unspoken lies,
and the sun in the heaven shines brighter
by reflecting the light of her eyes.

And the rosebushes bloom as she passes
to compare with the red of her lips,
and she's turning the heads of the masses
when she's dancingly swinging her hips.

Now sweet Eros must empty his quiver,
for the men are bewitched by her style
as she's walking her boobs at the river
whilst caressing the world with her smile.

With his arrows he's doing his duty
while amazed at her features we gape,
for she pierces our eye with her beauty,
and she slices our heart with her shape.

Wolf, you bossed a hem
and nim foxes till ace won
ere he met a hot doom: a gem
(a gaze - we rise, do not stir!)
of doors ajar - a pun,
a very plait-punned log,
a no-go bat: ask Leda,
so sad is a qasida,
so sad elks at a bog
on a golden nuptial pyre -
van up a raja's rood,
for it's to no desire
we zag; a megamood
to hate me here- - no,
we call it Sex of Mind,
name Hades so - buoy, flow!

Love is what we make it,
Life is what it is,
Beauty how we take it,
Poesy is this.

In the blonde October
of our narrow minds
our creations sober
up with sore behinds.

Falling with the planets,
waning with the moon,
sailing with the gannets,
Yesterday'll come soon.

And against the mocking
of a cheerful crowd
she'll put on her stocking
where Salvation bowed.

The secret winter dawning
within the hermit's cell,
afraid of the next morning
I dread the night as well.

And at the flameless fire
I dream of burning fires,
the unfulfilled desire
for unfulfilled desires.

The joy of Life suspended
above me in the air,
Love's vessel sank and stranded
after I've paid the fare.

When the trial was said to be over
and the staging of Life had begun,
there were ladybirds there and the clover,
and above it a radiant sun.

But the sun went beyond the horizon,
and the clover and ladybirds lied:
nowadays I can barely lay eyes on
all the beauty I once felt inside.

And the djinn in my bottle grows moister,
granting wishes he'll never fulfil,
and the world is the shell of my oyster,
and my body a ship on the hill.

How many have died as they turned from the road
where the hedgehog and leprechaun play
for the greatness of being that lingered and showed
all its toys in the light of the day.

But venture to ask any driver who died
with the windscreen still stuck in his face
if he ever insulted the fumes and tried
to keep all his vows in their place.

The riverman wonders, collecting the fares,
where he saw all those faces before;
the sickle moon glistens - it seems that he wears
a black hood from eclipses of yore.

Some eagles have fled, though the torture goes on,
and still it rains mice from the sky,
and I shall be going when everyone’s gone:
how blessed are those men bound to die!

The sound of a woman exploding
is the signal to run for your life,
an ill omen for husbands, foreboding
that they soon will be covered in wife.

And the drops on the hand of the suitor
fail to fall on the flames he ignites
as he tries to transform his computer
into neo-Darwinian rites.

Once beneath a time there’ll be
dentists in the Irish Sea
who will try their skilful paws
on some formidable jaws.

Through the caves of my heart I was lurching
with my briefcase, my conscience and all,
and examined the paintings while searching
for the writings on the wall.

And the chill of the den made me tremble,
and the pictures of Death as she waits,
and the pictures of Life that resemble
the rest of the world past the gates.

No alignment has ever been clearer
than the forces surrounding the cave,
and each hour I’m aware she comes nearer,
and each breath means one less till the grave.

Now she woos me, and burdened with candy
she warns me to flee from Life’s wrath,
bows before me and calls me effendi
as she goads me to follow her path;

Now she shuns me and tells me I’ll never
be able to conquer her realm,
that I’ll sail Stygian waters forever
in wide circles with Void at the helm.

If those pictures were making me dizzy,
if I fainted from hate or despair,
if my blood would just boil or get fizzy -
if I only could feel I was there!

Through the caves of my heart I am lurching
with my briefcase, my conscience and all,
and examine the paintings while searching
for the writings on the wall.

Bleeding Moon, Bleeding Moon,
must you leave the night so soon?
Stay for me and make me sleep
where the sirens dance and weep.

Bleeding Moon, so white and gay,
when your gentle moonrays play
with the image of our hearts,
nothing ends, and nothing starts.

Bloody Moon, your tender light
sings the secrets of the night,
and when daylight meets the shore,
I won’t see it any more.

Where the wolf who cried boy made his ultimate statement,
the embarrassed Messiah explained his belatement,
where the Lord of the Goats poshly drinks to his cleaner
and displays his exclusively common demeanour,
where the rats gobble up the old keel of their clipper
while their queen tries to please the first mate and the skipper,
there our house-broken master has made his suggestion -
but if Love is the answer, then what is the question?

At night I’m lying in my bed
and think of things I haven’t said
and things I haven’t written,
of all the things I haven’t done
and all the things I haven’t won -
you know: once shy, twice bitten!

And many a twisted vision drifts
across my minds like scented gifts
dispersed for Atalanta;
I would, had I the energy,
write a bohemian tragedy
of Boadicea and Santa.

‘This is bizarre!’ - I know I ought
to hold on to this train of thought,
but I don’t heed my warning -
‘I’ll take a note’, I say in jest,
‘but first I need to get some rest...
remind me in the morning!’

But I’m aware that the idea
is gone and never will appear
again between my temples -
now shapes and faces take its place:
sometimes it’s Daryl Hannah’s face,
sometimes Naomi Campbell’s.

And never in a world so loud
did I expect the goddess’ shroud
to be so underrated,
and if her spell had not expired
(and if I wouldn’t be that tired)
I’d have her cause debated.

How could, without a single moon,
the birch tree be removed so soon,
and how without his branches?
Now, with the heavens out of sight,
he doesn’t see the swans in flight
but daisies in the trenches.

The worries of a broken tree
have never meant that much to me,
but certainly I wonder
‘bout selfish shellfish that she’ll sell
at sunny seashores since she shall
pursue her trade down under.

And never in my wildest dreams
(and this is one of them, it seems)
my thoughts came into fashion,
but here they stand with mouths agape,
their memories bent out of shape,
with exoteric passion.

The men around me clank their tanks;
the archives of their murd’rous pranks
enable rough emotion.
I shall dismiss the pirate crew
and bring my plaintive worries to
the table of the ocean.

The traumatised blonde coffers are
shoved round like many a plywood jar
up to the point of fainting;
but there’s no point in letting them roam -
as words themselves don’t make a pome,
colours don’t make a painting.

Fair play to you! May you survive
to keep your publican alive
for many years to come -
your redneck liver and iron will
will make you big and strong until
McAbre beats the drum.

We, while expanding into space,
search for ourselves in any place
where fears and doubts are perching,
we analyse or ask the elves -
then finally we find ourselves,
and find ourselves a-searching.

And in a mystic sunlit place
tall girls of every land and race
are kneeling at the river
and drink, and on its mirror gleam
small breasts that barely touch the stream -
and as they do, they quiver.

Too bright, too bright to comfort me
is your austere sincerity
and your disturbing beauty:
your look is far too luminous,
your mind is far too octopus,
your taste is far too fruity.

The freedom of a leprechaun
starts when his chin and butt are shorn
besides some other features,
a fairy that has skinny-dipped
may find her tiny wings are clipped -
these are the poorest creatures.

Yet nonetheless, the fugitives
who keep on hanging to those cliffs
will never be awaker;
‘The way is longer to go down
from here to smash our skulls’, they frown,
‘than up to meet our maker.’

But first things first, and naturally
they made their way from A to C
via this small stopover.
Now they have nowhere left to go;
their spirits feed this poem, though
their bodies feed the clover.

When ladies in Calabria
expose their breasts to any Tsar
or postman in the village,
their jealous husbands seize the day
by sailing westwards where they stay
to plunder, burn and pillage.

Too many miles have now gone by,
and every time I try to try,
my eyelids still are twitching -
and then I hear a little noise
between the heater and the toys,
or my left foot is itching.

This should not be the end, at least
not the beginning of the beast
that ambushed heaven’s roses;
this is the nervous anxious fear
of man when his own spouse is near,
but none of them discloses.

The trigger-happy marching band,
amarching through the desert sand,
got ready for the slaughter,
and as they played the battle rag
one soldier shook his rattle bag
and took the colonel’s daughter.

To savage to a merry tune
young kids beneath the April moon
is fun; there’s no denying
that music raises the brave boys’
spirits so they may share the joys
of killing and of dying.

And yet I’m very much in doubt
if all these things I think about
I’ve thought this night already,
and as I think of what’s behind,
another thought just crossed my mind -
but now it’s gone, like Freddie.

The quagmire of unwithered brains
takes in the flowers and regains
its undefended power
from little goblins in the holes
that drive away the rats and moles
to build their hearts a tower.

In the rainforest where we dance
upon the sidewalk and perchance
change feet with one another,
right in the gutter we can see
the litter of humanity
a-playing with their mother.

They all are here: Cheer’s cheerful cast,
the ghost of Christianity past,
thousand dalmations arfing,
the father of the dying sea,
his daughters down on bended knee,
and everybody laughing.

The Galilean couldn’t win
his fight to be a god, and in
the wake of his resurrection
they doubt that in two centuries
he’ll father a religion; please,
he’s not a man of action!

The zeppelins and wakemen sink,
the bay leaves and the bailiffs shrink,
the love god is retiring,
and in the purgatory of night
there’s one remaining source of light:
the fever of expiring.

Farewell, ye all! Farewell, ye all!
I clearly hear the boatman’s call
who will, without a warning,
take me across, so far away
that no one else can come nor stay!
- I’ll see you in the morning.