"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
This is for Leanna.
Always and forever.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
THE CIRCLE (I)
The circle begins, seeking justice,
seeking reason, order in chaos.
Justice turns false, reason nonexistent,
chaos consumes order, all is lost.
It ends where it began, again seeking justice,
reason and order, Now, against the circle.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
MARANATHA
Day and night, year by year.
I wait patiently to find you here.
The one who fills my days with wonder
Who fills my nights with fiery passion.
Loving me, caring for me, she knows my every mood
Who loves me for my every move.
I wait for you alone tonight.
Will you come and change my life?
Love me, hold me,
guard me, treasure me.
Give me songs, and write me poetry.
I’ll wait for you alone tonight.
When will you come?
Give me a sign.
I love you.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
BROKEN WORLD
The trout in the brook and streams
In the glowing golden current where once they swam
Now forever lost in the murk
Slurrying in the water black with soot.
The end
This is how it came to be
Of a thing that once had been believed
But now a mere shadow of what its former self
A shell
Now they build towers to heaven to reach God
But God is not watching them
So they build for nothing
But yet they keep building up
And up
And up
Where were you that I lived with?
On this maze that we call life you were mine
The alpha and the omega
The first and the last
The beginning and now this end
This end
This end.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
LAMENTATIONS (I)
The black barges crossing the sickly river
Gaunt riders on black demonic horses
The bodies hanging broken
from the stout limbs of trees
Herds of swine thundering
A plague from the Old Testament
(written by Homer, didnt you know?)
A boot in the end of its lifespan
Crossing the line
Replete with the dark and fear
I dont want the bloodguilt
A circle of idiots stoking a fire
Them drooling over the spit
An infant skewered there roasted to black
There is no sin, only hunger
yet there is pleasure.
Help.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
In the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane
come away O godless child
a lustrum of life's waters pass before thee
a river of dried blood into the willows
the sickly discharge of diseased loins
grotesque urchins
orphaned spawn of a slum womb
into a wicked wicked wicked world
the face of God, face of a red Christ,
a butchered sun, a molten moon
a decade gone, a year to come
I taste the blood
sour, salty, without remedy.
until the sun goes down
a stoop-shouldered descent
a bird shot from the sky
it lies flapping in the blooded dust
black blood
god's blood
come away come away O come away now
come away come away come
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A HANGED MAN
Long had he labored beneath the burden
Of his kinfolk's lustful ways
His family tree a wickerwork of incest and degradation
An ancient dead oak rising twisted from the soul of the earth
Another tree he finds himself at
Ravaged by a storm
A gallows-tree at the edge of the ruined field
The mad mob with shotguns socked under their arms
They all seem to bend at him worshipfully
A hundred lumping shadows circling about him
The dead man hanged
It's a shady tree, boy, look ye at
The corpse swinging madly from the gallows
The face blanched white like a ghost's
Lifetimes lost in queer congress
The body cocooned in death
a bird skull
a bible illustration
downtrodden
one eye cocked to the heavens
beseeching the sky
begging God's tender mercies.
Torchlight
No room for an angel, a devil, only reapers
The crows come
Now the crows come
They feed, pecking at his face
At his eyes
The gallows-tree groans as it surrenders to his weight
And he falls
falls
falls
Into hell.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
Did you just get one copy published?
Of poems? Not yet.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
I see, you plan to though, right?
Yes. Do you think they're publishable?
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
I can say that I would buy it, yes, I think they could make it in the market
Well thank ye, sirrah:
Exod, The Man and the Boy
(from the barren belly of my mama i should not have)
I gushed from her, great bloody thing torn from the very pit of her
Feed me
O feed death to me!
I starve O I must not
Fuckers
Do you not know, do you not see?
The flies hum earnestly in the world
all in need of attention
Frogs croak from outside
Cicadas buzz
A car horn blares in the faraway
I draw my first breath
My first
A-A-A-A-AHHH!!!
and she draws me down
down
down under
wrenching me free of her at last
black ribbons of blood all about me
caking my skinned body
A-A-A-A-AHHH!!!
I look at (her she it) my mother for the first time
my unseen caretaker
her pale arms and face
tiny breasts swollen like overripe oranges
her wasted belly from which I was ripped away like a tumor
a plague
misbegotten
life that flickers, life that screams,
rooted in that cataclysmic birth of mine
gleaned, gleamed
the rise and fall of her breath
my breath no longer
the static the length of me and my
(hate)
all the shrieks and not a cloud in sight
a slobbering bundle am I
oh Mary mother of me
mother of God
mother of all
the shouts are manic now, squeals of terror
hellish
hell
snake fizz
bugs buzzing in outrage
infernal static
A-A-A-A-AHHH!!!
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
The Foundling Queen
This little one found in the woods
They take her home huddled about her
She is baptized Abagail, this little one
A foundling queen she will be.
They paint a portrait for the little one
They sing a little tune
Oh I had a dream that I could fly
The foundling queen at my side.
Her fifth year on earth they prime her to be
The foundling queen she was meant to be
When the sun curled above the clouds
A queer little smile for the foundling queen.
Something of deviled reason
Angelists come hooded in white
Turned blooded with violent deeds!
O wicked little foundling queen!
You have committed no sin in being here!
Tell me, why have you done this
O little foundling queen?
Don't cry for me, cry for the dead.
This child of sin, spawn of blood
Dazzled in the dust under the blinding sun.
Spawn of stone, spawn of death
O foundling queen's shadow on the sun.
She spent those years in a smothering scrum
Of mothers fussing, clucking like hens
And soon her fear of the other children grew
In the marble eyes of the foundling queen.
The crones that bathed her, dreamers perched about
Things to know, things to learn,
O the playground where she would be wont to swing
So went the days of the foundling queen.
Then one day the rain came to pass
Spewing forth a deluge upon the valley roads
Vile and stinking slashes of bilge
On the home of the foundling queen.
O the child-harlot, the slut-saint of Our lord
This heavenly luminary of the custodians
Insane, mad, deluded followers!
Trapped in the gaze of the foundling queen.
This the year of our Lord who gives a damn
Suckling on the shriveled teat of sanity
They come with madness in their eyes
To the nursery of the foundling queen.
They burst the door apart, with axes and clubs
Slavering masses converged on the foundling queen
With piercing shrieks and cries of murder
So ends the life of the foundling queen.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
These are really good. I especially liked The Foundling Queen and In the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane. I would buy this book.
A true firewasp ninja would never wear such a ridiculous sweater.
There's logic in nonsense.
Give me all the bacon and eggs you have.
You've got two buyers, I would consider it
Well thank you, Hannah and Storyslinger.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
Song of the Wandering Madman
I am the thorn in the foot, I am the thief in the night,
I am the worm at the root, I am a blur in the sight.
I am the rat in the wall, the madman at the gate,
I am the ghost in the hall, damned for all to hate.
I am the rust on the corn, I am the rot on the wheat,
Laughing man's labor to scorn, weaving a web for his feet.
I am molder and blood and blight, danger and death and decay;
The mark of the rain by night, the blast of the sun by day.
I warp and wither with drought, I work in the swamp's foul yeast;
I bring the plague from the south and the leprosy in from the east.
I rend from the hemlock boughs wine steeped in the petals of dooms;
Where the fat black serpents drowse I gather the rotten blooms.
Never the sun goes forth, never the moon glows red,
But out of the south or the north, I come with the slavering dead.
I come with hideous spells, black chants and ghastly tunes;
I have looted the hidden hells and plundered the lost black moons.
There was never a king or priest to cheer me by word or look,
There was never a man or beast in the bloodblown ways I took.
There were crimson gulfs unplumbed, there were black wings over a sea,
There were pits where mad things drummed, and foaming blasphemy.
There were vast ungodly tombs where slimy monsters dreamed;
There were clouds like bloodened plumes where unborn demons screamed.
There were ages dead to Time, and lands lost out of Space;
There were adders in the slime, and a dim unholy Face.
Oh, the heart in my breast turned stone, and the brain froze in my skull --
But I won through, I alone, and poured my chalice full
Of horrors and dooms and spells, black buds and bitter roots --
From the hells beneath the hells, I bring you my deathly fruits.
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-- Hoban Washburne
"What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-- Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
that's a badass poem, sir. it flows so perfectly.
A true firewasp ninja would never wear such a ridiculous sweater.
There's logic in nonsense.
Give me all the bacon and eggs you have.
Song of the Wandering Madman is outstanding work.
Hannah's critique is 100% right on the money!