[written early 1990s]
In honor of ‘Umar and Edward
__How helpless, worlds upon their orbits fly
whose unmarked frontiers ne’er immobile lie,
__without regard to pleading in our souls:
like creatures on their skins, are born and die.
Anyone interested in reading the entire novel, please contact me with a comment (it won’t be posted publicly) requesting the password. All chapters beyond Chapter 3 have been password-protected.
I’ll invite you to a party,
___ Girl, the night is coming on
No, it could never match the dances
___ with all the friends you knew in Babylon
I’ve gotta warn you, there’s a Beast out there
___ with an army at your door
He doesn’t want you to be true to you
___ Girl, there can be no Babel anymore
Leave this city, don’t look back
_ No time to mourn, no time to pack
__ Maybe something will remain
___ But I assure you, Girl, that it will never be the same
I’ll introduce you to a hobby
___ a little skill to keep you strong
No, it could never match the thrills you got
___ from all the things to do in Babylon
I’ve gotta warn you, there’s a Beast out there
___ with an army at your door
He doesn’t want you to be true to you
___ Boy, there can be no Babel anymore
Leave this city, don’t look back
_ No time to mourn, no time to pack
__ Maybe something will remain
___ But I assure you, Boy, that it will never be the same
I’ve gotta warn you, there’s a Beast out there
___ with an army at your door
He doesn’t want you to be true to you
___ No, there can be no Babel anymore
When posting here this poem I wrote in 1991 while reading the Greek Anthology, I made only one update: I added the line break between the second and third lines. The tight interlocking symmetry of rhyme, alliteration, and theme did not leave much room for editing, and makes this one of my favorites. If only “hock” were a sculptural term.
[written 25 February 1991]
She carved a marble fox;
its bone was streaked with red.
She chose it from a pile of blocks
chipped off Apollo’s fiery head
as Periakles found him hid
inside the rusty Asian rocks.
I think that he was rid
of quite a lovely fox.
[written October 1991]
A teacher of dubious art
___ the students fools still
though their copious notes
__ seemed a mark
___ of their learning
“Ah!” gasped the Learned One,
___ “They hear it all but listen small!”
A teacher of dubious thought
___ the students lost still
though the copious stream
__ trickled truth
___ to their thirst
“Ah!” gasped the Wise One,
___ “They listen all but hear it small!”
[a spiritual allegory originally written 1990]
the Lioness with iron claws
___ She guards Her children from the winter’s ice
and warms them ‘til the forest thaws
___ Her coat of bronze to them is Paradise
within the stony confines of Her lair
no space will She for other children spare
the golden Wolf awaits the night
___ Her cry, not lonely, still echoes alone
She waits for dark and then for light
___ not hunting ‘til the silver moon has shone
not too bright lest the moon favor Her prey
not dark enough to blind both She and they
the rusty Vixen, grotto-born
___ while rooting through the leaves uncovers more
than ever She found, snow-adorned
___ stalking dead grasses tarnishing the shore
the winter’s lake was not the lake She knew:
although remaining ice-free, nothing grew.
[Originally written c. 1993]
once every evening
Sunset murders me a little
reaches softly to my bed
i lie there
hands coffin-crossed over my chest
whispering myself to sleep
it stretches quietly
past my forehead, gliding through my eye-
sockets yanks me
backward by the brain
head over mattress edge
and holds me staring
blue dissolves to gold
ignites the clouds
a lake-blaze rolls where once i knew a sky
the walls of Home smoke
and clear
my boundaries undone
the flames open below
as i cling
open-chested
to my ceiling-bed
the earth rocks on my spine
is small and curves the corners of my world
and i am smaller still
i cough and know i am Alone
but never solitary
bare
an Atlas and an ant
i bear my world
my tiny, temporary world
and i am Nothing
purple swallows gold
i hang
my back against the ceiling
spider prey
the bulbous crimson Sun
drains I from me
inferno flickers
dies
and in my tumbled gaze
the Sun stabs upward through the shadowed hills
then Nightfall buries
me
pale green of the grasses filters through the mist
the mist on the mountains, rising through the soft warm air
find a piece of your heart lying cold in a stone gray field
and ask yourself “how long was it lying there?”
the team sinks into shore, heave dragging out their rotted seine
muscle-torn and weary, but then it’s all in vain; there’ll be no draw today
grandfathers fathers sons all toil the sea
after a thousand years of plenty now there’s nothing here to eat
nothing but the sand upon their feet
a whispered prayer beneath the trees
the rocks cut sharp against your knees
you pray forgiveness for the sins you never knew
lost inside the shame you feel
while winter birds crowd in to steal
lapping up the blood that’s pooled among the stones
farmer lifts his head up looks into the bursting sky
catch a drop of the long-sought rain in his earthy eye, can you hear him cry?
“why did the gods of fate spare this land,
keep it free from the mill of Time only to crush it in their hands
bury it beneath the desert sands?”
will You burn the world like You did my desire?
i need someone to love me, i need someone to help me fight the dark
i need a town of friends who understand
how Time in his infinite grinding pauses
He pauses to blow mist into my eyes
I’m up to Chapter V of The Ligan of the Disomus now, and I’ve polished up and posted a few pieces of a science fiction story called Xenes. As soon as I have my scanner set up properly (I scatter my energy over too many projects, I know) I will upload some complete short stories, and perhaps a map for the world of Ligan.
Enjoy!
I’m storing my writings here while I work out some web hosting issues on my domain. Enjoy!
The un-named Observer continues his investigation into the case of the Reiders, seeking clues throughout Lemaigne and the nearby waters. In the chapters published lately, he finally learns what was in the ligan that Reider dumped on the sea floor.
A flute
peeps in Creation’s orchestra:
the deep drum thunder of a billion grinding dust clouds
the cymbal crash of countless bursting stars
the sweep of whirling galaxies
all sound God’s glory
in raw, naked,
untranslated praise.
And yet, the piccolo whistles its own name.
Its dissonance, the ears of Angels rile:
“Spy: this whispered dewspeck of a world
–clinging as to a flimsy undertone of moss
in one slight, shadowed nook
of the vast Garden of Creation–
notes the image of the unseen God
and from a hush, squeaks out a troppo forte shrill!
Given one humble sheet
they arrogate the whole ensemble.”
The trumpets turn.
Brass, flames, and sound
a vulcan bellows roar.
“O CLAY,
You boast these penal codes and poems
warbled in the mouths of shepherd-kings
and culled by waves of tone-deaf priests
make you the maestros of Creation,
privy to the deepest arts of Angels?
Know:
One stray and fragile barbicel
from a spare edge of one down feather’s fray
loosed from the blazing wing
of but the least and lowest of our Host
would strum the orbits of your galaxy
brush clean of life your cities
and, con fuoco, leave this pompous dewspeck
modest, gentle, still,
and mute.”
©2007 J. Nelson Leith
A clan beached on the shores of Kýpros
–innocent of Iron or fired clay–
slew the little river horses there
to make clear pastures for their sheep
and wallows for their swine
Twice longer than the Crucial sect has thrived
they lived in round stone homes on Kýpros
then, as those who would become the Jews and Arabs
Indians and Europeans, bound in dark ancestral wombs
were just then crawling out of ethnic infancy
three thousand years before Nile knew a Pharaoh
the shepherd folk of Kýpros were erased
Not one forensic whisper to explain
A thousand plus five hundred years
White breakers tapped in vain against unpeopled shores
before a second clan to Kýpros came
to find a land of pigs and sheep
the little river horses
and their slayers
gone
©2007 J. Nelson Leith
Stories that are in the submission process will be password protected. Apologies.
If you are eager to read something based on the title, genre, and graphic please email johnnelsonleith at gmail and I may share the password.
