Lady Labyrinth Poet Free verse

Paper Tigers

"Paper Tigers"



eyes mark slow time
spotting leopard rhyme
never changing its spots
black balled
white pops
the want-to-be bees
sting the dripping honey spot

slapping cards down
kitty pots are shuffled
bluffing intelligentsia
between the gaps
flatulent poets floss their teeth
waxing lyrical strings
tied to the weary mirrored soliloquy

cheap conversations 
like thin cotton threads
on a spinning wheel reeled in
marked inconsequentially
by small thimbles worn as armour
pricks blood from a laureate limerick
sad in its slapstick

wet the fingers
turn the pages 
theatrical degradation
moves in well-dressed stages
sucker-punched by trolls 
who belong in a dark Hieronymus Bosh
have gone all dutch with Latin diabolus

tying hearts and minds 
to ducking chairs 
immersed in the blood 
from discarded hearts
unholy and baptismal 
all good poets 
must float to the top during 
the Poetry Assizes

a small death before rebirth
time stops, their life as poet starts

Love
craving light
is born with soft lips
and sharp teeth
hungry and emerging
visceral and wanting
from dark hubris

straight from the poet’s mind
the mouth is sewn shut
the words begin to 
fly like Hamlet’s Ravens
black habits undressed
like a nun more than ready before bed
holding prayer with bless’ed crucifix

on her knees she prays,
“two roads diverged
in a yellow wood
and sorry 
I could not 
travel both
I took the one less travelled”

prowling with paper tigers
who pretended to be poets
I sat in their laps
reading their growls and
watching the lyrical naive
romancing high school minds
parked on perpetual sedentary thrones

legacies grinning 
winning light voltage

100 high slow dark watts
roll over in their rainbow 
unicorn dreaming flower beds
like wilting pale blue forget-me-nots
swallowing the sweets that are sent
misunderstanding the beauty 
buried underneath the velvet Pink 

Roses of Heliogabalus

Paper Tigers chasing 
Lions all knowing

(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)






"The Boiling Point" / The The
https://youtu.be/tBnI8edwcFY






“Begin, murderer, 
leave thy damnable faces 
and begin. 
Come, 
the croaking raven 
doth bellow for revenge.”    



"Truth is truth, lies are lies
Headlines strike between the eyes
But when is a word not a word?
How's the meaning been reversed?"






“Oppressit in tricliniis versatilibus parasitos suos violis et floribus, sic ut animam aliqui efflaverint, cum erepere ad summum non possent.”













The Roses of Heligabalus
latin translation -
https://useum.org/artwork/The-Roses-of-Heliogabalus-Lawrence-Alma-Tadema-1888

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roses_of_Heliogabalus



"The Road Not Taken", Robert Frost
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken



Paper Tiger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_tigerdehttps://www.luthercollege.edu/university/academics/impetus/spring-2011/the-unique-concept-of-the-witch-and-the-witch-trials-in-early-modern-england/



Assizes

Assize. def.
noun HISTORICAL
plural noun: assizes
a court which formerly sat at intervals in each county of England and Wales to administer the civil and criminal law. In 1972 the civil jurisdiction of assizes was transferred to the High Court, and the criminal jurisdiction to the Crown Court.

The Assizes. 
https://www.luthercollege.edu/university/academics/impetus/spring-2011/the-unique-concept-of-the-witch-and-the-witch-trials-in-early-modern-england/

Cucking stool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucking_stool



Pink -
Gender. Sexuality. Politics. Social Movements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinko




LYRICS/ "The Boiling Point", The The
https://genius.com/The-the-boiling-point-lyrics

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Rob Carmack June 18, 2021 at 12:44 PM "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers....", but here in the soup, it's The Beautiful People. This was a delight to read.

Ts Poetry June 15, 2021 at 9:50 AM Some aren't playing with a full deck whereas you are queens full of hearts x Lady Labyrinth June 16, 2021 at 1:17 PM I am Rider Waite 8.

Lady Labyrinth June 14, 2021 at 1:07 PM "Apologies for only responding now. I had to turn my back on it all yesterday, or I would have written something incredibly scathing the likes of napalm. I feel that writers, good writers, and 'poets' surely are inspired by each other and do not denigrate others to the point, where one feels their heart has been ripped out and there is no point to continue...life, or writing... Lady Labyrinth June 14, 2021 at 1:08 PM There are some absolute morons and spectacular bullies and predatorial creeps in the place, who are not writers - but merely there to feed their own monster and feel better about destroying another human being - they are sad and always, to be pitied." Letters from the Paper Tiger War Zone.

Lady Labyrinth June 14, 2021 at 12:50 PM "Why is it, do you think, that other poets and writers (not all, but a lot – and not just in the Consomme), delight in denigrating the work of others? We must be an outrageously neurotic ego driven lot, hungry to stamp our mark on the world, or swing an eternal last sucker punch at it." A writer.

Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 6:05 AM This in my judgment should definitely be awarded POTD.. Or is truth now selectively verboten? In my youth my dog was my truest friend. I swore to love her 'til the very end. Yet years of growth brought a divide. A chasm that grew deep and ever so wide. And sad to say, that love never died. 'TIL reality proved I had lied. Time washed away those sweet childish days. And in me instilled world's dark manly ways... Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 7:01 AM Let it reflect that light back to blind them. And march steadily forward into the conflict with blade slashing and truth as your invincible shield. That blood flows is inevitable in war. Never, ever, give up.. That is key to victory-either death or victory... This dark and evil world does not allow for compromise when ones enemy is hellbent on ones destruction.. And my friend, I too have many dozens of scars... Lady Labyrinth June 13, 2021 at 6:52 AM With age and hard fought battles, there arrives wisdom - my armour is not pristine and shiny - it is well worn. This is not at all unrecognised or new to me Lindley. My armour still reflects light. Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 6:43 AM Ahhhhhhhhhh, well the bones are not soft and easily broken as is the human heart! So perhaps -crash the gate, slay the beasts and shout at the devil. Truth, I have done such many times in my life and even lived to tell about it. However, never once did I ever escape totally unscathed. No way, there is-always- a price to pay when one has the courage to stand with the truth. This dark, and massively evil world sees to that sad reality my friend. Lady Labyrinth June 13, 2021 at 6:19 AM I am way too pink, I fear Lindley. And it might be a little too close to the bone.

Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 5:55 AM Every stanza brilliant but this one especially stood out to me- "" straight from the poet’s mind the mouth is sewn shut the words begin to fly like Hamlet’s Ravens black habits undressed like a nun more than ready before bed holding prayer with bless’ed crucifix"" Yes, there be darkness here. And its powers are born from a hellish hate. As mortals are too oft driven to such. And remain blinded to their own misdeeds. Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 6:45 AM when blade has been drawn- let it taste blood or else sharpen it more for the next time it -will- be needed. And the reality is -it will always be needed. This dark, savage world and its legions of minions sees to that reality and fate. Lady Labyrinth June 13, 2021 at 6:02 AM those Roses of Heligabalus...hmm puts a whole new perspective on beauty and treachery .... now the Assizes, is so contemporary. Without dark, no light. Your blogs are about the most interesting of the lot.

Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 5:52 AM Greek history, mythology, dying emperors, dead artist, fantastic painting and remnants of debauchery and the merging of all of that in modern poetry. Surely a feast, to any that can see truth and beauty in creativity, originality, revelations that sing out of the devilry of darkness. Hence the brief poem fragment it just inspired from my not yet fully awakened pen. Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 6:51 AM I was once told , -smother them with kindness... With me being me- A southern man born and bred- I only heard --"smother them"..lol For he was not talking about angels but those in life that backstab and live to destroy others. Life seems to always have an abundance of that type. Those strange gods will readily attest to that despicable and most sorrowing fact... So care for the trees and shoot the invading beasts... Always worked for me.... Lady Labyrinth June 13, 2021 at 6:23 AM "While blighted forests listens to cackle of crows"... I can make of my forest whatever I damn well please - and I will. There is magic in my forests, strange gods come and go....

Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 5:47 AM Of beauty, paintings, flowers and smothering Art. Dares not the innocent truth- ever the race start. Or trapped lamb, prisoner, shear its own white fleece. By all the vanished gods, Death's hands embrace Greece. Whilst dawn's beauty loses its most radiant glow. As blighted forests listens to cackles of crows... Your poem, a definite masterpiece in this old poet's opinion. And truly a welcomed fav too. God bless.. Robert Lindley June 13, 2021 at 6:55 AM D.H. Lawrence, had it right. To thine own self be true. Cultivate an unbreakable soul. Polish and sharpen a much needed blade and summon the knowledge to know when , where, how to use it. Life and honor demands that one fights when attacked. As dad always said, "hold your ground, face the enemy and ALWAYS- give them hell." Lady Labyrinth June 13, 2021 at 6:25 AM D.H. Lawrence had it down to the bone and I will always stand by what he wrote, “This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.”

Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 10:34 PM Not De Beauvoir. Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 10:34 PM https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/not_de_beauvoir_1245050

Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 10:31 PM The Elemental's Confession as a Peace Offering. Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 10:31 PM https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/the_elementals_confession_as_a_peace_offering_1247308

Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 10:12 PM War and Peace in the Time of Love's Retribution. Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 10:13 PM https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/war_and_peace_in_the_time_of_loves_retribution_1292360

Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 9:52 PM Spilt Milk. Lady Labyrinth June 12, 2021 at 9:52 PM https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/spilt_milk_1317300