O, dear poetry, how old are you?
give me a glimpse, The Story of Sinuhe
the art just might predate literacy,
before the birth of the written word, BCE
Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor the eldest fictious
the Epic of Gilgamesh on papyrus
the world’s oldest love poems, verselets
Homer’s ancient epics
Compositions made for spoken word
I finally found out from all I’ve heard
what my dear poetry means to me
the love of artistic lyrical spontaneity
learning of words using them expressively
or impressively, excessively, whatever it takes
with poetic license, there are no mistakes
Works that lead to electric elucidation
with rhythmic flow, meter and alliteration
my primo priority is; my poem pieces make sense,
with rhyme and my love for classic cadence
having the quality of amatory ambiguity,
steered adrift with ominous obscurity
strapping images of suggestive metaphors
I’ll write to inspire as do the troubadours…..
in the teepee tent of Akkadian one day
His ideas got farfetched and ran away
he invented a protagonist solid and true
Gilgamesh was magical, mystical, and true-blue
An ancient Mesopotamian hero, that man
King of a city state of Uruk, I understand
He ruled sometime around 2200 BC
A solid hero, built large as the trunk of a tree
The epic poem from Akkadian’s mighty pen
got longer and more fanatical with the desert wind
I can hardly imagine this bard’s surprise
When he met King Gilgamesh over the next rise.
The house used to be warm when they were all home
Not the house is gone and I'm all alone
A stray on the street with no where to go
I wish I could tell them I miss them so
Trudging through alleys in the sleet and rain
Hoping one day I'll be there again
Down on my luck I'm just grasping at straws
I push down the feeling and press on on torn paws
Searching for light I'm always chasing that car
Run ragged and crooked, towards my guiding star
Will I catch it this time?
Will it help me be where you are?
Gilgamesh O’Malley left his home in Fermanagh
With dreams of steaming plates of Irish stew.
He ate his last potato last time Sheamus paid the rent.
Since then, there’s not been very much to chew.
The lords of the Ascendancy express paternal care
By flaunting all their privileges of wealth,
While tenant souls like Gilgamesh subsist on gospel words
Unsuited for the maintenance of health.
The famine’s grip was guaranteed by what was done to help;
The landlords’ ledgers chronicled events.
The mighty Earl of Lucan and the rest lived absentee,
Their middlemen kept busy squeezing rents.
So, Gilgamesh O’Malley left his home in Fermanagh,
And climbed aboard a packet ship in Cobh.
He authored his own epic as an immigrant at large,
To brave the flood and find a decent job.
Gilgamesh O'Malley left his home for foreign shores.
Should the Fates condemn your destiny, his fortune could be yours.
Gnash my teeth on words of stone,
Crash these bones into Your own.
And print the chains of a million slaves,
Upon my page, upon this wage,
Earned.
Made flesh and forgotten,
Burned.
Gilgamesh begotten,
Returned, to the pillar of salt body,
Petrified stare at the clear cuts, shoddy.
No care, bare, nothing there,
Stare.
Share these words if I could before,
My mind goes blank.
...
The face in shadow,
Now in light.
The face in shadow,
Unending sight.
Bearing witness,
Day and night.
Eternal stare,
Nothing there.
Bare.
Can't care,
won't care.
Stare.
...
Then comes the rain.
Which starts almost imperceptibly,
And drapes me in the gentlest patter,
Seeping through my frozen matter,
Until deep trenches burrow and clatter,
Down my face and to the floor batter
Drip drop drip drop streams and splatter.
Until I am no more.
Nothing but a puddle on the floor.
Sword Of Justice
Sword of justice indict a bogus Gilgamesh
An apathetic ghoul condemned embodying arrogance above kindness
Dark and ominous intent bound to abolish
Inherent freedom of expression beside justified inquests by the press
Impotence with bias grievously intermesh
Abandoning bodies littered amidst landscape chanting their bitterness
Noxious world of lies desiccate rotten flesh
While oxygen deserts his breath as waves of tears drown forgiveness
"This is a tirade aimed at those who will go to extremes to pursue and
achieve their obnoxious, evil, and heartless intentions to rule and remain
on top of the food chain. In the United States, one such entity almost
turned this nation into an autocracy.
12/24/17
2:54 p.m.
West Palm Beach
Florida USA
Villanelle : It's all been said said better and bolder before
It's all been said said better and bolder before
Worse now most repeat over and over again
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
Those who trouble not to delve into sages yore
Make not but weak links in the derivative chain
It's all been said said better and bolder before
Those who toiied without e'en recompense for valour
Toiled for insights ripped out of seething guts in pain
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
Homer Murasaki Valmiki Boccaccio
Gilgamesh Beowulf Pillow Sei Shonagon
It's all been said said better and bolder before
How much the " creative " writing courses ignore
Those whose suffering wrought talents in deep dungeon
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
The reign of digital maths spells poiein woe
Business minds now serve as mid-wives during birth-pain
It's all been said said better and bolder before
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 2018
Revenant does not eat human flesh
As he was portrayed in epic of Gilgamesh
His body however will always stay fresh
He can’t be stopped by a wire in which he would enmesh
The harvest moon is eerie red
But when I look upon it I’m not sad
It sings the ballad of revenant the undead
And even though his awe inspiring visage can cause dread
He is marvel to see
Necrotic plus neural energy of unearthly
Negative resistance to knowledge is his majesty
With by just the base of idea being spawned reality
Perhaps the most deep question of all
Does revenant have a soul?
Perhaps more profoundly then human he has a soul
Eerie red moon shines on the path it will take past winnowing hall
sitting at a well called
the sandy hut bar.
recessed illumination in the back
of my head draws out the characters
one by one.
my eyes flicker before the
incarnation of siduri.
she is drunk again and you can hear
the rain falling heavily on the roof.
i look up to view the bright citron
dragon painted on the ceiling winding
its way along the tiles.
a small glass with condensation for
thought asked the question.
why am i so imperfectly shaped?
now i remember all those chinese dive bars
with extravagant tiny jade forest.
siduri somehow rising off the barstool
and walking out the door.
" siduri: epic of gilgamesh, alewife and
veiled bartender."
Scaling the monster like Gilgamesh
Seems hardly necessary
It's just a mountain and a man
All the fights imaginary
The quiet solitude of land
Can be tempting and scary
But human events and hands
Are only one version of history
Santa Monica Pier
I remember watching
the ocean roll on the shore,
wave after wave,
crashing down on the solid sand
and I idly staring back
wondering if the Atlantic was as blue.
I watched him light a candle
and move in the swaying light
from a bygone age.
The flame flickered, so fragile,
it leans and sways in the cold breeze
My burning love is the flame in the lamp
From antiquity--a pre-industrial artifact
An oil lamp of glass from Rome
Bronze from Carthage
A terra-cotta from Athens
He smiles at me
in a flicker of light and
knows all my past like a line from Virgil
A chronicle from Homer
An essay from Milton, a history of Herodotus
And me, ignorant,
knowing nothing of him
can only quote
from Ovid,
Beowulf,
Caedmon and Gilgamesh.
The flame descends,
From the nape of the lit candle,
and we are lying in darkness on a spring night.
Everything in history is forgotten
and yesterdays are not so many
as night descends,
the lit moon cast in the glow
of the lamplight of our love.
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