These spray-can scrawls on public walls
Express my psychic rage with rude intent.
My tags provoke a thoughtful pause
In much the same way Banksy does,
With cold irony and unrepentant guile.
My way of bombing bubble style
Might even tease a tourist’s smile.
But my darker themes paint silent screams:
Is it public?
Is it street?
Is it urban?
Is it commercial?
And then let’s consider my masterwork mural,
A brutally honest and life-like self-portrait,
A glimpse of me in all my squalid bohemian splendor,
Nothing but pavement crack and tenement dysfunction.
Too hard-edge for primetime, you say?
Well, I didn’t get a face like this
By staying out of trouble.
So there!
Looking into your eyes
I saw stardust forming into galaxies
and I wondered if The Grand Architect
felt the same wonder when it looked at its Creation
How the starlight danced off the planet’s rings
supernovae painted the Open with its Phoenician palette
suns bubbled and burst with passion
comets streaked as if with purpose
Persian
Phoenician
Armenian
Lebanese
worldly
lovely
my flattery needs fuel
one more glass of wine
grapes and olives building humanity
more beauty, my eyes crave it so
plus infinite wisdom
glasses full of merlot kisses
if a heart beats
it needs endless love
this woman taught me softness
of whom do I speak?
oh la la only the Egyptians knew
the love for your cat is eternal
A long ago, during warm midsummer-nights glow worms reminded me
That constellations in the sky were not the only bright specks,
I’d run my life checks
Irregular but stern
As if I were a dying drifter
Who throws rocks left and right
Of the long railway of life
As if marching uphill rugged Brumby bushland
For the last stand
To defend not only the fragile Earth’s crust
One providentially stands on
But also to withstand the tastiness of madness
The present provides in filled up Phoenician stone vases
That were resting on the bottom of the sea
Until the lungs of young divers
Brought them back to the surface
Right into the nexus of our lives
Like a gong of a cosmic time system
With the purpose of timing heart beats
Of the living,
And the decay process of the dead.
Aesthetically the battle might have been pleasing
In the realm of morbidly catatonic reality
In the end, it turned out to be
Just a slice of the vintage Hermelin
Often served in the Central Bohemia
Where big breasted waitresses know very little
But compensate with the Karamoazovian smiles, so well.
Terra firma, I stand on, I battle on.
Wouldst thou for me an air
upon thy tortoise lyre
play, and sing those words so fair
about the Isle of Tyre?
Within whose walls so grand,
there at bazaar would be
hangings made by weaver's hand,
and colored from the sea.
And ships of cedar made,
all crewed by seamen bold,
sailed to shores afar, to trade
for silk and spice and gold.
Consoled by sweet refrain,
I dwell in dreams of Tyre--
going home will e'er remain
my unfulfilled desire.
_______________
The ancient Phoenician city-state of Tyre, an island off the southern coast of Lebanon, was famous for its production of the prized Tyrian purple dye derived from the murex snails found in its waters. --WW
© 2018 Wayne Wysocki
The Phoenicians
Past
From turbulent seas
rise mighty noble Phoenicians
sailors and masters in commerce
twenty two constant warriors
ancestors of our language
four vassals, thriving Phoenician pride
furnished the Persian kingdom
from the mountaintops
tall cedars , sculpted to fine ships
humanity forever
sleeps in Byblos
ancient city bathed in
supple cream soft moonlight
sea winds carry messages
ancestors whispered to me
Fragmented, listless
an abandoned seashell
split in pieces
like Phoenicia
For he had all the choices in the world
All the luxuries, the best and most sumptuous fare
All the wealth and splendor ... no bother nor care
Yet the backwaters and stable, not Jerusalem
He chose for my sake, my salvation
Generations since Adam and Seth, Noah and Abraham
Yearned to see His face; so my God with Skin On
Chose Mary's womb, an illiterate village maiden
In honoring a simple village girl
My President over Souls and Limitless Constellations
Welcomes every race, gender, color, and all nations
In His Bosom of Forgiveness, if we repent, change direction
What a Leader, what a King, O my very own President
Who created both Jerusalem and Bethlehem, all in the firmament
Walked with simple fishing men, all across the Promised Land
And rode that Last Passover, on a donkey, what a precedent
He healed any who wanted to be healed; yes, before their "time,"
Like the Gentiles, when He had come for the House of Israel then
Faith and desperation, for crumbs like a dog, Phoenician or Centurion
Reveals the currency of this President: Faith in God's Son=One Atonement
Perform Some Sexual Sin
Remember time we took a trip to Morocco,
And had stopped by there for terrific taco;
After that into time we took very long leap,
To see willow who always wanted to weep.
The next day we zipped over to zany zoo,
To see such a gorgeous, good looking gnu,
Sometime later only seeming a short while,
Saw smile from some cute scaled crocodile.
Revived vibrant memory of vagrant Venetian,
Who performed part in play called Phoenician;
Remembered someone performing sexual sin;
Ended up being President living in Washington.
Jim Horn
Woman of lofty thoughts,
you enriched your culture –
embraced child- God,
brought to your people by missionaries.
You were not like Jezebel,
who brought destruction
upon herself and her Phoenician nation
by rejecting true God.
You pacified the warring tribes,
making them brothers ,
teaching them about Sky World
and miracles of God Lord.
There is a body stronger than the flesh alone
it is the body of your love, that temple built of desire's stone
quarried from the chaos of your erotic emotions, shaped by destiny's moan,
where neurotic nerves, psychotic passions, fanatical faith and romantic rose chrome
are imported from the four corners of your heart, brought to the mount of your soul zone
upon here, obedience and freedom, submission and domination chalk and chisel to the bone,
the flame of Shekinah seduces spirit within and without your psychic cyclone
as age becomes an aggregate of obsession's ascensions and avalanches in cycles for you to atone,
Egyptian magicians and Phoenician mariners could only dream of your pulsing fortune,
what do magic rites and the mines of Ophir have to entice with compared to your throne
Hiram, the builder of holy royal bastions would seek the secrets of your star storm home -
J.A.B.
Dedicated to Eileen who has expressed her love for this beautiful isle.....
Roman mosaics and Phoenician tombs
Byzantine castles and Venetian walls
Pine clad mountains and valleys full of blooms
Windswept wild beaches raked by sudden squalls
Vineyards lay across the land like green shawls
An island of custom and tradition
Yet this stunning land lies in partition
Churches to the south and northward mosques lay
A land in need of redefinition
For reconciliation people pray
Blackbirds up against the sun.
The 4th horseman has begun.
The reign of terror.
By the insane light-bearer.
Lucifer is true to her,
Mother Earth...
Rising from the ashes
By the hearth.
Phoenician fireplaces
Within our heart.
The beginning is near,
No end to fear.
Come on,
Die young.
Sing the song you have always sung.
Keep those vibrant lungs.
As the world remains spun,
Remember that you're having fun.
Life is tied up in bun,
Waiting to be undone.
Freedom breathes;
Freedom lives.
This that addles the brain
is not of opium or some such stuff
It has a special recipe :
Stardust and cuckoo eggs
slowcooked in the bile that rose in Cain
flavored with Phoenician almonds
chilled in the eyes of the subSaharan mom
holding close her starving child in vain
So that one grazing lazily
undismayed by slaughter to right and left
dreams of chewing the cud at end of day
When the prattle of pompous priests is done
and once again
one readies eagerly for futile dreams
in unending rain
ah, the @ sign---
once used specifically for
the realm of accounting,
meaning only “at the rate
of”---it rose to fame in 1971
when raymond tomlinson’s premier
email from the ARPANET
soon translated into the iconic
latter day symbol for all emails
within the internet---then branching
out to the likes of social
networks, usage in the second by
second communication of 140
characters or less---
certainly those brainstormers amongst
us can conjure up tales of past
historical figures twittering & using
strategic placements of the @
symbol when in grave need---
go further to understand what those
ever-so-important split second
messages may be, when the
nuclear attacks come---
or possibly when the climate change
“specter” finally comes to
fruition---all wrapped up in the
first letter of the latin alphabet---
stolen from the Phoenician,
and ready for your disposal on
a
silver platter.
On islands beautiful
in the azure blue, boundless
live outgoing kings
(with no kingdom here).
Oh, my poor Phineas !
Madman!
Why did you let out the secret of the gods?
Are you passing now
your uneven tongue
on the sweat skin?
Aren’t you breathing the stench?
Bless!
That’s a mercy!
The harpies – the pure
prize of the God.
And the entire blindness.
Blissful are the starving in their bodies –
do not call the wings of the wind.
Do not curse the messenger silverbowed –
he’s only an arm (with no pitty).
Accurate.
Stow it!
Stow it!
Stow it!
Let everyone find
Golden fleece,
find the devine
Medeas,
Kadam teeth
out of his throat by himself
to pull out …
Then forever
you’ll be dead.
*****
In Greek mythology, Phineas (also spelled Phineus, F??e?? ) was a Phoenician King of Thrace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas
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