We wash our dead, our dead!
We make paper bags, alembics, sandpaper and words from their bones
The abstract reality of the walls - the chandelier of the sky - the sound reflected in the water
We mix our mortar like we are doing things bigger than our size
Sworn - promises were given - everything was irrationally dismissed
Above a fire - a swearing from the flames - a gothic wound - the embers of our chest
And our dead are the apocalypse scenario - the pendulum of time of our geography
Helpless puerperal - not a baby but fresh blood pouring from our womb
A raining cloud was hanging in the coffin - a lost continent in a steel box
Our dead were silent! The eye in the compass - the hunter in the cave - silent Ptolemy
A text in Sanskrit on the steles - the bat flower - dark history
And the screaming dead, Ida Nadi, Ida Nadi!
I was crafted for you long ago of bronze
Carried by Egyptians like fine silk
I was once the ankh pressed against your pain
We crossed the Nile while pharaohs slept in lotus
dreams
The desert was once our home and Cleopatra, our
Queen
While the queen courted Caesar and General
Ptolemy ruled
We clung to the fevered silver of the stars
But now is today and all is forgotten of us
A promise to M.
Written in sand
Lift your celestial gaze to be amazed in Wonder
As has Ptolemy, then Copernicus and Kepler after
Who are the capricious Gods who dance in wander
To revere Mercury? Venus? Mars? Saturn? Jupiter?
Ptolemy imagined a play staged at his own residence
There the Gods heaved upon us all their vain existence
Trapped by Humanity's Ego, blind to exposed evidence
His glowing Hearth lifting higher embers of negligence
Copernicus heralded the inspirational spark of sacred denial
Orbits dared to be spun into the ire wrath of Church reprisal
Hush your Truth. Mankind cannot, will not be the Sun's disciple
Calculations implore? Observations explore? ASTRONOMICAL!!!
Kepler awoke to his divine intervention lifting the veil of Dogma
He questioned atop ashes of descent burned without anesthesia
A revolution uproar of Ellipses stretching in variable speed inertia
The Gravity of his Truth pulling inextricably at undisputable raw data
The moral of this recounting is to shun the fantasies touted by Elves
Be wise. Be curious. Gather the courage to see Truth for yourselves
Great is the battle, small the victory
when all that is won is lost to mankind -
in this war of worlds its great casualty
is the fallen consciousness in our mind.
From spear tip and arrowhead to smart bomb
or Ptolemy to Hubble looking glass,
Luxor hieroglyphs to CD Rom -
from the Bronze to Silicon Age we pass.
Primeval footprint, genetic blueprint,
sandstone castles under canyons of steel -
gone are the Caesars and Pharaohs extinct
and there’s a cautionary tale so real.
Civilisations that with hubris act
fall a ruin, a remnant, an artifact.
Written: August 2004
To Babylonians, Ptolemy (and me),
The night sky was a glittering sea.
They called them all stars
But (including Mars)
These “observers” were startled to see…
That charting their heavenly courses
And imagining bears, crabs and horses
They moved thru the seasons
But for confounding reasons
Some obeyed differing forces.
They called them “Wandering Stars”.
(We know planets are now what they are.)
But since we conquered the moon,
Who’d have thought that so soon,
From THEIR faces we'd look back at ours.
So transmission lag notwithstanding,
The space craft survived thru its landing,
But a plan to research
From an aerial perch
Was at one time beyond understanding.
Over six years a drone flight was planned.
Could it take off and land on command?
NASA asked it to fly
And did it comply?
TODAY HISTORY WITNESSED FIRSTHAND!
wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)
Cleopatra ruler
Captivating beauty
Collected four husband
Caesar was her lover
Claimed Caesarion son
Crucial Roman nation
Chose Mark Antony last
10/21/2020
Cleopatra VII Philopator (Koine Greek: ??e?p?t?a F???p?t??, Kleopátra Philopátor;[5] 69 – 10 or 12 August 30 BC)[note 2] was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt.
Cleopatra's husbands were (in chronological order)
1. Ptolemy XIII - he drowned in 47 BC
2. Ptolemy XIV - he was allegedly poisoned in c. 44 BC
3. Julius Caesar - he was assassinated in Rome in 44 BC
4. Mark Antony - he committed a suicide following a crucial defeat from Octavian in 31 BC
The Greek philosopher Ptolemy described Yemen as “happy Arabia”.
Understanding her beauty during ancient days.
Some have changed this to “Fortunate Arabia”.
Both names enlighten her in positive ways.
One of the oldest centers of civilization in the near East
Yemen is rich in culture, a historical significant, a well-known beast.
Yemenis developed the south Arabian alphabet by century number eight.
She is a conglomerate of modern and ancient, both worlds so great.
Home of powerful city-states and empires, Yemenis also control
Production of highly sought out frankincense and myrrh in her whole.
She had exclusive access to spices from South Asia in her earliest days.
Also was the distributor of plumes and ivory, an East African craze.
Yemen was a middle man, who knew what she was doing loud and soft.
The prophet Muhammad sent his son-in-law to Yemen to build two mosques.
This may have been the beginning of Islamic architecture, one thing for sure.
She is a gorgeous, rich country with a culture and history that is amazingly pure.
Like seraphim whose wings unfold,
your majesty goes not untold!
As the light of your brilliant face
moves in me all of time and space;
as planets orbit heaven's Sun
and encircle it one by one;
so, too, am I caught in your sway,
enrapt with you from day to day.
The hosts of God bring attention,
with horns of holy dimension,
and trumpet your great might whereof
they blast their praise from up above.
You are The Incarnation
who sparks this cosmos's causation,
through which effects exist from laws,
in worship to cosmic First Cause:
in Latin, “Primum Mobile,”—
“first mover” of Ptolemy,
which answers Infinite Regress
from the pre-Socratics' egress.
Awesome Pegasus appears in the Northern Hemisphere
as a beautiful winged horse that Greek gods adored;
what Ptolemy saw was something he wanted to share.
When he discovered it, he gladly gave it a horse's name:
nothing else came to his mythical mind other than that;
imagine him staring at it and drawing its stirring image!
Stand beneath it on the longest night of summer,
its tiny stars dazzle more than white diamonds;
it's the perfect night for lovers to breathe warm air!
I happen to spot Pegasus while searching for answers,
how this breathtaking universe came to be from nothing;
it hypnotized me with its twinkles if they were dancers!
Written on 4/17/2017
verse
High in the sky, Beehive Cluster.
Nebulous mass, to quote Ptolemy
shines within the breast of Cancer.
An astronomer's anomaly -
"twinkle, twinkle little star"
what genius your light inspires.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_Cluster
written 27 April 2016
At the rise of the sun-
I saw a flower stretch long,
Her vein glows,
And her barge of charms violently grows.
Shiny is the face
That allures Antony to its rays.
For her juicy nectar,
Pests gather.
In the community of her peers-
Her beauty is their fears.
As her skin’s opulence-
Transcends the rainbows
Caesar ticks for her intelligence,
Ptolemy sighs for her magnificence.
Like stars her grandness brightens
And infinitely heightens
Ramses II in his stance saw none,
Even Olympus in it majesty harboured none.
A type known to caterpillars,
But a kind kept from locusts.
Season of Olympus’ gate.
star gaze
a winged white horse
flies across the northern sky
lovers worldwide look in wonder
just as Ptolemy did
Jack Horne for Nette’s Pen a Pensee contest, 1st July
Ended is my week to make Satan smile
The weather forecast calls for sun all day
My camping gear sits in an unpacked pile
As, of course, pouring rain has come this way
I was headed outside to cleanse my soul
By camping out under open blue skies
Although my good plans may have come undone
I will not change my goal
This win the devil shall not realize
As I will engage in rainy day fun
I start a fire in my fireplace
Spread the down sleeping bag across the floor
With marshmallows and chocolates in place
I devour some of my campout smores
I digest my book on astronomy
Learning the position of all the stars
Getting prepared for the next night that clears
Reading Ptolemy
Find out exactly how to locate Mars
Gain the intelligence to last for years
Rain will not compound this week’s misery
Beelzebub shall not have his will today
I have learned from my long past history
Not to let some rain get into my way
My fingers will make love to the guitar
Sitting right here on my living room floor
Even though I may not be outside now
I know what good times are
As I throw on a couple of logs more
And I still cleanse my tired soul somehow
in Florence, Italy,
the Museo Galileo
houses the middle finger of
Galileo Galilei---
enclosed in a glass case &
sticking upright at the sky,
it not-so-subtly signifies
the wonder that came in
insisting that the sky did not
abide by the dogmatic assertions
made in the big fat work of fiction---
instead,
following in the footsteps of
Philolaus, Heraclides Ponticus,
Aristarchus of Samos, Hypatia,
Ptolemy & Copernicus,
Mr. Galilei defended the idea that
this little rock we all reside on,
revolved around the sun &
not the other way around, as the
cunning catholic church
wanted us all to believe---
and though he was found
by the Inquisition to be
“suspect of heresy,”
forced to recant all that
he had said &
afterward was forced into house arrest
for the remainder of his day
on the condition that he would
read the psalms specific to him being a
bad little boy,
he is regarded as “the father of
modern science, physics & astronomy” &
is revered by anyone who seeks truth
through rigorous experiment &
the accumulation of evidence.
Cleopatra , Queen of Egypt , feasting on Quails
and honeycakes,dressed in glorious splendour.
She minted new coins with her picture on them
"Mark them Cleopatra Philopater, after the King!"
Garlands of flowers , decorated in gold ,luxurious
purple silk, rooms perfumed in roses, celebrates
her victory with the Roman leader , Julius Caesar.
Bald as an egg and old enough to be her father.
Few women could resist his sexiness + charms.
Her brother ,Ptolemy thought not and surrounded
Alexandria with a sqad of twenty thousand troops.
Months went by ,Caesars Roman army re-gained
control........Ptolemy Xlll , weighed down by his suit
of golden armour drowned in the waters of the Nile.
In Alexandria she put his golden armour on display.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.