Short Hemlock Poems

hemlock that killed
philosopher Socrates, is ~
precious medicine


04 December 2021...

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Today got started with way too much pressure.
I could use a good stiff drink, with a hemlock chaser....

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A goblet of deep yearning
  face quizzical, heart pounding
a shrug of a glance upward
  ~ drink the hemlock...

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I walk to true death
Give me the hemlock of books 
Wisdom- divine grave



© Mahtab Bangalee
Chattogram
15/09/2021...

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Bring one glass hemlock
Let poem drink in true veins
Death never can touch

-August 11, 2018 Chittagong


(True Poem Never Die)...

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The way a Crow shook down on me
     The dust of Snow from a Hemlock tree
     Has saved some part of a dismal Mood
     That I had on another day....

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If it truly be the Witching Hour
  from witch’s brew we need not cower

Only where’s the timepiece so precise 
  it rejects fresh hemlock for garden spice...

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What killed Socrates.
a weed or Aristophanes?
What caused an end so dire?
The law or just satire?
The cries of ignorant crowds.
or something in 'The Clouds'?...

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what are those? I ask, my voice cracking a bit.
They are long deep claw marks in my hemlock tree.
Made by a cougar? A mountain lion? a puma?
My cat cannot stop giggling....

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Here is the summary of everything:
or pulsating love,
or hemlock ...
Or love in its entirety,
or nothing...
Because life without love
it's not life
it's simulacrum ...!...

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scattered the atom of heart,

O' rose, you've come
with a cup of hemlock,
I'm on the world dock,

numbness syrup
devours me slowly 


- Sunday, July 28, 2019 Chattogram...

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How sad this misadventure...
                 imbibe hemlock poison
                  to kill a love
                  disillusioned... and die
                  because of this......

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Cerulean above

Fan brushed with fossil, ash, silver and cloud

Zephyr's northwesterly cold

Hemlock seeds and broom sage tassels fly 

November surprises ...

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                                     Soft white lace, your face.

                                 Your wild carrot chewable chow.

                                         But hemlock poisons....

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Thrust a dagger into my heart
Thresh me with a flail
Lay me on a bed of thorns
Give me a chalice of hemlock
Burn me on a funeral pyre
Banish me to the Sahara...
And I will only smile,
Because I am in love!...

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Suggesting a new plant based diet
She’d leave me if I didn’t try it

In that quarrel she was the winner
So that evening I cooked the dinner

The table was laid and the soup that I’d made
Was Hemlock and Deadly Nightshade...

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I would dance upon the cratered moon,
for just one dance with thee.
I would sip the hemlock,
if touched by your lips the goblet be.
I would peculate the honeycomb,
and risk wrath of the bee,
if you had deigned to ask the honey
from impoverished me....

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The image I imagined,
Alas! It has not passed. 
For I am afire with carnal desire, 
unquenched and dying fast! 
My sweetest bane, I shan't complain- 
you are my Love, my Death, my Pain! 
Through my heart, a stake! Oh, do indicate 
the grave where Love was lain....

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hemlock
a shock

foxglove
no love

orchid
morbid

wolf’s bane
insane

larkspur
bad blur

glory
gory

sumac
step back

laurel
quarrel

bloodroot
a brute

jimson
no fun

bella
donna

monkshood
not good

rhubarb
grim garb

flower
power...

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My scream nobody listens,

           in the middle of this huge city,

           I won't depress on unhappiness

           wrecked, drink poison or hemlock...

           said to be the antidote to this agony

          I found the source of poetry in the fierce cry...!...

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The hemlock grove keeps haunting
trembles dare fade away

"Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius.
Please, don't forget to pay the debt"

Those thou teach have greater reach
to poison of the day

these needles vein in vain
diepan, water fogs__
no holding off the pain
no holding out the pain...

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An eloquent stutterer he was,
whose anecdotes were luscious and true
he lived in the days of aesthetics,
but had no comeliness in size or stature;

His teachings were unadulterated and void of fallacy
Ipso facto he was condemned to the gallows,
he tasted of the legendary hemlock potion
And died before he lived....

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Throwing soil into a planter
Growing season just begun
Showing her I have green fingers
Knowing I shall need no gun

She thinks I’m a layabout
Me thinks she’s in for a shock
Three months til she gets to sip
Tea from leaves of fresh hemlock




9 June 2021
Sponsor: Joseph May
Contest: Lento - 8 Lines Poetry Contest...

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I like the sense of it
Choosing those who manages the state
It does not mean I feel included
That anyone thinks about me
That my needs are the platform of the slate
I sense that all this spending 
Wastes my time and expectation
That any change of governing
Is a delusion
In hemlock I cannot drink
The franchise
Holds us tettered at a brink...

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I dove into a cauldron
Headfirst into a brew
I needed a phoenix talon
To wash my heart anew.

The witch & I are friends
He gave me his talisman
We wrote out names in blood
On a tree our names engraved.

Running through hemlock groves
Swimming through moonlit waves
Our friendship is a cobalt haze
Fortune smiles upon the brave....

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