Those hours that with gentle work did frame,

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

Will play the tyrants to the very same

And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter and confounds him there,

Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,

Beauty o'ersnowed and bareness everywhere.

Then,  were not summer's distillation left

A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it nor no remembrance what it was;

But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,

Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.    Sonnet 5

***************************************************************

This beautiful Shakespearean sonnet was discussed in class today. It really hit home for me.
In essence, the sonnet (as well as the other 153) is talking about how important it is to not worry about how fast time goes. "And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence"...the absolute truth in that makes me weep. I have no control over that. I cannot stop time, God! I wish I could.  Everything dies, everyone dies. No one can stop that cycle.

::Today was not the best day. I was left alone to think...and I need to stop that.

Both Geminis, both blossoming in June,
Both with a summer body-clock supplied -
It's not surprising if I feel in tune,
Or sense you touch me somewhere deep inside.

One birthday back when I was just a kid
I got this perfect present (even though
It took me years to find where it was hid -
And still can't quite unwrap it, as you know).

These are the ways in which I try & bring
You closer to me, when you're no such thing.

where all our silences have come to fail

your senses give us what we do not need

another set of messages to heed

some more false elements for the old tale

those integrators which we would assail

but dare not indicate this is just greed

for simple life of which we own the seed

and the plain clothes to hang upon a nail

who reads the sigil has seen all the rot

of centuries fall off from eyes turned cold

not through hard pain but from exploded rage

at all the sordid horrors of our lot

these terrors that besiege our growing old

and the sad beasts that lie within each cage

After the Bacchanal

Sated satyr watches supple soft breasts

rise and fall with her dreams’ rhythms, ponders

love’s mysteries in wine hazed daze, wanders

lustful wilderness spent, drunk, and undressed

from wild rides through vineyards . . . She was impressed

with—what?—and fell, giggling, to lie under

Lust’s burning eye, ripe and lusty, wonder

of youth and beauty, and grace unsuppressed!

What of morning? Whose head will ache, cheeks burn

with something akin to shame, and what heart

might patter with some new emotion—turn

the page and write bright life anew? They’ll part,

and she’ll recall him as satyr du jour . . .

And he, crushed by love’s upset applecart.

David M Pitchford
Rev. 8 October 2008

(Painting: "Sleeping Bacchante" by Karolyn Brocky)

so there is water out there south and west
that's all we see and out beyond more land
and stranger places on each palm-fringed strand
will seem like us the modern dispossessed
who don't belong but have got the bequest
of gold and green passed down from hand to hand
so that each has to make some sort of stand
or claim that they've been given a great test
these are the lies that little children tell
when parents think that they are fast asleep
to scare each other by pretending brave
the ones that later turn to the hard sell
making the painful seem ungodly cheap
while the blue water waits to be our grave

Watching Hoosiers in the Himalayas

I never thought I would ache for Illinois.
Especially here in this cherished place,
Amidst these swaying pines that whisper joy,
Of windswept hills and cold alpine spaces,
Amidst these pines that wreathed in monsoon mists
Transform the world medieval once again,
That silent stand like monks in sacred trysts.
Yet in this cherished place there comes this pain
For rich, dark, furrowed fields a world away
For harvest leaves that dying golden fall
On silent walks of silent towns that stay
More silent still when winter carpets all
And winter snowdrifts sweep, and families keep
To glowing houses. I watch this screen and weep.

truth cuts like a dull knife and we are found

out of our proper spaces and not sure

of how to get safe back or what the cure

of this ill time will be the harsh compound

of present agony and glory drowned

with all our magic proved sick and impure

not much of what we are can still endure

but for the present we are all unbound

not what you are but how you may perplex

those who would harm your hopes and lay you low

is all the matter this is the true sign

that must the mean and hostile ever vex

leaving behind a steady even glow

as we pass on along the ancient line

(Edward Poynter: Cave of the Storm Nymphs)

Out of the Storm . . .

Father Neptune was angry that gloaming
day. How he raged! No ship might for prayer
nor skill escapes such waves. Each green layer
of ocean over each foam-fold folding,
depth to shallow swelling, rising, holding
only to demonstrate Neptune’s slayer,
the unforeseen blow, dredged up to lay her
doom on all aboard—surging and foaming
to pull each hand to briny graves. And yet,
the Storm Lord’s own daughters give sweet mercy
to he whom they will. No sweeter lass born
than she whom this salt sailor drowning me
in the Cave of the Storm Nymphs—Yes, Mercy
herself drowned us there in Passion’s bourn.

David M Pitchford
7 October 2008

what holds us up is nothing but light air
your thought is like it vanishingly weak
yet we have reached another lofty peak
and see the lowland down below us clear
as on a map since this morning is fair
the sun behind us showing what we seek
for this short moment we have the mystique
you cannot stop us doing what we dare
so this is who we are and what we need
past all the shadows that have obscured sight
secrets revealed as we announce the name
in open daylight time to set the seed
into clean earth long hours before the night
and fill each heart with joy as with a flame

Since I'm always trying to push myself in unfamiliar directions, I thought I'd stir up the hidden poet in me again and whirl my pen for a sonnet. I included the basic rhyming structure for an English sonnet below in imabic pentameter—simply said, ten beats per line—so if you're equally inspired, you have it handy and can go for a spin yourself.

Here is my effort:

~ Forgotten You ~

(a) Alone on this well-trodden path I stride
(b) I strain for mem’ries I can’t seem to find
(a) Stories of yesterday melted inside
(b) Music fails to play in my cloudy mind
(c) I recall some kisses in pouring rain
(d) And steamy nights in strong arms by the fire
(c) The caresses and hugs I’d think would stain
(d) Are fluttering off like fairies of Ire
(e) I can't just look over and see your eyes
(f) Shadows have swallowed the treasures I’ve known
(e) I can’t seem to find you or hear your voice
(f) Where and who are you, who once was my own
(g) If I could just see you and hold you again
(g) I’d know my last walk would end with a friend

If you're not quite lyrically gifted but are a great storyteller, try giving your work some rigidity like in a sonnet or in a villanelle and find your inner poet. You'll never know whether or not you can do it unless you give it a try.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

right there on edge on mountain lip see cloud

swift move through sky through steady clearest blue

with every second become something new

voices within declare you have been cowed

not knowing yet the force that is allowed

nor proper motion ready for its cue

on neither side is the eternal view

but every sound right here is sharp and loud

so you were eager then to find a space

just for yourself and had so much to prove

and so much time or so it was you thought

being a fool now there is little grace

for you to get into the rightful groove

and the robed judge has come into the court

We're in the kitchen. God knows what I've done,
But judging by the look upon his face
The next few minutes won't be too much fun.
I don't know if it's falling out of grace,
His giant anger blotting out the sun,
Or panic over what will soon take place,
But everything that can begins to run:
Piss down my legs, tears from my eyes, thoughts race

Around my head, but can't find an escape
Or couldn't then, or there: though in those years
A way of winning did, perhaps, take shape
In my imagination, in that dream
Of being bound & whipped: which stopped my tears
And turned my piss, amazingly, to cream.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

This is the sonnet I had in mind whilst writing Valerian and Alaric - love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

We never paid to live again—its free
with no worry, no cash, nothing but shame.

so this is where we face the simple fact

of elegance and truth the crystal bird

will rise each time although it is absurd

to say there was not one good thing he lacked

the signals clear not one of them abstract

nothing is left that ought to be inferred

by we who follow only the plain word

an honest message left behind intact

no one departs while we can remember

clear tone of voice and movement in the dance

that's life itself no one would want to fake

the laughing glow hoarding each sad ember

we fight against the forces of mischance

and read the shining verse for honour's sake

 there is a circle around the full moon

a thing of wonder in the warmth of night

an awful omen something not quite right

and then the rain brings life back into tune

this brilliance breaks me out of my cocoon

but chases me indoors i can't requite

the gift of thought and of the fragile light

but do not understand it is a boon

to be caught there that moment by the rain

in natural blessing just that simple touch

of cooling water taking back to earth

both mind and body it is clear and plain

we must not love the world so very much

as to forget just what the light is worth

There are a thousand ways that lives are lost.
The Lost Boys of Sudan have known them all.
Parents, brothers, sisters, land; which loss most
Crowds the emptiness, and cries out and calls
Them homeward? How can I watch this then turn
To chronicling of small melancholy
In haikued verse? Should this knowing not burn
Away all artistry, all verse, holy
Longing for beauty even, caught in bursts
Of a shutter? I think the Boys would say
It is not so. Is it not dance and mirth
And songs about one’s home which make that day
Shine brightly, when we will all go back home
And praise each people’s beauty one by one.

there is a secret that no one is told
since when you learn it you have cause to groan
for your whole sense of right is overthrown
and what was warm and safe has turned quite cold
there's now no surety that you can hold
and all your blood has become solid stone
icily pure you face the world alone
in that one instant you have joined the old
now that the universe is once more wild
with all the passions that you have repressed
out of your need to be part of the herd
perhaps you can see once more like a child
capture again the honest decent zest
and find true meaning in each human word

(sonnet)

.

Allow me to limn your soul with my words,

Let me trace your aura with my fingers

So my pure heart’s lyrics could strum your cords.

Come near, let’s create love-poems together.

.

Permit my soul to croon you a lovesong.

Open your core to me so I could hear

The ballads of your soul I’d hum along.

For Our hearts blend well in duets dear.

.

My sweet paired rhymes proclaim our love’s essence

And you’ll be the voice behind my verses

For melodies define our existence

That would soothe every listeners’ senses.

.

Angels usher us to our destiny.

Heavens paired us in perfect harmony.

~

I wrote this sonnet and I thought it is perfect poem for Laarnie and Jed. I watched their guesting in the show Boy and Kris and they have such lovely chemistry with powerful "KILIG" factor. Their voices make a perfect blend one could not help but fall in love just hearing them in perfect harmony together.

please click YouTube video clips below to watch them sing impromptu - with credits to dekloy, owner of the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eTjhCsKYvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGN_pgY10Pg

below is a link when they sung The Prayer in full version - with credits to star01, owner of the videio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2R_vT-DNwc

----

I'm an Ilonggo, and I have some few personal encounters with Jed when he was just struggling as a singer in Iloilo as the lead singer of "Dye Vest Band," they used to be very popular in western visayas. Jed used to visit the stores I manage - Penshoppe and Oxygen in Roxas City and Iloilo and I had some brief chat with him as a customer in my stores(I doubt he even remember), but in those brief encounters with him, I can attest he is a good person with a beautiful heart which in my opinion is a perfect match for our princess, Laarnie.

Other than Ronnie Liang, Jed is on the top of my list among the established stars that would make a perfect loveteam for our star - I thought he would compliment Laarnie's gift with their great voices and our princess would be in good hands with this certified good hearted star. I don't necessarily expect, and-they-live-happily-ever-after kind of thing, what I'm saying is the match would surely make good and strong impact. If they take their relationship to the next level, it's really up to them - who are we to teach their hearts?

I look forward to see and hear them sing love songs together. I hope ASAP would put them in a segment where they would sing duets every sunday. 

It’s not the kinky stuff, or what we do,
But what we don’t, and all the gaps between:
Those glimpses of the rest and best of you,
More than a plastic goddess, or a queen:
Both more & less, as I am less & more
Than that strange love we come together for.