Poems of Jeremy Batterson
Poems, in chronological order, written by Jeremy Batterson
Some of J. Batterson's poems, in chronological order:
On a Songbird met within a wood
Within a wood, quiet-seething in the air
Of summer's heat, where creatures all recoiled,
Still-resting from the sun's relentless glare,
In shallow shades, upon the humid soil,
There, suddenly, upon an open glen,
My eyes befell, afore me, through the trees,
From whence a songbird's lovesong did ascend
In lonely tones, as though its heart did bleed
Of unknown woe. And closer I tip-toed,
To press against the leaves, and peeking through,
In wonderous awe, upon the scene below,
For, nearer than a child's stone could throw,
The little bird had not my presence knewn,
But sweetly sang, alone, and filled the wood,
Which quietly seethed, as though it understood.
I thought, "Sweet bird! Whyfore this simple woe,
Which innocence from out thy heart asounds?
Whyfore, when all the other beasts lie low
To scape the the sun, which e'en now beats thee down
Within this glen, not shadowed by the shades,
Thou sit, exposed, and care not of the heat?
What reason caused thee, thus, to pass the day?
And, fore this time, what other simple feats
Determ'ned thy acts: what song and sleep and chase
Performed thee well, in tune with cycled time?"
No sooner asked, it cocked its little face,
Quick-turned its keen ear to some other place,
Then flapped away, above,to purpose blind.
In moments, lost behind a little hill.
It's vanished! Seething air now falls astill.
April the 20th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
To Save the English Tongue
As, swirling back within this raging storm,
The towering wall of foam breaks o'er the helm,
In crashing waves which o'er the deck aswarm,
With churning blow, then threat to overwhelm,
And cruelly sink our past beneath the waves.
This battered ship, which be our English tongue,
Thus sinks to death to end its graceful days,
When beauty's verse were by the English sung
In countless hearts, across an endless age.
Oh countrymen! Let beauty's verse be saved!
Grasp firm the masts! Sing past poems loyally!
Speak not as beasts, but guide thy speech away
Far from this storm, onto the gentle seas,
Where calm reprieve, cool-fragrant with the breeze
From safe shores near, in rippled waters by,
Drifts on in peace. There, thou thy tongue shall see
Will new hope leased, in glory, new-arise.
Then schemers who would base our tongue shall flee.
April the 28th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
Thoughts of one who first had falln in love
As though a child who through keen optics peeks
His eager glance, first-time, on unknown views
Which he be shewed, not knowing what he seeks,
He gasps delight, when, once there looking through,
Whole planet worlds unfold in unknown rhealms,
Then, to the stars, far-flung across the skies,
In silent night, as helmsman at the helm
Of some new ship which through the blackness flies,
Beyond the air, he thinks. --His universe
Has grown in scope so wider than before,
His wish to know it becomes his first-found thirst:
To fly high 'yond the boundries of the earth
Which blind out sight to secrets held in store!
My love! Exactly so, when first thou brang,
Thy self to me, I changed--and never same
Shall myself be, from henceforth, evermore!
But turn my eye unto thy glances shy
That look to mine, while I look back to thee
In wondered shock, for were I were to vie
To win thy heart in ancient rivalry,
What pale compare would my worth be to thine.
Yet, still thou glance toward me, and only me!
As in my sinful soul some good thou find.
Oh would I find to thy sweet heart the key!
E'en though I may need search eternally,
Then ope thy woman's soul so tenderly,
Tread softly in to where thy secrets be,
And know each one, and bind my heart to thee.
Else die in grief if thou away too soon
Shall turn thy heart, and I sink to my doom.
Completed April the 28th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
The Trotting Horse
The horse, he trots,
But keeps his watch
Across the rough-strewn way,
For, many rocks
Can cruelly knock
His broken feet today.
But, on his top,
The young Mark rocks,
Not knowing this dismay,
To his good horse
Knows no remorse,
For he goes now to play,
To play his torse
Upon the course
Where vain skills youth do weigh
In dashing feats
To win girl's sweet,
Girl's sweet hearts lead astray.
Girls then be grieved
When once they see
Vain love with them not stay,
But springs away,
Their hearts betray,
Their tender hearts to bleed.
Oh heartless Mark!
Who breaks girl's hearts,
Nor care e'en for thy steed,
Thou wretched farce!
Away depart!
But leave thy steed to me.
For it I'll ride
O'er green hillsides
That please its simple heart,
And, at my side,
A girl shall sigh,
While I her sighing hark,
Then press her near
And kiss her dear
And she and I not part.
April the 30th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
The Seashore
Upon high cliffs, o'erlooking rocky shores,
Where countries end and towering waves down-bore,
With fury's sound apounding far ashore,
Up there I stood and thought to times of yore.
My wild heart stilled, with wondering awe enthrawled
Before the waves, whose strength did rise and fall.
With gentle start, each wave then towered tall
To hover high, then crash into the walls
Of rock-strewn cliff, where, then, its fury sighed,
And sank away into the waters wide
From whence it came, and ebbed back with the tides,
Which come and go for all eternal time.
But't were a fool who found each wave the same,
For, though, in form, passed waves in new remain,
Yet new waves fall on shores which men have changed,
Where, each time round, man's beauty greater reighns.
Thus, pound thou waves, and pound more blessedly!
Thus, sink thou back into thy man-touched sea!
Thy beauty's worth increase in company
Of minds whose wisdom grows eternally!
May the 1st, 1992
The Breaking of a False Complaint
When grief shall sink its numbing talons down
Into my heart, full-reeling with the shame
That my repute be not with title crowned,
Nor high estate or deeds which lend me fame,
Then would I hide this wreckage of my name
From high-crowned men, and sink away to drown
In waters dreer from gloomy skies rained down,
With pattering drops across the muddy ground,
Past twigs and stones, to wound in running streams
From this full house, wherein much laughter sounds,
Thus, sink away from here, until it seems
That not again shall my shamed face be seen.
But scarce would make complaint, when from my dreams,
Far-rumbling thunder start then in the clouds,
Though soft-begun, its rumblings grow more loud,
To come t'ward me and t'ward this full-famed crowd!
Then, just above, while all our heads would bow
In horrored dread, in one horrendous sound,
The sky would split so wide the thunderclap
Would knock our feet and fell us to the ground!
There, blinding light would seer a vision vast
Into my mind, far wider in renown
Than what in fame, itself, could e'er be found.
Then, would I rise and thank graced message kind
Whose thunder blasts the cobwebs from my mind.
May the 4th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
Two Men Who Taunted Death
(Former Foreign Minister of Guyana, Fred Wills, a collaborator of Lyndon LaRouche, and a
friend and teacher of me, suggested a poetry contest, using the words, "prison walls shant jail the
fertile mind." Wills was the courageous diplomat who stood up at the U.N., in 1976 and called for
the adoption of LaRouche's International Development Bank, a policy which nearly broke the back
of the world banking establishment at that time, for which Wills was driven into exile, and nearly
killed by the British Intelligence Services. A true philosopher and lover of Shakespeare, Wills
used to give classes at the LaRouche office in New Jersey on ancient Greek dramas, such as
those of Sophocles. He was a truly remarkable man, without whose early work many of the
current successes of the international LaRouche organization would not have been possible. He
had a very amusing wit, and, sometimes would tell jokes about the Queen of England, whom he
thoroghly despised. The contest which he called for never occured, but, after his death, I wrote
this. The two people described here are, of course, George Herbert Walker Bush and Lyndon H.
LaRouche.)
Two men I knew, who each had taunted death,
Each differently upon his life-long stage.
Though, of the two, one did die nonetheless,
The other lived. On his count death did rage
And tear his hair and shriek and never rest,
But swore to God in horrid whining cries,
"Thou shall not take him from my own possess!
For, I be death, and all men with me lie.
When, once they die, in chains they shall be dressed.
No single one must 'scape my shackles wide!"
But those in heaven laughed at such a sight,
So well-amused by death's awhining din,
They joked of him and of his knashing bite
Which could not reach nor cause no harm to Him
In heaven high. Yet, e'en He, in his heights,
Looked down amused, but made his warning stern:
"Do quell thy noise, thou scheming, evil wight,
For I be judge. Will this thou never learn?"
Then did he call an angel to recite
The two's compare, which, by their deeds, they earned:
The first man to a silvered wealth were heir,
So grew, rich-clad, with comfort all around.
None else could with his finery compare,
Yet, still nought quenched this mad, bloodthirsty hound.
He bought and chopped his way up power's stair
In bloody steps, where countless lives were drowned.
Then, at the top, when he had gotten there,
He shrieked to man and earth, "Now ye beware!
For I be king o'er all, and my renown
Shall shatter men and bring whole nations down!"
His arch-foe, then, he threw in dungeons dark
Where no light came, to, thus, his power prove:
AWith him in jail, my conquering plan embarks
In final war to swipe the magic glue
He sticks the myth of truth in others' hearts!
These few, in unknown ways, then replicate
His dangerous myth, to break my plan apart.
Thus, jail him deep and lock behind the gate!
Where no men go, from there he shant depart,
But there I hide the beauty that I hate!
Yet prison walls shant keep the fertile mind,
As wise men know. The second man a sage
Of wisdom great, yet humble mercy kind,
When still had been of childhood's early age
And looked o'er nature wide, there he would find
In each place hidden where he turned his gaze
New mysteries great to please his eager mind,
Which oped to them, while he in wonder waged
A fervid search to know each mystery new
Which always more came 'fore his passioned veiw.
And, as in youth, so, then, his latter time,
This passioned man to solve new mysteries spent,
Yet how his wisdom had in beauty climbed
In latter years! Now he his passion lent
To other men! In hope that they might find
From wasted time, their own soul's beautied seed
Of hope's potent, at last to purge shame's past
Which chained their souls, that they their own hearts plead
For chance again to meet their history's task,
To march to war in one great army vast.
Oh fearless be the might of justice true!
It spreads as fire! The first man made all haste
To guard his foe with all his iron crew.
Yet, ever more, with quick-increasing rate,
Truth's army grew, then surged across the gates
And broke them down, the prisoned man to free!
With once voice cried: "We call thee now to lead
Our new-freed ranks to final victory!"
Then tyrant's force, right there, before his eye
Quick-crumbled down to where his power died.
Oh blessed be the Judge whose perfect law
Rules o'er the world! For, when toward Him men draw
Their beautied souls, He shall not them forsake:
In countless hearts, their good works shall awake
With joyous thanks. These new hearts then create
Such souls' increase, so death their souls shant take,
Forevermore, their beauty more arise
Beyond death's reach, to blind his sulking eye.
And when on earth two armies clash abreast,
The good shall win, and evil sink to death.
Completed May the 9th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
On Flattery
(This is more a witticism than a poem, but I like the language of it.)
All flattery makes a mockery of a man,
For it hath no love; with two tongues it assails,
With honeyed words, full-dripping with the sham
Of lies' deceit upon its victim frail.
Its first voice lifts a man with false compare
To heights luxurious that tip the scale
In that fool's mind 'tween norm and beauty rare
He thinks is his. Thus he hears not the bale
Of flattery's second voice which clever-stows
The hints to give the flatterer rich reward.
But even worse, this second voice doth sow
Its victim's heart with myth it need now grow,
That its imagined beauty can afford
To sit on high, its hauty eye to cast
On men below--whose true worth hath him passed.
He lives in fantasy, until, at last,
His life expires, and truth makes him aghast.
May the 11th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
On The Music of the Spheres
(Dedicated to Michael Billington, on the day that he
began serving his 77-year prison sentence. Although innocent of all charges, Billington was
railroaded into prison as one of the original "LaRouche 7," political prisoners, of the Bush I
Administration. He is a leading organizer the LaRouche association.)
'T was calm I stood one summer's whispering eve,
Where breezes soft o'er slumbering valleys blew.
The trees did rustle, lulled, and scarcely breathed,
For fear of their disturbing. All the leaves
And grasses hidden quiet gathered dew.
While there I stood enthused, with open ear,
'Gainst stillness deep, I noticed, then, one sound
.
Though soft, it filled the air. It seemed so near.
Yet, when I searched, my senses were confound.
'T was music that I heard! I looked around
Both up and down. --Yet nowhere could I find
The music's source. Well-hidden were the bards
.
Their angel voices sang in love divine.
Within my heart I looked then, full and hard.
"My heart,"I pled, AIf ever thou enshrined
The search to find true beauty, let the bards
Who sing this song be found. Let their wise minds
No more be hid from mine. Search thou afar
Their hidden place. Let not my worth be blind."
Then did I peer full-deep into the night,
Beyond the slumbering lands, up high, afar.
There, deep against the dark, at furthest heights,
Truth's mercy gazed serene, in wisdom's light.
Then did my heart bewonder at the sight:
Oh new-found truth! The singers were the stars!
Oh beauty bright! What actions here beneathe
Of toiling men in lee of error's doom,
Where hearts have lost their way and hope bereaved
Their fallen souls--In winter's snowy brume--
What actions here have caused ye to enwreathe
This fragile earth with song, and hearts relume
With kindled hope to find the storms reprieve,
And with thy love lift man from darkest tomb?
Perhaps 't is that thy timeless wisdom sees
Man's history full, where acts both passed and hence
Amerge their goals in one crowned gift bequeathed
To their beloved God? --Oh stars intense!
E'en now thy song on countless starry eves
Of ages past must equal reverence
Cast down serene. What other men perceived
This self-same song a thousand past years thence?
Oh let such men and I man's purpose tend!
How long it was I thrawled I would not know:
'T was only hours or eternal age?
All time had changed. But, presently, a glow
Did come as morn approached; the muse did fade,
Still there, but drowned by stirings of the day.
At last, I turned away, toward human tasks,
As men and creatures woke o'er valley vast,
Whose walls and channels echoed all my acts.
Completed May the 31st, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
On the Free Trade of Love
(This is more a witticism than a poem, but I include it because I think it is funny!)
All love is banished from the hearts of men
Who run afrenzied 'round and 'round as beasts,
All snatching lustrous pleasures for the feast
Of love's debasement--dragged within their dens.
Their starved hearts grow sickly pale and wahn.
"Oh praht thou not," they say, "with take of love.
It can't be ate nor trode nor slept upon.
It's value, thus, is void: Let God, above,
Who gave instincts to man take all the blame
If others might be harmed by what we do.
'T is only for our following instinct's aim
That harm is caused. Should we the acts constrain
Which God's own plan has in our natures drew?
No man can comprehend his acts' results:
He's limited. He follows his impulse.
'T is only God who know the final rote
Of actions' waves at ages' end asounding."
When evil men shall spew such barfing quotes,
Friends! Look 'round thee, where God's love asounding
Equally sings his love for every soul.
This love to evil souls is also gave,
Though God, omnipotent, already knows
Such evil souls shall try to make a trade,
By taking what is free and selling dear:
Their profit dear trades love for satan's hate.
Now, since the value of love shall e'er endear,
By trading it, shant hate e'er be arreared.
So evil gain shant wane in pain or weight.
God loves bad souls! --Thus, when their lives expire,
He bars them deep, in Hell's infernal fires.
June the 6th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
The Mountain
'Mid seething mists, below a mountain high,
Where bubbling streams deep through the wood flow by,
Where wild birds their echoed voices cry,
There doth my panting breath and loud footfall
Break nature's peace. My heavy body hauls.
Oh would I climb these craggy mountains tall!
Oh haul thy weight! Let not the seething haze
Drug thy resolve and drown thee in a daze
Of lazed exhaustion's boon. Oh lift thy gaze!
Let beauty's love araise thy heart below.
T'ward beauty pure must man's heart never slow,
Else it shall die. Oh let these crags be known!
Their crowned throne shall mercy's kind reprieve
Through weary bodies ease, when once they see
The wonderous world laid out for men beneath,
Which is bequeathed in one majestic view,
Not froze, but changed by actions that men do:
For man's resolve lifts earth toward heaven true.
June the 8th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
The Old Man at the Opera House
Upon a time, when art was loved for pleasure,
Less wretched praised by wretched, fool by fool,
And beauty drunk as wine, with hauty measure,
Men tasted not, but only o'er it drooled:
In horrid pools they drooled into their wine,
Then clapped their hands, exclaiming, "how divine!"
Then all the women puffed their hauty bosoms,
Looking hard for something to disdain;
But finding naught, they prayed the others woo them,
For why else had they come here once again?
And so they turned their hair-dos up so quaintly,
Clapped their perfumed hands and sighed "how saintly!"
But one day, to that house of silent grieving,
A lonely man came, stumbling on his cane,
Old he was, and poor. His tired breathing
Scarce could lift his old limbs as he strained.
And yet, a hope shone brightly in his eyes,
For this would be his last before he died.
He limped up to the booth. With hands atrembling,
He paid his hundred dollars for the evening.
Within the hall, a bursting crowd assembling
Ignored this poor old man with rasping breathing.
He looked around, remembering, and soft tears
Welled up within his eyes from bygone years.
Ah, so long ago: 'twas thirty summers
since her pure soul had high to heaven gone,
Leaving his alone and stricken, under,
Yet still, in every place, he beard her song ,
Still every spring, his heart would break in twain
And cry: "Dear God, let her come down again!"
Just then, the ancient muses sang their passion --
Beethoven, Mozart, sang to this poor man.
They sang divinely language everlasting
From out new singers as the night began.
He listened to their song and held it dear,
Thought he was deaf: the notes he could not hear.
No sound he heard but did the program scour
Carefully to know which songs were done,
And followed every minute of that hour,
Every song until the last were song:
Ave Maria, his beloved muse,
Was sung the last, the only that he knew.
Then, softly first, a shivering joy returning,
Passed through him, and he rose, for there he saw,
Before him, on the stage a vision burning
And cried out: "O viva Ave Maria!"
Now tears were streaming down his wrinkled face,
And deathly still had fallen o'er that place.
Those souls for once, were moved, and, as be, hobbling,
Passed them by to leave, their hearts ware throbbing.
Some of the hauty women bowed in sobbing
So touched by his pure love, as he went hobbling
Past them, out into a pounding rain
To pass away and never come again.
Completed July the 19th, 1992, Jeremy Batterson
A Variation on the theme of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"
Words that one must know to understand the poem:
Replevin: To return that which has been wrongfully taken;
Bereven: Bereaved;
Oh April Wind! Thou spring of my life's being,
Whose coming, high-graced voices gently whispering,
Wakens wintry death, before it freeing
The frozen streams and valleys from their gloom:
Thou of whose soft touch all true might is made,
Whose kindness melts all ice and clears all misting,
Whose warming breeze shall purge the coldest glades,
Which for thy coming wait, expectant, waiting:
Each field, each stone, each bogged lonely moor,
Each grieving man whose heavy sins down-weighting
Wrest cries despairing out him, o'er and o'er:
Oh thou, sweet wind! Oh muse! Oh voice of heaven!
Come! What winter stole let thou replevin.
Here where death gloats and drools o'er his dominion,
Where seedlings, withered, lacking view of heaven,
Pineth in their cold graves, where man is pinioned
To never fly again on wings of gold;
Here where one stood, who heard thy promise spoken,
But lulled in sloth, whose heavy heart down-leadened,
Fall'n to darkness, horrid-palled and broken,
Gasped a whispered, withered wish bedeadened;
Here, oh muse, where cruellest cruel inaction,
E=en as men breathed their last and tortured breaths,
Fled, feared, disguised in sloth, from human passions,
Leaving those poor souls to early death:
Oh wind of mercy! Blow across the heavens!
Come! Let man no longer be bereven.
E'en as the flowers, growing in their glory,
Become more beauteous each spring's renewal,
Until their vision sings, as oratory,
Subtlely of thy unfolding plan;
E'en as the act of one good soldier dying,
Lonelily in some obscure location,
Lives, to spring from death, and, ever rising,
Write its love upon time=s furthest nations:
Oh mighty wind, 'fore whom the mountains, shaking,
Tremble with joy, in knowledge of thy coming:
Thou in whose soft touch God is wisely making
Mankind's redemption and death's overcoming:
Oh wind! Let me to thy sweet voice awaken,
Living on with thee, of thee partaken.
Completed February the 25th , 1993, Jeremy Batterson
Lines Inspired by Shelley's "To a Skylark"
Oh mighty phoenix of five billion spirits!
Thundering heavenwards on wings of glory:
The wide world pauses, joyed too much to bear it
As thou, oh star, rise ever, ever soaring!
Higher, ever higher, upon a wind of fire,
Thou roarest toward the far and deep unknown.
Thou reachest with a passion that aspires
The furthest planets, as a promise shown.
The multitudes look up with more than wonder,
For they know well their own role in thy making.
Yet, knowing this, more joyous is thy thunder,
Though distant rising, still yet greater shaking
Their consequence upon this wide world under:
Then rise oh star! Touch all men with thy beacon,
Thou that lift above an earthly vision.
Some watch thee silently, though some be weeping,
But all look down within their minds to listen:
The weary soldiers rest from endless warring
To sigh and turn their minds toward times of peace.
The poor and suffering children watch thee soaring.
Again they smile and wish to climb with thee.
Thou art the bearer of their earnest yearning,
Of thoughts more pure than any words assever,
A music brighter than the sun aburning
Within their hearts, still rising, ever, ever,
Yet, always closer to their homes returning.
1993, Date unsure, but sometime after prior poem
The Shepherdess's Lament
Soft rain will come again to ease away
the withering heat, oppressive of the vale,
And from the horrid air of that foul day
Return the flagrance putrid weight assails,
So gently falling, first, one hardly knows,
Until, as waking from a horrid dream,
A calming whispering through our grieving blows:
We look in awe, as down the water streams.
The dirt-strewn roads, swept clear and fresh of dust,
Once more invite our passage where they lead.
We know these gentle raindrops also must,
E'en as they patter here on grass and trees,
Upon the slumbering yonder mountains fall
And e'en beyond, on hills and dales unseen,
O'er distant cities 'yond the mountain walls,
On glorious lands where we have never been.
Ah woe is he who ne'er the rainfall hears!
It comes again, again, but not forever,
Until the gentle raindrops turn to tears
For what is lost but doth returneth never:
Boholdeth there, amidst the dripping trees,
The cottage of the man who rose to fame,
A home half-hidden, snuggled in the leaves,
Upon whose roof pattereth down the rain.
Therein the lament of the shepherd maiden,
Melodious sweetness sadder than the rain,
In rising tones so pure, so stricken-laden,
Sighs woefully nearby where he is lain,
Whereon his face is litten by a smile,
As though at peace again and freed from fame.
--Ah sordid fame! It wrecked him all the while
He lived, a death, but never heard the rain.
She cries, "Where is the thronging cheering now?
Where all the riches of thy name's ascending?
How much was truly thine? Or tell me how
--How much a slave 'fore those from whom your bending
For their regard brought forth a showering praise,
Who loved thee not--for to the dark they dragged thee,
From innocence to grief, half-man, half-crazed,
But loving not, half-dead, and taken from me?
" 'T was I that loved thee! E'en from early years,
When most youth were still busy with their playing,
E'en then thy heart to mine I heldeth dear,
E'en then to win thy own my soul was praying,
Sighing, weeping, as, each passing day,
Thou further left me, greater pain prolonging,
Further passing, further, far astray,
Away from me--Ah bitter, bitter longing!
"Of all the hearts that in thy ravage knew thee,
Mine, alone, each day, each hour was breaking.
I could, alone, the proper way have shown thee.
That was why I loved.--Ah bitter aching!
Thou shunned me, for I was not good enough
For thy mad lust for pleasure and for power,
As though the flame eternal of my love
Could not compare with pleasures of an hour.
Ashamed thou wert of poorness, so apart
Thou fled, in terror, from my simple passion.
Ashamed of me, away from me thou harked,
To bask with women dressed in wealthy fashions,
To rush with them from pleasure unto pleasure,
Racing wilder, faster, while around,
E'en as, in glee, thou counted all thy treasure,
The weight of time and death came crushing down.
Yet, still I love thee. Ah, my breast forever
Burns on with fire for thy truer soul!
Unlike those monsters, I forget thee never,
Unlike those fashioned women, cruel and cold,
Unlike the men who praised thee but who hold
No love for thee, who, soon as death comes reaping,
Fly, scattering, like leaves, upon a knoll,
And let the weeds come quickly o'er thee, creeping.
"Dear God! Let me, at last, be joined to him!
If ever, by my good, I have from heaven
Earned some reward, then give my joy to him,
And give to me his heavy griefs down-leadened,
To suffer them.--to die for all his sins!
Completed September the 1st, 1993, Jeremy Batterson
A Dialogue with Aristotle
YOUTH:Now tell me, good sir, for my vision is blurred,
Oh tell me, why--why--is that?
For my heart is full burning
And my stomach is churning
With grief that I know not that.
And the more that I search, the less am I worth
For failing to answer to that,
And the less that I'm knowing,
The more pain is sowing.
Oh, sir! Please--oh please!--tell me that!
ARISTOTLE:Now, when we would know such a thing that is so,
We first need the so's basic facts,
So, by knowing the so-ing,
We will know what we're knowing,
And what we know will be the facts.
YOUTH: But how do we get what we don't know as yet?
For that is the pain I combat.
How can I be gaining
Whose lack is me staining?
If I could but answer to that!
For, that is the key to make me then see
A purpose for which I'm begat,
So that this sad grieving
My heart will be leaving,
To peace, with the knowledge of that.
ARISTOTLE:Well, come over here, and lend me your ear.
Now I'll tell you all about that.
You look where I'm looking
And watch what I'm cooking
And see what you can make of that.
CHORUS: And now the wise seer will make it all clear,
so, people, you listen to that.
Each one of you, all,
Look up on his walls,
Where, lined up in long, tidy racks
Of well-numbered shelves, through which he doth delve,
Are bundles and bundles of facts!
But, what is he doing?
What brew is he brewing?
Well, patience: we shall soon know that.
ARISTOTLE: Now, careful, my boy, for these are no toys,
But look at my wonderful facts!
See! This one is smaller
And this one is taller
And those ones are purple and fat.
And this one is round, but makes not a sound.
Here's one with a front, but no back!
Now, mix them around
And drop them all down.
Ah, ha! ha! --Now look at that!
(Aristotle drops a bunch of facts in a pile onto the floor. The youth stares, astounded, for a
few seconds.)
YOUTH:But what does that mean, for that, it doth seem,
Is the truth that I doth lack.
Perhaps am I nearing
What I would be hearing
At last? Ah, if I could know that!
ARISTOTLE:Well, they mean what they seem and they seem what they mean.
Of course we can all see that.
And what we are seeing
Is what they are being.
Ah my! How lovely is that!
YOUTH: But, what is their meaning, for that is their being,
And that is the truth that I ask.
Oh, where is this leading?
My heart is still bleeding
To know where we now are at.
(Aristotle counts the numbers written on the facts which he has dropped onto the
floor.)
ARISTOTLE: Hmmm.Let us see...Well, let's look where they fell
To get the right answer to that.
Now, this one has two,
And that one less two.
I would say we are where we are at.
But dear me, young man, now give me your hand.
You look ill--oh dear me!--Why is that?
Here, take two of these
Whenever you eat
To put you back on the right track.
Then, whenever you dare, you can move on--to where?
Why, to where you will later be at.
Well, thank you, my boy,
And be you not coy:
If you have more to ask, please come back.
CHORUS: And now the poor youth, who has fought for the truth
Staggers out, with a weight on his back.
And his voice is all hushed
His heart is too crushed
To speak, for he ne'er shall know that.
So, he walks away slowly, with his hopes fallen lowly,
Away, with that place to his back.
But his whole chest is heaving
With sadness and grieving.
--Pray, what is the purpose that?
Completed October the 7th, 1993, Jeremy Batterson
On Self-Corruption
(A man, looking at himself in the mirror, and scolding himself for the things which he should
have done, but did not do, and desiring to, now, finally, do those things which he is scolding
himself about, for not having already done as he should.)
O thou foul son of Beezelbub's decay!
Dog of nature! Blot upon our time!
Wretchedness to thee that e'er this day
Awoke in innocence to view thy crime!
Scarce had the morning light begun to poke
From underneath the mountains of the earth
And folded flowers, by the dew besoaked,
Begun unfurling to a new day's birth,
Scarce had the evening's long unbroken calm
Been woken by the early morning bird,
Whose single chirp sets off the day embalmed,
To carry on from whence it was disturbed,
Scarce all the glories of the day's ascent
Began, when, pausing, suddenly, it list:
--For, one whose breathing with the others blent
Could not be heard. Ah, something was remiss!
Perturbed, the sleeping men began to stir,
Troubled in their sleep by morning dreams,
Racked by horrid shadows that occured
Nightmarishly 'midst shrieks and evil screams.
O dog! E'en as the morning's freshest rays
Broke o'er the firmament in brilliant gold,
The world recoiled from where the ground was laid
With bloodied crime, where life had runnen cold !!
November, 1993, Jeremy Batterson
A Vision
Across the skies, a blinding vision, broken,
Split the night in two and rent the heavens.
From 'midst departed shades was I awoken
From deathly sleep, so black as it was dreaden.
O beauteous vision! Whence is it thou cometh?
And why to me, whose soul is, deadly, sleeping?
Why 'fore my ugly heart thy beauty runneth?
O answer me, for now mine eyes be weeping!
Thy beauty penetrates my deepest being,
So that, from head to foot, I shake and tremble.
Thou art far brighter than what I am seeing,
More beauteous than any view resembles.
How doth I see thee, then? O, light arisen:
O answer me! What task have I been given?
January the 23rd, 1994, Jeremy Batterson
The Wall of Fire
(Written on the eve of -----------)
Oh longest night! Thy beauteous music's ringing
Doth wrest from me a pitious, buring cry.
So sweet the crickets, innocently singing,
Happy 'neath the warm and summer sky.
Oh beauteous night! Behold my bitter weeping.
Come close to me; befriend me in this hour!
So calm the ageless moon shines downward, streaking,
Gently bathing earth in silvery shower.
Press near to me, oh night! Keep me forever.
Leave me not to die within the fire!
Though thee be long and painful, leave me never.
Purge from me the joys that men desire.
Upon thy lonely path need I now treaden,
To find the light that leadeth back to heaven.
August the 20th, 1994, Jeremy Batterson
The Pleasant Beach
I dreamt a peasant in the poorest land,
Far, far, beyond from whence I was reclining,
So pleasured in the sun, upon the sand,
Caressing me whilst down upon me shining.
The waves apounded, pounded on the shore,
In easing tones that crashed, then came ingrinding,
Grinding, falling, sinking, o'er and o'er,
Whilst, constantly, the sun was downward shining.
Ah blissful, worrilessBah happy day!
No bothers or designs I need be minding
--Except-- a horrid dream, e'en as I lay,
Fell over me, beneath the warm sun's shining:
"Ah peasant! What of thee? Come joineth me!
Thou, who from that parched valley, climbing,
Tremble violently to hear the quay
From whence great ships cast off, but without thee.
Too far from thee! Thou cannot make it there.
Too far from thee, old man; thy days are dying.
Thou canst but with a frozen vision stare
Onto the sand, whereon the sun is shining:
Oh sun! Oh sun! Oh let thy rays decrease!
Look how his eyes, in vain, with hope are shining!
Oh horror! Horror! Let this dreaming end!
I woke, but still the sun was downward shining.
January the 6th, 1995, Jeremy Batterson
A Summer Cricket Trapped in My Basement:
Nighty, brightly, lonlily in tone,
Chirps the cricket, 'neath by home, alone,
As, without, the shrieking winter winds
Beateth on the walls and make them moan
Dead memories from out the mind within.
Dead memories! Ah, deader than the sun
Which once in splendored happiness had hung
High upon the air of playful noon,
As fair birds danced beneath it, gay and young
--Until it sank into its wintry tomb.
A death that need not be, oh wretched fool!
Abandoning thy song to wintry cruel,
Whose icy winds surround, engulf thy soul:
For death to follow life be no true rule
Except for those inviting in the dole.
An orchestra falln silent. Nought is left
Save this sole voice amidst colossal death.
Where once a thousand crickets sang aloud,
Higher and higher to the summer clouds,
One steady voice, from some dark, unseen nest.
He hides from me, this cricket, out of fear,
Not used to this abode, so dark and drear,
Not knowing if I'll stamp him 'neath my boot,
Falls silent, he, whenever I am near,
Hiding from me, his lovely voice falls mute.
But soon as I am gone, he starts to sing.
Poor, lonely cricket! If only I could bring
Another cricket here to sing with thee,
Perhaps thy cricket-mate as company
For whom thou pinest, from thy happy spring!
October the 25th, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
A Sonnet on Blindness
Dark hath falln o'er me; a vision, stricken,
Feeling no more the shadows of that heaven
Cast onto the world, in silence sickened,
As eyelids drooped in pall and slowly leavened.
The sky grew dim. Extinguished were the stars,
That moon that sun that light the path of men.
Save for the rustlings, whispering from afar,
No motions thought those mists of darkness wend,
Faint whisperings of that once-brilliant light
That even now surrounds our blinded eye,
Though we can see it not, but know we might
With healthy eyes! We peer in vain, we cry,
But weakly so, for helpless is the plight:
Blind is he who fled the inner light.
November the 2nd, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
The Bog
There rots a bog of dark and drurry gloom
So lost in fogs of mold and dripping cold
As that what little light comes through the hold
Casts twisted, weird, as in some witch's brume:
Fantastic shapes of trolls and twisted arms,
Shadows, ghosts, dead multitudes of doom,
Twisting, grabbing, holding men in charm.
Too late to notice poison's vile bait,
Turning in dread, and struggling, now alarmed,
Their hearts sink down, their feet, as leaded weights,
Are sucked into the bog. They can't escape!
Their voice grows hoarse so that they cannot scream,
Chained, slow-churning in that nightmare dream.
November the 9th, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
A Failed Poet
(This whole poem is meant to be one sentence, a question.)
What burning hath befallen on that man,
Perturbed and restless with some hidden bane,
Churning restlessly, who up and stands,
Whose sleepless eyes shall never close again,
But deep into that darkling night doth peer,
Across that endless desert's shifting sands,
Keening his sense, afraid of what he'll hear,
Then lurching out to his eternal wane,
A lonely path, a heavy grief to bear,
A world whose every sound and sight is strange,
Familiar, yet whose every memory leers
In ghastly detail, e'en whose very stones
Seem printed with the writs of all his years,
Down upon whom alien stars unknown,
Cold and darkling in the gathering gloom,
Cast upon the stones in ghastly doom?
Completed November the 14th, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
A Variation on the Theme of Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale"
Words that must be known to understand this poem: Autumning: passing further into
autumn; Hale: without disease, healthy; Vale: an earthly life, also a valley; Enow: enough;
Behaply: haply; Darkling: a word used by Keats in his "Nightingale" piece.)
Fly from me! Fly from the bitter breast
That stares, in grief, upon thy laurel crown,
Whose withered leaves, pressed low upon the ground,
Mocking the heart that loved with deep desire,
Blowing across the sky's black-reddened west
--That burning fire around which dark collects--
Rustle their last before their breaths expire.
A dying sun sets further underground!:
A horrid-stricken pain! A day beguiled!
--A heavy-drugged sleep, so warm and mild,
Quiet-hidden in those secret dales,
A calm and endless sleep, without a sound,
That fades into the dark that all surrounds,
Seems a painless end to bitter ail.
To die! To die within this forest wild,
Though autumning, seems young, forever hale,
Deep-dreaming what casts shadows on the vale,
Some hidden light-beams shining on the trees,
As from the silvery moon will often shine,
Quiet, still, and seasonless in time,
Cast from the moonless sky, in gentle breeze.
Oft have I listened and been half-inclined
To dull the ear from dread hypotheses,
Though numbed minds, in fascination be
Unable to turn away, to ill avail,
Seeking the ease from which thou doth remind,
O thou bright beauty! Muse of the sublime!
Ne'er was thy song so loud, O Nightingale!
Who singest loud though others rest asleep,
As though not knowing evening's blackened veil
Hath sunken here, not knowing any bale,
O'er all the eve, in happiness, dost sing,
From out the unseen shades of forest deep,
Singing on in beautied mystery,
'Til all the eve with thy endowal ring.
For whom is it thou singest, Nightingale,
As though could never love enow thy Spring?
To which well-fortuned lovers dost thou bring
The peaceful happiness thy song endows,
The very sweetness hidden from this vale,
That singst e'er brighter o'er the darkening dales,
Sheltered in forest 'neath the starry clouds?
N'er for the sickened-grieving dost thou sing;
N'er for the bitter ache that cry aloud;
N'er for the souls who wander through the crowds
Of all uncaring men together crawled,
Onto the toils of life behaply clinged,
Dark objects, griefs, false joys, or anything;
N'er for these ills or ails, thy song recalls.
Thou wast not born for death! And even now
I hear, that song of rising singing fall
Musely in the ears of men in thrawl,
Across a thousand years, where beauty keeps,
And grieving men, whose humbled heads be bowed,
To hear thy song, O dryad of the boughs,
On hearing thee, sweet bitter tears to weep.
Darkling I listen, and full-oft enthrawled,
Bewondering the sow thy song doth reap,
Listening keenly, as the forest sleep,
In stillness echoing the day's betides,
The noise and acts of all that eve hath palled,
The lives and loves and griefs yet still recalled,
Wonder my own still in that forest wide.
--Away! Away! Before the proud made meek,
Thou springst away, now quicken-faring hie!
That brightening song, o'er some far mountainside,
Down the still hills and o'er the quiet lakes,
Away to some far vale, still singing, leaps,
Lost still further in the forest deep:
Fled is that music. Do I sleep or wake?
Completed December the 5th, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
Derivative of the Variation on Keat's "Nightingale"
(The first seven lines were to be the start of the variation, but I rejected them. Rather than
throw them out, I turned them into this. This is a kind of scetch, really.)
Many a man upon the misted isle,
As in some sacred place, has down and kneeled,
Filled with unfathomed grief, to stay awhile,
Too numb to weep, and list with desperate zeal,
List deep into the heart of that dark wood,
Where stilled ground, from rain and wind concealed,
Maketh of leaves and boughs a quiet hood,
Where, hidden in that little world surreal,
Eased from the worry of his livelihood,
Where bleeding hearts of woe begin to heal,
There man doth hear the breeze ere now withstood,
Whispers of what he had not e'er known ere
--Though curse to him who hath misunderstood
What he hath heard, and n'er come back there!
Completed December the 5th , 1999, Jeremy Batterson
A Call To War
Awake! Awake! From out thine slavish slumber.
Hear the stirrings of the wakening nations.
From man to man, in ever-greater number,
The slaves of earth have heaven's confirmation.
The trumpet hath been sounded loud as thunder.
The sword of God doth strike the enemy.
The fateful lightning flashes: Liberty.
From out a thousand years mankind awakens,
And 'midst the flashing thunder, looks to heaven.
He sees the blazing stars from heaven shaken
And feels the power that the foe doth dreaden.
He cries aloud what makes the tyrant quaken
With terror of the wrath of God's decree
Written across all heaven: Liberty.
Awake! Awake! The call to war is spreading
From man to man, from nation onto nation.
A greater strength than arms the foe is dreading:
The might of truth through all the world be racing.
No hell can face the mighty army heading
T'ward it, in dread advance, and, terrored, flees:
A war that reacheth heaven: Liberty.
All heaven and earth and hell together shaking
Before the wrath of God o'er heaven flashing,
Before the tidings of mankind's awakening
From endless sleep a thousand years in lasting,
Smashing his heavy chains and quickly taking
The burning sword beside him that he sees,
And weeping the tears of joy: Liberty.
Behold! Behold! All heaven's angels singing
The joyous news to all the universe:
"Mankind hath broke his chains, his mind is winging
Back among the stars to his true worth.
Behold the evil tyrants of the earth
Crumbling to doom and ruin and debris!
Mankind hath been reborn! Liberty!"
December the 29th, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
New Year's Eve 1999-2000
(This whole thing is supposed to be one sentence. )
The eager voices that the mind doth hear,
Pregnant with a strange and pure endower,
Excited, laughing, in that atmosphere,
Though calm and quiet, wondering, within,
Feeling the touch of unfamiliar power,
Are but the echos of that voice instilled
More loudly in the minds yet unborn, still
Quiet in the cold starlight embowered,
Resting, brightly, eagerly, until,
As comes the time we near the precious hour,
This voice, vibrating, that the unborn frees
Is, seeming all the skies above to fill,
Brighter and brighter in its joyous ease,
Heralding thou, O unheard symphony!
December the 31st, 1999, Jeremy Batterson
After the Storm
When one beholds those windy clouds of night
Fleeing before the winds that race behind,
Whipping them away in wispy whites,
Dispersing, changing, in the cold moonshine,
Where each young cloudlet lives, then quickly dies,
Yet traces out the ageless rule despite
That e'en the stars, from their eternal highs,
Need follow as a part of God's design,
Then, calm with joy, one ponders on the view;
For, though, as, too, the life of one consigned
Within the shortest time, is too-soon through,
And though this life of mine, from birth, seems dying,
Yet doth such thoughts, e'en as the young stars do,
Shine afar o'er earth and heaven, too:
For it be our thoughts that send the bright clouds flying
And hold the stars; yet, fools think we be dying.
May the 23rd, 2000, Jeremy Batterson