agnusde2017’s Substack

Quenched Thirst

agnusde2017 — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 04:22:21 GMT

Quenched Thirst

He bent over the edge of the clear water.
A blue sky sliced through the oak canopy.
Between his shoulder blades the flesh was softer,
Its place marked by love-stitched embroidery.

He was a dragon man, hardened in blood,
Made wiser under the serpent’s coils. He heard
A warning warbled from across the road,
The doom song of a sweet throated blackbird.

Yet he dipped his face into the cold
Brook, into the ripples made by a silver
Trout. His kinsman’s spear tore through the gold
Jerkin, and his dark blood warmed the clear water.

---------------------‐-----'

Take a look at this:

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Bob%20Zisk%20Unleashed.htm

Hera's Milk

agnusde2017 — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 03:16:17 GMT

Hera's Milk

Another day, brittle with snow and leaves
Frozen on a residue of last year's
Hibernal transit, passes into doubt,
And, as the skipping ravens pick at strings
Of scarlet entrails, leaving the mystery
Of time and nothingness to be resolved
Under the light of another sun or moon,
We are the answer still to be revealed.

When we have walked through the tall waterfall,
Into the cave behind the ever charging
River's steep descent, sun, moon and stars,
Rich with the milk of heaven's swollen breasts,
Will fall from the bright sky,
And darkest silence will envelop us
In the spectral harmonies of darkness,
Where soundless winds roll over birth and death.

----------------------------

For a mixed bag of different flavors,
check out

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Bob%20Zisk%20Unleashed.htm

Tithonus

agnusde2017 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 03:46:30 GMT

Tithonus

This wine is strong,
And I am no longer young.
Pink girls with honeyed thighs
Cannot revitalize
My presbyopic eyes.

Yes, I am not wise,
But I know that beauty dies.
Listen: a coyote cries.
Falling snow tickles the trees.
Cicadas chirp in my knees.

(Published in The Hypertexts)

For a mixed bag of different flavors,
check out

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Bob%20Zisk%20Unleashed.htm

Passerine Passage

agnusde2017 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:19:25 GMT

Passerine Passage

On the first day of summer, blue rayed stars
Of sun-swept asters swayed above sweet tears
Of morning dew. You stretched rough little legs
Across the brilliant stone of a gray ledge.
Your creamy breast grew still, an empty thing
Bound in silences of a folded wing.
Black-capped choruses of chickadees
Piped their dirge from lofts of swaying trees.
Gold solstice wrapped you in a lingering light:
Your soft tail grew still, your feathery soul took flight.

---------------------------

The passerine bird of this poem is a sparrow.

In the West, since ancient times, sparrows have been honored by poets. They are famous for their sexual promiscuity and for their gentleness and latent aggression. Among the Greek poets sparrows were given the task of drawing the chariot of Aphrodite, the divine embodiment of love and sexual fecundity. The Roman poet, Catullus, mourns the death of his lady's sparrow.

One of my favorite celebrants of the common sparrow is the Tudor poet, John Skelto n, who wrote a mock requiem, The Book of Philip Sparrow, to commemorate the death of a young girl's pet sparrow at the paws and jaws of the felon, Gib the cat, and to console her on her loss. Elsewhere, Skelton, a catholic priest, held up The Book of Philip Sparrow as an example of the favor he held from the ladies.

Although my sparrow met its end under humbler circumstances than those of the celebrated late Philip Sparrow, it is, I think, no less deserving of remembrance as an embodiment of that loving generosity by which ladies allow their chosen men "to win the fort that ladies hold in sovereign dread."

Among the Mountain Thyme

agnusde2017 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 02:30:32 GMT

Among The Mountain Thyme

Once in years long gone by,
Your lips were sprigs of spearmint.
Often in wild thyme we would lie,
Drunk on the morning's scent.

Diamond dewdrops filled the eye
With their cool, silver glint:
Hidden were thoughts that we might die,
That youth would soon be spent.

Back then we heard the crow's hoarse cry,
But knew not what it meant,
That on each kiss and fragrant sigh
Youth's treasure was being spent.

The Sanctuary beyond the Gate to my Yard

agnusde2017 — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 14:30:54 GMT

The Sanctuary beyond the Gate to my Yard

Out of the womb of Winter, when the gold
Crocus and purple hyacinth reveal
Their glory, and the fertile quilt of cold
Soil blooms, few creatures bow, prostrate or kneel
Before the saintly mantis who, in green
Austerity, observes the season's change
By praying unobtrusively, unseen
By her faithful who labor out of range
Of her pious lunge and rending grip:
Under Spring's golden vault, beyond the stone
Narthex, she prays her Office, set to rip
The head from her brown mate: in morning sun
He sacrifices flesh and brain to feed
His lover whom he fills with death's hot seed.

For Joseph Tusiani

agnusde2017 — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:01:44 GMT

For Joseph Tusiani

Father Joseph, when we are gone, and night
Has covered us in purple cloth of Tyre,
When our clear lights are dead to stars and moon,
Perhaps someone attentive, maybe curious,
Will read your poems, and in one brief lyric,
Will wonder who that "Robert" might have been,
And what he did, or why he lived in meter,
As an artifact of a long dead tongue.
What a fine thing, I think, if such a lector,
Moved by words and whim, might search the stacks
Of dusty reading rooms and the dry threads
Of memory preserved in mute machines,
Until some words, some lines unique to me,
Take form out of spun cloth of renaissance,
And sing across the ocean of time past.

---------------

In life Joseph Tusiani was a scholar, translator, and poet in four languages: English, Latin, Italian, and his native Gargano. Many considered Joseph the greatest Latin poet of his time. In death he is a tender memory, an aged trace of humanitas. The occasion for my little poem is acknowledgement of a short poem in Latin hexameters written by him for me when I sent him a birthday greeting.

A Back Street Ballet

agnusde2017 — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:02:04 GMT

A Back Street Ballet

Slowly she stumbled down the street
Like a top on uneven ground.
She pirouetted on rubber feet,
Rocking and shaking with scarcely a sound.

She wore vomit stained old clothes
That matched her skin in the street light.
Long strings of snot hung from her nose
Dangling, bobbing from left to right.

She slipped and tripped and fell to her knees.
She sunk in a crumpled, dirty heap.
Then, in the cool evening breeze
She dropped into a torpid sleep.

She snored and drooled, then shook and coughed.
Her hair flopped in a frazzled braid.
Some kids kicked and punched her. They laughed
As she convulsed. Soon she was dead.

Love among the Ruins

agnusde2017 — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 04:30:52 GMT

Love among the Ruins

Come down from your lightning struck tower,
My love, come play with me.
Step lightly on broken stem and flower,
Salute the rough debris.

Tarry longer than an hour
In the smoke of this burned out tree,
Tarry longer than an hour
And play the while with me.

Come down from your lightning struck tower,
My love, come play with me.
Step lightly on broken stem and flower,
Salute the rough debris.

The Scent of Carnations

agnusde2017 — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 04:30:44 GMT

The Scent of Carnations

I lost it on a rainy day,
When the sun shone through the fine showers.
Dark rust clung to the waterlogged clay
And stained the sweet gillyflowers.

I practiced it for a few weeks,
Until my hand stopped its shaking.
I practiced it until my teeth
Stopped the grinding and the aching.

I trained my hand till I stopped sweating.
My forehead veins throbbed a little,
My chest heaved from nervous breathing,
Dry cotton balls filled my spittle.

I lost it on a rainy day,
When the sun shone through the fine showers.
Dark rust clung to the waterlogged clay
And stained the soft poppy flowers.

I never saw the muzzle flash.
I scarcely felt the brain derail.
There was a quick, breaking crash,
I hardly felt the engines fail.

There was a momentary roar,
And now I'm here in this gray hearse.
I hear them slam the tailgate door.
It's nothing. I've known far worse.

I lost it one rainy day,
When the sun seeped through the fine showers.
Dark blood flooded the waterlogged clay.
It kissed the sweet gillyflowers.

----------------------

A gillyflower is a carnation. Carnation is an archaic term for the range of color in human flesh.

This poem was published in The Hypertexts.

Epitaph for Every Man and No Man

agnusde2017 — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 03:03:04 GMT

Epitaph for Every Man and No Man

Today, as sleep's hard remnants fell away
From my eyes, and sharp sunlight prodded the day,
I knew time was up on my body's lease,
And I would die never having known peace.

On the TV I looked at crippled men
Whose dreams bled out in some nightmare back then
When hope dried up in whirlwinds of sharp sand,
And dreamers perished in a bloodsoaked land.

Among the Birds

agnusde2017 — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:43:57 GMT

Among the Birds

Today I sat out back and watched the doves
And finches stealing peaches from the boughs
Of our old tree.

The hollyhocks and phlox,
Sunflowers and star-struck asters, shone with water
I'd sprinkled a few minutes earlier,
A prelude to the solitary droplets
That splashed erratically in the soft light
And silver dampness of late afternoon.

I sat there, just me and the trembling leaves,
And those good thieves who crossed in front of me.
They stole --
and I too, in gray clouds of thought,
Tried to purloin some thread of clarity,
A word, a phrase from the descending mist
That was settling on my brain's gray rock.

Big drops of Summer showers, infrequent splashes
Of crystalline refraction, chilled my cheeks,
And speckled stems, and leaves with silver light.

And the gray, collared doves and scarlet finches,
Perched among gold, quivering fruit,
Ignored me as they sucked the sweet peach nectar.

I saw the sacred birds of far-off childhood,
When morning songs were chirped, in silver trills
Among the scented roses of May mornings.

They were the magi of bewonderment.
Troubadours and sweet jongleurs of the heart's
Secret songs, the arcana of discovery,
Soft harbingers of birth and death, great death,
The little death, and all devouring death.

I hear their music now, at this sweet juncture
Of feathers, flowers, and the fresh quivering
Of love and death, time's sweet melodies.

Past and present are paced by quick bird hearts
And graceful wings of swooping swallowtails,
And in the serpent's circle, in the sloughed
Off skin of time's fulfillment, I stand there flayed.

In the bright ripples of the marching seasons,
In the dark beaks of preening doves and finches,
--Soft gray and scarlet throats in pregnant light
Of death and birth-- at the dark edge of life,
New moons give birth to change, and I diminish
To dust, perhaps to pinpoints of cold light.

Elegy and Sequence for T.D.

agnusde2017 — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 21:43:46 GMT

Elegy and Sequence for T.D.

Dark Current: for Terry, Who Died on May 9, 2023
Nuestras vidas son los ríos
que van a dar en la mar
que es el morir...

I

Today the first crepe myrtle burns to white
On slender stems and languid, drooping sprays.
The sun's exsanguinating shower of light
Drains the soft, purple blooms. And as the days

Slide by, in their bright river of clear rays,
Rolling down to the wide, receptive sea --
The sea of death which washes all our days
In waves of terminal mortality --

We are swallowed in that mystery
Of ineluctable extinction, death
Which rides dark rhythms of eternity
And swallows life's last rattling burst of breath.

II

Malae Tenebrae Orci: Wicked Shades of Death

Now I lay me down to sleep --
Soon I too will enter Hell's keep..
Five days ago, as the Sky cried,
Word came to me: Terry had died.

Here, in the mountains, it was cold
And damp, and I was feeling old.
I was two years older than her,
Yet only I heard .mid-Spring stir

Through pale cloth of stifled pain
And solitary drops of rain,
For she lay elsewhere, on her bed,
One moment alive, and the next dead.

The earth moved on through shower and breeze.
Soon the day of obsequies
Had come and passed, and through the night
She vanished in the horned moon's light.

III

Time's Completion: for T.D.

The days are passing quickly, nights
Are populated with slow flights
Of disjointed images,
And fossils of time's dried up seas.

Two weeks ago you were soft flesh,
And in the early morning fresh
Buds of sweet-scented, blooming May
Opened and closed with the gasping day.

As your body broke with the strain,
And shortening time yielded to pain,
Your heart and lungs began to fail,
And soon death's rattle closed your tale.

IV

First Flowers Fading

Dark hyacinths quiver and fade,
And with them, in the mist
That follows dawn, aphids parade
On the pink rose's breast.

This was your last sweet blossomed May,
When violets blew a kiss,
When dimness cloaked you where you lay,
And death sealed your dry lips.

----------------------

Epigraph: Jorge Manrique, Coplas por La Muerte de su Padre. Our lives are the rivers which flow into the sea which is death.

This Sequence and Elegy was originally published in The Chained Muse and The New Lyre, but since then it has undergone revisions to lines seven and eight of Section III, and line eight of Section IV.

Question of Authorship:

I am the only author of this sequence. However, the following counterclaims, probably generated by ai bots, have been brought to my attention:

I think this happens because the alleged author included his name with every attribution. I think this had been pointed out to him as not good practice.
.
"You are likely referring to the poem "Elegy and Sequence for T.D." by David Gosselin, published in The Chained Muse.The piece serves as a formal, rhyming tribute and meditation on mortality and grief, taking inspiration from traditional forms."

"Elegy and Sequence for T.D." is a specific, modern poetic work written by poet and essayist David Gosselin. Published on The Chained Muse, this literary piece is structured as a classical lament, using both rhyming verse and an epigraph from Spanish poet Jorge Manrique to explore the universal themes of mortality, grief, and the passage of time."

Here is another interesting attribution:
I got this directly from one of the chat bots:
"The author of "Elegy and Sequence for TD" is the contemporary poet and playwright, Agha Shahid Ali. He is known for his poignant poetry that often reflects themes of loss, longing, and the beauty of the Kashmiri landscape. If you need more information about his works or specific poems, feel free to ask."

The Leaves of Life

agnusde2017 — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:15:29 GMT

The Leaves of Life by Mimnermus

We are like leaves brought forth in many flowered Spring.

They quickly swell beneath the sun- light's rays.

Like them our youth flowers only half an arm's brief span

And from the gods we know not good nor bad

Until it happens, for beside us death's dark spirits

Stand. One deals grievous age, the other death.

Youth's fruit is plucked as fast as the sun moves over earth,

And when our Springtime's done, death rules our lives.
.
For many miseries beset the heart. One man

Loses all that is his, and he is doomed

By doleful poverty. Another fellow goes

Longing for sons not fathered, down to Hades.

Another' s soul is wracked with wasting sickness. Ills

Too vast to count does Zeus inflict on all.

----------------------
Mimnermus is thought to have lived and written in the latter third of the seventh century B.C.E. While his fellow elegists seem to have garnered fame for their martial poetry, Mimnermus, an elegist, is one of ths first to sing of love and to use the "amatory I."

From a treatise, On Music, by Pseudo-Plutarch, we know that he played the flute, and that in the early days, elegies were composed to be accompanied by the sweet melodies of a flute (8.1133f).

As is the case with many of the early Greek poets, what we have of them comes to us through quotations collected by other authors. This justly famous poem was collected for his son by the Byzantine anthologist, Stobaeus. So lovely a poem is known by the rather dry designation of 2 Stobaeus 4.34.12. The title in the Quora heading is my own coinage, but, as I fear, it will always be 2 Stobaeus 4.34.12.

My translation is not literal. In it I have tried to follow the method established by St. Jerome in a letter to a friend, a Roman Senator, with the seemingly dissonant name Pammachius. Jerome said that we should translate not word for word but sense for sense. So this translation, though it follows the Greek, probably would not make a good trot for a young school boy. But I hope it might give him, while inexperienced in both Greek and life, a little taste of beauty from nearly twenty-seven centuries in the past.

----------------------------
In many flowered Spring: the poet uses a compound adjective πολυανθεμος so that the sense is literally "many flowered Spring."

Half an arm's brief span: the Greek word denotes the distance from elbow to wrist, and is often translated by the Latin derivative cubit, or by the expression arm's length. But this arm's length is more precisely half an arm's length.

Until it happens: the sense of the Greek seems to suggest "pre-ordained by the gods."

Beside us death's dark spirits stand: two female spirits, known as the Keres, who seem to be ever present, but not involved with humans until the time of illness and dying.

Loses all that is: the Greek word οἶκος means house or household in the fullest sense of the word: everything that is his.

Changelings

agnusde2017 — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:08:31 GMT

Changelings

Behind thick curtains of daylight
Behind drawn drapery of night,
In the soft flesh of pulsing darkness,
Shapes shift through pools of gain and loss.
Beyond the birth and death of form
Behold the canker and the worm:
Colors rise and fall in silence,
And time forms in a maelstrom of sense.

Afternoon Oil Change

agnusde2017 — Fri, 29 May 2026 04:58:01 GMT

Afternoon Oil Change

I sit here in the auto dealership.
A faint, wry smile is settling on each lip
As I stare at the thin salesgirls of Spring
Who click their phones while the young robins sing
Out in the sales lot. It's a lazy day,
For auto sales, but not bad for girls' play.
The girls are smiling but there are no customers
For them to lure with smiles and tempting offers.
Their charms are practiced on their telephones
And trying all the new games and ringtones.
Their thumbs twirl with a ballerina's grace,
And not a worry crosses heart or face --
Not one concern for what the future holds,
What some clandestine mortality withholds
In fates not yet revealed as warblers cry,
And collared doves softly prophesy.

Fred

agnusde2017 — Thu, 28 May 2026 03:06:52 GMT

Fred

His brains were still on the walls, mixed with blood
And broken scrimshaw of shot-gunned bone.
Fred died before Spring’s lady slippers bloomed,
Before the phlox and columbine poured out
Their colors over the hardscrabble’s edge.
His blood ran red into next year’s bloodroot.
For him the equinox brought only night,
And he was gathered to time’s reliquary,
Where his soul mingled with the sprawling hardwoods,
And fell to dust among old, fallen leaves.

How beautiful was she, Fred, when, with shears
In hand, the lady of this country snipped
Some of your hair and dropped it into currents
Of clear uncertainty? There was a splash,
A turbulence of shaken light, a swirl
Of droplets fluttering, from which the king
Of birds, with his swift retinue, rose up,
And flew out of the cave, across the river,
And into the broad greenwood at its edge,
The leaflined hem between the moon and sun.

Fred, when I have returned from this frontier
Encapsulating memory and loss,
And have reentered, for a little while,
The spectrum of the living, I will listen
For sweet, remembered songs of wren and cricket,
And in the Spring-time air the singing boughs
And the thin, broken mortar, alive with chirping,
Will call to me with the light, trilling notes
Of your old-time laughter. You will live
By day and night, by sunlight and starlight,
While I, with joints and spine exfoliating,
Will age in song, until we meet again,
Moistened with waters of black Styx and green
Aspergilla of flower-scented myrtle.

-------------------

the lady of this country snipped: according to one version of the entry of the dead into Hades, Persephone, as a sort of post mortem initiation, cut a little of the shade's hair.

the king
Of birds, with his swift retinue: the wren wren defeated the eagle in a contest for the title of King of Birds. The title was to be awarded to the highest flying bird. The eagle was the favorite, but the tiny wren hid on the eagles body, and when the great raptor had reached the top of his range, the lowly wren leaped into the air and soared higher, thus winning the title King of Birds.

Indian Market

agnusde2017 — Wed, 27 May 2026 03:12:56 GMT

Indian Market: On Hearing a Rock-Musician's Song for His Julia

I too have written poems for young girls
With honeysuckle mouths, and I have seen
Wilted petals drop from their drooping curls.

I’ve mourned them (pale and smooth as birchwood burls),
Who thrilled my touch with breasts stiff as baleen:
I too have written poems for young girls.

I’ve wound their stranded hair in silky whorls
And marveled at its slender, threaded sheen:
But wilted flowers have dropped from drooping curls.

Nascent desires have burned in scented swirls,
Throbbing mysteries I could scarcely glean --
And yes, I’ve written poems for young girls.

I’ve heard the cries of swift, red winged merles,
And, as Fall breathed fire into Summer’s green,
Wilted flowers would drop from dry, drooping curls.

Beauty, blighted, wails in mournful skirls,
And, in the milling jaws of time, grows lean.
And though I’ve written poems for young girls,
Wilted petals drop from their drooping curls.

----------------------

This is an old poem that has evoked some harsh and ignorant judgment. Since first writing I have made some minor revisions, but not to any words or images which a previous reader had deemed obscene and therefore objectionable. I think the updates make the poem flow better, but I don't know whether it is finished. The dilemma of sound posed by this poem seems close to resolution, but the initial conundrum is perhaps an argument for more careful selection of rhymes at the outset.

One reader objected to kissing young girls, with the suggestion of pedophilia in the poem. Alas, in his view I metamorphosed from tadpole to frog, but my development was so arrested that I never emerged as Prince Charming and was damned to a life of sins crying out for vengeance. The life of an interspecies osculating frog has been truly difficult.

breasts stiff as baleen: to clarify the use of baleen to describe youthful breasts, I include the following excerpt from Wikipedia on baleen:
Whale baleen is the mostly mineralized keratin-based bio-material consisting of parallel plates suspended down the mouth of the whale. Baleen's mechanical properties of being strong and flexible made it a popular material for numerous applications requiring such a property.

skirls: this word persists both as a Scots word of considerable antiquity and as a crossover into standard English. Below is a citation from 1700 on. In the villanelle I had in mind the wailing of the pipes and the women's screams of lamentation. For the history of the word prior to 1700 please consult that online data base. As an illustration of the word's flight from obsolescence, one might look at the entries in the collegiate and the large Merriam Webster.

DSL

Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Search Results:

1700– (1) Up to 1700 (2)

• Skirl v., n.

Return to resultsClear search

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology Hide Highlighting

Abbreviations Symbols Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SKIRL, v., n. Also skirle and met. form †skrille.[skɪrl]

I. v. tr. and intr. To emit a shrill, piercing sound, to scream, shriek. Gen.Sc.

1. In gen. To utter with a high-pitched discordant sound, to cry or sing shrilly, to raise a clamour. Gen.Sc. Derivs. skirler, a screecher, discordant singer; skirlie, skirly, shrill. Combs. skirlie-weeack, n., a shrill cry, a little person with a shrill voice, and as a v., to cry with a shrill voice (Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 158). See Weeack; skirly-wheeter, the oyster-catcher, Haematopus ostralegus (Abd. 1933 Abd. Press and Jnl. (20 June); Bnff., Abd. 1951), also an ill-thriving, unhealthy-looking animal, a youth, youngster (Ork. 1929 Marw., skirly-wheeter, skelly-, Ork. 1970), phs. from the notion of puling or whining (see Wheet, and 2. below). But the Ork. forms may really represent a different word. O.Sc. scurliquitour, a term of abuse, a.1585, may be associated with this.Edb. 1773 Fergusson Poems (S.T.S.) II. 165:
[They] skirl out baul', in Norland speech, “Gueed speldings, fa will buy.”Ayr. 1786 Burns Ordination iii.:
O' double verse come gie us four An' skirl up the “Bangour”.Rnf. 1840 J. Mitchell Wee Steeple's Ghaist 118:
Sae I sat down, till through the town The watchmen “twa” were skirling.Rxb. 1847 J. Halliday Rustic Bard 319:
The skirler's pitchfork unholily tings.Wgt. 1880 G. Fraser Lowland Lore 163:
Somethin' near me said or skirl'd!Slk. 1892 W. M. Adamson Betty Blether 58:
As skirly as the whistle o' a railway engine.m.Lth. 1894 P. H. Hunter J. Inwick 131:
A' his notion o' preachin, was juist to dad the buik an' skirl his text ower an' ower again.Ayr. 1901 G. Douglas Green Shutters v.:
Out came his mither like a fury, skirling about her hoose, and her servants, and her weans.Lnk. 1904 I. F. Darling Songs from Silence 114:
Thae trashy foreign sangs ye're skirlin'.Sh. 1930 Shetland Almanac 196:
“Doon wi' dee dis moment!” she skirled.Abd. 1931 Abd. Press and Jnl. (11 Feb.):
Aboot Braid Scots o' fader's day I hear a skirlie-weeack.Bnff. 1933 M. Symon Deveron Days 37:
The paper geat comes skirlin': “The Gordons in a Fecht.”Cai. 1992 James Miller A Fine White Stoor 13:
' ... Your great grandad had a whisker and he used to grab us bairns and rub his face against us. Oh we used to skirl. ... 'Abd. 1996 Sheena Blackhall Wittgenstein's Web 7:
Davie Donald wis fair dumfounert. His een glowered that hard at the wee boolie, they near drappit ooto his heid.
"Ye spakk!" skirled he, clean bumbazed.

2. To scream, cry out with fear, pain or grief. Gen.Sc.Sc. 1715 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. 68:
Fouk wad threep, that she did green For what wad gar her skirle And skreigh some Day.Abd. 1748 R. Forbes Ajax 10:
Syne, Paean's son, thou'd not been left On Lemnos' isle to skirle.Sc. 1818 Scott H. Midlothian xxx.:
But then came in the story of my poor bairn, and my mother thought he wad be deaved wi' its skirling.Slk. 1828 Hogg Shep. Cal. (1874) viii.:
Skirling as if something were cutting its throat.Abd. 1836 J. Grant Tales 67:
There was a skirlin' aroun' as o' wulcats, and fumarts fechtin'.Edb. 1866 J. Smith Merty Bridal 5:
Mawsey an' her fourteen weans, Whase skirlin' never ceast.Ags. 1889 Barrie W. in Thrums xi.:
The women-folk fair skirled wi' fear.Sc. 1896 Stevenson W. Hermiston i.:
A skirling Jezebel like you.Abd.13 1923:
A lot o' skirlin for little woo' (Too much speech for all the action).Ayr. 1927 J. Carruthers A Man Beset I. ii.:
Lounder him till he skirls for mercy.

Adj. skirly, addicted to screaming or yelling, puling, in comb. skirly-nackit, a small child. See Nacket, n.1, 2.Sc. 1935 D. Rorie Lum Hat 67:
The wee trachelt cratur's peelin' tatties by the fire Wi' her skirly-nackits fechtin' an' greetin'.

3. To shriek with excitement or laughter, to give vent to (a shrill laugh). Gen.Sc. Ppl.adj. skirlin, shrill-voiced, accompanied by excited cries.Ayr. 1786 Burns Halloween vi.:
He grippet Nelly hard an' fast; Loud skirl'd a' the lasses.Edb. 1839 W. McDowall Poems 47:
Here todlin wee things skirl and scream, In a' the noise o' play.Per. 1895 R. Ford Tayside Songs 229:
The bairns but the hoose the noo, Were skirlin' sae wi' glee.Abd. 1906 Banffshire Jnl. (22 May) 10:
Slidin' doun the braes on snaw An' skirlin tackie, leest o' a'.m.Sc. 1917 J. Buchan Poems 49:
Nae skirlin' dash frae goal to goal.Rnf. 1925 G. Blake Wild Men i.:
Mill-girls skirling the rude, frank laughter of their kind.wm.Sc. 1984 Christine Marion Fraser Return To Rhanna (1990) 161:
The ineffable joy of watching Kate, skirts held high to display long pink drawers, oblivious to all but the gaiety of the moment, skirling and hooching while the sun crept lower in the western sky, was something not to be forgotten in a hurry.Ags. 1988 Raymond Vettese The Richt Noise 42:
The lads f'ae the Mairt
wi sharn on their feet
birl aboot the howff sawins,
(Tam on the moothie
Peem on the spoons),
heechin, skirlin, lowpin, fleein,
faain doon,
stotterin hame ...ne.Sc. 1991 Lilianne Grant Rich in Tom Hubbard The New Makars 23:
Skirlin and lauchin, ilk wi spindrift weet,
At the waves' edge the bairns their taes try in

4. Of birds: to scream, utter a shrill cry, screech. Comb. skirl-crake, skirlie-, -krake, ¶skilricraig, the turnstone, Arenaria interpres (Sh. 1809 A. Edmonston Zetland II. 240, 1914 Angus Gl.); given also as the corncrake, Crex crex (Sh. 1932 J. M. E. Saxby Trad. Lore 199, skillricraig [sic]). See Craik, n. (3).Wgt. 1804 R. Couper Poems I. 194:
The yellow cock's unwelcome scream Skirls frae the bauk right tame.Sc. 1818 Scott Rob Roy xxx.:
Like the scarts and seamaws at the Cumries, there's aye foul weather follows their skirling.Sh. 1886 G. Temple Britta 35:
A' da birds comin' oot o' their nests an' fleein' aboot ye, a' skirlin', an' screamin'.Abd. 1929 Sc. Readings (Paterson) 62:
Like craws skirlin' ower yer heids.

5. Of the wind: to blow with a shrill noise, to whistle. Derivs. skirler, a strong gale (Ork. 1929 Marw., Ork. 1970), skirlin(ie), a slight shower or fall of snow accompanied by high wind (Abd. 1970). Also vbl.n. Cf. II. 6. (ii).Bnff. 1878 Banffshire Jnl. (23 July) 2:
Fu' loudly lowed the harried steer That night upo' the skirling gale.Ags. 1891 Barrie Little Minister iii.:
Blasts from the north skirled through the manse.Abd. 1920 G. P. Dunbar Peat Reek 15:
March skirl't thro' haughs an' hichts an' howes.Sc. 1923 Sc. Univ. Verses 17:
Harken! Harken! bairnies, Harken at the Wind, D'ye no' hear her skirlin' up the close?Abd. 1950 Huntly Express (17 Feb.):
Around Huntly this last week we have got a skirlinie o' snaw.wm.Sc. 1980 Anna Blair The Rowan on the Ridge 18:
Outside the wind began to sough and sigh but, work and weather-tired and soothed by the glowing, wheezing peats, they fell easily into sleep, and it was an hour or more before the rattling of the window boards and the shriek and skirlings of a storm disturbed them.

6. To creak, to make a crackling, screeching or whistling sound, as an object at high speed.Sc. 1827 Scott Chron. Canongate iv.:
The painted board that is skirling and groaning at the door.Abd. 1909 J. Tennant Jeannie Jeffray 246:
Ye wud hae hard the brose gang skirlin' doon his throat.Ags. 1918 V. Jacob More Songs 15:
It's deith comes skirling through the sky.Abd. 1929 Sc. Readings (Paterson) 78:
Rheumatics is jist skirlin' in a' their j'ints.Abd. 1962 Abd. Press & Jnl. (4 Jan.):
A “skirlin' frost.” Could anything be more expressive, for it actually did “skirl” when you walked on it or tried to shovel it?

7. Of a musical instrument, esp. the bagpipes, or its player: to produce shrill sounds (on), to play a shrill tune. Gen.Sc. Comb. skirl-bag, the windbag of the pipes (Abd. 1920).Ayr. 1790 Burns Tam o' Shanter 123:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl.Peb. 1805 J. Nicol Poems I. 145:
The piper's arm, wi' roarin glee, His chaunter set a skirlin.Sc. 1819 Scott Leg. Montrose iii.:
Their damnable skirlin' pipes.Edb. 1828 D. M. Moir Mansie Wauch ii.:
Playing as many pibrochs as would have deaved a mill-happer, — all skirling, scraping and bumming away throughither.Sc. 1893 Stevenson Catriona v.:
It heartens me like the skirling of the Highland pipes.Dmb. 1894 D. MacLeod Past Worthies 10:
None o' your wee, skirlin', godless fiddles.Cai. 1902 J. Horne Canny Countryside 37:
He skirled his pipes again and blew us royally to the door.Kcb. 1912 A. Anderson Later Poems 38:
Aye the bagpipes skirled an' played.Mry. 1924 Swatches o' Hamespun 80:
The kilted ban' their feet hae faun, Are skirlin throwe the toon.Sc. 1946 S. G. Smith Deevil's Waltz 9:
He skirls his pipes, he stamps his heel.

8. Of something very hot, esp. in frying: to sizzle, crackle, sputter (Per. 1915 Wilson L. Strathearn 266, Per. 1970). Deriv. skirler, a frying-pan (Crm. 1958). Combs. skirl-in-the-pan, the sound of frying fat, butter, etc.; any fried dish (Sc. 1825 Jam.), specif. oatmeal fried in fat with seasoning, also called Skirlie, q.v. (Cai., Ags., Per. 1970); a drink of whisky and ale mixed with oatmeal and heated in a pan, given to women attending at a birth (Kcd. 1825 Jam.); skirl-in-the-pottie (Bnff. 1930), skirl-the-fry, in the second sense above, also fig.Rnf. a.1810 R. Tannahill Poems (1900) 277:
Fried twa eggs wi' the ham she had skirlin.Rnf. 1813 G. MacIndoe Wandering Muse 39:
This mixi-maxi, hug-mug skirl the fry O mish-mash blethers baken in a pye.Sc. 1816 Scott O. Mortality v.:
I trow ye dinna get sic a skirl-in-the-pan as that at Niel Blane's.Ags. 1826 R. Chambers Pop. Rhymes 280:
Lorntie, Lorntie, Were n't na your man. I had gart your heart's blude Skirl in my pan.Clc. 1852 G. P. Boyd Misc. Poems 21:
Fryin' pans skirl here an' there.Kcb. 1894 Crockett Raiders vi.:
Frying Loch Grannoch trout upon a skirling pan.Sc. 1926 H. M'Diarmid Drunk Man 33:
Whaur elvers like skirl-in-the-pan sizzle.Ags. 1934 G. M. Martin Dundee Worthies 21:
Which mak's his fryin' pan richt foo' To skirl baith nicht an' mornin'.Bnff. 1935 Abd. Univ. Review (March) 121:
Destruction's broom wi' a michty swype Drieve a' the het drush skirlin'.m.Sc. 1996 John Murray Aspen 9:
The first Lammas fires bank doun,
reek wimples up the lum
an grey coals that yince were reid skirl nae mair,

II. n. A shrill piercing noise, a scream, screech. Gen.Sc. Specif.: 1. A high-pitched utterance or way of speaking, shrill talk.Rnf. 1791 A. Wilson Poems 234:
Her skirle Sets my twa lugs a ringing like a gir'le.m.Lth. 1884 J. Plenderleith Kittlegairy Vacancy 75:
They thocht he was a lunatic, he had such a gruesome look, and gave oot such eldritch skirls.

2. A scream or shriek of pain, anguish or fear; a squeal, of an animal. Gen.Sc.Sc. 1736 Ramsay Proverbs (1776) 82:
Ye have gi'en baith the sound thump and the loud skirl.Sc. 1816 Scott Antiquary xxxv.:
That silly fliskmahoy has done naething but laugh and greet, the skirl at the tail o' the guffa.Fif. 1827 W. Tennant Papistry 127:
His skrilles, and skriechs, and skellochs dreir.wm.Sc. 1835 Laird of Logan 263:
Every note of the widow's gamut, from the dolorous sob to the hysteric skirl in alt.Fif. 1895 S. Tytler Macdonald Lass vii.:
Though we were all killed outright You're not to give another skirl.Knr. 1917 J. L. Robertson Petition to Deil 28:
The women let aff An angersome skirl o' scorn.Abd.4 1928:
A' skirl an' nae 'oo; as the deil said fin he clippit the soo (a great outcry over nothing).Sc. 1930 Scotsman (21 May) 16:
I h'ard your skirl o' pine and fear.

3. A shriek of laughter or excited merriment. Gen.Sc.Sc. 1718 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. 80:
The Wives and Gytlings a' span'd out Wi' mony an unco Skirl and Shout.Edb. 1881 J. Smith Habbie and Madge 15:
The twinnies are rinnin' naked, an' makin' a bonnie skirl in the kitchen.e.Lth. 1885

Circe Reflecting

agnusde2017 — Tue, 26 May 2026 17:11:47 GMT

Circe Reflecting as She Slops Odysseus' Crew

The mating habits of these swine
Are not for the proper and priggish.
They grunt and snort and squeal and whine:
They are horny and quite piggish.

Amnesia of Ash

agnusde2017 — Tue, 26 May 2026 02:11:33 GMT

Amnesia of Ash: Memorial Day, 2023

Today, at dawn, I stood on a high place,
And squinted as the sunrise burned my face.

When the white rocks caught fire, I looked around,
But saw no freshly shoveled funeral mound.

No bleating sheep, no bellowing hecatomb
Were slaughtered under morning's blazing dome.

No body, supine on an oil drenched pyre,
Was bound in bullock's fat sliced for the fire.

And no young nobles, led to the flute's tone,
Emptied their blood on the stained altar stone.

No priests, no mourners watched, to see
flames spread
And light the way to the house of the dead.

Soft winds whispered and stirred green, budding leaf:
I heard no other dirge, no song of grief.