Manuela Cardiga's Blog, page 64
July 20, 2014
WHISPERS FROM A FALLEN EAGLE
Tomorrow I say
Goodbye to my wife.
I will strap on my caligula,
My helmet, my pack
Turn my back
On putrid Rome.
The Quarter Master
Gave me a dented
Helmet, with the felt
Rotted and mended
And when I complained
He politely explained:
"You Capita Cenci
Arse want to walk
In and make
Demands?
You want comfort,
Something
To fit just right?
You go
To the Subburra
Get yourself fucked
There instead;
Here you lucky
I don't break your
bloody head!"
So I left
And here...
Pour me another!
Yes, tomorrow
I say goodbye to my wife.
We headed North,
North with Valerius,
Cause Augustus
He is taking
This measuring
Up to his Daddy
Real serious.
But Caesar, now!
There was a man!
Ate with us,
Marched with us,
Fought and bled with us.
Once he even joined us
In this place in Alexandria...
Never mind that!
He was a man.
Him?
I would have followed
To any land.
These Germans, now...
They not like the Gauls,
Or the Italians,
Good warrior folks.
These blokes
Won't shame us
Under a yoke:
If we lose
They take
Our heads off
With a single stroke.
So tomorrow I say
Goodbye to my wife.
I'm a bit nervous
And it's not like
I'm new to the life;
Third stint
With the Legions:
A thirty year man.
But this time...
I don't know why.
It could be
That Valerius
Isn't a wart
On Caesars cock,
His Senate stock
Is higher, and his
Cognomen prouder
Than his military
Roll of honour.
(though mind you
Caesar was a Patrician,
And a real one too)
But enough of that!
I still got some
Things to pack
And tomorrow
I say goodbye
To my life.
Manuela Cardiga
Goodbye to my wife.
I will strap on my caligula,
My helmet, my pack
Turn my back
On putrid Rome.
The Quarter Master
Gave me a dented
Helmet, with the felt
Rotted and mended
And when I complained
He politely explained:
"You Capita Cenci
Arse want to walk
In and make
Demands?
You want comfort,
Something
To fit just right?
You go
To the Subburra
Get yourself fucked
There instead;
Here you lucky
I don't break your
bloody head!"
So I left
And here...
Pour me another!
Yes, tomorrow
I say goodbye to my wife.
We headed North,
North with Valerius,
Cause Augustus
He is taking
This measuring
Up to his Daddy
Real serious.
But Caesar, now!
There was a man!
Ate with us,
Marched with us,
Fought and bled with us.
Once he even joined us
In this place in Alexandria...
Never mind that!
He was a man.
Him?
I would have followed
To any land.
These Germans, now...
They not like the Gauls,
Or the Italians,
Good warrior folks.
These blokes
Won't shame us
Under a yoke:
If we lose
They take
Our heads off
With a single stroke.
So tomorrow I say
Goodbye to my wife.
I'm a bit nervous
And it's not like
I'm new to the life;
Third stint
With the Legions:
A thirty year man.
But this time...
I don't know why.
It could be
That Valerius
Isn't a wart
On Caesars cock,
His Senate stock
Is higher, and his
Cognomen prouder
Than his military
Roll of honour.
(though mind you
Caesar was a Patrician,
And a real one too)
But enough of that!
I still got some
Things to pack
And tomorrow
I say goodbye
To my life.
Manuela Cardiga
July 19, 2014
There are no heroes in defeated armies, history moves on. VETERAN OF THE LOST WAR
They said:
These a true man
Holds most Holy
His Soul
His Land
His Love
God Only
For these
He fights,
Strives,
Survives
The odds;
Does any
Dirty ugly
Jobs,
So put
Away
Those toys
For these;
Those are
For boys.
So you,
For these things-
Sacrificed
Betrayed
Defiled
Denied
Your Soul
Most Holy
Self alone
The blood-rain stained
Your hands,
And on your face
You could find
No trace
Of the boy
You were;
He was
No longer
There.
They said:
You Sacrificed
Betrayed
Defiled
But now all this
Must be denied:
We did not know,
We were not there,
The communication
Was not clear...
And this ultimate
Betrayal, a smile,
So innocent of intent:
You understand,
We are proud, boy, proud...
But don't ever speak
Our names out loud.
So you walk away
Deprived of all a man
Holds Holy
His Soul
His Land
His Love
God Only
But I say:
These I hold most Holy
This man's Soul;
His courage,
His greatest glory
Let me be his Land
His Love
God Only
No stain or taint
Defile him;
And on his face
Surfaces
The tender joy
Of the awakening
Of a man-boy.
Manuela Cardiga
These a true man
Holds most Holy
His Soul
His Land
His Love
God Only
For these
He fights,
Strives,
Survives
The odds;
Does any
Dirty ugly
Jobs,
So put
Away
Those toys
For these;
Those are
For boys.
So you,
For these things-
Sacrificed
Betrayed
Defiled
Denied
Your Soul
Most Holy
Self alone
The blood-rain stained
Your hands,
And on your face
You could find
No trace
Of the boy
You were;
He was
No longer
There.
They said:
You Sacrificed
Betrayed
Defiled
But now all this
Must be denied:
We did not know,
We were not there,
The communication
Was not clear...
And this ultimate
Betrayal, a smile,
So innocent of intent:
You understand,
We are proud, boy, proud...
But don't ever speak
Our names out loud.
So you walk away
Deprived of all a man
Holds Holy
His Soul
His Land
His Love
God Only
But I say:
These I hold most Holy
This man's Soul;
His courage,
His greatest glory
Let me be his Land
His Love
God Only
No stain or taint
Defile him;
And on his face
Surfaces
The tender joy
Of the awakening
Of a man-boy.
Manuela Cardiga
MANGROVE LOVE
The mud-skipper
Rolls a gold
Ocular globe
And pauses mid
Stuttering-stride
Watching
The slow-flow
Of the heaving
Salt-tongued sea
Slipping through
The aching arch
Of straining
Muscular roots
Held up, up
Up, upright;
Watches with
Voyeur-delight
The mangrove
Making tender
Tidal love
To the slender
Swooning
Sickle moon
Manuela Cardiga
Rolls a gold
Ocular globe
And pauses mid
Stuttering-stride
Watching
The slow-flow
Of the heaving
Salt-tongued sea
Slipping through
The aching arch
Of straining
Muscular roots
Held up, up
Up, upright;
Watches with
Voyeur-delight
The mangrove
Making tender
Tidal love
To the slender
Swooning
Sickle moon
Manuela Cardiga
SENSUALITY AND SEXUALITY
The sensually Awakened are not promiscuous. Quite the opposite: in fact, they are even more selective than the ascetics. Promiscuity is a symptom of the frustrated frantically searching for fulfilment, be it emotional or sexual; and which is always - always - just out of their reach.
The Awakened demand a richer meal: a delicate balance of love, humour and desire in their lives - and in their beds - which cannot be provided by the casual, and casually satisfied, visits of transient carnal desires.
I challenge you to a little experiment: step forward in your own flesh. Abandon the fortress you carved out for yourself in your skull. Slide along your skin. Feel how your flesh moves in the world, and how the world moves around you. Become: be awake-aware in that osmotic barrier permeable to sensations and dreams that is your skin. Press yourself forward to your lips, from the inside feel the flutter of your mouth; the slow watery stirring of your tongue. Open your eyes. Your real eyes. Inhabit your body, encase it, rather than be encased by it. Awaken. Awakened you are living NOW, completely. Not yesterday with its pains, or tomorrow, with its fears; you live NOW with a promise of dizzy revelation.
Don't be afraid to embrace yourself - your senses- in this way. The Awakened wholeness of spirit-flesh you become is so in love with life and itself it holds every moment too precious to waste. The Awakened are, by nature and necessity, chaste.
Manuela Cardiga
The Awakened demand a richer meal: a delicate balance of love, humour and desire in their lives - and in their beds - which cannot be provided by the casual, and casually satisfied, visits of transient carnal desires.
I challenge you to a little experiment: step forward in your own flesh. Abandon the fortress you carved out for yourself in your skull. Slide along your skin. Feel how your flesh moves in the world, and how the world moves around you. Become: be awake-aware in that osmotic barrier permeable to sensations and dreams that is your skin. Press yourself forward to your lips, from the inside feel the flutter of your mouth; the slow watery stirring of your tongue. Open your eyes. Your real eyes. Inhabit your body, encase it, rather than be encased by it. Awaken. Awakened you are living NOW, completely. Not yesterday with its pains, or tomorrow, with its fears; you live NOW with a promise of dizzy revelation.
Don't be afraid to embrace yourself - your senses- in this way. The Awakened wholeness of spirit-flesh you become is so in love with life and itself it holds every moment too precious to waste. The Awakened are, by nature and necessity, chaste.
Manuela Cardiga
July 17, 2014
WHAT WOMEN DO INSTEAD
O sacrosanct
Flesh
Plundered
O sacrosanct
Tumbled tower
Humbled
By vicious power
O flower despoiled
Destroyed
O sacrosanct
Shattered
Screams unheard
Pearls of tender pride
Scattered
Ripped stripped
Of virile joy
O sacrosanct
Laid low
O bitter biter blow
The taste and smell
And touch of it
The unending
Memory vision
Sight of it
O sacrosanct
Chest embraced
Cradled:
Why Oh why
Did I by smile
Or word or deed
Invite this spite?
O sacrosanct
Do they
Will they know?
(That final hideous sound
The grunting moan)
Will they know?
Will they all know?
(I screamed for mercy
under that blow)
"Get up
Get up
Get up
Get out of bed;
Do what women
Do instead:
Raise high your
Head.
Did you think
Yourself sacrosanct
Precious alloy?
Exempt?"
"Get out of bed.
Do what women
Do instead.
Straighten that spine!
Will you repine?
Cradle the sick pup
Of your male pride?"
The only sacrosanct part,
What they cannot
Reach with a prick
Or tear apart
Is your heart"
"So get out of bed;
Do what women
Do instead,
Go home
To your wife,
Get on with your life."
So I did
What the woman said.
I got out of bed.
Manuela Cardiga
Flesh
Plundered
O sacrosanct
Tumbled tower
Humbled
By vicious power
O flower despoiled
Destroyed
O sacrosanct
Shattered
Screams unheard
Pearls of tender pride
Scattered
Ripped stripped
Of virile joy
O sacrosanct
Laid low
O bitter biter blow
The taste and smell
And touch of it
The unending
Memory vision
Sight of it
O sacrosanct
Chest embraced
Cradled:
Why Oh why
Did I by smile
Or word or deed
Invite this spite?
O sacrosanct
Do they
Will they know?
(That final hideous sound
The grunting moan)
Will they know?
Will they all know?
(I screamed for mercy
under that blow)
"Get up
Get up
Get up
Get out of bed;
Do what women
Do instead:
Raise high your
Head.
Did you think
Yourself sacrosanct
Precious alloy?
Exempt?"
"Get out of bed.
Do what women
Do instead.
Straighten that spine!
Will you repine?
Cradle the sick pup
Of your male pride?"
The only sacrosanct part,
What they cannot
Reach with a prick
Or tear apart
Is your heart"
"So get out of bed;
Do what women
Do instead,
Go home
To your wife,
Get on with your life."
So I did
What the woman said.
I got out of bed.
Manuela Cardiga
July 16, 2014
NARCYSSUS SMILED, ECHO DIED
your greed
to be
the centre
of attention
and affection
counts
no cost
your creed
in the saving
grace
of your own face
gives you
leave
to act
at will.
you feed
your will,
and savour
the power;
you feed me
the flavour
of this bitter pill
and I cower
there is no
choice,
for me
no choice:
this moment
brings no choice
but oh the next
as yet untainted
by regret,
is mine not yours.
so I bow,
I bow before
your frown,
I cower before
your power.
do as you will
feed your need
your creed
by every deed
I let it go
I let you go.
I let no more anger grow
In me, no more:
I give you your victory
but I pity you,
I pity your passion
for your own
shallow reflection;
I pity your need
for the sound
of Echo,
the echo
"no will but yours
no will
no will
no will"
you hear
that musical tone?
it explains why you are
so ultimately
alone.
Manuela Cardiga
to be
the centre
of attention
and affection
counts
no cost
your creed
in the saving
grace
of your own face
gives you
leave
to act
at will.
you feed
your will,
and savour
the power;
you feed me
the flavour
of this bitter pill
and I cower
there is no
choice,
for me
no choice:
this moment
brings no choice
but oh the next
as yet untainted
by regret,
is mine not yours.
so I bow,
I bow before
your frown,
I cower before
your power.
do as you will
feed your need
your creed
by every deed
I let it go
I let you go.
I let no more anger grow
In me, no more:
I give you your victory
but I pity you,
I pity your passion
for your own
shallow reflection;
I pity your need
for the sound
of Echo,
the echo
"no will but yours
no will
no will
no will"
you hear
that musical tone?
it explains why you are
so ultimately
alone.
Manuela Cardiga
LAST DAY!
Manuela Cardiga's "GUILTY PLEASURES - The Food and Fornication Fables"
FABULOUS SUMMER PROMO ENDS TODAY!
BOOK TRAILER HERE!
What's been said...
Elise de Sallier Best-seling romantic Author of "Innocence" and "Protection"
The very first page of Guilty Pleasures saw me laughing out loud. By the last page I was close to tears. In between was a beautiful, engaging, colourful, delicious, funny, enthralling, gut-wrenching, erotic and heart-warming ride. The characters were multi-dimensional, the plot unique, and the storytelling an absolute delight. Thank you Manuela Cardiga for this fabulous story!
***
Elana Sabharwal Author of "The Delhi Deception"
Debut author, Manuela Cardiga, arouses all senses in her stunning novel of epicurean and sexual pleasures. Guilty Pleasures is hilarious, entertaining and erotic. Cardiga has an uncanny understanding of our deep rooted emotions and relationship with all thing pleasureful, but guilt inducing. Her main protagonists are wonderfully flawed, yet at heart, both as courageous and romantic as long forgotten princesses and knights in shining armor. Beautifully written, in at times Victorian-like prose, Guilty Pleasures is a must read and will surely satisfy most readers' hedonistic side.
***
Janet Grace Riehl
Poet and Author of "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary"
Cardiga's writing is rollicking and elegant--a rare combination. Her wry humour, careful observations, imagination, and erotic evocations redefine and expand our understanding of sensuality--found anywhere we are open to it.At heart "Guilty Pleasures" explores a time-honoured theme: If love opens us--spilling out both our beauties and secrets--can we embrace our fragility and that of the person we love? "Guilty Pleasures" graces us with literary layering. We see Lance Packard's book "Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate" become a sensitive manual on how to fully love a woman and make her happy. I'll definitely be handing that to my next lover! Cardiga has given us a world that's a joy for readers to belong to, and inspiration to take back to our real life worlds when we close the cover.
But dont't take their word for it...
JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
FABULOUS SUMMER PROMO ENDS TODAY!
BOOK TRAILER HERE!
What's been said...
Elise de Sallier Best-seling romantic Author of "Innocence" and "Protection"
The very first page of Guilty Pleasures saw me laughing out loud. By the last page I was close to tears. In between was a beautiful, engaging, colourful, delicious, funny, enthralling, gut-wrenching, erotic and heart-warming ride. The characters were multi-dimensional, the plot unique, and the storytelling an absolute delight. Thank you Manuela Cardiga for this fabulous story!
***
Elana Sabharwal Author of "The Delhi Deception"
Debut author, Manuela Cardiga, arouses all senses in her stunning novel of epicurean and sexual pleasures. Guilty Pleasures is hilarious, entertaining and erotic. Cardiga has an uncanny understanding of our deep rooted emotions and relationship with all thing pleasureful, but guilt inducing. Her main protagonists are wonderfully flawed, yet at heart, both as courageous and romantic as long forgotten princesses and knights in shining armor. Beautifully written, in at times Victorian-like prose, Guilty Pleasures is a must read and will surely satisfy most readers' hedonistic side.
***
Janet Grace Riehl
Poet and Author of "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary"
Cardiga's writing is rollicking and elegant--a rare combination. Her wry humour, careful observations, imagination, and erotic evocations redefine and expand our understanding of sensuality--found anywhere we are open to it.At heart "Guilty Pleasures" explores a time-honoured theme: If love opens us--spilling out both our beauties and secrets--can we embrace our fragility and that of the person we love? "Guilty Pleasures" graces us with literary layering. We see Lance Packard's book "Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate" become a sensitive manual on how to fully love a woman and make her happy. I'll definitely be handing that to my next lover! Cardiga has given us a world that's a joy for readers to belong to, and inspiration to take back to our real life worlds when we close the cover.
But dont't take their word for it...
JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
SAY YOU LOVE ME
I wonder If my hunger
Makes me weak
Makes me meek
Makes me speak
I wonder if in my desire
For some fire;
For belief,
To be entire,
I make of you a liar
I wonder why I seek it out:
Beg for it
Kneel for it
Plead for it
Weak and meek
And slick
For it,
I wonder if what
I do is trick
And teach
Your mouth to speak
The plausible lie
For which
My soul so aspires.
Manuela Cardiga
Makes me weak
Makes me meek
Makes me speak
I wonder if in my desire
For some fire;
For belief,
To be entire,
I make of you a liar
I wonder why I seek it out:
Beg for it
Kneel for it
Plead for it
Weak and meek
And slick
For it,
I wonder if what
I do is trick
And teach
Your mouth to speak
The plausible lie
For which
My soul so aspires.
Manuela Cardiga
July 15, 2014
INÊS
She's mine
Mine
She's mine
I remember
Cradling
Her through
The dense veil
Of my flesh
Wondering feeling
That strange
Stirring
She's mine
I remember
The unfolding
Blossom-hand
Petal-fingers
Most fragile
Ferocity
Of love.
She's mine
And leaps high
In my sight
Yesterday,
For one second
I glanced aside
Just last night
And I see
She left me
Behind
She's mine
Not mine
She's taken
The world and
Turned it
Inside out:
Petal-heart
Blossom-face
Strange ferocity
Of grace
Fragile-tensile
Strength
Of mind,
She's hers
Herself
Alone
And she
Claims me:
I am hers
Though she
Is no longer
Mine.
Manuela Cardiga
Mine
She's mine
I remember
Cradling
Her through
The dense veil
Of my flesh
Wondering feeling
That strange
Stirring
She's mine
I remember
The unfolding
Blossom-hand
Petal-fingers
Most fragile
Ferocity
Of love.
She's mine
And leaps high
In my sight
Yesterday,
For one second
I glanced aside
Just last night
And I see
She left me
Behind
She's mine
Not mine
She's taken
The world and
Turned it
Inside out:
Petal-heart
Blossom-face
Strange ferocity
Of grace
Fragile-tensile
Strength
Of mind,
She's hers
Herself
Alone
And she
Claims me:
I am hers
Though she
Is no longer
Mine.
Manuela Cardiga
