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Life is the treasure and knowledge is the fire to kindle and wisdom the outcome to distill it

Poverty is taking away food from a fellow human being
Poverty is not being grateful that you have slept having eaten a comfortable meal
Poverty is going out there with a poor self image and using the presence of others to mask your inadequacy
Poverty is not knowing how divine you are, your soul content

Poverty as a woman is not being able to say how you feel and what you feel because you are afraid of rejection or disappointment
Poverty is trying to make a guy feel insecure because you yourself are insecure
Poverty is trying to have multiple ****** relations to either draw a man or men towards you or simply for the sake of trying to fuel your self esteem
Poverty is dreaming and letting the birds talk about it as a could have been
Poverty is stabbing a person you love dearly in the back
Poverty is blaming society, culture and circumstances at home for not progressing forward
Poverty is killing because you are stuck in unorderly primitive and unruly state and you do not know tranquility

Poverty is wanting things to remain the same because it protects you from growth and the awe of advancement
Poverty is living in the past and endlessly trying to change the present
Poverty is not knowing what to say because you have forgotten how to compose yourself in the presence of others
Poverty is thinking for short term satisfaction breeding inevitable lack of long term contentedness

Wealth is inviting the future fearlessly
Wealth is loving abundantly
Wealth is joining the heart's dance by yielding to emotions of pure positive vibrations
Wealth is making the heart intelligent so your desires are not  of a marginal durability
Wealth is seeking the truth because it will wash away the lies and test your bravery as it opens up the wounds and the pain of reality
Wealth is knowing that in giving a lot and asking less more than half the time; you remain abundant
  Wealth is imagining what a future 'you' would be like and in pursuit you strive to make your future self proud
Wealth is having an open mind and seeking first to understand than to be understood
Wealth is trying to find better solutions for either parties, a higher way; which healthily benefits either parties

Wealth is having someone who will support you no matter what
Wealth is sticking to divine principles because they will stand no matter what
Wealth is treating another better than you treat yourself and in essence you treat yourself as the greatest being
Wealth is being patient and persevering for good things because you will honour them as you understand what it took to earn them
Wealth is making a promise and keeping it, it boosts the progress of the whole Universe; even the promises we make to ourselves
Wealth is cleaning up after ourselves and engineering our personhood to not rely on insubstantial and baseless objectives and mantras
Wealth is taking a stand for one's own life and not waiting for a hero to pull up the yardstick
Wealth is going to the dam with a  broken rod and teaching yourself how to fish until a master comes and philosophises your decorum, approach, conduct and credo on the whole process of being independent and going out into the world,
Wealth is unlearning all of the miseducation that we have been fed since the day we were born and relearning and rewiring our psyche to be conscious and cosmically aligned with our divine purposes and use the resources around us to make the raw a tangible gem and vice versa.

Say no to poverty.
Live a sincere life of truth and meaning, we only have so much time to pay off our debts until we're rich enough to give back to the world again.
Sa Sa Ra Dec 2012
I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I'd rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest

And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialisation of an ancient religion
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I'm looking forward to Christmas
Though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus

I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs

I'm not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me

Cos I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter

You'll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school

And you won't understand
But you will learn someday

That wherever you are and whatever you face

These are the people who'll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if, my baby girl
When you're twenty-one or thirty-one

And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You'll know what ever comes

Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun

Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum

We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun

Darling, when Christmas comes
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun

Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you...
Waiting...

I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know...
Tim Minchin
White Wine In The Sun lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q
Michal Shilor Jan 2014
my polygamous relationship with you distances me from the monotony of monogamy and makes me feel lonelier than the loneliest mundane monogamist. my mere apologies for my misendeavors, the malnutritious morals of my miseducation propose metal mirrors and castaways controlled by cutting carvers, craving crazy letters and loyalty from lengthy lies and lonely lives. lethargy overtakes and vowels reign, raining drops like rainbows and rocks in rivers, rusting relationships, rusty railroads at intense intersections entwined in everything inside and nothing on the outside anymore except these
muscles. we are back at the beginning.

my mind marvels in the magic of the memories, the madness of the morbidity and the hesitations of your reaction. his, I take, is misunderstood as my misfortune, but it is not a miss, my fortune: it is a fox in feathers colorful like friendships 'fore their forfeited and feigned approval, forced for fear of polygamy tho' it promises the purest pleasure, the most personal independence and precious pearls of princes, princesses, powerful, plight-less

poetry.  peace surrenders,

souls surprise themselves, surprise their cells, call for curious catastrophes to take place. colorful and calm they coincide with cooperation that can not contain the context of truth, of teases, of teasers and targets and tonal dualities and we endeavor, we endear you, we dare destroy the darkness of the devil in its disguised diamonds.

words lie at my feet like pebbles of poetry and I promise personal demise, deterioration and ridiculous obsessions- there's madness to be had and fragments to be written and I play with silly alliteration instead!

serious and serene you stare as if my sanity has slowly faded and I sternly helplessly smile shyly.  I suppose you are sincerely offering me your blessing before parting, so stumbling slightly I surrender…


if this is the prevailing promise of mere mortality, I'm graciously aware I was worthy of words.
Kabelo Maverick Nov 2018
The identity is not correct,
God’s people dishonored
and in a state of aggression,

Geographically topsy turvy,
the history is miseducation

Blasphemy spits in the
face of the Motherland
like mocking the wrath
of a silent Beast

Like scorching the sky for Thunder
We’re provoking Divine Intervention

AND SO IT SHALL BE…!
Maverick
Nola Swan  Jul 2017
moonlight.
Nola Swan Jul 2017
these tears drown me
as i stare at the screen.
the hearts of young Africans
still suffering.
they drown me into a harbor of guilt
be careful don't let those tears spill.
see we only care
when were forced to be aware
eyes stare st the screen.
*** does this mean.
hide yourself.
**** a gun.
living life this way.
fathers telling the world your not his sun.
girl you over here drowning,
creating rivers and streams.
claiming you know what being black means.
until the son goes down and you hear
about all these Black Men
Red Districting.
now you joining a fight
that barely has a side.
with way more history
involving you nor i.
whatever you say this is my life.
my choice, my party.
i can sit here and cry.
and deny, deny, deny.
while our brothers are being killed.
by ourselves more than them.
they don't view us as equal
and im not talking about them.
so girl play your part.
speak your mind
so that it looks like you fought.
for our brothers and sisters
who can no longer fight for themselves.
because our black people
tied their hands behind their back,
as they fell into wells.
of despair.
miseducation.
because in this world
as a gay
black man.
your just a beast with no nation.
James Ellis Apr 2012
Dear Lauryn Hill,

As I listened to your album
I know you weren't concerned with the outcome
It was more of a way for you to vent
But it was still worth every cent
I'm poor now but your words make me rich
And I feel like my whole life I've been in a ditch
It's time I get out and really see the world
It's time I stop worrying about finding a girl
Because in time she will come to me
And two individuals will go
From "me and you" to "we"
You showed me love isn't easy at times
It can hurt so bad; I hear this in your rhymes
Although I may never meet you, I do know this
"The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" reaches the top of my list
I never knew such beauty could exist
I had to write this poem, I couldn't resist
At times I see the world and shake my head
Saying forget everything else and get myself ahead
But you reminded me that's not what it's about
L-O-V-E, Love!!! Love!!! Let's all shout!
Because if I can, you can shout too! You can too!

Love,
Jimmy Ellis
Santos Rodriguez Jan 2014
I’m sitting staring at faces so unfamiliar they don’t know me,

no stares no afflictions or brief awkwardness I am alone,

surrounded by souls that don’t know I exist,

please someone say hello,

someone needs to read my palms and tell me my lifeline in so that I know I’m needed,

I know what my worth could be but I need purpose to believe in because I’m struggling inside,

I feel like crying constantly in corners facing away from a society of glances from strangers,

I walk in circles and circles and circles trying to find direction for my future,

I’m being mislead by life’s curriculum and I feel like I’m above average in general miseducation,

I’m screaming silently help me!

I don’t want to deal anymore but I want to hold on if not for my sake then for those that need me more because I have to believe that in order to be,

How could you all not notice me, I’m yelling internally, I’m jumping and prancing in the bathroom away from everything not even staring me in the mirror,

I’m closing the doors before I open them so that I can never hurt again,

I’m avoiding chances and taking backward leaps to make sure that I can’t be touched, burned, or disturbed,

I’m going to find me first because I don’t know who the **** I am anymore,

I’m not even sure I ever knew which makes this challenge even harder,

I don’t even see it as a challenge because if I did the semantics would take over me,

I equate struggle and failure with success and greatness because I fail at all,

I’m reading my mind closer than ever before making sure I spell out my intentions to myself before I take one step out the door,

I feel as if I have OCD making sure that everything feels 100% right and if it isn’t I will not move,

I will not progress and maybe even digress to fix my missteps from prior years,

I don’t know where to go from here,

but I guess I’ll start with whistling and whispering in someone’s ear.
I was taught to write poetry
not by man, nor educationally.
We never had the money;
spent most of what we had,
to feed each belly in our homestead.

Life was hard, but became not an excuse,
though our circumstances differed,
but our stories all related,
when written down; this pain became our muse

Our eyes drew energy from our surroundings,
and we used our struggle as inspiration.
Our words told a story the same as paintings,
defining who we were, despite our miseducation.

I was told to write poetry,
so our descendants may know our history,
so that our heritage may not be forsaken.
Immortalizing words already spoken.

Our voice when we're no longer around.
We wrote because we loved creativity,
and this helped us even in times of captivity.
It was our cry when we couldn't make a sound.


I was tempted to write poetry,
to express what it meant to be free.
Stan Gichuki Dec 2015
The words I speak are unpopular, unwanted and uninvited
Oh Lawd, pray I not be misunderstood
But then if I am, that too is okay
For I speak not in the vulgarity of this regime
This regiment armed with ******* extensions calling me a renegade
To insinuate that I am dangerous because my body speaks from a position of anarchy

As though anyone was what they looked like
But then again, I am dangerous, deliberate and afraid of nothing
Praise the Lorde, the Audrey Lorde!
**** what I look like!
I don’t care that I look like I was hit by a speed train at the bend
I don’t care that my hair sits on my head uncombed and unruly as though it owns me
Because then if I do I will let you **** me over again, did I say again?
But if you can’t figure me out here please accept my apology for not being obvious
Take from my hand words for your Language Acquisition Device
And devise for your ilk ways of seeing, new ways of seeing me
This is the end of normal, arm yourself
Here an extra pair of eyes
Now drop the pretense and straighten the frown on your face
To act like ‘****’ is too sensitive a word to your senseless sensibilities is hypocrisy
The problem is, I said it and I ain’t no Rick Ross or Lil’ Wayne or some other brother
Whose ‘****’ comes to you as an endorsement to objectify women
To call her everything: a *****, a ****, a ****, a *****
To call a woman everything, but her name
And when you call a woman by name you mean to shame her
Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Wangari Maathai, Martha Karua
Kingwa Kamencu, , Audrey Mbugua, Wambui Otieno-Mbugua, Sojourner Truth
And this is the truth, black women have not even began to be resentful
of the rise to power of black men but there is a problem
A certain school of thought crafted by Slave masters on the colony
Teaches Black men that for them to be strong black women must be weak
Fallacious reasoning! This here is a product of gross miseducation
And Black men have not even began to unravel their role in the empire

Their counter-revolutionary exertion of a “manhood” that tells women to step back
As though to break off from our colonial oppression, never meant the total involvement
of every man, woman, and child, every-*******-body
As though for us to get here didn’t take the breaking of a woman’s back


Women whose labour terms in developing political consciousness were cast in stone
A time ranging from I-can’t-see in the morning until I-can’t-see at night
O Lawd bless Malcolm X
So this is your to do list for every man
Every man who acknowledges 'Wangu wa Makeri' and Bi Mswafari
in the same sentence with no sense of irony
Every woman who joins in the patriarchal laughter of our television
making fun of the nameless woman in 'Budalangi' begging 'sirikal' (Government) to help
As though her pain wasn’t real and the state hadn’t ignored her, three floods later
Please do yourself a favor, stop laughing
and teach yourself something on capitalist oppression
Stop laughing at the propaganda being pushed around as the truth
About men having *** with cows and hens because it will not be marked in history
that in two thousand and thirteen Kenyan men became intimate
with their food, pets and *****
And stop wearing Christianity as a beautiful coat that covers  your hatred
Because I don’t care how many verses you have memorized to make your hatred effective
For you have a verse to pull out of your pile of cards to justify the way you treat women and gays and Muslims and atheists and people
You see the truth is if Jesus came back to the world, you are the type that would still **** him
Because Jesus was a rogue, a rebel, and a revolutionary who refused to conform to any laws
Your hatred, judgement and self-righteousness must disgust him
because you are the worst thing that ever happened to my poetry
Stop condemning women for abortion and teenage pregnancy
as though there weren’t rapists and ******* priests who still oppose the use of contraceptives
Stop passing down your hatred to your children and other people’s children in the name of Jesus
So look yourself in the mirror and imagine what would happen
Imagine what would happen if we were to be honest in this conversation
and for a minute tried to speak about love as though we invented it
Take off your prejudices as though they hang on your shirt and again,
again and again ask yourself  ‘Who am I?’
And when you take to the streets before you tweet jokes that humiliate real people
Please stop, instead, try to talk of the revolution of love
Like our mothers did, and their mothers before them
And when you raise your hand to hit a woman STOP!
She has been beaten before and your hand shouldn’t touch her the same way
Keep your hand mid air and in that breathe ******* thank a woman
CM Rice Dec 2013
This seems a playful satire on the mighty Saltire
prewritten amidst a highland lowland silence.
In the hand of the wise-to Queen, or St. Andrew,
eternally akin to this 4-piece jigsaw'd island.
The actors publicly casted, professional amateurs,
notably despised an' yet a country's finest.

The setting old an' knew, new an' known, with
a neglected audience primed for mass evasion.
An' piecemeal parliaments, scrolls nor parchments,
have no place in this covert-of-sorts invasion.
For the stage be set with indebted goodwill,
through empty words in empty declarations.

The plot is thickening quick to a household broth,
of misdirection, miseducation an' artificial lie.
That binds the truth as if truth could be told,
of national strength safe in obvious disguise.
Common wealth paid for by the oblivious poor
man's pocket, pulling loose a threadbare tie.

Nae t'shakespeare'd lines, no to broken records,
No to smug derision of the true an' earnest,
Yes to insincerities that make you sober or worse,
that shine up their last of royal seal varnish.
No to sticky-finger-printed brass doorknobs,
of which for Scots to knuckle down an' burnish.

No to pious voices calling to brothers in arms,
leave this pound of flesh in vacuous debate.
Yes to monopolies of endless fields an' wind,
an' guards sat on a wall which have no gate.
Alas freedom remembered, stamped an' framed,
was never a win but loss to sovereign'd hate.

Left to aged members of past an' proven fable,
to cry the Nae's an' Yay's of a borrowed tongue,
to the masses still confused, still right thinking,
of who to believe an' who to defile. Now hung
out to dry the many years of engineered deflation,
left alone with answers still evolving, still young.

A year from now a collusive conclusion made,
to this ending – the poet an' playwrights success.
Devolving the ever-changing, deceptive blurbs,
to inveigh a reasoned No with a passionate Yes.
Leaves me mawkish for my country as it devolves,
An' I the fraternal gambler with only a flighty guess.

Recognise your flesh. Recognise the life you have.
Recognise the absurd use of this bargaining chip.
Social norms which press you heavy, all the time,
be they Catholic, Protestant, Tory, Liberal or hip,
Recognise you can discard them, this very moment,
An' become a leader of this Clydebank anchored ship.

Let no acid be sprayed unless to sting open the eyes
of the blind. Let no more our words become unseen.
Let no more the voices of hatred speak. An' so leave  
conflict where it belongs, for crowing minds to preen,
In the past for histrionics. No more of them an' us.
Step into freedom. Free, as you always have been.
Scotland is due to vote on its independence next year. Rather divisive decision to be making seeing as they have always had their independence in my eyes. For Tom McGrath (Credits go to him for the final 2 stanzas)
Kagey Sage Sep 2015
Using the 1% of those who got out of
the violent act of poverty
at the expense of billionaires
and taxpayer payed subsidies

Yes, they use the most pretentious
of our few escapees
they become a mouthpiece
to deny the facts researched
by actual experts

Truth is
what is powerful

There's no escape
from the ruler's messages
There's no escape from miseducation

— The End —