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Ashwin Kumar Mar 14
You are a brilliant poet and writer
And a terrific activist and orator
On the head, do you hit the nail
Every time without fail!

You speak what people do not want to hear
Which makes me grin from ear to ear
Never do you sugarcoat
Nor do you showboat
Supreme, is your clarity of thought
A lot of battles, must you have undoubtedly fought
And when it cometh to your imagination
To the winds, do you throw caution
The way you repeatedly attack our Brahminical patriarchy
Leaves us all under a spell
Because your writing is so fiery
That even the Sun can't hold a candle to it!!

Your English is flawless
So brilliantly do you assess
The problems in our society
Incomparable, is your brutal honesty
Not to mention, your Tamil is a work of art
Very well, have you played your part
In fighting caste and gender inequality
To all of us, do you represent Hope
Especially in these times of adversity
Never do you sit down and mope
When the going gets tough
Rather, do you tell yourself
"Enough is enough!"
And bounce back with a bang
Loud enough to silence your detractors
Unquestionable, is your character!!

To the literary world, are you an invaluable asset
Because, there ain't nothing you can't achieve
Above all, you make us believe
That we can fight the system
And most importantly, WIN!!
Poem dedicated to Meena Kandasamy - an author, poet and activist whom I admire greatly.
I know we meet
people for a reason
and every time I didn't
think it was the case,
hindsight proved me wrong
ten times out of ten.

But us? I can't seem to accept
you were a stepping stone,
a lesson, a memory etched
in my spirit only meant to
redirect me to another place.

I just don't want what comes next
without you here to share it with me.

Tell me why I can't seem to
come to terms with us being
not only impermanent
but seemingly forgettable.

I cannot bring myself to let go
Michael T Chase Feb 2021
What is it that I'm "in my head"?
The shape of my brain and skull act as a maze through which frequencies are played by the thought constructs which I employ.
It is like every attribute has a string or key which can be played, and every time it is played, it conjures all the processes which that key has encountered before.
Eyes half closed places me in my head, and body sometimes too.
Looking up is paying homage to the sky.
The ability to walk on two legs places humans between earth and heaven, two limbs can reach up, and two limbs touch bottom.
I have no visible tail, only a remnant of one, which makes my movement dependent on just these four limbs.
The head and spine being shared by all vertebrates, means that its sign is more diverse in nature.
Humans have the largest brains compared to the rest of the body.
However, an extra-terrestrial skeleton proved to have a brain/skull even larger than humans.

Consciousness is held much like using all the controls while driving a car: the eyes adjust, pressure in the skull and body is adjusted with muscles, the position of the body, neck, and head is adjusted.
Sounds are drown out or given attention.
The body can be divorced from emotion, virtue, and the universe.
The Self can be divorced from virtue, organization, emotion, and the universe.
Everything in such a state is local.
When things are local, I can only observe the scattering amplitudes.
If the scattering is very low, then the gross or macro-level world is all I see.
But what is different from a chair or sofa and a star or moon?
Both are made from the same universe.
The difference is that one was formed by humans, the other a part of nature.
What makes nature a better object of focus than man-made objects?
The man-made object tends to already have a use while the natural are base elements.
They signify the lowest grade of complexity.
Thus, my body is the lowest grade, the simplest, structure in the local home.
Being simple, it is like a canvas that can be painted, or a quarry from which a rock can be sculpted.

Now I switch to morning mode, which is about waking up and making progress.
But meditation is just as hard waking up as it is staying up sometimes.
I must once again ask the same questions in a new day.
What is consciousness?
Can it really be defined as a particular mechanism?
Wouldn't DNA be the best candidate, and it is made of compounds, which are found with the elements.
Yes, it seems science must switch from a "finding a particle" mode to a global life-form mode.
One which knows that life is a web of different things without any one of which the whole planet would fail.
"Finding a particle" mode has proven to be at the end of its run for finding them, as to find a graviton would prove impossible due to the amount of energy needed that would then create a minature black hole.
It seems like I'm a couch scientist, or a science critic not contributing to the picture.
The "finding a particle" mode is so hard to give up because it has been a part of science for over 100 years, which has shaped what a scientist does, how one thinks too.
However, the "web of life" mode gives a harder picture to deal with: one of thinking about social relationships between and within species and kingdoms.
It means that insight will no longer come from a "gold rush" type mentality of a find, but rather insight gleaned from a cooperative consultative stream of thought.
It takes the center away from the individual and places it on the community and the biosphere.
The biosphere or world civilization perspective takes away a lot of physics needed and instead offers a simpler picture, far simpler.
Now, I ask: how can social groups become more enlightened?
How will personal growth, science, the humanities, and social justice play a role?
How will spirituality, which so often is "other worldly" actually weaken this social structure if it is not focused on the simple practical matters in the "web of life" outlook?
I now see that asking "what is consciousness?", if asked too much, will prove to individualize and hamper people's worldview by placing its concern on minutia.
This "find a particle" view could even be seen as an illness which keeps people from having a more social outlook.
It means giving up the personal glory of the scientist, for the practical glory of the community, of the whole.
Instead, what will cause love to grow and hatred to end?
What will make conversations and interactions become more mature?

Now I turn to the element of virtues, which can be divorced from the human body if its goals are not aligned with them.
Addressing trama and how to cope, or simply depression and anxiety too.
The goal of course being a utopia where all can flourish physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
We must come to some shared understanding of how society best operates, or else we will keep contending with each other for a millennia.
I feel these shifts occur form injustice and the rally for justice in its wake.
It really comes down to the people in power making decisions today.
To how we treat those who share different beliefs, and how we distinguish from mere differences of opinion from a difference between knowledge and ignorance.
I can see both sides of abortion having good points.
I can see good all the way from a flat tax (like religion) to very high taxes on the wealthy.
I can see the difference from helping poeple survive to helping them thrive and knowing the good sides of both issues.
Moreover, I can see why too much nationalism and too much globalism could both be unjust due to the particular opinions of a mother nation, and the need for global unity.
I can see why adherence to one religion will only work if it is based on love and freedom, for love without freedom is not unconditional.
Meanwhile freedom without love leads to destruction.
However, erasing safety and protection from love and freedom would also lead to disaster.

Where is the balance?
That is what the "web of life" mode needs to deliberate.
This is a slow process.
The willingness of one can only affect others through wisdom not fanaticism in any degree.
What is consciousness?
The highest consciousness is deciding public affairs and interacting with others about public affairs.
Therefore, read, write, interact, and work.
Then reflect again and see how far we have come.
4 hours of journaling
Yamuna Turco Sep 2019
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired
I am tired of the fights,
The political wars,
And the real ones
Of the lies and deceit,
Of the blinding ignorance

You don’t care
You. Don’t. Care.
Because you don’t have to
Your brothers aren’t being shot,
Your mothers aren’t being locked up
Your aunts aren’t being deported,
And your cousins aren’t beating themselves up
You don’t care,
but I wish you did

What do I have to do?
Because all my talking and all my speeches aren’t helping
I am being called an angry child,
so you can sit comfortably on your throne of privilege

So please, enjoy
Enjoy as your world crumbles and falls around you
But know this
I may be tired,
I may be fed up,
And I may be frustrated,
But I am **** sure not done yet
San-Pei Lee Jul 2019
Humans draw borders on land
As if Earth is unchanging
And our lives immortal to witness the stance
We lay claims to insignificant materials fleeting
But the world and so much more could be all yours
And all yours could remain for Earth's time
If we could only learn to fly our lands as birds do the skies
Traverse the currents as fish do waters

Because just what are you attempting to obtain
With these imaginary labels and lines invisible
Cowardly caging yourself in
From supposed evils of the world
Never to be wiped out
If you are harboring the worst of vices within
DG Jun 2019
After thorough calculations there
are two possible outcomes of
arguing with my family:

Either one day the arguments will end patriarchy,
or one day the arguments will end me.
ignorance and world issues and poetry are messing with my mental health
james nordlund May 2019
Sky has fallen on your head, Earth erupting has upended you into two, is it time for change yet?


Everyone knows the extinction's coming, racing towards US from our future,

Seen on the horizon, still, no talk of evolution, adapting to reality,

Not the worldly world of criminal insanity?  Non-republican caucasian

Newborns to men who are heterosexual are still neutered as newborns,

Mutilated as toddlers, kids, mass-*****, and every crime done against them

As kids and teens, yet the Roman Catholic Empire doesn't even acknowledge

Their inquisition against them, let alone slow it down, stop it.  How is

It that Pope Benedict (Arnold, the Rat...), the last inquisitor, hasn't

Been prosecuted in the ICC?  Just so you know, if "...we(e),..." don't

Uninstall RumputiN/vlad-the-impaler from the Blackhouse by 1-21-21, the

United **** of assassins is the new notsee Germany and since it's citizens

Haven't stopped it's Gov't, it must be destroyed at all costs, for life,

Humanity, the Earth, to even exist.  Is impeachment peachy keen now?

Do you feel like keeping it in the ground, abolishing fossil fuel use yet?
Great works, thanks; also, please: Sample letter: Hello.  Donald Trump is deliberately undermining the oversight powers of Congress and acting as if he is above the law. Yet, some House Democrats are still stalling on impeachment.  The Trump organized crime family isn't going to re-institutionalize organized crime as gov't (from the top down, "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"), "...we(e),..." have already defeated that; impeachment is a necessary step- regardless of political effects that could be construed as negative.  Thanks for your attention.   reality
james nordlund Mar 2019
untitled (vs. imperialism + its idyllic head, which is only idolic, cult of personality)


The tug of war between our better, worser angels, voices in our heads that aren't,
an aspect of sociological schizophrenia that Westerners were all programmed with
from birth on, tears at us as it was meant to, for the divided fall to ebony, ivory,
the black and white supremacies, conquering in perfect harmony, neigh, perfect war,
which can only beget more, thus the global unending unnecessary war against all life
only increases, as the irrelevant pieces are discarded ever more, for more, now, 13000
kids a day die of lack of potable water, hunger, while the 130 running for manager-
in-chief of the world's retail store, the united **** of assassins, won't mention it
once, what the real left always fought to end.  Like genocide, remember when it was
commonly understood if you knew about it and weren't fighting it you were a genocider?
Just last year Coates on the Hayes show said, "...if you think whites shouldn't be
genocided you're a racist...", a song of economic sukkkcess by ebony over ivory for
them and the republican conspiracy, for, the only other things, besides neutering of
newborns, assassinating infants in cribs, anatomical destruction and mass-****** of
kids, teens, that they have enforcing their 35 % ruling the 65 % are all the inter-
locking, laced economic systems based on scarcity instead of nature's abundance,
ever increasing the supposed garnering of ever more short-term delusional pleasures,
profits and powers, in ever more cyclical, centralizing patterns that dictate
astronomically larger real deficits over the long-term, in a word, Earth-******,
the central organizing theme of global defacto-slavery of all by the non-renewable fuel
industrial complexes, the real left vexes with our unifying song of liberation from
and abolishing of fossil fuel use, keeping it all in the ground, which is where they
pound the real (non-socialist) greens.  Why don't our hands demand "...We(e),..." climb,
our streching demand we reach only more over time, our lungs only more wind under an
only greater wingspan over time, instead of the opposite?  "...We(e),..." need to
turn 360 degrees around, back to the evolution and the future humanity will only
have if you, illimitable potential, indivisible as life, leave no footprints that
follow none, which will echo forever on, in all ways, always.  Viva la Evolucion.
My twig  of poetree that inspired this one   :)  

Nature's Balanced Path, Giving Back To Abundance, Furthers

Betwixt our better and worser ..., voices in our heads
That aren't, nor curser, for our inner candle's always lite
So we don't curse the darkness, weeded, bring forth
From the Earth more, demanded by our roots, feet, hands, score.   reality
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