I could never work out why my cheeks went so greedily red when you showed your teeth.
Heather says it's because I get nervous too easily - anxiety, she said
I think it's the opposite
your white lies have a familiar milky hue
And I like contrast.

The summer before I turned thirteen, I spent copious amounts of time perched on the edge of a ***** wooden chair in the corner of my friend's kitchen. Sometimes we'd sit together watching her mother make us dinner, the way her hands moved gracefully chopping up onions, and with a flick of the wrist, tossing them into the cast iron pan.

Other times we'd sit with her sisters and fill the table with large stacks of books, reading our favorite lines out loud to each other. Laughter bubbling up to our ears, a quiet contentment settling over the room.

This time was different. It was just us girls, the oldest of us was playing with my hair as I leaned back against the thick wooden frame of my chair, humming quietly to myself. The ******* the other side of me slid open her phone, them immediately turned to me. When I looked at her, she squirmed in her seat as though she had committed a crime and the kitchen had somehow transformed into an interrogation room.

Finally, she broke the silence, saying, "So, uh, I told my friend, the boy you met the other night, about your whole...thing." Instantly, I knew that this "thing" she was talking about was my crush on the girl down the street. She was still uncomfortable with the subject so I gave her points for trying and swallowed my pride. I asked his response and she glanced back to her phone while I waited for a cry of disgust that never came.

Instead I got a reaction I never knew I should fear. Her phone screen displayed a simple text message with only two words. "That's hot."

As if I should care. As if even though I didn't want men, they were still allowed to want me. Still allowed to think that they owned me.

The way men think that my life is a game and at the end of the day what I really want is a big strong man to take care of me.

All women fear ****** assault, but there's a special kind of torture that seemed made only for me. Corrective **** is what they call it when a man thinks that the best cure for a lesbian is to get a taste of a man.

As if men cannot fathom the idea that women were not made to please them. As if they can't comprehend the idea that there are women who don't want to have *** with them.

The way straight men complain about how uncomfortable gay men make them feel, as if men are allowed to say no and women are not.

And at nearly thirteen years old, I didn't know any of this and I bore his words as though they were a compliment, because even if I didn't want him I'd been raised to think that pleasing men was to be my only goal in life.

I told myself I shouldn't be angry. I begged my skin to stop crawling, my insides to stop revolting against me. What was wrong with me? Why did a compliment feel like an assault?

But a part of me recognized, even at twelve, that those words were not a compliment, but rather a threat. This boy knew I didn't want him, couldn't want him, but that didn't seem to matter to him, because he wanted me. I have been taught that men always get what they want, so why shouldn't he get to have me?

With two words, I felt like I'd been sold into slavery. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out, silenced by the waves of shame crashing over my mind.

I was a girl, nearly thirteen, sitting in her friend's kitchen, and realizing that I'd never be free.

It's not OCD
I'm just ****-rententive.

There are two
coffee urns
in my office kitchenette.
Each urn has
a spot to place your mug
beneath the spigot.
Each of these spots has
a circular insert
of gridded plastic
to mark the mug-placement area
and allow spilled coffee to flow through
so this spot
doesn't become
just a puddle of coffee
soaking the bottom of everyone's mugs.
Each of these inserts has
three indentations:
one on each side
at nine and three o'clock
small, arcing parabolas
like reversed parentheses
there to allow someone to
get their fingers into the
coffee mug spot
and under the insert
to remove it
and, presumably
clean it
and then another indentation
more like a groove
or a notch
much smaller, thinner, and deeper
at the top
that fits perfectly with
a matching
small plastic protuberance
jutting from the coffee mug spot
where the insert goes.
In an almost ****** fashion
this protuberance fits into
this last indentation
this notch
this groove
to secure the insert in place.

For some reason
I've never known
perhaps laziness
perhaps inattentiveness
more likely simple
couldn't-care-less-ness
this insert never seems to be
placed into the mug spot
properly.
It is always placed sideways
rotated a quarter-turn
so that the larger indentations
on the side
meant as finger holes
are placed top-to-bottom
noon and six
the small plastic protuberance at the top
being swallowed whole
by the too-large indentation
and its mate
the groove
meant to hold the plastic piece
so tightly
is left alone
to one side
empty
and useless.
This has always bothered me.
Bothered me more than I would like to admit.
It's such a simple little thing to get right
it would take almost no effort at all
and yet, day-after-day
someone
I don't know who
whoever is in charge of these things
insists
on doing it wrong.
And I cannot abide it.
So, day-after-day
when I go to get my morning coffee
I fix it
I twist the insert ninety-degrees
and secure it in the correct position.

Lately
I have noticed something.
Sometimes
when I go to get my coffee
one of the inserts
will already be
fixed.
Someone else has seen
what I have seen
and felt the same
had the same response
took the same corrective action.
This feels like winning something.
I don't know what
but it definitely smells like Victory.
And Conspiracy.

And it makes me happy.
Happier than I'd like to admit.

What do you want me to do about it? You're acting like, like we can't
do anything about this, Nandu. Like you're, I mean you're acting like,
this is my fault, here. What was I supposed to do? I mean, I had no way
of knowing, man. Oh ****, might have to shok this guy who's ****** little
kids -- wait a sec, better not say anything about ReFresh water! I mean, what the ****?

I am blaming you because that was the worst joke I've heard.

In how long, ever?

In a long time.

Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. But this is not my fault. We should fight this.

They're doing what they're doing. If you do something like this again, I'm firing you.

You're not gonna fire me.

How do you know that?

You're not gonna fire me because, people make mistakes. And you know that.

I have no wisdom
of my own; borrowed insight,
hindsight of many.

This is one of Barry Hodges' most inspired memories.

  'Twas morning time in times of yore and I, bold Barry Hodges, stood outside my store, my giant vegetables on display for all to see, when lo and behold! a luxurious limousine drew up, and from the back there emerged a gorgeous form of voluptuous statuesque feminity.
  "My God!" I cried, it is that beauteous lady from *La Dolce Vita, the wondrous Anita - and I gazed with joyous on her divine body, imagining it sprawled lasciviously in my bed, legs open as wide as a major road junction on the M1 motorway.
  "Excuse me", said she in that Italo-Swedish voice guaranteed to make any man wet himself copiously, "But I am a-lookink for a shop a-called 6B, and yet all I can-a-see is a Barry Hodges' the Master Geengrocer's, complete with a giant cucumber or two, which I 'av to say remind me of somet'ing tasty."
"Dearest lady, said I, you have come to the right place: 6B is the trading name of my sister enterprise: Barry Bodgers' Boil Bursting Beauty Bureau which is located upstairs, Barry Bodgers at your service, my dearest, most delightful Fru Ekberg."
"Shhhhhhhhh! I am een deesguise, not even dear Federico knows I am-a-here." And thus, assuring her of my utmost discretion, and forming a bond by saying that I too, the famous Geordie seducer, Barry Hodges, had indulged in a slight nomenclatural change in order to separate the two sides of my business interests, and in order to do a spot of money laundering on the side.  "But," I enquired, "How is it that you have need of the rather specialised medical services we offer, you who are so radiant and bella-bella?" She lowered her eyes seductively and promised to reveal her terrible secret.

As I ushered her up the stairs to the studio, my eyes on her ****-cheeks wiggling like two delectable beach ***** in a sack, she told me the sad tale of the immense boil which kept recurring on the middle of her back and which no amount of corrective surgery could fix.
"Aha!" I exclaimed, "Only Barry Bodgers, the world's greatest boil-sucker, can effect the cure for which you long, and I shall operate on you personally, not entrusting such a task to even the best of my boil-bursting minions." I added to myself, "Also I want to give you a good old bonking while we're at at."

Once we attained the privacy of my consulting room, I instructed her to strip off utterly so I might examine her, and I can tell you, dear reader, that her **** **** was a joy to behold. I too divested myself of my clobber, knowing that boil-******* can get a bit messy at the best of times. Jesus wept!, but the mighty boil betwixt her graceful shoulders revealed when de-plastered was a true horror, with a yellow tip as big as a Grade One Belgian Turnip. I explained that I would **** it out whilst I rogered her from the rear and that, when she felt her ****** on the way, she should scream out to that effect and I would then bite the core of the boil right out in a blaze of mutual ******* glory, before applying a dose of my exclusive Boil Preventative Cream, namely a handful of our conjoined love-juices extracted from her gaping ***** by hand a few seconds earlier.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" screamed the Swedish bombshell and with a mighty **** like an industrial Dyson FX334 on full power, I slurped and  razor-bit the boil, bursting it asunder, smothering my eager face in blood and putrid pus, thereby causing me to blow my *** as ne'er before. The green core of the boil emerged from its fleshly cavity with a deafening plop as we came together like a nuclear blast d'amour.

O, but only then, as my seminal outpourings soaked my jim-jams, did I awaken to discover yet another nocturnal emission. And, not unexpectedly, dear Nurse Nellie, having heard my cry of ecstasy, rushed in to my bedroom, head-shaking and tut-tutting as usual, as she knelt down and licked my tum-tum dry.
"Yum, yum" she murmured in her dulcet Northumbrian tones, "Ah've looked after three generation o' Hodges laddies, and I kin tell ye, your *****'s the tastiest of them all, ye bonnie wee man."
"Better than Grandad Charlie's?"
"Why aye, mon, yours is well creamier."

Eyes
reflect love and laughter, create a window for the world to view a beautiful soul, perceive so much light, see the vivid brightness of everything around
          but what I choose to focus on is how they barely function without corrective lenses, the color of the iris is too bland, and they allow too many tears to fall.

Hands
sweep away tears softly, give love the opportunity to be tangible, rest upon a friend's back to support, sweep across the ivory to make emotions audible
          but what I choose to focus on is how they shake when in social situations, the lack of length in the fingers, and the obvious absence of another hand to hold.

Legs
support my whole structure, provide transportation for adventures, serve as a resting place for his weary head, function each day without conscious effort
          but what I choose to focus on is how angry red stretch marks line the skin, the way my fat calves get stuck in jeans, when they fail to endure the miles to run.

Unaware
Stand up or burn up this is the fact I will give description of different stands that were made some for self and some for others first
I found myself in a predicament I was up against Bob he had thirty years on me and tougher by the very life he had lived now he was
Having a high time poking fun at my religion at first everything was going his way but then the strangest thing I felt a sensation
Like my spine was turning to steal and like the reverend MR. Black I cut him down like a big oak tree with these words I just asked
Him where he would be in a hundred years at that the grin died on his face you see he just had been released from prison after serving
Fifteen years for bank robbery he was expert at projecting time looking to the future at that moment he was far away seeing that as
Clearly as you look through your front window and observe the goings on of the day for the next hour or so we had a civil intelligent
Conservation about holy things I went to California shortly after this and lost track of Bob so I don’t know what he did with the
Opportunity God gave him but I know this later when I did hear of his death he met no surprises he had already been to that very spot
When God through the spirit spoke through me to him all confusion all the lies were stripped away he was given the pure time to make
A decision with crystal clarity whatever it was it will bode ill or favorably with him at judgment but he will have or make no excuse it
Was settled that night when he started talking to me and ended up talking to God about the most important matter in all the universe
That all should and need to ask how is it with my soul?

I had another time and another soul his danger was more immediate I wasn’t without my own concern I had been to the camp meeting
in Santa Cruz I need to tell you that story later well I got lost in a prayer meeting I found myself without a ride back to Monterey that
Was forty miles away I found myself pounding the high way out in the Artichoke country at one thirty in the morning and no traffic I
Finally got to fort Ord still four miles from Monterey a car stopped I was aware of a GI was just beaten severely with a wrench a few
Nights before the guy at the wheel was a giant broad shouldered six foot six everything was alright except he was drunk as a skunk and
My luck was holding he was a kind drunk we talked on the ride and even found out his son went to our church attending Sunday school
Everything was going smoothly well for the moment any way the next day was Sunday and I was walking through the church and
this little voice spoke my name all of a sudden I was in terror this was the little boy whose father the night before gave me the ride now
I was being asked to go to the little boy’s home because his dad was shipping out to Vietnam and the little boy knew his dad wasn’t
Saved so there I am knocking on his door and I’m talking to myself this giant is on his turf a no nonsense guy and he has a mouse
Standing at his door of course now he was stone cold sober and with a giant hangover he was cordial he might as well as slapped me
And ran me off then I could say well I tried and I could tell his son that God had something else in mind the sarge had it going his way
Then he made the mistake of expressing his belief that he was good enough to make heaven on his own he stirred up the Holy Ghost
In me I was already picturing his little boy losing his dad and then knowing he was lost we locked horns me driven by the facts of where
He was going and the danger he faced was real and deadly I quoted the main scripture there is no other name under heaven given to be
Saved than Jesus Christ he still dwarfed the small house he was in by his size I didn’t care I was after him like a wolverine he wasn’t
Going to that danger and certain possibility of sudden death I don’t know how it went when he got there but this I know he didn’t go
In stupidity thinking he was safe by his own power and conduct.

Things calmed for a week or two then another pressure cooker Mickey a teenager an American Japanese in our church asked me to
Go over on Saturday and witness to her family how exciting a couple of little Japanese people to talk to I walk in here is a house
Full of people what did they do have ancestors come over from Japan it went downhill from there when I started talking it seemed
as Mysterious as the orient they all seemed to be wearing ninja outfits with the swords all drawn I thought maybe they thought I was
One of them because of my eyes and now there ticked off because I’m just a white guy but in fact it was they were given me their full
Attention the hard stare was there attentiveness God left a good word with them.

All of this just brings out the point we need to find God now our loved ones are depending on us they have no one else Paul
Said we pluck them from the very fire of burning in girl by the lake I spoke of her and what she saw was only her natural surroundings
I saw the ninety foot wall of flame advancing ever slowly just like the people in Oakland oh I can out run the flame when a fire
Becomes a fire storm a conflagration of destruction those smoke jumpers I spoke of twenty three as they scrambled up the ridge out
Of that gorge the twelve hit the top and rolled the others just feet from the top were consumed in an instant God’s love is long
Suffering but it does have a limit what he will put up with I tried to make that point in mystical fire well don’t be unaware take
Corrective action today were not promised tomorrow.

She collected lolly sticks,
        The ones with jokes on them:
        Why did the chicken cross the road?-type stuff,
Which she stained brown and used as floorboards
in her magnum opus.

The Tudor house was the best one.
It had servants’ quarters
And a kitchen with little hessian potato sacks made
of something or other she salvaged from
somewhere or other;
And the floorboards looked so real:
        painted lolly sticks
        but almost evoking the smell of varnish,
        layers of polish on a floor trodden by centuries
        in perfect miniature;
                                                Almost­.

This was the last of the three
                                                or four
                                                        doll­s’ houses she built;
The devil’s work for her idle widow’s hands.
She built this one while you were entering your final
        stalemate
that doomed dance that sits so permanently
on your conscience
like a sack of compost
full of water.
        (I choose this simile only because
        I found this in my garden yesterday,
        and it was ******* heavy.)
On paper it was simple:
        You gave her your house,
        She gave you hers.

And so her house shrunk around her and
became a dolls’ house of your own making,
Irrationally
                        she saw your god-hands reaching in
to manipulate and
extort her.

She was wrong, of course.

You were making good on your promise.
You would come through for her in her frailty.
You did – but

it was a promise you made more to yourself than her,
And she let her illogical mind
        never analytical to begin with
        now razed and blinded by grief and loneliness
                        (there was nothing to work with)
poison your good deed,
you were both dolls now.

Eight years later she died lovelessly.

She retreated into her sitting room
        the only part of the house that stayed the same
        after you moved in –
                the walls closed in to contain it
                constrict it
a hospital bed and vinyl chair with commode,
and the brown laminate floor
        just like
        her lolly sticks.

You administered painkillers
Admitted the nurses
Negotiated with your estranged brother.

but her paranoia rotted everything
and your hands cared with compassion but not love.

Gone, now,
the dolls’ houses remain.
An inheritance of clutter
in a house you bought.

You answer the phone
                                        breathlessly
      ­                                  aggressively.
You have been heaving the big one up the stairs
        that sack of compost
        that heavy conscience of yours.

You will be heaving those ******* dolls’ houses around
until I have to buy your house and care for you.
But I am telling you now:
        I am putting them in a skip
        the moment I have the chance.

They are not imbued with the joy they gave her
any more than
                        by keeping them safe from landfill
                        you can imbue them with the love you withheld.

They are painted lolly sticks and sewn hessian.
They don’t contain any more of her
than the bits of paper she kept
        passwords and bank balances
        dates and instructions for the Sky box
There is nothing left of her to protect now.

Open up the hinged false front,
                tip out the miniatures
                let the little figures be free,
                                be landfill
                                (isn’t that what dying is anyway?)
all the tangible things she touched and loved
are not avatars for her touch and her love.

The past is not present through the preservation of objects.
The past is not erased by the advancement of time
                nor can it be undone by corrective action.

Now she is on the other side of the road,
        (why did the chicken–
        behave.)
She has no further use for the things she left behind.

I
--
The LORD is asking, “Do you trust Me, child?”
And surely He is worthy of all trust,
but visceral reactions oft’ seem just
in keeping soul’s anxieties well riled.
While panic, shame and dread stir doubting winds,
obsessive, tight, compulsive thoughts pour fuel
into this downward spiraling boil of gruel
where toxic interactions breed more sins.
So for relationships I feel unfit,
and now old interests die and pleasures wane,
as each new hope in Earth’s good brings fresh pain,
where dark depression’s presently my bit.
Yet in this wilderness I hear God call,
“Child, look to Me. I am your ALL in all.”

II
--
I meditate upon the word of God
to heal a mind that’s broken from the fall,
and lying in morn’s bed I now recall
the former paths of fullness I have trod.
I clear the course of tangling debris
that fogs perspective’s distance-viewing sight
and clogs the narrow way which lets in light,
so with God’s truth I’m able to agree.
I gaze toward the future that is sure,
to glory that is promised out of trial.
I push through lying voices of denial,
rememb’ring my inheritance secure.
So healing first begins by sizing scope,
for in true measure I can grasp true hope.

III
---
Long sheltered in the recesses of mind
on pedestals that overshadow truth
are lies which I have entertained since youth
like tape recordings stuck on forced rewind.    
There‘s something of appeal in misbelief,
some comforting, perverted, dressed-up face
which keeps foul strongholds rooted into place
and lets such rotten seedlings harvest grief.  
But I must choose to undermine their message,
uncovering deception’s hidden lairs
whose cultivation grounds for growing tares
leave roadblocks to integrity’s safe passage.
God’s probing, piercing words—what precious gifts!—
can excavate, expose and extract myths.

IV
---
I apprehend these truths in David’s psalm:
“I’m fearfully and wonderfully made,”
and all my days of life are firmly laid
within the sovereign care of God’s own palm.
And yet another voice keeps creeping out.
“You’re too unfit for blessed community,
hence from belonging full immunity
is your dim lot,” says paralyzing Doubt.
For ‘gainst the Word that says I‘m rightly hewn
rub all the bristling edges of myself,
but would one set forever on a shelf
a Bösendorfer piano out of tune?
No, value is a function of creation,
and He who made has promised restoration.

V
--
Restoration’s anchored in redemption,
and my redemption‘s grounded in God’s love.
Nowhere in far reaches man has thought of
could mind unfurl the breadth of such conception.
Sloshing, hesitating in the shallows,
I wander close to shore in Love‘s vast sea.
Then from the swell I hear a coaxing plea
to dive into the deeper wake of hallows.
What‘s this weight that pins my frame from racing
toward His unknown billows of delight?
Do I not trust that He will clasp me tight,
help me bear the fiercest waves I’m facing?
What guile of devils am I heeding here
which keeps me bound by paralyzing fear?

VI
---
Disheartened by my want for firm resolve
to swim toward agápē’s unplumbed depths
for int’macy with Him who paid my debts—
the only One from sin who can absolve,
I wander, wond‘ring what I’ve missed to see
within my comprehension of Christ‘s love
when He would vacate majesty above
and suffer cruelest death to set me free.
They stripped Him, flogged Him, spit, pulled out His beard,
then pressed a crown of thorns down on His head.
They nailed Him to rough cross to leave for dead—
Creator of the world now by it jeered.
In love this traitor by her King was served:
Christ Jesus bore God‘s wrath which I deserved!

VII
----
Considering what labors Christ performed
to buy my freedom off sin’s slav’ry block
that of His fullness, with Him, I could walk
in resurrected life (not just reformed),
can I not trust that He will see me through
each trial, tribulation, sorrow, loss
when He would not forsake me at the cross
but carried all my grief and suff‘ring too?
And just as death‘s cold grave could not contain
my Savior but gave way to watch Him rise,
whatever loss my path has to comprise
shall work for me eternal glorious gain.
So while my courage may still be in lack,
the settled thing is there’s no turning back.

VIII
-----
Wading through fresh tidal pools of mercy
along a piece of coast that‘s not too wide—
among the crags and caves where stragglers hide,
hoping to evade crowd controversy—
I know I‘ll have to move on before long.
But in the warm meanwhile of the day,
I kneel to rest; and as I start to pray,
my heart begins to open to a song—
a gentle, soothing lullaby I’ve known
sung to the tune of ‘Eventide‘ as hymn,
reminder that this life is fading, dim
but that in Christ I never walk alone.
And as I raise the words, “Abide with me…,”
here comes my Shepherd, walking by the sea.

IX
---
What now is this waylaying, sin-sick soul?
Diversional winds from cliffside descend.
Where‘s pressing fire my devotions attend?
Brain‘s robbed of sanity, sleep, self-control.
Jesus comes near numb heart in distraction
and bids me again to clean deadwood out.
Jesus, I‘m desperate, drowning in doubt!
Help me expel what‘s needing subtraction!
Discipline, prudence, wisdom, contentment
can work to restore both body and brain,
while worship will lift locked heart from restraint—
its untethering from woe’s resentment.
I won‘t, without wisdom, taste truest Love,
yet Love holds true keys to wisdom above.

X
--
Mottling mind’s hazed subconscious sockets—
bedecked by ego’s restless crave for fill—
infections grow to permeate my will,
ladening, with dross, affection‘s pockets.
Foul seepage soon coagulates to plaque,
forces clefts which weaken my foundation,
foments psyche’s stormed disintegration
till half-light’s flushing falls to midnight‘s black.
Yet amid murk‘s rotting, rank confusion
with ev‘ry faculty succumbed to rift,
My Shepherd plucks me fiercely from the cliff,
tending thorn-torn blight with Love‘s ablution.
Healing, though, requires my surrender—
all cooperation I can lend 'her.'

XI
---
Jesus asked a question at Bethesda,
the pool by which an invalid was lain,
for thirty-eight lost years left in his pain—
twisted, timed, tormenting, teared siesta.
“Do you desire to be made well?” He asked.
“I’ve none to help me!” was the plaintive cry,
then Jesus spoke miraculous reply
that to get up and walk the man was tasked.
That’s not to say all healing will be found
within this present life of ills and woes,
but still I hear Christ probing through the throes
if I am truly willing to be sound.
Or would I rather lie on crippling bed,
an invalid of spirit, heart and head?

XII
----
Shuffling through some past miscalculations
surrounding toxic breakage of the vines
that ought secure the healthy bound’ry lines  
guarding interpersonal relations—
rememb‘ring my susceptibility
to ego-shuttled, codependent err‘rs
which strain to manage others‘ own affairs
and so invert responsibility—
I ponder if I‘ll ever grow to learn
proper seeds for sowing mutual trust
with vital tools for gently sanding rust
to help stave off a bondship‘s breaking-burn.
One thing I know, that trusting in the LORD
steers love‘s impetus to carry forward.

XIII
-------
“I’m not enough and yet too much,” I've read.
Succinctly that describes my current angst,
and I can‘t justify to war against
these arguments which whirl around my head.
I’ve been told, “You’re just a little intense,”
by many people, not just one or two,
and this they voice clangs manifestly true,
as gaping holes defect my bound‘ry fence.
Voluminous in content and in force,
bestowing as prized gifts what isn‘t sought
or wanted by those for whom gifts are brought,
I falter in my need to change set course.
And where it comes to giving what‘s desired,
real competence seems found to have expired.

XIV
-----
Someone wrote, “true soul mate is a mirror“—
like limelight they‘ll reveal your unseen faults.
Where no one else delights to search your vaults,
“soul mate“ renders time to be apt hearer.
It matters not, was said, that they don‘t stay,
so long as they‘re an agent for reform—
the one who makes you desp‘rate to transform
by breaking heart and making ego fray.
Danger lies in nuanced underpinnings.
I thought I‘d found my soul mate in abuse
and used “he needs my fuel“ as excuse
to take a twisted game to extra innings.
Here I’ll grant these crazed imaginations
were at core demonic machinations.

XV
-----
Casting down romantic schoolgirl notions
that sin-drenched bonds might fashion souls complete,
I drag bewitching grails to Jesus’ feet—
spurning now to drink past guile‘s potions.
As I linger longer in His presence,
I‘m freshly bathed from marring guilt and shame,
reminded I‘m made whole in Jesus‘ Name—
partaker in the fullness of His essence.
Identified eternally with Christ,
secured by His unfailing love through grace,
one day I‘ll walk perfected face-to-face
with Him from whom true life is all-sufficed.
And as I muse, I taste true heart‘s desire—
rekindling, renewed with holy fire.

XVI
-----
Attitude is prime, determinant hinge
on which the door of restoration swings—
deciding what response subconscious brings
and on which morsels mind should bestly binge.
Plenty is dependent on perspective.
Mountain, plain or valley alter sight 
and size by which is measured present, plight.
Simply switching lens can be corrective.
In Christ, Ephesians tells me, I‘ve been raised,
seated with Him in the heavenly realm—
positioned by the One who steers the helm
that Father, Son and Spirit would be praised!
Worship, like a rudder, sets the outlook
to keep me highly grounded in God‘s Book.

XVII
------
Why should I to the worship of false gods
surrender my outlook frivolously?
Idols grab first gaze notoriously,
rob joy as will‘s defenses yield heart‘s nods.
What then? Can I suppose I might steal back
a measure of exuberance through more
skewed genuflecting to gilt calf before—
itself beleaguered, plagued by woeful lack?
Now heed, wayfaring soul of mine, what‘s true:
Creation‘s bounty-goods will make you slave
and with sweet Siren‘s flutes your mind deprave
when to them you lend focus Christ is due.
Lay firm your eyes on Him—pure, restful bed,
cover, fuel, completer, Fountainhead.

XVIII
-------
Wandering down some cobbled, crowded street,
I‘m nowhere headed, rapt in mindless thought,  
and as I saunter south I happ‘ly spot
a friend long-lost but fiercely longed to meet.
Just up ahead, he’s mixed well in the throng
but might be caught if I push through and race!
Heartbeat quickens. Oh, to see his face,
this one with whom I’m sure I must belong!
Yet when I actually seize him and he turns,
I’m devastated, sunk. It isn’t him.
Then moping northbound—dazed, dejected whim—
I stumble on the One for whom heart burns!
How strange, as I had grappled, chased and shoved,
that I’d been running from the One I loved!

XIX
-----
He‘s reservoir for which parched spirit begs,
familial feast cast heart longs to attend,  
elixir fractured psyche craves, to mend,
secure foundation ‘neath soul‘s skittish legs.
Jesus is hearth fire, garden blooming,
joy‘s kiss that welcomes prodigals with tears,
arms’ tender brawn consoling weak ones‘ fears,
shelt‘ring lullaby as nightstorm‘s looming.
Who else can scatter stars, strew mountain snow,
to whet beloved‘s taste for pristine grace?
What other love’s like this, that He‘d embrace
excruciating death to grace bestow?
And best, most faithful lovers of this earth?—
dull pennies next to Christ‘s resplendent worth!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VOLUME II:
(** — XXXII) [Edited in 9/27-29/21]

**
----
Closing the door on chaining obsessions
requires some short-circuiting of thought
previously allowed to flow uncaught
and forge ever-deepening depressions.
Pathways in my brain can be rerouted
by changing interactions with my world,
observing what’s most easily unfurled—
presently what’s to five senses suited.
‘Mindfulness’ can be a Christian practice
and doesn’t have to rest on Buddha’s shelf—
“awak’ning non-existence of the self”—
or from unseen, eternal things distract us.
True mindfulness is found in gratitude—
joyful, eucharisteo attitude.

XXI
-----
A biblical version of ‘mindfulness‘
is found in 1 Thessalonians 5,
revealing as God’s will that saints should strive
for ever-prayerful joy and thankfulness.
Pond‘rous gratitude staves off resentment,
greed and pride. As was taught to Timothy,
what‘s created and giv‘n by God should be
received in sacred thanks with contentment.
Creation reflects God‘s bounteous glory
and demonstrates His loving grace and care,
so in same grace and glory we can share
each time we recognize Him in our story.
Ten thousand tiny gifts write each day‘s page,
and he who welcomes most is most like sage.

XXII
------
In restoration, elasticity
of mind is a factor to celebrate.
So please don‘t ever underestimate
the wonders of neuroplasticity.
New brainpaths form and old channels falter,
depending on what choices I might make.
Fresh experience of which I partake
will physically help my brain to alter.
Here‘s one great hope I must now remember:
What’s hardwired today can still be displaced,
and thoughts might soon flow on paths greenly graced,
as I feast my soul’s eyes on brain’s Mender.
Bent mindfulness toward Giver and His gifts
best brings joy‘s healing for my mental rifts.

XXIII
-------
Realizations that some obsessions
are desires to vicariously ride
the mindfulness of others who don‘t hide
their own keener sensory possessions,
aptly are aiding to turn my focus
from curiosity to understand
their thoughts, which often‘s led my heart-demand—
want to consume their minds‘ crops like locusts.
What I‘ve perceived as love, concern to know,
empathy for others‘ worlds internal,
might be more escape from mine external—
attempts to hide from life‘s real, present show.
Avoidance wears all sorts of vibrant masks
to keep me blinded to here-moments‘ tasks.

XXIV
-------
Viewing secondhand eviscerations,
as others spill their innards on the page,
may seem the safest way to heart engage—
surrogated life participation.
Substituting others‘ honed perceptions
where I ought learn observance of my own
will keep childlike experience ungrown,
smother creativity’s conceptions.
Social media’s pitfalls lie therein,
along with greater dangers lurking large.
Despite its many goods, there’s needed charge
that gorging on a good thing leads to sin.
Shutting website windows is like trailhead,
opening mountain path to higher tread.

XXV
------
I‘m learning to sit with anxiety
raised by self-denial of habit’s fix,
mindful how my heart solicits tricks  
to alternate for true society.
Discomfort speaks in volumes to soul’s ear
like smoke alarm alerting to a fire.
It tells me, “Quick, investigate! Inquire!
Please find the source of inner burning fear!”
Nervousness as friend might offer insight
if I can hear and listen to its warning,
objectively without the shame-filled scorning
that tends to follow panic-stricken plight.
Practice putting tension in glass cage
to monitor its undercurrent’s rage.

XXVI
-------
It’s time to preach a sermon to myself,
for fears are overtaking me in waves;
and spirit must combat what habit craves—
flesh seeking consolation in false pelf.
Scrutinize what’s underneath such worry.
Do I believe the LORD is still in charge
of details of my life and world at large?
Look to Him. Don’t yield to anxious hurry.
Do I believe He’s with me and He’s good,
a faithful Shepherd tending to each need?
Then look to Him. Don’t drown in fretting’s greed.
Christ’s sheep don’t have to look elsewhere for food.
Each wait is opportunity to grow,
for God has holy riches to bestow.

XXVII
--------
God’s character and sovereign wisdom hem
my life, as His responsibility.
No wrong will steal my true identity,
whatever slips or schemes might spill from men.
Christ’s Ruler over all, but do I let
Him fully reign as Master in my heart?
Do I acknowledge I’m His work of art
and purpose for His hammers, chisels get?
Intimacy and glory are the friends
to which His sanctifying lessons point
and meld together as love’s dovetail joint
whenever I surrender to these ends.
Soul, set your hope on grace to be revealed.
Entrust to God strain’s mysteries still sealed.

XXVIII
---------
LORD, HELP! Why is my mind so distracted?
And why then, letting it be drawn away
for half an hour, am I now okay
to let my compulsions be retracted?
Give in to let go feels like solution,
but know it only deepens the desire
for later curiosity‘s inquire—
grants no satisfying resolution.
Those thirty minutes mindfulness was lost,
yet could it be empowered by the fall,
as I look closer inside to recall
that giving way to habit bears great cost?
I won‘t grow discouraged by the setback
but seek to further understand self‘s lack.

XXIX
-------
Low-pitched, humming anxiousness was sitting
all day inside my torso‘s cavity.
Mindful sensing lent no gravity
to coax the stubborn squatter through outwitting.
Head was tired from too little sleeping,
so frankly seemed to coast and just make do.
Soul felt no fresh excitement by woods‘ view
and lacked bright energy for much guard keeping.
One moral of this story is night‘s rest
must become priority for healing.
Otherwise this shaky default feeling
will grow into another panicked crest.
Though it‘s no excuse to say I‘m tired,
it‘s clear reformed sleep habits are required.

***
------
Changing what’s practical opens a door
to transforming what’s spiritual, mental
and emotionally experiential.
Habit alterations might well restore
enough equilibrium of body,
restfulness, clarity, reason and time
to give me needed aid to better climb
above oppressive moods, both low and haughty.
“Early to bed, early to rise...”could be
one thing to make a world of difference
and welcome back some simple common sense,
to open up new space for setting free.
But for that discipline to take effect,
I’ll also have to curb the internet!

XXXI
-------
Every opportunity for worry
is greater opportunity to trust
that God behind the scenes is sanding rust
from parts of me where fear has made faith blurry.
Without unknowing-gusts to stir the pit
of nervousness inside my helplessness,
I might ne‘er seek my Shepherd‘s faithfulness
nor learn to wait on Him and with Him sit.
These are times of richest growing lessons
when I‘m reminded He is LORD, not me,
and that He works to draw in int‘macy
feeble souls to Him through stretching sessions.
Joy is knowing sure—head, heart and will—
He‘s ever whisp‘ring, “Child, come closer still.“

XXXII
--------
Recapping basic steps to take thus far:
Find sleep (which may mean need for melatonin
to counteract my haywire serotonin),
and overuse of internet I‘ll bar.
Then with restfulness bring mindful thinking—
keen noticing that‘s graced with gratitude
and sets a stronger skyward attitude,
buoys me up against fret‘s downward sinking.
More important still is meditation
upon the word of God‘s indicatives
which lay foundations for imperatives
to follow as prescriptive medication.
Most crucial element preventing fall
is fix my eyes on Jesus through it all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

defeat is only an objective.
as I lead I gain prospective
haters hate through being deceptive
the envy spreads like sheets infective
while they creep
playing detective
wolve in sheep
until their accepted
their reasoning is subjective
I just wait until they reach
then disconnected their connective
I'm a beast, I can't be infected
work off pure instinct
raw fear instantly detected
human nature,
to be expected
my only actions
moving forward is corrective
i exceed all expectations
with standing ovations,
use to bring power to foreign nations
outworking occupations
make so much sense
i get paid vacations
my buildings, block foundations
I empowered nations for generations

My mind needs to be effected
Corrective  Surgery suggested
For the purple leaves and ******* crush I've just  ingested... infected
Like a parasite
With little legs.
A hairy chest.
And garys ******* famous vest....

My co chair next to me. Is trained in taekwondo
And unprotected **** ***...
You flex you face
A man that cant abstain from ***
Hell **** you
Than bear mace your naked ***.
And break your legs and neck...

The voices in my head.
Say I didnt want to say this.
But it's funny take a joke.
Smile your white.
And I just may be a racist

please-please   add your waxy scrolls
   truths   to the panic pyre
madden   an inflamed swarm of intelligence
worm warrens    into the collective of our brain
maybe
   having been riddled
      it'll collapse under the corrective strain
      and start blinking a genuine signal
process recognized    compassionate inkling

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.

Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom.

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.

Intelligence is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially tools to make tools.

**** sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable.

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

It seems that laughter needs an echo.

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

When we make the cerebral state the beginning of an action, and in no sense the condition of a perception, we place the perceived images of things outside the image of our body, and thus replace perception within the things themselves.

The motive power of democracy is love.

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/henri_bergson

Birthed purely of Godly intellect.
Words of a language, perfect;
Curved from the divine alphabet-
With not a single flaw or defect.

Like wordy pieces of fine fabric-
Not too light, yet not too thick,
With every rightly purposed stitch-
Making me more and more unique.

Like the footprints of fate's pen-
Trekking down pages of life's lane,
I'm those words; that mark; that line-
Fathomed solely by few special men.

Fluent rushing blood, surging dreams,
Like waters down divine streams,
Hopes and wits like emptying seas;
Into lifeless pits through many limbs.

I'm the very primary meeting spot-
Of ink and page, deed and thought.
The expression of genuine mental might,
The last puzzle piece, the connecting dot.

I am food for thought in every verse.
The right for wrong the better for worse.
I am a reflection of power and greatness,
The written miracle, the lift of a curse.

I'm a sweet ballad, penned just right-
With a touch of metaphorical insight.
A metred meal for a hungry mind,
Corrective lenses for mental sight.

I'm the union of ugly and beauty;
The matrimony of wish and duty;
The product of pollute and purity;
Black on white, from God to men,

I'm poetry.

Keep Smiling

By: Cedric McClester

Since when did she become
A ***** expert?
Her Facebook comments
Only served to hurt
She talked about us
Just like we were dirt
She lacks the knowledge
But her opinions remain inert

As an anchor of the nightly news
We thought she was objective
Despite her personal views
Which have proven quite subjective
Fortunately her employer’s
Action was corrective
And she was immediately fired
Once her comments were detected

How can she talk about
People she doesn’t know
That just goes to show you
How deep racism can go
Now she no longer has
Her own TV news show
And Pittsburgh’s better for it
As the fair-minded know

Tell me what qualified her
To be a ***** expert
With no ***** experience
For her to assert
Yet she chose a stereotype
To place us on alert
It had to be her own bias
She used to disconcert
















Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016.  All rights reserved.

So today my first visit to Dr Steven Eppel ( a physiatrist )
As I have identified issues I have with trust.
And hence have managed to swallow that ego and take on my flaws!
Oh yes we all have them and it’s how we choose to better ourselves or not in identifying, admitting and taking a corrective course that really matters!

I have come a long way with great heartaches and many a mental anguish!
He has helped me identify a great accomplishment I have achieved already that I feel with maturity I have learnt Humility for only in humility can we acknowledge our flaws !
Humility sounds so diminutive in its description, yet holds so much value in character!
I identify with scriptural teachings, of God teaching us humility,
Now I understand its depth far more.
Through humility I have put pride aside and accepted help!
Through humility I allow growth!
Through humility I will find healing!
Accepting growth that with time allows trust to be forged to bring far stronger unions than we have allowed before!
Healing brings new freedom to the soul!

If anything is to be learnt from this.
Firstly never be to proud to learn, to see your flaws and accept help, there need be no shame at all, however I for one admire those striving to better themselves!

the   view
                            stands beneath
the carousel efforts
to blast through
impregnancy aBLOOM!!!!
(w)ith feral legacies
aligned intimately ornately
     posthumous adulterer
awakens    in               need
       of
****** corrective agency
towards Fenitbow
           and Glightrovee  ab-surd as
qua as qua
asqua aqua qua
a^s is trite melody infer[no]
t a x i     yellowing  each pavement
by truth in yo ' fa ' ' lo ((lo))
    i by horns and turns
in plyable waves arrest
what justice      juices
      freel_y
                          oblig­atory
                                      antecedent
quai noyh thlume
                            ye
           HEaVY

yeah we're getting drunk at four in the afternoon
we don't have anywhere to drive to.
we have no class
no responsibility
my city's filthy
I live in the art district
nobody else anywhere else in the world can say that
Richmond knows how to lay it down
how to make the children feel invincible
how to make the women feel like super models
and the men like long lost kings
don't like my poems?
that's fine
we flow to a different drum beat
yeah we are a bunch of
PBR swilling hipsters in our non corrective lenses
but we know how humanity dances back and forth
like the flickering of candle light
and I've never felt out of place here
only just as weird as everybody else
we are pathological liars and sociopaths
our apathy is only matched by our endless empathy
My Mum thinks I am a hell of a writer
endless support
but the anonymity never ends
a scroll from God to lead us to death
and the transvestites are polite enough
boy you smell ****\
they blurt out as I walk past in a cloud of old spice
the art school chicks make me feel validated
when I find myself sneaking out of their houses in the morning's yawn
come to Richmond if you want a good time
if you're fake you'll make it
but if you're bitter and jaded
you might pass out of interest
like cartoons to a 15 year old
I could talk **** on this city all night
but truth be told
I love what I hate
and truth withheld
don't tell my English friends
that my heart beats
solely for that
RVA-lution

When I first met you, I didn't make friends with you right away. I thought you were an unmovable rock and I didn’t try pushing to start a conversation with you because I feared it would be an awkward one - as fleeting as a stone skipped across the water - and I thought you weren’t worth it.

I circumnavigated you for weeks on end. You were a quiet, windless lake, and I never thought it would be possible to hear you speak to me because there was no common ground between us. We didn’t find a piece of thread to tie our makeshift tin-can telephone together.

Yet, one day, there was a time I needed to ask someone for help. Of course, you were not my first choice. If everyone else wasn’t busy, I would never have broken my silence with you that day.

What was it that I needed? I wanted to know the translation of one, tiny foreign word I discovered attached to two blocks of stone set into a necklace. You were about to walk away, but I mustered my courage to tap your back and ask a question. When you answered, I understood that the word was a symbol for war and separation.

Ironically, it was the word that bridged the gap; the thread that made a way for us to exchange our first, real words with each other.

Artsakh. It was the word that made us friends.

Artsakh* sparked a conversation between us, and I was surprised because you were interested enough in our first exchange to share a story, which led to another, and then another.

The words you spoke to me in your feathery-soft voice splashed ice-cold water in the face of my parched first impression of you. You were no longer an unmovable rock - no, you were a broken rock from which streams of cool water gushed out. I washed my eyes from that stream and saw you as a new friend who opened up his life to me after a long time of silence.

One of the reasons why I found you so difficult to talk to was that you always hid your eyes under tea- or black coffee-coloured glasses. I have always believed that eyes are the windows to the soul, and when you cover yours, it’s like you’ve barred up your soul from the outside world.

Then, one afternoon, maybe because it was too hot or too dark inside the room - I don’t really know the reason - you took off your corrective lenses. And for the first time, I finally saw your eyes. They were a darker shade than your cinnamon-coloured hair, and I was taken aback because they were so beautiful.

I knew that I had to tell you what I thought, because maybe the reason why you always covered them up was that you were insecure about them or with your inability to see rightly with them. Since beauty always garners admiration, I also needed to mask the affection that suddenly bubbled up inside me. I wanted to bury it, and I did get to lay it to rest - but, I used a glass coffin.

If I succeeded in putting it six feet under, I wouldn’t have abandoned my books, cut off my sleeves, and waited under the shade of a tree with our friends during a hot day for you. At least I was rewarded with seeing your eyes again.

Of course you noticed me, and I had to shield myself from the rays of your bright gaze to hide the fact that I could hear fists pounding and small cracks forming on the glass coffin inside me. I looked at it and saw a huge spider web etched on the surface.

I’m not sure if I should replace it or allow it to shatter. But I feel like filling it up with cement because I need peace to think about things that are more important than thinking about how I feel about you.

What is it that I like about you? Beyond your eyes, obviously, I also like how you’re more quiet than everyone else - and despite that, you’ve let me in and let me become a part of your story.

Yet when I see you, I try not to see the reserved and silent expression you wear everyday, but I peer into the future to find you doing great exploits and baring your iron soul which has found the great power to influence within.

Because I’ve seen glimpses of that soul--like the time I asked you to write down your dream on my journal. I read that you wanted to be good at the career you chose, and that you wanted to help people.

The other friends whom I also asked to write their dreams usually wrote variations of the first part of your dream, but they didn’t usually express the second part. So I like how you included that you wanted to help.

I hope we will continue to become good friends. And I believe I will be there to witness you building bridges to more people like me, and even a bigger bridge that makes a way for the next generation towards a brighter future for your country.

And I hope for the day when you no longer hide your eyes. Because what they are two diamonds in the rough; two bright suns which will pull out wide smiles from the people around you - and most importantly, out of your own lips.

Mediums,
I need mediums!
Incomplete mind, bisected by blurs
******* my sight, halting my stare
Corrective action taken?
Turn off heart,
Maneuver hips,
Eyes ajar

Moves made to past
We need to go back
Nakedness without regret
Willing to be the only one that likes me
She screams electronically

This is just another perspective
given form by conscious centrality, or
Perhaps I’m too introspective.

From young we learn to seek directive, and
to live with a certain frugality,
But this is just another perspective.

An unmoved pen is too corrective;
The hand hesitates for fear of banality;
Or perhaps I’m too introspective.

Life, as poetry, is connective;
Embrace the paradox of each duality; but
This is just another perspective.

I dream to love the imperfective,
Because we’re all an abnormality;
Perhaps I’m too introspective.

What if we stop trying to be corrective,
And instead embrace individuality?
This is just another perspective,
Or perhaps I’m too introspective.

the lumy screen
x-ray mission
counting ribs
    but courting what's in-between
trying to salvage disease
    from the pardonable cage
use corrective attractors
drag them on the screen
    and mould a mange of the dark spots
humble in an alcove
zoom in on the spot
take out your little skin leafed
pocket book
clean the cough from your throat
    and sprout  'the working words of God'
a congregation of cancer cells
    put in their place
medicine

Introduction before the curtain is opened.
-->The  introducer addresses the audience.


Instead of none-stop
Condemning the past
Let us do our part
To lift our country
From economic morass fast.
Better than licking a wound,
Taking corrective measures
On former leaders’ mistakes
We could
Capitalizing, on what
They did good.

(Open Curtain)

--> Enters Emperor Tewodros II

I had tried
Citizens to unite
So that
They will not
Stop short of might
When invaders they fight!

I had also exemplified
Portraying a spectacular
Self dignity and pride
Whatever sacrifices
Trying times demand,
A coward,
An Ethiopian must not
Yield a hand.


To convey
I had also tried,
Though possible
As a tourist,explorer and
Even a covert spy
To enjoy oneself in
Ethiopia, famed for
A hospitable land
The impossibility
To carry away with
A shoe
Ethiopia’s golden
Silt or a sand.


--> Enters Emperor Yohannes IV



In the battle of Gundat
And Gura
I had shuttered
Egyptians' and Khedivi’s
And their Europian advisers'
And North Americans' aura.

Revolted by
A scramble for domestic power
Or salivating for wealth
And abhorring
Stooping to things glittering,
Defending my country
And faith
Valorous, on the forefront
Of a battle
I did shake hands
With the angel of death.


Successors,
There are lessons
You should learn
Adoring your country
Rent seeking
You have to shun,
Putting my country first
A notable self sacrifice
As I had done!


--> Enters Emperor Menelik II


Simply with
A sword and a spear
Carrying a shield
And riding a horse,
I did chase out
To its teeth
With modern weapon
Armed invading force.

When citizens
Join force and unite
With a golden pen
History they can write
History that flickers light
The oppressed,worldwide,
Could win if they fight
For their
God-bestowed right.

Also to modernization
According focal attention
Must be the task of
A given nation
If ignorance and disease
Their tight grip
Must cease.


--> Enters Emperor Haile selassie I

When many warned me
“You will live to regret
Your good gesture!”
To the development of
My country giving
Focal attention
I allowed students pursue
Further education.

I  also allowed many  here
And   abroad a broad-array of
Subjects learn
And their poor country
Serve in their turn.

A prophet
I exposed League of Nation's
Double standard
So that
The world understand
“Though today
Ethiopia’s turn
The flame of fascism
And ******
Tomorrow
Supper powers too will burn!”
It was my wont
In the diplomatic mission
To bring
My country to the front!

Along with fellow leaders,
It was my dream object,
To de-colonize
And unite the continent.

That is why many
Saw for a continental seat
—OAU later AU—
Ethiopia fit.

--> President Mengistu Haile Mariam

As revolution
Was the day’s talk
With the progressive
I broke
On peasants and
The proletariat
Imposed yoke.

Sied Barre’s
Unexpected attack
And intrusion
I had managed
To reverse back,

Also fighting
Mass illiteracy
Was my
Outstanding task.

In fact,
I did try to keep
My country intact.

-->Prime Minister Meles Zenawi

My long-cherished bent
Was ensuring
Political pluralism
And democracy’s advent
For which cause
My youth and adulthood
I spent.

I and combatants
After tyranny
To a grave sent,
I invited
Soon,
Marginalized states
To come aboard and
Equally enjoy
Development’s boon.

In an astounding
Developmental feat
I was out
The unconquerable

—Blue Nile—

To defeat.
Also against poverty
A similar victory repeat.
What is more
On the road
Of Renaissance
I did inspire
Over 80 ethnic group
Forward to run
Actualizing a leap in
Their life span.

A win-win
Environment smart growth
Was what,charismatic,
On the global arena
I brought forth
Making super powers believe
Giving attention to Africa
Is worth.

--> Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn

In trying times
Not to allow
Started mega projects
Suffer a set back
I saw to
Things are on the right track.

More than one cabinet reshuffle
In  the leading party
Deep renewal and reform,
Together with  members,
I did perform!

To a peaceful power transition
I have set a glaring example
A move
In Africa many took unthinkable!
Averse to rent seeking
I am patted on the back
“You have done a nice thing!”


(Close Curtain)

--> Introducer

Conspiracy
To grab the rein
Of power
At the cost of harm
Allowing one ethnic group
On others to tower
Sluggishness in resource
Utilization, not allowing
Development to equally
And fast flower,
Harbouring fright
When citizens exercise
Their allowed democratic right
Are follies
The coming generations
Have to fight
So that
Ensues peace
And days bright,
Off springs of Lucy
We have to always unite!///

let's just see where you'll be given this current populism of
Darwinism antidote, dietary requirements of
the size of your ****? let's just see where left-off,
let's see where Darwinism begins
and Shakespeare ends,
because we're living in times when the two matter,
the dating scene especially,
the Galapagos intrigues never made it to
Palmer's Green, or Strand,
Shakespeare subjected us to objects within
a framework of potential,
Darwin objectified us to be subjects within
a framework of failure -
which made fashion sensible; most people take
selfies, others write ~poems,
care less about the rhyme and more
about the impromptu tendency -
live it once, think about it many times.
Olympics is pure Sparta, what i love watching,
Edinburgh fringe is pure Athenian -
what i care not to think of, being a part of, crude,
a Spartan in St. Petersburg with my
grandfathers motto: fizyka (physics), matematyka
(mathematics) i sport (sport), one fatal omission:
music (muzyka).
watching the Olympics is primarily a Spartan
past-time, but the brotherhood, **** me!
there aren't any actors on the stages,
the Romanian fencing team against the Chinese
in the épée - dyslexia primus Gael -
secondus Anglia - hidden hedonism -
excess spelling - i was Spartan for a while,
that's when women liked me...
after that i became obscene and dangerous...
you touch me from now on i'd imagine
a fate worse than that of Iscariot....
you can try, i don't mind, just try, i'm gagging
to launch a crusade; kicking a man down
will not excuse you kicking him into a digging sequence'
oh please try! please derive some form of Islam from it...
i got used to hallucinations, i'd like to see too see you
become ultra-claustrophobic, for nothing else than the kicks.
but when they come with their Darwinism i feel
like an idiot having no awe left,
i actually stop wanting to reproduce an have start-up
strategies for families... i want to be dodo
and leave the idiots to their own demise...
every time Darwinism's cheat moves in chess
is mentioned to give me the advantage i turn into a dodo...
it becomes so disengaging with the world having
all the facts for free... it's this new formation from
the Roman legion turtle arrangement excavating assurances:
thanks to feminism she's hardly the prize two
bucks buzz with their antenna in a boxing ring...
can i compete for a kebab or a Swiss roll than her
menopause to simply convene and up-keep her "company"?
my misogyny isn't virus borne,
it's a natural cataract that makes us look like
thanksgiving turkeys force-fed the dynamo we all wished
to obstruct for a gurgling quack, even man's onomatopoeia
worth of echo could not, or ever would depict the
phonetic stresses that obviously doesn't mean
that turkey ever gurgled... man's interpretation
of god's incision into the world left us with
no true encoding of animal sounds, but only
what we approximated: onomatopoeia, the alleviated noun,
being the Genesis of poetic rhyme, so the lessened
suffering eased with rhyme, where man's tongue
exerted influence that it shouldn't have,
rather kept its intuitive sabotage of all other influences.
i mean, how far will Darwinism take you
before the sour or the bitter palette reciprocation takes over?
i reduced everything to juggling,
it's easier in a circus than in some form of the operatic,
as i told my mother: easier to deal with a household
animal friendly than in a household animal hostile,
makes up for sunshine, that schematic,
we mind 1 dead in western society, but simply add up
70 dead in Pakistan, we're unconsciously inheriting
Hindu traditions with full media support,
to belittle ourselves with animal to regain human
antidotes of the myth of the fall erased...
but as i said, concentrating the arrow of Darwinism against
the target of theology will not necessarily let
you shoot that arrow from the bow of chemistry-physics
at the target of dogmatic body-language bending and
kneeling and palm-reading...
not everyone will appreciate Darwinism's subjectivity,
if there is any... if man keeps changing categories,
equating male superiority with mammals
and feminism with insects like the case of spiders
and mantis marriages... i think of Darwinism as some
weird microscope... we are given a rainbow of object
and we're supposed to create a subjectivity from the choices...
in the end we're given too many choices,
and we make too many of them in the first place,
multiply the two and we're only choosing more choices,
by multiplying categorisation we're choosing more choice,
and in the end we only get the "Utopian"
plateau of dissatisfaction...
i'm not saying Darwinism is wrong, i'm saying:
look at the ******* timescales... big bang an the monkey-format,
and our Monday to Friday... it's not exactly
sensible...
                   what to do from here?
isn't it enough that i noticed a problem for our behaviour
without signifying that it resembles our treatment of
criminals with prisons that i have to suggest a safety-plan
for escape when the criminals have no civilisation
to return to, given their uncivilised treatment?
it's seems kinda pointless to have asked that question
in the first place, purposely avoiding corrective
punctuation markings, a depiction of an asthmatic.

Monday
with no arms
reminds himself
of the seemingly endless
sleepless night
forming from and into
a nightmare day
and daydreaming's
of nothing
from everything.

Tuesday
finds himself
in no form and with no focal point
for walking which way in a drunken haze
and equipped with no corrective lenses
to correct the blur
between the images
bent by the past
Of the present.

Wednesday
are the collective
active corpses
listening to the
ins and outs
about a street corner
filled to bursting
whose tired stares
through hired sires
steep in grim life
all want to sail towards
the tale of man's hail-fire
that's just around
the right angle.

Thursday
was the child
whose malignant aggression
against his mother
****** the earth
with fire
until the reflection
got the best of him
as he turned to see
something
that started
to make his
eyes bleed

Friday
is the three legged dog
trotting about the lawn
in circles
looking for a sign
from God
that when this mutt dies,
though it won't be long,
all the lies
he barked
might not try
and follow him

Saturday's
the monster
who starts
to take care of himself
the moment the wealth
of this world was found
beneath his worn clothing
in the beating *****
of his very own soul

my moat wet eyes
focus free
   with the manner of a poisoned animal
those feedy gemini apertures
    fidget inward
      upon an open wounded view
       unclothing a filmy slick
      so very faithful to the dead


      ripples cross my bed of sails
    i set pale
   in my atrophy
  each signal blunted
i am greatly wilted
sat planted
lazily hazed
a vehicle scuppered

riddles prate at my bed of veils
i set sail
in atrophy
each signal bloated
  fully unloaded
   a barrow at your feet
    i truly wither
     what power may you beam my form ?

      i'm frail in heart
atrophy
     between stars and the sea
   a failed flicker of no pity curses
a matrimony
   all signals mar
and spar out blotting

  a missile
misguided ?
         ; it preys on my trail
misdeeds played a trophy
   a lit penalty
i am most deletable

piteous
        i pray for the guff
to raise my head
filled to the tax of my atrophy
dissipated
oh mother of pigment
      lovingly wigged murderer of woes
  why can't we abstain from human directive ?
        forever foaming something criminal
    flunked corrective of the species rudder
               idle by into an atrophy
      a perishing menace
pungent

                              - fade out

ROAD TO GLORY |2|

Those who
never made
mistake haven't had
anythang learnt in life.
Nor gather
any experience.
Mistake
uncovers enormous mystery on the road to glory & Inside the belly of mistake hides the corrective tools for success. Right every wrongs.
#c9_fm

It is almost refreshing to sink into what I once was
To feel myself stagnate and lose interest
It's somehow relieving to meet my old feelings again
To feel both exhausted and restless

I am not doing enough yet, have not achieved
I am not trying hard enough, haven't put in my all
I am not reaching far enough, am not throwing my weight
I am not enough to climb over this wall

A wall between myself and motivation
Between creativity and creative endeavors
Between myself and my dreams and wants and hopes
A wall between stagnation and corrective measures

It feels like coming home to a house I never intended to buy
Like opening the door to dust and checks to pay off bills I forgot to write
Like finding my bed a collection of moths and holes
Like seeing where I was and intended to be until I was old

However

It is also like entering an old home never put up for sale
A space that I know but a space I dislike and won't return to as well
Like feeling the nostalgia from a bitter memory in some bastardization of regret
But moving on because you have moved on and don't plan on turning back yet

I’m tired
tired of trying to be strong
of not being allowed fall
on the ground and cry
for as long as
I need
working and living
with those who are thinking
everything that’s wrong is so right
leaving me to look forward to
alcoholism and depression
in no particular order
the powerless letters I carve glow in inappropriate spaces
withered clouds humming a fluttered contribution to naught
I wear a jacket, once loose and hungry, begging for release
from the corrective lumbering of my contrived conceit
this is not the girl I was looking for but
this is the girl that I found
my tumbledown baby
waiting to drown
beneath my warm butter breath
a half sunken death
of drunken larceny
and all the while I am growing
out of the conventions of relationship
the paper smoothed, green,
drink and drugs exercised
in a push for contaminated revenue
maybe this is why
the coffee tastes like **** today
and all I write are
three white wisps
the smile wiped off a blue faced sky
ignored by the Berghaus couples
matched down to their laces
each distraction disguises the bestiary that is civilisation, ironically splashed upon an earth that, like me,
has no interest, that grows bored waiting
for the next great extinction
the helium has already had enough, every party breath inhaled in jest lost to space forever,
it won't be back could I un-dream it all
I would, in less than the spurt of my heart,
and wrap it all in the bloodied rags of
your disgraceful god

​
rather than navigate the
perilous straights of truth
you wade in shallow waters
of irrelevance, in a hi-viz safety vest

you can't talk of risk
when you have wasted your life
in banality

pretending as the arbiter
of decorum and manners
while committing the cardinal offence
of being boring

feeling resentful when people
don't listen to you,
so you club them
with corrective self righteousness

making a big deal of
breaches of protocol
as though it matters

you are vigilant about
inconsequential detail
the extent of your control

you dedicate your life to
rules and values made by others
rather than imagine other ways

our fate is the same though
all of us die

but I ... will live madly
with the thrill  of a life
without restraint
burning for beauty

kyphosis/hunchback--basket of abandon, made

stronger than a dozen shadows of men.

mustachio bushel eyebrow covering his left eye,

a bloaty flap of toad-warts covering his

right eye.

palsied arms clamped at his sides--like a chick's

wings embossed in yolk, draggy right foot trailing him.

Quasimodo: 'half made'--to swing from thickly fibrous

ropes & land on musty planks.

swinging/sliding/climbing, up & down, man to creature--

creature to man...in the attic of housed worship.

made deaf by the struck-unstruck sounds of Notre Dame's

bells, cathedral that gave him ears to hear.

of which he named each, each a heroine of the belltower.

made King of Fools by the townspeople during festivity--

crowned & propped up on a third-hand thrown.

stealing away a crowd throwing currency in a gypsy

goddess' tambourine: Esmerelda, whose proceeds went

to the: King of Thieves.

not long after Quasimodo/Hunchback is accosted with

rotted vegetables by the townspeople as he's led to the

public square.

after blindly following orders to abduct a certain gypsy

by the archdeacon.

where he's bound to a rotating pillory & flogged thirty times.

Esmeralda mounts the pillory and pours water from a leathery

flask into his mouth, as he called for it crooked-faced, the jutting

topples of sparse--but hard in the yellow of teeth.

amid bloodlust catcalls that already drenched the pasture-green

rags of his shirt.

his surrogate Father, archdeacon: Claude Frollo, the one that

first reached into a basket to coddle abandonment--as to invest

in afterworld treasures...rebreaks the bones of fifteenth century

sacrilege into covetous place.

whose unanesthetized voices escape from the mouths of Quasimodo

& Esmeralda.

whom the Hunchback rescued from the gallows, citing sanctuary

by church decree, after being falsely accused of murdering

Captain Phoebus.

a philandering standby of integrity, that saw Esmeralda's

eyes follow & fall for the span of his sword, all the wooded

babes of her marital hopes--dashed.

followed up by the sped blackening of the archdeacon's

hooded robe, ripping open the door of jealousy he spied thru.

an almost unbroken motion of forced entry, & ****** of blade

into Captain Phoebus' back--though the ***** survived the *****.

this active underbelly could withhold no more the fat of

a pig on a spit, so after several **** attempts on Esmeralda--

the "bewitched" archdeacon: Claude Frollo, was impaled by

a nail like a renounced garment by Quasimodo, and left to moths.

he loved Esmeralda as he hid his face from her in their brief

interchanges, with the rests of a pianist absorbing unplayable keys.

along with the gargoyle that spat fire from the belltower to ensure

her escape into the arms of her true love: Piere, a poet.

along the underground torches of safe passage, Esmeralda &

Piere, followed Quasimodo's secret instruction...as they were seen

to sunset.

as the king's army closed in on: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he

clung to his stony confidant--a gargoyle.

where the pale stories of dawn climbed the cathedral, Quasimodo

clung to the gargoyle's head, where he was talked way down.

Teaching the eyes to shift
To relax and see the world differently
To observe the world not through
Tired shapes we're conditioned by
But to change the observation
To recognize the realities
Our experiences have clouded

Quantum theory accepts that
There is more than matter
Composed of particles
The observable though easy
Is too simple for the complexity of reality

The underlayment of reality
Is  waves of energy
Rising and falling through
Time and space
The 4 dimensions of life
Can be cataloged and understood
But is woeful understatement
To the depth of mystery
If we are willing to observe

Nothing in the universe
Can be predicted with precision
No outcome predetermined
Only the frightening sum of
Infinite chaos systemized to
Appear comprehensible.
All we can predict is probability
Banking our future on possibility.

So then how do I exists
In these two states
Seemingly so far apart
Yet muddled by entanglement
How do I both long for
The possibility of seeming greatness
And cower in the fear of those unknowns.

There is no quantum vision
Only hope and action
And corrective lenses when
Our myopia prevents
Us from seeing the beauty
That is just a single look away.