By: Cedric McClester,

It's a long way from
New York to Simi Valley
But we've done the math
And added up the tally
Of unarmed black and brown men
Who've been shot
Tragically by bullets
From a cop

With hands held high
In a gesture of surrender
They have been shot down
In all their youth and splendor
And who do you guess
Might be the prime offender
Someone in blue uniform
Is the top contender

Like Rodney King
After the facts are stated
They don't get indicted
Or are vindicated
While the family of the victims
Have all waited
For justice that's denied
Or just vacated

With hands held high
In a gesture of surrender
They have been shot down
In all their youth and splendor
And who do you guess
Might be the prime offender
Someone in blue uniform
Is the top contender

It's not so much your color
As your class
That might determine
If a cop acts much too fast
Barely identifying themselves
Before they blasts
And your future could
Quickly becomes your past

With hands held high
In a gesture of surrender
They have been shot down
In all their youth and splendor
And who do you guess
Might be the prime offender
Someone in blue uniform
Is the top contender

Those who celebrated
The Arab Spring
Missed the point entirely
And that's the funny thing
Everywhere young people
Are clamoring for change
And demanding justice
Though some might find it strange

It's a long way from
New York to Simi Valley
But we've done the math
And added up the tally
Of unarmed black and brown men
Who've been shot
Tragically by bullets
From a cop

Copyright (c) 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.

i can only recommend that, when reading a piece of journalism, you have a book of poetry handy... gathas & sophia are in no conflict, but sure as well the resentment between gathas & diurn is best settled by reading a newspaper, with a book of poetry at hand.

i never drink to anticipate a precipitation of
words -
  i write in a non-anticipatory air -
   just like i believe in an impersonal god -
so sieve the madmen from the madmen,
and arrive at the authentic man.
              i drink, that's no surprise -
the surprise is:
    give me something worth reading
written by a sober man...
         hell, you find a dozen, you have yourself
a little party akin to christianity.
     i know that in a drinking session i'll
have a few words gushing from my silence,
i don't write these observations from
the heart: i pull them, right out, from my ***...
   as i usually compliment a day,
looking at the **** just excused from my body,
lucky for me to note:
red wine does wonders for digestion -
        the plump **** akin to just enough
fibre being digested...
  who would have thought that red wine
does miracles to a **** about to be ******* out.
one worthwhile observation thought,
in the chaos of language that is god,
the first child - gathas -
       the second child - sophia -
    the twins - vera & simi -
           and the 5th child - *diurn...
it only takes the the child named
diurn to bypass the squabbling of
ancient pleads for affection between
gathas & sophia -
          just have a book of poetry handy
when reading a newspaper article...
  philosophy is akin to poetry,
with a standard of paragraph -
          let's just say that poetry is:
philosophy - without a claustrophobia
and leisurely allowing enough
            space, to make no man myopic.
what came after diurn is best believed
as offshoot strands of *******...
         most likely encompassing
   dei: sine septem, sine mensis,
  sine annus, sine decas, sine vivo.
after all, diurn married the nymph
oblivi -
               you only learn to forget
a day, when someone decides that you
must remember it...
                deliberately...
       to remember such a day is to
enlarge its purpose, its importance...
as they say -
     videor est plus quam actum per se
ex fide dignus,
    plus nihil decipio, curo statera,
    quando curo id, alibi -
to appear is more than being an act in
      itself, out of authenticity: nothing more
than a deception worth minding,
             when minding it, elsewhere;
yes, i know, it's pig latin -
   then again, pig latin is what you get -
i still have the right to complain -
educated in a roman catholic school,
   that was too lazy to teach its students latin?!
so much for the so called "roman catholic"
school teaching the mother tongue -
   maybe that's why i never took
confirmation -
hey, baptism i was a babe,
   by first communion i was somewhat unaware
of things, but when confirmation came?
technically i was "born" a catholic,
but unlike richard dawkins...
                       i haven't been confirmed...
that book by the german author
about the gnostics -
                    that book: hooked me...
after all, the most interesting people in
christianity are the gnostics -
            i love that: surd-g 'nostics -
        'nomes whenever i grind the grr and
manage to be a linguo heretic and do add
the G - Gnome...
            Gnostic -      dia 'nostic? what's
the diagnosis on this chap, dr. hauzer?!
like i said, i know i will drink and write a poem,
obviously the quality is debatable -
but i never pull a poem out from my heart,
i prefer the ***...
           as a recurrent thought occurred -
  i'm still trying to smuggle in diacritical marks
into english, seems it would be easier
to smuggle in a dozen or so afghani sardines
or a tonne of tobacco from the ukraine -
     i first tried it with the german eszett -
   to be fused at the beginning of an english
word:
   e.g. not soma, when in fact ßtatic -
         not seemingly, when in fact ßmouldering -
     not satire, when in fact ßtrict...
not supposedly, when in fact ßpam...
          not sister, when in fact ßquare -
          but the english won't buy smuggling
diacritical marks, like i said,
sooner to smuggle a dozen afghani sardines
than a single diacritical mark.

The Fiery Red Head

It is time to pay honor to one who doesn’t know it is do I begin from this point as all of us in a sense we
Are doing the same thing for me it is writing my way out yours is different but before I go I will have my
Say I realize I gave all my attention to her mother and father now it is time to shine the light on her
Reveal her inner and outward glory and beauty to do this and to make sense I have to lay a little ground
Work on how we met and ultimately what it meant as brief as possible I had a Simi normal life until I
Was five and my family left church you need paints from hell to paint the rest of my parents life we
Banged and stumbled along and then at twelve they divorced and all of a sudden my dad and I weren’t
A family in the eyes of those we rented from so they kicked us out and we ended up in a mine shack no
Sheet rock on the walls no ceiling no bathroom no heat after about a month the family had a meeting I
Was delivered from hell to heaven I went from sleeping under ten blankets to a sheet and light blanket at
His sister’s house what luxury then my mother bribed me by buying me a television to live with her folks
That where Judy comes in she lived down the street I already knew her because her brother and I was
Best friends but my move put me into a place ruled by two laws Willie’s law and Judy’s law I learned in
School supposedly the wave came about when you met someone long ago it was showing you had no
Weapon and that you were friendly well with Judy there was a different wave you instinctively put your
Hand behind you back feeling to see if anything would impede your escape put it this way you didn’t
Want to whirl around and run head first in to something and then fall back in her arms you heart could
Stop no problem she would scream and it would start in a hurry when you’re young your naturally stupid
Or one time I was told ignorant that means you just haven’t been taught yet anyway it sounds better but
First to show innocent stupid she and her sister Barb were pretty they sing about California girls Illinois
Isn’t full of woofers this isn’t a kennel well I was in the living room and barb goes back to her bedroom
She is back there about an hour she went back there just like always but as fate would have it I was
Moving across the floor and she walks out God she looked like she stepped out of a glamour magazine I
Didn’t know it but I was doing a Gomer impression not the aw shucks degum but I found out my mouth
Had fallen open barb looked at me and laughed and said what’s the matter I was dumbstruck Max
Factor and Barb hit a homerun that day that was good stupid but I followed my uncle in a sense he left
Home at thirteen and worked and lived with the local bootlegger I was basically on my own at fourteen I
Had to make decisions and find my way not always making the smartest moves that’s where Judy comes
In God made her with a sense of justice and what Washington doesn’t have the guts to take action she
Was never mean just for meanness sake but *****-up don’t worry I don’t know the avenging angel but I
Knew his helper people cry God is distant he is close at hand he puts people in your life so you don’t end
Up like my fiend Melvin we would listen to our dad’s story of the antics they pulled when they were
Younger this farmer the next day would try to top them he stole something from the store when the
Manager was looking at him and then chased him of the store each act of defiance made him more
Reckless worse than that it made him meaner I finally cut him loose I heard about him he walked into a
Liquor store pulled out a gun the store owner shot first he died on the operating table I had many helps
Getting to adult hood gentle souls were positioned along the way and tough ones when needed like Rex
Perry’s mom Roxanna she was a red head to but her rule was quiet and powerful midst storms for sure
But I took notice and I never forgot and there was tom’s mother another red head Elsie pretty and sweet
A true charmer I’m bring these folks up to Judy’s mind a little thrill for her special day Friday one
Last addition her neighbor Sara because of this special memory I don’t think Judy saw this I will share it
Now we were out at the end of Sara’s house snow was already falling but all of a sudden and I truly think
That if Heaven ever did disintegrate this would be the first evidence of it the flakes became big as silver
Dollars the sky filled with them they floated so softly and slow you were pulled skyward and you were
Allowed to float down with them a wonderland was forming before our eyes I said I would never forget
And I never have another precious memory from childhood and a great street just right for Christmas
Greeting and a happy birthday for a special friend thanks Jude making my life great have a great
birthday

Sweets Dreams

Just east of the Simi valley,
where they grow delicious grapes,
to turn the buds of afcionado tasters,
served with fruity crepes,
and west of the biggest strip of all,
where fast shakers tend to meet,
is this little town, whose name slips my mind,
on this busy little street,
lives a queen of hearts, princess of mind, maiden of the soul,
who's gentle touch upon my heart,
has turned me all aglow,
she has a way of being funny, but no, she's no ones fool,
far from that lame description,
she's been to finishing school,
yet not overly proper, with sense of reason,
sense of good and kind,
it's been my pleasure, to have met this lady,
and since my heart has pined,
I know that we will never touch, not physically at least,
but she has my heart, she has my mind, she's tamed this ugly beast,
though she will never know, just how much, I dream of her at night,
how much I wish, I could hold her close, and kiss my Sweets goodnight          

Gomer LePoet...

“Can miles truly separate you from friends? If you want to be with someone you love, aren’t you already there?”
A very good evening to one and all present here. Today Im  here in front of all of you as we approach the end of our schooling days.
But i believe half of my job is already done here because its not me but our scribbled stories on our school benches that will dive us into this beautiful journey of nostalgia.
Although walls cant speak but the doodles on walls of our school bathroom can surely make us reminisce those malicious scenes of crimes we have done there.

Little did we know how quick ten years would pass by just like that.We have bloomed into  flowers from tiny little saplings in this orchard of childrens Academy. And in no time, us bunch of flowers will be unveiled in front of the whole world.
I still remember in flashes, the days of our pre primary section where we would yearn for that one cup of hot chocolate milk that would be served to us at least once a week. The same craving, in the primary section transformed into love for shezwan vada pav which still continues to be our favourite. Maturity then peaked and we entered secondary section to disrupt the whole world and win the worst class award right in the beginning of sixth std.
For me Children’s Academy is not just a school- but a journey that all of us have endured for these past ten years. Living every moment as If there was no end to it because that’s how it exactly felt like ! But today im realizing how wrong I was. It ends! The journey sure does- but the bonds and the friendship is never going to end. I wish someone had warned me that more than the people, it’s those moments that I will miss the most. Now, we will never be able to dance in front of our friends classroom and make them laugh during an on going lecture while we were on our way to the washroom. Now reena miss will never nag us for using the word “abbey”. Those menacing threats by Suddha Shetty miss to apply the canteen oil on our hair if by chance we showed up with washed dry hair to  school instead can never be relived. Now nikita miss will never  ask you about your missing id card and ask u to tuck in your shirt. Whom will we have psychology sessions with if not our bhagayshree miss.Whom will we wish suprabhat guruji to now? Who will leave us discombobulated with their flabbergasting vocab if not our beloved English teachers madhavi miss and  sen gupta miss?  not even paresha miss’ chemical reactions could beat our instant change in  our demeanour from a loud noisy fish market to an attentive obedient class when rohit sir or mallya maam would be on rounds.  Its hard to believe that no matter what we do, no one will replace the void of affection of our teachers in this emancipation. Its hard to believe that how all of these annoying rules that have  been playing in the background of our life will suddenly just cease to exist. Its hard to believe that the building of children’s academy that we visited everyday will no  longer even be a part of our life. Its hard to believe that now we wont see Vipin sir laughing at his own jokes before we all start laughing… just by watching each other laugh.
The cherished and hallowed corridors of Children’s Academy will become our Alma Mater that one day will surely be revisted by us to share the pride of our collective success, one day. These golden memories and the fact mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell will never be forgotten by us. And for that I can’t thank bhakti miss and simi miss enough!

And lastly to end my speech i wish to quote no one. I wish to end my speech just by singing the first  two lines of our school song. Lets chime in for the last and final time and sing it in our heads.
“ the bells of our school, ring out far and wide
Their chimes make our childhood so happy and bright!”

I live in a dark coal-de-sac
giving off Bonnie Tyler sparks
the Rod Stewart of loneliness,
feeling heart arch at Market Basket

I go up and down elevator
music with hooks
and loops bringing
back Ghost and Word

Modern interlacing
ritual and food
in my head and in our
breaking bread

Why do you think the feast
is movable?

Weekend food shopping;
stocking; cooking some,
but most of it,  wasted,
rotting away even with
modern coolness

It's just me. It's just she
The time is gone,
the nest is empty
wish I had something more
to say

It's just Dad visiting
every weekend
to sit with his daughter
to watch his granddaughter
play soccer

It's just Mom cooking
a minor chord meal,
nothing like the Major
meals of her missing
older Sister

It's just weekend sushi
or Pho in Simi Valley
modulating one
Key memory to another

The voices go
ghosts fade
and yet the ritualistic
love persist in my
looped head in my
OCD play
at every meal
repeatedly self cutting
our geometric thought
Elements within a Euclidean
subspace

We walked the length of the tributary in the Simi hills tonight.
timid lulls of filthy water lap against the rims of our shoes
as we trudge under a dilapidating sun that breathes heavy over the
San Fernando Valley.
It is too warm for jackets so we trudge side by side decorated with
summer regalia, the wind is hot for September and I watch as you
soak the sweat from your brow on a green bandanna.
As we approach highway 134 you stop and turn into the setting sun
the blue of your eyes lights up the green rim around an olive pupil
and you smile that deep, voracious grin that throws me into
an almost sleep like daydream.
and in this moment, with the palms swaying in the distance and the cry of the Northern fulmar straying too far from the beach,
I decide I would go anywhere with you
even if the sun never came out to push me to this place.

Public schooling houses dangerous and
the most delicate beings to walk shy
or stomp upon the dirt. Thou whom love
to hate, yet hate to love; teenagers. They
take their pill if good mannered, but hide it
behind false grins, if not, to find later
in a tin box dusted in carcinogens.
The golf boy doesn't hide his pill- never.
Swallowed with a glass of social simi-
-larity, he melts away but likes it.
He feels safe and warmed by the flame of
fake. And then she comes along taking a
psychedelic too many- red eyes of
their own fire. Taste the skin of ana-
-ther on her lips; sweet like cyanide tang.
She takes her own kind of pill named CANTSTOP.
She is named crack ***** by more than a-
-lot of head down murmured voices coated
in curiosity. They're not afraid of
her anymore- he is though. Slightly but
he doesn't say it. **** up- They know it.
Golf boy knows it. Crack ***** knows it. He knows
it. Small town ******- no future- can't even stay
in school long enough to see a paper.
But can play a chord like a rose in the
barrel of steel- a voice of nostog-
-ia. He makes people feel things too deep yet
barely scratches the surface of himself.
He used to hide his pill. Not anymore.
She dreams of running away with a bottle
of pennies. He drinks champagne and dreams black.
She writes melodramatic spells above
her collarbone- he spends the night alone
thinking dark things about a girl who now lacks
a soul- she used to light up. Not now though.
And they all take their pill like good little
kids.

Nights Are For Stuff Like This

It's 3am.
The city's sleeping and I'm not.
Lights like scattered dots burn dim outside my window.
People are dreaming and I'm awake thinking of the
life that's been passing through me like second hands-smoke
lingering in the slowed-down traffic of my DNA.
Nights are for stuff like this;

stuff like silken roads through ragged hillsides,
feelings blacker than night that disappear in the
day light, prisms  bouncing off grey ash, tiny sparks
falling through trap doors, never again to be seen
nor heard, nor taken for granted upon the long
laid train tracks of this ongoing dance.

Memory like loaded simi-trucks taking me all
the way back through corn fields and hay, through
old hard hitting rain that goes clank, clank in my brain.
Scars cutting  through my skin opening again and again
like songs that you hate but can't stop singing  on endless
streaming highways-hitching a ride inside my mind,

pitch-perfect pristine and off-key in the dark,
on a night like this blue black over amber gold.
I'm a million miles further away and one mile closer.
Signposts loud and large selling  big hopes for
happy dopes, emerging eyes now gone from me
peering through clouds because they can, because
they probably always will.

Because who knows how far they've gone and how
far I've come on this night of all nights awake in the
grid of passing stars and dividing lines, now merging into
my lane for better or for worse where gratitude needs no
promotion, because it just is or is not. Because it can't be faked.
nor pimped. Because it has no need for
patronizing nor apologizing.

Because it's outcome, a side effect of nights like this where
everything makes sense and where nothing makes any sense
at all in this gigantic freeway of time that will eventually reach
a dead end. Where sleep will come 'cause the poetry will have
run itself off the bend.
Ah yea nights are for stuff like this.

widze    (i see)
widelec...           (fork)
                                                 *widły... (pitchforks)
                               hammer, and sickle...
or should it look like a hammer & scythe?
          etymology: the origin of words...
well... it's superior to darwinism...
                 the chimpanzee is a given.
now a terrible joke:
                      twirl the star of david
to represent a man sitting on a square
carpet opening a book...
a bit like twisting the *******
by the nazis...
           behind a crooked cross (slayer,
    south of heaven album);
                   fair enough...
but etymology is still superior regarding
darwinism... o.k. o.k., we, origin, from
monkey... chimps more apparentkly
than gorillas...
                           huh?
why not originating from madascar lemurs?
   did the eskimos come from orangutans...
**** me... down syndrome monkeys...
      orangutans ≠ down syndrome
                                 (based on ****** features)?!
        knife = nóż...
                                                        ­łyżka = spoon.
in terms of using language?
                  darwinism is ****-all...
       it's about the "mystery" of etymology...
                      i really should have "said": the mystery...
        of etymology...
       at least there's some logic attributed to
the practice...
              too many images with darwinism exist...
         said conclusion of the base for
                         the concept of: "****" similis...
    or          simi similis...
            ******* satyrs...
    the origin of words (etymology) will always be
more important than comparing forms,
                                 i.e. humans with apes,
                       & tigers... with bonsais... i.e. cats.

At 5 p.m. on 8 May 1995 girl-mad Bruce Jenner flushed 2 Walmart
men's room urinals at the same time with his hot Noxzema-greased
hands during an unavoidable Zuma Beach drowning & a fiery Simi
Valley forest fire lit by lightning. His golden Olympic ***** stayed
bony like a big Disney cruise ship waiter until he had it pared down
to a chick lick **** stub by a crack quack ***** **** man much later.