"i want to be that person you're scared to lose"

Only four of us today
We can have some tea and don't have to pay

Poems are ready to display
Who will start to read today

Poems on love, poems on war
Poems on strangers at the door

Minds are working oh so fast
From the first poem to the last

We put them up on a screen
Where all our poems can be seen

Many long winters have passed
since I was a young brave.
My skills are now faded
with the light of my eyes.
In the great domain
of the Algonquin Tribes.
I hunted with my father
a wise and kind chief.
He taught me the love
of all the ways of the Great Spirit.
Who provides all we will ever need
to sustain our people.
The great buffalo
in their numbers too large to count
Would feed our people
until the end of all moon and stars.

Our ways were a gift of life
the ways of our lineage from start of days.
The newcomers took our land and our talk
The buffalo was wiped from the land
by their sticks of fire.
Their bodies left to rot in the sun.
What was the gift of Manitou they stole away.
The water in our rivers
is as poison from their waste.
The fish are sick and
cannot be eaten by our people.
What was our pride, they scorned.
Our children they took
to teach them new ways
Our blood they spilt
into the soil of our heritage.
Now we are imprisoned
on the land of our freedom.
I stay in my tipi old and frail
my face lined with many years.
I dream of a clear sky
an eagle flying to the mountain.
The herds of buffalo
thundering again on the plains.
To sit around the fire with the pipe again
telling the deeds of our forefathers.
No peace will ever rest my mind

How We Laughed
a 9/11 story
by
Jude Kyrie*


We laughed away our silly childhood
Swimming laughing all we could
laughing playing everyday
Together Covered in mud

We laughed all day
at a silly song.
You threw my homework
In the pond.

We laughed so much
I peed my pants
In a pool on the floor.
We laughed at everything
Everything that we saw.

After finals you threw your *******
from the car
And then I threw out mine
We got a ticket from the policeman
And laughed as we paid the fine.

We dumped two losers
on a date
Then went off to graduate.

The we both got wedding rings
Our bellies grew and grew.
How fast the time did fly
You laughed and laughed
And said at last
Weve learned how to multiply

In business you laughed
your way to the top
Who would haved guessed
You were to be the big  success

Then on 9/11 the planes came down.
And the towers turned to ash
You died and the world
Is  now a sadder place
Oh God!
How I miss your laugh

okay so i’m beginning to believe i was born asleep and still haven’t woken up, or caught in a day dream where my name is the answer to all your security questions. okay. a thousand years of wondering and all i can come up with is that you fell in love with me at a picnic in my imagination. the lemonade we always talk about swimming in sugar and tiny handmade sandwiches from my kitchen, your favorite, extra pickle. don’t forget about the pickles. of course the clouds march in stomping out the sunshine, of course. it was dark and there was lightning so much lightning. don’t be scared just now darling don’t be scared. in the middle of the night we only talk about your version of the story. how i’d ask you to stay, asking you to tell me what’s real asking you with my hands asking you with maps, a country called please listen to me, you should know by now that it is an island too far to sail to according to you. i know i know, who dared name an ocean lonely when all the ships are sinking. we can go back we can turn around where the sky is the gentlest shade lavender, we can go back and have a conversation that has never happened before. when everything is the color of day old bruises i won’t let you down. i promise when i get home i will count every freckle every one. when i get home can we open one of those mason jars full of fresh air because i can’t breathe. i remember that day, although i pretend it was more recent than it was. you were there in a swell of green grass in a dress that makes me blush, and there i was blushing. i’m not sure how i made it out alive, skipping the part in the song where you, long gone come busting through a doorway, through the well air conditioned living room and and across the kitchen tile, to the refrigerator where just like in elementary school, my fourth grade heart wrote all your favorite things on flash cards in the blackest magic marker so i could memorize the things that made you happiest. and you turning around in slow motion to see my face, or where my face should be, the only expression i can make anymore, realizing that you realized that i only ever wanted to be something that made you happy. suddenly you’re tired, and i’m tired too, goodnight goodnight, i’m falling asleep because it’s the only thing that doesn’t burn. i’m falling asleep to go back again. everything glitches and i’m underneath your perfect teeth. you say “i would never hurt you” and i say “just like that?” and the layer starts over again, always back to the moment i asked you in my bravest of voices if i could hold your hand. you probably don’t remember that moment, or maybe you do but don’t particularly share the same sentiment over its importance. you see, i’m always fine until the part where i have to say it out loud, and then time stops. i have always wanted to tell you that something happened inside me that night and now i’m not the same me as i was before. so if you ever cross a bridge. if you ever get my voicemail, if you need me, i’ll be sketching up the dramatic parts in my head and they’ll happen just the way i imagined just you wait you wait. the last scene the very last one, the bottom layer, knee deep in mud knee deep in i told you so, you say “i would never hurt you” and instead of saying “just like that” i reach up to kiss you and the room evaporates. so if you want lemonade and bedtime stories, if i can make a believer out of you, if you want bucketfuls of november if you want grace if you want the courage it takes to ask for grace, you’re over the train tracks you’re almost home you’re almost there. what else can you say besides “okay pumpkin okay sweetheart, in my head everything was beautiful" the doorway now filled with people who send you birthday cards saying welcome back welcome home we’ve missed you, hello. hello. the time spent waiting, chorus of rain, i only invited you over so we could make perfect sense. i only gave my hands away because you didn’t want them anymore. and days later a man with a shark tooth necklace asked if i was okay and i lost it i just lost it. all the little red bricks with their little names carved into them, how they don’t feel comfortable under your feet, how there were hundreds of flowers but somehow we took a picture of the same one the very same one, and how we can’t talk about things like that anymore, how i was sitting on a bench and i didn’t hear you call my name, shaking hands on accident with your parents hello sir hello mam, your daughter is my favorite ghost.

A man wore silk designer suits
Rolex on his wrist
His shoes were made in Italy
Had trillions in his fist

He had the perfect trophy wife
Kids in private schools
Drove Bentleys and Mercedes
He was no one's fool

He had mansions worldwide
Shopped Paris on the Rue
His address was a penthouse
On 5th Avenue

-

There was a man without a dime
Who lived upon a grate
Where warm air from the subway
Could share in his "estate"

He wore the rags which he had found
In shelters on the way
He sat and watched the rich man
Who walked by that day

His groaning and his mumbling
Annoyed the wealthy man
Who took care to walk around him
As he went about his plans

-

The rich man died a hero
His widow & kids drew hence
His many friends came round about
They spared no expense

The poor begger had no one
Had no money saved
He was thrown on a dungheap
They call a "pauper's grave"

-

The rich man had been lavish
He'd fared well every day
But he was a corporate mobster
So he had hell to pay

The poor man was redeemed of God
That is why he lost his job
He wouldn't serve up to the mob
And so his end was like a sob

He thanked God with his last breath
With grace endured ignoble death

But it had no strength to sting
The angels bore him on their wings

Eternity in everything

So which was the human being
Who had greatest gain?
This is an age old story
But the fact remains

The rich man saw the poor one
Again after his death
In heaven... joyous... SINGING!

While He could not draw breath!


SoulSurvivor
(C) 8/17/2016

He never says goodbye
To the dead
He simply
Doesn't know how
They all think
He doesn't care
But he died a long time ago
And they were never there...