i wrote the ache down,
filed it under temp/data/emotions_v27/
and still—
it boots at startup.

don’t ask me where it hurts.
it’s in the whitespace.
it’s in the semicolon i forgot to place
between “i’m fine”
and “but.”

you think this is poetry?
nah.
this is me
trying to make the silence less slippery.

i’ve been laughing in sans-serif
so nobody prints me in italics.

i bury metaphors like landmines
because i don't want your sympathy—
i want your uncertainty.

this isn’t an elegy.
it’s a system restore point.

and if you’re reading this,
know:
i didn’t survive it to write about it.
i wrote about it
so i wouldn’t code myself out of the scene.

Oh Tzar of ******'s bleaching bone
Thee of blood soaked terror's home
Whilst striding from thy crimson cusp,
Anointing children, dead at dusk,
Weeping mothers, poets slain
You sip from goblets brimmed with pain
Soldiers fall at your command,
Prayer unheard across the land
And hatred drips from those who sing
Thy death-- the dawn's red sun shall bring.

The whispers of unearthly screams
Breath the foulness of your dreams,
Touch the agony, the flame,
Ignited in your tyrant brain
Treachery becomes thy ilk
A garrote soaked in mother's milk,
The stiletto to the small of back
An assassin's terminal attack.

No vespers from thy closest friend,
No grief at matrimony's end,
No crowds lamenting in the square
Just cold, hard earth awaits you there....
Gone those groveling to win,
Gone the subservient, then within,
Gone that snap of fast salute
Now curses flail with lashing boot.

Now the curled successor's grin .....
Thy image ---
A forgotten thing.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

To love is human,
To be loved is a human need,

But the same is true,
For being free.
I long to fly out of this cage,
But I will clip my wings each day.

Each feather falling,
Is one step closer to you,

Every feather drifting away,
Is a single piece of my heart.

I must fly free,
Amongst my avian creed.

"In memory of Eliza and Emily"  
Twelve Years a Slave, Eliza Berry's life marked by cruelty, a tragedy of slavery.


She rose to lower heights as she plucked the cotton with  
                               her bare hands
Stooped over she pulled the cotton from the bolls, fine cotton
                               that it was !  
Twelve years of slavehood, her daughter taken for her beauty
                                  was separated from her youth...
Haggard, hollow-eyed and filled with sorrow she worked soberly
                                     for she would not be sold, she was not for sale !
Eliza wept tears of grief but, there was nothing she could do,
                                       her daughter had been taken away from her.
Come back—don’t leave me—come back, mama, was her last cry
  until distance intervened and then all was finally wholly lost.

Foot Note: Eliza never saw or heard of Emily. In the cotton field, always and everywhere she was talking to her.  Only when absorbed in that illusion or asleep, did she ever have a moment’s comfort, afterwards.

•###•

•the•message•is•so•phantom•

•strangled•
•during•the•thir­d•act•

•illuminated•
•letters•are•the•ciphertext•

•and•they•glo­w•
•in•your•eyes•
•Bletchley•Park•

•Turing•
•worked•it•out•with•­
•Delilah•

•they•killed•for•less•
•died•for•even•more•

•###•

Ok, there’s no jailbreak.
Make room for my innocent alter ego,
because there’s nothing to rebel against.

There are zero classes in my nascent,
year-long, Harvard master’s degree.
They call it ‘self directed study’
and like rockets have stages,
I’ll have ‘self paced modules.’

Am I suddenly at Oxford University?
They’re quite famous for that (no formal classes).
Or am I suddenly grown up and trusted?
I obviously don’t have it all figured out yet,
so I’ll just trust the process.

When I started that other school
(that shall not be named), my advisor
handed me a computer printout - a list
with something like 40 courses on it.
I thought, “Oh, my God,” but one by one,
year over year, I checked-off those courses
and voila! They handed me a diploma.
It was a process.

I understand, if you’re disappointed about the jailbreak, but there’ll
be coffee breaks, lunch breaks, study breaks, bathroom breaks
and more than a few self-directed dance breaks. So stick around.

“You know,” my therapist said, so very seriously, a few years ago,
“you keep laughing.”
.
.
I've Got the World on a String by Robin McKelle
****** Soul Picnic by Ledisi & Billy Childs

A man goes to a doctor—
“Doctor, I’m depressed,”
the man says; life is harsh,
unforgiving, cruel.

The doctor lights up!--
The treatment, after all, is so simple!

“The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight,”
the doctor says,
“Go and see him! That should sort you out.”

The man bursts into tears.

“But doctor,”
he says,
“I am Pagliacci.”

I read
what you wrote.
It is beautiful,
and not mine.

I have laid those bones to rest—
not in spite,
but in mercy.

Your voice is strong.
Let it carry you forward.
I won’t follow.
But I will listen
from far away,
in peace.