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Today is National left handers day-
Only Southpaws are pitching tonight,
I suspect its all part of a sinister plot,
a coup against all that is right.

Eating with Lefties is always a risk
when Lefties your starboard assay.
but seated to port they're a jolly good sort-
if you get them to offer to pay.
Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay (Razor Blades, Pills, & Shotguns)

Sittin' on the dock of the bay,
Watching the sun slip, Simon-says, slide away,
Cheeks blushing flushing from orange ray-guns,
Drinking blush rosé to oil our eyes
For the subtle story the sky shortly will reveal,
For the subtle story the sky shortly will revel.

Grievous judgement to make,
Thinkin' skills possessed to praise,
When but yesterday I easy confessed,
At the Blue Canoe Bar, I did not.

(The clouds were magnificent. No, I cannot write a poem about the cloud colors. Their shape shifting inexhaustible.  Mine eyes high on their creativity.  I'm just not good enough a poet to tamper with that sky.)

If you courage enough to
Call yourself poet, then
It is audacity, not blood,
Warming your extremities,
So foolishly try, always be prepared to fail.


No impulse. We pledged that tonight, ours,
One hour of sunset over Silver Beach.
Brought the wine, forgot the pillows,
So Abraham & Sarah went prepared to sacrifice
All feelings in their butts for the greater glory
Of love and one of nature's great poetic challenges..

The conundrum~miracle of every sunset
O'er bay, lake or ocean, is its special,
Only-In-Nature unique way of customizing
Its descent just for you.

No matter where one observes,
No matter where you worship,
Wherever your temple, mosque or church situé,
Tennessee, Rhode Island, the Philippines,
Germany, Colombia, even in the ole U.K.,
(yes, you, I know it, yes, you!)
The very same setting sun we all see,
Sends a magic dazzle gold orange path invitation
To the exact spot you are voyeuring,
One sun, all destinations equal before human.

How can that be?

Trepidation and tremblingly,
The clouds.

She leans on me, a perfect fit,
My back resting against a pylon,
So we see the clouds
With common exactitude,
But it is a quiet time, silence only shared.
Images stored silently within ourselves,
For we see the formation, man, woman,
Precisely and exactly, totally differently.

The clouds.
An armada moving imperial and imperiously
At a stately speed, saying I am awesome, fear me.
The largest cloud bank is an aircraft carrier,
Miles long, painted horizon blue-grey unsurprisingly.

The small white wisps, fast destroyers, stealthy submarines,
Moving fast to protect the mother ship,
Running random to confuse enemy radar and the
Pathetic, limited, human eye.

The colors.
Here I fail willingly, unashamedly.
So many sunsets, so many hearts,
All different, all the same.
Lacking knowledge, I cannot tender,
I cannot offer you tenderness to love
Enough,
The variety of oranges, gold, varietals interspersed
By the pinks, the cornea, singed,
And mock myself for all my meager brain yields is
Good Humor creamsicle comparison...a delicious irony

You who write after midnight
Of razor blades, pills and shotguns,
And not marked two decades even, on this planet,
You want hard,
Write a poem about a sunset in ways never done before.


You, who are wracked with despair
Speak to the man with no job for months
And mouths to feed and a life insurance policy.
Speak to me.

I want to tell you to get over yourself,
But you reject that old saw. Ok.
Get onto to yourself.

I have walked the hallways of deep despair,
Heard the bells ring between periods that signal only the next
Hell,
And to this day, still do,
But still I try to write external of sunsets and greater glories.

How many lives depend on you? Are you proud of your weakness?
Do you hate me yet for acknowledging out loud,
We are both cowards?

I have five mouths to feed,
Before I parse a morsel.
Two less than two,
What do you have but to
Grow yourself?

Yeah coward.
Too yellow to write about a
Yellow sunset, cause that is hard in a way incomprehensible
Until tried.
Or the passing of your mother who could not speak clearly
But you, thru her eyes knew that she had poems to yet recite.
Run away like I did ashamed with frustrated failure.
Why should I coddle, give you easy soft?
**
.
If you come here to share, well and good.
If you come here to find comfort, good.
So gaze upon these words and feel
The love that only experience has earned.

What do you know of heartbreak?
Imprisoned for decades in a loveless life,
I walked by the water nightly,
Yes, the same waters where I CinemaScoped
Yesterday's sunset, and walked away.

You can read about if you look it, look me, look here,
Look up!

So do something hard, something external.
Fail but love yourself more for just having tried.
Then try something else.

The saddest poem ever wrote
Was not yours, where you titillate with daring words
Razors, pills etc.,
The saddest poem ever writ
Was this one, a meager vanity to capture a
Sunset that keeps trying every day to
Surpass
Supersede
Its previous glorious failure,
Like we should too.
Keep trying

Now, I shall rest,
For I know that soon I shall see, feel, think,
Of something new that will make me eager to

Write a new poem.


August 3~5, 2013
When I am less tired, I wil edit the typos. But life is full of typos, but sometimes you just gotta not look back, even if you leave a trail of typos behind you. But writing this has mentally exhausted me in a different way.  I will rest from writing to recover. Dig out some old ones, maybe

If you courage enough to
Call yourself poet, then
It is audacity, not blood,
Warming your extremities,
So foolishly try, always be prepared to fail.
Distant night built a home at the heart of the forest, sun had long forgotten,
lovelorn moon set up its nest for memories-
in that lake where 1000 migrant flamingos live for months,
When the hands of dark night creep towards them on the sly
flamingos tightly shut their eyes and dive deep in to the waters of sleep,
when the evergreen memories of ****** moon each one desires haunt.
As the moon wanes, the night lay in wait, in its forest home dreaming white flamingos
                              that swim in the pool of milk the moon has created for her sweethearts.
The interplay of duality- darkness and light- is complex
more like the warp and weft interdependent
to weave a  reality,  not diametrically opposite like love and hate(I suppose)
Little clever poet,
Where Daddy wants to take a peep at all his daughters' writing skills,
A family trait I'm sure,
You write in your own right,
With poetic birds in their own flight of fancy,
This King and Queen your royal birds,
Created from your fantasy,

Darkness creeps into your world,
In a world where harmony and peace you seek,
When this world is cold and sad,
Lady Poetry makes us glad,
You and me and super Dad,
We find that poetry is able to spread a smile,
When caring for others has all gone,
Should the world becomes despondent,
While the world becomes broken, rather torn,
When humanity becomes lost,
For poetry, She is never to be ignored,
When you have the gift of writing,
Living so much more exciting....!

For Larna and Chris **
Love ya x Livvi **
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
OUT
The prognosis was distressing.
The outlook was the same.
My aging mother could not eat,
we were playing her endgame.
Bereft of speech and cogent thought,
sitting in her chair with wheels.
Her fate placed firmly in our hands,
in the court of no appeals.
A feeding tube could well extend
her life for twenty years.
A life in limbo that way leads
where none can care or feel.
Pain management and hospice care
was the choice we had to make.
Years later some still argue
we had made a vile mistake.
Yet if my fate should be like hers
be kind and let me die.
A gentle exit into night
once life become a lie.
Palliative care is sometimes recommended when the quality of life approaches zero.
You could be a galaxy of success, all you have to do is bring out the stars in you!
When life becomes cruel and utterly mean
When storms and waves tend to break you
And there's no escape into some warm inn
Just remember that His love is everly true

When sadness and pain weigh you down
And tears fall down your face unrestrained
And with shame, you want to hide in the ground
Just remember that His love, He's never feigned

With men being human with heartbreaks
And you never seem to get over the pain
And every true love is as good as fake
Just remember that His love would forever rain

God has a way of teaching and dealing with us
With every of His action in our best interests
And our future He'll never bring to rust
Just remember that His love gives us rest.
How could you love someone this much and allow your parents' decision and choices to mar your future? Why does this matter anyway? Hasn't this happened several times and are the people involved not happy? Can't everyone just pretend not to see things and carry on with their businesses? So many questions played in Fiona's mind! There were answers, but she was unsatisfied! She wanted things to go her own way! She parked a few metres from her house and stared into the thin air!
Keji, her friend had told her "Babes, you gotta do what gotta do!". She chuckled, when she'd told her that; it sounded like a slur! But now that she's faced with the reality of making that decision, she'd gone bizarre! Flayed emotion and uncollected thoughts. She took a deep breath and started the car,  what does it matter anyway? She's an adult, and at twenty six she had the right to live her life and live it to the fullest!
She drove into her parents' house and  was received warmly! She'd called her mum ahead of the visit and was pleased to know her father wasn't home!
"Look who we have here, Fiona!" Her mum had said heartily hugging her. She raised an eyebrow, something's definitely up! Her mum sure could act!
She settled herself into one of the comfortable chairs as her mother excitedly moved about!
"Remember Jude? He's in town and I heard he'll be around for long. He asked after you." Her mum offered her juice and eyed her, searching for her reaction and waiting for her response! She got it, Fiona was clearly irritated and moved restlessly in her chair.
"Mum, not again please! I could make my own choices! Stop making me feel like I have a problem hooking up with men." She blurted out. Her mum wasn't surprised, it was just the anticipated reaction.
"You sure don't. Considering that you've never brought anyone home as your boyfriend" her mother answered, sarcastically.
"And every of your friends' sonos are always showing up in town and asking after me. I met Emeka under the impression that he was after me and I discovered he'd never heard about me and was treating me with pity! Like I had an issue with men. I do not like it" She explained to her mum, her voice laced with emotion.
Her mum bowed her head as if in deep thought, let out a sigh.
For minutes neither of them spoke! Fiona's beautiful face was shielded with the long peruvian hair that hung carelessly on her head! Her eye ***** were huge, and looked like they were going to give in to tears any moment from now. She'd worked at different companies before she finally settled with a top oil and gas company. She'd had different challenges with guys and wasn't willing to try anymore when she met the man she'd actually gone home to tell her mum about!
"There is someone and I want you to meet him" she walked around the house. Her mother's face lit up and then concern crept up it. "Do I know him? Is it serious?" She answered, "He's nice, caring, and loves me"
Smiling nervously, she picked her clutch bag and moved to the door. "You would meet him, tell Dad. And mum," She paused "Please be nice"
She was glad that phase was over. She told her fiance about the outcome and prepared him for the much dreaded visit to her parents' house.
They decided to make it on a sunday, her father, Lieutenant Joseph was home and was so pleased to see his daughter after all. He looked at the man beside her on the sofa and gave her a meaningful look. She shifted uneasily in her seat. The mother joined them in her sweeping gown and looked suspiciously at her daughter. She had on her the look of 'I smell a rat'. She sat beside her husband who fondly pulled her to his side. They watched a popular soap opera, Edges of Paradise and for a long time everyone seemed caught up in the family opera.  Fiona's mother coughed eerily, and everyone's attention was forced to her, she batted her fake long lashes and spoke "So?"
Fiona picked it from there, "Dad, I came over some weeks ago and told mum I was going to bring over my fiance so..." Before she could complete her statement her mother cut her short!
" Yes, you did Sweetheart, but don't you think it's rather rude for you to rush us by bringing in his father instead? You should have brought the young man instead" Her mother said eyeing the man with contempt.
Fiona was shocked, how could her mother refer to her fiance that way? Yes he's older than her but what? Does age hold the key to happiness. She looked at her father quickly, pleading for help with her eyes but he seemed somewhat humbled by his wife presence and speech.
"Mother, that's not fair. How could you speak about him in that tone? This is the man I want to marry." She said with heat. At that moment her fiance was getting uncomfortable, he tried holding Fiona's hand but it was hot, his too was moist with sweat. He didn't expect things to go too well but at the same time he was caught unaware! Her mother shifted forward in her chair, "Now gentleman may we know you?"
"I'm Victor Okon, I'm an entrepreneur and run a chain of businesses within and outside Nigeria. I met your daughter few years ago but we started seeing each other two years ago. I like her ma and would be pleased if I could marry her." He stated flatly. He was tired and didn't like the way both parents stared at him. To him, he was doing something noble by going to their house but the look they were giving him made him feel like a child molester. Would they have preferred it if they'd met in another way, like him going there to say he's responsible for putting their daughter in the family way?
The father didn't say a word and that made him wonder what kind of family they were. Then he gave it another thought and concluded perhaps, it's the way of military personnel. When it comes to family they are always cool headed but duty time, they are as hot as hell. Occasionally, when they let out their anger, they are unrestrained. Fiona's mother's eyes narrowed as she started speaking again.
"How old are you?" She had hit the nail on the head. That was the bone of contention and Victor Okon rubbed his hands. His hair a mixture of grey and black had somewhat given him out. But there was no point lying, if he ended up marrying her they would have to know sooner or later. He was a man of integrity and worth who didn't value recklessness. He was responsible.
Fiona took over, taking the bull by the horn,"He's forty-five, younger than you by three years, so what?". She spat out, a look of disdain played on her face. Her mother retorted " If he's young enough to be my brother then he's old enough to be your father" that stung, drop of tears rolled from Fiona's eyes. Her father, who'd let the conversation flow for a long time spoke,
"You ladies should keep it cool in here, why don't you go into the kitchen and get us something to drink in here? We want to have a tete-a-tete." Fiona jumped from the chair and stalked out of the living room, her mother followed swiftly. Even as the kitchen door closed, one could still hear their voices .
Her father spoke with Victor and he found out he really liked the man. But he was concerned about them understanding each other, relationships like that most times comes with huge load of commitments. He was worried about her future, and how long it might take for them to really connect. There were lots of people in the society with that kind of situation and they were doing fine. Some too on the other hand had failed at it. They spoke for a long time and Victor was able to voice out his mind. He felt it was a normal reaction for the mother, considering the fact that they were about to give him their eyeteeth. They heard a crash followed by a loud sound in the kitchen and stopped abruptly, Fiona stormed out holding her hand to one side of her face, she picked up her hand bag and asked Victor to meet her at home. She left the house and Victor rendered his apologies. He shook the father's hands, nodded at the mother and walked out calmly.
He met Fiona outside crying, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. He drove in silence, she played with her fingers and finally let out a sigh, she was scared of losing him and said,
"I'll do whatever it takes, I will" He didn't say a word, he just nodded!  
He wondered in his mind, what's there loving someone older or younger? Isn't love the most important thing?
In Nigeria, the society kinda frowns at stuffs like this and age doesn't grant one liberty from parents' guiding eyes.
I'm always playing music
Alone on my guitar
I don't think I'll be famous
I'll never get that far
I play because I love it
I go from bar to bar
I sure don't do it for the money
I'm living in my car

I'm not sure if I'll make it
The right person must hear
The music that I'm making
Must ring true within their ear
In the clubs that I am playing
They serve shots and luke warm  beer
So the ear for which I'm looking
Is not to close to here

If I wanna be famous
And give my life a lift
There's just one way to do it
And that's by datingTaylor Swift
We'll hook up and we'll break up
I won't be with her long
Then she'll put out a new album
And she'll put me in a song
The only way to make it
And to give my life a lift
Is to go out and start dating
That singer....Taylor Swift

I sit home and I practice
In the front seat not the back
Remember, I'm living in my vehicle
Beside the railroad track
I don't have much there with me
My clothes fit in a sack
Maybe one day I will make it
And I'll give fame a crack

I may not be a Kennedy
Or , a big time movie player
But, I sure as hell look better than
That pretty boy John Mayer
I can't write my own music
I just cover other songs
The streets of fame are littered
By folks like me who don't belong
But one day, I'll just make it
And I'll prove them agents wrong
One day I will be famous
I'll be the topic of a song

If I wanna be famous
And give my life a lift
There's just one way to do it
And that's by dating Taylor Swift
We'll hook up and we'll break up
I won't be with her long
Then she'll put out a new album
And she'll put me in a song
The only way to make it
And to give my life a lift
Is to go out and start dating
That singer....Taylor Swift
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