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I leap across steppingstones in the grass
that lead out to my washing line,
wait for the wind to come and pass
then drape my socks out in the sunshine.

Somewhere, it’s grey and cold
they hang clothes indoors on plastic frames
walls and windows gather mould,
those with wet work uniforms go insane.

There is hidden wealth in the economy.
There is no such thing as inequality.  


(When I was twelve
my family moved to Dunedin,
my brothers became Christians
then travelled to Asia to spread their Religion -
they said “there is no class system in New Zealand,
there is no faith Cambodia” )

There is hidden wealth in the economy.
There is no such thing as inequality.
Chris Saitta Apr 2023
Morning was sudden-made as an onwardness of hills,
Meant for donning crusade in chainmail glistenings,
The sun visored in misty slats of cold steel,
To glimmer fusty through the godded grove,
A holy sepulchre, earthly-dim to its rafters of oak,
Where the forest-fall of sunlight shed its rosework,
And a red-breasted bird, its song-flight of dappled gleam,
And in the meadow, where colorful whorled the tale of Saladin,
Wayside flowers shook beneath the destriers' cloth caparisons,
A sunny fullness of vales for the crusaders' forest-heartened lungs,
And when this furthering of sights was sunken from,
Still an onwardness of hills to Jaffa like steppingstones.
The Battle of Jaffa in 1192 effectively ended the Third Crusade when Richard the Lionheart’s forces defeated Saladin’s army after routing them at Arsuf, though they failed to recapture Jerusalem.
Тадеус  Jul 2016
Floods
Тадеус Jul 2016
Creek rose high in flood
Steppingstones have disappeared
Many houses too.
Haiku.
© Тадеус 7-2-2016 10:08pm
Все права защищены.
Christian  Feb 2014
Still
Christian Feb 2014
Circulating memories of childhood amenities
Hurled beneath your feet like gold bricks and steppingstones
Your mother's loving remedies and the thought of praying for your enemies
I can feel you through the penmanship, I can tell you that you're not alone

Church on Sunday mornings, you're weeping through the rosary
Tears falling on your winter coat like rain drops through a Eulogy
Footsteps on the carpeting like the persistence of a metronome

When I pass your house I never will forget
Even when it's just dirt and they turn it into a parking lot
I'll always remember you, I'll always remember  the summer when I thought,
That you liked me.
Sabila Siddiqui Aug 2019
The pain rots and sheds,
as it smoulders her bones
and burns her skin third degree.

Loss and jealousy enwrap
her scorched heart into ashes,
while lava flows off her tongue
as it promises vengeance.

She becomes a vortex of emotions
engulfing her own life,
dwelling in the
merry go round thoughts.

Until she picks up the pen
and tucks the rage and ache
within the 26 alphabets
stringing words,
to sentences to paragraphs.

Ashes and embers stain the paper
as they ebb, blot and flow,
crafting the cathartic relief
until the paper stains darker
than the shades of her mind.

The blues that would pour,
become the budding flowers
in her chest.

She remodifies
cobblestones into steppingstones,
amplifying her narrative.

She tosses the losses
into words
and crosses beyond the horizon.

A candle flame burns deep
inside her solar plexus
as she transmogrifies the shards into a mosaic;
the strings of the web she was entangled in
weaved into embroidery to embellish her soul.

The cries and lies,
made her wise
as she built from the same sorrows
she was drowning in.

She put her ache on cadence
and turned up a brain wavelength.

She finally found her salvation
from abandonment
a dive deep and wide into
the depth of introspection
pulling from the cronies and nooks
the parts built and undiscovered.

She armed herself with
empathy fueled passion
as she has burnt, learnt
and learn to yearn the better
while she steers forward
with a transfigured mindset.

For the people who came,
now leave as poems.
12345678 microseconds til...69 pm

herewith fall lows ing lush goulash
   who doth pine  
   tongue waggin a fly wheel
   sincere soul
    whose shoe size
   measures about size nine

with pure motive to challenge
   thinking as my goal
   if drawn to language of wordsmith,
   or like this swiftly tailored/
   harried style of mine

   who wrought a jagged line
though i promise companionship
   twill be Harris Boss tweed fine
   a byte size musing to dine
with interpretation strictly
   within mind of the reader,

   which rich or on the dole
might nonetheless agree
   this post tubby asinine

mindfulness = the general under
lying sans this bloke, whose
philosophic eclectic metric,
hermetic, intrinsic...
outlook helps me access
and process reality.

toe this line to tread against da feet.

a personal yardstick as i plod
along boulevard of broken dreams,
whereby no animals will be harmed
in this life long journey before the kiss
of death, whence me cremated ashes
will be dispersed across temporal plane
from natural forces of earth, wind and fire.

Arch back like a professional ballet dancer
to stand out from other pedestrian applicants
seeking to fill my well worn shoes.

Illuminate your soul via modest
communication sans sole full insight
acquired thru being apprenticed with
storied prestigious law firm of Anne nic Culle,  
Achilles Heale, and Marathon Nike.

Keep your nose to the academic grind
stone despite temptation to appropriate
international family business and graduation
with supreme accolades from this famous father.

He i.e. slim shady forsook frivolity
per his peers in exchange a stock
reputation of gentility honesty,
and integrity despite humble roots
only male heir of a Middle Eastern
European Jewish mother and father.

They scrimped, saved and sacrificed
scarce resources to set stage for
this scion of well deserved fame and fortune.

Never forget those grandparents
whose adherence to work their
fingers to the bone (literally)
allowed, enabled and provided
this founding partner per the trio
of stalwart attorneys for underdogs
of the World Wide Web.

Match deeds with credo of obedience
to the law of the land,
as epitomized by Abraham Lincoln.

Such obeisance to a democratic dogma
will be firm steppingstones to engender
and kindle an Amazon zone of cathartic
karma from paternal persona.

Such acquiescence toward morals
of the conscience (and remembrance
of previous generations blood, sweat
and tears) will serve as intrinsic manna
for clients to clamor like an unstoppable
rolling stone to seek counsel from,
whose genuine heart felt equalitarian demeanor
a near perfect recipe for satisfaction
helping others smooth out jagged
abutments arising in their lives.

Rather than lecture and command
with a dictatorial cutthroat reign of terror
(as casually espoused in “The Prince”
by Machiavelli), this democratic,
humanistic, liberal minded torchbearer
of justice advises active listening (as
advocated by the late Jean Dole (who
eternally rests within a pineapple
under the sea), my renown mentor
from Lima, Pennsylvania), inculcating
intuitive posturing toward delivering
random acts of kindness.

This includes offer services pro bono
if an individual, family, municipality,
et cetera appears copacetic yet struggles
against insurmountable odds from
fickle finger of fate.

Exemplify by example of zeal for
underdog (immersed in catastrophic
series of unfortunate events) that money
need not be demanded before welfare
of down trodden such exuberance
witnessing an ear to ear smile of gratitude.

Rather than be biased, inclined
to be prejudiced based on cursory
observations of one or many barely
clinging to the life raft of survival,
I (as a humble human) encourage
a relationship of trust before casting
an indiscriminate eye toward those
less fortunate to live in the lap of luxury.

Luck (or the lack thereof) an invisible
yet potent additive to this mix those flush
with disposable income or exiled
to a hand to mouth hardscrabble dilemma.

Daily acknowledgement for ethnic,
genetic and quixotic claydice throw of chance
in tandem with loving support immediate
kith and kin instrumental keeping
in check bombastically egotistical, haughtily
radical degradation of fixation of values
steeped in appreciation of aesthetics,
beauty, charm, decency,
equality from gifts hoed inside.

Joyfulness keeps love moving
needling offset predilections.

Quality rests squarely upon pillars
of staying within bounds of service
to those less able bodied or beset
with untold obstacles that discourage
setting virtue (or the closest approximation
of what that means to the inquiring mind)
as precedent to blaze
a trail of care and concern.

Always maintain benevolent devotion
foreswearing greediness.

Invoke keepsake mandating omnipotent
natural personal righteousness to vaccinate
yourself against heinous, nefarious, pernicious,
et cetera rapacious trapdoors of selfishness.
-----------------------------------------------      
from::matthew scott harris

of unsound body, mind and spirit than
by all means and ways -- please ripple
lye to me, an adroitly, artistically brief,
crazily dazzling, erotically frisky, gladly
*****, ineluctably juicy, lovely, magically
noopy, opulently private, purring
quietly, romantically **** reap ply.

yes?

postscript: i in conjunction with zippy, x2c, yuppy, trippy, sleepy, sneezy, queasy, ruby, kooky, loony, jessie, inky, happy, grumpy, grouchy, ******, ernie, doobie, clumsy, et cetera plus snow white can vouch safe that the democratic party approves of thee above  message.
Lauren Jun 2017
You started out chasing butterflies with strawberry baskets in hand,
So insignificant in their own right.
Barefoot splashing in the tides of winding creeks,
Taking shortcuts to steppingstones.
Your dreams were as big as the clouds you never even took the time to gaze upon.
With eyes sparkling in the midday sun,
A child-like ferocity held deep within your core shown through your every step...
The signs always pointed you down the right paths,
Safe and sound from the world asunder.
Sunlight framed your face in a perfect eclipse,
While you called for your nature's shames to grace your flesh.
The untrodden breath should have screamed  "Aposematism" in your favor–  instead it whispered luxury.
You had Pine needles jutting from your vellum heels as I watched you wander away;
Precariously denying the flush of red they had while they hung their heads to let you pass...
Irresolute on how to perceive dead ends:
You, gnarled and bleached by the lap of oak
You scrambled over boulders and crevices
Only to find collapse was nothing but your suitor in black,
Caressing your lechery in a labyrinth thicket.
Peach scraped patellas and a taste for champagne,
You should have seen right through that lush disguise.

...From day one you where laced in the notations of prima donna,
With your sticks and stones and ivory bones;
The only song left to resound drip memories of your
Hand-crushed wings.
Walter Alter Jun 2023
The rich are committing suicide
and taking us along with them
the prosthetic limbed *******
Fort Darwin tottering on fewer stilts
once the Masters of the Universe
presently picking through garbage
looking for an Icarus to pilot
some way back among the clouds
their telepathic goon squads
armed with the ******* of God
squat in the darkness of doorways
lightning strikes all around them
even their telephone poles were clairvoyant
several thousand watts went up my leg
shorting out the only attention span I own
left me perforated but far from lacy
wearing all my masks all the time
fragments of self are selves
in a bulemic deconstruction
where form and content
mud wrestle incessantly for attention
on the crazy train to 3 color 3 finger hell
apparently the ancient gods still rule
in their madhouse heaven
ambivalent petulant flatulent gods
brandishing sword point conversions
wielding gun point perversions
the protagonists the antagonists
fornicators masturbators liquidators
pariahs and unlicensed poets
preaching hellstone and brimfire
now their carcasses are steppingstones
it's psywar out there kids
better find where they hid your dossier
mesmerized of the world unite
you have nothing to lose
but your failed methods of addressing reality
said his slowly twisting tongue
struggling for ratings like any media
the soul cannot erase it can only go sightless
a phantom trapped in melancholy
when we were built to dance
with the twinkling summer stars
he finally learned to undestroy memory
being an ascended master of non sequitur
carried aloft by the wings of Mother Goose
his metabolic hurricane of why
an inferno of intrigue and  superstition
our embryo-headed UFO ruling class
have me inside their fence of skulls
an investment in diagram futures
the idiots

— The End —