Lest you find yourself amongst the bones,
Mask your face and quiet your soul.

Flock in lines of the mundane and meek,
Zip your lips, peacful keep.

This genocide of individuality is perverting our kind, incestually.
Perfect patterns, mechanically, processed, soundly.

The flawed are pushed aside,
The individuals are boxed up, shipped out, Pariahs.

So, don your masks, one and all!
Suit up, and watch your sheeple fall.

The people have endured hardships for a while now. They have prayed and fasted for a better day but none has come. Prophesy has been given but has not been fulfilled. There have been moaning and groaning in every heart, in every home and in all the streets. Tyranny and misrule have become the trademark of the Mugabe rule. Finally our hope is at an end and our patience faded. It is time for a new Zimbabwean renaissance!
Zimbabwe does not belong to a few, it is not an aristocratic organisation. No one inherited the birth right to the white house. No one person is entitled to the presidency alone. It is the people who make Zimbabwe and it is they who rule. The president is nothing but a glorified civil servant. He or she works for the people and not against them. The people are the masses and they have the ultimate power. The Police and Army are mandated to serve and protect the interests of the people and not to fight them. The government should be for the people. Governments are nothing without the people!
Mugabe is the most shameful of African leaders. He was a beacon of light that turned into an apocalyptic darkness. He was the colourful and joyous son of Africa now turned into a ruthless dictator. The unlikely and even undeserving candidate who now imposes himself to be the king for life. The incorruptible one who has now become the father and a haven for the **** of corruption. Mugabe is a man disillusioned by his own grandiose imaginations that have been brewed by his over-prolonged stay on the seat of power. He has become the educated man who turned into the most foolish amongst us. Lost all sense of morality and cannot distinguish between what is right and wrong. This icon of a man has ****** on his own legacy. He has torn down his own statues. No longer shall he be remembered as a great revolutionary, he shall forever be vilified for the political villain that he is. The angel sent by God to redeem us has become the devil to us.
Mugabe is a testament that education and wisdom can be parallel. Maybe he has succumbed to the vices of old age and lost his original senses. Or maybe he is now just a stooge and stage puppet controlled by others behind the scenes. It could be that he suffers from dementia or some form of schizophrenic condition. He has a deranged personality void of all manner of reason and decency. Maybe he has become blinded and cannot see the reality of the Zimbabwean condition.
I am neither Zanu PF nor MDC or any other sham. I am red, white, black, green and yellow. I am a Zimbabwean. I cannot believe how I supported this madman and his cronies blindly for a time. I was once deluded and believed in the sovereignty dogma and the right for Zimbabwe to influence its own politics. All the time the country was deteriorating as the Zanu PF cancer was spreading across all corners of this beautiful nation. Those in power were busy abusing it and looting wealth for themselves. They looted farms, properties, companies, gold, platinum and diamonds. Everything they touched was stained with failure.
Some of the most educated people in Africa have now become nomads and sojourners in this world. The beauty and grace that distinguished Zimbabwe from the rest has been greatly compromised and diminished.  Zimbabwe has become nothing to write home about. Our previously less prominent neighbours have outgrown us.
The people go hungry, the banks have no money, industry has lost its footing, unemployment at its highest, crime and discord rampant, nothing but lawlessness and disorder. No electricity everywhere and  water supply is erratic. The roads are in dire condition. The industries of Bulawayo have suffocated to death. White collar workers have been reduced to vending. We are now a nation of scavengers and families grow hungry. Exports are a thing of the past and the Zimbabwean dollar is nowhere to be seen. The whole economy is in a constant state of illness and misery. The health sector has been hit hard. Zimbabwean youth have become jobless and confused. The working class goes on without receiving wages and salaries. In the meantime the police has become more corrupt and draconian, ZIMRA keeps squeezing the little money the poor have and there is mass censorship everywhere. The man who was tasked to manage this country has failed and must step down. These are more than enough reasons for change.
Mugabe and his government have turned the reputation of Zimbabweans to nothing. Zimbabweans are now seen as weak and destitute people all across the world. In certain places they have become pariahs who survive by hustling, robbing and conning. We are scattered all over and it is not by choice.
The pride and dignity of the Zimbabwean flag has been tainted by this man. As heinous and evil was the Ian Smith regime and his supremacist government, Mugabe is worse. We will never wish to go back to white rule but we wish for a black competent government that is effective. We just want things to work in Zimbabwe. We want to restore the beauty of our glorious nation. We want Zimbabwe to be better than it was ever before. One thing is clear, Mugabe has done his part and has run out of ideas. His time is done! We need fresh thinkers in the white house. We need real change in Zimbabwe. A new dispensation with none of the failed old guard. They have served their role and it is time to resign and retire.
Mugabe is not a uniting force anymore. He has become a symbol for division pretty much like Adolf ******. He is just an old man hiding behind a suit and his hordes of security men and puppeteers. Even the great Fidel Castro relinquished power! South Africa has seen more democracy than Zimbabwe. Change has swept across most of Africa and it is now knocking on the door in Harare.
We the Zimbabweans across the globe unite and in one great voice we shout, “Enough is enough, No more Mugabe and his regime, No more suffering, we want a new and better Zimbabwe! We want a government for the people! We want jobs! We want local industries! We want agricultural growth! We want a country that works!”
My recommendation to Mr. Mugabe is that he researches about the Seppuku ("stomach- or abdomen-cutting") or harakiri (“cutting the belly") and practises it. This is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honour code, seppuku was used either voluntarily by samurai to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture) or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves.
Change is coming to Zimbabwe whether the old guard want it or not. The police black boots will not able able to intimidate this away. No oration or rhetoric will sweep this change under the carpet. This is different from the attempted changed introduced by the MDC a few years back. This change is not sponsored by the British or Americans. This change is motivated by the gross incompetence of the sitting government and it is empowered by the resolve of every true Zimbabwean to see a better and healthier Zimbabwe that offers a lucrative future for our children. This change is 100% Zimbabwean and is not about colour, creed or background.

Poets, the disciples of the modern world.

Followers of the great Almighty Lord of
alliteration and symbolism.

Their eccentric natures make them the pariahs of this world.

We cannot wrap our minds around
the words they artfully speak,
so we refuse to accept them.

Their eyes burn like fire in their skulls
as they stare you down from a podium.
In their hands, they hold their own hearts
which they have ripped out of their chests,
holding them out as if asking for you to accept it from them, wanting you to understand what every beat means.

Poets are misunderstood beings,
tortured creatures,
but they are far stronger than any others,
because they have the gall to speak their minds unforgivingly,
bare their most inner secrets and struggles
to an audience of strangers.

They are quick of tongue,
speaking faster than one's ear can hear,
but somehow they still manage to work themselves into your head with every word.

They're parasites,
infecting your mind and soul,
tugging at you and driving themselves into your brain
until their poems are all you think of.

But they are not evil parasites.

They hurt us and make us feel to save us.

We, the invisible reasons for your problems, blind ourselves to the
dismal inevitability that we will
suffocate because you refuse to stop
the pillaging of the future for the sake of your own ******* lineage being able to further itself and potentially give you a chance to again close your mind and scream as loud as you can when confronted with your own toxicity

We, the ones who humbly take the bludgeoning from your self-proclaimed pious hand, know these chains are only on your bleeding wrists and ankles.

We, the silent and the broken, know Santa Muerta by the nicknames she had in college and all accompanying wildness she brought in her wake.
We still will stroke your hair while you
throw your tantrums and wail about what is and isn't fair on your deathbeds.

We will burn the mattress and all while cheering you on on your flight into the night sky you ignored for a lifetime.

We, the servants of streaming digits and stewards of bottled stardust, will create stories about how it wasn't your fault and how you shouldn't be hated for bringing the world crashing into the excrement of wasted potential so our children know there was a choice to be made.

We, the overly polite pariahs pry laughs and love and lust and learning from looming catastrophe like Burroughs writing Naked Lunch with a glassy eyed stare that burned holes in the veil hiding the tide of partially coagulated blood and ******* that YOUR world preached as milk and honey.

We, the proof in the moldy pudding still finding time to rot, will burn tobacco fields in your honor just to dance while getting drunk on the breaths you'll never waste.

We, the lovers of questions and haters of creeds, let tears stream in the hope that they are not considered part of our body's 75 percent while fantasizing about your ghosts seeing them and the dehydration they may be in spite of and quiet your tired old yelling and shaking of fists at the clouds when overcome by the slight sadness that whispers "its too late" lovingly into your ear.

We, the lovers, the thieves, the reviled, the *******, the witches, the junkies, the ******, the reptiles and worms under the rocks society deems unusable and misshapen, will be the ones lifting the crowns off your corpses and throwing them high as graduates do when full of a hope only ever dashed by themselves.

We, the drooling monsters you vehemently deny anything besides the cramped closets or the space between bed and floor in childhood bedrooms, will be the Valkyries to descend onto the blood-choked battlefield you set aside for your souls to suffer on and offer you respite in the form of soggy bread and wildflower honey while  ravens and jackdaws bicker over the eyes and fingers of those that once showed us how to ride a bike or drunkenly beat us beneath our favorite trees or touched us in dark rooms in ways that would chase Love away from the shadow of our hearts until we finally climbed high enough to see it all as someone screaming of war and bravery while running from the sound of steel biting steal because their protectors talked so highly of honor and duty that it seemed as if it were God and Adam touching fingertips on the arched ceilings of youth. that, then was painted on the crumbling walls of abandoned houses they would secretly indulge on the forbidden fruit soaking pages of a faded **** magazines or up skirts of blushing  girls who put on their mother's prudishness until fingers pushed past
cotton and virtue alike to the warm center they both melted in.

We, the unsung and numb, walk in spirals while the complexity you rebuked as devil-born becomes the sigils of yet-to-be kingdoms bringing about golden age after golden age in the distant mists rolling over hills and valleys of memories of moments yet to coalesce into rigid experience.

We, the eyes weeping blood atop crumbling pyramids, have seen the walls you want to build in futures dissolved in the winds blowing dust over the dream-roads we skip down and how it resembles the one you built to keep your heart from breaking from the pressing mass of what you can't file away as noise or heresy or communist propaganda;
We drew throbbing ***** and dripping ***** on all the blueprints we came across and tucked them back into the secret compartments of wardrobes and roll-tops passed down through generations.

We, the keepers of the singing stones you traded for cheap concrete, will embrace the tiny souls you neglected out of ignorance to the existential snake oil pitch you broke every tooth biting down on all because the salesman reminded you of your drunk father or mother imposing their wills like you make shadow puppets dance on peeling wallpaper in the silence that ensued after they had passed out on creaky couches reeking of Lucky Strikes and spilled ***** while the shine of the staticky T.V. set covered them like the blanket no one ever put over their slumbering forms because of those infinite lists of excuses used to skirt the skirmishes of showing any kind compassion even if they alone were sole witness to it.

We, the pieces of self the deathbed "you" sent hurtling backwards through time to shine lights on the siege seething at the gates of what you stand for, are only holding those lanterns to show you that fleeing is futile and your death is just a hallway with a door that leads to the knowledge that life is not a cell to watch time morph into tally lines scratched into cold stone as if they were epitaphs for the seconds bet and lost at the roulette table crafted from any slave ship the ocean never swallowed.

We, the flames mimicking those dancing girls you longed to have squeal under the idea of your thrusting masculinity amidst the graffiti on the bathroom stalls in seedy dive-bars or the paupers playing prince you follow giggling with hope in hand like a bouquet of baby's breath and daisies for that one day they would stop and turn and smile so handsomely that your knees would shatter against one another and wedding chapels would bend down to tie tin cans to bumpers of beat up Buicks and Oldsmobiles your fathers give dowry and the crowd could watch "just married" poorly written in shaving cream on the back window grow small until it disappeared over the horizon.

We, the dreamers, are tired of sleeping and are in need of a old tree to swing from, to bury our dreams like beloved pets under, and watch as it lets its leaves fall to the hungry earth that is more patient then anyone closed eyed and humming ancient syllables beneath crooked branches could ever be.

All the trees you climbed and kicked and fell in love under have died from too many hearts around intials being carved into them or were used to make fascist pamphlets you yourself passed out at churchs mistaking the mask with bone structure or the river for the people it swept to sea.

We are laughing;
like a loving mother at her clumsiness on display in her cackling child and not like the crowds gazing at the sideshow stage as the curtains pull back and stage lights illuminating John Merrick's flesh and the intricate dissonance it lent to minds.
Minds that afforded only sips of bliss as monotonous stints on factory floors but were preached about like they were some heaven-sent golden cobblestones laid lovingly all the way
to the beach where Heimdall will one day sound his horn, one foot feeling the grit of the edge of the world and the other washed clean for the grave we will all step in.

So, all these words, all these images, all of it is intended to be a moon so all the stagnate tide pools that have forgotten their origin and the freedom they used to give form to lesser forms they forage forgetfulness from.

We, the ones beneath you on the climb to the summit of our collective potential, beg you to think of something beside yourself when taking a ****.

It is not just ******* in the wind if there isnt wind and we are right below you and dying of thirst.

It is not an inalienable right if someone else is deprived of the same.

It is not Heaven's gate if the brilliant gild has a melting point or if it remains latched to any soul's approach.

It is not "liberal *******" or a myth if whole flocks of birds fall from the sky or schools of fish wash up on beaches while people snap photographs for their feed.

It is not "god" if love dispels it like smoke hanging in the kitchens your great grandmother sat in and told you about a witch shapeshifting into dogs without heads to scare drunks stumbling home because she was a ******* racist.

It is not just food if someone's organs fail from starvation that even the worms and flies are free from.

You wave your banners and let your war-horns echo and you wear your ignorance as armor.

We, the eaters of life and death, will chisel a name into stone and pick your bones clean if you think we should march to the sounds of drums and trumpets just because you were stupid enough to think it was anything other than your masters convincing you to whip yourselves ****** because "at least God hath been kind enough to give you a purpose" or "he works in mysterious ways".

**** that.

Look at what it has brought out of the swirling sea of " all that could be" while you write the same song about how shiny and numerous the scales of the prize are.

We are not responsible for pillaging God's bounty.

We are the bounty and our emptiness and lack of foresight are in jeweled bowls at your feet, but in your hubris you believe it to be the slaves that come to wash the dirt from between your toes.

We are Death and She is the wet-nurse that will give us intimacy to fertilize our hearts by refusing us her breast but turning our heads to your silhouettes shambling off the edge of existence far off in the distance only a decade or less could be confused for.

[AS ONE VOICE WE SING/SANG/HOWL:
Lux amor potentia restituant propositum dei in terris.]

As if it were as easy as holding the hand of a dying tyrant afraid they cannot the luminous terminus while wearing your father's face as a mask to trick radiant angels or the contortions of gods reeking of struck matches by those trembling and their swirling black hearts closed to the breeze carrying leaves celebrating their liberation and caressing a cheek they were too ashamed to kiss when opportunity was their ally.

We shouldn't hate these piles of skulls all parroting the same axioms to those who only show up to add another or leave an empty bottle turned into a candle holder, wax dripped down the neck and froze before any trace of tallow could finally unite with the dirt it longs to become one with;
icicles hanging from the eaves of abandoned asylums.

This place was supposed to be alot of things but that is what lead THEM to drown in the sound of buzzing bees, birdsong, and abundance in all directions.

I suggest we stop trying to squeeze it into a shoebox we scribbled Promised Land on and just let it be the open armed paradise it inherently is.
Let it be the heart and home as well as the hostile territory because it is only ever that and what we wont find in any Oracle's Prophecy.

I'll end my rambling with a question and it's answer.

How do you turn a police station into a hospital and a schoolhouse?

Burn it to the ******* ground.

if i am the messiah
are you flesh?

Pariah dogs pain me.

I feel for those mute sufferers
But can’t fill their life.

Many a times I have dreamed of
A doggery in my backyard
For those giver only friends.

Do for them something tangible

Send appeals to kind souls for charity
Creating a kind of NGO for these bravehearts
Giving them something from the more
They deserve.

I haven’t done anything of these.

Under twinkling stars
I feed them scraps
And mourn

When one is less.

"Young Man found Murdered in East End. Police believe that in the early hours of Tuesday morning a young man who hasn’t been named  was tragically killed. His body was found the following morning by his cleaning lady. There has been much speculation linking this latest death to the series of murders that has happened in the capital over the past two weeks."

The headline news at the moment, yes another ******. This time another man killed, the ever changing result at the moment is now two men and three young women. It seems the killer prefers severing the femoral artery of his victim, thus securing a fast and ****** end to their poor pathetic lives.

I read intently, the pure supposition by law enforcement officials that seems to me to be almost comical in nature. They bandy words like Serial Killer and Maniac across the pages of every news paper.
I smile, as I fold it in half, placing it neatly on the table next to my breakfast things, for I know that tonight another ****** will occur. First things first though, I have to go and earn my keep.

I work as an investment banker in the cities renown square mile. Yes I am one of those so called pariahs who is happy to receive the extortionate bonuses that the majority of Londoners and the rest of the country, I might add, are all so busy complaining about. I must concede to the fact that I totally deserve every penny I get but I suppose I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Pariah, yes that’s me pretty much to a tee.

Pariah: definition, outcast: somebody who is despised and avoided. Yes that sums me up perfectly even if I do say so myself. Of course most of my friends and colleagues would not be of that opinion at this moment in time but I do believe that they will come to this decision soon enough. As I have already stated, I have a crust to earn so I had better start to make a move, the rent won’t pay its self you know. I won’t bore you with the daily working life of an investment banker, the majority of you idiots wouldn’t understand me even if I did, so I will fast forward ten hours and once more speak to you from more comfortable surroundings, this time in the guise of a well frequented public ale house in the East end of London.

As my night progresses I see her across the now bustling and noisy lounge area and yes, she is something to behold. God has been very kind to this young lady. Her name is Petunia and a more than willing victim one will never meet. She is perfectly formed and voluptuous in every way you can imagine. Just what I am looking for on this lovely summers evening. Over the course of the evening the charm flourishes and Petunia and I laugh, chat and drink our way through it, getting even closer as the night closes in. This is working lovely, that flash of thigh as she rubs her leg along my own. The glint in her eyes tells me that this young woman has succumbed, hook line and sinker to my charms.

Not one of those to big myself up but this is of no surprise to me, as I do believe I have everything almost every woman would ever want. The looks, personality and money, with this in mind, she never stood a chance really. We leave the pub arm in arm, she looks a little unsteady due to the drink.

Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly and she is so prone to take that first step. Our destination, her flat just a stones throw away. My mind racing, excitement so enthused within my cool and calm exterior.

If you have been following the events of the last few weeks you will know that the past five Murders were all committed with a short sharp blade entering into the groin area. I am so aware of that silken metal that the steel presents to my leg. I feel it intently even through the leather sheath that is bound so securely below my trouser leg. I am so aroused at this moment in time.

Inside Petunia’s flat we waste no time getting close as I push my quarry back onto the divan. After the initial fumbling we are almost there. As we taste each others tongues my left hand reaches down to select my weapon from its casing. I feel its coldness in my hand, raising it to the desired position. All I have to do now is slide it forward and penetrate.

My hands are sweating. As we feed on each other with our mouths I feel my hand shaking. I try to shut off the emotions now running through my mind but I cannot do it. I pull my mouth away from her succulent lips and realize that this is just not going to happen. It felt like such a good idea until now, I was so motivated before this but I just haven’t got it in me to **** this beautiful woman.

A sharp pain brings me to my senses as the blade slides into my groin. The pumping coldness that is now soaking through the material of my Armani trousers. I am shaking so much, in Hemorrhagic shock, as my life’s blood pumps from my femoral artery. She pushes me onto my back, as I fight to keep breathing, Petunia looks down at me smiling.

“Thank you for a lovely night -- Number Six.”

The aliens are already here
The aliens- hip, square and clean
The runaways, they've disappeared
Down pipes and drains and holes of
Sewage garden, gangs and green

There's a silent anarchy stirring in the heights
From it flows a saturnalian wine
For this free country
Can't stop drinking
Stretching its mouth to indulge in extravagance
It must be everyday, it must be more-
Take it all
Create a proxy war
And as the black *** sits and waits,
The kettle cries wolf

I pledge allegiance to the grandest of institutions
Where the last, best hope on Earth is hidden underground
Where only married fools are allowed to divide and conquer
And make gracious dents of our lives

Keep marketing death
And selling hope
Chips in our heads and
Veins full of dope
Mental warfare
Gangster mentality

The revolutionaries you hired are losing
So you better add more fuel to their fire
Till you got newspaper gods and TV messiahs
And all the innocent ones are pariahs

Capitol I and little u
Here's a free copy of our corporate Bible
Don't read the fine print
You Dead Peasant
Cause we might just put a policy through
Our Mammon's still hungry
Mommy's little terror

Bed right and woo
Bilderberg *******
Underground railroad of hate and hypocrites
You sell prison Gods
And sunny asylums
A life full of plastic
To die wrapped in plastic-
No wonder the blues originated here

We would have settled for the Silver Age
Even if it was Iron in disguise
But you kept it out too long and let it rust
Telling us it's ok-
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

We believe in something
But it's been called by the wrong name
For thousands of years, we've been insane
(What's in a name?
Your fascist-military-papal gain)
Dropping bombs on the peers
You've pressured before
Going off to make new friends
***** diamond

Wish you a water burial when alive
So you simmer in your beloved element
Better be mindful of death
You'll never die
But beware when that elixir explodes in your face

All we want is a world where sinners sin sincerely
And the narcs are narcoleptics
And the dearest of the devil dare to see more clearly

Let's put the prisoners in a church
The congregants in a prison
The crazies in an art school
The students in a parachute-prism;
We'll send them off to all four corners
With crayons, canned goods and doves (for the mourners)
In hopes of one day seeing a world
Where expression is survival, the beggars twirl,
(And no one goes hungry with a palette of rainbows
On a day when only true praise is hurled.)

Art is made to forget we're slaves
To show the world's flaws
With a tinge of beauty
So it's bearable
How ****** up things are
How we need change
But the true lovers
Are not at the top
True lovers' passion lies in bottomless alleys
Seething baths of sweat
Relieving sins imposed by a lonely man
A ceremony of the streets- Not your false ritual

"You're all talk and no action-
Where are the answers?"
Well, sweet inquisitor
We just don't have the power
And those that do are pinball wizards-
Deaf, dumb and blind,
And friends of time
Why should they care
In their own little Edens
With fortresses of gold
And platinum eyelashes?

Aquafuck and Aquafina
*** and water
Rings called sacred
But profane down under

No Xenia, no refuge, no candle in the dark
Pyramid pointless
Your fascist brigade claims its people are fasting
Least you could do is use your paper wisely
Add impresario to your resume
And let us have our heyday

It isn't how it feels
But how it looks
We could've been healed,
But they burnt the books
Better get a gun
Technology won

They say war is over when you want it
So I'll sleep in bed all day
Throwing pennies in my dream-well
Letting my weak flag fly

And I wonder why Africa, Egypt, Eden's eating me
As the host to a ghost they pray so sweetly to
It all boils over in oil to who's royal
And what ever happened to loyalty?
(With no boundaries)

Powers that be
I need to put you out of my misery
So here's your shut-up money
Your gilded cage becomes
My blank page
Your sedition becomes
My intuition:
The last standing land mass- No woman, don't cry
Ain't that a gas?
Better take to the mountains and the trees
Before you say this too shall pass

We all bleed the same
Cultivated and wild
Fragile dust
Abandoned by a mercurial God
Waiting to be saved by a beaten sailor

It started as a shade of green and blue
And golden sands and cosmic plans
Transformed to the home of me and you
Where 100 shades of grey steam the sky
And colors fly to a place we'll never reside

Wonders of the world
Don't require human hands
A heart is all you need to plant seeds
And touch the sky
A mystery it was
And a mystery it'll be
Even if it's all dust
And matter and debris

Still, I wish I could pull a brick
And watch the whole thing crumble

Metaphorical stringency
Idiotic transgression
Coat this democratic autocracy
Flailing capitalism slowly drowns
Splashing freedom in the face;
Obeying party goers
Stand as if a wall,
Indeed they are
A rich, extravagant barricade
Of outcasts
As pariahs under cloak
Stab the new age constitution;
Egocentric totalitarianism will sway
At the sight of a metaphysical blade
And the ghastly crown
Will topple to the bottom
The country has shed her lizard skin
Regurgitating for her new flock
Feeding a new set
Of avaricious minds

Planting excitement upon us,
My daughter asks how to thin the beets.

"When the plants are three inches tall,
Pick the weaker ones and pull them up,"
I say. "You'll take out two thirds of the young  plants
So the rest can grow."

I see a troubled look upon her face,
And realize what I find in myself....

The teacher's quandary:
Picking whom to keep,
Whom to cull...
We put our love into them all.

Watching for first and tender shoots,
Celebrating as the fledgling leaves appear,
Not thinking of a time ahead,
Dreaded time to thin....

Teachers are reluctant to cull,
Building emotional connection,
Providing loving direction,
Promising success to all....

Then come the standardized tests,
The  team selections,
The popularity contests,
The invitations to slumber parties,
The division of elites,
The rising of divas,
The rostering of first teams...

The separation of pariahs begins,
The promise we made to early learners ends,
Superiors, exultant, drown out the tears
Of those left standing by the fence,
Excluded from the chances to advance.

Standing in the seedling beds,
Spring breezes rustling tender leaves,
I turn to Kate....
"It's never easy....
But if we don't  thin the beets,
The beets will not develop
Beneath the leaves."

These damnable analogies arise
Infrequently these days,
And I am standing in the dirt,
Black soil upon on my hands,
Wondering about survival of the weak,
The treatment of humans and young plants,
Pondering humane ways to honor every student
In which I am investing...
Wishing I could see the end of high stakes testing....