Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Matt Mar 2015
Near Execution in Osaka

One day I was marching with other prisoners through the streets of Osaka, returning form that day's work. It was bitterly cold and my hands became numb. I placed my lifeless hands into the pockets of my ragged pants. As I entered the camp gates, I noticed a Japanese guard pointing his finger at me, calling me to the attention of another guard. Later, in formation along with the other American POWs, I noticed the same guard pointing at me and walking in my direction. He instructed me to follow him. I really didn't think much about this at first.

I followed the guard into the camp commander's office with the interpreter walking beside me. I was ordered to come to attention and bow to the major,  who was sitting at this desk. A few moments later, the interpreter came over to me and said, "You were marching down the road with your hands in your pockets, and that is not permitted for Japanese soldiers."

I replied, "I'm not a Japanese soldier. I'm a prisoner of war!" After hearing the major shout in Japanese to the interpreter, I was told in English by the interpreter, "The same rules apply to all POWs!" "I didn't know that," I answered. In a faint voice I told the interpreter, "Why don't they tell us their rules?" To myself I thought, if I knew al the rules I wouldn't break them.

The major screamed at the interpreter, who translated; "You are an American soldier and you do not march with hands in pockets!" I responded bluntly, "Let me know the regulations, and I will obey." The interpreter translated my answer for the major. With a shocked look on his face the major jumped out of his chair and whacked his clenched fist on top of the desk. I know now that I had really provoked him. By the manner in which he spoke to the translator, I could tell he wasn't thrilled by my attitude. He arose again quickly from his seat and walked toward me, and the guard made me bow once more.

The interpreter said, "The commander does not like your attitudes!" At that point, the major pulled his sword out and nicked my throat. I felt the blood streaming down my neck.

"Prisoner can be executed for disobeying orders!" the interpreter continued. All I could do was stand still with thoughts of terror running through my mind. I stared into the major's hateful eyes. I never took my eyes off him, not for a moment.

All of this, for just walking with my hands in my pockets. A strange feeling came over me, and I suddenly knew this was a very serious matter. The major yelled at the guard, "Take him outside! I do not want blood all over my floor!" I began walking out of the office, with the rifle point of the guard behind me pressing into my back.

He then ordered me to stop. I came to a complete halt, as instructed. I stood there waiting at attention for the next command, when I began thinking of and seeing myself buried in Japanese soil. My mind raced and I felt an imminent fear, but somehow I felt I had a fighting chance.

I heard the commander and interpreter coming out adjacent to where I was standing. As they were speaking back and forth in Japanese, all I could do was stand still. I was then ordered by the guard to bow one more time to the major.

"The major is going to execute you, so all of the men will know that breaking regulations won't be tolerated!" the interpreter announced. The major walked in front of me and pulled his sword out again and put it to my throat. They expected me to beg for mercy. The interpreter asked, "Do you have anything to say?"

"I guess," I told the interpreter, as I looked into the major's eyes. And then these words came to me, and to this day I have no idea where they came from.

"He can **** me, " I replied, "but he will not **** my spirit, and my spirit will lodge inside him and haunt him for the rest of his life!" I was asked by the translator to repeat what I had uttered. A terrifying feeling came over me instantly, and my blood flushed over my entire body, making me absolutely burn with horror.

I said, still staring into the major's eyes, "He can **** me but he will not **** my spirit and my spirit will lodge in his flesh for his entire life! The Americans are coming and any Japanese who kills an American without just cause will have their spirit haunt them forever!"

I did not grasp at first what I had actually said. I was prepared to dodge the sword if the major made  a move to swing it at me. I watched his every move, never taking my eyes off of him. All of a sudden, a mysterious expression appeared on the major's face. Then, to my amazement, the major made three steps back and lowered his sword. I gazed up to the sky and said, "Thank you , Lord." This was the first time I had seen a Japanese soldier back off from an execution.

The major then ordered the guard to take me to the pit in the earth that was used for solitary confinement. The guard, with his weapon shoved into my back, ****** me towards the 5'x5'x5' hole in the ground. As the Japanese guard lifted the cover to the hole, I wasn't sure that this ordeal was finished. He motioned for me to get down inside. Looking down into the depths of that dark place, I tried to get in. I landed head first, face down, after being pushed or kicked by the guard. My face and neck were hurting badly as I wiped the tears  from my eyes.

Homecoming and Nightmares

It was great being home, but everything that had happened to me was still roiling around inside me. It was like two people came home. One of them was the boy I had been and the one my family saw when hugged me and talked to me. The other was the man I had become, full of memories and feelings that I could not deal with. Things had happened so fast, and I had not been able to overcome the fear, the suffering, and the rage and pure hatred that I had inside me. When the war with Japan ended on September 2, 1945, I was a Japanese prisoner of war in a slave labor camp on the western coast of Japan about 500 miles by train from Tokyo.

That was just a few weeks ago. Now I was supposed to try to adjust to a life that for four years I never thought I would never live again. To my family and friends I was plain old Glenn Dowling Frazier, the soldier that was home again. But I knew I was no longer that person. My thoughts were often full, not of the freedom and love that surrounded me, but of the Bataan Death March, of the times that my body was so badly beaten and sick that I feared I would not live another night...

The horrors of the war were with me every day and night for the next twenty-nine to thirty years. At times, I wished I had never come home. I imagined how peaceful it would be to lie down in a quiet place and find the peace that only comes with death...

At times I would resort to drinking to try to forget my problem. It became impossible to tell anyone that my experiences in a war over 30 years ago were still haunting me. My body was telling me that something had to be done to end my problem, but when thoughts of resolving it came into my mind, I found it so strongly embedded in my beliefs that it was impossible to do anything about it. I was reaching the end of the rope.

Early one morning, about 2 a.m., I awoke from sleep, and before I really knew what was happening, I was kneeling by my bed praying to God. It was like an uncontrollable force working inside me, even giving me the words to say. In that prayer, I asked God to help me shake the curse that was controlling me.

I had asked my preacher at times about ways to get help and solve my problem, only to be told that I must forgive the Japanese. I said, "Oh no, I can't do that. They have never apologized to all of us, how can I do that?" And I continued to suffer.

But the force within me this night brought the tears. I cried my eyes out. Every thought that passed through my mind was like a voice inside me saying, "You must forgive everyone and everything that has hurt you. You must forgive the Japanese and forgive yourself for harboring this hate for so long. "
http://us-japandialogueonpows.org/Frazier1.htm
LD Goodwin May 2013
My whippet ran
as fast as the wind.

With a cheetahs gate
he could catch all.

And now he rests
his race is done,
all rabbits happy.

*Shanzi is a syllabic poem in seven lines  4/5 5/4 4/4/5
Unrhymed
Lines 1 and 2   INTRODUCE the SUBECT
Lines 3 and 4   AMPLIFY what is affected by the image/subject.
Line 5 thru 7    Focus on NEW SUBJECT that complements and provides a meditative conclusion.
Shanzi may be Titled
Harrogate, TN  May 2013
Zyanneh Frazier Oct 2015
Abortion

A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please don’t let me go!”
All because it wants to see this world
But Mommy happens to have regrets and a mind filled with shame
All because nobody knows about little James or Joyce
Mommy isn’t ready for mistakes to happen
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please don’t give up on me!”
All because it wants to see Mommy smile
But Mommy happens to head to the clinic
All because she’s thinking about abortion
Mommy isn’t ready for regrets to happen
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please don’t do this to me!”
All because it wants to see its first birthday
But Mommy happens to grab for the scissors and then panics
All because she finally realizes life’s a blessing
Mommy isn’t ready to fall down the same path as last time
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please make the right choice!
All because it wants to know its gender
But Mommy happens to suffer from ***
All because she was ***** by a unknown man
Mommy happens to give life to a healthy
James Denzel Roberts
But…
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! I thank you!”
All because it misses its mommy
But Mommy happens to give James up for adoption
All because she doesn’t want James to suffer
Mommy happens to die 2 weeks later
As…
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! You’ll always be in my heart!”

By Zyanneh Frazier
The Name "James Denzel Roberts" Is Just a Random Name I Picked
Matt  Aug 2014
The Saga Continues
Matt Aug 2014
I love the smell of incense
On the morning of Aug. 18, 2014

So what is this place
This place called earth
I'll work and work and work
Until my body breaks down

I'll probably always be alone
Maybe I like to be alone
Because it is all I have ever known

I am envious of beautiful women
Sometimes I wish I could have been a woman
I feel like I inhabit the wrong body at times
Oh what a joy
To experience the thrill of multiple *******
I imagine myself as a beautiful blonde
Riding my hot powerful black man

But those are just dreams
Wishful thinking
Better to accept the cold hard reality

Oh the emptiness of it all
Shunyata--Free from permanence
Neither permanent nor non-existing, and that is, ultimately, how things are

Lao Tzu says
"At the center of your being
You have the answer;
You know who you are
And you know what you want

I know who I am
I know I want to be a lifelong teacher
Beginning is so difficult
I hope I am able to start soon

Being a human being can be quite difficult

Future operations will use drone and robotic weapons whenever possible
Since human doubt in a rightful purpose in the mission
Is rapidly diminishing
The technocratic authoritarians diminish the sacred nature of life
With each New death system

It's all so terrible
The things people do to each other
Such a primitive race
Such a primitive race man is

And the young college kids are glued to their iPhones
I just wish more people had an appreciation for history
Of the human story

Buddham, saranam, gacchami
Dhammam, saranam, gachami
Sangham, saranam, gachami

I listen to these words as I write this poem

I go to the Buddha for refuge
I go to the Dhamma for refuge
I go to the Sangha for refuge

Please try to grasp the scope
Of what has gone on here on earth
We each write our own story

Please remember Colonel Glen Frazier
One day he suffered a severe cut on his hand
Which went to the bone
It was so cold and he was so emaciated
That the wound did not bleed
Some days later he was walking across the camp with his hands
In his pocket, to keep warm, and quickly found out
That this was against the rules
He was taken before a judge and sentenced to death,
But was saved by a miracle of God.

With a gun to his back and a saber to his throat,
His assassin asked Colonel Frazier if he had anything to say
Before his head was cut off

He was then given, as he recalled,
"A mouth and wisdom"
"You can **** me but not my spirit,"
He told the stunned Japanese soldier,
"And my spirit is going to lodge in your body
And haunt you for the rest of your life."

Buddham, saranam, gacchmmi
Dhammam, saranam, gacchami
Sangham, saranam, gacchami

You cannot **** my spirit
All those mean and nasty comments
He who must not be named
Has said to me
I hate you!

I do not ever want to see you again
My spirit cannot die

But the world is full of hate
And so as Colonel Frazier learned how the hate devoured him
He learned to forgive
I try so hard to forgive
But still so hard for me
Forgive but not forget!

Stone Buddha
Stone Faced Buddha
Impermanence of reality

Buddham, saranam, gacchami,
Dhammam, saranam, gacchami
Sangham, saranam, gachami

And what about the ego maniacs
The ego is a social construction

Anatman or non-self is the reality

The Upanishads sought to free individuals from ego-attachment
By pointing out that the real self
Is the Universal Self rather than the individual self,
The Buddha sought to free individuals from ego-attachment
By pointing out that there is no individual self
To which to become attached

No man is an island
There exists a certain mutual arising
Alan Watts says
We see how things kind of go together in a connected net, rather than as a Chain of billiard *****, banging each other around
The world is like a network of dew drops on a spider's web
And in each dew drop the reflection of that drop can be seen
And so we rely on each other

I live with one who does not live
Thirty years she has done nothing!
The degeneration of the American mind
Is what I have witnessed
Countless hours spent mesmerized
In front of the television

Wake Up!
A wise man would say before giving his lecture
You are all asleep and if you don't wake up
I won't give any lecture

Wake Up!
And still she sleeps
Her life away
Unable to face the challenge
How pathetic
Just to exist
And never to live
Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
What a waste
Do something!
Don't just sit in front of Fox news
At 4 p.m. again
And talk to the dogs

Well, I've told many a tale by now
And still hope remains
That is all I ever had really

I know something of love
But not really much from human beings
And who is this Jesus anyway?
Well I love him I guess

I hope to feel love one day
And still
The drudgery continues
Work work work
For increasingly worthless American dollars!

I hope to be able to have my own small apartment
And work myself to death
Well, at least there is the incense to enjoy
And the occasional cigar

College graduate
And another 16 months after that
And still
I am going to the market
She has collected spare change
So I can put them through the machine
For a few lousy bucks
Haha!

At least I have a good car
And a good diet
And a gym to work out in

One should be determined in this life
As I see my life unfold I come to understand
That maybe this is the most important quality

Though shall not fear
Sayeth the Lord!
Stop barking dogs

Buddham, saranam, gacchami
Dhammam, saranam, gacchami
Sangham, saranam, gacchami
(Repeat)

Thank you to those
Who have liked my poems
And follow me

If one can call this poetry
I suppose it is like a stream of consciousness
I never did realize
How much I would enjoy this

Cries some

Will I ever leave this home?
Will my dreams ever come true?
I ask that you think of me
Off in internet land

Do you know I once closed
The Captains of Crush #2 gripper
Manufactured by Ironmind
Look it up, if you would like, it is a hard gripper to close

Do you know I used to bend and break the white and green nails?
Made by Ironmind for this purpose
The metal made hot by the pressure placed upon it
I bent it back and forth until it collapsed
I had to stop because it places too much stress on the hands over time

Do you know
Once did about 150 total pullups in one day
Up and up and up

What was I trying to prove anyway
I'm not sure
Sometimes we must test ourselves

Know thyself, and your limits!
One day the hard times may come
The tough and mean times
I will not live with fear in my heart!
LD Goodwin Nov 2014
My Whippet gone,
now dust once again.

I've given him back,
from whence he came.

To run again
in cosmic fields,
waiting to be born.

*Shanzi is a syllabic poem in seven lines  4/5 5/4 4/4/5
Unrhymed
Lines 1 and 2   INTRODUCE the SUBJECT
Lines 3 and 4   AMPLIFY what is affected by the image/subject.
Line 5 thru 7    Focus on NEW SUBJECT that complements and provides a meditative conclusion.
Shanzi may be Titled

Harrogate, TN  November, 2014
On November 4th, we put down our dog, Frazier. He was in our home for 17 years.
Zyanneh Frazier Oct 2015
Dear Brother,

We had fights
We had tears
We had moments
That helped me
You only last once
You only care of me
You only love me
Throughout life
You are my brother
We had ups
We had downs
We had arguments
That helped me
You’re my protector
You’re my best friend
You’re my favorite Leo
Throughout life
You are my brother
We had talks
We had agreements
We had disagreements
That helped me
You’re a son
You’re a brother
You’re a friend
But no matter what I come FIRST!
Because you’re my brother
But most of all we both came from
Nothing to become something
So let’s make mom and dad proud!

Love, Lil Sis

By Zyanneh Frazier
Robert Ronnow Jan 2020
"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed by
          Better ones unite people in melting pots.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my sons, and my dogs will be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to
          Await my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. But we will do what we can and
          Some things we shouldn't because that is human.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."
www.ronnowpoetry.com

--Rothman, David, "Verse, Prose, Speech, Counting, and the Problem of Graphic Order," Versification, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 21, 1997
--Harris, Roy, The Origin of Writing, Open Court Publishing Co., 1986.
Zyanneh Frazier Sep 2015
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the hopeless girl
With the scars scattered across her skin
And tears going down her cheeks
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the frightened boy
With glasses pushed upon his nose
And school books just ready to learn
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the independent girl
With a very unique flow and attitude
And male clothing covering from head to toe
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the insecure boy
With his lips all glossed up with lip-gloss
And his hand clutched tightly between another boys’
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the outcasts
The Self-harmers,
As if they aren’t already considering it!
To the Nerds,
As if they aren’t already being made fun of!
To the Transgenders,
As if they aren’t already been judged enough!
To the Homosexuals,
As if they haven’t heard it once before!
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the Gays
The Straights
The Geeks,
And the Weirdoes
**** yourself…
Is what they say
To the ones who are misunderstood
And who are scared to even express themselves…
ALL BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU!

By Zyanneh Frazier
Zyanneh Frazier Oct 2015
Rest in Peace “Mom”

December 10th of 2010 I was
Holding your hand, telling you not to worry was not an easy thing for me to do
I sat with my brothers and kept asking myself is this our last goodbye?
As you happen to suffer in pain laying helpless on the hospital bed
Being brain dead and unable to breathe on your own
I couldn’t help but cry, but pray for good results from the doctor and nurses
As they slowly took you off life support and removed you from the breathing machine
Losing someone I truly loved was just so hard for me
December 19th of 2010 we was
Heading to the hospital as we suddenly got a call saying she didn’t make it
I walked into the room where you laid peacefully
Resting in God’s arms, although I wasn’t ready for our last goodbye
I happen to miss your sweet beautiful smile and amazing personality
The thought of not hearing your voice or not seeing your face
Happens to put nothing but a frown on my face leaving me with nothing
But tears slowly going down my face as I tried to tell myself this can’t be right!
December 27th of 2010 it was
Time for us to say our final goodbye as we laid you to rest
I never imagined that it would end with you laying in a casket
You were always there through the thick and the thin
You were more than a mother to me your were my best friend
Nobody can ever replace the bond we shared with each other regardless
If it ended with you yelling at me, because all you really wanted
Was the best for me because you didn’t raise no dummy
On November 23rd and Mother’s day of every year
I happen to visit you to tell you happy birthday and to
Release balloons and lay flowers by your grave to show you
That I love and miss you dearly as I try to forget that heartbreaking day
That will forever haunt me throughout my teenage and adult years
Lesley Renna Pickett may you
Rest in Peace!

By Zyanneh Frazier
Zyanneh Frazier Sep 2015
My Biggest Mistake..

I won't say that I love you
Cause I've said it too MUCH
I won't tell you that I miss you
Cause I never heard you say IT
I won't say that I want you
Cause I could never be under such a TITLE
Only a fool would believe all the things you SAY...
I don't feel a connection with you
Cause all I ever heard from you were LIES
I don't feel protected around you  
Cause all I ever did was felt UNSAFE
I don't feel loved when im with you
Cause all I ever did was be a second OPTION
Only a fool would stick around for such a very LONGTIME
I can't take it anymore
Cause all you ever did was PRETEND
I can't even believe I once called you my bestfriend
Cause all you ever did was USE ME
I can't see you in my future
Cause all you'll ever do is stay in the PAST
Only a fool would continue to follow you down the same path
I feel bad for the next person
Cause all you ever do is FRONT I feel free free Cause now I can be on some me ****
I feel like making you feel my pain
Cause jealousy is the KEY
Now you are officially my rebound you had me picking pedals off of roses because I didn't know if you loved me or loved me not BUT now im officially calling it quits with you and anyone else who has a problem with my decision because I stand tall shouting me, myself, I... I was born alone so ima die alone having a CHEATER is the last thing on my mind focusing on what's really important which happens to be school so mister nameless you have finally been put under the bus now as they say "Once a Cheater always a Cheater" now I know what was wrong with this picture loving you was my biggest mistake!

By Zyanneh Frazier
Zyanneh Frazier Oct 2015
Suicidal Thoughts

She happens to have those thoughts all because
She happens to be suffering on the inside
Nobody seems to understand this young lady
All because they happen to not care about her feelings
They happen to call her out her name just to put a smile on their faces
While she runs away with tears going down her face
And a broken heart that can’t seem to get fixed
So all she happens to have are these
Suicidal Thoughts
She happens to have those thoughts all because
She always looking at herself in the mirror
All because she doesn’t thinks she as beautiful as them
The girls who happens to call her ugly
When they are just trying to make themselves feel better
All because they don’t have the looks and style as this young lady
So they are willing to bring her down just to make themselves feel so much better
So all she happens to have are these
Suicidal Thoughts
She happens to have those thoughts all because
Boys never approach her as a man
They happen to make her feel uncomfortable
And unwanted all because she isn’t the girl they thought she would be
They use her as a toy
They happen to play with her mind and emotions
They use her as a game
They happen to hit it and quit it
They use her as a dog
They happen to make her do as they say
So all she happens to have are these
Suicidal Thoughts
She happens to have those thoughts all because
She is wondering who her real friends are
Which happens to be this razorblade and this bottle filled with pills
Please help her before it’s too LATE!

By Zyanneh Frazier
Zyanneh Frazier Feb 2019
21 Questions - Zyanneh Frazier

(1) Would you like for me to tell you that I love you & actually mean it? Or
(2) Tell you that I hate you & don’t mean it? (3) Would you like for me to fight for us? Or (4) Walk out like I just don’t give a ****? (5) Would you like for me to be honest & tell you the real me? Or (6) Tell you something that I’m not which is a liar & pretender? (7) Would you still stick by my side through the good & bad? Or (8) Walk out & just give up on me like everyone else did? (9) Would you be willing to give me your last dime? Or (10) Leave me empty handed making me waste my time? (11) Would you be embarrassed of what others may say or think about us? Or (12) Feel accomplished knowing that your entire family loves me? (13) Would you believe me if I told you I was out with friends? Or (14) Just jump to conclusions that I’m cheating?
...which isn’t in my blood...
(15) Would you be willing to cut off your friends to spend time together? or
(16) Do I have to turn you into a chooser? ...which isn’t something I want to do... (17) Would you trust me enough to tell me your deepest secrets? Or (18) Do I have to continue to beg for trust? ...which is something I thought I already won... (19) Would you be able to handle this bond? Or (20) Do I have to end this thing we call us?

...Because the real question I have is...
(21) Do you see yourself being mines forever?
Just 21 Questions that you may have for someone you actually love! I just happened to get the idea from (50 Cent|21 Questions) which happens to still be my favorite song by him as an artist hopefully whoever’s reading likes it!

— The End —