dis here speech addresses all colors
this speech addresses all colors

try to appreciate life
try ta appreciate life feel me?

try ta respect everyone
try to respect everyone

yo maybe eved try ta love people
maybe even try to love people

if ya don't embrace such values
if you don't embrace such values

try at least tolerating others

yous black, white and biracial brothers
your black, biracial and white brothers

don't forget yous sisters
don't forget your sisters:

black, biracial, white

24 hours be made of day and night
24 hours are made of day and night

ya feel me?
do you understand?

every man be a mister
every man is a mister

every woman be a lady
every woman is a lady

racists are lazy
racists be lazy

since they don't want to understand "others"
since dey don't finna understand "others"

lovin', tho, be de best mood to make it trough dis state that we call life

loving, though, is the best mood to make it through this state that we call life

words fail so much of the time
i think, why speak?
when you can be
think i can leave a mark upon the world
what is the name of the one
who painted the hieroglyphs onto the pyramids?
who was his mother?
i walked a thousand and one miles
through swamp, valley and fields of gold
i crawled over mountains
to find a thing i somehow always knew i was
there is something real to this life
Cosby never knew until it was too late
his children learned it better
just be human with me
drop all the clever, snarky wit
leave off overcoats of pretense and PR masks
it’s so last century to think you’re living
when you’re really only hurtling towards death
in the drag of a composite
persona programma
freedom is just through the other side of that false wall
fear not!
you go not alone
we’re all here with you

What is waiting for my weight—
for the matter I carry,
for the energies bonded within me?
What is lying dormant—
anticipating the day
when my body lays itself down—
so it may drink from my cisterns
and eat from my stores?
What will come into Being
from my ceasing to Be?

The point of a flower is not to pick it
and arrange it like so.
The point of a flower
is only to witness it grow
and then die
and grown once again to Be U Ti Ful

Maybe there must be Existence
For Non-Existence to exist,
Life for Death,
Death for Life,
Finiteness for Infinity,
You can work out the rest.

Love and hate, pain and pleasure,
All a continuum,
All inevitable.

Existence cannot be denied
Even if we live in a virtual world:
A fantasy penned
By who knows who?
For thinking is being,
We all know that.

So enjoy while you can
Before you get written
Out of the script.
Spring turns to summer now
In a seemingly endless circle
Even a globe.
Make the most of it
And party on
As best you can
In your own unique way.

Paul Butters

© PB 25\4\2020.

I have always admired people who were not afraid to be their real selves, who listened not to the prevailing clamor emanating from salons, but to their own hearts and minds. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was her own person and was not abashed to state openly and unequivocally her beliefs. Her most famous work, A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN, championed the notions of reason and education not just for men, but also for women, and for children especially. She was an autodidact, perforce. She was indeed the forerunner of the women's liberation movement, but she also wrote novels, a history of the French Revolution through which she lived, treatises, letters (not postcards) of intellectual substance, even a children's book. She lived an unconventional life, having children out of wedlock, for example. To say she was way ahead of her time is, of course, a huge understatemnt. But the aforementioned are the reasons why I fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks