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I have always been a dog at the end of a great table
And everyone at the table is eating a feast.
Some eat & eat & eat,
while others peck here and there.
Some won't eat
because they're too busy talking and laughing.
And some are visibly eager
for the feast to end.
"I wish they had better food instead of this slop"
one says.
Another has found a hair & a bone in their food.
"Gross"
they continue to hesitantly eat around it.

Every once in a while someone will hand me a scrap
just so I know what it tastes like.
So I know what I'm missing out on.
"One day you'll be up here. Hell,
sometimes I wish I didn't have to eat all this junk.
But you get used to it, like we all do."
I take their word for it.

And then I'm sitting at the table.
But I'm still a dog.
I've been dressed up like a person,
& trained to present myself like a person.
But I'm still a dog,
sitting in front of people my age.

The people my age begin to feast.
It seems like they know which foods to eat slowly
because it's too hot or cold.
They could tell which food had bones & seeds
that needed to be removed.
They knew when to take breaks from eating
to spare themselves from tummy aches.
And Most Importantly
they begin to talk amongst themselves
& start to build connections
& an order of who would lead these conversations.

And I'm still a dog.
I start to eat from the plate in front of me
and immediately throw it all back up.
I had eaten too much.
I didn't know.
Embarrassed, I stop eating
& just watch the eaters around me.
I study the way they eat,
the way they talk,
the way they smile & look around.
I want to copy what I see.
I try talking to the ones sitting next to me,
and they respond with kindness.
But they could tell that I was just pretending.
They knew I was still a dog.

I keep studying
and I become decent at talking.
My brothers are very skilled eaters
almost like it's just natural to them.
I frequently compare myself.
"Why can't I eat & talk like them?"
I'd ask myself this, completely forgetting
that I'm still a dog.
"All in good time, you just have to keep growing up."
They tell me this, knowing fully well
that I'm just a dog,
and for some reason refusing to acknowledge that.

I keep eating
& keep throwing up,
because no matter how much I study those around me
I am still a dog
sitting at a table
with a feast for people.

But the table is the only one seen
for miles in every direction.
Dad and Mom say that once you leave the table
you can never return.
So, I have to eat by the rules
and stay until the end
or else I'm wasting the opportunity Given to me
by the Large Man at the end of the table
who is the most important person to ever exist.
"If you eat enough,
and eat correctly,
you get to sit by Him
& talk to Him
& that should make you love sitting at this table."
Sure, the food is delicious
and the people are kind.
But I'm still a dog,
regurgitating all the food I try to eat,
because this feast wasn't meant for me.

I didn't notice before, but there are other dogs roaming about.
They're not allowed to sit at the table
and eat the feast,
and we pity them.
I pity
other dogs
for not having the chance to eat the food
that I can't keep down.

And the people around me watch
as I keep regurgitating my food,
and they say
"It happens to the best of us,
let me know if you need anything."

I need to leave this table.

But if there really is no other table out there,
I guess I can stick it out
& try to eat people food.
Even though I am a dog.
I hate it here
Nat Lipstadt Aug 15
She's a scientist
She don't look back

She's really a 🍕 gourmand,
but genetically,
Gourmet is where she's at

She loves being a statistician,
Calories count per pizza slice
(scientifically, toppings atoms don't matter)

A-good theorem excites,
Especially epically, when she
disproves it in tour face

Knows a lot of big words,
That nobody else understood 
 (but flaunting feels good)

She's an artist,
And a poet, always looking forward
(chasing sunrises)

She gets overloaded with advice,
So knows how, to give it back
(but only tidbit sized)

She knows the world is flat,
When running, she really likes that!

unlike me,
i'll quit when
out of stuff,
but a woman,
well. that's-he, be,
something else
who dat
I saw the smoke from the mountains,
Early in the morning sun,
Billowing deep from the trees,
Where the great mountain beast once was.

I saw the smoke from Paul Bunion’s cabin,
Rolling up into the sky,
So when I climb up there tomorrow,
I’ll bring him a great big pie.
The mountain scenery is beautiful, it’s breathtaking.
Shofi Ahmed Jul 2018
On the edge, the living earth
dared to mimic Queen Fathima's worth,
The Queen of Heaven's grace and poise,
Her footsteps, a blessed path of choice.
This way bedewed with divine light,
A numinous destination of sight,
Graced by thousands of prophets of God,
the hallowed, mirror-polished sod -
The ultimate path that all should tread,
Closing endless pi's transcended thread,
Leading to perfection's true embrace,
The loving cosmos' eternal glue, circling grace.

In the name of Allah the Most Gracious,
the Most High, the One and only One, she descended,
On the Night of Ascension, her path transcended.
From the Night of Measures, she came,
Her frame, heaven's dark matter, a mystery untamed.
A divine dot in terra incognita,
A fondly-folded bud where time doth bloom.
If one can see up to where it rose,
Paradise sways towards this uncharted way
The only guide, oft is a glimpse of Queen Fathima's eye!

The only asymmetrical golden ratio,
Steps forth amidst the symmetrical prophet flock.
The earth makes way for her in awe,
In sequence she moves with the golden lock.
Cloaked in mystery, she reveals
Her unique, divine relation to the divine.
Makes measured moves at the forefront,
Shining the light ever drawing closure to God.

She is so pretty and classy, the paragon of art,
The sunrise amidst the eternal night.
Her beauty is a burning fire in her shadow,
She is 'Zahra,' pure light, a luminary dynamo.
The only woman in heaven and earth with no shadow!

The great flock of women mirrors the earth,
Following each atom on that angled girth,
Aligned perfectly under the waxing full moon's worth.
Lo, they approach the behemoth's might,
Atoms beneath their skin explode in their finest sway,
And beneath Fathima's feet, vibrations take flight.

'Nature' is a feminine she—a gradual revelation indeed,
of the ultimate paragon—Paradise, never to cease.
Here’n hereafter, eyes on the masterstroke:
Queen Fathima at the peak!

The ocean billows up, floating with the clouds,
like choreographed dewdrops, low on the rose—
ready to shower that blessed spot with honey-drops.

Even the Moon on the horizon follows suit—
ah, the lunar punter rows, sipping the dew like fruit.
Sleeping beauty awakes in the moonlit night,
silver dancing in her eyes, stars burning bright.

The Moon sails down from its celestial height;
The seven seas hum in the cosmos' dark,
Exuberant fireflies pulsing with a starlit spark—
An ultimate sublunary craft,
Gently steering on heaven's path.
Tiny tricksters rock the moonlit boat,
Swaying soft toward that sweet drop afloat.

Poetry in motion, the sea on the ground—
beauty reflected in the Moon’s soft crown.
Storylines leap and dance all around,
painting the winds in colours unbound.
Over the grove, the rhythm rolls on,
raining from heaven on that sweet spot—
singing the sweetest of all title songs.

Never was there a woman—a prophet of God—
but for the primitive woman, the leading lady,
the sharpest cut, above the rest—
she leads the pack, outshines the test.
Sayeedatun Nessa, Queen Fathima.
No secrets Heaven holds—only an open mirror.

The secret is: Fathima touched the bottom of the Earth first,
raising the foundation—building man’s first house to last.
In her elements—pure, motherly, universal,
and uniquely one—lived an otherworldly love.
Womankind scores that only by entering paradise.

“There is no night, only déjà vu moonlight.
The pious homemakers, these veiled tuberoses,
were hidden gems to the sublunary fireflies—
soon to become open moons in heaven’s secret skies.”

The Huris—seventy or more in a mesmerizing array—
draped in splendor, formed of light, timeless in display.
But still, their gaze is drawn in awe, not envy or ploy,
to the one real McCoy:
the small Earth’s women in paradise.

The universe debuts a primitive water dew.
Fathima drops in it her duo of hairs—
lovingly raises a tearful Earth into her velvet lock—
the perfect circle, at the ever-evolving Earth's core,
the only otherworldly matter, there's no more!

All things that ever float on the ocean of creation vanish soon,
but this Earth—the cosmos’ deep mind—is still a bloomer,
lodged on a tangent of the Queen’s otherworldly lock.
It’s her perfectly knotted perfect circle—its science.
She moved the needle at the beauty spot—
enduring art in its subtlest form.
Imparted nature the limitless cutting edge,
so it learns her hardcoded limit—locked in golden ratio knot.
But the breakthrough isn't a far cry with Fathima’s pi;
her infinite sweet escape is tucked away!

Fathima keeps nature in the loop—
a stroke of Allah SWT’s divine AI,
its neurons in deep learning, pre-designed with sacred data,
outpouring through the Output Layer: predictions, futures—
each returning to the past,
to a moment before moments,
when there was only one:
a purposeful, intelligent design.

Boom! Absolutely pure—the Big Bang follows.

Lo! The elementary, pristine water interacts
with Fathima's otherworldly deep black lock.
Now, innate dark energy ignites the bud in bloom.
Nature cracks the first light—grabs the paintbrush.

The rose smiles on Earth, the sun on sky—
building ever more,
treasuring the lucky lock in Earth’s core.

Chorus of the First Dawn
(sung by the nightingales and birds of the first universe)

Before time ticked, before stars sang—
there was water, still and unseen.
Not chaos, but calm. Not void, but waiting.
The origin was not random.
It was her.

Fathima—Allah SWT’s masterstroke,
the paragon form of nature itself.
She did not follow creation.
She caused it.

With a drop of her otherworldly chiaroscuro,
dark energy stirred,
and the universe—
burst into being.

The Queen’s first impression hooks on—
the motionless Earth, in dew, makes the first move.
A polished golden spiral blooms, expanding ever more.
The last thing the sun can’t do: look away.
After the Big Bang—big fireworks—still: Ratqan, a black mole,
thicker than the black moon, gravitates the cosmos!

Walking in the dark ahead of the sun and moonlight,
one step up that shadowed path the Queen cemented on,
perfectly—circle pi-locks—the Earth takes a Ma pause.
Until, God willing, Fathima’s locks finally bottom in,
the long haul of time squeezing out paradise upside—for good.
The heavenly Queen shines the light at the secret end of God.

The planetary ebb and flow move toward heaven—
planet Earth, the only steppingstone.
No matter how many times they try,
there will always be an unturned stone—
until the one, the original woman,
Queen Fathima, steps on.

Dots connect in her presence.
The nadir and the zenith perfectly intersect—
once and for all, mingling in her perfect circle,
without a single gap in the whole.
A pure Scientia scenario:
As above, so below.

Where the Queen stands,
heaven will open its grand door.
No more reverse engineering the original—
God willing, Fathima will step
on the last turned stone.

From the one, the greatest woman,
paradise begins—
from beneath the mother’s foot.
a poet Apr 13
have you ever drank a river?
stretched your lips over it's banks
and ****** everything —
the fishes,
the canoes,
and the boots
that sunk 5 years ago.

I am so thirsty that if I could stretch my mouth
around this planet
and crunch the glaciers,
swallow the oceans,
and breathe in the clouds —

It would not still be enough.

But see what nature did.
It gave me a small mouth
and a mind that believes
that a cupful
is enough.
Neil Coleman Mar 27
I rarely understand,
or, in any case,
I am the last to understand

a stream flows for the first time, trickling up from earth
air, hushed in the still of night,
then puff, a breeze

O' to witness that glorious space in time
a river magically unfolds, alive
wind, from nothing, begins to blow
a flame arises, unbidden
a universe bangs big

our hearts beat as one,
As we fall in love
for the first time

All over again.


njcoleman    march 2025
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