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Ivan 4d
if ever there was a morning called glory
it'd be an angel's whisper of your name
softly blowing dawn's early dew
onto red orchids

a whisper from above, honoring...

y
o
u
Reece Feb 21
A hero may wear a cape,
But that doesn’t mean they’re Superman,
They all pale in comparison,
Just another human,
Whether a man or a woman,
Their motives hidden behind their ribbons
Trying to make the world a better place.

A hero may preach peace,
But that doesn’t mean they believe it,
Often it’s just about their image.
The war must go on,
Never will everyone be happy,
There’s too much to complain about,
To be ungrateful about,
To not see the beauty of the planet we call home.
The hero may say they are against this complaining,
Yet, you see them in the streets doing the exact same thing.

Never meet your heroes,
You realize how much you inflated their heroics,
When you meet them in person,
You see how, perhaps, they weren’t a hero at all.
They aren’t a villain,
Just not a hero,
Not what you originally believe,
Yet you convinced yourself they were perfect.
Perfection is a losing game.

What makes a hero?
What makes someone noble?
Or have honor?
Or courage?
People love to play these roles,
Put them on like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,
You can always spot a fake,
They just feel disingenuous.
How can you have honor,
And preach your mantra,
Yet cut in the lunch line,
Like you’re better than all of the rest behind you?
That’s not honor!
That’s being a two-faced dishonorable fraud!
Like so many people,
Who wear the “honorable” facade.

I wouldn’t call myself honorable,
I’ve done things I’m not proud of,
Made mistakes I regret,
Have demons in my heart,
Who remind me where I misstep.
I refuse to identify,
As something I’m not,
It makes me feel icky,
Dishonest, and like a fraud.
Who relishes this feeling,
Of lying for qualities they don’t have?
What do you gain?
Recognition?
Fame?
All temporary in the grand scheme of the game.

A hero isn’t pure,
They’ve done things they despise themselves for,
Yet they try their best,
To not make the same mistake again.
They try to make a change,
Instead of complaining!

A hero isn’t good,
Or great,
And certainly not extraordinary,
They’re decent,
Down to earth,
Understanding of their faults,
Yet they push forward anyway.
They try to please people,
Not worth their time,
All in an effort,
To see them smile.
They try to save people,
To far gone to save,
Yet, they try anyway,
For they can’t accept,
That some people can’t be saved,
And are lost in the darkness.

Nobility,
Not kings or queens,
But high standards and ideas,
Yet to be expressed,
They haven’t found the words.
A hero has morals,
One’s that won’t change,
Based on who they talk to,
Their code remains the same.
That’s what takes honor,
That’s what takes strength,
Being yourself despite the gremlins,
And the goblins,
And the orcs,
Being yourself,
No matter who’s watching.
“With integrity and honor,
For people to see.”
Words long forgotten,
In our memories.

Integrity requires honor,
Which requires being noble,
Which goes hand in hand with courage and bravery.
A hero is all of these things,
Combined into a pie,
And though we humans try to replicate the recipe,
We end up exploding the kitchen,
Leaving fallout in our wake.

To me the idea of a hero,
Is more reliable than seeing it in reality,
Someone so honest,
So kind,
Understanding,
And always fighting for what they believe is right.

A villain is a hero,
Just for the other side,
With other motives,
And ways of working things out,
And the hero is the villain to the villain.
Who is right and who is wrong?
The common question.
Often times it’s not so black and white,
Nuances aplenty,
If you open your eyes.
Some are just cruel,
But some have a reason for the heinous actions they do,
Occasionally,
I root for the villain.

We may come close,
But we will never see the perfect hero,
He’s already left.
While we wait,
We can dream,
And aspire to be,
Like Superman.
As the old pledge went,
“When no one else is watching,
It is up to me!”
And so it always will be,
For each of us is the hero in our own story…
Heroes...how we wish we could be them, without fully understanding the struggle or the moral strength it requires.
Vianne Lior Feb 14
Stone lion mourns deep,
etched in grief, yet standing proud,
bravery carved wide.
A lion falls, yet duty stays,
Carved in stone, his honor sways.
For king and cause, they stood, they died,
Their silent valor, petrified.
The Lion of Lucerne stands as a testament to the bravery of the Swiss Guards who gave their lives in 1792, embodying the timeless bond between duty and sacrifice. Its mournful yet proud figure immortalizes their heroism, carved in stone for generations to remember.
Man Feb 13
For any head beneath the crown,
Any hair which the scalp has graced,
Was placed upon there by the Almighty
To give right & honor their divinity
As our King of England, His Majesty.

Long may He reign.

For health & in praise,
We honor our royalty & nobility
And recognize their sovereignty
With zeal & in haste,
We bend the knee happily.

For the success of our kingdom & country,
Who else may we thank?

For our rights & our liberties,
Who else guarantees?

Grateful are we, who share in this hymn,
To have been blessed by the Lord above
For such righteous leadership
And clear-headed soberness.
In the face of our adversaries,
Your strength has never wavered
And your acumen has never wandered.
You have remained ever stalwart,
Always earnest & virtuous.

God-chosen & proven self-evident;
May the sun never set
On you who are worthy.

Long may He reign.
In praise & sincerity.
time forgot
the scars
the words
the open sesame
of my miseries
my contempt
for the irony,
of freely contrived romance

how her lips,
pressed against mine
became the toothed suckling
of her vampiric abandon
the sucrose of my affections and adorations of her
how she fed on my caresses and poetry
how she wounded my soul
bled me out of devotion, mercifully, with adultery
and in the coffin
where I lay
kosher, rigor mortus preserved, for her trophy cabinet
taxidermy of bloodmoon, post-******, post-disenchantment
if the coitus fits, the honeymoon was faked
how she planned it
bottled my tears for a dry day
lubricant for her tryst

for having faked it
so many times,
surely the ink has run dry
surely the letters were forged by faithlessness
my Hancock used,
to certify her authenticity,
against my imagination
the signature of my pleasures,
a wife's knowing,
turned to the devil's archives
my powers
turned to the dark
where my light
illuminated wonders untold
impossible
for a monkey has palms and thumb
but it builds not empires with feces
wherest, withal, man builds forests where monkeys swing

and I sung at her wedding
canary fleeing the coalmine, of debauchery,
"Speak now, or forever hold your peace."

hours ahead, the setting sun,
I spoke, and the world's light dimmed
that I should be beleaguered
20,000 leagues fatigued
taking my meager pay
how many times
can a heart break
beholding infidelity
a woman so treasured
if one should have
20,000 hearts, and 20 souls,
how many times
would the domino effect
produce domino displays
like rivers and waterfalls
seas and skies
mountains and snowfalls
lakes and ponds
oceans and mirages

I sung it all
for never shall I bear peace
in the sight of infidels
for they massacred love
in their ****** of my love
a thousand men took her
willingly, she walked
into the church mass
and let them have their way
to spite my face
to rend my heart open
with joyful, painful *******
and drain my heart of its love
in the pews
for the children's sake
to see the fraud of their father
that my blood be tears
and my tears be blood
I have no quench of my sorrows
I bleed ore
and cry thunders in the bellows of my torment
known never peace have I
though having supped of Nirvana
and forged heavens
from my joys abundant
I have been mad
and wasteful
surely
to weather myriad wicked adulteresses so
and still have peace in my breast
it
surely,
I profess
was never peace, but madness!

SURELY

and so,
that is why
it took time for my heart's breaking
for every ******
and every pulsing
of cave, to womb and back,
the journey of each sacrilege
of innocence
that generations
of children
have been metaphysically unborn

by such a fuckery

that worlds have been destroyed
before spawning from nebula

that lives have been destroyed and saved, both,
before needing salvation
before being endangered

that hope was undone, in need and dream,

that songs were unsung, and sung in their unsinging
before stories wrote their need to be shared
that bards would be unborn
before legends could prophesy this unholy merrymaking
befallen me
and I,
soft of heart and lung
could be drowned
in my keep
with nary a poppy seed
to sate
the breaking of water, in me, soft-hearted I be
that meteors
could shatter the stillnesses
of the surfaces of oceans, tempered as I,
and I,
as ice shattereth
and remain disparate, frozen in time,
I break, and continue, beyond need - beyond agony
beyond warmth that wets the rain to stir from sleep
beyond ice such that tears never dreamt of cold
to neither have walked the sky
such tears are dream itself
but
to dream of cavernous sorrows
mere
to satisfy the torture of things wished to be unknown
what madness could be avoided
though blessed be the avoiding
that there need be sorrows such that hells become heavens
and the devil become deserving of all the hells
due the death of Christ
that lucifer bear the scorn of all sinners
for all time
till time loses meaning
and joy becomes as vapor to lucifer
as vapor is to the vacuum of space
but a pebble in an ocean's wealth of nothing...

Therein, my wrath,
due all my torments, chronic as breath,
that my heart has become a vice
that empathy has become chastity belt
frostbite, my melanin price, cakes my fist
as I behold my gavel,
and judge all the ****** 1000-years before their deaths,
with such wisdoms, my rage knows not end
my fury knows not storms, in universes beholding their eternal gaits,
my fury cannot fathom taming,

that my heartache become a madness
that neither holiness nor love canst quell
save that nothing save me otherwise,
that I become married to,
nay,
that I BECOME love and holiness,
righteousness, too,
that my righteous wrath,
be spared annexation to evil,
that my vengeances be preserved
and mine enemies kept alive
in my everlasting joy
of what punisheth them,
eterally!

That I,
may be born celibate
before knowing my virginity
simply to inquire
ahead of custom and common ontological seeking
query women,
that they do still, without vanity,
utter the word, the sign, the force, the mind, the passion, "LOVE."

let alone perform it, that which it is I say,
a man's privilege to declare that he knoweth love,
and women darest have never had it,
yet they deign gave God's breath to their desires of love,
reified it
believed in it
let alone had faith in themselves that men died for their ******
that marriage be ****** by the succubus in God's heaven!

They'd dare!

take it, from me, in my offering,
that I would love her,
truly,
in earnest
and see her fed of love
as like water
like milk to a babe
or,
should she deign me less than a man
due my will to love her
should she deign herself queen without me,

whenever the moment strikes
she'll dare, on a whim,
part her legs
for any man
declaring himself "King."
though he be a vagrant,
a pauper, a louse, a street urchin,
with gold bullion cascading from his pockets
because I, dared declare, "I love her..."
that she should **** such a lecherous, maggot semened
cuckold of love who would bed her with envy of me
and joy of that envy sated
true joy in his ******* of my wife
for he sold his soul
to bed her
buy her
and found his purchase met faithfully
that he might, unfaithfully
unholily,
amuse her
dwell in her
due the purchase of womanhood
due the market prices many celebrate ****** by,
rather,
due the "Graces", the unlovable, evil, malice
the bloodied, rancid, defiled, arrogant ignorant, so-called
"love" exemplified, demonstrated primarily, of
a djinn, a monster, a fiend, a demon,
a devil, in fact,
so called:

SATAN
Beware infidelity. Beware hate. Beware homosexuality.

Marriage becomes cheap when wives, literally any woman (and/or girl), therefore, can become ****** for any price...

... even her own...

For if ALL who have souls, and can be of soul,
redeemed and otherwise, earned or any such boon,
can defile themselves such,
that their soulmates, in heaven, can watch the madness,
and yet, somehow, while such a person,
man or woman, defiles themselves, and soils the holiness of their souls,
so richly that they've earned hells in the faux-merriments,
can, again in the midst of such a savagery of hell,
EXPECT to remain one's soulmate, though thou watchest FROM heaven,
how can one, in heaven, expect, rightfully and knowingly, to be married
to such a *****, a giggolo, a succubus, an incubus,
when better that hell be fed
than thou be wed
to such a demon
and therein with lucifer
may she, and he, and whomever else was of the ****
be cast into that eternal deep
to be of that eternal hell's keep
and weep
and sleep not ever again a peep
not a peep would such a holy husband, or wife,
need hear of their soiled "love one"
or, "significant other" whatever phrase sates the asylum-deserved
that roam the world these days,
except to know, due that holy spouse's need of peace be found
that their "loved one" know not pleasure
ever again
except to learn, and known omnisciently,
perfectly away from experience, even potential,
that it will never be given them, due them,
ever again,
such that the impetus of change, and remisison of sins
be absolute, nonnegotiable, and past argument,
such that any denial of the need for hell for such a person of denial of their sins, or any unholy reprisal, of their behalf,
be an immediate penalty of 1000 years of torture PER infraction,
for if we are immortal. eternal beings,
1000 years of hell, per adulterous, orgiastic ****, should be more than enough to sate whatever rage is due them,
let anyone, who'd be enraged at such an adulterous spouse,
be laughably and amateurly "accused" of spousal abuse!

If they be in hell, and "complain" of abuse, due the judgment wrought,
such that they literally interned themselves,
but claim they were deceived,
what then, should we say of abuse, if it be adultery that we,
who are scorned, should be under the perpetual threat of,
such that the very concepts of marriage
soulmates, love, commitment, virginity, celibacy,
honeymoons, consummations, "first loves",
first-times, second-times, third-times,
anniversaries, mothers- and fathers-in-law,
and all manner pleasureful trifles
such as puppy love, young love,
sweet 16s, and more than the like
be taken over by,

"First *******!" "First ******* for my teenage daughter."
And all other kinds of unholy ******* that adultery is merely the gateway to?!

Who would DARE bear the threat of adultery then?!
LEt alone such a spouse who, due her spiteful will,
like a petulant teenager, went to a *******, in protest,
due to having her "request", under pain of "being nice"
therefore asking first, to go TO the ******* ANYWAY,
(due it, her "request", therefore, of her husband, being denied)
she took it upon herself to go ANYWAY,
because how dare her husband deny her 30 ***** when she's tired of his one
average pecker?

The GALL of him! (Sarcasm, of couse...)

So, yes, to hell with her (LITERALLY), and every gent who thought himself lucky to have her, while also knowing I exist, regardless.

That nothing of innocence be protected?
That WARS be fought, over marriage fidelity?
Really? Something so simple?
To hell with all who doth protest.
SIMPLY!
This has all happened before
And will all happen again
Learn from the past we are taught
But the same mistakes made, lessons ignored.
The hate of humanity stings
No common ground found
Yet brothers and sisters we are
Lives taken, persons slandered
Ideology trumps common sense
There is no love, no understanding
Centuries of hate, coveting what the other has
Demonizing beliefs because they are different
No filters, just hurtful words
No compassion, only disdain
No understanding, just demands
No helping, only greed
No forward-thinking, only the here-and-now
Humanity is doomed
Repeating the same mistakes
Unable to break the cycle
This has all happened before
And is happening again
I actually wrote this in the late 1990's before I had children.  And the cycle seems to never end, but only get repeated and worse.  I re-wrote this after news of Syria and Ukraine.
I am not one to play politics, repeat the pundit's rhetoric whether true or false.  I am but an observer - a watcher.  My days of combat are behind me, and yet I cannot turn on the news, follow social media, visit the store without seeing the continued insanity prevail.   and where we are doing it again.
Whirling of blades, clouds of dust
Screaming, suffering, litters of men
Crimson covered deck
Water of red flushing
Rinsing away the horrors of man
His uniform is ***** and wreaks
Dirt that isn’t dirt
He stumbles into the showers
Dazed in a trance, shock
Dropping his rifle, pistol falling to the ground
Standing under the cold rain
Dust and dirt, wash away
Water of crimson
Mud that isn’t mud
Guilt so heavy, he cannot breathe
Death all around him,
Yet he lives Why?
Brothers and sisters, gone
Yet he remains, why?
Guilt overwhelming
Pain, searing pain.
Yet he lives.
Unworthy, full of guilt
Crumped in the shower
Unworthy
He weeps for the fallen
Written as a cathartic outlet - therapy.  Operation Desert Storm - Battle of al-Khafji
Red dress, modern cut, a nod to tradition.
Not gaudy, not simple, a balance found.
Her hand, offered, a father's blessing unspoken.
Pride mixed with sorrow, a future he won't see.
Love, honor, cherish, the groom's vow, a solemn oath.
Protection promised, a father's final duty.

Tears fall freely, a river of emotions.
Vows exchanged, a seal on a lifetime's journey.
The kiss, a declaration, a new chapter begins.
Then, a flutter, a swarm of butterflies descends.

One lands on her nose, a Blue-Spotted Crow, rare and bold.
Wings unfurl, a vibrant blue against her pale skin.
A message, a whisper, a father's presence felt.
She raises a finger, the butterfly shifts its perch.

A silent conversation, a daughter's tribute.
Prosperity whispered, protection assured.
Love remains, eternal, a bond unbreakable.
The Blue-Spotted Crow, a constant, enduring reminder.

The gesture, her father,
The promise, prosperity,
The honor, protection,
The Love, forever.
The Lunar New Year, and my dream last night was poignantly clear.  I had listened to my love, what she wants on our wedding day.  Ties to culture, but embracing the modern..... this dream was so vivid.
And at that moment, butterflies.  I had to sketch what I saw when I woke.
In the Chinese culture, butterflies at a wedding are special, but also spiritual in some beliefs of loved ones revisiting our plain, to offer their love and well wishes to those left behind.
Hell, it may hold some truth, or could be me losing my mind.
Either way, it was a nice dream, and spurred this poem above.
Enjoy.
The cadence of the drill sergeant, a ghost in the present,
echoes in the rhythm of my pen.
Discipline forged in the crucible of steel,
now fuels the fire of my art.
The enemy then, the fear, the loss,
a distant memory, yet the weight of loyalty remains.

My love, an artist, paints with colors I cannot name,
capturing the essence of the soul,
a symphony of emotions, a dance of light and shadow.
She is the muse, the inspiration,
the reason this heart still beats with a fierce, protective rhythm.

The scars run deep, both physical and unseen,
reminders of battles fought and won.
But the greatest battle, the one that truly matters,
is the fight for her, for our love.
This fragile, precious bloom,
deserves the fiercest protection.

The Marine within, dormant yet ever-present,
would rise, a silent guardian,
against any threat, any darkness that dares to touch her.
His loyalty, once sworn to the Corps,
now belongs to her,
a love that transcends all boundaries.

In the quiet moments, when the world fades away,
I see her eyes, reflecting the stars,
a universe of emotions, a love that knows no bounds.
And in that reflection, I find my strength,
a renewed sense of purpose,
a love that would die for her, a thousand times over.

The poet and the Marine, two sides of the same coin,
bound by a love that defies definition.
A love that heals, that inspires,
that gives life new meaning.
And in that love, I find my peace,
a solace that surpasses all understanding.
I wrote this as a testament to my love.  The old Marine in me isn't gone, just dormant, and I will fight for her to the end, because of the love.  In the end, isn't that what we are all fighting for?
In memory of the fallen heroes, I stand
A US Marine who bore witness to war's hand
Bravery and sacrifice, are etched in my mind
As I carry the weight of the ones left behind

Medals shine brightly on my chest
But they feel heavy, a constant test
For I did not earn them, not truly
The real heroes are gone, so unruly

Gallantry, Valor, Honor, Hero
These words now feel so hollow
For it was my brothers who truly deserved
To be honored, respected, and preserved

I fought in battles afar, and I survived
While they lay on the battlefield, deprived
Of the chance to come back home
To their families, where they truly belong

I am unworthy of these accolades
For I live, while they lie in their graves
Their memory lives on in my heart
As I carry their legacy, I am never apart

So here lies a US Marine
Proud to have served, yet still unseen
For the real heroes are the ones who fell
Amid the battle, where they dwelled

Rest in peace, my brothers in arms
For you are the true heroes, with all your charms
I will never forget the sacrifices you made
And I will honor you, until my final day.
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