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Jeremy Betts Jan 30
"I'll be back" threat or promise?
It's always back regardless
"Stay in your own lane"
Player one syndrome inflates the brain
"Have a nice day" not a curse
At the same time "enjoy your next 24" sounds so much worse
"Here's what you're in store for"
Is what you're gonna pay for
"No pain, no gain"
Different levels of insane
"Yo, I got sooo high"
Careful not to get stuck in the sky
"Pick yourself back up"
More often dumb luck
"First things first..."
Then substance and thirst
"Righting a wrong"
Whether right or wrong
"Gotta play to win"
Sometimes a win's a sin
Who has your back, a friend?
Then who stabs it at the end
"What you see is what you get"
Most won't get it
"Face your fear"
Pretend you don't hear
"Live carefree"
Die instantly
"And that's that"
Always the same black cat
"One step forward,
Two steps back" and cornered
"Chase your dreams forever"
A nightmare's a dreams that doesn't fight fair, so no, never

©2024
Ken Pepiton Jul 2021
If Dexter's Parents had not divorced and he had not moved away with his mother,
Who was beautiful as I recall, today would have played out or worked out or turned out
Differently. Very differently, considering that little twist in my six-degrees of separation base pattern
Hapt seventy-years ago, or so,
----
Watch starlings, if you have starlings, or watch congregations of kippers on Netflix.
Their steering is on auto. Do you agree? Then we are in Agreement, which is an odd place to find one's self in the midst of so great a cloud of witnesses.
-----
'e goes a gain a ginning, grinning all the while
Aye, and radioman turned on just
Now listen -Radio Mumbai

I meant, you and I agree schools of sardines and flocks of gulls are all on auto-pilot-propulsion-maintenance programs,
Right?
I thought so. The code in a gnat must be so much more elegant than the vast terabytes of programming in the GPS constrained self-drivers evolving on earth. Gnats never collide and are nearly impossible to hit, unless you have bat tools, which you don't. Nobody wrote that gnat code, right?
Of course not, evidence of programming only appears to be programming, evidence of design only looks like design it's not design. Right? So says Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and all the people so called to win the battle for the minds of **** Sapiens Augmentatious, lest, as the confusion of Babel subsides, those minds should begin to reason together more clearly in light left after the lies standing on men's minds are revealed inferior to what our senses sensationally acknowledge. Whew. Long thought.

I meander, but you do as well. That is how things flow.
Not over immovable objections, around.

One life that was connected to mine in boyhood friendship was severed about half-way through my sixteenth year.
He died. I don't remember how. Alcohol-related, I can imagine. I did not attend the funeral, though some acquaintances did; one of whom was later my lover. She is dead now as well, too late to tell me anything. She had a baby less than a year after I returned from Vietnam, more than nine months later. That is a heavy thought, but not one I think does much good now.

So little of history is noted. So few lives function to trigger generational unctions that devolve into wars against imbalance, iniquity, slavery and death.
Fraternity, Egality, ******* *** the mob all riled-up, burn , baby, burn.
Whole people die in history's whims,
If whims they were.

Rebellions…

Watch the starlings steer through 4-d patterns eternally random,
fueled by bugs they convert to food for the soil itself.
Their life is their work and they do it beautifully. As one.

Can Boeing-Raytheon-L3 et al build a self-propelled, self-refueling drone that can fly at top-speed, maneuvering millimeters in each direction from other self-propelled, self-refueling drones while dropping their payloads without a single friendly-fire crash, ever?

Starlings don't **** on each other.

If war-profiteers could build such things, would you watch such things perform and wonder at the minds that built them, or deny such minds played any role from concept to creation, and ask who authorized development and deployment of such an expensive fertilizer distribution system that fertilizes wild weeds as well as gentled weeds?
Which would you say: "Wow, how did those get made, who paid?" or "Wow, look what billions of years and energy alone can do against absolutely insurmountable odds and impossible physics, with chaos and corruption always on the job?" Holy entropic bad moon.

Are ye not more precious than starlings, or sardines, or gnats. Would a sense pertaining to immediate locational proximity, evident in birds and fish and bugs, not be apparent in Adamkind, at least as a metaphor regarding benefits gained in knowing where you are relative to your own environment, regardless of any sense of personal purpose?

I can see it in the fact that we can agree, for good or ill.

As generations mature and regenerate, might there be patterns in the tumbling of the powerful and the powerless populations. Patterns depicting group or herd preservation by fully mentally equipped populations of mature and maturing Adamkind are detectable. Facts now overflow the cup of knowns. These are those days when knowledge is increasing and increasing and increasing to the point of being a destructive force in tightly closed minds.

Name dropping, rather than restating, Helen Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"(1966), Bertrand Russell, "The Problems with Philosophy"(1912), Pankaj Mishra, "The Age of Anger"(2017).

These three books and some browsing of names and titles the authors drop, have spurred me over the top of a rise I had not seen coming. My path had become gradually uphill without my noticing. I was interested in other things and ignoring notices from my body that oxygen stores were being depleted more rapidly than current inventory of red blood cells and nurse lymphocyte-bots can recycle the quadra-monthly disassembly turnover, H2O stores for sweat heat-dispersal systems and plasma regeneration and digestion of what little remains to be digested are now at "caution, think about stopping" levels. But I saw that from the top I might see to the top of the next rise before I chose the downhill part of my path. The down hill path determines the uphill path.
In the desert, you can see trails marked in many ways, mosses grow in least-heat zones created by angular location relationships with the sun. Breezes whisper into shade puddles by ever slow slight temperature inequilibria shifting some heat to the triggering of my sweat system.

If you were compelled to reason about every step you take in life as if it were your responsibility to regulate and control every function of your flesh vehicle in which you abide in relationship to all around you that you could harm or that could harm you, you would be mad. {mad?} illusion of reality

assumes reality is friendly here. I'm okeh
with that improbability aside,

implied as self explicatory and unfolding life…
examined,
for what its worth in words redeemed may be,
in the future, when this is what they thought,
you think, and I say know,
I thought this,
on a bet. Or an oath, depends on the fret.

Crazy mad, but angry auch. That would be unfair, because you don't know how to do what you are being compelled to do. Reports of persons who can control ****** functions not commonly consciously controlled are easily found. Such persons spend their time so countering the rolling rhythms beat by heart doors slamming shut and swooshing open in response to electricity, that, we, Adamkind, have yet to truly understand. We've no need, that which concerns us was
to be perfected, not by us.

If my use of Adamkind offends you, the reality of my benefits, wrought from my comprehension of my relation to Adam, will likely make me your enemy, in your own mind, not mine.
Ax'em, do they love po' o'hate rich?

Believe one chance in practically infinity of current evolutionary-nontheistic thought being the way things must be, then multiply the number of times you make that bet by the number of insects on earth or even by the number of mitochondria in your kidneys.

Ignoring life's delicate imbalances in light of what can be known today, breaks our minds's ability to agree perfectly. The social dichotomy that seems to arrange adamkind's affairs over eons and eras: rich and poor, have and have not, mean and meek, is ego-driven, self-benefit seeking and not part of the original program.

Contemplate the sweet influences of Pliades, silently questing the truth of hope and matter. There is more power in this stream.

Chapter end.
The future is in BASIC ATTENTION TOKENS. Mental fodder content creators can share in any ads that pay for the attention paid to your work. It is in a neotny of adaptive evolution -- if you pay attention it pays you back for letting AI know what helps more than hurts. Check it out, ats.
So tired and sick of the games you play;
I really hope you're not lying right now...
and if you are, some day you will pay!
You tell me you've fallen asleep, but is
that really the truth beneath the breath
you speak?
Man Apr 2021
on the wall
hung a clock
melting in the day's ire
running toward the ground,
it ran fast sometimes
and occasionally
mind numbingly sluggish

in the washbasin
the rags i wore
soaked in a soapy stillwater
waiting for the wash
that these tired hands
must do

these blemished hands
how they hurt
strained from work
like the oil stains
on his shirt
they are worn
they are torn
and are without comforting
though his resolve is strong
his will is weak
from the havoc wreaked
from a life of low pay
struggling to live
week to week
knowing you deserve better
Amanda Kay Burke Oct 2020
We have imperfections
That is clear to see
There are many subjects
On which opinions disagree

Find ourselves butting stubborn heads
Perhaps the reason why
Is we are both Tauruses
The bull of the zodiac signs

All mixed in conversation
We smile then we glower
One moment words honey sweet
Next sentences sour

But though we sometimes fight
Would not ever trade
In for a different dad
Hope you feel the same

And asking me to change ways
Is only because you care
Wish I could take my habits off
Like clothing I wear

When you look disappointed
Pains me inside
It feels like you don't notice
How hard I tried

It is not easy to make you proud
With the life I live
No matter how you disapprove
Still find a way to forgive

When I was younger remember on drives
You would always stop to get us ice cream
Spoiled me to the point that if not
I would throw a fit and scream

Looking at my younger self
Shake my head and laugh
Wishing I had realized from the start
How fast it flies
This short life we have

When I needed breaks from school
You would allow me to play hookey
Knew staying home one day wouldn't hurt
I would sleep in and chill in my hoodie

When I searched for guidance
Every topic open
Most supportive parents in the world
Inappropriate and outspoken

You may not behave like other dads
More than one occasion forgot
Picking me up from volleyball practice
Hour late pulled in the parking lot

But I would not ask you to change a thing
Love you just the way you are
Scruffy
Honest
Embarrassing
Drinking out a Mason jar

I am lucky I get to call you my father
Might have your fair share of flaws
When it comes to being there for me
Deserve a round of applause

I know if ever needing to seek help
To turn to you without hesitation
Genorosity is unconditional
Beyond all reciprocation

I will not get the chance to pay you back
Think we both know that is true
Best I can do is say "Thank you for everything"
And strive to one day be like you
This one's for you Dad
Poetic T Oct 2020
Cursing like they diamond but
they don't even cut glass..
   Holding wraps of cash, but the top and
bottom be 50's but the rest is the monopoly
that they can't even pay...


They are burning rubber on the expense,
  but they rented, they dent...  
          Paying back on the record company.
You sold 50 thousand but you owe
                                                   a hundred grand.

They ain't going to shoot out you knee caps,
         there just going to gang-**** your voice..
Thinking you original, swallow that pride,
you one of there cash cows,  
           they milking you, can you say Moo!!!
******* around making the milk sour.

They'll just pressure bolt you
lobotomized, on the industry you either overdose,
             or working at KFC..  

Think you had grills now sold off to pay
the rent, the only thing you can afford is
a tin foil grill and you only cooking,
                                                 is burgers...

"Hi sir can I take your order,
Aaron E Sep 2020
We've been given the antennae,
to alert the nearest node in the wave,
with just a calorie of effort.
That's the gift that gives us leverage.

Lifting up to surf the edge,
the valleys fold into the blaze.
A simple word can move the sled,
as time eclipses our transgression

We could travel peaks and valleys
to conclusion for forever,
never once aligning neatly
(*** - for - tat)
with our impressions,

but...

We'd soon subside to find
a signal blinking in the night,
to heave it's burden on our tides,
and help to push us through the next one.

Remember that the signals always there.
It's always pulsing in the echoes.
Surfing waves beneath our vision.
Just remember we can lift it.

When you need it sound a siren.
Float the message to the surface.
All the lessons here can serve us
in a quest to make a difference.
Cherries Miedema Jul 2020
Being understanding kind and nice does not always pay.
Telling yourself over and and over: They must be having a hard day.
Life is unkind and people don't mind.

Usually most people really don't mind unless it's about what they can do.
Life is so unkind and people most of the time are too.
And it makes no sense what they say to me about how they care when a duck dies.
But when a young person becomes homeless nobody cries.
Yet they tell me they think every life is so precious but some people are always fighting.
Trying to do the right thing.

But it doesn't pay.
It's just another hard and terrible day.
Where you have no control and love is impossible to find.
Life is unkind and people don't really mind.
When you've seen it you will find and you can feel it when you see it.
When you've known it and how it can hit.

So then maybe you can understand.
But then it kills you when you give someone a hand.
Because you know in the end you'll have to let go.
You can't, you can't save everybody.
Some people are born to always feel lonely.

Being understanding kind and nice does not always pay.
Telling yourself over and and over: They must be having a hard day.
Life is unkind and people don't mind.

Trying to be understanding and kind.
But nobody seems to understand it is what you'll find.
Loving, understanding, caring, always daring to fight so hard.
For the people you care for, don't fall apart and together try some more.

Holy sea of waves that we're running into.
Holy sea, uncontrollable, terribly hard, incredibly magical, fresh, pretty salty and blue!
It doesn't always pay.
But play.
Play in the water, hold each other.
In the water.
Play in the waves...
04-07-20
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