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Written: 1/14/2025

It's the miserable life of a depressed hypochondriac.
15 years and the shadow hands stretch
out to torment me.
I was in bed crying out to God, this is my
suffering on a plate with abundance.

I feel like my soul is sick.
The thought came to mind while sobbing:
"This is a dark night".
Men who'll pay in the end don't care about sick souls.
As long as they have sports, food, *** & comfort
they'll gladly walk to hell.

Last Thursday I just walked around my apartment
all day trying to sleep to no avail.
Here's to the open page being the best and worst of my grips;
I need another part time job because I can't be
left alone with my thoughts anymore.

Repeating to Yahweh anything I could think of then
once the tears stopped I remembered why I hate praying quietly.
I see the cracks in my rage and run off from
a vivid life of black ashes.
Pulled the covers up and stopped moving in the cold stillness.

I guess these are the notes of a scoundrel but it
can't stay this way, I have to stand face to face with my fear.
It's like one of those antidepressants where going cold turkey
causes pacing in the backyard for a year straight.
Back and forth, back and forth.
A poem about praying at night © Jan 31, Sean C. Stucki   slice • of • life
Be an activist.
Pray in an active voice,
to an active God.
The Psalms use the active voice to a God of action.
Father, am I your strongest soldier?
Father, I am unclean
Father, will you wash me?
Father, please save me
so you write a lot,
pouring entire waking existences,
current n' prior,
into a long and crafted 'pistles,
and pixels

and you got jive pride
and then, the poem,
you worked so hard for,
ups and dies
gets a few middling fingers of reads,
dying on a vining of
Juliet's pseudo poisoning elixir,
no big deal, happens all the time

but here's what's wielding & weirdly wilding:

A poetpourri.
of newly found co-inhabitors,
from around the universe,
from places unpronounceable,
unlike Venus & Mars, (very poet-popular)
and from previously places were
never or seldom was heard a
discouraging word, igniting a
rewarded mutuality of a
following up embracing


par example;

Tirunelveli
Poland
Lisbon
Cyprus
Bihar
Uruguay
Ankara
Vienna
Albania
Tanzania
India
Bangladesh
New Zealand/Australia
Soldotna (Alaska)
plus Texas, West Va., Ohio, and other exotica, like
Nowhere

what a blessing!

Blessed art Thou o Lord,
that permits the miracle that my integers
of 0 & 1
can be translated into such
varied exotica, in harmony,
thus permitting this discovery of
never visited oceans and landfalls
of poetry never heretofore to join as
one.

Aman.

<>
nml
i poured half a grand
down the sink,
watched the bottles bleed
their amber and ruby
in the drain.
a sacrifice —
a promise
after a thousand lies
dressed in shame.

my world hears detox:
lemon water,
fizzy drinks.
not my veins
beating to break free,
clawing closer
to a single drop.

my husband says
i’m not what i think i am —
because i can stop.

as if stopping
wasn’t a war every night,
prayers whispered to a god
i’m yet to find.

but there’s a circle
where i can admit:
hi.
i’m an alcoholic.

in the half-light
their voices don’t press me
for whys,
or ask when i slip.
they don’t judge
when i wake again
struggling to hold
my coffee,
hands shaking.

i swore not to give it
any more room.
but i still speak of it,
and carry its shadow
to my secret crowd.

no one should be alone
when entering the fight.
this one is about the fight i write about, but never speak of.
Johnson Oyeniran Feb 2021
-A Psalm Of Johnson Oyeniran

Heavenly Father please rescue me with your mighty strong  right hand,

For my enemies which surround me are as numerous as sand.

Hatred has blinded their eyes and pettiness has tainted their mind,

Of all the people to tread your earth, they are the worst of mankind.

Oh Yahweh, you have said vengeance belongs to you and you alone,

So let not your servant be put to shame, strike them right to the bone!

Amen
More than the breath of a sigh —
I shut the front door, draw the curtains of my eyes,
turning toward a long prayer, and hoping for a sign.
I sign my name on a sigh, to dot myself in doubts;
quietly trying to align the stanzas of my life onto
these right lines.

For someone's booming voice rising in prayer;
you lift yourself as a public speaker, while I hide
my own voice in a speaker box, in the back of my car —
playing the music of these dreams only you can hear.

While the sunlight sinks into my skin, inhabiting me
like a parable. I live inside the story of another mystery,
a hidden teaching I pray I’m not just listening to, but also
one I'm slowly becoming.

We are creatures chasing the simplest endeavours —
where lovers fuse together when they find their spark,
to blow a fuse when nerves are frayed, and ride the same
fuse that carries a car forward; an engine humming with fire.

To love more than skin and bones,
to write the story of our lives — immense enough
to bring me to tears, where the full plotline goes unseen,
yet I pray to God I can at least follow all my lines.

And in all of it, this is a feeling of being alive.
Ellen Joyce Jun 2013
And she takes the book waiting on the shelf,
smelling of milk, toothpaste and goodnight kisses,
it's pages cracked, worn thin with birthday wishes,
wearing wrinkles wizened by the layers of fingerprints
that traced the silk of mama's voice on every word.

She turns to find him all tucked up in bed,
head cushioned by a mop of curly hair,
arms clutching tight a tattered teddy bear.
His sleepy eyes draw her to his side
and she leans in another once upon a time.

Her voice kisses the curve of every word,
calling to life a world she has to see,
moulding reality to what it ought to be;
a place with swings, slides and just five minutes more ,
sighs breathed to birth a need held deep inside.

A land where all the games are fair,
with candy houses but no cavities in sight,
where all evil is banished by the light.
The winds of time are soothed and still
listening to the clicks of a clock that never stops ticking.

Her child's eyes flutter to dance in dreams of his own
and the bedtime lies shatter behind her eyes.
It's not her son longing for a land where no one dies.
Children are borne of pixie dust and shooting stars
to a world of wonder built for each alone .

Once upon a time is a prayer whispered by mama's at night
to restrain the hurts and horrors of the earth
with the soul wrenching fear she's felt since she gave birth.
See she has to believe in forever and a day
for her love for her son is growing all the while.

She has to believe in love and life and laughter.
She has to hold close the hope of
happily
ever
after.
Ellen Joyce Jul 14
You reached out your hand
I gave you an onion set -
Grubby and crisp,
torn from the land.
You cradled it in your arms and
though it’s layers stung, sang a quiet lament.
Gnarled and wild, its roots tangled,
mining salt, a sweeter scent.

Dirt smeared your palms
but you held tight, singing psalms
planting it in God’s rich earth,
patiently guiding it skyward when it slid back-
And it slid so often its sprouts screamed
as the maggots came forth, split at the seams.

Some days you came with parsley
Others with meaningful song -
Teaching green shoots to dance in the wind,
bask in the Son, trust in the Father, stay strong.
Praying the roots to anchor in tight
Chasing out darkness with glorious light.

I reached out my hand
She gave me an onion set -
grubby and crisp,
torn from the land.
I cradled it in my arms and
knew just what to do -
heart fixed on the Lord,
I whispered “Jesus loves you”.
For my spiritual mother who led me to the Lord, built safe foundations and loved me when I gave her every reason not to and prayed for me relentlessly and faithfully though I have given her too many reasons to pray. I can do what I do for others, in large part because of you.
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