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Julian Delia Mar 2018
PART I – AN EXAMPLE

Mohamed Bouazizi –
A name we should never forget;
The name of a man whose loss
Is one of many we shall forever regret.

He did not want much;
All he wished for was an education,
A proper house, warm to one’s touch,
The right to make a decent living
A humble being, never taking too much yet always giving.

Mohamed Bouazizi
Was a man who never had it easy;
His story profoundly echoes among us all
A tragedy fuelled by greed and corruption.
Put yourself in his shoes –
Fatherless since he was three,
Working since he was ten,
The right for education stolen from him
By his own, cold nation.

It is difficult to understand
What it’s like
To be buried beneath the sand,
Just like that.
Mohamed had to quit school
And support an entire family
Essentially, reduced to a tool
An instrument
For financial gain;
Eventually, he was unable to take the pain
The humiliation
Of having his only means of remuneration
Confiscated and destroyed.

So, incredulous and angry,
All he had was one final attempt at diplomacy,
His penultimate demand to a governor with no soul:
“If you don’t see me, I will burn myself.”
His produce, his vending stall,
His scales – all taken from him, accelerating his fall
Into desperation,
Into deliberate, self-immolation.

Every authority that was supposed to be a protector
Instead acted as a horrifying molester –
Mohamed
Tried every route he could possibly take
A brave explorer confronting snake after snake.
Alas,
He reached his breaking point,
And true to his word,
He set himself on fire –
December 16th, 2010
Was the date when his ire
Could be contained no longer.
Part one of a three-piece poem which begins by honouring the memory of Mohamed Bouazizi. Parts two and three to be uploaded, soon.
SangAndTranen Mar 2018
Get in the car with enough for one night,
Let’s escape this wretched town.
We’ll be gone forever,
Hit the gas, discard our crowns.

Open the roof hatch wide.
Let the rain coat our faces.
Reach towards the silver skies,
Boy, we are going places.

We ride amidst these strangers,
Down the highway at night.
A stream of red as they speed away,
And as they approach, a stream of white.

We live off fast food junk,
Sleeping rough in parking lots,
But we have a spark in our lives
That those back home do not.

See, we weren’t born to be doctors,
Or hold up a perfect test score.
We were born for running,
This world is for us to explore.

“The world is your oyster”
They used to say.
“But stay and do the same things,
Every single day.”

“Don’t be an artist,
Just play it safe,
You might be depressed,
But that is OK.”

We’ll party by night,
and sleep by day.
We might not have the money
To eat today.

But we’ll laugh on empty stomachs,
And call ourselves heathens,
Because we couldn’t be happier,
After all, this is freedom.
A non-depressing poem?! WHAT?! IT IS A MIRACLE!
Helen Raymond Feb 2018
Spinning yet standing still
Everything's a tremble
All the world's a jitter
I long to hold it still

Suddenly a shudder
A chill besets my soul
Silence falls, stark and shrill
As earth and atoms still

Universal chaos
Set a shiver in me
Pleading relentlessly
Demanding infinity from mortality

As my small heart attempts to warm eternity
Isabella Terry Feb 2018
Tonight, we live like kings:
Hijack the prison and break out our dreams;
Kick off our shoes and rip our jeans;
Sing until our lungs burst at the seams.
Tonight, we are wild and free:
We’ll climb up skyscrapers and then ride the breeze
With our broken wings.
Tomorrow we’ll be damaged teens,
But tonight, we live like kings.
Imagine this, but the chorus of a song.
A A Feb 2018
Of Greyhound buses and cigarettes,
Whiskey and champagne.
Belongs to the fringes of society,
If anything.
Polemics as a past-time and books as a spell,
Loved nothing more than to rebel.
Never sober yet always clean,
Short and thin, eyes of evergreen.
Argument and sacrilege,
Living life on the edge.
You say you hate him and his disregard for ethics,
He doesn’t care. Yet he makes a lasting impression.
He won’t jump through hoops if you tell him to, but he will sit and watch others jump through hoops with you.
It is only now I realize he gave it his all.
It is only now I realize he was sincere,
However vain and bafoonishly depraved he may have been.
They say he experienced all the seasons of life.
When I saw him last, he was calm in his casket.
He looked like all possibilities–and roads, both taken and passed–at once.
Chelsea Rae Jan 2018
You might as well call yourself God
Instead of believing in Him.

The way you try to force your way.
You break
and
                     bend me,
trying to make a
"perfect"
mold of your angel child.

I am sorry but I am just not made that way.
I am brittle, I have been forged with fire and this is me.
I am no longer wet clay that your muddy hands can shape.

I am as evil as the devil himself,
at least to you.
I can see it in your eyes.
A fallen angel, not like the other ones you have now.
My fellow siblings with their wings ripped off
because I showed them what it's like to fly.
Can't have them using their own minds.

I may be ****** but no matter what you command,
no matter your petty, useless demands
I am free.
I am my own sculpture.
This is me.
Love being out of my parents house.
I am the disappointing child.
**** your rules and opinions.
Will Jan 2018
It seems we’re the only people lett in this world,
Everyone else left their life to unfurl.
They walk around no better than zombies,
caught up in the so-called “real world”.
They can’t even go diving with their *******
deep in some broad named Millie
from late high school;
But that was when rockabilly was actually a thing.
Now, us young people have a choice,
we can be the same or use our voice,
to speak up when nobody else will,
to rejoice
in the opportunities we have now.

Will you die like the rest?
Criticism is welcome.
TheRiverStyx Dec 2017
Invincible?
Yes you are.
Consequence is like a dream,
it fades away.

The lessons.
Those are what I teach.

As if I truly look after you.

I am what your friends have warned you about.

I will send you walking on glass with bare feet.
I am the animal in you.

Issa rebellion.
Issa wreck.
Issa waste of life.
frankie Nov 2017
The fires burn brightly in her eyes, flames of the revolution hidden behind frosty blue irises

crimson red blood boils inside, a desire to change the current state of the nation causes a rise in body temperature, she is the ultimate power

rage against the way she and all those who are being wrongfully oppressed by a corrupt system that does not deserve the title of justice creates a chaotic master plan for the rebellion that she will be the spark

but in this war machine, I get the greatest sense of what the revolution will be like because I can taste the rebellion in her kiss, dripping off her lips like cinnamon
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