Tis now I know
Tis now I can tell
Thinking all in life will glow
Everyday we gnawed in pain
Worry Not She Would Return

Tell Momma life been hard
If ever there was a ray of sunshine
Momma left,
In the land she bore me into
Her Return Unknown

Oloruku, the days of solitude,
the pregnant sky had to give
Each day repeating itself to torment
Sunday, the day not to forget
She Would Return You Said, To The Tent

The child is now a man
Without you there's profusion of sorrow
Though I write, momma i don't know
that which took you away, no return momma
Remember, Remember You Were Once Human.

My friend once told me that being attracted to a girl
Always starts by seeing how pretty she looks.
Eyes glued to curves like it was a math exam.
You won't get it till you've analyzed it.
Thoughts bursting with vivid images of someone
You hardly even know.
Already unraveling the endless possibilities or maybe just the clothes.
Imagining how you would spend time together or even forever.
All of that in just a couple of seconds each time a girl walks by.
Then,
I explain to him,
What I saw was how angelic her voice sounded like.
She sang endlessly as her melody repeats
Uncontrollably in my thoughts to my ears.
How caring she could be even of the slightest of troubles.
Constantly asking me how I was even though
She was starting to annoy me.  
How her kindness would render everyone happiness and comfort.
Her heart full of warmth similar to that of a
Hearth next to a fireplace blazing and flaring not wanting
Anyone to feel like frost icing
How she danced and ambled her way
Through the stage "literally" killing everyone.
How she made me feel joyous even with just her presence.
How she made me realize that the essence of falling in love was not Exactly a bad thing
And how she also made me realize that falling in love was a
Really bad thing,
But above all that, it was how she made me.
Me to who I am.
Only then did I realize,
Oh wow she's really pretty

In Neverland - never to grow old
never to marry that sweetheart
never to have children and grandchildren
nor watch hair thin and grey.

Full of derring-do - more dash than discipline
lanky and loose-limbed they swank and saunter
not like soldiers at all
no doff the cap humility
to the old rules and distant monarchies.

From a newly stolen world
hardly secured or steady with itself
lodged on the edge of a vast continent
clinging to a rim of turquoise blue.

Now cramped
in the pock-holed sores of ancient lands
richly bone-dusted from time to time.

Waiting for the fight to end
to go ‘back home’ ‘over there’
to farms and factories; schools and stations.

Still there - left behind
in the archipelago of cemeteries
as far as Fromelles, Pozieres,
to Bullencourt and Paschendaele
in fields of beetroot and corn,
fields bleeding red with poppies
beside the Menin Road at Ypres
in bluebelled woods of Verdun
in the silt of the Somme
on the plains of Flanders
in the victory graves at Amiens


Monash’s boys - the lost boys
cried for their mothers
begged for water
screamed to die
hung like khaki bundles on the wire.

Commanded by Field Marshalls
who never went to the fields,
who played the numbers game
in a war of bluff and bluster,
who never touched the dirt and slime,
nor waded through the ****** slush
of broken men and boys,
never waist-deep in mud and sinking,
wounded and drowning in that shambles of a war

Wearing dead men’s boots
and shrapnel-holed helmets
tunics and leggings splattered and rotting
with dead men’s blood and brains

Some haunted boys came home
knapsacks full of secret pictures,
old rusty tins crammed with suffering
breast pockets held their grief
wrapped in shroud-shreds.

They brought their duckboard demons
to the world of peace
Gas-choked fretful lungs still brought
the caustic fumes with every breath exhaled
and from every pore the death-sweat of decay.

But most boys were lost boys
lost forever in that no-man’s land
that Neverland of lives unlived.


© M.L.Emmett

Glowing with sadness
Bright with grief
I, was born a hero
I shouldn't leave this world a thief

I was broken and hurting
I didn't want to see you cry
I was filled to the brim with tumors
It was ensured that I would die

So when I see you blubbering
I wonder why you weep
The memories and stories made
Are there for you to keep

Our love it wasn't perfect
And now your heart lay on the floor
But the time in our infinity
Well, I couldn't have asked for more

So instead of staying silent
And laying down to die
Take your heart and leave
Please go, be free
So I may fly into the light

On the eleventh day
Of the eleventh month
At the eleventh hour
Silence rings out loudly
As free people stand
In silent tribute
Heads down
And Chest out proudly

When the silence rules the land
What is inside your head
Are you thinking of those who lived
Are you thinking of the dead
The silence is a moment
To be thankful to be free
To reflect upon the price paid
For the unborn, you, and me

When the silence rules the land
Truly, do what's right
Think of those who aren't here
Those who've gone into the light
Think, would I ever do this
Could I do what these men did
They died as men, as soldiers
When they left, most...still a kid

On the eleventh day
Of the eleventh month
At the eleventh hour
When you stand and wait
Think of all those soldiers
Who passed the pearly gates
Think, of all your treasures
And, think....my life is quite nice
Because freedom isn't free to have
Freedom comes with a high price

I seek your legalized ghost -
fold autumn's changing leaves
into my meagre words
& acorns & chestnuts
the way the starlight
dreams of the winter cold
the mill wheel of ***** Mills
the cafes with their chatter
all the things you can no longer see
& the kitchen radio is blasting ' Queen'
your favorite band with their hit
' Will somebody find me somebody to..'
I switch off at the last word
suddenly, just the way you switched off your life

I let my emotions plague my soul.
I tend to use a tattered heart and tainted words,
watch it convert into poetry. 

Because poetry is not just words of the mind, but a message of being. 
A formation of subconscious memories from one human being to another. 

Poetry allows us to grow, to prosper. 
Sometimes, all you need to hear is a line that makes your heart stop. A reality check that stirs in motivation. 
However, a phrase could stop the heart, let walls break, the earth shake, and tear us into two. 

Poetry is a tool, to be used for better- or for worse- in order to ignite as all one. 

**Poetry is unity.

From the time
When I first met you online
It gave me butterflies; anxiety
To think of when I'd meet you in real life
And when I did, it made me happy
Just to know that you would love me
And in this song, I'll say the same

My heart is warm
I hope it never ends
And I'm glad to have you
As my best friend
You're lovable
In every single way
And if we're far apart
I'll find a way to stay
By your side

Close your eyes
Just take a second of your time
To think back to when we met
We didn't know how far we'd come
But here we are right now
And to think, what we have been through
I'd prefer to say I love you
But I think there's so much more to say

My heart is warm
I hope it never ends
And I'm glad to have you
As my best friend
You're lovable
In every single way
And if we're far apart
I'll find a way to stay
**By your side

The wind cried jasmine and “east,”
Past the muddied waters
Grande
And mass graves tortured
Tamaulipas;
Past the rasps, taunts, tortures,
And gasps bereaved,
So much so and so could I.

Set and to sail,
I could feel the tumbleweed
Sting my toes, with each and every
Bitter step; One more sojourn
And seeking the earliest unknown,
A celestial sort of gallant,
Faceless and opposed,
The awkward, “welcome home.”

Come earlier, come Mexico,
She’d scarred my stomach
With love, a newer sort of sear,
Notarized the scar I still carry
When I drown at five past four
With the deafening scent of
Mescal and torpor
Atop my tongue.

It’s upon hot nights,
Like this very one, that
I imagine the Melons of Reynosa,
Succulent, a summer night, with
Stars stained sorrow, strayed me,
Stayed you, and fled I did,
Taken to bamboo, and forever’d,
The newest resident, “away.”