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Zywa Mar 2024
A tangled patchwork,

bits of all kinds of people --


that's how Mumbai was.
Novel "Two Years Eight Months & Twenty-Eight Nights" (which is 1001 nights, 2015, Salman Rushdie), chapter 2, Mr Geronimo

Collection "Low gear"
Spicy Digits Mar 2024
We will burn you.

Your belly is full of power
That is not yours
The collective charge of a millennia of silenced people

Your greed is a starving parasite
In an empty carcass

Today she is rewarded with a diagnosis for her insight
Tomorrow he is fitted with a muzzle for his tenderness

We will burn you.
It's a good time
Hanging with animals,
Because there is no social pressure.
They merely love to live,
That is their pleasure.
There are no missed interpretations,
No alternate agendas;
Alive at nature's leisure
Zywa Jan 2024
I'm a kind of half-

human, there are so many --


others I do need.
Novel "Buitenstaanders" ("Outsiders", 1983, Renate Dorrestein), § 1

Collection "Wean Di"
Zywa Jan 2024
People like to talk

about the required signposts --


but who is going?
Column "Niemand volgt de richtingaanwijzers nog" ("No one follows the signposts anymore", 2024, Stine Jensen), in de NRC van 12 januari 2024

"Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe" and "Simulacres et Simulation" ("For a Critique of the Politicval Economy of the Sign", 1972, and "Simulacra & Simulation", 1981, Jean Baudrillard)

Collection "Actively Passive"
BLD Jan 2024
The sun never rises here, the moon never falls,
despite the nightly intrusion of thoughts
that never seem to expire into the current.

Two birds screech above but I do not listen:
“Our religion is one of love,” they tell me
while they slam the door in my face
to go and vote for a straight man elated
to erase the love I have for nobody but me.

“Church is the only path to Salvation,” he tells me
after a night spent in my hometown bed;
hypocrisy is the root embedded throughout the forest
of Fatherly Love, created only to benefit those
normal enough to write the rules
before anyone else could…
                                                  How convenient.
Our Father makes no mistake
and carefully creates us all,
yet my love is seen as a ******* painted onto
a blank canvas thrown across a rusted floor.

“A genetic error,” say the men who later imagine
the ache of my nails digging deep into
their rugged, tightened backs;
the wedding ring on their finger
refracts the light of the bathroom mirror
as cans of crushed beer pile high
in the trash strewn
on the ground behind them...
                                                  So many frauds.
I live my days on the edge of whitewashed insanity,
yet forever closing my eyes to darkness
is a life I wish not live:
the mothers who birthed us to fade into the grave,
the love they lent evaporating upon expiration,
our fathers who protected us far removed,
their eyes forever closed, their life no more.
I cannot fade into nothing, this I won’t believe…
                                                                                      So hopeless.
The God I love does not punish
those defying the rules He’d always known
would one day be certainly shattered;
He does not make me love men
and sentence me to die in the same command
despite the thousands of hymns I whispered
in the solace of my childhood room.

He does not send men to sleep at night
and force them to question what they feel—
tossing the sour taste into the background,
ignoring the truth of the real me…  
                                                             How cruel.
The God I know made me the way I am
and is proud of me for taking it in stride.

He does not wish to see me change --  
He frowns at the men desiring revenge
on us who wish to be left alone --  
we do not need your opinion,
we do not need your love,
we do not need your thoughts or your prayers,
for the God I love welcomes me with open arms
unlike the multitude of others I no longer remember…
                                                                                          So unimportant.
Francie Lynch Jan 2024
The good ole days were enjoyed with ease,
There was less to enjoy because of disease;
There were fewer people to dress and feed
Thanks to childhood mortality.


The middle-class were few and greedy,
Thanks to needs and poverty;
We could find work and be employed,
But tenure turned to workplace injury.

Illiteracy was common,
Innumeracy, our fate,
Due to the high school drop out rate.

Polio and smallpox kept in check
The burgeoning growth of the unelect.

Minorities knew their social place;
Jim Crow was voting in black face.

Heteros ruled the ****** race,
Alphabet people were an outlier trace.

In summer and winter we were outplayed and beat,
With no Air Conditioning nor Central Heat.

Let's leave the past in the past,
Where history belongs;
Where hunger and sickness
Lasted all life-long,
And the poor and ignorant
Were subdued by the strong.

We can agree times were simpler then,
As time came rushing to an end.
Alphabet people are LGBTQA+
Francis Jan 2024
Men
What makes men manly?

Is it depth in tone,
Is it large in build,
A claim of the throne,
And dominance at will?

Or is it indulgence of temptation,
To be a sovereign of fear and pain,
Using women as *******,
Destruction sought to be obtained?

To reap the feral fruits of life,
To sow the damning consequences,
Causing mourning, loss and worldly strife,
Chaos of man’s expenses.

What causes me to seek it,
What causes me to weep,
How I lack these biological ticks,
That keeps the world apart from sleep.

So what if I’m not big and strong,
So what if I’m not masculine,
So what if I can’t be the cause,
Of humanity’s need of Aspirin?

Put me in a quiet room,
Let me stew and think,
I aim to be the greatest groom,
My life will cease in a blink.

Father, son, holy trinity,
A woman’s man is not for lust,
My love transcends to infinity,
But women’s approval is a must.

Color me short,
Finger me stout,
Characteristics I constantly sort,
What is this all about?

Who cares if I’m not mean and cruel,
Who cares that I’m not suave,
Who cares if I’m not chill and cool,
I’m him whom man should evolve.
I’m soft spoken, considerate, articulate and kind. I’m not a man’s man. I’m just me.
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