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Jeremy Betts Nov 12
****** if I do
****** if I don't
So congratulations
You win
I won't

©2024
Ken Pepiton Oct 26
Spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

On the morning
of March 16, 1968, American soldiers
from "C" Company came
into the village of My Lai…
-Conti's testimony, he stayed
Second tour he got arrested,
he was an armorer for First Cav,
I know a guy who knew him
when he got arrested, on duty.
About 1970, before Cambodia.
Back at the itch to think about 1968
from 16 MAR 68,
spooky was a DC3 with six miniguns,
spending nickles by the ton.
spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

The next day, these toes
on the end
of me,
touched the tarmac
at Bien Hoa, beginning this memory
of instants, impressionistic
at best, something like YouTube shorts
taken
from chronological context
to fit the news between ads
for aging related aches and pains past
and present.
mehr spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

In my 20 year old self,
in quest of lines showing duty done,
on my political career Résumé of fitness
to lead, to  me being mentored by Newt,
in American History, as he saw it, true,
Newt forsaw the EMP threat, and
scored an audience of told yous,
proud to have learned bullet
making after school… at the NRA clubhouse.
und mehr//
-ping ping ping

Triumphs and Indians, ' never saw a flathead Harley
until the summer of 1969, I saw the wreck, a Harley
wrung young Jimmie Hudgins neck, and he lived,
but he never went with us who did, and came back
as different as night and day, other people,
through and through,
truly on another trail, beyond the reason used in war.
fur spukhafte Fernwirkung
we took to spirit warring, with quarks
on our side, holding this thought

Pop, we inhabit bubbles as big as we imagine.
I long believed we live in bubbles of all we know.

I was wrong.
Become unmazed, unentangled, literally
free to define what you leave be true,
testy, feisty, wanna fight?
Or phuckaround with physics and spells,

Hallowed has meaning, yet, amen?

Even odds, live to the end…

Revelation
See, I had been infected,
seeing as I held
memories and lines,
I took for testimony Stephen Crane
put to ink, made me link that
now, not then, to a canvas,
Ms. Butler's Roll Call,
any
one approaching
the age where children are taken for war,

National Religio Significado duty accepted
as each pledged aliegiance, under God,
or else the communist spectre
brought unspeakable
horrors of HIROSHIMA!

Downwinder's loved to watch the flashes
- line on  crypto classification;
- subject locus south of river
On my DD 214, I was eligible to live on
Partaking of Largesse I earned by being
still alive and secretly, something
of National Pride Proving Passage right,
my nation, now,
pays me to breathe,
and learn until I die or ever happens,
Popt to your situation, reading
not involved,
after all
way beyond ever
after that revelation,

this is it, we did not die, nowhat,
Put on this mind, think these words,
you are you at last phaze myelination,
or your signals are phading,
but we got clear text 5 by 5, read on
seem
a survivor
of a specified exposure
to war,
a year, was deemed enough, and enough
to share
on circumstantial instances
when you think
okeh, what good could I do if
I accepted the truth
of the tree
of knowledge teaching only permanently

through experience passed through
and seen from this side… so then

I freely say, I know, what this is…
my life's cache of idle words, accounted for,
and activated
wise decision weighs against luck,
choosing liberal arts and sciences
to become a force made right
by the blood of Jesus to fight
any enemy
so declared,
by God's local employees
and the men He arranged
to be shaped
into wielders o
f carnal weapons, so awesome
cost for the risk not taken
2024 chances, short odds
of the answering invention's wise domain
above all answering witty inventions used

- to blow our little holy relics to dust

to make boys believe there is glory
found in fighting
for Nobel aspirations,
for asking noble questions, much glory
-+- does peace made
with words earn,
to deal with
all ra' adversity to intricately, functionally
beautiful towb be left to become the message.

God's chosen Nation's policy of people use.

{https://www.rct.uk/collection/405915/the-roll-call}
As Stephen Crane has been said to have said:
They come, I write them, that's all they mean until you read them
Stephen Crane
. In terms of style and inclinations, he borrowed from many categories but settled on none; he was a Romantic, an impressionist, a Symbolist, a naturalist, a realist, a Modernist.

oeuvre or opera,
operational patterns impressing
conscientious objects indelibly,
meme grit destined to be teardrop pearls.

A Man Said to the Universe

By Stephen Crane
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

In the Desert

By Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, *******,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

Source: Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2004)
Anais Vionet Oct 23
life happens.
It’s fall, it’s midterms
It’s election time.

New Haven’s giving a lot of fall.
I’ve been starting to feel the chills,
but things are turning cold and extra breezy,
so it all maks sense.

The good and bad can coexist closely,
is our energy dropping? Nope.

Whenever I think of voting,
I go back to American Idol.
My first voting experience.
It was 2009 and I was 14.
I was into Adam Lambert.
he didn’t win, and sure, I felt
a child's appreciable sense of outrage
millions and millions of us did
but we didn’t storm FOX Network
We cried into pillows and took it in stride.
Now Adam sings with Queen.
So I guess it worked out.
.
.
Songs for this
​​Bohemian Rhapsody by Adam Lambert
Do It Again (feat. Carolyn Leonhart & Robert Smith) by The Juju Orchestra
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge: 10/19/24
Appreciable = things that can be perceived or measured.
kokoro Oct 23
All I can think about is what I lost.
What I lost before,
What I lost in the process,
What I will loose after.
Winning doesn't count when you're consumed by your loss.
Ylzm Aug 8
Picking one from many fools who ran for a small price
Tempted with morsels, contemptible as the beasts
Gullibly proud of unshakeable beliefs pleasing the ears
Snared they shall to slave that my free will shall be
Jeremy Betts Jun 19
I don't feel at home
In my own skin
I run from ghosts
I do not believe in
To live and love
Has not been win win
I'll have to hang upside down
The next time you ask me to grin

©2024
Jeremy Betts May 14
Pain affects immediately, sticks around indefinitely
The headcount is up to sixty over infinity
And right around the corner is another three
Meaning it's always in the vicinity
And every type lands just a smidge differently
This feels like what I might imagine to be purgatory
Woe is me
My future will be winless if I'm too stay in the business of learning from my history
The bell to start the fight indicates the end, just prematurely
Loosing in a victory, contradictory absurdity mentioned literally,
All ***** nilly
As I'm sure you can imagine, maybe even probably agree
Somethin' like that is bound to change the complexion of a personality
I know personally
I'd hoped good days would roll in gradually, at least eventually
Instead they taunt relentlessly
It's with a heavy, often broken, heart I go in and defend half heartedly
Enjoying the savagery, a familiarity that relaxes me
But positions me next to the poisons amidst the pageantry
In the direct line of sight of my worst enemy
Me looking back at me directly
"You're talking to yourself again Jeremy..."
...shiit, sorry

©2024
Alan S Bailey Mar 29
So you want to lead me, "us all," to the "truth,"
That there is no excuse and that every day
We need instantaneous "failure proof,"
But I know what you are, you can't hide.
You've taken so many to an early
Retirement already with your "sane" logic.
Please give me a moment so I can find out
What it's like to be on the
"Winning side,"
While I sit here, head reeling,
Strangers passing around at every turn on
This city street, completely and entirely aware
About it all and don't want to let you just
Simply pass for normal. It's like this feet that you must commit
To, I'm a victim of your shameless charade,
Lucky me, I am the bad one who has to get out of the car.
That every thing I have ever accomplished means
Absolutely nothing
-NO MATTER WHAT-
Simply because it isn't
Popular...
George Krokos Oct 2023
Even if it's heads or tails
either side You always win.
Your own system never fails
ev'rything else wears out thin.
____
From 'The Quatrains' - #629, ongoing writings since the early '90's.
Khadijat Bello Apr 2023
The street is swapped with bodies
Young, old and grey
A sea of strength and weakness
Soft, eager and fragile

These streets are filled with vehicles
3-wheels, cars and motorcycles
Vast need for speed with myriad speedometers
A different sense of focus, smothers!

Our focus is just to hustle
Be a cobbler, doctor or apostle
Variants of professions, you just have to shuffle
Not the best serenity, man just settles

We focus on vanity,
I wonder if we check deep within
The goal is to reach the top.
We often forget the master of the race herein

We lose our hearts to the matrix
Most times we even forget the margin
The apocalypse is yet to come
Yet we forget, it's most catastrophic

Have You looked within?
What are you yet to see
Is it the future you seek
Or deed incomplete?

Did you notice how much rest you need?
Or how anti-social you have been.
How much you seized to live though Alive
Have you noticed how badly you lost to Hustle?
How much do you hustle for? And what does it mean to you.  The end of the poem, is a question only you can answer.
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