#courtesy
They wish you well, but not free.
Soft smiles mask chains invisibly tied.
Their kindness blooms with serrated grace, Yet flowers of venom thread their lace.
Your mind, a lantern in their storm,
Mocking the dark with quiet form.
You hear their clap, a hollow sound.
Your laughter soared where none were bound.
Sep 17, 2025
Sep 17, 2025 at 2:47 AM UTC
Why isn’t **** you” a complement?
I mean, when “Thank you” isn’t enough?
You get a great meal and fantastic service at a restaurant.
You leave a nice tip and as you leave, you add, a waving,
cheerful **** you!” Which says it all.
You have your car repaired, it cost ½ the estimate -
you’re thrilled - and as you view the bill, you grin
and say, **** YOU!” The mechanic smiles
proudly and says, “You’re welcome!”
You’re at work and your boss says that you’re getting a raise.
You say, **** you!” And you mean it.
***** laughs and says, “Right back at ya!”
Isn’t getting ****** - at the right place, with the right
someone, one of life’s elysian pleasures? I mean honestly.
It should be up there with ‘God bless you.”
**** you’ should be a standard courtesy expression,
there should be Hallmark **** you' cards,
with happy faces on them.
Jan 20, 2024
Jan 20, 2024 at 7:54 PM UTC
When attributes like courtesy seem insincere, what ails me?
The litany of my words drowns out all others.
My words are for me, not necessarily the reader.
This voyage I was on by myself.
Who invited the entourage?
Affection and love have no existence here, He says.
This is the arena of insight, not imitation, He declares.
The truly righteous know that sincerity is the king of courtesy.
O Hashem, stop my words, stop my attributes, for evil awoke me four hours ago on this mat, and I know that that soul awaits truth.
I have 1st world problems in a city of Ahriman.
Will I be despondent enough to know their pain?
Or will their plight spark my vanity again?
Sometimes silence exalts the downtrodden in the head of those who have had it easy.
If your heart be so far away, how can I come to thee through small talk?
There must be something true to you that would ignite the fire of Hashem.
Feb 4, 2021
Feb 4, 2021 at 5:05 PM UTC
Common courtesy
thanks your comments are highly
appreciated:)))
Aug 4, 2020
Aug 4, 2020 at 2:18 PM UTC
Nella faccia del Senso e di Tutte Le Cose, come davanti al Nascimiento o alla Morte, si risolvono le domande
ed anche noi con tutti i nuostri miraggi: siamo prima di tutto gli stessi bebé, impotenti,
incapabili di vincere tutto
solamente con la raggione,
deboli come porcellana che neghiamo.
I bebé che fanno lo stesso:
sognano,
piangiano,
provano di capire,
suffrono,
osano,
amano
e passano così veloce
ed invisibilemente
come cenere.
Saremo tutti giudicati
e valorati
nello stesso modo
nell’equilibrio
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 7:33 PM UTC
Dirigirse hacia alguien
con su propio nombre
es la prueba del respecto más grande
que lo de usar todos esos títulos
formales e innecesarios,
como que enfocamos el otro ser
como una persona de verdad
y de carne, hueso y alma.
Aclamamos su identidad, intimidad,
que existe tan dolorosamente en realidad con todas las sensaciones
como cualquier otra persona.
A la vez la desnudamos y saludamos,
con un coraje calmo
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 7:28 PM UTC
Because you assumed.
That I was willing to give.
That I was able to give.
That I had anything to give.
Because you made the choice,
of self-sacrifice for me.
I am upset because
you didn't even think
to ask first.
Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
Circa Holy Roman Empire
between ninth
and thirteenth century
after common era
(approximately 800 AD and 1200 AD)
benchmark year 780 bracketed
Benedictine monks
of Corbie Abbey
devised cheeky guttural lingual rapartee
vis a vis European
calligraphic standard script inked lined
writ via extant Irish and English monastic
members nsync
strong influence of Irish literati
eased communication
popular Latin cognoscenti
common lingua franca
spawned Carolingian Renaissance
Codices, pagan and Christian text
plus educational material
written viz Carolingian minuscule
Emperor Charlemagne issued prescription
(hence named Carolingian)
boosted unified modus operandi
he advocated learning,
though somewhat illiterate
recognized value of education
predicated on singular
codified regional alphabet,
the then webbed wide world
linkedin, sans uniform symbolic shapes
uncontested salient advantage
offered up ease to master
clear distinct explicit letter formation
simple logic boosted
rapidly transmitted standardization,
especially with exceptional legible
readable characteristic
adequate spaces between words
Merovingian "chancery hand"
still reserved to draft traditional charters
Gothic and Anglo Saxon
favored traditional local script
as opposed to Latin
learning latter involved less tricked out
embellished flourishes
or interconnected strokes
drawn by a scribe
allowing, enabling, and providing
greater popularity to teach masses,
latent etymological nuances apparent
centuries following implementation
quasi initial Carolingian letters
steadfast, where Carolingian
influence moats strong
adopted local stylistic signature flavor
divergence woke since proliferation
stoking diffuse prospects
decreeing entrenched footing,
where auspices boded prescient
until groundswell didst surcease
sub limb mated into modern patois.
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 7:39 PM UTC
So,
This is the way we leave today?
I hoped and prayed and called God to say,
It's okay.
So,
Today,
I walked past your father and he didn't even look me in the eyes.
I don't want to be friends.
I just want to make amends and leave the past behind,
But this?
Why?
Is this the legacy I left behind?
I've done nothing but show respect.
Now,
I don't regret but I have to admit,
I didn't expect this.
I've got to say I'm sad and disappointed,
That His words anointed go unspoken.
One could say it's true,
"Do unto others as you wish others to do unto you."
I'd almost say it's religious,
I don't think it's ridiculous to ask,
Take off your masks.
It's a new day.
We don't have to act this way.
~Robert van Lingen
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 8:21 PM UTC
In Love,
There is no loss
Both win
Ladies first
This way
Please.
-
Mar 17, 2018
Mar 17, 2018 at 4:51 AM UTC
Common courtesy is a dinosaur
be it a vegetarian or an omnivore,
common courtesy is a dinosaur
extinct and forgotten,
never to live on Pangea ever again
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 8:54 AM UTC
We tell everyone lies they want to hear,
Translucent guns are waved from face to face.
We say “It’s nice to meet you” out of fear,
of being ****** and marked to be erased.
The sociable are given gifts of gold,
While loners rot in cages made of words.
All your expressions need to be controlled,
If your wish is to live among the birds.
We strive to be the people that we hate,
Jealousy turns our heart into a stone.
We claw with nails and teeth on iron gates,
we built ourselves and choose to leave alone.
Emotions build behind a mask of clay,
and masks explode on those whom we betray.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 12:54 PM UTC
Hello morning, I have anticipated you since
I awoke to the small barking dog's tailored speak for food.
I want that Eddie should start preparing her own meals. I know that while I smoke this morning's cigarette, that French Bulldog inside contemplates the fifty dollar bag of high-grade kibble she has pushed me to buy her or instead enjoying her own **** And all of my wives friends call her a lady.
I want to ride alone in our FJ Cruiser through Yellowstone at dawn, before the predators have gone to bed and the tourists make their queues, I want to beat morning until I have found the wolves, and the sun rise mocks me as I sit four hours in traffic for a cup of coffee as I round the shivering peaks of our Rocky Mountain backyard landscape, and the Tetons swell with last nights snow-fall and the warm autumn air sends plumes of frigid mist above the valley floor and into the skies above Jackson.
And I wish I could stand once more on the balcony of the 777 building and smoke the finest sativas with my friend Turtle while our significant others drink coffees and watch reruns of American Gladiators on a $14,000 couch waiting for us to come back inside.
I wish I could wait on the benches outside baggage claim at San Francisco International Airport smoking inside the white lines, waiting for a girl in a red sports car to pick me up and my friend Guy's absurd faces there to greet me amidst the fog and the out of place palm trees Inevwr expected to see so far North.
And it would be great to hear my grandfather play the ukulele once more while I excitedly fished off of my grandparents dock somewhere in New Jersey where my mother's accent insists she grew up. And my grandfather sings horrifically demeaning songs written in 1924 that offer little respect to women, but much adventure to young men.
I want to play tag with the neighborhood children again in the Summer of 1995. Even though I had come to find all of those playing tag had absconded to a game entitled The 'A' Game, which its only rules were to exclude me from joining. I want to throw scalding hot water once more into Simon Berman's face. Though I do not wish for him to block the water with a basketball and turn my face into Jack Nicholson's Joker.
In Chicago as an eighteen year old, I could count the chalk outlines of bodies as I drove down Fullerton Avenue through the Logan Square neighborhood. I wish I could remember those sounds the boricua made. I wish I could forget the burning runs I received from Lazo's burritos at some time 'o clock in the morning.
I've never been one for finding edible late-night eats. I only want the memory of being able to do so. I do wish that my wife's ex-best friend's boyfriend realizes that he's less the great Emeril of his kitchen and more or less is just an unemployed sous chef with a laundry list of felonies, rather than a wish list of awful entrees. At least in that memory, he's neither a chef nor my wife's ex-friend's boyfriend and instead he's just another hideous orcish ****** ringing the doorbells in some suburb of Seattle, announcing to each and every one of his neighbors that he's obligated to notify the community of his ****** offenses.
I just wish I was there to witness his humiliation, and enjoy the total collapse of ego amidst the long list of those decent people he has surely offended.
Perhaps in some future life I can enjoy watching as jungle rot solves my hatred, disposing of his evilness in small skin ***** of flesh that dot the sidewalk while his disease evolves.
I want more vegan eating options across the food desert we call America. I want to arrive home one evening and find my wife ancy to share a new study that American Journal of Medixibe has found on the benefits of providing non-reciprocated ******** to your partners. And I want to be the first to enjoy the benefits of such a study, that I'm encouraged by her to publish my findings while I attend a prestigious university I once wasn't allowed to attend because of my religious background.
I want to live in a world where violence is no longer a viable solution to resolving the in differences we as humans confuse each other trying to make sense of between ourselves.
I want to visit our local grocery store and find that my favorite $8 a pint vegan ice cream has been marked down to a more reasonable number and that there is still an abundance of flavors left for me to choose from.
I don't wish for much: to not have people ask me to speak louder, full-frontal ****** in made for television movies, and a decent blonde IPA for under $10 in glass bottles. Where in this world can a poet go and still receive the respect that was once given by the royal monarchy of The British Empire.
Now it seems those with the fine knowledge of words are cast into a class with less regard than street-drifters and the homeless.
When did our world lose major respect for the artisans of fine art, or the ability to render an opus?
28-integer news memos and 15-second clips of our cute dog eating its own **** attract more attention than a fine explanation of the human condition or the sultry and sophisticated sounds of my Argentinian friend Anna recite Garcia Lorca in her native Spanish tongue.
I just want to be gone before there is a consequence for finding joy in the human condition, and honesty and integrity are known as the recividism that takes down our nation.
We were once the leaders of a great country. We were compelled by our history to create and indoctrinate one another to achieve, conceive, and amend ourselves to thrive amidst the uncertainty of a mischievous and disgraceful society. Now I just wish to be in bed with my wife when this storm of stupidity comes. I wish I never had to be on the receiving end of a sermon set forth by business leaders instead of political achievers.
I want Eddie to make herself some breakfast so I can lay here in bed a few more moments. I want pancakes and fresh fruit juice for breakfast, a quiet room and a hard-covered notebook. I want to believe a great pen and a good friend could lead me through the exciting and anxiety-writhing times in this life, but I to know too sadly that we live in a world where we don't view it as a weakness as those around us may not be able to read or may not be able to write.
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 9:21 AM UTC
*I've found a way to expensively sell my plight
easily throughout the day and night
by just packaging them in mystery
of sadly amazing yet charming poetry
a way to camouflage my history
through dropping in some verbal chemistry
which makes it touching and compelling
found a way to let the world know without telling
I've found means to undress without vulgarity
a way to be kind without doing charity
discovered a clear path to touching without hands
of performing healing magic without wands
with my confusing and jumbled rhyme
I've found a way to speak against crime
to speak for those who lie in the name of truth
and ones who lost their sweet tooth
a way to give courage to chickens afraid of the visible eagle*
**I've found a way to rescue those drowning in their ego
I've found a way to feed the hungry without food
to bare handedly clothe the homeless and ****
a way to condemn without sounding rude
a way to help rather than wishing I could
I've found a way to give and still keep
to smile with the joyed and with the grieved weep
I've found a way to carry burdens by casting them away
to help winds of change trees of the moment sway
I've found a way to tightly keep my anger at bay
a less tasking manner of living to die another day**
*I've found a way to my goals even if it's through imagination
to disguise my disappointments in sweet intonation
I've found a way to clear the conundrum onto pages
a reason to keep on living after lifeless ages
I've found a way to make peace, and duly atone
to find company even when the rest are gone
I've found flesh to shelter what's been a moving carcass
shook hands with destiny,I've finally known my purpose*
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 5:33 PM UTC
With your sweet lips,
On which oft
I yearn to plant a kiss,
Slander me not please!
My lodestar
You must know
A drop of gal
The wellspring of honey
Is capable to mar!
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 2:35 AM UTC
In truth I'd rather see you fully gone,
Having always been on my brain.
Incomplete with no moving on,
You call for a restart.
When even you don't know how,
I question this turn.
After the pushes you put on me somehow,
I can't accept your common courtesy.
When you painted a painful point of view,
Do you still even listen?
Or care?
As you say you do.
I will no longer stand,
On this sandy ground you provide.
You started and finished,
A restart I can't see you to abide.
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 12:58 PM UTC
I wear the vale
and it weathers me
in silty slopes
in harsh-cut lines
it lopes off pieces
of my face.
it floods out my marshes
it clears me clean out
and sterile
I wear the vale
and it's worrisome folk
who take up issue.
"You're wearing the vale!
Wearying th' fields
with dead leaves, and dead things.
Don't you tell us
how to live."
Funny, it's not even sublime
how easy it is
to tell me.
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
Never been there.
Can't talk about it much.
I've seen shadows on the wall.
Crying faces down the hall.
I've seen reflections of friends
in the communal toilet while they Puke-TSD.
Can't talk about it much.
It's not a subject I like to touch.
Never been there.
Never talking like I've seen it all.
They have. Ask them what it's like to fall
down and check your face for scrapes
and have other people put band-aids
on your *** ("Oops, my mistake!")
Or better yet, don't.
Don't ask me.
Don't ask them.
They can talk.
I've never been.
If they ask, you can answer with the voice of a friend.
But don't ask. Don't reopen or worse, pen,
their pain and their past. Just listen if they ask.
Have some ******* courtesy till then.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 6:37 PM UTC
Nearly two years ago
You'd smile because you liked me,
Then you'd smile because you loved me.
God you'd even smile
Because I made you so angry
You wanted to **** me and kiss me at the same time.
What I mean is that you smiled at me
For so many reasons, countless reasons really.
Even now you still do it,
I mean, don't get me wrong
You smile at me
Out of common courtesy.
F.Z.N
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 7:01 PM UTC