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Geraldine Taylor Oct 2017
Change

Verse 1
It starts right deep inside of me, a true grasp on identity
The present moment is the place to be, regardless of who's watching me
It’s plain to see, comprehensively, no real gain comes easily
Whether to the left or right of me, time in motion, truly free
To persevere is the truest reward, ride this train be truly on board
This right here to truly afford, come together, one accord
A single mind retrain able, good grades are attainable
Accomplish the impossible, you can be unstoppable
A single step to take, of directions moving on
Keep it moving in forward motion, articulate my song
With an aim of harmony, we can but soldier on
We must create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

There are challenges that are facing me, complex to simplicity
Teams move forward socially, share discussions vocally
To stand as one, it’s just begun
Separation can’t become
A team with victory truly won
A united cause, brought as one
Determination is the real deal, certified replacing the seal
Energy the people can feel
A new beginning, fresh appeal
A brand new chapter practical
Solutions that are workable
Greatness is achievable
Concepts are conceivable
A new journey to take, whether short or whether long
Keep on moving forward, embracing a new song
With amicability, we all will progress on
Let’s create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Chorus
There is ever present change, many thoughts to rearrange
Together we can change the world, let’s rewrite the page
There are many forms of strong, yet we all must soldier on
Together as one, together as one
For each and every fight, is a chance to so unite
Every lesson in the wrong, it can be rendered right
There is opportunity, be the change you want to see
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
In time, beyond the impossible
Breaking through every obstacle
By faith from the intangible
Objects, they are exchangeable
Yet lives are irreplaceable
Real change is attainable

Verse 2
To offer forth a helping hand, notions yet to understand
To be welcomed in a foreign land, disharmony is sinking sand
It’s clear to see, comprehensively, operate more tactfully
With wisdom understandably, let the innocent be truly free
A greater love that can’t be defined, to comprehend the passage of time
Appreciation truly is mine, reverence beyond the sky
Of nature undeniable, progress transformational
Advancing the responsible, of wonderment sensational
A single step to take, cultivated going strong
Keep it moving in forward motion, can we all just get along
With advancing harmony, on a road that may be long
Let’s now create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Advancing with a point of view, discernment of what’s really true
Comprehension of what’s true for you, of new horizons to ensue
With a faculty of proficiency, movements of efficiency
With complex capability, time in motion, skillfully
Experience that can be applied, universal always onside
Letting go of innermost pride
Truthfulness, no need to hide
Application practical, let your goals be reachable
In him all things possible, passionately powerful
With awareness to awake, with weakness rendered strong
Keep moving in forward motion, articulate my song
With all tranquillity, uncover what is wrong
We can now create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Chorus
There is ever present change, many thoughts to rearrange
Together we can change the world, let’s rewrite the page
There are many forms of strong, yet we all must soldier on
Together as one, together as one
For each and every fight, is a chance to so unite
Every lesson in the wrong, it can be rendered right
There is opportunity, be the change you want to see
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
In time, beyond the impossible
Breaking through every obstacle
By faith from the intangible
Objects, they are exchangeable
Yet lives are irreplaceable
Real change is attainable

Verse 3
Let actions be effectual, real change be perpetual
Creative with the intellectual, let guidance be instructional
Be rational, co-operational, shared ideas are practical
Measuring the mathematical, alignment formational
Aiming high reach for the sky
Given standards you can defy
With courage here the aim is to try
Moving forward, mystify
Far from the undesirable, feelings unreliable
Testing the improbable, reality is changeable
A bolder step to take, of directions moving strong
You can always go beyond the place that you came from
With realised clarity, we gain sense of the wrong
Let’s now create a place, where we can all belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Change may be uncomfortable, let fear be inexcusable
Steer from the reprehensible, payback is repayable
To so forgive, inexhaustible
Of oneness that is plausible, the broken rectifiable
Connected, relational
Associate and we can relate, don’t waste time, a pitiless state
Memories that we cannot retake, in position, get in place
Abundance that is plentiful, examples observational
Joyfulness obtainable, experience the seasonal
Of actions yet to take, we’re keeping the game strong
Keep moving in forward motion, wherever you came from
With avid harmony, we all will soldier on
We can now create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Bridge

With mind-sets evolved, there is true insight
Let’s create a place, to truly shine our light
There is wisdom to release, to regain our inner peace
Together as one, together as one
Compassion in the land, with a heart to understand
A true united force, let’s lend a helping hand
With due simplicity, re-establish harmony
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
True change may be uncomfortable
Yet it is unmistakeable
New steps that are approachable
Of thoughts from the conventional
Mindful and relatable
Hopeful and aspirational

Verse 4
To go beyond, no greater time, reclaim your light it’s time to shine
In relaxed mode we will decline, natural gems can be refined
Branch of the vine, be aligned
Masterpieces of design, purposed for potential prime
Stand in line, for such a time
Become a part of the solution, let’s create a revolution
Educate the institution, truly merge into a fusion
Reduce the confrontational, join the inspirational
Movement motivational, achieve the aspirational
The journey will be great, endurance may be long
Keep moving in forward motion, can we all just get along
With solid harmony, a team can become strong
Let's now create a place, with the option to belong
Of problems to be solved, of all the games to win
If the foundation is laid, by then we can begin
A sense of harmony, let's take the vision on
Let’s now create a place, where the people can belong


Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Chorus
There is ever present change, many thoughts to rearrange
Together we can change the world, let’s rewrite the page
There are many forms of strong, yet we all must soldier on
Together as one, together as one
For each and every fight, is a chance to so unite
Every lesson in the wrong, it can be rendered right
There is opportunity, be the change you want to see
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
In time, beyond the impossible
Breaking through every obstacle
By faith from the intangible
Objects, they are exchangeable
Yet lives are irreplaceable
Real change is attainable

Written by Geraldine Taylor ©️
judy smith Apr 2015
The Pakistan Fashion Design Council in collaboration with Sunsilk presented the fourth and final day of the eighth PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week. Indeed the 8th PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week marked the twelfth fashion week platform initiated by the Pakistan Fashion Design Council [with eight weeks of prêt-à-porter and four of bridal fashion] and was a direct manifestation of the Council’s commitment to sustainability and discipline within the business of fashion and the facilitation of Pakistan’s retail industry. Indeed #PSFW15 endeavoured to define and present trends for 2015, focusing specifically on fashion for the regions’ long hot summer months. Day-4 featured High-Street Fashion shows by the House of Arsalan Iqbal, Erum Khan, Chinyere and Hassan Riaz and designer prêt-à-porter shows by Sana Safinaz, Republic by Omar Farooq, Syeda Amera, Huma & Amir Adnan, Sania Maskatiya and HSY.

Speaking about the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week platform, Chairperson of the PFDC, Sehyr Saigol said: “With the 12th iteration of our critically acclaimed fashion weeks, the PFDC is always working to streamline our prêt-à-porter platform to make the PSFW experience more beneficial for all stakeholders in terms of show experience, exposure and ultimately, retail value. To that end, each year we look inward to find the best possible formats and categories to benefit the very trade and business of fashion. In this vein, we introduced 3 separate categories for Luxury/Prêt, High Street and Textile at PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week, giving each entirely separate show space, times, audience exposure and viewing power. Our High Street fashion brands had been given a standalone show time on two separate days as early evening shows and Textile brands a separate dedicated day for Voile shows on Day 3 of PSFW 2015, a measured step to further highlight Pakistan’s textile prowess and high street fashion strength which are of significant importance to national and international fashion markets. As per past tradition, we continue to work closely with all our emerging designers and mainstream brands to help hone their collections for the runway through mentorship by senior PFDC Council members and with retail support through the PFDC’s own stores and network. We are grateful for the committed support of our sponsors and partners which provides us the stimulus to further enhance our fashion week platforms and put forth the best face of Pakistani fashion on a consistent basis.”

“The Sunsilk girl is an achiever, with an air of enthusiasm and positivity. Great hair can give her the extra dose of confidence so with Sunsilk by her side, she is empowered to take on life. Fashion is very close to this aspirational Pakistani girl making the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week a highly valued platform for us. We recognize PFDC’s efforts to promote the fashion industry and experienced and upcoming talent alike. Sunsilk has been a part of this fantastic journey for 6 consecutive years and continues to shape aspirations, taking contemporary fashion directly to the homes of consumers and encouraging them to script their own stories of success” said Asanga Ranasinghe, VP Home and Personal Care for Unilever Pakistan.

On the concluding day of #PSFW15, the Chairperson of the PFDC Mrs. Sehyr Saigol also made a special announcement on behalf of the Council and its Board Members, where she shared the Council’s plans to establish Pakistan’s first ever craft based Design District, a multi-purpose specialized facility that would assist in developing and enhancing the arts and crafts industries, which are an integral part of Pakistan’s rich cultural legacy. In addition to being a centre for skill improvement and capacity building, the Design District would also house a first of its kind Textile Museum.

The official spokesperson of the PFDC, Sara Shahid of Sublime by Sara also announced the official dates for the Council’s next fashion week, PFDC L’Oréal Paris Bridal Week 2015 which is scheduled to be held from 15th September to 17th September 2015.

Indeed the success of PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week continued to prompt private sector associates to grow in their engagement of the platform to launch new marketing campaigns and promotional activities. To this end, the PFDC’s evolving partnership with Sunsilk grew exponentially this year whereby in addition to their title patronage; Sunsilk also took over the coveted PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week red carpet and the Green Room/Backstage, as sponsors. This extension of their support is indeed a manifestation of the brand’s belief in and commitment to the platform. Also in continuation of their support for the platform, Fed Ex – GSP Pakistan Gerry’s International returned to PSFW as the official logistics partner, offering the PFDC a special arrangement for international designer consignments.

PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015 was styled by the creative teams at Nabila’s and NGENTS. Light design, set design, sound engineering, video packaging, choreography and show production from concept to construction was by HSY Events, front stage management by Maheen Kardar Ali, backstage management by Product 021, Sara Shahid of Sublime by Sara as the official spokesperson for the PFDC, logistics and operations by Eleventh Experience and photography by Faisal Farooqui and the team at Dragonfly, Hum TV/Hum Sitaray as the Official Media Partners, CityFM89 as the Official Radio Partners with all media management by Lotus Client Management & Public Relations.

High-Street Fashion Shows

The House of Arsalan Iqbal

The afternoon High-Street Fashion Shows on the final day of PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015 were opened by leading fashion brand The House of Arsalan Iqbal, who showcased a collection titled ‘Devolution Chic’. Inspired by street art across the world by various artists, European high-street trends and technique of quilting, Arsalan Iqbal garnered personal portfolios of graffitists from myriad urban cityscapes such as London, New York, Tokyo, Barcelona and Cape Town, juxtaposed with some unique in-house created patterns including those of Pac-man, calligraphic flourishes and aqua and tangerine bands and circlets. Based in chiffon, the ensembles were molded into voluminous structured silhouettes including draped tunics, edgy jumpsuits and wide palazzos dovetailed with off-white and ecru charmeuse silk jackets created with a revolutionary quilting process. Along with menswear pieces, the collection also included in-house footwear and jewellery made in collaboration with pioneering Karachi-based street artist SANKI.

Erum Khan

Designer Erum Khan followed next and made her PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week debut with ‘The Untainted Shine’. The collection took its inspiration from the sparkle of twinkling stars, a walk on pearl dew in the morning and the enchanted glow which is produced when “a magic wand” is waved around the body, making it glow in a pearlescent white and exhibiting a jewel themed lustre on the body. With neat and straight structured cuts, Erum had used fabrics such as organza combined with silk, 3D flowers, patch work and antique katdanna in a collection which was based in a white colour palette. Trends highlighted in the collection were high waist skirts to button up pants and sheer long dresses. Acclaimed Pakistani musician Goher Mumtaz and his wife Anam Ahmed walked the ramp as the designer’s celebrity showstoppers.

Chinyere

Following Erum Khan, fashion brand Chinyere showcased its Spring/Summer 2015 High-Street collection ‘Mizaj-e-Shahana’ at PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015. An ode to the era of the Mughal royalty and their imperial aesthetic, the collection comprised of modern silhouettes and traditional embellishments with organza skirts paired with cropped tops, angarkha-peplum tops with embellished cigarette pants, sheer knee-length jackets paired with structured digital printed bustier-jumpsuits, diaphanous wrap-around boot-cuts and embellished boxy sleeves with soft A-line silhouettes. Chinyere also showcased ten menswear pieces comprising of waistcoats, jodhpurs, knee-length sherwanis paired with gossamer sheer kurtas. The colours used had been divided into a collection of distinctive Mughalesque pastels and jewel tones. The pastels included the classic marble ivory-on-ivory, the bold black, saffron, gold and ivory. The colour segments also included metallic gold and grey sections, with accents of bronze and black. The jewel tones included jade, emerald, ruby and sapphire.

Hassan Riaz

The concluding High-Street fashion show of PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015 was presented by Hassan Riaz who showcased his ‘Contained Shadows’ collection. Inspired by the diverse facets of the human soul that explore both the dark and light sides of human nature, taking into account yearnings, desires, and anxieties that make us distinctly human, Hassan had based the collection in summer twill, organza and summer denim in shades of blue and white with a gold accent to reflect upon his inspirations. ‘Contained Shadows’ made use of structured and drifting silhouettes, cage crinolines with corsets and bustiers with distinct trends featuring cropped tops, nautical accents, experiments with transparency and patchworks of metal mixed & matched with flowers.

Designer Showcases

Sana Safinaz

PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015’s evening [rêt shows on the fourth and final day was opened by premier designer label Sana Safinaz. Sana Safinaz’s PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week collection was inspired by monochromatic structured looks with pops of color. The collection was based in luxe fabrics such as kattan, silks, fine silk organza and dutches satin in a colour palette majorly based in black and white with strong vibrant pop infusions.
Key trends being highlighted were the oversized T, constructions-clean lines, simplicity of cuts and effective embellishments.

Republic by Omar Farooq

Following Sana Safinaz, acclaimed menswear brand Republic By Omar Farooqshowcased a collection titled ‘Que Sera, Sera!’ (whatever will be, will be!). Omar Farooq had used a variety of luxe fabrics such as suede, linen, chiffon, cotton, cotton silk and wool silk. A collection for all seasons, the ensembles built upon the label’s signature aesthetics while providing a new take on contemporary menswear. Acclaimed media personality Fawad Khan walked the ramp as the brand’s celebrity showstopper.

Syeda Amera

The third Prêt show of the final day of PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015 was presented by designer Syeda Amera who made her ramp debut with ‘The World of Sea’. Inspired by love for the enchanting underwater, the collection was based in premium quality organza, jersey, nets and silks with delicate cuts and embellishments consisting of beads, sequins and feathers to reflect the collection’s aquatic theme. ‘The World of Sea’ featured a palette of aqua marine, scupa blue, powder pink, grey blue, tequila sunrise yellow, orange and lagoon green with trends that employed skirt layering, frills and ruffles and flared pants.

Huma & Amir Adnan

Following Syeda Amera, Huma & Amir Adnan showcased a joint collection for the first time at a fashion exhibition. Both Huma and Amir feel that as a couple they share their lives and draw synergies and their collection ‘Symphony’ was an epitome of how two people can revolve around the same concept in harmony, while maintaining their individual distinction. Showcasing both menswear and women’s wear at PSFW 2015, Huma and Amir had used a mix of fabrics, textures and embellishments with a complex collection of weaves, prints and embroideries in silk, linen, cotton and microfiber. The color palette included midnight blue, emerald green, wet earth, aubergine, ivory, old paper, turmeric, leaf and magenta. Key trends highlighted in the collection were long shirts, double layered shirts, printed vests and jackets, textured pants, colored shoes for men and layers of multi-textured fabrics, tighter silhouette, vests and jackets for women.

Sania Maskatiya

Designer Sania Maskatiya showcased the penultimate Luxury/Prêt collection of the evening at PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2015. This S/S ’15, Sania Maskatiya took audiences on a fashion journey to ‘Paristan’ – a place of fairytale whimsy at PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week. With a colour palette ranging from the softest shades of daybreak to the deepest hues of nightfall, ‘Paristan’ was a collection of playful, dreamlike prêt ensembles. Featuring luxury fabrics like silk, organza, charmeuse and crepe, the pieces followed the brand’s signature silhouettes, both structured and fluid. Beads and sequins embellished varied hemlines and multiple layering, all set against captivating scenes of mirth and magic. Motifs ranged from the sublime to nonsensical; friendly mice and naughty elves, clocks and teapots, flowering fields and star-filled skies, princesses and ponies.

HSY

Day-4’s finale was presented by acclaimed couturier HSY who showcased a collection titled ‘INK’; a collection inspired by Asia and specifically HSY’s journeys to The Land of the Rising Sun. INK represented the essence of Langkawi, Indonesia, Nagasaki, and Yunnan with natural and indigenous yarns, hand-woven to perfection. The collection featured the traditional dyeing techniques of Shibori from Nagasaki, Batik from Indonesia, and Gara from Sierra Leone infused with mackintosh, saffron, aubergine, eggshell, rosette, indigo and ochre. Created with the scorching sub continental summer in mind, INK channelled versatile hemlines to suit a diversity of younger, older, working men, women and homemakers alike.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane
1.

When I
was young
I listened to
Billy the Kid

I galloped
across the
living room floor
giddy upping
in an ecstatic
square dance
with my beloved
America

excitedly
enraptured
boundlessly
enthralled
in youthful
zeal
ebulliently  
yodeling
hymns
whistling
reveries to
America’s
heroic prairie
songs

a precocious
kinder beaming  
moved and illumined
by the broiling fanfare
of trilling trumpets

to uphold the promise
I pledged allegiance
to diligent  work
galloping onward
on ponies of
reverent faith
respectful duty
playful engagement
and guardianship

2.

expectation
never fell short
of resounding
supranaturalistic
optimism

energising
the sweep of
a nation’s
self evident
exceptionalism

our democratic
vista stirred
and steeped

a nation of
wheelwrights
building
wagon trains
to traverse
stratified latitudes
with sturdy ladders
erected with common
sense sensibility
of hands to work
and hearts to God

earthen
yeoman
dancing in
wheat fields
threshing sheaves
of prosperity
their exertions
elevating
families
raising
a glorious chorus,
a peeling crescendo
of horns of plenty
splayed across
landscapes of
an ennobled
nation
placing fruits
of labor upon
ascendent
alters to
to receive
the anointing
of abundance

the lighted grace
of infinite possibilities
shines for a grueling
world listening to the
clamouring drumbeats
sounding in the hearts
of all grace anointed
republicans


3.  

No lullabies
no quiet moonlit nights
we ardently
dance on keys
boasting soul
filled dexterity
the quick self
assuredness
extemporaneously
jazz tapping
across bold
hidden rondos
grasping
transcendence
squarely set
in the minds eye
of unbroken resolve
our cool countenance
an unassailable
righteous destination

any
spare sweeping
plaintive introspection
lends space to
affirm
an
affirmation
beginning
with the individual
unum to e pluribus

solitary dancers
incorporated into
fully enfranchised
troopers

the gyrations
the rhythms and steps
of individuated melodies
join to form a harmonious whole
a beautifully woven consensus

this democratic symphony
perfected in an intelligent
choreography of
separate people
sojourning  
toward
a mutually
constructed
shared destiny

aspirational desires
call forth generations
of spirits boldly engaging
the challenges upholding
the rights and privilege
of all citizens
the celebratory harvest
of a new nations
natural law


4.

As a man
I cruise
along
Main Street
in a joyless
joy ride
gliding by
disassembled
factories
moldering schools
defunct governments

surveying the
demolished ruins
of cities,
the decrepit
wrecking ball
of history
is busy,
rolling through
towns
not worthy
of cast iron
destruction
forged in
foreign kilns

we built palaces
to democracy
in the tiniest hamlets
dotting the granges
wholly assimilated
into a national congress
of freemen

today our
congress
is scattered
dialog seeking
resolution is considered
betrayal to holy
partisanship...

selfish insistence
masquerades as
high ideals

portraiture
of obstinance
is a grotesque
reflection
of virtue

we have
reduced
the peoples
house

to a battlefield
for tribes…..

once freemen
now captives….

soulless ghosts
wandering lost
inside grand
rotundas...

mocked
by murals
and inert
granite statuary
howling
expiration dates
of timeless
psalms

sojourning
the trail of tears
drinking from bowls
of anguish

our only
respite
the silent
ruins we
find impossible
to leave

fear fills our bellies
rust stains our hearts
abiding acrimony
ain’t easily brushed
from dust laden cloths

the deconstruction
of dead cities, mark
expired civilizations
centuries in the making
hammered by the blows
of the mightiest blacksmiths
with precision and deft craft


5.

the spareness of
Martha Graham's set
frame black shadows
of fortitude

it always starts
with the individual

then surely
sure footedness
measured footsteps
boldly dance about
the lily pads
of the keyboard
a resounding ballet
the arms wave
like swaying stalks of wheat
but hurry to respond
opportunity knocks
conditions change
the group awaits
to be joined

my pirouette
remains my solitary mark
on the weaving spindles
crafting the mosaic
of a complex American
complexion

the possibility
the promise
laid before us
wheat fields
of democracy
tilled planted
attended

the wondrous yields of
an Appalachian Spring
the promise
hectare of grace
apportioned to all
citizens

the promise
harvest of liberty
freedom
of opportunity
all anointed
freemen
conferred an
amazing grace

civil discourse
was once spoken
we can learn the
lost languages again
sitting on the porch
with neighbors
sipping ice tea
sharing thoughts on
hot summer evenings
caring too care

but scoundrels
became heroes
we fetishized
idiosyncrasies
of insisted
entitlement

we ******
the whole by
exalting the part

we dare not condemn them
lest we condemn ourselves




6.

the west was once woolly wild
I hear the sweeping sound
of my youth rustle again
the dramatic symphony
of a brilliant people
filled with courage
undeterred optimism
claiming a continent
manifesting a new
Pax Americana
a century
of immigrants  

coming to integrate
coming to assimilate
coming to believe in the promise
coming to make a new promise

I came to hear Copland
when I was young

when America was young
when promises were made
and sworn by a brilliant
fanfare of trumpets

when America was young
Copland composed
when America was young
a promise was made

come forth brothers
come forth sisters
come claim
the promise
of a simple gift


Aaron Copland:
Billy The Kid

11/29/11
Oakland
jbm
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2019
a man privately asks, can you help?
you say, sure-no-hesitation

let me think on it for a day or two, he says
yet you act even before he comes back,
too late, you say, when he returns,
too late, he repeats in puzzlement,
yup, my check is in the mail,
cause one senses the need is dire plus,
plus you well recall the immutable obligation when  
a vague commitment of “just ask” was inked in a long ago message,
a poem born from/in the days when you slept in the car on the street

this vague promissory,
a more enforceable judgement in your own court of law
than any state construct or the judgmental eyes of a silenced god

word, honor, do.

thus it begins, an unwritten contract inked,
an egregious interest rate of 0% proffered and agreed,
commences a plain white envelope trickle,
a check inside, by postal mail, slowly it came,
month by month, inch by inch, Niagara Falls ^

years go by, and then comes a day,
when the accompanying check and its gift wrapped note says,
Paid In Full!

and so much for the tedious minutiae...

like kindness, I do,
Thank You and Your Welcome
are high on my list of proofs of
daily human extensions existential,

Paid in Full,
now rests at the top of the list

let me be blunt, the thrill of being a party
to a deal with no handshake, just coated in the
honorable words waterproof sealant,
with a person I likely may never meet,
made me so better assured of whom many claim I am,  
a mathematical proof revered and kept mind inscribed,
it was an aspirational ****, an unforeseen monthly blunt,
the best feeling good smile,
a kick in the pants about what really matters

being paid twice over and me,
getting by far,
the humanity confirmation,
the better half of the deal

write too often of honor,
and yet, will instinctual do again,
again overpowering my rays of will,
for there is no deflection, only reflection

for the glorious riches gifted and received,
without compare
the return on my honorable investment the best ever


oh brotherhood, oh brotherhood,
I am paid in the currency coined from brotherhood...
^ from a Laurel and Hardy routine
yup, true story
"This above all: to thine ownself be true"
which denies the escape
of being false to any human.”
ABadPenname Oct 2014
How about distribution,
Another ******* poem To and About "love," and aspirational ***.                                        
            Lip metaphor:
A thick paperback flipped through  both covers in a momentary fluttering; I love that sharp sound.
             Can we break the law a little?
The one that we made without words, and no acknowledgement was needed.      
             -So we'll only break a few,
The one that keeps our lips apart; our individual pages each being read one sentence at a time, maybe passed around the party to obtain a variety of opinion for the same smooth structures.
              So needy for an affirmation, you, all of you, all of us.
All of Our ******* lovepoems and lovers.     Misery a lot-
Don't pretend you arent enjoying it, you masochists, writers.
             About ***:
Take them off, just take them all off-leave no room to guess, I will not dare aspire toward my fiction.
Or else leave them on, and sit here, and lay here, lie here, sleep here, wake here, leave here unviolated by my hands-but keep yourself dressed.
I am **** writing in stanzas.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2015
so there on the window sill
i sat perpetrating my crime,
one had outside the window denoting the mentally ill
and the other inside the compartment of
a room denoting terrorists,
then i switched hands and opinions...
and then two bright objects of fire appeared
on the skyline... then another two... a perfect rhombus that
traversed the night sky.

i mingled *r.d. laing
with the saint benaiah ben yehoiada today...
what a miracle of the slow approach,
i was so desperate for paper i even wrote on a sunday times news review page,
god help me, i feel the need to speak over people in writing.
testament to modern *******: the modern trans-gender phenomenon
is primarily found in st. thomas’ gospel
as entrée of r.d. laing’s **** of paradise artistic spontaneity
away from rigid theory so numerous in the exampled situation
of the lisp acquired on the psychoanalytic couch...
it speaks of turning left to right... up to down... man to woman...
a bit like a sat nav giving directions... you end up in a kingdom
that’s a ditch and the king is adorned not in crimson cardinal
or purple bishop... but pain... this is 1967... no wonder the hippies
died off after people started to dot dot dot post-1967
with the excavatio in translatio to remould western, christian, societies.
that text, says it all! david bowie and alice cooper and marc bolan
with the lipstick and 8 o’clock eye-socket shadows...
but things are picking up / getting serious...
the young ones are on it... post-colonial details i might have you add...
it was bound to happen... vietnam and the daddy longlegs starving man of africa...
built in processor 5.6GB of memory and an iphone...
what?! i’m translating my slavic soul... we fed the mongrels and mongolians
with crusader ***** in the baltic... we disappeared for a few centuries
and came back... blackmailing the airlines for an unsafe crash landing
somewhere in belarus, with the state banquet officiated, of course.
you see.. i’m the silent eager satyr from such paintings by matejko
like hołd pruski and stańczyk... expression beaming with: yes... go on...
spur me on... i’ll gallop to status of stallion with laughter!
all the catholic canonical saints are for people who prefer images
to words.
so there’s laing in 1967 allowed the ancient deciphering of
quasi-egyptian text... and then all hell breaks loose in the now, present...
i’ve got two left hands and two right feet... i think i’ll transverse
in walking like a crab... sidewise... out of here...
you go along with your daily “historical” bullying...
i like my place... outside the post-colonial continuum...
so much so that i even have a theory for the experience:
HE WASN’T THINKING IN HIS MOTHER TONGUE,
THE NATIVITY OF THE SOUL TOOK FORM FROM THE POLLEN
OF THE BODY, MANY IRANIANS AND EGYPTIANS...
HE THOUGHT COLONIAL, HE ACTED COLONIAL...
PREVIOUSLY HE MENTIONED POLAND LENDING AEROPLANES
TO EGYPT... HE ACTED LIKE AN ENGLISHMAN TO A ******...
NOW I SEE HIM LIKE A PENGUIN WITH CHEETAH FUR...
A WORD OF LISP I GATHER...
I WAS THINKING STUPID TRUST... WHILE
A SINGLE WORD OF THE MOTHERTONGUE RESONATED
TO PURSUE CREATIVITY THUS EXPRESSED
UNABLE TO FIND THE 0,0 COORDINATE IN THE
NORTHERN TRANS-EUROPEAN MILITARY COMPLEX.
this is how integration happens in europe: acquire the native tongue
acquire native psychology... don’t acquire the latter
define the former with exactness of body...
conclusion? i did stupid via trust... he did stupid via a blood-thirst
and a michael jackson trick of bleaching the soul
but leaving the body oddly mongrel-like... not so complete
like africans from the caribbean losing the tongue
due to jamaica’s great weather, then moving to england
and starting reggae rap... god knows how those two fitted for a size 12
perfect matching: quick-slow, quick-slow...
slow-quick rat ah rat ah regina duck in dumplings... bewildering
that i didn’t turn grey but turned ginger over the years.
you see this theory? it makes the mongol horse pale in comparison;
dad said: a jew did it! a jew did it! a ******* mid-******* just said: you
(double emphasis, the colon and italics... well i was there,
and this poem is proof that i was there, with her).
then this poem in the background with added photogenic approach...
titled: on ******* who create art.
ahem... napkin for the torero and rare steak to suite:
there they are the geniuses and the mediocre,
sitting in abodes of aspirational peace of the living -
half-dead many of them almost to the core of rotten apples,
with arsenic in apple seeds the last remaining life -
a poisonous mechanisation of activity on the breeding continuum
curtailed (is that implying cut-short?),
horrible ******* to live with,
they sitting knitting words together that make no cardigan fit,
or they’re making 2d rooms with the odd splash of colour
that will never obey the cube but the rectangular canvas,
no use of a poet’s pen in the solace of a quiet pension spaced,
the usurpers of peace among the living among the twins of sabbath,
these ronin of the fountain of solace found in t.v. and slippers...
who let them in?! can you hear poetry with a hammer?
can you hear it on a construction site, or an art gallery or a library?
so there they are, the *******, choosing the most importune of places
to do their craft... in the living spaces of plumbers and electricians...
hardly the place to craft their art when there’s no pulpit to
exercise their crafty practice with the end remark.
why then the plumber the safeguard and incubator nest of home,
and why the cold chill of aqueduct syringe at home for poet?
does no friendliness reside in stressing or not stressing certain words anymore?
perhaps the coalminers will tell me?
they say i am in a coal-mine by the sheer whiteness of disposable white
of canvas... and only among them in solidarity of a brotherhood
by excavating with them the coal that’s their amber burnt at home
and my solitary ink expressed in the library of their darkness of having
bulged forearm forceps of the bicep and no patience for reading... but digging,
i’ll know my orientation in those mines once more...
where the safe and understood route has has not yet been written...
and all that is seen... is the whitened darkness of the blank canvas of
what i peer into stumbling with the inverse... the flashlight of words
against the darkness of the canvas... me and my blind horse.
god i hate live editing... but then again... it keeps me
drunk and soberly paranoid to scrabble in revisions before i doze till morn.
We pass the
walled incline
of Barbour Park

during the day
a foreboding
patch…an open
air market for
the slave merchants
hustling crack and
**** drippin ****
that's been stepped
on so many times
its a wonder the cut
can still chide a high
out of a wrangled soul

the park’s
modest elevation
is an advantageous
lookout for
runners dealing
dimes while
petty ante
gangstas
daydream
gun blazing glories
of their next big job

not long ago
the park was
refurbed with
an industrial
strength plastic
Jungle Jim,
soon after
the park was
condemned
as a no go
zone for kids,
the litter of
hypodermic
needles and
mounds of
lead spiked
soil, deemed
a public health
risk for youth...
quickly
repurposed
as a crib
for ballers…

back in the
day, the shady
pocket park
lifted Paterson’s
citizenry off
the heated
pavements of
a bustling
thoroughfare

a respite from
the pulsing
tensions of urbanity,
a secular sanctuary,
balancing the urgent
industry of commerce
with the propriety of
residential life

compacting a
brief escape
from the clanging
metronome with
a viewing stand
offering elevation...
a heightened
perspective on
life’s parade
marching
up and down
Broadway…

this urban
oasis planted
at the center
of Silk City’s
grandiloquent
boulevard,
occupies
the most
democratic
equidistant
transit point
between opulent
Eastside mansions
of livin large tycoons
at one end….
and the
industrial district of
The Great Falls,
rising at Broadway’s
western terminus,
assiduously
manufacturing
dollars for the darlings
of fortune and
subsistence for
workers yearning to taste
the crumbs of
prosperity that may fall
from the tables of
opportunity

the park once a
pleasant face of
the landlocked
4th Ward filled
with homage to
a nation's greatest
citizens, Hamilton,
Rosa Parks,
Lafayette,
Madison, Fulton,
Montgomery and
Franklin has
denounced the
virtuous pursuit of
their aspirational
yearnings

now playas
feast on
the mead
of sustenance
harvested from
emaciated streets

commerce has taken
up full residency...
the wards cottage industry
cannibalizing
homes, hoods and
homeboys

as the
4th Ward
grows ugly,
the healthy
matrix of
bustling
street life
breaks down
the peeps
weakened
lay prostate
offer veins
to blood *******
predators
roaming
distressed
going south
neighborhoods

wise guy
knuckleheads,
get busy
gaming
the system
short changing
themselves and
hustling game
to get by
in the sweet bye
and buy of life

at night
a back lit
Barbour Park
floods with the
yellow haze of
blinking Fair St.
lamp posts
and the pulsing
halations
crowning the
Baptist's
of St. Luke's

sentient figures
shift between
park benches
flitting among the
black torsos
of skeletal trees
blending into
the faded
complexion
of abandoned
swing sets

I swear I see
Hurricane Carter
shadow boxing
dancing
around a gangling
Elm, jabbing
away, lifting
a sweet uppercut
working combos
of left hooks
and right crosses
hoping to drop an
intractable
presence
banging away
at a body politic
forming the walls
of taunting
inequities

Hurricane stays
busy delivering
body blows
to burst
through the
prison bars
surrounding
Barbour Park

Music selection:
Bob Dylan, Hurricane

Paterson
01/30/13
jbm

A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.
A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  (Part 4: Funky Broadway)
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.
All of you.
Where do you get off
making a name for yourself
out of the mockery
in fallen heroes’ hearts?
What’s in a name;
that which we call
"a genius"
by another label
would be found on the front page
of the obituaries.

And now,
what?
Where do you go from
the top,
looking down on those you
trampled on the way
with some false sense of humility?
How we perceive you now
is like that of a crime lord;
envious,
never aspirational.

Might as well
call it a day
and take note of the
fallacy
that is fame and fortune.
I am the grand central
swirling vortex of the known universe

pathway of consciousness
a worldwide metaphysical interconnection

hub of modernity’s magnificent  metropolis
prime mover of it's empowered citizenry

eye of a Mid-Atlantic megalopolis
bridging an expanse from Boston to DC
trajectories of an Acela Express
accelerates time, coheres a region

magnetic compass axis
gyroscopic core
web of iron rails
touches all
transcontinental
cardinal ordinates

my constitution of chiseled granite blocks
manifests steadfast immutability

opulent terminus of marbled underground railways
subconscious portals to inter-borough worlds


the Zodiac streaks across my painted heavens
splashing aspirational mosaics of
bold citizens onto universal canvasses
my exhalations burst galaxies,
birthing constellations
promising potentialities of
plenteous abundance
as a right of all
global citizens

transit vehicle for mobilized classes
of fully enfranchised republicans

my tendrils plunge deep into
cavernous drilled bedrock
firming an unshakable edifice
-a new rock of ages-

rails splay out to the
horizons farthest corners
northern stars, southern crosses
nearest points on a sextants reckon

I am the iron spine
of the globes anointed isle
I co-join Harlem and Wall Street
as beloved fraternal twins

commerce, communication and culture
is the electricity surging through my veins

the worlds towering Babel
rises from my foundations
the plethora of tongues
all well understood

I open the gateways of knowledge
guarded by vigilant library lions

route students and scholars to
the worlds most pronounced public schools

beatific Beaux Art is boldly scrawled on my walls
in dark hued blues sung in gaudy graffito notes

swanky patrons sip martinis,
nosh bagels with a smear and **** down
shucked lemon squirted oysters

reason, discovery and discourse tango
to the airs of Andean Pipe flutes
with violence and discordant dissonance
deep within my truculent bowels

I am the road to work,
a pathway to a career and
the ride to a Connecticut
home sweet home

my gargoyles and statuary laugh
at pessimistic naysayers

I am the station for
centurions, bold charioteers
homeless nomads and
restive masses

I stir a nation of neighborhoods
into a brilliant *** of roiling roux

beams of enlightenment
stream through colossal windows
today's epiphanies of the fantastic
actualize resplendent zeitgeists

sipping coffee in my cafe's
the full technicolor palette
of humanity is revealed;
civilizations history is etched
forever upon the mind

eight million stories
of the naked city is bared
as splendorous tragedy
it's comic march
of carnal being
exalted

a million clattering feet
scurry across marblized floors
polishing the provenance
burnishing a patina
exuding golden footprints

I am 100 years young and
thousand years away from
the crash of a demolition ball

Doric Columns and
elegant archways
coronate commuters
each day with a
new revelation of a
democratic vista

I am the grand central
my spirit flows as
one with the mass
in the vibrant
heart of our
throbbing city

Music Selection: Leonard Bernstein, On the Town

written to mark the 100th Anniversary of Grand Central Station


Oakland
2/8/13
There's that word
for girls like me:
the ones who
didn't see the point
of princesses.

The active ones who
run and jump and slide
and can't be bothered
to stand around the
playground sidelines,
whispering and trading
in spots of character assassination
or information.

"Tomboys" they call
those girls
and maybe later
"butch" or
"masculine of center."

I notice how
there's never
"feminine of center."

But really,
I've always felt impatient with that word
"Tomboys."

Why should a girl who wore
dangling earrings
but liked the things they label
"boys things"
want a word that suggests she's
something other than what she's not?
An aspirational boy?

A girl who grew up into
a closeted girl
with short hair, no make-up and a love of
jewelry.

Whose first girlfriend post-coming out,
took one look and said "But you're a femme!"

Please, please, understand.
In my heart I am a pirate king,
of the eighteenth-century variety:
big sword, big earrings, big weapons.

On the threshold of middle age,
somewhere on the spectrum of gender,
What word describes me?
Kristo Frost Mar 2013
Bloom into the awkward moment between birth and death even though it can be tiresome. Aspirational iconoclasts are always minorities. The first real question should be “What the ****?" followed perhaps by a shaking of the head. Nurse on passive vitriol and slowly learn to fall in line. Pretend, for this is not the time. It will come but you must be patient. Ambulate with eyes cast downward like the others. The enemy is arrogant in its control; there is their weakness. Let them think that they possess great strength and go so far as to compliment them on it. Meanwhile, nurture the next breed of human. Let them try to fix you and act (as casually as possible) as though they have succeeded. Normality will fail in good time. Truth darkles; it militates against expectation. Embrace the hint of hate in the air by breathing deep. You need to fail to appreciate victory. The defeated night horizon will compliment your jaded eyes. Steal your own art with poise and without pause. Arrive late for the train and ride, tearing in the wind, clinging to its back. Yearn for a chaotic, vibrant death. Know that you were never, ever, alone.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
---- 2023 youtube I wonder if, and lo': The Planets
A grand background orchestra, mental direct
there, you hav it, too, listen, a few times,
just in the mood, to listen
maybe as you get, that it starts at Mars,
begin as we
think we
Read this at your pace the writer advised,
and I did, a couple of times,
like long stuck records…
To Holst, an offered libation,
to all the minds whose words
are music as big as any mind
limited by my unknowing,
only
using, the truth, music, leading after words,
through ever away,
silent for a now,
or so,
from the Sun, past the fragment,
the single lump at the core,
of the process,
Ash as
Icarus, and Hermes, speedy messenger,
such as see thee, hold the knowledge holy,

watch, see, the wandering planets Holst,
might have seen today,
looking through my eyes,
wordless, right on, so far, as we

agree, there
is power in the mind that writes and reads
music,
power alloted some in blind feel,
power exuding from an ever in times past,

lasting ever tones thinning, spreading, patterning
perfected harmonies unexpected
yet
taken as granted, felt, in passion y sympassion,
same sound,

my once known wind, my bass oboe player,
acquaintance, who called me by name,
accusing me, subtly of not knowing,
there is a forest of low stature,
and there are missions there,
where if you pray,
they feed you twinkies… I recall, between
Venus and busy laughing Earth,

I remember Mars is next,
I am ready, I went into the dark kitchen,
back of the Mission on Fourth Street,
across from an Electra Records Billboard…

ifery approaches, Holst has not gotten me to Mars,
I am pulling in an experience, from a mission,
on Fourth Street, in a mindtimespace shared,

as of yet, by a few, who will know the place,
the ******* Mission, the one
with the Joker who used rats,
to get a startle response,

and at exactly the wrong place, for men with
certain
kinds of sure thing reactions, to diabolic attacks.

2023, approaching Mars with Lou Holtz, I thum thum
thummin wearin' my Razorback hat,
Inter Planatary Hwy 71, to Joplin,
ur in my realm.

Bass every thing slow creep slow, seep as sludge,
to the edge, and look beyond,
this is it, this is the Earth,
we shall survive!

We slay the unbelievers and fake it til we make it,
right, kids?

---------- longhair music, epicyc-lical as neckties,
to male tipped stacking schema for *****,
or stones,
or crystaline tones accompanying the heating up
of life's core cargo cult's last load,

Holst, bass trombones,
here, is the dance of little devils with a mind to make
a difference
in the depths of ever after,
up to now,
I had forgotten the piccolo parts, and the French horns,
and the joy of the big parade,
marching off
to war explore the unknown
for exploitations as per the underling theme,
go forth
subdue the Earth, and conquer all who refuse, to say
this is the way,
this is the good old way,

war
glory and honor, earn the urim'nthummin'n'human
inhumainity, we, the chosen warrior beings,
messengers of differing mocking gods of ****** mud
beyond the final river,
every slogger knows, forever, there remains
one more
river to cross, a final thread to tie to you, listener,

Holtz, still in the background, a journey, what price
each player plays in this, orchestration shared,
as I read, I wrote, as I hoped, I did,

and I remain, giddily glad… my side won the war
I lost.

Peace came, unbidden, apparently,
a deep breath, and harp strings,

this is the future from any ever before, now
to know
this is common, not so rare, as even the idea,
not so long ago,
first radio mono performance,
what child lay in the crib and heard this,
through the grand horn of Gram's Gramma phone.
Y''ello,
toldja, ai ain't no Injunsaint. Pretend, then,
right, ai and mai-y grandma

can piece together some occassional lessons, given us,
she in her time telling me in mine,sssince ever about
I was forty-nine, or so, she told me she was an orphan,
and had no family knowledge, past begins
at the last common thread,
to a native american epic,

when the old deluder, Satan, act, attached
to law and order and rectangular resettlement
of wilderness liberated from savages and beasts…
pawn, both steps, dare… help the Macedonians
and take Uncle Tom wit'cha, whicha oughtn't had
never the less, young wombed men, did tend
to become aspirational, after becoming
inspired read-up young wombed men, hot
to seek adventure, teachin' young'n's, out west.

indistanct depth Holst at the kettle drumms softerafter
- the silent version has a different light show
--- circa 1880's, not historically long ago, most places.
This character,
qwerty guy's friend, has kin as close as my Uncle Cebe'n'me,
who died at Wounded Knee, where my liege republic,
honored some two dozen rapid fire cannon supported
avengers of The Seventh Cav!
And in their hearts,
if not their lips,
was the march in time to Garry Owen. Their families
must be proud.

And that's a shame. We were taught to grant worth
to a medal signifying honor brought to the liege, in victory.

Peace passes that, music makes bubbles, we revisit,
replay the gramma phone version,
some scratchy
real realizing strings singing chimes and harps
of ages past
unveiling, hiding nothing knowing freedom is a sense,
you know
you do not own it,
you do not make it up, it is free. The idea

I had, approached as
hunter
in pursuit, steady as she blows,

leave us hap as may be at a triumph of joyous
curious
dancing twinkle noise amusing being a muse used,
enter tained, and voiced by bass
then tinkles
thin thin thin then Zildjian  K-bang!

____
Yes. Loaded. RIP
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2016
poetry can resemble a jackson ******* method - but it can also resemble sitting on the stairs in the garden, just when winter starts to dig into it's cold at night (but still not cold enough) for a man drinking beer and smoking cigarettes to feel the skin etch out in itches from the mild freeze, and imagining himself holding the beer bottle with skeletal fingers... then the thoughts come... nothing is really planned by a narrator working out a fictional linear process, it's more like that soviet invention of a game of tetris, thoughts come, the ego disappears, thoughts arrange for a brief narrative, then disappear, new thoughts come, then a randomisation process takes over, until ex nihil complete dispersion, the faculty of thinking is exiled, and the faculty of memory takes over.*

after watching two grand movies in one day,
it felt really sour to return to the grand stasis of things,
the only constellations that are visible
without any ******* notion of light pollution
are scorpio and the big dipper...
the litter dipper is more dim this year,
so dim i mistook the earth's celestial geographic
route as spring summer the big dipper is
when in autumn winter the big dipper is
the small dipper... but seeing the two in the night
once i became aspirational in my error -
if only the prefix aspi- existed, derived from
aspen to the added continuance of the word
left: rational: rationality based upon unforced error?
but these two films: kingsman: the secret service
& the hobbit: the desolation of smaug
you get penetrated by so many active ingredients
for the narration via images, that when you
un-glue your eyes from plato's cave (actors
are the best conclusive interpretation of shadows,
no rabbits in the hand to be mistaken for the real things)
you get this drawback sensation of having to focus
on inanimate things in stasis -
and it can & does become pretty glum,
esp. if you want to return to the realm of using
phonetic symbols, to not speak in reserve for
an up-and-coming stage performance
but to see the glaring starry composition of hidden
things in the things already seen...
so there with the beer, scorpio elsewhere
the big dipper only thing providing me with
a workable dynamic: in schematic
          
       .         .
                    
                       .
                .

       .
            .

               .


i had to active this arrangement of stars
to negated feeding my exposure to
so many images...
i began by coupling the stars: three couplets
one star the odd one out...
then i started to create a dynamic
on the basis of geometry, a geometric
non-linear representation of infinity,
but the constellation into a circle,
and therefore thought of infinity as not
beginning                         sequence                    end,
after all, infinity as a constant interchange
of 10 distinctions 0 - 9 can be ridiculous,
whereby infinity just becomes a randomisation:
either 14123480345792340834 etc.
or 12300984393657499393030, etc.
so using geometry i need to acquire
a infinite parallelism, infinite parallelism
implied as non-convergence.... two points
small enough (atoms, sub-atomic particles,
stars) to interact in parallel, but never converge,
for if convergence was possible...
i wonder: me being conscious of being
the olympic gold swimmer to the ****?
i hardly think so.
i can perceive atoms via the greek imagination
or with the galileo of small-print via the microscope,
but i can't individuate an atom of some sort
to a specified functional guarantee: well yeah,
sulphur stinks... but i could technically
atomise the one unit in my capacity to a state
of an atom... my self... given the number of people
and all the chance interactions in an environment
big enough to all a minuteness of the atomised self...
which is perhaps the counter to that old chestnut
known as solipsism: how to get the right phonetically
chemical concoction to get an etymologically word
out of this? atomipsism? no philology in me just
yet to open the bible of philology (the dictionary)
or bother thesaurus rex for comparative literature.
but anyway, as things go i was musing this other thing,
the fame of achilles with the modern fame machinery...
back then you really had to push the right buttons,
and your actual fame was post-mortem, in order
that you might be glorified in some way...
modern fame seems like a bad orwellian joke...
it's translated into our modern themes of catchphrases
slogans and trademarks as c.c.t.v., a ****** camera
on your shoulder... it actually is a bad orwellian joke...
no double think i rephrased into:
there are more c.c.t.v. cameras in england than in
all of europe put together... so the double think
is as this:
a. should i be bothered, or
b. should i not be bothered?
i'll answer with my usual enigmatic methodology by
just changing the subject -
we left the realm of philosophic doubt and thinking,
we entered the realm of modern denial and thinking,
i dare say i prefer doubt to denial,
it makes all our apprehensions, petty fears and
all petty concerns a bit smaller - via the maxim:
the only fear to fear is fear itself... denial doesn't
provide what doubt provides, doubt is like
cushioned fear... if there's a fear to fear as simply itself
doubt puts a lid on it, a spontaneity,
a kantian noumenon by definition, fear-in-itself.
Daniel James Feb 2011
One day in an office somewhere,
On someone else’s time,
Someone had an idea -
They were looking for ways to make up money
Out of thin air.
Now this someone somewhere was a man
For want of a better name, let’s call him Dan
Dan’s idea was simple, it was this:
Let’s start making make-up aimed at kids!
Not kids like students, or as in school kids,
But real kids, you know, of 9,8,7, even 6!
Infants, toddlers, babies, that’s the biz!
We’ll be the market leader in make-up bibs!
Tell them they get purple potts when telling fibs
But try our concealer - Mum won't even notice!
We’ll get some newborn WAG to celebendorse it
And call it something aspirational like, Babywish
In fact, before 12 months they’re really not all that clever
So how about “With Babywish u2 can live 4ever!”
Lawrence Hall Apr 2019
Our straw boss, now, she hyphenates her name
And there is something frightening about
Those faux dashes stapled between the nouns
Her proper nouns, as if they might slip loose

And fall onto the pages of Debrett’s
As isolated bits of DNA
Dropping their aitches and their gees, oh, please!
So tack that Burberry hyphen back again

Let no proletarian taint be seen -
Made in China becomes Fabrique en Chine
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
Look once more,
look back and see the way, to now
from
when reason first was used
to master the frame
of mind, embodied, as mine,
informed with shapes of things solid,
shapes of things inside,
shapes of thing outside,
shapes of thoughts stacked in sequence,
after the hallelujah,
as per holy orders of worth appraisal,
services rendered,
magic performed,
life administered, for another week,
any body can handle one more week.
After the hallelujah.
learn that definition once, and you never
see sequential activity in ritual
as before,
magic effectuation, affection, as joy
one mindful, chewy, gustatory morsel,
of child-like faith, to be conserved.
Conservatively speaking,
Whig-wise, knowing one's prepositional relativity.
We labor, not in vain… to become worthy
to tread, with shoes, on streets of gold.
where milk needs no cow, and honey bees
never need be busy all day.

Riches and sweets, both
take more than either promise, aimed at
via entertain-mental mmm-usings tight
at tension, mind's time spaced taut
edge of me, edge of mine,
edge of ever aimed at
thus far… where we suffer this is so…
- measured timespace in mind agone…
Then we live through the last now, to die.

Becoming the author, fisher for being bubbles
afloat in ever after all.

At my funeral. To spare the hassle, imagine.

Friends and loved ones,
most are dead, or far away;

but we recall times, vague days
incidents for which we each hold bits,

instants, reality instantiated, pastense,

feel the kiss, feel the shame, the joy,
the hope, the loss, the win, the terror,
the truth of no perceptible way,

away from quit.
--------------

Infancy instants, perhaps, we guess,
we recall being babes, for briefest
recollections of perceptions kept, some how

to be reformed from shards of information
stored some where in an image of a moment

seen from the frame of a seer, not me, seeing
me, infant me, tossed and caught by a laughing
man in a sailor suit…

and, the oddity, of the singular infantile memory
stored some where for reconstruction, living
entertainment…

like unto Agricultural Entertainment, an art form
ancient as harvest festivals,

when locals picked the orchards, and our worlds
were edged in otherwise wild hedge rows,
where little creatures live at child level,
where words miss heard give stories twists,

too odd to be retold while holding any of the small
awe, aw, so sweet, too dear to let be meaningless,
but
as truth been told,
mean is bad in dogs and men, mean is bad in mankind,
mean is common,
mean is most common,
mean is measured, granted
mathematical reality, mind my means, you know
"intend, have in mind;"
Mental meaning application, folded man-kind wise…
Sometimes connected to root *men- (1)
"to think,"
which would make the ground sense of man
"one who has intelligence,"
but not all linguists accept this.
Liberman, for instance, writes,
"Most probably man 'human being' is a secularized divine name"
from Mannus [Tacitus, "Germania," chap. 2],
"believed to be the progenitor of the human race."

~~~~~~~~

Institutional minds, adapted from drama,
worn like Superman's or Bishop Sheen's cape.
Übermmench, **** sapien augmentacious,

**** habitus, us, as we think, we are.
We are no other way,
as a man thinketh truth, as a mind may think,
fine, so is he, in his own mind, right or not,
limited fineness, judged, discerned, quarkishly
ever finer, to this very point,
where mind being time being comes to mind,
in you.
We, momentarily, agree, aggressive face to face
point, fair call
at the inner edge of the inverse square
practical fractal constant…
gravest of issues, at thought
speed of intention to grasp. Percept perceive
link touch… flowing listing seeping soaring

bemused become
amused and entertained, feeding on ensamples,
as sorted characters,
defined societal aspirational imaginal
roles in reality aboard 1950's era Spaceship Earth.


Standing, unbowed, before kings,
bowing before mean men, thinking

all ya'll are said to be created, made
equal…
valued worthy
of opinion expressed as yours, as
wings put on wishes, shoes on prayers,
for warding reaching pulling pushers
-list as wind, in cognitive bias, right
lean as wild grasses launch new seed,
- double helix, twisting up
- from down,
feel massive missal push us on,
orbital, for a lifetime,
be maker of a being bubble
be a minding creating creation,

as weighed in balance, or mass, as gold
or wind in force testing wills for making

a way, where no way was.
Dead end. No way from now, but through.

Wind beneath my down swung pinions,
lifting my imaginal self over my useless

wait state, ever learning, never learning
the whole truth we are sworn to tell,
as soon as
we begin to see as others see, subject,
object
seer
seen seeing, saying

we may be minders of findings, guardians
set to watch,
set to see,
set to say look this way, these invisible limits

terminal connection looping past through
you
as my word choices,
pass the blood brain barrier and pierce
eternal you, in stasis.

- ---------------
- post radio war, not so long ago

"how ' we gonna keep 'em down
on the farm, after they've seen Pairee?"
- enter the era of the salesman
Total war, full power propagation of faith,
in practice, words are empty, meaning
is made- hate festered pride
of whiteness, same color as the rich, qualia
as equally mistaken in terms we call common,
****** speech of the non-reading classes,
stupid peasants, children of useless men.
Lower by far than, Biblical men
of the baser sort. Belial's
sons of total depravity,
two rungs lower than average
working classes, labor, any collared man willed
to pay sweat for bread and circuses.
And a dry, warm place to sleep.

Man, the reasoning creature, is what he eats.
Man does not live by bread alone.

Imagine grooming a gimp, from puberty.
Imagine Michael Jackson, "the kid is not my son!"

Look out, Howard Bloom. Duck.
Watch the boy do a thousand shoulder shrugs.
See the fantasizing worth of awe in focus, this
is us,
we paid to see the man perform, in a role made
from lies a child uses
to make just now,
reasonable, just
cause,

I can, I have power given me by Life, look,
who can imagine being the fan,
aw, man,
nobody longs to be
in the nosebleeds, being there
is not being you,
when all you can become has become true.
Just imagine,
fakes never make it.

And truly a big tragedy to be avoided, next.

We interview… the biggest nobody,
an entity insisting formless information imagines
bubbles of being limited
-- some strings of pearls rolled up

roll into little *****
of gnoshit pearls, treasure true, in essence
from dried gnosisnot. These we cast not to pigs.
To think a readers reasons
for writing, become one
of the rare breed born
to become readers
of one thousand books, once before you die.

------------------
If Warhol made action seem so mundane,
might I not make fun seem so slow a function
to make perfectly reasonable,
picking a fight with a lie,
because I can… being created equal to that task,
I can recognize lies I told,
I know where the handles are, I know what holds
the handle to the secret meaning of things,
can seem material, where free will
is culture locked as impossible.
Thingo no hypo.
Action movie, opening sequence,
as liturgical as any measured reassurance,
enter in, become the entertained,
we live in another realm, we only play at
while being entertained, we only watch roles

being presented for judgement,
test your will to link a mind projection,

from a former time shaped mind, aimed
at drawing an audience, a crowd,
all agreeing upfront to pay
for the mirror neuronic stims,
in a darkened room filled with fools such as I.

Who allows possible a gunfight with ***'s,
at goal-to-go range, taking five minutes,
and no named characters die,
all blood is non player blood,
only a child's mind never exposed, flash,
allows that to feel real, for five minutes,
into a nonreal mindtimespace
reality
of ever once,
and ever after, onces

such as once, seeing a gun in your face,
once hearing the bang, from a gun in your hand,
once
upon
recalling that was a movie, and I never killed a man,
but by osmosis, I imagine I can see
how hate
works the same as ******.
Relax.
Recall the unbelievableness.
--- so what are silent action movies feeding,
young Aldous Huxley, a bright well educated lad.
{We are all alphas}
-----------
"His uniqueness lay in his universalism.
He was able to take all knowledge for his province."
-------
Only a rich man's son may so say.
Even, as limiting to level, if such leveling
evens the odds, serves to increase resolve
to square the circle and fix pi to simple, once
and
for
all. As events in the heaven occur, fractally

added in fine ality… at you, dear reader, enlivening me.
Infinitely, relative to yesterday.

Of course, comic books count. As in the future,
classic video games shall seem poetic code.
I appreciate the reader's task more than the writer's. Writing is easy, reading what you write from the outside is the reader's task, unless it feels like a game.
b e mccomb Jul 2019
you’re the swimming pool i want
to sit at the bottom of forever
watching the tiled sunlight
letting the water
drown the world to a
muffled bubble
as peace descends
like it can’t above the surface

you’re the shooting star
i knew was nothing more than
an astronomical anomaly
assigned superstitious significance
and yet i let my foolish wishes loose
out the hatch of a blinking
midnight airplane and impossibly
every one came true

you’re the patch of sunlight
on a mahogany floor
and i wish that i could lay
in your warmth forever

you’re every birthday candle
i’ve ever blown out
every aspirational dream i never
deserved to see realized

you’re proof that
love is real and warm
alive and breathing
proof there is good
left in the world
and we all can find it
proof that angels still
roam to keep me safe

you’re the feeling in my
throat when i remember you’re
the best thing that ever
happened to me and when i say
i love you
i don’t mean i want to
kiss you in the rain
(although i do)

i mean i want to keep
you by my side forever
let our skin grow papery
and fade like crumpled
ten dollar bills worn with
fold marks around our
eyes from laughing together
and our thoughts twist and
vine their way around each other
so you can’t tell where one of us
ends and the other begins
until all the parts of you that
are kinder and gentler than i
shed like dandelion seeds and
float into the meadows
of my subconscious

the feeling in my throat
turns into a traffic jam when i
desperately hope for the
thousandth time that you know
that’s what i mean when i
say i love you

that i could struggle for
hours and write thousands
of words trying to explain
myself but you’re the one
feeling so huge and immense
i just can’t find a metaphor

i’ve often wondered if
i love you too much
but i never want
to love you any less

you are my sun
my moon
and my entire
solar system
the milky way
turns upside down
and pours out in a
wash of meteors
when i start counting the
constellations in your eyes

i hope i never stop
feeling the flutter
of a million microscopic
feathers in my stomach
beating in time to the
sound of your footsteps

but if the butterflies ever
fly away we’ll both be okay

because there’s no place
for even the tiniest
glimmer of fake
crystal anxiety
in the arms of
the only one who
has ever really
felt like home

and if home is where the
heart is than i’ve hung
curtains in your ribcage
covered us both in a
layer of fresh paint
placed my pillow
on your chest where
i sleep at night

i’ve spun castles
in the air and
now we’re building a house
from the ground up

you’re my present
and my future and
i want to keep you
as close as my
freckles and as
loved as my tattoos

i dread the day
the universe takes
you away from me
but until that day
i will live as if nothing
can separate us

you
and me
forever
and always
copyright 7/25/19 by b. e. mccomb
Anais Vionet Mar 2023
I watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” last night - we’re going to be reading Truman Capote’s book after the break and I wanted to start thinking about it. The movie rewrites Truman Capote’s story, turning it into a romcom, completely eliminating the book's gay themes. I’d seen ‘Breakfast’ before, but now I’m a little older, and as a single woman, I can better appreciate it. I’m looking forward to studying its socio-****** themes. These are some first thoughts.

Let’s take the opening of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The images are iconic and some of the most widely repeated in pop-culture today (Hello, ubiquitous dorm room decor), but they’re never used in a way consistent with their function in the film. Instead of seeing a horribly depressed girl who has nothing left in her life but pure escapism, people see a beautiful woman with apparent access to luxury.

When “Breakfast” came out (in 1961) there was a sense, within the press and wider public, that even a neutered version of Holly Golightly represented a cinematic moral nadir that posed a threat to society. Whether Holly was a “moral character” was up for debate in countless reviews of the film. Today, this seems absurd.

Today, Holly is seen as an aspirational figure. With her opera gloves, her intricate updo, pearls and Givenchy little black dress, she looks like someone who belongs at Tiffany’s (of course, the casting the euro-elegant Audrey Hepburn didn’t hurt). Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe as Holly - that would have been a very different movie.

Watching the film, I was struck with how contemporary Holly felt. She seems so familiar - so similar to the countless imitations we’ve seen since. People watching the movie for the first time today may be underwhelmed, but Holly seems so contemporary now, because she was so ahead of the curve back then (just over 60 years ago).

If you look at the popular romantic comedies that surrounded ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, like “Pillow talk,’ ‘Gigi,’ and ‘Giget’ - their leading ladies were nothing like Holly. Being a heroine in those films meant you strived for marriage, you saved yourself for your one true love and, as a woman, you avoided certain subjects altogether. They imply happiness only comes from following a certain good girl ethos.

An example of what could happen to a girl, if she strayed from that path, was shown in Elia Kazan’s ‘Splendor in the Grass’ which also came out in ‘61. Its theme is the consequences of ****** repression, and it outlines a specific cinematic binary. There are good girls and bad girls. The bad girls were usually presented as sad and mentally unstable - and they paid for their sins in the end - usually by dying by some karmic punishment (car wrecks usually).

Holly sits somewhere in between good and bad, complicating the cinematic binary. Because Audrey’s elegance plays her as classy, warm and accessible, she doesn’t come across as a dangerous wild child - although she makes all of the bad girl choices - like partying, drinking and having ***.

For women who grew up in the repressive 1950s, Holly represented a new path forward. Holly lived on her own, she didn’t crave marriage above all else, she didn’t want to live in a cage, and she managed to have a good time without being victimized or doomed. Holly was noticeably different. The pill came out in May of 1960 (one of the watershed events in human history). Holly was Hollywood's first post-pill heroine, representing the ****** revolution before Betty Friedan’s ‘Feminine Mystique’.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Nadir:  the lowest or worst point of something.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Polysyllabic Aspirational Bourgeois Vanity
                                           (and, like, stuff)

Surrealism

A melting clock is not aesthetically pleasing
Nor is it of any utility
It celebrates chaos instead of life
And bullies us with a manifesto

Surrealism

Gives pale aesthetes topics for their idle hours
Surrendering imagination to cliches’
The endlessly self-referential I, I, me, me
(Another double-latte, if you please)

Surrealism

The republican’s derivative art is but
The emperor’s new clothes turned inside out


(And have you seen my serial takes on Greek ikons re-imagined and re-envisioned as diatomic forms through vegan egg-tempera on recycled barn wood as a repudiation of hidebound colonialist oppressivist occupationist Orthodoxy by sequencing monks on Mount Athos as agnostic Jewish fast-food workers influenced by the works of Dali and the Rapallo poets through a motif of running wedges in asymmetric lines from a cosmopolitan image of Heaven to a day-glow Wal-Mart beside a sea of transcendental bubbles which symbolize my feelings when my latest grant was canceled? Hmmmmmmm? Of course the straights don’t get it; their lack of imagination is why they stopped The People’s funding I deserve so that I can make great art chiding them for being dullard capitalist mechanicals. I take all major credit cards for my works.)
Emily Fell Nov 2015
I love those mornings,
Rolling between the sheets,
Tenderly drifting in and out of light sleep.

Wasting a day for pure enjoyability,
Meaningless conversations
Being the meaning of the day.

Baking and dancing and doing whatever we want
With icing sugar dusting our eyelashes
And a glow settling on our cheeks.

All reminding me
Of the beauty that I saw
When we stargazed the night before,
Sitting carelessly on the velvet moonlight,
Only caring about each other.

Dreams are made of these moments;
Moments that I get to share with you each and every day.

We shared our dreams that night,
However quirky and aspirational they may be,
And we lit them in the stars
To make them shine a little brighter,
Like your smile on a rainy, pointless day.
Ken Pepiton Jun 29
Yes, reading, using only text, unbreakably plain,
as benign as simple first seems, easy to keep thinking

we may be evolving as we think in ways none thought
possible to leave be so easing, lifting, lightening thinking

we need not toil,
at this instance,
the nature of the medium,
holding any sense we make,
massaging the messenger, to me
arranges time around second glances,
it may mean as many as seventy things,

but tome, said in Hebrew, is integrated innocense,
and it has a verbal form, completing certain trans
actions, in spacetime mindful practice fields,
as pre-spiring aspiring transpirits transpiring
into little willful art works, aspirational asps

sneaky snake, wise serpent, dragon prosperity,
dragon of lucifity, crawling like an army, on its belly,

Set, divine sylabbles from babbling brooks,
that loved the high mountains in that science
of Aristotle kind of love, rich kids learned as religion.

The initiation into the mysteries.

Those oaths, I swear, we hear them
to this day, as games are played, old spells
muttered, and the veterans of Satanic Panic,

at the edge
of the last millennium,
once more, gather socially,
to see shown, the Q- document
included the ritual,
to let this mind, be
in you, and you  be thinking,

-- wait one adjectively untainted minute,
is the-this art, is this thinkable, without
authority?

this peace I am taking, I did not make it, but
I can take it. I fought no dragon,
won no war.
I solved the house troubling egg
riddle, silk eggs store story lines
on the scale
of life, entire memories
of winds waters since the ice,
last reached farther last summer,
than this, these
memories
in gaseous we formed last gasps,
suddenly

it ended… and we survived,
we feel the need t
o let it be known, and lo'
we have a culture atuned
to the tongue I was programed
to use awarily as the message medium.

Imagined while Goldie Hawn was asking
Marshall McLuhan, what are you doin'?
Dig it. Digit. An instant in a we.
'68. There was video tape,
and searchible reel to reel, let's test it, in a mind

re-ify, ify if I knew when time mattered last,

what would now be worth, back then?
In attention?
The ways we sow subversive verse is potentially as permanent as the web;\
which we designed to survive 1961 foreseeable destructive entities. Post debate angst...  spent in sudden frustration to prevent cardiac events.
the supreme leader addressed the nation
on this hundredth year of the party's jubilee  
his words being powerful in their oration

the people listened to the propaganda spree
which spoke of the country's future dominance
on this hundredth year of the party's jubilee

the western world surely listened to the parlance
that spilt forth from his totalitarian lips
which spoke of the country's future dominance

the speech was aspirational in its goals quips  
to not of heard the stated aims would be unwise    
that spilt forth from his totalitarian lips

history's pages will show how communism did rise
on this day we were reminded of what lies ahead
to not of heard the stated aims would be unwise

on this day we were remided of what lies ahead
the world coming under one controlling stead
the supreme leader addressed the nation
his words being powerful in their oration
What they need from you
What you are worth to them
Them is a people of need and displaced
I'll give you the honest truth,  
That no one really values you
Good luck trying to escape it
Just know that history can't erase it

Showing up with a broken back
Hopeful the overlords keep track
Hardworking and dedication out the windows
While Tad poles search in a lake of minnows

I'll give you the honest truth
That no one really values you
Good luck trying to escape it
Just know that history can't erase it

Reaching for more and feeling aspirational
Trying to accomplish goals so unobtainable
What they need from you
What you're worth to them
Them is the people in need and displaced

On your best day you feel alone
When your on the straight and arrow road.
Trying to grow yourself while you're aware that they wont.
Anwer Ghani Apr 2019
We have girls; pink girls adore life; adore it deeply. Their hearts are white hearts fill the air with enjoyment and their smiles are pink smiles color the places with pleasure. The homes; our homes are black without the girls’ smiles and the city; our city is empty without the girls’ laugh We have girls; very dreamy girls; in their eyes, the aspirational tales wear beautiful dresses and on their shoulders the ambitious bags are pink and shiny. . Our girls’ fragrance is coming from the fairies’ land, and their pink veils are coming from the shining flowers.Yes, in Iraq, we have girls; nice girls; their dreams are big and pink, and their wishes are smiling and Rosary. Our schools are proud that magic girls are sitting on their disks, and our gardens are delight that charming girls are playing between their flowers. Our palm trees give all their sweet date for our girls’ hands and our buckthorn trees give all their full seeds to our girls’ labs.
Tosin Atoyebi May 2020
One fateful day,
I flew far, and far away,
From a spindle, unscrewing the bolt in my nut
Peace, patience, gentleness, generosity had fled
Spindle verged lousy replacement,
Mother flung me into a luminous tomb

Here are the movies!
The thrilling movies of tellurians,
In the tomb I was flung.

On seat, I spectated as a cinephile
Cobra venoms, I watched single file
Nascent awareness, dripping white!

I loathe talebearers!
It seemed they were absent
Behind my shutters, engines roared into a turnpike,
human chirped even under the twilights
The house; rooms and passages seemed placid

One day gone,
My doorstep was furnished with gongs
Talebearers weren't far from us
They were right there, peeping from walls
Bevy of women at my doorstep for conference
Hadn't they mistook preference?

As the days shrinks,
I becomes piqued as engines still brushes...
Rotund, slender and bony women glues buttoms
To my doorstep, chirping, that burns my inside!

Why had mummy flung me into a wrong tomb?
I never asked for where zero quiet loomed
At the yawp of talebearers, books becomes blank
At the rev of engines, ears stuffs with clanks

Could the shoes of intellect be polished
When the aspirational buckle had been damaged?

Being a nerd in Osogbo, requires jungle's lodge
'Why didn't you fling me into its jungle'
‘I hardly assimilate, when I study!'
‘Can't there be any remedy?'...
Gander vitally waddled into water.....
She was about beating me with anodyne brows!
pluviophile Aug 2020
the first time an online boy confessed to me
it scared me
how he read between the banter to find something that wasn't there and i
was blind to it
i thought we could continue like this forever
static
and nothing would change
because change is scary
when this boy told me he liked me
i remembered that he was a person
not just some account mirroring my words, devoid of feeling
free from extracting meaning from nothing
like people so often do

perhaps, while i talked to him, i forgot i was a person too
people are scary
and to remember that i am a person is to remember that i have parts of myself that i am terrified of
talking to this online boy
i wasn't burdened by that
i was everything aspirational
cool, witty, silly but just the right amount to be respected

i've talked to more online people since
and i've had more boys confess to me since
it gets easier but it never gets less sad
i had never learned to lower my expectations and remember that these online people.... are people

at some point, i came to expect it
rip the bandaid off early
i don't care if it hurts

well, i do care if it hurts
but i never remember that until i am hurt

i dig for any information about these people
i'm sorry i am so impulsive but i cannot stand to continue loving myself and loving the people i talk to
knowing that some day, i cannot

so i see it
i see their full name
i see that they're a college student at a state university only a few hours from me
i see that they have lives outside of direct messages
i see that they have a face
they're not bad looking
they look pretty nice, in fact
but i want to forget it

people are scary
when you see a friend's face for the first time
it reminds you that they're a person
and that
is the saddest feeling in the world
Yenson Mar 2023
Decent cultured quiet
aren't qualities of weakness
reserved hardworking aspirational
aren't qualities of weakness
independent and self-possessed
aren't qualities of weakness
Law-abiding honest and honorable
aren't qualities of weakness
empathic caring and reasonableness
aren't qualities of weakness
being astute to garner comfortability
isn't a sign of privilege
BUT
to the Mcafferty Criminal Family
raised on Gangsterism and crime
these predatory Extortionists
saw all these qualities as weaknesses
they are going to put the squeeze on
make the offer one can't refuse
or else
Well they got the biggest shock
I refused
I stood up to them and called them out
You're a walking dead they screamed
Do your worst I screamed back at them
No I am not afraid
They have since been very busy
recruiting and running Training Courses
on Prison Culture, Extortion Intimidation and Bullying
Lying, Gaslighting, Fudging and odious Manipulating
crash Course in ***** dealing and Foul play
I hear the Courses are over-suscribed
their punters are all on offers they dare not refuse
mugs and cowards are two to a dime
and so readily willing to be used
fooled and hoodwinked
Yet we see One Man still standing
Unafraid unbowed uncowed
one man
laughing at them all still
I am free
they are not...


https://youtu.be/002z5H7cqn8
https://youtu.be/002z5H7cqn8
Can you truly say anyone of you is free when criminals rule you by fear, intimidation, blackmail and threats. Do you honestly believe you live in a civilised society when you are scared of sticking your necks out.
Julia Denham Sep 2022
How could I have forgotten to pay my respects to this house, to put it down in writing? This house, and the hardest times it brought. Moving into this place; the beginning of it all, where it all started. So much that happened, and also so much that didn't happen. Its white, crusty, brick walls, and my tiny room - made tinier than it was originally by a flimsy drywall down the centre. I clearly remember the first day I walked up the gray, slightly soggy stairs, lugging up my few possessions, filled with optimism and the fearlessness of youth. Apprehensive and frightened, using up all the ounces of bravery I could.

That night I lay in my new bed, the springs digging into my back, the radiator expanding and contracting like it was struggling to breathe. As I looked out of the window at the faint and faraway glistening view of the skyline of London; I knew a fundamental truth. That one day, definitely one day, I would drive past my now old, then ‘new’ window and look up to the second floor on the left and think “I used to live there for two years when I first moved to London.” The predecessor of myself would look back with all of the knowledge completely unbeknownst to me then.

All through my time at that house, I'd imagine my older self driving past in a car, up Leopold Road. This recurring vision changes toward the end, like a junction before the split second of seeing my brown hair being blown out of the passenger seat with the window rolled down. My face peering out of the car for a few seconds as I drive by. All the experiences of two years condensed into two seconds and a remark, “that used to be my room.” Sometimes I am explaining this to a man I do not yet know, who sits next to me. Sometimes I look glamorous and independent and established; sometimes I am a mother and I turn to the back seat and point out the window to my children.

The moment feels so certain. The certainty that it brings so undeniable and unavoidable. Like the endless rattle of the train of time. Stopping never for any of us. None of us. So I have this acceptance and I surrender to the fact that I can never stop it from happening. This moment will come, and it will feel natural and normal; because it was always going to come.

Sometimes in these visions, I am in the car looking out, looking back, and it's gray outside -  other times, I can feel the sticky heat of summer and I am wearing sunglasses. Which is out of the ordinary, because I have always felt insecure and unattractive wearing sunglasses. Perhaps the sunglasses are aspirational to me. Representing someone I felt I could never quite be, someone way out of reach to me as I lay on my bed looking at the uneven dim, yellowish ceiling, one of the light bulbs bust. Someone I hoped to be, oneday. At Least most of the time I am telling someone, verbally, out loud about the 2nd floor, and the housemates I came to know, and lovers I had - and lost, and the way my body changed and all of the stuff that transpired in my mind in that little chapter of my world. At least, I think, I am not alone most of the time, I have someone to share this with.

Sometimes, though, I am alone. But, I share this moment with myself in a way which has felt so instinctive since I was a small girl, a teenager, and even now as a young woman. A super gentle, tender, soothing, encouraging, sister-like interaction with oneself. Like the feeling of someone threading their fingers through your hair to calm you down. That way. I've always been that way. Throughout the two years I wanted to be soothed so badly, I think of the word often, ‘soothe,’ the word itself is so delicate and comforting. So for most of the nights I slept on that bed, in the tiny room with the stained gray carpet, looking longingly out the window, to perhaps catch a glimpse of this future self of mine. A pillar of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel. Looking for her desperately, feeling her looking back at me.

A version of myself who got through it all, a version of my who possesses hindsight and strength and grace. A woman who survived, someone who could back into the window on the second floor and hold all the hurt for me. Just hold it. Just for the sake of a morsel of relief. And tell me everything would be okay one day, because she knows, because she's lived it. Us knowing, her knowing, me knowing, the moment would come.
Yenson Oct 2020
Leila Navabi accused Mr Sunak
of “not representing most brown people”.

“Rishi Sunak represents a lot of things for us as a society,
not least what Prince Charles would look like in brownface.”

The jibes follow days of online attacks on ex-banker Mr Sunak,
who married into a wealthy steel dynasty.

Senior Tories leapt to his defence,
with Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly tweeting:
“The left really don’t like us BAME people being successful, do they.”

NO..they do not
come join us for we represent you
you are comrades and brothers and sisters
we need you driving the buses
working in the shops
sweeping the streets and dancing about
you've got the rhythms and the moves
sell us the drugs and swagger into jails
you are black why be anything like Lawyers and Doctors
who wants a decent respectable blackman with a Royal heritage
that's not right by any means

Join us and help CANCEL black progressives
who are educated, aspirational, respectable and law-abiding
Viva peoples power...we are the majority
and what we decide goes.....
Ryan O'Leary Nov 2023
Phantoms


      Shadows hunchback

   beneath arched masonry,

day-night is indistinguishable.

        
       Nobody sleep walks

     in the tunnels, dreams

    are aspirational visions.
Ryan O'Leary Jul 27
Falling Star
        
Dallas Cowboys – Logos Download

  I stand wide gait
  arms spread and
   head pointed to
     the sky, at my
   celestial sisters.

  Shine brightly on
   your milky way,
   rehearse again,
   for the millionth
   time, perfection.

    Galaxy Girls on
  the most watched
  playing field in our
  universe, prairie of
   the almighty one.

  Entertainers to the
  world, inspirational,
beyond exceptional,
aspirational, but not
for me, I’m trop petite!


              ---



Ryan O'Leary (Ireland)
             For
© to Ariana McClure

18 July 2024

        <>

— The End —