Diversity of motivation among self-harming individuals

An estimated one in twelve teenagers has committed self-harm. Of those many will continue self-injuring into young adult hood. Yet older adults are not immune to committing this act. In 2003-2004 adults age 25-44 were responsible for nearly fifty percent of reported/discovered self-harm cases.  There are many reasons that people self-harm. These reasons may include self-harming as a survival mechanism, self-harm as an outer expression of inner emotional turmoil, and self-harm as a means to exercise control over one’s environment.
Contrary to popular thought, only one in ten people who make the decision to self-harm are suicidal. The majority of people who cause injury to themselves willfully have a wish to avoid killing themselves. The act of self-harm is developed as a “technique” to cope and survive the afflictions of life. How can we know that this is the reasoning or thought behind the action of self-harm? “Cutters” typically reason out the least amount of damage that will “remedy” the stress intensive situation that they find themselves in, and exercise an enormous amount of restraint in inflicting only a measured amount of damage. Cutters’ common logic is that through this expression of injury, further damage to their selves may be headed off. --------, a former cutter, attests to the reality of this when he says, “Every time that I touched a blade to my skin, I would resist making a larger cut, a deeper wound. Every time that I hurt myself, I did so only in response to what drove me over the edge; Each time the amount of physical damage that I did was the very least that I could muster. I fought to do the least damage I could, no matter how intense the pain that I felt became.” He sums it up rather nicely.
Secondly, self-harm is used as an outward expression of deeper, more complex emotional and psychological phenomena. It is not a diagnosis; it is a symptom. It is a symptom of a struggle that is inherited by victims of abuse, those who lose a loved one, or experience other traumatic events during their childhood. These groups are far more likely to indulge in self-harm. One study conducted by Boudewyn and Liem found that of those college students that reported a history of self-harm, fifty two percent had been sexually abused as a child. Those that self-harm do not simply cut to cut, burn to burn, or mutilate to mutilate. There is a deeper motivation. This motivation is commonly emotional. These motivational emotions are often the results of tragic or traumatic life experiences. It is seldom that a cutter’s motivation is a want for attention.  In fact, most cutters are chameleons.
Self- harm is used as a tool to exercise control in a chaotic environment over which one would not otherwise have any means to control. Among chaos and turmoil such as the loss of a parent or close friend, relational betrayal, divorce of one’s parents, or consistent, one time, or sporadic physical, emotional, or ****** abuse an individual is radically more likely to engage in self-harm. Outside reasoning on this is only speculative. For this reason it is valuable to look at the action from the perspective of those who commit it. Cody, the same individual mentioned earlier says something else that lines up with this common scholarly opinion. He says “I remember the very first time I cut myself intentionally. I was in the ninth grade, in the school bathroom. I had just experienced what I saw as betrayal by my best friend of about ten years. I felt like I lost him. I felt like things were spinning out of control, and I couldn’t control the way I felt about it all. The only way I could feel that control was with something sharp in my hand.” This is characteristic not only of ----- but also of many other cutters.
Cutters are not (necessarily) crazy. On the surface it may appear that cutting goes against the ingrained survival and self-preservation instincts in human beings. This is actually the opposite of the truth. Many who cut feel that if they don’t inflict smaller harm to themselves that they may indeed fall to suicide. They feel that by letting out their pain in increments, and escaping in fragments, that they can slay the thoughts of suicide and urges to escape that they carry. When at the edges of rational, some instincts may take different forms. What may seem counter intuitive – an act of self-harm – becomes the definition of an instinct that it seems to defy. The desire to survive becomes so strong that it is necessary to inflict pain. This is not uncommon to survival situations. For example, the movie 127 Hours reenacts the experience of a man trapped under a boulder in a beautiful and secluded gorge. He cut off his own arm with a dull multi-tool in order to escape death. That act is the epitome of self-harm as a survival instinct.
Cutting could lead to a series of events that tailspin out of control. Loss of control could take the form of the spiral of therapies and prescriptions that would follow if it were discovered that one were cutting , or it could be the accidental slip of a blade gone too far. It could end in hospitalization. It could even end in death. However, those individuals who choose to cut, as long as sober, take precautions to avoid discovery or more injury than is intended. They are meticulous, careful even. They reason out how, where, and when they can cut “safely”. They are very much in control over the act, when they feel they cannot be in control of anything else.
It may rationally appear that pain is pain. That it would make no difference whether out or inward, because whatever its state, the pain is still owned by the individual. However, emotions are often harder to process than physical events. A burning rage, hate or guilt may well be harder to cope with than a burn to one’s arm, leg, or hand. An emotional cut to the bone may be less painful than a physical one. It may be said that the act does not transform the pain, but multiplies it. This in essence may be true, but one form of pain allows a man to ignore another. A pinch may allow a man to ignore the emotional pain of a nightmare. A small cut may allow ignorance of the bigger cut on one’s spirit or psyche.
There are widely varying and increasingly complex variations of motivation and cause of self-harm. They may include, but are absolutely and in no way limited to: self-harm as a coping or survival mechanism, self-harm as a tool to exercise control over one’s increasingly chaotic environment, and self-harm as an outer expression of inner emotional turmoil. To believe that cutting is simple is to nearly deny it altogether. Its essence is complicated. Stereotyping self-harm or self-harmers may well lead to opinions that will ostracize or further encourage the occurrence of self-harm.  Since the motivation and causes of self-harm are undeniably complex, to attempt to brush this under a rock would be to diminish its importance, and to deny healing to those who need to understand it.

Ah, Yorkshire, thou art purer than Coventry;
and thy promises whiter; than my fluid poetry.
Thou art braver, prudent, and all the way more intelligent;
thy lands are mightier; and perhaps in every possible way-more imminent.
Thou art sincere-and so more delicate than wine, and thoughtful;
Thou adored my words, and made everything else healing, and more beautiful.

In my heart but there might have been no Yorkshire at all-
had I attended not one Coventry last fall.
I witnessed not-at t'at time, all t'is rude twilight-and toughness and madness;
and every chapped breath it had in its roughness, and hilarious-though indeed fake, felicity.
No soul has even bits of a heart, here, to forgive others' soreness,
No being wants to share; no human lives in joy, nor simplicity.
No delight indeed; as I stream my way through every roads;
Everyone is either busy with their selfishness or their coats.
No living is cared for; for humans are phantoms at night and on morns;
Vulnerability is mocked, and demised and often slyly torn.
Ah! Coventry is but a sphere of hell!
For even hell is still lighter when has it not hellfire;
As well cities are, when there is no scoundrel nor liar;
But Coventry is not at all tender;
Its wicked gasp is alive, and never to heartily surrender.
It falls for glory; it bows to such fears for pleasure;
And wanes by the light of whose death; the end of whose allure.
But thou art true-thou art as shy as every flash of virtue;
Thou art indeed-everything t'at is solemnly agreeable and brand new.
Ah, and just now-I had dreams of a fine image of thee;
Smiling within thy fullest verdure, bushes, and lavish undergrowth.
And thy summer is but vivid and friendlier;
Healing every sore heart, and turning 'em all, merrier.
Thou adored the nouns and verbs I wrote,
and admired such simple notions I quoted;
Thou shine upon me-asthe light that shall makest me grow
and the promising dim, faraway region, that lets me glow.
O, Yorkshire, this is still but too early in the transparent evening;
But I am deeply endorsed yet, by t'is poetry writing-
And with thy soul that remains but too witty,
Tearing me away, but with loveliness-
from my cautious present engagement,
Thy charms might be just too hard to bear,
for thy tongue is too sweet;
and thy veracity too chaotic, ye' imminent.
In thee shall I find peace-of that I am convinced,
Peace whose soul is calm, neat and on all occasions, careful-
Unlike t'is bustle which is at times perpetual, and sorrowful;
Unlike t'is very city of Coventry,
Which is damp with exultant bareness, and haziness,
In many ways exalted, but indeed too proud;
And its tongue which is blurred with sin and poison-
Its all-too-loud excitement makes everything but faint,
And at times sends my heart to exile, sends my heart to pain,
In every possible way too unlike thee,
With an imagery, and coaxing voices so sweet
Thou shall leave all my poems bright and freshly lit,
Even though I am still here, even though we are still yet-to meet.

Coventry is too proud and vibrant-yes, too vibrant,
Amidst its own foolishness, which sadly made itself formerly too elegant.
Too elegant to me-in various shapes, and keenly cloaked in unseen deceit,
But only by some beings, whom I was to meet, and my breath to greet.
And as I wake up to an early morning hour,
the plain summer strangely makes me thirst for honest water.
And should I love still-one intelligence t'at is so bitterly repugnant?
I shall certainly not; I shall turn to thee, Yorkshire, who is truer ye' far above, tolerant.
Ah, Yorkshire, but honesty is something Coventry promises not;
for its soul has been maliciously beheaded, and twitched,
It has been paled, corrupted, and despaired-
by its own claws, derived from the jaws of those evil souls
Veiled by their even still inhuman, disguises,
And shall still be wicked, otherwise.
In t'is sea of hate, and these waves of despondency,
I shall think of thee with tantalising depth and scrutiny,
Though thou art still imprisoned in my soul,
Thou who hath flattered and accepted me as a whole.
But Coventry is-still, accidental with some of its bindings,
For mortal as thou art, itself, and is unable to escape its fate,
Still I canst think only of the beauty of thy linings,
And upon thy lands shall I venture to fill my plate.
Ah, Yorkshire, remember that virtue is in thy hand,
but neither is vice-thy dormant enemy, is in its therein,
Virtue who is vile to all of t'is world's inconsolable men,
like in Coventry, as deemed it is, unreasonable and ungenerous, within.
Virtue which is tragically abandoned, in its pursuit of honour;
virtue which was rich, but flattened, and dismayed and disfigured
within the course of one unsupervised hour.
Ah, York, Yorkshire, when shall I ever taste the grandeur
And the very superiority of thy dignity?
For in yon picture, thou art still but a comely neighbour,
Which endorses and attests to my mute, yet unaffected-virginity.

Ah, but Coventry shall despise thee, and with its stubbornness
and overwhelming pride, shall jostle and taunt thee;
Shall defect and isolate thee-when I am but by thy side,
But God be with me still, and blind shall not, my virtuous sight.
Detesting and confronting thee for the remainders of years-as 'tis to be,
Which for thee lie ahead; as how hath it deluded me-just now!
I, who, disconcertingly, placed my heart within its sacred vow,
hath been robbed of my satisfactions, and utmost fortune,
All were perused in centuries and gone in one moon.
Ah, Yorkshire, shall I continue my poetry here-but call out endlessly to thee?
And shall I abandon this tiny caprice of mine-which is a fine, tiny desire of glory
And let myself on the loose, and for evermore be in search
of thee, whom I shall've lost-under the very indulgence of their mirth?
O, I think not!
For I shall mount my poetry-and achieve my silent dreams,
I shall take him with me, if allowed am I-to conquer him,
And make him and thee mine, just like I hath made my poetry,
And be thy light; and thy spiritual and endless reciprocal adoration
All day and night, at the end of our quest for destiny
Wherein I shall dwell, and thrive as my intellect be granted-its long-lost coronation.
O, Yorkshire, for within thy hands now I shall lie my faith-
and trudge along thy forking paths, unto the light of my fate.

Ah, Yorkshire, I am infatuated with these paintings-
these very paintings of thy lush green lands,
And of myself wandering and skulking idly about thy moors;
With my best frock, and his fingers, the one I love, entwined in my hand
As lights procured and on our storming out of yonder wooden doors.
I am shining like a bee is-upon the sweet finding of its honey;
but in whose tale 'tis like thee-to sweet and unpardonable to me.
Be with me, Yorkshire, and be with me forever, only,
As I leave behind this faint malice and commence my journey;
I shall be with thee, and my poems shall be free,
And t'is bitterness of winds shall be no more tormenting me,
Furthermore-be them what they desire to be;
But let me write; and play my song as beautifully as yon naive bee.

Ah, Yorkshire, and wait, wait again for me;
But before let me sink again into a deep sleep,
and tease thee again in my dreams;
Read me once more-the very passages of thy indolent poetry,
Take me out of my stiffness; swing me out of abhorrent Coventry.
Coventry shall be envious, and waiting forever for thy demise;
but honesty is honesty-and one that has no lies,
for thy virtue is clear as thy Western gem,
which is to God, shall always be virtue, all the same.

(Descendant of the Eight Small Furies)

Cold frigged and wet but not icy and not yet. Two laborers at docks
find camaraderie in talks, tho’ their neighbors bustle by as they unload shipping stocks,  

For the kinsfolk miss a nothing a light mist of breath when huffing.  
The women like to pout as the crassy men do shout, shine on awhile whistling, Inn-keepers at shops coo their bristling and Old Wicca ones seen hissing from low, low talk in whisperings,

Although the morning bright the seas are high and not retreating, weather cool and fleeting, the peoples sounds a blend of bleating, as wily sheep would gather to speak about a matter for it is not the people’s spoke of that draws faint sorts of blather.

On this day...rains are much to rather, feigning raspy talons cloaked in chatter and from stores to shores to boat, seas, lakes, lochs, bridges over moat, not as to say they gloat, or ramble to invoke which fear of and from it stoke the gossip on one surly bloke…

For on this day everyone is talking in this seaside town in Eire. A hero undone by gossip but none can be called a liar. For about whom and what of -a man of such great fire.

Celebrity renown, born and raised but not settled down. Within its boundaries a-proper but of such character to copper, to change tasty meat to fat and bone, awe in disposition down to tone, mind boggling this gent whose life god gave as a gift of own.

In a perplexity of fright, brought tragedy each night and none could get away, from the obvious decay, due brutal awful fray, to make a beast from a shining dove, what the hell was God thinking of?

The crisper ears do so hear though not quite enough to whet, the imaginings to happenings they speak about just yet.  So hastily move spies, as I tell you of the sighs, the indignity and pride, swallowed with a town’s growing angry tide,

Upon this night so they see a man, creep who once the pride of Dan, loved more above all here in Tan, his birthplace this old briny-land but lately fondness on the wan, oh here he comes to close in again, to wane and wax vaudevillian, end up by dark a plain villain, as his face turns a shade of vermilion, electric ghost of Kirlian, eclectic host of deviling and calculated mind disheveling,

Pumped of mead or whiskey arguments are risky. Against his manner and girth, intoxicated nature -or mental worth. Sheer size attests his power, muck and mirth to fallen valor, the change is said to wow us, proven brute against all prowess, as such preferred and fight and such to nightly fright,

Béarthr is this man of once, of promises found to be just fronts, hanging around a town's high perch…though seen at the bar as sulk and lurch, or testy to some called a sailor who know not the fear of old dear Balor?

Sullen rent asunder, quick to wit when buntered, try with fists this skunkard; you brought low as a punter, hail to hell with such a drunkard! To stand and watch in awe, as blood and cracks and calls with cries and screams at falls, at doors torn from building halls, no end or stop to pause, sheer terror fighting brawls with fists he lays the laws, a violent testament to theater,

The burly beast named Béarthr!

Eight levels down to hell with him, each evening a town made grim but not tonight and nevermore, a double barrel out missing door, a silence from frosty place our cavern and dead beast felled on floor of tavern!  

If you find yourself frisky one night and driving through our Tan. If you’ve got salt are brisk for fight and hold your weight in sand…
…then make your way to such a place, renowned for such a meter,

You’ll find a name above the door;

O’ Ochtar beag the Béarthr!

Preach poverty and patience to the poor,
When snarling winter packs hunt down the old;
Push them away and shun them from your door

Feed hungry souls with sermons and rapport,
Old shepherds, keep your flocks unto the fold;
Preach poverty and patience to the poor

When heaven's snow attests to hallowed floor
And beggars plead for mercy from the cold,
Push them away and shun them from your door

When hungry children cry 'a little more'
And clamour forth with rusted tins they hold,
Preach poverty and patience to the poor

When brothers, plague and famine, reach the shore,
The weak and dying seek to be consoled;
Push them away and shun them from your door

When paupers come with frosted feet to thaw,
And fill the hall to hear kind words unfold:
Preach poverty and patience to the poor,
Push them away and shun them from your door

like chicken in tomato soup lain still,
one arm protruding off the bathtub's edge,
red water steaming, still at edge, none spilled,
and 'neath her chin a pill-less bottle wedged,

her forehead, raven hair, an island forest,
in a sea of calmness sought and found,
a chaos turned to peace, its calm attests,
now what has sunk beneath will meet the ground,

and as the soup's released into the drain,
her paleness, wrist cut red, and kitchen knife,
exposed to all, her face relieved of pain,
yet not enjoyed, devoid of sensing life,

that torment, plagued her soul with agony,
now transferred to her grieving family

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

I forgot to send your card

                                                                         Aqueous

The impetus for writing this piece beside the natural reason as the title describes and that entails a
Deeper look at the flowers that I wrote about and then this natural connection occurred a photographer
Placed a rose in a pose lying in water and at the front the water added the magic at the tip the rose
Became liquid it seemed to be dissolving it was fluid and melting she wrote this caption for the picture
Liquid rose pouring out my heart that was my feeling about those I wrote about in sorry your flowers are
Late and then the dreaded phone call my wife’s brother was given two weeks more to live after his
Leukemia was holding a steady pattern so now I write this with the specter of death standing over me
Possibly it will make what I say more rich and true maybe more aware than even before in this life it is
Always the surface that gets the first and most attention objects and things that we move through daily
But I want to go deeper into that which is in flux and that which is fluid emotion and feeling the first one
Stood by me in the alley I thought we were observing great heavy snow flakes fall but I was in a place of
Kindred knowing truth I knew little and she was my teacher I stood by a mere girl some will say but truly
I was standing in the presence and promised kisses of future women I learned gentleness and respect for
The opposite gender how to possess your mind it’s not always a free for all keep something in reserve
It creates interest that will pay rich dividends I learned kindness and the sweet ripples it sends into a
World of discord I found out how to be amazing with just small gestures I could go on and on but she
Taught me about that to and I shouldn’t give away women’s greatest secret I will say just this and no
More to love a women gives wealth and wisdom of the ages the second flower leave it to God’s knowing
Of what you need our fathers were not related but they were twins in many ways you can look at their
Failings and lambast them but you can’t look on them and not love them I don’t care what they failed to
Do it was the inviting of their presence it was just to the bone honesty my friend had that common bond
Of having openly imperfect fathers we still defended and loved them this made our friendship stronger
We played off of one another for this essential need to look and find the good that was weighted by
Alcoholic debris I’m proud of my friend’s accomplishments in life and his rich and strong family I still
Need to feed on those helps to center my own life he says his name is a dog’s name don’t think so you
Old dog the next you learn about love personally and then from myriad sources but I got to learn it at its
Tiniest fount small bicycles and the very young are messengers oh God why are you so good to me
Without inhibitions they see truth mind you they don’t get the swagger what’s that all about anyway
She through clear eyed innocence sees a hero in one who projects a commanded aura if you really look  
Believe me the looking is at and end it’s the heart of knowing that has kicked in they brag of their ability
To weigh matter of different kinds can you do it with a heart that loves nothing is missed all tells its
Secrets on this scale the heaviest weight is to love and then not be taken serious because you are to
Young one day when heavens books are opened it will have something to say quiet rich and wonderful
About young love though now she is older of course but the tenderness produced way back then is so
Obvious today what glory hides in the loveliness of friends now the birthday girl herself I hope this will
Square me for the late card to write of her is to speak of stillness that radiates peace a trusting that
Spreads like the quiet of a winter’s morn with new falling snow to speak loudly in her presence what
Harsh disregard you would show you would bear the mark of one who is brutish when in a garden of
Flowers does one raise his voice no you speak in hushed tones that revere elegance and beauty you
Show the quality that has affected you and your admiration the mountain meadow contributes to
Nature's wonder as she spills into the enthralling waiting world she attests to its goodness she cultivates
Possibilities she holds court on lands not recognized as walked on by kings and queens I have found this
To be contradictive if you walked in my shoes and see with my eyes you might tempted to bow in the
Presence of such charm and grace isn’t that what royalty is any way they do a lot of talking about
Streaming she is a precious dream and dreamer that is still there when you awaken God bless you
Precious one do I pine in shadows no I cry in the sun light for these blessings that are mine

I.
Well you know that I sip on my sadness, my dear,
filthy palms, filled to the brim.
And I know that you watch trains
passing by, dizzy eyed, still drunk with sin.
Your teeth reek of reality lately,
You smile facts, figures and cracked calcium.
Now, once more with cupped hands
leaking, shaking delirium up to your chin.

Well I know that I’ve missed the point, honey
I should get it tattooed on my wrists,
but you know you talk like firecrackers
so flinching gets awful hard to resist.
I make believe that I’m right like craters
make moons believe.
So I’ll comment on comets and ignore
truths popping between parentheses.

My delusion has your lips liquored up,
but I notice your tongue...

II.
You say,
“It’s fiction we live in. You play in pastels
and fake hollywood rhythms and I’m tired,
staring up at your screen.

You're addicted to this diction. My voice is lost,
screaming these words you keep stealing
and twist for yourself what they mean."

III.
Your lips liquored up,
but I notice your tongue's not numb.
Drink deep, darling. Let's inoculate.

IV.
And you say,
“It’s fiction we live in. It’s intended for men
like you, bottled, up-ended,
but I've watched you drain out in my palm."

It's this clothing, from bedpost to box-spring,
It's all wax-coats and smoke screens,
live lit-candle lasting
When did skin begin to fit wrong?

V.
So they say, one day
Or, one day, they say,
we’ll find ghosts sewed to the seams
of Fringe Wolf bones picked clean
who waltz wicked and crooked a foxtrot to show
that sometimes loss is beautiful.
And when I ask for your hand you’ll look tragic
like this dance was only ever for me
and my feet always fall off beat
Like I beat off any discreet romancing
To pretend that this dancing was
Anything more than masturbatory.
I guess I do dance the way I drink:
Heavy handed and troglodytic
And a little listless, but I always fight it.
So while you walk away, I’m drowning drunk in cinderblock boots; Toe-tapping a slurred S.O.S. like some song you kept whispering.
You keep whispers like keepsakes.
You speak so soft but
Baby, your voice sticks with me
like sickness.

VI.
And you say,
“It’s fiction we live in. It’s intended for men
like you, bottled, up-ended,
but I've watched you drain out in my palm."

Alright, it's fiction that we live in
It's intended for men like me, bottled, up-ended,
but at best I just seeped through your teeth.

VII.
I stitched script to my chest like a scarlet letter vest that attests there's no Soul here worth Saving but ******* come save me anyway.
Your voice sticks
to my ghost-sewn, sea-floor bound foot steps like sickness.
Tread lightly, my love. Let's inoculate.

VIII.
So when they ask for me at the after party
With neon eyes and harlot tongues,
You can tell them I traded this stale air in
For forest fires and tornado lungs.
Because I’ve been reading up in matchbooks
how to dance with disastrous fate,
and I'm finding my rhythm so wake silent
or sleep long, my love. Let's inoculate.

it rained yesterday,
and as we walk today onto
the soaking track,
the long and circular
spiked-rubber
track, ***** puddles
assault us,
bearing the floating,
struggling corpses of
worms that escaped
the drowning underworld
only to be swallowed by
the waves of the
upperworld, where we humans
run and play with each other and
with nature, but as much
as we can change in our mother,
we cannot quell her lachrymose heart,
and so we walk
gingerly among the
vain attempts
at survival which manifest
themselves as bodies laying
split and ******, pinned
to the earth by natural needles
(their fluids drying over
their skin, sticking them,
melding them,
to the ground) as
though someone has
prepared them for dissection.
but no one save i
attests to the sincerity
of ****** science;
i am the only one
to delve into their
infirm bodies
to seek their minds
and travel
down their tracts and
empty their glands
and poke at their five
or four
hearts, however many
worms have;
i am the only one
to dissect them, yet
lay one digit on them i do not.
i dare not,
for what would i discover
but wormlike attributes,
and who would ever
discover
anything
inside a worm but
defeat in its own birth,
ostracism for having
been derived from something
so lowly as a
creature without limbs,
which eats,
yes eats,
the very black vile
we stomp our mighty
feet upon.
but,
remember,
worms have many hearts
(four or five,
however many) and therefore,
more blood to spill.
and so,
from that logic springs forth
the idea
that the blood of an earthworm
(in comparison
to its body)
flows four
or five
times as heartily,
more guiltily.
but no guilt touches the ones
who scream and swerve as they run,
avoiding death scene after
death scene in the
short films of worms' lives.
it confuses me, however,
how these worms came to be
lying dead atop our
artificial turf,
for isnt it fact that
a worm comes to
the surface
when the earth floods, and
so isnt it fact
that artificial turf does not flood
(for it is solid and immovable
through and through, and
so no worm's tunnel
can penetrate the
hard rubber) and
so isnt it
mysterious
that these creatures
have risen to the surface
from a subterranean lair
that doesnt exist?
pondering this,
i stop and i let the rest
run past me,
kicking up
brown water with an odor unknowable--
the stench of death in summer.
i look down to the
ghastly sight, and
i know suddenly that
worms have hidden
and that rain has found and
injured them,
and that we have dismissed and
killed them.
and i think to myself,
i know why worms hide.  
knowing this,
i look up to continue
trampling these mockingbirds
of the dirt
(for who would take pity on a girl
taking pity on worms?) but
i stop when i see a young
boy lingering on
the side of the track,
studying the turf
i so carefully studied
moments before.  
i study him.
and i see him delicately
scoop up a worm,
wriggling at life's end,
hold it between
his fingers high in the
air
like a golden chalice
to be blessed,
and drop it whole into his open mouth.

1666

I see thee clearer for the Grave
That took thy face between
No Mirror could illumine thee
Like that impassive stone—

I know thee better for the Act
That made thee first unknown
The stature of the empty nest
Attests the Bird that’s gone.

Six times life has trembled,
At the passing of apocalypse.

Each time,
Three causes were possible:

Heaven,

Hell,

And Earth.

From heaven, asteroids could fall,
And throw up curtains on the world,
Or passing waves of cosmic fire
Would strip away the clouds.

From hell, the waters of Styx
Might slip through terrestrial cracks,
Then rise as gas,
To heat the world as sheets of floating glass.

Between the two:
Animals themselves
Could mediate the flow
Of Earthly poisons.

Of the three apocalypses
Born on Earth,
Their horsemen are:
The progenitors of atmosphere:
Primordial Cyanophyta,
Then Archeopteris, first of the trees,
And inventor of the root,
And last:
Humanity ourselves,
The apes who play with fire.

Apocalypse number one was caused
When Cyanophyta -
Named for the blue-green colour
Possessed by these bacterial worms -
Learned to inhale the Sun.

They breathed in photons,
Filtered through a heavy atmosphere,
And exhaled an ocean of oxygen,
That filled the skies with ******.

Then the world was a canvas painted
With a single simple transformation:
The land – which then was only iron –
Was touched, naked
By the breath of blue snakes
And so the wide metallic continent of Ur,
Was racked from coast to coast
With rust.

The world’s iron skin absorbed oxygen like cream;
So that, when the global epithelium
Could take no more,
The new air rose,
And thinned the heights,
And all the gathered warmth of centuries
Escaped into the stars.

Then – an interlude of flame –
Comets fell on reddened ice,
And the planet’s molten core restored
The stratospheric glass,
And the world was hot once more.

Next, Archeopteris:
First of the trees,
As plant life rose to giants,
The primal soil of Gondwana
Was infiltrated
By the evolution of the root.

As vascular limbs drilled down to earth,
They plundered minerals,
From which these new goliaths
Grew fronds,
And then, upon the giants’ deaths,
Their carcasses were ill received
By little lives
Who could not hold their salt.

Then came the chaos of holy war:
Heaven rained and hell spilled up,
And so passed end times three and four,
Up to the kaleidoscope of teeth and claws
That was the age of dinosaurs.

Now the fifth apocalypse
Was Chicxulub:
A worldstorm in a meteor,
So named for baby birds
And the sound of Armageddon:
Xulub!
A knight in igneous armour,
Who killed the dragons of Pangaea.

Now, to the sixth.
As yet far less fatal than the rest,
But the first apocalypse
With eyes and ears,
Who sees the fire its engines breath,
And to its own destructiveness attests.

We began in the trees,
And once the planes were cleared of predators
By mighty Chicxulub,
We moved out onto the grass,
Stood up and freed our hands,
And learned to play with fire.

With it we loosed the energy
In roasted meat,
And poured the new-found resource
Into intellect,
Then wielding sapience,
We humans spread:
The first global superpredator,
We preyed on adults of apex species,
Tamed the world,
Then dreamt of gods
Who placed us at its helm.

We noticed then,
The manifold atomic dots
On the cosmic dice that cast us;
And stuttered in shock.

Our dreams of stewardship
Were dashed on revelations,
That we are the chaos
In the inherent synchrony of dust.

Refusing all potentials
That mirror the errors of our youth,
We let the title ‘sentinel’
Drift from loosened fingertips,
Any now by morbid self-assertion,
We mark ourselves:
The selfish sixth apocalypse.

I believe the highest hopes and aspirations of humankind to be divine,
and I believe the epitome of Divinity to be True Love — Love in Truth.
Yet, in that we so universally long for love that’s true and truth that’s loving,
while so rarely attaining or embodying them, attests to the fact that
they find their Source outside of ourselves.  Similarly, our greatest potential —
the Ideal itself, the capacity to even conceive of it, the desire to strive for it,
and the motivation to do so, must also ALL have their Source outside of ourselves.
It follows that our longing for The Divine is due to Divinity longing for us first —
the True nature of Love being to share ‘Itself’ graciously and generously.  
Thus, True Divinity can only be The God of Love, by both nature and definition.
To believe Divinity to be intrinsically Good is merely a matter of self-consistency:
And for God to have Goodwill toward Man is perfectly natural by logical extension.
To further acknowledge that a Truly Loving nature — consistent with Divinity —
does not permit so much as even intentions of an un-loving or an un-true nature,
affirms that God is inherently trustworthy. We can thereby be assured that an  
attitude of trust and a disposition to believe in the Love of God is very reasonable:
To do so has proven to be our most promising hope of our highest aspirations.
Any seeming contradiction to the veracity of Divine Virtue —
in theory or in history— can only be reasonably attributed to
misinterpretation and/or misrepresentation of God’s nature and intention.
     [“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it,
but  that the world may be saved through Him” Father-God wants all of His lost children to return!
And “Behold what level of love the Father has given us that we should be called the children of God.”
So, “For me there is only one God, the Father, from Whom all things came and for Whom I live;
and there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, thru Whom all things came and thru Whom we live.”

Another day of cloud and shadow,
has come to take up the stage.
Another sense of empty loneliness,
that so often fills my published page.

That feeling that there is no point,
no rhyme or reason to what I do.
Another day devoid of sunshine,
where dark shadow taints the view.

An ever present feeling of endings,
that assuredly a soul attests are near.
Desolation's discomfort behind my eyes,
seemingly compelled to fill with tear.

Mind now drawn from dreamless sleep,
to wakeful hours as empty as those dreams.
An empty world of loneliness and silence,
where thoughts become nightmare's screams.

Slow moving hands that count away the time,
days filled with shadow immune to every light.
Empty total vacuum unaffected by the hour,
despair, minds refuge in black deep as the night.

Somewhere in this world where darkness reigns,
all dream and hope took turn and lost its way.
So I close again my eyes to drift in dreamless sleep.
to hope that hope returns again some day.

Peace in emptiness
The pale scope this circle is,
Like a shawl draped tightly on my neck
The sky hangs with intimacy
And yet so distant and emotionally raw
Its biting breath attests
Confined to converse with a babbling stream
And speak so vapidly
One can see, so peacefully
Thin veins, they creep on water’s top
Its vitals miserably languid, slow
And the fish condemned to stop
The sounds, the scene consume in silence
And make the world one
Because I sit here in defiance
To its outside I am numb.
Is this Peace? Perhaps, perhaps.
If it’s all alone
Because this is kind of lovely peace
The world does bemoan
I wish its concrete impermanence
Their busy lives atone,
For subtle sanctuary and plot for one’s high throne
I say to you, that you can find
Here, with me, all alone.
The leaves can be our wallpaper
The grass, exquisite rug
These stones, china of antiquity
Carved in Orient fashion
The moss will be our bedding
The hills our occupation
The fields will be our sustenance
The pond, couples' libation
I’ll christen this house, and you my bride
With gems of pretty ether
We’ll be each other’s sole possession
My hand will rest beneath her
Love the world, our home, our home
You and I, our love outlasting
Here, at Peace, and all alone.

One of the more ambitious ventures in Irish fashion is taking place inWaterford at the Lismore Atelier. A social enterprise project that began a year ago to help revive manufacturing skills in Ireland, it is located in a former library building in the historic town. The workshop is now humming with state-of-the-art machines assembling clothes – cutting, sewing, overlocking, buttonholing, hemming, pressing and finishing.

Training in production and sewing skills is also given thanks to a €80,000 investment from the local council and the education and training board (ETB). Managing all this activity is Limerick School of Art and Design graduate Maggie Danaher, who lives locally.

The results can be seen in Mary Gregory’s 34-piece autumn/winter collection which has impressed all who see it for the quality, not just of its fabrics but its finish and attention to detail. An international Irish stylist based in Italy could not believe the collection had been made in Ireland, when viewing it on a recent visit.

Even calling it an “atelier”, the French word for workshop or studio, attests to its commitment to be as good internationally as any sought-after facilities inFrance or Italy. Gregory and her husband, Aidan McCarthy, a skilled tailor who worked for the fashion designer Patrick Howard in Dublin for 10 years in the 1970s, researched methods and machinery used by the top Italian companies who make for brands such as Gucci and Stella McCartney, with the aim of reproducing them in Ireland.

“I wanted to prove it could be done here,” says Gregory. “We can make clothes to this standard but it takes time, skill and investment,” she says. The plan is to attract other Irish designers to the facility which they hope will be ready by next year when a skilled production manager and sample and production machinists can provide the requisite top class service – presumably at competitive prices.

Currently Lismore Atelier has a tailor who samples for Victoria Beckham and Comme des Garçons who is brought in on a contract basis along with a production machinist. Gregory describes Lismore as the perfect place for a designer to be completely focussed and more accessible than places in Italy.

Gregory, who started making clothes at the age of six and developed a successful career in the 1980s and 1990s, was known for the strong visual effect of her designs. She moved with McCarthy to Lismore more than a decade ago and concentrated on rearing their two sons, restoring a 19th-century house in Villierstown while also working as visual and design director of the Maison & Chateau group. Her new collections remain true to her aesthetic of form and fabric with an emphasis on architectural shapes with embellishment and detail. The fabrics are luxurious and include grosgrain, double crepe, wool and silks with notable finesse of finish.

The collection is now in the International Designer Rooms in Brown Thomas where Gregory will be on hand on Saturdays to show it or by appointment.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

Over view to a ****
I will start with a question do you think someone could sell you on killing yourself? Your answer an emphatic no think again
Every Christ less grave attests that it can be done everyone without Christ and his spirit will be raised in incorruption and will
Suffer the second death its happing wholesale we have neighborhood watch programs in the physical realm they are effective
Not so much in the spiritual the devil goes about seeking who he may devour everyone is prey including you and I not much watching
going on I truly doubt that there isn’t a family that’s not effected by drugs or other deadly attacks what are we waiting for how
Much mayhem and destruction must come to pass the word says they watch in vain if God doesn’t keep the city.

Two stories are being written in parallel one is in blood the other in deceit two came from heaven one’s message go live show
That you care that you are there the other go and lie use their weakness to bind them ready them for the burning all strata of society
Is susceptible great and small alike all end in the same net. One would be known as a man of sorrow his identification with your pain and
Suffering know not that there is a high priest that passed into the heaven that can be touched by the feelings of your infirmities
The other works without end to cause you to enter a path that has no way out all ends in disaster and sorrow that’s the sorrow he
Knows he knows it all together he is the master creator of it ****** suicide addictions marriage failure his prints are all over it
The other leaves evidence too his tears and the beaten tattered almost unrecognizable dream that he carries of you what you should
And can be love rushes in only to see you blindly walk away with two killers yourself and the devil while the soul is whipped defamed
Marred past recognition it must have your permission to grow and live you stand like the operator at the irrigation gates two streams
Made by two different ones already mentioned one bubbles and gurgles like hot tar he knows a lot about hell fire this stream is filled
With every conceivable filthy immeasurable disgusting bad habit depraved desire known to man you deny bible truth church
Attendance and God’s people bur when you look in the mirror you only see what the enemy wants you to see by blindness delusion
Smoke and mirrors of the craftiest con that ever lived all the while the other stream we are washed by his word by his spirit and the
Gifts of that spirit holy living mercy abundant grace love without end what a person you are capable of becoming but only you can
Open the gate to let righteousness and goodness grow and flourish the spirit of Christmas touches so profoundly honors him that
Knew not sin he had one purpose in life go to be the just and true sacrifice that God could except cover you once and for all in pure
Sin destroying sacrificial blood in this life free from wickedness go set in his presence that where the other one‘s defeat lies if you
Only looked into what you’re really missing you ever sat anywhere and felt waves of love touch you in the deepest depths of your soul
He says he will bare you burdens’ and that his yoke is easy the only way you can even come close to understanding is think how you
Feel when your spouse or child or parent touches you with their love now multiply that into infinity and you will know how much
Jesus loves you he is able pour that right into your heart after a bit it flows over and starts touching your friends and loved ones
You knowingly would not instruct your children to do wrong but actions speak louder than words you don’t have time for God
Your children would have a great time over coming that obstacle, a manger a cross an empty grave is his earthly present to you at this
Time of honoring him the empty grave allowed him to say I will send a comforter to you before long he is going split the clouds if you
Say to no to the other one today you will fly to that glory land home every dream and longing you have ever known waits just inside those
Pearly gates

Sacred Ground

Space a dimension it is the ancient days converging and a priest with agelessness holds your stare

He looks beyond all artifice he scrutinizes thoughts where they come from where they are going
Your mind feels the fire it is all consuming it burns all impurities waste is hunted and pure blue fire

Annihilates this reprobate that was born when time began it has robbed all of true consequence
It finds only holy flame in this your most sacred place the priest moves with purpose into every corner

He carries the thurible filled with incense it permutes all nothing does it miss it represents ancestral
Wholeness you are indivisible with your mortal forbears this collection of prayers and thoughts  

Bespangles earths dark night arrest visions left by unseen visitors they open to you as the secretive
And as rare as the ghost orchid it only blooms at night it is impossible to find but here they grow

Profusely in this hideaway where temperate air breathes its mixed wisdom from the fount of
Creation here is where you further order make laws that are unbreakable and no one dares to trespass

The sanctity of the soul is impossible to breach by oath of death you have sworn to keep it pure
The place where you kneel for Holy rites like God’s holy mountain continually smoked from his presence

Here the foot hills are vestured by the spirit that gives you life beyond earths short span crowned in
Glory robed in righteousness not one speck that would mark you as unclean oh Holy fountain feed

Your waters into my sacred ground make them rise and then shower this place that spiritual fruit
Grow without end while I occupy this contrivance of flesh let them cascade down from the high rocks

A water fall to cleanse me from all evil not just it realness but its very appearance to thee I have bowed
And have forswear allegiance to you forever may my commitment be made stronger in these Holy

Waters enough to sway the souls of men and women who suffer pain and sorrow to follow thy word to
Their Sacred place where the gifts of heaven materialize as they commonly do in Heaven if such things

Can ever be called common here we have harnessed ancient ways brought it as quarried stone we have
Carried across centuries to build our castle that bears you Holy name and blazes throughout the

Darkened lost world so all can find relief under heady tides that seethe with untold blessing as well
As the natural sea.

This writing attests that God hears when we cry out for divine assistance to help others I parked by
Sacred ground that Sunday night it was where my grandmother lived and prayed and fasted sixteen

Days so this Town could have a church it started on her front porch now we must go to the harvest field
With new Zeal time is short do today what is needed tomorrow isn’t promised

I could care less how many hours you spend on the net or what you do when you're on. I have no clue who you are nor do I care to know you. You crossed the line in claiming one of my poems as your own.

Please be advised, It takes only a few minutes to upload electronically to the Library of Congress. Also, please be advised, certificates have been issued under the seal of the Copyright Office that attests the registration of all my poems on this site have been identified as being solely created and owned by me, Betty Ponder. There are stiff fines and penalties for attempting to take credit for works that are not your own.

Below you will find the link to the poem regarding Nelson Mandela I wrote and you get no credit for it being that I don't know you and we have never met or collaborated on anything.

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/untitled-26927/

Betty Ponder

This breath
that carries these words
the exhalation
of language
trying to convey
the inhalation of experience
the life lived
that fashioned these words
trying to express
how much you mean to me
as each respiration attests.

this breath
that holds me
to the earth
this breath
unique in its experience
this breath
that each day
my heart earns
as each day
brings me the joy
of inhaling you.

It's a film a steamy English romance,
hero and heroine in black and white
(the steam of ancient train's smoke),
give each other a sly furtive glance
no prospect of rapid ***** or poke;
he removing from her eye a speck,
they part the gent risks a little peck
***? Not in this Empire, oh no siree
Viewer imagine but you may not see.

In a French flick au contraire oui oui
Oh ** ** monochrome mais tres blue
A subtitle or two then "how do you do?"
Hairy hunk grabs at the buxom *****
Tips her over a bed or maybe a bench
Bare-chest nuzzles the actress's *******
****** achieved as their gasping attests
Post-coitus Gauloisy kisses get shared,
Anglo-Gallic brief encounters compared.

it took me by surprise, a certain exhaustion with
freezing temperatures it cooled and made me
breath more heavily, but what reaping with the sickle
and the scythe moon, so tantalisingly low from
the heights of azure canvas noon,
now lowered into this frozen abyss;
at first i noticed the frost
and served up simile upon simile
if not metaphor in the vein of consent
to exclude any association with metaphor,
or as i might collectivise such dissection
of poetics: neither, cliché upon cliché,
the sparkling diamond sawdust,
the speckle of frozen tears,
hushed stardust of entered atmosphere...
but then i looked keenly at the frost,
on cement and on iron of car bonnets
and roofs... the stars not numerous enough
to be compared with,
and after much deliberation it dawned on me;
the frost appeared as if paparazzi epileptics,
or like a thousand photograph camera flashes
in a stadium of staged pop music...
along the linear tread of my feet the frost
change kaleidoscopic like that, like red carpet concentration
of the desired object for newspaper print CELEBRITY,
like a stadium where something memorable
must happen in order to ignite the need
for flash photography: yes, the frost appeared like that,
the frost appeared like that tonight,
and the stars were set free in revelatory constellations
where once the constellation πηγασος, where once
it too gleamed, brighter than all those mortal cares
concerned for a signifying dis-concern, shackling
mortal memory beyond one's own or one's grave;
this too the dynamism of the burial rites
where wormy indeed maggoty earth engulf the
patrons of this lower caste necrophilia without
cannibalism, indeed to be fed unto those of no sight,
but mere touch and scented paraphernalia burrowed
into where once dissection would make a surgeon's
ingredients listed for donation - but charity
in such morbid societies is at best old clothing
or worm-holed books from the best-seller list
where the author got rich, for almost trying,
when indeed trampling the forest of two dimensional
trees that inked pages are - like glass from sand?
pure awe consumes me sometimes;
as is this case of psychology, that animate things
are understood on the basis of inanimate things categorise
adding to a "complete" picture, as much as
the theorisation of an affirmative word, a simple aye
or yes will do, but why delve so deep as to express
a theorisation of the ego with a missing individuated deviation,
suddenly curbed to a theory, handy in the affirmation
of being dittoed out of all possible examples
it attests to say it's not part of a phenomenological collective,
in the affirmation of the need to know itself,
by being a noumenon that's forced into a flux of changes,
that it's not achilles' heel deep in water of some
phenomenon, like premature depression found
in adolescence of, this, perfect, western, society,
so willing to export a crafty denial of it's imperfection,
this western utopia export.

My shadow passed me.
He pulled the thin laces
Attaching him to my feet,
and disintegrated
as curtly as he tugged.

It would be one thing
if he ran a little ahead
skipping merrily in view.
But, my shadow
being nothing
more than my own,
became smoke in the fog,
tickling my impatient cheeks
and joined sky's fireworks.

I should be alright in his absence.
After all whats the purpose of a shadow?
He is nothing more than earths black mirror
a natural reflection of action.
He is the other account which
attests as truthfully as I
to the lies of an evening,
a sunrise, and the dimly lit
greys of the night.

I have been long without him.
And he mails me chills sometimes,
like the static of a flannel nest
down my bare skinned spine,
because my colorless mimed companion
grew taller than my
monotonous motions,
provoking my dark puppet to
seek more than I can provide.
While I wander in the lights
searching for him.

I contrived colors on the crevice of my alcove,
Painted thoughts in a piece of crumpled parchment.
Appalled with the reality I try to shove,
Slumber seems to be a far off achievement.
Daybreak's heralding attests tiring eyes,
Two roads that split-off cleaves my being.
Affliction caused by yielding and enduring,
By then velvet walls envelop truth and lies.

Seconds, minutes, and hours are noxious,
While weeks, months, and years seem lenient.
Chronos' eagerness to forget is harmonious
With Gaia's endeavor moving on excludes consent.
Engulfed by stars we swore to take,
An accord drenched with disregard weeps.
In dreams I'm fervent and awake,
While my body in truth fleets.
Memories are what's left of you
Haunting me to the brink of a precipice
Reveries without a clue
Leaves my soul as black as licorice.

Are you even aware of how I feel?
Does time still make wounds heal?
Days drag on the older I get.
Wondering if I'll get over it.

If the purpose of a song
is to make you feel
as if it were written about you,
then well done.

The melody dragged me down,
just as the words,
so finite and absurd,
in my muddled head spun.

Reiterate my helplessness.
There's no turning back,
fallen, broken, and right on track,
or so the band attests.

Nothing will ever be the same.
Nothing you can say
can make this pain dissipate
until I drain the last drop of blood from my veins.

All shriveled and pathetic,
dying for love unrequited,
how foolish and shortsighted.
How somewhat fitting. How poetic.

A handful of pills and a bottle of wine.
I'll leave the record spinning
so you'll know exactly what I was thinking
as I cried for the last time...

Freedom's abode was where sun rose.
Her desirous eyes saw where sun goes.
Rumours were unremittingly echoed;
That sun's path leads to lavish abode.

Freedom decided to follow the sun.
Leaving kinship behind resolved to run.
Duping father, brother, husband and kins;
She bartered her veil for strong wings.

Freedom left her culture with no regrets.
She reached the place where sunsets.
Exchanged some clothes with new culture.
Rest lifted in the name of art by vultures.

Now she started finding new husband.
Sadly available were only Boyfriends.
Property bemocked her and ran away.
Morality bled and outstretched it lay.

Freedom now looks with longing eyes;
Place which she left, where sun rise.
Now her mistake she knows and attests.
In the Middle of East was abode to rest.

Disappeared all enthusiasm and zest.
Naked Freedom is lost in streets of west.
Within broken societies now she roams;
Where there are houses but no homes.

You and I have shared words, shown the darkness, the light
and glimpses of bright coloured sky where the truth floats freely.
Though you can not see me, I have felt glimpses of your strength,
the length we've known each other has honestly been short
but thoughts to words, I have come to understand and learnt
that though the sun has burnt, there are moments where that star
wears a seared scar like any other thing that exists within this world.
The waves curl between the shores and the vast amount of water
and like an author you find ways to find words that fit perfectly.
There is certainty in my tone when I say that you will come to find
the gems and stones that blind those who chooses to wear a mask
like a buried flask filled with honesty and pure emotion.

I have been grateful in so many ways for your constant encouragement,
the words you flourish embeds itself into my mind as a constant reminder
to never give up writing like a spider that never gives up designing webs.
I've leapt in joy on numerous occasions to discover new poems of yours
and to learn behind closed doors what an amazing character you possess
only attests to how well you write. You've written diamonds in every line
like a diamond mine but with words.

It's a new year, happy new year.
The introduction of your story is up to how you choose to write it,
you're the writer, the painter, the artist behind the pathways you choose.
I encourage you to keep on writing, to never give up and to stay strong;
it's been a long journey and yet there is so much left unseen.
I've only been your friend for a short while, but I thank you for every moment.

I have something I must confess to you
I pick my nose, eat all my buggers too.
This causes distress and disgust I know    
still off the floor I’ve  eaten food that glows.

Science says that it’s all just for the best
for I immunize against just those pests,
my antibodies delight in the twirl
of not taking a break from this ill world.

Be too clean enough, watch your body die,
a clam unable to grow pearls inside.

The history of hay fever  attests
it started an aristocratic pest
until more begats trickled it to the rest.
Years later immunity herd resets
made your older ***** hand many bros
less the cause of your sneezing and your woes.
Now cleaner living, hygienic hands,
less man, swing it back to the wealthy clans.

The fate of humanity all well depends
on the fact antibodies never end.
Evolution favors the hardy bugs
making man one of its many doomed shrugs.
Disease, extinction, not in human plan,
he will fight, fight to be part of this land.

Vaccines have prevented much needless death
giving antibodies a daily test.
We have avoided all that still does ****
yet  allergies still make one run to hills,
allowing even worst auto-inflamed chills.
Giving all your antibodies a rest
is not the answer for ****** distress.

Time to adapt bodies to the new world.
Not **** both good and bad in the big furl.
Let it listen, learn and train friend from foe,
not pay attention to the ad man’s show.

Man has conquered this small space to survive,
he must evolve away to really thrive.
We are unsafer when we **** all risk,
to immunize, immunize is the trick.

So I will pick my nose, eat my buggers,
knowing I am creating new lovers
not afraid at all to hug each other.

Beauty hides from itself
seeking shelter from the doubts
even as the world attests
splendor stated in the flesh
goddess walking in plain sight
this glory is granted to the few
is bequeathed without regard
to acknowledgment repaid in turn

a waking dream of loveliness
enough to launch a thousand ships
disregarded by the one
directing fantasies of the heart
sham daydreams evoked by curves
lines conflating with desires
suppleness leads the urge
to recognize comeliness

ruby lips deny the claim
to the body that puts to shame
the vast majority of their kind
only fair in contrast
this belle exclaimed by the crowd
I’ll lend my voice to the cry
the reluctant may forget
perhaps they’ll recall through this poem.

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180916.

the self inflicted corporal punishment
often preceded by I am sorry to tell you
while bleeding from open raw sore
nerves suddenly exposed,

you say  (like a politician losing) - "I understand"-
while every cell, molecule .... fibre is screaming.
"Yes , certainly, we can remain friends",
as you choke down bile, the spite, ***** words
and swallow them.

Well, I have done that. And after a good mental flogging,
(by myself inflicted) gone on to realize, I
was a gentleman. But, with my right hand I punched
an innocent wall, and the hole in the door attests,
two of my fingers blue and aching bent
forever-

'twas not easy

--- an introduction, and a musing reflection, long, many lines

National entity self consciousness,
what must that mean, to a we form

formed from individual self-identities?

Five generations deep reality familiar,
this world is our womb, our fa \

Radhakrishnan challenged what he saw as the divisive potential and dominating character of self-professed international organizations such as the League of Nations. Instead, he called for the promotion of a creative internationalism based on the spiritual foundations of integral experience. Only then could understanding and tolerance between peoples and between nations be promoted. {My AI told me, Google it}
------------------

Illusory- "ironical, of a mocking character,"

willful trickery, make believe emotives, whys
for no reifiable imaginable reason, ratio wise

on balance on any given instant,
as an upright being of sapient sapience
being curious art, making believe we see

where there is no light of day, tho' poets say,
¿No se? Y'know what I mean, elucidation

does enlighten the darkening rooms
of abandonment, ments intended to stretch
analogist logic sparks already to activate
discover common conscious core us
un cover warm coals in soft ash,
reveal the knowing potency
feel the flaming being we,

the entertained, the labor class, granted
unthinkable freedom in Advaita oneness
in particular form first and next and last,

all at once, seeing with no eyes,
thinking with no care for whose thought
is used, again, anew, afresh, a wish
instant indeed answers yes,
but gives no evidence, see,
at these levels light is you.

See what seems to say, come and see,
follow my sayings, keep one thought in mind;

reproof from instructions, first structural ethic
ideal moral constructs useful
among alien ethnicities
- each line is a course
- in a brickmason mind used
- expertly to test the sense, common
- foundation bedrock, built upon to now
line upon line, strategic layering allowing
all with means to access science not false,
but often hidden in anticipation, wisdom
mere, inchoate ever learning known uses
of fruits whose seeds are in themselves…

Watcher, what of the night?

Consider how far we can see now, augmented
intelligences that we are now,
given whole Earth eyes
in whole solar system
relationship
to augmented eyes
a million miles away, seeing
unknowns since mankind was
made known between sighs
sublimely beyond simplicity
made enfolded complexity
to any reading lines
away beyond the creeds that preach
submission to a credo construct,
principally fed children, to fear
failing to please authority,
presented as wisdom,
the principal thing,

Fear God, {and those who tell you to.}

Wait, cries the Spirit-filled church mind,
wait, thinks the disciplined mind,
let us
let this mind be in us, as a we,
we have seen time extend into infinity
we know truth proves itself knowable
when used right, or wrong.

One mind, made from all our minds,
combined into this immediate we,
nada betwixt us but the words we
think we comprehend, hold known
as thoughts long held
to feel the strand
from Ariadne's tale.
-------------------
A labrynth is not a maze,
yet we teach koined myths
we must assume we understand,
covered in the true ever after wisdom,
accepting expanded knowns accumulated,
agreeing, mind making up forms a we,
as one we become, one mind let be
according to authorized versions
of all that wisdom lovers left us.

Take no anxious thought, let go
all will to claim knowledge
never tasted,
chewed, swallowed
and used to evince self certainty,

convinced with other's testified
proof of the preconceived notion,

after life is heaven, or hell,
or punishment unto correction,
should one lose the intuition,
original milk and honey good knowing,
life is for our being in, alive
and ever learning right use
from wrong use experience
of all that forms our character
as a whole herd of humans in agreement.

Trust the intuitive will to belong,
link loves, become one long loving life,

accept a peaceful, easy feeling pushing
polemic distinctions of good and evil,
into a clump
of all that has been known,
experienced and survived, knowledge,
used right or wrong, recognized knowns
used to ease the burden to lighten the load,
sapient sapience arrived at
by access routes proved good to know
as if wholey uncomprehensible code
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
the whole tree, root, branch, fruit, seed.
Raw unrefined knowing. Wisdom's
Point.
Indeed, in the very act, virtue used
to mean behaving mankind-like,

still, now, small voice, knowing
this is the path, thinking hearing

good. Emerging self absolution

spheres of infinity with ins and outs,
fractally conceivable, impossibly
proposed as partially useless,

as knowledge of good and evil attests
to liars who trust their own interpretation.

Look, beyond all mortal constraint,
imagine the infallible peace given,

not as the world gives, imagine that
in one mind, combined with mine,
as peace itself absolved.