These kids don't care anymore,
we're out of the time of cursive writing,
when there would be an apple on my desk,
kids would only groan when asked to clean the erasers.

These kids are going to live,
in parent's basements, awaiting dinner and laundry,
rather than actively seeking adulthood.
What happened between my time and theirs,
causing them to become so electronic?

These kids don't make eye contact,
staring blankly into pixels,
unable to draw away from their techno-seduction.
These kids can not learn,
for they're only taught memorization,
then forget all of the rest.

These people expect me to teach,
but how can I do so when they're already powered down,
disconnected and wandering lost,
needing their fix of a shocking brightness,
they call a new and better world.

Like two peas in a pod,
one of them me and the other
is me, but how odd,
I don't think like him,
I try to trim off the fat,
he doesn't like that and
he's critical, politically correct,
direct and outspoken.

But I have woken from nightmares like this,
many times I have broken the backs of
a problem,
how many peas in a pod if one of them's odd?
odd that it's me that I see
when I look,
the two of us took the pledge,
odder indeed that he jumped and I stayed
on the edge,
but the edge is a portal for this
mere mortal to shine through,
two
peas in a pod
how odd.

This has been on my mind for some time... To share this comment to a poem I posted on the ALZ site. I don't know her name. It has made a deep impact on my heart.

The poem is:
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/41121/remember-for-me/

Dec 17, 1013

w/e wrote:
Your words are beyond words. Thank you. We've had a rough week. Stage 6 is beginning with all its fury: incontinence, hallucinations, delusions, and, of course, mood changes from happy - to sad  - to angry in the flick of a nano second.  BUT, in spite of the dark clouds of his mind, we still have beautiful moments of tenderness & love. He was eating tonight and I could see on his face the darkness creeping into his brain. He left the table and began to pace. He went to the bedroom and would not let me touch him, comfort him.  When he finally calmed down an hour later, the darkness of his mind began to dissipate. He came to the kitchen and  he said to me: "I am afraid, I am scared." "What is scaring you?" I asked. He replied, " I wont remember who you are." My husband has lost a tremendous amount of his ability to speak so my heart began to dance  with joy when I heard him say those beautiful words of LOVE. I hugged him, I kissed him, I held his hand. I was in awe of his love for me.  I said, "My dear husband, I will help you touch me, I will help you caress me , I will help you feel your love for me. I will help you remember me." We embraced and we cried together... feeling a lifetime of love for each other... Peace & calm  restored, he is sleeping now.
-------------------
I had brought the poem to the top and she commented again. Such beautiful words of love.
-------------------
Jan 8, 2016

IdahoStevens, my reply to you was written on December 2013... My immortal beloved took his last breath on January 2014... Immortal beloved. Noble. Strong. Sensual. Pure. My Sunrise Ruby. Bright crystal structure of endless love. Perfect and Imperfect.

O  fateful morning!  I was preparing breakfast. He was walking between the bedroom and the bathroom... Desperately searching...  Searching for me... He knew intuitively his life was ending... I ran to him...We looked into each others eyes... I cradled him in the deep of my arms... I said, "My love, I am here. I will never leave you." ... He smiled ... He stopped breathing. I called 911... My heart encircled in his love. My mind enriched by cherished memories. My soul transformed... His scent inside of me. My body burning with desire... To love. To be loved... My body flying with his. From this earth to the center of the universe. Glowing.

O earth's reality! It bites...

I am adjusting... Adjusting to the deafening silence of the day. And of the night.

I am adapting... Adapting to the absence of his kisses. And his embrace.

I am accepting... I am trying, with every breath I take, to accept.  To accept his empty place in my nest. And on this earth.

To adjust. To adapt. To accept.

To transcend... Life and Death ... We enter this world. We leave this world ... When I understand that. When I totally accept that. I shall find peace.

No sluggish hearts will ever be found in our midst, eh?... We have lots of heart muscle in Alzconnected. Muscle memories... Of tenderness. Of love. And of care.

Good to see you, IdahoStevens.

M/E

Another comment left
--------------------

IdahoStevens,

If it's possible to cry and smile at the same time, that's what I did while reading your poem.  I read with my mom and dad in mind and it captures so perfectly their life together.  They did indeed go for ice cream all the time, a favorite treat for both.  Particularly poignant were the lines surrounding the holidays, my parents did their tree together, they even had their own tree when my husband, youngest son, I and my parents both sold our homes and bought a larger home to all live together, because we enjoyed being together so much.  Every Christmas Eve my dad put some of the presents together - bikes, chalkboards, etc and my mom wrapped them, then they put them under tree together.  The holidays were truly a special time of year for my parents.  Your lines brought all that back in vivid color and I read with tears in my eyes and a smile while remembering.

My mom and I talked on the phone almost every day, we went shopping, to lunch, sat and watched tv together almost every night.  We all sat down and talked all the time, it truly was a wonderful time when we were all together.

My beloved father passed away three years ago, and the last thing I whispered in his ear moments before he left us was that we would take of mom and to not worry, we would be fine.  Now I struggle with the fact that we had to place my mom in an ALF because we were just not able to keep her safe at home.

And now, I walk through our home, and see both my parents in every room.  I can even hear my dad calling me to help him with a computer issue, I can hear my mom call out to me that she can't figure out the remote.  In my mind, my dad sits at the kitchen table every evening and drinks his coffee.

Your poem brought back many beautiful memories thank you for that.

Terry

----------
Here is the poem.
John Stevens
Jun 27, 2010
Remember for Me

When the curtain draws closed on my mind
And leaves my body alone.
Think of the times we were together,
The times we talked on the phone.
———————————
Remember the times we would walk on the beach.
Hand in hand always in reach.
The moments we shared - together each day.
The love we shared in every way.

Though the hours get long that make up a day.
While you are sitting with me in your caring way.
Remember the times we would take a long walk.
We would get an ice cream, just sit and talk.
Remember. Remember for me.
——————————–
Remember the seasons of flowers in bloom.
We’d walk through the meadow, nature’s room.
We’d hunt down asparagus along a fence row.
Bring home a bunch and fix it just so.

Remember at Christmas the lights on the tree.
The gifts for the children from you and me.
The smells of the season that filled the air.
The laughter and joy of people who care.
Remember. Remember for me.
———————————–
Remember the moments our thoughts would blend.
No spoken word between us would send.
The thoughts of love and things to be.
Would cross the distance ‘tween you and me.

Tell me over and over again,
Of the things we use to do and when,
Times of laughter and times of fun
We had together, under the sun.
Remember. Remember for me.
—————————–
When the curtain draws closed on my mind.
And leaves my body alone.
Think of the times we were together,
The times we talked on the phone.

As yesterday’s memories caress your soul.
Close your eyes, imagine us whole.
Where some day we will be together again
Where memories won’t fade, we will again begin.
Remember. Remember for me.



Please see a friend of mine's web page honoring his wife who died of ALZ
http://junebergalzheimers.com/june-and-alzheimers/a-day-in-the-life-late-stage-alzheimer-s

© (4-20-03) John L. Stevens

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1752987/remember-for-me-comment/

Lecture twenty-three of first period of the last semester:
Today’s topic – “What went wrong with Wall Street”

The professor’s trying to connect with the class. He’s trying to have us look past
Sagan-like hair, black pants poorly paired with brown shoes, sleeves stained with chalk, an undeniable excitement in his voice when he says the word “canonical”.

He’s trying to get us to see a forty-four year old father who watches The Daily Show before bed, someone that’s hip with the times. He says something about Twitter and that singer in the meat dress. He references Charlie Sheen.

He draws a graph on the board with three lines
red: Normal
blue: Poisson
green: Cauchy-Lorentz

And we’re all thinking it- What the **** is that green line.

He begins.

Cauchy-Lorentz:
fully defined by two parameters;
x-nought and
gamma
mean;
undefined
variance;
undefined
meaning
­graphs drawn in green have fat tails
meaning
a summation of green graphs with fat tails- a summation of par bonds will default with some non-zero probability
meaning
Lehman Brothers should have taken statistical physics

That is his joke for the day. Only students paying attention and students who bother with current events and students with a sense of humor laugh. It’s a small subset.

The kids in the sixth row aren’t listening, the ones in the Greek lettered shirts with their pledge names on the back and their laptops open. Sixth row is just close enough to look like they give a **** but far enough in the back so the TA’s can’t tell they’re checking their fantasy football teams. The TA’s sit in rows one through four.

The joke is for the kids in the sixth row. Anyone in the first through fourth, the ones considering graduate school in higher dimensional theory or quantum chromodynamics, doesn’t know what Lehman Brothers is, least of all a par bond. A joke about spherical cows? Laughter from rows one through four would interfere constructively off the chalkboards, but that is not who Sagan-wannabe is talking to, and the kids in row six aren’t listening.

They are watching Sunday night highlights, ignoring green lines and fat tails because, let’s be honest, they’re only here to get the answer to the question on the homework that they couldn’t find online.

The sixth row has taken what they learned in the lectures before this, the semesters before this one, the first days of classical mechanics, where they learned the universe is governed by predictable and definable laws, and given a set of initial conditions one can determine an outcome.

Salary|physics degree:
fully defined by one parameter;
sophomore-year internship
time;
ten years
mean;
one million

The sixth row Facebook’ed their way through the undeterminableness of quantum, the green lines on the board now. Their laptop screens hide the fat tails describing the bundles of par bonds they will be selling upon the completion of this semester.

Sand paper bags scratch empty city streets, like nails on chalkboards.  It’s amazing how silence can be scary.  I gaze upon empty playground grass, the rampant, rapacious children are no longer able to climb jungle gyms to be king of the world.  Why?  I believe someone invited the Devil to dinner. He scorched earth and burnt tears in barren city streets, I alone see the beauty in the destruction.  Amongst anguish and anger, lies pure serenity.  An ending is just as beautiful as a beginning, like light to files, I’m addicted to pain.  If you’ll allow me, I’d like to show you how demise is perfect.  It’s starts with a smile, broken.  Too many demons spiting languages of hot lava that sounds similar to the solar maximum, It’s my mind that breaks from reality.  Unstable and unappreciated, pain is the only way I can rid the stress, So I have believed.  Starting like a headache, addicting like ****** or cough syrup, The rush of blood spiraling round my upper thigh is something I used to look forward to,
It was the only thing I could say I did for myself.  
Moments spilled into months, months pouring into one self-inflicting year, If only I could show the buckets I filled with the sadness I was afraid to share with the world.  I finally put the blades away when I made a mother watch her baby boy dig scissors into his wrists.  Rosy-red cheeks and rain-drop tears slipping down her face was enough to know I could I do better. I needed to do better.  So, I washed the blood away, erasing every past memory I thought I should regret.  I know life is no ethcy-sketch, the marks I once was proud of bare the same weight of shame.  I consider my addiction to be my savior.  If I never landed on rock bottom, I would never know the power it takes to stand back up.  Now I wake among empty city streets, Sand paper bags sit silently, It’s amazing how silence can be comforting.  I alone see the beauty behind the monster that tore apart my freckled canvas. I look at the Devil in the mirror.
Dinner is finished.

The 20th century a new philosophy was introduced: Existentialism.

Existentialism is pertaining to human existence, and finding our ideal self, along with the meaning of life through free will. This German philosophy must have been confusing, because not long after the beginning of the next century, free will showed us that eradication and apathy can be achieved by "following orders" and not questioning the ideals of your country's ideology.

The idea of this philosophy is that humans are searching for who they are and what they will become by the choices they make based on their experiences without the complications of laws, traditions, or ethnic rules. Now, the ivory and ebony pieces that lay atop the granite chess board are one of a handful of acceptable, yet objective black and white cohabitations that can't function one without the other.

Strategically sound is the sycophant. Then in reference to people, how easy is it to spot a Parasite when trying your hardest not to be stereotypical? That is why it's easier to hate a person because the color of their skin rather than their theology and ancestry.

This idea of free will is sometimes misconstrued as a hindering factor in reference to the education system. Our foundation is put in place at an early age; this is our fundamental axis, and this reasoning is acceptable because
of our commitment and trust in conditioning ourselves.

And when you need to teach youth about hate and pass it off as love, you must regulate the educational systems, and propaganda needs to be subtle yet exposed in mass media and entertainment, along with chalkboards and textbooks.

Considering the learning differential, people who use a different side of their brain than a peer have a chance of excelling in their studies of specific subjects; however, this does not apply in all cases. See science and language as objective, and abhorrence as once subjective with an edit and an asterisk.

One factor is assumptions made regarding social structure. And this is what happens when something is driven by an economic imperative. But statistics are heavily confusing and easily manipulated when some groups of people are thrown figuratively and literally into ghettos.

This has made people a taxable commodity, but not one for a universal vantage. The reason for that has to do with the socioeconomic status of certain communities. Then again, when a country is at war with itself, being drafted will provide an individual with the necessary rations, and when you're wearing a uniform, bank statements do not matter.

From this point on we can put people into two classes: academic and non-academic.

None of which matters when you're staring at the barrel of a gun: automatic or semi-automatic.

Specialism, electro mechanical circuits,

moving parts yet move, you see, but when we read we bring our senses
inside
privacy can become a public mind, if one is connected, in a giving way,
taking thought,
as the original medium we found message in,
thought takes form
in words,
words take form in things. Right. Check.

Blake feared the objective world was being walled in,
and all the people screamed, amen.
Again

Build the wall, from icons demoted to mites of no more
weight than a tinker's think,
phe-nomenal noment-ation, if we may

Hot and cool both bubbled up as burps, perhaps from the babes
booming through the lies told before the great war.

No future? You allow that thought in your culture?
And shame and blame?
No wonder you choose to lie.

Bear with me a while, share my load, it's light.
There is a hopeful object,
we can go easy into that good night,
the world is round.

Free from Ra and Isis and all, in one fell sweep of the besom.
Broom, besom, means broom, but the effect of an e,

e-lectrix

you give us the fire we'll give em hell  a game ad in the middle of the massage
Call of duty, black ops.
they
You use you eyes to see, it's a with-spiracy,

a hair of the dog that bit you. Eh?
live in bonanza land, 1965.

and so it goes, Dresden, every minute of every day

the walls of your home are coming down,

unless you were born with a cell phone in your father's pocket.

Privacy is calling for walls from the fenced in time after Bonanza.

Ah, too late, ours is an all new world of all at onceness, a global village, happening simultaneous.
extreme with everybody else's business, huge in
volvement in every body's business

we know too much to be strangers
walls fall down, not go up,
the wallbuilding never workded, did it Grandpa?

Nineteenth century student could believe
the factory system
would use the knowledge, hard-won
from books and chalkboards,
to keep him outa the mine.

Now, the information age,

are we the leisure class? Ever learning,
never knowing everything,

but knowing walls and wars do not perform as advertised.

The safety car, that was one with seat belts, 1965.
Our body percept, it changes,
this image of which you are un
aware.

The disconnected minded man, alienated
artist living edgewise to
cattywompus.

My life is my art, eh, not the other way.
Global village information age McLuhan named these things
from Canada.
More expert than my teacher,
Pop art is not a pun, it was a bubble,
that's a fact. The-joke-with-no-story-line-conundrums,
elephant jokes, blonde jokes

Those tests, Turing would approve,
any old A.I. can play chess,
just remember every response to every move ever made in any game in the system,
like the amygdala, your lizard thought-speed brain,
at the top of your spine.

But humans can make funny seem.

Humor comes from a world of un happiness and gripes,
Jose Jimenez was the example they made. Racist, right?
The guy was a jew.
William Szathmary, Googled it.

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana>

Communicating with the logo-label-designer you wear,
messaging the world what? Exactly,
any un thought thought goes unsaid,

but T-shirts and body art, henna's the best,
those send a message with no thought whatsoever.
Same as Redcoats in bearskin hats, what's being said,
same as the judge with a wig?

What is the role?
Why the ongoing act?
It must have changed into that wigged judge from something.

Theater of everywhere, accept allatonce, or die asking y not.

Inward directed seeking
deep meaning
a role that changes

some outside
the future of the future started, a while back. not too far.

No inevitability.
An act of high poetry

envisioning,
the future was friendly

metaphysical value, brilliant, incomprehensible
a man, a thinker,
storytellers the experts say,
need some mud behind 'em. and some snow.

a mother never satisfied with her life,
brittley self confident,

the whole approach to knowing is old.
Diogenes's search for a good poem, with
shifting levels of imagery,
never shall you know,

they work
the way a word works,
the effect.
effect. fect from Latin facere,
sistere mechanically deus
The oracle of the information age
Ah,whatvoiceisheardaroundtheworld,
oh,mine.2018 Mr. McLuhan,
you'd likely lighten up a little.
Toejammspredder was mcluhan I heard on the grapevine.

Hey, mom, I'm on TV.
Up to doctrine, then destination syndrome a hopebubble

He had brain surgery and returned to Catholicism, a safe place.
But he left his vision to television's offspring.
That's about all I know of his work.

The hue of streets; cousins of chalkboards;
the distinct voice of transition; of forbidden love
sipped through straws of anticipation;
swallowing decadent tribulations
to nourish picturesque gardens
and English dreams; the line between
appreciation and alienation
Happens to be the blemish
of today's death; headline hopscotch
founding father of premeditation
Sound prints in the sand

Chalkboards and easels, pencils and toys
Desks lined up in aisles of little girls and boys.
A classroom, learning the A B C’s, two plus two equals four
But this day, all that learning didn’t matter anymore.

A girl with a bow, a boy with a grin
Children with freckles scattered on their skin.
A daughter, a brother, a grandkid, a friend
A lot of moms never thinking these titles would end.

Lego’s and the alphabet, Mrs. Soto taught them how to write a name
And then a mad-man stormed in, with destruction he came.
He shot down a daughter, a son, a wife
He shot down a child, a baby, a life.
Lessons in elementary consist of building Lego’s, catching butterflies in the sky
Lessons as a 6-year-old should never be what your friend looks like as they die.

Moms stuff a lunchbox with treats; Dads stuff a ball in a glove
Parents raise children; stuff a heart full of love.
They teach how to ride a bike, put a band-aid on a scratched up knee
What they should never have to do though, is bury their babies beneath a tree.

But there is evil in this world, a darkness that engulfs the light
There is an evil that reigns that humanity can’t fight.
The safest places are not safe, the most guarded unsecure
In the world we live of ignoring God and provoking massacre.

We denounce Him out of government, our country, and our schools
We ask that He move aside so that we can make the rules.
And then we blame Him when there’s death; but we don’t thank Him when there’s life
We don’t bless Him when there’s goodness; we just curse Him when there’s strife.


Moms are always good at preparing children for the day
With some things that don't matter, clinging to a love that will never go away.
Mothers, kiss your babies. Fathers, hold their hand.
Devastation comes unannounced, we will never understand.

At home in Newtown, a dog sits waiting at the door
He stares out the window, his tail wagging no more.
He sits by the window, lots of time he’ll spend
Waiting to welcome his very best friend
Jump up on her lap, smell her scent, steal her sock
But his owner won’t be coming home; no more leash, no more walk.

I think Jesus sat by his window this very same way
Waiting to welcome His children that awful Friday
He greeted them from His throne that December afternoon
And as they entered through the Pearly Gates, He healed all their wounds.

A classroom filled with giggles, children’s voices - the sweet sound
This same classroom turned from liveliness to a too-young burial ground.
But we hold on to the giggles, and we hold on to their love
And the promise of a Father taking care of them, above.

I

Crested by the infamous gown
during a tribute                            to all digestible,
                                                     ­  sentient,
                                           grown strips of light
            playing splatter off the sockets
                                                         ­      of fishermen birds,
                                     who can no longer ignore all
                                     the puppy dogs and kitty cats canned
                                                          ­               in squeeze tubes.

Now every corner of this landscape--a puzzle-piece room
                                           designed to think in shades
                                           and seasonal plume dances.

The usual beautiful* late evening
has become clotted with hip hop Down's Syndrome
mixed with jazz Dual-Personality Disorder.

                                                   Vampire Hades' skull evacuated of ****** power,
                                                          ­      a scene of literal watercolor
                                                    wh­ere moods collage with paper rings

                   on their stubby tongues. An unfixed saturation,
                                                     ­         clean oils
                                                            ­   split
                                                           ­    like the parting of hair

                        Alice's pirate boy, her beauty is parched of tomorrow,
                                                       ­ a wolf for a blood-red moon
                 that works like a farmer
                          to      
                                                              th­e                       water.

                            Let us all that are wild
              quote the stormy truth that                          shifts the particles in space
                                             "It is all in the direction a flower grows,
                     educating a sea of doubtful faces--to the cruelty of nature
                                      Close the brutal mind,
                                                           ­       unless your eyes are flame-proof, Alice."

--It is yours to consume
but it is relatively us that belongs to the consequences--

                                                 ­  Churning coffee water,
                                            reenacting romantic bloodshed
                                    to addicts in attics
                                                          ­  --jostling war heroes
                                               back to this side of the looking glass.
--coming back to their tempest
                          of cremated breaths--a den with no one
                                                             ­   to sing with.
        Sad Alice,
   always sad Alice--mud on her face from             the Dead Sea's end
      of immortality           because Death is albino.


II

  
The top of the day,
                                                            ­              negative space
  has a dying voice        as it lies under the boot
                                       of the night sky  
                                                           ­      watching stars.
                                              "Simply tomorrow is right there
                                                above the mortals," Sweet Alice
                                                speaks, "To the many heavens
                                                      its­ overpopulating the fields."

       The earth needs its cotton blankets.
   Fresh air accents symptoms --dancing on slick gravel
  at 10:18 at night with a pale, pompous view of someone else's Paris.

Crocodile roads spit up by patterned archipelago drags,
updating the scream, "think more about going off the edge of hair and the last number
after twenty shots                         of anesthesia." The culture of Spanish sun denial devolves
         the fig tree
     novel delights.
99% of the fear that saturates the throats of people is a blonde tumor.
1% of the love is too passionate to contain the fires of field cotton.


III

         end of immortality
accepts her                 trying to escape her pirate boy
              but tones of nostalgia prevents the revival--a war with God, herself,

                                                       ­                 trying to escape looping Paradiso,
factory vents malfunctioning forth
                   the guts of Inferno.                     Purgartorio  plots on
                                                              ­          erased continents
                                                      ­   rolled down lamp shades/ everything is useful,
             waste nothing.

Republics spawned in damp pits stamp bargains on trust
     ringing each solo anthem as one: I saved you,
                                                            ­  feeble beast.
                                                          ­    I saved you,
                                                            ­  dear lonely and you didn't care.
                                                           ­    I reserved us both
                                                            ­  and you cast me back
                                                            ­  into Dante's imagination.
                                                    ­          I saved you,
                                                            ­  you feeble child
                                                           ­   and you burned
                                                              me­ with your
                                                              wo­rld.

     Weaving Alice, calm Alice lies in a dingy on the river Styx,
                                  cobwebs fit to her feet like rank shoes
           she gave her children when they were born malnourished
                                        ---starved of insurance money, mouths agape
for the silk heart of their father--an image of a moth in the shape of a human pelvis
                                                      with­ alligator mouths on the wing tips. They shared
                                      --Alice and him--those wings like scribbles tied together on chalkboards
                                                     ­                                 
                               ­                                       --places to venture--

Your Wonderlandia, she spells, a wasp's nest
                                  of combs
                                          in a hive locked
                              in with the others--concave atlas skies.

            Alice smiles with inebriated
   country boys
                          tossing comrades in the natural flow.
             Richly blonde Alice, admires the impression
                        of the night
                  once charred dreams,
                                               now volcanic forests.
              She glides on a dingy
              across the luscious joy
                             --lubricated veins in atheist's beliefs
                                 don't get lost here, just new places to venture.

Beneath malicious eternity, on the River Styx
                                                            ­        
               the boy she adores
                                    all of a sudden, she steals his hat,
looks into his double-barrel eyes,
                                       sees how sad
             she makes herself                  --like a mother tired of brushing
                                                                ­ her daughter's hair, looming tears
                                                           ­                                         extend beyond widows
                                                          ­                                          to the water.

                      The pirate boy says
            his friend isn't far up the river--she cries through her hand.

                               Hopeful Alice prays, smiling, hoping everyone goes to Wonderlandia.
                                             The pirate boy never finds his friend
                                              but keeps his promise
             and takes her away from Euphoria
                                                        ­       --the cranium loss still fresh.

Mid October takes its end of season's leap
into the solitude of post-tourism autumn.
The landscape shows its truer face to celebrate
the reassembly of local solidarity.

Tat and trim tucked into hibernation,
chalkboards erased,
scant takings totaled,
inflatables deflated.
Unsold crafts packed between pages of yesterday's
'Correio de Manha'
Shocked freezers stand open-mouthed
their diet of ice dwindled to a thin trickle.
Sunshades collapse in deep south style,
redundant loungers relax supine.

Kids ***** back to school -
a mule-train of shoe-scrapers packed to the hilt
dawdles through warming scents of
post-salad indulgence,
sweet with the street-aroma of 'feijoada',
garlic, and  aromatic oregano
***-grown in a back plot, littered with
discarded placards and tired bikes.

Past men leaning doors, unsure of new routines,
idle hands and minds with new time to fill
mostly in cold bars for warm camaraderie.
Women pick fitfully at quiet-season's crochet
squatting to gossip under a white wash
slung and pegged, stick-sure
against thin bleached facades.

Under Planes, old comrades congregate
shuffling at a make-shift table,
tired eyes set on cards,
playing for cents under a limited sky
once defined by Salazar.

Car parks thin.
Beneath the russet canopies street-sweepers
scorn a reckless wind, where still sun-crisp leaves
gather in gutters, thirstily anticipating
the first deluge under autumn's gathering clouds.




copyright © Caroline Grace 2011

Lately…I’ve been practicing sleeping.
I’ve had to take pills to make the thoughts in my head shut off,
Slow down,
Stop,
Long enough to catch some rest.

Now, one of the questions you may be pondering is: why?
Chances are, you know as much as me.
Though I do have a theory at this moment in time…
Maybe it’s because I have worries and fears,
Ones that aren’t always entirely mine.

For instance, my selachophobia can keep me up
All into the wee hours of the night.
A fear of sharks for those of you wondering
And no, I have NO idea as to the origin of this phobia,
Maybe you might...

But can you blame me, really?
Have you seen those things?!
They just aren’t right;

Heads shaped like torpedoes,
Black eyes that roll into the back of their heads,
Serrated sets of teeth like razor blades,
And you wonder why I can’t get to bed?!

It's been proven that some types of sharks
are so big that if they didn't live in the water
they'd be crushed by their own weight on land
Like whales left beached and dying on the hot, dry sand

Basically, anything that swims, floats or crawls in the deep,
THOSE are the creatures
that make me lose sleep!

Then, there are chalkboards,
Before you ask, no, they do not strike fear into my heart
I simply do not like to be near them
And the sound of peoples nails on them – no, no
...I refuse to even start

Then...there's this mouthful: Athazagoraphobia
Fear of being ignored, forgotten or forgetting.

See, ignored is something no one likes to be,
and forgetting is something I think everyone worries about
but being forgotten, left out or remaining unseen
Well, I can't imagine a worse destiny

But believe me,
I know where this phobia stems from.
It's my uncertainty of the future
Graduation's just one year to come...

I don't where I'll be going
I don't know if I'm going to stay
All I know for certain is that I'm going to lose contact with
some of them...someday

I worry that when people look back and think of me
That all they're ever going to see
Was girl with skirts and smiles
Bright eyes and wavy hair
they thought looked pretty.

Not a girl with thoughts
brimming from the tip of her tongue
Someone with a fiery determination
and a need to get things done

But, I suppose I'll have to accept
it's going to be just fine either way.
That all we're ever going to get to say,
are sweet nothings in passing
“Hi's” on each other's facebook walls

Nothing that really means anything
But I suppose that's just dandy, all in all.
The thing is though, I'm just not ready
Not ready to let go

To stop seeing them everyday
To no longer have them within arms-length
To hug and talk to and cuddle with
But for now, all I can do is pray

Pray that these good times will last
Make an imprint in my memory and theirs long enough to remain
Long enough to look back on when decades have passed
With absolutely no need to complain

I always want the comfort of knowing they'll be there
the very second I reach out and need them
Have them there on the other end of the line
To soothe me and keep my nerves at bay

But...eventually...I know we'll all be going our separate ways.

So...that's why I've been practicing sleeping
And I know I'm getting there
But the fears?
Well, the fears aren't really going to go anywhere.

The month of May may not be a part
Of our struggle. It belongs to those
Who have chosen to remember the
Blots of blood showered along the

Mendiola pavement, paving a closely-
Knit kinship of beliefs and bewildered
Minds, of a passing moment, of a
Movement passed on generations.

Struggles don't end, for they never begin.
Gun's barrel is where power grows. Mao
Theorized it, generations lived it. Not until
This generation's search for new reason,

Tilling fields

Are mapped in the hearts of the masses;
Where new weapons are fashioned, new
Passion grows for living the theory, for
Doing philosophy out of soil, out of gears.

Superstructure is rebuilt on chalkboards.

Dear God,

Do you want me to be grateful
for the way the clouds curl around each other
like ringlets falling from a hairband?
Because I will be, if you want.
And if I tell you the truth
I think I’m going to have to be
because I can’t find any other thing so beautiful.
I’m looking at the world through a view-finder
and I can’t find much that’s pretty these days.

My calf is pressed against the calf of a girl
who I considered for years to be a best friend of mine.
She felt empty
and so she inflated herself with
hot air and “banter” with no meaning.
“***** Please” and “Ohmygod” and “*******”
spew from her awkward, Christian mouth
and I wonder whether she scooped her insides out
like pumpkin flesh
and inserted somebody new there in her place
like a candle in a jack'o'lantern.
Somebody who doesn’t have the time for me.
So I give up on our small talk
and decide not to interrupt her mobile phone;
I feel the back of her head like a headache.

“Mum’s sweated off four-hundred-and-seventy-six calories today”
she tells me and I ask her how she knows.
“She’s a got a tag thingy, you know. I have too.”

I can’t bear the sound of calories.
They are nails on all my chalkboards
and they are the wrong-footed *****
that tolls in church.

I lower my gaze to the absent-minded mother
whose fingers climb into her pram
to draw circles on the baby’s scalp.
She stirs my thoughts with them.
I think I’ve come a long way since
I started this prayer,
since my eyes hit the clouds.

Someone once told me that the thing he hated above all else
was greed
because greed is a bonfire that hungers without ever feeling full.
And who reminded me that
power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We got the greed we hungered for.

And it corrupted us absolutely.

For it is by greed that the ice caps
are sweating off more calories
than the girls in their gym shorts.

It is by greed that they cannot rest
until they have peeled their thighs far enough apart
and by greed that they’ve been lured into the propaganda store
to buy themselves diets.

It is by greed that we cannot look our world in the eye
and greed that necessitates the use of a microscope lens
to distance us from the damage we cause.

It is by greed that we underline the little problems
to cover up the big ones
and it is greed that enables us to find offense in the weather forecast.

It is greed that has shrunk my values into a cage of bitter ribs
and greed that provoked my self-righteous verbal slaughter
of that friend I no longer know.

It is by greed that we started deciding that land belonged to people –
that finders were keepers, as long as they were white –
instead of the earth it consists of.

It is by greed that we doggedly avoid breaking our routines apart
to fit other factors into them.

It is by greed that righteousness
and ******
fall into step
on the path towards a religion that God can’t condone.

It is by greed that fascism and communism
eclipse one another and meld into one.

It is by greed that the old woman opposite
refuses to share her seat or even her smile
with a human under the age of thirty.

It is by greed that kids have bullets in them
and mothers are shot full of infection
and the water runs dry
through the dripping tap we didn’t fix in our bathroom.

It is by greed that I sit on a bus
and shift my problem onto our backs
with my view-finder.

And yeah,
I still see some beauty when I look for it
but I see beauty like a picture postcard
that an angry kid took a hole punch to.
It got so torn up but we refuse to put it under a light
in order to avoid seeing just how many gaps we’ve made.
Recently I’ve noticed this postcard’s
got too many holes in it to be able to see
what the picture once was.
There’s more absent than present
and, sure, we’ve still got our itty-bitty blue-sky-days
between the punctures,
but the grime and the guilt seeps out
like the air we drove our dreams on.

What a mess we inflicted, I think.

There’s a ceiling light in our toilet that attracts flies to it.
They fly in and burn up
and the lamp bowl fills with insect corpses
until you can’t see through them anymore.
We’re like that.
Flies go suicide bombing
and ***** things up
with the clutter they leave behind them.
Meanwhile,
as long as the dead stay in their graves,
they don’t bother the rest.
We look up at the ceiling
and don’t change the lightbulb.

How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?

We like looking at our world from the atmosphere;
we observe it from the internet,
believing that we stand on the moon,
too far away to touch the gashes we’ve torn.
We don’t like looking at the way the blood runs;
we tuck it under our fingernails instead
and hope no one holds us accountable.

When I come home I snap at my mum
because I am so struck by the brokenness of what I’m dealing with
that I cannot have her ask me how my day was.
Because I cannot complain about the weather
but I need to
because our family conversation is not big enough
to grapple with the magnitude of the genuine complaints I have.
Because I cannot simply tell her that I hate America
or feel comfortable praying her this prayer.
So I tell her “OK” and she rolls her eyes at the kettle.

So I’ve got my dish-cloth heart
and the rain starts to spit at us
with tears that are heavy enough to weep the things I can’t shed.

Wash me clean, rain… heaven… God,
because most people put ***** dishcloths in the bin
not the washing machine.

The video stutters and she jitters to a halt in an intersection;
Traffic lights turn green, and the display revs up,
The Broken Egg food truck clips her heel and spark-like static fogs the screen.

His fingers, once lightly brushing over a braille textbook, freeze out.
The book lifts itself and scraps left to right under his palm.

Her professor speaks, and her lecture on Maxwell's equations propagate towards the classroom wall,
only the walls have fled with their chalkboards, and the standing waves have been left stranded
in the sudden infinite space. She has lost reflections; only direct, brute force remains.

The Truth: I wear petty images like a cloak.
The Truth: My gears tremor under the strain of life, stuck on
The Truth: I think

You'd think me stupid, a bust, and the truth is
I'd rather stand in traffic, frozen, mute and dumb,
than ask questions, intern, or learn the difficult stuff.

Secondary screens:
I'd rather write poems and post them online for strangers
than talk about chemical potentials or spherical wavefunctions.

I'd rather talk about chemical potentials and wavefunctions
than figure out what happened to my remote.

There's too much movement to feel good standing still.

i will sketch myself a gun
and load it
with toxic lead scrawled neatly, letters looping like a noose,
with scratches on chalkboards, like footprints on the moon
        and scars on my wrist.
i will give these words the power to ****
    and with one last remaining breath
       i'll place it against the fire, beating in my temples
and words and letters and music
  will flow,
    into me and out of me
an endless whisper
   of poems
   surging through my veins.


and all will at last be dark.

*-j.s

We draw them in sand,
On sidewalks and crime scenes;
We adore them on Granny,
Abhor them on maps.
On chalkboards, I will not...
In Clubs, Don't I know you...
In poems we can hear them
Playing songs of I love you...
A line is infinite,
Yet begins with a dot;
Those lines run right through us,
Like it or not.

I’m still in awe at* the fact
that I can stand straight,
I can’t tell if I’m mindless
or spineless, whenever I’m
asked to leave, I leave
I never slam the door,
when I’m asked to come back
I drop what I’m doing and knock,
the door isn’t always answered
and that’s what picks away
at my backbone,
I stay planted
on the same doormat I’ve
tainted with leaving footprints,
steadfast shinsplints are nails on
chalkboards,
I keep running,
but you know I’ll be back,
keep that doormat clean.

it’s hard to bring back
to life someone who’s
already a shadow suspended
by dust in sunlight.
a partially eaten heart
trailed by ******
bread crumbs with no
start in sight.
replications of
past complications
forge a plagiarized
grin notarized by a shaky
pen on abstract paper.
bringing back to life
sand-burnt knuckles
reflecting tremors
through coils in the bottle
seems anything but feasible,
recovery and relapse are
few and far between
with a fine line that
splits at the seam
without warning,
the ice meeting
the bottom of the glass
again is a slow
graze of fingernails
across chalkboards,
help seems out of reach
when the leather begins to
leech to your skin
with each question repeated
over and
over and ******* over,
perceptions of positivity
can only withhold the
constant of being
a placeholder in
the tangent of
consistencies,
but light has the ability to break
through windowsills
and curtains,
yes I speak from experience
because it’s the only thing
that wakes me up in the morning,
but as I become use to
walking dead
I found my light that
wakes me up
in the afternoon
and puts me to sleep
at night

i used to write
the ink that dripped from my quill
formed paisley and damask on the page
syllables rose from parchment and became tangible

now its just chicken scratch
illegible drivel
carved into chalkboards with dull knives
footnotes to a glorious view

i use to draw, paint, tag
whimsical illustrations or swirly oils
on objects both dedicated and found
a distinct style all my own

but now it's all devolved
mediumless and barren attempts
glaring at a skill long left me
clutching and shivering with a brush

i used to hike
i would traverse a plane or a thicket
at altitude with all teeth showing
looking for a place to set up camp

but now i just pace
wearing a rut between the front and back door
studying a tired environment
peering out the windows

Isn't it strange, how you explain to me
you don't want to be with me anymore
but after that moment, you are

kind again, sweet again, everything I
want and more... again. And how is it
that when our bodies meet, the rest of the world is
much smaller than you and I. And how could it be that we are years apart
but magnetic like no other, I can feel your pull.

How is it that you want to see me now, and I know you wont leave me
to bits all scattered across my room. And if I could explain
any of what I'm feeling right now to you I know you would be
silent

and act as if none of this matters at all
because we are "just friends now"
Friends that kiss, fight, love, scream, ****, cuddle...
but just friends.

Those words have humor in my mind. I can't even think about us being "just friends"
or maybe I can with time
but you are lying next to me half asleep
and I can't remember the last time I wrote poetry while a friend was
sleeping next to me. I can't remember the last time my fingers
were not keeping up with the thoughts in my mind, or the last
time you rolled over with the sunlight hitting your face
and you lifted your upper body, and brought your lips slowly together for a kiss.

I can't remember the last time you and I were able
to spend the weekend at my apartment
without having to leave, because of breaking glass and
nails scratching chalkboards and not your back in the heat
of the night.

And then I stop remembering everything of our past, because what I have
looking me in the eyes on this bright sunday morning
is is the warmest place I could find my heart.

If hummingbirds could
                sing
would they make a
                      pretty sound?
Or,
like
  nails
   on
    chalkboards
     in
      classrooms
       with
        no
         walls.

If  the    stars    could  keep  you  warm  at  night  would  you  ever  miss  the    Sun  ?
Or    shun    the coming of the dawn in theconfinesof the night.

If I could write a love song do you think you'd like the sound?

i must remain hidden
in the corners of classroom
As equations and sentence fragments
Complete their long war
Drawing borders on chalkboards..

Me and deformity
the deepest of companions.
The world has twisted
And i bend from the ankles
And i just continue
With
A small world
Hidden in my throat
Mark its boundaries
with a dreaming tongue…
i an unlikely guardian
i whisper it new words…

And when the school girl laughs
it is not at me
as i trip
Sprawling on tables and books
Releasing flocks of paper
In echoing celebration to the ceiling.

It is because
No sparrow has nested
in the desert of her heart
so i water her mirth
with an unassuming smile
careful that my
feathers are hidden
deep in the shiver
of my body …

I am obsessed with my name
The way it swells and curves
With straight edges that can cut
A knife wrapped lovingly in silk

I write it everywhere these days
On papers scattered around the room
On the oily remains of the dinner plate
On chalkboards in empty classrooms
On your skin in the middle of the night

each stroke is radical
Me to mine and
Mine alone

~


Muddy shoes walk on helpless backs,
treachery a’ dance in the foothills of spite
Blaming only the scented dreams,
not the evil lurking in the thistle

“Blinded by beautiful gardens discretely nurtured of poison thorns”

Chalkboards erased and rewritten,
white letters fanning flames of deceit
In handwriting we thought we knew,
only cleverly disguised as friendly

“We trust, we smile, we fall, we cry…repeat”

When dust on coat strings settles
and seams of doubt ensue
Positioned on a ledge of lies, we jump…
for changes happen overnight

“Lessons learned but quickly forgotten in blooms of naïve beliefs”

Now as the pain of broken walls
crumbles, landing heavily on the gut
A swift kick releases the breath
of whom we thought to believe

*“It is the caring heart that gets ripped to shreds; it is the evil heart that feels no pain”

As the day seems to fade,
My numbness does too.
All the darkness comes to surface

Hello, hi.
Remember me?
I’m Miss blue,
hiding in the corner of the room.

Did you miss me?
You know, I missed you.

The giggles evaporated to knives
Now all pointed at me
They cry of piercing noises in my ears

Cruel words is all i can hear
Convincing that this is me.

The whispers in the back of the room,
now screeching, like nails on chalkboards
Expressing what they want me to believe.

Here comes the feeling, I know all too well.
Not being able to breathe.
Throwing my pennies in the wishing well,
Wishing for love
Wishing not to feel’

Once again, a new perspective pushes through.
Everything is always changing, therefore these times will fade too.
So for I know,
this feeling, won’t always be stuck to me
Like glue.

But then I wonder,
Do normal people fantasize about their funeral too?
Sweet whispers of a beautiful tragic, spread through the room, “Gone too soon.”
Or “ I wish I would have knew”
Better cut those thoughts,
Before they consume you.

Nights like these, familiar in taste.
Unpredictable
And lonely in soul.
Screaming in spirit, for a place called home.
Uncontrollable emotions. Release it all.

Cry on the floor, if that’s what you need to do.
Just know, your spirit will rise through,
Your soul will be cleansed once the storm is over
And your eyes will see anew.

You will see past the old truth that you once knew
From a different perspective;
Yet the same point of view

Crying so much, my eyes start to bleed.
And they plead;
For love, for warmth.
For eyes that I adore.

Somewhere this must exist,
Far away from here.
Or maybe I can find it
Residing within myself.

We create our own kind of hell
or permanent bliss.
It depends on which you want to hear.

Well i’ll start with this,

Here comes the reaching upward of the soul

I hope you will believe, even as the light turns to dusk

The same light that shines from the sun
And illuminates the moon
Exists within you, too.

The magic starts with this ☆
Right now, right here
In this mirror