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Mimi Lynn Kelly Sep 2015
The earthquake in a dream is coming,
It's coming,
It's coming.
It clashes with real life,
It clashes,
It clashes.
It wakes me up,
It wakes me,
It wakes me.
The door is open,
It's open,
It's open.
Someone is there.
It's only Brook.
It's time to wake up,
It's time to get ready.
Soon I'll go to school.
"Did you notice that earthquake?"
Asked Brook.
"Yep."
It was October 2, 2012 and there was an earthquake. I apparently dreamt of one and it seemed to go longer than my dream was and so I predicted and earthquake at the young age of 11 in the young grade of 7th.
Ayad Gharbawi Dec 2009
THE STORY OF SARA






Or A Reflection on Ourselves


Ayad Izzet Gharbawi










2008














Table of Contents



Chapter 1: An Awakening. Page: 3.
Chapter 2: University. Page 12.
Chapter 3: Being an Activist. Page 23.
Chapter 4:  The Hallowed Purification Programme. Page: 32.
Chapter 5: The Party Self Destructs. Page: 55.
Chapter 6: Confusion after the Collapse of my Icon. Page: 64.
Chapter 7 Getting a Job as a Psychiatrist. Page 69.
Chapter 8: Afim: Sick or ‘Normal’? Page: 84.
Chapter 9: Having Children. Page 105.
Chapter 10: Omar Again. Page: 109.
Chapter 11: The Meaningless Existence of My Husband. Page 121.
Chapter 12: My Daughter: Lara. Page 127.
Chapter 13: Getting to the Top in my Job. Page: 131.
Chapter 14: Success & Emptiness. Page 142.
Chapter 15: The Shock. Page: 148.
Chapter 16: The Trap. Page: 153.
Chapter 17: The Punishment. Page 162.
Chapter 18: The Barmaid and the Alcoholic Conversation. Page: 166.
Chapter 19: Old Age. Page: 180.
Chapter 20: Seeing My Son: Noor. Page: 184.
Chapter 21: The Unexpected Visitor. Page: 191.
Chapter 22: Conversation with my Social Worker. Page: 195.
Chapter 23: My Visitor Returns. Page: 206.
Chapter 24: Isolation. Page: 210.

















THE STORY OF SARA



– OR, A REFLECTION ON OURSELVES



CHAPTER ONE:  AN AWAKENING



  
            Sara is my name.
  I feel the need to write down the words, or rather, the connected and the unconnected stories, of my life.
  I wish to say straightaway, that I am not an important person; on the opposite.
  I am, in fact, a no one.
  I achieved nothing meaningful in my life, and I was never famous.

  So, why you may think, should anyone read about my life, considering that I am a nobody?
  Well, I think, that precisely because I am a nobody, people should read about my life!
  Why?
  Because, since most of us are nobodies, therefore, I must be a reflection for a significant number of people.
  I am a mirror that most of us do not see; after all, who wants to see what they really look like?

  You see, if I were famous, then I would be in the minority of the population, and, as a consequence, I would reflect the lives of just a small fraction of the people.
  In other words, if I were rich, and if I were to write about my life as a rich woman, then most readers would have absolutely nothing to relate to such a story.
  But then again, to tell you the truth, I am plagued by insecurities and self doubt.
Why am I plagued by insecurities and self doubts?
  Because life itself is full of doubts and insecurities!
  Everyday there are so many events that happen that you do not fully understand - and so they have no certainty.
There are so many thoughts that come across your mind that you cannot believe in with certainty - in other words, you have doubts!
  Life is made up of events, people and thoughts that are themselves uncertain, vague, indefinite, unclear, ambiguous and ultimately blurred.
  That is why, for me, I found no certainty in my life, no sense of definiteness – and the end result is that my image of my personal reality was a blurred vision.

  I could never see an accurate view of my own reality - because I had far too many flawed characteristics.
  I am extremely temperamental.
  I am extremely impulsive; I speak, behave and act without thinking in a sober, rational, deliberate manner.
  I am not a very good judge of character when it comes to people. I often evaluate people wrongly. I misread who they really are.
  I am often very cold with other human beings; I am unable to sympathise and be compassionate to other people.
  I am not a good listener.
  I am a slave to my irrational passions, my dark urges and my undesirable needs.
  Now I am not saying that I have these characteristics all the time – but I confess that I do have them far too often.

  And all these awful characteristics make me quite unable to focus on myself in a logical, coherent and rational manner.
  I am unable to see my real Self; I cannot see where my rational mind tells me where I need to go with my life, rather than where my dark passions tell myself where to go.
  So, maybe my story isn’t worth telling at all.
  Should I write the story of my life or not?
  Will anyone read it?


  I am a member of the weak and the unknown and the unheard class.
  I am a member of the invisible classes, of what they call 'Humanity'.
  Even though, I don’t know what ‘Humanity’ actually means any more.
  I am one non-entity amidst this ocean of Humanity.
  I am a nothing.
  So, what’s the point of my existence and, more importantly, the story of my existence!?


  Actually, sometimes, when I’m in a good mood, I think, yes, come, do not be timid or afraid, and take a serious gaze at my own face, and I hope you will see yourselves – yes, you, the majority of the people out there, this night; for when you see yourselves in my face, you may learn so much about yourselves, and it seems to me, after I have been living and experiencing so long, you may learn from my mistakes.
  It seems to me, that one of the problems so many of us people out there are facing, is that nobody seems to want to take a serious, unbiased way that they really look like – and this is because of fear.


  But what is this ‘fear’?  
  I know that this fear is one reason that causes a nagging and persisting unhappiness.
  This fear is because we are scared to look at ourselves and find a picture that is severely deformed and far too horrible to behold.
  Do you believe that looking at your own face is an easy task?
  I hear you tell me: Oh Sara, all you have to do is to look at the mirror and you see yourself.
  How easy!
  But, I’m afraid, you are wrong.
  Because when you say to me, that all you have to do is to see your face in the mirror, that is not accurate.


  And that is, because the face you are seeing in the mirror is an image.
  That is not your face!
  That’s an image of your face!
  And an image is only one degree of reality.
  An image is never and can never be the whole reality.
  So, you say, why is it that I am seeing an image of my face in the mirror and not the whole reality of my face?
  Because you yourself are scared to scrutinize and stare so deeply at your own face.
  Fear is restraining you from seeing your own reality.
  You may see your real face and it may be a face that is far too ugly to see!



  Now, when I am in a bad, bleak, hopeless mood, I really believe in the depths of my angry heart, that it is utterly pointless to write anything, precisely, because I feel that my entire life is completely worthless.
  Emptiness.
  I feel my life is filled with emptiness.
  Ha!
  How can you ‘fill’ anything with emptiness!
  You know, I feel like ripping to shreds everything I’ve written, and yes, reader, I’ve done that many times – and, then I start all over again.
  And how dare I presume that anyone out there in the world would be in any way interested to read the life of an empty woman who happens to be called Sara?
  You see, at times like these, I have self hate.
  I confess.
  I hate every single thing about myself.
  And that includes my pointless story.


  And so many times, especially at night, when I’m able to write my story, I think, what if no one is reading these words?
  How frightful!
  Could I possibly be that empty?
  Could I – Sara - possibly be so utterly meaningless as a human being, to the extent that no one could possibly be interested, to give me more than a few precious moments of their time, from their important lives?
  Well, for all you people out there whose lives are brimming with happiness; for all those of you people whose lives are so full and busy, so they never experience the utter tedium of boredom; for all those of you people who never face an inner emptiness, a loneliness within their hearts and minds; for all those of you people who have no fears, no anxieties, and no insecurities – then I can honestly tell you to hurl this book away!

  And, yet, I would like to believe that - in the depths of my shaky beliefs and my uncertain certainties - that I have at least one listener with me!
  You know why?
  Because it gives me so much comfort and peace of mind to think that I have one human who is interested to know me!
  The most horrible thing to me is to live in total isolation.
  And to ease that unique kind of emotional pain, is to know that someone, somewhere in this planet actually cares for you.

  I was born in the City, in a middle to low class neighbourhood, where families tended to help each other.
  It was a closely knit community. You knew everyone, and everyone knew you and so, when there was any problem, people would help each other out. You see, in this way, problems became less heavy than they would have been otherwise, because when more people come to help you, the problem weighs less, as opposed to if each family had to cope with their problems all on their own.
  It was a happy childhood; I adored my parents and I thought no one could be better than them.
  They were my icons.
  As a child, they were good to me, and I could see nothing wrong with them.
  But how long did that last?
  By the time my mind was waking up, so to speak, by eleven or twelve, I began to notice, that what I saw wasn't all that rosy at all. My parents used to argue a lot; Dad would scream and Mother would howl.
  And what were the causes of these clashes?

  Both were guilty of countless faults.
  Dad drank too much; Mom didn't pay enough attention to housekeeping and so our house was rather *****; neither parent paid any attention to us; Dad would always invite his 'friends', and they would be rather ****** in their behaviour and with their jokes (or what they thought were 'jokes'); Mom would go for hours on end to her 'friends' houses, and leave us children alone; so, when they were in the mood to fight, good God, both sides of the trenches had lots of reasons, or excuses, to use as ammunition!
  And what battles do we young children witness!
  Dad would scream: "What kind of Mother are you when you do nothing for the house; you don't cook, and so we never have homemade cooking; you don't clean, and so the house stinks and is always in a terrible mess; and then you disappear for hours to God knows where, leaving us all behind! How much time do you even spend with our children? I’ll tell you how long – you don’t spend any time with our children! Children need love, attention and time spent with them; how do you think that affects our children? Do you think that makes then happy?"

And Mom would scream, at the same time: "What kind of Father are you? You're always drunk, and you're always socialising with drunk, ****** idiots. How do you think our children are reacting when they see their Father interacting with the most lewd, disgusting people? You're lazy in your job – and that is when you keep a job more than a few weeks – and, not surprisingly, you don't bring in enough money, and so we live a miserable lifestyle. And, you dare to ask me why I leave this house for so many hours? Of course, I want to leave this house – it's because I cannot stand the repulsive sight of you! And then, you have the nerve to ask me, ‘how long do I spend with our children’? You **** hypocrite! How long do you spend with our children? Not one minute!"


  I would usually rush off to my room, and hide my body and soul in my pillow.
  And as I grew into a teenager, my parents were fighting against each other even more.
  Who was right and who was wrong?
  Sometimes I felt for sure, that Dad was wrong; and, at other times, I felt that Mom was to blame; while at other times, I felt both were to blame; and then again, at other times, I would be so confused that I just gave up thinking about the whole mess, and just wish they never brought me to this world.
  How could I judge them?
  I could never really tell, because I didn't have the facts, did I? Who knows if Dad really was lazy at his job, and if that was the case, why he didn't he realize that we needed him to work harder, in order for us to have a better quality of life? Or, maybe he wasn't making enough money, simple because his job was a low paying one, and so it wasn't his fault that he brought such meagre wages.


  Who knows why Mom didn't take care of the house?
  Maybe she was depressed?
  And who knows why she went off to her friends' house for hours on end?
  Put simply, when you don't have the facts, how can you possibly judge in a reasonable manner?
  But then, maybe, you, my dear reader, will say I am wrong, because one ought to judge the situation by using one's emotions and not just 'facts'.
  To be honest, when I think of those wretched days, maybe they were both 'right' and wrong'; but in what measures – don't ask me!
  What I do know for sure was this: the fact that both Mom and Dad never spent any time with me really hurt me and made feel insecure. I really needed their company when I was a child and right through to my adolescent years, but, unfortunately, they were never, ever interested to sit with me and talk to me – not even for a minute.

  In my teenage years, I clearly remember that I felt that I needed Mom and Dad, because I remember feeling frightened for the first time in my life.
  Why did I feel ‘afraid’?
  I honestly don’t know.
  Strangely enough, before the age of thirteen, all my parents' fighting did not leave me scared; no, my response was one of sadness only.
  
  So, I tried to talk with Mom and Dad, issues that were bothering me, but I found out, to my horror, that they could not answer any of my questions.
    I would ask my parents endless questions like:
"Should I continue studying in school and go on to university, or should I leave and get a menial job?"
"At what age should I get married?"
“Is marriage worth it or not?"
"Should I smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol – or, are these things wrong?"
  “What characteristics should I look for, when I make friends? In other words, what are the good attributes versus the bad attributes in the character of any person?”
  “What is morality?”
  I remember that my parents were themselves confused by my questions, and at the same time they were irritated.
And, at other times, they were increasingly bored with my unending questions.


  Strange combination, isn't it – to be both 'confused’, irritated' and 'bored' with someone nagging at you all the time!?
  I know why they were 'bored'; that's the easy part – it was because, they gradually found me to be a nuisance or an irritant with my questions.
  They were 'confused and irritated', because they felt stuck as to how they could best answer my questions.
You see, they were, themselves, doing all the wrong things, so how could they advice me to do what was supposed to be 'good'?!
  For example, 'Can I smoke and drink alcohol?'
Good question, Sara, but a question that you shouldn’t really ask your parents, when you recall, that both were heavy smokers and drinkers!
  And, when I asked them: 'Should I get married?' How can they answer that one
Amitav Radiance May 2014
In the slug-fest between Ego’s
Love is knocked out of the heart’s arena
What remains, is the bruised and bloodied individual
Where the referee proclaims the two, ‘Defeated’ by ‘Knock-out’*



© Amitav (Radiance)
1

I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened,
Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind.
Summon me loudly, and you'll hear slow footsteps
Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind.
You'll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway;
Peer darkly through some corner of a pane,
You'll see me with a faint light coming slowly,
Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . .

I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening
Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair;
I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances
Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair.
She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened,
She extends herself in me, and I am sleep.
It is my pride that starlight is above me;
I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep.

I am a door . . . before me roils the darkness,
Behind me ring clear waves of sound and light.
Stand in the shadowy street outside, and listen-
The crying of violins assails the night . . .
My walls are deep, but the cries of music pierce them;
They shake with the sound of drums . . . yet it is strange
That I should know so little what means this music,
Hearing it always within me change and change.

Knock on the door,-and you shall have an answer.
Open the heavy walls to set me free,
And blow a horn to call me into the sunlight,-
And startled, then, what a strange thing you will see!
Nuns, murderers, and drunkards, saints and sinners,
Lover and dancing girl and sage and clown
Will laugh upon you, and you will find me nowhere.
I am a room, a house, a street, a town.

2

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!-
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea . . .
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me . . .

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, I tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains . . .

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor . . .

. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know . . .

Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

3

I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street
Superbly hung in space.
I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel
I tap them into place.
But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie
Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky?

These stones are heavy, these stones decay,
These stones are wet with rain,
I build them into a wall today,
Tomorrow they fall again.

Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep,
Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn;
And drowsily look from the window at his garden;
And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn?

Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement,
The yesterday he left in sleep,-his name,-
Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind
Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came?

I devise new patterns for laying stones
And build a stronger wall.
One drop of rain astonishes me
And I let my trowel fall.

The flashing of leaves delights my eyes,
Blue air delights my face;
I will dedicate this stone to god
And tap it into its place.

4

That woman-did she try to attract my attention?
Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
It is better to think of work or god.
The clouds pile coldly above the houses
Slow wind revolves the leaves:
It begins to rain, and the first long drops
Are slantingly blown from eaves.

But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
Her eyes were those of a child.
It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
And turned away, afraid to look too long!
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.

. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
With a trowel in my hands;
Or the vague god who blows like clouds
Above these dripping lands . . .

But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention?
She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way
There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . .
She must have known, and yet,-she let it stay.
Music of flesh! Music of root and sod!
Leaf touching leaf in the rain!
Impalpable clouds of red ascend,
Red clouds blow over my brain.

Did she await from me some sign of acceptance?
I smoothed my hair with a faltering hand.
I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen:
Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood.
Is it to be conceived that I could attract her-
This dull and futile flesh attract such fire?
I,-with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!-
Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire?
Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear
A brighter color of tie, arranged with care,
I will delight in god as I comb my hair.

And the conquests of my bolder past return
Like strains of music, some lost tune
Recalled from youth and a happier time.
I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more;
One more we climb

Up the forbidden stairway,
Under the flickering light, along the railing:
I catch her hand in the dark, we laugh once more,
I hear the rustle of silk, and follow swiftly,
And softly at last we close the door.

Yes, it is true that woman tried to attract me:
It is true she came out of time for me,
Came from the swirling and savage forest of earth,
The cruel eternity of the sea.
She parted the leaves of waves and rose from silence
Shining with secrets she did not know.
Music of dust! Music of web and web!
And I, bewildered, let her go.

I light my pipe. The flame is yellow,
Edged underneath with blue.
These thoughts are truer of god, perhaps,
Than thoughts of god are true.

5

It is noontime, Senlin says, and a street piano
Strikes sharply against the sunshine a harsh chord,
And the universe is suddenly agitated,
And pain to my heart goes glittering like a sword.
Do I imagine it? The dust is shaken,
The sunlight quivers, the brittle oak-leaves tremble.
The world, disturbed, conceals its agitation;
And I, too, will dissemble.

Yet it is sorrow has found my heart,
Sorrow for beauty, sorrow for death;
And pain twirls slowly among the trees.

The street-piano revolves its glittering music,
The sharp notes flash and dazzle and turn,
Memory's knives are in this sunlit silence,
They ripple and lazily burn.
The star on which my shadow falls is frightened,-
It does not move; my trowel taps a stone,
The sweet note wavers amid derisive music;
And I, in horror of sunlight, stand alone.

Do not recall my weakness, savage music!
Let the knives rest!
Impersonal, harsh, the music revolves and glitters,
And the notes like poniards pierce my breast.
And I remember the shadows of webs on stones,
And the sound or rain on withered grass,
And a sorrowful face that looked without illusions
At its image in the glass.

Do not recall my childhood, pitiless music!
The green blades flicker and gleam,
The red bee bends the clover, deeply humming;
In the blue sea above me lazily stream
Cloud upon thin-brown cloud, revolving, scattering;
The mulberry tree rakes heaven and drops its fruit;
Amazing sunlight sings in the opened vault
On dust and bones, and I am mute.

It is noon; the bells let fall soft flowers of sound.
They turn on the air, they shrink in the flare of noon.
It is night; and I lie alone, and watch through the window
The terrible ice-white emptiness of the moon.
Small bells, far off, spill jewels of sound like rain,
A long wind hurries them whirled and far,
A cloud creeps over the moon, my bed is darkened,
I hold my breath and watch a star.

Do not disturb my memories, heartless music!
I stand once more by a vine-dark moonlit wall,
The sound of my footsteps dies in a void of moonlight,
And I watch white jasmine fall.
Is it my heart that falls? Does earth itself
Drift, a white petal, down the sky?
One bell-note goes to the stars in the blue-white silence,
Solitary and mournful, a somnolent cry.

6

Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
I hear the clack of his feet,
Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
He hurries among the trees
Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.

Death himself in the grass, death himself,
Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
On the long echoing air I hear him run.

Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
Dancing, dancing,
The long red sun-rays glancing
On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
I do not see him, but I see the lilacs fall,
I hear the scrape of knuckles against the wall,
The leaves are tossed and tremble where he plunges among them,
And I hear the sound of his breath,
Sharp and whistling, the rythm of death.

It is evening: the lights on a long street balance and sway.
In the purple ether they swing and silently sing,
The street is a gossamer swung in space,
And death himself in the wind comes dancing along it,
And the lights, like raindrops, tremble and swing.
Hurry, spider, and spread your glistening web,
For death approaches!
Hurry, rose, and open your heart to the bee,
For death approaches!
Maiden, let down your hair for the hands of your lover,
Comb it with moonlight and wreathe it with leaves,
For death approaches!

Death, huge in the star; small in the sand-grain;
Death himself in the rain,
Drawing the rain about him like a garment of jewels:
I hear the sound of his feet
On the stairs of the wind, in the sun,
In the forests of the sea . . .
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat!

7

It is noontime, Senlin says. The sky is brilliant
Above a green and dreaming hill.
I lay my trowel down. The pool is cloudless,
The grass, the wall, the peach-tree, all are still.

It appears to me that I am one with these:
A hill, upon whose back are a wall and trees.
It is noontime: all seems still
Upon this green and flowering hill.

Yet suddenly out of nowhere in the sky,
A cloud comes whirling, and flings
A lazily coiled vortex of shade on the hill.
It crosses the hill, and a bird in the peach-tree sings.
Amazing! Is there a change?
The hill seems somehow strange.
It is noontime. And in the tree
The leaves are delicately disturbed
Where the bird descends invisibly.
It is noontime. And in the pool
The sky is blue and cool.

Yet suddenly out of nowhere,
Something flings itself at the hill,
Tears with claws at the earth,
Lunges and hisses and softly recoils,
Crashing against the green.
The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened,
The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still;
The wall silently struggles against the sunlight;
A terror stiffens the hill.
The trees turn rigidly, to face
Something that circles with slow pace:
The blue pool seems to shrink
From something that slides above its brink.
What struggle is this, ferocious and still-
What war in sunlight on this hill?
What is it creeping to dart
Like a knife-blade at my heart?

It is noontime, Senlin says, and all is tranquil:
The brilliant sky burns over a greenbright earth.
The peach-tree dreams in the sun, the wall is contented.
A bird in the peach-leaves, moving from sun to shadow,
Phrases again his unremembering mirth,
His lazily beautiful, foolish, mechanical mirth.

8

The pale blue gloom of evening comes
Among the phantom forests and walls
With a mournful and rythmic sound of drums.
My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing,
Persuasive and sinister, near and far:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the thrum of the evening star.

My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,-
Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,-
To enter the luminous walls and woods of night.
It is the eternal mistress of the world
Who shakes these drums for my delight.
Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust,
The delicious quivering of this air!

I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go
With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos
To the one small room in the void I know.
Yesterday it was there,-
Will I find it tonight once more when I climb the stair?
The drums of the street beat swift and soft:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the throb of the bridal star.
It weaves deliciously in my brain
A tyrannous melody of her:
Hands in sunlight, threads of rain
Against a weeping face that fades,
Snow on a blackened window-pane;
Fire, in a dusk of hair entangled;
Flesh, more delicate than fruit;
And a voice that searches quivering nerves
For a string to mute.

My life is uncompleted: and yet I hurry
Among the tinkling forests and walls of evening
To a certain fragrant room.
Who is it that dances there, to a beating of drums,
While stars on a grey sea bud and bloom?
She stands at the top of the stair,
With the lamplight on her hair.
I will walk through the snarling of streams of space
And climb the long steps carved from wind
And rise once more towards her face.
Listen! the drums of the drowsy trees
Beating our nuptial ecstasies!

Music spins from the heart of silence
And twirls me softly upon the air:
It takes my hand and whispers to me:
It draws the web of the moonlight down.
There are hands, it says, as cool as snow,
The hands of the Venus of the sea;
There are waves of sound in a mermaid-cave;-
Come-then-come with me!
The flesh of the sea-rose new and cool,
The wavering image of her who comes
At dusk by a blue sea-pool.

Whispers upon the haunted air-
Whisper of foam-white arm and thigh;
And a shower of delicate lights blown down
Fro the laughing sky! . . .
Music spins from a far-off room.
Do you remember,-it seems to say,-
The mouth that smiled, beneath your mouth,
And kissed you . . . yesterday?
It is your own flesh waits for you.
Come! you are incomplete! . . .
The drums of the universe once more
Morosely beat.
It is the harlot of the world
Who clashes the leaves like ghostly drums
And disturbs the solitude of my heart
As evening comes!

I leave my work once more and walk
Along a street that sways in the wind.
I leave these st
SassyJ Jan 2016
Human directives, veracities unverified  
Bellies belching with anger, murderers
Udders dripping hate, foundling banters
Hunters striking the hungered, unfortunate
Glare sight to seek the truth, hold me lets sink
Tear motions and debates of inequality

My Dafur, the realm of the fur, demise
All armed in Sudan, the arid, a battlefield
Emergency alarms sirens from 2003
The indefinite complications and hunger
A land of the displaced, starving nomads
Hear me out in these non-dissolving conflicts

Guantanamo bay detention a prison vicious
A base for “war in terrorism”, reciprocal laws
Inhumane human interrogations persists
A breach, a revolt, the hunger riots devolve
Force-feeding, torturous measures applied
All undressed, humiliated, genitalia exposed

A Rwanda slain in divide and rule
Civil clashes, mashes, all trashed
Swaying war rapes, tapes, the raves
Machetes slashing necks and hands
A lust of power, a genocide slaughter
The Tutsi slewed and unsewn from a patch

Autocratic regime boring divisions
Territorial ethnic cleansing, a holocaust
The oppression of Jews, Romanis, Poles
Homosexuals, the disabled and mentally ill
Indifference pooled in pits and camps
The institutional social indoctrination

The honor and killing to expose shame
The violation and dishonor of moral fabric
For what is “good”, “bad”, fixated moral values
Buried waists and head, awaiting stones to hit
Confessional secrets of only what lays within
A torment watching witnesses, all dangling

Marxists calls ships to stow ashore
Masses kidnapped, confused in deceit
Invalid contracts awaits signatures
The white immigrants to be enslaved
All aboard, now abroad to revolve labor
Wage packages taken to pay for freedom

Humans bought and sold to be owned
Slaves yorked and counted as assets
Bounded to serve plantations and homes
A human, non human, a chattel, a slave
A debt *******, offended and *****
Untamed and made to obey a master

A falling global strings unturned
Tunes strumming hate, war and pain
Human trafficking, violence, inequality
Child abuse, civil conflicts, capitalists
Commercialism, zero hour contracts
For if we have no rights, I have none
For if we have no peace I have none
We are in it together.........
So much inequality in the world before and now. Why can't we live in peace.
Stanza 1: Introduction to human autocracies
Stanza 2: Dafür (Sudan) ongoing civil war and people are dying of hunger.
Stanza 3:Guantanamo bay detention. The prisoners of "war in terrorism" are treated in an inhumane way. Who is the terrorist now?
Stanza 4: The Rwanda genocide where divide and rule led to civil war. Tutsi the fewer in numbers were killed by Hutu's.
Stanza 5: Honor killing where people are buried in pit and have stones thrown to them.
Stanza 6: Indentured servitude where white people/ caucasians were forced to sign contracts and then shipped as slaves to various locations worldwide. The wages earned were used to pay for their freedom.
Stanza 7: Slavery of black people. Sold and yorked as labour force.... owned as an asset.
Stanza 8: A failing global world where inequality is everywhere (disease, hunger, child abuse, human trafficking, violence, war.....) For if we have no peace I have none, If we have no rights I have none!!!
Wuji Feb 2012
Watching men defeat each other,
Like it's our own little Colosseum.
People pay to be up close,
To be with the winning team as they boast.

The women stand at the side,
Cheering for front line tide.
They will crash with the other team's wave,
Split the difference bets are made.

Body on body they battle each other,
Do they even know one and another?
Or do they just follow the coach's words,
"Push forward boys, make them hurl."

Game after game,
They do the same thing.
Win or lose,
They still get paid.

Paid the big bucks to put on a show,
Commercials roll on before you know.
Get you to buy, get you to watch,
Buy this ****** like Miss March.

Forty-Sixth battle same as all before.
Crowds will still cheer, the cheerleaders are all ******.
Losers will *****, and the Referee always *****.
These mindless men get paid the big bucks.
The CCC keeps the masses appeased.
RCraig David Apr 2013
From my "Bestifreadaloud" series about a girl that got away that Spring because I waited too long.

Part 1 The Past
A case made now faded of a simple place, a time, a space,
a perfect moment let pass in haste.
Clasped in clashes,
brash in passion,
rose from ashes,
desire fires every second's essence as it passes,
a ton amasses.
Fast bloom,
Blast!! Boom!!
The past relapses.
Notably lesser song notes float hopeful, emotional ends and remember whens.
Sent us spinning, then spin adrift again.
Sprung in spring, we fell,
Some are reasons to recall.
Summer's season breaks, we fall.
Flocks fly down and fallen callings fade to Winter's south.
How fate related still debated.
Re-Sprung the next Spring' rise, chance misses fate this date.
I weighed and debated and waited too late

PART 2
Still all these years alone, the "one", the "purpose" unsought.
Capturing thoughts,
The ones I caught and tossed,
Things I was taught and lost.
Proof framed and embossed for a cost.
Coping through the unabashed hopes to one day cash in on all this stashed trash I clash with.
"Smash it?" ...the thought crossed.  

Unimpressed by my evidence of self-less requests,
pursuit of self-evident truth proves a most ruthless abuse.
Even less are my skewed protests for “selfish quests" at the behest of the very strangers I sought to impress.
I digress.

The years compound, bossed around, kicked down but soundly employed,
I turn cold, blaming Freud for defining my non-violent, intolerance threshold on page 23 of some textbook I should have resold.
I go silent. Grow old.
"While your whining and shunning your shinning,
They're sinning and winning." Bad timing.

Girls come, go and follow this shallow, hollow fellow on the run.
While preyed upon...I paid a ton. I play.
The sum never more than the cost of rented fun.
Without insight but consent forthright,
my 30 years of intent were spent in a fortnight.
Still bent on shedding every pound of one first-moment's ton I lost not won.
Can't buy happy for less than the cost of your one-ness.
While prayed upon...paid a Son, they say.

part 3

Ohh the wait....
Ohh the weight...
My set-adrift-soul's mending depends solely on tossing
lost cause cost-spending into thrift.
Well it's a beginning.
All the amassed notes, quotes, boat-floaters,
and sailboat hopes spun in one 1-ton loss moment sprung that one Spring.

Now and again, it creeps in,
like slowly growing stinging nettles around a squelched,
once steaming scorched dream kettle.
Still stays packed away in my heart's darkest parts.
Blurred by time and place,
this burning, misplaced furnace space lays in wait.

Such compiled cold-case denial files from other life trials, lay piled in haste on my proverbial, "less pressing" messy desk of "not ready to face."
Too scared or daring to date, try to relate or contemplate
how to best equate this great weight.
Wait?... Wait.
Elation brewing from pursuing future fruition or ensuing
pure ruin gates these fates from moving, year-to-date.
For the sake of trying or dying forsaken,
another day awake is another day gained or taken.

I found her again,
the town's she's in
but she is taken and then
She learns of my wait, it's weight, my fate, she's shaken,
another ton amasses again. I pretend.
Lay down.
Drown the score of sounds surrounding.
Furthermore, slow the pulse-pounding abounding your core.
Fill your breath.
What is less is gone, tomorrow more.  

by R. Craig David-Copyright 2012
ryn Nov 2014
Forget chivalry
Forget familiar nicety
Best tread carefully
I'm not my usual me

I'll not be the hero... Doing good
Simply because I'm in no mood
I'll go about my business
Steer clear, don't be careless

No sweet chirping of birds
Only sarcasm laden words
I'll wear no smile... Only smirks
Behind which may hold sharpened dirks

Don't waltz into my space
Like you know your place
Don't think I won't lash
Don't think I won't be brash

No 'Mister Niceguy'
Just let this day go by
With no alarms, no surprises
No incidents, no clashes

I might be back tomorrow
But today you must know
As I lace my steeltoed boot
Today I don my antihero suit
WHEN the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool decisions of the judge,
There are points of high silence-twiddling of thumbs is at an end-bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco and wait-and the clock has a chance for its ticking to be heard.
A lawyer for the defense clears his throat and holds himself ready if the word is "Guilty" to enter motion for a new trial, speaking in a soft voice, speaking in a voice slightly colored with bitter wrongs mingled with monumental patience, speaking with mythic Atlas shoulders of many preposterous, unjust circumstances.
It started with a clever picking
Then the horn of cenarius sounding
Followed by an agile creep-blocking
The start of the beginning

Sk, Lina, Leoric lanes the bottom
A superior lane control no one could ever question
Burrow, Bolt, and array has been thrown
That poor enemy's troll got pawned

And now let's go into the middle lane
Whe're SF and Davion came
In this battle they would have to claim
The elusive exp and gold they can possible gain

The top lane's meepo was quite steady
For his enemies are getting heavy
Fissure and Nova are his enemy
The fearsome combo of deadly harmony

As the ferocious battle goes by
In ganks and clashes, skills fly
Some juke, some escape, and some die
The other team thrashtalks "nice try"

Oh dear meepo tries to solo Roshan
The other heroes try to *******
In the woods they find the one
That lone troll farming in wonderland

Sandking immediately winks
Followed by a nimble blink
Burrowstrike makes the troll sink
GG troll as many would think

The the team tries to push
TP-save the opponent used
But meepo breaks the unwanted truce
And tries to squeeze away the juice

They have to **** raigor
Who, in echo slam, has had a great score
But you seeit was only five versus four
Thus it leads the enemy in sore

Alas! the balance has been broken
It's a gg that's nearly spoken
The defenders has fallen
Rax, towers, and the tree are all broken

If only they've warded more
They would've prevented the gank on troll
The other team had a greater score
And they could have a chance to backdoor

Perhaps it was a close call
For a team you wouldn't easily small
Life indeed is like a ball
Just pawned because of the lone trol
Victoria Essex Nov 2012
Life’s moments and happenings are like little thieves
They don’t want any money
They still take it
Putting salt on cracked lips, stealing the warmth of a heart
Sobs resonate in lonely halls
Everything reeks
Of lifeless dust
Even darkness can’t fight them off
Or push away the pain

The cold, swift figures taste like hatred
Longtime friend with the soul of a sister
Offers a consoling embrace
It bleeds good feelings
Now they want our money
Thieves aren’t fair, nor logical
No rhyme
No reason
Life’s a poorly written song
Bad music *****
The bold melody clashes
With its vague accompaniment
We didn’t want them so we welcomed them

‘There must be some way out of here’
Said the joker to the thief
I don’t think there is any way out

The precious tokens of life should be protected
By an army of mindlessly trained children
Who fall in love with the thieves
Whose forgiving minds omit the fear

Thieves call us easy
We are forever sobbing
Cries heard only by past selves and invisible belongings
When we prove we are great
And pass impassable tests
Everything will return

We aren’t capable of such feats
Our memories sing us haunting songs
We cry out with our salty lips
And empty hearts
Robbed of any motivation
Robbed of any care
Robbed of love
God has enabled you to live long
Up to the rare  age of ninety years
Not as a blessing to you whatsoever
But as a curse of Knowledge,
For you to realize the evils you did
During your reign of terror,
when you were Kenya's  president .

You misruled Kenya for twenty four years
Clinging to power like **** on lion *****,
You plunged the country into abyss of poverty,
You established torture chambers
And gave priority to prisons,
Special branch police and detention  camps,
You planted tribalism with passion
Favouring your Kalenjin tribes,
Inspiring them with the spirit of sadism,
That fuelled assassination and public fear,
Daniel Moi your ninety years are birthdays,
Of nothing else but tyranny and dictatorship.

You walked with government money in your bag,
You used tax payers money to cement corruption
You often behaved as a duffer, but a rigging expert,
You suffocated all government organs,
For you to remain a strong man of power
Your  horsemen were villains of villains,
To make you think that one tribe is special enough,
To enjoy political favour in their maximum stupidity,
You condemned Kenya to linger amid despair and mire
With your useless Nyayo philosophy,
That was self-suspicious and derisive to reason,
Making Universities submissive to KANU,
Your Political part that was a mere terror wing,
Chaired by Ezekiel Barangetuny the illiterate,
Who called Karl Marx as Karo Mariko,
He thought that presidential dialogue is food,
Expensive food sold by Kikuyus in Nairobi Hotel,
Your chief aim was to suffocate education,
Campaigning for villages polytechnics,
While you are  a heavyweight torturer of Dons
You; Moi , your name is a curse and public earache.

Daniel Branch of Warwick bemoans you dearly,
in his oeuvre of Hope and Despair for Kenyan people,
He often cites;You shot Robert Ouko the first Bullet,
In the head before you plugged out his eyes,
You ignored his cry for forgiveness and mercy,
Then you dumped his cadaver in the Ahero forest,
For it to be eaten by hyenas, black ants and scorpions

It is epical knowledge  among Kenyans,
But at most the people of Trans Nzoia and Bungoma
That when Masinde Muliro died in the plane
The King's Horseman was around, in the plane
Wielding ammonium gun in his pocket.

Charles Rubia and Matiba Kenneth were unlucky,
They both went mad while in the torture chamber,
Koigi wa Wamwere aged while in Kamiti  prison,
Raila Odinga lost his daer testicles while detained,
You punctured his left eye, he always mobs dears,
Every minute and second, and i am sure you Moi
You can't regret and feel for him, if he was your son?
Your horsemen thoroughly flogged Wangare Mathai
the Nobel Laureate,she won the Prize for nothing,
Other than her successful staving of  the pains
From the ferocious whips by your Kalenjin police,
You jailed and jailed people in Kamiti and Manyan
As if your were possessed by the devil of imprisoning
Or may  be you were possessed, were you ?

You fuelled the tribal clashes in Molo,
You motivated Sabaoits to **** the Bukusu,
You chased teachers of Kisii,Luhyia and Luo tribes
From your village of Baringo,where people starve
for no other reason that was genuine and patriotic
But out of your urge of ethnic sadism.

you made us to sing lame poems;
Jogoo !  Nyayo!Jogoo !  Nyayo!
Jogoo !  Nyayo!Jogoo !  Nyayo!
Jogoo !  Nyayo!Jogoo !  Nyayo!
think about , what were we saying?

You owe apology to the people of Kenya
and all others in the diaspora,
For  the stark misrule and reign of tyranny
You perpetrated on them for two decades,
Your ninety years of life are not a blessing,
But God's timing for you to contrite
To repent and repent  your heinous sins,
I personally wish you not  happy birth day
But humanity wants you  to apologize ,
To those  unhappy families and communities
That you detained and killed their kins.
Advise to Daniel Moi on his 90th birth day
jeffrey conyers Nov 2016
This will forever be.
You have force your culture upon me.
Robbed many of their heritage.
And complain, we should try to fit into your core.

Not now, not ever.
Not forever more.
Culture clashes lies at your feet.

You stole, robbed and manipulated many.
Ask any of the Native American tribes.
Ask many of the African cultures.

And than you ponder, why many races aren't so social.

Culture clashes, of different perspectives.
Some with serious conflicts.
Some able to be solved.
Others, simply more rash and hard.
Swetank Modi Sep 2015
It started with a clever picking
Then the horn of cenarius sounding
Followed by an agile creep-blocking
The start of the beginning

Sk, Lina, Leoric lanes the bottom
A superior lane control no one could ever question
Burrow, Bolt, and array has been thrown
That poor enemy's troll got pawned

And now let's go into the middle lane
Whe're SF and Davion came
In this battle they would have to claim
The elusive exp and gold they can possible gain

The top lane's meepo was quite steady
For his enemies are getting heavy
Fissure and Nova are his enemy
The fearsome combo of deadly harmony

As the ferocious battle goes by
In ganks and clashes, skills fly
Some juke, some escape, and some die
The other team thrashtalks "nice try"

Oh dear meepo tries to solo Roshan
The other heroes try to *******
In the woods they find the one
That lone troll farming in wonderland

Sandking immediately winks
Followed by a nimble blink
Burrowstrike makes the troll sink
GG troll as many would think

The the team tries to push
TP-save the opponent used
But meepo breaks the unwanted truce
And tries to squeeze away the juice

They have to **** raigor
Who, in echo slam, has had a great score
But you seeit was only five versus four
Thus it leads the enemy in sore

Alas! the balance has been broken
It's a gg that's nearly spoken
The defenders has fallen
Rax, towers, and the tree are all broken

If only they've warded more
They would've prevented the gank on troll
The other team had a greater score
And they could have a chance to backdoor

Perhaps it was a close call
For a team you wouldn't easily small
Life indeed is like a ball
Just pawned because of the lone troll

Don't worry DotA 2, I'll sacrifice my sleep for playing everyday!
Benji James May 2017
It seems the more I look around
There are people conflicting in themselves
The hatred seems to store in itself
And there wandering around without a hand to grab onto 

Hope, is lost

We watch as they fall

Nobody knows what to do

This is what society gives you 

The calmness is now violence out of control 

And instead of looking for answers within them self

They start taking it out on everybody else

I see the anger the anguish
The public opinion clashes
It just fills me with overwhelming sadness
To see that Instead of handing out hope
Instead of offering help
It seems everybody's quick to judge someone else

What you heard sometimes are not true.
It could be fake like a smile I gave you...
the loneliness inside is killing me now,
Trying to look for your hand to grasp.
Your memories gives me hope in a world
where everyone is so easy to judge
And I've had enough oh

I see the anger the anguish
The public opinion clashes
It just fills me with overwhelming sadness
To see that Instead of handing out hope
Instead of offering help
It seems everybody's quick to judge someone else

I've seen the hurt
I've felt the scars
I've heard the screams in the dark
You breathe each breath
As if it's your last
Your forming in the shadows
Feels like you're losing your place
You feel like you're morphing into another person's face
Take these wounds that never heal
Take another pill to help you deal
Scrape another cut to express how you feel

I see the anger the anguish
The public opinion clashes
It just fills me with overwhelming sadness
To see that Instead of handing out hope
Instead of offering help
It seems everybody's quick to judge someone else

give me the shadow to lead the way,
A light to follow in this dark place...
one more cut and I'll be losing my way...
Give me the time of day
Give me the chance to show I can change
Take a look, open up your heart
Know the story before you judge
Not everything you hear is real
Not everything you see is how I feel
Sometimes we hide behind a smile
Sometimes we keep the tears inside
Until we unleash them alone in the dark of the night

I see the anger the anguish
The public opinion clashes
It just fills me with overwhelming sadness
To see that Instead of handing out hope
Instead of offering help
It seems everybody's quick to judge someone else

©2017 Written By Benji James
O, why but I am like t'is! Hath I, since t'at last sober night,
as th' wan, dull clouds crept nearby, been bequeathing
tragic, credulous insecurity to myself. Like t'at frail moonbeam
disturbed by starless rain! And a turbulent voyage
didst I take, alongst my dreary sleep, into th' grounds
of scythed lands-full of horror, nightmarish leaps,
and dire-some terrors. Why didst I do so! I hath come, to comprehend
not, why t'is turbulence of brave grossness seemeth like nothing else
but perniciously irredeemable, as though I accidentally, or even
consecutively-inflicted it, without the wakeful knowingst
of my brains. Indecipherable! T'is vacant delirium of mockery, and its abysmal hearth
inside-set alight by invisible flames-torches of hell, and gruesome
shrugs of untimely malevolence. Insatiable deployment, indeed! How
miraculous it would be, should I be free from t'is inconvenience
in th' course of some upcoming days, but still, doth I hope so!
Waggish remarks, jests, and playful turns of ancient riddling-
areth but exchanged outside, with airs so snobbish, from t'ose
pampered youngeth dames, blind to t'eir silenced world's grievous
suffering, and laborous perspiration. How unfair t'eir fiendish hearts areth-
once and againeth-sneering at th' pure, stoical beds of t'ose airy rivers,
andth t'eir dim solitude, with t'ose rings of presumptuous laughter!
Spaciousness in its holy sphere, untouched by th' turmoil t'at lingers on it
surface, neither driven away nor shaken by ungratefulness. Toil
improperly apprehended! And insulted as it might become, tenderness
shalt it leave behind, insolence but be crafted along th' insidious rims
of its face. Marvelous in wild ways! Wild, devilish ways! And unwatched
by th' stomping blokes on its visage, shalt it rise, rise like an unforgiving
tidal wave, soulless in its aliveness, blighting and scratching
t'eir shoulders, with blades unmarred-dormant powers t'at ought not
to be ignored by seconds t'at feebly tick away. And t'eir ends
shalt 'ey meet, granted liberally by t'eir
deliberate neglect, and repulsive indulgence.

In th' nothingness of aggravation I am but naturally not a hard-hearted creature,
too of a stony appearance I possess not-intimate and even, t'at should be how
my being is paraphrased mercifully! With t'ose perpetual-and even limitless-
replenishing jewels of ardour, flawed only by harmless faults, I would consider myself treasured
by nature, o t'at precious creature whom hath so adorably vouchsafed t'is
spring-like life to me; warmth can I gratefully feel in t'is winter every day,
in my prayers, studies, and amongst t'ose invigorating fits
of my daily perambulations. How truthful, aye t'is confession is made! As I am
but a pious, sanctified child, ye' in spite of being a humaneth as I am, a snake is bound
to dwell within my *****, asleep in its quiet slumbers, unawakened so long
as I unbetray my redolent virtues.
But last night! How nigh my soul from t'at anxious burst of agitation,
melancholiness so undesired but abruptly avenged my silence. My indulgent
silence! Th' one frame of my unresting mind t'at I so fastidiously preserved!
Hatred encountered my countenance, and bifurcated my ******
dispositions; flew into anger then I-so sudden as gripped my soul was
by paths of hostility sent onto me-overwhelmed by t'is ineloquent treatment,
howled in despair, and agony was all I felt within my cheerless heart-
until everything amounted into a blurry shadow-insignificant as it was,
but th' fraud was still t'ere-stupefying desire, so ardent within th' leaves
of my conscience, to slaughter even th' most innocent skins-
'till no more breath t'ey shalt but gasp for. And triumph shalt I procure,
ascendancy shalt be painted onto my palms, and opulent pride shalt I be
endowed with, so unlike all t'is hateful remorse, and slithering chastisement!
Amongst t'ose seas of disillusionment; whilst frowning in desperation-combusting
all t'ose wretched spirits wert all I wasth but able to think of;
and all I conjectured wert proven worthy of my thoughts. Inevitable! Entrenched
was its root-t'is flourishing tiny devil on my inner self, as it is-'till th' morning but
retreated and vanquished t'is gust of little hell, which had decoyed me
and my lithe genuineness like a trivial shell.

O dear! My flawless prince, hath thou but thoroughly gone from me?
Still, a painting of thy kiss roam silently th' rooms of my heart. Now scanty
as to emptiness, roaring fussily as to loneliness, for thy being unhere!
Distorted hath been now its breaths-adored only by groans
of misery-like caprices t'at laid unwanted, abhorred by t'eir masters-
for t'eir yesterday's pricelessness, and valuable crowns! How ungrateful masters,
my dear! And how t'eir proceedings shalt recall
t'ose pristine shines, yes, my dear, (of my golden gems) t'at areth gone,
with unsounding returns t'at are unexplainable, and too unattainable-
and shalt remain dim be t'eir whereabouts, amongst t'ese winds
of fervent, but sultry days. O, come back, my love, come back to my arms,
and hate me not, for my threads are woven alongst thy charms-
ah, t'ose threads of life, of soulfulness, and unabashed mortality!
Clashes of feelings, emotions, and mutual usurpation
of endless infatuation. Chaste, and unimpure, passion! Yes, yes, my love-
t'at's how we ou't 'a be, next to t' fireside, lulling each ot'er to sleep,
and welcoming t'ose night dreams with hearts so dear, lullabies
so near to our ears, of t'at unwavering breaths of passion, and unchangeable
affection, for th' rest of our lives! Leave me not-once more, but stay hereth
with me, and make me forgive
and forget cheerethfully t'is seditious, thoughtless, but most of all
irresolute conflagration.
bobby bielik Apr 2013
Oh the sweet dark clashes,
The arrows that rake my soul
Piercing,
Shuttering, my heart

A lumbering breath
away from death
As sunlight cuts my eyes
Beauty fades,
and I am lost

In the hands of death
with crumbled fingers
Darting from the crypt
Of soiled earth

Morbidity, shows,
Pasted to my face
Sunken, cheeks
Once fired like jealous roses
Of a life I cannot keep
BB2013
Deanna Oct 2014
Her socks depict the night sky
because she's a little obsessed.
This morning she left on
most of the clothes she wore yesterday.
Opened her shirt drawer
and put on the first one
to avoid getting stuck
with a decision she'd have to make.
Bright red hoodie
clashes with purple tank top
clashes with striped skirt
clashes with blue night sky socks
but she has an exam she never studied for.
And she walks down the hall
stares at the other humans
dressed in clothes
that make them look
stable and
well adjusted
and she feels
a gray nothing
in response.
Eryri Sep 2018
Your shrill, yet oddly pleasant sound, echoes loudly down the long corridor.
I try to ignore you as the jaunty sound clashes with my melancholy mood,
Yet I find the notes and melodies cling to my mind like tissue stuck to a shoe,
Hanging on for it's own amusement,
Ignorant of my desire not to be teased nor humoured at this anxious time.

I feel I shouldn't like your racket,
My naïve ears and young years sense, not only an inappropriate comedy in your sound,
But also a daunting undertone,
Adding to my sense of having been plunged into deep icy waters.

Perhaps your music soothes those who are leaving,
Your high happy notes providing optimism and assurance of recovery,
Or of a restful sleep enveloping dear ones.
For me, however, at the point of no-return in my pilgrimage,
I hear only the low notes,
Out of time with my quickened pulse,
And lending a foreboding soundtrack to my slow deliberate steps.

But you play for no pay,
Busking in this hospital,
Doing good both night and day.
Yes, you are well known in this place,
Admired for the hours you commit to this space where lives can hang in the balance,
And where your instrument by day is a sharp sleek scalpel,
Invasive in its desire to alleviate suffering,
Your steady, practiced hand rehearsed and well versed in the methodically planned procedure of a surgical concerto.

But out of hours your instrument of choice lends you a voice,
Allowing flourishes and improvisations.
But were you aware that for visitors like me who visited repeatedly,
The clarinet would take on a significance beyond other instruments,
Taking me instantly back to bittersweet memories of visiting my family,
As, in turn, they aged and became unwell and recovered and became unwell again.

Now I am older and a little wiser,
I reflect and ruminate on this period;
My memories of family are more than just hospital visits,
And I wonder if I could ask one thing of you?
Why no Rhapsody in Blue?!
PNasarudheen Sep 2013
ODE TO  RIOTERS
The clouds rumble , O! sons of Malice ,hear
The smoke of arson and roar of lies
In the name of God in heaven; to the tune of lords near
Ignorant men  , followers of Dionysus fly like flies.
Think ! read ,what the history of man tells
Of fire that Prometheus brought for our happiness
But, ingratitude of satanic forces by  spells
Inflame the fire of Ire and burn the huts; brings unhappiness.
Tempters like Hera of Zeus pleasantly smile
Resting in Bars or legislatures , counting votes on computer screen
Echo of slogans on Equality, Fraternity, Liberty from a mile
Makes in social conscience  a  scathing scene.
The land of Buddha. Abraham Lincoln, prophets of peace all
Sent by God to every race and all clans dull,
Told the people all over to be kind
Loving ,lovable and of service mind.
(2).
O! political crookedness, in struggle for power  you tempt
People to compete and hate and conquer
By communal spirit forgetting  Divine Spirit and contempt
Religious heads and political aspirants together
Like criminals think and twist the holy ideas, even
They hold holy books in left hand and in right hand gun
And advice disciples to die and **** for heroic heaven
For them, as if death is an easy going fun;
The First Estate of France still as  impulses here in world
Reign the countries as rulers  of Democracy mocking
And they jointly exploit subjects ; and devotees of the spiritual world,
Misguide men and women  by prayers rocking
Hope of Heaven and horror of Hell
Make the people, forget all , and yell
When the villainous leaders signal by baton
The desperados become boys wanton.
(3)
O! devilish War-Lords, do you read Vedic Books?
What they mean ? for you mean? as they tell of God ,the sole Creator
The Creator of you and the “Other”  in your hooks.
The Preserver and Destroyer , may not be for you Pharaohs greater,
O! Pharaohs , you don’t  cause rain, make the Sun rise
And the greenery, birds and fish flourish .
When the Earth rumbles and tsunami rages you give the price
The rewards of hatred you sowed nourish-
All around ,as chemical war terrorism-a horrible nightmare
But, Epicureans! All are from Him and unto Him all shall return.
Marketing competitions and sale of arms cause the Wars
As history reminds us :none gained but failed to sustain peace;
Still, the blunder of division of people and exploitation stars
Rise , at the West with the dying Sun’s horses and Mars.
Politics and Economics -two horses of Civilization unbridled
Terribly gallop with men on them girdled.
(4)
O! cruel  egoistic  businessmen ,you globalize immorality
By greed, you trade with  fanatics and  terrorists,
Spur clashes: Multiculturism versus monoculturism  denying plurality
Challenging Eternity; certainty of scientists.
At Saranath,Lord  Buddha told  disciples on the Middle Path of  life
To Torah “The Lord our God , the Lord is One”, so Jesus taught us all
And guided to worship  God in” Spirit and truth “ in our life
No other Lord but Allah deserves worship of us all-
Allah is the Light of the Earth, and of the Sky ,O! Lord
God is the Eternal  Light  to illuminate all  ;to be worshiped
Bhagavat Gita says,"The body is the temple of God
In the Spiritual realm : all are from the One ,the  worshipped.
God is the only One without birth and death
The Unique unlike the creatures on earth
The Force is called “atma” by Vedas no trade and
Sciences  tell: it is Eternal  , cannot be made by human hand. .
(5)
O! the ill -taught  simpletons , think !why shall we spoil life
in feuds communal or political  for the luxury of masters
Suicide never a sacrifice; if at all ,it is beheading of human in life
At the altar of regal, egotist power-mongers.
The Only God is the  Seed of all; names may differ by language difference
Holy books use all noble qualities to the name the Supreme Lord
Then, why the sons of that One Lord, in repentance
Think on action : virtue  or evil and pray: forgive ,O! Lord
In democracy, we are free to believe  the God or not
Still, we can be human by refraining from paining others
Freeing ourselves from communal hatred, the vicious knot
As the political fences   encircle us that make us enemies of others.
Stars in the sky and the Sun and the Moon
Are mortal ones from God for our boon.
Let us be men and women loving all , serving all;
Not severing heads; but lead a life ,culturally tall.
                                             ***********
Note:atma=soul.
Ashwin Kumar Sep 2018
You are a guardian of the law
Your duty is to keep crime at bay
And bring the criminals to justice
But, as I watch you,
Wearing a khaki uniform
And swinging your baton around
As you go about on your daily rounds
I am filled with such a rage
That I hold my hand up in prayer
And desperately wish that thoughts could ****
Because you would then be dead
Before anyone could even say "police"

You are a guardian of the law
Your duty is to keep crime at bay
And bring the criminals to justice
But instead, you abuse the immense power
That you wield in your iron fist
As people come out in hordes
To protest on various issues
You swing your baton around
As wood clashes against flesh
Democracy dies a thousand deaths
However, your lust is unsatiated
A pistol replaces the baton
As it rains bullets
Bundles of cash change hands
As you quietly pocket them
You yell to the world
That justice has been served
Even as the bodies pile up
And Humanity waves a white flag
As she bows to your iron fist
This is my rant against the brutal and corrupt police force of India.
Jacob Oates Oct 2013
Let's start with Thoughts

Neurons spread chemical data building their connections
the more connections, the greater the power, the more transferred thought
All of these thoughts, as you read, as you hear, as you flow with the statement
An eye twitch, an inner dialogue, you build a connection
cell to cell, synapse to mishaps, the truly connected have built in their ties

Let's continue with People

People spread physical data building their connections
The more connections, the greater the power, the more transferred thought
All of these thoughts, as you read, as you hear, as you flow with the statement
**** you in, an outer visage, you build a connection
Makes you believe, the truly connected have built in their ties

Now let's break it down

People project the image of themselves they most desire to be seen to build their connections
The more connections, the greater the power, the more transferred thoughts
The way they project this establishes, if you'll flow with the statement
Either brings you in, or casts you out, whether you wish to build a connection
How you are perceived, is where the truly connected have built in their ties

Where Thoughts meet Clashes

How one wishes to be perceived is cut up in The Great Disconnect, the perceptual marker that negates the internal, where chemical processes wish to make their data a physical reality
"If I say my piece in this tone, with this voice, I can establish my connections"
The more connection, the greater the power, the more transferred thoughts
The Great Disconnect changes how you are perceived,
is where the truly connected have clung toward their ties.

Where Clashes meet Angst

When outside perception shifts beyond the control of the internal will,
the mind races to make its own reality another's reality
The stalled connections, the later the hour, the more scattered thought
as you search for a means to flow with the statement, when you are shut out of the loop
Grasping at straws to connect, the mind and the body flowing outward, where the once truly connected have let go of their ties

Where Angst goes to Deal

Once the connections have cut, the thoughts cease to stir chemical process,
the physical data keeps itself clean.
and all of these thoughts, as you read, as you feel, as you roll with the statement
an eye twitch, an inner dialogue, you cope with disconnection
Mishaps to synapse, privy to lies, the truly connected aren't bound by their ties.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Clueless
Be careful what you wish for is the old saying what person hasn’t wished they had a monkey well I didn’t just wish I dutifully sent my
nineteen ninety five off to Florida one squirrel monkey please in about a week he arrived at Jefferson what a thrill he came in a little
Wood crate not much bigger than a shoe box at first I was upset by the meager delivery package soon I would be wishing it came with
A small monkey sized straight jacket you felt sorry for him all alone in a strange place it would be like a wagon train seeing a lone
Indian oh how sad he probably feels intimidated by all of us all the while he is the scout while six hundred are sneaking into position to
Attack so there we set him starring us staring back you know I had a mirror if I wanted to stare and least I would know what was
Being thought about out in Monterey the pastor had been a missionary to the apache in Arizona the custom you would go in set down
And not say a word for thirty minutes very nerve wrecking to say the least I could have made a sock puppet if I just wanted something
Lifeless to lay there well maybe he was hungry monkeys eat bananas here boy enjoy this he did he came to life a little if this had a title
It would be wild meets tame and stupid because the longer this went on the simpler you felt I don’t know what hidden button was
Pushed but he came to life and like a shot out of the box across the floor on the couch up on the back of the couch and seemingly
Straight up the bare wall onto the grandfather clock that set on a ledge shelf oh we found out he wasn’t constipated from his trip
Because as he went up the wall his banana straight pipe right through his system came flying out well by this time everyone without a
Tail had gone on high alert grandma mom aunt and sister and yours truly were in hot pursuit while he rested on top of the clock like
A monkey god if anybody walked up on the porch and looked through the picture window and saw all of us stretching and reaching
For his highness they probably thought we were worshiping our monkey god I don’t think the clock bonged but the banana or
Something caused another burst of energy later out home we would suffer a like fate with a toy poodle we were gone he ate a bag
Of chocolate cookies while we were out on a white cloth couch they said that was dangerous for his breed yes right the only thing
He was a little extra zippy that and when we left colored Easter eggs and went out I opened the door the smell hit me in the face they
Say big foot smells like eggs well he could have been setting on the couch I wish he had so off the clock a good seven foot drop then
Like a dream does instantly it turned to briar rabbit don’t throw me in that briar patch briar fox the monkey races across the floor
Shoots through the bedroom door don’t chase me into the bed springs oh stupid one how he fit in there I don’t know let me tell you
Fur ball from Florida hell I shoot pool at whitey’s pool hall every weekend this broom will do I looked like a Plummer snaking out a
Sewer as I shoved it through the springs time and again our new friend had this quickness one minute he is between the springs
And then in one motion he pulls himself out and up on the top of the bed time for sis to take a crack at the problem she approaches
With two big oven mittens on she sticks out her hand and says nice monkey at first he looks interested but then like a flash and I don’t
Know who was quicker it looked an old west gun fight that and a challenge to a duel because he bit the glove and then sis spoke the
Same uncle said about the turnips you s.o.b. and slapped his face in a duel your suppose to take your hand out of the glove well he just
turned his face with the slap then just stared at her but little did we know he put a monkey curse on her it came out later country girl
Ha s her own place clashes with modern connivance she gets a new Frigidaire it makes its own ice how nice well if not for the monkey
Curse it might have been nice the thing was like a super hen shooting out ice all day ever hour the tray would be full after a while you
Get tired of going to the back door continually throwing the ice out in the back yard not to mention the icy swamp you create
Something had to give it did she reached in there and tore its gizzard out or something who needs ice well at least not enough
For a block party every day or so I guess I might as well tell you the rest of the curse my mother was next on this vengeful little turds
Agenda well we never got to name him well **** isn’t quiet right more like splat any way we were living over by the fairgrounds in
Our luxuries digs I say that because we had a delicacy you know chocolate covered aunts well cake covered I was eating away
And to my surprise there I was eating an aunt city riddled through the cake far in the future I ate caviar on a diner boat as we sailed on
San Francisco bay but I don’t recommend the cake aunt variety not when it comes as a surprise well listen we were cleaning up we had
An appointment you heard of the sales man of the year well this was the sales failure of the year he was coming to sell us life insurance
Yea and soon as we got it signed then we could take the trip to mars as planned and if anything happened well you know we were
Covered well here right at the end we found this old felt hat how innocent mom even started a fire in the stove in it went my Endora
From bewitched starting coming out it didn’t take long inside the house it was magical it was pitch dark and how big was that any way
I’m sorry we must have already been to mars because we must have gotten the hat there and they made it from a supper skunk god the
Odor if we had termites they would have killed each other trying to get out of that stink bag well when this wonder of a salesman got
There he must have thought we were foreigners that conducted business out in the yard well that the monkey story o yes the end
I threw a blanket over him took him over on the river gave him to Lloyd I went back a few days later he was setting on his shoulder
Calm as a cucumber but he ignored me thanks nineteen dollars shot well it does make a story the people in this story their identities
Have been changed to protect the stupid.
Kinyo Jun 2013
Who knew that slavery

was just the corner

of an odd shape

and that a few hundred years

of forced labor beatings

would prepare a people

for generations of fatherlessness

clashes with authority

the lashes on their backs

set many free from the morality

of obeying the laws of

"just" society

and with the banks filled

with whip lash deposits

they were well prepared

to go a few hundred years

without the guidance of fathers

them who stayed locked up

cages and chains for shacks and chains


http://kinyopoetry.com/
"Mother of heaven, regina of the clouds,
O sceptre of the sun, crown of the moon,
There is not nothing, no, no, never nothing,
Like the clashed edges of two words that ****."
And so I mocked her in magnificent measure.
Or was it that I mocked myself alone?
I wish that I might be a thinking stone.
The sea of spuming thought foists up again
The radiant bubble that she was. And then
A deep up-pouring from some saltier well
Within me, bursts its watery syllable.

II

A red bird flies across the golden floor.
It is a red bird that seeks out his choir
Among the choirs of wind and wet and wing.
A torrent will fall from him when he finds.
Shall I uncrumple this much-crumpled thing?
I am a man of fortune greeting heirs;
For it has come that thus I greet the spring.
These choirs of welcome choir for me farewell.
No spring can follow past meridian.
Yet you persist with anecdotal bliss
To make believe a starry connaissance.

III

Is it for nothing, then, that old Chinese
Sat tittivating by their mountain pools
Or in the Yangtse studied out their beards?
I shall not play the flat historic scale.
You know how Utamaro's beauties sought
The end of love in their all-speaking braids.
You know the mountainous coiffures of Bath.
Alas! Have all the barbers lived in vain
That not one curl in nature has survived?
Why, without pity on these studious ghosts,
Do you come dripping in your hair from sleep?

IV

This luscious and impeccable fruit of life
Falls, it appears, of its own weight to earth.
When you were Eve, its acrid juice was sweet,
Untasted, in its heavenly, orchard air.
An apple serves as well as any skull
To be the book in which to read a round,
And is as excellent, in that it is composed
Of what, like skulls, comes rotting back to ground.
But it excels in this, that as the fruit
Of love, it is a book too mad to read
Before one merely reads to pass the time.

V

In the high west there burns a furious star.
It is for fiery boys that star was set
And for sweet-smelling virgins close to them.
The measure of the intensity of love
Is measure, also, of the verve of earth.
For me, the firefly's quick, electric stroke
Ticks tediously the time of one more year.
And you? Remember how the crickets came
Out of their mother grass, like little kin,
In the pale nights, when your first imagery
Found inklings of your bond to all that dust.

VI

If men at forty will be painting lakes
The ephemeral blues must merge for them in one,
There is a substance in us that prevails.
But in our amours amorists discern
Such fluctuations that their scrivening
Is breathless to attend each quirky turn.
When amorists grow bald, then amours shrink
Into the compass and curriculum
Of introspective exiles, lecturing.
It is a theme for Hyacinth alone.

VII

The mules that angels ride come slowly down
The blazing passes, from beyond the sun.
Descensions of their tinkling bells arrive.
These muleteers are dainty of their way.
Meantime, centurions guffaw and beat
Their shrilling tankards on the table-boards.
This parable, in sense, amounts to this:
The honey of heaven may or may not come,
But that of earth both comes and goes at once.
Suppose these couriers brought amid their train
A damsel heightened by eternal bloom.

VIII

Like a dull scholar, I behold, in love,
An ancient aspect touching a new mind.
It comes, it blooms, it bears its fruit and dies.
This trivial trope reveals a way of truth.
Our bloom is gone. We are the fruit thereof.
Two golden gourds distended on our vines,
Into the autumn weather, splashed with frost,
Distorted by hale fatness, turned grotesque.
We hang like warty squashes, streaked and rayed,
The laughing sky will see the two of us
Washed into rinds by rotting winter rains.

IX

In verses wild with motion, full of din,
Loudened by cries, by clashes, quick and sure
As the deadly thought of men accomplishing
Their curious fates in war, come, celebrate
The faith of forty, ward of Cupido.
Most venerable heart, the lustiest conceit
Is not too ***** for your broadening.
I quiz all sounds, all thoughts, all everything
For the music and manner of the paladins
To make oblation fit. Where shall I find
Bravura adequate to this great hymn?

X

The fops of fancy in their poems leave
Memorabilia of the mystic spouts,
Spontaneously watering their gritty soils.
I am a yeoman, as such fellows go.
I know no magic trees, no balmy boughs,
No silver-ruddy, gold-vermilion fruits.
But, after all, I know a tree that bears
A semblance to the thing I have in mind.
It stands gigantic, with a certain tip
To which all birds come sometime in their time.
But when they go that tip still tips the tree.

XI

If *** were all, then every trembling hand
Could make us squeak, like dolls, the wished-for words.
But note the unconscionable treachery of fate,
That makes us weep, laugh, grunt and groan, and shout
Doleful heroics, pinching gestures forth
From madness or delight, without regard
To that first, foremost law. Anguishing hour!
Clippered with lilies scudding the bright chromes,
Keen to the point of starlight, while a frog
Boomed from his very belly odious chords.

XII

A blue pigeon it is, that circles the blue sky,
On sidelong wing, around and round and round.
A white pigeon it is, that flutters to the ground,
Grown tired of flight. Like a dark rabbi, I
Observed, when young, the nature of mankind,
In lordly study. Every day, I found
Man proved a gobbet in my mincing world.
Like a rose rabbi, later, I pursued,
And still pursue, the origin and course
Of love, but until now I never knew
That fluttering things have so distinct a shade.
Andrew Switzer Apr 2014
Growing flames will turn your name into a cloud of ashes.
A flowing mane remains untamed through whirling dervish clashes.
Beating hearts as hope departs through valleys long and winding,
Burning sun, you turn and run, the path ahead is blinding.
You always knew I wouldn't do, so why'd you even bother?
Pass my time by penning rhymes and double ******* lagers.
At least part of your name will remain immortal.
Hermes Varini Feb 2022
ÆFRE SWĀ DÆGES, ĪSERNUM-BORDHREÓÐUM
GRYRELÉOÐ OND HLÉOÞCWIDE SWĀ! 
FÉÐEWÍGUM SĒ EFTCYME! SWĀ SĒ WIELM BLŌD!

Thae Verra Wordis o' Battle Auld! an' Verra Prelude War-Hye o' mine! 
Tae ye a' ageyne tell Ah! afor yondir Forgotten Myrk Whunstane!
Fore cannae ye a' see? frae ma Verra Vision, Thais Immortal Battle-Landis, 
Fore let mee Thais War-Sange, ne'er tae e'er, wi'in Anie Quiet Loch, wane!
Nowe ageyne, weall! thro' Hye-Boilin' Steel-Bluid Eternal Ȝell:

Cauld an' Feudal Battle-Yeir, Sacral o' mine A.D. MXVII hynne! 
Let mee weall, weall! stick-an-stowe intae Thais Deep Past Bluid-Fyre, 
O'er Thais Hoat Airn, ma Guid Auld Swaird Feathfull! 
Ays a Distinct War-Vision Ah nowe stylle see! unco radiatin', 
Dogydder wae Thad Bygane Shower o' Arrows nowe ay War-Invisible:

MĪN HEAÐUWÆD!

An' afore Thae Hye Lowes! ma Stane-Hearth, nowe hynne remember, 
Fore ageyne! ay maun nowe Thais Bluid-Vision o' mine tallid unco Ah! 
Ays Supreme Fyre-Wylle! o'er an' 'yont th' Cauld Lang Hame, 
Meanie Feudal Towmonts ago, hynne, wae ma Airn-Wame, 
An' th' War-Mask o'er ma Swaird-Cut Cheek Bane
Unco haiwin', a Feudal Rebel an' Wulde Brooch-Wearer, Ah!

DOLHWUND OND BORDRANDE, 
EFT WLWULF SWIÞE WÆS IC!

Intae CARHAM'S BATTLE MAYHEM AULD! an' th' Scyld-Horror
Ne'er, IT! thro' th' Murky Moorlan Nicht tae unco wane! 
Wae ITS Open Jaws, an' Het Braith, an' Whyte Teeth Dazzlin', 
Thro' Thoosan Cries Norland an' Clashes Micht hynne! 
Frae Thoosan Battle-Scheldes unco Wooden-Colorful Thay A'!

BORDWUDA MĪN HRÍÐ,

Across yondir Scyld-Wauch found masell hynne Ah! 
Verra, Verra Guid Vision! Verra, Verra Guid Wunner!

NORÐÞUNRES SCIELDWEALL,

An' th' Steel-Spirit, verra Gleamin' IT unco haiwin'
Thad deep thro' ma Battle-Veins in Deep Moorlan Gore, 
Yondir! o'er Thae Blacklyn Hylles, wae ma Guid Claymore-Lore:

LĪEĠÞRACUM NÆGLING!

Ays a Storne Micht! Þenne an' nowe stylle unco flowed, 
Hwenne, IT! Great Þunor's an' Bauds' Warlike Orrah! 
Th' Daye-Luminarie at ITS Zenith-Trune Sacral, 
Verra, Verra Hye IT! waes, wae Rid Lowes Invincible
In nae, nae hynne! Hye Skye-Agony dwellin':

ĒACEN DÆGSCIELD,

Invisible, IT! intae Thae Deep Cauld Norland Skyes
Whare Thais Sunne! allwayes unco owre Wee, 
O'er Thais Horizon Harsh an' Warlike an' Dreary
Wae Fiery Skye-Dignity Primordial unco rules, 
Hwenne, IT! weall, weall Ah nowe stylle in Fyre Thad see!

STĪELENE GLYDERING,

Great Kvaysir's Orrah! th' Swaird-Hurt Schawdu! 
HYS Ghastly Apparition o'er Whin-Rock devastatingly makyt
Wae HYS Bluid Mirk! downe, downe! descendin', 
Hwenne, IT! ****** Hel's Guid Battle Orrah! 
Th' Enraged Ocean spake nae, nae IT laanger!

OFERȲÞUM BRIMRAD,

Wae HYS Whispered Woirds o' War intae HYS Storne Rageful, 
Hwenne hynne, at length IT! Airn an' Guid Thundir's Orrah! 
Th' Gore Sacrificial o' thoosan enemies o' mine! 
Quhame faced a' Ah! th' Lone Wolf-Feeder! ay nae Age-Worn! 
Wae ma War-Blade Dearest, THOROLF GIED called:

DYNGES BEADULÉOMA!

Red-Boilin' IT becam! an' frae Cauld Horizon tae Cauld Horizon extendin', 
An' Þenne a Vortex Feudal o' Coagulatin' Energy Micht! 
Indistinguishable frae thais Battle-Mass frae Auld Carham,

A LONE CRIMSON WAR-FIGURE UNCO MICHT
WAE THAIS BOILIN' BLUID BATTLE-SACRIFICIAL
UNCO! IN WAR-GORE PERENNIAL MAKYT! 
FRAE THAIS CAULD PROWID BATTLE-LANDIS
O'ER A'! TAE TH' WOUNDED SKYES HYE SOARIN'
WHA'S FEUDAL NAIM GORY, TH' OWAR-MANN! 
AYS WYLLE O' MINE BLUID-INCARNATED! 
FRAE DEEP TH' BYGANE, TOWARDIS YONDIR FUTURE, 
NOWE AFORE MINE SCARS O' WAR WAES
O'ER AN' O'ER, GUID BRUNANBURH'S ORRAH! 
TAE MEE! WAE MA SOLITARYE VISION
WAR-BLINDED UNCO RETURNIN',

Weall Ah hynne remember! An' nowe play mair, mair for mee! 
Yer Steel-Lyre Auld Wise! Fore Ah e'en mair distinctly see! 
Thro' Wreaths o' Bluid-Vapor Sacrificial, th' Heat o' th' Strywe! 
Theare cam forth, Ah say, an' TH' THYNGE! soared, unco free,

HEAHÞRYM OND DRĒOR-HÉAHSÆ,

O'er Thais Swaird-Encounter an' a' th' fallen afore mine eyes, 
Bye wha's Naim neither Ullr in Airn Enraged hynne, 
Nor Kvaysir Micht! nor Auld Vargs Unda gleamin'
Nor o' Hôm Loga Himna Hye! waes IT called, 
An' IT swayed nae, o'er th' Battle-Mass Gory!

CAMPWÍGES CWEALMDRÉOR,

Nor thro' HYS Feudal Bluid soarin', IT spake in any Battle-Ȝell, 
An' theare IT unco remained! o'er Thais Perennial o' mine Swaird-Hel:

MĪN GEMYNDIG GIET ÞUNRODE!

Wha's HYS ROUND SCYLD O' WAR held hye! towardis th' Sunne! 
A Continual Lowe o' Dense Fyre hynne a' gatherin', an' a
Luminous Rain frae th' Zenith-Sunne Invisible, thad waes IT

WAE REASON THUNDIR-FORCE A' STEERIN', 
DAZZLIN' LIGHTNIN' PERENNIAL A' CONQUERIN', 
TAE TH' INFINITE ITS WAR-BLUID INCREASIN', 
O'ER TH' SCYLD O' TH' OWAR-MANN
AYS A FYRE-RAY AN' MICHT STAR FLASHIN', 
AN' IN FEUDAL AIRN DWELLIN',

Hwenne! HYS Substance frae Bluid Sacrificial intae Gleamin' Steel turned, 
Thro' Loud Cries frae th' Battle thad stylle heard Ah:

WULFUM BEARHTM!

Stylle Liquid Metal o' War Dazzlin'! Feudal Wapin Formidable! 
Weaponized Airn-Soul Fetch'in-Micht o' mine! 
Wha's naim, in loud cries stylle! ays a BLINDIN' STAR O' WAR SUPREME,

HEOFONSTEORRA-GEBYLD,

Frae th' Remote Zone Mirk o' th' Luminous Skye nowe appearin'
Waes! Þenne Distinct a Titan Steel-Colossal IT becam, 
Whileas Thae Auld Woirds o' War Whispered Thay!

BLÓDWRACU,

Wee, ewyre-remembered, an' nae at a' Damnable Thay! 
Thad winna Thay a' ne'er, ne'er fade awa! stylle
Wi'in ear o' mine thro' th' Whooshin' Wynde
An' o'er th' whole Kintra rulin', stick-an'-stowe felt Ah:

ENDELĒAS MANFULTUM OND MÆGENÞISE
MĪN GEWILL ÆT SĒ ŌFER-MANN BIÞ, 
FORWEARD OND ÆGHWÆR STÍELE SWĀ, 
ÞA ÍSENWYRHTAN SĒ ŌFER-MANN,

Th' Frame! The Verra Frame o' Hye Conquerin' Steel-Feudal! 
Frae yondir Norþan-hymbre auld an' verra colorful! 
Wae th' War-Blade Bleezan intae deep Thais Battle-Storne, 
Th' Scarred in th' Cheek! th' Lone Scyld-Fighter:

BORDHREÓÐAN SCEADUGENGA OND WRECEND!

Nowe unco! Great Orrah! o' Soarin' War-Airn Empowered! 
Wi'in Thoosan Hye Skye-Clashes! Wi'in Thoosan Onslaughts, A' Rairan o' mine! 
Tae nowe in Airn schawe ye a'! HYE HEL:

EFTWYRD-GEWILL OND ÆLÍFES GEWIDERE, 
MĪN HEOFONFYRE WÆPENÞRACU! 
NU LÍGETSLIEHTUM SĒ ÞEGN, 
SWĀ STÍELE ĒACEN SĒ ŌFER-MANN,

Frae th' Bygane ays allwayis a Blank intae th' Gore dabbed, 
Towardis th' Future ays allwayis a Dangerus Landis! 
Whare th' cowardly enemies allwayis lurk an' await:

BEADOLEÓMAN UNWEORÐE!

Th' same wae TH' WYLLE TAE TH' HYE OVERMAN waes! 
Richte Nowe! Thais Steel-Titan Micht afore mine eyes
O'er th' corpses o' th' fallen an' intae th' Core-Fyre Sacrificial
Thad HYS SOLAR SCYLD held hye! stylle receivin' IT waes:

AHWÆR OND BALDLICE, 
EFT HEAÐUSIGLES ÁNWÍG,

Fore willin' th' Bygane ays IT haes bin in th' Overman Hye! 
Th' future ays empowered in HYS Feudal Person waes tae, 
Fore Willin' waes, IT! willin' th' Person o' Overman alone! 
Lyke a Verra Destination Tangible o' mine, IT! 
Intae thais Colossus o' Battle-Gore boilin' ays Cast Steel, Thad Wylle!

ÞYRSUM HEAÐUWÆD,

Thad th' Rational Firey Ah say, Continuum o' Lowes waes IT haudin! 
Wpon th' Scyld o'er an' o'er Flashin' IT, hynne Steel-Crucial! 
Increasin' IT! ITS Force Micht an' the Ray! tae th' Endless Skye! 
An' th' Frame! Th' Verra Noble Frame IRONCLAD-FEUDAL!

AD ALTA SIDERA INVICTO METALLO
NUPER SUPREMUM ARTIFICIUM BELLI
FLAMMISQUE CORPUS EXTRAMUNDANUM
QUOD GEWILL OVERMAN NUNC NOMINATUR
ERIT FERRO MAGNO SANGUINEQUE ET SCUTO
IN PROELIO APUD CAMPUM CARHAM
RUBRA VEXILLA REDITUS IGNEA SPIRAQUE
INVICTO METALLO VOLUNTAS MEA,

Fore, ageyne! Beguid Great, Great Orrah! 
Th' willin' Ane Thynge waes! wae Thais Steel-Titan O'erhuman! 
Thad GEWILL OVERMAN o'er Carham's Gory Landis waes IT called Auld:

SWEOLUNGA OND ÆLINGUM SWIÞE SWĀ! 
ÞÆR MĪN GLOWENDE-ÆDREGEARD ĀRĀS,

Fore, ageyne! Great Glamis' Wae Orrah! 
Willin' backiewards th' Bygane ays IT allwayis in Gore haes bin, 
Waes IT! willin'th' Overman ays nae laanger a Blank an' a War-Cauld:

HEÁFODWYLME OND SWEOLOÐAN HLEO!

Fore, ageyne! Þunores Fair an' Wounded Orrah! 
Willin' th' Bygane ays Want o' Pow'r waes willin' th' future ays Pow'r, 
Intae th' Verra Steel-Person o' Thais O'erhuman Steel-Avenger untold:

SĒ ĪSERN-HEREWÆÐA,

Fore, ageyne! Dagur's Guid Orrah o' mine! 
Willin' backiewards intae th' Tyme Irreversible, hynne unco Unforgivin' IT! 
Waes IT! willin' th' future ays Skye-Empowered nowe! 
Intae th' Person o' th' Overman Thais Steel-Titan o'er th' Scyld-Wa Micht, 
Thro' th' Spiral-Continuum thad Becomin' ays Increase in Pow'r waes: 

TH' SEL-RETURNIN' RAY CONDENSATIN' FYRE-JOYFUL:
FULLMÆGENES BRYNELEÓMA,
WPON TH' COLOSSAL SCYLD HELD IT, wae th' arm VERRA HYE! 

Fore ageyne! Devastatin' frae Cauld Thule Orrah! 
Th' bygane intae th' Airn-Person o' th' Overman ays IT haes bin! 
Must be IT willed! Fore thus different IT shall agyne be! 
Ays empow'red intae th' Central an' unco Firey-Abysmal IT, 
An' wae Rid Lowes hynne Rid! Return o' Pow'r Event:

BÆLÞRACE WUDUROSE!

Firm Thynge! an' Verra Core wi'in continual Becomin' ays Pow'r, 
Fore, ageyne! Thoosan Thundirs' Skye-Orrah! 
Tae affirm Lyife tae affirm th' OVERMAN nesisarie IT waes! 
Ays Wylle Superior, hynne True Wylle IT provin'! 
Ma Final Inner Strength! Ma Ultimate Inner Vision!

ÞUNORUM OND BEADWE GRYRELÉOÐE, 
MĪN WIGSIGOR-GESIHÐNES HLÍFEDE!

Thad ainlie Thais Steel-Jǫtunn o' War cannae, wi'in Battle-Lowes Hye! 
Across Auld Carham's Colorful, verra Colorful Scyld Wa Micht nae be! 

BREIÐØX-DRENGR ÆN ATGANGA!

Frae th' Past allwayis bleedin'! intae th' Future allwayis Dangerus! 
An' nae for a' wi'in th' Great Spiral o' Strife, o'er th' Battlefield
Ah nowe stylle see, Thais Steel-Spirit unco waes!

ÁGLÆCAN WUNDORSÉON, HĀL! 
NU MĪN FEORHBOLD BRǢDEÞ SWIÞE, 
RANDWÍGA WÆS IC! SĒ BISENE WRECEND! 
SWURD ON HANDA! HEORU-DRĒORE NACOD! 
HILDE-GRĪMAN! RÝNE STÍELE OND CRÆFTUM
BEADU WÆPEN, BRYNEWELMES STÁNTORR, 
HEAÐUWYLME OND STIELE SWĀ, 
GEWILL ÆT SĒ ŌFER-MANN HÂTEN,

Þenne, och! Great Guid Orrah! Tae nae mere War-Legend nowe fullefylle! 
Let mee ma Vision lastly recollect! THRIE SKYE-GLOBES O' SKYE-FYRE Fwlle! 
Tae ma Battle-Scarred Sight appeared out-owre th' Conquerin' Sunne! 
Intimately blended Thay A'! intae Thais Soarin' Metal-Fusion Gleamin' stylle: 
TH' OVERMAN! AN' TH' BEIN' AYS POW'R, unco Magnificent Thynge! 
AN' TH' RETURN AYS INCREASE IN POW'R! a Reingȝe formin' o'er yondir Hylle! 
Flashin' A' Thay! wae Thais STEEL-TITAN ays hynne ma Verra Guid Battle-Wylle!

GEGYLDEN HRINCG GEWILLE!
This composition of mine, or rather brief saga, mainly in archaic Scottish alongside Anglo-Saxon, Classical Latin and Old Norse, focuses on my own philosophical notion of will (“gewill” in Anglo-Saxon). The scene takes place during and after the Battle of Carham in about 1017 A.D. A giant steel mass emanates from the bloodshed as a sheer historical act, and then towers as the Person of the Overman itself, staring at the sun and holding a shield, thus signifying an ultimate embodiment of will, both in individual (as experienced by the narrator) and then collective (historical) terms. A physical-metaphysical Energy under a historical garb is accordingly involved, as well as thus a Hegelian influence. Other central philosophical notions of mine appear, like the Return of Power event, an overcoming, in terms of essence of recurrence, of the classical Eternal Return, visually evoked at the end as forming within the sky one of the "Three Globes of Fire" ("THRIE SKYE-GLOBES O’ SKYE-FYRE"). "ĒACEN DÆGSCIELD" (Anglo-Saxon) reads "The Mighty Shield of the Day (Sun)" and "ÞYRSUM HEAÐUWÆD" "The Battle Blood of the Demons". The word "WIGSIGOR-GESIHÐNES" (Anglo-Saxon) is a kenning, as it is "War-Mask" for "helmet" and "Scyld-Horror" for "close combat".
Brycical Oct 2013
electric ***** static shocks jump starts the heart into hyperspace pumping blood into the veins of time folding inside and outside and on top of each other like a nebulous star splash comet tail clashes in a warm hug we glow like embers in ashes......

warmth spreads like a slug of whisky in the chest, nothing is expected except it is, mind's eyes multiply like a disco argus tree sees all spheres and dimensions slowing and glowing like aurora auras in dawn smiles like the hieroglyphic clouds we graffiti all over cause we just wanna have some fun!

Aw man, I'm not done. We paint the sky to make it rain good vibrations drinking aqua patience and cheshire cat laughter tartlets I'm ecstatic to be part of this ecosystem with a unjumbled mind flying high in the all-ness of the AUM ONE. Cause we all one, and that's Awe-some. A wonderful warm place with All sons daughters mothers fathers brothers sisters sinners, just humons, 2gether, 1AUM makes words redundant.
Genevieve Mar 2017
Dear Principal brain dead
with a hollowed out head !
with tears coming home more often than not!
Your lame dead brain dead excuse to not move my daughter to a
gentle spoken teacher rather than always ready with attack mode 0n teacher!

Dearest Brain deadest one
unfortunately this is you principal Valentine!!!
With rage my volcanic anger stirs the teachers cauldron;
Most likely she hates us by now but I haven't anything to lose
I have to remove her yet another year cause last year you
chose to turn off your F'ing listening ears!!

Dearest Brainless heartless Principal of Errol Hassell
back up your staff 110% don't give in or buckle for last year
I gave them the stiff shoulder and now a 2nd time so lets see
just how far they will go this time around? Well Brainless  itch
you can bet we are not threw, still at work behind the scenes to get her out from under your reigns but your blocking it which I think is insane.

But not a shocker being you love to lie and state one liners to shut a parent down
but what you don't realize I am not the stoppin ' Kind ; So go inside your so called school and run it like the cavalier fool that you have become over time letting down children  repeatedly , Who is clearly having personality clashes with the teacher and it is absurd the words you spoke to us saying Kids talk and this and that for being the reason you will not just simply move her to the teacher~>~~>>>

We know she is comfortable with & this is not a matter of Hide the crime don't do the time !! This is a real legit matter! So take your falseness and leave us alone,
help us to leave it as well , Give us a push to get out of your hair but the truth is you don't want to have to supply a reason so local schools ban together to protect thee other so your @$$3$ are what matters most for you not risking your job for just another parent, Just another Student!!

Brain Dead Fool of a Principal who has zero!
She is cool calm an collected while destroying your hope
for your child's safety and this is no Joke.

So when a fellow teachers who reply or people who love family or friend who are  teachers too or they once had please take a step back and a try a realistic approach to thinking while reading my words as the reality of this grows & that there are Cruel teachers that live inside schools some young some old and weathered all they know now to do is Scold Scold Scold!!! Be gone with you little annoying student of mine' because I am angry at the whole class I will choose to pick on you this time! You have study hall for the millionth time!!!

Holding power whether for good reason or
Just to be a b
*ch to a kid to pay them back for what they did or didn't do!
This school sickens me also allowing kids to label themselves a pack of 4 boys
who go by "The smarties" for me this is repulsive to ignore causing in others a feeling of Less especially since the teacher gives them most of classtime privilege's and lets them boss the students around on what to do or simply they say to others
" Your not a Smartie!!"  already started age 9 is all such a vulnerable age and being let down by adult authoritative figure and choosing not to protect and be wise to show my girl she is cared about and not denied of her experiences??!!

Is this not enough for you to have instilled inferior fear inside my daughter? Cant you see you failed her and now she feels scared and weary of adults
not trusting and this is because of you
                                            Dearest Brain Dead Principal.
My girl is stuck in a rut right now because the principal refuses to simply move her to another class within the school, happened last year too when it was her first male teacher and he is a flippant man who enjoys being mean and on several attempts for things to change he argued with the parents instead of think of a solution!! I caught him in a few lies as well so last year the principal failed her after 3 meetings L8her!! So homeschooling we did attempt but I am not well enough disciplined. She took a chance at getting a very joy filled teacher and unfortunately we are in a Nightmare yet again!! the principal is acting like she is helping us to transfer but after 2 different tries the same line of max class full it feels like the principals are talking then backing them up by trying to force us into a corner but I am not that kind!!!! think twice!! I know the principal has let down other families as well; I just weep for the repeat misery they bring cause it is not just my child suffering in class this is happening too often than not! because this principal chooses to not believe the parents and cast us aside with some cheesy chintzzy lines!! So I wrote with information a poem this time to release my tensions and anxieties of plenty, I am everyday sick to my stomach until this is resolved I've got upset belly. This is truly sad. and they have broken my trust To think my girl gave it a go for the 2nd time and same freakin situation of a screaming teacher who never smiles and is always scowling at some one. anyone would get worn out from that and she is most likely a worn out vet teacher who needs to retire same with her last years brain dead Lawrence.  They need younger spirits to fill their schools!! Younger teachers who still have fresh passion to teach. and can find happiness from being around children!
right choices
at the wrong time
bad choices
at the right time
choices
that change your life
unexpected consequences
contradictions
leading you
in arduous paths
which will condition
your trip
deviations
that turn against you
choices
of which you will regret
every moment of your existence
choices
you have not completed
lack of courage
that you will regret
until you run out of breath
leaps into the void
clashes
wounds
choices
unavoidable
words
that define your being
It's fall, and I'm falling.
Again.

I can hear you fall into step next to me, our feet crunch the bright blanket of our dreams, susurating the empty outlines of our unsketched pieces.

Everyone seems to be carving jack-o-lanterns, but I can't meet the eyes of the pumpkin patch owner after what we did there last fall. I can't go back to 'our spot' without their carved faces subtly mocking the shadows of the idealist, drunk on the idea of "the one ".

It funny how we manged a smile when the leaves actually fell. The tree's misery masked ours and you carved the rocks on the empty ghats with the same knife you would later use to cut our ties. The leaves grew back you know, and we still never stopped smiling.
How curious.

I'm a little relieved you didn't ask for the coat that still cloaks our past even though it clashes with my wardrobe almost as much as it clashes with my life. Because I like believing the illusion that they still smell of you in a way that your perfume couldn't make up for in our brief dalliance.

I remember speaking to speak at our - no, your wedding. I must have told every ghost floating in black tie or a white gown what a beautiful  person you are. What I didn't tell them was how much I loved you, because regardless of what I said they would refuse to hear the past tense in my voice. Gosh, never have i missed the tragedies of my language classes quite as much.

If memory serves me right, I remember congratulating the groom and telling him how lucky he is. But I don't bother telling him how it would've been me last fall. Some truths are best kept secret.

You even asked me for a dance didnt you ? Was that really needed ?

When it all ended I remember waiting outside, next to the roses littered down the hallway and thinking - what a pity. After all your favourite were always lilies.

Now that I look back I think we swept through, akin to children in a hurry. The haze is still lifting, but the season keeps coming back like a monday morning hangover. So as the clouds part with majesty, you happen to have lost the blur of perfection.

Come next july, you'll open your painted eyes to midsummer rain and think of -
The rain.
And I'll be thinking of how burning marshmallows always makes them taste a little bit better.
Why ? Because not ever tale needs a dramatic ending.

It's fall, and I'm falling.
Again
( Collaboration Piece )
Anonymous Jun 2014
I'd like to think I'm going to marry somebody who loves all the same things I do, somebody who is 'perfect' for me. But that's the thing about love, it's forever changing and there is no such thing as perfect, just commitment. It isn't about finding somebody who is just like you, its finding somebody whose different. Love is finding somebody who grows you and stretches you, it's not always about the bubbly stuff movies make love out to be.
I bet you my future spouse will hate Star Wars, they'll probably tell me that I need to get a shed to put my Star Wars collection in. They'll probably tell me it can be like my own humble abode away from the madness of kids (if we have any) or from the cluttered house. I bet you they'll smile and graze my arm while trying to convince me; and I will be convinced. I'll move my collection I spent years adding to into a shed because I love the person who hates that my collection clashes with our house.
I'll turn on the radio while we're driving and when my favorite song comes on I'll turn it up and sing my heart out. And just because they know it's my favorite they won't change it, even though they absolutely hate it.  
I'll tell my spouse I want a writing studio and they'll protest and say they hate waking up in the middle of the night wondering why I'm scribbling words onto paper instead of holding them close. But even though they don't like waking up alone they'll let me have my own studio because they know that I love writing as if it were a part of my very soul.
My spouse will probably be reserved and hate taking risks, but I'll beg them to come on adventures with me. After debating endlessly about safety and risk involved we'll probably settle for a living room camp out because they don't like bugs and the smell of a musty old tent is enough to make it seem realistic. I'll probably protest and complain but still gladly embark on a pretend camping adventure because it's not where you are but who you're with.
When we go on vacation you'll complain that I always force you to take unnecessary risks. You'll hate that I take you to underwater caverns because you're worried we'll somehow get trapped. I'll scare the hell out of you most times but you'll remember that's why you love me, because I'm a constant adrenaline seeking adventurer. You won't always embark on the adventures with me, but you'll always be there by my side seeing it through your perspective, and we'll always share what it's like through our eyes. I'd like to think that hearing my energized booming voice talk about jumping off a 60ft waterfall will be enough of a thrill for you.
I won't want to cuddle with you because I get hot easily. You'll  still hold me close because you know how much I love your scent and the steady rhythm of your breathing coaxing me to sleep. I'll wake up in the middle of the night give you a kiss on the forehead and probably sit on our bathroom tub with a cup of coffee  just thinking about how lucky I am.
You'll think its weird that I need to drink coffee to help me sleep. You'll hold my leg down while we're in important meetings or church just like my mother always has. You'll give me the look that says "stop shaking" and I'll try my best to, but I'll probably start back up in 5 minutes. You won't entirely understand my ADHD and constant need to move, but you'll think it's charming that I'll always be up before you with your coffee already prepared the way you like it. I hope you'll like coffee as much as I do, but in reality you probably wont. So I'll make you tea instead, and if drinks aren't your thing I'll make you breakfast. I'm sure you'll feel like you married a child who is always hyper and it'll royally **** you off most days but you'll remember that's the reason you we're so intrigued by me. You liked that I reminded you of childhood and what it's like to have fun.
I'll still drag you to the toy store when we're 40 and I'll use our kids as an excuse (if we have them). I'll tell you that toys are important for a child to develop normally, but in reality I'll just want to chase you down the isles with some super hero mask and a plastic sword. I'll end up buying you a tacky key chain that you'll hate, but you'll keep it on your keys because it'll remind you of what a goober I am.
I imagine you'll hate the cold, you won't want to go snowboarding with me, instead you'd stay in cabin cozied up to the fireplace with a book and warm cider. I'll beg you to just try it a couple times and you will, I hope you end up liking it but if you don't maybe you'll still enjoy being in a place I love so much. You'll love being places tropical full of sun and peaceful ocean noises, and I'll hate it. I'll complain about heat rashes and the humidity but I'll shut up the second your eyes light up when you peer at the ocean from our hotel balcony.
We'll probably fight more than 50% of our relationship, maybe not fights but bickering arguments. When I'm driving you'll be yelling and screaming about how terrible or a driver I am. And when you drive I'll complain about how much of a grandma driver you are. We'll bicker about what kind of milk to buy and if we should buy organic produce or just the regular kind. We'll argue about music, movie choices, and travel plans, but it won't be terrible fighting that end with tears and broken plates, it'll end with the cold shoulder for 5 minutes then settle back to normal. We will **** each other off to no end, but we'll love so deeply. I'll always think I'm right when we argue, and I can't wait for all the times you'll put me in my places. I can't wait for a life with you, full of love and compromises.

Dear you,
I promise that I wont always be an *******, even though you'll probably be a bigger one. We'll go out to eat and make up ridiculous scenarios about people just to entertain ourselves. We'll simultaneously get annoyed with people who are ignorant, and we'll spend countless days and nights laughing about how terrible we are. We will argue and we will fight, but we will never go to bed mad, that has to be in our wedding vowels or something. We always have to be willing to try new things for each other, even if it sounds terrible. We will always find our way back to each other, even after a long sleepless night of arguing. When you say you love me on our wedding day you will always mean it, so if the fire burns out you have to promise that you'll always be willing to find it again. I know I'm a pain in the *** and I'm hard to love but I promise I will love you so deeply and fully. Nobody ever said marriage would be easy, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to sacrifice 'easy' for you. I'm ready to embark on a journey of a life time with you no matter how hard it gets. I love you, you dumb ****.
c rogan Dec 2018
I cant remember my dream.
I cant breathe.

Her thin painter hands open the door to the stairwell, the smell of fresh paint replaces that of a spring rain.  Skipping the clean stairs two at a time, she reaches the studio.  Walls of glass flank the empty white hallways that weave in and out, remains of torn masking tape shrivel on the walls like dying flowers.  The door looks like it belongs to a prison, too familiar.  

The sun barely moved, if at all, outside the window.
Tracing the outline of his body, she let the colors tell the story.


A stroke of shadow

Walking to the center of the room, limbic resonance.  A vaguely masculine figure melts into the painting.  It's silent as he dies.  

Her feet hit the pavement.  From the familiar soft dirt path through the woods, she crosses the courtyard to the doorway of the stairwell.  Memories flood her mind under the dull lamplight amidst the rustling dead leaves.  

Moving a stone from the crumbling wall of the school, she places her letters to you beneath the rubble.

Blinding white

I'm holding the keys but I can't find the right one
and the sun burned itself down,
the rain receded into the clouds

nothing is the same


He lies down in the stream
water rushing over him
relaxing, water replaces air

everything is different now.

Blistering Blue

I can't remember my last dream.
Out of space, out of time.  Unnatural surroundings.  
Muffled screams float in from the hallway.
Golden seam of light from the doorway saturates illuminated stitches.
He couldn't remember the last time this had happened.   When he almost lost himself in the pain---
It's like seeing her for the first time, over and over.

Suddenly his hands were covered in their blood.

But I remember them,
telling me to be quiet, not to fight it.  


Blush of Crimson

I've lost concept of time,
time to be quiet
I need to schedule my time
need to go away
Ophelia covered in glass
veins like kite string
he breathed in the water
I never said goodbye.

You know that feeling like everything's the end of the world
Next to the campfire, stars carved into her upper thighs
crossed like constellations as she moved closer to the flame,
gaze drawn up
The flight before the fall

He hasn't yet hit the ground, green flannel still in suspension.  Dew collecting on the leaves slide down to the earth and surround his body.
His eyes are already closed, a moment of vulnerability.  Still on the surface, cold blue water saturates his cuts and seams.

For the touch of a vanished thought caressed the back of her mind, like birds balanced on a live power line.  Digital ripped walls, lights leading to the intervention of the other side of the ghost city, building brick school, and infinite nowhere.  She lit her candle in the studio, watching the wick burn down and melt the wax, a ring of liquid growing from the center.  Strange to drown in heat.  It seems there's a wall of glass between her mind and this supposed reality, without any sound but her breathing and the occasional crack from the slowly burning candle.  She mixes her paint and doesn't think about anything.  The sun sets and rises and sets and rises again.  Sitting in the same place, the candle frozen in perpetual burning.  The room was clean.  And she was painting.  And the birds on the wire gently cawed against a white sky.  The echo returned to the blank room.

I remember that night she stopped answering my calls.  She doesn't pick up anymore.  Curled up in the doorway scrawled with tick marks from when we grew extra inches overnight, phone clutched to my chest.  I looked up and saw old Chinese fortunes folded above the doorway, hot tears spilling down my cheeks.  A feeling of helplessness, guilt.  If she answered I would have driven up there, taken her home.
It was 2am when I left.  I grabbed the keys from the counter, my coat, some chocolate, and a book.  walking to the car, I could see my breath suspended in the air.  Frost coated the sides of the windshield but I didn't stop driving.  I forgot my mittens.  There was a foot more of snow as I ran towards the old door to her dorm, yanking the handle hard enough that the lock slipped and I didn't need an ID to get in.  Warm stale air enveloped me as I gazed over empty security desk under fluorescent light.

Muted Undertones

The painting took up a whole wall of the room.  There wasn' any money to frame it, so it would have to always stay here.
Sunlight leaked in from the window like a steading dripping faucet against a clogged drain.  Her hair was turning blonde again, like when they were younger.
Humming, she was
remembering his hands
as they gripped the wheel loosely
at 5am in the morning
reflective and
coated in glass
in the back of
his black pickup
the sun slowly
bled from behind the clouds
dripping like honey
illuminating blonde
eyelashes,
the dirt on
the windshield.
warm golden
air filled the truck
as he turned the heat on
one hand on
the wheel
the other
reaching backwards to
twisting metal,
broken limbs.
Connected below
the surface
of broken glass.

In between the falling leaves, she whispered 'see you' and kissed his eyelids as he fell asleep.

Neutral Tones

I knocked on her door.  Her roommate answered.  He hadn't seen her at all that day.  I've grown indifferent about my own problems.  So I walked in her room and picked up the scissors from the corner.  Put on her coat for her.  Walked her through the snow to the car.  Cecilia sat between the driver and passenger seat, hand in mine.  I wish I could heal her arm through our layers of jackets, taken some of the sadness away.   We didn't say anything as empty pavement and trees passed in every living moment.

I was thinking about him.

Occasionally we touch, but only in passing.  Shadows, we cover from the heat.  

Ridicule gnaws at these connection, scrapes paint strokes until the threat snaps, the pillars bow
And we take shelter in the cleansing water.  The clashes of flesh.   The segregation of interactions for fear of having ours be known by anyone at all.

(But still they talk, recite the script)
'Cecilia tried to **** herself and her clothes need to be washed'
(Look now, do you see it?)
'It looks like her soul
left her eyes'


Purple Haze

I knew it was a nightmare.  It's stuck to me.  These alien emotions; like a sickness or a burn, interdepartmental rhythms of my brain I'll never fully grasp... not artistic or poetic.  or anything fake and useful.  Just nebular, inhibiting, distressed.
I'm always trapped in something.  A heaviness.  A natural declining, dissipation, entropy.
A brutal and sterile resistance, inviolate and soft to the touch; a lapsing despondency.

He was the sea that he drowned in.  And he was the riverbed in the trees, too.
Swept in whirlpools and ripples and age rings, whispers of fallen leaves in the lucid water.  
Silenced by hushing rage of stone cut rapids.


Ultraviolet Love


He's not seeing normally.  Through the rippling surface her face is reflected into a million moving pieces.
Lines of tape surround his body, they shrivel in the heat of the sun.  This is not natural death.  There are no birds circling overhead, the stream continues to trickle over the rocks.

I drove her home from college started to run a bath.  The hot water faucet turned all the way.  I put my feet in, trying to avoid eye contact with the parallel lines.  Familiar to what i had stitched before.  Pale blue - green water kissed our skin as she closed her eyes.  

We are not creatures of visible light.
Alvira Perdita Jan 2017
you pretend to miss me
but i know you better than you think
i know the giveaways when you're lying
the words you use to avoid the truth

the pretending needs to end
i can't be your last call anymore
i don't want to be your second thought
when you're planning things
i've been debating about whether or not i'm done with you for over a month now. i guess we have my answer.
Cheyenne Aug 2015
I feel the breeze brush my skin.
I feel nostalgia begin.
And I just want to sit awhile
And let it all sink in.

Sit here with me
Under the shade of this oak tree,
Whose branches we would climb
When we were younger,
Long before we lost the hunger
To go beyond the world we knew.
So what do you say
We pass away the afternoon
Just staring up at the sky?
Finding pictures in the clouds
As they go passing  by.

We can talk of days long gone,
The things we've done,
The roads we're on
And people we use to know.
Discuss all the little things:
Family, friends and enemies,
And see where the stories go.
We can let the day fade
As we sit within the shade.

I can feel the night time cold.
On my memories it pulls.
And the familiarity
Has got me feeling old.

Lean against the bark with me,
Where we once carved our names for all to see.
Etchings that have long since faded
Through the battering storms.
The same clashes and bashes and lighting flashes
That left us all weathered and worn.
We can name the constellations
That our memories still retain,
And make up our own
For all the stars that still remain.

Let's discuss the existential questions:
The meaning of it all.
Embrace the cluelessness in
The conclusions that we draw.
And when there's nothing more to say,
No more answers to be reached,
We can pass away the darkness
In the silence finally breached.
Mikaila Nov 2013
The Watch
The watch kept right on ticking, as if nothing had changed. It was like a sixth person at the little round marble table. The stone was cold on my arms. The funeral director pushed it across the table. "This was the only thing on him." My aunt took it graciously, set it by the folder full of everything ever recorded about Donald P. Baca, and from that moment on, it drew the eyes of everyone there, irresistible as a corpse, and as gruesome. tick tick tick as if nothing had happened. I found myself thinking that if he were my brother, I would keep that watch ticking forever, change its batteries, a type of insignificant immortality.

Funeral Homes
The air of calm in funeral homes has always disturbed me. It's cloying, somehow. Too strong. Like the overwhelming scent of peony flowers if you put them in a vase- it darkens your whole house with sweetness. I think I resent knowing that my feelings are being influenced by soothing beiges and classical music. A tissue box and a little bottle of Purell sit on every surface big enough to hold them properly. I find that the anticipation of my "needs" as a griever... offends me.

Survivors
Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the survivors.

Tears
Death is not about trying not to cry. You have to hurt yourself with it to heal from it. There is no shame in funeral tears. They, like death, are inevitable and natural. (My own dry eyes, they shame me.)

Looking In
That is the problem with us writers- every private, gauche little moment of impropriety is fuel for our art, and we must record it. (Intrude upon it.)

Paperwork
1953
***: Male
Color: White
How different it was then.

Grown Up
This is the first time my aunt, whose respect I have always striven for, has even asked my opinion on something "grown up". I thought I'd want her to, but I no longer care. Maybe that means I am finally "grown up".

Absurdly
My aunt gives her email to the man across the table: her name, first and last, no spaces, and the number 1. I find myself wondering irresistibly, inappropriately, absurdly, if anybody ever sits here with a "FaIrYpRiNcEsS4963luv4eva" and has to dictate it to him like that...

Mourners
There are 5 of us here. We are all different, in grief. I am on the outside looking in, an observer, offering the perfect hug or well timed touch of the hand because I feel emotions like room temperature, but not like fever. I look in on tears, silence, on the grip like a vice: on the propriety of being personable to a man who knows your brother has just died, as if that- even death! - gives no permission to be less than polished. And one of us is absent entirely, his truancy a palpable response, just as present as my mother's strangled tears. Her shame frustrates and saddens me- I admire the sincerity of grief, especially when I cannot reach it.

You're Here With Me
The funeral director answers his cell phone. He has the same phone as you, ****, and having seen you answer it yesterday, my mind overlays the images strangely, like a double exposure photograph. It should disturb me, but it only makes me miss you- my mind seeks to erase his image and leave only yours.

Age
Everyone looks older, right now- sunken collarbones and wrinkles weighing down faces. As if they age in sympathy that my uncle is finished with that.

Fishhook
My mother struggles against tears like a worm on a fishhook, and it is agony that ****** my arms, in the air and sliding along the walls. It clashes oddly with my aunt- like a still pond- her polished charm and practiced smile don't feel forced, which only makes it all feel more wrong. I know she is struggling inside, too.
RyanMJenkins Nov 2013
Here's a little story about one of my best friends, and I
We've gone through the lowest of the lows, to the ecstasy peak of highs

It all started during the second half of 12th grade
Immediately a beauty caught my eye, fixated my gaze
Her aura was not normal and I immediately needed to know her name.
It was in that film class, where we set the stage.

I tried to back away, even though it wasn't what I felt in my heart
There was just something about her that struck me right from the start
I knew in her life movie, I wanted to play a part.

Not a supporting actor, not a stagehand.

I wanted that lead role, and so I took a stand
We then embraced our connection, and took on life, hand in hand

There were clashes with the cast around us
Mental strains clogged the drains and caused too much fuss
But we knew enough to build off of what we had, trust.
That and a whole lotta love, thankful for every moment
That I was blessed with this star from above.

But we were young, high-strung, and intoxicated by our surroundings
When we shut it all out, removed all doubt,
Together on a cloud it was no less than astounding.
A future we were founding, shined brighter than sun beams
It's in those fields where life feels better than your dreams.

Existence was constantly testing us, arresting us in prisons that felt so grim
I was fighting a battle against hateful people, one I could not win.
Voices from outside led us astray, to sin
An alcoholic's logic, made me wanna get a bat and swing
But we sparked a new beginning when we dismissed other opinions.

She was my sunshine, and I let her know
We nurtured our beings, continued to grow
Anywhere she wanted me, I would surely go
We never stopped to look back, groovin' with the flow

We never meant any harm
but sometimes had to disarm each other
when the alarms were blaring.
There were occasions that were downright scary,
But peace was found in each others' eyes,
Staring into the depths of one another's soul
We physically held onto each other determined to never let go.
Despite the rain, shine, or snow
We've weathered all weather patterns
Our boat we continued to row

Merrily merrily, wait where are we?

2 hearts, minds, bodies, and souls
Our blissful union had been on a roll
But spending life on a bus, depressed, and sleep-deprived was surely taking it's toll
Got me drinking and thinking there'd be a tomorrow I wouldn't know.
Became resentful with a head full of dreadful hypotheticals
Unto none I could bestow.

Someone drowned in the nearby river
I figured I would join them after a night of abusing my liver
I immediately considered, how I felt during her moments of weakness by the cliffs
I'd've been so hurt emotionally it would seem as if internally I was pummeled by fists
I then put a pen within my grip, now connecting the dots, it led to this.

I once pushed her away, now it was her turn.
I tried holding on too tight constantly watching the bridge burn.
Impending doom filled the room inside my head
Sorrow was now the only one to lay in my bed
Zooming down a road I knew to be a dead end

When the time came, the perfect vision of our future shattered
I still kept fighting for love, but felt it didn't matter
The canvas was torn, the paint was all splattered.
I felt as if it were a sick joke,
Causing my inner demons laughter chasing a happily-ever-after

She would still call on me, whenever I was needed
Like temporary medicine even though I felt that I was bleeding.
Never heeding warnings from friends,
I felt like nothing more than a means to an end.

I lost the two that were closest, but they found each other.
In that fire I was but a scorned lover,
Cast them off my island,
While they didn't know where my life or mind went.
Lived life fast, one could say hell-bent
Then spent a lot of time, with another girl.
Decided this was gonna be my new world.
Although, it was doomed right from the start.
I was this girl's "soul mate"
but she couldn't hold my whole heart.
I tried forcing it, picturing another forever
I hurt us both, my mind is far too clever.
We were both too hurt from the past,
I knew it was a matter of time, it wasn't meant to last.
The concept of hurting someone, I just could not grasp,
2 and a half years sure went fast.

The original girl would sometimes pop in my dreams,
It was never angry but I didn't know what it could mean.
Shortly after the breakup came in girl number three,
We matched, the fun times with glee
Surely we were on a loving spree.

One night it changed, my whole being felt strange.
Inside was a feeling that I just could not tame.
I was at work stuck on a trip down memory lane
Fiery passion was the game
I knew deep inside I needed that again.
Hurt to another came down like rain,
Never intended despite how much I could explain.

I needed to let go of past pains and invite love to stay.

I messaged the girl that was once the brightest star in my solar system
We let our feelings out and again our spirits were in rhythm
It was a new beginning
Even contacted my old best friend n let him know how I missed him.
I again tried to hug her pains away and listened to every word she'd say
Common contact was slowly turning the nights into days
Replaying memories and the talks of forevers with old and new lovers.
We knew once again, that we always had, us.

Memories irreplaceable
I smile when I look out the windowsill
Reminiscing on the old thrills.

Nights spent watching sappy movies alone
while she lay with her head on my chest to the beat of my corazon.  
We once had sanctuary in each other, a home.
So many times I held her with optimism while she cried
Mascara marks on a hoodie of mine have stood the test of time
In her once upon a time was the only place I could confide
Arguments and water balloon fights.
Sneaking around to see each other always felt so right.
Halloweens and the moments in between,
Knowing the grass on the other side wasn't any more green.
Beds that were beyond places of rest,
Places where our cosmic beings could confess, love.
The best of rollercoasters had us addicted moreso than any drug.
I let tears fall in front of her once, regarding the loss of my dad
She held me oh so close and told me I'd be the best father anyone could have.
We've grown with time, and I'm happy to see her still rain down sunshine.
I'm happy that we once had each other as lovers,
and have each other as friends.
The past is past, but the stories will never end.
Omar Kawash Jul 2014
Two villages coexisted peacefully, no interactions
maybe some discussion on boundaries, treaties for peace and trade.
An extraneous rumor appeared in one of these villages.
No one was sure where it had started.
Someone mentioned they had seen beastly faces emerge in the night horizon.
The whispers made its way through
soon the town was mortified.

The others, they were observing us.
What could they want that they could not communicate overtly?
The villagers made a decision to protect themselves,
their lives,
their happiness –their status quo
that had been so well kept; now jeopardized by fear.  

Traders continued their interactions,
sharing goods and language.
The ignorant village heard the small-talk,
the covert operations the coinciding people had been ruminating about.

The newly-informed town magnified and mutated
the gossip;
the folk were riddled with anxiety.
If their neighbors were under threat,
what was stopping them from being the next target?  
This xenophobia was to destroy them.

The two ostracized each other;
initial misperception grew
to a common hallucination amongst the people,
they prepared for the worst scenario.

As humanity goes,
somewhere a zero-sum game emerged.

A council was held,
all that they had known was their own home
and the adjacent peoples.
There was nothing else in the known world,
it must be the others.
They are planning on something villainous,
why else the secrecy?

Cut trade, be vigilant, ostracize.
The other village noticed something amiss
Calamity must be in path.
Taking up arms, arranging a force to handle any offenses, and establishing a wall;
they would not fall.

Feud was conceived.
This is the drive of a mind
who incessantly wonders why and how
a devouring morality.

I digress from the story: the villages, armed and defense ready,
see the village that they once knew as peaceful neutrals
once tranquilly existed transformed to potential threats
for they could overthrow the opposing village.
I should be unconquerable
but I know the kisses stealing my breath come with every
inhale,
exhale; my kryptonite is facing life.

I choose to face that fiend
which wouldn’t let me actually give up when there is so much unknown out there.
It’ll haunt me with the damages that I dealt to the allure yet provocation preserves me.

The two villages are within me.
One is the soul depleting, ego-hunting energy ****,
the other is the false hope that I
can change things-
that things are within my control-
that I’ll fake a smile and a real one will appear.

Two hemispheres connected in a skull,
failing to synchronize
a miscalculating rational with a quixotic imaginative vision.

These two villages smoulder;
the clashes zigzag my intentions.
I just wish I knew
what that fictitious, fruit of the grapevine generated monster even was.
It’s been ages since this conflict ignited,
I don’t think any villager knows why they fight each other perpetually,
other than survival.
Ottis Blades May 2013
-The best way to fight the fear of terrorism
is by turning off your TV screens.-

TV Terrorist.

Ladies hide your burkas!
the 1st amendment ain’t gonna protect ya
because for as little as an ignorant comment...

-YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!

Racist slurs, misinformation and greed
are 1/2 the price of what they used to be
ACT NOW so they can see!

-YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!

Don’t let the sirens of the fashion police disturb ya
we’ll wiretap your mosque from the city to suburbia
just grow that beard Osama style!

-And YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!

After your Morning Joe just head over to CNN
they’re about to have some Baklawa at Fox & Friends
let’s keep feeding more hate speech to the talking heads.

-So YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!


Replace your Quran with the National Enquirer
so you can be as American as they are
Muhammed is not a match for Uncle Sam.

-Just wear that robe the way Jesus did
and YOU can be TV Terrorist too!

You see, turban rhymes with Taliban
therefore you’re all the same so pump our gas
brown skin clashes with the red, white & blue of our flag.

-Just make sure to look angry!
And YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!

Sensationalism in the media is worth more than your beliefs
your good morals and spirituality is not for us to say
as long as that red dot across your forehead turns into an infrared.

-Look up Hassan! And YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!

From the cities of Iraq to the caves Afghanistan
ride your camel and dignity right through an EZ Pass
watch the drones drop and the ratings soar!

-And YOU can be a TV Terrorist too!

— The End —