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andrew juma Jul 2016
Everyone can afford dreams
But I was the biggest shopper
Shoving condos and benzes into my cart
No cashier at the exit to demand payment

I picked lavish expensive charms
Had no worries about pennies
Everything was costless
Blessings from the gods

I was younger then I grew a little older
I kept shopping for expensive dreams
With time I encountered little snags
I couldnt get out of the mall with my immense goods

So I bargained with my conscience
Drop this and pick that
What was lighter I thought was better
So I chose those that were easier

Years went by and I learnt lessons little by little
A sister had shopped for the Whitehouse
And arrived home with a highschool
The question is can you carry what you pick?

A friend had shopped for the most
Yet arrived home with the least
So I selected the lightest
But when I packed, my car wouldn't budge

I further reduced my pricey costless goods
Albeit grudgingly,promising myself
I would come back for them
But **** there are no second rounds

As I grew older and older
I found myself driving home
With only a few of those costless goods
They were not even the biggest and priciest

They were what I could carry
Every time I stop by that dream shop
To do some window shopping
And say I wish
Looking back at life
for Lori, Riley and Kendrick

the questioning words jump off the page,
into two hands transforming,
words shape shifting into
multicolored ink stained fingers,
now, all a chokehold on my brain,
my throaty gasps rasping from
a simplistic convolution -
single questioning deserving an answer

what are you made of?

the obvious answers left in the slow lane,
bone, tissue, rivers and arteries of blue bloods,
just oil and fuel of a containership,
but the cargo carried, that’s the real stuff

you have insight inside that cannot be seen,
self-survival instincts that morph into morals,
our shared air affects you differently,
a sense of defending, caring,
costless  and costliest simultaneously,
spaghetti strands strong sinewed intertwining,
into a better human than most

to call you hero is wrongly insufficient,
but the thesaurus lends me no substitute,
weep, I do,
as the spring and summer blushing green
will not be seen by you at all, and by me,
seen now so differently,
when thinking of
soil-born courage instinctual that has no name,
but grows only in nature

what are you made of?

we know now, but knew not well,
that thing that makes you leap first,
was all you, the entirety of the best,
that exists, existed, as reminders to us,
to mine it, wear it,
medal it upon our fabric

you three,
breathe it back, exhale it from where ever you are,
that trace chemical odor in our atmosphere,
of life-giving sweetness, a rebirthing chlorophyll freedom
that we humans all desperately need,
even just to know it exists,
and inform us


what we need to be made of
——
“As shots fired inside a synagogue outside San Diego last month, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, put herself in between the shooter and the rabbi and died as a result.
Riley Howell, 21, charged a gunman who burst last week into a University of North Carolina-Charlotte lecture room carrying a pistol. He too lost his life to save others.
And Tuesday inside a STEM school in Denver, Kendrick Castillo, 18, lunged at a fellow student who had pulled a gun in class, giving his classmates time to take cover. He was the lone student killed in the attack.”
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
They say
Words can leap off the page.
They say
Words can cut like a knife.

Come home from watching Lubovitch's dancers
Doing crazy eights upon the Joyce stage,
Rat-a-tat and seconds to bed tablet two-handed,
Some of thy words to keep, relish and visualize.
Tongue-taste delights, imagery dreamed, conceive'd!

Read four or five and I am
Crucified.

Anguish
Unrelenting - knocks planet Earth
Off its axis.
Star watching observatories call
NASA
"What's going on?"
But hey, they don't take the
Call
I don't make
Explaining soular word flares.

Anguish
Black and bold apropos.
Its asexual attendants,
Greet me, as I lay me down to sleep,
Souls inferno'd true confessions slap
Reality TV down to a pathetic joke.
Words, thorns without roses,
Bodies ready for extreme unction,
Punks puncturing peace with no punctuation,
Respite, none,
Spite, aplenty.

Google "sayings about words," thousands exist, pithy.
Amusing, insightful, but can't uncover any that relieve
Anguish,
the way needed now, for this crisis state.

Anguish.
Say it slow with your hands clasping your head,
The electric **** stabs connect your ears, but
Like water seeking release, head southbound to test the
Cavities of the heart's boundaries, probe for the
Satisfying silent ******* screaming weak spots.

Anguish.
Say it     r  e  a  l     slow,
feel the sounds of a summary of
Many other words, subsets of misery etc. etc.

The Aingsound,
Reminder of the dinging ringing stinking stingers,
Happy in their ***** work,
Here a hurt, there a hurt,
Everywhere a hurt hurt.

The shhh sound,
Is the bitter taste residue down sinister,
Ends in it,
No wash of the body or the mouth
Removes the endless shhh sound that is the exact
Opposite of a silencing hush.

I say,
I have words too.

Though I am not now,
Next to you,
You will hear my voice,
Out loud, out now, speaking
My words, recite or
Stop.

My words:

Feel just like those squeezing hugs parents
Give their kids when they are six seven and eight.
Hugs so tight the breath stops, but no minded,
For the message well received,
You are mine, my always, unencumbered,
Safely will this hugging touch see you through the night.

Foolish parents thinking those hugs unnecessary,
When children are "old," you know, like
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, when
Anguish
Needs defeating then, needs them hugs,
Now more than ever.

My words:

Are the arm unexpected slung fastball of simple affection,
Over and around a shoulder sent and spent,
A best friend's gesture that says, I know, I care.
A costless measure that measures in caring
What no precious metal could dare contend.

My words:

Are hands, a corps, a division of single soldiers,
Stroking thy cheek, caressing thy forehead,
Corpsmen coming for the wounded with comfort,
Antiseptic syringes, stretchers to take away
What needs taking away.

My words:

Are a neck architecturally designed to take your
Head, be a pillow resting place, your bird house to
Shelter or hide, as you need, see fit.
There is no rent charged,
Except for what I pay you in the coin of comfort.

My words:

Drum beating chest for your rest, each beat a
Message of connection, my beats purposed to
Remind you that thousands beats more yours,
So look up raise up refreshed head, to listen
For it's the song of steady, a reminder, a remainder,
So many much chances yet.

My words:

The drowning pools where anguish suffocates,
For it cannot breathe in a world of words of
Pure oxygen that resuscitate, filter, restore.
Each breath a clarification, each one  word speaking,
No more, no mas, done, enough,
Anguish
Extinguished, banished.

They say,
Words can leap off the page,
They say.

No, you try, you hear it, the voice clarion,
These new words that travel up thine arms
Holding until the until, no end demanded,
Awe and then some,
Some more,
Healing words, meant to be read back to me,
So I can rest knowing you've lesson-learned,
Homework done, cause it is your words speaking,
Out Loud!
My words,
Become words of yours,

Your words.
Created October 17th, 2013, written on October 19th, 2013
Said and sung, simpler and better...a fav tune of mine...

Falling Slowly Lyrics  
by Glen Hansard.,
From Once.


I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice

You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing it loud
Because nothings worth the price they will staple to your head
What will be left of you when she repeats everything that we've said


What will be left of you?


As I lose myself in your subtle unannounced fame I grip tighter on the waist high poorly built stage
That's held, more than once, a new coming face - screaming with grace, to the crowd that can't wait...


Find yourself in rekindled faith


Falling deeper in love with the lyrical genius, I accept that he defines all I am unsure of,
giving in to the butterflies he knows won't subside -
take a moment
to slow down and
join me tonight


Is this moment everything you've dreamt of?


Safely tucked in the warmth of her bed, she relives all the fairytales her Dad never read..
completely consumed with the thoughts in her head...


Where were you this time?


She holds on to another memory, thankful for every second,
She knows tomorrow is never promised
so she gave up on the *******
and vowed always to be honest


But that is not costless...


As her eyes become heavy and her brain quietly calms down,
she sets aside the thoughts that stop the words from spilling out, she reclaims her crown ...


She controls her feelings now..


Finding strength in the fights that cut as sharp as your knife I refuse to accept I no longer have rights…and the pain you inflict won't be worth the sight
of the mascara covered
cheekbones
barely visible tonight


Pull me closer and breathe in life...


Sing through my soul
going high and then low
I hear the truth in your laugh
as gradually you become
the best thing of my past.


Don't stress the hard stuff slow down and relax


This moment could so quickly become our last so let go of your broken unfinished past and live for the seconds your heart let's you laugh


Walking together is always better when you can't find the path...

Walk with me.
Darius Apr 2016
Are we the cattle of an entire nation?
What have we got to lose? Except for those already lost
You can be docile or violent, just don’t lie in silence!
Rise up! Here begins a new age, end discrimination!

Innocence is dead, the wrong men end up in the jail cell
This place is nice, but life is going to hell
They’re ******, ‘cause the former majority is now a minority
Hypocritical foundations, this land’ll never unite
What happened to Civil Rights?
They only gave us what was left.
You pigs - You must be bored just to send so many to the morgue
I can’t stand to watch the news, this society isn’t one to put kids through
And it’ll only get worse
Time never changes, history repeats
No more running (RISE UP!) This is the culling!

The culling!
Never will I be your *****!
The culling! (x2)
The United States lives an ****** Cold War!
(Let’s Rock)

We are the Antiheros, the Public Enemy
Now join me friends, let’s unveil the clarity

Who am I to you? When you look what do you see?
All you see are the colors of sin
The American Dream is broken, you breed loathing
Who can, Who will - Make America Great Again?
I can’t be led by a Puppeteer of Dollar Strings
You wanna make the world free? (HUH?)
But the only thing costless, is the loss of me
Drop it! If she needs and investigation
(She’s out!) That’s the end of an asinine conversation

Rise Up! It’s far too late
I am the spirit of those who live with a target
One wrong factor can end an actor
The leaders are gone, the show is over
It’s the end of the road, but the start of -

The Culling!
A Constitution Diluted by Disillusion
The Culling!
A Jail For A Nationalistic Conspiracist!

Time puses back, but it doesn’t make it better
The War is getting colder and the water’s getting redder
Every Rose has it’s thorns
We are the Bulls with dulled horns - Branded!
We’re the ones you reprimanded!
I! Feel I was born in the wrong time
I’ll go forward and see if they opened their eyes
Or I’ll go back! So I could ******’ Revolutionize!
We all see, the ocean is vast
But like the truth and time, It Never Lasts!

Post-Traumatic Society Destruction
The Bliss of Disorder continues to function
All of the ways you hold us down
Leads to a point we take your crown
Everytime you hold us back
Pushed in a corner, poised to attack
One last push against -

The Culling!
We can’t hideaway any longer
The Culling (x3)
Your ignorance makes us stronger
The Culling!
A song written by me.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
The Hardest Forgiving Slant

<|>
9:19am Fri Sept 22 2023 ~ 8:02am Fri Sep 29 2023
commenced during the Ten Days of Awe

<|>

we debase our language daily,
robbing the spectacular majesty [example]
of awe with the common overusing
vernacular of “awesome”

especially forgiveness is degraded,
we utter “I’m sorry” trippingly,
costless, less than cheap, with even the
snap-on veneer (1) of sincerity discarded,
but move on to the next rudeness

but today I will not permit myself
an easy letting-off-the-hook, no shifting
of blame to anonymity, or fast forward to tomorrow,
when we can obfuscate our intrepid
dishonesty one more time…again

to forgive those who have injured us,
not that hard, or the judging deities,
who silently wink and nod, but offer
no certitude beyond trying, itself a
maybe, maybe not, truly tiring this
trying tacking the constant requests

so first an etymology explication on
the tension inherent that very word,
f o r g i v e

As a word, as a sensed,
intuitively-
it is a
Perfect Continuous Infinitive! (2)

to
forgive is
perfect,
to forgive is
continuous,,
to forgive is
infinite!

what a marvelous, perpetual
past, present and always futuristic
word (alas)

The Hardest Forgiving?


to forgive oneself
so nearer to impossible,
the first responders doing triage,
leave people like me for last,
as it a unconditional condition
with no cure that can be effected

indeed, by our very affect,
they instant diagnosis seeing our
very gestures, body language, or ****** expressions,
all reveal the hopelessness of
the never-to-be-given-grace,
among us

for a thousand years,
I have tried and failed to forgive myself
for the worst I’ve done,
and there is no sword or club,
blood-letting,
that can dispatch the onerous burden I carry

so I write poetry,
a salve that offers
temporary relief,
while I write,
imposed a
momentarily distracting,
a kind of dusting of self~spin,
that chills myself
just until
the, this!
poem is finished,
the slant is drawn


<§>

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

BY EMILY DICKINSON
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
(2)
Perfect Continuous Infinitive
The regular present perfect continuous tense structure follows the “to” and makes it perfect continuous infinitive - “to + have + been + Present Participle.” The sense of continuation is added to the perfect infinitive without the obligation to state the time frame as in the perfect continuous tense structure.

(1)
Snap-on veneers are removable plastic trays that cover tooth imperfections. Also known as reusable, fake, clip-on, or pop-on veneers, snap-on veneers are relatively cheap and available without a dentist.Jan
Scott M Reamer Oct 2013
Each day passing by in a wild-eyed dash
In truth my soul fell aside, but bluer birds still doth call
Missed that cardinal harken when I set down my last two cents
Kickers of tricks, scroll-ers of myth, bottlers of ships
Knew it all along, just couldn’t stiff the rest
Refuse to capitol, refuge atop the pious politic that steeps these hills
Is it not hard to tell? The meanings of what buys in bulk
The people is we, of what sells slicker than plot itself
A minority rule, hid reasons from majority fooled

That is working trade class, taught to chain drive
The gleaming sheen glowing green, crowning jewel¬¬¬ is as mist and steam, fleeting as the wash of this worlds seething seas
We, the misanthrope of being, bloom in the warmth of idea
Only to recede at the water mark high of each our lives

Authenticity bless the distant time, costless venture to each about die, salute through another caesars’ dilated eye a definition
Eons in annunciation; immortality flashing by
Reverence cannot lie, not long at least neathe a chipping patina
Gold leafed by the hand of man, coerced creations’ fondling finger tips strips thin, leaving us then to watch the weathering

Not a one may ever remember for too quickly or too timely
Arrives dismemberment, a cyclic certainty, often relegated falsely
As loss or gain, truly misspoken frames for reference
At any given attempt to render the language of tongues, oh speaker the son of the morning shamelessly ****** by predecessors increasingly lavish

Phonemic savage; life running rabid, splicing love over the atom
The simple one whom tends a patch of what he calls “cabbage”
Knowing always the wordless truth that is his field fallowing
Unconvinced by everyone, save himself if nothing else
Penitent candor dangle, frameless wonder can you hear the thunder?
Odd Odyssey Poet Jun 2022
Galloping,—
a harras of silhouette in the night’s shade.
Prancing swiftly as carelessly as winds in their mane.
Grey smoke blows out of their muzzle;
like hot ash subduing the algid night air.

A hill covered in a dark following,
a caliginous beauty site,—
In the uncut grass, trampled by costless hooves.
I was the ground crunched by a night’s dream.

My eyes shut; nervous by the shaking lips,
and cold sweats. It was beautiful,—
it was dark. It was wild; yet felt so freeing.
I was it’s witness, and conjecture.
I was in awe by beauty, but left breathless by
it’s haunting perception.

So was it a ghastly dream, or an alluring nightmare?
Nicholas Feb 2015
Silence - O', Even the silence has got something to say
in words of winds blown off Northern array
At first, it makes heart free from all worries,
but the next moment -
Everything seems to be burnt out into broken-furries

The diamond's costless so all spirits,
but when it comes to poor-faith,
Even the "love" goes down into shattered pieces

Echoes On Nights - O' the echoes of such restless ashes
make some noise across the tight-lipped room
And, the silence has got much to bleed,
When the castles of night go disappeared by the doom

With time, as usual, beautiful morn knocks at the door
The heart gets trapped inside the loop,
Melodious beats of its phase go bounced up ov'r the floor
& scream, O' the life's nothiing, but an empty cup of cold-soup.
Feb - 24 - 2015!
Tuesday Night. Seemed like - 'Twilight'. Sounds interesting!
lmnsinner Mar 2017
the expulsion of emotions,
the absence thereof
bastardized emigre's forevermore,
no anger, no hate,
no debating love,

even the
commonplace
the merely perfunctory,
costless meaningless,
electrical like,
a banal banner of
a thumbs up

all exposed temperaments
lobe removed
the throbbing, pulsing,
expelled, expulsing
sayonara
not even
neutral-

nah, i'm neutered
emotions splayed?
no, spayed,
incapable of reproducing

this epitaph,
this writ
composed in a
unconscious blink,
an ill unconsidered moment
writ with tinged regret
to seal the deal

don't feel a thing  which is why.  
I
write
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
The Nighttime Skies have altered, altering us…

The nightly showing of twinkling heavens, fulsome,
brimming, as can now be seen but only in a planetarium
program, always was a delight to our ******* citified  
visitors, who received this free reminder of Earth’s  
non-centric role in the universe, happily, for it jived
senses with common sensibility, confirming an assumptive
reality with yes! my-eyes-can-see-it proofs, that many city
folk only hope & assume are yet true someplace  else
‘out there.’

Night light pollution, a life feature just assumed as
a costless cost of doing business of our modern
population distribution, has horrendous mental
consequences for a generation of me-me-me
young ones, who lack the lessons in real awe,
not by way of a video game, but by never having seen a
Milky Way,
constellations and planets
that were so necessary to
critical cortical thinking p,
human beliefs,
re the totality of
existence a mere
two hundred or
so years ago.

The star’s disappearance for so much of our population,
reenforces the notion of our own centricity, get it?

A world centered on the city.

The truer star studded sky knows not
of gender neutrality,
racial disharmony,
through a
“I am not the universe “ perspective,
for in this large than life realer than real
exterior externality,
which why, by the by,
is mega black and white duopoly,
makes who is bigger no better than smaller,
for all but magnified speckles
all now more of a minor
irrelevant relativity.

When all the worlds are watching, not just the world, but
a Universe of unknown worlds are judging, studying us,
and maybe our lives are mighty picayune,
but amore humbled and yet precious, do we not need to be
always on our best behavior?

the fact is that we who are but 80 miles from nyc’s borderline can no longer sky-testify, be reminded of our planetary’s liveliness- uniqueness and our proper place on the largest tapestry
of the always, of the forever, of the
majesty and harmonious coexistence.

I am naive and a proper fool, and I do not know if it is the new smoking of the planet, spread of the seemingly innocuous
city boundaries encroaching on our rural existence, or a new physicality condition that makes our nights a pungent blackened cloud, and that so many can not say of the awesomeness
mystery above us, and think
with humility
our destiny,
our alignment
                         “is in the star’s.”

Alas poor Yorick, even your creator, the poet William Shakespeare, who understood human frailties too well, conceded that,

”it is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.”

But the again,
he could nightly gaze
upon them,
and we cannot!

He also conceded, to attempt to balance
the imbalances of our
visual scales,
and magnetic moral compasses,
writing,

indeed!

”there are more things in heaven and earth*”
cee Dec 2018
I took a deep breath
and looked at the leaves falling
it's like watching you go deeper into this
And I just let you be

I felt motionless and bare
The end was looking at me straight in the eye
And I just couldn't even drop a tear
I knew, I was, and still am not me

Was it a dream?
The beating of my heart felt surreal
You were supposed to be only in my mind
Everything was fine until it has been too much

Perhaps we found it serene
Like no reality would ever feel as free
As if the sun rises in the west and sets in the east
How impossible it was that no one can grudge

We both winked at the truth
The comfort of deceiving ourselves
These shouldn't have gone too far
We're too complex to be living in a world of our own

Here lies the unspoken words
Of our own little universe that made things costless
And the little galaxies we tried to make
Only to know at the end, I am alone
Sheela Jul 2020
Grass flowers #florets

Glistened with dew
Every time I see I loosen my heart over you
This Spunky lil elf
costless but worthy enough for grass itself
You are the first florets I learnt to draw
No less than daisy to ignore

Hearts they have is shining gold
Petals they hold are pure as peace
Peeping just above the ground
In the Meadows green it’s found
Gregory Dun Aer Aug 2018
A line for the bathroom,
a line across the table;
aligned with diamonds
like science in a frame.
Tamed smile yet crazed;
the trace of a trade
that left a taste in mind
for future profit.
The costless ambition;
that’s driven gravestones
into the homes of families
caught in abuse.
Tonight; there’s a line;
one to the bathroom,
another across the table,
and one to the tombs.
The white powder
that overpowers clear
minds,
the white lines
that has victims
forever reading
between the lines;
a fine print
that reads
‘**** this’;
my time ends
with this line.
EmperorOfMine Feb 2019
Dancing all alone
Not a care within this Earth
Although they'd say that I'm wrong
I see beauty in my worth
I don't need to be tied down
To stay flawlessly modest
Or to feel that I have value
I'm an art piece that's costless
I don't have to be a beast
Cause I'm single at the least
Why can't I just love myself
First I need some inner peace
Then I can go out and dance
Mingle in the crowd of chance
Possibly find love at sea
I don't need to though, you see
It's a thing I can desire
But romance can be just one
You should come first, at least prior
Don't be sad, go have some fun.
If no one else will...

Chocolate is on sale after VD.
Poetoftheway May 2020
The Cost

“5 minutes to write, 5 minutes to edit and 10 more to cease weeping,”
when the inquiry arrives, how long/where from it comes,
gave this answer

more or less the response accurate
more or less the weeping really never ceases

I will return to it again, **** poem
random when, unreasoned why, wherefore
a stumble, a message, months from now, tomorrow,
even decades and I’ll remember the precise circumstances

for each poem has a Cost, that excises a piece of you, a new cut,
freshly salted, an antibiotic of loving may remove the
redness, but not the white line, so what you call a scar, I,
I call it an etched memory preserved

the sum of all These Costs, all these memories,
cumulative, additive, addictive - someone says:

stop being so sensitive, leave the telling to others,
or keep them in plastic bags, dated, retrievable,
in case an antiretroviral antidote is ever needed,
a fresh injection when you think you could even
cease to care

The Cost is always capitalized, for the Cost is called human capital,
the invisible financing that permits our existence till all spent,
when we’ve run out of drawer space, zipper bags,
breaths to be taken away and glass jars to store them,
if the mind says no more! then it will be ok,
for you are all spent

The Cost so great! this a double entendre,
for they are the stuff of me, whatever greatnesses
I ever possessed within them kept and believed,
happily paid for past and present, for the future,
will happily pay for it right now, again and again,
for the Costs are who I am, till, such time that
Costless arrives, eyes closed, nothing left to post,
to recall, no coin to give, my purposed all paid,

as if all paid could ever cause my weeping to cease


Mon May 4
10:48 am
Aliza Jennifer Nov 2020
I got lot of stories to tell
but i always forget them

I got lot of poems to share
but they are just in the air

I got lot of situations to care
But now im sinking in the quicksand of despair

I'm Careless, Hopeless, Aimless, Costless

My tears flows persistently
why was this hiding in my drafts? why didnt i completed it?
~Aliza Jennifer~
Odd Odyssey Poet Nov 2023
Jesus eyes made of explosives,
blood on the flag, banners
cascading man's ill motives
A sickening world,
I should speak another prayer,
i just don't have enough of the words.

My self will, is selfish as the kids
hiding candy in their ***** pockets
Life isn't really sweet;
costless living is costly for others,
when you're no longer living at all
Getting all of our kicks from playing games
with the girls. Hoping they play ball,
play with my *****, and maybe catch a score.
Call her by her for a night,
later on, we won't call you at all.

And you should cry yourself a river,
wet up your eyes, so you can barely see
Still don't misstep your feet,
as anyone can slip into their depression
And I'll draw out all of your negative emotions,
as it becomes the picture, as you drew out your weapon.

                               It's a hard world we live in.

— The End —