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saranade Apr 2015
My creativity has created this creation.
The outcome of my creation reflects only to the Creator.
The inner Narrator narrates a repetitive monologue.
Believe me, I've seen the films, and I've read that ******* blog.
Long logging of nights.
Internal.
External.
Fights.
Anger lasts.
I employed that past to take power away from fear.
Aware now of being here.
Consciousness.
Humbleness.
This doesn't come from admission.
Remission of a previous mission.
My dispositions constriction from speaking up.
**** that.
That cup.
That rig.
Spoon.
***.
Drug.
Love is what I need.
Love is what I give.
Creating only a creation to love to live.
creating the existence I am in and changing it for nothing
Robin Carretti Aug 2018
This is far from a
car S-p-a--C-y
Oh! My? Crossover traveler
The Phyton
Top of the rank
collision-course
New job space
planning tech magic cursor

Magical Podcast*

Do we have space
Sci-Fi-Hi Meeting
Googling creating playing
Cheating Overexaggerating
And faking our
(dead)lines

Not meeting our deadlines
What is the right time?
Spacewalking on the yellow brick
the road you are my sunshine*
"Million light years away from being rich"?

     Lucy in the Sky
       LSD-Little space devil
No/space for Jack the shinning
of diamonds, this isn't Oz
Emerald City or spin-off

Climb the ladder space objects clutter
Posh-Rich Witch is which
The last epidemic standup comic

Crawling having a ball Spalding

That Spiderwomen kvetch
Wolftie face switched
Fox lies moms moon pies
The collision of the moon
Space monkey baboon
The equation or burning
Sun people in devastation

Magic God

What time holds the
Mass control Einstein the professor
The brain exploding stars
Study hall those equations

In Princeton New Jersey
Those tiny particles lost in space
This corporation division
*
Space Between_

*Hard paper scissors and
Mr. Rock

It's time to money pound
The Big Ben clock
"Do we act like the only
one on this planet"                  
The Singularity
The multiplicity
The burning sun
*
War of the Military
Hot fun "Twin City"
Medieval twin planets

She's brace-space and he's
Well known physic
energy flowing one
step beyond collision of '
     Two Gods"

Magic space-lotus love of "Venus_
Pond

The Mall of America Star Spangle Banner
Next International flight became a winner

Plants and animals
The primal magic
Catching the
planets there both
emerging
The submerging eye
Space-out engaging

The civilization nightmare
On the cusp right here
Martian stripe and stars
Wipeout species of mars
Gravitatious collide of lovers
Confused about earthlings
More siblings another planet colliding

Like a space odyssey ground control to
      "Major Tom"
Fe fi fun on space run
Our Earth Mondadori
Spicy pleasure taste for
Chicken Tandoori
Magical dish
Make a wish

Magic hands believing

Metagalactic space and time
Holy God realistic
Osprey someone is the prey
In the movie magical classic
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Holiday mind dressed up window
"Out of our comfort zone
eating to the end twilight zone widow"

The extra enchanted evening
For the Moms only
Our heads over space
heels hit the ceiling

Eggs Benedict, the salt wasn't kosher
Artsy Audrey Hepburn don't push her

Celestial Ocean Space Steven Universe
The Christmas madness sale
Poison Ivy Pointsetta what
a vendetta
Interstellar meeting her
new race feeling out of place
Adulation like a prosecution
Space collide anytime
can explode

Two worlds become tragic
Space station not a game
A haunting catastrophic
Collision Titanic ship

Magically got more modified
Needing a space program the
spy to identify  

Dragonfly to Madame Butterfly
Space of magic crime-space
All spots, not Dalmatian
Space wings set up for Superman
Magic fan rising adrenaline
Monster cookies for Madeline

Fire and Ice Global warming
wildfires now the collision
On another planet warning
Miracle blessing of magic
Someone before or after
just to touch them

We cannot stop this craziness
The outburst goes pop the weasel

Magic place portal
Something in the way
to crumble like a baby
firstborn rocking her cradle

The curiosity space philosophy
Like breed of cats,
Licking tongue envelope
The cats eye Egyptian
Terrified space milk the tabby
Meeting my space hubby

Microscopic became two dots .-.
Space became a new buried plot
Is this all I got Twitter
Home run ball and
New York Dodgers
Brooklyn bat *******

So compelled to the computer
Designed the Rover robot lover
Magical Elton John
wedding
space planner
Across the Universe
John Lennon
Bennie and the Jets
Like a science
Teacher's pets

Eyes spaced out the magic place within**
So sacred magic hat Rabbit
Mountain bear Airspace Hobbit
Roll over Beethoven
The dog bone playing space I tunes

The spaceship magic
fingers piano
Plays one enchanted evening
Let me see the beautiful
new awakening
When Robin sings
Her magical wand
Lights up the world
of hands magical awaits

Remember "A Poem" can be magic
Collison in Space or Good earth how do we collide into one another planet some fire exposed in our words can we change the way we feel we collide again but what happens when our planets collide
Ms Ann Thrope Jun 2014
The Sunflower is awfully bigheaded

For being so tall & gangly

With fiery blooms, rough around the edges

He’s quite a sight to see annually

He looks down upon all the other flowers

With his head so high in the sky

This makes the other flowers jealous

But they fail to realize the sunflower lives a lie

Because the problem with the sunflower

Is that he turns his back on the sun

Creating the misconception

That he does not need anyone

But through the circadian rhythm

His leaves continuously change

Eluding the very revelation

That the sunflower causes his own pain

So as the sun begins to set

The sunflower realizes what he’s done

He faces the darkness with much regret

Realizing he cannot live without the sun
Written circa September 2011
The light pollution
from the lives of little people
in the big city
reflects off the lowriding clouds,
the same way my knees reflect
in the little puddles
from the big rains.

It hurts my eyes to look up
without sunglasses,
hurts my lips to think of tasting
the subway oil that
drip
drip
drips

I speculate at the transformers,
part automatic, part people
in their pre-ripped jeans,
learning to get their Ns
to drive themselves away,
yarn trailing from their sweaters
like parade float streamers.

Citizens run so fast
to catch the early train home,
freefalling down the stairs  
breathing in the exhales
of the other racer’s exhaust.
Marking their triumphs
with participation ribbons.

The pacific pants at toes,
a puppy that only occasionally misbehaves.
Impatient for attention,
waves wagging back and forth,
up the imitation river,
past the downtown.
Kicking the sea wall with it's gravity boots.


The geese are on hiatus
until they can take back the city.
Making the drains overflow,
creating their own habitat,
they’ll strut their haughty markings,
distinguished from orcas,
away from any saline nonsense.

Were we to retrain the population
to turn blind eyes,
we’d be much more efficient,
stop wasting time contending
to society’s obsession
with documenting itself.
But then, what would we do all day?

Creating light pollution
must give immediate gratification.
Once all the lights are turned off,
the influence won’t continue,
creating a lack of permanence,
making our need to be remembered
seem trivial indeed.
Israel Baker Apr 2016
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
But I'm serious, so very serious.
I wish you could hear me.
I am happy though, so lavishly gay and bright.
I wish I knew what it was like so I wouldn't....
I want people to trust me. I don't want people to fear me, to see the disgust that I am, I want them to see innocence, and girlishness and and see me as relatable. I WILL NOT JUDGE YOU! I WILL NOT! I love hearing about you and your struggles, about your sorrows, and I can understand it, because I can feel just like you can feel and I love to feel what you are feeling for that is my only feeling.

I try to justify everything. If I do something I can't explain, or say something I might not like, or think that a person might not like it, I try to justify it with some kind of reasoning. Such as, "It's poetic" or "sounds pretty" or "be worth is someday."

I just want to be understood, and I want to understand you. Can you not hear the gentle bass of the Milky Way galaxy, slowly turning, and us, a virus, an atom, a quantum, a tinny tinny thing doing silly boring things like brushing our teeth, walking, reading, writing, doing things we don't understand, doing things we can't understand, being in love, being out of it, eating candy, having ***, giving ***, doing homework, cleaning, worrying, eating more candy, drawing pictures, thinking, holding, creating, destroying, recycling, creating destroying, recycling, creating, destroying, recycling, can we do nothing else?

Turn, world, turn, sun, around in a slow beautiful bbbbbmmmmmm....
you are so beautiful!
Hands that know what to do,
feet that say things and tell you that life is precious and nothing is funny. Beautiful!
Life is so serious. We do things that are VAIN. To be vain means to do things which have no good purpose. We wash things so they are clean only to make them ***** again.

A man will, in winter, put his heavy coat on, zip up the zipper, pick up a hat and smooth it on to his head across his hair, then, take his left glove and put it on his left hand and take his right glove and put it on his right hand, put his left sock on his left foot, then put his right sock on his right foot, next he puts his left boot on his left foot and puts his right boot on his right foot, he reaches over and tightens the laces of the left boot then makes an "X" with the laces and puts the end of the right most facing lace under the left most and sticks it through the hole and pulls them tight to create a knot, next he creates a long ear-shape like that of a bunny using the right lace and wraps the left lace around counter-clockwise, next he sticks the sideways left lace through the passage that was created by looping the lace around, creating another ear, then he tightens both ears, he makes another "X" with the ears and loops the right most ear under and trough the hole, then tightens them by a process called "double knotting." He then takes this process of double knotting and applies it to his right boot. He stands up and goes to the front door, walks down the driveway and goes into his heated van so he can drive to his temperature controlled desk job. We are creatures of habit. We do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ov.......&...^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&...

I'm tryin' to teach a chair how to walk,
they have legs, but they just can't use 'em.
Patricia Arches Sep 2013
Choices

This ever blotting simple thing that makes up things

as small as a mouse but also as deadly as sin itself

A simple formula of cause and effect

An effect

A result

A consequence

No pretences

Or fences that guard our decisions

Keeps it safe for being just a choice

For it is no longer just a choice

It is not that simple, see there is a formula to remember

An economic study to this choice where c=e

because

For every cause there is an effect

For every cause there is an effect

For every cause there is an effect

Let it dwell in your mind and affect you

Because that is where it all begins

Let us open up your mind and there we will find that

Alongside that implanted thought are a plethora

Of more thoughts that are placed beside your dreams

Nestled in between your hopes, skilfully intertwined with your visions

There they all lay

Our mind is our drive that takes us down

A road that is long and winding

A highway down to our hands

Which eventually become steered by, picked up with strings ever so delicately like a puppet

Held by that one thought

Your actions are birthed from your thoughts

We see these to be choices

To study these choices would be economics, to understand them would be sympathy

To take a leader who steals from his country

Or a mom who abandons her child to keep herself alive

And view this as sad, as a cry for help?

How and why?

Oh no! We do not stop at just those two ghastly choices

For this is a study of many

Choices

Of things that have happened to determine what will and to save us from what has been

Let us open up this book

And flip each page to see what decrees and laws

Revolutions and words put down on paper

Have anything to do with where we stand today

For the choices of the past still linger here

Mixed in with the choices of the present

Creating this air that we breathe in and out every single day

We would be infuriated with rage as we scan through the pages of this book of choices

A chapter of injustice

A paragraph of cruelty

A statement of selfishness

A line of adultery

But, wait! Oh, let us stop on this

One

story

For this I do not even understand

See I have studied choices, and put them into many formulas

To see the effects and the causes of each

but this story is different

For it is not just one chapter

One statement

One line

It is the whole story and each is intricately woven within it

In fact, the book is titled for this one story

And to begin it would be to start off with a choice

By a God

To send his son

To die for men

Men whose choices we see throughout the whole book

Men whose choices are vile and selfish and ruthless

Sinful men

*****

And yet a God so Holy and pure still sends down his son in His likeness for these grimy men??

See, if we picture it. It is a white cloth, pure and clean not just dipped but completely submerged in dirt

Now that is not a choice that I would make

But it was made

A man so untainted and holy

Came down

To die for the sinner

Who stole from the helpless woman in the ally

Who murdered an innocent child in the womb

Who told a tiny white lie to his mom and dad and gave himself away to drugs and peer pressure

Who lusted after the world and what seemed good but really was death covered in make up whispering

in the promises lie after lie

To die for the sinner who is you

You

Jesus chose to die for you

On that cross, with his hands bound by nails and his feet the same

And with every last breath, last drop of blood and whip of the chain

he thought of you

and that is a choice that no study, no analyzation could ever make sense of

but it was done

it is done

is what he said for you as his arms were spread out wide

and all your choices

he negated the effects, and ultimately the effect of death

and formulated a solution of eternal life instead

for this one choice

changed all the rest

Now, think, think it through

Every choice you make

and every choice that was made is made brand new, infused with grace

Remember this for when there is a test the formula of cause and effect

Still stand true

but also remember Jesus who did what you had to do

for you may make many more flawed choices without a thought

Therefore go down on bended knees gaze at the cross

where stood the Father’s son

never a doubt that this choice for you was a wrong one

that any effect wouldn’t be worth it

you are worth any effect

you are an effect

of that one choice made on the hills of calvary

look up at the cross when your lewd effects force out the mistakes of your personal choices

then resurface that one choice made 2000 years before

bring it up amongst all the confusion and chaos

study it’s economic worth

hold it dear

smile at it even for

that senseless,

unexplainable,

brilliant,

grand,

intricate,

lovel­y,

merciful,

gracious,

holy,

divine,

choice

is all for you
Evynne Apr 2013
Can you feel all the suffering, can you see it?
Stop embracing the hate of your own humanity, just quit it
Why all the hypocrisy?
Challenge your democracy

Aim for enlightenment
Fight against all ill torment
Oppression, alienation, inequality
The government's manipulative utilities

Explore your human aptitude
Your mind and your magnitude
Because passion is power and
You can make all evil cower

Work to open your third eye
Don't cry or comply, but rather ask "why?"
Empathy and compassion are most important
Without them, moral principles remain impotent

Our world is nothing compared to the entire universe
We are so small, egoistic, and it's getting worse
Focused on all of the wrongs ideals
Creating terrible and false ordeals

Our world is cruel and mean
Too many people die hungry
There's no such thing as equality or true justice
It does not exist in this realm of consciousness

If only we could shift the system and our ways
Then things would continue to fall into place
But change is virtually unachievable
Especially when entities with just intents are inconceivable

Human beings are clueless, trapped in a trance
Don't let yourself fall victim to your ignorance
You need to expand your knowledge and your perspective
Aim to be more pensive and introspective

Challenge absolutely everything you are told
Form your own beliefs, don't let your mind be controlled
Remove yourself from conformity and complacency
And you'll realize a multitude of problems, that I guarantee

You can't trust anything

Hear what I'm saying 

No you cant trust anything

Believing is damaging

Creating is everything, it's promising
Stop adhering to societal norms

Why do you conform

To all that

The government tells us

All that society spells for us
Why don't you realize

Wake up from all the lies

The world is an intricate place, that you can't replace

But you can change your ways and your pace

Create some displacement in the system
Stand up your rights

And what you believe in

Be genuine

Imagine

Not one person, thing, or system

Can tell us, control us, conform us


With enough minds open and motivated
We can help those oppressed and alienated
We can change this race for the better
Let's all work to be that kind of trendsetter
Come on, let's start a movement
So we can see some real improvement
In our world, our ways, and our wisdom
But most importantly in the system
Harly Coward Oct 2014
Bundled up in my big blue blanket,
Holding my heavenly hot cocoa,
Simmering as I'm sipping,
Nibbling on my noodles,

I gaze out the window,
Rain, rain, rain,
Grey clouds canvassing the sky,
Water falling creating rivers in the street,

The only thing I vow to accomplish today at all
Is finish season seven of Supernatural.
Universal Thrum Jul 2018
I'm leaving Carly's place after an all day ****** that had me convinced that paradise lay in the legs of Nate's sister wearing a unicorn onesie, and as they put on Sgt. Peppers and lay there the ****** freudian passion play overcame my capacity for archetype observation and I proceeded to walk around the room thanking everybody in that space and time for the gift of starting the **** with Nate's sister, the beat changed and they turned on me and said I needed to give her space, they all became timeless aliens traveling through time to **** and I was one of them coming online in a loop, and as long as I stayed awake I would remember and not be *****. I sat cross legged holding my friend sams hands, looking into his eyes, saying aloud we're creating the universe constructing all as the three smartest people of all time, forever throughout we died but never died, as long as we could stay awake, they all wore red and I couldn't trust any of them, I fired off mad questions and demanded to know the secrets of the universe and why woman wasn't the answer, I called up to nate to bring her down to me, and generally became a raving lunatic
      after some time of sam being soulmate and accepting him forever as my lover self same image, and also calling him ugly as im ugly, then channeling Brittany through him and countless other regressive exercises, we started inhaling nitrous gas, and the world became one stretched out moment
       and I kept calling out before, all the way up, as it were the secret spell with a handshake to fool the devil
         I thought Nate a mad spirit habituating this plane as a long gone failed hero plagued by the madness of wanting to **** his sister and forced to watch all his friends be aware of their own lust, so that pushed him into clowning, which he is an expert, that primal lust took me up and id taken a holy mandate to **** this beautiful creature and ascend to paradise,
when they slipped her upstairs they left her rainbow onesie, i felt heaven become another step remote and my faith tested, I resolved to be the last awake and never die, I walked up to the attic, and saw the light beaming from the window


            Sam dropped me off at the press grill so I could eat some grub,
then I met up with Tyler for a drink somewhere while he told me his story of meeting a guy in a skyline chilis bathroom drunk at 3 am, he said the guy was standing at the ****** but wasn't *******. Ty asked him if he was done and the guy put Ty in a chokehold with his pants down, according to Ty the cops came in and he was putting clean shots into the guys mug, he is contemplating leaving town before they can indict him for felonious assault, I told him Canadas nice but Venezuela doesn't have an extradition treaty, come to think of it neither does Cuba, but Ty is too proud for that probably
   anyways we meet Carly being a dancing beauty in a high falootin joint with string lights called Julep, the only reason to mention it is because as we were leaving a guy was bent over the rail vomiting and looking wretched he noticed us watching him as we smoked our cigarettes off to the side and immediately decided that he wasn't some kind of side show freak to be gawked at, he became threatening in the most base and pathetic way a human can, and his bride came to tell us to ******* with her father, father of the bride shaking my hand, we eventually left that scene and walked to Oddfellows where I saw Sam Cohan and he bought me a beer, good chap, we talked until I stepped toward Carly, Tyler and a fine looking strange *****
I touched Carly and received an awkward unmemorable introduction to the strange *****. She walked away but lurked and locked eyes with me as the evening rolled on
later Carly told me that the girl demanded to meet the guy who looks like Heath Ledger, a sure fire ****, so Carly is grinding on my **** and my backs to the bar and Tyler already got me a beer, and there I was, a pirate king
I took Carly out after the lights came on, and was going to give Tyler the run of my place, he disappeared into the night and I showed Carly my favorite smelling tree, a pink mimosa still in bloom late July, we almost ****** on my car, until I went back to her place and we ****** until $430, rising at noon, I left telling her we had an hour to get ready to journey to Findlay for Jim's wedding
I showered and brushed my teeth and collected my suit and put it on without a tie
I picked up Carly and set out upon the road, but made a quick stop for a bite
two deaf guys ordered in front of me and the kid working the register said my glasses were cool, along the way I was telling Carly the story of how I wore make up for the first time to a middle school dance, and she said she had to *****, I didn't believe her at first until she tried to stick her head out the window half way rolled down, I managed to get it down all the way and wet streaks of human gut waste caught the wind and splattered my window
we pulled over and I went to get her some napkins to clean herself off as I squeeged the car, she tried to wipe the window with the napkins, sweet girl. The wedding started at 3:30 and we didn't have more than five minutes to spare, she found her vape pen 20 minute out as Heather started to send me worried messages, as I was set to read a passage, little did I know that I was leading off the whole affair, I arrived and was quickly rushed to meet the mothers and have a boutonnière pinned to my lapel , the women all looked stunning and I congratulated each in turn as they shoved a program in my hand, Tiffany took me through the drill, we walked up to the stage and took our places on the bench, looking out at the beautiful shining faces,


I was the only one not wearing a tie, but thats not important, I saw Jim and embraced him with all the love I could muster, he looked at me and said that he knew I would make it, that he knew that he just had to trust the flow, and I would appear in the nick of time, the pastor threw his hands in the air and welcomed the families, the mothers lit candles, and then Tiffany looked at me and said that it was my turn, I stepped up to the Beema and gazed out over the crowd, trying to summon something clever, nothing good came to mind and so I opened my mouth and said, "a reading from Genesis" and then put every fiber of my being into reminding the room that it is Gods will that we be fruitful and multiply. I'm told I slammed my hands down for emphasis and let out a hearty amen, a man's man's amen, and turned and took one giant step off the podium with two baby stairs, I gracefully flowed into the bench having averted a complete embarrassment, and then tactfully left the stage with Tiffany after her read.   Jim looked at me after mine with a nod, and I said the word strong, that read cemented my status as a star of the party, and the mojo flowed, I was called the cash guy by the hotel, for checking in as Atlantis Grosshammer, $200 depost, we drank and danced and an old lady came to me to say that I have a beautiful soul
I thanked Jim's father for helping to create my friend, and danced around bottles
the cake was good
I told Carly I always catch the brides garter, at every wedding I've ever been. I saw Jim's men assemble for his toss, I let the men come and put myself in the mix, Jim turned his back and had a misfire,
the temptation to collect it passed all of us by thankfully, and he was set to fire again, it came to me and I snatched it out of the air, cold as ice I walked off the floor only with eyes for Carly not even saying a word to Jim, I put that thing on my head and went back to Jim threw him on my shoulders and swung him around like we were in a broadway musical
two kids playing in the street,
he said its the best moment, and so it goes
Elizabeth Zenk Jul 2018
Wistful tears melt down my cheeks.
Nostalgic of our infinity together.
I kept myself intact, wholly yet new, and now without the pitiful distractions, I must reflect upon myself, alone.
Debilitating heartache
Bleakening one’s life.
Pining to relive and forget the past.
Everything still so crystal clear,
so picturesque in nature.
The smells, the sights, the feelings.
How could I have let it slip away?
Did he ever speak of me?
Ever talk about me?
Or did he just forget the joyous days we spent together under the heat of moment’s madness?
Am I the only one homesick for not my house, but for the person that broke me?
My lip twitches as sentimental recollections start to overflow and spill, creating a puddle of emptiness, longing, and heartbreak.
Debilitating heartache.
Watching the clock tick down seconds I've wasted
waiting for you.
Haylin May 2018
Cuddle in my arms, you are.
We just enjoying quiet time together.
Relaxing on the couch in the dark with a single candle burning.

Just reflecting back on our relationship.
Like when we first met.
It's been a worthy experience.
One I wouldn't trade for anything.

I remember our first kiss.
It's simply hard to forget.
It was sincere.
It was passionate.
Just like the one I've just given you.

I remember our walks in the park.
Those self made dinners we had.
Those was good times.
Just like those we are creating now.

As we are just cuddling in the dark.
Reflecting back.
Solaces Oct 2018
Shadows blossom in corners where light is at the center of this room..
I play music I have never heard..

I turn the light off and the shadows become void..  
Into the darkness they mix with eachother..

That is until one of them lights a candle..
The shadows play among the candle light..

The candle light slowly dies away..
It was then a grand shadow brought forth a blazing candle..

The blazing candle lights up creating days across the cosmos..
The shadows call the blazing candle a sun..

The sun burns and burns for almost forever..
Other shadows in corners of the expanse do the same..

They light their own candles creating suns..
They later name the far away suns stars..

The universe has become lit...
Because shadows missed the light I had turned off..
Suns and stars...
Let me tell you what society will tell you:
Increases your chances of getting a job,
Provides you an opportunity to be successful,
Be a lot less stressful,
Education is the key.

Now let me tell you something your parents will tell you:
Make me proud,
Increases your chances of getting a job,
Provides you an opportunity to be successful,
Your life will be a lot less stressful,
Education is the key.

Now let's look at the statistics,
Steve Jobs - net worth seven billion R.I.P,
Richard Branson - net worth four point two billion,
Oprah Winfrey - two point seven billion,
Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates
Now here comes the Coup de grâce,
Looking at these individuals, what's your conclusion?
Neither of them in being successful,
Ever graduated from a higher learning institution.

Now some of you may be like,
Money is only the medium by which we measure worldly success,
And some of you even have the nerve to say
"I don't do it for the money."
So what you studying for?
To work for a charity?
Need more clarity?

Let's look at the statistics:
Jesus,
Muhammed,
Socrates,
Malcolm X,
Mother Teresa,
Spielberg,
Shakespeare,
Beethoven,
Jesse Owens,
Muhammad Ali,
Sean Carter,
Michael Jeffrey Jordan,
Michael Joseph Jackson.
Were either of these people unsuccessful... or... uneducated?

All I'm saying is that,
If there was a family tree hard work and education would be related,
But school would probably be a distant cousin,
Because if education is the key,
School is the lock,
Because it rarely ever develops your mind to the point where it can perceive red as green and continue to go when someone else said stop.
Because as long as you follow the rules and pass exams your cool,
But are you aware that examiners have a checklist,
And if your answer is something outside the box then the automatic response is a cross,
And then they claim that school expands your horizons and your visions,
Well tell that to Malcolm X who dropped out of school and is world renowned for what he learn in a prison.

Proverbs 17:16
It does a fool no good to spend money on an education,
Why?
Because he has no common sense.
George Bush. Need I say more?
Education is about inspiring one's mind,
Not just filling their head,
And take this from me because I'm an 'Educated' man myself,
Who only came to this realization after countless nights in the library,
With a can of red bull keeping me awake till morning,
Another can in the morning,
Falling asleep between piles of books that probably equates to the same amount I spent on my rent,
Memorize equations, facts and dates,
Write down to the letter,
Half of which I would never remember,
And half of which I would forget straight after the exam,
Before the start of the next semester,
Asking anyone if they had notes for the last lecture.
I often found myself running to class,
Just so I could find a spot on which I could rest my head and just sleep without making a scene,
Ironic because that's the only time I ever spent in university chasing my dreams.
And then after nights with a dead-mind,
I'd den find myself in a queue of half-awake students, zombies,
Waiting to hand in an assignment,
Maybe that's why they call it a deadline.
And then after three years of mental suppression,
And frustration,
My "Proud Mother" didn't even turn up to my graduation.

Now, I'm not saying that school is evil and there's nothing to gain,
All I'm saying is: understand your morals and re-assess your aims,
If you want a job working for someone else then help yourself,
But then that would be a contradiction because you wouldn't really be helping yourself,
You'd be helping somebody else,
There's a saying that is: if you don't build your dreams, someone else will hire you to help build theirs.

Redefine how you view education,
Understand it's true meaning,
Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book,
Or someone else's opinion on a subject to pass an exam,
Look at it.
Picasso was educated at creating art,
Shakespeare was educated in the art of all that was written,
Colonel Harland Sanders was educated in the art of creating Ken Tucky Fried Chicken.

I once saw David Beckham take a free kick,
I watched as the side of his Adidas-sponsored boot hit the patent leather of the ball at an angle,
Which caused it to travel towards the skies as though it was destined for the heavens,
And then as it reached the peek of it's momentum,
As though it changed it's mind,
It switched directions.
I watched as the goalkeeper froze,
As though reciting to himself the laws of physics,
And as though his brain was negotiating with his eyes,
That was indeed witnessing the spectacle that was the leather swan that was swooping towards it,
And then reacted,
Though only a fraction of a millisecond too late,
And before the net of the goal,
Embraced the Fifa-Sponsored ball as though it was the prodigal son returning home,
And the country, that I live in, Erupted into cheers,
I looked at the play and thought,
****,
Looking at David Beckham,
There's more than one way in this world to be,

An educated man.

Peace.
Julian Jun 2018
The ******* of embezzled glory staunchly defend their counterfeit stature by defalcating the public trust of industrious societies governed internally by compunction and sabotaged externally by the tempests of acerbic fate met with inclement aleatory convergence. To supply a society with ingenuity without being complaisant or officious with unctuous pleas to the overlords we must fashion a new vogue that taps the bustle of giants and aggrandizes the margins to oversee their own creative destinies with scaffolded arrangements of titanic promise and justifiable fluidity to conquer the blinkered dogmatism of a dissolute chastity to inveterate apocryphal tenets of factitious but unmerited perspectives. Democracy crumbles when the convenience of sensationalism supplants the resolve of those that fossick hidden wealth and promulgate validity instead of undergirding pomp with precarious prevarications of duplicitous omission guarded gingerly by the gatekeepers of a ****** sanity that whitewashes the discussion with invented hobgoblins and purblind catharsis. To defeat simplicity and enshrine byzantine elegance as the paragon for voguish commentary rather than abide by a bowdlerized decorum for appeasing simpletons with divisive balkanization through identity politics we can overcome the impediments to human progress that are engineered to persist because of the inertia of the listless and the stubbornness of doctrinaire politicization and invent vivacity and festivity anew. We need to divorce ourselves from pedestrian quibbles of hero-worship that endanger the vitality of the common discourse because of fastidious pedantic disempowerment that ravages us with debased dreams by underscoring nuisances and tolerable nightmares that emasculate the virulence of the liberated individual and subvert his ambitions to contend with a picaresque world of limitless promise and self-motivated internal wealth.
      The bane of modernity is how chary the world becomes because of fractured histories intersecting with controversial destinies and the antidote to that poisonous self-defeating self-censorship is the audacity of brazen challenges to expurgation through assiduous resourcefulness and delicate diplomacy in wrangling controversies with outspoken courage rather than whispered resentment. Temerity waged in inclement circumstance is justified and curiosity stoked by lambent flames of fulgurant individualism should be fortified to the extent necessary to conquer the feckless spoilsports of unctuous puritanism and institutional obedience. The quacksalvers that blather about inconsequence strand the imagination in a desiccated desert that is ostracized from the palettes of the artistic whim to wield efflorescence rather than squander life in pursuit of perfunctory lucre or tenuous solidarity around banal idealism promised by social justice warriors that forget the biggest war being waged on humanity is on the ingenuity of the common discourse and the liberty to opine about real issues rather than saccharine conventions of emasculation through linguistic imprisonment and epicurean slavery to fashimites who relish the buzzword but never the enlightened audience that scoffs at feeble attempts at cultural commentary like Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video. This particular artifact is a demonstration of how childishly fickle the plebeian mentality really is, stitching together a bricolage of violence to engineer controversy and serenading it with the most banal music imaginable and exhorting people to herald it as a high artform while inundating the world with unimaginative comic book movies and Star Wars rip-offs because of the lucrative business of formulaic replication. “This is America” should be regarded as a parody of itself because of how hackneyed its design is and how cacophonous it sounds and mocks its audience with lowbrow tactics of adding tinsel to trash and marketing it as the glory of tatterdemalions rather than the refinement of true cinematic achievements that have been relegated because Warhol’s Campbells-Soup-consumerism trumps true belletrist in the public view.
        Cultural watersheds punctuate our history with salient achievements in experimentation, but the formulaic profiteering of buzzword sensationalism and yellow journalism and the ostentatious glorification of promiscuous boasting and fancy cars tantalize the mice to continue playing slot machines rather than penning a novel or doing something promethean. The world scoffs at Trump but ignores the bigger institutional caveats that endanger us much more than a pragmatic albeit unconventional pontificator who is complicit in constructing a false narrative to enslave mindless people to fret about eminence rather than delight themselves in the consequential nuances of established refinement that used to serenade the world with flourish and spectacle. The world kowtows to the crusade against flavor-of-the-week enemies of the liberal-conservative syncretism because it has been conditioned to believe that synthesis is the only logical solution for the polarized worldviews of churlish people that become parvenus not on their merits but on their marketable pitfalls and their public foibles. Peccadillos are more important to people than virtues and this makes society morally bankrupt if we loiter around Astroturf causes that have been infiltrated by corporatism and venal debauchery and acquiesce as disempowered gossip hounds that hunt in packs to find jest in aberration rather than achievement in self-created narratives that defy the stupid purblind boorishness of the mainstream media and its haughty liberalism or the persnickety condemnation of priggish conservative moralities that had an expiration date 50 years ago. Who the **** cares about transgender-touting-gender-fluidity quidnuncs and the snooty obsession with lurid personal endeavors of reputable people that made minor ****** transgressions in a world policed by wide-eyed feminazis that seek to ransack men of their vital virulence to spotlight their unjustifiable oppression. Women are oppressed but the carnal nature of their calumniation and their vindictive powers of persuasion are deployed with such vehement vigilance and such distaste for the majority that the world relegates itself to quibbles of celebrities rather than substantive issues. There is a systemic feminization of society occurring that seeks to demarcate despotic uxorious pleasantries as an incarceration of vocal dissent against supercilious women and their tamed men that slavishly grovel in repudiation of anything prickly.  Men historically have oppressed women but the solution to this quandary isn’t a reverse discrimination where the minority concern is spotlighted as a majoritarian issue that overshadows the disproportionate nature of our society where nominal accreditation is afforded in a non-meritocratic way to absolve people of their carnality and demote the vigorous defense of human liberty as secondary to compromise solutions that appease more people than they offend but simultaneously result in suboptimal conditions that reward arbitrarily coachable people while jettisoning anyone witty enough to be capable of insubordination of a hedonistic epicurean world obsessed with appearance and ravaged by the decadence of formulaic profiteering at the expense of originality and true promethean art that is herculean enough to defy hackneyed tropes and siphon the best elements from a piecemeal world variegated with complexity but stifled by fomented hatred.
The solutions to these problems is to create a watchdog group of artistic critics who become eminent and ubiquitously heard enough to offer creative consultation to the artistic endeavors that we consume and the music that is curated for fastidious ears that crave euphonic originality rather than the banality of easily dovetailed bass-heavy cookie-cutter garbage and the gaudy tactics of talentless rappers whose swagger derives from  the intersection of opportunism and the divestiture of an industry that rewards gloated supercilious epicureanism and meretricious marketability. Am I the only one jaded by second-rate superhero movies that infest the cinemas that borrow from Michael Bay while thrusting pulse-pounding but narratively bankrupt movies down the throats of consumers that might prize the cinematic originality of the heyday of filmmaking? Is it always high art to invent controversy that is witless or half-witted just because it will create buzz? Shouldn’t we condemn the laziness of society in acquiescing to the penury of the modern cultural narrative which belabors the dead horses of racism and sexism ad nauseum? Shouldn’t we fight the war of against inequity through legislation rather than hibernating about scandalous eminence and testy malfeasance?
          Liberty should be championed above all else and we are turning our backs on the future unless we muster the resolve to diminish the sway of the common narrative and aim our spotlight at consequential endeavors rather than the tropes of prosaic and pedestrian bastardization of art and culture. We need to fight artistic laziness which has ravaged our culture and castigate the tactics of wannabee celebrities that use lurid tactics to attract an audience by bedizening themselves with Pyrrhic ostentations and rampant fakery to create more melodrama in a world that needs to be less histrionic. YouTube celebrities swarm us as they get high on ******* and lean-- at our expense-- and vandalize property and convincing nine-year-old’s like Lil Tay to flex her money like it is infinitely renewable in a finite world where all our attention is wasted on artless artifice of less talented people that know how to engineer a ruckus by strutting themselves beyond all decency and selling out to a corporatist nightmare of enslaved convenience. We need to be more vocal about the dissolution of artistic merit and the formulaic repetition of successful formulas that jade us and make us yawn about another retread of a previously successful idea that is milked to the point of cruelty.                                                         ­                       
       Let’s change the narrative and focus on creating true art rather than reacting to the meretricious tinsel of the vogue consensus which is so impotent in its ability to rivet audiences because it has become so notoriously lazy. Fight laziness in art, dismiss your news feeds, be resourceful, seek true happiness rather than find yourself hoodwinked and duped by the idea that Trump is the most important issue or getting caught in thought loops and brooding about sexism and inequality. Let us strive to be egalitarian but within limits that would also appease hominists rather than just the hypertrophy of the leftist narrative that seeks to cage us with the doublespeak of complaisant conformity.  Reject the unctuous charlatans that pretend priggishness when their banausic purpose is barbaric but beguiling to be a lullaby for laggards. We need to fight for the future of civilization rather than hobnob with convenience and loiter around decrying false perpetrators rather than systemic injustices that could otherwise be rectified if enough people fought for it. We can invent a future that is a great festivity serenaded by cultivated artistic refinement and forget about the trifles that divide us. United in ambition and fueled by ingenuity we can defeat artistic laziness and be resourceful with how we decide what is newsworthy. Spurred by the argosy of proactive motivation we can change the world in a substantial way by deciphering the subtext that governs the world. The subtext is everything!
jane taylor Jun 2016
how i have ached to walk amongst the evergreens
encased by dazzling quaking aspen
in my rocky mountain home

i yearn to fall again while skiing
and catch a wisp of icy sky blue
snow powder crystals
on my tongue
******* feelings
rise and fall
as they melt
and disappear

i long to breathe in your scent
sitting on the peak of wooded ridges
amidst slate colored boulders
sea salt combined with cinnamon
laced with wildflowers
crisply filling my lungs

i hunger to once again
behold again your red rock formations
creating tender hollows
through which timid coral sunsets peer

i crave hiking at dusk
into your jagged emerald forests
and sit wistfully mid the columbine
while darkened sunflowers juxtapose
against the jet black emptiness
enticing the stars
to etch enchanting paintings
on inky cobalt skies

hankering to be at the sundance film festival
coyly peeking into restaurants
covertly spying on the movie stars
on old park city main

itching to experience waiting patiently
for a moose to cross the street
its majesty splashing gingerly
sending chills throughout the galaxy
magnificence abounds

i pine to have memories gently cradle me
like worn out patchwork quilts
warmed by incandescent fires
wrapping me in soft colored canvas
the past craving transformation
by an echo that’s now dim

faintly crying out for
an old familiar artist’s brush
that still lingers
to snag times gone by
and paint the future in

amalgamating the antiquated
with the present
luring in
my destiny

i dream to don my fringed leather jacket
and hear my cowboy boots
fiercely clicking
against charcoal shadowed midnight sidewalks
while i watch the harvest moon

i’m parched too see your autumn chestnut leaves
against the bloodshot auburn sky
as cardinal hues give way to glistening winter
melding into tender spring

your summertime birthing
tingles down my spine
as chartreus aspen leaves
morph to golden bisque
enticing ute country
to blow in
copper colored indian summers
with cherry fragrant wind

yutaahih you were called
by the apaches
their historic essence
somehow ingrained within
my every cell
thirsty to lie enveloped
like a long lost lover
in your rugged western terrain

once having left your presence
i return to you now
my heart flutters
with wild anticipation
to see your precious face again
utah

©2016janetaylor
after a 5 year absence, we are returning to utah at the end of this month
ketjil Sep 2019
You can’t compare yourself
With the unbroken girls
Surrounding you
You already shattered
Creating
A new form
Of beautiful

-jt
a somewhat older poem
Samir Dec 2012
Maybe it was my ADHD or my Bipolar or both, but as a child I would put in my headphones and just pretend I’m living… this is what I did for fun, I would put my headphones on over my ears and wear a beanie to keep them from falling off.  I would put on something with sickk drums and a kick *** guitar, grab my skateboard and push wood.  Synchronized with the music of course, this was more convincing to me that I was not in my life, but that I was in this fictional reality.  This reality didn’t even need to be better, it just needed to be not my life; but it always was, better that is.  If I didn’t have my skateboard I would interpret the song and either skip to it, walk rhythmically to it, or rock out somewhere; it depended on the song really.  This was my first drug and I could not understand why nobody else wanted to live the way I was living… the only thing I wished different is for the music to play out loud and not only in my head as this tended to make me feel self-conscious or awkward in the supermarket or at public places in general.  
I needed spectacular lenses nearing my middle school days due to my incessantly close music video watching.  I needed to feel as if I were there with them so I would sit right in front of the TV set.  I even went as far as to grow my hair out and part it evenly to both sides so as to black out my peripheral vision.  I consumed music and art that went along with it as if I were a ******.  I truly believed the singers in the videos were where I wanted to be, they understood me, their words taught me the truth, their music lifted my spirits, their presence kept me company, kept me sane.  They taught me everything my parents should have.  They were my angels, my saviors.  They taught me about freedom and expression.  I began writing, singing, acting, dancing, philosophizing, creating art, creating art through life.  
Life became a music video, and I became the voice, my emotions the music, my brain the lyrics, my character a poet, personifying sacrifice.  I couldn’t understand why everyone else was so BORING! Why they didn’t see me there skipping down the street and run to catch up with me and say, “hey, what are you doing?” … or something along those lines. I didn’t understand why I was alone still in this new world.  
Nowadays I find myself in front of a computer screen, playing guitar stationary.  Waiting.  Working.  Waiting... and Working… And I will be there one day… I will join them all… I will be there with them GOD ******* ******.  I just need to get to that stage.   I will break through that ******* SCREEN and I will be that guy in the ******* TV that will make that little kid somewhere jealous of him and the world he is living in.  AND I WILL ******* INSPIRE.  UNTIL ONE DAY ONE LUCKY GENERATION WILL GET TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE YOU CAN GO OUTSIDE AND EXPRESS YOURSELF TO THE MUSIC YOU ARE LISTENING TO AND NOT BE CALLED CRAZY AND NOT BE JUDGED AND NOT BE RIDICULED AND CASTED OUT OF SOCIETY.  AND NOT THIS, AND NOT THAT, AND NOT THIS BUT WORSE, AND NOT THAT BUT TRAGIC.  I WILL ******* BREAK THROUGH THAT ******* SCREEN YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT AND I WILL KEEP THOSE LOST CHILDREN COMPANY AND I WILL MAKE THEM FEEL LOVED AND I WILL MAKE THEM FEEL ALIVE AND I WILL SAVE THEM FROM WANTING TO ******* DO IT SO ******* BADLY BECAUSE NO ONE WAS EVER THERE, BECAUSE NO ONE GAVE A ****, BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ANYTHING… but I can’t put food in their stomachs and I can’t keep them warm.. BUT ******* IT THEY WILL NOT FEEL NEGLECTED.
RAJ NANDY Apr 2016
Dear Poet Friends. Some of my earlier poems like this one, - are  available on 'Poetfreak.com'. But since that site is likely to shut down by the year end, I have decided to post some of my earlier poems on this friendly Poetry Site, to give them a fresh lease of life! Hope you like them.  Best wishes, -Raj, New Delhi.

              A TRIBUTE TO MONA LISA

BACKGROUND :
Unlike the legendary Helen of Troy her enigmatic
face never launched a thousand ships as 'Dr. Faustus'
says,
But she continues to inspire artists, poets, and
viewers alike till this day,
Even though five intervening centuries have passed
our way!
Leonardo da Vinci who had left many of his paintings
incomplete,
Commenced painting 'Mona Lisa' in 1503, taking four
long years to complete!
He had carried the portrait with him for sixteen
long years,
While seeking work in Milan, Rome, and into exile  
in France!
But after Leonardo's death in 1519, the portrait became
the possession of Francis the First, the French King .
But later, Louis the XIV had moved 'Mona Lisa' to his
Palace at Versailles!
It had also adorned Napoleon’s bedroom, who hung
it over the mantelpiece!
We learn from Art historian George Varsi, that the
portrait belonged to one Lisa Gherardini.
She was the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant,
Who had commissioned Leonardo to paint his
wife’s portrait !

AESTHETIC VALUE OF 'MONA LISA' :
Leonardo here creates an innovative painting style,
Using oil instead of tempera on poplar wood panel, -
which was unique in his time!
The three quarter pose with a wide pyramidal base,
A ‘stumato’ blending of translucent colours with
light and shade ,
Creating depth, volume, and form, with a timeless
expression on Mona Lisa’s countenance !
Here, Leonardo’s passion and pre-occupation of a
life time come together,
As he waves his magic brush to create 'Mona Lisa' !
Lisa’s mystic smile with its play of light and shade,
Appears and disappear when viewed from different
sides,
Creating an optical illusion before the viewer's eyes!
Mona’s mystic smile and her gaze, creates a mixed
emotion on her countenance,
Mesmerizing the viewers as they stand and gaze!
Insurance Companies have declared that this portrait
is beyond Insurance, -
Since its value remains Priceless !

SECURITY MEASURES ADOPTED :
In 1911, during broad daylight from Louvre in Paris,
The painting was stolen by an employee!
He hid it for two years in an attic before smuggling
it to Florence in Italy;
And was apprehended trying to sell it to an art
dealer clandestinely!
Later in 1956, a mad man named Ugo Ungaza,
Threw a rock creating a patch near the left eye of
'Mona Lisa' !
The Art Curators at Louvre now toil ceaselessly,
To preserve this fabulous painting for posterity!
Today the priceless 'Mona Lisa' is housed in a
dehumidified, air-conditioned container,
Protected in a triple bullet-proof glass chamber;
With six million tourists visiting her every year!
“It is the ultimate symbol of Human Civilization ”
  - exclaimed President Kennedy !
And with this I pay my tribute to Leonardo da Vinci !
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of
New Delhi.
..........................................................­................................
While composing the Story of Italian Renaissance in Verse, I read about 'Mona Lisa', and had composed this verse on the 30 Dec 2010.
PEARL SMOKE Sep 2014
iTs Difficult To Live Mylife,
The Struggle.
The Problems iHave And Keep Creating.
Not Knowing Who iAm
Being A Drug Addict Who Cant Seem To Stop There Bad Habit.
They Say iTs Easy You Just Want To Want iT.
Not iF You Fallen So Low, left All Alone.
iM Deep iN This ****, Deserve To Be 6ft Down To Rest.
iTs The Best.
For Everyone.
iM Doing Nothing But Disappointing The Ones Taking There Time Trying To Support Me.
Wasting There Encouragement Not Knowing iWont Last Long Before iUse And Fall Back in
The Same Cycle All ******* Over Again :/
iTs  Very Sad, To Continue This.
Been To Many Places Yet Nothing Changes,
iM Tired And Overwhelmed .
Why Am iUsing Now?
iFeel Lonely.
This Drug Fills Everything Up inside Of Me.
This is The Reason Why iWent Back To iT.
Before iT Was Cause iLoved The Effects And Kept Trying To Get High Asf Like My 1st Hit,
Then Lead To Me Going At iT Cause
My Body Felt Like iT Couldnt Function Off iT
Which Made Me An Addict .
Loving And wanting To Always Have iT.
Before iT Was Great,
Nobody Knew.
Then they Found Out The Truth.
Ever Since Then Ive Been Living Daily On Lies Having To Hide iT, Denying im On iT When Clearly iTs Obvious.
Chemicals Messing With My Mood ,
My Mind Now Plays Tricks On Me. Dont Know When itl Be Over Cause iDont think il 
 Want To ever Be Sober.
celesti May 2018
i wrote you
a letter every day
letters to tell you
just how i feel

written in neat, curved
writing i told you
just how sweet
i thought you were
how you made my heart
glow

letters in which i wrote
with various colors of ink
pouring out my whole being
to you

i wrote you
a letter every day.

i wrote you letters in which
i told you how you made me
bloom.

eventually
i found myself
pressing harder on
the paper
than i had before.

creating tears in them
similar in shape
and size
as the ones
inside of me.

i began to send
letters
with creases
and bumps
and stains
splattered with tears

pouring
from my eyes

as i wrote
the anger
bubbling within me.

my last letter
addressed to you
contained
no words

but was blank.
because
i had none that

could reach
as far

and deep

into the cracks
of my
heart

to describe
just
what you

had left
of me.
a draft i decided to finish because it took a totally different turn than originally intended.
Ete Dec 2011
We are consciousness, and only consciousness.

The consciousness that is somehow bound to the body, is conscious of everything.

Thoughts are like people moving around in the market place. Thoughts are everywhere and when we give our attention to thoughts, when our consciousness looks at thoughts, which are everywhere to be seen, which are all around us, we experience thinking.

It is very important that we understand that we are consciousness and only consiousness.

This way we can free ourselves from the prison that we are in but yet don't know we are in. Humanity is enslaved thanks to the mind. Not just because the mind exists, but because of the believes that we carry in the mind, which are believes that keep us limited. We believe things that are not truly true, and this keeps us in a kind of prison.

When we are born in a body, we are free and we are just consciousness, purely conscious.

As we grow, all the information that is already here in the world is ingested into our mind. As we continue to grow, and as all this information continues to grow in our mind, we start to forget that we are just pure consciousness. By the time we are teenagers, and by the time we start to become adults, we have totally forgotten that we are just consciousness and we live our lives in a little box because we limit ourselves with the believes that are inevitably conditioned upon us. We believe that we are this body and we are not this body. When i say we, i am talking about the consciousness, the pure consciousness.

And the problem is not only that we believe we are this body, but we grow the habit to think compulsively.

Anything in this world can become a habit, and for the mayority of humanity , thinking has become a habit.

So what happens?
The pure consciousness that you are is never pure, is never silent, is never fully conscious because first of all, we are taught to believe that we are the body-mind, and second of all, we grow the habit to always think by always having to judge ourselves to see if what  we are doing is right or wrong, to see if we are to be punished or if we are to be rewarded. And this supports and strengthens the believe that we are the thinker, that we are the body.

When we don't allow spaces of no-thought, of no-thinking, we forget that we are an empty sky.  

My effort on leaving behind all these words is to wake up as many people as possible.

People are missing a great opportunity.

People stay living in a little room when they can be living in a huge palace.

All that has to do be done is to find a little distance between thoughts, between feelings, between everything and always remain a watching presence. Now, we are always this watching presence, we are always consciousness even if we are unconscious about it. Even if we are unconscious about the fact that we are consciousness , we remain consciousness. For example, all animals are consciousness, they are awareness, but they are unaware of this. Their body limits them because it lacks intelligence. They are not fully and totally free and they can not be either. But at the same time they don't have to be. By nature they  don't have to be intelligent, they are fine just how they are and they are in the process of one day becoming conscious like we are, like the humans are. Still, there are many humans who remain unconscious of the fact that they are consciousness and only consciousness. Without shape, without form. Just consciousness, awareness, everywhere. This whole universe is consciousness and when this consciousness is merged to a body, the body is simply a contact point of the consciousness.

At some point, when the body of a baby is being developed in the mothers womb, a little spec of consciousness enters and binds to the body of the baby and this happens because through the human body, through a human experience, the consciousness is capable of becoming aware of itself and this realization is possible in any one life time, in any one human experience. But, it has not been so. It has taken many many life-times and many many people have not yet realized this. People can't even believe that they had a life before this life and that they can have a life after this life as well. People can't even conceive this. But it is true. People have been going life after life, obviously and naturally not remembering the past life, but going life after life not going beyond life. Not going beyond the human or atleast not even understanding, discovering, learning , what life is, what the human is. People remain ignorant and afraid because of the conditioning that they receive.

All conditions prevent the being from trascending their lives and consciousness because in our true nature we are totally unconditioned- free-beings. Any condition that is imposed on us goes against our very nature and anything that goes against nature is bound to have problems.  

And so my reason for saying these things that i have discovered to be true in me, is to help people remember or to atleast give people a new idea that there is the possibility of something more, of something greater than life, something with no limitations, something with no death, something that can not get sick, that can not feel pain, something of pure joy and peace , of pure love.

Every single human being is searching for this something, every single human being is searching for themselves. And they are searching because they remember. They have been themselves before. They are themselves right now. They are consciousness right now, but there are so many things in the mind that they forgot and they dont know. And when they hear something that is true, when something is said that points to that consciousness, automatically something is felt inside, something is triggered.

This whole search for truth or for enlightenment is a search for our own selfs.

It is a remembering process that happens.

Go into this search as empty as possible.

The less conditions you carry , the less knowledge you carry, the more simple and humble you are, the easier it is to remember who you are, because it does not take knowledge to know that you are consciousness, that you are awareness, it simply takes consciousness and awareness.

So it is important to be aware of everything, of every single thought that comes in and out. Be aware of the believes that you believe and the believes that you don't believe.

I don't know if there are people who for some reason are not ready to awaken, even though they can, even though every single human being can awaken, but,  there are people who have put too much into their believes, too much faith, and who can not even concieve the idea of dropping these believes, these investments. Now, the funny thing is, that even all these people who are unaware, are consciousness themselves. And it makes sense that these people who are unconscious , are here in the world so that other people can wake up, so that other people can learn from them, so that other people can see their unconsciousness, can see their behaviors, and use them towards their journey, towards their enlightenment, towards their shift of consciousness.  

"We are itself the consciousness presenting itself as human nature" - Mooji.

We , the consciousness, invisible consciousness that can not be seen nor touched, which one day was before Earth was created, that consciousness that is everywhere like space, over time has manifested itself in the world of form, in the world of matter and eventually through the movement of what appears to be time, manifested itself as a human being.

It is an invisible yet conscious phenomena that has managed to make a form out of atoms and elements, managed to make a form out of itself, out of elements of itself, and managed to create the world that we can see today. And seeing the vastness of the universe, we can see the many possibilities that exist, the many possibilities of consciousness to keep growing, to keep creating, to keep expanding, to keep evolving.  

One day i am not going to be able to express myself through Esteban, yet i will be expressing myself through other bodies, with other names. And i have been expressing myself through other bodies also, like for example one of my favorite man, Osho, Bhagwan. Osho is I. Osho is the same consciousness that is in Esteban, expressing. Now, we look different in the outside, our voices are different, our accents are different, but it is the same consciousness trying to express the same thing. Once we know that we are this limitless consciousness, we can start focusing on creating things. But right now what is important is that everybody realizes that we are this consciousness, because if not everybody knows this, then we can not create, we can not work to our full potential. Once we know who we are, once we know WHAT we are, we will know exactly what we have to do, what we can do, and we would do it with a quality that has not existed before. A quality of super consciousness, a godly quality. So before we focus on the outside world we have to focus on the inside world first. Before we can create beauty outside we have to create beauty inside, because the outside world is a reflection of the inside world.

If the inside world is not pure, is not balanced, then the outside world will not be pure, will not be balanced.

If inside of us there is tension, anxiety, fear, hate, anger, violence; this is what will be expressed outside of us. If inside of us there is love, wisdom, peace, joy, beauty; then outside of us there will be all of this as-well.

The problem is not whether we are thinking negatively or positively, the problem is that we are thinking unconsciously.

That we think negative or positive thoughts does not matter as long as we know that we are thinking. And not because we are the thinker but because thoughts are passing through the mind and here the consciousness that we are , "thinks". But it does not think as in it is doing something, it simply sees the thoughts. The consciousness does not even move, does not even blink, does not have eyes like these eyes. The consciousness just is, and the consciousness sees thoughts moving, occuring.

The problem is not that the consciousness is seeing negative thoughts, the problem is that if the consciousness is seeing negative thoughts, it believes the negative thoughts.

You forget that you are the awareness that watches thoughts, totally separate from the thoughts.

You are simply giving attention to the thoughts.

Like i said before, thoughts are moving all around you. You can not see or grab them because they are so subtle in their manifestation, yet they ARE energy in movement, they exist but in different frequencies of existence. And they are everywhere.

When we experience thoughts, what ever category of thoughts, it is because we are giving our attention to those thoughts. Every single thought is available to us. The mind is not just your mind, my mind; The mind is one universal facility, available to all.

And so, the problem is not that you are thinking negativily.

The problem is that you are thinking unconsciously.

Become more conscious of your thinking. Become conscious of thoughts. If the thoughts are negative, watch them. If the thoughts are positive, watch them. But don't judge them as negative or positive, dont judge the thinking. If negative thoughts are percieved, don't start saying to yourself  "oh why am im always thinking negatively? ;( " because this IS another thought and you are not watching it. Usually THIS is the thought that is not watched.

You watch a thought, for example, you watch a negative thought. This negative thought brings out negative emotions because thoughts are the cause of emotions. Emotions are energies-in-motion. You watch your thinking, you watch the negative thought and then you say, "oh this thought is bad, why am i thinking these thoughts? I should not be thinking this way, what is wrong with me?" that right there is a thought also and you are thinking, believing, that it is you!

Any judgement is a form of thought.

Anything that consists of words or symbols and even images are thoughts. It is all mind and the problem is that there are thoughts that are not being watched, observed, and this is keeping you unconscious and troubled.

There are many thoughts that we are not aware of.

For example, we watch a negative thought , we percieve a negative thought, but then the next thought that talks about that negative thought, we don't see because we think, believe, that we are the one who talks instead of remaining the watching consciousness that we are.

We are not the one who talks because we don't even have a mouth to talk through. We are simply and only consciousness. We use the human body as an instrument to talk and express ourselves but we remain the conscious awareness.

Those thoughts that are not being watched are keeping us from going deeper into life.

These unobserved thoughts are keeping us traped in the mind.

So if you ever ask yourself the question, what is life?
What is my purpose in life?
What should i do?
What should i not do?
If you are not out of the mind, you will not get the true answer because the mind is limited to these questions.

The mind will only give you that which has already been given. It will not give you originality.

Simply try this out:

When ever you are experiencing thinking, let the thoughts be, don't judge them as negative or positive thoughts, as good or bad thoughts, just watch them. If you do judge them and you say "*** why am i thinking that?! " watch that, watch that judgement. Keep watching, just simply watching, purely aware of every single thought, keep watching and you will start to feel a distance, a silence, a space.

See how long you can go from thought to no-thought to thought.
See how long you can remain in a silent gap between thoughts.
Watch your thoughts, watch your thinking and see how the watchingness slowly expands.
See how the silent gaps become longer.
And see the peace that these silent gaps bring.
Adam Childs Aug 2014
As the glorious LION
Stands strong in stature
Radiating with a presence
Of Absolute rule
The air washed with
A bristly respect
A natural pride
Beams with  beauty
He guards the gateway to truth
and only the brave may enter
He is the king that needs no crown
as he holds a royal presence as he
sits in his golden coat and main
Lies spark combust just bounce off
dissolve in all his shine.  

As broken men become renewed
Their fractured parts
Collect in the melting ***
Of the Lion's  stare
As they are engulfed and swallowed
In the reservoirs of his strength
As the many wounded souls
Find themselves restored
In his majestic presence
As he rattles the very fabric
Of this world

There is no procrastinating belly
Exposed by a lackluster display
No one insults his strength
By creating a make believe world
Or covers him with scaffolding so
That they may alter him
For he is the finished article
And he is never held up or supported
With anyone's emotional ropes or strings
For he no ones puppet
He is never silenced
By the Strangle hold of this world
Tightened with a multitude of gestures
For I hear his ROAR!!!!!!!!
His explosive self expression
As his throat bursts and beams like the sun
Breaking all collars, and his tongue is freed
As a thousand trap doors Open up in him  
And boulders are lifted and rocks are shattered
within the sound of his voice.
His Soft pads of silent stealth
Gather for all his wealth
As the power of his pounce
Is governed by both his strength
Of spirit and the honesty
With which he meets the earth
For he owns all of his own pain
And paces and growls to warn
Away any who seek to steal his fresh ****
And diminish him with pretty lies
For he owns all his space
As it feeds his strength
As somewhere in the fury of feasting
Lionesses and Lions  
We find our freedom
For his power explodes like a volcano
When his soul meets the earth  
As he shakes off all avoidance
To seek only truth
As streaks of white light
And pure Gold glisten in the SUN
As the world's projections
Reflect and bounce off him

There is so much to learn
From a beautiful LION
just decided to take my two poems about a LION and remove all the dead wood and see what I came up with . not sure but I love some of the lines individually
Alex Apples Feb 2013
Magnetic
down to every cell.
No, deeper.
Every atom.
Deeper still.
Every quark
vibrates against mine,
creating friction
creating heat
creating static
in my head,
electrical storms
in my skull.
Strings pull back
release
and resonate.
Particles spin
scatter
collide,
creating a universe
as matter
is unwound
and I?
I am undone.
Sara Jones May 2015
If you ask my friends what I've become
They'll start singing song lyrics
"Tried to find you t the bottom of a bottle, laying down on the bathroom floor"
"You're gone and she's gotta stay high, all the time, to keep you off her mind"
And by God they wouldn't be wrong.
I've taken up these habits and made them my own
Creating my own personal bubble that's headed straight for hell
I'm not saying what I've become is all your fault
But you certainly contributed to my status.
My chain smoking, my drug use, my increased alcohol consumption
My need to drive dangerously fast, stepping into traffic, my laying on blacktops
To everyone I know, it's as if I'm certainly flirting with Death
And I guess its true
And I'm not taking 100% of the blame
Some of it is on you.
nosipho khanyile Jul 2018
our destination is the journey
edged with culture
curved with meticulous attention
infested with corruption
fumigated with potential
waiting to reveal itself to the world
taking time to perfect itself
because like fine wine
we don't age, we mature
into something so different
refreshing the norms
creating a new era of dimensions
a relentless spirit
perfectly flawed
oh blooming flower
a tree known by its fruits
a shackled continent
waiting for the chains of judgement
to break
freeing the truth
this is africa
Pagan Paul Jul 2018
.
In a costume of conflicting emotion,
of crossing diamondic colour,
with regal posture in grief,
the Harlequin and the King,
a display of opposites
creating a composite being,
that eases her body
gently into the waiting water,
to float away serene,
on her journey to the nether.

Midnight blue and emerald green,
the regalia of ermine,
both ostentatious and humble,
robeing the aspects,
understated in crowning splendour,
the gentleman King bows,
and the Harlequin laughs,
the bi-polar reaction
to the tragedy of misfortune,
with a sting in the myth-tale.

With the dark hues of mourning,
a legend passes on her way,
across the streams of time,
on a voyage to discover herself,
carrying her Harlequin in a purse,
holding her King to her breast,
owning them both in her heart,
the medicine wheel spins,
knowing the grapes of wrath
yield the wine of spite.

The motley speckles of attire,
a starry parody of night skies,
lighting the decorated funeral barge,
gliding along the rivers of space,
worn with the mantle of sorrow,
and it sails into the sunset,
as the Harlequin and King observe,
the mandala turns,
the bier of the Queen departing,
bears their sadness forth.

The Harlequin laughs and laughs 'til he cries,
his heart grows cold, then withers and dies,
whilst the King, statuesque, memoirs his life,
lamenting the legend of a Queen, his wife.



© Pagan Paul (24/07/18)
.
jeffrey conyers Dec 2012
Cuddle in my arms, you are.
We just enjoying quiet time together.
Relaxing on the couch in the dark with a single candle burning.

Just reflecting back on our relationship.
Like when we first met.
It's been a worthy experience.
One I wouldn't trade for anything.

I remember our first kiss.
It's simply hard to forget.
It was sincere.
It was passionate.
Just like the one I've just given you.

I remember our walks in the park.
Those self made dinners we had.
Those was good times.
Just like those we are creating now.

As we are just cuddling in the dark.
Reflecting back.
Diane Nov 2013
You are forward motion.
There are no steps without your shadow
before, behind or beside me.
We are sun that reflects light on the moon
and in turn, the moon lights our paths,
the cycle of light creating light
like cycles
of love creating desire;
creating more love
creating more light
desire satisfied continual motion
even when we are still.
The words we speak  
form mist to pass through
by the moisture of our breath
shaped in letters and language.
Spaces we create
both expanded and enmeshed
by droplets of our waters
lost inside the body.
One body of water.
One body of light.
Creating passageways and shadows
in forward motion.
He has sweetness in his eyes and excitement
Dancing through the half smile he is teasing me with,
Seducing in the glimpses of white teeth exposed by
Curved dancing lips, begging to be kissed,
Tingling anticipation creating an ache
You step closer and my breathing quakes,
My chin level with your broad muscled chest
Smooth like marble defined, statuesque,
You peel off my layers of uncertainty
Starting with the top button confident hand under
Soft cotton searching, creating and finding
What I never knew that I was hiding,
Grabbing up every feeling I ever hid away,
Piled up or buried, you tipped me over,
And let me spill out onto you, you told me
I was a dark blue and tasted like shadows and honey.
You spun me when your hand was running,
Leaving trails of icy heat along me,
Called softly to my brokenness,
Your breath heated my cold shoulder and
I heard a beat inside my chest
Must have thawed my heart with your kiss.
Your hands explore my thigh,
Creating soft sighs and brightening dim eyes,
I didn’t know my light had went out,
Until this day when your gaze
Was the first spark to a flame
Burning my body, killing my shame,
You set fire creating a raging blaze.
You got inside me,
And burnt down what remained.
For so long I was afraid.
Than you pulled me down,
Emptied me out and made me
Feel again.
So you want... to get a degree
Why?
Let me tell you what society will tell you:
Increases your chances of getting a job,
Provides you an opportunity to be successful,
Be a lot less stressful,
Education is the key.

Now let me tell you something your parents will tell you:
Make me proud,
Increases your chances of getting a job,
Provides you an opportunity to be successful,
Your life will be a lot less stressful,
Education is the key.

Now let's look at the statistics,
Steve Jobs - net worth seven billion R.I.P,
Richard Branson - net worth four point two billion,
Oprah Winfrey - two point seven billion,
Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates
Now here comes the Coup de grâce,
Looking at these individuals, what's your conclusion?
Neither of them in being successful,
Ever graduated from a higher learning institution.

Now some of you may be like,
Money is only the medium by which we measure worldly success,
And some of you even have the nerve to say
"I don't do it for the money."
So what you studying for?
To work for a charity?
Need more clarity?

Let's look at the statistics:
Jesus,
Muhammed,
Socrates,
Malcolm X,
Mother Teresa,
Spielberg,
Shakespeare,
Beethoven,
Jesse Owens,
Muhammad Ali,
Sean Carter,
Michael Jeffrey Jordan,
Michael Joseph Jackson.
Were either of these people unsuccessful... or... uneducated?

All I'm saying is that,
If there was a family tree hard work and education would be related,
But school would probably be a distant cousin,
Because if education is the key,
School is the lock,
Because it rarely ever develops your mind to the point where it can perceive red as green and continue to go when someone else said stop.
Because as long as you follow the rules and pass exams your cool,
But are you aware that examiners have a checklist,
And if your answer is something outside the box then the automatic response is a cross,
And then they claim that school expands your horizons and your visions,
Well tell that to Malcolm X who dropped out of school and is world renowned for what he learn in a prison.

Proverbs 17:16
It does a fool no good to spend money on an education,
Why?
Because he has no common sense.
George Bush. Need I say more?
Education is about inspiring one's mind,
Not just filling their head,
And take this from me because I'm an 'Educated' man myself,
Who only came to this realization after countless nights in the library,
With a can of red bull keeping me awake till morning,
Another can in the morning,
Falling asleep between piles of books that probably equates to the same amount I spent on my rent,
Memorize equations, facts and dates,
Write down to the letter,
Half of which I would never remember,
And half of which I would forget straight after the exam,
Before the start of the next semester,
Asking anyone if they had notes for the last lecture.
I often found myself running to class,
Just so I could find a spot on which I could rest my head and just sleep without making a scene,
Ironic because that's the only time I ever spent in university chasing my dreams.
And then after nights with a dead-mind,
I'd den find myself in a queue of half-awake students, zombies,
Waiting to hand in an assignment,
Maybe that's why they call it a deadline.
And then after three years of mental suppression,
And frustration,
My "Proud Mother" didn't even turn up to my graduation.

Now, I'm not saying that school is evil and there's nothing to gain,
All I'm saying is: understand your motives and re-assess your aims,
If you want a job working for someone else then help yourself,
But then that would be a contradiction because you wouldn't really be helping yourself,
You'd be helping somebody else,
There's a saying that is: if you don't build your dreams, someone else will hire you to help build theirs.

Redefine how you view education,
Understand it's true meaning,
Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book,
Or someone else's opinion on a subject to pass an exam,
Look at it.
Picasso was educated at creating art,
Shakespeare was educated in the art of all that was written
Unknown
Ian Cairns Feb 2014
For centuries philosophers have speculated the role sleep plays in society
But it was not until the 1950s that sleep woke up in academia
And today sleep studies show what dormant minds really look like
Information about our rest we've never seen before
However, I've always understood the importance of bedtime
You see my parents taught me that sleep and love are soul mates

My mom
She's the sleeper
She loves to sleep
She cuddles up on any piece of furniture in my house and snoozes for hours
Never views a sitcom past the first commercial break when she's tired
And she's okay with that
Dad never lets her drive on road trips when night falls
Preferring his sleeping beauty tucked safely in the passenger seat
Their hands meet as she lets the stars serenade her to slumber
While he anchors his left hand on the steering wheel
Thanking his lucky stars for his real life princess

My dad
He's the snorer
He loves to snore
He roars like a lion on his love seat and naps for hours
Never views a sitcom past the second commercial break when he's tired
And he's okay with that
Mom never lets him sleep alone too long though
Keeping his nose plugged strong enough to signal for bedtime
They both stand together as he lets her guide him to slumber
While she ushers her left hand around his back
Thanking her lucky stars for her own prince charming

Now my parents call me the dreamer
And I sure do love to dream
It seems my parents are textbook role models for me
Because when you live inside a fairytale for far too long
Your reality becomes an endless stream of fantasies
Your expectations are exceptionally out of context
Strictly written for poetic lines in picture books
Never meant to be held
Never meant to be felt
Only meant for spines stuck on rosewood shelves

My parents call me the dreamer
And boy I love to dream
I believe in creating the unthinkable
And when you live inside a fairytale for far too long
Nothing is fictional
You picture a life with storybook endings
Praying the author never runs out of ink
You crown each syllable the king of the moment
Treating each page like royalty
And I've always been okay with that

So when I asked my mom when she knew she fell in love
She spoke of an instant of unadulterated emotion
She said she knew instantly
She didn't need to sleep on it
When I asked my dad when he knew he fell in love
He just smiled back at me
He must have known instantly
He didn't even speak on it
So when I ask myself when I might fall in love
I can't help but smile
Think of fairytale titles
Mile wide love notes in all shapes and styles
And a moment where my reality sets my hopes on fire
And I won't need to dream about it anymore
punk rock hippy Jul 2014
I want to hit it hard, not romanticize about the blood ya feel me?
As you read that first line,
when you cross over to the second,
your nose will start to bleed just before my fist connects with your face.
I often dream about it, being feared.
The only reason that you're on the ground is because I put you there.
Quite frankly I'm fearful of myself.
My throat still holds the ache of the alcohol going down.
I swear to you I'm doing better.
I swear.

I can't swear in this house hold so I will talk so quickly creating run on sentences without punctuation or breath because I'm panicking over nothing in particular.

******.

Add some shakes to your vocabulary and you've got it right.
My medication puts stray dogs under my finger nails, that's ok because dogs are happiness.
That's supposed to mean I'm happy.

I made myself write this, its horrifyingly scattered just like my head.

That's not right.
That's wrong.
Something is terribly wrong so I must fix it.

That's what I do,
I fix.
I'll just look at this as art.
Some persons trash is another ones treasure.

I'm too scared to write anymore.


This is garbage.
RAJ NANDY Mar 2016
Dear Poet Friends, and all true lovers of Jazz!  Being a lover of Classical and Smooth Jazz, I had composed first two parts in Verse on the History and Evolution of Jazz Music. Seeing the poor response of the Readers to my Part One here, I was hesitant to post my Second Part. I would request the Readers to kindly read Part One of this True Story also for complete information. Please do read the Foot Notes. With best wishes, - from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.


THE STORY OF JAZZ MUSIC : PART-II
               BY RAJ NANDY

        NEW ORLEANS : THE CRADLE OF JAZZ
BACKGROUND :
Straddling the mighty bend of the River Mississippi,
Which nicknames it as the ‘Crescent City’;
(Founded in 1718 as a part of French Louisiana
Colony),  -
Stands the city of New Orleans.
New Orleans* gets its name from Phillippe II,
Duc d’ Orleans , the Regent of France ;
A city well known for its music, and fondness
for dance.
The city remained as a French Colony until 1763,
When it got transferred to Spain as a Spanish
Colony.
But in the year 1800, the Spanish through a
secret pact, -
To France had once again ceded the Colony back!
Finally in 1803 the historic ‘Louisiana Purchase’
took place ,
When Napoleon the First sold New Orleans and  
the entire Louisiana State, -
To President Thomas Jefferson of the United
States!     * (See notes below)

THE CONGO SQUARE :
The French New Orleans was a rather liberal
place,
Where slaves were permitted to congregate,
For worship and trading in a market place,
But only on Sabbath Days, - their day of rest!
They had chosen a grassy place at the edge of
the old city,
Where they danced and sang to tom-tom beats,
Located north of the French Quarters across the
Rampart Street,
Which came to be known as the Congo Square,
Where one could hear clapping of hands and
stomping of feet!
There through folk songs, music, and varying
dance forms,
The slaves maintained their native African musical
traditions all along!
African music which remained suppressed in the
Protestant Colonies of the British,
Had found a freedom of expression in the Congo
Square by the natives; -
Through their Bamboula , Calanda, and Congo dance!
The Wolof and Bambara people from Senegal River
area of West Africa,
With their melodious singing and stringed instruments,
Became the forerunners of ‘Blues’ and the Banjo.
And during the Spanish Era, slaves from the Central
African Forest Culture of Congo,
Who with their hand-drummed polyrhythmic beats ,
Made people from Havana to Harlem  to rise and
dance on their feet!      
(see notes below)

CULTURAL MIX :
After the Louisiana Purchase , English-speaking
Anglo and African-Americans flooded that State.
Due to cultural friction with the Creoles, the new-
comers settled ‘uptown’,
Creating an American Sector, separate from older
Creole ‘down-town’ !
This black American influx in the uptown had
ushered in,
The elements of the Blues, Spirituals, and rural
dances into New Orleans’ musical scene.
Now these African cultural expressions gradually
diversified, -
Into Mardi Indian traditions, and the Second Line.^^
And eventually into New Orleans’ Jazz and Blues;
As New Orleans became a cauldron of a rich
cultural milieu!

THE CREOLES :
The Creoles were not immigrants but were home-
bred;
They were the bi-racial children of their French
Masters and their African women slaves!
Creole subculture was centred in New Orleans.
But after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803,  -
The Creoles rose to the highest rung of Society! @
They lived on the east of Canal Street in the
French Sector of the city.
Many Creole musicians were formally trained in
Paris,
Had played in Opera Houses there, and later led
Brass Bands in New Orleans.
Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Oliver, and Sidney Bechet
were all famous Creoles;
About whom I now write as this true Jazz Story
gradually unfolds.
In sharp contrast on the west of Canal Street lived
the ***** musicians,
Who lacked the economic advantages the Creoles
possessed and had!
The Negroes were schooled in the Blues, Work Songs ,
and Gospel Music;
And played by the ear with improvisation as their
unique characteristic !
But in 1894 when Jim Crow’s racial segregation
laws came into force,     # (see notes below)
The Creoles were forced to move West of Canal
Street to live with the Negroes.
This mingling lighted a ‘musical spark’ creating
a lightening musical flash;
Igniting the flames of a ‘new music’ which was
later called ‘Jazz’ !

INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY BRASS BANDS:
Those Brass Bands of the Civil War which played the
‘marching tunes’ ,
Became the precursors of New Orleans’ Brass Bands,
which later played at funeral marches, dance halls,
and saloons !
After the end of the Civil War those string and wind
instruments and drums, -
Were available in the second-hand stores and pawn
shops within reach of the poor, for a small tidy sum!
Many small bands mushroomed, and each town had
its own band stand and gazebos;
Entertained the town folks putting up a grand show!
Early roots of Jazz can be traced to these Bands and
their leaders like Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Bunk
Johnson, and Kid Orley;
Not forgetting Jack 'Pappa' Laine’s Brass Band
leading the way of our Jazz Story !
The Original Dixieland Band of the cornet player
'Nick' La Rocca,
Was the first ever Jazz Band to entertain US Service
Men in World War-I and also to play in European
theatre, came later.     (In 1916)
I plan to mention the Harlem Renaissance in my
Part Three,
Till then dear Readers kindly bear with me!

CONTRIBUTION OF STORYVILLE :
In the waning years of the 19th Century,
When Las Vegas was just a farming community,
The actual ‘sin city’ lay 1700 miles East, in the
heart of New Orleans!
By Alderman Story’s Ordinance of 1897,
A 20-block area got legalized and confined,  
To the French Quarters on the North Eastern side
called ‘Storyville’, a name acquired after him!
This 'red light' area resounded with a new
seductive music ‘jassing up’ one and all;
Which played in its Bordello, Saloons, and the
Dance Halls !         (refer  my Part One)
Now the best of Bordellos hired a House Pianist,
who also greeted guests, and was a musical
organizer;
Whom the girls addressed respectfully as -
‘The Professor’!
Jelly Roll Morton, Tony Jackson author of
‘Pretty Baby’, and Frank ‘Dude’ Amacher, -
Were all well-known Storyville’s ‘Professors’.
Early jazz men who played in Storyville’s Orchestra
and Bands are now all musical legends;
Like ‘King’ Oliver, Buddy Bolden, Kid Orley, Bunk
Johnson, and Sydney Bechet.      ++ (see notes below)
Louis Armstrong who was born in New Orleans,
As a boy had supplied coal to the ‘cribs’ of
Storyville !          ^ (see notes below)
Louis had also played in the bar for $1.25 a night;
Surely the contribution of Storyville to Jazz Music
can never be denied!
But when America joined the First World War in
1917,
A Naval Order was issued to close down Storyville;
Since waging war was more important than making
love the Order had said !
And from the port of New Orleans US Warships
had subsequently set sail.
Here I now pause my friends to take a break.
Part Three of this story is yet to be composed,
Will depend on my Reader’s response !
Please do read below the handy Foot Notes.
Thanks from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.

FOOT NOTES:-
New Orleans one of the oldest of cosmopolitan city of Louisiana, also the 18th State of US, & a major port.
Louisiana was sold by France for $15 Million, & was later realized to be a great achievement of Thomas Jefferson!
Many African Strands of Folk Music & Dance forms had merged at the Congo Square.
^^ ’Second Line Music’= Bands playing during funerals & marches, evoked voluntary crowd participation, with songs and dances as appropriate forming a ''Second Line'' from behind.
@ Those liberal French Masters offered the Creoles the best of Education with access to their White Society!
# ’Jim Crow'= Between 1892 & 1895, 'Blacks' gained political prominence in Southern States. In 1896 land-rich whites disenfranchised the Blacks completely! A 25 year's long hatred
& racial segregation began. Tennessee led by passing the ‘Jim Crow’ Law ! In 1896, Supreme Court upheld this Law with -  ‘’Separate But Equal’’ status for the Blacks. Thus segregation became a National Institution! This segregation divided the Black & White Musicians too!
+ Birth of Jazz was a slow and an evolving process, with Blues and Ragtime as its precursor!    “Jazz Is Quintessence of  Afro-American Music born on European Instruments.”
++ Jelly ‘Roll’ Morton (1885-1941) at 17 years played piano in the brothels, – applying swinging syncopation to a variety of music; a great 'transitional figure' between Ragtime & Jazz Piano-style.
++ BUDDY BOLDEN (1877-1931) = his cornet improvised by adding ‘Blues’ to Ragtime in Orleans  during 1900-1907, which later became Jazz! BUNK JOHNSON (1879-1849 ) = was a pioneering jazz trumpeter who inspired Louis Armstrong.  KID OLIVER (1885-1938) =Cornet player and & a Band-leader, mentor & teacher of Louis Armstrong; pioneered use of ‘mute’ in music! ‘Mute’ is a device fitted to instruments to alter the timber or tonal quality, reducing the sound, or both.
KID ORLEY (1886-1973) : a pioneering Trombonist, developed the '‘tailgate style’' playing rhythmic lines underneath the trumpet & cornet, propagating Early Jazz.  SYDNEY BECHET (1897-1959) = pioneered the use of Saxophone; a composer & a soloist, inspired Armstrong. His pioneering style got his name in the ‘Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame’! LOUIS ARMSTRONG (1890-1971) = Trumpeter, singer, & great improviser. First international soloist, who took New Orleans Jazz Music to the World!  
% = After America joined WW-I in 1917, a Naval Order was issued to shut-down  Storyville, to check the spread of VD amongst sailors!
^^ ”Cribs”= cheap residential buildings where prostitutes rented rooms. Louis Armstrong as a boy supplied coal in those ‘Cribs’.
During the 1940 s  Storyville was raised to the ground to make way for Iberville Federal Housing Project.
ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR : RAJ NANDY **
E-Mail : rajnandy21@yahoo.in
My love for Jazz Music made me to dig-up its past History and share it with few interested Readers of this Site! Thanks, -Raj
Becky Littmann May 2014
Their mouth NEVER ******* seems to shut up & just stop
& **** snitches don't hesitate to quickly name drop
Twisting everything they'll hear
Creating lies & rumors like it is their career!
SO WATCH YOUR BACK, they are only a pretend friend
They're scary & **** identical when they're an impersonator
Nice & kind so they seem, turn away they'll be a backstabbing hater
NOBODY has time for all that ridiculous nonsense
Just attention seekers, without their usually faithful but now gone audience
Desperately trying to remain in the center of attention, cleary blind to the EXTREME  obvious!
You never really deserved to ever be forgiven
I'm done wasting my time & voice on someone who will NEVER listen
Ohhh yah a FYI, a friendship isn't a competition
But more like a dynamic duo always down for a random mission!
Oh well, no coming back now I'm not changing my decision!
Deuces!
To all those fake friends we have all had!
Prachi Aug 2018
I'm sorry!
for not talking to you all these years.
I don't know the reason,
Maybe because I was disillusioned,
or may be because I misjudged,
and I was imprudent.

But that day when I heard you name,
I couldn't stop myself from talking to you.
I found myself in the memory lane,
and all divergence creating reminiscence.
Tears rolled at the pace of the emergence;
of all memories sweet and bitter.

I made a good decision and talked to you,
never expected you to take it so lightly
as if nothing
ever happened between us,
You are the best brother ever,
but neither I am nor I was a good sister.
I'm sorry!
I spoke to my cousin after a long time. I did not speak with him  for 5 years.But he took it lightly,and it made me happy.
Raphael Uzor May 2014
The intermittent, distant rumbling in the skies was suggestive of chronic flatulence. The sun struggled in futility to shine – like a crying child who had been forced to smile. Lightning flashed in quick successions, momentarily throwing brilliant streaks of white light across the room. The angry growl of thunder that followed was enough to send a troop of Howler monkeys scampering for safety.

The lights flickered as though unable to make up their minds to stay or not to. But apparently, the wind had zero tolerance for such petty indecisiveness. And like an enraged, stimulated, demented animal, it gusted through the windows and doors, hauling loose papers, light bulbs in every direction, shattering the bulbs to smithereens, as if to punish them for being so fickle. The lights died.

Thick black blankets eerily stretched across the skies with gusto, menacingly extinguishing whatever was left of the sun’s brilliance. More rumbles and flashes followed in royal herald of the impending storm. And in no time, slick sheets of rain torrentially came pouring down, cascading the roofs to form puddles almost as soon as they hit the ground.

​I looked in horror, fervently praying that whoever God had appointed to build the ark in our time had not diverted the funds. I was trapped in the office, and I knew exactly what this meant…flood, scarcity of buses, hiked transport fares, heavy taffic and very likely, at least one month of blackout.
It would be another three hours of steady downpour before the rain eventually stopped, as gracefully as it had been ushered in.
I picked up my bag, rolled up my trousers in earnest anticipation of the inevitable flood, and made my way home.

​To my utter bewilderment, there were no floods! The lights from the street lamps cast a soft golden glow on the slick roads, seemingly creating mirages of pools of water from afar off. But they were mere illusions. The gurgling sound coming from the underground drainage was proof of where all the water had gone. It was a strange sight. Like some alien cyborg from space had been fiddling with a time machine that had accidentally propelled us twenty years into the future.

My new world was a three-fold utopian dream. So surreal!
I could see beautiful, high-rise, state of the art edifices with mind-blowing architectural designs that blatantly seemed to defy the laws of gravity. I could see world-class hospitals that admitted ailing dignitaries from around the world and top-notch schools that offered scholarships to deserving indigenous and international students.
Sure enough, this was Nigeria! The Nigeria we all dreamed of.

And there was light…electricity! - In myriad of colours that seemed to have been dispersed from several colossal disco ***** via *“wireless fidelity”
technology. I strained to hear the noise from generators, but I was disappointed. I couldn’t even hear the all too familiar cacophony of horns blaring, conductors shouting, loud discordant music, rattling vehicle engines etc. It was like everyone and everything had taken a crash course on orderliness.

I saw a vibrant transportation system that included high speed railway lines, paved road networks that looked like a child’s doodles, first-class air strips and efficient sea transportation.
I saw a working government - one that had provided the critical infrastructure for her people.

I saw a nation with a large industrialized economy, where the dividends of democracy had been delivered to the people by their government. One consciously founded on equity and honesty of purpose, and courageously sustained by unfaltering faithfulness and unwavering patriotism.      
A nation whose economic boost did not come solely from crude oil exploration and production, but also from crude oil refining, agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, food, services, tourism, automobiles, transportation, education etc.
A nation that thronged with international investors from all walks of life, who were not in the least afraid to invest in her.

And then, I saw her people. A people proud of their citizenship.
A people proud to be called NIGERIANS.
A people who were not given to religious, political, or tribal bigotry.
A people who individually and collectively, gallantly bore the torch of the vision of their heroes past.
A people who earnestly and persistently worked to see only goods “Made in Nigeria” sold in their markets.

Where there was once despair, I saw hope. Where there was once fear, i saw security. Where there was once disgruntlement, I saw satisfaction. Where there was once poverty, I saw wealth opportunities and where there was unemployment, I saw jobs. Death had given way to life and life to hope.

I started, as I felt something cold and wet trickle down my forehead. It was droplets of rain from a leak in the roof just above my head. I was still in my office, I never left. The rain had lulled me to sleep. Even more sadly, I realized it had all been a dream.
Slowly and regretfully, I packed my things and left for home. It was pitch black outside as I carefully waded through the polluted waters, jauntily holding my bag, more because I was afraid to lose it in the flood than in a hopeless bid to dignify the situation.

Two hours later, I crawled into bed. I did not have to turn the lights off…the electric poles had gone for a swim. A very long one.



© ONUGHA EBELE VICTORIA
This is NOT my work, but I found it amazingly share worthy.
Kelly Rose Feb 2015
Another sleepless night
3am, a bit beyond
the witching hour

A time of quiet reflection
Remembering dreams lost
& Creating dreams to be

Thinking of past sorrows
Anticipating tomorrow's
Joys

Another sleepless night

Contemplating Life's mystery
And
Marveling at the
Wonder of it all...
2/8/2015
KetomaRose
Marlo Jun 2014
Although,
I wish for you to see me.
Dancing to music, totally lost.
Laughing, beautiful.
Being silly, the girl you fell for.
Creating new paintings, memories...
But rather than just seeing me,
Be there with me.
Prove predictions.
*Together,forever.
More hopeful
. *** .
MeganW Nov 2014
You told me that you and I were not just a forest but a state park
Our lives were like roots of trees that have just begun to get entangled in each other
There is no you without me or me without you
We are together
We are one
Slowly we are creating something so extraordinarily beautiful
People will come from miles and miles away to be inspired by our love and stare in awe of how truly rare and wonderful it is
You and I are creating life
You and I are creating what others only dream of
So let us water these hearts of our that have become one
Let me kiss you so deeply you forget whose air you are breathing and our lungs become the same
It may be winter outside but inside of us spring is constantly blooming
Our passion is as hot as wildfire I just pray it never burns this forest down

— The End —