bildings in roowins
I rite with brokin-hand


it is the year of the unlord-tyms 2085
and skool hadbin abolishd since fyv decades
evrything in disrepair -
                    no hospitills no parks
                    no creche no greens
all grey and dark

now here I lie amid the rubble
I see they took my legs for under-market
what else did they take?
**** *******!
belly rumbles
the last I'd eaten was 2 days on
a chunk of hard-bread whose colour would turn envy in its boots
with artifishal-milk whose curdled smile greeted the back of my arid existence

**** bastarrrrrrds! they put me under, sawed off my legs
left me hobbling with jagged wounds and smirk-pain like hot-rods searing my brand-new stubs
elementary-bandage of an old sheet torn into strips...

wait, I must use this anger as fuel to get me going
she told me so
many, many times..




(I can remember my mother reading to me
reciting from her memory
they had burnt evry-single-book Man had ever known
                My eyes have never been graced with a book
but
she tort me words with stick in sand
and counting with stones
and there were many stones
               she fed me poetry when there was little else to eat
with fainting-body and starving-belly
my mind took pleasure in her ultimate-care
               she told me of a time when childrin took poor-interest
in the blessings of a book.. wen their minds were swallowed wholemeal by what they called media, I think
when they were not saddled with the worry of their next meal's magical-appearance
                (I can spell 'their' at least, yes.. she made sure I knew the difference)
the only pictures I saw were the ones she drew for me
in the volcanic beach-sand when we ran away from the parasitic-city
                I knew nothing of the world but what I saw around me
                        - decay, decay, decay
until she brought me colour - rite into the hart of me -
                           blooms that hurt at first, so bright and giving
                           that it saturated every molecule in my parched-centre
                           and I became a rainbow-suffused capsule in a otherwise drab-society
such wonder she spoke with open-eyes and loving-tones

and I also remember.. the day they took her..
I remember.. too much)



I crawl forward like a snake in the .. wait, what was that expreshin again?
I'll think later when I find a place to harbour my broken-body
                     thought is a luxury here
thers a horrible smoke in the air
          stings me so
and I miss her so
I have nobody left
but I cannot feel forsaken, as so many do
and succumb to self-pity
she made sure my armour grew
                 from the inside.. first
yet.all.the.while.she.watered.my.hungry.mind
and I took it with disbelief painted on my face
the things she told me about..




                I cannot believe there once were -
green fields and trees with chirping birds
a blue sky
blue? not possible
I've never seen a blue sky
I think she was being kind to paint me portraits of psychedelia
   to entertain and distract me
   from the horror of our lives
I heard tales of things called flowers - daisies and things
like vegetables and fruit
it seemed funny to me - little beings in the ground,
                                       growing
                                       standing rooted, awaiting harvest-hands
               just for people??
uncredibill
waaaat???
no..  such depth of kindness I can hardly imagine
for we have had only *hard-earth.. most concreted
and drank only brack-water from collapsing pipes
no, an unforgiving-scene is all I know
yet
     she is so kind to feed me such fantasy-tales of deep-imaginashin
     pity she could not tell any others
     for any tenth-of-a-whisper of this to any wrong-ear
and her head would roll
in the gutter.. where we lived in contest with rats
she could only rally my mind and relay things which would die with her
things that she bequeaths
to me

what will I do with it? this legacy of forgotten-paradise..
what can I do?   this wonder-clad heresy..
                I now know thers a way out these city walls
                ther is a life beyond
with valleys and rivers and salty-seas
I must try to find a river
she told of oceans which live - which heave and swell and move!
she said these things too .. they exist
what quaint-things, indeed
oh, for dreems..

but now, I must off the streets
for a double-darkness has begun to fall
when red-eyes will scour the streets for scraps of flesh
        anything is worth a barter
        even a dead-man in a lane whose eyeballs are gone
        harshly-hacked out living - by a previous-visitor
becomes a piece of currency for seekers of the dark

I don't know what they've done to her.. or where she is now..
yet, she always said - keep moving
                                   keep searching
for blue-sky and flowing-rivers and yellow-flowers..
(I wonder if it's real
I do believ her - I must)*




now I scrape on in haste into a darkening-alley
towards a derelict-bilding
whose sinister-interior is the only welcome it can afford me
             I have little choice
             no time for sentiment
plus, I feel a fever coming (perhaps this is all the dreem.. and she is the only-flower I know)
the night-Rats will come out soon
and I hate their stink
it doesn't help I leave a trail of blood..




now
only hoap lives
on
in hobbled-soul

as I rite on with brokin-hand
onto the back-pages.. of my mind




S T -  5 octoblah

It was also my violent heart that broke,
falling down the front hall stairs.
It was also a message I never spoke,
calling, riser after riser, who cares

about you, who cares, splintering up
the hip that was merely made of crystal,
the post of it and also the cup.
I exploded in the hallway like a pistol.

So I fell apart. So I came all undone.
Yes. I was like a box of dog bones.
But now they've wrapped me in like a nun.
Burst like firecrackers! Held like stones!

What a feat sailing queerly like Icarus
until the tempest undid me and I broke.
The ambulance drivers made such a fuss.
But when I cried, "Wait for my courage!" they smoked

and then they placed me, tied me up on their plate,
and wheeled me out to their coffin, my nest.
Slowly the siren slowly the hearse, sedate
as a dowager. At the E. W. they cut off my dress.

I cried, "Oh Jesus, help me! Oh Jesus Christ!"
and the nurse replied, "Wrong name. My name
is Barbara," and hung me in an odd device,
a buck's extension and a Balkan overhead frame.

The orthopedic man declared,
"You'll be down for a year." His scoop. His news.
He opened the skin. He scraped. He pared
and drilled through bone for his four-inch screws.

That takes brute strength like pushing a cow
up hill. I tell you, it takes skill
and bedside charm and all that know how.
The body is a **** hard thing to ****.

But please don't touch or jiggle my bed.
I'm Ethan Frome's wife. I'll move when I'm able.
The T. V. hangs from the wall like a moose head.
I hide a pint of bourbon in my bedside table.

A bird full of bones, now I'm held by a sand bag.
The fracture was twice. The fracture was double.
The days are horizontal. The days are a drag.
All of the skeleton in me is in trouble.

Across the hall is the bedpan station.
The ***** and stools pass hourly by my head
in silver bowls. They flush in unison
in the autoclave. My one dozen roses are dead.

The have ceased to *******. They hang
there like little dried up blood clots.
And the heart too, that *******, how it sang
once. How it thought it could call the shots!

Understand what happened the day I fell.
My heart had stammered and hungered at
a marriage feast until the angel of hell
turned me into the punisher, the acrobat.

My bones are loose as clothespins,
as abandoned as dolls in a toy shop
and my heart, old hunger motor, with its sins
revved up like an engine that would not stop.

And now I spend all day taking care
of my body, that baby. Its cargo is scarred.
I anoint the bedpan. I brush my hair,
waiting in the pain machine for my bones to get hard,

for the soft, soft bones that were laid apart
and were ******* together. They will knit.
And the other corpse, the fractured heart,
I feed it piecemeal, little chalice. I'm good to it.

Yet lie a fire alarm it waits to be known.
It is wired. In it many colors are stored.
While my body's in prison, heart cells alone
have multiplied. My bones are merely bored

with all this waiting around. But the heart,
this child of myself that resides in the flesh,
this ultimate signature of the me, the start
of my blindness and sleep, builds a death creche.

The figures are placed at the grave of my bones.
All figures knowing it is the other death
they came for. Each figure standing alone.
The heart burst with love and lost its breath.

This little town, this little country is real
and thus it is so of the post and the cup
and thus of the violent heart. The zeal
of my house doth eat me up.

In a creche,behind the mesh in Zanzibar or Bangladesh,kids are reigned in,chained up,emptied of the loving cup that childhood gives,
who lives like this so they can miss the fun of being young?
who sticks the chiv in,trims the day,who works them for so little pay?

Look in your high street shops at hopscotch clothes from hopscotch kids in hopscotch homes, on the skids and before you buy,before you try on one more suit born from some child's unlived youth,the truth is out there in the things you buy,'cry freedom'in your cheap t-shirts and cut price flowing patterned skirts,but
the truth remains and stains your heart as sure as if you were a part of sweatshops sweating out the lives of tiny tots and will high street shops, always be the outlets for this insanity?
I'm sure the answer will arrive
eventually.

I WENT BACK TO THE CHRISTMAS PLAY
I HAVEN'T BEEN IN YEARS
AND JUST LIKE  ALL THE TIMES BEFORE
I BROUGHT ALONG SOME BEERS
IT WAS MY YOUNG SON'S DAUGHTER
WHO I HAD COME TO SEE
SHE WAS BETTER THAN MY SON HAD BEEN
SHE WAS WISE MAN NUMBER THREE

THE STORY, IT REMAINED THE SAME
OF JESUS AND HIS BIRTH
OF HOW THE ANGELS CAME AND TOLD
TO THE SHEPHERDS HERE ON EARTH
THE BOY WHO PLAYED THE ANGEL
WAS SUPPORTED BY A HOIST
HE WAS EXTREMELY NERVOUS
WHICH MADE HIS WINGS QUITE MOIST

HIS NAME WAS DAN AND HE WAS FROM
A TOWN OUTSIDE OF WHEELING
THE HOIST GAVE WAY AND ALL I SAW
WAS DAN SINGH ON THE CEILING
HE LANDED SAFE, THE PLAY WENT ON
AND NO ONE WAS THE WISER
UNTIL A WATER PIPE DID BREAK
AND STARTED SPEWING QUITE THE GEYSER

I SAT AND WATCHED WITH MY YOUNG SON
WE KEPT IT TO OURSELVES
BUT ONE WISE MAN WAS SIX FEET TALL
AND MADE THE OTHERS LOOK LIKE ELVES
I THOUGHT BACK TO THE  TIMES BEFORE
OF HOW THE PLAY ONCE WAS
IT NEVER REALLY WORKED OUT RIGHT
AND WE NEVER KNEW THE CAUSE

BUT HEADS FELL  OFF AND DONKEYS PEED
AND ANGELS LOST THEIR WINGS
BUT THESE WE ALL EXPECTED
THESE WERE SURELY SPECIAL THINGS
THAT MADE EACH PLAY DIFFERENT
EACH PLAY BECAME IT'S OWN
SPECIAL LITTLE MOMENT
AND EACH ONE STOOD  ALONE

NO ONE PLAY WAS PERFECT
BUT NEVER WOULD WE SAY
WE RATHER WOULD HAVE STAYED AT HOME
THAN COME OUT THERE THIS DAY
REMEMBER NOW, SOME YEARS HAD PASSED
SINCE I FIRST SAW THIS SHOW
F/X HAD NOW BEEN ADDED
AND THE BABY'S CRIB, IT GLOWED

THEY TAPED A BABY CRYING
TO COME OUT FROM THE CRECHE
IT WAS THE FIRST TIME EVER
JESUS CRIED LIKE DJ FRESH
THE TAPE THEY USED WAS BORROWED
BUT THE KIDS THEY DID THEIR DUTY
BUT IN THE BACK, BEHIND THE CRYS
WE ALL HEARD "SHAKE YER *****"

I CLOSED MY EYES PERCHANCE TO THINK
OF TIMES SO LONG AGO
OF FIGHTING THROUGH THE TRAFFIC
AND DRIVING IN THE SNOW
I LOOKED ACROSS AND THEN I SAW
MY SON HAD DONE THE SAME
I WONDERED THEN IF HE THOUGHT BACK
AND IF THIS  WAS JUST A GAME

THE PLAY WENT ON WITH OUT MUCH FUSS
AND WE ALL STOOD UP AND CHEERED
FOR EACH AND EVERY CHILD THERE
AND THE FEW THAT HAD REAL BEARDS
I SOUND AS THOUGH IT IS A WASTE
OF TIME, BUT THEN AGAIN
NEXT YEAR I KNOW THAT I'LL RETURN
TO WATCH FROM EIGHT TILL TEN.

Oh Holiday Tree, Oh Holiday Tree
We named you inoffensively.
Your boughs have been de- Christianized
Rededicated to mankind
Oh Holiday Tree, Oh Holiday tree
takes all denominations

Oh Holiday Tree, Oh Holiday tree
Enjoyed by Jew and Pagan.
You twinkle with a million lights
like the Universe of Carl Sagan.
Oh Holiday Tree, Oh Holiday Tree
Takes all denominations.

Oh Holiday Tree, Oh Holiday Tree
No Creche beneath your branches
Atop your pine- No Star Divine
instead a golden dollar sign
Oh Holiday Tree, Oh Holiday Tree
takes all denominations

What was once water, now ice,
         Fall has begun to winter-over,
          Crackles and breaks, sections slice
        Grass green-brown but no clover,
What was once warmer, now bites,
into flesh,
into light clothing,
have no fear or loathing,
never heinous or aimless
looking for the creche,
for what is not worthless,
is priceless,
not painless,
but with difficulty
admit it, found faulty,
forgiven,
rewired,
good liven,
inspired,
stay warm people as the shroud of the Arctic, glides down like the temperature falling,
don't turn a deaf ear, share of your surplus and good cheer, do you hear, the street calling,
                                                        ­                                        do you hear, in the sprawling,
of anycity, voices of those who, the cold is told to show no mercy, so be kind... as outside in winter ********************­********
                                                                ­                                                          is appalling.


©DWE122013

I will become food for the worms
and they'll take it in turns
to feed on my flesh

I will be a creche for their young
what fun,
can't wait.

But
It won't be me there
so why should I care?

It'll be the suitcase that carried me
from point A
to point B

Still food for the worms though
and that's a thought to think upon
when I'm gone.

There! In the hill country! Can you not see?
Behold the swaddled babe, God in the flesh!
Compose new hymns and new psalms! It is He!
Write an icon! Paint the scene! Build a creche!

Carve a statue of the mystery great,
Chant aloud the heav’nly consummation
Spill oceans of ink in tomes to debate
The metaphysics of incarnation!

Record it, however you are inclined!
For He has spoken, the Lord above you,
He shan’t take it back, He’s spoken his mind,
Through the infant He declares: “I love you!”

GLORY ON EARTH

The Child is lying in the creche,
And we're around Who gets in flesh.
We are surprised with eyes in tears;
God Himself comes to bring us cheers.

I rub my eyes to clear my sight
And see Him more; can that be right ?
The Lord is here in crib He lies
Just near my heart and amazed eyes.

The Child extends His hand to dry
The tears that well from my stunned eye.
I kneel to kiss His little feet;
Toes like pine nuts with charm complete.

All people come and Him surround.
Their hearts cheer up with cherubs' sound
As they sing with a voice so sweet
The word of Gloria they repeat.

BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                You Were in Bethlehem – Don’t You Remember?

                             Setting up the family Creche

When you were a little child you knelt before
The Infant Jesus there in Bethlehem
Among the animals you placed your toys:
Barbie and Buzz, and Woody the Cowboy too

Even the Wise Men smiled to hear you sing
To the Holy Family your baby songs
In cold Judaea in the long ago
The Christmas story is true, and you were there

And so forever

You are a Christmas child and kneel before
The Infant Jesus – here in Bethlehem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  Decorating for Christmas – “What Can I Do?”

A little girl tugged at my arm and asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Senora Anil because I didn’t know

She came to me again and sadly asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Miz Bev because I didn’t know

She came to me once again and sadly asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Senor Nicho because I didn’t know

Some sturdy young teens brought in the Creche
And there the little girl knelt and placed the straw
And then each figure in turn; she talked to them
And cautioned them all to keep Baby Jesus warm

And that’s what a little girl can do

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, what the **** do we have here?
Your designation is unknown, and it isn't all that clear!
Are you a Homosexual, or some kind of a Queer?
Maybe your a powder puff, who takes it up the rear?

I'm sorry Sam I'm not quite sure, what you are meant to be!
Are you a **** or a Tom cat, or combined he and she?
Things may change, but now you say, you are none binary
Just because there's fake options, which doesn't impress me.

You look like **** but that's okay, it clearly is your goal
And it is good that your outfit, looks like a toilet roll.
Do you stash a little Sam, or is there just a hole?
Or could you be a Nancy Boy, inside a Barbie Doll?

Why don't you wear a *****, you could join the local creche
It's better than that corset, because your pressing too much flesh
The bulging is not flattering, and it really does not mesh
Even Frank 'N Furter had panache, and his sausage is still fresh

The front is just disgusting, you simple have no class
You may think your being diverse, but really your just crass
Does being dull come natural, cos your like unpolished brass
What you say, well no one cares, so blow it out your ****

Your hardly inspirational, and your clothes look like a rag
A Wooly woofer comes to mind, so does a bent gay ***
Perhaps your just a fat guy, who is terrible in drag?
I don't think you are progressive, your more like a ******* lag

For ***** sake Sam it seems your cards, are missing from the deck
But it's said you were conceived, from a creature known as shrek?
Well, well, well if that's your source, then what do we expect
No wonder people look at you, and say "what the ******* heck".

Even ******* have some brains, it isn't all that tricky
But it's entirely possible, that your mother was Queen Vicky
Fairy cakes are the results, from monarch's and green dicky
Your nothing more than just a ****, and classed as a Doohicky

You'll never be a legend, and your hardly just a myth
Because your act is wooden, and your singing voice is stiff
I think I've found the answer, so I'll never plead the fifth
Since you are a mixture, your the legion of Sam Smith

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   In the Stable on Christmas Eve

                                            For Tod and Max

My friend prays at the Stable each Christmas Eve
In statio at St. Michael’s, waiting for the Light
(But indolent half-pagan that I am
I want an early bed on any night)

This year the Stable must be a room at home
A candle, a creche, a plastic ox and lamb
A very real dog who might speak at midnight
And coffee and quiet remembrances with Max

Wherever we must wait for Jesus to be born
There is the Stable, and then the happiest morn

WHERE  IS  HEAVEN ?

Grudge, how awful you become
when you make a heart your home.
You the throne of God destroy,
source of love and greatest joy.

God makes man's heart His own throne,
where his love is fully grown,
building heaven from the flesh,
which becomes love's holy creche.

Heaven dwells inside my heart,
and endows me greatest height.
Love is kept in secure place
where the Child can lie in peace.

Highest skies, you are just void.
Heaven can't be in that world.
Heaven's where whom l adore
nestles in the depth of core.

BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________

patchwork fields heavy with lambs kicking up their heels
and the gambolling calves all in a creche watched over by aunts
all new born this spring
all from the wellspring
all from the deeps of mystery
brand new to the skies of the World and of the Universe.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    A Brief Christmas Truce

An evening of coffee and little gifts exchanged
The tension in the air suggests a ceasefire
A ceasefire called moments before we arrived
Everyone commanded to hold their positions

A wounded husband bleeds out near the eggnog
His wife sharpens her bayonet by the creche
Eager for the bugle to sound once again
For an advance all along the battle line

A child stares sullenly into his video game
It is the only Christmas peace he’s going to get

Dear Sheeples of our dense green isles
sheeps of every land and realms
dear proxies and flying monkeys so fair
united we stand as strong as elms

Note the puppetry but an empty vice
just songs and dances for nought
tests you all obey orders without a price
for you behave with no thought

The real crux if you saps must know
is to isolate without any support
we cowards know that's icy as snow
mobbing to weaken with no abort

We batter head to drive him insane
**** his fine mind to confusion
rip his feelings to shreds let him wane
we're barbarians with compulsion

Arise you labourers of depravity
we want our pound of flesh
he mocks us an laughs at our travesty
we of the ghettos not some creche

So dear sad servants hang in there
we've cut off his donkey ****
his head is next for us all to share
we're thick but he is elite tick
(at least that's what we've decided, but remember we're thick)

CHRISTMAS
In Your creche, l find Your target
of the love the world would neglect.
People live in their high tower
and the Lord's in His stone bower.

People are pleased with their gaining
through corruption and misdealing.
Power of the flesh is haughty
and it builds on boasts and cruelty.

Lord, on hay and in your cradle
like a lamb, You are so feeble
Lying meekly in a manner
when observed, the mighty cower.

In Your mildness, there is glory
telling us Your greatness' story.
It reveals and shows Your purpose:
the sublime love's found in weakness.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
____________