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ANANDO SEN Dec 2009
Thirty feet tall Madonna, is one of the things-

My ultra-stylish city that grew up,

Rave, raunchy catwalks beneath those chandeliers-

The Toyota drives by the Manhattan Beach, amidst bikini wardrobe.

When I read those Taxi-dance barbettes-

I wish I could lost in their growling gowns,

All my wishes fulfilled one day and flew me down there-

My boasting finance job and some pals were African browns!

It was that ultimate visa down the Fashion Avenue-

Most of their lipstick glosses were supported by Chelsea revenue.

I could not breathe the invisible virus against my immunity,

The enigmatic pleasures that lived inside the skyscraper community-

I had no qualms while cherishing the barbeque restaurants poisoning,

My fascinations without imaginations had no logical reasoning-

Many of us at Saint Clair’s ward#3, NYC, were at once there fugitive-

Now moaning like chickens to be butchered, we are all *** positive!


Did you know that…

Pop diva Madonna is a gay icon and the gay community has embraced her as a pop culture icon. She was introduced to the gay community while still a teenager. It was her ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn, a gay man, who first told Madonna that she was beautiful. He introduced her to the local gay community of Detroit, Michigan, often taking her to the local gay bars. Flynn encouraged Madonna to walk away from her full scholarship to the University of Michigan and to move to Manhattan.



The disease of AIDS…
Was first uncovered in homosexual men
From Manhattan


Synopsis

What happens when your dreams turn into reality? It’s a paradigm that you celebrate, live life to the fullest. There is however, life that exists beyond this celebration, sometimes good and sometimes not so good like you expected. And when it becomes not so good like you expected, you spat with bitterness and associate the term bad. Anything against your wish and will is then bad and one day you might fall into live with this bad. All I can say is that they are individual retrospection.

This is what Manhattan Dreams exactly captures. The first half can successfully open the door of fascinations that a college teenager in search of a lucrative career and living might jump into- “Style, fashion, exuberance, beaches, skyscrapers, stardom and what not!” Everything is colorful about Manhattan, even the way it is spelt and pronounced. A financial job inside a long cherished skyscraper, international friends, restaurants, pubs, smoking, the kind of gay evenings are not only meant for Hollywood films but can happen to someone like you. And then one day, the world economy complains your presence there as a fugitive, you are fired from your job and your world crashes to a clinic or a hospital confirming you *** positive. What will you do then?

That is what you are getting from the second half of the poem. As if the drama has reached a ****** like after the interval in a film. There seems a sudden pause in life from where there leads the road to uncertainty, disappointment and delusion. This is where the poem ends, because this is where the human mind stops thinking often. A never before kind of bitterness cataracts the dreamy visions and the object of your dream becomes an excuse of your current defeat.

Manhattan Dreams is not a criticism of the gay culture. Neither it attempts to de-criminalize the society nor does it pollute the appeal of Manhattan at all. It is the victim’s individual retrospection in the other side of his celebrated life which is no more a celebration now. The stylish Manhattan is both a dream and a reality. It has nothing to do with your personal glory or agony. Depending upon the situation in your life it might serve as your forefront or background.
all of
America’s
gubmint hatin
yahoos, pining
to get their
country back,
should grab
yer rifles, stock
up on ammo
and giddy up
down  to Texas
to join the
secessionists
headin out
of the Union

Rick Perry
promises to
keep his promise
to close all the
gubmint departments
he can't remember
the names of

Ron Paul will
finally be liberated
from the tyranny
of his federal
paycheck and
can return to
his district to
practice medicine
unencumbered
by the acceptance
of medicare
payments

Ted Cruz will
move to coronate
his Cuban born
daddy as Viceroy
for life of the
western hemispheres
newest banana
republic

the last act of
of the Compartment
of Education will be
to turn every
public school
into a Holy Ghostin
Jehovah meetin
house

Judicial magistrates
will criminalize
poor people
or just make
them slaves
and all prisons
will be turned
into profit driven
plantations,
overseen by
the local
Sheriffs who
will be paid
time and a
half and 15%
of all profits

unfortunately
the Cowboy’s
will lose it’s
moniker as
America’s Team
if rattlesnake
booted
Jerry Jones
can’t make a
deal to turn
his stadium
into a sovereign
independent
territory as a
protectorate
of the USA

To assure
national purity
Texans will
build a Jericho
style wall to
define the boundaries
of their heavenly
kingdom and outlaw
all trumpet playing
within earshot
of their perturbed
borders

The Eyes of
Texas as the
state anthem
will need to
be reworded
The final stanza
will be changed
to "Until Gabriel
blows his nose"

keepin the ungodly
out and the chosen
people safely
insulated within
the shining
Lone Star State
will rise again
as a solitary
confederacy
of dunces

Music Selection:
The Eyes of Texas

Oakland
11/18/13
jbm
11/19/13 marks the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... to hold the article of freedom in such disdain sickens me...
NeroameeAlucard Dec 2014
It seems the only things that don't change
are music and the words written on the page
but the media changes minds and defines
what beauty is even though that trait is only skin deep
And Now to get brutal like ice cube on No Vaseline.

ahem

Okay first off **** "reality" Shows because all they do is objectify humanity and encourage men and women to become hoes because then you'll get A Tv show
**** Fox news because all they do is try to criminalize my skin tone or the way I express myself even though I may be trying to go ahead and spread wealth to the wealthless so ***** them for blindly supporting the wealthiest
**** Congress up the *** with no Vaseline or oil why did we vote those morons in if they weren't even thinking about anything but oil
**** Society and all the double standards because of one thing goes one way it should go another I know this anger is random but I had to get my feelings onto the page because I had to vent this bottled up rage
Set ships mast,
Set sails,
Set the wind to blow,
Set your heart towards the canopy,
Set all these desires on fire.

Criminalize the masses,
Decriminalize the drugs,
Incarcerate the children,
Forward facing guns,
Man and man with no Goliath.

Drink away the glass you covet, crush the glass between your toes.
Like grains of sand made muddy ******, lose yourself to the gold.
And melt it all when earth rampages, melt it all and melt the faces.
Burning bushes speak to you? Your dreams are government weather balloons.
E Nov 2023
Driving on the road every day is how I connect and see those in my community. In a given month, I pass by thousands of cars. Why is it that I feel the most alone in transit to my destinations?

Driving recklessly, driving with suicidal intent, driving under the influence are all acts of violence. How can I make these same people care about themselves and the people in their life if they are unforgiving in weapons of destruction?

I ask those to take "sonder" into their commute. Do you see the man 300 feet away in the car with his wife and children? Do you see the breast cancer survivor in the pink car with their eldest daughter? Do you see the bicyclist doing their daily commute? Do you see their life outside of their commute— their love, their hobbies, their favorite books and songs, and their trauma?

We should all hold space and reflect when in passing. To be mindful and present, we are equally human, with drive and something that drives us. We need to start giving a ****.

How are we supposed to care for one another when all that surrounds us are displays of violence? It’s more than the overt displays—recklessness and abuse towards ourselves or others, hate crimes, police brutality, genocide, institutions of slavery.

When certain events enter into the collective consciousness, because we are forced to witness them; these acts tend to remind us we are disenfranchised. We are silenced. We are powerless. Until we mobilize and resist in acts of love.

Let me remind whoever is reading this: we criminalize and demonize those who give sanctuary, those who educate and speak their truth, those who feed the unhoused, those who do work on the ground, and those involved in policy.

We think little of those with degrees, fixations, and aspirations dealing in social justice, social studies, and sciences. To commemorate and value everyone as a human being is far more important than aspiring to become the next billionaire.

I don’t wake up and dream about wealth. I dream about people feeling safe and having resources on hand if they ever encounter a crisis. I dream about others committing to mutual aid and bartering practices as a way to help one another but also resist. I dream about shutting off our devices because we can call out unhelpful discourse and disinformation. I dream about others having a shared trait to discuss than to find every reason to think they’re so different.

I think I understand what finding community means. Though I haven’t talked to enough people, I can envision community as reaching over to the next person and actively hearing them, seeing them, and being there how you can. Community is being heard, community is finding love in places you thought you couldn’t, and it’s giving a ****.
we need solidarity right now for all disenfranchised and oppressed peoples on this world, and i don’t see how we can do that without caring at the local, state, or national level. i ask that you make a new friend, find genuine connections, and spread beam of lights into people. for those who are depressed or otherwise cannot do it’s easily, i see you and i hear you. i love you, even if you don’t know me. you matter and your life matters. from the river to the sea, palestine will be free.
Jeremy Duff Apr 2014
Faith falls out
of the lottery winning man
just as it is absorbed
by the cancer ridden man.

Nothing makes sense
in this world in which we live
and everything is gray in the relationship
we allow to live.

God creates man,
man creates God,
sheep live blissfully ignorant
without a need for a god.

The fastest man on earth
partakes of the green,
and the fastest man on water
partakes of the green,
yet the laziest men on earth
criminalize that which is our birth right.

Freedom's legality is a matter of discussion,
it's a matter of luck and
place of citizenship.

Depending on where you are
you may speak your mind.
Shiloh Apr 2013
**** doing things
just because they have always been done
a certain way
or for a long time

Who the **** are we
to say how anything should be done
as long as you are having fun
and not causing anyone else any pain

But we have gotten so used to things
being the way that they happen to be
I say **** everyone
******* normal people

**** your ******* rules
in the ***
with a chainsaw
I can't believe

People don't see things the way they really are
Others enforce because of what they lack in their own **** lives
that is why
at least I hope anyway

We are growing up so much younger these days
pushing out the intolerance
because we all know it has gone completely stale
we just somehow still need a kick in the ***

**** our vices
that we have to lean on
because what is really right
what is best for people

we somehow find the need to outlaw
******* stupid people
for not realizing that part of why
they criminalize us

is so they can take ******* everything
for themselves.

WAKE UP.
Scarlet McCall Jan 2018
So you got robbed. Don't think of yourself as a victim. Look at it as an expression of the robber's occupational and social deficits. Don't let it traumatize you for life. After all, can you compare it to being murdered? We need to have some appreciation for scale here. We don't want to go back to the Victorian notion that people are fragile flowers who can't handle  having a gun pointed at them and losing a few dollars. That's a form of condescension, after all.

You're complaining about a burglary? Some men see a mere doorknob lock as a flirtation. And surely we don't want to see the end of flirtations and seductions!  Must we all now install deadbolts and security systems? What's next--chastity belts? What happened to joie de vivre and devil-may-care?

So a drunk driver hit your car. Do you really want to have him arrested? It was a misunderstanding; he didn't realize that four cocktails and driving are technically illegal. And should they be? Do we want to criminalize ordinary reckless behavior? Haven't we all done something a bit foolish or clumsy in our younger days? Do we want a society in which everyone has to be careful what they do, all the time? A society in which people must count their drinks before getting behind the wheel? We are moving away from the ideals of a liberal democracy and toward totalitarianism! 

So you were murdered. You can look at is as an opportunity to learn more about what happens after death. Your career was ended and your earthly form deteriorated, but that's not the end of the world. Now you live as a memory, and people appreciate you more. What doesn't **** you makes you stronger, and what kills you enshrines. There is honor in being dead. It is time we brought back the old virtues!
Filomena May 2022
I don't know what to say.
This is horrible and terrifying.
To ***** out the hope and joy of so many children.
To criminalize the support of their wellbeing.

Death will come from this.
Children choosing death as they see their existence outlawed.
Supporters of such laws know what they are doing.

You know who you are.
Written in response to the criminalization of trans- related healthcare for minors in Alabama.
jeffrey robin Jun 2010
and in a round about way-----so certain!
THEY are killing us, shall WE die in shame?

tomorrow  seems so very far from us
as we seem so very surely impotent!

victims criminalize eternity!
and every dream of every child

rots in the hell of our monitized greed
our pornographic sexuality

await the gulf waters toxitity
coming so surely in its own sweet way!

is there anything you would like to say?
hurry! hurry! for  you will soon be dead
THEY claim that their laws
protect the rights and lives
of women and children

that’s why they criminalize
women's rights over their bodies
children's rights for knowledge
     of their history, basic sexuality, etc.
     and a safe school environment
banning books on global warming
     and *** education from libraries

over 200 mass shootings with 264 deaths
in the first five months of this year
strongly suggest that information and
the right over your body
are not what’s killing people

yet THEY are unable to react
with tighter gun laws

     praying for the victims and their families
     does not prevent the next shooting

dangerous signs
of political and ethical impotence
gun violence is  rampant in the USA
Brent Kincaid Jan 2018
They didn’t take our rights,
We let them.
They didn’t steal our taxes,
We let them.
They didn’t jigger the laws,
We helped them.
They didn’t become bigots,
They always were.
They didn’t change into crooks,
They always were.
They didn’t take our birthrights,
We surrendered them.
They didn’t arrest criminals,
They arrested us.
They didn’t starve bad guys,
They starved children.
They didn’t steal our Social Security,
They stole all of our security.
They didn’t cancel our insurance,
They gave it to themselves.
They didn’t refuse to raise our wages,
They raised their own.
They didn’t just criminalize us,
They deified themselves.
brian mclaughlin May 2015
They are in the alleys of our cities
in the parks of our small towns
and under bridges
even in many tiny villages

Their cries for help go unheard
as if they have no voice

More often than not
they are ignored
as if they are invisible

Yet they are there
and in need

Is there a point to life
when all that exists in the heart is despair
when basic human needs
are only delivered for a very short
and temporary moment
when any relief and happiness
is shallow enough
to be washed away in the next

What point is there when
depression
is all you have

Life should be full
real and honest
delivering joy to the heart
encouragement to the spirit
peace to the soul
and a satisfaction to the stomach

The streets seldom provide for these needs

Governments attempt to criminalize people
for a homelessness
that is beyond the control
of these people who have lost all hope
and have been reduced to life in the streets
for the greed of the super rich
and an ever growing lack of care
for those we should be treating
as brothers and sisters

When did we cease as a nation
to be “for the people”

How did our government
get to the point of turning away from the people
to serve the rich above all others

Churches
regardless of their denominations
or religions
claim they are there to do Gods work

Since when has it been Gods work
to leave children hungry
cold, lonely and in the streets

Since when has it been Gods work
to treat other humans as vermin
because they have been dirtied on the surface
because of a life of hardship
have different beliefs, customs or life styles

So many do so little
they are the sayers

There are a few that do all they can
they are the doers

The doers
some are believers
others are not
the doers
have hearts
broken for those in need

Where governments and religions
now stand in the way
of help for these people
made of the same clay
giving a voice to the homeless
so they might have their say
the doers step in
and help as they may
lina S Dec 2019
I sense the ache like it's in the air
I roll my thumb and my index finger together
Like I'm giving it a taste

I shiver
But is it the blowing wind
Or is it cause I'm scared ?

Scared to admit
I'm hurt
Scared to admit
I'm rejected
Scared to admit
You did it

I care about you too much that I wont allow u to do this.

But whatever
I dont care get dressed whatever
Cause it out of my control
How you feel and your soul

So I deny myself
To keep you near
I deny my hurt
And detach my fears


I wont let you hurt me
Cause, Love.
I dont want to Hate you.

So I criminalize my feelings
And put it in a cuff

I feel it in the air
I sense it between my fingers
Or is it between my bones ..?

I dont know if I love you
Cause I wouldnt dare ..

But this ache is too familiar now
Its like it's always been there

I wish I can set it free
And cry
Instead of this already solved mystery
Of truth and self-lies
Of this numbed ache

I wish I could be with you
I wish I could take being without you
I wish I could admit that I love you

But, Love.
But I wouldnt dare..
Eric Blankenship Jul 2019
So you want a villian in your story?
I'll be the ******* bad guy
I'll be the one who you can blame
The disappointment every time.
So you want a villian in your story?
A cause for every tear you cry
I'll play this ******* game
I'll be the fall guy
So you want a villian in your story?
Some one you criminalize
I'll be the ******* evil
That keeps you up at night
Travis Green Jun 2020
I am depressed, detested, stressed, incapable
of resting, my limbs sinking, my melanin skin
shrinking, tingling, feeling unseen and out of dreams,
damaged beats streaming throughout my bloodstream
as I fear my own life, questioning every stop sign
in my sight, every complicated system that diminishes
the victim, disintegrates them from within, seizing
their complex intelligence and innocence.  Scattered
thoughts were brimming in my mind, my stained eyes
drowned in the oceans of unsound depths, my lips
bleeding confused puddles, shadowy shoulders broken
and slowing down, burned to the ground as the wrecked
words in my mouth traveled to different degrees.
What made the black race such a humiliation?
What made the higher powers of society criminalize
and intellectualize their own manufactured lies?
How could White Supremacy divide and marginalize
African Americans?  How could one rise if society
was one-sided?  I am feeling numb to the bone,
wanting to comprehend the reality we live in, wanting
to awaken and educate the misguided minds who
speculate through their inner design, wanting to stop
the cries of so many who died by unjustified actions.

— The End —