“Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
                                                    ­ George Orwell, 1984* (published in 1949)

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of torture since 1949.
Come with me to the Casbah, Babaloo.
We begin in the 1950s with the French in North Africa,
****** baguettes in Algeria,
Couilles frits, anyone?
Electrodes wired to Mustapha’s *****.
And "Bigeard's Shrimps,” as the bodies were called,
Dumped over the Mediterranean from aircraft,
All things considered a je ne sais quoi,
Though Camus and Sartre gave it a whack.

Then the 1960s: the CIA dabbling in mind-control and LSD.
Later, a Phoenix Program,
Very secretive, sympathies with the Cong required,
Various elders selected,
The village disinfected,
**, **, ** and a bowl of Pho.

Apartheid anyone?
Thirty years of South African terror & torture.
Torment in the townships,
Shaka Zulu gold and diamonds,
De Beers in Swaziland swing.

1971: riots at Attica,
Prisoners abused and tortured,
Rockefeller’s overcrowded slammer,
An upstate New York katzenjammer,
Nelson’s finger on the trigger,
39 dead and counting,
But who’s counting?

The CIA, back in the news in 1973,
Torture chambers under Chilean soccer stadiums,
And the Khmer Rouge:
Those Wacky Cambodians with skull racks.  
And let us not forget the British,
With centuries of colonial experience behind them,
Occupy six counties in Northern Ireland.
Finally codify the imperial process,
The Five Techniques:
Sounds like a Motown group,
Satin smooth colored boys,
But more method than music:
(1) Wall-standing,
(2) Hooding,
(3) Subjection to noise,
(4) Sleep deprivation,
(5) No food and drink.

And there’s a bunch of horrible ****,
We still don’t know about the Argentine ***** War,
And other Mai Lai-like,
****-fest massacres in Vietnam.

How about torture since 1984?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Come quickly,
(www.prematureejaculatorsanonymous.com)
To mind,
As do US-sponsored rendition facilities,
Spread throughout the NATO alliance.
And closer to home, it’s never a dull moment in the 5 Boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Manhattan.
Take your pick from Giuliani’s Greatest Hits,
Rudy Kazootie’s campaign of law and order,
Not necessarily in that order.
More awful than lawful,
A bathroom plunger rammed up,
The Haitian voodoo ****** of Abner Louima,
While he be handcuffed at a Brooklyn station house.
Or, the NYPD partying like it was 1999.
When in fact, it was1999,
And a curious death it was for Amadou Diallo,
Would-be American citizen from The Republic of Guinea,
(No connection to Italy or Italians),
Abner & Amadou: a pair of cautionary tales,
Either/or reflecting standard procedure for the Po-Po,
Time and time again from coast to coast.
Either/or: poor Abner, no Haitian Papa Doc.
Poor Amadou, on his way home from night school,
When police squeeze off 41 rounds,
Most of them in his direction,
Hitting him 19 times.
Just the facts, ma’am:
Diallo had reached into his jacket.
A trigger-happy police officer yells “Gun.”
A jungle warfare quartet springs into action:
Shenzi, Banzai, Ed & Zazu,
Four equally trigger-happy colleagues,
Empty their weapons.
No gun was found on Diallo,
Only the wallet he tried to pull out,
Containing his Green Card,
4 U.S. dollar bills;
And a laminated,
Credit card-sized copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
(I just didn’t know when to quit, did I?
The wallet was there with Green Card and the bucks,
But I made up the part about the Bill of Rights,
Trying to add poetry to tragedy, as usual.)

I don’t have to say much about Rodney King (RIP).
You watched it on TV a hundred times,
And a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Or ten thousand or a million, I suppose.
“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney Glen King.

Last but not least there’s Kelly Thomas (RIP),
Another incidence of police insanity,
It was July of 2011 in Fullerton, California.
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man,
Schizophrenic, but unarmed,
Beaten to death at a bus depot,
During an altercation with six Fullerton police officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Poli­­ce-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man­-death.html#ixzz1e­3­4QnHtr

Mervyn Lazarus | Attorney | (www.mervlazarus.com) Police Brutality, Excessive Force and Jail Injury cases | California . . . Albuquerque

Jackie Chiles perfect attorney -YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcEietIoxk) Nov 17, 2010 - 13 min - Uploaded by Kroeger22 All the scenes with Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld."Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both ... www.seinfeld.com

Perhaps the greatest torture of all,
Is that which artists subject us to.
Let us examine the case of Roberto Bolaño:
Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean writer,
Tells a fabulous World War II story,
About a Spaniard--an Andalusian--
Fighting for the Germans against the Russians.
Captured by the Russians,
He is tortured for information.
The Spaniard speaks no Russian,
He knows only four words of German.
The Russian interrogators strap him into a chair,
Attach electrodes to his *****,
Attach pincers to his tongue.
The pain makes his eyes water.
He said--or rather shouts--the word coño.
It is Spanish for ****.
The pincers in his mouth,
Distort the expletive,
Which in his howling voice comes out as KUNST.
The Russian who knows German looks at him in puzzlement.
The Andalusian was yelling KUNST,
Yelling KUNST and crying in pain.
KUNST in German means art,
And that was what the bilingual Russian heard, KUNST.
“This ******* must be an artist or something.”
The torturers remove the pincers,
Along with a little piece of tongue,
And wait, momentarily hypnotized by the revelation:
The word ART had soothed the savage beasts.
So soothed, the savage beasts take a breather,
Waiting for some kind of signal.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian bleeds from the mouth,
Swallows his blood liberally mixed with saliva, and chokes.
The word coño,
Transformed into the word *KUNST,
Had saved his life.
It was dusk when he came out of the building.
Light stabbed at his eyes like midday sun.

So, it’s a fact that I love,
Truly love the simple blunt Anglo-Saxon expletive ****,
****: I pray that while I am being tortured some day,
I have the dignity to scream the word out loud.
And if I am screaming **** at the very end,
When my nervous system finally fails,
When I **** my pants,
When my pulmonic heart and lungs collapse,
Is that so bad?
Is that so wrong?

Do you realize that 1984 came--
Came and went, without any significant cultural hoopla?
The networks ignored it.
As did the cable pundits.
No significant comparative analysis between,
Orwell’s book 1984 and the year 1984,
Was broadcast electronically or publicized in print.
Steve Jobs got it, but as usual no one else did.
Mr. Jobs (RIP) did his best,
To mainstream its profound cultural relevance,
But ultimately failed,
Despite the $1.5 million he paid one of the networks,
To air a one minute nation-wide commercial,
During the 3rd Quarter,
Of Super Bowl XVIII,
January 22, 1984.
Despite Ridley Scott’s astonishing spell-binder,
His 60-second spot for The Macintosh 128K--
Still considered a watershed event,
And an advertising industry masterpiece,
…YouTube it and watch it.  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ji0B98IMo).
See the hammer throwing athlete chick,
See her fling the sledge,
That huge sledgehammer,
Smash into Big Brother’s flat screen face.
Despite Jobs’ global presence,
Despite Steverino’s unfettered microphone access,
Whenever he felt an oraculation coming on,
Despite everything,
He was unable to move the powers that be,
To either hype the book or the prophecy come true.

So, what’s my point? I have two.
First, in April 1984 the estate of George Orwell,
And the television rights holder to the novel 1984,
Considered the edgy Jobs/Scott commercial to be,
A flagrant copyright infringement,
Sending a cease-and-desist letter to Apple Inc.
And the advertising agency that produced the spot: Chiat/Day Inc.
The commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.  
Score: Lawyers 1, Artists 0.

My second point is that in November 2011,
The U.S. government argued before the U. S. Supreme Court,
That it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals,
Without first seeking a warrant.
In response, Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the sane ones),
Questioned what this means for a democratic society.
Referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Justice Breyer asked:
"If you win this case, then there is nothing,
To prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24/7,
The public movement of every citizen of the United States.
So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 . . .”*

My third point,
(Yeah, I know I said two, but *******.)
My third point is that I’m just so ******* angry,
All the time, late and soon like Wordsworth,
(Was anyone more aptly named?)
I am angry about so many different things,
And every day that goes by I relate more and more,
To the thousands of Americans that occupied,
Zuccotti Park and Oakland,
And countless other venues,
Out into the streets.
Across the country.
Around the world.  
I am humbled by their courage and perseverance.
Yet, I am afraid for them.
I am made paranoid by the scope and power,
Of the government,
Of the ruling class that controls it,
And the technology they allow us to embrace,
Technology’s sinister potential,
Now that more and more knowledge and information,
Has been digitized,
Existing only in cyberspace.                                                      ­                                                 
What frightens most is the realization,
That anyone with a word processor,
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.
The scary part is—
Repeating myself for emphasis—
That anyone with a word processor
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.

Does anyone out there give a ****?
Does anyone out there share my nightmare?
Do it to Julia.
Do it to Julia.

I met a girl when she picked me up while  I was hitch hiking back from the health food store.

Her name is, well, I’ll call her “Mirror”. She was seventeen, with three different colors in her hair,and she was driving this great big mafioso looking thing down an old country road.

AND she picked me, a hitch hiker, up. like it was it was no big thing to her.

My first response after the normal howdy do’s, was;” Okay, first off, we are on this desolate back road, in the middle of BFE ,and corn fields forever. How do you know that I am not going to pull out a gun or a knife and slit your throat, or blow you away for your ride, or WORSE?”

She snickered and said,”Cause’ I can tell .”You aren’t that kind of person!”

My responsewas ,”How can you even  pretend to know THAT?”

She comes back with; “I can just tell”!

“Anyway, aren’t you glad I picked you up?’

“Of course!” I said, “but you need to be more careful!”

She dropped me at my house, and that was that.

I was left with hoards of memories sweeping my mind. Memories of myself at her age, along with her responses to my concern, and her total disposition, I knew I was staring into a mirror of my past!

I would, for sure, be seeing her again!

It was approx. two weeks later that I saw her, in a little mustang, as I was walking my dog on that same old road.

She pulled of as she turned the stereo down, I think it was blasting some new girl band, “Hey girlfriend” she says with this sweet little sideways glance, as if she’d known me for a lifetime, “whatcha up to?”

Having done the small talk thing, we decided ot hang out.
So she came over to the house, we talked.
As I got to know her situation a bit better, I knew.
... I was looking into the mirror of my past once more.
I had been placed into her life for a very special mission.

I also knew in my heart that, according to what she was telling me, she was headed for the same path of disaster and destruction, I had, not so long ago, put my own self  through.
It had all started at her exact age. but I did not, at this point know what to do about helping her.
...But it would come! ...yes, it would!

I found out, a little more than a year later, i could not have done anything to stop it from happening, when I met her. ...In her beginning...
It was during the “aftermath” or the “beginning of the end”, where I would be called back into her life to “play my part” so to speak.
So...
It was about a month ago, I just happened to be browsing through a thrift store, in Spruce Pine, with my neighbor. As I stood there, looking at an old quilt I wanted, but could not afford, I heard that  soft, sweet, little voice call me by my name.

”Romy?’ “Is that yooouuuu?!”
“*** I can’t believe it!”,
.....and so on and so forth.

My sweet friend from the road by my house, was there, was handing out Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Mind you, I knew what this meant...
...She’d gotten herself into some kind of trouble.
And now, she was doing community service for it.

Sure enough she had.

I gave her my  telephone number, and that was that.

It was about three days ago when I got a phone call.
It was her.
She asked if she could come by to see me that afternoon, after school.
She needed to talk.
She actually did come on by.

Here we are some years later. I am scared.
Not for myself , physically, but something told me my time was up.
The gig was up.
The angels had finally found a way.
For me.
For her.

Now.
I need to back up to two years ago, so that you can get a real sense
of what is really going on here…..

After our first meeting, after she came back by my trailer,  in the cow pasture, the first time,
She hung with me the whole summer, and then into fall.
I got to know her parents very well.
I n their eyes I'd become a big sister/baby sitter for her.
She thought of it as just hanging out.
...a place away from her Dad, but close to her home.
She had never been with a boy, she explained,
but she'd made an attempt at a relationship with a girl at school, which turned out disastrous.
It even landed here in trouble at school, with the cops, and with the DSS, here in Yancey County.
(a place no one would ever want to land!)

Her mom was going through chemo and radiation, and so was I.
I was uncanny.
I had at least SOMETZHING, one thing, in common with almost every member of her family.
I became part of her family!

I knew from my own life and my experiences,  
she was dabbling in some kind of drug activity.
I just did not know what at first.

Made myself a promise.
I would find out what was really going on with t his girl.

Once I got her to open up to me.
I discovered she was stealing her dad’s 40mg Oxycontin and his 1mg klonapin out of his locked box.
This only AFTER he'd been giving them to her when she turned fourteen.
She was not only snorting them, but she was selling them as well!

I also did some digging, and found, she was getting in with some pretty savory characters.
Of course it wan't long, before she met this guy...
He was handsome, manipulative, and cunning.
But most of all, he had a raging monkey, the size of Detroit, on his back!

Only I could see him for the ****** ******* he really was.
I tried many tricks to expose him.
Her partents were blinded by his enamering.
His story was easy:
..he had been in the military, only to come home to a trailer trash wife, on drugs, of course, who had neglected their four year old child.
He'd come home just in time to play the knight in all his armour....!
I KNEW better!

But when I tried to warn her parents
they would hear nothing of it!
They refused to see in him
the evil that i could....

So when she started seeing him, I went to her parents with my premonitions.
They told me I was over  reacting.
And that i had become attached to their daughter, that I should just stay away for a while.
Her mom’s exact words were:
”I mean really, Romy...
" He is a MARINE for goodness sakes... !"
"... and the only reason he is home right now, is to save that yungin' from his drug addicted mother!”

UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I had to let go....

Only years later, it would come out,
To her parents and everyone.
...He was a **** and dilaudid ******.
His mother was one, as well.
They used the little boy for food and money,
as well as their own selfish adgenda of feeding
that monkey from Detroit,
and the disease he brought with him.
They conned everyone from welfare, to  churches, to the department of Social Services.

I remember a conversation a had with her mom, while trying to get her to realize what he really was.
It went like this:
mom: “How could you even say such things about him!”
I never said another word.
Only
In my mind I was screaming;
"Because I know this *******!
He is addicted to drugs!  
He told me so, in the beginning!
He bragged to me about how he’d been doing dilaudid with his MOTHER for years.
And, all  of us junkies know, the only way to do dilaudid, is to shoot it up in your veins!

"*******!”"
I said to myself.

"PLUS, I even know his  other name."
"THE NAME is Daniel!"

"I know him well!"
"I ruined most of my young life trying to win his love."
"Only I did not know then what  I was up against...."
"This addiction was more powerful than another woman, or anything else, for that matter!"

"There IS no match
  for it!"

...I was screaming this all to myself.
...I knew then.
I was talking about my own life experience.
The years I spen, hurting myself, all the while attempting to impress my first, and truest love of my entire life.
He almost proved to be the ruin of me!
...The man on whom I waisted more than half of my life!
He, who became the beginning of my end!
He was the beginning of a lifetime of  ****** addiction, tears, disappointments, lies, and horror!

As I saw it, he and this ******* were one in the same.

More importantly, I also knew, in my heart of hearts, he would be the beginning of  HER end.
He would prove to be the beginning of her  horror.
I also knew, if she were to end up staying with this nobody *******, for any length of time, she would, inevitebly begin sticking needles in her arms.
My bet would be she'd start within one year.

Sadly,  I was correct.
she was,
and had been,
sticking needles in her arm.

The way I found out went down like this:
(and thus my reason for writing this)

She phoned me, upset, and crying.
Don't ask me how, but I knew she was dope sick.
...Perhaps it was the quiver in her voice.
The desperation.
A feeling I knew all too well.

I told her to come over.
She did.
I'll never forget.
She was working at Mc Donald's, to pay her way through cosmetolegy school.
So she still had that Mc Donald's uniform on. (The one, I knew, she loathed with every part of her being!)
And bless her heart...
...She brought me a pie.

I told her she looked like ****.
Then I asked her to explain why she'd gone so long without having any contact with me.
(although I knew the answers to each of my questions, I asked them anyway.)

I gave her motherly/sisterly hugs, while attemting to make her feel loved.
(something she had not experienced often, at least, not without a price!)

I needed her to know, that no matter what she had to offer , for the time I hadn't heard from her, I would love her, and I would help her, and I would hold her, until she needed me to let go.

So.
It was after hugs, love, some understanding eye contact, I made the promise of understanding. She had to know, that  no matter what she might reveal, I would ALWAYS be in her corner. I would always be hers. I would be whatever she needed me to be.
..As long as I was helping her towards her self understanding,  towards love, and  towards happiness.

It was a few seconds after our long embrace and our moment of connection and understanding, when she took me into the bathroom.
She uttered these words, nervously, and with shame;
”Romy, Do you really want to know how bad I've gotten, how far I have now fallen?”
...Or perhaps her words were, in actuallity, more like "Romy, look at how bad this has gotten."
I am not sure which of the two is more correct, but I got the message loud and clear, and my heart broke.
Litererally, it broke into a million pieces.
My heart broke for her, but it also broke for the girl I once was, before my own demons came to visit.

I knew then, from the depths of my being,
how the scene would play out...
I knew the ending,
before it ever began.

In a moment I will share with you, the dialog that went on between us on that cold, cloudy, winter afternoon in Nowheresville, NC.
This is one conversation I shall, forever, remember until I take my final breath.
It will remain with me through lifetimes to come.
...It has become a part of me.

ME: ”So. have you learned how to do yourself?”
“Or is that why you are here?”
"If it  is the later, you've come to the wrong place."

She started to cry.

"I know how to hit myslef", she said.
H uge tears runnig down her face.
"You warned me, Romy." "And I didn't listen."
"How DID you know, anyway?"

I could not hold back the tears.  
They poured straight from the depths of my being.
Again, he I stood, once again, in front this georgous girl, who was destroying herself!
Again, all I could see was myself in the mirror!

I have yet to felt such a sadness within me, as the one I felt at that moment.

As she rolled up her sleeve, there it was...
a site too familiar..
Uncanny, it was.
How could this girl be the SAME?
Seriously!
...The same arm.
...The same hole.
...The same sore.
...The same color.
..The same sad and bewidered expresion.
It said. No, it screamed;
"Help me please! I'm so ******* gone!"
"Help me please!"
" You're all I've got!"

I wanted to turn and run a fast and far as I could get.
Heer she stood in front of me
Here she stood.
The exact ******* same as me.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't think.
I wanted to puke.
She
was
MEEEE!

The silence was broken by her voice, and by her expression.
She obviously saw my transition from a strong woman who cared so much,
into a womean who had turned white as a ghost.
Then she asked;
” How did you know, Romy?”
“How ever COULD you have known?”

I did not.
I could not.
Begin to answer her then.

But I thought to myself;
"How could I not?"

I left that tiny bathroom not knowing WHAT to do, or what to say.
I, for once,was at a loss.
For the first time in my life,
the words  would just not come!

I couldn't speak my usual words of incourgment.

Until she came to me, and gave me a hug.

...she has just left my house.
My heart is heavy.
She'd  come to me today, for reasons,
she herself,
could never have understood.

I went into my bedroom, whee she sat.
I asked her what she'd been up to that made her decide to call me.
She said she did not know.
She'd been out driving after work,
and so she'd just ended up calling.
Now she was at my place.

I shared with her the importance of truthfulness.
With oneself even more than with others.

Then I shared with her my story, and my reasons for caring so very much for  her well being.

I told her about the mirror I saw between us from the beginning.
..of my battle with herion addiction.
But I told her  also of the stubborn dream I'd carried with me for eighteen years because of a guy, just like hers.
I answered all of her questions.
I completed her sentences.
She completed some of mine.
I felt her heart breaking.
And I helped her to let go.

She was so shocked at what I shared with her, about myself,
and about my own life,
that it  literally brought her back to her self. I had somehow, reached her inner being.
She was able to return to her own reality, away from the deceit.
And away from the web of lies which had been woven around her.

I feel good!
I feel like she will be alright.

May hope is, through me, she was able to see how easily we can fall into someone else's need and addiction. How we make it our own by allowing someone elses demons drag us down, down into oblivion, and how their misery can, so easily, consume us. Then take over our very life!
IF we let it!

....I held her for a long time.
We cried together.
I cried for her.

I also cried for me.

I cried for the girl that I once was.

...Before Daniel.
                              ...Before Manhattan.
                                                      ­                                                
                                                                ­       ...Before the misery.

She cried her own tears for herself,
her kind heart,
and for what would never be.
She cried, grateful tears, knowing now she will no tso easily loss her way,
she knows the angels now. She can feel them guide her every day.
She is not alone.

I will forever be there for her.
wherever she may be.
...we are connected now.
...Little Miss Kim and me!

Her spirit is strong.
She will succeed.
She recieved what she needed most.
... A friend
... A kindred spirit.
...and  a bit of wisdom from little old
me.
Oh, and now I know why my Blackie walked me down the old country road.....
My sister, Kimberly, needed me!

The lost days of my life until to-day,
What were they, could I see them on the street
Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat
Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway?

I do not see them here; but after death
God knows I know the faces I shall see,
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
‘I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?’
‘And I—and I—thyself,’ (lo! each one saith,)
‘And thou thyself to all eternity!’

aerial ladder truck, amok, amuck, awestruck, bad luck, black buck, black duck, bruck, buc, buck, by luck, canuck, chuck, cluck, cold duck, collet chuck, cruck, dabbling duck, delivery truck, diving duck, donald duck, druck, duc, duck, duk, dumbstruck, dump truck, dumptruck, fire truck, fish duck, fishbach, fluck, fslic, garbage truck, garden truck, get stuck, give ****, gluck, good luck, grucche, guck, hand truck, hockey puck, huck, hucke, icing the puck, ill luck, kachuck, kluck, kruck, kruk, kuc, kuck, kuk, ladder truck, lake duck, lame duck, laundry truck, luck, lucke, luk, mandarin duck, megabuck, moonstruck, mruk, muck, musk duck, naugatuck, nuque, panel truck, pickup truck, pluck, potluck, puck, queer duck, raybuck, roebuck, ruck, ruddy duck, schmuck, schtik, schuch, schuck, sculk, sea duck, shmuck, shuck, sitting duck, smuck, snuck, sound truck, starbuck, starstruck, struck, stuck, stucke, suc, ****, suk, summer duck, thunderstruck, trailer truck, truck, tuck, tuque, unstuck, vhsic, wild duck, wnuk, wood duck, woodchuck, wruck, young buck,chuck-a-luck, yuck, yuk, zuck, zuk

Now long and long from wintry Strymon blew
The weary, hungry, anchor-straining blasts,
The winds that wandering ****** dearly rue,
Nor spared the cables worn and groaning masts;
And, lingering on, in indolent delay,
Slow wasted all the strength of Greece away.
But when the shrill-voiced prophet 'gan proclaim
That remedy more dismal and more dread
Than the drear weather blackening overhead,
And spoke in Artemis' most awful name,
The sons of Atreus, 'mid their armed peers,
Their sceptres dashed to earth, and each broke out in tears,
And thus the elder king began to say:
"Dire doom! to disobey the gods' commands!
More dire, my child, mine house's pride, to slay,
Dabbling in ****** blood a father's hands.
Alas! alas! which way to fly?
As base deserter quit the host,
The pride and strength of our great league all lost?
Should I the storm-appeasing rite deny,
Will not their wrathfullest wrath rage up and swell?
Exact the ******'s blood?--oh, would 't were o'er and well!"

So, 'neath Necessity's stern yoke he passed,
And his lost soul, with impious impulse veering,
Surrendered to the accursed unholy blast,
Warped to the dire extreme of human daring.
The frenzy of affliction still
Maddens, dire counselor, man's soul to ill.

So he endured to be the priest
In that child-slaughtering rite unblest,
The first full offering of that host
In fatal war for a bad woman lost.

The prayers, the mute appeal to her hard sire,
Her youth, her ****** beauty,
Naught heeded they, the chiefs for war on fire.
So to the ministers of that dire duty
(First having prayed) the father gave the sign,
Like some soft kid, to lift her to the shrine.

There lay she prone,
Her graceful garments round her thrown;
But first her beauteous mouth around
Their violent bonds they wound,
With their rude inarticulate might,
Lest her dread curse the fatal house should smite.
But she her saffron robe to earth let fall:
The shaft of pity from her eye
Transpierced that awful priesthood--one and all.
Lovely as in a picture stood she by
As she would speak. Thus at her father's feasts
The ******, 'mid the reveling guests,
Was wont with her chaste voice to supplicate
For her dear father an auspicious fate.

I saw no more! to speak more is not mine;
Not unfulfilled was Calchas' lore divine.
Eternal justice still will bring
Wisdom out of suffering.
So to the fond desire farewell,
The inevitable future to foretell;
'Tis but our woe to antedate;
Joint knit with joint, expands the full-formed fate.
Yet at the end of these dark days
May prospering weal return at length;
Thus in his spirit prays
He of the Apian land the sole remaining strength.

As long as there are teenagers extant,
Anomie and alienation of
an unripened generation
Shall spill upon this site in cliched cries,
Dabbling with threats of pills and lies,
The endless pain felt gives one fright.
To this old soul who wonders silently,
Will these thousands of pained children
Make it through to their next incarnation

So much angst, so much anger,
I wonder if God created poetry
To salve their wounds

Their unknown futures loom,
But all I read is  hurt and doom.
You shall survive, children.
Awful poetry, some good,
you will write.
But write and write
till your heart be calmed

For even ancient kings felt the anguish  of the soul,
And we profit even today by King David's psalms.

This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.

For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, quiet like, praying,
Hallelujah, spoken in the original,
The tongue of his ancestors

Pinot this and pinot that
This young Grenache is a trifle flat
Better to try and get along
With a slightly older Sauvignon

I sometimes get a trifle low
When dabbling in a cheap Merlot
And so to scare the blues away
Will sip a spendy Chardonnay

But to avoid real ennui
Drink super Oregon Pinot Gris
And let’s be quite awfully frank
That’s much better than Chenin Blanc

But while you sort out your Pinot
Give a break to Grignolino
It’s good, but not the same as
A bold and cheeky Oz Shiraz

And if you want to go very far
Don’t ignore local Pinot Noir
It always sells well on the block
And I wonder who likes Marechal Foch

As I was supping a cute Barbera
At a certain State affaira
Things got quickly very highbrow
When someone mentioned Muller Thurgau

It is no lack of vinous respect
That makes us scorn the best Malbec
And can you find me a single fan
Of that very odd vine, Carignan?

If one must go to a grapey hell
There’s good company in Zinfandel
But if we really must go
Could we have some Nebbiolo?

In the end we all agree
Any wine is better free
But if not free we’ll surely call
Any wine beats none at all!

Although I’m on hydro’s
Its not enough to pick me up and
Lay me on the pavement like
Your warm arms used to

After all I’ve drivin’ miles upon miles
Halfway with my eyes closed because I dream
Of that exact moment most often

I run a marathon like that finish line
Is laying on a bed with you
Please, return the favor
By waiting

Giving prayer a purpose
I believe that God has the power
To make your arms surround me again

I want the road to twist
And even with a seat belt
Break right through the glass
Breathing is a wreck
For this brief moment suspended
In the air; due to how fast I was traveling and gravity
This feels like flying
It scares me that I could beat my wings
Although it’s already too late
You’ve taken what’s left of the hydro’s

R.J Calzonetti


Screaming cross the skyscraper’s windbreaker tapering

Aether vapour- trailblazing ****-sapien wafers

Of machinations psychotropic doppelgängers

Aristotle throttling menagerie’s philosophically hypnotic obelisks

Mind-boggling astronomical chronological esophagus

Antioxidants phosphorus catastrophic mitochondria

Beyond anaconda onomatopoeia

Of hallucinogenic Armageddon biblical umbilical cords

Swarming northern lights of aurora borealis

The chalice a battleground of Evangelion belladonna

Metalica candelabra swallowing the monochrome Hanukkah

Of a cold winter’s eldritch disintegration photosynthesis

Of innocent infinity stretching wretched beckoning requiem

The words that fall upon my page, are really just a shallow grave

Of the dawn of nighttime in my eyes, calm upon the twilight sun

Wrong is done draped on the blood moon wraiths

Skyscraped fields dusk a hollow thud below the dunes

That thumps the consumption of our fate, fumes to glow in darkness loom

Left blind in light of day you cannot see, the little pieces silver sheen

For blinding light may fade to grey, and I will never have my way

Nightfalls on another daybreak, dawning darkness, sundown on another day

Twilight plays with sparkling haze, the sky a wildfire made ablaze in patchwork scarecrows

Who etch rainbows black as a heart of coal, sold flatlining railroads

Gold wraithlike halos of stained-glass cathedrals unreal in the fever-dream of human beings

Bleeding Elysium from the seabed of dead worlds, gourds of incorporeal cornucopias

Born orchestra morsels of sorrowful oracles predicting crucifixion of ellipsis’ antithesis


(MC) Aurora


Absonant  as my pen writes the twilight, the red swallowed on horizon and bright

As through a sea of blood under my feet and shrinking mast of my mighty ship

A shadow I make on that red snow and peep into my heart’s hollow

It’s deep as much as my pen spake of grief.

I blinded in that last light and hurled like a beast dreading the songs of holy lies

That have just pained in bright and made me grieve.

They dragged me on my wings and deplumate  me as so fallen humans

They wrenched my limbs and rive my heart out and flinger me in air and I laid forever

On the stones that dank my blood.

I wait for the troth  of  demise but betrayed as it didn’t come to detract,

I laid when the horizon grinned red on my face and poured the last ale

And brutally drank the last sip of me.



R.J Calzonetti


People are sleeping under the blankets of a tranquil streetlamp

A sunflower in the damp bed of concrete

Soon they’ll be pushing up daisies

Underneath the foundation of what I stand for

Nip the bud of the flower pedalling the root of all evil like fallen leaves

Breeding paraplegic freedom from the pollen melancholic

Anarchistic polycrystalline shapeshifters drifting vilified

Buried alive like asphalt constellations crowning metallic gallows alcoholic in my solitude

See the clouds bury the ground in half a heaven’s heartbeat

Limbo’s limitless abyss the photosynthesis of the sepulchral diablo

Revenants of redemption dancing with death

Evanescent in its bioluminescent crescent moon spooning illuminated illustrations

Of Himalayan mayhem cremated avarice of ethereal onomatopoeia unravelling catacombs in God’s palindromes

Homeopathic saplings decapitated in the dismembered September wastelands defibrillator

Invigorating the nightshade white wraiths plane-walkers of Apocrypha documenting entropy

Pent up sentience avenging the endless demigods of discombobulated proclamations nocturne graceless, octaves eldritch, evangelic

Elegant elevators to flights of staircases where the air is fragrant with the fragments of stagnant stained glass asterisks

Written gospels to masquerade hostage to the faith the man misplaced the sacred hate, the passageways of apathy apostrophe

Apartheid of serpentine survivors carving smiles on the sidewalks

Farming diamonds and their detox

Arming giants like a phoenix

Carnal nihilists with their secrets

Stardust quiet as the bleachers

Start defiant still a reject

Art discipled to our freedom

Shattered hearts pick up the pieces

Jigsaw puzzles, smothered treasons

Sow the seeds and **** the reaper

Even legions rhyme and reason

Tattered flags without a penance

Good men do not go to heaven

Buy your burden at 7-11

Your exit is the only the next entrance

Resurrection prepubescent

Asymmetric biomechanics

Anguish to be reprimanded

Megalomaniac in our sabbath

Living life is just a sentence

Psalms of seance death’s senescence

Baptize vengeance lest it ventures into heaven

Ventriloquist omniscience of rhythmic equilibrium

Earthly hurricanes reemerging insurgent as the sugarcane purgatory

Primordials metamorphosis contorting rigour Mortis oracles horoscope cloaked in cloaca hallucinations

Induced irradiated amalgamated retaliatory incorporeal chlorophyll

Born from the sorcerers' spell, the cathedral of doubt

The only darkness is within oneself, light shed within a holy shell

Isolation is a lonely hell, scythes of moonlight blight of bells

Nightingales fail to halo word of mouth

Enveloped in the clouds cast shadows hex

But resurrection cannot hide from the eyes of death

Fresh as babies breath

Rank as the body festers effigies

Bless the Nephilim the questions beck

And call for some god to collect the rest

Is there any answer?

Even growth can be a cancer

Lifeless corpses once were dancers

Devils waltz on top of canopies

Heaven’s hands have touched serenity

****** brands that crushed His enemies

Stained glass sanguine dismantled entropy

Calamity ran dry insanity dabbling in humanity

Unravelling the candy wrapper saplings of happiness

Pitch black irradiant dull edges sharpening archangels, darkness reincarnating

Blinding bioluminescent glistening abyssal rakshasa sarcophagus parting monarchies

Metamorphosis coruscating fornication immortalization Tartarean

Reverberating ****-sapien scintillating hurricanes palpitation circulating ricocheting oblivion

Shining crepuscular homunculus dully illustrious

Sunless avatars, mannequins of Abaddon stygian as fallen leaves on the breeze of Avalon Evangelion

Incarceration breeding Elysium’s jailors in the cathedral of double helixes

Bethlehem's’ new genesis of Lucifer’s crucifixion

Brighter than a fallen star

Mourning in the dark

Doppelganger apostles night stalkers of phosphorous

Pockmarked arcanum bloodstained in gravestone Salem

Where the braves’ halos dined on maelstroms alone

Heirs succeeding failures of the empty throne

Filled with nothings’ own

Brimming bound by Babylonian poems

Deus ex Machina's apocalypse coughing prophets of Samsara blossoming diabolic

Life is but a Holocaust

Death the moment God forgot

Breath the only psalm we sought

Kept within a hollow box

Shedding devils, angelic, lost

Finding metamorphosis


(MC) Aurora


A world often synonymous with beauty on the horizon,

Meet my eyes you mourned demon load the strength on thee.

Crestfallen light on your wrist burns down your girth

And you can plead, just plead your twilight sun.

Watch the dead sea swallow you in the salts of agony

And drown in the anguish, hundreds of angelic bloodsheds,

Press hold of the thumbprints on your throat, you can't roar.

Sore lugubrious melancholy aired atmosphere,

And downhearted souls dispirited dragons dragged along.

The sob grim hiding in a blue funk rusty smog choking wind,

The nyctophilliac animals howl long the cold-blooded love song

In your lungs and burn.

It's the twilight sun,

Just that twilight sun.

I had my happy coloured marbles,
All in a drawstring bag
I even had my wits about me
When they all said I was mad

I've since lost my marbles,
My wit's been licked it seems
I'm still searching for them
While you analyze my dreams

Now they call me mellow yellow
Since that slick spark has dimmed
No longer a manic madman
Calmed by my tonic and gin

Why does there always seem to be
An exchange, creativity for conformity
A need for insanity to be confined to brevity
And quickly quelled by righteous authority?

The work words have to do, I do as well
leaving being as having been begun
ghabh-
also *ghebh-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning
"to give or receive."
The basic sense of the root probably is "to hold,"

Able comes from this, thus
ability  

8 billions, say
- the ob-servant says,
half are breathing in, as half
were breathing out,

certainly a few were out of sync,
so some of us sneezed, one would think
to effect the fectuality, unawares,

stutter steps, bridge march, aware
smell the honey suckle smell, no,
discern a subtle dif-fer tle,lit-tle
bit
literal not sames, similar sense, smell
seeming
how more aware have we all become,
we who lost taste and smell, while
experiencing a pandemic in our time.
Eventually endemic.
How rare are we in history? First wave.
Mindful, some how, now
my taste and smell
systems are back,
on.

Off, again, try to remember the smell,
of linden trees in Helena,
and wonder, set a mind on wish to know
will wonder, the worth of which we know

but fail to consider until… un til, tilling soil,
un
I think, et I'm y conjoined, to reconsider you.

At my bitterest root,
my jealousy and rage,
- alleluia, you know the drill
my will to act like some ancient god.
Cursing all I ever was.
-disconfabulating my own legend… uses
time, in points made.

May I guess we know each word,
writ and read, in this medium sprouted from
science with held from those
limited access faith confirmations, holy secret
ways out of paying for all the idle words,
never taken for the sense intended,
foremost
sense
posited, as a point in time,
we agree, I can, we did

--plea, please explain, make it seem
as real as any dream, we can't handle the truth.
-pointless-
- why carry the weight of knowing
think of nothing
in a word,
yet
not in time/
-- a spirit from the mortals fearing death
lives in this lie, cultural *******, fear of measure,
spit an image, imagine a nation, from dragon's teeth
spat, shat, splat, all the same, fat rain sound.
-- crack of the gavel, give us rapt attention---
order, order in the court, when, in fact,
judgement begins where Jesus says God is,
in his forever state, in me, of we, who
took him at his word, be true, live.
the way
courtesy commands, as judgment begins
in the spirit
of the man,

The right hand ignores the left hand clapping
-present the feeble fable

Discord sown among brothers-
hate the owning fact of life, only one breath,

- listen to the retold old word tale
- endemic demes enforced knowledge
- from **** to last told tale… we are this
- this is epic in each occurrence… we realize
smoked ribbon winds around in
form,
the long winter mind, all hearing ears, feel
from our gut, we obey. We join image-e- nations.

We dare ante-cipitate the motion in the dance.
All public opinion re
arrives at one point. We have no reasons for war,
we are not the users of others, we give, and
have been given unto, in some inexplicable way,

peace in time to rest in it, dabbling in old lies, left
binding cultural ties, as all reason for stiffness wilts

We listen to the Wendigo,
who wound the ******* greedy winding wake,
when the forest was aflame, and the wind had no cloud
that did not poison rain.
- meandering progress, not steam ship progress
sense posed reason aitia, to the t/
spirit and image in the idiom/
sublime

Now, the teller, looks to me, reminds me
of light perceived as punctual, flashing,
aha, waves in passing
understood.
Effectually.
- we stand as one.
- In the ready written mind.

All but he who takes a knee, ala George Washington,
under the leafless tree, in the olden vale.

The point of any thing, is made for, f-word for or fore
before, forsaking, one must make for some sake,
no relationship to four, for some reason, get
as a service, do what you do. Right.
Why would one enabled to do good,
do otherwise?

Ignor the answers you ask for.
Pretend poetry never makes
sense in terms of poetic good, exhaled, relieved,

passing coolness in the air.
- as gentle spirits some say do
Orderly arrangement, left mind, right or most versatile hand,
point at any thing,
bend that finger,
as on a trigger,
we can, we
know not how, we know, we have, we hold certain
positioning words as one mind may, I know,

I just got my smell back.
Like that, but after using your James Webb visualizing augments.
The wheel galaxy, just as imagined… we see

In effect, this is science, this is history,
this is art and language, holding sway,
we all know earth produces on a cycle, right,
greed breeds and brings forth famine,
famine finds us eating our corporations…
Jubilee, reset
-ship, shape, worth-shape, sense make,
peace where war was, one point
at a time.

Hold that thought, this is intended for

an audience, as the Terminal List,
was made to entertain military minds,
mental peace enforcer traits, keepers
of the secret, duty to the concept,..
live free, or die- for no reason,
save the Platonic essential lie.

Peacemakers were not intended,
we want valient warriors, at the core,
not the passive resistors increasing
capacity
to have the whole world sneeze.
And blink,
To sell words redeemed, mercurial recovery,

as from first people stories, branching away,

chaparral, between the salty sea,
and high reaching pine

fishing in a sea of social forgotten schemes/

Self govern, but in these days, not the future,
self govern now, participate in the present,

NPC over sight, non intervention-invention,
installed when you agreed, you watch,
do not rewrite the ending/

So, story being told.
Story being made up to conserve,

serve a certain truth we know, winter comes
some times for too long,

so we consider the ant, and remember Wendigo.

greedy gut, cheater, long time ago, we know,
we all can be the hungered beast.

Wait, and see, some day, we see the peace pass
for understanding, and we wonder into a we,
state of awe, as a we aware, we think

whole worlds and only words, at once.
Making peace from confused principle things.

We can, others have, agree; we are the best/

--------
Welfare, fare thee well, we said

we are as rich as ever was,
but we live a quiet life.

Pressure from some outside source,
begins be gins beginning to squeeze,

and pull and stretch, who needs the show
shown every where,
there, those other people, who own
no means to make a living form we are
reality personality types, all observants
become familiar with,
predicting winners, if it happens

I coulda been a contender, the audience
always know,
just how it feels, to be on your own,
a compleated unknown enfolding old Dylan licks,

Wendigo, there he go,
lickin' his chops, BG words are all I have
to take his breath away,

soft, and gentle/ sub-tility, wait, as sufficient

seed becomes something, never just a seed again,
and then just a seed a million times, in the wind.

-------------
3:55
I've driven myself to reflection
point,
observation con services ob
scene, objects mis directed, rect-
ify, io I mean, finger mover, on demander
I, free, willing, hunting wendigo from fantacy
conforming to hate manifested, abhor evil,
-never rests, never
rest in stranger's peace of mind,
find plain old apples in the tree, free, no fines,
no charge, non sense, an-tic

click onoma-tope -- under all of history, we know,

scribes, alone, found time to write, after reasoning
in the agora all day… ancient minds, WWSD?

--- listen, I am ashamed to beg, so, what does
your tab say, listen, I'm thinking

that's too much, here, take your ledger, wipe the debt.

Clean, no remnant from which revenant wrongs make claim,

first story told was told as lies, intended to deceive.

Knowledge is truth's gift, we live and learn
and pass it on. One point, inevitably crossing now.
And leaving a ripple, no marks

Yet, behind all that, this peace in mind, as a state, mindstate
timespace space time

taken, for granted bequilement does not disconnect,
knowing from known, and proof from pudding,
true rest,
reason for peace taken, in knowing, some body
had to believe, if it feels good, suddenly,
you know, every thing we eat
turns to ****, unless we learn…

that is good. Deal with it.

there was a time when i thought that maybe i could start to be alive. i stayed away from drugs and alcohol and i trained for hours every day and learned what not to eat and practiced a religion i had no idea about. but i felt something was missing and i had no idea why i felt so empty. i saw the people i love start to turn sad and gray and most days they couldn't lift their head out of bed. i soon began to realize that i had stolen all of their happiness, all of their hope and all of their motivation to live. it was like once i started to feel happy i drained all others of theirs. of course the only moral thing to do was to give back their happiness but i did not want to.

i am selfish and i am selfless and i am without self.

i felt it was mine, not theirs. i worked so hard to be happy for the first time in my life. i was independent, i was hopeful and positive, i was everything i had wished i could be. but i understood that this happiness was not mine and so i drained myself with cigarettes and bottles on top of bottles of old liquor and a different drug every day. i began to dream feverishly of fresh grass and old tasting food and sickness. i began to dream of my death. death was an old friend and he did not mind reuniting. i had dabbled with death for a long time, always testing him and some times begging him to take me with him when he left. he always knew the right times to kiss me but he never followed through.

death talked a lot of **** for a guy who didn't know how to take a hint.

i prayed to a god who didn't listen to me. i constantly got into fist fights with a god who forgot about me

He was a heavenly hellion

acting the fool again

filled of dreams and adrenaline

hes mumbling with the manikins

and mocking the shenanigans

of morbid ministers dabbling with their daggers again

a hooligan

with a silencer ******* in

the machiavellian

looming beneath the luminescence of the crescent moon again

I beseech of thee, deck of Seventy-Eight,
perhaps some insight, or at least a "Gee ****!"
First of three:
Five of Pentacles

Secondly:
Page of Wands

And, to conclude:
The Fool

My gut feeling:
**** yeah.
~~
I shall explicate later;
at present, I must prepare for a gig in Folsom. :D

Poet took a grandiose leap of faith,
   amid a big swig of moonbeams
   dabbling toes beyond starry galaxies
Milky Way spun in translations
    Pluto still looked perplexed,
Big Dipper gave a smart **** grimace
    wondering what the hell was
   going on 'neath the stratosphere
   when human beings can't keep
       their heads above ambiguous clouds
            feet  firmly planted on ground,
delving lofty heaven's bliss
     escaping the wrath of hell's fire,
  aggrandizing endless poesy that
absorbs sparks of a universal desire
        never phasing sun's obstinance,
   but, if you believe in poetry
      there's no telling where
        boundless skies will surrender**

...and the man in the moon tilted on his axis in a
    backward's spiral and unabashedly winked

The plumber came to call or The self-draining P’trap

To all the plumbers I have met, and yes I've met a few,
Domestic pipes, commercial pipes and civil pipe-work too,
Blow torch and solder, flux and joints,
Tricky bends and straight bits, in perfect counterpoint.

Then of course the big stuff, pipes bigger than your shoulders,
Not supplied by DIY, only bought from stockholders,
No solder for this job, a welding torch’s the thing,
Careful tack, align no crack, weld a perfect ring.

All the pipes are connected, whether large or domestic small,
Fill with water and pressurize, hoorah, no leak at all,
Flush the pipes, flow is fine, a job with a happy ending,
Pack the tools grab the kit, thank god I’ve finished bending.

The domestic user is dabbling, with a little pipe-work flair,
Can’t be that difficult, just one joint here, or the odd joint there,
All seems fine, fresh water in, waste water out,
I’m not going to spend money, on a plumber’s callout,
The waste seems not to drain well, gracious, how can that be,
I connected what I thought was right, no it can’t be me

It appears the waste pipe is blocked, gone are the comforting swirls,
This must be where the gooey stuff goes, and all those hairy curls,
I can clear the blockage, how difficult can it be,
Now, the water goes down the plug hole, around a wiggly bit, I see,
I think they call that a P-Trap, that’s all technical news to me
An old wire hanger, with force of water, will definitely do the trick
Plunge hanger down the hole, wiggle it round a bit, give it a flick,
The water hasn’t moved an inch, and the wire is firmly stuck,
Time to remove the P-trap, and deal with the unpleasant muck,
How difficult can this be, what could possibly go wrong,
Get the tools, lay on my back, this shouldn’t take too long,
Gripping trap tightly, with little effort it should unscrew,
Nothing moves, try again, it’s ****** tight, I think the thread’s askew,
A tap with my hammer, will loosen this stubborn joint,
No movement is detected, both sides are still conjoint,  
A mighty whack should do the trick, just to make my point,

A thin stream of water, is dribbling down my arm,
Success, I grab the trap, twist like merry hell, and to my alarm,
The stored bath water gushes out, the mood is far from calm.

Pushing the trap together again, trying to stem the flow,
A loud voice calls, from the dining room below,
What the hell are you doing, water’s all over my Chapeau.

Sorry my love, move your hat, it’ll be fixed in a trice,
Me thinks, If I don’t fix this very soon, I’ll need a flotation device,
Just a five minute job, am I kidding myself, my mouth is all agape,
I hunt around with my free hand, and grab the gaffer tape.

I unwind the life saver, and wrap it around the leak,
Let’s consider the situation, to avoid my wife’s serious fit of pique,  
Keep my mind focused, what could possibly go wrong,
A solution is required this very minute, that won’t take overlong.

I’ll wedge my hammer, beneath the troublesome trap,
This will give extra support, whilst my plan, I have time to map,
As I swung the hammer into place, there came a mighty crack,
A hole appeared in the bath end, I suffered a symbolic heart attack.

Time to call the plumber, and hang my head in shame,
My wife’s assessment of DIY, will never be the same,
Emergency call out was swift, a smiling youth at my door,
Lead me to the problem site, and I will probe and explore.

An estimate was made, whilst ******* air through his teeth,
What Pratt, he said, has been working on the trap beneath,
Is it bad, my wife has strength of a gorilla, it’s beyond belief,
I’m afraid it’s a bath, a trap and associated pipe work, good grief.

It’s going to be expensive, there’s the bath and tiling too,
I can’t do it straight away, but I’ll put you in the queue,
Said he was interested in the engineering feat,
Designing a self draining P-trap, was a little hard to beat.


A temporary repair was fashioned, with fiberglass and tape,
I cleared the mess around me, and quickly made an escape,
It was some days later, I thought I’d clear the gutters,
I could tell the family were not keen, by their groans and their mutters,
Not to be diverted, I disregarded all their ridicules,
I told the wife I’d start right now, but she’d locked away my tools.

Perhaps this is the way Picasso got started,
as a baby sitting in a high chair, dumping the
dish and the cup, the fork or spoon to the floor,
delighting in how the green of the pea met
with the yellow gravy, how the mashed
potatoes looked set against the wood plank
of the kitchen floor.  Did he laugh with glee
to see the orange yolk of the egg swirled in
the white of the milk, how the red Jell-O
looked floating in the yellowed chicken soup?
Later, when painting became more than
a figment in his mind’s eye, did he recall this
early experimentation, this playing with food?
I prefer to think of you in this way daughter,
dabbling in colors like a young Picasso, your
only tools the fingers in your food.  It is much
easier on my psyche to channel happy
thoughts your way, preferable to my getting
upset, aggravated every time you dump your
food, my blood pressure rising to the roof.
At every meal you fend off any attempts to
feed you, preferring to lift your own fork or
spoon then send them sailing, as if to say,
I will be in charge of my world.  I will
command what is at hand.  As my mind
wanders, I begin dabbling in daydreams,
futuristic thoughts… I am beaming with
pride… you are being called a genius as you
are applauded for your latest masterpiece…
but swiftly I am brought back to reality, as
just as quickly you hurl from your high chair
this meal’s rendition, today’s most recent
work of art.

You made a personal decision to leave HP, based on dissatisfaction with the abundance of certain language issues that have, in my opinion, saturated the site. I couldn't agree more with what you say, but is it enough to leave a site that has provided the majority with many enjoyable works.
I don't know just how old "The 'Ole Storyteller" is, it makes no difference. An enjoyable read is always an enjoyable read, and one that  is read multiple times. Writers like yourself are important to the site. They are the ones we respect, look up to, learn from. Your writes serve as an inspiration, not just to the newcomers trying to find their way, looking to create their own style, dabbling with many, but for all of us that want to do better, better than the last one, and the one before it, and so on.
Your writes, teach. What more can you ask. Yes, there will always be those that want to waller in misery, wanting everyone else to swim with them in their muck. Some feel it necessary to throw in a few four-letter words which add nothing, but succeed in ruining what could have been a very good write.
Come back "Ole Storyteller"! Show those that cause your discontent that you are above what seems to becoming the norm.
copyright: richard riddle January 14, 2015