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Loveless Jul 2016
Knock knock

"Anyone there?" he heard someone saying it while knocking at the door. That one knocking the door had a voice of a child. The voice was soft and with this the old man inside the house guessed the age of child to be probably five to six years.

"Hellooo" the kid said again. He was continuously knocking the door.

Child continued to knock for a little while.

"I know you are inside there, please respond"
Child said pleadingly.

"Go away, no one is here" the old man said furiously. He was frustrated.

"Oh! Here you are" child responded "Dr Adam, I need help, I am..." the child couldn't complete the sentence, and the old man's heard a thud which was supposedly bigger than a knock. Possibly his head had banged against the door. Something had happened, the old man knew.

The old man was a loner but he wasn't heartless to not check on the kid. He bookmarked the page and kept the book he was reading on the table. He stood up and started to walk towards the door. He put down the chain and then opened the door slowly.

The child was holding on the door. As the old man opened the door the child could barely keep standing for some moments and he started to fall near the man's legs. Old man was quick and he put his hand below the child so he couldn't fall on the floor.

The old man grasped the hand of the boy to check his pulse. The boy was still alive though there was something weird about his pulse. It was weak, he could barely sense it and the pulse was low to around forty per minute. He was still breathing. The child was unconscious.

The old man grasped that kid in his arms and took him to his bedroom, situated upstairs on right corner of the house. He placed that kid on the bed which was still as fluffy as a new bed would be. It's been years since that old man was back to his bedroom. He used to sleep mostly in his chair while reading. He placed pillow under the kid's head and went back downstairs to other room.

That room didn't looked like a room, it looked more like a library. The room was large and there were books everywhere. His hand written notes and research was all scattered in the room. And the old man grasped they book he left on the table and continued reading.

Some hours passed and the old man heard the door opening upstairs. The child had woken up, he knew. The old man grabbed some fruits lying in the basket and went upstairs. The kid was just out of the room.

"Hey kid, you can still rest a little, and if you don't want to rest, you can have these fruits and go"

"Dr. Adam!?"

"Yes"

"I'm dying."

The old man was speechless as he heard these words from that little child. Many patients had come to him before, knocking on his door, to help them but he had left his profession because of one accident. All of them had to go back. He didn't even opened his door to anyone before. But now he had a child in front of him, who said he was dying and this left the old man speechless.

"Go to the hospital kid, I can't help you. I do not operate anymore"

"I went to the hospital. The disease I have have no cure. Not a single of them can cure me"

"Then how do you think I'd be able to cure you?"

"My disease makes my heart weaker by the moment it beats"

The old man knew this disease. All he could do was just stare at that kid and listen to him.

"They told me that long ago, a genius researched upon something and came across a cure to everything. And in that time, a kid had the same disease as me. He could die anytime. That genius used his talents to give that kid a new life. He cured that child and that child lived for a day but something happened and the disease of kid returned. This time, a million time worse and the kid died."

A silence followed after the kid.

"That genius was you Dr Adam . You had saved that kid before, even for just some days, but only you were the one to be able to find its cure. Save me doctor. Save me."

"I... I can't..." for the first time in years, the old man was not rude. His voice was trembling. In his eyes was fear. His north had dried up. He couldn't speak another word.

He was taken aback. He was looking in the eyes of that kid and in those little eyes of that kid was hope. Blue eyes of that kid were same as that of Nicholas, that kid the old man failed to save life of.

And the old man went to a state of trance and started to wonder in the memories thirty years back.

He was young back then. He was a genius. He learned to speak when he was just six months old. At three he used to solve maths problems easily that were hard for child double his age. His parents knew he was talented and so they gave him best education they could. He completed his doctorate degree at the age of seventeen when most of the people his age would be looking for what to do. He was a prodigy.

He joined a hospital. And started to operate on people. The operations that looked hard to normal one, he was able to do without a sweat. He wanted to do more. And so he got a home for himself where he could work in peace. He started on researching the cure of everything. He would think, search and experimented alone.

One morning, two years later, he found that any disease can be cured using magic. The magic that provides energy and makes life energy so strong that the body itself heals itself.

He was happy that day. He went to hospital to break out the news to everyone. But on his way, he found a small kid, of five years, laying on the bed.

"Hey kid" he said to the child.

"Hello doctor..."

"My name is Adam. What's your name"

"I'm Nicholas, doctor Adam"

"What happened to you Nicholas"

"I don't know."

"Don't worry, you'll be alright. I promise you"

"Thank you Dr Adam" the child smiled. That smile was so full of feelings that it made Adam more happy from inside. That smile had touched his heart. He just wanted to make that kid more happy by curing him of whatever he had. He made a promise to himself that he would cure that kid before telling upon his research to everyone.

He ran across the hospital and went to the other room where the doctors handling the patients of that room were.

"Hey Robert"

"Hello sir" though Robert was ten years older than Adam but still he used to call Adam sir because Adam was a lot more senior than him because of his knowledge.

"Whats up with Nicholas"

"That small boy"

"Yes"

"Actually, we don't know anything yet"

"What?"

"We've never seen such disease yet"

"What is with that disease"

"His heart is losing strength by the moment it beats. A severe pain was in his heart for unknown reasons pops up whenever. And he sometimes loses his consciousness at random times. That's one of a kind case. He can die at any time."

The young prodigy was speechless for the first time. His thoughts took him to another world. He was broken because he thought he couldn't help that kid. And then he heard a scream coming from the same place Nicholas was in.

He ran back to there. Nicholas was holding his heart with one hand and screaming. The pain was immense. Beyond measure of one's imagination. The eyes were flooded with tears. This view shocked Adam. He had never heard anyone shriek that loud in his whole life.

He went near Nicholas and held him up in his arms. He hugged him close and said that everything will be alright. The child's voice somehow lowered. After some moments, that. stopped crying and just stayed in his arms.

"Save me Dr Adam! Save me" the kid said sobbingly and then collapsed under his hands and got unconscious.

For the first time in his life the doctor felt helpless. He realized how precious life was. And he could not help that kid. The young man started crying. And suddenly a bright idea struck his mind. He thought of using the magic he researched for to cure this child.

"I will save you kiddo, I definitely will" he said to that small kid and then turned to Robert who had followed him

"Robert, can you take him to the operating table please"

"Yes but first tell me what are you going to do"

"I will tell you later. Just trust me and take him to there" Adam gave that kid to Robert and started to go out "I need to go back home for a bit. I'll be back quick" he said to Robert hurriedly and ran back to home. He needed to see the procedure again. He didn't wanted to do any mistake. Though he had not done any experiment to any animal, he was still confident in his research.

He came back to home, took out some notes of his from his book and started to read them. Then after some minutes, he ran back to hospital along with those notes. He just went to the room where the kid was. Robert was there near the table and the child still knocked unconscious and laying on the operating table.

"Thank you Robert. Can you please leave us alone now"

"But what are you going to do now?"

"Cure him"

"But how?"

"I can't tell you now but I will surely cure him"

Robert was still reluctant but he knew that Adam may have come up with some way of curing that child

"Trust me, I will surely" Adam said

And with that Robert finally left from there.

The doctor begin the procedure and he placed his palm on the child's heart tenderly. Then he closed his eyes and then had his other hand up. The other hand was open like he was gathering something from sky inside his hand. He was channeling the energy of the universe too the life energy of the kid.

The man could feel it running through his body. It was like the kid's energy was faint green in color and the energy in his hand was vibrant blue which was intense. The blue energy went from his hand to the other hand was going to the child's energy and making it stronger. But Adam didn't knew why there were two colors of energy. There was something wrong, he felt but nevertheless he continued to channel. Gradually the energy inside kid began to grow and it was full again. Like the color of child's energy was not blue but with little faint green inside.

Adam withdrew his hand. Nicholas was still breathing and seemed to be in good shape. Adam knew he was successful but he knew something,even if it were a little thing, had been wrong. And he sank back in the chair nearby.

After some moments the kid opened his eyes and sat on the table

"How are you feeling kiddo?" he asked standing from chair

"I... I feel... I feel fine doctor" Nicholas said. He was touching his heart like he was wondering what happened. He felt better than before. He felt that he is all alright.

"I feel good doctor" Nicholas said "I feel great" he added. He had a smile on his face. He felt rejuvenated. He was happy. Adam had a sigh of relief.

"How did you do it doctor?"

"Do what?"

"Cure me. How did you cure me? They said that my disease couldn't be cured by any medicine or surgery"

"Well...." Adam didn't knew what to say

"Tell me please. How did you?"

"Magic" and Adam smiled. He had told the truth though Nicholas didn't thought it was truth. This made nicholas laugh.

"Thank you... My magician" and they both started to laugh again. They both were happy.

"Come on now. Let me take you to your bed" and he grasped Nicholas in his arms and took him to his bed.

"I want to go home, not this bed"

"We still need to keep you under observation for a while still kiddo. So be a good boy"

"Ok magician, I will be a good boy"

Robert was there. Looking for other patients. He looked at the boy and observed him. He saw no marks, and realized surgery or something had not been done. And he later real used that pulse of the kid was normal now. And the child was smiling.

"How did you did that sir?" he asked Adam

"Ask the kid, he knows" and Robert looked at the kid

"He did magic doctor" and they both started to laugh while Robert looked puzzled. But Robert knew that the prodigy must have made some discovery and that's how he cured him and Adam want to give surprise to others.

"Congrats magician" Robert joined them.

"Robert can you help me in observing this child. I want to make sure he is all alright"

"I will sir" Robert said

They both did some tests that day along with looking after other patients. The strength of the heart of that boy had returned and heart beat was normal with no pain burst or unconsciousness for whole day.

Adam said final good night to the kid and went to his home to get some rest after informing Nicholas they he will be discharged tomorrow.

Adam dozed off to sleep quick that night. But he had a nightmare. He saw those two energies blue and faint green that were slowly disappearing. Darkness was consuming them both as they mixed. And then there was complete darkness. He heard a terrible scream of pain an then he woke up.

He couldn't wait there. He had to go back to hospital to check on Nicholas again. He dressed quick and ran to hospital. The was doctor Jack at night duty near the bed of that kid.

And that kid was laying silent. Adam held his hand. But he felt nothing. He then tried to feel heart beats but nothing again.

"What happened here?" Adam asked furiously to Jack

"Some minutes ago, we hard a loud scream for just a second or two and we realized it was Nicholas. By the time we reached here, it was all over. His heart had stopped beating"

"No that can't be" Adam said. How heart had broke.

"That disease had no cure Adam. At least you tried" Jack said

"No I should have been able to save him, I could have if I knew more, I could have" the tears of Adam flowed like an endless river of grief.

He left his profession that day. He wanted to search for the answers. He wanted to perfect his magic. He wanted not to let someone else die like that kid again. He made his home a library. He got many books. He kept on studying. He studied so much that many times he forgot to eat for days. Some books he wrote himself while researching upon. And so years passed. Life went on till today when a little child knocked his door.

His state of trance was broken by the scream of that little kid. He was holding his heart as the same way Nicholas did when he was in pain. Adam got himself and got that little boy on bed again. Kid stopped to cry after a little while. When kid had a breath of relief, he said to the old man again

"Dr Adam, I do not have much time left. Please. Help me"

"I have not finished that research yet. I may need more years to finish that cure of everything"

"I do not have years, I may not even have today and you know it"

"Kid, you may meet same fate as that kid. My procedure somehow accelerated that disease because it was wrong"

"I have to die one day if it's a week or I am left with a day after the procedure. It won't matter. I have to die anyway"

"But..." he couldn't say anything more. The child was wise and he was saying up to point.

"Can you please just try. I promise I won't regret it"

Even though thirty years had passed. Adam had made little progression towards that cure to everything. In the meantime he had found out many cures of many other diseases that was thought to be incurable but Adam wanted to perfect his procedure of cure of everything.

"Are you sure?"

"Dead sure" the kid replied. They both laughed a little on that pun.

"Get some rest. I'll be back in a bit"

He was going to do that again. He was going to use magic again. He went downstairs and started to read as much as he can of his notes. He wanted to do it perfect this time. Though he didn't knew how. After some time he went back upstairs.

"Hello again" the child said

"Are you ready kiddo?"

"I am. And by the way, my name is Nick"

"You're still kiddo for me" and they both laughed.

"Lay on the bed and don't move or say anything. Just close your eyes. I'm going to do magic"

"Ok magician" boy said. He was so much alike to Nicholas, Adam thought.

Nick did what he was told. The old man placed one hand on the boy's heart and other hand in exact same position as before years ago. He could feel the energies as he closed his eyes. The energy of the boy was faint green again. And a little more fainter than Nicholas when he was on the operating table that night. Adam felt the same blue energy in his other hand. No he thought. He couldn't put that blue energy again inside that boy. He knew the consequence. He searched for the same green one in outside universe but he couldn't. And then he heard.

"Dr Adam"

It was
I'm too lazy to add all the details in the story. Maybe one day I'll detail it.
RAJ NANDY Jun 2017
Dear Poet Friends, the Sphinx remains shrouded in myth, legend, and History. Modern research by archaeologists and Egyptologists have revealed some of its hidden mysteries. My research has resulted in providing you with a short & a balanced view about the Sphinx, keeping in mind the short attention span of my readers. Unfortunately, I am not able to post the Illustrative photographs here which accompanies my Sphinx story. Hope you like this story, thanks, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.
            
         THE MYSTERY OF THE EGYPTIAN SPHINX

INTRODUCTION
Towering over the Giza plateau facing the rising sun over the
River Nile,
The Sphinx stands defiant for over four millennia, braving the
vagaries of weather and marauding time!
With a lion’s body and a human head the Sphinx remains
shrouded in part myth, part legend, and ancient History.
While the date of its construction, and identity of its face
have intrigued scholars for many centuries.
Today I shall tell you about this monumental and magnificent
structure,
Which stands as an iconic symbol of Egyptian architecture!
Man fears Time since he forever remains as it’s bonded
prisoner in captivity.
However, only few hours of freedom are granted to him during
his earthly sojourn, to live and love life with impunity!
But Time fears the Pyramid and the Sphinx, as they stand
defiant with their raised head;
As miniature symbols of eternity which even Time dreads!

MYTHS AND LEGEND ABOUT THE SPHINX
Many controversies and theories abound as to the identity
of its builders during ancient times.
Some say it was built by the people who came from Plato’s
lost ‘Continent of Atlantis’, prior to the Egyptians, way back
in time!
Others say it was the ancient Zulus who had inhabited the
wet and rainy Giza region with its great lake.
Around 8000 BC, during the close of the Great Ice Age!
But with changing weather pattern the Giza region later became
a desolate and a deserted area.
Yet no records or hieroglyphs survive, to make things clear.
The name ‘Sphinx’ is said to have been given 2000 years later  
by the enterprising Greeks.
Since in Greek Mythology there is a Sphinx, but with a woman’s
face, a lion’s body and with eagle’s wings;
Which guarded the entrance to the ancient Greek City of Thebes.
To the Greeks we owe the ‘Riddle of the Sphinx’ which asked all
passing travelers the following question:
“What is it that has one voice, and walks with four legs in the
morning, with two during the day, and with three in the evening
time?”  - about which those travelers had no notion!
The Sphinx devoured all those who had failed to answer, till the
Greek Oedipus confronted the Sphinx and replied,
That the riddle had described the three stages of a Man’s life.  
Since he crawled on all four as a child, grew up to walk on two
legs.
But during old age used a stick which became his third leg.
Hearing the correct answer the Sphinx is said to have jumped
into an abyss killing itself!

THE  SPHINX PROPER  
Modern Egyptologists generally agree, that the Sphinx had been
carved out from a single mass of limestone mound, -
Which dominated the Giza plateau before 2540 BC.
Built by Pharaoh Kufu’s son Khafre of the Fourth Dynasty.
Khafre was the builder of the second largest pyramid standing
next to his father’s Great Pyramid of Giza.  
While the Sphinx stands on the eastern most boundary of the
Desert Sahara;
Six miles west of Cairo, on the edge of Giza plateau.
It is 240 feet in length and almost 70 feet in height, aligned to
the Pyramid of Khafre behind.
The Sphinx lies on its hunches guarding the vast ‘City of the Dead’.
Where pharaohs mummified bodies lie deep within the pyramids;
To facilitate journey of their soul to gain eternal life and be
resurrected,
To join the Happy Fields of Osiris the Egyptian God of after-life
and death.

Great conquerors like Alexander and Napoleon had stood
dwarfed before the mighty Sphinx.
But to Napoleon we remain grateful for our knowledge of
Egyptian civilisation among other things.
For it was his soldiers who had discovered the Rosetta Stone
in Egypt in 1799, with its  bilingual inscription.
Written in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Coptic Greek, resulting in
the decipherment of the Ancient Egyptian pictorial inscriptions!

EXCAVATIONS AND RESEARCH WORK
The Sphinx had been buried by the shifting sands of the desert
many a time during past centuries.
While periodic restoration work continues to preserve it for
posterity.
American archeologist Mark Lehner and his team during the 1970s,
had analysed the bedrock under the mighty Sphinx.
They found natural cracks and fissures, and also narrow passage
ways dug by early treasure seekers!
His team climbed all over the Sphinx like Lilliputians over Gulliver, -  while mapping its structure entire.
It was found the Sphinx had been subjected to five major restoration efforts since 1400 BC .
While Mark’s dedicated efforts earned him a Doctorate in Egyptology at the Yale University.

Mark’s research also concluded that the visage of the Sphinx was
once painted in red.
While traces of blue and golden yellow decorated the ‘nemes’, the
Pharaoh’s brightly stripped head dress.
Controversies rage even to this date, as to whose features the
Sphinx’s Negroid face did actually represent.
While the disfigured nose of the Sphinx has given rise to many
speculations.
Was it the Muslim Arab conquerors, or a fanatical Sufi Turk who had tried to destroyed it as a pagan symbol!
Today I recall that the mighty 1700 years’ old statue of the Bamiyan
Buddha in Central Afghanistan.
Which was destroyed during March 2001 as a pagan statue by the
fanatical Taliban!
  
Mark feels that in all likelihood the Sphinx’s face was that of Khafre, with whose pyramid the Sphinx stands aligned.
While those ancient architects had arranged the location of the three pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx in conformity with solar events, - while choosing their construction site.
A settlement bigger than 10 football fields at this site was excavated,
Where the Sphinx formed an integral part of Pharaoh Khafre’s building complex!
This ‘Lost City’ of Mark Lehner had barracks, workmen’s quarters and kitchenette.
While remnants of diets found suggested workers were perhaps
rendering national service, and were not slaves.
No iron or bronze tools were found, only crude stone hammers and
copper chisels lay buried beneath the ground.
These copper chisels had to be sharpened at the charcoal furnace
frequently, for executing chiseling  work with artistry.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GIZA COMPLEX AREA
Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists felt that the pyramids, Sphinx, and the Temples Complex of Khafre was thoughtfully arranged,
For linking solar events and harnessing the power of the Sun God  
to resurrect the soul of the Pharaohs after their death!
This transformation not only guaranteed eternal life for their dead king,
But also sustained the universal national order, passing of seasons, the annual flooding of the Nile, and their people’s well being.
During sunset at March or September equinoxes when the sun appears to sink into the shoulder of the Sphinx, -
“At the very same moment the shadows of the Sphinx and the pyramids
both symbol of the king becomes merged silhouettes.
Sphinx representing Khafre as Horus the revered falcon god, offers with
his two paws to his father Khufu incarnated as Ra the sun god, who rises
and sets in that temple,” – as the ancient Egyptian’s thought.
Unfortunately  Kafre’s dream was not realised, since the Sphinx Temple remained unfinished as now we get to see,
As the Old Kingdom of Egypt finally broke apart around 2130 BC.
The desert sand began to gradually swallow up the Sphinx, till almost a thousand years later,
Thutmosis IV cleared the area, and introduced cult of Sphinx worship during the New Kingdom Era!
Rest is history, which has been already covered by me.

     CONCLUDING THE SPHINX STORY
The ancient Sphinx as Egypt’s iconic art,
Has captured the onlookers mind and heart.
Buried deep within its shifting sand,
Lies many a secret still unknown to man!
The Sphinx still beckons out to me,
Perhaps one day I shall get to see.
Today the Sphinx stares out at a fast food restaurant.
As it now faces a full frontal urban assault!
The rising water level of the Nile, tourism, traffic, and
air pollution, along with many urban constructions;
Make the authorities to worry about its preservation!
The Sphinx beckons out to man from eons past,
What is that secret it wants to share with us?
Perhaps it is about Environmental Degradation;
And the urgent need for Global Preservation!
                                                   ­        -Raj Nandy
ALL COPYRIGHTS WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY
Emily Jun 2010
We have never had to compete.
You are so much older than I am
So much prettier
So much wittier (you have said so yourself).
You are healthy
Not very wealthy
You proclaim your wisdom.

But I don't think you are as wise as you think.
With your doctorate,
You may have book learnin'
But you never learned how to be a part of our family.

I don't live in a liberal state
I don't eat all organic things
I am not involved in as many things
as you feel I should be
But I am trying to find my way
Without destroying our mother.

Every time you come
You bring chaos
And hurtful words.
You bring blame and hate
And you spew it.

You never think of anyone except
For yourself
And you twist the truth
In your mind,
Like you lied about being kidnapped,
Until you believe that you are the wronged.

You don't feel safe?
I don't feel safe with you.
I'm glad we don't compete...
There's no way I could win,
And hurt Mom, or our sister, or our nephew...
Or anyone
As much as you do.
Cameron Haste Aug 2014
Moss covered women
beggin' fog man
to grip a cig
from their tangled wigs
(a snarl of emerald branches
& voodoo masks
with plastic flasks,
they grave loot from caskets
& trash.)

Raunchy regulars
calling loogies to duty.

I've been livin' in a tumble ****,
with a doctorate for wildebeest.
don't go back, she bites.
Tommy Johnson Apr 2014
You live with eyes closed
Walk with an arrogant stride
You keep your hands clean
And your nose held high
There's a whole world screaming
But you just walk on by
And ignore the world's trouble
The burdens it bares
Because you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care

There's racism
And sexism all over the globe
Poverty, human trafficking
And still your shoulder is cold
Drug cartels, corrupt politicians
Murderous rapists without any souls
And you're just as guilty if I may be so bold
You just sit there and stare
Because you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care

You're busy chasing the American dream
A glorious promise riches and liberty
But the hand that feeds and you wanna shake is giving the bird to you
While it taxes our rights and confiscates our freedom of speech
And you take it like a ******* gimp
As it keeps our inspiration and aspirations out of reach
You should stand up and fight for what's yours
And I urge you to grow a pair
Because you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care

You have faith in the higher-ups
In our country, in God we trust
It's all a bust
You must protect your privileges
And help in our progression
Equality for and freedom
But you chose instead to be ignorant
And see a society and not a civilization

       -Tommy Johnson
Get a higher education
Go to school
Get a degree in something
No, don't be a fool
Milk the cash cow
Be a work mule
To find a job even with your doctorate
To find employment, is something rare

       -Tommy Johnson

But you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care

Terrorists instill a sense of fear
So we police the world
Oppress and occupy
Bullets, bloodshed and grenades are hurled
And back home we outsource
As history unfurls
A time of economic recession
And unjust warfare

And of course you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care

They tricked, murdered and ***** the natives
For all this land
You can say "you wouldn't be here if they didn't"
Well, I feel guilty for living here because they betrayed their fellow man
Then they had those of darker skin as slaves
The decision to free them caused both sides to **** each other
And in the end the chose to segregate
Tell me the equality in that there

Because you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care

People call each other *******,
*******, spics, chinks they say
A world that loves you if you got social status
But chastise you if your gay
But it's gotten so much better
Looking back on yesterday
But you haven't helped, you just go along
You're views are still parochial, and I'm giving you a disgruntled glare

Because you dare not interfere
You ignore it because you're scared
It isn't your problem so you don't care


You see no beauty in this world
It's like your not even a part of it
You have no idea whats going on around you
You only look out for yourself
You contribute nothing
No ideas
No creations
No light

You just leave the rest of us in darkness
To be destroyed by corruption, hatred, misunderstanding and doubt
While you become just another pawn
Another cog
Another customer
To be accounted for
You are just nameless number
People like you are the reason change takes so long
Open your eyes!
Sharina Saad May 2013
At the defense proposal
I was convinced
I would make it through
The proposal in my hand,
Months of preparation,
mentally, physically, loaded brain...
Well prepared I was for this judgement day
A little over confident, perhaps....

In the life of a Phd candidate
This is the true battle of Academia
Whether you'd be at the top
or you would be shot dead
The honorable Panels will decide...

The moment you utter a sentence or two..
Continuous attacks from the left and right
endlessly..... till you have your head
buried in the ground
Again you wake up and strike again
This is your war....
Defense is war.. the war of life
the moment of truth
the battle of a doctorate student everywhere

Research Objectives, Research Questions,
The Signification of research
and the Implication, the contribution of this study
SO WHAT?
One by one was being detailed, scrutinized and questioned

Dear panels,please be kind
Was patiently coping with your brutal  attacks
Head held low, head held high...
Nearly had a stroke,
But I refused to die...

Thank you dear panels,
my courteous smile for you...
I'd be back,
You'd see me again,
When I counter attack....
Wooo..... hate the panels...
SassyJ Jul 2016
The words brewed steam itches
Switches that are unexplainable
twitches of mortal flames
the ******* stones wrapped
like a newborn baby unknown

The look in your eyes is pale
the thought of you ails all flesh
in the window of my life
you have no place or reflection*
like blurred mirror of the unwise

Professors and supervisors
transcend and ascend crafted fibs
Is it too late to try and sculpture?
Refine you to a mastery of change
like a culture of spirits rising

I would like to hold you inside my all
in the softness of my brain summarise
a scaffold structure of analytical glory
I would like to caress you close to me
kiss the dimensions of the edgy thesis
a trifle of paradisiacal pleasure and taste

Should I try and see your worth in a system?
A world whose lease is an unending debt
Where we are human competing for labour
A world where we are slaves of economy
Where we hustle along the automated robots
*A world where ready or not we sink in demise
I just want to write but not you doctorate.
The Jolteon Jan 2015
Child loves people
Child especially loves animals
Kid has many pets
Kid has many friends
Teenager loves biology
Teenager wants to become a doctor
College student majors in biology
College student wants to heal people
Doctorate student studies hard
Doctorate student wants to change lives
Doctor turns away those with wrong insurance
Doctor watches people die
Doctor makes private companies rich
Doctor feels sad and stupid
andrew desantis Feb 2010
bonetender night, polaric.
windswept crown atones
weeping wanderer.
rigid matriarch condones
tantrum medication. vast
control shapes diminished conscience,
actuating frustration;
migrane pulse doctorate.
sad shell housing beaten wails,
a closed eye, ear to brains.
steady now, absorb sultry stance.
dim lamp set on autonomic fade.
mike Feb 2013
hi again. my names mike. im scared. ive been recently diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia, i think. however, the doctor(who is not a real doctor)was inaccurate. setting me up to be his personal test dummy. well, its not gonna happen again. im looking for a team to enact a certain duty. a job for those who seem qualified.

the qualifications?: experience in violence and time travel.

the job?: to never divulge secrets of the job, which involves kidnapping said doctor and retrieving a small metal instrument from within his skull.(i have the needed information for the retrieval of this device.)

the time?: any time before the future. once we've orchestrated then enacted our team meeting, we must use our time travel facilities within the same minute of our arrival, as i have already set our return time for the mission to one minute after the last team member(gregg) arrives on location of said meeting point. we will(once gregg finally arrives, 28 minutes late!) pile into the 8-man machine and activate, sending us to our destination: february 2nd, 1989. this is the date that(we'll call him doctor octopus) doctor octopus received his supposed doctorate from stanford university. we will then obstruct the way between his home and his graduating ceremony by means of designing a car crash scenario. he will be knocked out cold, allowing us easy passage into his car, excavating his limp frame, and bringing it to a secure location(walmart)where we will then inject his brain with a bio-mechanical agent, leaving him there to wake up, confused, and minus a degree. we will then travel to april 2nd, 1999, to re-engage with doctor octopus, to kidnap him in order to extract the mechanism from within his skull, which at this time will be fully grown and functional, having been implanted by us through the injection of the bio-mechanical agent 10 years and 2 months prior. once obtaining said device, we will use it to communicate with the inter-dimentional beings doctor octopus has done the bidding of. we will pose as doctor octopus to gather intelligence as to how to travel through time, allowing the mission success, bringing us back to the original point of departure, arriving exactly one minute after original departure. leaving us with existing alibis(for i know everyone was with their families on groundhog day, 1989. and my birthday, 1999.) and no traceable evidence or witnesses, including yourselves, for i HAVE taken the liberty of going back to all of your days of birth and murdering your mothers with said team still unborn in the wombs, yet have gone back to said dates again to stop myself. allowing for success and no traceable links.

the place?: nowhere. the mission has already been completed. good job team.

the compensation?: 7.79 per hour.
Mica Kluge Aug 2018
Let me tell you a story.

When I was young, I was convinced one of two things would happen:
I would either die young or I would live ignorant.
And I was allowed to believe it.
I was careful, avoiding snakes, spiders, dirt, human beings, love.
I horded books, enough to give myself a doctorate in any field.
And I was called paranoid. Idiotic. A fool. Freak. Doomed.
But, I kept living anyway. Destroyed, most of the strings in me cut.
But living. And I was allowed to believe it was a gift.

Of course, this is a fiction, lie, metaphor, but the truth stands.
Children are not born to be afraid. They are taught.
Fear is conditioned. Rewarded. Considered a virtue.
The wildness of youth is tromped upon by cleat-clad "caution."
Gone are bright eyes, reckless smiles, heads thrown back. Life.
Dull glances, insurance, cul-de-sacs, and bitten tongues reign. Fear.
And fear is one of the deepest scars we can inflict upon another.

This story is not mine, though I have been the one to tell it.
But I am human. An ocean. A fault line. A candle facing a storm.
This tale, in some chisled fascet, mirrors my own.
And it will continue as long as I draw breath.
~
May 2024
HP Poet: Melancholy of Innocence
Age: 59
Country: India


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Melan. Please tell us about your background?

Melancholy of Innocence: "My name is Raj / Melan (as on HP). I am an Architect and Urban Planner with a MBA. I unsuccessfully pursued Doctorate (twice), but due to circumstances - could not complete it. I have worked with several International Non-Profit Development Organizations and Projects. While living in Amsterdam (Holland) for 4 years I was International Development Manager in-charge of ten-countries of the world – Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea), South-East Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines), Spain, Russia, Belgium, United Kingdom and Chile. And for separate projects I have lived for more than 6 months in Bangkok (Thailand) and Accra (Ghana). I have travelled to more than 40+ countries."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Melancholy of Innocence: "The first vivid memory of mine that I can call as a poem was when I was 8 years old. I had gone to my Mom’s office picnic tour for 2-days and there I had met someone of similar age of opposite gender. On coming back, whose name I wrote “three” times (one below the other in 3 different fonts) on the last page of my school notebook. I consider that as my first LOVE-poem. My first form of “identifiable” poetry was at the age of 13 years. It was about doing “morning household chores” and helping my Mom so that she can reach her office on time. After a very long break, it was only when my BELOVED inspired me to become member of Hello Poetry, I did so in 2016 and started writing serious poetry. I have 23 books (fiction, non-fiction, poetry) self-published on Amazon."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Melancholy of Innocence: "LOVE surely inspires me. Being in LOVE makes me feel - live and breathe in PEACE. Poetry happens to me when without knowledge amidst mundane incidences of life – like, while taking bath or wearing clothes, standing in front of a mirror, reading some story/poem/article/lyrics, watching an interviews/movies/songs, listening to music OR just by observing the way people behave, express themselves, their ****** expressions, their mannerisms, smiles/sorrows/laughter/giggles; the way they walk, turn and look around them, stand, sit that always reminds me of my BELOVED. I also always make it a point to peep out from my home balcony / window seeking a glimpse of sunrise/sunset, moon/stars, birds, clouds, feeling breeze on our skin, blooming flowers, bees, insects etc. and many more things…! Basically, I think I get inspired by something that touches me deep inside and reminds me of my BELOVED. I immediately experience the realization of “I being in deep true pure eternal LOVE” in our heart and soul. That’s how poetry happens to me."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Melancholy of Innocence: "Poetry is a true expression of how exactly I feel inside me at that very particular moment of time and I try to be as honest as possible in expressing it with words that communicates my true and pure feelings of LOVE to my BELOVED."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Melancholy of Innocence: "Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Ghalib, Tagore, Neruda, Pushkin, Kabeer, Jayadeva, all enlightened Sufi fakeers and many more contemporary lyricists."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Melancholy of Innocence: "I like to read. Now a days I read in digital format anything that catches my interest ) text books, non-fictions, literary-award-winning books, biographies. etc. I like to draw, paint, sketch, do photography, do exercise, play sports, watch movies, serials etc. I even have written full-feature movie-scripts. I try to download and listen to all songs of music my BELOVED likes and sometimes recommends me. I like to do simple household chores (sweep/swab the house, clean the toilets etc.), do mundane shopping errands, cleaning and arranging things around me, I love to sit and observe things – “Nature”; and especially common everyday people and wonder about their childhood years and their life’s journey. I like to introspect a lot and question my own thoughts – making sure I do not get convinced and/or imprisoned by anything (beliefs, rituals, superstitions, views, thoughts, religion, philosophy, “..isms” and “so-called” TRUTHS) that I may have come across - seen, read or heard. I am very uncomfortable and vary of building identities of I, me, my, mine, myself…"


Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for allowing us this opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet, Melan! We are honored to include you in this ongoing series!”



Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Melan a little bit better. I surely did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #16 in June!

~
wordvango Nov 2014
best if i say right off this is gonna be *****
so if you believe in god or are under 30
or can't ride the rides in Disneyland
disembark
****, I forgot what
I had  in me dream,
****!!!!!!!!!!!
I stomp and jump up again and say **** It!!!!
Fucken all this crap!
I am so tired of chasing visions, so tired of  lying women
so tired of every buzz.
God ******* ****!!! **** me!
**** with a capital F I forgot to add the emphasis.
So full of ****** rhymes so full of bad times.
I just need to calm down, okay.
i am ok.
So, where was I, geez, a full load wheelbarrow falling **** into my lap.
I make it day to night, and sleep alone again. What have I to look forward to tomorrow. A hard day labor and a lonely night.
A fist full of dollars I **** away might as well just  take a crap on this whole world wipe my *** with a hundred dollar bill, then roll it up
and snoot a big *** of candy again up my nose.
I know you are tired of my whining. Look, I got a Major, a doctorate even,
in wallowing. I will never be okay  as long as I camoflauge my feelings. So, i am spilling them all out now, puking my guts up on your eyes in lil a big Z
Anais Vionet Mar 2023
Darkness has pressed up against our lattice windows. Classes start again in the morning. I’m being reabsorbed by college life. I’m a planner. I’ve been going over my syllabuses, repacking my bookbag, charging my power banks, checking and rechecking the assignments due tomorrow. After watching me prep for hours, Peter said, “You’re not going to the MOON.”

Peter asked me last Friday, “Are you excited for Monday? (I’ll find out if I get my fellowship.)
“I’m more excited about tonight,” I said, “I like going out on the town.”
“Wow,” he said, “you’re so different - not like the other girls at all.”
“No!” I said, laughing, “We’re stuck in a rut, we only go to one or two places, ever - if we go out at all. When people come to New Haven, I need places to take them - places besides pizza. At home, in Athens (Ga), I know twenty places - this is RESEARCH.” I assured him.

Peter settled back into his doctorate-fraternity-house yesterday. Tonight (Sunday), there’s music in the suite, the crazy noises of people and the comfort of returned friends. All the roommates are back, greeted with hugs and kisses, as they dragged in their luggage.

Lisa arrived with dinner, for 10, from Dominick's, in Manhattan. Spaghetti, salads, rolls, extra sauce - in six, small, suitcase-sized insulated bags. It was a logistical marvel. It’s only 90 minutes from Manhattan to the residence - we didn’t need to rewarm anything. “I KNOW we could have just eaten in the dining hall,” she said, shrugging, “call it zany - one last hurrah.”

Everyone seemed happy to be back. There were travel stories, questions, and laughter. Oh, and Zeppole, little powdered sugar custard desserts that seemed the worst for travel. Everyone seemed to have an eye on the clock though. By 11pm the suite was quiet. Très unusual.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Zany: foolish or eccentric

A song for this would be “Kennedy” by feeble little horse
Marieta Maglas Jun 2015
(Arturo, Lucca, Miguel, Frederick, Marco, Cruz, Pedro and Ivan were playing cards and chess. Lucca, Cruz and Miguel started to smoke clay pipes.)

''Nice angled bowl with a coat of arms, '' said Lucca. ''Yes, '' said Cruz
While smoking and relaxing, ''where did you buy them, Lucca? ''
''This one is made in Holland- a way to liberate your muse.''
''Give new life to a broken heart, '' said Miguel, '' It's like scuba, ''

Laughed Lucca, '' Ivan, how could you avoid the army as a serf? ''
''As a yeoman having my own land, I had an accident.''
Cruz asked him, ’’Did you receive some support from a dwarf? ''
''I broke my left leg when I fell from my horse- a strange event.''

''Interesting! '' said Marco. ''You became a rich merchant
In the Ottoman Empire.'' ''Yes, I sold my land, '' smiled Ivan.
''You could go to Moscow, '' ''I didn't want to be a servant.''
'' I was a middleman in the fur trade, '' ''Let's enliven

This game with some wine! '' '' These cards are unique, '' said Pedro.
''This rare pictorial pack is made in London, '' said Marco.
Marco told Cruz, ''If you need new cards, I'll give you pronto.''
''Give me the most immoral hand, '' laughed Cruz, ''come in, Fargo! ''

(Fargo entered to bring the wine, which was served using glasses. Ibrahim brought dried fruits, nuts, biscuits and small cakes. The women had spent over an hour dressing for this meeting because it was customary for women to change their entire outfit for any event on the ship. Rosa, Geraldine and Erica were doing some needlework. Carla, Chiara and Pedra were reading some expensive books. Chiara chose to read a book written by Elena Piscopia, Carla was reading some philosophy by Mary Astell and Pedra liked the books written by Aphra Behn. Francesca started to paint and Bella was trying to play ‘’Capriccio stravagante’’ by the Italian composer Carlo Farina using a violin.)

Francesca said, '' The violin replaced the viol, ''
''The music written for it established its identity, ''
Said Rosa, ''I like the opera 'L'Orfeo' and its tale.''
''Through polyphony, Monteverdi has supremacy.''


Francesca continued, ''Chiara, what are you reading? ''
''A book about Christ written by the monk Laspergio and late
Translated by Elena Piscopia, a nun being
The first woman that graduated with a doctorate.''


Carla said, ''Francesca, what are you painting in that blue? ''
'' I'm not Caravaggio, still I paint a medusa.''
Carla replied, ''You used amazing hues, and it's sweet in view! ''
Chiara said, ''It's an image of the port of Siracusa! ''

(Francesca embraced Chiara.)

‘’ ''It's so lovely to see you together; you are good friends, ''
Said Geraldine while finishing her work, ''do you have children? ''
''I've married Arturo six years ago and our love ascends
After his long widowhood; Francesca is his daughter.''

Chiara took Geraldine's hand with a noble gesture
She told her that Arturo lost a fortune three months ago,
And this trip was offered by Lucca to change their life's texture.
''Maybe Francesca painted to petrify the time's flow.''

''Francesca is the sweetest child I've ever seen until now.
She's adorable in this purity of her mind.
She's shining like a star belonging to Ursa Major Plough,
And I love Arturo even in affairs he is so blind.''

(Arturo and Marco were the last passengers who left the room while talking. Arturo ended the conversation.)
‘’ Russia is a force needing an expansion quite quickly
But, unfortunately, her friends are not really her friends.
Pushing Russia, who is an honest power, clearly
Will turn the destiny of the whole world into dead ends.’’

(to be continued.....)

Poem by Marieta Maglas
Denise Ann Nov 2013
So. You've decided to go on a journey to hurt yourself. The road will be ****** and gory, brambles of thorny vines will grab you and strangle you like a vise. But I will be here to guide you on how to make yourself bleed, either literally or metaphorically. Trust me—I have a doctorate in masochism, and I have formulated 9 simple steps to assist you in your personal quest to become unhappy.

Step one. Do something bad. Do something people would never expect you to do. Do something shockingly horrible. The worse, the better. Talk about your loyal friends behind their backs and make sure they're eavesdropping. Punch the nicest person you know in the face. While an old woman is crossing the street unassisted except for her fragile walking stick, kick it from beneath her trembling grip and walk away without looking back. Tell your mother you're a *******. Slit your wrists in front of your parents.

Step two. Hate yourself. If you have done step one splendidly, I'm sure you'll do fine with this one. Convince yourself you're a despicable creature, not worth calling a human being, and wallow in self-pity. Sit on a throne of shattered beer bottles and drown in liquor, screaming odes to your repulsive self. Behold the snide looks directed your way and revel in them. Know that you don't deserve to live. You will fear death, though. Fret not, this is perfectly normal at the early stages of your journey to hurting yourself.

Step three. Let others talk about you. People will notice the change in you. They will then talk among themselves, wondering where the old 'you' has gone. Let them chatter, let them speak. Don't tell them the truth—that you have killed the old 'you' because you want to get hurt, you want to bleed. Don't tell them you hate yourself more than they do. Be aloof and indifferent. If you already are, congratulations! You are now apathetic and pathetic. Don't be alarmed, this is all part of self-hate.

Step four. Isolate yourself completely. Leave your loving parents and let them know you hate them while you're at it. Put your phone away, don't check your Facebook, and hole up somewhere unforgiving and depressing. Lock yourself in a gray room, starve yourself, deprive yourself of the things you can't live without, stay isolated to the point of almost losing your sanity. Convince yourself you deserve all of this. Lie to yourself if you have to. You have already began your own ruin. Why stop now?

Step five. After a long, long time of isolation, get out of your hiatus. Look at your phone and see it empty of messages. Don't despair, you did this to yourself. Check your Facebook, stare at the lack of notifications and don't wonder what happened to your 'friends.' Get out of your shell, look at the mirror. Recognize the monster you've shaped out of your flesh and blood, behold your creation in bitterness, and remember what you used to be. Remember when you weren't so keen on hurting yourself. Remember and wonder why you decided to. Then hate the monster in the mirror, because this isn't you, this isn't what you wanted to be. Know that you are a terrible creature.

Step six. Fall in love. Fall desperately in love with someone who can't see what you have become. Hold him/her tight, shape your shrunken heart into something that will cradle your love. Let yourself feel joy for the first time. Realize that you have made a terrible mistake in deciding to hurt yourself and the people around you. Let it dawn upon you that you want love, you want this, you want happiness. Experience heaven, and remember that your love can't see what you have become.

Step seven. Reveal yourself. Let them try to change you, let them fail. Let your love see the horrible creature you really are. Hurt the ones you love and relish it. Let them know you are no longer the same. Watch them turn their back on you, watch them walk away. Watch your love step back in horror, watch him/her leave you. Let them break you, let them leave you dying, choking on a garrote you fashioned out of your own blood, let them give up on you. Let them forget what you used to be before you decided to hurt yourself.

Step eight. Regret every decision you've made. Despair, fear, rage, flail in a prison you built out of your hollow bones. Feel all those negative emotions, know that they are all gifts you've given yourself. You didn't know what you got yourself into.

Step nine. Calm yourself. Realize that after the turbulence you feel nothing at all. Search your soul, scrutinize your thoughts and emotions until you realize you are nothing but a black hole. You are empty. Congratulations! You have succeeded in hurting yourself in the worst way possible! I will now be unavailable for further assistance. Welcome to your personal hell.

Good luck getting out of it.
Anais Vionet Jul 2023
When I was little, my stepfather and I would be outside, coloring the driveway with chalk or throwing a frisbee and he’d stop and say, “I’m gonna go stir your mama up.”

He’d go in the house, coming out minutes later with my mom hot on his heels, waving her arms and haranguing his retreating back. She couldn’t see the big grin on his face as he approached me, “It’s good for her heart,” he’d say, chuckling and resuming whatever we were doing, “We’ve got to keep her on her toes.” He’s a master of dolorous mischief.

Flash forward to a cold, dark, Yale, winter evening in 2023. Peter and I are in the suite’s common room. Four dorm rooms share this ‘living room’ area but we’re alone, which was rare.

I’d been reading for about an hour and I was only half done. A chemistry PSet was next. I closed my Chinese language studies book and looked up. Peter was there, sitting on the floor, leaning back on the far end of the red corduroy couch where I was sitting. His long lanky frame was curled around the book he was reading, like an awkward python.

As I watched, he plucked a mint-chocolate milkshake off the white coffee table, bringing the straw to his lips without ever taking his eyes off his book. Homework, homework, homework.
I was bored and wanted a little attention, a little fun.

“Was I your first choice?” I asked him, as he noisily slurped at the last of his milkshake.
“First choice for what?” He asked.
“To be your girlfriend,” I clarified, emphasizing the last word.

He thought for a moment, “No, I had salty love-jones for Ivy Waters in second grade. Why?”
“I don’t know, It just occurred to me to ask,” I confided. “so, why did you choose me then?”
“Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows in all, fake sincerity, “you know all the best jokes,” and with that, he went back to his milkshake (argh!).

“I know, you’re finishing your doctorate,” I said, “but you could be a flight attendant!”
Peter stopped trying to stir the last of his milkshake into a slurpable lump and froze in thought. “It’s TRUE,” I continued, “Really - you need to be flexible in your planning. I read that most physicists slave away in povertude.”

“Povertude, huh?’ He said, and resumed his mint-chocolate work - his straw making a loud “ssssuuuuusssssskkkkkkkkkk,” empty-cup air-******* sound.
“AI isn’t going to replace **** flight attendants,” I offered, as my last argument in the matter.

After a moment he asked, “You really think I could carry it off?” Putting his palm on his hip and wiggling his shoulders in a provocative shimmy.

“I KNEW you’d leave me at the FIRST opportunity,” I said, turning sharply away, pretending to ignore him - the universal cap of girlfriends everywhere - with a condensed absence of attention that, I hoped, spoke unspoken things.

Setting his milkshake down, he gave me a lecherous smile, which made me giggle, and began crawling in my direction.

“Eeek!” I shrieked, laughing, as he climbed up on the couch, “I still have homework!”
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Dolorous: "causing grief."

Slang…
PSet = problem set (homework).
salty = mad
love jones = crush
provertude = the state of lifelong poverty
cap = playful insult
Francie Lynch Mar 2015
The year following
Jimmy's death
(my first encounter,
and my little brother),
I smothered myself
In every read on
Parapsychology,
Astral beings,
OBE's, NDE's,
And plasma projections,
Reincarnation and all
Aberations.
I awarded myself
An Honorary Doctorate
In ******* (Ph. D.B.S.).
Then I met ****** Mary,
As the police called her.
Her keen abilities
Recovered bodies
And the snatchers.
She had a dead-on reputation.
She spoke German and gesticulated
Wildly while she oracled.
Her husband translated simultaneously.
Her sun-room shone,
There were plants on
Every table. No candles.
Perhaps I was mesmerized.
She had one message for me
From the other side:
     Tell Francie to leave me alone.

Marlene
(my darling little sister,
And my next encounter),
Had a dream the very same
Day I saw my seer.
She dreamt Jimmy
Was alone,
Crying at home,
And through his tears
She clearly hears:
     Tell Francie to leave me alone.

****** Mary was free,
That's right... no fee.
She said her gift
Was for sharing,
And she shared
Her gift with me.
True story. I have left him alone all these many years. "There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio." (Hamlet)
L A Lamb Sep 2014
Call me Scherezade, *******
Don’t give a **** about riches
I have wealth in my soul
And I love humanity as a whole
And I have millions in support;
I don’t need paper per se,
And If I have a little extra
I will give it away,
To feed the hungry,
Love peace and solidarity
I will give it to others
To feed my sisters and brothers

You want to say some ****?
Get with it, *****
Because the issue is a great one
Threatening all of our nations

You can say I’m naive
But in my mind I believe
I have a dream for peace
But I’m not a piece of ***
And if you show disrespect
I’ll kick your ******* ***

Haters. All day it’s what they do
Sorry you’re bored have no friends boo
But I’ll stand up to you
And so will my friends
You wanna say some ****
We’ll shut you down in the end

I have my crew,
Know what to do
I have a movement in Beirut
I am a Middle Eastern princess
Leading the Israeli resistance

Radical as can be
Americans for peace
Americans for love and solidarity
I want smoke with my homies,
**** with my bromies,
Help the suffering others
My sisters and brothers

You want say some ****?
I’m a princess *****
And I’m smart as ****
With eloquent wit

And for you man-children
who hate on feminism
Are some ignorant ******
So I dismiss that ****

I have a degree and I’m working for me
You can call me a *****, you can’t call me a *****
Of the D’s I want, I only want three,
My doctorate, my boyfriends ****
And destruction of the patriarchy.. aye

Say all the **** you want
Because you stupid *** ******* have nothing but taunts
I won’t hate you I won’t tell you to ******* and die
Because we’re all part of this earth
And we are fighting to survive…

Know me *****. You think that I won’t?
I have goodness in my heart and I share with those who don’t
I’m a princess, *****, maybe young and naïve
You ****** watch I call the shots
One day I’ll be the queen of peace
B E Cults Nov 2018
On a scale of 1 to Lord of All,
how important is your
opinion of what others create?

I see you, through these sigils,
pretending every breath you took
is a doctorate.

Did you know you dont have to choose between being the brush or the brush stroke?
You could build boats,
hunt ghosts with broken radios,
climb mountains to commune with the dead,
stare at the stars and make
your own constellations,
or play ukulele alone with a head full of acid.

All I am saying is
there are far better plotlines
than playing sovereign king of the
swamp that swallows you
and believing it be noble.
Michael W Noland Nov 2013
Mickey was a murderer
Malevolent and heartless
Likely killed a courier
Tempted by his progress
Made to feel inferior
Delivering the knowledge
His emptied eyed exterior
Empowering the bosses
Always had an an opened ear
Could reinact the process
Always tried to keep it clear
He filtered out the nonsense
Always had a deagle near
Mickeys thoughts were loss less
Always ordered steak and beer
As he slithered from the charges
Always knew the ends as cure
But begginings were the hardest
The waters ever murkier
And fogging up his goggles
Never feared what's lurking there
The details were his doctorate
He knew who was what
And what was where
The devils were his hostages
Only hostile to his care
As he spelled it out with markers
Only rich to others fare
He was cleaning out their closets
As only those who know who dared
Know how they finally lost him
Jon Shierling Jan 2014
Today, sitting in the library waiting for it to be time to go to work, I've decided that its a good time to write about some things that I've been keeping to myself for a while. Victor Frankl has convinced me to live as if I've done it already and now can make good on my promises and make different choices than the last go round (which was one helluva doosie). I should be looking for a house instead, or maybe hunting for that second job I need to take. But what's the difference between one house or another, or even a cardboard box out by the mall if there's no eventual destination one has in mind. So I'm going to write down my dream for the future, a wholesome dream I keep very close because its so real to me. There are other dreams of course, other lives I'm tempted to seek and have tried in the past to actualize, mostly out of a desire to escape, to be somebody else. But this dream is the real one, the true one that is all the more precious because it can belong only to me, whereas sailing the high seas or tramping through unexplored jungles could belong to anybody with a mind to do it. My dream has more to do with minor things, things that don't take herculean courage or a doctorate in linguistics. Things like taking the kids out for ice cream on a hot day. Or piling everybody into the car for the drive from our house in Floyd up to Woodstock for the Shenandoah County Fair. Singing all the old songs and some of the new as we wind our way through the Blueridge. Maybe somebody has a summer cold so Charlotte and I have to hunt for tissues in all the places where they might be, and then find them in the back with the kids where we put them in the first place. And then finally getting there, late probably, so that everybody else is already at the grounds and we can hear the announcer at the cart races as we unpack the car. And then there they all are, my Mother and Stepfather, Uncle and Aunt and Cousins and the Grand Parents deciding to come again this year, though its getting hard for them to make the drive from Virginia Beach. So we all head up to the track to catch the last of that days races, covered in sweat and bumping into random people, a four-year old perched on my shoulders, not just because it's fun for him but also so Charlotte and I can keep track of the other children easier. I can see the magic in their faces as we waddle around the pavilions full of animals for the livestock auctions. Our six year-old daughter gravely points out to her mother that there's something wrong with that turkey in the pen, it's the wrong color. She has only ever seen the wild turkey's around our place, never a domestic white. Charlotte shoots a quick smile at me, trying hard not to laugh as she explains to our daughter why not all turkey's are as pretty as the ones that live near our house. And then before ya know it the sun's going down and it's almost time for the live music to start. So we all wind up in the bleachers again, listening to old country singers whose songs I haven't heard in thirty years, sharing funnel cakes and singing along while I'm wiping powdered sugar off of little noses with my shirt. I could go further, talk about how we decided to keep heading North after the fair, up on to Skyline Drive and Front Royal, and visited the old Firestation where my Great-Grandfather volunteered in the days before there was a McDonald's. But I won't flatten things with too many details. They're not that important sometimes anyway.  What is important, is that when I see these things in my mind's eye, they're clear as if they've already happened. As if I'm remembering the night at the fair with my Family last summer, and writing about it now after I'm done grading papers and the children are getting ready for bed. There's splashing and laughing from a bathroom where it sounds like there's less bathing and more tickling going on, Charlotte laughing hardest of all. I write of this, and I know deep down inside, that I've found something I lost a long, long time ago. As if a lost civilization's Golden Age is sailing out of the mists, building's putting themselves back together and beautiful trees growing right before my eyes. I've got to go now though, I need to help Charlotte dry off the kids and then show the youngest how to make the best PB&J; sandwich ever, the same way my Dad taught me.
Jason Harris Sep 2016
You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when on that day you proclaimed
to have learned nothing and on that
day Dr. A. held no doctorate degree.

You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when bodies: sick, overweight, in-shape
fell from buildings and into to TV screens
into history books, only to be stuck forever

in a New York newsreel in their Tuesday
outfits with Monday night’s love and touch
brewing, aged and earthy, from their falling
lives. If you listen closely on the eve of this day

the wind still whispers their scent of perfume
trails, still whispers what really happened
that busy day in the clouds, in the sky.
I was ten and can’t recall where I was

or in whose company but like the waters
stretched between Europe, Africa, and the
America’s, I was (am) far removed, was (am)
still putting together the blue-black lineage

of my triangular history that drowned
in the salty waters stretched, flowing
between three continents. But fifteen
years later, we (you and I) have overcome

the billowing black clouds of Tuesdays
the Monday night upsets, and the routed
maritime of our ancestors. 15 years later
you are still alive with your blue eyes

and clear face, are still four years my senior
are still my guiding light and sight of sun.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2016
for the ****** act, there's too much
tailoring and use of toiletries
for it to be as expected: spontaneous
and exciting; too many stereotypes;
it simply said: just wait for my mouth
to be a toilet-fresh minty winter for
the kiss before oral.*

oh, between the drunken me entertained
by the lack of movement among
static things, and promises of soberness
to be rewarded with the rewards of
television and listening to politico talk?
what would i choose... hmm... drunk
by the minute, ******* sanity!
or in comparative issues, anyone branded
a schizophrenic (who doesn't put
a baby into an oven and run out of the
house on the streets naked) is met
with an army, what i like to call "health experts",
every citizen becomes a doctor, enlightened,
ridiculous like a handful of lice -
they all gained a doctorate talking *******,
they're the plumbers for each surgeon required,
know all know how bunches of loosely stated
definitions of idiots (boney m in the background:
poo poo rhapsodic utility made us all tsar's last rasp):
wear a kimono! kimono worn, what now?
dance the polka! danced the polka, what now?
freeze the danube! i hate these people,
they're the laziest theorists, they have better theories
than the theorists who prescribe pills for
de-activation of some sort of behaviour,
and that's only one footprint outside the realm
of easy living: creases, pyjamas, slurred speech
slurps of tomato soup.
psychiatric terms are metaphorical for / in poetry:
as seen by the casual inference of depression
whenever the average citizen says he / she are sad:
psychiatric vocabulary exploits a communicative
simplicity by staging an enforced "eloquence,"
not that it is related to socrates attacking the act
of rhetoric by a question (mark), since
rhetoric doesn't believe in being questioned,
nor does it believe in the existence of the question mark,
to be put on the spot, to be stopped from the bull-charge:
just imagine utilising rhetorical conviction
when the pre-script failed you when interruption
and question was utilised? for rhetoric to fail
it takes a comma (,) to turn into a question mark (?),
deciphered as winded and worth a digression
when the speaker is interrupted (via the full-stop):
socratic rhetoric was based on a flux of question,
at the time when rhetoric was spoken and acted
upon without a single question: socratic rhetoric
was indeed a rhetoric of questioning.
C E Ford Nov 2013
We stared at the ceiling as it blackened from the lights turning off,
and the air chilling with every breath from the A.C.
Inch by inch we moved closer to each other
because we thought it was what we were supposed to do,
but little did we know that with each nudge
our electrons were sending spark signals
way before our bodies even thought about touching.

Like iron and sulfur, we synthesized
moving into each other's lives,
and leaving our pieces behind us,
swapping stories and secrets
in the cover of nightfall
with roaring laughter,
while our heads made permanent impressions
on their downy and memory foam petals
in the garden of wishes
we created.

Constantly I was with you,
just as the shore is never without the sea.
I became your shadow,
and followed you to your room,
and back again,
through the drug cartels of Mexico,
to the blizzards that lie beyond The Wall.
You became my greatest adventure
and showed me what lay beyond the door
I was always too frightened to open.

You earned a doctorate in my mannerisms,
becoming an expert on each temper tantrum,
and each shining grin that you always brought about
on the gloomiest of Wednesdays
when I ran out of milk for my cereal
and overcooked your mac and cheese.

You embraced every flaw I had,
like the father welcoming home the prodigal son,
and came to love every scar I accumulated,
thirty-eight in total,
from the hordes of others,
almost too numerous to count on ten fingers,
that constantly left me with a sewing needle,
and a bottle of Elmer's glue
to mend from each tumble
of their careless hands.


Every jagged edge of mine that cut your palms,
and left nicks on your fingertips
was smoothed by the rough edges of your beard,
and through scratchy kisses
from chapped lips.
You became my greatest blessing,
as well as my greatest weakness,
so now I constantly crave your pale face
spattered with freckles
and beautiful laugh lines
that congregate around
the warmest brown eyes
I have ever seen.

And I thought I loved you then, but
it definitely was nothing like I love you now, because
now I wake up next to you,
I make both of us coffee, and
push open the curtains to let in sunlight.
And when I wake up next to you,
I don't hate Mondays as much anymore,
And when I wake up next to you,
I feel safe,
because through the valleys of your sleeping lungs
I found where I belong.
I found my home.
Àŧùl May 2013
A
Doctorate
Title
In
Farts!!!

He
So
Casually
Leaks the
Farts!!!

He
Is
Already a
Master of
*Farts!!!
Wow I invented a new degree!
Many would be having such people in mind who they consider an expert fartist!
Dedicated to our neighbor at one of our earlier homes!
And guess what, we were sorry for having lived there!! ;)
Peace be upon all of those who died in his offensive **** noises & smells!!! :D
My HP Poem #221
©Atul Kaushal
G Valentine Mar 2019
A hungry gaze, dissipated haze. From across the room his hunger stays.

Tears glisten yet no one listens. Madness and depression her brain descends.

Yet she has no choice...she's one of the boys. Get a doctorate, make something of yourself, stop playing with your broken toys...either way you'll be damed to hell..

She lied, they say. Made it all up, they say. He cries his reputation is ruined, I mean he never laid a hand on you anyway...Haven't you ever done something stupid when you're drunk?

Appointed to the highest hall, I guess some people are untouchable after all...

Ah...what it is to be white and male in America..

Land of the free so long as you've paid the fee,
SIT DOWN....Don't you know girls are to be seen not heard?

So, the first time she speaks her mind, the scales of justice pull her taught from behind, all too similar to the predicament she'd find herself in...all those nights ago....

This is the story of a woman who lost it all, trying to save us from the infamous Kavanaugh.

I wonder how many Bretts do you know? How many more have we yet to meet?
This entire suit was an injustice so assault victims everywhere.
C E Ford Mar 2014
We stared at the ceiling, blackened
from the absence of light,
air chilling with every breath from the A.C.,
moving closer and closer
because we thought it was what we were supposed to do, but
our electrons were sending spark signals
before our bodies even thought about touching.

Like iron and sulfur, we synthesized
moving into each other's lives,
leaving our pieces behind,
swapping stories and secrets
in the cover of nightfall,
with roaring laughter,
our heads making permanent impressions
on their downy and memory foam petals
in the garden of wishes
we created.

And I followed you to your room,
and back again,
through the drug cartels of Mexico,
to the blizzards that lie beyond The Wall.
You, my greatest adventure
showed me what lay beyond the door
I was always too frightened to open.

You earned a doctorate in my mannerisms,
becoming an expert on each temper tantrum, each shining grin
that you always brought about
on the gloomiest of Wednesdays
when I ran out of milk for my cereal
and overcooked your mac and cheese.

You embraced every flaw I had,
came to love every scar I accumulated,
thirty-eight in total,
from the others,
almost too numerous to count on ten fingers,
that left me with a sewing needle,
and a bottle of Elmer's glue
each time.

And I thought I loved you then, but
not like I love you now, because
now I wake up next to you,
I make both of us coffee, and
push open the curtains
to let in sunlight. And I wake up next to you,
I don't hate Mondays as much anymore,
Because through the valleys of your sleeping lungs
I found where I belong.
("Untitled," revised)
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
i never knew when forgiveness of ******
deviations equated to
the obscurity of citizen allowances,
whereby i was excused from doing ****
like i was excused from having a conscience
stealing your herd of sheep...
but i guess i must have a medieval mentality,
*******, childish, having to interpret
the profanity of the tetragrammaton
with the canonical gospels' acts of dispersion,
you said ****** were akin to
meat cleavers... fair enough...
god forgives me butchering you like you
were forgiven having a frolic in the hay...
and we're all one big happy family...
'cos i swear that's when ambiguity on the dogma
entered and the nadir was expressed:
sin - ****** ambiguity - equated itself
to crime - citizen ambiguity -
you want to put that forth to Buddhist
authority chaining ******* bandwagons of
thieves en route to the Tibetan Vatican?
only so much is allowed,
given you're championing one Jew of your fancy
while giving others the gas-chambers...
ain't it just Prince's 1999... we're gonna party
like it's 19-99.... i think you mistook sin with crimes...
that's my "doctorate" opinion...
you said **** with thieving being synonymous,
Christ was saving Greek intellectual culture
with the pederast **** to boot...
St. Paul was encouraging circumcision,
****-like people with a statue of Buddha asking
whether head meant the shaved one ******
or whether it meant the prickly one gagged on
was on the cards - goose-pimple **** frostbite...
the moment when the forgiveness of sin
turned into the forgiveness of crime...
hence such ****** freedoms right now,
and a... ah... whatever... of challenged citizenship,
why would i? why would anyone even bother?
**** it, let's go crazy, Las Vegas is waiting for us,
the cowboys will never churn out a Thatcher
to "rule the world".
M Clement Mar 2013
I want my doctorate in English
And my Doc to be Mexican

Mixin' cans of paint as potion
Break fluorescent glowstick lotion

Orifice ******* quite ridiculously
Saying the OPQRS-for starting the next
Sentence

Spell out Cookie Crisp,
I poet with wands
Cookie wizards take funny jokes
For far too long

Black-si-can
Waxing can
Love me longer time

Cleaning off hair wisps
Off the top of the Tacoma Dome
Hell's riders are weak again

Break falls with Tylenols
And an entire tube of Tums
Wash it all down, a bottle of ***

Sickly suite suicide of all the ones
We deem young
Romeo and Juliet
The lady doth protest
Breaking pellets of Mydol
Off my hairy chest
I finished Alien Vs. Predator by Michael Robbins. This is a poem of mimicry.
Anais Vionet Mar 2023
It was the second morning of “daylight savings time,” and the change was noticeable.

My BF Peter has a doctorate in applied physics, he's an expert, so I asked him, “How do they move the sun?”

He gave me one of his patented, blank looks, “What, who moves the sun?” He answered.

“Well, yes,” I said, “I suppose the “who” is important, but HOW do they move the sun? Peter can be dense sometimes.

“What are you TALKING about?” Peter asked, his head tilted in confusion.

I explained, “It’s daylight savings, ya? The sun is different, SO - how do they move the sun?”

“They don’t MOVE the sun,” he said, in a smug "I've got a PhD" way, “people set their clocks ahead an hour.”

I was stunned - Could it all be a cheap trick?
How, (I snorted in my mind) could they get everyone on earth to do THAT?

I didn’t argue, but I didn’t set my Apple Watch ahead or my laptop, or my desktop, or my iPad or Alexa - his “apotheosis” was obviously wrong.

He’s a new PhD, they just haven’t told him how they do it yet. I can wait. I patted his hand for support.

Peter also says that, out there in the “multiverse,” there may be an earth where I don’t have homework. First of all, isn’t it just like a guy to believe all of that “marvel comic” stuff?

“So, Superman’s real then?” I asked. He just lowered his head - burn: I had him there.

Secondly, can he get me/us to this planet “No homework?” NO.

Applied physics may very well be useless.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Apotheosis: a perfect example of something
*I used this incorrectly on purpose (crossing heart) I swear.
Morgan Oct 2016
Good morning,
It's a beautiful day
to romanticize my own death

Good morning,
My brain is doing this
Brand new ****** up thing
And it's hardly 8 AM

I used to know how to float
Now I'm drowning

I used to know how to keep my distance
Now my feet are dangling over the edge

And I have this constant feeling in my stomach
Like I'm already falling

And I'd ask you to talk me down
But we haven't been talking

And I'd ask you to hold my hand
But you can't reach me
From where I've been hiding

I don't know
What it is
About this bed
That's begun to feel
Like a coffin

I drink coffee at night
And pills in the morning

I am tired
But not for a
Lack of sleeping

My dad has a doctorate degree
In civil law

I'm 22 and a freshman
With very little direction

I've been disappointed in myself for so long
But I haven't done much to change it

I thought maybe yoga
Would enlighten me
But I don't like the way
My body looks
When it bends

I thought maybe
A boy could save me
From feeling ugly
But he doesn't like they way
My body looks
When it bends

And he doesn't say it

He doesn't say much at all

But I could tell,

I was born intuitive

And I've been trying
Lately
To shake it

Cause everyone's thoughts
Are cold and painful

And I don't wanna see them
Anymore

I get paid
to bathe people,
to feed them,
to do their laundry,
And to make them smile,
But they still tell me
Right before they fall asleep
At night,
Right before I finally get
To leave them,
That I'm going to Hell
For the pictures in my skin
That I thought I needed
When I got them

I just wanna love something

I just wanna feel loved sometimes

There's a broken heart
on my right bicep
With a banner through it
That reads "myself"
And I'd say it's pretty honest

I've been breaking my own heart
Since I learned how to be
Introspective
When I was eight

I've been breaking my own heart

I just wanna be kind
To myself
And to the boy
Who holds me
And to the friends
Who call me
And to the family
Who supports me

I just wanna be kind
To my mind
And to my body

Show me how
To be decent

I'm so cruel
Anymore
Martin Narrod Feb 2017
Into the crash, imploded. Escape from light, I've known it was, the righteous and right thing to do. Where is the name? I'm listening. I hear the storm, it's growing for me, an old familiar know-it-all, with a glowing knack for mediums in the park each seventh Sunday, it takes a demon to splice my hearing, I'm in a covert closed-box first-class second-rate fairy-tale, and it is my time to start going for something transfixed, something the locals bare their graves and lapse over the journey the girls take heavily with their ****** and their men are swaying with the light. Taking their time to get to know them, until the lye takes off their fingertips and their lips cool an echo that I've cured my ears to listen closely towards.

There isn't a god. A h or even a sophomoric after-thought. This is the bed and our sheets don't know us. Is it her blood or is it the withdrawals showing, I'll sew the girls to their cotton, and make them toss their batons up, wear green and green and raise their lacrosse sticks. I've liked wearing lipstick, crossing my legs, and telling them, "you can't touch this." I take the mescaline and disrupt the contest. I carry the heads in a duffel bag, even though the lawyers don't recommend it, I carry the duffel bag in the restroom. I race 100 yards around the lunchroom, I play tag and go, I taste the subjects. Sweet, sugary, and coming onto me. She's aging denim and platinum rings.

I stop the door. I count for hours. I take all the dead-ends, all these lover's cross-eyed, pouring their pants down for supper and ecstasy, they'll take the anodyne and enter where their hearts spread disease on a dark submariner spring, where the clothes can start coming off. Lift your wings and your mantra will start rising. All of your different voices, that realize the different voices of your name, pour your light out, fill my hands with your love, and take the hour into the coastline- I'll be the one to call it enough. Even the voices can be the drug. Even her voice it could be enough.

It's the touch that knows your name. It's the governement that shears it down. It's the fibers that haunt you, while your fingertips reach slightly down along the edge of your mattress, where your sheets meet the ground. Let her be your goddess and arrange your services and coffin, the guests all wear black, and your mother raises the sun on the telephone. It might feel scripted, it might feel nostalgic, but don't let your mind turn blank. This is a stark horizon, your hands aren't here to supervise you. Your eyes can't join the rush. These are the skins that know you, they see you more than once, they call you in for the night, they tell all the people of your fame. There is really nothing to hide from, here where the desert can call you, up from the floor where they've found you, is it your face on the demons that reared you from the drug?

This is the sound and it haunts me, it takes its overture to the half-life. It takes the horror and reveals its torture to the public, where the joy-filled guitar chords pleasured me with so many gifts I always told myself they weren't enough.

Primes are around us, the people are march now. They can't keep their eyes off the madness, it's more than an hour now, they race towards their coastline, the twilight stretched mischievously passed their sons. They dig for tomorrow, the chisel at marble, until their hands undo the prisons their art dissolves. The primes are around us, it's unnerving and lifeless. New weekenders unearth these plasticine mannequin statues that ride Western through the values up the arms.

Here is a hero, no mother or father, at least not the name that they gave them, he took them out West, towards the yucca and cactus, towards the orange and stark calmness that only history could resolve the aching pains that our parents took with us through the thaw. This ice-world is melting, the seasons are ending, the shades of our evils take all of us, alone, threaded together, but stitched on the embers of some soul-less, tailored, empty null.

Here is the room, here are the stacks of dried lumber that we never thought could take us through the thaw. These are the bookends, Minnie and Mickey, white furry bonanza lost on the albicant sinews of bakelite slippers mixed into the dance routines of temporally observant minds that wouldn't dare feed themselves on the breaths of time. Here he is, like he was, not with his name tomorrow, not with her name for morning, they arc themselves inadequately, and even the doctors recommend that some soft-drinking orange-flavored omen takes their luggage and their fears, and drag them through an ocean, where no one could ever see them coming, into an aluminum jungle of preservatives where natives and islanders can sacrifice through them their judgements of a failed family history on the surplus of cities and their truths.

Here is the sound, here it strikes. Here is the room, cold and white. These are the books, here are the horrors. Here is the fashion but there's no rhythm there's no order. This is the rug, it's shaggy, it's a mess, it's distressed, it's unfolding, and it carries it's path of swine. It's a nuisance, it is caustic, it observes the unfortunate and reserves a placement for the matte sublimation of time.

And through the dirt-patterned bone-white skeleton keys basking on the rocks in some slumber of a 31st century pond, the people dancing punch their dance-cards, show their tattooes, and frollick in the great beyond. Here and in mourning, waxing on the miens of their corruption, whistling against the steel television sets from off of their 1982 television sets where they drink ***** and orange juice and laugh at Sylvester and Reboot on their regular Saturday morning routine watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Youth. In between a doctorate and mastery of language, there is nothing left to undo. A familiar feeling arriving to the airport, a tremendous evil summons the Zeppelin pilots to their terminals too. There is a horse that keeps on all of its riders, but still there's no pleasure that can keep us two.

As high as the wind and the rye, they search for the blight in our eyes, they summon our lips to a lie, tumbling and showing the time. These are the stars that we promised to give away. The legs on this pavement are slaves, half of this bad, shapes of her heaven and neverland, muffled like the secret that we have promised to tow, and the music is ahead of the shoal, out where our ocean wrote the seashore in, and the coastline carries our words on the wind. And the basement hoards our fears so we can move, away from the televisions where our parents keep their eyes' glued. Something that we promised to do, regardless of how familiarity thwarted to do, so don't break mine, don't take mine. I am the start of your pain, I wear the crown of your king, I make your bed and obey to keep the door open to our fray, where it gets us through the night. As I was told, you were supposed to know. I was tonight, I had the rights to you tonight. Your lips, their fire, the weapons for your fight, I caught myself in a lie, somewhere beyond the tremendousness of your see-through past, beyond this sea of glass where the sea creatures swim in the tales we had. Suffering past, the sea of glass, we once had.

I can see tonight, the foreman, he has told me where to go. Listen to the... I am here to help. I am going through the going, if I'm going to last, help me last, here in the thicket of the summer or the winter, this wild where we listened to the sound of snow crashing on these winter shoals where the penguins passed, and the lips froze against the icicles these icebergs flashed. The camera, suffering back, took me back, the sounds of the crash haunting back, to the weekend last summer we never had. The sleeping lasts, the winter grasps, our words have past, you're sleeping fast, eating glass, shining black. I'm suspended in liquid gas, shivering at the wicked words the women packed, the sharp synonyms that women had. I'm half of the man I was dreaming of, in the winter passed the winter doves, their heads hiding under glass. I'm just a splinter of my past, lilting as a tumbling black, simple jack, here on a card spliced I'm never to once again see my little world.

This is the sound of enough, the sound of people as they fall away. Through the windows of time, the ladder falls down inside of my mind. It's hard to live where the stars survived. In a library of dreams I once lived each day. Each of the curtains had dropped, and each of the women had left. The god of me took every need I thought I'd keep, for half of my past, was only the start of a bell I craved. Even if nothing was the sound for today. Nothing can be the sound that I gave. My muscles down, my bones breaking down, the sound of the humans buried alive underground. The choice he gave as the music played for all of these muffled thugs circling this parade on the hill.

It can be as hard to be a star. It's the cost of the heart that beats, on the coastline your readied float brings your corpse to the flood. Often lilting, often swaying, these things you pictured would be your life under this sun. If your buttons move, and you want to live free? And you claw your eyes out, just to call it off, every world you kept your lessons furtively aimed, in a match held with love, against some chanceless hope of taking the game. Each of these ends, keeping your pictures to the heavens, if his name should take your heart in need? One of these wombs where music had begun, the gnarly garden of space unkempt and calling her grave, where your name costs your fame, and the poison lifts this track up, and your train comes, it moves you backwards, even if you weren't the one, this could be the ghost you call and say, this is enough. This is the world where your friends can't go alone. Sounds and chimes and groans. Soundtracks scored into the chalk of your bones. Another, another, another, a mother.

Until this lover you chose by name, can't see. Until this lover you saw inside, can't see you very clearly tonight, you can't get by. You only just realized you're not the kindest mind, in fact yours is the weakest light.
Sharde' Fultz Aug 2014
You are truly magnificent; you're great, you are marvelous, you're expansively strong, you are out of this world!
Be courageous, be humble, give back and build up, be dynamic, a student, and teacher, be BOLD!
I'm telling you this 'cause you don't hear it enough and I know you're unique and can impact the globe.
You have dreams and high hopes. Though negativity surrounds you,who you want to be fervently burns in your soul.

Hey beautiful and dedicated! Hey handsome and strong-willed! Don't let this life pass without honing your skills.
See success is not businessess, money or boats.
Established is not a doctorate, true wealth is not in notes.
Those "Yays" can't compare to the gleam in your eyes.
Those True Religion jeans are just fabric for thighs.
Those Jordans may be hot, all these things show you're paid but don't matter 'cause you're already beautifully made.

Do what you enjoy.
Fight for what you believe in.
Don't take "No" for an answer, please realize your dreams.
Reality is relative, no goal is impossible,
The prowess you subsume can create NEW extremes!

I love you and I believe in the positive change that you can be to the community and this world, but it's more important for you to believe in, respect, and love, YOURSELF.
Anais Vionet Aug 2022
One of my year long sophomore subjects will be physics. At first, physics seems to be a menagerie of big, boring universal ideas and immutable laws rendered practically unimportant by their scale.

Peter, ok, let’s call him my boyfriend - just as a place-holder - is working on his “Doctorate in Applied Physics,” degree. “Will you help me with my physics homework?” I asked, hopefully.
“I’m sure we can work something out,” he assures me, wiggling his eyebrows suspiciously.

Peter got to visit the Hadron Collider, in Geneva, this summer. When I FaceTimed him he was as animated as a girl at drama camp. He was all, “proton collisions, Higgs bosons, top quarks and massive particles, bla, bla, bla..”
“That’s ok, I said, “If you’d rather not talk about it, I understand.”

Seriously though, I get it. Physics teaches critical thinking and problem solving. Fluid dynamics and pressure-volume-resistance relationships apply to the circulatory system. Pressure-volume curves can apply to lung function, heat transfer is applicable to frostbite, hypothermia and fevers - nuclear physics applies to nuclear medicine (SPECT, PET scans and radiation therapy and lasers) - yatta, yatta yatta.

But why ME, oh, lord?
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Menagerie: a varied mixture of exotic things

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