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Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed him in London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you."

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to **** but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad

Millions of daughters walk in the mud
Millions of children wash in the flood
A Million girls ***** & groan
Millions of families hopeless alone

Millions of souls nineteenseventyone
homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan

Taxi September along Jessore Road
Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load
past watery fields thru rain flood ruts
Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts

Wet processions   Families walk
Stunted boys    big heads don't talk
Look bony skulls   & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise

Mother squats weeping & points to her sons
Standing thin legged    like elderly nuns
small bodied    hands to their mouths in prayer
Five months small food    since they settled there

on one floor mat   with small empty ***
Father lifts up his hands at their lot
Tears come to their mother's eye
Pain makes mother Maya cry

Two children together    in palmroof shade
Stare at me   no word is said
Rice ration, lentils   one time a week
Milk powder for warweary infants meek

No vegetable money or work for the man
Rice lasts four days    eat while they can
Then children starve    three days in a row
and ***** their next food   unless they eat slow.

On Jessore road    Mother wept at my knees
Bengali tongue    cried mister Please
Identity card    torn up on the floor
Husband still waits    at the camp office door

Baby at play I was washing the flood
Now they won't give us any more food
The pieces are here in my celluloid purse
Innocent baby play    our death curse

Two policemen surrounded     by thousands of boys
Crowded waiting    their daily bread joys
Carry big whistles    & long bamboo sticks
to whack them in line    They play hungry tricks

Breaking the line   and jumping in front
Into the circle    sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward    on the mud stage
Teh gaurds blow their whistles    & chase them in rage

Why are these infants    massed in this place
Laughing in play    & pushing for space
Why do they wait here so cheerful   & dread
Why this is the House where they give children bread

The man in the bread door   Cries & comes out
Thousands of boys and girls    Take up his shout
Is it joy? is it prayer?    "No more bread today"
Thousands of Children  at once scream "Hooray!"

Run home to tents    where elders await
Messenger children   with bread from the state
No bread more today! & and no place to squat
Painful baby, sick **** he has got.

Malnutrition skulls thousands for months
Dysentery drains    bowels all at once
Nurse shows disease card    Enterostrep
Suspension is wanting    or else chlorostrep

Refugee camps    in hospital shacks
Newborn lay naked    on mother's thin laps
Monkeysized week old    Rheumatic babe eye
Gastoenteritis Blood Poison    thousands must die

September Jessore    Road rickshaw
50,000 souls   in one camp I saw
Rows of bamboo    huts in the flood
Open drains, & wet families waiting for food

Border trucks flooded, food cant get past,
American Angel machine   please come fast!
Where is Ambassador Bunker today?
Are his Helios machinegunning children at play?

Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID?
Smuggling dope in Bangkok's green shade.
Where is America's Air Force of Light?
Bombing North Laos all day and all night?

Where are the President's Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies    merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine    food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam    and causing more grief?

Where are our tears?  Who weeps for the pain?
Where can these families go in the rain?
Jessore Road's children close their big eyes
Where will we sleep when Our Father dies?

Whom shall we pray to for rice and for care?
Who can bring bread to this **** flood foul'd lair?
Millions of children alone in the rain!
Millions of children weeping in pain!

Ring O ye tongues of the world for their woe
Ring out ye voices for Love we don't know
Ring out ye bells of electrical pain
Ring in the conscious of America brain

How many children are we who are lost
Whose are these daughters we see turn to ghost?
What are our souls that we have lost care?
Ring out ye musics and weep if you dare--

Cries in the mud by the thatch'd house sand drain
Sleeps in huge pipes in the wet ****-field rain
waits by the pump well, Woe to the world!
whose children still starve    in their mother's arms curled.

Is this what I did to myself in the past?
What shall I do Sunil Poet I asked?
Move on and leave them without any coins?
What should I care for the love of my *****?

What should we care for our cities and cars?
What shall we buy with our Food Stamps on Mars?
How many millions sit down in New York
& sup this night's table on bone & roast pork?

How many millions of beer cans are tossed
in Oceans of Mother? How much does She cost?
Cigar gasolines and   asphalt car dreams
Stinking the world and dimming star beams--

Finish the war in your breast    with a sigh
Come tast the tears    in your own Human eye
Pity us millions of phantoms you see
Starved in Samsara   on planet TV

How many millions of children die more
before our Good Mothers perceive the Great Lord?
How many good fathers pay tax to rebuild
Armed forces that boast    the children they've killed?

How many souls walk through Maya in pain
How many babes    in illusory pain?
How many families   hollow eyed  lost?
How many grandmothers    turning to ghost?

How many loves who never get bread?
How many Aunts with holes in their head?
How many sisters skulls on the ground?
How many grandfathers   make no more sound?

How many fathers in woe
How many sons   nowhere to go?
How many daughters    nothing to eat?
How many uncles   with swollen sick feet?

Millions of babies in pain
Millions of mothers in rain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of children    nowhere to go

                                        New York, November 14-16, 1971
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)

It is the 30th day of the months in Kenya
State and corporate capitalist have now paid their workers
Wages or salaries or stipends or emoluments all being remunerations
While the rural bourgeoisie and urban bourgeoisie have also paid ex-gratia
To relatives come over-aged workers who have declined retiring
For the fear of looming starvation if at all they go home, where they were born,
Nonetheless; proceed they receive will do nothing whatsoever
As it will be stifled by the monster of desperate consumerism;
So fat and gullible in this tiger of land in the region called Kenya;
The terror peddling rent, courtesy of ruthlessness of the landlord
Bills of electric power in their full monopolistic gear
Bills of water devoid of quality, indifferent dysentery monger
Wages for maid who keep on usurping the food of my child; milk
Bills for gas, all of it redolent of comprador bourgeoisie in fashion,
Hotel and bar bill - a surreptious one, as the bar girl only knows
Airtime and renewal, TV channels and other screen capitalistic ploys
Family trip to local resort in a feat of foolish consumerist venture,
Money to the old mother at home and, sometimes depraved but patient father
ARV’s money to my *** aids stricken sister at the village, my aunt also
Tuition fees for my son at the kindergarten, who goes to schools but learns nothing
fees balance which my wife has to pay at the tailor to ransom out her dress,
M-Pesa and M-Swari loan repayment, this only for Kenyan 30th dayers
They know the agony of dealing with Kenyan mega-capitalist safaricom ltd.
This consumerism and **** consumerism,
It is the menacing bane of the Kenyan poor
It is the avaricious tube which siphons back
The hard earned money from pockets of the poor
Back to despotic account of the pitiless world pigshotry.
cable news video brilliantly captures
the blood washing Parisian gutters
glittering in City of Lights sparkle

images of carnage coagulate in my mind
clotting my heart with searing resent

in desperate need for release
from the abject scorn
that boils within my veins

I flip the channel to
watch a Predator marathon
but light entertainment
fails to satiate my restive soul

I turn down the volume
and click back to News

My iPod is audio ready
to soothe the savage beast
with some righteous death metal
I blast my earbuds,
Culture of Death's new CD
prepares me for real action
  
ever at the ready
digital recreation
has me *******
my controller
mustering up my
Call of Duty
comrades

I am a recognized
high score battlefield hero
taking out godless apostates
in the global war on terrorism

I'm usually eager to
baptize Iraqi jihadis in a
Holy Ghosting
bloodbath
but tonight
Black Ops kills
fails to thrill
my controller and I
stand down

opening the gun case
I cradle my Bushmaster
the smooth barrel and rugged stock
feels so right in my hand

it pleasures me to know
I am one of the good guys with a gun
I relish the fear and respect
I garner during open carry
troops to McDonalds
the hairs on the back of my neck
sometimes titillatingly rise

one day I hope to
take out an active shooter
at a movie or the supermarket
that would be way cool

I place my Bushmaster
back into the cabinet
and carefully rearrange
one of my Glocks

yet even with this
considerable armory
I still feel insecure
it may be time
for a trip to Walmart
to secure another Glock
*** more ammo

my heart recovers a bit when
I think about tomorrows recon trip
to my tree stand in the Jersey Highlands

Bear season starts soon
for the past few weeks
I've baited the area with
Dunkin Donuts and bacon grease
I've detected lots of bear ****
can't wait to drop one of those suckers
I visualize one in my gun sights
should be easy pickens

my CD ends with
some real raucous ****
removing my earbuds
I turn up the volume
on the News

footage from last summer's
Black Lives Matter demonstration
runs in continuous loop
members of the
New Black Panther Party
are yelling into the camera
a woman in a black burka
her eyes squinting angrily at me
from underneath her cover
sends shivers up my spine

when we take our country back
they will be served some
Second Amendment justice

News flashes Ted Cruz
condemning Muslim
refugee resettlement,
in a Christian Nation
only Christians should be
allowed in...

News breaks back to footage
from the concert venue
highlighting the
blood stained mosh pit

News flashes ISIS Jihadis
riding in Humvee's
routing the fleeing
Iraqi army once again

News highlights a smiling Putin
firing off Caspian Sea cruise missiles
into the bleeding Levant
examples of decisive leadership,
if only Obama could grow a pair

News flashes to a Rose Garden Obama
bragging about killing Jihad Johnny

the drone strikes and
active bombing campaigns in:
Syria
Iraq
Libya
Somalia
Nigeria
Mali
Yemen
Sinai
Afghanistan
Kenya
Congo
and other unspecified locations
are working says the Muslim Prez

By the looks of Paris
any real American Patriot
would think not

we need to send a message
a quick strike fix
some major shock and awe
to placate a nations troubled soul

if that offends any Christian
turn the other cheek
wimp, so be it

I say go
Old Timey Testament on their ***
let our vengeance is mine God
**** them all
**** them all
**** them all

Culture of Death:
Cystic Dysentery

Barry McGuire:
Eve of Destruction

The Doors:
The End


jbm
11/17/15
Newark
lots of hate going round since the murderous tragedy in Paris....
let cooler heads prevail.....
be still and know that I am God....
Hannah Mar 2014
There is no fantastical world in which civility between us can exist. Civility, of course, being perceived in the sense that we can coexist pleasantly, without a romance topped with jaded raspberries and peppermint liqueur.
After a generous amount of sneezing and crawling and crying in the moonlight with half embered cigarettes hanging from our dripping mouths, I saw this. A grievous vision of Hank Stamper clawing at my back end, a still-life embedded someplace dark and dank, a cradle so forgotten and filthy that only a mother woven from dirt-covered cloth could love it. We built some ridiculous, disgusting house and made love in it. Day in, day out.
In the end our urinary tract infections infected our kidneys and became fatal when paired with the dysentery. I will always remember your name paired with dysentery, my love.
I promised myself endlessly that I was laying in such a softer settlement without you. Your reckless lifestyle was grimier than mine and our paths collided and collapsed with validity, I was sure of that. I am sure of that. However, it seems my insistence that I recover from you, brings with it some kind of ****** up honor to be dealt your way. Should I write a song about you? No, I'd soon hear it in your trapeze act. Should I make a film about you? No, the lead would be sinfully attractive and further engorge your rather large head. Should I write a book about you? Should I? Have I? Can I? I doubt you would see the honor here. In fact, if you were to look for anything other than consistent misuses of punctuation in my writing, I feel sure you would find solace and comfort and silence would soon follow.
Àŧùl Aug 2016
The great Mughal emperor of 16th century,
He died of multiple ***** failure,
Comprising of the heart as well as others.
They say that he loose motioned his way to death,
Then the ancient emperor had got a heart seizure.
Dysentery had made the dying emperor weaker.
So yes, dying in old age can be a smelly affair.

My HP Poem #1119
©Atul Kaushal
Old scratch walks up and down in this world.
Not some misunderstood romantic tragic figure,
but the father of lies.

Old scratch stands behind the curtain
and raids the caravans loaded down with good intentions
He is the wicked warlord in the horn of Africa.

He is the self serving dictator with ridiculous hair
murdering his family in paranoid fits
while his people eat bark in hungry desperation.

He is dengue ebola, ecoli, the plague..
He is rage and landmines in the soccer fields
He is dysentery and influenza and krokodil.

Old scratch walks to in fro in this land
with infectious breath and violent laughter
He is the womb of grief and lost hope.

twenty thousand crying skeletons
with bloated bellies blinded by thirsty flies
each and every day old scratch ushers them
to the only relief they will ever find.
while another twenty thousand wait in line.

We give it a face, a voice, and a name.
I'm so glad we have old scratch to blame,
otherwise whose fault would all this madness be?
HRTsOnFyR May 2015
In my mind, as infinite as the heavens,
I am but a starry eyed stranger

Wandering through her shimmering realms
Beneath an ebony sky, laced with crimson,
Beclouded with spiraling sprays of stardust

A child, a warrior, a saint full of sin,
I pass through the vapour of my shadowselves

Layers falling away like rotten tree bark
Exposing the rings within, like fingerprints,
Looping coils of time, bending but unbroken

Somewhere in the distance a dragonfly dances on the surface of the water,
Unknowingly admired by a sharp toothed Chinook

As another lost soul pulls back on a well worn syringe,
Seated on a broken toilet, slowly leaking across the scarred, yellow linoleum.

While a mother in Africa nurses a starving baby from her malnourished breast,
A stomach ravaged by dysentery,
Lips cracked and bleeding beneath the relentless heat of the sun,

And a pimple faced pop star sips champagne from a crystal goblet,
Wearing eight hundred dollar sunglasses and basking on a beach in Barbados,

Where they will spend more on hotels and liquor for a week than most families will earn in wages all year.

I close my eyes to imagine a world where only dragonflies sip champagne,

and people ACTUALLY care about one another.

But the former seems more likely than the latter...
So I return to my inner sanctuary of dreams...
And once again, I am infinite.
Steve Page Jun 2022
I only have one photo of Grandad
from his years of service in the Great War,
and in it he’s wearing a leopard-skin leotard.

My paternal grandfather, Grandad,
was brought up in Brockley, South-East London
In his teens he was conscripted
and became a gunner sergeant in the Royal Field Artillery.

I still have his stirrups and his French/English phrase book
which includes useful words, like dysentery,

(think of the movie, ‘War Horse’, and you’re almost there).
He fought in the mud in France and put a lot of horses out of their misery.

Apparently, he enjoyed the stage – a song and a dance,
and almost went professional after a string
of successful nights at the local Roxy,
all of which makes me want to have known him better,
but he died in my teens.

He laughed a lot, loved his vegetable garden
and had a collection of handy-sized, hard-back books
giving details of how various circuits and wiring worked.

I recall his bear of an armchair
and how it was in easy reach
of a slim stack of shallow drawers
from which he would take slender tools or small curios
and sit and explain their significance to my bemused child self.

I have the brown photo somewhere -
it’s not one I’d like to frame as it raises too many questions for me.

Like – is that bloke next to grandad meant to be Robinson Crusoe?
Like – what prompted grandad to ‘black up’ from head to toe – is he Man Friday?

And now, I stare at the photo handed to me by my friend of his grandfather, complete with rifle and medals,
and again I silently ask my grandad – why?
Arvon retreat June 2022.
Joe Wilson Mar 2014
Mud goes so stiff as it dries on the clothes
And it gets in the rifles and ammo
And men live in the mud for day after day
And they die there as the death tolls just grow.

The lads call it Wipers, but we know it’s called Ypres
And we don’t know the language but know mud
And the massive field guns that are firing this way
Causing lots of men to stay here for good.

In two months I’ve not heard the sound of a bird
With the fighting and dying you don’t listen
But I saw a dead blackbird lying out in the mud
And memories of home made my eyes glisten.

I’d rather be back at my home on the farm
Tending cattle and working the land
But I’m lying here shooting at men I don’t know
In a hard ****** war that I don’t understand.

We’ll soon be coming to the end of this year
We were told that it wouldn’t last too long
I don’t know how much longer the men can last out
The spirits willing but their bodies aren’t strong.

We’ve been pounded for hours, we’ve been pounded for days
It seems like so long and it’s so cold
There are men who've got frostbite and gangrene and sores
But it’s the dysentery that makes some men fold.

When will it end and who will make peace
They’re decisions that aren't made at the front
But by men back at home who think they know best
Not by poor dying men bearing the brunt.

©JRW2014
One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WW1
John Mahoney May 2012
1
we ran outside
          gathering the hailstones

before they could return
        
to rain

2
spring thunder storms
        refreshed the

runoff ponds
        
the spring peepers
        chorus chirps


3
soon, to be Indra, Lord of Heaven,
        the God of War as well as Storms and Rainfall,
starter of war

a war which shall engulf
     the planet and

        perish all

4
in solid,
ice
       which shall melt

and drown the littoral lands
lands peopled in the
        billions
and so shall follow
disease plague typhus dysentery
death
         in its many shapes and sizes

5
in drops
       flows from your eye


6
according to religion
        holy water
……………………………………………………………………………………
           The figures stood still, a blank expression to fill. Their waxed complexion holding dust, soulless cages immune to rust. Light bulbs flash in rhythmic delirium, contrived joy running at a premium.
           Flocks of herds came to take notice of this brand new attraction, one designated worthy by an overriding faction. Social conscience had said its peace, and passed on its opinions in a shifty lease. Word had spread as fast as it could, regardless of whether it necessarily should.
           “T. Elsey Wax Museum” was the hottest ticket in the city. Vouched for by an annual subcommittee, composed of men of no esteem, and opposed to views deemed too extreme. Every vacant mind had jumped on board, its entrance fee was small enough to afford.
……………………………………………………………………………………
Prosperity renewed, discord unglued. The walls of Briar Field, seem to leave much concealed. It’s owner, a Mr. Holden Reeve, is a vain little creature beyond reprieve. He sees no value in an altruistic life, and seems to anguish in his everyday strife.
His facility has been thrashed in print, and regarded as no more than a publicity stint. Still, if true, his machine would be a marvel, something verging on plausibly being artful. Its said Mr. Reeve has tapped into the human soul, and made monetary gain his lonesome goal.
The patents of Mr. Reeve lay out the plan for an odd looking device, but it’s purpose isn’t made overly concise. According to speculation, the machine can resurrect an individual’s ideals, but I can’t tell you how worrisome that makes this reporter feel. Mr. Reeve is toying with the work of God, something he should know to be intrinsically unflawed.
……………………………………………………………………………………
Eliot Tern was standing in a ridiculously long line, it ran four blocks down to a street named Woodbine. Elliot had been there since midday, though he had begun contemplating whether or not he should stay. Looking back there was a hectic crowd, pushing and shoving in a manor quite loud.
Eliot had dragged his friend Henry along with him, though that boy thought their odds of getting in were pretty grim. Henry stood casually, kicking stones, outside the front of BMC Savings and Loans. A woman in front told him to knock it off, Henry called her a ****, but masked it with a cough.
It was two in the afternoon by the time the two boys were about halfway, a nearby baby cried as it spat up apple puree. Some of the sauce found its way onto a man’s face, he told the mother that her parenting skills were a complete disgrace. The woman slapped the man in vicious spite, though to speak truthfully she had every right.
The man screamed and pouted for a minute or two, then he calmed down, and began to clean up the child’s spew. He glanced around to see if anyone was glaring, and poor Henry was noticed hesitantly staring. The man pointed to Henry and began to call him a coward; he spoke with the type of veracity that made it quite apparent that he felt empowered.
Henry stood calm for only a moment, and then began to stare at the man like he was no more than an opponent. The boy picked up a large rock from a graveled path, and hurled it at the man with the feeling of contempt and wrath. The stone struck the man just bellow the eye, and for a moment it looked as though he would cry.
Then the man screamed with a furious hate, it became quite clear that he was now irate. Henry took off; leaving Eliot on his own, it wasn’t exactly a measure the boy could postpone. The man had begun pushing through the crowd trying to get to the boy; his face reflected no hint of joy.
Henry ran for about 10 minutes, he had pushed himself to no new limits. The man had given up the chase after leaving the line; he tried to reclaim his spot shouting, “*******! It’s mine!” The crowd booed the man as angry mobs do, and he had to walk his way to the back to calmly stew.
……………………………………………………………………………………
               Henry was only 12 when he walked in through the rusted doors of Briar Field, it’s hinges shrieked as though inadvertently sealed. A reception desk stood before a large, arched entrance, and there sat the owner’s, under-skilled, apprentice. The man spoke in a seemingly mocking tone, as though Henry was standing in a restricted zone.
         The boy, feeling mocked, turned towards the exit, the man ran up, in a manor quite hectic. He told Henry that he was only joking, just doing a bit of nonsensical provoking. He said to Henry that his name was Fredrick Barnes, grew up, quite happily, on several local farms.
           Fredrick, or Fred as he liked to be called, began explaining the nature of how he went bald. He told Henry that he had developed an addiction to charity, making his true nature no more than a parody. Lived for years with his ego at bay, and gave every dollar he earned away.
            It took its toll in rather short time; though to live vicariously makes it all seem fine. Fred ignored his dreams for far too long, believing God to be king making him just a pawn. Then one day, he told Henry, “I was caught in a storm”, he said, “The falling rain against the wind seemed so pleasantly warm.”
             Then a man came by, begging for some change. Fred had no issue giving up his entire measly, well-earned wage. His Christian nature told him he was no better, then this hungry man in a beat up old sweater.
            Fred handed over 1,200 dollars, a mere hours work for some uneducated scholars. The beggar began to smile, showing all of his teeth, there was a yellow glow from a plaque-ridden sheath. He then turned to Fred, with a more sinister grin, and Fred noticed then, that the man stunk of gin.
             He asked Fred if he had any money, timid, Fred responded, “This really isn’t funny.” The beggar pulled out a small caliber pistol, and said that, “one has a responsibility to be fiscal.” Skin peeled off of Fred’s wrist, as the beggar pulled at a watch through clenched fist.
              In the end, the beggar took all but Fred’s clothing, and left with a bang, as to not to seem imposing. He had only shot the man just bellow the knee, but blood loss had made it hard for Fred to see. He crawled and clawed his way towards a distant street lamp, but movements were elongated by the weight of his clothes, which, obviously, were quite damp.
              Fred laid hopelessly on the cold, wet cement, with the rain mocking him in its relentless dissent. The beacon he had crawled towards turned out to be a dead-end, the severity for which was hard for the man to comprehend. There in the stillness of the night, Fredrick Barnes became aware of the true nature of his plight.
              Holden Reeve had found Fred while the man was riddled with a complex terror, spouting off nonsense about living his life in error. Holden took the young man in through the doors of Briar Field, a museum, which, to the public, had yet to be revealed. It didn’t take long for Fred to fully recover; eventually he began to look at Holden as a brother.
             Fred turned to Henry and told the boy that was the end of his story, and now, it was time for the moment of glory. He opened the two doors hidden under the arched entrance, and Henry walked into the room, followed by Holden’s apprentice.
             When they entered the room Henry immediately asked, “Where’s Mr. Reeve? ...I’m sorry if he’s passed.” Fred laughed and told the boy Holden was most certainly not dead; in fact, the two of them were standing in the middle of his homestead. Then the boy noticed the nature of the room, and how cobwebs gave it the foreboding feeling of doom.
             There was another set of doors at the end of the room, but Fred turned and knocked on a bare wall with the backside of a broom. A panel slipped open and retracted into the wall, and out stepped a noble looking man, though, truthfully, quite small. There were no visible features on the man at first, so initially Henry was expecting the worst.
              Fred acknowledged him as Mr. Reeve, so Henry stood tall, and tried to make his back as flat as the wall. It wasn’t so much that the boy was often courteous, in fact, with regards to that sentiment, the boy was usually impervious. He just felt that in this particular situation, there was going to be no recapitulation.
              This was clearly a man who only spoke with the most precise of words, those capable of collecting and massacring mass herds. Though Holden Barnes would never speak to such a crowd, his absentmindedness for them would be hard to shroud. The man was indifferent to any collective thought, and his principles were to firm to ever be bought.
              Holden spoke to Fred in brief manor, those unheard of in the print of “The Banner”. He asked if Henry seemed like a reasonable boy, or if he was merely some shady companies plotted decoy. Fred vouched for Henry, who he didn’t know; playing a bluff, and hoping it wouldn’t show.
               Holden nodded and shook his friends hand, and spun to the boy, as though his motion had been a cautious ploy. “Who are you?”, and “Why should I care?”, Mr. Reeve asked Henry, the response for which seemed to be lost in the boys memory.

“If you can’t speak to me I don’t know if you should be here, I’m not the one in the room who you should naively fear. My greatest achievement lies just behind those doors over there, but if your this timid, you could get quite the scare. I’ve constructed a testament to the human soul, and it’s designed for any man to control.”

“Though to put it in such terms is hardly fair, it’s just not something that easy to compare. I’ve gotten to where I am, if you’ll dare me to say, through myself and am not one to decline the pay.  My invention just doesn’t seem to arouse much attention, in the press Fred says I haven’t even stirred up a mention.”

“I tell you this though, it’s been their mistake, for what I’ve created here is no preposterous fake. I’ve created a method of speaking with many various forms of reason, though to them it’s some form of religious treason. They seem to think I have resurrected the soul, ghostly figures ripped out of a black hole.”

“But that simply isn’t true, as you’ll come to see, now Fred tells me your name is Henry. You have to choose now before your walk through those doors, if your ready to dance on such hallowed floors. The mystery my seem quite vague to you, but understand this offer has been made to but a few.”

“I don’t understand, what should I say?”

“To ask such a question, here I thought you were a stray? An opinion, like ego is something to treasure, not cast off at someone else’s pleasure. This decision is yours and yours alone, you can use no alchemy from the philosopher’s stone.”

Henry was caught up in an odd predicament, one with no true equivalent. He had no real idea what he was choosing between, but he knew that he couldn’t let that fear be seen. So Henry said yes, without further discussion, and hoped along the way there would be no major repercussion.
At the end of the hall there stood an entrance, Fred stood by acting as apprentice. He told Henry to try and open the door, as Henry pushed his feet slid across the floor. Fred laughed and said that it was locked, and could only be opened one way, Holden kicked a loose rock imbedded in the wall, and soon, the door moved, quick to obey.
The room was not nearly as large as Henry had pictured, and distant light bulbs scornfully flickered. There was only one object in the center of the space, here Henry began walking with a quickened pace. It looked as though it was just a large computer monitor, but its framework seemed composed by an ancient astrologer.
Objects spun about with contact precision, and small fractures of light seemed to meet through collision. The spectacle was truly something to behold, though Henry still had no idea what was about to unfold. Mr. Reeve walked up to the machine and began to touch its screen, and all the lights stopped, and then seemed to reconvene.

“Alright Henry, I suppose it’s time I explained the true nature of this device, but somehow I only now realize you got in here free of price. No matter, it’s been a while since it’s seen someone new, I’m curious what some of these people are going to say to you.”

“What you are looking at now is a labor of scientific process, but believe me when I say there is no need to be cautious. There is no black magic at work here, though many have said so without coming near. This machine I’ve created does what some say to be impossible, like Nemo’s creation, just far less nautical.”

“This machine collects and records all forms of the written word, sweeps them in like collecting some massive herd. It organizes and sorts data of all different norms, and emits it in a conversational form.”

“You see this creation has given man a chance to talk to those of the past, allowing for a legacy only time can outlast.”

Henry stopped and stared at the man for quite a long period of time, and tried to figure out why Mr. Reeve looked so perfectly sublime. Henry now thought he understood the nature of the device, in fact Holden had made it all seem so concise. The machine would allow Henry to talk to anyone from the past, as long as there had been enough information amassed.

“Who do you want to talk to first? I’d suggest Ayn Rand, if you’re okay with being coerced.”

Henry had no idea concept of Mrs. Rand, so the concept to him didn’t seem overly grand. He lingered on the thought for a second or two, not wanting to pick an individual who could be considered taboo. Then, it came to Henry like a sudden case of dysentery, he saw this man as more than a visionary.

“Is it possible for me to speak to someone who didn’t actually exist?”

“I can see what I can do if that’s what you insist?”
……………………………………………………………………………………
Eliot was furious as he saw Henry; the boy had been gone so long it had slipped from his memory. He stood and waited for Henry to ask to step back into line, and then he would make it clear that everything was not fine. Eliot was now standing at the front, to just let Henry in would be a great affront.

“I’m going home.” Henry said as he let his eyes roam.

Eliot felt sick as Henry walked away, then he became curious how he had spent the last three hours of the day. “No matter” thought Eliot as he waited patiently, he’d have his victory soon enough, and he would take it graciously. Very suddenly a woman opened up the front doors of the institution, and thanked everybody for their “contribution”.

“It’s time to say goodnight. The museum will be open at 9 o’clock tomorrow, during daylight.”

The woman very casually walked away, as Eliot was in complete dismay. Then he had a calming thought, none of the creations were going to rot. All he would have to do is come back the next day, everything, he thought, will be okay.
……………………………………………………………………………………
david badgerow May 2013
while the young kids
burn their lips on
unfiltered cigarettes
and the poets
are distracted,
i'm kneeling in an alley
flushed with desire
clutching your number on a napkin.

while the children
and the saints
are crying in dysentery
behind guerrilla masks and guns
i'm imagining the flesh of your stomach
folded over the length of my thigh
and the roar of a volcano
in your heart.
Mike Essig Mar 2016
Another day and what to make of it? Tu Du list.
Things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew.
Water down darkness. Ask the sun for a light.
Loot Frederick's of Hollywood. Cultivate pompous grass.
Rewrite Moby **** as free verse. Irritate life with art.
Plant Rhino rhizome and grow *****. Turn over an old leaf.
Take a road trip to a state of anxiety. Try chewing gun.
Play the Jew's harp in a mosque. Pray for drains.
Steal a cop from a donut. See if LSD still works.
Listen to Rockabilly noir. Experiment with dysentery.
Set out buckets to catch sky. Talk with, not to, turnips.
Insist on having the last word. Get it. Die.
   Or just admit another wasted day,
   lonely as your heart, not as grey.
Alliesaurus Aug 2012
Weather whethers whither wow?
Picture Oregon Trail, version 2, the runaways.
A little banjo with your standstill open plain,
always waving wheatgrasses,
beckoning with wide fingertrails.

I tried to ford the river,
but my ******* oxen died.

Each breath worse than the last,
feeling filth in my bones,
dysentery behind every accidental shotgun wound.
What do you do when you know two right answers,
when everything feels correct?
Multiple choice,
multiple guess,
multiple uglies.

You touch my stereo,
volume and fingernails tune.
Wrote while listening to the self-titled album by the Lumineers. Public draft.
Kenna Dec 2016
I taste your lips like the cotton candy
of a Newark sky, laced
with smog and dysentery. You lift
me up, roll me over and draw
me toward you. The gravitational pull--
'on my hair and tell me you love me'--
of your shoulders
and the intoxication of your
voice. Craning my neck
to hear--'you love me'--the grip
of your hands
on my throat.

The city is loud. Just
loud enough to gasp
through the static
of your car radio, pressing--'up against
me'--all the buttons.
Just change
the station. Where we rock
and undulate smoggy windows and
candied skies.

This last goodbye
tastes different from
my first time, clutching--
'my back and etching out lullabies'--
the shift stick. Put it in
neutral. We can just coast
from here and take it
easy--'she's so'--easy. Easy
falling into and letting fall and keeping--
'next to me forever'--from falling
over and over the bricks
of your building, shaking
the foundation, the exact
same way. You loved me

like a super dome and expanded
the words of your cityscape: a nice
addition, in need
of renovation.  The cycle of
recycled buildings and veiled skies.
The monotonous gossip
of a Newark morning drawn out
past the night.
Terry Collett Aug 2013
You walked home
from school
with Sutcliffe
(O’Brien was off

with dysentery
which Eddie thought
was a load of ****)
along the New Kent Road

by the shop from which
you bought
a stamp album
and the silver looking

6 shooter gun
and holster
with the belt
with pretend bullets

all around
in little holders
and Eddie said
his big sister

was beginning to spend
too much time
in the washroom
getting herself

all geared up
for her boyfriend
and that his dad
banged on the door

wanting to get in
for his shave
( she’d used all
the hot water

her mother had boiled
in the copper
for the family bath
that night

and his sister
had bellowed back
I’ve got to look my best
I can’t go out

smelling
like a dead rat
and Eddie laughed
(his buck teeth showing)

and Dad told her
she’d feel his hand
across her backside
if she got  

too mouthy with him
so she shut her noise
and came out
all dolled up you

her hair all piled high
her lipstick bright red
her tight skirt
and Dad said

if you think you’re going out
dressed like that
you can think again
but she did

and that was it
and Mum said to him
she's only young once
but he just shaved

and moaned
and I could hear him
muttering to himself
and so Eddie went on

(O’Brien would have
baited him about his sister
would have riled him bad
but he was away

and Eddie was glad)
and so you got
to the corner
of Deacon Way

where Sutcliffe lived
and so you walked
across the road
to Meadow Row

and he waved
and you watched
his blonde cropped hair
and black uniform

disappear from sight
and walked towards home
hands in pockets
satchel on your back

scuffed shoes
kicking stones
onto the bombsite
home to tea

of bread and jam
then out with Ingrid
on the balcony
looking down

over the ledge
at the people passing
or kids playing
making a din

until her father
called her
with his rough voice
and she went back in.
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
Disappointment dogged their every step
on the trip back from the Pole.
Amundsen had bested Scott,
as the World would soon be told.

Evans was the first to die,
to perish in the frost.
Oates, the poor old soldier,
was next to pay the cost.

Crippled by an old war wound,
Home base too far to go,
He walked out in a blizzard
and was buried by the snow.

Eleven miles to fuel and food
The three men left were stranded
A fierce winter storm held them at bay
Empty bellied, empty handed.

Bowers first, then Wilson died,
felled by dysentery .
Scott, their brave Commander,
then wrote his final entry:

“A pity, I can write no more,
too weak to venture out.
Nearly snow blind from the Frost,
by Winter put to rout”

Eight months later, a rescue party
came upon their sad remains
Robert Falcon Scott had died.
The world would learn their names.

They raised a cairn of ice around
the place where brave men died.
A crudely fashioned wooden cross
they placed above on high.
The tragic conclusion of the Robert Falcon Scott expedition to reach the south Pole
Straddling the line of popularity
Teetering on the edge of trends and personality
As soon as I'm about to fall into them I revert back to introverted me.

This dissent from narcissistic sorcery may slip you into mental dysentery
Though reading into the stains is not necessarily a necessity,
It's a little difficult to ignore the symmetry.

Hock-up spit onto this canvas, rip up another piece for my portfolio.
Lock-up your kids inside the frames of your family's mementos.
I'm lashing out like diet coke infused with mentos.

I'm not your son, not your husband, nor your best friend.
I'm that guy you **** for fun sometimes on the weekend.

I used to hate people in school who said they "failed" when they got a "C",
Now I hate the people who say they're broke when they still have money.

I'll grab your skate-up , lame-duck, askin "Have you ever ate nuts?"
We need some action. Got the lights, the camera, but don't take cuts.
Shoot a provisional peripheral glance at my pay-stub.
Always take pride in where you came from even if it ain't much.

The glass is still half empty if you're only half full of ****.
Some days I'm a dog. Any day I'm a typical cat.
So on the days it's raining cats and dogs, I get really wet.
No...wait...not like that...
I mean I'm thrown really out of whack.
Spilling every drop of sporadic synaptic spit onto this paperback.
I don't remember writing this
Graff1980 May 2015
I never cared for the old days much
Reminiscence is for the lazy romantics
Spitting phrases like
Life was so much better then
But history remembers
Hungry eyes
Starvation
Consumption
Poverty that would shake a romantic’s soul
Dysentery
War
Poxes
More war
Madness
More War
Greed
More War
More War
More War
Maybe times haven’t changed that much
Martin Bailes Mar 2017
“That’s what America is about,” Carson said. “A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less."

Ben Carson is a might confusing
because he is without a doubt
a brilliant brain surgeon
& yet,
& yet ...

according to him
he communes telepathically
with wild bears,
can calm armed-robbers,
stabbed his best friend,
& now sees slavery as
some sort of Welcome
To the Land of Liberty
All are Welcome Act.

Ben Carson is an idiot
because well ...
where to start,
well how's about millions
of folks forced to board
ships naked, afraid,
chained in rows,
as SLAVES,

& yes, half of all slave infants
died in the first year,
survivors lived on a basic
nutrition-free gruel,
there was diarrhea, dysentery,
whooping cough, blindness,
skin lesions &
convulsions,
& they were
SLAVES.

but to Dr. Ben Carson
these terrified, beaten,
chained, whipped,
SLAVES ...

were immigrants
just like you
and just like me.
Edna Sweetlove Nov 2014
I keep getting these letters from my Uncle Bert
from his twilight home
and you know they quite upset me
but no way am I visiting him
the last time I went it took me
three visits to the laundrette
to get the stench out of my clothes.

"Dear niece Edna" (old Fred wrote,
in his spidery wavering hand,
the notepaper spodged with snot)
"I am a bit more depressed than usual today
which is saying quite a lot as the only thing
which cheers me up is when the old fool
in the next bed gets diarrhoea
after I slip a cat's **** in his soup
when he's not looking, so, dear Edna,
I'd be very grateful if you'd send me some more as
old Mrs Bloggs in the next ward deserves one too
for teasing me about my gangrenous foot.

"It seems I've been in here for centuries
but it's probably only a couple of years
and the pain since my dear wife Linda passed
over to what surely-to-*******-God
has to be a better place than here
bearing in mind the noisome odours
emanating from the rest of the patients
in the run-up to bath night
which doesn't help much in the long run
if you are fifth or sixth in line as the water
gets a bit soiled by then, especially
if that ****** Mr Ali has done a brownie.

"I'm getting more and more worried
about the Bulgarian who has taken up residence
in the linen cupboard as he could well be
some sort of carpet-slipper thief or even worse
a homosexualist after my ringpiece -
or he might be an Islamist who wants
to behead me which would be a blessed relief
if I am to be totally honest with you.

"We had a bit of fun the other week when one
of the Nigerian nurses forced my that Mr Jenkins
to use the bedpan in public as a reward
for stealing Mrs Jackson's home-made enema kit
or she could have been from Liberia
as the accents are broadly similar
(so I read in the Sunday Times travel supplement
they gave us instead of toilet paper when
supplies run out during the dysentery outbreak).

"All the best under the circumstances
from your Uncle Bert and don't forget you stay
disinherited unless you visit me soon -
no more excuses about your car having
broken down - what do you think i am,
some sort of addled dementia case?"


It's all very sad, but I have checked Uncle Bert's
bank account and he's just trying it on
as there's no more than a hundred quid in it
and no way am I visiting him for a lousy hundred;
for Christ's sake, the smell is enough
to knock a cowboy off his horse.
This is the 3rd in my "Uncle Bert" series. Do read the others.
and what if I don’t care
what if, in spite of your efforts, I am unmoved
what if you failed
what if I am not alone
what if your greatest horrors are realized
what if not only the few, but the many reject you
and your fabricated truth
and you forget
and are forgotten
an empty shell of the best forgotten past
and you no longer behold the world from your ****** golden throne
but from the slums
in the dysentery and refuse that is a product of your empire
and in the putrid mire of your failure
you die
the end
Terry Collett Sep 2013
Sutcliffe walked
in a kind of shuffling his heels
kind of way
with hands in his pockets

and school tie undone
and hanging loose
you’d walked home
from school with him

as O’Brien was off
with dysentery
I find that pottery teacher
a bit of a ****

he said
the way he held up
your work
in that dismissive way

to show you up
you shrugged your shoulders
I hate rolling out
the messing clay

and I’ve no idea
how to make a pissy ***
than how to make
a pie like my mother’s

he’s a pockmarked
****** anyway
Sutcliffe said
and the fecking car

he drives to school
that red sports job
you came to the road
where Sutcliffe lived

and waited
I’ll surprise him one day
you said
I’ll make him

the fecking ***
he wants
Sutcliffe laughed
and shuffled up

the stairs to his flat
with a wave of his hand
and nod of his
blonde haired head

you walked over
the crossing
and down Meadow Row
by the bombed out houses

Ingrid was sitting
on the kerb
with her face
in her hands

she looked up
at the sound
of your approach
what’s a matter

with you sitting there
all glum?
you said
no one’s indoors

I’m locked out
she said
where’s your parents?
you asked

no idea
I knocked and knocked
but no one answered
she said

have to wait now
until they come back
when will that be?
you asked

God knows
she said
last time it was late
as they went to the races

and mum forgot
to leave me
the front door key
and I had to wait

out in the cold
on the stairs
until they got back
you should have knocked

at our door
Mum’d got you
something to eat
and you would

have been warm
by our fire
you said
didn’t want to disturb anyone

she said
she looked at the road
and closed her eyes
well come home

with me now
Mum won’t mind
and she’ll tell
your parents

where you are
when they get back
you said
he won’t like it

she said
tough *****
you said
she laughed

and got out
of the kerb
and stood
next to you

are you sure
your mum won’t mind?
of course she won’t
ok

she said
and you both walked down
Meadow Row
and crossed over

to the flats
through the Square
you knew your mum
wouldn’t mind

she knew Ingrid’s parents
and knew their ways
and faults
and his drunken voice

and pushed back hat
but as you walked
with Ingrid up the stairs
you never told her that.
CLStewart Aug 2015
... we are all pretty much disappointments running amok like dysentery in a underprivileged head start program...and with that I leave you in disgust.
Sam Temple Oct 2015
impressed by blessings expressed
my guess is the cesspool confessed
undigested fresh shoots shoot forth
at stressed guests with repressed ******
sweet caresses in the rest area
treat processionals with hysteria
fleeting pedestrians thin with dysentery
imagined thespians acting accordingly    
elder accordionist shakes liver spotted fists
at lists written in jest
by **** drunk sisters with wrist rockets
and bobby sock pocket protectors
knobby kneed sarcasm injectors
deflect suggestions relating to indigestion
and pander to the discretion of their own reflections
in conclusion the union mission’s position remains
to refrain from insisting on persistent revolutionaries
wearing terry cloth togas
in the merry moth of May --
Mike Essig Feb 2017
Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.*

Another day and what to make of it? Tu Du list.
Things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew.
Water down darkness. Ask the sun for a light.
Loot Frederick's of Hollywood. Cultivate pompous grass.
Rewrite Moby **** as free verse. Irritate life with art.
Plant Rhino rhizome and grow *****. Turn over an old leaf.
Take a road trip to a state of anxiety. Try chewing gun.
Play the Jew's harp in a mosque. Pray for drains.
Steal a cop from a donut. See if LSD still works.
Listen to Rockabilly noir. Experiment with dysentery.
Set out buckets to catch sky. Talk with, not to, turnips.
Insist on having the last word. Get it. Die.
   Or just admit another wasted day,
   lonely as your heart, but not as gray.
At the beginning of 2020, Australia was on fire.
The threat of WWIII was all too real.
Baby dictators playing with "disposable" human lives.

Disposable lives
Disposable masks
Disposable gloves
Disposable plastic bags
. . . and here were are again with disposable lives.

My family and I survived the Oregon trail and not one of us died from dysentery. A small victory!

George Floyd, "I can't breath."
Black Lives Matter.  
LGBTQ+ Lives Matter.

Marching in the streets and shouting until I can't speak. Organizing and criticizing institutions that WE built. People WE put into office. And my more political topics that WE are responsible for.

Black Lives Still Matter.
LQBTQ+ Lives Still Matter.
Anti-maskers, "I can't breath."

A shame and a reflection in the United States education system.

Me walking my dogs, "I can't breath. . . without a mask"
Ashes falling from our apocalypses skys.
My skin burns from the air.
I my dog sneezing because they don't have masks.
My mask discolored from this short walk.

Exposed
Double Down
Tested
Isolate
Negative
Relief
Virtual Life

A light at the end of this long tunnel?
Good-bye Oregon!
2021, let's try Utah?
B J Clement Jun 2014
"Congratulations" The head nurse was an attractive lady with the rank of squadron leader, I think." You have Amoebic Dysentery, that means you can't eat and you must drink at least eight pints of chilled water every day until you are clear, when you have eaten your first meal without any problems, you can go, until then keep drinking the chilled water, and under no circumstances must you eat any food at all"
We remained in the isolation hospital for about five weeks, It was tedious in the extreme but it had to be done, After the indignity of a medical, involving a swab of cotton wool on a pair of long nosed forceps, we were both given the all clear and discharged. We were instructed to go to the transit block and wait there for further orders, we would be sent for when a flight was available to take us to rejoin the rest of the unit in Australia.
the transit block was a huge empty three storied building that had once been used as a prison camp by the Japanese.  We chose a smaller room at the end of the ground floor, it was a bit more comfortable there.
We used it as a base, for exploring the camp, no one seemed to want us, and as the days passed we spent a lot of the time swimming in the pool at the Selarang barracks. which was only a couple of miles down the road.
The walking and swimming was good excersize, but we needed to keep our eyes open, there were often snakes on the road, ready to bite the unwary.
One afternoon, we were stopped by a redcap. He demanded to see our twelve fifties ( identification cards). "Where have you two been for the last three weeks." "In the transit block Sergeant."  "No you haven't, I have checked it every day." Where is your gear?"  "In the transit block Sergeant."  "Show me." he demanded. We did. "This is not the transit block, this room is reserved for fire pickets!" We have been searching for you two for weeks."  I couldn't help smiling. The sergeant was not amused!  Two days later we climbed aboard a twin engined transport .
We were bound for Australia via Ceylon and a small Island somewhere in The East Timor Sea. Of course nothing could go wrong, it was just  going to be a routine flight!
The other day was quite different for me, as I was reminded of my old notebooks,
The sketches that adorned the edges of each page and ton's of scribbled messages, I went hunting for those old books in my huge collection of books, usually, I never get back to the things I left years ago, colorful name slips and neatly covered books they still carried the elegance that was left of my mother's artistry, I could visualize how for hours she went on cutting the brown papers and neatly covering them and me on one side happily sticking colorful name stickers , as I turned an old book found the big curvy 'and 'f' that echoed the little gal, leafing through the pages I could draw a million stories, stories of my friends and teachers and all our school days, the day at the lemon juice vendor when Achu got dysentery and so many faces popped before me alive, many laughing giggling girls and boys, all had their happy little faces the excitement of a great joke,
the next was a tiny italicized scribbling, I scrutinized it for a moment then it occurred it was Anu's handwritten message that she is leaving for another city, while all these years I went on thinking where she disappeared, I had forgotten to check my notebook, I had missed her for years and always thought one day I would find her, after all, these years of hiding, she appeared suddenly on my pages!

— The End —