The professor was speaking
Talking about the three fifths clause
And how blacks could not be seen as completely human
Suddenly a voice cries out
Not even a hand
Or a finger
And says

Professor it should have been sixth- fifths
An extra fifth for what we have to carry for the struggle
Then another fifth for the court system and we have to behave
like the silence is in us
And a final fifth from when we get home from all of that and do shots
The professor was stunned
And said emphatically, Sixth-fifths is inhuman!
The student replies, That is what we have to be to make it
The class was stunned.

~

verse 1
in the town of Chateau Thierry,
along the banks of the Marne,
just up the road from Paris,
a’ fore it meets the Seine;
’twas here our soldiers fought
in nineteen-seventeen;
'twas here they took the Kaiser,
in the trenches, rain and mud.
the Great War, then they called it,
here the river ran with blood;
with bayonet and shovel,
here an Allied victory made;
to halt the enemy’s advancement,
here too many made their grave.

instrument of bow and strings,
in composition history sings.
if, one-day strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin!
stories told will ne’er grow old,
tales of courage that build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows despite the dark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power to strike the heart.

verse 2
near the town of Chateau Thierry
in a convent, St Joseph by name
a violin by Francois Barzoni,
a resident luthier by trade.
prized possession of the Sisters,
they tuned well it's strings.
their convent walls withstood the bombs,
though leaving here their mark;
defaced but not destroyed,
and so with grateful hearts,
the Sisters of St Joseph,
for brick and mortar trade,
gathered up their treasures
their convent to remake.

instrument of bow and strings,
with composure history sings.
if, only strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin;
stories told will ne’er grow old,
tales of hope that build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows to light the dark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power; rebuild the heart.

verse 3
from the town of Chateau Thierry,
they advertised their local gem,
“wanted: no strings attached;
no saint expected, no requiem.
just two hands to cherish,
and a patron of our instrument.”
this their prayer, “oh Lord, one wish,
may our search meet no resistance.
may we find a young apprentice,
please reward our long persistence.”
and so they found their debutant;
prayer answered in Saint Louis.
a boy who understood its voice,
with their strings again make music.

instrument of bow and strings,
of your journey history sings.
if, only strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin;
stories told will ne’er grow old,
tales of old they build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows and find your mark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power to soothe the heart.

verse 4
near the town of Chateau Thierry,
along the banks of the Marne;
ply this channel of the masters,
play us a river, Lowell Meyer;
once a boy, become grand-father,
then a treasure to receive;
heirloom placed within your trust,
your prize possession to bequeath
to yet another debutant,
its strings to pluck and bow to draw.
he a master of persistence,
who with practice met resistance;
yesterday’s grandson, beloved progeny;
tomorrow’s hope, an admired prodigy.

instrument of bow and strings,
with clarity your voice still sings.
if, only strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin;
stories told will ne’er grow old,
for these are tales that build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows and make your mark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power to touch the heart.

~

post script.

A violin…  an instrument of hollowed wooded frame, strung with five strings made of gut, played by the drawing of a bow of hair crosswise over strings tuned in perfect fifths; an instrument of song with uniquely, beautiful voice.  Whether played as a violin with symphonic overture in a seventy-piece orchestra in Carnegie Hall, or as a fiddle in a four-piece southern country band at a barn dance down in a Kentucky hollow, in the hands of a violinist… a master… a virtuoso… a fiddler, it becomes an hallowed instrument… of diplomacy… of peace.

When I heard the faint whisperings of story about a nephew’s instrument I pledged to learn the details of its journey.  Charlie obliged, allowing me to interview him one evening early this month.

The instrument came complete with an old typed letter from Lowell Meyer, Charlie’s maternal grandfather, whose family purchased the instrument on his behalf, from the Sisters of St. Joseph when he was yet in middle school in 1923.  An instrument in its own rite, the letter also acts as a legal document, sharing not only the violin’s European heritage and how it came to arrive in these United States, but also dictating its future journey, naming only three possibilities of conveyance.  First, while in the possession of his family, the violin is to be owned by all of Mr. Meyer’s children and their heirs rather than by any one single heir.  Second, it allows a method for its sale should an urgent financial need arise.  And third, it dictates the intent of Mr. Meyers for the violin’s return to its original owner into perpetuity, the Sisters of St. Joseph near Chateau Thierry.  Charlie scanned the letter and emailed it to me, giving me a greater sense of its history and helping to establish its authenticity.   Its making by well known French luthier Francois Barzoni, who unlike the Stradivari family made his hand-crafted instruments for the masses, its survival within the convent walls during the bombardment of the Battle of the Marne and its subsequent journey from Chateau Thierry, to Saint Louis, each detail carrying great significance. As an example of one detail among many, it did not escape the attention of this story lover, the significance of a journey from its setting on one river to a similar setting on another, from along  the banks of the Marne before it spills into the Seine, winding through the fertile rolling hills north of Paris, to the fertile banks of the Missouri at its confluence with the Mississippi in St Louis, two famous rivers, a half a world apart, each with their own folklore of simple people living a simple life, of battles fought by simple people with uncommon valor.

*This simple story of “the violin” is a story worth telling; just one facet of Charlie’s interesting heritage; one which has its own voice, and is a tale that begged to be written.

By: Cedric McClester

Let’s call it
The three fifths of a man sequel
Apparently, all of us
Are not considered equal
What we’re experiencing
Just doesn’t speak well
For us as people
We’re drowning in *****

Don’t point your finger
Thinking it’s just him
When we have the choice
To either sink or swim
If we remain silent
What’s the pseudonym?
Perhaps it’s compliant
If nothing else then

We allow children
To be placed in cages
And applaud as the President
Frequently stages
Rallies everywhere
As he engages
Like minded people
From the dark ages

And let us not
Forget Charlottesville
Though some us might
Others never will
That’s where unabashed racists
Scored a ****
And he said
There was some good in them still














Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018.  All rights reserved.

Rums got me runnin'
back into those arms.

Behind them
head light eyes,
lies
a different story.

This fifths got me
walkin' the plank.
"Captains" orders.

MAKE war songs out of these;
Make chants that repeat and weave.
Make rhythms up to the ragtime chatter of the machine guns;
Make slow-booming psalms up to the boom of the big guns.
Make a marching song of swinging arms and swinging legs,
        Going along,
        Going along,
On the roads from San Antonio to Athens, from Seattle to Bagdad-
The boys and men in winding lines of khaki, the circling squares of bayonet points.

Cowpunchers, cornhuskers, shopmen, ready in khaki;
Ballplayers, lumberjacks, ironworkers, ready in khaki;
A million, ten million, singing, "I am ready."
This the sun looks on between two seaboards,
In the land of Lincoln, in the land of Grant and Lee.

I heard one say, "I am ready to be killed."
I heard another say, "I am ready to be killed."
O sunburned clear-eyed boys!
I stand on sidewalks and you go by with drums and guns and bugles,
        You-and the flag!
And my heart tightens, a fist of something feels my throat
        When you go by,
You on the kaiser hunt, you and your faces saying, "I am ready to be killed."

They are hunting death,
Death for the one-armed mastoid kaiser.
They are after a Hohenzollern head:
There is no man-hunt of men remembered like this.

The four big brothers are out to ****.
France, Russia, Britain, America-
The four republics are sworn brothers to **** the kaiser.

Yes, this is the great man-hunt;
And the sun has never seen till now
Such a line of toothed and tusked man-killers,
In the blue of the upper sky,
In the green of the undersea,
In the red of winter dawns.
Eating to ****,
Sleeping to ****,
Asked by their mothers to ****,
Wished by four-fifths of the world to ****-
To cut the kaiser's throat,
To hack the kaiser's head,
To hang the kaiser on a high-horizon gibbet.

And is it nothing else than this?
Three times ten million men thirsting the blood
Of a half-cracked one-armed child of the German kings?
Three times ten million men asking the blood
Of a child born with his head wrong-shaped,
The blood of rotted kings in his veins?
If this were all, O God,
I would go to the far timbers
And look on the gray wolves
Tearing the throats of moose:
I would ask a wilder drunk of blood.

Look! It is four brothers in joined hands together.
        The people of bleeding France,
        The people of bleeding Russia,
        The people of Britain, the people of America-
These are the four brothers, these are the four republics.

At first I said it in anger as one who clenches his fist in wrath to fling his knuckles into the face of some one taunting;
Now I say it calmly as one who has thought it over and over again at night, among the mountains, by the seacombers in storm.
I say now, by God, only fighters to-day will save the world, nothing but fighters will keep alive the names of those who left red prints of bleeding feet at Valley Forge in Christmas snow.
On the cross of Jesus, the sword of Napoleon, the skull of Shakespeare, the pen of Tom Jefferson, the ashes of Abraham Lincoln, or any sign of the red and running life poured out by the mothers of the world,
By the God of morning glories climbing blue the doors of quiet homes, by the God of tall hollyhocks laughing glad to children in peaceful valleys, by the God of new mothers wishing peace to sit at windows nursing babies,
I swear only reckless men, ready to throw away their lives by hunger, deprivation, desperate clinging to a single purpose imperturbable and undaunted, men with the primitive guts of rebellion,
Only fighters gaunt with the red brand of labor's sorrow on their brows and labor's terrible pride in their blood, men with souls asking danger-only these will save and keep the four big brothers.

Good-night is the word, good-night to the kings, to the czars,
        Good-night to the kaiser.
The breakdown and the fade-away begins.
The shadow of a great broom, ready to sweep out the trash, is here.

One finger is raised that counts the czar,
The ghost who beckoned men who come no more-
The czar gone to the winds on God's great dustpan,
The czar a pinch of nothing,
The last of the gibbering Romanoffs.

Out and good-night-
The ghosts of the summer palaces
And the ghosts of the winter palaces!
Out and out, good-night to the kings, the czars, the kaisers.

Another finger will speak,
And the kaiser, the ghost who gestures a hundred million sleeping-waking ghosts,
The kaiser will go onto God's great dustpan-
The last of the gibbering Hohenzollerns.
Look! God pities this trash, God waits with a broom and a dustpan,
God knows a finger will speak and count them out.

It is written in the stars;
It is spoken on the walls;
It clicks in the fire-white zigzag of the Atlantic wireless;
It mutters in the bastions of thousand-mile continents;
It sings in a whistle on the midnight winds from Walla Walla to Mesopotamia:
Out and good-night.

The millions slow in khaki,
The millions learning Turkey in the Straw and John Brown's Body,
The millions remembering windrows of dead at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Spottsylvania Court House,
The millions dreaming of the morning star of Appomattox,
The millions easy and calm with guns and steel, planes and prows:
        There is a hammering, drumming hell to come.
        The killing gangs are on the way.

God takes one year for a job.
God takes ten years or a million.
God knows when a doom is written.
God knows this job will be done and the words spoken:
Out and good-night.
        The red tubes will run,
        And the great price be paid,
        And the homes empty,
        And the wives wishing,
        And the mothers wishing.

There is only one way now, only the way of the red tubes and the great price.

        Well...
Maybe the morning sun is a five-cent yellow balloon,
And the evening stars the joke of a God gone crazy.
Maybe the mothers of the world,
And the life that pours from their torsal folds-
Maybe it's all a lie sworn by liars,
And a God with a cackling laughter says:
"I, the Almighty God,
I have made all this,
I have made it for kaisers, czars, and kings."

Three times ten million men say: No.
Three times ten million men say:
        God is a God of the People.
And the God who made the world
        And fixed the morning sun,
        And flung the evening stars,
        And shaped the baby hands of life,
This is the God of the Four Brothers;
This is the God of bleeding France and bleeding Russia;
This is the God of the people of Britain and America.

The graves from the Irish Sea to the Caucasus peaks are ten times a million.
The stubs and stumps of arms and legs, the eyesockets empty, the cripples, ten times a million.
The crimson thumb-print of this anathema is on the door panels of a hundred million homes.
Cows gone, mothers on sick-beds, children cry a hunger and no milk comes in the noon-time or at night.
The death-yells of it all, the torn throats of men in ditches calling for water, the shadows and the hacking lungs in dugouts, the steel paws that clutch and squeeze a scarlet drain day by day-the storm of it is hell.
But look! child! the storm is blowing for a clean air.

Look! the four brothers march
And hurl their big shoulders
And swear the job shall be done.

Out of the wild finger-writing north and south, east and west, over the blood-crossed, blood-dusty ball of earth,
Out of it all a God who knows is sweeping clean,
Out of it all a God who sees and pierces through, is breaking and cleaning out an old thousand years, is making ready for a new thousand years.
The four brothers shall be five and more.

Under the chimneys of the winter time the children of the world shall sing new songs.
Among the rocking restless cradles the mothers of the world shall sing new sleepy-time songs.

My solitude comforts
Doubt, like a lover's lie.
His fickled fingered
Digits chokes my heart.

Second guessings elevated
to thirds, fifths, and sevenths.
Crippling and seducing
what ego and self reliance
I have, away.

My solitude that comforts
Doubt.  Betrays me.
I have no solemnness
nor reassurance.
I can not banish Him
I never welcome Him
But yet He stays.

Set fire to the Antique Shop,
We’re one step ahead of the cops.
Mannequins of Elvis begin to melt.
Free from past matters; free from guilt.
Promoting the prosperity
As we hoard hostility
Androids ambushing Arkansas,
They seek to find ménage trois.
Achieving self-awareness
They want fill the void’s emptiness
Chugging R & R by the fifths.
By our thumbnails we dangle off cliffs.
Thread by thread, the veil unfolds.
Standing all alone, I’m left in the cold.
Show me how much you care.
Push me in my wheelchair.
Listening to what drives you crazy
Eventually helps you stop being lazy.
Lilly is spinning me dizzy
She belongs to the world of yesterday
The haze is now fading away.
If only I could stay
for just one day
But Behold
I feel you should be told
I have come from the end
When the Earth is condemned.
As I tell the tall tale,
How we came to live in hell,
once we found the holy grail.
“We overcame our fear
The classified was made clear.
We launched all the nukes,
By order of the Skywalker named Luke.
The framers were lousy architects;
They left the balance completely hectic.
The CEO’s got away with fraud.
Thinking their work was the will of God.”
I met you in the gloomiest bar.
We speed across the town in my car.
Questioning why we remained silent.
The flickering florescent light compliment
The tone of shallow yellow paint,
I can finally hibernate.
After I left the oblivious,
Do I finally notice,
It’s hesitation that leads
me astray from redemption.
TJW 2013

When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops & karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
& because my grandmother thought it was cute
& because they were my favorite,
she let me keep doing it

Not really a big deal

One day,
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
& bruised the right side of my body

I didn't want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I'd get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn't have been

A few days later,
the gym teacher noticed the bruise
& I got sent to the principals office
From there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
As far as I was concerned,
life was pretty good
I told her, "Whenever I'm sad,
my grandmother gives me karate chops!"

This led to a full scale investigation
& I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruise

News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
& I earned my first nickname

Pork Chop

To this day
I hate pork chops

I'm not the only kid
who grew up this way
Surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks & stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
& we got called them all
So we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
That we'd be lonely forever
That we'd never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
Don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
That an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
That there's no way for it to metastasize

It does

She was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
We both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop getting bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
We used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
Outside we'd have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
In grade five,
they taped a sign to her desk that read
Beware Of Dog

To this day,
despite a loving husband,
she doesn't think she's beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn't quite get the job done
& they'll never understand
that she's raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
because she's only ever always been amazing

He
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
Adopted
Not because his parents opted for a different destiny
He was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
& two parts tragedy
Started therapy in 8th grade
Had a personality made up of tests & pills.
Lived like the uphills were moutains
& the downhills were cliffs
Four fifths suicidal
A tidal wave of anti depressants
& an adolescence of being called Popper
One part because of the pills,
ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
He tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who could still go home to mom & dad
had the audacity to tell him "Get over it," as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents fround in a first aid kit

To this day
he is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it's about to fall
& despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration,
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can't understand
Sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
& more to do with sanity

We weren't the only kids who grew up this way

To this day
kids are still being called names
The classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
Seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
& if a kid breaks in a school
& no one around chooses to hear,
do they make a sound?
Are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
Every school was a big top circus tent
& the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
All of these were miles ahead of who we were
We were freaks
Lobster claw boys & bearded ladies
Oddities
juggling depression & loneliness playing solitaire, spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves & heal
But at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
It was practice
& yes
some of us fell

But I want to tell them
that all of this ****
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
& if you can't see anything beautiful about yourself,
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there's something inside you
that made you keep trying
Despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
& signed it yourself
You signed it,
"They were wrong!"
because maybe you didn't belong to a group or a clique
Maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
Maybe you used to bring bruises & broken teeth
to show & tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
You have to believe that they were wrong

They have to be wrong

Why else would we still be here?
We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
We stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called
We are not abandoned cars stalled out &
sitting empty on a highway
& if in some way we are
don't worry
We only got out to walk & get gas
We are graduating members from the class of
we made it
Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
Names will never hurt me

Of course
they did

But our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
& more to do with *beauty

Cheers to sharing bottles of wine,
fifths of whiskey, and beers by the stein
To plugging yourself into that amplifier
and playing your song with the volume higher
Others join, you're a band pumping great sound
we'll have what we're having, 'nother round!

Honest fellowship is here
Spirits rise with bubbles in the beer
Cares are gone as soon as you begin
to feel the warmth start from within

To my college sweat heart

In a room Filled with strangers,
I found you, our hands touched
Then we began to move
                                    Everything fell perfectly into place
                                    I like Turtles, I like your face
You were kind of with him, I was kind of with her
We touched again, and danced slow
You turned to me, our lips met
They both saw, It made quite a mess
                                    But everything fell perfectly into place
                                    I like Turtles, I like your face
Open fields, Fire pits, Loud music and open fifths
people here we've never seen
Flashing lights of blue and green
Then came lights of blue and red
Chaos broke as people fled,
We made our way to the safest place
We laid under the stars and I touched your face
Then the rain fell
                                      Everything fell perfectly into place,
                                      I like turtles I like your face.

This room has a wicker plate with plastic flowers on the wall.
The new computer screen is bright.
Outside this room, it is raining.
This room smells like smoke.
The telephone has ***** fingerprints on it.
There is a long green desk in this room.
The lamp has an orange light bulb.
A piece of paper has numbers of the cycles per second of a circle of fifths.
There is a yellow ottoman with pillows and pieces of blank paper on it.
In this room, on the floor, are wires.
The altar has two orchids.
One orchid was for my dead father.
The other orchid is for my dead mother.
A funky fat Buddha sits close beside them.

Trundling through the Room of Word,
The crude remarks and the young absurd,
They come an go, no valedictory speech,
Just to and fro, a vestige for each.

So I sit and I stare, with a nihilist prayer,
And I ***** my heart to the sticking place,
Left alone in the quietude, left alone in a private mood,
No crude remarks for a tired face.

So I sit and I stare, yes, I sit and I stare, 
screen boring me holes for eyes,
I wait and I dare, my words in the air, 
The atmosphere sets and dries - 
The atmosphere sets and it dies.

I'll wait there, 'do something, accompany me'
I'll wait there, like waiting for a train.

But once I've waited, no latened, loving response belated,
I tire of this melancholy station,
I'm alone in the Room 'o' Words, my company split to fifths and thirds,
It's time for another, emotional vacation.

Push the limits?
Ha!
I'll knock them right on their ***
Downing fifths
and smoking grass
Losing faith,
losing class
I'm unsafe
and crudely crass

My filter was busted
I live life uncensored
I'm not to be trusted
I'm super short tempered

My anger consumes me
and leaves me so rotten
I'm wacky and ******
In case you'd forgotten

My brain runs in circles
And makes my mind spin
My face turns bright purple
As I hold my breath in

Sometimes I forget who I am

Hey, guys. Who am I, again?

When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
Were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
And because my grandmother thought it was cute
And because they were my favourite
She let me keep doing it

Not really a big deal

One day
Before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
And bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
Because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
For playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

A few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
And I got sent to the principal’s office
From there I was sent to another small room
With a really nice lady
Who asked me all kinds of questions
About my life at home


I saw no reason to lie
As far as I was concerned
Life was pretty good
I told her, “Whenever I’m sad
My grandmother gives me karate chops”

This led to a full scale investigation
And I was removed from the house for three days
Until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
And I earned my first nickname

Pork Chop

To this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
Who grew up this way
Surrounded by people who used to say
That rhyme about sticks and stones
As if broken bones
Hurt more than the names we got called
And we got called them all
So we grew up believing no one
Would ever fall in love with us
That we’d be lonely forever
That we’d never meet someone
To make us feel like the sun
Was something they built for us
In their tool shed
So broken heart strings bled the blues
As we tried to empty ourselves
So we would feel nothing
Don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
That an ingrown life
Is something surgeons can cut away
That there’s no way for it to metastasize


It does

She was eight years old
Our first day of grade three
When she got called ugly
We both got moved to the back of the class
So we would stop get bombarded by spit *****
But the school halls were a battleground
Where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
We used to stay inside for recess
Because outside was worse
Outside we’d have to rehearse running away
Or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
In grade five they taped a sign to her desk
That read beware of dog

To this day
Despite a loving husband
She doesn’t think she’s beautiful
Because of a birthmark
That takes up a little less than half of her face
Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
That someone tried to erase
But couldn’t quite get the job done
And they’ll never understand
That she’s raising two kids
Whose definition of beauty
Begins with the word mom
Because they see her heart
Before they see her skin
Because she’s only ever always been amazing


He
Was a broken branch
Grafted onto a different family tree
Adopted
Not because his parents opted for a different destiny
He was three when he became a mixed drink
Of one part left alone
And two parts tragedy
Started therapy in 8th grade
Had a personality made up of tests and pills
Lived like the uphills were mountains
And the downhills were cliffs
Four fifths suicidal
A tidal wave of anti depressants
And an adolescence of being called popper
One part because of the pills
Ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
He tried to **** himself in grade ten
When a kid who could still go home to mom and dad
Had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
Is something that can be remedied
By any of the contents found in a first aid kit

To this day
He is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
In the moments before it’s about to fall
And despite an army of friends
Who all call him an inspiration
He remains a conversation piece between people
Who can’t understand
Sometimes becoming drug free
Has less to do with addiction
And more to do with sanity

We weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
To this day
Kids are still being called names
The classics were
Hey stupid
Hey spaz
Seems like each school has an arsenal of names
Getting updated every year
And if a kid breaks in a school
And no one around chooses to hear
Do they make a sound?
Are they just the background noise
Of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
When people say things like
Kids can be cruel?
Every school was a big top circus tent
And the pecking order went
From acrobats to lion tamers
From clowns to carnies
All of these were miles ahead of who we were
We were freaks
Lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
Oddities
Juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
Trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
But at night
While the others slept
We kept walking the tightrope
It was practice
And yes
Some of us fell

But I want to tell them
That all of this ****
Is just debris
Leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
We used to be
And if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
Get a better mirror
Look a little closer
Stare a little longer
Because there’s something inside you
That made you keep trying
Despite everyone who told you to quit
You built a cast around your broken heart
And signed it yourself
You signed it
“They were wrong”
Because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a clique
Maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
Maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
To show and tell but never told
Because how can you hold your ground
If everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
You have to believe that they were wrong

They have to be wrong

Why else would we still be here?
We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
Because we see ourselves in them
We stem from a root planted in the belief
That we are not what we were called
We are not abandoned cars stalled out and
Sitting empty on a highway
And if in some way we are
Don’t worry
We only got out to walk and get gas
We are graduating members from the class of ******* We Made It
Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
Names will never hurt me

Of course
They did

But our lives will only ever always
Continue to be
A balancing act
That has less to do with pain
And more to do with beauty

-Shane Koyczan

Yeah
well I sat in the barbers chair while you walked up and down the crowded aisles in a half deserted Tesco store
I wondered why
what was it for?
The freezer stood alone at home
freezing cold as was its wont but it was stacked with want me nothing more at all
for it was full up to its freezing chin
with something brought from albuquerque
and two fifths of London Gin.

The barber gave a weirdly grin and gave me one of number two
I should have fekin known that's what the little *** would do
but you just wandered round and did you see that skinhead passing by the deli' counter?
that was me
I waved atop my fresh shaved head
but I was dead meat on the cooked meat and it shook me wide awake
I need to take a breather
might even leave her
she would not care
she's got Tesco's in her brain and not to mention in her hair with apple summer fresh smell,how much dumber can one get
well if I stick about just watch this space
look out for the smiling vacant face
that will be me
taking her
to do her hair
just like mine.

Walked in like B flat
Slow music playing
Heels clicked like staccato
Dress cello imitating
Blue notes sunken
Drunken with the motion
Of the left right sway
Spin, dip, heads floating
River more than ocean
She never stands still
She don't shoot the breeze
Heart-breaker, shoot to ****
Then she transposed the thrill
B harmonic minor
Tango, stomp, clap
Somebody shot the dress designer.
Violence in the night
Gasoline on the floor
Swift step matchstick heels
She adores the
White
Light
Like coconut cream
Musicians bathe with the moon
Sleep with its beams
Play until the world
Seems to burst at the seams
Set fire to the rivers
Inhale the steam
Descend with the fifths
Never rest on a trill
Cut the drums, spotlight
Let her transpose the thrill

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
                               Play louder.
You will not succeed.  I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
                     And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

To This Day
When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this ****
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
******* we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty.

counting off fifths of bourbon,
each one i labeled as my last,
the rows of glass bottles, empty of amber
crowd my subconscious

and now, clinking from my passenger seat
at the bumps in the road
sings a tinkling melody of my defeat

i blame those nights,
[which are most nights]
that are drowned by a persistently resonating
lack of noises and voices
which urge me to stifle the drone with a triple shot on the rocks
hold.the.mixer.hold.the.water.&.no.last.call

so when i can manage to recall
how much lighter i am
on those rare mornings,
unburdened by the sloshing, sickened weight of the evening's burning fog,
a subsequent golden haze effectively numbs me
and the thrumming darkness fades into liquid amber

My heart spills with everything I have learned in the past six months,
this is my anthropology homework and how to mix paint
the exact amount of seeds (two and two fifths) to grow a proper squash
how many raindrops have evaporated on your tongue as well as
how much of your saliva that has been on mine
sugar from three hundred cups of coffee, that image on CNN of a bus
filling with gasoline then flames on the way to school
an elderly gentleman who called me sunshine at a restaurant
and that somehow you know the perfect way to break my heart so
it shatters, overflows, thunders, a bird bath of these experiences I keep.

I wanted nothing of this, but you poured warm water
to scrub your dishes with and I decided to wash my veins of you instead;
I did not erase the memory of you but the feeling of you
severed my arteries like the levee that broke in New Orleans when I
was nine, it flooded the whole neighborhood.
We regret different things every day, but they both mean the same thing.

A band-aid, ace bandage for my heart so it can swell like a basket
hoarding chicken eggs and pennies and feelings inside,
we both want the nerves repaired
so I feel your touch again, so I can risk being broken again, so sweet.

Mhmm...
Mhmm... yea!
Mhmm... ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah yeah mm... mhmm

Mhmm... mhmm...
Mhmm... yea! yeah
Mhmm... ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah mm mm, mhm

Hey, yea-yea, yeah-eh-yeah-eh, yeah-eh-yeah-eh
Hey hey-yea-eh yeah, mhmm

Professional or beginner doesnt matter
Every sinner is a prisoner in a body that is subject to time
Now my entwined mind tries to form a straight line
not like twised scoliosis of the spinal chord

Construct
Cross eyed carpenters are cuttin' crooked lines
Can't construct
man-made shrines when the winds and the water move sands of time

Many minds on a deadline, yet live life like a live wire
I'm not tired!
Of blood and fire
Spirit's moving higher than the green grass ever lifted me

Spirit's moving higher...
Than anything else ever lifted you
Mm, see

We got spirituality
It's living in us like one in three
Injustice is concerning me
in the non-linear eternity
I'm speaking paradoxically
but you can nod your head now when you understand me-e-e-ee...

This is for my free men
whose backs wont bend in the lions den
now with their eyes on the ending

This is for my free women!
They fight with their love
The bearers of our children

Free men whose backs wont bend in the lions den
now with their eyes on the ending

This is for my free women
They fight with their love
The bearers of our children

We shine like lights exposing
what lies underneath decomposing
Unearth those chains that are rusted
my sweet Lord, is that what i trusted in?
That sin? That tomfoolery? Ugh!
What it is is mental jewelery that I adorned myself with

The enemy's gifts, the man-made myths, the ignorant bliss
of marijuana spliffs and alchoholic fifths
I got so sick and tired of it

Delivered and redeemed
by christ i mean
It's time to start livin'
and get a reason for the rhyme

I dont wanna be dead-wrong on the deadline
Standing on the dark side and all out of time...
Like a blind pantomime's fantasize
climb up his own ladder to the sunshine

Nothin's mine
that hasn't been given
No one's alive here
that hasn't been risen
For 19 years i was trapped in a prison

Feeding my escape by means of derision
but every man-made attempt just failed
when trapped in a jail
of my own guilt, shame, and iniquity

I was looking for freedom
How'd I find freedom?

Oh! Oh, freedom...
from all of this

He said believe
He said believe

Who are you telling me to belei-e-eve... yea
'Said I'm the Christ

Oh!
...he said I'm the Christ

So I believed.

Freedom!

Mhmm... yea
Mhmm... ey!
Mhmm... ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah yeah eh, mhmm

Mhmm... Hey! No, no no
Mhmm... yea!
Mhmm... Yea ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah mhm,

Nah na-na-nah

there are perfect
fifths between
us but bach would
cry if they were
parallel so we both
lean into the doorway sloping toward
unison

Piano, piano, soft as moonlight
silken fingers on ivory skin. Glissando --
run your hand up my thigh
plucking every string. Arco, arco.
Softly, softly, the clarinets breath in, breath out
arms envelop me in the tune up,
four notes each fifths apart. Your voice
chimes lovely, the conductor flicks start.

A symphony, a symphony, a whole opera
house inside this bed. Observe me through
small binoculars, roll back your eyes into your head.
Violins slow crescendo, your sigh
an answering phrase from the cello,
listen to the tuba and the piccolo
and the mounting tension. Crescendo, crescendo,
forte, forte. Presto boy, presto. Ritornello.
Fin. Dream with me. Belissimo.

Her lips strip lies bare and my starting point's there where her eyes cast a shadow 'cross me.

She takes me on trips and her lips show the way, but
her eyes are the beacons I see.

And a man only can what makes woman is man and the woman's all woman to me.

She keeps me in shape, puts the food on my plate and the words in my mouth so to speak
and she brings me the home where I'm never alone and my starting point's there where her eyes cast a shadow 'cross me.

Tubeless poetry presents
Friday on the central line.

Today I strode the road from my abode to the ocean.
Straight to the sea it takes me East.
Normally a feast for the eyes,
Today I walk while the sun does rise.
The blinding light so bright removes my sight
I listen the world.

The wind through the leaves of the trees,
A world at ease.
The breeze interrupted by the wheeze of a car.
A scar to mar the aural vista.


The world’s heart pounds
With the sound of my feet on the ground
A jack-hammer resounds abounding,
Interrupting the surrounds abruptly,
Like a palpitating heart getting a defibrillator restart.


From the trees birds whistle melodies
I hum thirds, fifths, the harmonies
Vibrato offered by the bees,
Percussion from the choppy seas.
A horn rings out, commuters shout
The rhythm and the tone falls out,
Slow, fast, sharp, flat all about.

As my feet reach and breach the beach,
Far enough from the road’s screech
I hear the ocean preach in a speech to me.
Whispered accents on each word.
It sighs defeated, it feels mistreated
It sings songs not yet completed
But interrupted by man’s conceited need to sing his own song.
The wrong song for too long.

The sun falls behind a cloud
Removing the shroud,
Showing the crowd singing so loud on the shore
I close my eyes to block them out,
To listen as the world’s song sprouts
I want the ocean, the trees and the world to shout
Loud enough to drown us out
Us petty little runabouts.
We came here last and we won’t last if we try to move around so fast.

Stop.
Listen to the breeze through the trees.
Dream dreams of a world at ease.

She is moments and I am a journal
She is comfort and I am belongingness
She is hangover and I am a couch
She is why it won't and I am why it will
She is in control and I am vulnerable
She is defense mechanisms and I am much at risk
She is lake and I am a fishing rod
She is paintings and I am blinded
She is forget me and I am forget me not
She is box of chocolates and I am a roll of tissue
She is poetry and I am an ink of pen
She is queen of hearts and I am circle of fifths
She is reality and I am dying for her lips
She is something and I am somehow
She is every end of the day and I should sleep now

To This Day by Shane Koyczan

To This Day
When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this ****
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
******* we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty