Fashion, fun and entertainment will feature on August 1 when Hospice West Auckland and national business networking organisation BNI New Zealand partner to present the Absolutely Fabulous Fashion Show, proudly supported by major sponsor Douglas Pharmaceuticals.

Returning due to popular demand, the outrageous fashion fundraising event features upcycled outfits sourced from donations to West Auckland Hospice Shops. Included in the evening is a ‘Designer Clothes Sale’ featuring garments seen on the catwalk, which will be available to purchase on the night. Modelling the clothes will be celebrities, prominent Aucklanders, Hospice staff and professional models.

Award winning ‘Comedienne of the Decade’ and celebrity host for the evening Michele A’Court was delighted to be asked to MC the event. “It just sounds like tremendous fun and I am a sucker for Hospice fundraisers, so I jumped at the chance to be involved. Also, I am a massive fan of op shops, so how could I resist?”

CEO of Hospice West Auckland, Barbara Williams said, “We know the audience is in for a very special night for a great cause, with lots of laughs. We also want to showcase the fabulous range of designer clothing that donors so generously give us, and to highlight the quality of garments available from our Hospice Shops. Op shopping is good for your wallet, the planet and your community and we are keen to show that it can also be brilliant for your wardrobe.”

Barbara is delighted to welcome Douglas Pharmaceuticals as the major sponsor this event. “Douglas is a key supporter of Hospice West Auckland and Founder Sir Graeme Douglas has been our Patron since 1996. We are thrilled to have Jeff Douglas, Managing Director, continuing their support and appreciate his commitment to this event.”

Barbara acknowledges the support of long-time partner BNI NZ as a major asset for the event. “BNI’s networking groups up and down the country have supported Hospice for many years and raised over a million dollars for Hospice nationally.”

“Our long standing relationships with Douglas and BNI NZ and are very important to us, not only financially but also in terms of engaging with the communities their businesses operate in.”

Graham Southwell, National Director of BNI NZ, says BNI has a strong presence in West Auckland with a lot of local businesses participating in its networking groups. “Hospice West Auckland approached us because they know that we have active local business members in the community that could provide resources and help make this event even bigger and better this year,” Graham says. “It’s exciting to work with Hospice and use our expertise in BNI to help collaboratively put on the event. At BNI we are all about creating strong relationships in the community and Hospice have come to us because of our network and assistance with logistics as well as getting the word out about this fabulous event.”

Guests will be able to purchase some fabulous fashion, bid on a range of exciting auction items as well as enjoy wine, canapés and live music. All proceeds from the event will go to Hospice West Auckland, who provides free palliative care and support to patients and families living with terminal and life-limiting illness.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2015

civilisation abhors thought that it cannot vocalise,
and therefore monitise - it abhors it! it vilifies such
thinking as a form of mental  illness, or something akin
to such a statement; talk to any psychiatrist
and he'll tell you that psychiatry is, quiete frankly:
a variation of demonology - shadow people -
the "retards" everyone is quickly to defend
but easily strap into death-rollercoster rides
and the famous bon voyage adieu salute!
civilisation stamps it down, as i already said, abhors it,
whenever cancer is involved is a hellraising
fundraiser moment... come the sickness of the mind?
or the abstracted brain: we have parasite,
tapeworm people.
     and all because of our own cause in having created
the skivvy like residuals to brush under the
carpet of what's otherwise glitter:
   people who are without narrative:
                    without the marathon fundraiser public:
a macho personification of how to abuse
state authority but never wishing to do so:
but nonetheless being punished for it.

the central figure? fiction isn't written these days,
take a break, come back later.
        if you can't be honest now: you will never
be honest in a hundred years: forget it!
but you know what i find? sniffer dog that i am:
i find people like *Faustino Barrientos
a.k.a. not Pablo Neruda - and god i'm jealous,
there's this pristine exemplified variant of Adam
and i'm petrified with jealousy at
his 45 years of solitude in Chile -
               i'm mad by it,
why? because the so-called civilised world has
literally cut off all my limbs to embody such
a life: my grandfather and my father lived
under the laws of conscription auto-suggested
by the rubric of social preliminary bulletpoints:
i'm jealous of them too!
              i'm an Auschwitz shaven bearded
"thinker", no good to society that needs rigour
of appearing nice and selling bull's *******:
i wish i was (most of the time),
       i got a chemistry degree and was told to
work in a supermarket... there goes my love for
learning:
                i am, evidently, a pseudo-hermit,
self-imposed isolation but still seeing people:
or as i like to call them: ghosts - in close
proximity; now, if ever anti-social behaviour went
on unpunished, i'd be a gladdened example
of such feralness.
                    oddly enough, atheists are cultured
creatures,
                 but, not oddly enough: they have
nothing enabling them with self-preservation;
the argument goes along the lines of self- (hyphen
opening necessary)... as a prescribed form of
automation... in a variety of guises:
         this hermit from Chile has nothing of this
sort, he simply has a godly competence of
the environment, someone like Christopher Hitchens
can walk into a crowded space and give you
theological nausea -
              because could you find enough whiskey
metabolism while shearing sheep and
milking cows? no! atheism is a placebo of what
is otherwise an individualistic stance of
being an individual within a herd -
and what an almighty cold turkey experience we've
been given after Nietzsche killed god:
we're going cold turkey -
               we're theologically cold turkey -
we are still living in rehab, bad move to do it
so quickly: history on amphetamines sort of speak...
             a dichotomy of priestly attire
and politicians all suited tied and booted as
the grey matter: where are the ******* rainbows?
hence the persistence to relapse into hippy,
while adolescence succumbs to nothing more than
a medical circus frenzy: of nature's own:
                          getting rid of the weakest like
one might throw out an out-of-date yoghurt.
  all good and well with that montage of atheism
being the zeitgeist fashion statement -
    but there is no atheism outside of the civilised world:
there's the purity of the self-        automation:
or adaptability to the environment -
only once congregated there was the imposed:
the non-existence of.
                      because it was trendy to speak like that,
we established a cohabitating necessity as
a species and then tried to fake that necessity by
differentiating with enough intellectual sweat to
distance ourselves with a counter-argument:
i.e. not self-   as in automation because of the ever
changing weather and organic octopus auxiliary attachments
for the worth of grit:
                     but a self-    (unit of automation)
   to fill the world with an almost inaccessible
perpetuation of the narrative - but this civilised self-
                 as variant of automation
toward self-sufficiency and independence is completely
lacking in the civilised world!
     we treat people like ****! waiter! cashiers!
                     bus drivers!
         i endear you to think that in the collective of
what's known as the civilised world: the hermit does not,
exist! there is no self- to speak of,
               try milking a cow or lumbering along with Jack:
it ain't there! we're a bankruptcy in terms of limbs!
        well sure: i write, and immediately i'm
in a mess because i like to study -
     which means poetry or poetry aspiring to
philosophy is inherently useless... so is civilisation!
   tribalism has no need for money: because it
has community: cannibalistic or not... is still has
a collective need to survive - unless of course you
remember the civilised world and all those
experimental fetishes to get you starcast with a moovie.
so this Chilean guy, 40 years a hermit,
     and then this article in the Sunday Times
news review section: driven to distraction -
             and my notes as graffiti after reading it:
we are a second behind goldfish online (8 seconds
with cat videos) - goldfish are 9 seconds into
watching bubbles, and then creative dementia
     doing the plateau incremental snap: re re re.
the god does not exist argument is founded on
a banking system: it's the most viable way to make
an argument that provides wages -
          no other reason for it,
or: as according to the Chilean nomad Faustino
Barrientos, begin with the self- unit
                of self-determination and sustenance:
otherwise don't bother arguing that sort of argument
without undermining the collective Disney index
of the people: who are incompetent at ruling themselves
then they congregate to give birth to a Picasso,
end of!
              so just because i studied the sciences i can't
be persuaded to an ulterior version of humanism:
i swear, Kant said that there was nothing nobler than
to concern yourself with god... or an argument for
such a being... maybe i'm misreading things:
after all... it's not all that fashionable to say such things:
because never was sane sensibility akin to Jane Austen
for ******* despicable as to read Jane Eyre.
              well sure, i have my "furthering" notes,
from the trenches of the devil's sulphuring *******...
         again: that statement "god is dead"?
is effectively going cold turkey... shutting off all
the superstitious metabolism of the past: oh, 20 centuries.
   sure, the Anglo Renaissance came, Elvis too,
       but the repercussions of what we "experienced"
at the height of the latter part of the 20th century?
unreplicable, gone, dust, sniff the actual grey dust
death of ash... it's not coming back: here my pessimism
and valour in the name of comedy - realism
and the very mortal hand of the extinguished flame:
it's gone! done!
                and it ain't, coming back with a backlash of
infuriated rigour to keep afloat: or return to / replenish.
  it's gone!  mind you, Heath could also be
included in this ode that celebrates necessary
obscurity of the Chilean to my jealous fancy as having
perfected survival skills.
             but this cold turkey debacle over the death
of god penetrates former colonial, hence post-colonial
societies: it affects the youth.
                  it suggests a quickened pretense of
diminished responsibility within a framework of
the lack of all things "karmic":
sure, so history is without a continuum to ensure
there's transgression for every transcendence
and we all live in an Utopian scenario of
immovable mountains: maybe that's why we're
no longer writing history but historiography:
and there is a distinction:
the former is actually angling and fishing -
the other is counting the number of skiving salmon
dreaming of wings rather than gills out
of the river.
                     among the other observations?
or apathy without origin in blissful thinking,
statement A.
     can you imagine anything more apprehensively
digested that reaching the conclusion:
a- + -pathos (without pathology)
                                 can be interpreted negatively?
negative thinking prior to reaching the consolidation
that apathy is, well: most people treat that as
an abnormality.
                     (if i ever wrote a self-help book,
i'd write one like this).
              you go past bulimia, past self-harm,
past all the negative bull and reach a state of apathy,
a non-disconcerted attunement toward feeling:
but you have been chiseling with your thought
at all the unpardonable negativism of your
identifiable physiognomy from genealogical nuance:
you seem to want to replicate an ancestry -
your heart will not tell you to **** yourself:
but find enough automaton curriculum in your
thinking: and your own mind will slothfully entice
you with a thinking sidewinder that aims at the
guillotine, or the gallows.
                   and after all that negative thinking,
you reach apathy, or being without a pathology?
and you feel an emptiness?
             don't expect to be Nepalese -
your ancestry forbids it...
                        you didn't reach a Buddhist apathy,
you didn't start from a zenith: but from a nadir,
tattooed with so many pathologies:
to reach apathy you had to transcend them:
       this is the bit were i say, concerning your heart:
it's a bit like a Cartesian cogito ergo sum moment.
talking about going beyond:
ever think that foundation of ontology is grammatically
based, if not biased?
        i limit this question toward grammatical
categorisation of words...
      primarily? the usual questions:
why are we here?
                       how? (well, that's outdated
'cos we have all the answers and that leverages our
greatest dissatisfaction, even in terms of writing
a new version of Don Quixote, which we can't).
                i devalue grammatical categorisation
altogether, i don't believe in it,
            for example why is categorised as
both adverb and conjunction... to me synonyms
don't exist in grammar, why is therefore only
an adverb...
              how? also an adverb... (ad- + -verb
         toward an action) - thus toward the municipality
of professions: but that's not a moral question.
       why is also an int. (interjection) and n. (noun) -
all it takes is a missing h to completely it as a noun
(unless of course the Oxford dictionary is wrong,
and i'm not Shylock Holmes)...
             what i am focusing on is the word
is, which is grammatically categorised as a conjunction,
and so it is, and so that is, and so this is:
       that's a canvas for me: mirror mirror, on the wall:
who will the the fairest of them all once i stop
asking the question with rose petals in mind being
plucked in that fateful lottery?
                         i don't care why, i already have
a good enough estimate as to how...
                          i base my ontology (nature of being)
upon the is...
                        where there was jungle, there too is
another jungle made of concrete -
and i don't trust the Quran: it makes grammar too
inaccessible, too holy even,
             you tell me the naked truth of the grammar,
i'll put on a ******* Hijab and prance to the tune
of le trio joubran's song masar down a street:
the weeping man of Amsterdam, two German chefs
tripping out on mushrooms while watching
American Dad in a darkened hostel room,
   and an Egyptian architectural student i spent
the afternoon with; otherwise? don't bother.
      and it really is great how is can't be an adverb
and merely a conjunction (well, "merely"),
      there is nothing that requires is to be a limitation,
or a necessary morphing into: toward doing / being
something... everything just, is;
and if it wasn't for Shia Islam you'd get **** all Sufi...
maybe a Falafel kebab, but **** all apart from that.
                    of course i'd side with the ****** Iranians
on this matter...
                                i can't live without music,
for fare game to Faustino Barrientos, but i can't live
without music, and Wahabbism doesn't recognise
music:      never was hearing a camel hart or a
merchant burp or a woman ****** seem so appealing,
and worthy to fight for! (italics for the sarcasm).
do you think that if i clap my hands for a year
i'll hear a minute's worth of Wagner?
                                         (snigger): probably not.

An upcoming fashion show, and I don’t mean to be unkind here, is lacking in both. It’s just the way it is. These models are beautifully ordinary people, your neighbours, and their designs are self-crafted, each suiting the model’s personal interpretation of high fashion. It’s the social event of the season. Everyone in the “know” will be there.

Eight models and an emcee will take to the Capitol Theatre stage in Oxford Thursday at 7 p.m. for the third annual Foolish Fashion Show. Foolish is the operative word here. It’s an evening of fun, with each model parading across the stage in four outfits during the show. The fashions are indescribable literally. You have to see them to appreciate them.

The show is the annual fundraiser for the Oxford/Pugwash Unit of the Canadian Cancer Society. To date the show has raised about $5,000 for the society’s Lodge That Gives in Halifax.

The show was the idea of the local unit’s Bev Clark.

“At the time there were no people to canvas door-to-door,” she said. “People were getting older or had less time. There were also other fundraising campaigns going on at the time.”

After seeing a foolish fashion show elsewhere, she decided a similar one would work for the local cancer unit. The first show was a sellout and the models of the evening agreed to take to the stage the next year.

Each designer/model is responsible for their haute couture. With the final result left to their wild, some might say perverse, imaginations the creations are a sight to behold.

Unit secretary and past president Bob Hunsley in his best 007 voice introduces himself as “Bob, SpongeBob.”

“Every good fashion show should include good costumes,” he begins. “Here, our unit president Edna McCormick is wearing her all-weather coat. In this coat she is well prepared for sunshine, rain, fog and snow and all the wind that blows (the coat is adorned with representations of each weather condition). Notice her “son” hat (which is a tribute to her son).”

Jane Smith is new to the Foolish Fashion Show runway.

“I came to the show last year and really enjoyed it. It looked like fun,” she said.

First time jitters?

“Doesn’t bother me a bit.”

This show is one in which you can’t do anything wrong. You show off your creation however you deem fit. It’s all fun.

Tom Kay, is making his modelling debut also. And what will Councillor Kay be strutting his stuff in? Not to give too much away but a muscle shirt like you’ve never seen and shorts will be worn.

Nine-year-old Emma McCormick is also a featured model.

It’s a show not to be missed.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2015

Fashion designer Dame Trelise Cooper is holding her first show in Wanaka to help raise funds for the town's planned hospice.

The September 30 Theatre of Fashion event is being organised by Wanaka fashion store Escape Clothing owner Lucy Lucas and the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust and organisers hope to raise up to $30,000.

Trust fundraiser Bev Rudkin said the show was "such a coup for Wanaka".

Wanaka hasn't had anything like this before and we know Theatre of Fashion will be an exciting event."

The event will be held at the McRae family's Glendhu Station Woolshed and will showcase the Trelise Cooper Summer 2015/16 collection. It will also feature three Trelise Cooper 1950s-inspired installations.

The event includes an auction of donated items, with all proceeds going to the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust.


photo:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses
Lucas lost her mother to cancer two years ago and says the hospice facility is especially important for the local community.

At the moment, Wanaka cancer patients and their families travel either to Clyde's Dunstan Hospital or Dunedin Hospital for hospice care.

The Upper Clutha Hospice Trust will be a tenant in the Presbyterian Support Otago and Mt Aspiring Retirement Village's proposed aged care/dementia facility on Cardrona Valley Road. Construction is scheduled later this year.

The trust is raising capital and operating costs for its patient rooms within the larger facility.

Lucas stocks Trelise Cooper in her shop and approached Dame Trelise to see if she was interested in helping the trust.

"Dame Trelise is incredibly generous with her time. She does a lot for community causes. Wanaka is so lucky to have her agree to holding this event, and for her to attend is even better. Guests are in for a treat. Trelise Cooper shows are always fantastic, with plenty of 'wow' factor," Lucas said.

Dame Trelise said she was only too happy to help: "Giving back to the community is something I have always believed in. It means a lot to me that my passion and the work that I do can be put towards something that really makes a difference . . . I have some very loyal customers in the South Island who have supported my label right from the beginning, and it feels great to be able to bring an event like this to them."

FAST FACTS

What: Theatre of Fashion inaugural show

When: 6.30pm, Wednesday September 30, 2015

Where: Glendhu Station Woolshed, Glendhu Bay

Cost: $65 per person or $75 for front row seats. Tickets from Escape Clothing, Ardmore Street, Wanaka, or the Upper Clutha Hospice Shop, Ballantyne Road. All proceeds to the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust.

- The Mirror

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

a few weeks back i
   opened my big
                              fat mouth
& agreed to bartend
this art auction fundraiser for
street children in
         kenya
which my parents organize
         yearly
to which a lotta local artists
big & small all
donate pieces to.

anyway my pops wouldn't
let me serve gin with tonic (this being a front so
i could drink it all of course, if y'know me at all..)
and bought bud light (horsepiss)
and for wine used several
bottles of the stuff my
mother makes
                          in town
                          at the Penetang Wine Cellar
which, though rich & darkly red
is over-dry and smacks of vinegar,
be assured.

so despite see-sawing between
indignant "No's"
&
commiserative "Yes'ses"
(i mean who else are they gonna get??)
(---and due in part to
my lack of success in
making other plans)
i end up doing it &
having an alright time
in the process ...

(hey i had a big sink fulla icy beers &
'probly drank more than anyone
else save my father's friend Ted!!)
---i even threw down
a bit o cash on a pretty neat little
abstract called "view to the bay"
but got outbid,
---as if i needed to drop $100 +
on some painting
when i should be saving ev'ry dime
for old España
in the new year.
so i crack another beer and
live vicariously thru my mother
when she picks up a oil of this island
with big storm & clouds comin' in
---and then outta nowhere it actually is me
that closes out the show by outbidding
a neighbour for a
photograph of some dingy toronto night
(buildings under construction)
and then go back to pouring more wine
& smiling & shaking (wringing) a few hands.

They smile, and they attend social functions and are in pages of
a city's social diary, a mockery of a democracy
the Hearsts and the Bloombergs  and the others rolling in it
so their aging women can have too much plastic surgery
because time happens to the elites, too, and cancer and unhappiness
and the smiles hide the discontent and the slow death
and they are afraid of us, can't bear to be with us, this other species we are
and once, with my now X, at a fundraiser for his elite boarding high school
I listened to a pretentious speech that was so intolerable
underneath the canopy of a white tent in the middle of a gigantic field
with every grass blade evenly spaced and the same height, and the soil
filled with nitrite.
And the speech ended and the applause served as cover, like brush and I ran
out into the open air and flattened the springy grass
and I walked away because I could take no more

Have you seen _?
She asks early in the morning when I'm tired and upset
have music blasting through my ear drums so I can stand to exist in this place
On our break, she re-appears, to deliver a package, some materials to help you
I am with you, still, we are work aquaintances, and I see you already have a lover here
A former baseball mom who has remodeled herself, at her new job
pretending husband and children don't exist as she seeks you out, hair done perfectly
dressed to accencuate the ******* and behind, sits so close, has promoted you in her department
to the position of soul mate

And when I flirted a little with you about going together to a fundraiser
you resisted, and now I know why, because you already have a date
and now I know why she tried to be assigned to our work group
when she is really in another because you are there, and you are her light
and my former married flame saw this,
and after the meeting, he ran, as if stung by a bee
to his new work flame, by her side
not alone, and I've finally forsaken him
and he may fire me, or not, but the ring on his finger still isn't there
for her to see, and she needs him, for her own career rehabilitation

Just watch, I am told.  Just watch since you are really not my type and
that is what discerning women do, who don't get swept off their feet by
posssessive and abusive men...and I won't go there again even though
I was defenseless then...given my background and insecurities
but stronger now and men near us nibble juicy meat off ribs
and talk about them, as we sit together, ****** tension still a bit there
even though it's fairly casual "It's so tender and moist, so soft, tender, but a good chew"
and I can't help but smile thinking that these heterosexual men are describing what
they most love, and at then end there is only a hard bone left
which should be of interest to me, except that is not enough since
there is little feeling in me to receive its pleasures, and that is just a compromise of nature

And I tell you I adore you, which is a complete tongue in cheek exxageration
but to get through your thick skin it is a plea for you to stop teasing and judging me
and let us just be friends who are nice to each other
and wander away

The wind rushes the sound of
Horse powered hurricanes into his ears

He is silent as he drives to the beach
He is silent on the pier

He purposely gets himself lost sometimes
Tries to remember he parked his car at a nearby Denny’s

The boats bob helpless
But safe with their tethers

He eats a hamburger that he buys for 2 dollars
While walking by a company fundraiser for heart health

The man standing over the barbeque asked him if he was hungry
Neither said much else to the other

He eats slowly
Drinks slowly
Understands that everything happens slow when he is lonely

He characterizes himself through sighs that all say
Yeah I guess I should go now

He knows he shouldn’t be here
As if the salt air might rust his moving parts

But he sits on a bench eating a burger
And in his own silence creates osmosis
A space around his head so his thoughts dilute themselves
somewhere else

He plans on leaving them there
He thinks how this is an oil change for his soul
So he can slide back into his daily grind enough
To keep his pistons cool

How some days he needs the noise so much
He becomes obnoxious for laughter
And hungry for laughter’s love

He drives home perfectly empty

Gets lost along the way

Thinks about what it truly means for him to go home

Thinks he should have been there hours ago

Thinks of what it actually means to be better

And says to himself
People are never really lost
As much as they are
Arriving where they need to be
*Just a little late

***** transitive verb
: to force (someone) to have *** with you by using violence or the threat of violence

It sounds like just a word to me.
But it's so much more than it's meaning.

To me it's red eyes and the smell of ****.

Like when I was no older than four
And heard the creak, as my step father opened the door,
And held me down as I screamed
But used his force as he slapped me.

And his eyes were red, as he smelled of ****.

I cried as I experienced hell,
And when he finished, he told me not to tell.

It changed my life.
It made me feel *worthless

So when I was older, and I thought I found the one
That was when the problems re-begun.

I wanted him to love me, and I felt like it was slipping away,
And I felt like having *** was the only was to make him stay.
I was half right

Then he left.

****

It sounds like just a word to me.
But it's so much more than it's meaning.

I got a call from my boss one day,
And he asked me to come over,
But when I got there, I smelt the ****
And it made me shudder.

I smiled, and said,
"You wanted to see me?"
He said, "I heard you were selling something."
And he told me that I looked pretty.

I explained the fundraiser,
But then told him that I should leave,
I was uncomfortable
With my surroundings

He pulled me towards him, and sat on his bed,
And kissed me.
When I tried to stop him, he said,
"You know that he's probably doing the same things with her."
And he was probably right.

Stunned and hurt,
I just sat and stare,
And he kissed me again,
And touched me there

"Please, stop" I said,
"I have to go."
He ripped off my clothes,
As I kept saying, "No"

He pushed inside my as hard as he could,
And I screamed as my body released crimson blood

And he slapped me.

I knew what was happening,
I knew it all too well,
And just like with my step dad,
I cried as I experienced hell.
And he told me not to tell.

RED
Like my stinging cheek, and body.
Like the numbers on the clock.
Like the freshly washed sheets were turning.
Like his eyes.

When he was done, It was 7:35.
I walked to the bathroom, and wiped my burning eyes.

"Stop crying" I whispered to myself,
And I grabbed my pants off the shelf
And put them back on,
Like I've done for so long.

As I walked out, and tried to leave,
He pulled me toward him and kissed me,
I flinched, and I couldn't look at him too,
Then he whispered in my ear, "You're good at what you do."

I ran out of the house and walked for a while,
I walked
      And I walked
              And I walked for miles.

It's been almost a year now,
Since that day,
When he took me back,
To when it was taken away.

****
It sounds like just a word to me.
But it's so much more than it's meaning.

To me it's red eyes and the smell of ****.

Ask questions later, answer the cries.
The echo of teardrops from a thousand good-byes.
I've seen the world passing me by
and I've seen the wake of untimely demise.

Step this way soldier to become a man
Out of the open flame and into the pan.
You're born on the fourth, born just to die.
Beware Johnny War-Boy there's a storm on the rise.

The dark side of freedom is measured in regret.
White-wash a memory now we're taught to forget.
They come 'round the table with labels in line.
Come if you're able with hope on the side.

Pacifist practice tends to fall by
a kiss on the cheek and a wink of the eye.
Strikes like a match, struck like a chord.
Scissors beats paper but the pen beats the sword.

The shove off the wall was the fall heard by all but the call
of the king's men couldn't mend them.
The blood on the hands of the clock can be washed but the hands
of the hangman remain stained and
the ticking of time-slot life-lines counted down...counted down
to the time of the rise of these hypocrites.
Hairs crossed like fingers from the fear of the misunderstood.
Lovers...seek out...shelter.

The burning itch...of a candle which...is polar wicked
Begins to twist intentions from both ends.
So quick to chose the shortest fuse,
When different views are misused to prove who is right.
The claim of faith of Holy Wraith
is all erased when patience is out-weighed by debate.
A war of stone in a stained-glass home
When blame is thrown the claim of faith's as brittle as bone.

The market's a target for the fundraiser fight.
Mothers and children and fathers alike.
Red runs the moon with a sack-cloth-black sun
Red *** in the spoon for the soup to be done.
Red *** in the spoon when we're done, when we're done.
Red *** coming soon and we're done.

hey big daddy dude
i sure like
your baby blue eyes and
i sure like your lean style
i wrote this
little drug poem somehow
hey broham
can you do
a little something for me
right now
just bring me a phat bottle of
that cold ****-juice and
some of that
smooth dom perignon
oh yeah
something is going down
at the Paris Hilton Hotel Plaza
can you dig it big daddy
my crazy cat brother
where life is so grand
man i am just sitting
up on top of world
riding up on six white horses
as i drive in my pink-****** cadillac
so welcome to my world
inside the big white house
full of diamonds and pearls
the whole enchilada girl
yes white coke in every room
this ain't some coke in a can
yes we are having a big fundraiser
yeah its party time up in the cut
fifty thousand dollars dreams but
brother man
set it out on the red carpet floor
turn on the groovy and the juicey
psychedelic lights somehow
roll out the big bowl of chili now
the big bowl of white coke and
you are still a bad girl now
have some white coke and a smile
taste some white coke with your fingertips
then snort some white coke up our nose
add some heron with some blow and
through your veins is where it goes
your eyes open then close and
you come riding up on six white horses
look man this is so groovy
like a ten cent movie and
no more **** pain
when we get coked up again
roll out the Benjamins
to climb up that phat hill
Jack and Jill
can you do
something for me
let the white lady in

Isn't that who you are baby?
Goin up town in your red dress,
face painted like a Goya,
clinking glasses with high life
at a fundraiser and older rich
men laughing at your ****** jokes.

You having a hole to fill,
a need to be more than where
you came from, no ***** trailers
to wake up in anymore girl.

Spent the money on this ticket
that coulda bought ramen for a week,
but you need this night more
than you need food.

I don't want to sound judgemental,
because I'm not judging at all,
just commenting on a life
so many women like yourself
have wound up living.

Least you're not turnin tricks anymore,
so I hear, and for that I'll thank
whatever deity is responsible,
hopefully you never need to sell
your perfect body like that again.

All those boys you thought were the one,
all those nights with a needle in your arm,
all those mornings waking to sadness.

When you get home tonight,
to an empty bed and dusty memories,
I hope somewhere deep down,
you know my heart goes with you.

I found the reason for all our lies,
to cover up our ****** up minds,
to cover up all the crimes,
committed by mankind over time.

We ****, corrupt, and capitalize,
on all the forsaken, innocent cries,
and then we try to rationalize,
our reason for profiting from their demise.

The blood is on the hands of the mindless,
sitting back, thinking these issues are timeless,
do you really think the people are buying this?
Do you really think you can keep us blinded?

No more closed doors, no more closed minds,
we need someone willing to walk the line,
someone willing to argue both sides,
someone willing to lead us, not hide.

No more government fundraiser *****,
no more vacations, answer the call,
this nation needs someone to stand strong and tall,
this nation needs us,
the people
one nation,
under God,
indivisible,
with liberty,
and justice,
for all.

Fathers talking
When did it happen
Try my books www.amazon.com/author/richardratliff


I don't know how it happened
Really my friend, I don't know
I had to stop and get diapers

You were just supposed to pick her up
You know, at daycare on the way home

Has it happened to you before?
Perhaps returning from brownies

You too? Were you
Going to softball, or soccer practice?
Playing catch

I know, I know, I was coming
From the junior high fundraiser

Well I'm confused, I was
Saying "easy, easy on the breaks!"

Nice to met you
Be back by eleven

Come guys come on
How did this happen

Only yesterday
I had to pay tuition

So he ask for what?
Her hand, quaint
A tear

Now I'm at the bar
Paying for everyone's drinks

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

My Grandfather,
with his bare hands
built that house on our
fertile land,
were I was born and did reside
and there it stil does stand.
Rite on the borderline
of Greater Manchester
and Merseyside.

Since the day I could walk
and way before I did talk,
I'd help a little
with sickle and pitch fork,
and I'd watch the workers
like a hawk.

One day I'd reached my prime,
my farther said I'd  come of age,
and then at last came the time
for me to get my first ever wage.

"Now its time for you to get paid
(Great maybe now I'll get laid.)
Have a think about investing
(does not sound interesting)
In some great machine
like a tractor,
so your workload does lessen"
(Or maybe I'll live the dream
and get on X factor,
now I can pay for a singing lesson.)
                            
"You tended well to our crop
a bumper harvest you did yield.
Best we've had for years
Good on ya son."
"Great now I can sit on the Kop
always wanted to see Anfield
and go out for beers
around Goodison!"

I got dressed up to the nines,
on a sunny day ,in the finest Lacoste.
Here come the good times
In the big city I got lost.

Thier was some kind of parade
for those with pride.
I was given a serenade
by a chap with his hair dyed.
"Have no fear come in for a beer
you dont have to be queer
all are  welcome here."
Was not sure what that implied
but I said thanks and went inside.

First place I'd been in Liverpool.
Bunch of lads inside playing pool.
I picked up a que
and asked could I play to,
they were not cool            
"Who the hell are you?"
I did not sound Merseyside
so they took me for a fool.

For what it was worth I tried to explain.
"Only had to bunk six stops on train.
I'm local enough so dont complain.
I'm the man that grows your scran,
digging the earth in the pouring rain."

"Stop your bul you wool,
you sound like some kind of manc,
we'll give your ars a spank!"

I  was not sticking around for abusing.
I downed my tonic
and out the door I did walk.
Although I did find it amusing,
and somewhat ironic,
that a scouser could take the ****
out of the way anybody did talk.

Feeling dejected and worried
I'd almost come to harm
I went back to work on my farm
to the Job I'd hurriedly rejected.

But then the nights did draw in
and it did start to get colder
and again I felt my life was boring,
need to live a little before I get older.

Had enough of merseyside
with thier closed off unions.
I'll try my luck on the other side.
I'll go meet the Mancunions.

Yes its going to be great,
yes I'll have a night to remember.
I'm on the lash around Deansgate,
on the twenty fourth of December.

Strait in first place I saw
It looked all I'd hoped for
and more, top draw.

They had an event of some kind
seemed to me it was for charity.
I'm not usually one for morality
but twas night before Christmas
so I did not mind.

A fundraiser for the down and out
refugees that were homeless and brasic.
Some were prancing, call it dancing,
others just hanging out.
The juke box was banging out
a Stone roses classic.

"Pint of smooth."
All stopped to move,
I felt the needle scratch out of that groove,
and no creature was stirring In that public house
not even a mouse...
When I say nothing was stirring
thier was three hundred pair of eyes
that did stare at me  from all sides.
But you know what I'm saying.
I open gob, record scratches off,
stops playing,
and no creature was stirring
in that public house, not even a mouse
and the barman, he looks at me and he says.
"Are you Scouse?"

"No bro
I meen no are kid
and I'm here to spend
doe you know so
dont flip your lid."

"Whats that you said?
What do you meen
what am I doing here?
I'm Lancashire!
Born and bred
I'm out thier in my wellies
watering turnips to keep
you townies fed!"

"I'm not on tour
I'm no pretender."
Was going well for me
until they all saw me
take a selfy
outside the Haçienda.

In these modern times
most try our best
to be excepting of the rest.
Strait, gay, white or brown,
but I say its just as important
to extend that hand of friendship
to those in the next town.

For after all,
if we got together
and gathered our masses
we would surely be the most awesome,
the very best.
We.
The great working classes
of Englands North West!

Me and my gal there are
way too many skits
All fits extra bits the "Kit Kat"
More edible so incredible
The next door Gals
loveable

So pompous everyone
is competing for
the pearly white smiles
Those walkouts extra
digging workouts
But what was lost the
extra hugging

Dreaming do we all
have the right
extra goods going to
Church always
Saying I have sinned
kneeling
Like those dog days
So swift as a second skin

The summery like winery she
shifted her hips the Gal with her
divine flowers extra mind she showers

Whats becoming mystical with poise
That ethereal hooked extra path Rose
Those extras I suppose for granted 
The fundraiser heart of giving
Teaching us a lesson in lying
Godly extra of surviving
How he loves his treats dog
or human begging and love
forgiving

Medieval shows she knows
Bazooka Gal bubbly
But wickedly incredible
The mix of Pixar extra
star trouble

Gingerly **** Rosy Lips
suggestively incredible 2
Divinely, he cannot help
himself so manly whats to do?

Emblaze another phrase
Saying your nobody until
somebody loves you
He's the Dean of all extras

Happy go lucky humming
bread Robin red breast nest
What freedom fireflies, daffodils delight,
and butterflies extra wing Peking duck
Gal Friday turning another page he ducks

All in the  kingdom Ms.Joy no extra pain
Laughing like the fandom taking the next
Wolf tie train trick of the brain
but stop in her name
The other Gal got her fame

All the extra love at the top he's
at the bottom bed of condoms
The high-Gal post-chaise with
her bell bottoms
He took a sleigh ride

Just out of random don't push
her buttons
Seeing the stray Bengal Tiger
his extra studded
collar down to her currency
Only a dollar tree
Hollywood extra part wasn't
the true color of he
His Stingray lay lady lay
He just never stays
Being Starved  for love
All the extras the roast
Hottie buffets

Mmm so nice her ear raven
dark brunette
The gal can kick you like
Rockefeller showRockette
That Gal all news gazette
That extra crepe Suzettes
his eyes he just went
through raced his extra miles
How he charmed over you
In his Corvette

Bombay French-skirts cafe
The extra treat parfait
Magnificent Monet
Cobblestone love walks
Gateway the gal with
something extra talks

They cuddle
fall asleep arm to arm
head to head it really
didn't matter
They just knew it felt
extra right good night
What was ever said
With your after-mints
And substitute plays everything lit up
Purple haze, so passionate but crazed
Something extra she got a raise

I? I was 15. I had been at my new school all of 2 seconds when my friend (who didn't even go to my school) decided we were gonna have friends over while my parents were at a church fundraiser. I invited to boy who had been making googly eyes at me from across the gym. Well she, she invited 6 guys who I didn't even know existed until that night. The boy I invited brought a friend and a friend of a friend. Everything was all okay until that friend of a friend had to go and run his big ol fat mouth.  Fast forward an hour or 2 and everyone is outside after a fight in my kitchen against 6 random dudes and the friend of a friend. It starts to get closer and closer to the time my parents were supposed to be home so I finally get the six random guys to leave  and goggly eyes is no where to be found along with his friend so I'm stuck talking to friend of a friend. He's sweet so I walk him to his car thinking nothing of it when he starts crying over his ex and I'm stuck just listening and waiting for it to be over. Then after an hour of talking outside his car he asks for my number. And at this point I didn't know you could say no to these kinds of things so I gave him my number. That friend of a friend soon became someone I would half heartedly call mine. He was still mine after he ***** me. He was still mine after he let his friends **** me. He was still mine when he broke my nose. He was still mine after his mom found out and told me he must really like me bc he hurt me. He hurt me like when little boys tease little girls and calling it liking. I was his and he was everybody else's. I didn't know I could say no to this theses kinds of things.

Yes, it's a fundraiser.
Yes, it's for a good cause.
And yes, you're a team player,
a good sport, maybe a patsy.

So you put some lipstick on that pig,
a little mascara, a little blush,
then close your eyes
and picture your high school sweetheart.
You even dare a little tongue.

Sorry folks, it's still a pig.

i peel off a piece of paper that's stuck to the padding and which is green and lightly
folded at the end
and has scribbles from a child that happened to draw
a *******

and a ''I LOVE BURT'' heartagram.

and a chipmunk sneezes, but the libraian keeps typing on her phone,

and the guy in the corner with black strands of hair which peek out like a sad
mouse scratches his chin

and the follicles litter the desk.

underneath the floorboards
lurks the janitor who keeps his surveillance on 24/7 -
especially in the boysroom and does
seedy things
but he's been there 26 years and isn't really questioned.

and in the gymnasiam
a pizza party fundraiser with the amputees from hungaria dance and laugh and sip wine and ****** eachother's belly buttons.

one lady says
''yeah''
and another says

''yes''

and edward
says

''yes'' too

and the cars come by and pick them up for their dinner later on--
with the mashed potatoes and stuff and corn.

i kept going 12 years

and only ever cried twice.

a wetwilly is an adolescent's way of telling you they hate the sun

and that god
will strike you down when you disgrace your mother in the alley as the abortion is performed
on a gurgling fetus that looks remarkably like your dead soul in

an afternoon afterglow

have to talk about
girls behind their back.
They mock me and pretend
face to face

they are my friend. They could
talk about the weather, if it'll rain
this afternoon. That it's cold for
this month of June. They could talk

world affairs, the war in
the Ukraine. But they'd have to
have a bigger brain. They could talk
about a fundraiser for

the sick. Or even the movies that
they've seen on Netflix. They could talk
about style and design, the newest line
of clothes. The cons and pros of wearing

pantyhose. They could talk about their kids
or their pets/their vacations in the Carribean, wine
and e-cigarettes! They could talk shop. But they
talk about me till their jaws drop!

RICES LANDING – Forty years ago today, Duane and Charlotte Makel laid to rest their 8-year-old daughter, Debra “Debbie” Lynne Makel, the victim of ****** and ****** assault. Her killer has yet to be charged, but that may change, thanks to advances in science.

Sitting in their living room, the Makel’s talked about their brown-haired, blue-eyed little girl.

“She giggled all of the time. There was a big tree with an L-shaped branch that she used to love to climb. She’d hang upside down from it and swing back and forth with her long hair brushing the ground,” Charlotte said. “Debbie was very outgoing.” When a new child moved into the area it was Debbie who befriended her when others did not.

“She was the top of her class, straight A’s,” Duane said.

On Thursday, cold case Detective John Marshall, who was assigned the case Wednesday, looked over four thick binders, containing information, photographs and interviews, laid out in front of him at the state police barracks in Uniontown.

He said he believes advancements in science creates a strong opportunity to discovering who killed the young girl.

“There was no DNA (testing) in 1973,” Marshall said. In fact, it wasn’t until 1987 that the first DNA based conviction occurred in the United States.

In 2003, the cold case detectives investigating Debbie’s ****** sent evidence from the crime scene to a police lab where the killer’s DNA was extracted.

“We have a DNA profile of somebody. It has been put into a database but as of this date there have been no matches,” Marshall said. “Over time, various individuals have confessed, who, through DNA, interviews and a polygraph test, have been eliminated. Whether they were braggarts, had a hero complex, or were thinking they were helping the community by confessing to this, the DNA profile showed to be negative.”

Marshall said there were only a few men who stood out during the original investigation as persons of interest. One of them, currently deceased, passed a polygraph. “Ninety-nine times out of one hundred they say, ‘Sure, let’s help,’” Marshall said. “I will be reopening all of the interviews in the investigation. My purpose with every male I talk to is to try to get consent from them for a DNA swab,” he said.

On Oct. 5, 1973, Debbie rode the school bus less than two miles from Dry Tavern Elementary School to Ferncliff Road in Rices Landing. From there it was a short walk to her home, situated at the end of Hoy Street, a dead end. Investigators placed the time at around 3:45 p.m.

There were only four houses visible from the Makel residence in 1973. It was a warm fall day. Her brothers did not ride the bus, choosing to walk home to sell magazine subscriptions for a school fundraiser.

Charlotte and Duane were both at work; he at Avella High School where he taught at the time, and she at a sewing factory. The boys arrived home before their parents to find their sister’s books, coat and house key on the table. She was nowhere in sight.

Times were different then. There was no cause for alarm. It was assumed she was off playing with one of the children on the street, said retired state trooper Elmer “Bud” Schifko, 77, an original investigator of the ******. Schifko’s family lived across from the Makels.

Schifko, who worked in the Uniontown barracks, was asked to join the investigation after Debbie’s body was found two days later near an old distillery foundation, less than 200 yards from her home. She was covered by branches and brush.

Prior to the body being discovered Schifko remembers Charlotte and Duane started to get worried when it was getting close to dinner time and they started making phone calls,Schifko said.

“We drove around the neighborhood, all over Rices Landing and kept thinking, ‘This doesn’t make any sense. We called the police and they had it announced at the football game in Jefferson,” Charlotte said. “You just couldn’t wrap your head around it, couldn’t sleep,” said Charlotte. “You wondered, ‘Is she in the river?’”

Charles and Betty Riecks, who lived in Clarksville at the time, were at the game.

“They announced that she was missing and asked for volunteers to search and people just started leaving. When we got there they told us to hold hands and walk. People were calling her name and it was lit up like daytime with these big search lights,” Betty said.

This type of shoulder-to-shoulder searching went on through Saturday night with hundreds of volunteers combing the woods and farmland near the residence. Many believed Debbie’s body had been moved there when searchers took a break from Saturday night to Sunday morning.

Former Greene County Coroner Frank Behm, Schifko and Marshall all said the forensic evidence proved it impossible that this was the case. Behm said, as hard as some find it to believe, they simply missed her when they searched that area.

Sunday morning, two family members, who had come to town to aid in the search, found Debbie.

The inconsistencies in stories published in the years since her death are many. Internet sites, where wannabe detectives discuss this and other cold cases, have suggested a cover-up.

Charlotte, who only recently learned of the mirth of speculation online about Debbie’s death, said she finds that thought disturbing.

“Of course you think about who may have done it but if you are wrong then what have you done to this person,” she said.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­    Methodist Pecans

Methodist pecans

Connie-the-Haircut-Queen sells us pecans
Every Christmas, good Methodist pecans
A fundraiser sponsored by the women’s club
To be baked into cookies and pies for Christmas day

Methodist pecans

They used to come from my grandfather’s trees
But now they’re grown and gathered somewhere else
Packaged in plastic, certified, and sealed
But still they’re good Methodist pecans

Methodist pecans

And in January when the hail-storms rattle
Stuffed in a barn-coat pocket while tracking cattle

Methodist pecans - Texas blessed and Texas’ best!

There was a loud KNOCK on the rectory’s back door.

Father Frank Kerin had been sitting at the rectory’s kitchen table reading the newspaper.  He was a young priest having just finished seminary only last June.  It was a late August Sunday afternoon, and he had just come back from visiting the sick at the local hospital. He was totally engrossed in the sports section of the paper when he heard it again.

This time the knocking was louder and more persistent. The housekeeper did not work Sundays, and Father Frank was alone in the big house.

He got up and walked through the kitchen to the enclosed back porch where the door was located.  Looking through the venetian blinds he could see that the person knocking was a woman.  As he opened the outer door, he could also see that she was quite large, appeared to be in her mid-sixties, and she was holding something rolled up in her right hand.  She had a menacing look on her face and Father Frank thought to himself … I hope she doesn’t hit me with that.

Father Frank opened the screen door and greeted the woman. She said: “My name is Florence Atterbury and I’m looking for Father Greenlee.”  Father Frank then introduced himself: “Hello Madam, my name is Father Frank Kerin and I’m new to the parish. I just graduated from Seminary in Cincinnati Ohio and have only been in Rosemont (Pa.) for a few short weeks. Father Greenlee is out for the day, is there anything I can help you with?”

The woman stood in the doorway for a long silent moment
looking down at the floor.  When she finally did look up at Father Frank, she said: “Father, I think I’d like to sit down.”  Father Frank escorted the woman back into the kitchen and sat her down at the table.  He then asked her if she would like something to drink.  Mrs. Atterbury said: “No thank you” and laid the newspaper she was carrying out on the kitchen table.

It was opened to section C, and the lead article was about the abuses of drinking and smoking in America.  The editor was linking both with many of the maladies that plagued our country and was trying to connect the effects of drinking and smoking to lives of total ruin and debauchery.  There were pictures in the article of men in Philadelphia’s bowery, and women in a local nightclub, with cigarettes between their fingers and a cocktail in their other hand.

The caption underneath said, ‘The Beginnings Of A Dead End Life.’

Mrs. Atterbury said she was livid and upset over the fundraiser that the church had just held in the school auditorium. Beer and wine had been served, and men — and some women —were seen smoking outside the front doors where the event was taking place.  She also said, that “anyone with half a brain knows that once you start smoking it leads to alcohol and then most likely to harder drugs and possibly even to a life of crime.  Your life is ultimately ruined and beyond saving and you are eventually condemned to a life outside the Church.”

The good woman went on for over ninety minutes lamenting the ramifications that a life involving tobacco and alcohol would entail.  She also said that she was “going to put her foot down with Father Greenlee about future events at the parish and that no alcohol should ever be served.”  When Father Frank explained to Mrs. Atterbury that there was wine at the Last Supper, and it was turned into the blood of Christ, she just said: “Father, really, that was just for God himself and the Apostles.  You don’t really think that applies to the rest of us, do you?”  Father Frank took one more shot at explaining to her the story of the Wedding Feast Of Cana, but again, it fell on deaf ears.

Mrs. Atterbury finally got up and as she left she pointed her big index finger right at the middle of Father Frank’s chest.

“Father, you mind my words, this smoking and drinking are going to undo all the good work my women’s auxiliary has done for the past twenty years. If it continues to go unchecked, it will spread through our elementary school and ruin every child in it.  It only takes one bad apple you know …”

As Mrs. Atterbury walked out the back door, Father Frank thanked her for coming.  He then walked slowly back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door.  After taking out a bottle of Budweiser he sat down, lit up a Chesterfield, and leaned back in his chair.  He just couldn’t help but wonder …
                              
                   What Was Hell Going To Be Like?

We saw from many Republicans
Their true colors yesterday
With their blind allegiance to
Donald Trump on full display.

While we paused to remember the horrors
Of January 6 last year,
We saw Republican lawmakers
Kowtowing to their puppeteer.

Aligned with white nationalists
And thugs, the Party's come to be
Unrecognizable
From the former GOP.

While members of Congress met to reflect
On what had happened a year ago,
Republicans--except for Liz Cheney--
Unsurprisingly failed to show.

Republicans in Missouri had
A fundraiser--one whereby
They celebrated the insurrection
And pushed Trump's election lie.

In interviews, two notorious
Trump sycophants mentioned their pride
In what the violent mobs had done.
Violence being sanctified?

Amplified by hostile foreign
Powers, many lies keep spreading.
With truth constantly under attack,
It's scary to think where the nation is heading.

How can lawmakers cater to Trump
And still maintain any self-respect?
Furthermore, without a backbone,
How can they even stand *****?

-by Bob B (1-7-22)