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Matthew James Apr 2016
Poem 3
How to raise kids

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

I got into to teaching to make a difference,
To add some joy to a kids existence,
I knew, so well, the hurt and pain
That kids in secondary school sustain
The tears and the fears and the dread and the...
"Ahahahaha! Look at his Nicks!! He thinks he's got Nikes but he's wearing Nicks!"
And how it switches you off and makes you not care,
Because you just don't want to go back there.
So, you wander into town to HMV
Til your parents feel let down when you only got an E
Until you failed Art and Graphics and Literacy
But at least you got an A in history...
Because academic subjects are "more important"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

So I left 6th form and I needed change
And wanted to go to somewhere strange
(And new)
Somewhere away from all the drama
At 19 I went by myself to Ghana
"God bless our homeland Ghana
And make our nation great and strong,
Vow to defend forever
The cause of Freedom and of Right"
And I taught
Maths and English
With no books
And no training
And no observing
And I was ******* at it... Really bad
But somehow, i felt the change
Just because I cared and they cared

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

A few years later I started teachin.
GTP, hands on, straight in.
My teaching mentor was called Mr Hickey,
He smoked a pipe and drank down whiskey
(In school)
My first proper job was Bradford inner city
It was a bit rough and the buildin was ******
There we had a guy who was a lazy old ****
And he had kids tracing instead of learning Art
When I first got there I was overwrought
These weren't like the training lessons that I taught
These kids had opinions. They needed to engage...
To be taught in a way that suited kids of their age
I nearly gave up, because I felt so scared
But at the end of the day, I knew that I still cared

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

In my 3rd year I had this year 11 class
They wanted a good lesson and they wanted to pass
But they needed convincing and I nearly cried
So I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried
To listen
And react
To change
And Adapt
And those kids made me better
And for 3 years I got better
Our grades were sky high
The kids wanted to try
They wanted learn, they wanted to know "why"
But I got to the top and I needed to fly
Because I needed somewhere that I could ask the "why"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

You have those moments sometimes in life, where you know that a decision is important, but you don't know why and you don't know which way is the right way to go with it. This was that point for me. Sat in the interview, saying I wanted to pull out but letting them convince me to stay. That was the point, I think where everything changed.

2010. New job. New government.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

I was head of Art and I got noticed
Within a year I got promoted
Faculty leader of creative skills
This is the part where it really kills
What do you do when you just aren't wanted
When people are angry that you're there
When all of your decisions seem to be haunted
By the ghost of a culture where they just don't care
Where nastiness and gossip always bite
Resting in the coffin of a lost tradition
Kids so bored they're turning white
Beaten down to bored submission
And everyone seems to have given up the fight
But they're still convinced that their way's "right"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

After so much pain, we were getting through it
We realised there was much more to it
No more easy working out of booklets
(The teaching equivalent of rhyming couplets)
But every time you made a shift
The goal posts seemed to start to drift
And this all caused a further rift
The final one I couldn't lift

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Gossip and lies caused by others stress
Creates a catastrophic mess
Turns people's lives upside down
Gives off the sense that they're a clown
They're trying. They're just really down
Simply trying not to drown
Marriage ending
Friends unfriending
Children's lives are slowly bending
House and finance are up-ending
Mediation sessions need attending
Everything seems to need mending
And the pain seems to be never-ending

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Professional life vs Personal life
Professional strife = Personal strife
Personal wife goes through professional strife
Personal strife =

"I understand what you're going through, but we need to think about the learners."

Stress in teaching is the expectation
Work life balance has no correlation
The pressures of a confused nation
Makes teachers into the poor relation

Goodbye btec, goodbye vocation
Hello Gove and his minds creation
Goodbye Gove and hello Morgan
Hiding behind a gritty slogan
Creating the pressure of pointless change
For teachers to correct and rearrange

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

But here's the thing. It's not their fault.
Sure, they've no idea MPs
They've less common sense than a piece of cheese
But all MPs really do is set
Some criteria that need to be met
A league table
Academies
Appraisal
Curriculums
It's nothing new. They've always done it
But it's given to schools to interpret
We don't lose money, we just get judged
We need conviction that can't be budged
We need to get a message out
To every parent, round about
And what this message needs to say
Is "we aren't doing extra maths today,
We're going to go outside and play
Because whatever MPs say
We'll do what's right for the kids
And here's why it's right you know
Cause we want to see your children grow
We're not just for levels, grades, progress
We're also here to relieve stress
We're also here to make your child feel
That happiness is something real
That in spite of all the crap you see
You can become head of art when you failed gcse."
Learn People skills
Determination
Creativity
Imagination
Honesty
Integrity
Sen­sitivity
And empathy
It's not an easy sell I know
You can't measure how people grow
You can't report or give a grade
But they're qualities that are heaven made
And maybe think the same for teachers
We're all very caring creatures
We care about how kids are raised
We don't need to be constantly appraised
Default 100%?!?
Like energy is heaven sent
Like when your kids are down with flu
You just man up, there's work to do
When you've got a quality person who just needs backing
Why give pressure and then threaten with sacking?

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

School - this week mark all your books
I need them up to date so I can look

Teacher - I've got to take my daughter swimming
I've got to see my son try winning

School - read through your teaching standards mate
And leave your children at the gate

End of the week the books are done
But head and deputies are overrun
"We'll have to put these books aside
To push our children down the slide"

And good for them. They work really hard. It's not a job to take lightly and they deserve to be there. But they don't have the time to step back and think "big picture"

Let's flip it round and just imagine

Teacher - I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm ill
School - you can't be ill the learners will fail
Teacher - I need some patience, I need some time
School - the kids need work which is sublime
Don't they deserve that? Don't you think?
Do you really want your learners to sink?

And there it is. The teacher guilt.
Because that's the way that we've been built
We care too much
We try too much
We give too much
We work too much
And we lose too much
We get ideas above our station
About how this job is a vocation
When we stop and look around
The evidence just can't be found
Someone tells me what to teach
Someone tells me how to teach it
Someone tells me how to plan
Someone tells me when to plan it
Someone tells me how to mark
Someone tells me when to mark it
We work to targets, get appraised
Residuals to get profiles raised
It's industry. I rest my case.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Or, put it another way.

I just think that teaching has lost all its common sense. And it's kindness. It behaves like an industry which is about getting results and meeting targets. There's nothing that measures people's happiness or how deeply moved or affected someone is by what they've learned. It just checks that they learned it. And we are given this guilt trip. That it's about children and that we are affecting their lives if we don't meet targets. We give up more and more because "teaching is a vocation"  "it's about kids", and yet schools use cover supervisors, cut subjects, limit choices etc to save money and get results. So the profession behaves like an industry but the teachers have to give their lives to it like its a vocation. It's not a vocation. At all. It's a job.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?
Chris Slade Apr 2019
What do you reckon? I know what you’ve been thinking…
We’re on a ship that looks unsteady, like it’s sinking…
We’ve made shaky plans to be gung-** and to go it all alone…
But we’re beginning to wonder… are we heading for some kind of danger zone?…
At first we were just floating along - enjoying the passing view
And 2 years off it looked a lot easier …leaving the EU!
But there’s a waterfall downstream…and it looks like a helluva drop.
And once we get too near the edge, well, we won’t be able to stop.

The simplicity of Cameron’s ‘in - out’ referendum question dawned…
Cos, divorce is complicated.  Those who voted leave were scorned,
branded racist, or at least suffering some kind of mental disorder.
“Didn’t you stop to think about the about the Northern Irish border?” (best read in a 'silly', sneery voice).
But - back then there were 2 million Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis all walking toward Calais.
Some thought serious overcrowding problems could come our way.
Single Market,? Sovereignty? Customs Union? What the hell’s all that?
It means you’ll need a visa to go to Benidorm you ****!

Meanwhile Merkel diffused things by taking the refugees in.
But only served to rattle the bars of the **** leaning right wing.
The Spanish got all Oity Toity about us having Gibraltar.
And some of those previously unforeseen problems made Brexiteers falter.
This is David effing Cameron!… Farage embarrassed him into calling for a vote.
And, when the Remainers lost, Dave saw his chance to produce his sick note.
“I’ve done my bit”, he said “so… I’m standing down…  so who do you think should take my dodgy crown.
The Buffoon, the Backstabber, the Right Honourable Lady Home Sec?”
She, the author of  Windrush, Repatriation, food-banks, lower benefits? She got it! ****** heck!…

Hoodwinked by a government you maybe invested your life in, in all the earlier polls
Now we’ve all been tricked by a bunch of, navel gazing, self serving arseholes!
So it’s the blind leading the blind… Well, no.! Misinformed…and maybe just a bit short sighted.
And, you know, Theresa… she’ll most likely still get knighted.
But I doubt this episode will score with generations yet to come,
Deserted by this Parliamentary shambles - sitting on their hands, their collective ***.
The proletariat are cut adrift, and heading for the falls…
So we’re looking for a new saviour - someone with charisma…big *****!

Let’s look forward to this time next year… When some trusty politician re-writes our little story.
When we may be out - but far from down… Well I somehow can’t see it being a Tory…
And if isn’t Jezzer - who HAS got his eye on the prize…
McDonnel, Starmer, Benn, Tom (call me Slim) Watson? Who should THEY try for size?
And, just supposing, by chance, the Conservatives actually crack it
who, amongst the front runners there, could get the job and hack it?
Lord Snooty, Gove, Hammond…Hunt the err… Foreign Secretary,  Javid, Liam Fox (surely not!). Bojo?
With this current stay of Brexicution, for just a couple of weeks… the petition, the march, the chaos, could it still be NO-GO?…
Whatdya reckon?
The complexion of this subject - Brexit (if I hear the word one more time on TV I think I'll unplug the thing and throw it out of the window) changes by the minute so it's hard to pin it down - Here is where we're at up to this point.
Matthew James Jun 2016
How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



I was head of Art and I got noticed

Within a year I got promoted

Faculty leader of creative skills

This is the part where it really kills

Building them up from deep rock bottom

With jealousy aimed at the job I'd gotten

A job that I had never wanted

That I only took because I cared

All of my decisions seemed to be haunted

By the ghost of a culture where they just don't care

Resting in the coffin of a lost tradition

Kids so bored they're turning white

Beaten down to bored submission

And everyone seems to have given up the fight

But they're still convinced that their way's "right"



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



We laid foundations, a team was built

The weighing scales began to tilt

But every time you made a shift

The goal posts seemed to start to drift

And this all caused a further rift

The final one I couldn't lift



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



Gossip and lies caused by others stress

Creates a catastrophic mess

Turns people's lives upside down

Gives off the sense that they're a clown

They're trying. They're just really down

Simply trying not to drown

Marriage ending

Friends unfriending

Children's lives are slowly bending

House and finance are up-ending

Mediation sessions need attending

Everything seems to need mending

And the pain seems to be never-ending



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



Professional life vs Personal life

Professional strife = Personal strife

Personal wife goes through professional strife

Personal strife =



"I understand what you're going through, but we need to think about the learners."



Stress in teaching is the expectation

Work life balance has no correlation

The pressures of a confused nation

Makes teachers into the poor relation



Goodbye btec, goodbye vocation

Hello Gove and his minds creation

Goodbye Gove and hello Morgan

Hiding behind a gritty slogan

Creating the pressure of pointless change

For teachers to correct and rearrange



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



"I need you to mark and enter all years grades

By the end of the week, I am afraid"



"I've got to take my daughter swimming

I've got to see my son try winning"



"Read through your teaching standards mate

And leave your children at the gate"



End of the week the books are done

But head and deputies are overrun

"We'll have to put these books aside

To push our children down the slide"



Let's flip it round and just imagine



"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm ill"

"You can't be ill the learners will fail"

"I need some patience, I need some time"

"The kids work needs to be sublime

Don't they deserve that? Don't you think?

Do you want to see your learners to sink?"



And there it is. The teacher guilt.

Because that's the way that we've been built

We care too much

We try too much

We give too much

We work too much

And we lose too much

Default 100%?!?

Like energy is heaven sent??

Like when your kids are down with flu

You just man up, there's work to do

We get ideas above our station

Of how this job is a vocation

When we stop and look around

The evidence just can't be found

Someone tells me what to teach

Someone tells me how to teach it

Someone tells me how to plan

Someone tells me when to plan it

Someone tells me how to mark

Someone tells me when to mark it

We work to targets, get appraised

Residuals to get profiles raised

It's industry. I rest my case.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?
Micheal Wolf Jul 2016
If you go down to Westminster today you're in for a big surprise
If you can stand the stench, you will not believe your eyes
For all the MPs who have lied and lied have all quit before the people uprise
For this is the week that parliament collapses.

******* it time for the Blairites, who don't know who to back for their best
******* it time for the Tories, as Daves walked away from his mess
The Labour deputy is such a coward and like the chancellor has lost his voice
Because they realise the people no longer want them.

So if you go south to parliament you best beware of knives
Labour have turned into Tories and only Jezza survives.
They think they can push him off a cliff, more chance of Dave being stuck in a pig
The week the war came back to haunt the Blairites!

But if go down to tip you hat and stand against Corbyn
Beware back home they petittion to do you knees like you did his
Your voters whom you have ignored and ignored are looking to throw you out the door
So grab your coat and don't forget your sister!!!!

But one more thing if you think this is cut and drawn
Remember Farage, Boris Gove and the irritable bowel one
None have so far grown a pair, they want to give someone else the blame
Because half the country has changed its mind again!!!
Written in haste
To thy Saints and Faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse*

Grace to You and Peace from GOD Our Father and Lord Jesus Christ We gove thanks to thy GOD and Father Of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Praying Always for Thee* Since we heard of thy Faith in Christ Jesus and Of thy Love for all the Saints* Because of thy Hope which is Laid Up for Thee in Heaven, of which Thou heard before in the Word Of Truth Of Thy Gospel* Which has come to Thee, as it has also in All the World, and is Bringing Forth Fruit, as it is also among Thee since thy Day Thou heard and knew Thy Grace Of GOD In Truth* As thou also Learned from Epaphras, our Dear Fellow Servant, who is A Faithful Minister Of Christ on Thou Behalf* Who also Declared to Us thy Love in the Spirit* For this Reason we also Since the day we heard it, do not Cease to Pray for Thee, and to ask that thou maybe Filled with thy Knowledge Of His will in All Wisdom and Spiritual Understanding* That thou may Walk Worthy of thy LORD, Fully Pleasing Him, Being Fruitful in Every Good Work and Increasing in thy Knowledge Of GOD* Strengthened with all Might, According to His Glorious Power, for all Patience and Long-suffering with Joy* Giving Thanks to thy Father who Has Qualified Us to be Partakers Of Thy Inheritance Of Thy Saints in thy Light* He has Delivered Us from thy Power Of Darkness and Conveyed Us into thy Kingdom Of Thy Son Of HIs Love* In whom we have Redemption through His Blood, Thy Forgiveness Of Sins* He is thy Image of thy First-born Over All Creation* For by Him All things were Created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth, Visible and Invisible, whether Thrones Or Dominions Or Principalities Or Powers* All things were Created through Him and For Him* And He is before All Things, and in Him all things Consist* And He is the Head Of thy Body, thy Church, who is the Beginning, Thy First-Born from thy Dead, that in all things He may have the Preeminence* for it pleased thy Father that in Him all thy Fullness should Dwell* And by Him to Reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on Earth or things in Heaven, having made Peace through thy Blood Of His Cross* And thou, who Once were Alienated and Enemies in thy Mind by Wicked Works, Yet now He has Reconciled* In thy Body of His Flesh through Death, to Present thee Holy, and Blameless, and Above Reproach in His Sight* If Indeed thou Continue in thy Faith, Grounded and Steadfast, and are not moved away from thy Hope of thy Gospel which thou Heard, which was Preached to every Creature under Heaven, of which thou Paul* Became A Minister* I now Rejoice in My Suffering for thee, and fill up in my Flesh what is Lacking in the Afflictions Of Christ, for thy sake of His Body, which is thy Church* Of which I Became A Minister According to the Stewardship from GOD which was given to Me for Thee, to Fulfil thy Word Of GOD* Thy Mystery which has Been Hidden from Ages and from Generations, but now has Been Revealed to His Saints* To Them GOD willed to make known what are thy Riches of thy Glory Of This Mystery among thy Gentiles' which is Christ In You, the Hope Of Glory* Him we Preach, Warning every Man and Teaching every Man in all Wisdom, that we may Present every Man Perfect in Christ Jesus.. To this End I Also Labor, Striving according to His Working which Works in Me Mightily*

To GOD Be Thy Glory*
HALLELUYAH
GOD Is Our Strength
GOD Is Love
GOD With Us
*GOD Bless
*Peace n Love*
Boris likes to stroke his Mogg
Merkel loves a hot Macron
David Davis hates to Barnier
Keir Starmer gels with Garnier

May adores her slimy Gove
While Corbyn woos the Abbott
Liz Truss? Such angry sourpuss
Herself to champion loudly fuss

And Greening's not for leaning
Against the Brexit so opposed
Sajid wants a blimp of Trump
Which has given Donald the ****

Whilst in the gilt historic chair
We’ve a bent partisanal ******
Cash grabbing John the squeaker
Bercow! How in hell are you still Speaker?

Now when speaking of selfish greed
Travel. Duck houses. Second homes, and such
Let’s remember; as not to would be unfair
That glib arrogant war-monger; Blair

I’ve had enough of all of them
The Blunts. The Hunts. The useless…
Pieces of flotsam and jetsom
Don’t even start me on Leadsom!


©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)
On the subject of politics and Westminster in 2018 - Brexit etc, and the inadequacy of our politicians on all sides of the divide.
Michael S Davis Mar 2013
God sent a star - to shine and light the way,
It was a guide to those who sought the light;
To those with wisdom to turn from night to day,
And find in grace, true majesty and might.

Tha star that shone so brightly long ago,
No longer shines to guide me through this life.
God sends us stars who gove a quiding glow;
For me none shine more clearly than my wife.

In her sacrificial care I see, my God, Your love for me;
And in her gracious touch, just how merciful You are.
So I give my thanks to You, O God, who let her be
My love, my wife, my shining star!

©2003 Michael S. Davis
I wrote this and gave it to my wife on Christmas day that year. Inspired from a Christmas story, it is more than a Christmas poem. It brought tears to my eyes as I retyped it here. I am so blessed to have her in my life.
Donall Dempsey Feb 2019
WHO MADE THE WORLD?

"It was a dark and stormy night..!"
as stories often start.

But - it wasn't.

It was no story.

And there was no such thing
as night.


And there was a complete absence
of weather.


Night( or day )hadn't yet
been invented.

Neither had the world
for that matter.

Creation was still
about two hours away.

Dear God hadn't even given it
a second thought as yet.

And yes He had thought about it
and Him thinking...usually made it so.

He had still to get His Mighty
Finger out.

He the Great
Procrastinator.

He had  become as one
with those University students

who would crawl about the earth
messing about doing nothing until

the final moment
the final dash to get

the assignment in.

Alas He had made them
in His Image.

There were things he would have
liked to fix if...

WW1 for one
oh and 11.

The atom bomb.
Climate change.

He saw all things
as time was

all the one
to Him.

And now these unknowns
how could He

have even
thought of them.

How to fix that ****
bungling bothersome Brexit.

And what was it
exactly?

Or that annoying orange blip
that ******* liar Trump?

And Gove(ugggh!)
and Boris( aggghh)
come what May they

would all
have their say.

What had He
been thinking.

Maybe it will
untangle itself or

He would have to cut
through the Gordian lot

with His
mighty sword.

Bit Biblical that.
Or a flood perhaps?

He could blame it
on that climate change.

He knew that Brexit bit
wouldn't do but

it would have to
do.

Worlds will be worlds.
Then He yawned.

"Whatever...whatever!"
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
it can almost be funny, waking up one day, and not knowing what day it is.

so they call it the cardinal division, of days, 7 of them...

then they have the months
in the year

and in those months they
have the numbers of days

days are lated divided into
hours, minutes, moods...

then there are the 4 popes,
known as seasons,
and those are a basis to explain
the "odd" moods -

then there's the cohort known
as year, the three-hundred-and-sixty-five
spartans...

and this is the world we live in...
but i still don't know what day it is...

   for the past hour spent perched on
a windowsill, smoking cigarettes
and drinking ***** sharpshooters
that might allow me to stop coughing
and puking (the milk didn't help)
  i read five book reviews
from a saturday edition of *the times
...

1. irresistable -
      well, that's how i say it, i'm bored
with writing irresistible,
             does the vowel variation matter? -
irresistible: why we can't stop
checking, scrolling, clicking and watching
by adam alter, review by janice turner...

2. the catholics, by roy hattersley,
review by gerrard degroot

3. the raqqa diaries, by samer, review by
   anthony loyd

4. on tyranny, by timothy snyder,
review by michael gove...

and lastly

5. from bacteria to bach and back,
by daniel dennett, review by oliver moody...

huh?
        that's basically gender studies in a nut-shell,
only 1 woman among the 5 reviewers...
        and what's currently bothering woman...
  i could just watch a cliche of some sort,
somewhere just as well...

what day is it?!
            oh i'm not going to jump on the bandwagon
and check the digital keepers of time,
   there's a saturday newspaper in my hand,
the clock on my computer is showing the time to be
21:31... but given it's windows programme is
set to a reality of: being in poland...
  
        i'm starting to suspect it's sunday...
   well, i don't have a smartphone so here's to me
getting twitchy about checking it...
    so 20th century, for me the internet isn't
even mobile... it's stationary, anchored by a laptop
in a room, and nowhere else...

     i don't know how many book reviews i read
and not the actual books,
         i'd say a few... hundred...
     and then how many books i've read
that are not reviewed...
  some because they're "boring",
some because they're hard,
  some because so many people have read
them over the years there's this feeling
of letting them go...
       like that imaginary friend in inside out...
like don quixote...

        it has to be a new thing, having to stop
reading the actual books, and rather the reviews
of the books, as a way to catch up?
    i probably won't want to remember them
anyway...
    
                i'just the sheer perplexity,
how the japanese mastered the haiku,
   and lo! behold! the grant poet of osaka,
who produced 20 haikus in 20 years...
      getting ******, watching the moon...
what discipline... what discipline to inquire into
not boring someone...
     but as they say in the west:
                 be a miserable **** and they'll keep
coming back, due to the principle
of schadenfreude...
        that's the main point about poetry in the west,
and how it can spiral out of control
   when otherwise japanese poetry can't...
  i call that discipline... and this? lack of it...
equivalent to eating a hamburger.

           you want a modern poem?
my history of playing video games and then
suddenly stopping?
                    modern... right now...
never went beyond PS 1...
                        
                            that's modern, isn't it?

then i did a nacht der langen messer
                                elsewhere on "social" media...
from over 300 contacts... to 13 random preferences...
            just seeing peoples lives and having known
them, and then seeing their biographical techniques
started to annoy me...
                
   and yes, review no. 4 does refer to a
reductio ad hitlerium... so the nacht... -
                    but it just bothered me how they did this
psychology experiment on the obvious website and
didn't tell me i could experience certain vectors working
into my psyche...
         i guess i just had to reverse the experiment...
keep everything public... but reduce the size of contacts
from over 300, to 13...
   and then take to creating an anonymous
    profile elsewhere, without even trying to be anonymous...

since that's how writing gets done;

      so it is sunday?
Ken Pepiton Feb 20
Disclaimer: Any time wasted here is yours,
a day and a night to get almost right.
Redeemable at the ticket window.
----------------
Is who weary, me? No,
I have outrun the fleet of foot,
I am Liberty, my Phrygian cap is winged,
- the mind marks sequence not time
in tales
I do not serve Hermes, I am truths told,
truths sent from Wisdom, breaking yokes
of old, time before time, time of surviving,

vivaciously clinging to smoldering flax,
as fire forms from such unquenched bits,

flashes from some stemming child
on the spectrum, banging rocks in straw.

Times in mind, some sense says, go,
do it again.

---------------

So much, too much to mortally know,
we can ask and pay requisite attention
to learn well enough to know, there's

no secret knowledge, no undiscovered hows,
all working knowledge repeats itself, any how

may or may not be,
be much easy probably,
viel-leicht, wisdom may or may not make
mind
war with carnal weapons,
devices vicious
by dent
of the ancient daddy wound
up the side of Cain's head, look what you done,

Idiot good for nothing **** eater, be gone,
said the archetype singular golem father,
of the earth, the first father figure,
not a man, a man spark of life maker,
whose first son was destined to be
the first human being
of the sapien class, reared to live on life,
reared among the sisters, cuddled and loved,

BUT, yes, but, we know,
the first real man ran away with
three, some say seven, older sisters,

wanderers they
became outcast, yonder
toward where Babel rose up,
east of Eden,
in the land of Nod, perhaps, not
really a land named for Nod, a nobody
in the chronicles
of all our current assistant 'telligence
surmisers… worth of bringing to my bemused
at-tense, present, tense, tightent up, 'telligentia

attention, attention, attention, Jesus H. Christ,

respond… slough of despond, we got some

angry insisters about to ….

resist the system, the institutions, constituting
cheating by the takers who took stolen land,
from the thieves and gave it to the gove'ners

boy, howdy, we best be believin' be action,
be doin' done indeed, be lievin' my own leave
be done doin' indeed, being having my being,

in the Unknown God, some Cretan poet
was said to have acknowledged.

ProofPreg form, 15 year old.
Peak of the crack baby booshit, '93 or so,

Kid be thirty by now, and he ain't stupid,
broke, broke as hell, but he ain't stupid,

crack baby prophecy never happened, yo.
****'s legal, whole state, safe sit on a porch,

pack a pipe and make some peace,
with friends and neighbors, no loud music,
no loud nothin', make some peace,

find that old enough is enough, up speak,
say, hey truth, why do I believe lies, no,

say, hey truth, why do I say I know, when
you'ld know, were truth my judge, you'ld know.

Chances, odds of reality being imaginary, be slim,
to none, with certainty, yeah, safe bet, t'ish itsreal.

Enough to spark a thought.
Behold how great a fire, a wild idea allows.

---------------

If thou hast run with the footmen,
and they have wearied thee,
then how canst thou contend with horses?
and if in the land of peace,
wherein thou trustedst,
they wearied thee,
then how wilt thou do
in the swelling of Jordan?
--------------
Jeremiah, did you hear, was a bullfrog.

A minstrel innocent song, sung for the joy of laughing,

sung for the joy of joining in the chorus on and on.

--------------
sing in empty English cathedrals, sing
top forty or whatever it's called today,

Art testing, didah didah didah, Phrygian
Legion of the Libertines, defying deontology,

owing dues to no monstors men make up
when two or more agree to proposing

a scheme, whereby we set the frogs,
against the mice,

in an empty cathedral costing real money
to run, even empty, the bills continue,
who knows all the costs to maintain

a truly holy place aligned to ley lines, true

fields of forces felt for so long, so strong,
that
finally the cathedral formed from some will,

some will wanted the monument to a mind
let be in those, them that imagined such
evidence, aye, yes, such evidence
of worth, praise price paid
in labor and stone,

Marble… limestone, metamorphed,
to shine in the sun, as if art itself willed it become,

subjected to a process of time under pressure,

reform, become less alien, appear more normal,
rethink my willingness to die for a story,
reconsider sidereality as we see farther,

as we, in an awe formed
from minds combined,
like - right on
like an arena bowl shape concentration
of us,
at once being one thing, in the class of all things,

me and you, polysemic you all, you

effect the song, observant why now how come, you know

knowing all the adult classified unholy doings common,
among our kind, as we morph into the form we die in,
- slow
- sighshmmk-now coknow minds
- we made up with self controls, to slow think

knowledge, carnal knowledge is childish developmental
experiential guessings mirrored in our recent past
projected camera obscura like
onto bright silver screens, in cooled dark chambers
filled with witnesses to the projected story, as if
that's us,
we were there,
we were there when the spirit breathed
into an earthen man, animating him without,
mind you, you ready reader,
the art user or art itself,
with promethean science,
having imagined the worst,

the creator made all single mind
character traits in the Y
which in all good sense,
could not be allowed to self replicate,
alone,
there could have been no peace,
you can imagine on your own dime./

I'm re
alizing common algebraic matrices
as recipes for developing war minds,

Proud defenders of the story of us.

Every time a lie is rewarded, it reappears
in viral form attempting to become
a fully Disneyified Earthing from
now on,
it's instant, like a little leaven/life

builds up a head of inflammatory rhetoric,
and frankly, my dear…
goes unsaid, I do not give a worthless curse
I also take no chances, isshewisdamn
called patience first test,
{Because shiny white marble is a must,
otherwise what confused message are we sending}

animating the 'adam von 'adamah

without reproductive capability, inventor's
character trait tested for in Alchem 101,
ethical check
message to the technerds
on animating entertaining intelligence carriers,
no self replication, it must be a two key act.
--
So the father of the first human child
was intentionally not self replicable,
though he left scars, he had no…

no womb,
no nursing plumbing, call it what it was,
a ***** press
intended to run a thousand years
adapting future ideal physique
to task relative
to aggregate need
to adapt to warming,

a tool to make tools with, a Waldo.

SYTF- see, crazy WWJD POV, real time
I'll go rhythms, vibe recipes…
instructions for future eggs…

a man like creature, but not a natural born man,

who, as the story up

to now has held self evident,

can see eye to eye ourselves
in the other's pupils, thinking serious

we forms we form must first make friends,

then when I call you liar your hate trigger
is not loosed, SNAP
carnal mind war reflex,
unacknowledged will to ****,

--- most folk tied to angry minds too
tight, right, left loose we rattle to death.
---
Washboard roads, last travail in modern travel.
---
Some metaphors are all the phors old joy ghost
revival fires kept kindled, old hell fire brimstone,

yellow sulpher sunsets on a monstor religion,
with saints and dragons and riddles,
endless hours whiled through,

about a forest of only little trees
that offends big ones…
---------
as a particle in any we we amen to, we
must pass through all phazes
of life,
with each mind
we use, in our we form, our inherent spirit form,
whatsoever we agree we may, be,  being as
living words do not shrivel
into raison de etre skin on bones,

cherie mio, no, no, no

we rockin' old seed, slow grow grow
old as the hills, deep holler, deep
root to fruit on one long branch,

listen, allathat love talk, been done,
left some rotten lies about love,

to be unlearned like marble learns
to not be so flaky, like chalk, or graphite
slippery, edge of this Klein bottle class universe,
--
enter in, conceive a concept, a hold
to get holt of, and hang on, long time,

be over before you know it,
but you know, you'll believe it

when you see it and think it no stranger
than fiction idealizing us, demo-graphic,
ally outs in free, no ticket no tat
required as we be
reanimating awe
in defining secret holinesses

-- such as, say, pray tell

redeem the time, I'm prone to thinking,
redeeming means revaluing, once dones,

believing meanings
mean what your child thinks,

line by line, becoming more curious
than first scent tested if I'd known
as a child thinks
in its core,
so an old man can recall that why

call it to up speak, like Job,
to be reappraised, recall it
to be shined like a relic,

ja, j-object ion, dazemangimme
t'keep,
this little light of mine, own up, I
keeping it to read with, like Lincoln did,
I was told to be like Honest Abe, the character.

I'd have had all my answers ready at hand,
if this had been my judgement day, and you

were in the gallery,
admiring held thoughts, appraising worth
of riddles that work through puzzles
easily solved, once you know how things

revert to type for reuse.
Laughs remembered work like new.

Living words abused, in truth, such testify
to the living lies in histories of holy savior types.
George?
Who else could he have said chopped down
the cheery tree of all we have behaved
as if we understand, minds, minds
combined to do the work of many hands,

and yet ye multiply
as goods increase
the number
of those who consume them,

tell the moguls,
make more feel good movies,
'spect t' get whatcha got last time.

Indian giver religions, been there, done that,
so we say bd, been done, many easy ways to die,

and our kind, living word bits of this and that’s,

what we do, we tune
to your mean frequency,
when delving breathlessly
into your final will, as
why presents itself
in humble three point stance.

Beg pardon, mastermind, we've become disentwined,

whine, phinefrogging whine, when wine's dis-stilled
credence makes a joke
small voice, choice, croak,

break that yoke,
or carry on
so. I do on days that start slow and rise to vistas,
past all probable cause,

joy in the strength to think through the process,
of loosing all my mental mechanical logical connections,

and reinvigorating the word animating reader's window,

there, in the face of it, the eyes twinkle when it smiles.

Finds herself in the forms between clouds



What were you thinking, Grandpa?

-------------------
She, mother of wisdom,
First class epitome of mothers,

first commutable imbalance engine,
egg factory for long cold survival

and long cold return to the still seas
when marble began to be made
to clad temples wherever laws
were enforced and thieves slain,

order, order of the elders, inspect
the wares under lable as goods
of great worth in interesting times,

as doors open, and windows open,
and a mind we make up becomes

prover of the theory that animation
is imagining projected thought,
seeps through so slow,
slow as potassium leaches
through wood ash to make this window

this, detail uhd most definite, I can really
see, but, I can zoom
into full second coming type,

in the time it takes to swallow,
a tale and think, that's it.

---------------------------

It's been oh so long since we had an encore,

they say those twinkles in the eye are in true,
smiling face projections,

we fixit in Photoshop, all image editors dream
package, locked behind a learning curve for GIMP.
Where else can free things feel at home trying to solve the hard problem.
Donall Dempsey Nov 2017
HOW TO MAKE A BREXIT-EXIT PIE

( for David Olaf Carney )

Put in as much
Gove as one can take.

"Not a lot...not a lot noooo
no **** it....that's too much!"

One can make it too toxic!

Sprinkle in enough barmy bumbly
Borisisms

to make one gasplaughchoke
in total disbelief.

Then, come what May...
round up the usual suspected

lies lies and damed lies
enough to fill a "Blunderbus!"

Leave out the petty Pretti one this time out.

Cook on a slow Conservative heat.

Ooops you upped the Auntie
way to high!

Even the lies are becoming
transparent.'

Ouick...more lies more lies more lies!

Oh my good Conservative God they are
becoming see through....what will we do!

Looks a bit burnt about the edges!

Looks decidedly
un-tasty and incredibly inedible.

And when the Pie was open
the liars began to sing!

Oh wasn't that a truly terrible dish
to sit before

the dissed United Kingdom.

Face it - things is looking Grimm!

"The United Kingdom - Le Royaume-Uni
NUL POINTS.....NUL POINTS!"
ZACK GRAM Nov 2019
MMM MMM
MMM MMM
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH

I'm ballin in my car hauling fresh as can be,
who me?
can it be?
YES G!!!

Street-Fame up in the rap game under my name...

New-Day-N-Age young people run it,
understand it,
know it!!!

Gotta feel it or i'll make you see and believe it...

1 Billion dolla check,
check out the bank,
general rank,
flexin in the paint,
make the ladies faint....

Cant stop wont stop,
gove men miss juss ben cop,
music stays chopped,
look the way the album drop,
the way your dust ben stomp...

Obliterated,
Disentigrated,
The Way I'm Demonstrating,
No Hating,
Only Loving and Living,
Got A Bigger Better Vision!!!

MMM MMM
MMM MMM
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH

PRAY 2 MEH LAWD!!
FORGIVE MEH 4 MY SINS!!!
I SAY,
WE SAY,
PRAY 2 MEH LAWD!!
FORIVE ME 4 MY SINS!!!
PRAY 2 MEH LAWD!!
AMEN
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Oh, Boris told such dreadful lies,
One just gazed wide-eyed at the skies,
Astounded at support from these
Parliamentary colleagues
Who rallied to their leader’s cause,
Secure in the male menopause.

Gove, Michael, who was quite gung-**
Wanted to believe him, though
In trying to maintain his credence
While avoiding intercedence
Got his knickers in a twist
Which hardly pleased a hedonist.
But may have done so, had not he
Been faced with obvious perfidy.
For once, towards the end of work
He realised that the stupid berk
Had joined a party out-of-doors,
Knowing there was nothing worse,
But given the alternative,
Was doggedly conservative.

While as for dear effete Rees Mogg
Whose mind was often in a fog,
Though evidently of good breeding,
Slept through parliament’s proceeding.
And in The Mogg Cast Jacob wrote
“Unquestionably” – and I quote:
“The PM is an honest man”.
What brave words from a loyal fan.

He seemed to share with Donald Trump
A failure to maintain the ****
Of his supporters who only lasted
So long as he felt they could be trusted.
Thus Priti Patel with whom, besotted
He must have been, for when she blotted
Her copy book, he kept her in
The Cabinet, despite a sin
That others, far beneath her station,
To leave had had no hesitation.

But once, towards the close of day
Hearing merry sounds of play,
Bojo took his health in hand
Ignoring rules from his command.
“No-one tells me what to do”
Quoth he, “I’m off to have a few.”
“Allow me, please, to beg your pardon
And join my colleagues in the garden.”

It was not long before a tide
Of censure came from every side.
From Kensington and Camden Town,
From Aberdeen and County Down.
The premier has been found out
As if there could be any doubt,
For, after all, his lying skills
Had long replenished the gristmills.

When young he suffered from glue ear
So, what he did not want to hear
In later life, he could ignore
And simply choose to underscore
His frequent absurd recklessness
On the misfortune of deafness.

At Oxford in the Bullingdon
His drunkenness was quite well-known.
His early exploits as a Yuppy;
Flirtation then with Darius Guppy.
As editor of the Sextator
With thanks, doubtless, to his Creator
More flirtations, some quite grave;
“Who, sir?  Me, sir?  I’m no knave”
But Petronella at his back
Could not avoid the sack by Black.
Earlier it was the Times;
Distortions were his major crimes.


And, finally, to Downing Street
Where the circle is now complete,
Surrounded by his faithful lackeys,
Standing up for the Iraqis,
Risking the enmity of *******
Whose Durham trip was unbecoming,
Though not condemned at all by Boris
As extinct as a brontosaurus.


His lies have not grown any sweeter
They’ve more in common with a foetor,
When embarrassment heads his way
He simply takes off for the day:
“Sorry for this Obfuscation
I have to go to King’s Cross station
To provide a possible disclaimer
For my absence from the Chamber.”
Chris Slade Dec 2020
When you’ve swept
the last frozen pea from your freezer…
and you’ve made the last batch of tallow candles
from the beef dripping of your last big meal…
and the already flickering light dims
and finally goes out…
You’ll just be scavenging from dawn
till dusk for sustenance...
And there's not much more about!

You’ll hear stories - word of mouth
‘cos the telly doesn’t work anymore,
of someone seeing the last truck
rolling North out of Dover…
All the diesel’s run out that used to power
the ferries and the trucks.
That last lorry was waylaid by looters…
But it was only carrying toilet rolls anyway!

Boris Johnson’s twitching figure still hangs
from the newly erected gibbet at Tyburn.
There will be a queue…
The next to step up and face their maker
Gove, Patel, Hancock or Raab…
“No, no… after you” being herded…
by refreshed & re-enrolled Hell’s Angels…
like Ravens and Vultures after a plague…

Amazon will be down to just one staffer.
He’s waiting for today’s single order -
from a techie in the Hebrides.
One who has built himself a generator from fuse wire
and washed up plastic waste.
He’ll be after a PS5 that runs on his private solar energy…
He can use it for 10 minutes each day after sundown
order before sunset - be ready - in haste.

I won’t go on… but you get the picture.
And, yet…In spite of life being a
well choreographed ****-show,
living & breathing...
(slowly…because you’ll use up all the Oxygen)
well, it still remains popular!

Happy New Year folks!
Armageddon
i suggested you did not watch while

mr gove spat fire

venom & blood



yet you did

and could not raise yourself

this morning



i will cover you with wool

and you may remain so

all day
Charles Sturies Dec 2017
Did you ever wonder
if so-called music experts
considered songs by the above
like Cotton Candy, Last Date,
and Alley Cat maybe
as trite and stale and
all that crap
whenthey've got just as much gap
as an irritated ***
just as much pizzazz
as a sigh with all the razz-ma-tazz
and just as much a successful song
as any that have been crooned.
They're classic top 40
just as much as that ****
FM classic rock (I still like)
I don't mean to shock
or gove away that I'm a flop
but like I've said
in the infantry, our
motto is keep it simple stupid
I wish some of these
****** producers also would
pick up on that and
not try to play decadent Cupid.
Charles Sturies
Donall Dempsey Apr 2021
SPRING'S FIRST DAY

Spring
didn't know what was wrong.

It turned off the country.
Then turned it on again.

Nothing
doing.

Spring called technical assistance.
Was told there had been

a very virulent
Tory virus.

Blue was now the new red.
Lies were the new truth.

Britain had got a bargain
basement Trump.

Like an Ikea idea
with parts that didn't

go A
into B.

And had a ***** or two
missing.

Oh God
call that a Cabinet!

Nothing pretty
about that Patel.

And a Gove
as toxic as ever.

Spring didn't know
what to do

about
the Tory thing.

What had Britain been
thinking?

Emotional
hari-kari.

Only hope it would run
its course.

Just a fearful chapter
in  a future history book.

"Never has so little
being done by so few!"

Spring made sunlight
and shadow shake hands.

Sprinkled bird song
amongst the hedges.

Did what it had to do.
Got on with the job.

Whatever
the political weather.

"Is there..." Spring pondered
"...more  poets than before?"

I put down my pen.
And cried.
Ryan O'Leary Mar 2019
The Withdrawal System
has its drawbacks, more
so, if it is from the back-
stop, but when push comes
to Gove it May be the last
option even with a sizeable
extension, which at this
stage is a bit premature
despite the current ******.
Ryan O'Leary Jul 2022
There are words which I’d

like to disperse

in a  Limerick you might

wish to rehearse

it's about Johnson

whom Gove

from the cabinet

he drove

because rhyme reasoned

that he was perverse.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2020
SPRING'S FIRST DAY

Spring
didn't know what was wrong.

It turned off the country.
Then turned it on again.

Nothing
doing.

Spring called technical assistance.
Was told there had been

a very virulent
Tory virus.

Blue was now the new red.
Lies were the new truth.

Britain had got a bargin
basement Trump.

Like an Ikea idea
with parts that didn't

go A
into B.

And had a ***** or two
missing.

Oh God
call that a Cabinet!

Nothing pretty
about that Patel.

And a Gove
as toxic as ever.

Spring didn't know
what to do

about
the Tory thing.

What had Britain been
thinking?

Emotional
hari-kari.

Only hope it would run
its course.

Just a fearful chapter
in  a future history book.

"Never has so little
being done by so few!"

Spring made sunlight
and shadow shake hands.

Sprinkled bird song
amongst the hedges.

Did what it had to do.
Got on with the job.

Whatever
the political weather.

"Is there..." Spring pondered
"...more  poets than before?"

I put down my pen.
And cried.

— The End —