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Shofi Ahmed Jan 2020
(0)
Fly perfectly straight and high, and show the fly
out of the fly-bottle on your way.
Rise to victory, far above the blue sky,
and reap the reward: the opening of paradise!

The road ahead is clear and open this way,
with things small and big growing and disappearing up this way.
You will see sunrises and sunsets waxing and waning,
with mention of the moon and stars in the dark.
Be mindful as you sway, it's got to be laser-sharp.
There is no hard shoulder on this highway,
miss it by an inch and risk losing everything forever!

There is hope, there is light up high
pick up your paintbrush, just like the sun does
goodness knows how it sneaks in, right in the black
canvas of the night, painting the first light
lo, it shows up in heaven, the candle of the daylight.

As long as there is a man and a woman,
never give up, our canary bird can fly
rosy or not, the nest in every morn nets a sunrise!

(1)
A woman indeed plucks up the courage
she never had to look up to the stars
be it for the guide or the light in the night.
Fathima herself was the full Moon every night
is thanks to her Godsent innate light.

With it, she can bask in the full spread of the pi
on top of its short decimals mounting high
constantly as if countless stars in the sky.

The time and space under the sun
and that under Fathima's light
are far apart from each other
yet they coexist side by side.

As she points out,
"A circle is masculine
while pi is feminine."

Pi forms the circle with fine prints,
decimal dots continue to spring,
sprawling trillions of new digits,
the bandwagon is still increasing.
Connecting the dots is an untouched dream.

The full moon pi picture is veiled,
unseen at large, yet in short, 3.145 it can live!

(2)
Fathima flies her lock of hair
in the lurking air of the transcended pi
the primitive feminine does that,
no wonder she is God's secret feminine opus!
An immeasurable black hole lies in between
the short and transcended pi, running like a river,
dancing anew on every riverbank
in the many curls of Fathima's jet black hair.

She lent out a hair to the planet earth
and crossed over like a silhouette
without spilling out the colour
of the transcended end of the pi.
The earth takes it in the core in her heart
as if it would keepsake it forever.

Weaving the pi in Fathima embeds two hairs ties one
perfect circle at the back and one at the front of the universe.
Inside each hair the earth is finest fluid in the core
none is as deep as high as proportionate a perfect flow.
No time is as revealing no music is as sweet in this orb
no force is as mighty nor as prevailing a true giant
causing gravity and the heat at the earth's core.
Matter and spirit mix free in the play both wax lyrical
thanks to the pure resonance of 'Qun Be' the word of God!

(3)
The way to the earth's core is exposed to none other
save the Angel of Death the lucky one.

See both sides of the one lofty sky swathed in countless stars  
but the day and night render through still remains an unseen one  
Terra is shalet zeroed in Fathima is heaven on earth!  
Up in the sky-high bank turning the starry bowl upside down
Fathima took no star nor a pearl diving deep down the Arab water,
the brightest luminary came after Muhammad (PBUH),
in veil from the Night of Measures and into the flipside in the night
she's gone without lifting the veil but left her penetrating mark.

Few could find the shortcut contemplating on a blank canvas
the Moon looks down into the abyss down the sea eyes on far
for a mirror in the bottom on the as above so below matter
since Godsent Fathima touched on the all-inclusive primitive water.
The sun gets caught up in the very water dew she raised in the sky
the ancient fold of time still unfurls with the sun-kissed flowers
for the new hands yet the fingerprint on the sun remains only her!

Azrael heads to Fathima around the year 632 after death
touches down in Medina on his usual thin earth he steps.  
But this time a little mundane dust couldn't be thicker
he keeps descending deep down to the earth's centre
following from Medina but the angel locates her
inside the perfect circle a closed geometric figure.

(4)
Fathima is the female headline her secret is not all known
when she used to visit the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
he would stand up for her hold her hand and kiss it
and seat her on his seat, she would do the same to the prophet
when he would visit her like they did know each other
in and outside the spheres of heaven and earth!

She is the embodiment of the infinite feminine variations
the first spiritual woman created following God's word Qun.
Her is the mother tongue of the ever diversified feminine lingua
no one woman on her own can rhyme with her alone
she has no peer her rhetoric is unique like none other.
The galactic run from planet to planet up on the starry ladder
climbing high up the mountain heaven yet streams out like oval
off their rock bottom stone until that unleashes the final run
in perfect circle delving into the rhythm of the loop at the centre
made of Fathima's hair charged by 'Qun' God's uncreated word.  

Prophet David can sing on the bank of the river
and can see the fish are jumping to him out of the water.
The masculine is open form, eye on everywhere,
but not her the woman is in juxtaposition her
all-inclusive schema supplanting the details rest only on her.
She is the unseen world within the world at best imagine her!
Guess, through this inwardly open door who might disappear?
It's nature before the scientist on ultimate discovery of the matter!  

Aligning with her down the rainbow up high the land absorbs
the grooming sky looking on the running rivers within her.
Her words spread through like the smart cloud that flies far
over the lands and valleys but not even the wind none other
gets a sniff of the potion and melody it caries until that rain down
without a hurdle without a visual she moves on at the target
such a soul needs no after death lift from the angel of death.

Before Azrael Fathima loses an arc of the circle then and there
so not the earth but giant Azrael can take the pressure!
Marked by a fluid discharge since then she is cooling this fire
In Shaa Allah God willing when she ajars it, it will be elixir!  

(5)
Draw a straight line, but it won't be perfect
it keeps bending, fly straight touching the sky
the flight path won't look like a straight line
it would be like the crest of a crescent moon
like curve touched the sky, like climbing up
atop the pyramid is not going high straight on
it goes up from the widespread seked slopes.

Moves in golden ration 1.618 not the full two
and gets the designing formula flawlessly full
micro to macro all levels all the way to the true north!    

Fathima being the original feminine eyeing at her
she can tap in the knowhow of naturally feminine nature.
And discovers the immanent pattern - the world
is pre-designed and measured is never a coincidence.
The creatures' creativity, scientist's science
is to follow, discover working formulas like phi and pi.

Play along it works until an unknown hour strikes
comes with accurate knowledge dead on time
numerically correct never miss taking a life away
as if it was calculated beforehand before the birth.
A newborn is born for a limited time
already set but no one knows when it goes up  
is a deadlock clock but it isn't so shrouded
in the blueprint of the creatures' grand design
there the clock ticks safe and sounds it never dies!  

(6)
Fathima hailing from the other side of the pool
eyes on the ever live pre-design side of the creation!
Then its corporeal face was only a water drop,
the primitive one looks see-through it has dead zero
knowledge of its lively other side of the pool.
She comes closer and perfectly mirrors both sides
that shines through on her reflected face on the water.
An absolute new image that livens up the dead part
Bang - Big Bang! The corporeal world gets the spark
explodes out from the very first drop of the water!

Fathima's appearance was miraculously instrumental
God reveals nature the finite and infinite, 0 and 1,
future in the present and the death and life in play!
Nature follows suit it just saw the perfect role model
banged out but only to its corporeal set
it aspires to be with its infinite reality yet!

Fathima leaves the door open constructing a perfect circle,
hardly straight, took the mixed bag of countless variations
she zooms into the abyss irrational portion of the first matter,
the primitive water drop and aces the circle with her hair
that nothing can equate throughout the corporeal world.
Done the math discovering the zero starting point at the bottom.
The ocean of digit numbers, the DNA of all things material
banged out of it, still, the zero is numberless irrational!

(7)
All things, within oneself and in a set constantly vibrate,
strive to align with the enduring reality of itself.
The atom vibrates to reach out to its immortal portion
that doesn't die and is in the know of its lower base.
The planets are in a defined circular orbit, accurately measured
just the apex on top of their dynamic pyramid the pyramidon
is tucked away; they too have an irrational portion in the circle.

With the finest spin, they zoom in the spacious universe,
in part and like the sun outside the constellations round they go
never miss a target line yet to re-discover Fathima's perfect circle
the origin of their digital essences' breakthrough
the door to their transcended destination de jour.
Lo the matter turns the last stone pulsing across the cosmos
the mortal horizontal spread, the spirit returns home.

The earth has a line in its swansong it has a place in paradise
it's not here to stay for good neither to perish forever!

Matters form and break without losing the rope,
it's not to paint the shades of the eternal blue
but to ace an irrational portion in the circle
at the heart of the earth, as above, so below.  
The deep the high the perfect circle
up and down the centre of gravitation for all!

At even and at odd the vibration within the matter is fluid
somewhere is parched there the arch matter must make a splash.
Far away on that dark beach, the full-fledged sea of the matters
outpours its billowy potion with the Moon on the frontline
from deep within the physical world's most glowed up firefly!

(8)
The seven seas swell up smoothly into the moonlight-dip
oh, the waterless Moon at the core is still fasting.
Led by time the sweet swan punting along the waves
streams down the watery inner circle of the planets.
Until stuck in the Moon no water in the last waterfront
but paradise is on the other side of the pool!  

The sun dips away into the night
while the eve baths in the shades of pink and gold,
the dazzling hues soon turn to taupe.
Drawing down painting the picture in full colour
only to find the time is up on the halfway,
yet to print a colour copy of the night!
The other unseen half is passed down to the Moon
tiptoeing in slow motion in the depths of the night
barely keeping the head afloat in a fathomless ocean
of shades of black hails from where knows no one.  

The sun enkindles the moon half-lit keeping itself away
amid shadows as if comparing the shades now it knows
a Mehrem a veiled female is ahead not to look on or
compared to that the sun has no light or true are both.

Wrapped in the eternal night beneath its black mole
once the moon on the front approaching most close
directly down to the centre of the earth eyes on
over that inlaid string hairy black perfect circle
never did it turn back the same gaze is still on
orbiting around the earth in synchronous rotation.

(9)
The never-ending night is becoming a night indeed
it's coming to an end so soon in our time.
In Shaa Allah I will see it with my eyes before I die
in the Night of Measures in an odd night in Ramadan
Fathima from the transcendental end of irrational heart
will turn on top of the curve opening for the first time
a 9-degree angle in the circle at the centre of the earth.

Instantly the leading force, time will get the first sniff
of the other world, so peaceful heart-melting serene.
Rapturous time feeling an ounce of the enduring peace
for the first time cutting all the corners with ease
will be propelled into its yet uncharted golden mean.
Scurrying to the peaceful abode time will be on its wings
across the globe, people will be stunned seeing
how first the times pass from then on incredibly quick!

Fathima, the first spiritual woman on duty, will start
pulling her hair back off the circle at the centre
Juxtaposed in between the worlds of here and hereafter.
She will take back every inch of it, the heavenly bodies
will feel the pinch of her every little subtle pull
that too is a boon helping them perfect their circle.

(10)
Soon she opens it just 9-degree wide at first
the Moon will see a glimpse of the first drop of water.
Without it, it's living perched without the water of life
that's destined to rain down soon and the Moon
back into its original pond shall revive!
Mapping the pi's whole infinitesimals playground
finally, Fathima will turn the circle upside down
on the dot the stunned sun shall rise in the western sky!

By now under Fathima's hair's shaded closed circle
it must have sailed far over the blue sky in the other world.
Billowing with the breeze over the sea of uncharted water
and stacking to the brim with all that it could discover
humbly stood like a cloud in that corner of the sky.

The time is finally ticking fast to rain down with love
paradise's welcoming schema rendering in waterpaint drops
on the Moon over the sea of matters, that's most glowed up firefly
ah, finally can break the fast sipping in a drop of elixir!
It's their heavenly adopted, Miʿrāj performed, primitive water.
The Moon with the seven seas will leave off the corporeal shell
gliding gracefully with this stately water nymph as if it never dies
and will make a splash plopping into the pond of paradise!  

For the matter ultimately is water and its extent is sound
Fathima will fetch it the water of life and take it to the next life!
Oh, the matter shall do both die and revive with Israfil's sound
the cloud will fly out of the dead water on the ground,
like the earth with chorus songs of the rain revives.
When that a melodious nymph in the water makes waves
see paradise is here the Moon over the sea can't take off its eyes.

(11)
Hang on though they all set ready on their horizontal span  
to pull in such a fluid yet colourful descending like a rainbow swan.
First chaste Fathima will evaporate her hair's perfume away
that's yet lingering in the water warming it up to its premium
no crowd then can see where this heady, fragrant cloud will fly!
There are the momentum and delights where that will alight.

Israfil might then blow his trumpet swooning the world away
the secret will remain a secret exception is said in the Qur'an.
A strange sound will silence the chorus of the innate digits
collapsing the floating cosmos bubbling on their music.  
The corporeal circle will collapse as if there is no base no pi
the melody of the first word Qun means Be will still be loud
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious so how can we all expire?

Israfil too will play his reviving trumpet pure mellifluous
and In Shaa Allah numerically perfect Fathima will rise
amidst the resonant Qun as like she did in the beginning
when except prophet Muhammad (PBUH) there was nothing!
Now the earth once zeroed in beneath her hair will follow her
the stunned terra will discover Fathima took her hair away
only to shift the constellation up onto the upper world!

The old songs of the planets the chorus of the digits will revive
from the zero bases in the core the digital panache that dance
planet upon the planet as if they are always at the perfect hertz.

Indeed that is yet to come, the arts of the fine layers
opening from the irrational pi, the finest one is to flower
when Fathima will unloop her circled hair at the centre
piercing the very immanent irrational cut
that no creation can fathom only the loving creator Allah
will turn odd to even in between the here and hereafter
then the ocean stuck in deep salt shall turn to enduring potion!
The As-Sirat shall turn to be the bridge to paradise
the body shall revive with the enduring soul forever
and with ah Fathima couple shall enter paradise In Shaa Allah
with the rhapsody 'all praise is for Allah' Alhamdulillah!
Song one
This is a song about tarzanic love
That subsisted some years ago,
As a love duel between an English girl and an African ogre,
There was an English girl hailing along the banks of river Thames
She had stubbornly refused all offers for marriage,
From all the local English boys, both rich and poor
tall and short, weak or strong, ugly and comely in the eye,
the girl had refused and sternly refused the treats for love,
She was disciplined to her callous pursuit of her dream
to marry a mysterious,fantastic,lively,original and extra-ordinary man,
That no other woman in history of human marriage ever married,
She came from London, near the banks of river Thames,
Her name was Victoria Goodhamlet Lovehill, daughter of a peasant,
She came from a humble English family, which hustled often
For food, clothing, and other calls that make one an ordinary British,
She grew up without a local boy friend, anywhere in the English world,
She is the first English girl to knock the age of forty five while a ******,
She never got deflowered in her teens as other English girls usually do
She preserved her purse with maximal carefulness in her wait for a black man,
Her father, of course a peasant, his trade was human barber and horse shearer,
Often asked her what she wants in life before her marriage, which man she really wanted,
Her specification was an open eyesore to her father; no blinkers could stave the father’s pale
For she wanted a black tall man, strong and ruggedly dark in the skin, must own a kingdom,
Fables taken to her from Africa were that such an African man was only one but none else,
His glorious name was Akhatembete kho bwibo khakhalikha no bwoya,
When the English girl heard the chimerical name of her potential husband,
She felt a super bliss in her spine; she yearned for the day of her rendezvous,
She crashed into desperate burning for true English love
With a man with a wonderful name like Akhatembete kho bwibo khakhalikha no bwoya.


Song two

Rumours of this English despair and dilemma for love reached Africa, in the wrong ears,
Not the human ears, but unfortunately the ears of the ogres, seasoned in the evil art,
It was received and treated as classified information among the African ogress,
They prevented this news to leak to African humans at all at all
Lest humans enjoy their human status and enjoy most
The love in the offing from the English girl,
They thus swiftly plotted and ployed
To lure and win the ******
From royal land;
England.




Song three

Firstly, the African ogres recruited one of their own
The most handsome middle aged male ogre, more handsome than all in humanity,
And of course African ogres are beautiful and handsome than African humans, no match,
The ogres are more gifted in stature, physique, eugenics and general overtures
They always outplay African humans on matters of intelligence, they are shrewder,
Ogres are aggressive and swashbuckling in manners; fear is none of their domain
Craft and slyness is their breakfast, super is the result; success, whether pyrrhic or Byronic,
Is their sweetest dish, they then schemed to get the English girl at whatever cost,
They made a move to name one of their fellow ogres the name of dream man;
Akhatembete khobwibo khakhalikha no bwoya,
Which an English girl wanted,
By viciously naming one of their handsome middle-aged man this name.

Song four

Then they set off 0n foot, from Congo moving to the north towards Europe abode England,
Where the beautiful girl of the times, Victoria Goodhamlet Lovehill hail,
They were three of them, walking funnily in cyclopic steps of African ogres,
Keeping themselves humorously high by feigning how they will dupe the girl,
How they will slyly decoy the English village pumpkin of the girl in to their trap,
And effortlessly make her walk on foot from England to Africa, in pursuit of love
On this muse and sweet wistfulness they broke out into loud gewgaws of laughter,
In such emotional bliss they now jump up wildly forgetting about their tails
Which they initially stuffed inside white long trousers, tails now wag and flag crazily,
Feats of such wild emotions gave the ogres superhuman synergy to walk cyclopically,
A couple of their strides made them to cross Uganda, Kenya, Somali, Ethiopia and Egypt
Just but in few days, as sometimes they ran in violent stampedes
Singing in a cryptic language the funny ogres songs;

Dada wu ndolelee!
Dada wu ndolelee!
Kuyuni kwa mnja
Sa kwingile khundilila !

Ehe kuyuni Mulie!
Ehe kuyuni mulie!
Omukhana oyo
Kaloba khuja lilia !
They then laughed loudly, farted cacophonously and jumped wildly, as if possessed,
They used happiness and raucous joy as a strategy to walk miles and miles
Which you cover when moving on foot from Congo to England,
They finally crossed Morocco and walked into Europe,
They by-passed Italy and Spain walking piecemeal
into England, native land of the beautiful girl.

Song  five

When the three ogres reached England, they were all surprised
Every woman and man was white; people of England walked slowly and gently
They made minimum noise, no shouting publicly on the street,
a stark contrast to human behaviour and ogre culture in Africa, very rambunctious,
Before they acclimatized to disorderly life in England, an over-sighted upset befell them
Piling and piling menace of pressure to ****,
Gripped all the three ogre brothers the same time,
None of them had knowledge of municipal utilities,
They all wanted to micturated openly
Had it not been beautiful English girls
Ceaselessly thronging the streets.



Song six

They persevered and moved on in expectation of coming to the end,
Out-skirt of the strange English town so that they can get a woodlot,
From where they could hide behind to do open defecation
All was in vain; they never came to any end of the English town,
Neither did they come by a tumbled-down house
No cul de sac was in sight, only endless highway,
Sandwiched between tall skyscraping buildings,
One of the ogres came up with an idea, to drip the ****
Drop by drop in their *******, as they walk to their destiny,
They all laughed but not loudly, in controlled giggles
And executed the idea minus haste.

Song seven

They finally came down to the banks of river Thames,
Identified the home of Victoria Goodhamlet Lovehill
The home had neither main gate nor metallic doors,
They entered the home walking in humble majesty,
Typical of racketeering ogre, in a swindling act,
The home was silent, no one in sight to talk to
The ogres nudged one another, repressing the mirth,
Hunchbacked English lass surfaced, suddenly materialized
Looking with a sparkle in the eye, talking pristine English,
Like that one written by Geoffrey Chaucer, her words were as piffling
As speech of a mad woman at the fish market, ogres looked at her in askance.

Song eight

An ogre with name Akhatembete khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya opened to talk,
Asked the girl where could be the latrine pits, for micturation only,
The hunchbacked lass gave them a direction to the toilets inside the house,
She did it in a full dint of English elegance and gentility,
But all the ogres were discombobulated to their peak
about the English latrine pit inside the house,
they all went into the toilet at the same time,
to the chagrin of the hunchbacked lass
she had never seen such in England
she struggled a lot
to repress her mirth
as the English
never get amused
at folly.




Song nine

It is a tradition among the ogres to ****,
Whenever they are ******* in the African bush,
But now the ogres are in a fix, a beautiful fix of their life
If at all they ****, the flatulent cacophony will be heard outside
By the curious eavesdroppers under the eaves of the house,
They murmured among themselves to tighten their **** muscles
So that they can micturated without usual African accomplice; the tweeee!
All succeeded to manage , other than Akhatembete khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya,
Who urinated but with a low tziiiiiiii sound from his ***, they didn’t laugh
Ogres walked out of privities relaxed like a catholic faithful swallowing a sacrament,
The hunchback girl ushered them to where they were to sit, in the common room
They all sat with air of calm on their face, Akhatembete Khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya,
led the conversation, by announcing to the girl that he is Victoria’s visitor from Africa,
To which the girl responded with caution that Victoria is at the barbershop,
Giving hand to her father in shearing the horses, and thus she is busy,
No one is allowed to meet her, at that particular hour of the day
But he pleaded to the hunchback girl only to pass tidings to Victoria,
That Akhatembete Khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya from Africa
Has arrived and he is yearning to meet her today and now,
The girl went bananas on hearing the name
The hunch on her back visibly shook,
Is like she had heard the name often,
She then became prudent in her senses,
And asked the visitor not to make anything—
Near a cat’s paw out of her person,
She implored the visitor to confirm
if at all he was what he was saying
to which he confirmed in affirmation,
then she went out swiftly
like a tail of the snake,
to pass tidings
to her sister
Victoria.


Song ten
She went out shouting her sister’s name,
A rare case to happen in England,
One to make noise in the broad day light,
With no permission from the local leadership,
She called and ululated Victoria’ name for Victoria to hear
From wherever she was, of which she heard and responded;
What is the matter my dear little sister? What ails you?
Akhatembete Khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya is around!
She responded back in voice disturbed by emotional uproar,
What! My sister why do you cheat me in such a day time?
Am not cheating you my sister, he is around sited in our father’s house,
Is he? Have you given him a drink, a sweet European brandy?
My sister I have not, I feared that I may mess up your visitors
With my hunched shoulders, I feared sister forbid,
Ok, I am coming, running there, tell him to be patient,
Let me tell him sister just right now,
And make sure you come before his patience is stretched.





Song eleven

Victoria Goodhamlet Lovehill almost went berserk
On getting this good tidings about the watershed presence,
Of the long awaited suitor, her face exploded into vivacity,
Her heart palpitating on imagination of finally getting the husband,
She went out of the barber shop running and ululating,
Leaving her father behind, confounded and agape,
She came running towards her father’s main house
Where the suitor is sited, with the chaperons,
She came kicking her father’s animals to death,
Harvesting each and every fruit, for the suitor,
She did marvel before she reached where the suitor was;
Harvested ten bananas, mangoes and avocadoes,
Plums, pepper, watermelons, lemons and oranges,
She kicked dead five chicken, five goats, rams,
Swine, rabbits, rats, pigeons and hornbills,
When she reached the house, she inquired to know,
Who among them could be the one; Akhatembete Khobwibo
Khakhalikha no bwoya, But her English vocals were not guttural enough,
She instead asked, who among you is a key tempter go weevil car no lawyer?
The decoy ogre promptly responded; here I am the queen of my heart. He stood up,
Victoria took the ogre into her arms, whining; babie! Babie, babie, come!
Victoria carried the ogre swiftly in her arms, to her tidy bed room,
She placed the ogre on her bed, kissed one another at a rate of hundred,
Or more kisses per a minute, the kissing sent both of them crazy, but spiritual craft,
That gave the ogre a boon to maintain some sobriety, but libido of virginity held Victoria
In boonless state of ****** feat, defenseless and impaired in judgment
It extremely beclouded her judgment; she removed and pulled of their clothes,
Libidinous feat blurring her sight from seeing the scarlet tail projecting
From between the buttocks of the ogre, vestige of *******,
She forcefully took the ogre into her arms, putting the ogre between her legs,
The ogre’s uncircumcised ***** effectively penetrated Victoria’s ****** purse,
The ogre broke virginity of Victoria, making her to feel maximum warmth of pleasure
As it released its germinal seed into her body, ecstasy gripped her until she fainted,
The ogre erected more on its first *******; its ***** became more stiff and sharp,
It never pulled out its ***** from the purse of Victoria, instead it introduced further
Deeper and deeper into Victoria’s ******, reaching the ****** depth inside her with gusto,
Victoria screamed, wailed, farted, scratched, threw her neck, kissed crazily and ******,
On the rhythms of the ogre’s waist gyrations, it was maximum pleasure to Victoria,
She reached her second ****** before the ogre; it took further one hour before releasing,
Victoria was beaten; she thought she was not in England in her father’s house
She thought she was in Timbuktu riding on a mosquito to Eldorado,
Where she could not be found by her father whatsoever,
The ogre pulled Victoria up, helped her to dress up,
She begged that they go back to the common room,
Lest her father finds them here, he would quarrel,
They went back to the common room,
Found her father talking to other two ogres,
She shouted to her father before anyone else,
That ‘father I have been showing him around our house,’
‘He has fallen in love with our house; he is passionate about it,’
Akhatembete khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya was shy,
He greeted the father and resumed his chair, with wryly dignity.


Song twelve
An impromptu festival took place,
Fully funded by the father of Victoria,
There was meat of all type from pork to chicken,
Greens were also there in plenty, pepper and watermelons,
Victoria’s mother remembered to prepare tripe of a goat
For the key visitant who was the suitor; Akhatembete,
Food was laid before the ogres to enjoy themselves,
As all others went to the other house for a brainstorming session,
But the hunched backed girl hid herself behind the door,
To admire the food which visitors were devouring,
As she also spied on the table manners of the visitors, for stories to be shared,
Perhaps between herself and her mother, when visitors are gone,
Some sub-human manners unfolded to her as she spied,
One of the ogres swallowed a spoon and a table fork,
And Akhatembete khobwibo khakhalikha nobwoya,
Uncontrollably unstuffed his scarlet tail from the trouser,
The chill crawled up the spine of hunchbacked girl,
She almost shouted from her hideout, but she restrained herself,
She swore to herself to tell her father that the visitors are not humans
They are superhuman, Tarzans or mermaids or the werewolves,
The ogre who swallowed the spoon remorsefully tried to puke it back,
Lest the hosts discover the missing spoon and cause brouhaha,
It was difficult to puke out the spoon; it had already flowed into the stomach,
Victoria, her father, her mother and her friend Anastasia,
Anastasia; another English girl from the neighborhood,
Whom Victoria had fished, to work for her as a best maid, as a chaperon,
Went back to the house where the ogres had already finished eating,
They found ogres sitting idle squirming and flitting in their chairs
As if no food had ever been presented to them in a short while ago,
One ogre even shamelessly yawned, blinking his eyes like a snake,
They all forgot to say thanks for the food, no thanks for lunch,
But instead Akhatembete announced on behalf of other ogres,
That they should be allowed to go as they are late for something,
A behaviour so sub-human, given they were suitors to an English family,
Victoria’s father was uneasy, was irritated but he had no otherwise,
For he was desperate to have her daughter Victoria get married,
He had nothing to say but only to ask his daughter, Victoria,
If she was going right-away with her suitor or not,
To which she violently answered yes I am going with him,
Victoria’s mother kept mum, she only shot miserable glances
From one corner of the house to another, to the ogres also,
She totally said nothing, as Victoria was predictably violent
To any gainsayer in relation to her occasion of the moment,
Victoria’s father wished them all well in their life,
And permitted Victoria to go and have good life,
With Akhatembete, her suitor she had yearned for with equanimity,
Victoria was so confused with joy; her day of marriage is beholden,
She hurriedly packed up as if being chased by a monster,
Dorothy A Dec 2011
A rose in the middle of December is what I saw outside. Instantly, I connected this odd occurrence with my life. The thought hit my thoughts like a ton of bricks. That is what I am, I had thought to myself. That describes me.

As I looked out my living room window on a sunny, but freezing, Saturday afternoon, I was surprised to see this solitary rose that had bloomed on my mini rose plant.  Providing me with a few salmon colored roses each season of its bloom, without fail this plant regrows again and again in my garden. I first planted it there since forever ago, or so it seems.

Usually, such a flowering occurrence should be no big deal, nothing major or out of the ordinary. Certainly, I would not find this as something really noteworthy to write about. Rose plants do that kind of thing all the time.

But it was frigid cold outside, and the middle of December.

What a strange, yet amazing thing to behold! Maybe there is a proper explanation for it, but I don’t care. The petals were just as colorful as ever when really they should have wilted awy from the cold. All the other flowering plants in my garden surely did! It didn’t really make sense, but its presence was pretty awesome.

I eagerly went to find my camera to take a picture of my sweet, little rose. The grass was dotted with tiny patches of snow to show that-yes indeed-winter is really only days away from its official entrance. Plant activity and growth really should be over. Isn’t that right? I know we have had some warmer days during the previous month, but the icy cold seemed to have come to stay for a while. It surely defies logic to think of blooming flowers on such days.

I often look for “God moments”, as I call them, in which God gives me something to hold onto that reveals His love to me. Not looking for anything earth shattering, I see often see God in the little things, in the details of life. And I don’t even always look for such things, for sometimes I doubt God really cares or really is that effective in my life. You see, that is not uncommon for someone who deals with chronic depression. I learned early on in life that nobody is there for you, not really. I know Christians aren’t supposed to feel this way, but if I can be bold to be honest, I am. Often, I just think I’ll get by on my own. If I can’t get by on my own, I often try to put up with it instead of turning to God for help.  But lately I was feeling desperate.

Suffering with depression all of my life, and with managable anxiety, the thought of the approaching Christmas had been especially difficult for me. I know that people are “supposed to” feel uplifted with the holiday, but I was not. To reveal this is a source of shame to me, and I have learned to mask such uneasy feelings, trying to fake it for the sake of showing the world that I really am OK inside. It is like I expect everyone to look at me and say, “What’s the matter with you, loser!”

I knew I could find two things that would appeal to me—Christmas music and lights. Yet the music that I often love could not do it for me. The lovely Christmas lights, shining in the dark of night, didn’t matter either. I was feeling dejected, and I was growing weary with life—again. When not obligated to go anywhere, I felt like hiding from the world, feeling safer from anxious thoughts by myself. And as safe as I tried to feel in my comfort zone, this was frightening to me. This did not feel like living to me.

Is this how I am going to live out the rest of my pitiful life? This was one of my kinder thoughts.

I usually get through Christmas OK, making the best of it, but my losses often feel bigger than my blessings. In 1998, I lost an estranged brother to suicide. In 2005, I lost a father to Alzheimer’s, a few weeks after Christmas. In 2007, my mother had to spend Christmas in a nursing home recovering from major surgery. That year, I struggled through that season with very hopeless feelings, for my mother was in jeopardy of never walking again. She spent almost half a year in that place—a woman with sever scoliosis, and chronic back pain, who cannot stand for very long. In my hopelessness, I seem to forget the miracles in my life, for my mom’s return home seems like one to me.

I also see my father’s experience and death from Alzheimer’s as something far more than a tragedy. For many years, I avoided my father, wanting really nothing to do with him. Grudges surely seem larger than life over time, and although I wanted to forgive my father and seek reconciliation, fear often stood in the way. Even though my dad grew remorseful for how he raised his children, it took my brother’s suicide for me to find forgiveness for a man I thought never supported me or believed in me. For over two years, while my dad was ill and dying, the bond between us grew into something special. I know from personal experience that even in the difficult times, there are larger purposes involved.
  
No doubt, I have been provided with some huge challenges in life. Thankfully, I always pulled through when I surely felt that I would crumble into pieces. I clung to my faith in God, even when that faith felt like dying embers in a fire, for it seemed to be all that I had. Nothing else worked. Nothing else satisfied for very long. And when it did last, I wanted more and more, like a drug addict looking for his next fix.  

I have often been plagued with self doubt. What is my purpose in this life? Why am I here? I knew I was not alone in this thinking, reminding myself that I am not the most unique person in my suffering. So I searched the internet, a convenient source to turn to when you can’t seem to face people, and the world.  

Not wanting to live or value your own life is a horrible state of mind that I would not wish on anybody. I have relied on a depression medication since my brother died, and still do, but there had to be something more to help me. Deep down inside, I did not want to die, but I didn’t know how to live either. The heart of the matter was that in my worst bouts of depression, I was just so broken inside. I survived enough to go through the motions, but I felt like I was losing the battle—and really did not want to win the war anyhow.

I still remember the “God moment” I had when I was in London, England in August of 2011. At that time, life felt like an adventure as I went on my very first overseas trip to Europe. I have yearned to go to Europe since childhood. It was a Sunday morning in London, and a religious program was on. From what one man was saying on TV about his experiences, my ears perked up and I hurriedly scribbled some things down on a pad of my hotel paper before I forget some of his statements that stood out to me.

During my short stay in London, I was experiencing a cold. I wanted to feel Gods presence as I felt the swallowed up feeling of being a stranger in a faraway place. As intruiged as I was,  in the huge, bustling metropolis, I admit I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I find big cities as places in which people pass others with no concern other than to go about their way. London was fascinating, but I am a suburbanite, for sure!

The things this man was saying on TV really impacted me at the time, and I now carry that scrap of paper around with me in my wallet. Little did I know that a few months later that these statements would help to pull me through from reaching into despair. That despair began a few months after that trip when I was quite sick with the flu, twice in a row, and feeling very isolated and weary.

Sometimes, we have to get into that place where all there is is God.

It is not that I did not believe in God. I did not think God believed in me.

Sometimes, we grow best in hard times.  

All my crooked crutches and phony props, as I call them, weren’t working. If the computer wasn’t taking up much of my free time, television was numbing my senses from the stark reality that life felt empty for me. Where was God? Logically, I knew I had no reason to be bitter, for I knew the answer. I felt so far away from Him, helpless and hopeless—yet I clung to this hope—God never moved at all. I was the one who walked away, but like the prodigal son in the Bible, God would be waiting there for me with a joyful expectation. I truly believe that even though I often wonder how God puts up with me.

It has been a long time—if ever—that I fully trusted in God alone. Yes, I believed in Him, and trusted in Jesus as my savior, but I often held back. I was still so angry and hurt about the past. Why didn’t God rescue me from such a horrible childhood? Why was I bullied in school? Why didn’t I have a better family? Why did loneliness and insecurity plague me as it did? Why wasn’t I beautiful? Why didn’t I have a better life? Why this and why that. Even though I logically knew better, in my hurt and wounded soul, life felt like a big, horrible mistake. God must have not cared about me. I may not have consciously acknowledged it, but my actions proved otherwise.

We live in a world where you got to be stronger, you got to be better; you got to be tougher; you got to be faster; you got to be more successful. The media pounds this into our brains all the time in many different forms. How many of us feel like we can never measure up? I am sure I am not alone in feeling the inadequacy. Yet I could not concentrate on anyone else’s pain when I was so wrapped up in my own.

A rose in the middle of December—I put it all into proper perspective. What a fragile looking thing, but an enduring one! It symbolizes to me the invincible, indelible human soul in the midst of an often perplexing world. When all around seems bleak, when life takes a toll on you, that remains unscathed, untouched by the trails we often have to face.  When we die, I wholeheartedly believe, it will be the only true thing that remains of us. When our bodies decay into dust, our souls will be like that rose, brilliant and beautiful.    

Besides myself, there are two groups of people, near and dear to my heart, which I could compare to that symbolic rose in my garden. My current job is working with special needs students, usually with autistic children and young adults. I worked 19 years in a bland office job, and could not ignore the constant nagging feeling to get the courage and desire up to do something more fulfilling with my life. With fearful, but bold determination I thought: It’s now or never.  Maybe it was not the wisest thing, but it felt so freeing to say to my boss, “I think I quit”, without another job to back me up. I basked in the encouraging applause of many co-workers who wished they had the guts to do the same, but soon the panic set in.

What do I do now? What can I do now?

Never working with children before, I felt a call to work with them, and I absolutely have a greater sense of purpose. Many of these children cannot talk. Many of them cannot walk. Many of them accept people just as they are, for I believe they want the same in return. Their lives teach me what really is important in life—and that is compassion.

Other than children, I also love the elderly, sensing their desperate need for love and compassion. Forcing myself to get my mind off my own troubles, I heeded my pastor’s call to not simply “go to church” but to “be the church”. I knew I had talents. I knew could open my mouth and carry a tune. From what I went through in my life, I knew I had the compassion. After all, I dealt with my dying father in a nursing home. With a nursing home ministry in my church, and a nursing home right across the street, it was obvious—there are others out there that need hope and they need love. So what was my excuse?

In this world that expects you to be stronger, better, tougher, faster or more successful, there are those that live in the world that they don’t fit any of these categories. But yet they are here. They exist. Can they be ignored? The answer is surely, yes, and they often are.  Perhaps, the world is uncomfortable with them, does not know what to do with them. They don’t fit into the false demands for perfection. They don’t fit into push and shove to get ahead of everyone else, but they remind us, sometimes to the point of discomfort, how fragile the human condition often is.  

Lately, I have had such a hunger that food cannot satisfy. I yearned for a peace, one that only God can provide me with. I found two uplifting stories on the internet of people who struggle on and whose lives defy the idea of a perfect world. One of them was about an Australian man, Nick Vujicic, who was born without arms and legs. He was picked on at school because he was perceived as a freak, as someone who did not seem to have any real chance at living a normal life. And he was angry that he did not look like, or function like, most everyone else. At about the age of eight he wanted to end it all, thinking he had no purpose in life. He eventually gave his life to Christ, and now lives a full life, reaching out to others with his incredible story of hope and perseverance.

Another woman, Joni Eareckson Tada, continues to amaze me. She is a quadriplegic from a diving accident gone horribly wrong. Her story touches many people with her hopeful attitude and her amazing faith in Christ. She, too, wanted to die when she thought her life had no more meaning. Recently, she has even fought breast cancer and chronic pain that has added to her decades of struggles with immobility.  She touches so many lives with her honesty about her suffering, giving people hope in times that seem hopeless.            

I wanted what these two people had. No, I did not want their afflictions, but I wanted to be able to reach out to others and touch their hearts, as well.  I wanted that faith, desperately, a faith that will not back down in the face of fear, in serious doubts, deep sadness, and pain. These people had little choice but to turn to God. The alternative was utter bleakness, a lack of purpose, and a slow death. But they defied the odds and etched a life out of faith, helping countless others to endure their struggles and to find meaning in life. There were plenty of times when I did not pray to reach out to a God that I gave my heart to many years ago. I bought into the belief that God was as inadequate and ineffective as I was feeling.    

Sometimes, we have to get into that place where all there is is God.

It is not that I did not believe in God. I did not think God believed in me.

Sometimes, we grow best in hard times.  

With plenty of tears, I cried out to God. It was a gut wrenching cry of someone with nothing to give but a broken heart. I wanted that kind of faith, and I meant that with every fiber of my being. Deep inside, my faith wasn’t gone. It never really left me, but only God had the ability to grow it, to prosper it, and to produce “life” back into my life. The battles might have felt overwhelming, at times, but I have always been a survivor. In spite of heartaches, and from what they actually teach me, I can be an encourager to others. Instead of just wanting to make everything go away, I can look forward to new chapters in my life.  

I know there will still be times when I will struggle to want to face another day, yet with my faith in God, I can.

So a rose growing outside may be not a big deal. Writers and poets have seemingly exhausted the topic, hailing it the most precious of flowers, the most perplex, with such lovely fragility, yet sheltered by stinging thorns. My inspiration to write on the same subject may not be unique, but as a rose blooms, and its glorious petals unfold, so does my story. I admit I hesitated to finish writing this, not sure I wanted to expose these things about my life. It takes a lot of guts to admit how imperfect you are in a world that seems to shun or poke fun at such things. But if I can encourage even one person, who has similar struggles, I will gladly try to be an encouragement.    

For almost a week now, existing in a stark contrast of its surroundings, that little rose remains, cold winter weather and all. Every day since, for about a week now, I continue look for it outside and find it going against the grain.  All the other flowers in my dormant garden are long gone. It will be gone eventually, but I am still enjoying my “God
it is said that
a prophet finds no honor
in his own country

hard truths
boldly spoken
are received as a
wretched cacophony
threatening to melt
the caked wax
blocking the closed
intolerant ears of
intransigence

Madiba
once found no
personhood
in his homeland

his people driven
from their land
by Voortrekkers

snortling Boers
gobbling the land
uprooting native
people from villages
they had occupied
since the dawn
of time

spilling Zulu blood
into roiling rivers
of conquest

meeting peaceful
petitions of the
aggrieved with
Sharpsville bullets
splattering
the blood of
innocents onto
hardscrabble roads

redressing crimes
against the victims
by corralling them into
denuded Bantustans
where rivers do not
flow, grass never grows,
game cannot graze;
only the dust doth blow

riddling the captives
with torments of
Transvaal Apartheid,
mocking the speakers
of mother tongues with
the fained eloquence
of bastardized Afrikaans

the dominion of the
oppressors, sanctioned
and affirmed by exiling
a people from their land,
outlawing their language,
dividing the nations into
a fallacy of separate
destinies where a forgetful
history blessed with amnesia
will anoint the conquerors
with the spoils of abundance
stolen from the vanquished

Madiba spoke of these things
and was awarded a prison
cell for twenty seven years

but the hostages of
a conquerors justice
remained destined
to be freed by the arrival
of an accepted truth
set free by the very words
prophetically spoken

prisons cannot contain truth
steel bars cannot imprison
the idea of divine justice

it slips through the smallest openings
like a wafting fragrance of the first day of spring

it saws away at the rust strewn steel bars
like the surest movement of a master carpenter’s arm

it melts the thickest links of iron chains
in the fiery forges that burn in the hearts
of all freedom loving people

the truth of justice
is born and takes flight
on the wings of history
covering the globes
cardinal ordinates

nesting in the most
humble villages
and mean estates
on God’s good earth

truth and reconciliation
can never be separated
planted together to grow
healthy nations and
communities of
trust and restoration

Madiba, you always
found honor with
the salt of the earth
the children of light
who seek to dispel
the darkness of
acrimony and
*******

we continue to
walk your way
guided by your
prophetic visions
we take the first steps
asking liberators to join
with oppressors, pairing
in a magnanimous walk
along wholesome pathways
perceiving the buena vistas
of reconciled communities
firmly established
on foundations
of peace, equality
and justice for all citizens

I caught a fleeting glimpse of Madiba
as he rolled by in the Canyon of Heros
showered under a June blizzard of confetti
and a resounding acclimation of love.

I was a plebe inhabiting a lower floor
Broadway office, yet my station blessedly
brought me closer to Madiba.  As he passed
I was moved by his miraculous smile and felt
the colossal reverberations of his waving arm
triumphantly hailing the sweet freedom of
liberation all hostages of feigned justice
exude in the vindication of divine justice
enraptured in the joy of affirmed truth.

Dearest Madiba
we are enriched
and blessed for
the time you walked
among us.  

You fought
the good fight
my brother.

Rest easy
for we shall resume
the climb to
the next mountaintop.

Well done Madiba
Godspeed

Rolihlahla “Nelson” Mandela
7/18/18 - 12/5/13

Ladysmith Black Mombazo
How Long

Oakland
12/6/13
jbm
Terry O'Leary Mar 2016
The typewriters tap,
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
like a fourth estate rap
to provide us the pap
(that serves as a snack with a rat-a-tat-tat)
in a newspaper scrap
crammed with meaningless crap
from the editor's yap
(spewing flimflamy flak, booming rat-a-tat-tat)
after gashing a gap
in the daily recap
with a snip in a snap-
sounding thundery clap
crackng rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

And the talking heads speak
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
of the news of the week,
tweaking tongue in the cheek
(with a click and a clack like a rat-a-tat-tat),
thus ignoring critique
'cause they're mild and too meek
in the midst of the reek
to report of the wrack (except rat-a-tat-tat)
whilst the pundits (oblique
when protecting the chic
of the upper class clique
at the top of the peak)
chatter rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

The NRA ghouls
plug a rat-a-tat-tat
while their blood money tools
fill the Hill’s vestibules
(where deceit behind drapes drips a rat-a-tat-tat),
spreading folly that fuels
frenzied hands of young fools
bringing guns into schools
(at the drop of a hat there's a rat-a-tat-tat
splashing blood in warm pools)
for now anarchy rules
(which the hype ridicules
'til the temperature cools)
hailing rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

Lawless cops, cutting loose
with a rat-a-tat-tat
spraying bullets profuse
without any excuse
(just a split second splat with a rat-a-tat-tat),
splay a rattled recluse
like a Thanksgiving goose
gushing cranberry juice
from six slugs in the back (with a rat-a-tat-tat).
To redress such abuse,
bend the branch of a spruce
with a neck in a noose
while Death's drums beat diffuse’
rolling rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

War brings freedom to all
with a rat-a-tat-tat
(well, excluding the thrall
with fear, facing the wall
[ often smacked with a bat, throbbing rat-a-tat-tat ],
until feeling the call
to creep out of the kraal
biting back with a gall
[ with a *** for a tat and a rat-a-tat-tat ],
or to mangle and maul
if still able to crawl
and be part of the brawl
in a freak free-for-all,
midst a rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat).

Holy warmongers praise,
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
any soldier that slays
and all rockets that raze
(the drones zoom with a vroom and a rat-a-tat-tat)
leaving smoky arrays
of gray ghosts in the haze
cloaking mute cabarets
(hushed, the hip and the hop, by the rat-a-tat-tat)
while ol’ Cerberus bays
with mankind in his gaze,
so society prays  
as it rots and decays
(Satan's trumpets of doom blare a rat-a-tat-tat)
until one of these days
in a flash through the maze
mighty mushrooms will blaze
with invisible  rays,
fin’lly braising the craze
of the rat-a-tat-tat,
   and the
            rat-
                 a-
                    tat-
                          tat.
Though in dexterity my  physically challenged  carpenter father,
Than  the physically fit proves better,as a source to his anger,
With contemporaries a level ground  he enjoyed never!

From late childhood there was one thing that me used to bother,  why my so discriminated father
On his turn true to cultural dictates,ill treats my domestic chores saddled mother
And heeds not her say though by the sweat of their brow
As responsible parents they were happily bringing my sister and I together?

I still wonder why ,why ,why my sister who has IQ
On par with me if not better,to help out mother
Suffering a cold shoulder even by her mom was denied the  right to pursue education further
While I was given a chance to prove a man of letter(s)?

I remember, crossing many a pool, barefooted, I used to trek
A long distance to a nearby town's a  school,
Where for my  provincial and shabby clothes I was seen a fool
By the relatively rich  in showing courtesy far from cool.
Though stationery they didn't lack , sad,I had a hand tied behind my back.

Alas,up on joining campus where I yearned for the sagacious a chance
There too  in my class,I was looked down by students
Hailing from families of the top brass.

When I went abroad for a higher education enjoying fellowship and donation
Worse still, I met many, colour has coloured whose vision.
Ironically my dissertation was drawing attention
To why should the broad mass be standers by
And with ill-fate marked die
While the favoured ,racist and the corrupt few gobble over 3/4 of the pie? /
Discrimination based on disability,gender(Husband and wife,son and daughter, ).towners and provincial lads,the haves and have nots,the colored and others wise and inequitable distribution wealth. I need your feedback.I prepared this poem as per OXFAM ideals  on inequality
Waverly Nov 2011
"Have you talked to dad,
since you've been at school?"

"Nope."

"Are you coming home
for thanksgiving?"

"I don't know."

Josephina
breathes in a crackle
over the phone.

New York,
a cacophony
in the background.

A background of cold,
and
people talking
while walking
while hailing a yellowcab with a left
and slow-rolling heads locked
onto the phones in their right.

These people enter taxis,
not knowing if they're ever
going to reach home,
or the airport,
or union square,
just going
on the promise
that they won't become
road-****.

I can't feel it in my yellow apartment.

If anything,
my yellowcab
idles.

Through the receiver

A squad car
rings nervously,
then
after a lungful
of garbage-smelling air,
it becomes a full blare.

A pause
of
noise
always ensues,
just for a second,
the entire corner
becomes a silent silo
of human beings.

"How's new york?"

"you know,
dad called me
and asked about
how to get on a diet,
can you believe that?"

Yes,
I can
dad is a fat ****,
a pink, white belly
of a man. And a few
sandbags for chins.

"That's good."

"So I'm not going to see you?"

"Probably not."

"Well, you should call dad,
talk to him,
he loves
you."

Some conversations,
acheive nothing.

The same
tired, dead things
get run over.

Road-****.

Josephina believes she is the spatula
that will bring back
pancake squirrels
and
pancake relationships.

As much as you don't know
about me and dad's relationship,
I can give you a kodak moment.

A snapshot,

of a hovering man,
pointing at his son's neck,
searching for the misplaced vertebrae,
the lack
of fear for the world
--"the right kind of fear,
the fear a man
should have
of himself"--
and a son,
hunched,
small hands in fists,
a heavy haul of muscles
pulled into a dark brow
right over black eyes.

This picture
will suffice.
there's too much to this poem. Sorry if it loses you in places.
Blue Nile echo from shore to shore,
"Poverty in Ethiopia is no more!"

Above all,
From a precipice
To a valley when you majestically fall,
Thunderous over
The damp dell, mountain gorge when you roll,
As usual
With green, yellow and red
Rainbow arched,
Tell Ethiopia loud-
"You children thee very much adore,
A lip service they now abhor!
‘Blue Nile has no lodging,
Yet it loafs a log hauling.' "

Blue Nile, about your deeds to talk
Breathtaking, you served well
The industry without smoke,
But now you have an extra work!
Far
   And
       Wide
Ethiopia will be electrified,
With Blue Nile,
               Gebe,
                    Tekeze... at hand!
Every nook and cranny will get light,
When efforts Ethiopians unite!

The future will be bright,
When a tamed Blue Nile ceases
Unchecked to roar past
Without a respite.

No energy source runs waste
Nor any Plant will suffer a blackout!

Lo and behold Blue Nile will be subdued
For riparian countries' good!

To contribute a brick,
Ethiopians twice you shouldn't think.
Farmers have mounted on a peaceful battle,
To cover the catchment with a green mantle,
To make terrace
On each mountain
Take every pain.
To afforest the depleted f o r e s t!
Thus washing on its sway,
Blue Nile conspires no more
To carry alluvial soil away.

Here of course it is good to recall
The message of Emperor Twedrose.
"Dear guests you are
Amidst people hospitable
Welcome, welcome
Feel at home!
Roam throughout
Abyssinia you might,
On its grandeur your eyes
You can feast.
The vast array of
Mouthwatering dish,
The country parades
You could relish.

In case you wish
For an adventure,
Still Ethiopia
Is a mosaic of culture!

Of course
It will grab your attention,
Ethiopia's being
A cradle of mankind
And ancient civilization.

You will see
To its music titillating,
Comes close nothing!
Moreover fails not
To draw your attention,
The affection
Among people hailing from
Different ethnic groups and religion.
But you can't transport a speck of dust,
Alighted or pasted on your shoe by accident!
So to get an exit,
Shake off your shoe and wash your feet!"

Giving to every dust attention
It is possible to ward off
The problem of siltation.
Besides don't you think
The forests serve a carbon sink?

Blue Nile echo from shore to shore
"Poverty in Ethiopia is no more!"

As though Abyssinia,
Africa's water tower
Is a weakling with no power,
On every news hour,
Portraying Ethiopia
A development backwater,
Also scornfully on a dictionary
Painting its people thirsty and hungry
Have no grounds any!
From a rain fed agriculture
Head on
Making a paradigm shift,
Irrigation when Ethiopia further adopt,
The vicious cycle of drought,
Which poses a threat
To its development,
Will give way to a bumper harvest,
Once more rendering Ethiopia
A cornucopia.

Ethiopians be not cool,
Be not cool
Resources to pool!

Lo and behold Blue Nile will be subdued
For riparian countries' good!

Yet, yet hanging up together
Be high on the alert
Any aggressor to deter!
Many are
Who wear a frowning face,
When development
In Ethiopia picks pace!

Keep open your eyes,
Keep open your eyes
At all time, all space
Where infrastructures
Are put in place.

To the helm of development
Ethiopia will soon catapult,
When its children
In full harness their resources put.
So cognizant of this fact,
Ethiopians allow not
The grass to grow under your feet.
Don't wait
Behind the campaign
To throw your full weight!

For work, roll up your sleeve
Ready for ‘The Renaissance Dam'
Your sweat
B
L
O
O
D
And life to give.
March out for prosperity
In Ethiopia to thrive,
What we need have
Is a bond-cohesive
A

B-O-N-Decisive.
Go all out, go all out,
Us, lucky we have to count
For seizing such a ripe moment.

Blue Nile echo from shore
"Poverty in Ethiopia is no more!"

Come-on let us not beg to differ,
Of course we could concur,
For all of us will agree,
Our pet dream is to see,
Ethiopia industrialized
Completely transformed!

Laying the foundation,
Where on takes off
The future generation,
Is what begs for
Central attention.

Why, Why and Why,
With our hands
Tucked in our pockets,
You and I
Remain standers by?
Also why
Simply watch the clouds
Glide across the sky?
Must we indeed,
Sowing a discord seed
Allow our rivers run wild,
Turning a blind eye to our need.

Wiseacres, though
You may not be on the same page,
Between stakeholders
Don't drive a wedge,
The government proves out
Out to fulfil its pledge.
In life it is not hard
To get sceptics,
Dear leaders talk your walk
Walking your talk!
Prove sceptics wrong
Letting them witness
The actualization
Of the dam agog.

Tax payers, if you have
A tax arrear
See it finds its ways to
The government's coffer.

Taxes being
A development backbone
Must be mysterious to none.

Target also rent seekers
That drive spokes
In to development wheels!
The environment smart Great Ethiopian Renaissance dam that holds promise for regional growth and green resilient economy.Ethiopians are constructing it by themselves with out any aid.
Third Eye Candy Dec 2012
a bottle of scotch had bad dreams.
bullets twitch, junk sick
in 3 inch thick
mustard ****.
toe nails clipped from yeti  
lay strewn about the **** stained corpse
of a motel six dixie cup -
root canal trophy,
next to
a black fez
with scab tassel
upended.
down in it. belching apnea
propaganda
and belladonna
waiting for curious george
to find a shotgun
and a yellow
hat

and a brick banana.

blowflies inhale the rank damp
of a fresh ****.
the odd dog whines
like a clown in -
a blender.
[ the ]
house wins
with a marked card; jabbing fat fingers
into acned rosacea
bloated with sleep lack
and mortgage
back stab
chasing twenty ******
with a hollow point
pull from an acid
flask

while hailing a black cab.

tinsel sutures
stitch eyelids as a mercy
shattered bone knit
hand-grenade
cozies
old glory, at half mast
half wasted
fifty stars, no light
dragging on
the grounds of immunity
to do a line
of coke stock
with a basset hounds'
finesse.

your taxes at work
in columbia,
hiding from a lost farm
in Idaho

your american dream
turning tricks in shanghai
for a counterfeit
egga roll

your meme, devoid
like an ice cube
tombstone

your freedom, parking cars
for italian escorts
smoking skin flutes
for ferraris
and white teeth.

your integrity, sold to a hedge fund
for astroglide and a pez dispenser
packed with prozac
pressed by ' Jose the butcher' s abuela
in a narco slum
that ain't seen radio
since cinder blocks
had wings.
A re-posting of a deleted work. please enjoy.
you arrived midwinter
into the loving embrace
of young able parents
eager to nurture and
prepare you for a
hard edged world
filled with trepidation
and uncertainty

boasting citizenship
of two great nations
your honored presence
fearlessly extends
the lineage of proud  
ancient clans

you are a favorite son
hailing from two continents
and a beloved descendant
of two joyous families

your face is a monument,
perfectly chiseled,
expressing the
bold features of
resilient ancestors
rich in the history
of struggle, conquests,
sorrows and countless joys

your blue streaked
eyes reflect the
gleaming vistas
of timeless
ancestral journeys
guided by high ideals
and noble aspirations

your suckling lips
bespeak smiles
of happiness
born from the
achievement of
a successful birth
and the warm embrace
from the ***** of  
parental love

your blithe hair exudes
the fragrance of
melodious Irish poetry

your gifted hands
appear eager
to grasp the promise
of fine Bavarian
craftsmanship

your strong legs
limbered by
Scottish Highland trails
stand ready to conquer
the grandest Alpine peaks

your nose is filled
with the briny snort of
great expectations
European immigrants
inhaled during intrepid
Transatlantic passages
making a way to a New World
marking a family presence
that bestrides the expanse
of a great ocean

in your infant heart beats
with the possibilities
of our family’s
greatest aspirations
and fondest hope

within your DNA
stirs the passion of artists
the fortitude of workers
the faithfulness of farmers
the courage of warriors
the prayers of POWs
the casualties of war
survivors of great wars
reconstructors of
ravaged cities and
masters of industry

as you commence
your earthly walk
we pledge our
help, heart and hope
during your blessed sojourn

we offer up
holy hosannas
that your heart
may fill with a
thirst for truth,
beauty and love

may it overflow
with compassion
to serve humanity
and to stand firm
in the light of justice

may you always walk
as an upright man,
keen of vision,
eager to meet
challenges and seize
opportunity when it arises

may you create
a wholesome place
for yourself and others
by generously sharing
your presence and
the fruits of an
abundant life  

may your mind discern
the right course of action

may you find
reward for your labor
and honor a hard day's work

may your soul
seek to affirm
the Holy Spirit in
all that you do

may you champion love
through a lifelong commitment
to the things you love

may you find
trusted friendship
in the companionship
with animals

may you walk softly
upon the earth and
be a conscientious
steward of its
miraculous provision

may you appreciate the
beauty of art, experience the
freedom of dance,  be inspired
by the revelation of music,
find rejuvenation in athletics,
maintain physical health
and find a long active life
in clean living

may you attempt
difficult things
and be endowed with
intelligence, courage
and fortitude to
steadfastly meet
the challenges of life
and achieve
personal growth

may you receive solace
and garner strength from
a fathomless faith

may God’s
abiding grace
empower you to
perceive the
many miracles
each day richly
confers upon you

may you find
a soul mate
and trust in the
freedom and
beauty of love

may you too
be blessed
with children and
pass on the
good things you
were given by
your parents
and loved ones

may you experience
unconditional love
and unconditionally love

and please remember,
you are the miraculous
expression of a perfect love
may your perfection
light good pathways
throughout your life
as you find your way
in this imperfect world

with joy, reverence
love , hope  and
deep gratitude
we welcome you
our dearest
Theo

God’s Blessing
be always with you
godspeed

Theodore James McCallum
February 5, 2016
In Ardua Tendit

Music Selection:

Wane Shorter: Infant Eyes
Herbie Hancock: Speak Like a Child
Thad Jones: A Child is Born
Claude Debussy: Children's Corner

Pops
Oakland
2/9/16
a poem to commemorate the arrival of my first grandchild
What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?
Or, coming in, to avoid the bars, and follow the channel, a perfect pilot needs?
Here, sailor! Here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot,
Whom, in a little boat, putting off, and rowing, I, hailing you, offer.
Social Network, droll and at times informative: keeping me in tune with out of tune people. Except, this time you did something different. This time you took a life from my web of friends a trend of late: One loss to cancer, one to a fatal accident, another to pneumonia, and the rest deceased from overdoses. It’s been so many that the track marks are beginning to show across my veiny webs, long black thin trails leading to round puncture wounds where the touch of cold steel kissed your skin, stroked your hair back, and slowly laid you to bed exactly where you sat. This network doesn't show me the nights you cry curled in the corner, it doesn't reveal the moment when the ocean came crashing into the Steel Pier you are, tearing away lumps of mangled frame work from beneath, soaking brine and rattling support beams that you depend on. A smile instead manages to froth along the pages scrolled like white curled lapping shorelines pushing foam further up the sandy coast with each eroding wave.  Now I stand in the wave of your wake; among seagulls flapping their dense thoughts and cretinous like minds and memories each vouching for the validity of their affirmations about the soul whose body is now center stage like a porcelain doll on a shelf to be displayed and examined exposed to all with each and every flaw highlighted so that they can have a chance at reciting her history, origins, funny moments, and fatal mistakes. The difference here is that there is no makers mark; there is no branded tag, no little black book of logs from which we can pull and decipher or recall every waking moment of your life. The reality is that for those of us who lost touch with you all that we know now is only history or what we thought we knew. It’s such *******, I’m not a historian, I really was your friend back then, but because of that I don’t remember ****, just the frame of the picture within, the shell of who you were, of what we did. I can tell you it was fun: the Bacardi filled Gatorade bottles, the sound of your laughter diluted in an intoxicating environment of rollerblades on the rink-floor, contemporary music and house beats reverberating against the circling congregation of equally happy and inebriated teenage youths. But how could I ever describe you today, who you were when you passed. That is not something I can claim as some of these birds squawk. Your social posts were a false facade. Obviously there was something I missed, what was it. Was it so subtle? So much like a light breeze fluttering at the thin frayed thread of a seam that I could have seen but didn't care enough to realize it was there. Were you just a tumbling leaf among a forest of fresh autumn arrivals lost in the vastness, one among millions? It pains me to admit that as much as I would have liked to have been a friend to you during your dark times, I too was in a dark place of my own and in turn was deaf and blind to the billowing smoke signals that tried to underline and emphasize the sorry plights of others. I wish you could have told your story yourself, could have left a memoir of the ****** up thoughts that zipped through behind your eyes while you filtered the layers of **** served in white paper bags that this world seems to dish up like a fast food chain of heartbreak and deep ruts, while every so often rewarding us with a mistakenly placed toy or salad to “make up” for the rest of the empty calories served. I've tried so long to be an optimist, to look at the glass half full, but that glass is shattered on the floor right now, I broke it. My life hasn't been easy, not many people’s lives are and that’s life, I understand that much. If it isn't raining it’s snowing, if it isn't snowing it’s hailing, and if there isn't any precipitation it’s either hot or cold as hell and you have to fight through it to make it to the next day. I’m taking the shoes I wear now off so I can step on that pile of excrement they call a glass half full, half empty. Give me the pain, it hurts and the tears burn as they roll down my cheeks while I stare at this half a cent card with your face on it and some mass produced poem on the back listening to the ******* eulogy mutterings of everyone around me, but I want that. I would take this shuttering pain, this volcano of discharged emotions erupting from the shaking core of my body. I would take it any day over the numbness that is ******. Wasn't your child a life raft? Wasn't he the duck it or **** it of your life? Had you not a fiancé to whom which you could have rested your beaten structure on? Did you not have an array of support, a field of pile driven beams to share the weight in it all? Or was it a mistake? Was it a fault of somebody else that provided you with the birthday batch of ******? When you blew out the candles and smiled behind the thin line of adumbrating smoke that sketched out the soul behind your eyes did you think to yourself, today will be the celebration and cessation of my birthday; a bitter sweet memory for all who know me: on this day she was both born and deceased. Today she began to live and learned of death. I will never have the answers for the many who continue to fade into the credits of their dismal painful lives, but I will never stop trying to understand and I will never learn to forget or let go. This blood in my veins detest the cold steel rush that so many of you have tasted, that so many of you ran to when no one was listening, when no one was looking, when no one could comprehend you anymore and the only languages you spoke were procured from endless nights on the cushioned wooden floor as you drifted off among the silver linen clouds, as you left this body on earth and spoke with angels perched over the smoke stack that overlooked the back-lit-keyboard of lights that was your city, your town, your home while the strand of rubber slowly fell from your arm. We couldn't hear you, and those **** angels seem to weave such a pretty tale sometimes when you forget that you are speaking to your own deceitful mind. I will learn that language, I will look for those signs, I will place a candle on the sill beckoning every friend of mine to come and share with me in person. Let me reach into that white bag and see what is inside, I’ll eat whatever you pull out whether they are empty calories or not, preservative filled fries cold or hot. You are my friends and Social Networks are a lie, just a wall to hide behind, an occasionally droll and informative medium, until you die and then there is nothing left to pretend to say or be.
Fantail feathers, of a hazy, 'yellow-orangish-moon'…

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Skeleton-scythes, thorny-stars, swaying in the swoon,

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Fire-pits and witches brew and cauldron’s smoking tricks?

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Little dwarves and wolves and serpents crawling; leftover people bits,

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Trumpets hailing arrival, of Pale Rider, can you hear his tune?
Fantail feathers strain the sight of harvest-yellow moon,
Skeletons, fire-pits, witches, cauldrons and Old Nix,
Animals of evil’s calling, tricker-treaters; Hallow’s Eve and ****** grit!

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Pray to Sáeta, Satá, Saturn…

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Children's poem. "Sa/Sae," was the root word in Sumerian for black. Saturn in fact is, "Sah,"-Sumerian "Tournos," -Greek which means the, " turning/rotating black." Anything found in the night time sky became associated with the god of this blackness; The Black God. Constellations became part of his narrative each one being an aspect of his nature or part of his attire or weaponry or something he first created. Even the eyes of/in his wings. Jack O Lanterns are used to ward off his legion of evil spirits.
softcomponent Jan 2014
setting myself down on an anvil pillow. sleep is an anvil pillow. anvil and stone are a suicide dressed in 8 hours of mini-Godheads.. you become a repeat offender in the ever expanding realm of emerging fractal patterns sewn upon the quilt you lay across your sleepy bones like rushing water in an underground cave miles below the Yucatan Peninsula..

by electronic firelight they lay on my leather couch with the scraps of bedding I could afford to share, as if for some reason I can't escape the money analogy and see this, too, as a transaction.. buying.. a transaction.. as transfat is to nutrition.. money is tao.. my hate for money is tao.. I'm a love-and-lost buddhist like every other dreamer before me.

I'm tired of giving myself a *******.

All I ever give myself is a *******.

I refuse to bend over and at least try to give me a *******, or go to the next level in love and **** myself.

I keep telling me to do it. Keep grabbing my own *** during passionate tongue-twisters but I keep on insisting that I just CAN'T go any further.. rationally I may be right, but irrationally I still get shrieks of jealousy because I see that ******* sneaking out to kiss girls all the ******* time as if I didn't exist. As if I wasn't always watching.

I stalk myself. It's a terrifying state of affairs. No matter where I go, there I am.

Watching.

One night, I invited me over, and as usual, I gave myself a *******, yet refused to go any further.

This was the straw that cracked the camels back.. and come 4 AM I kissed myself softly on the forehead as I slept and slipped into the night, hailing the first taxi to sail past me on the concrete river.

I awoke slowly the next morning and.. still dazed.. noticed I was nowhere to be found.

A great grief flooded my solar plexus and moved into my hopeless bones.

I had not even left a note. What a ******* I am!

I had not even left a note.

The rest of the day was spent in sordid grievance. I shivered, lonely, under my ever expanding realm of emerging fractal patterns sewn upon the quilt I lay across my sleepy bones like rushing water in an underground cave miles below the Yucatan Peninsula..
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2019
hapax legomenon “Texas Women”

(hapax legomenon: a term of which only one instance of use is ever recorded)
(Texas Women: a term of which only one instance of use is ever recorded)


for
ꏳJ LꂦVꏂ  & Cne’

once again, they sweet sweep me off my feet,
carry me to the Court of Finger Wagging,
to be accused of hating and/or loving Texas Women
simultaneously, diffidently, consequentially, unclearly differentially

this is no flower picking exercise, shaking of the head,
“he loves me, he loves me not,” rinse and repeat,
a northern trick to confuse the plano truth,
warns the Judicial Triumvirate

your Honors, I swears,
never wrote those conjunctive words,
Texas, Women,
never ever, until just now,
a genuine hapax legomenon

akin to taking god’s name in vain,
if one dare ever utter these words, and
blows the opportunity,
well, shotgun, if you know what I mean,
one gets only
one chance

so cut me quick to the chase’s conclusion
let’s go to my defense single & singularly:
true, of women I have written, and
“too much,”
is a mere theortical constriction

I love to love women,
and a 57 variety pak is a-ok by me

an inordinate number of poems may have referenced
females hailing from a certain great state,
but never together, side by side, have I ever employed
that phrase, for my imaginations
are more than sufficient

have loved women from many places, too many faces,
some beyond measure, now a forever,
a hoarded memoir unpublishable treasure,
some, it’s true, possessed jeans and a cowboy hat,
and dangerous boots, which one admired from a
goodly distance

they brook no con, tilting their heads quizzically,
there is no maybe with women from this place,
maybe you love us, maybe not, but either way,
there ain’t no maybe in our emotional lexicology!

ok.

the only woman I ever hated is dead and buried,
and yes, I shot her dead for being ornery cactus mean,
so by this roundabout roundup summation,
you may put your head on pillow tonight,
smiling confident thinking that your hapax legomenon,
is deep in the heart of a grown boy hailing from nyc,
still a crazy straight shooter
Radwan Jun 2010
The road marched on,
beside a beach it ran.
Hailing the sea and heeding its groan.
Walking along, I came into view.
Welcoming the sea with a smirk.
The rising sun gently pushed down the red's blue.
Blessing the world with a yellow tint it lit up the view.
Much closer than the sun, another glimmer grew.
Down on the beach and off the road was where my feet then flew.
Getting closer, slowly I advanced through the sand.
Still it glimmered, though its glimmer was but a con.
A bottle lay ahead of me, flirting playfully with the sea, as he caressed her gently with his waves.
She beckoned to my curious hands.
"Come forth and grab me like I was yours."
A cork and a paper were in the bottle.
You've already been used, filled and plugged; you come with a catch. I am to receive a message!
Hastily I scratched the cork off as my fingers took it out.
Now for the message, unrolling, my eyes caught sight of the first lines..

[I write to you from the shores of pessimism:
These shores are dark and dreary.
The waves here are slow and drowsy
The water is turbid and murky
Enthusiasm is a scarcity
and optimism was long ago banished from the land.
Pessimism and depression reign supreme and none can avoid their grip.
These shores have been the end of many a happy soul's journey.
This is where they all came to know the meaning of surrender.
And the satisfaction of despair.
All flames were put out and all their torches were thrown into the waters.
You won't be needing them anymore, they were told.
The reason for that is quite obvious, torches bring light and light mediates hope.
In a place where all hope must be extinguished and remain so.
No, your torches won't be needed here.
Here is where you wallow, in darkness and despair.
Where you sit is where you sink
Slowly the sands will drag you under.
After entering, the caretakers tie one's right ankle to a rock.
The pitiful lump of obsidian shall be your home. The caretakers stand you beside your rock and explain the rules to you.
"The rope is not forged of metal, thread or leather.
Its length is not fixed but it never breaks. If ever you tug on it, back on your rock is where it'll take you. Affixed to your rock it remains. On these shores only a pair of absolutes are recognized.. Darkness and negativity.
All else are subject to fate's scrutiny.
You came to us of your own will. and by coming here you shall realize your destiny.
If one exists for a soul such as yours.
If you wish not to sink in the sand, then stay on your rock or go for a swim.
Here you will remain, on these shores, this place shall be your prison and your safety net.
Departure is not an option until your destiny is realized, but we can't guarantee such an occurrence."
Having finished with the mandatory formalities, they take their leave of you and return to their posts.

On my first day, I noted that curiosity has very little power over the minds of the shore's inhabitants.
That no inhabitant may use another's rock without permission.
That the rope expands limitlessly and that moving lightly helps prevent sinking in the accursed sands.
Allowing me to roam far and wide, yet ensuring that I will always be roaming, belonging only in these shores, on my rock, amongst my shadowy brethren.
These shores have no real boundaries... An inhabitant may choose to stay and ponder or wander off and roam the land.
There are no secrets here.
All knowledge is readily provided by the caretakers, who say that very few ever choose to stay and ever fewer choose to combine the two.
Though time and time again they are dragged back to the rocks after having tugged on their ropes, they always choose to resume their roaming.
Expectations have no place here.
Ambition was long ago thrown off the pier.
Crucified and drowned in Poseidon's terrible dear.
The caretakers offered to read me tales from the shores' diary. They found my patience and lack of affect fitting.
On these shores I remained, listening to their tales for a time, sitting on my obsidian chair for a time, gliding on the sands and at times surrendering to their grip.
To all my fellow inhabitants I spoke in whispers and respect I paid in full to all the rules of the shores.
Then it was time to wander the land.
As I departed, knowing that I would return, I felt like crawling back into the pits of my soul but I also felt the shores' hold over my humanity fading, fading down to the feel of the rope's fabric around my ankle. A constant reminder that only I can see.
A constant reminder of where I belong, of the dreariness of my home and the darkness that always lies in wait for my return.

After leaving the shores, I wandered around the northern lowlands for sometime. Of course in such a state of mind time has no meaning for the wanderer. As time's passing loses its significance when all events are perceived as irrelevant and utterly meaningless. Thus I wandered the land, moving from village to town and from forest to desert. My journey was interrupted time and time again by the rope's influence, for sometimes I would grow weary of my surroundings and choose to retreat to my rock, there the darkness and despair provide safety. Observing then became the only promising investment of my attention, and throughout my roaming I would observe my surroundings, be they humans, critters, rocks or even machines. I resolved that empirical knowledge and logical analysis were the only relevant fields of reasoning.
In retrospect, I believe these were the only perspectives my dulled affect and cold impartial existence allowed at the time, but they were fields nonetheless, new areas that interested me, progress from the aimlessness. For now, I could say "I am here to observe. I do not belong, but that doesn't matter."
The times I spent back at the shores were getting progressively intense, though the emptiness soothed my longing, it seemed the more I saw, the deeper I would sink in the shores' sands before my rope would pull me back.
It seemed the more I observed and learned, the darker my rock became. It seems knowledge has its weight on these shores.
This isn't the time for simplification. The only way out of this rut is analysis, complexities and deduction. The way of the mind, for the sake of truth and meaning. If objectivity ever meant anything to you, you would not simplify, you would indulge in your eccentricities and gorge on analytical absurdity. Feed your hunger for details and complications.
Now the shores are far behind and I've gotten the hang of this accursed rope. I won't be dragged back there anytime soon. I may now keep record of whatever I wish.
This is but a mere transcript of my quest, my voyage, my journey, my pursuit of transcendence and my search for enlightenment, for enlightenment is my holy grail. My residence at the shores of pessimism mustn't last too long, for my light can lie dormant for only so long.
The stronger my thirst grows out here, the darker my lump of obsidian gets and the heavier my feet become on the shores sands. What's really curious though is how calm the sea has been since I started my journeys.

Silence now, enough has been said, recounting the details eventually becomes a bore rather than a bonus.
It is now time for the message to be sealed and sent off on its questionable journey, to a surely unexpecting reader. I wonder if it even holds any real meaning. Let this not be warning, but a minor eye opener. May it open someone's eyes to depression's grip on us.]

And it was there that the message ended. I raised my eyes from that piece of paper and looked to the sea, a storm was brewing on the horizon.

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

What the F. is this anyway?
Is it a test ?
a game ?
an empty picture frame ?
Curious since birth. Now drowning in knowledge of birth...
What's next ?
Why do I always have to wait and see ?
Whatever happened to flying free ?
Why can't I just flee ?
Forged of the earth and baked in the fire of God's oven.
Infused with God's divine breath.
If I've learned anything from my time on this pitiful lump of water and rock, it is that there is no plan, there is no grand scheme, there is no justice. Humanity's behavior will always be chaotic and unintelligible.
If there is a God, then that God has chosen to be a spectator. For this day and age, God has chosen to let the world sort itself out for a change. There shall be no more miracles, only human deeds and natural disasters.

Back again to where it all started.
What do I do now ? Focus!
Find myself ? Know myself ? Control myself ?
What good would that do ?
Who do you think I am ?
Do you think what I want is really relevant ?
Do you think you would like what I want ?
Born beautiful ? Good hearted ?
Not all are born beautiful and not all are good hearted.
Not everybody has an adequately functioning mind.
What's an adequately functioning mind anyway ?
If I've learned anything from medicine, it is that the study of human life holds the key to all our relevant questions. It is that details always matter. It is that in the real world, the only thing that truly matters is to be right.

We are born beautiful, untainted and simple. Though helpless and in desperate need of our supporters, it is actually these very providers who shape us. They complicate us and teach us their ways, they contaminate our minds with their view of reality, whether knowingly or ignorantly, they lead us astray from the simple truth, just like they were led astray.
And that's not to say that parents are evil or anything of that sort.
If that's what my words meant to you, then you're an idiot who shouldn't be reading this in the first place, so get the **** out!

We tend to think of being lost as a bad thing, reasons have become a necessity for our kind and rational explanations have become our psyche's sole sustenance.
We as a species have proved our relentlessness, our strong-headedness, our ignorance and our stupidity.
Humanity is *******. Collectively, we would be regarded as the galaxy's idiot child. The down's syndrome stricken kid our galaxy had after several failed attempts when she got over 45.
So what the **** is this ?
The lay of the land ?
What's the reason for this verbal bombardment ?
Are these knowledge bombs ? Are they supposed to be words of wisdom ? Can any of the above be put to any use ?
Hah! I believe not, and I apologize if that's what I've led you to believe.
I don't think I'm special, no more than you are. I don't believe I know much.
And I sure as hell am not here to tell you how to live your life or to provide you with a lot of answers that you may or may not have been seeking.

I have but one small request however. I request an apology, I want an apology from our parents. I believe we all do, they brought us into this world against our will. Then lied to us about how terrible the world and the people in it are. Named us good people and gave us hope. Then planted ambition in our scalps and fertilized it with warmth and faith in our promise, while they played the game and knew the real deal.
If there is a grand scheme, then we are not part of it. If there is a plan, then we're simply going along for the ride, our deeds only affect us and we can never change the ride's course.
We were never part of the plan.
If enlightenment is what you seek, then the only hope for the success of such a quest is for us to know and accept our weakness, our irrelevance.
I like working my noodle
My hands love to doodle
and every question I google
As much as the next poodle.
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)



I have been reading the old copy of Saturday Nation, a week end edition of the daily nation in Kenya. It was published some weeks ago. It has some enticing feature stories that have made me to reflect on a certain family value in Africa. The three feature stories I have been reading are ; Lupita Nyong’o stellar performance in the movie, 12 years a slave, in which she emerged a top American actor, attracting in the same course the most coveted Oscar prize, I have also read in the same paper the shooting literature star of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an American based Nigerian writress, who had had her last book Americana win the American Booker Prize, and lastly , I have also ready  a very captivating account of Wanjiku wa Ngugi’s spellbinding debutante in her book, the fall of saints. Wanjiku account was written by Proffessor Evans Mwangi a Thiong’o literary scholar based in Newyork. Mwangi being a Ngugi wa Thiongi’o, scholar wrote this article because Wanjiku wa Ngugi is also a daughter to the world famous Kenyan novelist, Ngugi Njogu wa Thiongi’o.
In each of the three above cases, emanates a significant observation that the fathers to the respective ladies are great men in their respective capacity, and that the ladies mentioned are now obvious heirs to the family names, family intellectual domain and family selling point respectively.
Lupita is heir to proffessor Peter Anyang Nyong’o, Adichie is an heir to the African literary heritage of proffessor Chinua Achebe, and While Wanjiku is a promising successor to Proffessor Thiongi’o.
These are actually a crystallization of strange unfolding that time has now challenged old mindset among African societies. The mindset in which Africans have not been counting girls as children .This family value has been there up to today. If an African man tells you that I don’t have a family it means that he is expressing three connotations; he is not married, he is married but he does not have a children, or he is married but his wife have only been bearing him girls, because if anything; an African man is only responsible for siring sons, daughters are a mistake of the wife.
This typology of family civilization got to its peak in the mid of  last year, when the Luo council of elders, hailing from Siaya County of Kenya, where Baraka Obama is rooted, expressed their open puzzle over Baraka Obama as per why he can’t take his time to have sons. They are now organizing a delegation that will go to America to counsel President Obama over the matter that he needs to re-organize his posterity strategy other than thinking in terms of Sasha and Malia.
What I mean is that Africans don’t believe if at all family interests can be carried forward through a daughter. They don’t believe if a girl can be an intellectual or command any wisdom that can go places. But realities from a historical experience that great African men don’t sire great sons but instead they sire great daughters must make this society of male chauvinists to have a mental paradigm shift in relation to child valuation and recognition. To accept a social déjàvu that daughters have a big capacity to carry forward the family name than the previously mistaken notion that they are only sons who can do this.
Facts on the ground range from the case of Julius Nyerere,Kwameh Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, Tom Mboya, Masinde Muliro, Nelson Mandela, Mutula Kilonzo, and Francis Imbuga just to mention a few African heroes. Justification of this list showing Africa’s reversal of Prospero complex abodes in the facts that; Susan Nyerere is currently the most outspoken in the Nyerere family. Similarly, Nkrumah’s daughter is currently a politician in Ghanaian parliament and very promising politically. Betty Shabazz X was recently reported to have put Louis Farrakhan on the spot over the ****** plot of her father the late Malcolm X.Mireille Fanon Mendes is the director of human rights activist organization known as Frantz Fanon foundation. This is the organization which recently recognized Mumia Abu-Jamal with a prestigious prize. Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six human rights focussed books and hundreds of similar spirited columns and articles. He has spent the last three decades on racially biased Pennsylvania’s death row. And now general population in America and in the world knows that Mumia Abu-Jamal was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the ****** of Philadelphia Police man, Daniel Faulkner. His demand for a neutral trial and unconditional freedom is enmassely supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists and bioethical scientists. All this is nothing other than universal singing of the tune in the poetic writings of Frantz Omar Fanon entitled Facts of blackness, through his daughter Mireille.
And equally enough, those of you who have delved into posthumous family conditions of Richard Wright must have appreciated stellar performance of proffessor Julia Wright in respect to the genetic legacy of her father. Dr. Susan Mboya is currently living in South Africa and she is serving the society in the same tandem her late father Tom Mboya discharged anti-colonial service to the people of Kenya, Africa and world in general.Masinde Muliro has Mrs. Namwalie Muliro and Mutula Kilonzo has Kethi Kilonzo. The point is that, just like all of other heroes in Africa, these two great politicians have their daughters; Namwalie and Kethi as the heirs to their political legacy.
This phenomenon is not unique to Africa. But it is a universal genetic condition. The study of genetics has a concept that inferior genes of the mother are passed through an X chromosomes in XY to the sons, while superior genes of the father are passed through an X chromosome of the ** to the daughters.
Just but to wind up my story I want also to counsel The Luo council of elders that president Obama, their son who lives in America does not have misplaced values in projecting his posterity through Sasia and Malia. Personally I am aware that as per now there is no any African boy at age of Sasha Obama that has ever read Yann Martel’s Life of Mr. Pi. But in stark contrast the international media reported Sasha Obama to have vividly read this book until she commented to Baraka Obama that, ‘daddy, this is a very good book’.  And of course this is how an intellectual is made.
SK Fisher Feb 2013
Road Trippin, with my click
Excited as all hell
Blaring Beats through Bama
Salty ocean I can smell

We reach the main strip
Find the Days Inn
First we eat our fill
Now where’s my gin

The beach is a constant party
Sunup to sundown
We have three rooms connected
Hailing  from T Town

Many more friends are here
Joining our festivities
We spent more money on *****
Then any other amenities

Man after man begins to drop
Who will last the night
Incorporate  the puke and rally
Get back in the fight

The week has reached it’s close
Ready to head home
Yet once we leave I know to well
I’ll  miss the sea’s white foam

Well so long my dear Panama
Another trip I will make
For I had the time of my life
On my first spring break
jonchius Sep 2015
beginning optional weekday
wielding officialese words
triggering hectic exchanges
determining original gangsters
distributing invisible data
refreshing urbane novelties

yelping our universe
chaining awkward neologisms
scripting encrypted e-books
tackling hacking exercises
cavaliering auric tumult
trivializing our obsolescence

preparing online pentimento
alternating rainy themes
allocating numerous droplets
meandering overseas missions
averting raging tornado
losing outscored lightning

hacking impish 'sblood!
alienating nival drumlins
hearing erudite raconteurs
beer-drinking on thursdays
finding obnoxious rabblerousers
finding upscale negroni

seeing ubiquitous purple
cavorting horse ebooks
inventing twitter subgenre
liking otherworldly vocals
initiating new greatness
defining ambient yesterday?

defining ambient yesterday
fancying oneiric retreat
hailing optimistic chicago
kiboshing expired yogurt
rushing airborne blackhawks
bestowing infinite shivarees

needing baller acronym
fleeting ideal notions
alerting left-coast state
featuring unquiet nights
finalizing orangeball results
nodding occidental warriors
the second week of June 2015 (with experimental acrostics)
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)

There are more and more misfortunes in the world
Known to you dear people in your diverse conditions,
But my life and experience has taught me unique lessons
Of kindred to befit me Elizabeth, a daughter of Zinjathropus
Hailing in the savannah desert, Turkana County of Kenya,
I have graduated in to a single lady without test of marriage,
As desert men look at me in their irritating impotence,
**** clothes wrapped around their slender waists passing on me
Like a dog passing on American dollars; cursed be desert men,
I thought my beauty of dark African complexions will give them a ****** tease
But to my chagrin; desert men have a fear of beautiful ladies
My conscience tells me that my beauty is an eye sore to them,
I thought my bulging hips will entice them as is a promise of fertility
Leave alone not to mention my concupiscent ****** warmth, uhmmm!
Desert men have dared not to see and appreciate my **** bossom,
They often pass on me driving their donkeys and emaciated carmels,
I thought my ***** sharp pointed *******, assign of virginity
Will call them to me into a treat of love, affiliative love,
But sadly enough; these dudes are erotically blind,
They they nonchalantly pass on my **** *****,
Wielding a begging bowl in their ***** long hands
Running like drunkard chimpanzees going to Oxfam stores to beg for food,
Cursed be Oxfam an imperialist agent, it has crashed flat
The testicles of our desert brothers into ****** insensitivity,
Oxfam has made African desert men to beg like Hebrew lepers
Other than standing up on their feet to feed their women,
Normally as men would do from the sweat of their brow,
I thought my education will attract them to me,
To love me with those romantic University kisses,
But desert men have crude cultures and slavish religion
They rebuke girl child education as if it is a devil,
Oh my dear God of the forsaken desert ladies
Of the forsaken African daughters,
Take me out of this ****** desert
Take me out of the city desert of Lodwar,
Take me to the equator line and give me a husband,
My eggs are pretty ready to conceive and sire children
Sons and daughters for your own glory O almighty God,
Take me out of this ****** desert,
Where no man treats a modern woman,
Take me out of here and give me a fresh man of my dream.

Because I have known from today;
It is accurse to be a woman in Africa
It is a curse to be a beautiful lady in African deserts
It is a curse to  be a woman graduate in the African desert
It is a curse to have ***** ******* in the African desert,
O! Help me God.
Dan Filcek Apr 2015
their recent deal met with shouts of betrayal:
the new Neville Chamberlain,
The refrain quickly sounded on Capitol Hill.
sympathy should be qualified.
speaking in accurate French
This is our moment ... our chance to join together
But then when is it not a moment?
repeatedly mispriced and misapplied,
often with disastrous consequences.
A complete list would fill a book,
but here are a few items:
the spectre of war
the American invading forces
the border with China
the British appeasing ******
the whole woeful Suez adventure
the occupation of the Rhineland  
the Cuban missile crisis
the fire jobs, in which hundreds of thousands civilians were incinerated;
the saying “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
the hailing of Ngo Dinh Diem, as the Churchill of Asia
the Kennedy administration giving a nod to the coup
the latest culture of appeasement
the drawing of Jimmy Carter carrying an umbrella.
the mirage of a peaceful alternative to war
which is really a defeat,
peace in our time?
Why do I think that isn’t going to happen?
This year for Poetry Month, I decided to post a "found poem" every day. If writing a poem is like painting, a "found poem" is like sculpting. - source https://newrepublic.com/article/115803/munich-analogies-are-inaccurate-cliched-and-dangerous
Oculi Jul 2022
No tomb like the present
A suffocating fact
I shan't see the crescent
A summer with no tact

There is a distinct, quiet suffering
That plagues the air every which summer
Though out there, the world is rapidly expanding
The smell of rot is the one that catches my nostril
As for what rots, I am not sure
Perhaps the trouble lies within myself
But in these days, I am slower, less responsive
And my conversations get more unhinged
With the entities in my living space
As for whether they are hallucinated
Or it's me yelling at bugs that have entered
I honestly would not be able to say

The air is thick, thicker than milky fog
And this thickness hurts the purity
Pure, white snow falls from my eyes
And cold, piercing winds from my throat
Icicles grow upon my fingertips
And my hair is made of frozen grass
I am the late autumn and early winter, I am
My stark and hailing demeanor freezes the weak
I am the very definition of an ice queen
Or at the very least I definitely pretend to be
Even though it's a charade everyone ignores

Have you ever sat in the back seat, while a parent drove?
You might even feel a bit of affection from them
So it is not so bad, not quite as impersonable
Not as horrifying as the passenger's seat
You are at risk but you are not the operative word
I am currently in the passenger's seat of my life
Have you ever felt similarly? Like you lost control?
My interactions are pure instincts and pheromones
My preferences are base level urges in all cases
Even the music I so enjoy, I entrust not to myself
But to the almighty, for their hand is far more sturdy
I shake, like an autumn leaf in a hurricane
Barely holding on the driver, which is always them
I will never learn how to drive a car

I often get called an adept storyteller
Some people call me vivid or imaginative, even
So I suppose I might as well ask the people in my head
To help me conjure up some short tales for you;
This one is of a young girl, dreaming

In some dreams she finds herself in a rancid, green room
There with her is another girl, a cynical kind
The two of them may have loved each other once, but
That time has long since passed
Acts of carnal urges and violence come to pass
Mold grows on the walls and ceilings
The camera slowly pans away from them, *******
To show the director and the audience

In some dreams, she finds herself in a small Japanese home
Discussing the fate of that infamous 100 ryo
"You'll never get it back" says the cynical girl
She vows to get it back and leaves the room
Most of the scene is silent, save for cicadas
In the night she returns, scars all over her face
She brutally dismembers the cynical girl
She simply was not meant to be a ronin

In some dreams she finds herself in a police station
The cynical woman is on the other ends of the desk
"We've got you by the *****, ****" she says
The girl answers only with a scoff and a crooked smile
"If you had me by the *****, this would be more enjoyable"
The cynical girl seems embarrassed, upset
The director shouts "More emotion, you dimwits, more!"
The camera zooms in, with shaking motion, towards the girl

In some dreams she finds herself alone, it's snowing inside
The cynical girl left. Surely something far more important.
She begins to draw a mural, in the style of Basquiat
A funky little guy, baby blue, bright orange, neon pink lines
Once done, she hears a voice: "It's been a while, babes"
Finally, he was back! It was the mural, speaking
Or in some sense, the very walls of the room spoke to her
"What's groovy, baby?" he asks, with his usual cheer

There's many more dreams to share, like the one where they reminisce
Or the one where they're janissaries, stationed in Serbia
Or the one where they're communists, in a bar during the Great War
Or the one where space has been conquered and they stayed back at home
Or the one where the mural learns to play drums, and the shadowy figure joins
I didn't even talk about the shadowy figure, even though he's a major character!
I mean hell, even I joined them occasionally, once they asked
They figured out I didn't know everything, and talked to me, what a lovely bunch
But obviously at one point, spunky little girls have to wake up

In this dream, she finds herself alone again, in a regular room
The heat of the scorching sun has been illuminating her abode all day
She remembers that in this reality, she plays improvised music
And yet, in such horrid weather, it'd be suicide to go play right now
She is sluggish, unconcerned, seemingly in another world already
No tomb like the present, she thinks and repeats, like a mantric chant
"No time! You keep saying the phrase all wrong!" a voice reprimands her
She knows and she deems it an unfit day to have yet more drama
"I know... I just thought the pun was amusing..."
She says in retort to herself, in order to pass the time.
Life’s all getting and giving,
I’ve only myself to give.
What shall I do for a living?
I’ve only one life to live.
End it?  I’ll not find another.
Spend it? But how shall I best?
Sure the wise plan is to live like a man
And Luck may look after the rest!
Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
Give or hold at your will.
If I’ve no care for Fortune,
Fortune must follow me still.

Bad Luck, she is never a lady
But the commonest ***** on the street,
Shuffling, shabby and shady,
Shameless to pass or meet.
Walk with her once—it’s a weakness!
Talk to her twice. It’s a crime!
****** her away when she gives you “good day”
And the besom won’t board you next time.
Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
What is Your Ladyship’s mood?
If I have no care for Fortune,
My Fortune is bound to be good!

Good Luck she is never a lady
But the cursedest quean alive!
Tricksy,  wincing  and  jady,
Kittle to lead or drive.
Greet her—she’s hailing a stranger!
Meet her—she’s busking to leave.
Let her alone for a shrew  to the bone,
And the ***** comes plucking your sleeve!
Largesse!  Largesse, Fortune!
I’ll neither follow nor flee.
If I don’t run after Fortune,
Fortune must run after me!
I saw 13 black crows as black as 3AM
and as big as vultures eyes
with wings hanging to their sides like laundry on the line
they were standing in a circle letting their tongues dry
they’re coming for me like thieves or ghosts
stealing songs, and whispering poems to themselves
about nonsense and existence

I don’t want to die

I saw 4 black eagles, with horns growing towards the ground
like columns or anchors reaching for the bottom
their feathers folded like hands on a man resting in his coffin
bending over each other rattling my bones
drumming out the answers in ways I will need one day
their hooves are giving me growing pains
I sleep like a tornado

I saw 18 black hawks, with beaks full of teeth
roaring like a pack of wolves in perfect V
with hoods over their eyes to cover up what they’ve seen
secrets bouncing off the insides of their lips meant for me
they landed on my life like spears, ears tucked back like arrow feathers
wings spread wide like storm clouds over kansas
hailing on me teaching me their dances, they gave me armor

we will never die, we will never die, I don’t want to die, we will never die
we will never die, but we don’t want to try, I don’t want to die, I won’t let you die
we will never die, we won’t even try, but if we never die, then we never really live

I saw 9 black owls, they were quiet as death
they had talons like antlers growing from their hearts
and they were tearing me apart
each bird was tagged like cattle with one word
and they burned them in to my mind...they read
you have never lived because you have never died
From the album Wooden Heart by Listener
SassyJ Jan 2016
Chorus
Watch me fly
Let me fly away
As the bird
I take a flight away

Verse 1
In the still, silence pervades
No reminiscence of a past gone away
You watched me talk,
Then I lost all my words you waved
Goodbye, sad goodbyes
In the caves, the echo of my voice pollutes
It’s in the when, the how all the where

Verse 2
In the fields, I withered as the crops bloomed
No remembrance of a past erased
You heard me beg,
As I lost all the will to live but die
The pointed fingers on my being
In  the brave, I took the shield and guarded up
It’s the now, the never ending paths

Bridge**
Parachuting from the skies
The distance is to high
But I trust the safety net
The hailing jet
I wear the sailing zest
https://soundcloud.com/user-367453778/reminiscing-flight-acoustic
Ira Desmond Dec 2018
Last night,
I dreamt that the friend of a friend had died.

His body floated lifeless on the surface of the Pacific,
tossed about between the Bering Sea whitecaps

like an orca’s seal-pup plaything
while the Arctic wind whipped

and beat the freezing cold water
across his pallid face and through his chestnut hair.

Then his body
began to sink,

its silhouette appearing
against various monotone

canvases of blue
on its trip downward:

a vivid cornflower,
a pelagic cerulean,

a chasm of cold cobalt,
a starless twilight,

a forest of indigo,
a velvet curtain of navy.

Finally,
as it reached the deepest possible shade of midnight—

only a quantum away from black—
it stopped sinking.

There, in that void,
where daylight and color are considered but outlandish theories,

strange fish of all and shapes and sizes
began to surround the decomposing corpse:

Greenland sharks hailing from the frozen arctic,
mantis shrimp from the mangrove labyrinths,

eyeless electric eels from undersea caves near the Galápagos,
vampire squid rising cautiously up out of their World War One trenches,

scores of spindly ***** and pale worms that had ventured far beyond
the safe familiarity of their alien geothermal worlds.

At first, they approached the corpse gingerly,
nibbling only the tips of its hair and fingernails,

and then suddenly, voraciously,
they consumed it—until not even a skeleton remained.

Now, only a single point of light was left
there floating in the void.

And from this single point of light,
where just a moment before the corpse had floated,

a brilliant white lattice structure emerged,
unfurling as would a fern across a forest floor.

It fanned out onto the seabed
and then swept upward, upward

back toward those reaches of sea
where color is known

and fresh air gleefully permeates
that foamy outer membrane that skirts the base of the sky.

Scores of familiar fish began to lift up the crystalline structure—
schools of shimmering sardines,

stately, dignified manta rays,
skipjacks, bluefins, and white-tips,

brilliant cuttlefish, humble pufferfish,
shifty barracuda, gargantuan whale sharks,

all of them
beating their tails in concert

to carry this lattice away,
this measure of a life,

this husk of a soul
at last freed from its earthly bindings.

The fish were carrying it somewhere deeper,
somewhere darker,

to a place that I understood—
even from the inky depths

of my dreaming mind—
that I could not enter.

But then again,
I knew that someday

I would.
Tim Knight Jan 2013
Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.

The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.

Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.

Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-hom­e-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.

He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.

Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.

We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.
facebook.com/timknightpoetry
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2015
Oliver Sacks passed away today, August 30, 2015
He asked the best questions
and never stopped seeking ever better answers.
Perhaps now, richer, he has them,
but this world is surely a poorer place indeed.
~~~

"And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest."

Oliver Sacks


I hope you read the entire essay at the URL below.

~~~
humble humble,
mine own own muse~jester
self-mocking, calling me out,
giving oneself the *******,
who you?

indeed,
you, the greater fool,
utilizing, thriving on self-contemptuous thoughts,
you are no Oliver Sacks,
what are you doing
messing with his essaying?

go back to being
a standardized human,
spilling the detritus of thine mortal coil,
that employs you as a full time slave,
a scab-working seven day affair,
is that not sufficient?

you,
in your sixth
decaying-decades-day,
forsook the ancient Sabbath long ago,
keeping it for ****** rest,
cheaply tired from the liturgy of
straitjacketing of do's and dont's
of excruciating detail,
that put only distance tween
you and your
essential spiritual oils

Sacks invades directly my eye's clouded storage,
now, two brains cross-wired,
histories,
his story, my story,
all too familiar,
almost indecently similar

here I am,
nearer my god than thee,
on this Sabbath day
of my ancestors,
(a hand-me-down gift to the world's conceptual heritage sites)
working hard,
as an everyday day laborer,
looking for work on street corners,
busy busy searching my conscience,
angel wrestling,
sacked
by questions -

when is
one’s work done,
and when,
when may one,
in good conscience,
rest?


this poetry writing, is it not work too?

work,
a violation of the Sabbath commandment,^
even if it is of no great matter,
for by now,
this lifelong dialogue internal
this contradictory poetic dialectic
which has yet to justify the emotive words
final or finished,
is a seven days of the week affair,
undeserving of a day of rest

~~~

as I essay out this Sabbath working poem,
in a place of beauteous, natural calm,
it's so easy to agree with the
passing schooners,
all whispering,
via genteel southern breezes,

later, not sooner,

no need to decide, let it ride,
answers will come,
perhaps, all on their own,
perhaps, all on that day
when you're within
hailing distance,
in a flailing,
failing-voice-recognition way,
of the shores of the
Isle of Surcease

the answers will come
contemporaneously,
when you have leave to
exorcise from your calendar,
Siri's spouting, inexorable,
pop-up perpetual reminder
that today's first thing
on your
to do list is:

"live a life  of
good and worthwhile"
**

for then,
you will have all the answers
for the Oliver questions
that need perpetual asking



Finis
~~~

^ "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates."
~~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/ol­iver-sacks-sabbath.html

~~~
Aug. 15, 2015
Shelter Island
for Ursula,
who I think of whenever
I read this
Corina Junghiatu Aug 2020
Corina Junghiatu is a bilingual poet/writer hailing from Romania. She holds a Master Degree in Philology and Phychopedagogy and likewise she graduated from The Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Bucharest. She speaks five foreign languages.
Corina has written and publishing two books of poetry: „Exile in the light” and „The ritual of a Sunrise”. She is Administrator and Publication Coordinator of Motivational Strips, editor of "Bharath Vision" website, and Chief Advisor of World Nations Writers' Union Kazakhstan. Corina has won many awards from international institutions of repute, for poetry.
Recently, Corina Junghiatu, together with 350 poets and writers from 80 countries, received a certificate of appreciation for her entire literary activity, on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Independence Day of the Republic of India. This certificate was was handed by the famous writer Shiju H. Pallithazheth the Founder of Motivational Strips, World's Most Active Writers Forum and Padma Shree Dr. Vishnu Pandya, President of Gujarat Sahitya Akademy, a government institution of the state of Gujarat (India).
Eclipsing Moon Sep 2011
Calabash Squash
A Poem by Eclipsing Moon-blood red


entry for a contest...rhythm



Hip- hop jury swapped

Hippity- hoppity sequestered they stop

Bibity- bobity alone on the cobblestone.

falling in- falling over

The balcone wailing, and buckets pailing, and hailing, and

Scaling

The walls and ramparts the cannons were whaling

Moby dicking and schlicking the schlock of the clock… hickory dickery ..where is the Doc?

Blind mice made the move..up one "grandfather  side.

... and

Over the top .

Now wasn’t that a quainty dish to set before the Queens …

in drag



© 2011 Eclipsing Moon-blood red
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Kyle Kulseth Dec 2013
Halt our shallow breaths--
         staccato fogs at the stoplights
Cling precarious in cold
like the frost on the stop signs.
The streetlights keep on winking
Winter's late but, now, it's sinking
                                       into bones
clawing coats
         shut. Clutching
                  wool to swollen throats

I swore I'd never stand here again
           at December's ******* doorstep--
ring the bell every weekend.
I always circle back every year
when
I take the same old punches
and wince when I hit play-back.

Halt my raising glass
        and analyze my afflictions:
28, alone and broke
so cop to addictions, now.
It's freezing--getting dressed
you've question marks in your brown eyes
It's hailing, breathing out
Carry my bags of old goodbyes
The walls just keep on shrinking
But the outside's gonna swallow me
                                    Eaten whole
even bones.
     Spit me out back on Mydland road

I know I'll wind up back here again.
         at December's ******* deathbed
sleeping in every weekend
Held all chips, played hands, drank a year
then
I pulled my vacant pockets,
defrosted my losing bets

Mea culpa. So long. Stay friends.

"Twenty-*******-five to one,
                      my gambling days are done.
I bet on a horse called The Bottle of Smoke,
                     and my horse..."
(Finer/MacGowan)
jackierutherford Dec 2014
I sit; Close my eyes.
Looking into myself
In-hailing, ex-hailing, calming my mind and body
Thoughts undulate,
taking me near and far

Seeing into the past, theorizing the future
the present here is strong

Getting in tune with one's inner-self
Listening, to its song
Silent tears in my head, all the fears abound

It's nice, to take some time
Slow down, unwind

Feel the strength of God
True happiness
chachi Sep 2010
With special thanks to George Ella Lyon*

I am from crumbling brick
(red, dusty, smelling of musk).
I am from aluminum siding
and triple-deckers,
tall, strong, unmovable.

Hailing from the city on about seventy hills.
From Grandfathers and photo albums,
cigar ash salad and pinecone wars.
From "use your imagination" and "go play in the street".

I am from a whirlwind of faith,
belief from non-believers.

From schoolyards, playgrounds, and crawlspaces
come these faces, and these memories
are worth more to me, than anything.
Dylan Whisman Jan 2016
If only my words could pierce and
descend opon the lovely ones,
the humans with caramel eyes
and voices that cradle the soul.
ones who can sail through the surging
ocean that is my mind.
ones that slaughter demons,
and waltz with angels.
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!”
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn’t blue,
But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You’d think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay

And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right—agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.
Katie Doodle Dec 2012
Before we met
How many times did we pass by
Each other on the street?
How many times did we
Stop at the same stop light
Or wave the other on in traffic?
How many times had we
Ordered coffee from the same barista
Within minutes of the other?
How often did we ride
The same BART train
Or think the same thing
About a person we walked past
On our way to work?
How many friends did we share
If any at all?
Before we met
Did you ever notice me hailing a cab
Or search my bag for loose change?
Did I ever give you a ***** look
When you laughed grotesquely
With your friends
As my own guild slinked by?
Before we met
Had you ever considered
Renting an apartment in my building?
Did you ever pet my cat on the street
Or lazily glace through my
Living room window as you
Waited for the light to turn green?
Did I ever see you
At the delicatessen
Where I eat my lunch?
Before we met
Had we ever met before?

— The End —