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CJ Sutherland Sep 2024
Something wicked, this Way comes
When sadness surrounds the Doldrums

Melancholy’s bit is Bitter, Sweet
Looking for mom’s face on the street

Praying as a child to find her and care
Streets of LA, sea of empty faces , cold stare

It’s strange, What we hold onto, cherish
Reminisce, of a loved one who perished

Unfinished business, Hardens the heart
Moments before, we were pulled apart

We find Silent comforts to cradle our mind
Where’d we come from what did we find?

Dealing with death’s passages of times
Needing help with our imaginary crimes

The first person I ever knew who died
She was 46 years young, my soul cried

My beloved mother Throat Cancer
Disenchanted asked God for the answer

Each second Every breath More Shallow
Then the one before, her face Hollow

Questioning The last time for this or that
Lapse memory, The Last time I fed her cat

Yet I never really paid attention
The uneasy emotions we never mention

Now, I pay attention to the smallest details
beauty in rain in hail that clean wet smell

The last thing  I’ll ever mention
Having your full undivided attention

Mom needed all her children near
Leaving earth the biggest unknown fear

Feckless children weren’t around
Couldn’t be bothered wouldn’t be found

What to expect on the other side
Her guardian angel her ethereal Guide

Three days before mom died (her and I)
We were sitting on corner curb outside

Her words were soft, gentle and kind
I don’t worry about you in my mind

You’re like a cat You’ll have many lives
You’ll land on your feet not on the street

Her voice grew intense serious and brave
Listen to me Don’t go to my grave

You need to realize I won’t be there
Find comfort with others Grieve elsewhere

She knew in the crevices of her head
Funerals are for the living not the dead

Pretentious, pompous circumstance
Don’t cry a pity party, Sing and Dance

A gentle smile graced her face
Her wisdom a tear stain trace

Find something Spectacularly brilliant
That will remind you of me resilient

A remembrance you’ll see
put it in your house, There I’ll Be

I found a clear quartz crystal cat with claws
Amethyst heart Dangled between its paws

Daily Family walks Nonchalantly By
A dust collector they see with a naked eye

I see life’s memories in vivid detail
Mother’s Grim Reaper rang her bell


Inspired songs;
1) fire and rain by James Taylor
2) He stopped loving her today,
sang by George Jones
Written by Braddock and Puttman
3) go rest on the Mountain by Vince Gill
4) tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
5) Live like you were dying
by Tim McGraw
Songs of morning and say goodbye. These are sacred so you don’t need to be religious to have a song universally touch your heart and touch your soul. Each one of these songs has a backstory of death and dealing with that pain. If you listen to the backstory on each of those songs, you’ll hear this song differently. This is why, when I read poetry, I always want to hear the backstory I get a wealth of information, and a deeper understanding of the poem and poet.

Sorry for the lengthy footnote, but I guarantee it’s worth the read

My mother had terminal cancer she did not want the children to see her dwindle away. She left us five children with my father. I was so young I thought she died any time I would mention her I would get a kick in the shin or a elbow in my stomach, learn later, my older siblings in life are now the truth. My younger brother and I did not until I was 10 years old. She tried to see his children. Mother said no I asked my sister who is that person and a small boy she said mom. I prayed every day to God. When I’m a grown-up, let me find her and let her know I care and she made a good person . Grandma (her mother) wanted me to take up with a private investigators left off after seven years of searching for her. (grandma was dying )They had some leads I was 20 years old. I found my mother when I was 21. I had been to every Alley in Skid Row and places young women should not go alone. I had a friend at know downtown LA the roughnecks. The last place of all the places we had been for months with a thrift store women shelter For personal necessities. I showed the photo went through this story to my surprise. The lady clerk pointed to the back of the room.
I took my mother home. I thought she’d be living with me now not on the street but on the third day, she said, I have to go home or they will give my room away she actually was living in a Victorian hospice with Catholic nuns. The headmistress came and asked me if I knew what was going on. Of course I did not because mom didn’t tell me. She told my mom was dying . she only had three months  to live. I prayed just let her be alive. I didn’t pray for more. God gave her to me, and then he took her away. I was angry for a long time. And then I realized God gave me three month to love and be a peace complete unfinished business. It Took me a long time to find my way back to Jesus . so when you see a homeless person , that’s a mother or father, uncle a grandma or grandpa those are people. Some of my family could not make peace with things until they knew she was dying. It was sickening toward my mom didn’t care about going to rodeo drive. They wanted to put a huge angel statue over her grave $25,000 a time ago I said no give the money to the nuns.
BLT Websters word of the day Challenge
Feckless 9-29-24
A person who is weak for ineffective
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
She was the headmistress named Miss Proper Purse
drove me from the classroom when she found I wrote lewd verse!
Yenson Jun 2020
I was seven going on to eight
aside from the occasional biscuit
taken from the cookie jar I knew nothing
about stealing

At my Convent school
all the Teachers were nuns
gleaming and whiter than white
told us a lot about Jesus and all he did
for all of us

One day before lunch break
Mother Superior who was the Headmistress
walked into our classroom with a young girl in tow
around her neck was hung a banner 'I am a Thief' it read

That young girl looked so ashamed
tears raining down her eyes, she shook & reddened
we were asked to boo her as Mother Superior called her bad
she had taken what did not belong to her and stealing is wrong
we booed as she was marched to all the other classes to be shamed

I knew from that moment
without a shadow of doubt I would never steal a thing
and will always stick to the straight and narrow and do right
looking back  it was a cruel and mean thing to do but what a lesson

I still see that poor crying child
still feel her shame & the boos & jeers of us others
worse was the public humiliation & playground taunts thereafter
that poor child never lived it down & a year after left the school

It traumatized her and me also I suppose
for I  make sure at all cost never to steal or take whats not mine
so imagine how I feel when thieves burgle me & then unashamedly
turn the tables round and try & make me the subject of humiliation

I have done nothing wrong so stand in truth
each and everyone in their camp is that poor fearful little girl
scared witless, desperate, ashamed, lonely, humiliated & disgraced
never to feel comfortable and accepted among-st peers again

I can see why these disgraced thieves and racist rogues
are sso desperately projecting all their fears and angst at me
angry, humiliated, in deep fear they need to blacken and destroy
these disgraced children with the banner round their necks
" I AM A THIEF" yes and they wear it in their minds for ever...........
Lucas Grant Dec 2024
Million Dollar Bottles of liquor flood my room
Drowning on misery all because of you
Flooding my bedroom with taxes of beliefs and opinions of me insinuating my actions were an attempt of treason and how I'm guilty
Really...guilty?
While im laying in satin
Silk sheets in my fists as I sink away to the depths of despair consumed by my riches playing with knifes as I'm overlooked by the headmistress
It's a wonder I fell so far from the temple I felt worshipped till my saintly statues took a swing at the steeple
A marvel regarding instability causing a loss of so many people
And there goes the preacher leaving even richer then when he came before
Penthouse 100th storiee up ruby's scattered all over the kitchen floor where they eat the meal of my body or st least the final supper of my remains
Disembodied unappreciated broke down with all the pain in a bathtub of glamour
Articulated fashion a sentiment of loss and ulugy of passion
Misplaced in hotels built upon great dynastys mimicking the ones I couldn't sustain
The hours afterwards I felt angry and misunderstood so I filed a complaint
A complaint of my frustration in my black dagger collar mourning the aftermath of stolen power, privileges removed as I sink to the depths and think of you
Unable to recover so I choke on salt water
Bitter in the way it comes across
Let me know

— The End —