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Debbie Ogenyi Oct 2016
some people have given up,they see Nigeria as hopeless,They feel it can not get better.they come with history records,recent happenings and even present situations.People are frustrated and tired  so out of the frustration comes so much cursing and bitter words.
Believe me when I say I know the feeling of disappointment,the hurt that one feels when hopes are raised only to be dashed.But when I withdraw from the so much noise and look a little deeper.I see good...so much good in  Nigeria.I am being really honest now.I know someone can see this good but if you can not, I wish I could borrow you my eyes, just so you see what I see and of course return my precious eyes back.
  Right from the time of Adam and to this very day,We humans tend to feel comfortable pushing blames.We refuse owning up to our wrongs or inefficiency.
  While complaining of a cut in your leg there is someone with no legs,he would gladly take your legs with the cut , Be thankful and treat the cut.When the complain is not healing the cut,why don't you use the time to find some first aid.
  
  Why curse when you can bless
  why speak death when you Can speak Life
  why worry when you can pray
  We can change our thinking
  We can look inwards at what we can do
  We can individually make a positive   difference

I'm not saying become voiceless,I'm saying  let your voice carry positive    value and be backed up with positive actions.
Can anything good come from Nigeria?      
Yes!I'm a good example
Happy Independence Beautiful people of Nigeria
Lost traction,
in a disillusioned faction.

Thought prosperity could keep all afloat.
Instead it's left me to gloat.
About a lifestyle of inefficiency,
in an attempt to gain a touch of currency.

What a poor excuse,
for something so abstruse.
But it is a tampered explanation,
after large amounts of manipulation.

About the best thing I'm left to offer,
seeing as I'm a poor impostor.
But then again isn't everyone.
Seeing as we've all been outrun.
Q Jan 2017
I am lonely, as I so often seem to be
My mind flips over and under endlessly.
I think myself to heights then fling my body down
I scream and complain without my mouth making a sound.

Pridefully -endlessly prideful, as I am- I keep to myself
Because loneliness will never drive me to beg for another's help.
I'd rather stare outwards infinitely, fingers perched and ready to type
And wonder what part of the internet used to bring entertainment to life.

Self-sufficient in the way I always claimed to be, I whisper lonely into my hands
Then run for the door like it's a bug I must release, watching nervously at where it lands.
I dance with myself, giggle and smile, then peel of my face to observe
Because it isn't allowed to show what I can only disclose within written words.

An army of people who will never exist muddle through life inside my head
We speak and we smile and I am pitiful enough that it makes the emptiness less.
And less is livable, less is doable with stiff posture, a smile, and laughs
Less is easier, more simple, more viable to tote away than Too Much's trash.

If I straighten my back, smile with teeth, and laugh boisterously
If I open my arms and wait for company, who will I meet?
If I looked at every person as a new opportunity and not a danger to me
I wonder if I'd make enough friends to calm this feeling for a century?

Questions contain a vulnerability that has never once failed to disgust me.
Yet and still, I write them down because questions are the door to possibility.
And somehow, whether answered or unanswered these questions may be
I will walk away from the result into a crowd of people I will not greet.

I will be lonely.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
a google-whack for the ultimate news reel: #jigo'hudami.

and not another Shakespeare to come, #blues,
and not another Milton to come, #blues,
and not another Beckett to come, #blues,
an not another unforced Bukowski to come, #blues,
and not another papa Ginsberg to come, #blues,
and not another fusion of poetry and jazz, #blues -
not another, the lost interest in jazz,
the it's been done, and only in America, #blues -
and not another Dostoyevsky to come, #blues,
and no one is digging digital trenches like at Ypres
             capitalising on the gambling of
giving it all, even if it means giving it for nothing
imagining daymares of homelessness, #blues -
and no more fusion worked from the stale juggernauts
of voice in the wilderness, or voice among aghast silence -
and no one is writing intoxicated odes in a Dionysian
woodland shade naked or at least half naked - #blues,
and no one new knows how having voyeuristic eyes
not looking at your poetry on the internet feels like,
before the broadband hyper super hyper mega tron
optic wires before the ancient tee p p **** dial to
connect - rotary dial telephones and aesthetic patience -
dial-a-meaning now, collect, appropriate, discard -
super-communicative efficiency like the Chinese
but in lesser number - lesser number - a moment to
unwind - choose a graphic for the front-cover -
Dali? really? quote: morbid and dark and a surrealist?
surrealists wrote their poetry at the beginning of the
20th century - again, what a treat, cook up a 21st century
manifesto - overshoot the mark - the macabre non-Gothic,
and so no angel with a sword near the chapel entrance
but a gargoyle - a gargantuan bore - agreed...
and not another william blake to come, #blues,
and not another richard brautigan to come, #blues,
dual citizen of the world - from one underworld to another,
Morse code typescript, or telegram poetry -
poetry telegramic - the reinvention of the cut-up technique,
but less paper clippings of single words shoved in
a hat like someone about to wear latex gloves and write
a ransom letter - telegramic poetry - the cut up is more
linear, less word from newspapers cut and then picked
at random, hoping for the big winner - conscious of
the river course - telegram! - opening page from
l'Étranger (e.g.):
mother died - - - - - - - telegram - - - - - - - at Marengo - - -
2 days leave - - - - - absurd already, apologies for death -
- - - - - (yes, a reader, not the narrator, and not - - - - - - - -
explicitly like a telegram) - - - - (self-explanatory auto-) -
- exactly, at every turn some excuse, but what a grand
excuse, god's turn, excuses after the fashionable 15 minutes -
nothing prior - - - - lunch at Céleste’s restaurant - - - - -
starting to look anti-autobigraphical (i.e. written much too
late, not day-by-day, *Kronos
Witold Gombrowicz) - - -
calls Emmanuel to be lent a black tie - - - joke, karate - -
not so funny - - - d'uh, belt - - - mourning band - - - - - - -
with a white ******* rotated 45° from that famous
re-interpretation - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - good something -
running for the bus - - - soldier's shoulder, sleep - - - - -
warden absent, waiting with a chatty doorman - - - - - - - -.
well it could work -this telegram style, it's the easiest style
to read, the Nova Express proves it, the Soft Machine
proves it, Naked Lunch proves it - the incoherent distraction,
well, coherently incoherent - sometimes you want to
see a tornado rather than an open stretch of road in a desert -
a ****** tornado - whirling and whirling with Loki
playing a flute - and something about the great milkman
being choked by a marshmallow monster in the sky -
or, of course, with the sensible people - an Ikea assembly
manual for a chair - with one but the most crucial ***** missing:
metaphor for the 10% books, that's 10% in, 20% up on sales
of audiobooks - hyper-readers, ages: 18-24 - 24-35 (21%) -
and then thick mud ahead, an opera of yawns and a gym
membership one tier above the no-fun zone of sometimes
an index wet and a judo flick of the page - or any other
comparison - but on the plus - and not another Walt Whitman
to come - #bangersandmash, and not another Pound
to come - #blues - in with the pretentious you say out
with the feral? maybe... maybe not - but all of this for only
one sentence: to be nervous over ethnicity and vocabulary -
shouldn't exist - to pursue active censorship of a person's
vocabulary is to undermine them completely -
when corporations copyright words because they're logos
i can understand - but people copyright words something's
obviously wrong, somehow i imagine corporate influence
at having taught this lesson - it should exist - or... in what tone?
but already, people what inoffensive and frail - they
want cushions but don't want stones - and it's every single
time - where once words flowed freely no words stumble
against everyone being politicised - it's hard to do your job
these days, whatever it might be - some would say once
the figurehead a throng of courtesans and you knew of importance,
you were so far away from the seat of power you enjoyed
one sq. mile rather than daydreaming about if you ruled
the world - cost-effective inefficiency of politics -
life? unaffected - and it's not even some glorious technique
behind it - the same children that lied have simply
learned to evolve lying into negation - ah, whatever, #blues,
#Rakı.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2017
gambling, and to think that money has become rampant, pointless, towering over man, where once money was deemed an effective medium of passing labour, now, gambling has proved the complete defunct nature of the construct... when once a respectable way of rewarding shared labours, now, a means to bloat it, inflate it, give it extra cotton candy... i'd like to see times when money had some value, but since there is none to it in an applicable sense, no wonder its flushed down the toilet at the gambling table... for a "species" that wonders at making things refined and more efficient, to see the unrefined end product of the ultimate inefficiency; it's almost sad to watch.

i understand islam in only one way,
if i heard correctly islam
dictates a rigour in appreciating
money,
           in that, if i (once again) heard
correctly, islam doesn't
appreciate interest...
    i.e. if you borrow £100,
          you give £100 back...
    not £100 + 20%...
                  and i really do appreciate
the sanity of using money,
an abstract (compared to the value
of gold or timber, or a painting)
form of a thing...
   but the problem is, money has become
less and less reasonable,
in that it has become less tool-like
and more: parasitic-like.
              i do appreciate the fact
that money creates an exponential growth
of possible jobs,
  that it allows people to do nothing
more than a *Pilate gesture
-
i.e. washing their hands clean...
    but we live in times of hidden slavery,
i have a friend who's in his 50s...
he's not paying off his house,
       he doesn't own it,
        he's paying off the interest rates!
so basically he's renting rather than working
toward a capital...
          i have no idea how the original
idea of money has become infested by
a %... it should really be written
     %10 rather than any elevation to
a currency...
                  £10 is actually £23.50 when
monday it is spent, and by friday when it's
asked to be repaid...
  it's an implosive multiplication,
covert...
       you ask for a potato,
you're asked for four potatoes back!
          i can't believe that people are still
so sane if at least playing the role of sensible
with a thing, that's clearly inorganic,
and can't self-replicate without a cheat
mechanism being in place...
             like i said, if i heard correctly,
islam abhors usury -
                lending on an interest...
     but i might have misheard this,
even though i might not have, misheard it...
i understand money in that
i understand someone willing to do
   a ****** job to get his UNIVERSAL UNIT
of interaction,
i get that, i'd do a ****** job if i had to
in order to watch the Pilates of this world
play the Gatsby...
(book? not so great)....
                    the philosopher's stone
the trans-valuation of values is but a copper
coin away from any reason to
fathom a sensibility in such affairs...
      but imagine merely paying off
the interests rates, and never the product
you supposedly bought...
            **** me that's a tearjerker -
all the communists in hell are either laughing
or immune in a pensive pose of:
the **** is that?
           - and if this is true about islam,
i.e. you take one, you give one back...
and not,
you take one, you give two back...
money unlike any other thing in this world
is sick... it's infected with
a propagation virus...
         a mad self-multiplier...
the same self-multiplier which is the reason
why we produce more than we need,
in that we produce both product,
         and waste.
                    even if you applied the keenest
of minds in the field of mathematics to
the concept of money,
   you'd create a half-breed of
both genius and ******...
         since economics is the antithesis of
mathematics, as is the mathematicians'
abandonment of the calculator,
   the only worthwhile arithmetic these days
is imbued by the spelling of a word
correctly...
                 you don't write it: you snap into it!
- and i must admit, a strange way
of "counting" - rearranging the set pieces -
which explains why there's a blind-spot
in the japanese puzzle: súdokū -
again: diacritical marks are punctuation
marks from above, intra-verbum not
inter-verbum...
         once again, why is money so supposedly
complex? it's not,
   i can understand that some people
would prefer someone else to do something
unpleasant, like, slaughter a cow
and never make it to guest list of a baron's
banquet...
  i understand the Pilate gesture -
i wouldn't even appreciate the baron's
company to say the least,
         but money, as it was originally intended
is sick...
     it can't be anything more than
a sickness that has infected it...
mind you, my father is self-employed,
you know how they actually treat contractors?
like ****...
   he asked for travel expenses
  for his sub-contractors...
                he wasn't paid the travel expenses...
say what you will, but at least communism
had some principles,
this degenerate disintegration,
decomposition of capitalism due to the lack
of external competition on
ideological grounds is festering into
     what one might only see as:
cannibalism...
                when companies shed
their respect for the workers,
  whether independent of aligned to a company
ethos, something will finally give way...
i understand money,
but money has a virus in it,
  it's become a false multiplier of itself...
sure, that might have added to the success
of the multiplication of mankind
but as people have noted:
a universal wage...
since how much work is there to be done
these days, when all this demand for
work inevitably produces a waste product
from over-production?
          money was never supposed
to covertly self-multiply exponentially -
which means why money no longer has
the same value as it once did,
ascribed to something valuable -
paper money is toilet paper -
            as already suggested by
those bankers burning it to light a cigar...
a perpetual hellhole where even
         a DaVinci canvas is paper and is worth
such as much...
             idealistic? tosh...
                no wonder people have started
to look for value in the crevices of ownership...
but i don't understand the smart-phone
clinging... i said crevices i didn't imply
a ******* ball & chain...
                            a crease in a shirt,
the fact that -1 feels a lot warmer on a dry night
than +5 on a wet night...
                 i'll still fall asleep today
thinking that money has is infected with
a parasitic entity,
after all... not even money, is beyond
illness...
                 if money corrupts,
it would seem only sensible that
the first thing to be corrupted, would be the thing
that corrupts...
    money made sense, once upon a time...
   it truly did...
           now all it resembles is spare change,
or the fact that, once upon a time,
you would be deemed mad when
finding a £20 banknote on the street,
as i have done.
Joanie Poston Feb 2013
I aim to please
But I feel I won't succeed

I want to win this war
Deep within my core

This is my fear
at unease
As I try to please
This is what I want you to hear

I tell myself not to surrender
I feel like this is pure failure
Inefficiency in this adventure

I don't write this just for the trend
I write this only to pretend
That with these words I shall be on the mend

I feel so overwhelmingly selfish ungrateful
and these actions against myself so shameful

As I pull and I tug at these sleeves know that I am not harmed
So please, please don't be alarmed

For I am selfish and ungrateful
and just your average stereotypical
Self couscous girl
girl that is ever so cynical
Who writes
to
hide her world


I will deny  
That its all one big lie

and no one, no one will ever know
So take this shovel and bury this deep, deep down below
My bones are outside my body
Replaced instead by a collection of wires
Electricity coursing alongside my nerves
A sloppy circuit
My limbs jolting just out of rhythm
I am wired

My heart must be beating fast
A peculiar conundrum as I can not feel the movement
within my chest
I am wired

A mile a minute, a minute a mile
My brain moves
Thoughts nearly incoherent
but still hanging on to that last strand of sense
I am wired

Shock.Beat. Thought.
Terror of stillness
of possible inefficiency
My bones gone
I will have no indication of being
I won't last
I am wired
J Patrick H Mar 2013
It's late at night when you realize she's not the one you loved,
or anyone for that matter.
It's late at night when your mind,
a towering serpent of indecision and malnourishment,
a rushing stream of water from the broken end of a fire hydrant,
tearing through steel and ice cubes that litter a middle age class of numeral reunion,
discover the over-keyed lock where metal bends and screams.

Covered in flies and rice,
it retains its bondages, exchanging freedom for self-loathing,
*****-dying in single file,
a honey-gilded tune not thrice too soon.

I seek the corridor where my true love will wait for me,
breathing me in, yet the cane of a blindman.
A clopping corridor, sleek and cobblestone,
artificial and vast, astral.
My true embrace will be that cold one of death, knocking at my door,
pleading my friendship,
sapping from me ***** and calloused hands.

A wet kiss on the nose, a reddened tongue.

I don't know the latitude of my existence.
I can't feel the reality of my throat,
of the gushing and the breathing of winds,
blocking the eternal stream of air.
The currents broke, and from within blew a heavenly melody,
that pierced cold ears boundlessly.

Again, that same street.
Lit faintly from above and from the participants in its ritual.
They burn the wax together.
And they sink,
O paradox!
Together, with their victories of mental triumph,
they recede further into torment and inefficiency,
quantified and numerical,
arrange themselves by merit and consequence.

Again, they sink and plummet and fall,
deeper into wonder and beauty.
Until it abandons them and spills over the edges,
splattering the circumscription,
dabbing alligator skin and sunglasses.

Inspecting the damage done,
he lifts from within its belly a tattered and worn skull,
that of a Man, no less.
Rusting in the desert, alone and among his gods,
bone-dry plains and dunes of dust,
rumbling agelessly the shaken scared earth.
tread May 2011
The send and receive signal is blinking,
And the single mind is syncing to the altered pose of the twinkling stars above,
Via the screen and LED beams that stream into the seams of your consciousness.

Your brain is blessed,
Yet lacks the zest of wisdom once residing in your soul;
Outdated like coal, the role of the toll booth is old and invalid,
Like the side-dish of salad,
Replaced by the rancid infection of fast food,
What a bad mood society must be in.
You may die of respiratory inefficiency,
But you've got me to inform your next of kin.

You're not as blind as I would like you to be,
Yet you don't see as clearly as is necessary,
So I'm wary of your willful ignorance, as it's frightening and malignant,
Yet the signals sent don't pay my rent so I vent by waiting on Clark Kent to save the day,
He's on his way, right, Sir Gawain? Right, brave knight? Sir knight? Am I right?

Irrelevant,
So, for the hell of it,
I descend into a hedonistic viewpoint stuck in a pit,
Of what I call economically unsound wit;
Perhaps a writ of notice regarding my upcoming eviction,
They punish those who find pleasure in a lack of plight,
and claim their sanity is out of sight;
Well, ******* too,
I'll stage a coup so you can be you, through and through.

Please, freedom;
I need you to unlock the cages at this human zoo,
Because the free of us are too few,
And the few of us are who?

Speak up.
For the love not of God, but of life, speak up.
svdgrl May 2014
Behind the traffic of thought
the type that creates
tracks along desire lines
tires screech in frustration
that got me
nowhere close to discovery
i began realize there is a presence
within the whisper
of the windshield wipers
buzzing in inefficiency-
reminding me
that it doesn't matter if i'm
stuck behind a line of slow cars
honking in patterns of unrest
the rain will always wipe away
to reveal a bit of clarity
in my direction
and though it is only feet- inches?
there is movement.
and every time we're on the road
together
there is company.
and as long there isn't any red
or blue lights flashing nearby,
we can try to smile and enjoy the ride.
This is my fiftieth poem posted on this website. This is the most I've ever written in such a short time I believe I joined in February and writing fifty poems since then is a pretty big accomplishment for me. Thanks for the inspiration all of you.
Charlie Hazels Nov 2016
The greyness will not go
From my mind, from the world
A dome of haze surrounds this troubled town
Dense, thick, ****** into the ground and out to the sky
From my soul, from the world
I'm not so far from sitting with the wild eyed vagrant
Watching all hope walk away
From my heart, from the world
A cruel twist of fate this is- when it began
Troubles came from a solution
From my pocket, from the world
Thanks to inefficiency, from the privileged
I have no food coming
From my hand, from the world
Dreams of warmth and meagre luxuries
Seem so distant, so impossible
From my head, from the world
If I can't survive this month on air
I shall go from my home
To the street, to the world.
Vassana M Dec 2012
The inefficiency, an inferiority complex born
In reluctance to have such hideous skin worn
Every centimeter here, rough to the touch
And hands far worked that feel too much

Thighs of quakes thick, calves of thunder strong
When the proportions are just all so wrong
These collar bones aren't quite prominent enough
With cheeks too pallid of which easily blush

Shoulders broad, freckled and shyly too wide
The lack of a smile on the right and left sides
Scarred ****** features and a grimacing grin
Between the imagination and I, I never win
Jaymisun Kearney Oct 2013
Once more return to the place of hate, hot with the warmth of the womb still after decades, receding like always into the presumed delirium held in that head of yours--but it's both the head and the heart that have ever boiled blood and pried tears and forced seclusion and withdrawal, and continue. Continue through the threshold keeping hidden decay at bay from the world of the waking, unnatural wooden floors keeping hidden the past inefficiency of care in your wrinkled hands, failing to the strength of the stench filling each passage and room in mist. I'm feeling now the way I felt for every instance within the walls. Towering over me when I close my eyes is the memory of the life I somehow saved and though living thoroughly broken beyond conventional means of disrepair, the despair now pales to the nightmare pressed angrily into the backsides of these eyelids. Days like print turned burning script against the black hole that might otherwise be home and sanctuary and ward to the intricate and frightful realities of the outer world, days that wind away and then back in dead drop and ascent that has not yet failed repetition, because of an inability to nurture nature that stemmed more from apathy and disinterest than any real shortcoming. Each time the world begins to end with the potential crashing sound of bone and flesh driving through the depths of the vacuum to pass through solid asphalt and concrete, I wake and the world flips. The trip to your bedroom sheds light on all the others, where once slept two souls aimless and needy, now sleeps decay that you began breeding from the spores formed in their lungs. Cats eyes like lightning slice through the mind as I wander your dark halls to the end where I myself fail at opening the door. I can't breathe. I can't look. I leave. There are things worse than the fragments of mind I clutch desperately as blankets under the Winter sky. What waits looks bad but I'll go if it's smiling or screaming. You. You can die in your numbered hole.
Dr PRERNA SINGLA Oct 2015
“I saw the lovely smile on your face
A memory I always embrace
Silently through the bars of that door
I would watch you all so more
Dreaming to be a part of your life
Propose with a rose, make you my wife
And I think how I would?
Though not on the knee, on a wheelchair I could.
I can love you more than anybody
If at all you can see
Beyond my physical inefficiency
If my soul you fancy
Instead of my broken vessel
I will win over all hassle
Only for your love my love
Only if you are with me my dove
How do I tell the fears my flaws bring?
My inabilities from summer to spring
But not a burden on your being
I will love you as my queen
For once come fall in love with my soul”
She heard what he uttered as a whole
Kissed him on his lips
“I love you no matter the broken ship”
Smiled and later married the two
Love stories are many, rare a few.  
                                       © Dr. Prerna Singla, 27 MAY, 2015
Kush May 2017
Our brave new world has turned remarkably cold
There is no place for inefficiency among the looming towers
Religions have been replaced with the worship of screens
Charms have been supplanted by tungsten and lithium

One by one, metropolises fell to “necessary” modernization
I consider a certain member of these abaddons as my unfortunate home
The city’s structures stand like monoliths, without luster or familiar name
A place surely dredged from the deepest hell of mankind’s achievements

Mechanical arachnids skitter across streets on continuous patrol
their silver claws and whirring sensors passively click and scan
We’ve no longer needed any member of sentient life to protect us
Apparently, that was a task more suited for our heartless creations

Any soul residing in the world has become artificial
emotions, dreams, and identities discarded and digitized
Former humans are now composed of more metal than meat
They tread with measured steps and a uniform lack of expression

I breathe the heavy clots of air through my visor and flip a few pages
Long ago, this ancient relic came to my unsuspecting attention
It held secrets of organisms that ran rampantly among landscapes
Old Terra’s fertility sprang out from yellowed paper

There is one creature that I found especially endearing
It endured the harshest of the world's conditions, as I do in mine
It was the deadliest of its kind, as I am among peers
I bestowed my home with the creature’s striking moniker

Now and forever, I live in the city of Taipan
the perspective of a cyborg; A taipan is a species of highly venomous snake
Lin Cava Jun 2016
Theodore Roosevelt –

Teddy ceased to walk this earth, benefactor to his beloved Nation, valiant in his service to his country, his family and the family of Americans, on January 6, 1919.

During his remarkable life he never wavered in his support of America – these United States, and Americans.  Were it not for Teddy, there would be no National Preserves or parks.

He had much to say.  So sage was his insight that it retains universal relevance to this day.

Sadly, we have no modern day Teddy to set things right; there is so much to address, and so little time to meet the challenges.  I fear we have adopted a timidness of heart that would be a foul countenance for this President to see.

What follows are some of his words.  See if you do not agree that they remain relevant words of wisdom, to this day.  Teddy is gone for 96 years.  How I would love to see another like him at the helm.



“Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainly that class's own worst enemy.”



“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.”

“Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.”

We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin.  But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.

-Theodore Roosevelt - January 3, 1919 - Publicly read on January 5, 1919

Roosevelt passed the next day, January 6, 1919



“Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.”



And, wouldn’t this apply to the keystone pipeline? –

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”

“Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.”

*

“In foreign affairs we must make up our minds that, whether we wish it or not, we are a great people and must play a great part in the world. It is not open to us to choose whether we will play that great part or not. We have to play it. All we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill.”

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American. We have room for but one flag, and that is the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

“In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.”

Presidential thoughts and on leadership…

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss ... The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

“The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

Yes, he had a lot to say.  Not everyone can agree on everything.  But, I am sure that Teddy would have rather a person support their position, firm in the knowledge of the situation, when not in agreement, than go along meekly, unwilling to effect change.
Our Politicians, by and large, have become what our founders intended that they NEVER become - De-facto Royalty.  They are our nations royals, holding themselves above those they are purported to represent.
The are so much so above us that they exempt themselves from laws of the land that we must abide.  They refuse to represent the people in seeking solutions for the good of the country and obscure that with making ovations to "be inclusive" of special interests.  What is good for one, is good for all - no longer matters, as our representatives have taken the power we gave them and twisted it.
Far to few to make the difference, those who would not conduct themselves as if a class above the People are unable to overcome.
I grew up on Long Island, not far from Teddy's house.  My son and grandsons call it just that - Teddy's house.  They have visited, played and learned there.  Though I was born long after he left this world, Theodore Roosevelt touched my life - in fact, all of our lives.  Strange that I should so miss someone I never knew.
Irate Watcher Oct 2014
Arcs of electricity
crackle above streets.
Fields of inefficiency;
noise of power lines
taser misery.
All I crave is silence.
All I crave is silence.
But please don't silence me.
kierra Jul 2017
you continue on the outermost experience of stimuli
consuming with poor digestion, your surrounding world
you continue on the premise of emotion and nothing more,
no analysis, no insight, you exist as a simpler species than
those who do analyze, are insightful and it is only negative because
you are inefficient and infectious in your inefficiency, less energy is
required to live as you do but you are not progressive, you do not offer
this human species anything but a vector for dna, an avenue to perpetuate;
and you are this way by choice -- you possess potential to have potential
but you do not engage and in consequence, you are ignorant and malignant
to our human species and perhaps I am a misanthrope or perhaps I am a
realist but you will only hinder the most capable of us unless you cease to
continue on the outermost experience of stimuli; you are inefficient with the
potential, a resounding potential, for efficiency and if only you would wake from
this superficial condition our species would gain advantage in survival but I
suppose it is irrational to wish for such things, as we are inherently flawed and

perhaps our concentrations should not be on perpetuating the human species
but rather giving rise to an organism more evolutionarily advanced -- more efficient;
more perfect.
Philosophy on present day societal norm of functioning without thought.
You see them
—ravishing in their chosen craft and marvelous before your sight
Resplendent creatures born from the union of fabricated thoughts and witty artistry
Tantalizing celestials that grow larger,
making you feel like you're engulfed in their searing arms—
branding you with marks of inefficiency

You look down
—unsure of your own atrocious behavior and crude mimicry
Revolting are you, you believe with utmost conviction and undying self-loathing
A carnal wanton of jealousy,
insisting that you will never share the same grandeur as them—
and you miniscule yourself

You stand center stage,
—on a platform where an audience could only ridicule you from below
Unnerving is their unmerciful criticisms to your lithe skill of transformation
******* savages are they,
when oceans of daggers spill forth from their mouths—
prepared to plunge into shame

but this feeling you have in your chest,
that distinguished bass filled tune
is unmistakably and undeniably,
*Unrehearsed.
Read more of my works on: brixartanart.tumblr.com
Ignatius Hosiana Jun 2016
Did you know that gold is dug and washed out of muck?
You miss a lot attaching so many strings
for the so many terms attached and conditions
just limit the talent you are likely to capture
As an intending or a yet to be business consultant
I honestly believe the inefficiency we see is resultant
and consequent to the boxes we create
thereby numbing the personnel our recruiting and selection curates
Don't get me wrong on this but even if I had a first class
I would not find joy being an employee to such an employer
seldom do our results show our capability
especially in the developing nations where our results
are usually subject to lots of questions
What I mean is I would grudgingly take up such jobs
where aspects like a master's degree is an added advantage
for to me I believe in the semi skilled, degrees and diplomas being vintage
this being the main reason I might take up a job to manage the HR
to prove to the world that today's academia doesn't define who we are
I'm not saying that if a company hires me I'll hire failures
No, all I'm saying is sometimes extremes are dangerous
like Wilde put it, too much is as bad as too little
Let's put away these archaic and very conservative measures
and emphasise aspects like talent and character strength
Not every good medical student obviously becomes a good surgeon
not even do good literature scholars turn into good authors or poets
We have to start realising that some go to places to survive
we seldom choose the places we end up in but endure to be alive
We need to be better employers to find better employees
in my company, the papers will not be as vital
as the man in the suit, let's not take life as a bible
especially in the business world where things often go strange
those greater than us adopted the basics for that was their change
we shouldn't keep walking in their footprints
We can find jungles and propagate our own path
leave our prints and set pace for the fresh dynamo to power generations
A million employers are going to miss me because of such rigidity
I've been a mediocre business student and I admit
I could not hit the pinnacle of preset peak for I had my limits
but I'm going to be one of the greatest transformers of my time
You can take this for pride or just another rhyme
someday these so called egocentric first class employers
will hire me to enlighten their classic fraternity
on the different ways we the open minded weave
our learned with the inborn to function as an entity
so to my would be employers... do not fall for the anchor heavy vitaes
neither should you be fooled by the experienced suits and ties
I'll come to knock clad in my miserable second hand shirt
with dusty shoes, with my collar sweat marred with dirt
but beware there's always more to every story than told by the cover
don't be hood winked to go picking like you'd choose a lover
to leave out the seemingly ugly asset for **** liabilities
cause those predefined sample spaces omit so much abilities
destroy the box,set no boundaries to let every sailor try out their luck
business is a Sea with so much in the uncharted to see
we risk fazing out boundaries but the essence of business is ecstasy
we ain't experienced but carry a flame denied to some used embers
whose blaze can fuel success in the egoistic business chambers
We can't stick to ancien methodologies to castrate the bull
for we can set up our own modern and operational dominion
no hard feelings, I'm just an enthusiast airing his opinion
Peace, straight outta the Makerere business school.
Anderson M Jun 2017
Most if not all forms of government have hot on their heels
A litany of “life-snapping” ideals
No wonder most of them flounder in self-created
Thickets of inefficiency and are easily “distracted”.
of governments at the helm of ungovernable situations.
Zack Apr 2018
it's quite akin to anxiety
the product of crude society
bastardized, perverted piety
leaves you useless, sitting quietly

Be judged for inefficiency
contradicting proficiency
pesters the mind malignantly
wasting time, effortlessly

The emptiness, magnanimous
to further destruction and not less
travels fast, as if poisonous
rules the mind with an iron fist

just goes to show that motive
must be forever be promoted
if a day comes full and bloated
of nothingness, its hopeless

For here exists no escape
no medics to resuscitate
beware its woeful, siren way
when trapped, you surely dead, will lay
Ken Pepiton Jun 2019
to live happy where I live,
one must believe
that squirrels are no problem and
weeds are flowers that last longer
than those from the grocery store
and crows only sing in choirs for a joke,

all musty beliefs,
whose aroma lifts me and leaves me
among other worthy ideas that hang
with those
musty beliefs
when I notice being happy, after
suffering
the inefficiency of evil,
this day, enough, a sufficiency
of failure
every day,
to staunch my pride from damming
living waters flowing from
the kingdom within to
this rest of the world I partake in
as the joke the crows were singing of.

(You are so vain. ) What a line.
I thought the song was about me,
that line, anyway.
My thirst quenched, gentle breeze from the west. A zephyr I'd say were I specific, at the moment.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2017
this is the part where you unlearn something
you've been told to learn,
much like a clapping-monkey
unlearning the clapping mechanisation /
"coping mechanism", and learning
to tap your feet...
      but unlearning is just like learning from
an early age -
       it's another learning format -
although: if original learning be a sine
trigonometric curve -
         then unlearning is a cosine
trigonometric curve -
   when it comes to the tan?
off the charitable map of endeavours:
the selfish construct of enlightenment:
off the charts pompous *******:
   memes, maxims, yada yada blah blah boo.

****, i'm starting to sound like a chinese sage...

mind you: you know why people fear
immortality,
   and why the concept of an after "life"
is so ridiculous?
   for one, people fear immortality because
it's unnatural, but at the same it becomes
"natural" by technological advancement...
we already know there's a death sentence,
the shadow of death looming over us,
stalking us...
     we fear immortality as much as we fear
death... why? the inefficiency of memory,
or rather the ontology of memory -
and yes, it's right to apply ontological inspections
of each and every, recognisable faculties
we like to call: dreaming, thinking,
   imagining, memorising etc. et al.
but the fear of immortality sometimes
   leaves us more apprehensive with the death itself,
after all, death is life per se -
  and why wonder? so much is happening
in the world prior to and after the final signature
that it's obviously annoying to take to
discussing the post scriptum of death,
esp. when it's plagued by religious imagery,
pearly gates, revisiting the garden of eden,
a simple automated non-imagination worthy
abyss... too much is already in motion,
     try describing a train at rest to people
who are on a speeding train, with no brakes...
you will always look and sound ridiculous...
it's just, plain **** pointless...
the arguments you allow yourself to regurgitate
have no real foundation...
   so you give vectors, a kippah,
a crucifix, a prayer matt...
   eternity has only one obligation worthy of
being allowed an utterance:
                            shut up! & sit still!
    
the best way to perpetuate mortality
is to stop fearing death -
i don't know where these past 10 years
have gone, but there's a 13K number
of poems to match my bewilderment...
it's not a statement of awe,
   bewilderment is more: huh?!
rather than the expression of awe: ah!

we see it though, in the old,
   memory is the biggest problem concerning
a belief in: life, immortal.
why? we're so ****** clingy -
we might as well have 99% relation
to leeches (given our ontology of memory)
than 99% of chimp...
    chimps carpe diem our ***** all the time...
you say boo! they go wow!
and then return to the lack of self-conscious
blank stare of a quasi-comatose stare:
eating just fruits and vegetable,
they soon resemble the blank stare -
vegetable consciousness, wide-awake,
but without the notion of self -
   pardonable, as a reflection trapped in
a mirror; kinda like a photograph;
as the saying was back when the selfie epidemic
wasn't rife:
     take a picture; it'll last longer;
and how many times i walked up to a mirror,
looking into it, trying to not spot my reflection?
i guess the first lesson in directing movies:
fudge-pack that 3rd person narrative angle
where you become vampiric;
swedes ought to know, they're the most angle
obsessed movie artists known to man.

yeah... we imagine the after "life", terrible mistake...
i hate imagining such a concept -
i'm worried that the real "to come"
     is really a matter of "what's worth to forget"?
tis a fine balance, between treating memory
of a hoarding vacuum,
   and just letting it do it's own focus of interest,
i.e.? leaving it to unconscious mechanisation:
the sort of mechanisation that brings up
matthias' warehouse...
             the warehouse of the many boxes
of philosophy's short-script denoted by per se;

thank **** i'm out of plato's cave,
oh, but wait... i'm in a warehouse... greeeeet!
(like any scot might say).
Raven Sep 2022
The disturbance, constant eyes and mouths chattering as I move, live, do, achieve, prosper and work.
What is it?
My energy? My drive? My determination? My  ambition?
Does my empowerment and goal driven personality threaten you?
Does my limitless knowledge and thrill to learn make you feel stupid?
Does my hot body and love for exercise make you feel ugly?
Does my enthusiasm to achieve and gain my dreams and goals scare you?

What is it? Because while I am out here working myself to the top, you wasting the last cent you have on your need to sustain.
Stagnency, inefficiency, and unproductivity is not in my name or my blood line.
My mother made it to the top, and I am a product of just that. We have the earth running in our veins, the fire burning in our souls, the water rummaging beneath where the ignorant are too afraid to lurk.

DOES MY POWER THREATEN YOUR LACK OF MOTIVATION AND LACK OF PASSION?

DO YOU LOVE/HATE ADMIRE ME BECAUSE YOU WISH YOU HAD THAT SAME CONFIDENCE?

It's all in me, best believe, God is a ****** woman, and the Devil is too.
My late grandmother was a Capricorn
My mom's a Virgo
And I am a Taurus

We are earth and we run this *****
Leprof Apr 2020
I will give Credit to my creator,
Without him I am but subject to the "Terminator"

My cogitation blurs,
I cry as my heart scars,

Blasphemy eked by men,
Inefficiency Kowtowed then,

I beseech thee to Ooze not,
Lethal sentiments
"Without him I am nothing"

Hush, HE is and forever will be,

Exasperate HIM not,
analyzing "without Him we are nothing".Someone may,or may not,
make this statement as a servile attempt to please Him.That is in itself good;it's giving all due credit
to GOD.But that statement is at best inefficient,and atworst blasphemous.It is attempting to
**** GOD by introducing a logic level that doesn't exist-without Him.God is,and forever,will be.We are
starting the long processof getting to without Him,for what the mind can conceive it can achieve.
The result is whoever makes that statement leaves GOD in a catch22.He is left wondering whether to
be happy or give you a smack on the face.
pineliquor Jun 2019
I cannot digest.
I consume the mandatory text, sometimes
spoonful, sometimes in chunks
my daily verbal diet.
But my swallows remain shallow, and my mind
works not as a sponge,
but a sieve that pours.
Inefficiency saturated.
Passing seconds of a shortening shelf-life
tick-tick-ticking, a hardwired bomb handed down
A worn dream that cages young minds
(the myth)
But my young mind dreams, of my judgement
Hardening up with every word they feed me,
I want to sum up human history, to know, to see
(Knowing it to be a luxury)

(Yet the sharpness of wit
is too fine an accessory to fit
on a body that aches, that creaks on sprint runs
that overflows with bruised sentiments and salt)
And yet,
Michael Marchese Feb 2020
Yelling at cows
To communicate
Don’t
It’s the nothing to eat
And the nothing
You won’t
It’s illiterate faith
In a written conviction
Submission
To sheepishness
Meek superstition
Conditions of living
Look closer to death
It’s traditions
Of giving
Largesse
Dispossessed
It’s a kid without shoes,
Without pants,
Without soap
It’s his future
Still stuck
In the past
Without hope
It’s a rope
Swaying from
The back-breaking
Day labor
When seasonal yields
Don’t appease
The slave trader
It’s nature sustained
In humane
Sorts of ways
Yet its plagues
Of malaise
No known substance
Allays
It’s ablaze
With the wasted,
Mismanaged,
Degraded
Potential surpluses
From scarcely
Translated
Inveterate cultural norms
Antiquated
To progress outpacing
Its status updated
It’s really just sad
In explicit
Indignity
Vapid morasses
Morose
In its imagery
Lacking in prose
Like its tax inefficiency’s
Masses of *******
Classless delinquency
Crassly harassing
All those it sees differently
Yes just
Synonymous with
A simplicity
Virulent in
Its immuno-deficiency
Phil Feb 2021
August 2 2016. Just another day. Just another call. No warnings to slow or stop.
So from where did they come? Those terrifying demons. That lit my body from ‘toe to top’?
Surging waves of burning. They set the firestorm in my head...
For thirty-six hours those demons raged. Left me breathing but mentally wrecked.

Now thirty-six months of chemical intervention.
No medical breakthroughs. Just my self reinventions.
Mental confusion. Emotionally fragile. Sleep; Avoid the pain.
Adapt and manage. Rebuild my life. Learn how to ‘dance in the rain’.
The difficulty of being damaged on the inside? From the outside there’s no sign.
But the anxiety within. Brings panic and failure. Messing-up, time after time.

Question follows question. Tell me again. And again. What’s your problem with mental health?
Well sorry, not sorry, that I can’t explain to You, what I don’t understand myself.
Close friends. Family that matter. My wife (my strength), who still loves me the same.
They don’t push for answers. They’re there to support me. Over and over again...

The demons drew me down. But it was ‘Them’ who near erased me.
But dug too shallow a grave. To lay me out. Cover Their own inefficiency.
Twenty-eight years then. Counting for nothing. I’m a problem. Forget any history.
Legal assistance. My own fading strength. We fought Them all the way. A small yet decisive victory.

Down but not out. To go again. But with much less mental agility
A whole new experience. Out on my own. Looking for help through the instability.
“You’re gone, retired, no contact now”. A freedom in being cut loose.
But the ‘right to review’ is scribed in terms. Seems I still can’t slip the noose.

Twitter. A crutch. Succinct & concise. Has truly unearthed some gems.
Drawbridge up. Safe. In my own little bubble. Content with my ‘virtual friends’.
These props online. Or from the bottom of an ever-emptying glass.
Both support me fine, & help. Yet aren’t prescriptions, written to last.

To fall to This was never an option. Yet still I’m here ‘giving it time...’
Finding a way to cope again. Reconfiguring heart & mind.
So yes, still mentally challenged. Still emotionally fragile. Still sleeping; Avoiding the pain.
Still adapting. Still rebuilding my life. Still learning to ‘dance in the rain’.
But I’m clawing back. To ‘live’ again. Not just exist, seeing out ‘day-to-day’.
My mantra: “To live - and not to breathe - would be to die in tragedy”

— The End —