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So many politicians here in
My well-beloved-and-endowed country
Ought about to be donning
A dunce's cap for their foolery.
That we are still as a well-blessed nation
And especially in this 21st century
Here--when many with determination
Have been leaping forward in prosperity
Of their country's soul, body and mind,
Advancing in different walks of life;
While we're yet groping, straining to find
Like a drunk the orifice of his wife--
Is shameful. Amenities are a far cry;
The well-being of the populace be yet
Poor; maternal mortality rate is high,
Besides other diseases that cause death.
Politicians vain many a title flattering
Love, as well as to be singing their praises
For doing and achieving less than nothing,
When plenty souls daily poverty dire face.
To other well-marshalled countries do travel
They and see how things there be better run.
I, like many, wherefore do often marvel,
Why they can't situation around goodly turn.
The monies in Nigeria that are  being looted
Be beyond sufficient to fix the decaying
And nonexistent infrastructures. Well rooted
Is corruption, the chief cause of our pains harrowing.
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.
agatha Dec 2021
on some days water would fall down
in heavy buckets; ravaging the hungry earth
stricken— a wave of drought.
the tiny specks of life swimming along
the expanse of the universe would
scatter to have a taste of the heavens
and quench the need of being human.
some would build infrastructures
as great as  lunar craters
to catch every miniscule drop
that comes from the sky,
only to keep it in their possession,
never to see another ray of light.
those who have an abundance
seem to have a hard time giving—
hands formed into fists uncaring.
what can be gripped, cannot be taken away.
in this water, there will be power.

what do the others do then?

in a morbid sense of camaraderie,
those who have their hands open, cupped,
palms facing the heavens,
can funnel grace into the palms
of another.

maybe this is where I will believe,
despite the flashes of greed and envy,
the kingdom of a god
will always belong to the poor.
the poorest have the most to give.
Brandon Mar 2012
Pharmacopoeias
Pseudo psychedelic phantasms
Kaleidoscopic deliriums
Mushroom acerbic cloud igniting
Truth denying exposition
Chemical makeup
Dressed to ****
From seed
To harvest
To market
To dinner plate
To grave
In wooden box decaying
Infatuations with infrastructures in frustration
Genetically modified bullets
BT Corn ripping organs
Exposing the explosion
Imploding on a sunny afternoon in March
Ants on the streets
Trampled by elephants’ ***** in the parade
Rats in slavery’s maze
Corporations’ corporate mandates
Sold out government conspiracy
To cover up the conspiracy of conspiracies
TV eyes ratted out you and yours
A fist-full of dollar bills
Some odd change to clink in the wishing well
Monsanto seeds die at plantation
Reincarnation of a deadly virus
Sow the soil and reap rewards of petulance pestilence
Marshal Gebbie Aug 2018
Calamitous collapse of structure forged
With steel and concrete built for time,
Since Roman times a formula endured
With engineers additional design.
Why, then, did this structure fail,
Did mortar crack, did reinforcing strong,
Shear and plummet in an instants time
To crush and doom this bridges song.

In teeming rain a  silence hung
Where watchers gaped in stunned awe,
A magnitude of devastation lay
Pulverized in valley floor.
Astonishing this expanse of space
Where seconds past, huge edifice,
Imbued with its’ charge of lives
Unknowingly to meet abyss.

Innocence has lost its’ life
Blame resounds around the room
Someone shall pay the price
For negligence in causing doom.
Truth be told it’s shared by all
For Italy has lagged behind
Cost cutting infrastructures’ purse
Because of economic bind.

Time to reassess the plan
Time to weep and bury dead,
Clear the rubble from the land
Rebuild well then forge ahead.
Blame not the engineer
Nor the man who drew design,
Blame not the hardhat
Who poured the concrete in the line.

Reassign the budget spend
To infrastructure, pay its share
For sentiment is running hot
To axe the fool who pares the fare.

M.
Storeman
Civil Infrastructure
Hamilton, NEW ZEALAND
This calamity is already impacting on construction projects and future design , cost and planning, worldwide. Risk is, very much, a major perilous factor in bidding and negotiation in the relationship between an infrastructure provider and buyer.
JR Rhine Feb 2017
…the dream sequence
plays like vaudeville
in the peephole
of a kinetoscope

my drunken subconscious thoughts
undulate in murky waters
and slurin the visions of specters past

infrastructures and pylons
formed from childhood homes schools
skate parks friend’s houssand churches

faces familiar unfamiliar
mold and mend in wicked contortions
and diaphanous ambiguity
what obfuscates me from the truths
of my mind

I stumble through the chambers
haunted by childhood nightmares
and tickled by ancient fantasies

my arms
               and legs
                             are like
                                          rubber
           ­                              I
                                 feel
                  torpidity
overcome

and the words
are like alphabet soup
in the director’s commentary
splashing around aimlessly mingling
in the waves of broth

what will be revealed
in this phantasmagoric phenomena
wax figures coming to life
and panoramas dancing on the walls

my body somewhere in time
waits with pen and paper in hand
eager to counter the façade
with the utmost coherence

just you wait til I wake up
and reveal all your secrets
oh wondrous mind…
Andre Baez Jul 2013
WRITERS BLOCK, WHY CAN'T I SPEAK?

I've been thinking lately,
But the thing is, it's only thinking,
Speaking is becoming a rarity,
Because my voice has lost clarity,
The visions that resonate deeply,
Within the iris and cortex are simply,
Pictures that I am painting,
Using only my imagination,
The same tool that had begun,
To rust, and mold, and decay,
Into a vast vortex of nothingness,
Which would hold and lead astray,
A positive being into malevolence,
But this is the set precedent,
Due only to those whom settle for it,
Because complacency,
Ruins whole communities,
But this community is not a hood,
This community also not a suburb
But a street that cannot be freed,
You cannot struggle through it,
While trying to feed your baby,
With old food bought via EBT,
It is a street without a name,
It doesn't go two ways,
It's not bi nor ****, it is multiple
Inter global, and international,
It is the spark that starts life,
Coos the fires that fuel dreams,
Fires that give off thermal energy,
But also spiritual energy,
As it rips and roars through,
Internally, within my body

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

I'm talking about the word of mouth,
The power of a piece of glass,
Falling deep into the depths, down
Sinking into darkness,
No longer shining, but reflecting,
Because shine comes from within,
But that light has dimmed,
And it has gone out into the world,
Searching for a new hymn,
Accompanied by a new tomorrow,
Because the glass had begun,
To shift it's drift in the middle,
And as it fell it only showed others,
It's supplanted it's own fears, tears,
In order to reveal to you, you
This revelation coming from sacrifice,
is suffice to entice,
A parallel mind to intertwine,
It's views and thoughts up a vine,
Becoming a great interconnect,
A train station for thoughts,
Not allowing for it to be kept inept,
As it makes it's stops and it's mark,
Across the universal plantation,  
Revolution will be fiercely fought,
Whether through riots or protestation,
it's all up to you,
But the wills of a collective group,
Will always overthrow the wills of a few,
for this is my temperate love,
Derived from my temporal lobe,
Occipital visuals are critical,
To reach a pinnacle that bares individuals,
that live reciprocal,
Towards ideals and ideas potential

I CAN'T MAKE CONTACT!

No one is hearing me, thoughtlessly
Because no one is listening,
This includes me, sadistically,
As I have yet to speak,
Due to the passages searched,
And a worth claimed of its worth,
My sandy grains will not form,
Together to create diamonds,
But will act more so as pollution,
"Why pollution when you haven't even spoken?"
This is the problem, it is not speaking,
Communication is a basic foundation,
Foundations form the largest infrastructures known to man,
Family, Business, Religion
And these are all inflamed by love,
Love of others, love of God, love of self,
it's this help that propels,
It propels lives forward,
and encourages the brave voices to be heard,
and act as many birds
To soar against the crushed sky,
To hold the thunder accountable lending more context to your content, the expressions expressed,
The words that flow like air conditioned through a vent,
A coup d'état that circumvents,
The issues, issues with my tissue,
Because the idea of not being able to speak... Makes my skin crawl

From the inside out

Moving between my legs,
Left, right
Moving between my sides,
Left, right
Moving between my arms,
Left, right

And finally falling from my mind,
Past my brown eyes,
To reach my throat then run,
And glide off of my tongue

Crushing your previous ideologies.
Blasting through your intuitions,
Destroying any technologies,
Devastating your direction

Words pass through me
Words enter through you
Worse pass through me
Words enter through you

The streets have shots
Well I have writers block

And at the moment,
I can't think
And at the moment,
I can't speak

I just want to know...
What's happening to me?
Ivan Brooks Sr Jan 2018
Indeed I was born in a s '''Hole  country
A royal citizen of Norway ,the world's best country
Whose citizens refused to come to a country
That elected an a '' hole to lead their country .

Donald Trump is right to call us s'''hole countries
Officials embezzle millions ,yet can't pay salaries
From dawn to dusk the people moan in anguish cries
Malnourished kids live with hunger disease and flies

African governments made their own homes s*holes
Look at the bad infrastructures bad roads and potholes
With all the natural resources our economies and financial woes
For the impoverished and gullible masses ,there are no hopes .

Let's not get angry at the dumb a''  President of America
But rather direct our discontents at our corrupt leaders in Africa
Who hides money in Swiss banks and vacations in Arabia
Africa,thou mayest not like this ,time to wake up from the coma !
Truth hurts but it helps...
Anais Vionet Apr 2024
I had lunch with Randy, between classes today. It was a perfect day. The sky was an infinite, capri blue, the wind was stirring the environment, clouds were wispy and on high - in the fast lane where they could rush along - and birds cruised, gliding with no need to flap. New Haven can’t seem to decide if it’s spring or not, we’ll get a nice day only to have it snatched back, like we proved undeserving.

We sat on the tight, golf-course-like grass that covers science hill. I had to ponytail my hair because it was whipping in the twisting, physical wind and we had to keep an eye on everything - cups, wrappers and our books - because the invisible air was a mischievous thief.

Randy’s a divinity doctoral student. He was one of Peter’s (by bf) friends, originally, until I stole him for myself. They were roommates at Doc-House, a large, frat-like residence shared by doctoral students doomed to poverty by meager stipends. I like to hang with him when we can, he’s delightful and insightful, in a bitterly funny way.

He’s another chain smoker - what is it about divinity students and cigarettes? (They’re in a hurry for heaven?) He reminds me of Toby Mcguire, he’s 5’ 7” with an indoor, ashen complexion and dark brown hair that can’t seem to decide which way to point. He always wears a black mock-turtleneck shirt, jeans and sneakers. He never swears and side-eyes me when I do (which, admittedly, is too much). Usually, we hash-out the news of the day - or argue about practically anything, for fun. I think he should give up God and write comedy.

Randy was eating an over-mayonnaised chicken salad sandwich on French bread and chain-smoking - so I made him sit downwind of me. He was worried about a small, ‘filler’ seminar he took this year. He was flaming-out cause he really had no time for it - but it was the last credit he HAD to have to graduate.
“You need to grovel and pay homage,” I observed, with cold, machine logic.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Propitiation,” I said, naming it.

“Professor,” I started, in a gravely, whiny, simulated male voice, “I’ve had a hard time this semester.. because I’m working on my thesis..”
“That’ll get it done,” he chuckled, “can you leave him a voicemail for me?”
“and like,” I laughed, “I love your class and you’re such an amazing professor.. but things got.. complicated.”
“Oh, complicated.” Randy groaned, “You’re a good ****-up,” he’d said, as if that surprised him, “when do you get to practice?”
“I’ve watched people ****-up,” I’d said defensively, “you just go all girly and helpless.”
“I doubt that would work,” he’d noted dryly, lighting another cigarette.

“You DO go to class, right?” I asked, my voice rising at the end.
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“Then he knows you,” I assured him.
“I just didn’t do some of the assignments,” he’d confessed mildly.
“It’s a seminar,” I said dismissively, “I doubt he’s going to fail you.” “Hopefully,” he sighed.
“I mean, if he were going to fail you, he’d have sent you a message - an email or voicemail - right?” I reasoned, “A couple of weeks ago?”
“True,” he’d agreed, with a little twisty nod.

“You know Randy,” I began, giving voice to the hypothetical warning message Randy might have gotten, “You’re at risk of failing, we need to talk.”
“I check my voicemail,” he said, before I could ask.
“They don’t just ‘cap’ you out of the blue,” I said, using some mob lingo I learned from the Sopranos.
“Have you ever failed a class before?” I asked.
“No,” he assured me, the wind dispersing his fear pheromones.
“This is not a happy Sunday,” he’d admitted.

In the end he did ****-up and had to take a punishing, 2-hour, comprehensive (covering the entire year) test for extra credit, full of unit identities, dependency infrastructures and statistical projections.

He ended up with a “C” for the seminar. Now I suppose I’ll have to learn to call him ‘Dr.’ Randy.
.
.
songs for this:
Handbags & Gladrags by Rod Stewart
Melt by Nilüfer Yanya
Me & Mr. Jones by Amy Winehouse
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge: homage: an act of honoring someone or something.
David Ehrgott Apr 2016
An Open Letter to the Governor of New York
and the Mayor of New York City.

Dear Sirs,

Why is it, year after year, you two insist upon keeping the sales
of the miracle herb cannabis in the hands of criminals. Do you Not
know the infrastructures that so desperately need to be repaired
could be financed by a state and city sales tax of this wonder-kind plant.
But, no!  You keep letting criminals gain power by letting them have all the profits.  Dear sirs, please open your minds for a moment. A state and city run controlled cannabis operation would not only generate enough income for bridge and tunnel repairs but, also aid in the education system. Most important if you legalize the miracle herb, you could have the police concentrate on the larger problem which is 5th graders hooked on ****** for LIFE! If you cannot see the progress this would create then, you surely have kickbacks from criminals. Allowing these lowlife **** to continue to reap profits from illegal sales is just plain insanity and a criminal act in itself. Please stop giving criminals power. And concentrate on the Real issues.

Thank you in advance,

A Poet
Caleb Jaren Feb 2010
Melancholy midnight drones
circuits short fuse
dawn for the sleepless
residual caffeine headaches corporate spoil
masochistic colonies marching on
titanic glass and steel infrastructures
devoid soul
wasted
is there time for tomorrow?
Sirenes Feb 2017
There's a word in Finnish
To describe an intetion
That could be translated
Only by using a combination
Of several English words.
"Sisu" means to endure,
To presevere, to be dauntless
And infernally stubborn.

As I sit in this modern train
Feeling the rails below me,
I watch the snow
That gives everything around me
A softly curving silhouette.
The cold bites in to my lips
Yet it is compassionate
In its dryness
And never cuts me to the bone.

I listen to the language
That gave my mouth
It's sharp edges
And it's gentle caress.
As I stroll around
These streets that were build
By the bare broken hands
Of our suppressed forefathers,
I come to sense
It's deepest truth of who they were.

Our fathers build houses of wood
And cut railways in to solid granite.
These men and women
Build homes that could go up in flames
And infrastructures that could last generations.
We have always worked for the future.

I think of my brother's words...
didn't you memorize the land marks?
I did... and I realise
That in this country we survive
On our memory of how to get back home.
If you lose your way, you die.
If you get cold, you die.

But maybe what these
Children that were born and raised
Under the watchful eye of Sisu
Need to come to understand
That we are no longer
Fighting to survive...

We are fighting to allow
The warmth of our hearts
Come out through our lips
And become visible
Even to those who no longer believe
That we posess such heat.
Leon Hart Apr 2013
As with most men, it is easier for me to give hugs than to accept them,
Let the truth be known that men are nothing more than emotional skyscrapers,
built with glass infrastructures, spray painted the color of steel and nicknamed "Strength"

Strange, isn't it?

What walking contradictions are we called men...

Men are taught to colonize at the age of 5 through games like cops and robbers,
cowboys and indians
At the age of 8 we are given helmets and told to hit each other on the head with it,
Bleed but do not bleed,
Cut but do not cry,
Be a man, join the military,
Die for your country, and if death comes to you,
Look it in the eye and say:
Bring it on, mother-******, I fear nothing but intimacy.

When it comes to intimacy men quiver like fault lines, crumble like cities

What walking contradictions are we called men...

Men sign peace accords while abusing their wives,
Accept the Nobel Peace prizes while reducing health care,
Pledge to rid the world of terrorism while simultaneously denying government aid to any country that defends a woman's right to choose

During the 1970's the US government forcebly sterilized an estimated fifty percent
of the indigenous population of America's Mid-West telling them the process was reversible

Can you say biological terrorism?

In a global war against terror, maybe testosterone is the real terrorist
And if so, how many of these Star Spangled singing, flag waving citizens would
continue to do so If terror was not racialized, but gendered?

Would the US military turn its guns on itself for a *** trap across Southeast
Asia, Africa and the Americas?
Would MTV be firebombed for its subjectification, hyper-sexualization of our women of colored bodies?
Would we stop looking towards the muslim world for misogyny and instead
turn our sights to Madrid, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles?

And I understand my sisters when they say every woman has a story that's been told a maxim of one soul, maybe less
And that is why you'll never hear me call a woman ****, ***** or a ****,
No matter what she does, because I do not blame her
I blame the men who have emotionally and physically ***** her,
I blame these corporations whose images tell them they hate her,
And I put my arms on her shoulder and tell her how great to life and
to God that SHE created her

Men, take note, this is how you give love,
This is how you receive hugs.
Press flesh to flesh till breast crumple,
Like emotional origamy.

                                   -Mark Gonzales
Why prove yourself?
I already trust you.
Your experience is valid

Reality is always justified.

You are a scientist,
of your own life process

You are a cartographer,
of your metaphysical landscapes

You are an architect,
for your neumenological infrastructures

And now you exhale
the culture of your Force.
Quickly the fluttering dwarves ignite
Kamikaze sneeze.
Infect me with your objectivity.
Drizzle me in
mammalian warp.
Now that people are becoming more aware of my poetic efforts, interests are being expressed regarding the background of my poetry - in addition, to my spiritual muse. In this installment, I briefly look at the crucifixion of Christ - an event central to the core beliefs of Christianity. This poem was composed in February 2007, in anticipation of that year's celebration of Resurrection Sunday (Easter).

If I were relegated to a single television channel, it would be the "History Channel". It's amazing to witness the variety of programming on this one station; I love the many shows presented, especially "The Building of an Empire" series. Learning about the struggles of mankind, whether against people, weather or circumstance, is truly fascinating to me. Seeing ideas and concepts from the Egyptian and Roman empires really touch my spirit, having causally learned about them throughout "The Word" in various Bible pasages. To see the re-eanactments of cultures, coupled with their accomplishments and reasonings, creates "paradigm shifts" in my thinking and increases my ability to learn and retain new information.

At a young age, I taught myself to recognize lessons from others' experiences, which can be categorized as: good, bad or neutral. We all know that life can be hard; however, times during the Roman civilization was outright brutal. The Persians were the first group of people to practice crucifixion, a torture methodology improved upon by the Romans, after learning about it from the Carthaginians. Part of the Roman culture was the ideal of efficiency. Although they are notorious for their bloodsport, as witnessed by the cruelty displayed in the games of the Coliseum, the Romans were in the business of building an empire. However, in order to support their culture, they needed and wanted productive citizens. After all, productive citizens can be taxed and the money is then used for constructing the infrastructures required to support society (in general). So the Roman government used the cruelest method of torture available for one simple reason - to stop and prevent crime against its citizenry.

In the Word, we are instructed that the ways of Jehovah 'are higher than our ways'. With God's ability to transcend time and His wisdom surpassing the knowledge of our own revelations, we will always be behind Him in our understanding of this World. Meanwhile the preaching of The Cross is considered to be foolishness by those who reject the gift of Salvation. However, given the current explosion of earthly knowledge, it's interesting to look back at history with understanding recently achieved. [Please note: I'm not going into the gory details of crucifixion; others have provided more qualified details on this subject. Nor will I focus on who killed Him. So, it's "safe" to continue reading...]

One of the facts regarding the human body, is that we each (on average) contain eight pints of blood. The number eight has a spiritual significance, in that it represents the concept of "new beginnings", as first seen in Noah's ark. [Eight people were present - Noah, three sons and their four wives.] Also modern studies about crucifixion have shown that part of the stress the body endures is that the heart literally "breaks apart". So from my spiritual perspective, the death of Christ on the Cross is truly representative of a holy sacrifice, whereby the shedding of His innocent blood fully implies that a "new beginning" between God and Man has been initiated. In effect, Christ was the Earth's first blood donor when he was crucified - for He was wounded for the World's transgressions. His dying from a broken heart re-enforces the idea of God's continuing Love towards us, for Christ willingly and freely accepted His role to die on our behalf - in the worst possible way (known to mankind at that time). Concentrating on these concepts allowed me to create this effective poem, while I envisioned the irony of this one event (from heaven's perspective).
Silver Wolf Feb 2015
She's a withered flower
Frozen icicles taper from her nails
Smooth, delicate
Crystalline infrastructures
Encase her face in a sculpture
Her own glass prison of memory
Snowflakes feather her eyes
Glistening with melancholy
Tormented thoughts of a lost soul
She hangs heavy

Wing weighted with a harrowing defeat
Bones drag her body down
Under the darkest waters
Smoke fills her lungs
Choking her core
Her once graceful body
Moving  with the dance of night
Now paralyzed

Suspended in an icy grip
Her own demise
Of wanting
Pedro Tejada Jun 2010
From the ripple in a glass of water
to the sonic boom of this internal
Pompeii, the erosion
of her etymology is the only
sense of movement in her
dilated, cave-pupil eyes, those
two ghost towns spanning
and encircling all the way back,
stretched like an elastic blindfold
past the moment the first brick was laid,
perhaps her first vivid memory,
or anecdote, or first word uttered
in a Cuban slum.

There are mountains of tumbleweed
over the once thriving metropolis
that expanded towards America;
who threw herself into
the architecture of seven pillars,
borne from her land and
minerals. Gone are the
huts that housed her
knowledge of basic motor skills.

The women who once imagined
Mami and Mima as her birth
name now scrub off
the graffiti of her excrement;
they saw a swarm of pink moons
the day she told the same story
to every visitor that came
their way, each day then becoming
a missing surveillance tape, a sinkhole
dismantling the awareness
in her bones and stubborn will,
until she became
these dust-engulfed plains with
a daughter and granddaughter
archeological in their efforts
to chase down the remains
of a girl still breathing in
those eyes from time to time.

Every other ten-millionth blink of
the eye rides the silhouette of a post-infant girl
on the high tides of her quick visit,
looking in horror
as the nation of her life's nightmares,
heartaches, broken promises, romances,
spiritual breakthroughs, life-changing seconds
drowns with morbid unity en cien fuegos,
desperately attempting to assemble
the remnants of her psyche
past her cognitive bloodclots
with the awareness of one
who speaks no languages.

Gone is the moment
she first learned
to feed her several children
before the slip of sunset.

One of seven pillars remain intact,
the others long dismantled of their
stick and straw infrastructures.

One pillar remained,
housed her own colony
for nine months,
and now both descendants
travel the mind of their
greatest influence
with perplexed dedication,
caustic humor the decoy
for swarms of exhaustion
and asphyxiation
from the truthful atmosphere,
reveling in the seconds
of humanity lurking
in an abandoned etymology.
Omi Jun 2016
If I could impregnate myself with my tears
My children would be innumerable and divine
Delicate as the lilacs at my feet
And as giving as my mothers hands

My children and I would dance wildly to the sound of the shaking leaves
And laugh until we cried at the absurdity of the decaying frames of the eternal surrounding infrastructures

I would gather our collective tears and water my children
Careful to sift the salt and reserve just enough for future implantation

My babies would nest in the tight curls of my crown and I would rock them to sleep in the gentle curve of my lashes
Blinking slowly and steadily to ease the restlessness of their being

If I could birth my children from my ear
I’d rest my head on a pillow and never leave
I’d rest my head flat on the soft surface
Turning my head only slightly to the left to give a final shake
Releasing my babies from their sack

I’d let them snuggle against my cheek as I sang to them the songs of the old Gods
And the new
I’d warm them with heat of my breath and nourish them with the saliva of my tongue
I’d listen intently to their soft whispers inquiring about the beams of light seeping through the cracks of the walls
And
The vines sprouting through the floor boards and climbing pillars on the bed

If I could birth my children from the scrapings from under my fingernails
I’d tear at my flesh until there was nothing left but raw nerve and blood
I’d dress them in gowns made from the weaved patches of hair growing across my mons *****
And I’d make them sun hats from the shattered pieces of my toe nails

If I could sink into the soil and grow my babies from my decay
I’d sprout a row of sunflowers
And the many seeds in its ***** would be my youngins
They’d fall away one by one
Matured
And run off uninhibited into the spring

Little pieces of me
Drowning in the sunshine
Free
This poem is a work in progress
Stephen E Yocum Aug 2019
The whole world has PTSD,
brought about by watching
far too much TV.
Normal people becoming
neurotic or psychotic
by all the "Breaking  News".

Talking heads spewing fearful
endless chapters of dread,
all with their own ax to grind
into our heads, day after day
after day until we want to scream.
Real news or fake, impossible
to know the difference.

A political landscape strewn with
landmines of division and hate.
Melting Ice, and adverse weather,
hurricanes and tornadoes devastate
and forest fires burn, as racists and
terrorists abound at every turn,
and crazy's with military weapons
killing us for sport, just to make
the nightly news, as our nation's
infrastructures crumble into ruins,
all "Breaking News day and night",
while we and the world choke and
quiver from an excessive Carb diet
of information overload, trying to
sleep bathed in bad dreams, laced
with too many strong doses of PTSD.
When is enough, enough,
the saturation point reached?
We've no choice but to disconnect,
Stop letting all that stuff into our
heads. Switch off and take a walk,
hunker down with a good book,
tend the garden, hug our kids,
learn that less is more. But make
sure come next election, there is
a Political reckoning and a White
House cleaning and fumigation rendered.
Hot box a cigarette , sawmill gravy and country ham ,
Entrenched in the morning paper , dishes scrubbed , drumming of pots and pans ! Blue collar people with somewhere to be , buoy's chained to the bottom of the sea ! Sweet black ribbon covered in fire ants , May honeybees , wildebeest crossing the wild African plains..
White smokestack dens of endless toil , black tar factories , dead fish waterway , boiling star infrastructures !
Biscuit , tobacco , hot coffee welder , plumber and electrician
Caviar , flounder , after dinner mint doctor and lawyer ..
Goody powders ,  soda pop cures , work induced migraines for
societies  'riff raff' , high atop steel skeletons , life hanging in balance .
Xanax , blue cheese , marriage counselor soccer moms , yoga , wine party ..Young people lie in their own blood , candle light vigils are like all others . Repetitive anguish falling on deaf ears , billion dollar football stadiums , homeless freeze to death , Good Morning America focused on the Grammy Awards or someones *** , Miley's tongue , Scientology or Donny and Marie !
Bath salt possession , teenagers are shot full of bullets , Kelley and Michael promote Hollywood garbage , their so ******* cute !
Copyright November 5 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
What be more grandiose than poetry,

     expound at your own discretion,

   bottle sunshine, save it in a jar,

    tie an affectionate knot, spread it around

     flood desert mirages with flowing spirits,

speaks kindly and murderously about love,

  can tempt winds to uncoil temptation's gist

****** upon or written asunder desperation

    relentless in its seizing of human behavior,

magnifying moonbeams or star's decimation

    perfumed magnolias to winter's cruelty,

  call of the wild midst sweetness of fresh rhubarb pie,

infinitely vast in its incalculable grasp of predication,

  beyond limitless infrastructures 'neath fancied significance
Anna Lo Apr 2014
organs pumping thumping hard
against the metallic blades of your chest
breathlessly shaken
constrained and beaten
fear striking harmonious melodies
at which upon their command
oceans sweep from head thru toes
dwindling and descending
roaring and shrieking
comes the dark
vanished sanity completes the task
awash with thought
like the an exploded building
slamming onto pavements like dominoes
crumbling infrastructures in mid seconds
the glassy finish dissipating into
a winter's snowing night
your hands shaken and cold
eyelashes battin' about
some old little thing you'll simply forget about
it is all unknown
the sword and the stone
the alchemist and the butcher
surrounding each other in daylight’s mist
the embrace of moisture
the soft hue of summer
the solstice luster

starstruck teenagers with feelings undiscovered
embrace the aperture of the morning’s disarmament
i am spent and satiated by your touch
all forms of punishment are no longer enough

come and break my heart a thousand times
i am reminded of a simple line of poetry
the way the spring becomes its own harmony
dervishes twirl on the dusty sand
the cracked desert in your hand
i am nothing but thine own command

so send me where you think i belong
all our passages are free of charge
the safety of noah’s ark
the next boat that hits the mark
will surely be knighted by the oligarch
somebody else took over my mind
and now i can’t find the essence of the time
you are immaculate in your dissension
i am hesitant and full of suspicion

dimly lit streets filled with the smell of sulphur
the fumes make you gasp
and clench your throat in defensive tension
give me a minute and i’ll release this declension

ascension is inevitable
select the inexplicable feelings
and sever your attachment to that which lingers
in hurried anticipation
our actions are mere limitations
strong as stars our abstract applications

the serpent hour approaches
without a warning
i am turning inside out
please retract your fangs so i can kiss you
let me hold your head and whisper kindness
lovers need each other’s minds
to hear the sounds of breaking hearts

long for the burning bush to crash through your wall
long ago the night fall came and went
scents of longing in the shadows hidden
rid me of these western rhythms
serve your sentence in the police academy
articulate the addicts in their gatherings
of community based infrastructures
stark against the walls of cinnamon
so many classes that are uncommonly disparaging
the drill sergeants are still just as dangerous
Martin Narrod Jun 2018
How were they introduced to themselves within a flash of light? Enormous shots of humanness flying across the universe- only still inside the shapes of two blue eyes staring back at this vessel. Just molecules of flesh colliding into one another in a heap of colors and sounds we’d sometimes prefer to force ourselves not to hear. How do you keep yourself from exploding? Into a masterpiece of delightfulness pushed forward into the mouth, and sometimes only to be a breath, or a story dressed as a pink pillowcase on a childhood bedroom.

Sometimes it’s just as if there was never ending cold and never ending warmth, and between each other there we were with our noses pressed up against the glass.

People are only sometimes not shaped like beasts, are sometimes only chiseled into neatly marble statuesque ephemeral deities, and then into the tombs the book keepers go, into the ruins the shapes and sounds and colors disappear. Shattered into the vast expanse of vitrifying light, bouncing against your head my head, landing on the bedside table, the corner of your knee, into the knapsack with the broken zipper, far off into the jungle, or into the pantry next to the agave syrup, adjacent the espresso maker.

There I am loving you more and more, quietly raking my hooves against the dirt, reigning midnight shining orders of dusty moonlight plashed on the time of winter lake, courtiers in your centrifuge of melancholy, balancing the toes just inches below the surface of the water, where the skin shuffled into the brief sentimentality of being thrusted into the infinite transdimensionality of the human escape-

hands feet legs being ****** and pressed upon the glass. Infinite planes of man hurdling with fastidious dreamscape prejudice into the quakes and trembling, the  indivisible and unquantifiable desires of yore crushed as the envelopes bars break against the seams, then come the staples and the body’s tries at reattaching itself to this the trying table of familiar names, this the tepid jocular playing field. While the undulates are thrown into the academies. While the infrastructures topple over, and the sunlight froths upon the celestial satellites nearing and nearing to us, folded over until we wake up from our necks and into our heads and inside of our brains, until we pull the thread from our gems and count back through the catalog pages trying to find letters of words in other languages piecing together the wanton madness of yearning for you and sharing the sounds of a voice that’s forgotten its own triumph of revealing or speaking its name.

There is the room with the panels and the drawers. These are the wildernesses humming with the poison and quaffing the spit and drugs at the heady realm of human-like lightness, pals or even matter gives pause to answering you with what no understanding beeps or carries on forward, but rather bleeds, tormented, reaches forcefully, it has been nearly a quarter-millennia. Here is the start, the finish, here are the minutes, the hours, here are the streets, the beach, the bench, and all of life is ours, from the dawn to the crepuscular night. Here in a stone room where in black and white photographs spin their *** drives like mercurial thermoses bouncing of each other, dancing into the next world, or just fishing for alphabet soup with a wooden spoon.

Here it is. The short-sheeted bedroom linen collection, folded comforter in the closet. The bath water is still and hot. The sky is clouding up soon, but not quite yet. In a ball of light rounding bloom, comes the silent fans that’ve carried you. While of a breath the trembles sway, and take us far away from here.

— The End —