"A leisurely breakfast" their mother would admonish, "aids digestion and builds strong bones..." so what with the imposed inactivity every morning, boredom broken only by Sockeye the family Spaniel, whose want of table manners coincided very conveniently with mealtimes... as he paced restlessly under the table, slobbering indiscriminately in his daily scramble to devour every dangling morsel before supply and demand shut up shop for the night and went home, far tastier... he gobbled down the latest offering of egg white, than the remnants of his own dietary allowance, they just had to get the timing right that was all, or risk loosing a finger, or gaining one depending upon who was doing the dangling, or who was doing the gobbling... he gave an indignant sneeze, not so much a hint but more of a... 'what's with the pepper malarky...'  So that it was only with a good deal of snappy hand coordination, lengthy digestion and sturdy bone building that Rocky was finally able to extricate himself from the table and make the most of what little time remained until lunchtime, meagre time indeed for the Rocky's of this world to hang around with their dogs, leaving their little sisters to help mums do, whatever it was that girls usually did when they should have scooted out of the kitchen faster, when it would have been all so much simpler just to grab a handful of biscuits instead...  Meanwhile, laying in wait in the room above, flat out upon the bedroom counterpane, having recently had their insides stuffed to bursting with a full English breakfast's worth of beach and holiday apparal... and that was just the luggage.    

     The contents of which, up until a week last washday had been snoozing fitfully behind 'Do Not Disturb' signs, cautiously peeping out from the gloomier, more remote recesses of the bedroom dresser, or carefully concealed in cupboards and closets... and being in every other respect by no means readily accessible to public scrutiny of any kind... had been left to their own devices some twelve months earlier with a clear understanding to skip bath nights from that moment on and henceforth immerse themselves in the heady, camphorated pungency of mothball, vowing once and for all never to darken portmanteau lids again... but now, after many hours of arduous laundering and de-fumigation... were now being squeezed and unceremoniously shoe-horned into what had recently become nothing short of an overcrowded sanctuary for the dispossessed.  
              
     Meanwhile, all the luggage asked from life other than be detained under section four of the Mental Health Act, 1983 and be found cosy padded accommodation elsewhere... was to have their interiors vacated, their tranquility reinstated... and with a questionable wink from a dodgy Customs official, have their travel permits invalidated... irrevocably, for despite throwing a double six for a spot of well earned convalescence back on top of the wardrobe some twelve months ago, basking in the shade of a warm Summer Sun, striking up the occasional conversation with the floral decor, third bloom from the left currently answering to the name of Petunia, the still over extended luggage, seemingly with little hope of R & R this side of the letter Q, faced the perennial disquiet of vacational therapy, of being knelt on, sat and bounced upon and be specifically manhandled in ways that matching sets of co-ordinated luggage should not...
                                        
     Tina could be heard quite distinctly in the next street concerning her husbands lack of competence, whilst Red it appeared had become just as outspoken as his wife in that particular direction... as the local self appointed busybody, who lived well within earshot of the address in question would bear witness to as she put feverish pen to paper, writing to what had become a regular... and some would say hot bed of intrigue in the local tabloid concerning how vociferous the once tranquil neighbourhood had become of recent and how certain undesirable elements within the community were to be heard carrying on alarmingly at all hours, day and night... and as she diligently weighed her civic duty against simple household economics as to whether to send this latest block busting eye opener by first or second class post, their parents could now be heard broadcasting, if anything to a wider listening audience than the previous newsflash, some of the more sensational episodes of the previous twenty-four hours as to who was pulling whose suitcase zipper now... although in which direction it should be pulled, they both agreed, wasn't for public disclosure at that time... vowing to draw blood well before the day was out, as three lacerated fingers would later testify and that it was only because of the children that they were going at all... but God willing, they would be setting off very shortly with rosy smiles on their faces for the sole benefit of the neighbours, even if it killed them. 

     Spurred to fever pitch  by this latest 'stop-the-press' newsflash, the same public spirited busybody now threw herself wholeheartedly into further award winning journalism and for the second time that morning took to pen and paper, only now directed to the gossip column in the local Parish Gazette, followed by grievous lamentations of impending bloodshed to the incumbent Chief Constable as to how they'd all be murdered in their beds ere long before nightfall.

     By devouring his water bowl, thereby dispensing with the need for it to be washed and by its abrupt and mysterious absence, disposing of all further incriminating evidence as to where the abundant supply of liquid, now surging copiously across the kitchen floor had sprung from... the flash-flood was hastily making its own getaway beneath the kitchen units, leaving Sockeye to his own devices to carry the can on his own, ankle deep in what up until earlier that morning had been sloshing around quite contentedly in Eccup reservoir.

      Having inadvertently released the handbrake in a boyish gesture of bravado, thereby placing himself in sole charge of a runaway vehicle, Sockeye it appeared was not the only member of the Salmon family to have dropped himself right in it that day as Rocky, having unwittingly placed the following ten years pocket money well out of reach and back into the pockets of his parents dwindling resources, had to a far greater extent nominated himself for the same Earth moving experience as the one his mum would shortly be giving Sockeye...

      Having just been granted licence to do whatsoever it pleased, the vehicle began its leisurely rearwards perambulation down the long garden driveway and by way of small thanks for its new found independence took Rocky along for the ride where due to a certain lack of stature on Rocky's part, at no point had he ever been in the slightest position to influence the Holiday threatening train of events which now engulfed him, never thinking to reapply the handbrake... that would be too easy, he perched on the edge of the seat clutching the steering wheel and stretched out his sturdy little legs in an heroic, but futile attempt to reach the pedals as the family car, which up until any second now had been his fathers pride and joy, pitched backwards at what seemed to Rocky, breakneck speed and directly into a very severe and unforgiving brick wall.

     Almost missing this latest round of entertainment above that of her parents most recent exchange, River accompanied by Sockeye scampered outdoors and slap into what could only be described as the most fun she'd had all year as an unsuspecting "what was that noise" muscled its way through the open bedroom window and fell flat on its face in the garden below and which, if that morning to date was anything to go by, then the neighbourhood would soon be tuning in to the latest Salmon family's 'hot-off-the-press' breaking news bulletin.

     Opening her mouth River hesitated as she fine-tuned the speech centres of her young and delicate synapse into full vocal alignment, then adjusting shutter speed from f8 to automatic she closed her mouth... then opened it once again and informed her brother that if the tip of dads size 9 was an Olympic gold, then Rocky would be sure to take first in the 110 metre hurdling event with 'team GB...' and could she have his autograph... with those words of solid encouragement rattling around his ears like the last biscuit in an otherwise empty tin box, River went skipping back into the house to announce the latest newsflash of her parents next financial happening... which she felt certain would prompt further rounds of thought provoking front page journalism.

     A steady two hours drive away, over on the east coast, the inhabitants of a sleepy fishing community were gainfully employed, pretty much as any other, going about their daily business, one such denizen... a baby crustacean, currently marooned by the tide had taken up temporary accommodation in a beachfront rock-pool property of certain distinction, was as yet unaware of a completely different and obscure set of circumstances that would shortly be rearing his slobbering jowls and bring all four paws, the size of dinner plates, crashing down upon the unsuspecting seashore fauna... was determined while she waited to catch the next high tide home, that until such time that the right wave rolled along, would potter about in the little rock-pool, perhaps indulge herself in a leisurely bathe... and catch up on a spot of therapeutic knitting.

     So, placing the days events since breakfast into perspective...  [i]  the vehicle indemnity provider, henceforth to be named 'the party of the first part', who currently weren't cognisant of an impending claim to date, would shortly be laying eggs attempting to squirm out of all liability, due to  [ii]  the automobile, driven by a minor, fortunately for Salmon senior on private land and henceforth, the aforementioned to be called 'the third party, to the party of the second part...' which urgently needed rigorous cosmetic attention to the rear tail light cluster and surrounding bodywork so as to maintain a favourable resale mark-up price.  [iii]  Having been dragged kicking and screaming from the top of the wardrobe, the luggage had rapidly developed cold feet and cried sudden illness in the family, but were being taken to the Wake anyway.  [iv]  Wrapped around the hot water cylinder since the previous Summer, the various sundry items of holiday apparel stood united, resolute as a Union Picket line not be seen dead looking as though they'd never so much as seen the bottom of a flat-iron.  [v]  Both Red and his wife, Tina, despite wearing the same anaemic smile as the one show to the neighbours as they departed, travelling counter clockwise along the crescent so as not to unduly advertise their recent misadventure with the garage wall, were only going for the sake of the children, whilst  [vi]  River and her errant brother didn't want to go anyway dismayed at leaving the television set behind, were already missing their favourite programs, which only really left  [vii]  'mans-best-friend' who, when he wasn't actually hanging over the front seat giving dad big sloppy licks as though... 'are we nearly there yet' or perhaps... 'I need to stop and spend a penny... or you'll all know about it if you don't,' was more than content to be taking up the majority of the rear seating arrangements and with a delinquent wag of his tail, was deliriously happy to be wherever his family were.**

                                                        ­                             ...   ...   ...

a work in progress.                                                        ­                                                                 ­  1862

Told my feelings were fake
Laughed at for crying
Brutalized for refusing
Depicted as anomalous
This is my "home"

I exploded, caught a breath as I felt the silencing

Crossed volatile environments
Misunderstood ephemeral friends
Bullied, ostracized
Experienced injustice
This is school

I performed, in the illusion of shutting silencing

Living my curiosity
Knowledge is my strength
Reflexivity makes me grow
Embracing my difference
This is my refuge

I introspected, in the freedom of their paralyzed silencing

Meet mind-like people
Discovered my emotions
Explored my preferences
Dug my family history
This is my travel

I free-fell, as in my trust I hit structural silencing

Communicating humbly
Nourishing healthy relationships
Trusting my positions
Affirming my autonomy
This is my womanhood

Becoming a mother, I urge to gather the pieces for her freedom

When Pigs Fly
by Michael R. Burch

On the Trail of Tears,
my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?
Laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.

When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodlands we loved
for the *** and the rake.
It is better to die
than to live out a lie
in so narrow a sty.

In October 1838 the Cherokees began to walk the "Trail of Tears." Most of them made the thousand mile journey west to Oklahoma on foot. An estimated 4,000 people, or a quarter of the tribe, died en route. The soldiers "escorting" the Cherokees at bayonet point refused permission for the dead to be buried, threatening to shoot anyone who disobeyed. So the living were forced to carry the corpses of the dead until camp was made for the night. Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile." Keywords/Tags: Cherokee, Native American, Trail of Tears, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, ******, Evil, Death, March, Death March, Infanticide, Matricide, Racism, Racist, Discrimination, Violence, Fascism, White Supremacists, Horror, Terror, Terrorism, Greed, Gluttony, Avarice, Lust, ****, mrbpig, mrbpigs



Cherokee Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I walk life's trails
imperiled by the raging wind and rain,
grant, O Great Spirit,
that yet I may always
walk like a man.

This prayer makes me think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears with far more courage and dignity than their “civilized” abusers.



Native American Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Help us learn the lessons you have left us
in every leaf and rock.



Native American Travelers' Blessing
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us walk together here
among earth's creatures great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.



Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux, circa 1840-1877
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own brother, my own blood.
When you are disconsolate, I will wipe the tears from your eyes.
And when you are too sad to live, I will put your aching heart to rest.

Published by Better Than Starbucks and Cherokee Native Americans



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing II
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Happily may you walk
in the paths of the Rainbow.
                  Oh,
and may it always be beautiful before you,
beautiful behind you,
beautiful below you,
beautiful above you,
and beautiful all around you
where in Perfection beauty is finished.

Published by Better Than Starbucks



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing III
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May Heaven’s warming winds blow gently there,
where you reside,
and may the Great Spirit bless all those you love,
this side of the farthest tide.
And wherever you go,
whether the journey is fast or slow,
may your moccasins leave many cunning footprints in the snow.
And when you look over your shoulder, may you always find the Rainbow.

Published by Better Than Starbucks



What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of the winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
―Blackfoot saying, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Warrior's Confession
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh my love, how fair you are—
far brighter than the fairest star!



Cherokee Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.



Cherokee Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I walk life's trails
imperiled by the raging wind and rain,
grant, O Great Spirit,
that yet I may always
walk like a man.

When I think of this prayer, I think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears.



The Receiving of the Flower
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us sing overflowing with joy
as we observe the Receiving of the Flower.
The lovely maidens beam;
their hearts leap in their *******.

Why?

Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love!



The Deflowering
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Remove your clothes;
let down your hair;
become as naked as the day you were born—

virgins!



Prelude to *******
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lay out your most beautiful clothes,
maidens!
The day of happiness has arrived!

Grab your combs, detangle your hair,
adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants.
Dress in white as becomes maidens ...

Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter!
And all the village will rejoice with you,
for the day of happiness has arrived!



The Flower-Strewn Pool
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have arrived at last in the woods
where no one can see what you do
at the flower-strewn pool ...
Remove your clothes,
unbraid your hair,
become as you were
when you first arrived here
naked and shameless,
virgins, maidens!



Native American Proverbs

The soul would see no Rainbows if not for the eyes’ tears.
—loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A woman’s highest calling is to help her man unite with the Source.
A man’s highest calling is to help his woman walk the earth unharmed.
—loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
—White Elk, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of a winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
—Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch

Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. — Apache proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Arapaho proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Adults talk, children whine. — Blackfoot proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t be afraid to cry: it will lessen your sorrow. — Hopi proverb

One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Tuscarora proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Our enemy's weakness increases our strength. — Cherokee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Dakota proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

No sound's as eloquent as a rattlesnake's tail. — Navajo saying, translation by Michael R. Burch

The heart is our first teacher. — Cheyenne proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Dreams beget success. — Maricopa proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Lumbee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Umpqua proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch



Earthbound
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

Tashunka Witko, better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay—
the sheep,
the earthbound.



Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed ... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country ... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile."

In the same year, 1830, that Stonewall Jackson consigned Native Americans to the ash-heap of history, Georgia Governor George Gilmer said, "Treaties are expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people are induced ... to yield up what civilized people have the right to possess." By "civilized" he apparently meant people willing to brutally dispossess and **** women and children in order to derive economic benefits for themselves.

These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans
whose names are bright verbs and impacted dark nouns,
whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh . . .
and I hear, as from a great distance,
the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming
the nature of my mutation.
―Michael R. Burch, from "Mongrel Dreams" (my family is part Cherokee, English and Scottish)

After Jackson was re-elected with an overwhelming majority in 1832, he strenuously pursued his policy of removing Native Americans, even refusing to accept a Supreme Court ruling which invalidated Georgia's planned annexation of Cherokee land. But in the double-dealing logic of the white supremacists, they had to make the illegal resettlement of the Indians appear to be "legal," so a small group of Cherokees were persuaded to sign the "Treaty of New Echota," which swapped Cherokee land for land in the Oklahoma territory. The Cherokee ringleaders of this infamous plot were later assassinated as traitors. (****** was similarly obsessed with the "legalities" of the **** Holocaust; isn't it strange how mass murderers of women and children can seek to justify their crimes?)

Native Americans understood the "circle of life" better than their white oppressors ...

When we sit in the Circle of the People,
we must be responsible because all Creation is related
and the suffering of one is the suffering of all
and the joy of one is the joy of all
and whatever we do affects everything in the universe.
—"Lakota Instructions for Living" by White Buffalo Calf Woman, translated by Michael R. Burch



Veiled
by Michael R. Burch

She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us . . .

tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief . . .

ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered . . .

and if you were to ask her,
she might say:
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,

and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.

Published by Poetry Super Highway and Modern War Poems.



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch



evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?



Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name.

Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy the land,
descending like a raging storm,
howling like a hurricane,
screaming like a tempest,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream
on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down a mountainside.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

******* of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.

Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you decide our fate.

You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,
why you go on so?



Temple Hymn 15
to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Most ancient and terrible shrine,
set deep in the mountain,
dark like a mother's womb...

Dark shrine,
like a mother's wounded breast,
blood-red and terrifying...

Though approaching through a safe-seeming field,
our hair stands on end as we near you!

Gishbanda,
like a neck-stock,
like a fine-eyed fish net,
like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles...
your ramparts are massive,
like a trap!

But once we’re inside,
as the sun rises,
you yield widespread abundance!

Your prince
is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's Holy One,
Lord Ningishzida!

Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair
cascades down his back!

Oh Gishbanda,
he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance!
He has placed his throne upon your dais!



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance!

Beloved Lady of An and Uraš!
Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled!
Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess!

Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers!
My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the seven divine powers!
You hold the divine powers in your hand!
You have gathered together the seven divine powers!
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!

You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper;
all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur!
You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys!
When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you!

Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna!

You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil!
The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers!

Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause!
Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind!
Men cower before you in their anguished implications,
raising their pitiful outcries,
weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations!

But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen!

My Queen,
You are all-conquering, all-devouring!
You continue Your attacks like relentless storms!
You howl louder than the howling storms!
You thunder louder than Iškur!
You moan louder than the mournful winds!
Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies!
You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations!

My Queen,
all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods,
fled before Your approach like fluttering bats!
They could not stand in Your awesome Presence
nor behold Your awesome Visage!

Who can soothe Your infuriated heart?
Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed!

Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin,
O Majestic Queen, greater than An,
who has ever paid You enough homage?

O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers,
Inanna the Exalted!

Merciful, Live-Giving Mother!
Inanna, the Radiant of Heart!
I have exalted You in accordance with Your power!
I have bowed before You in my holy garb,
I the En, I Enheduanna!

Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ...

But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary.
The sun rose and scorched me.
Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me.
My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident.
My joy became dust.

O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate!

To An, I declared: An will deliver me!
I declared it to An: He will deliver me!

But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna,
at Whose feet the floodplains lie.

Inanna the Exalted,
who has made me tremble together with all Ur!

Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications!
I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna,
my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants!
Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna,
I will greet Her in peace ...

O My Queen, I have exalted You,
Who alone are worthy to be exalted!
O My Queen, Beloved of An,
I have laid out Your daises,
set fire to the coals,
conducted the rites,
prepared Your nuptial chamber.
Now may Your heart embrace me!

These are my innovations,
O Mighty Queen, that I made for You!
What I composed for You by the dark of night,
The cantor will chant by day.

Now Inanna’s heart has been restored,
and the day became favorable to Her.
Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy,
she carried herself like the elegant moonlight.

Now to the Noble Hierodule,
to the Wrecker of foreign lands
presented by An with the seven divine powers,
and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ...

O Inanna, praise!



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines, an Excerpt
Nin-me-šara by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers,
Lady of the all-resplendent light,
Righteous Lady clothed in heavenly radiance,
Beloved Lady of An and Uraš,
Mistress of heaven with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her high priestess,
Powerful Mistress who has seized all seven divine powers,
My lady, you are the guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the divine powers,
You hold the divine powers in your hand,
You have gathered up the divine powers,
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!
Like a dragon you have spewed venom on foreign lands that know you not!
When you roar like Iškur at the earth, nothing can withstand you!
Like a flood descending on alien lands, O Powerful One of heaven and earth, you will teach them to fear Inanna!



Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt
to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, high-situated Kesh,
form-shifting summit,
inspiring fear like a venomous viper!

O, Lady of the Mountains,
Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site!

O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep,
your walls high-towering and imposing!

O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains!...



Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt
to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed
in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe!



Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt
to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house, you wild cow!
Made to conjure signs of the Divine!
You arise, beautiful to behold,
bedecked for your Mistress!



Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt
to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O house illuminated by beams of bright light,
dressed in shimmering stone jewels,
awakening the world to awe!



Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt
to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of brilliant stars
bright with lapis stones,
you illuminate all lands!

...

The person who put this tablet together
is Enheduanna.
My king: something never created before,
did she not give birth to it?



Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again
To darken lives of men
and women, girls and boys;
Death proves their bodies toys
Too frail to even cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?
You cannot buy good health!
Physicians cannot heal
Themselves, to Death must kneel.
Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?
Devoured in an hour.
Kings, Queens and Presidents
Are fearful residents
Of manors boarded high.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save
Our children from the grave.
Though cure-alls line our shelves,
We cannot save ourselves.
"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

NOTE: This poem is meant to capture the understandable fear and dismay the Plague caused in the Middle Ages, and which the coronavirus has caused in the 21st century. We are better equipped to deal with this modern plague, thanks to advances in science, medicine and sanitation. We do not have to succumb to fear, but it would be wise to have a healthy respect for the nasty bug and heed the advice of medical experts.--MRB



Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . . .

and show me
once again―
how rare.

Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse



The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.

Originally published by The Lyric



If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.

Originally published by The HyperTexts



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...

now that I have forgotten her face.



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



Turkish Poetry Translations

Attilâ İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist, reviewer, socialist and intellectual.

Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable”
by Attila Ilhan
translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are indispensable; how can you not know
that you’re like nails riveting my brain?
I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions.
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that I burn within, at the thought of you?

Trees prepare themselves for autumn;
can this city be our lost Istanbul?
Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness
as the street lights flicker
and the streets reek with rain.
You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...

Love sometimes seems akin to terror:
a man tires suddenly at nightfall,
of living enslaved to the razor at his neck.
Sometimes he wrings his hands,
expunging other lives from his existence.
Sometimes whichever door he knocks
echoes back only heartache.

A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ...
a song about some Friday long ago.
I stop to listen from a vacant corner,
longing to bring you an untouched sky,
but time disintegrates in my hands.
Whatever I do, wherever I go,
you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...

Are you the blue child of June?
Ah, no one knows you―no one knows!
Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ...

Perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy?
Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain
that leaves you blind, beset, broken,
with wind-disheveled hair?

Whenever I think of life
seated at the wolves’ table,
shameless, yet without soiling our hands ...
Yes, whenever I think of life,
I begin with your name, defying the silence,
and your secret tides surge within me
making this voyage inevitable.
You are indispensable; how can you not know?



Fragments
by Attila Ilhan
loose English translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

The night is a cloudy-feathered owl,
its quills like fine-spun glass.

It gazes out the window,
perched on my right shoulder,
its wings outspread and huge.

If the encroaching darkness seems devastating at first glance,
the sovereign of everything,
its reach infinite ...

Still somewhere within a kernel of light glows secretly
creating an enlightened forest of dialectics.

In September’s waning days one thinks wanly of the arrival of fall
like a ship appearing on the horizon with untrimmed, tattered sails;
for some unfathomable reason fall is the time to consider one’s own demise―
the body smothered by yellowed leaves like a corpse rotting in a ghoulish photograph ...

Bitter words
crack like whips
snapping across prison yards ...

Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom,
words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons,
flashing like mysterious knives ...

Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination;
they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies;
we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire,
martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ...

What I wrote and what you understood? Curious and curiouser!



Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows,
how long will the darkness remember you?



Zulmü Alkislayamam
"I Can’t Applaud Tyranny"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor;
Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers.
When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them,
Even if you don’t.
But while I harbor my elders,
I refuse to praise their injustices.
Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.”
From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom;
The golden tulip never deceived me.
If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep?
The blade may slice, but my neck resists!
When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship;
To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten.
I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind,
I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice.
I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed.
What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness?



Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?―
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels.
Oh, what dishonorable assemblages!
Who are these Europeans, come as rapists?
Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages?
Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men
now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages!
Seven nations marching in unison!
Australia goose-stepping with Canada!
Different faces, languages, skin tones!
Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons!
Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown!
This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death!
Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation,
But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches!
For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up
Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame.
If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired,
But the ***** called civilization is far from blameless.
Now the ****** demand the destruction of the doomed
And thus bring destruction down on their own heads.
Lightning severs horizons!
Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead!
Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains,
rupture the ******* of brave soldiers.
Underground tunnels writhe like hell
Full of the bodies of burn victims.
The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living.
A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air.
Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet ...
Body parts rain down everywhere.
Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter
Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire.
Men’s chests gape open,
Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air.
Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets
Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail.
Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy?
How can the shield of faith not prevail?
What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors
When their stronghold is established by God?
The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! ...
For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone!
Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land,
How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims!
Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory!
Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story?
If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit!
No book can contain the eras you shook!
Only eternities can encompass you! ...
Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave:
The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save!



Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)

by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

for the refugees

The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ...
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.



Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.

But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.

We both know
you have every right to say no.



The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!

Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!

As the *****’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.

My mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.

Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!

Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!

Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer.



Thinking of you
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful―
like listening to the most beautiful songs
sung by the earth's most beautiful voices.
But hope is insufficient for me now;
I don't want to listen to songs.
I want to sing love into birth.



I love you
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love you―
like dipping bread into salt and eating;
like waking at night with a raging fever
and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap;
like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers,
unable to guess what's inside,
feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful.
I love you―
like flying over the sea the first time
as something stirs within me
while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul.
I love you―
as men thank God gratefully for life.



Sparrow
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparrow,
perched on the clothesline,
do you regard me with pity?
Even so, I will watch you
soar away through the white spring leaves.



The Divan of the Lover

the oldest extant Turkish poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All the universe as one great sign is shown:
God revealed in his creative acts unknown.
Who sees or understands them, jinn or men?
Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken.
Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand,
Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land.
Since He chose nothingness with life to vest,
who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests?
For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end,
Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend!



Fragment
by Prince Jem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly.
The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly.
Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe.
Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a ****** globe!
The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks.
Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks!



An Ecstasy of Fumbling
by Michael R. Burch

The poets believe
everything resolves to metaphor—
a distillation,
a vapor
beyond filtration,
though perhaps not quite as volatile as before.

The poets conceive
of death in the trenches
as the price of art,
not war,
fumbling with their masque-like
dissertations
to describe the Hollywood-like gore

as something beyond belief,
abstracting concrete bunkers to Achaemenid bas-relief.



Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein”
by Michael R. Burch

for Trump

I went to Berlin to learn wisdom
from Adolph. The wild spittle flew
as he screamed at me, with great conviction:
“Please despise me! I look like a Jew!”

So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom
from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes.
“If we lose this small square,” they informed me,
earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!”

I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom,
but his Book, from its genesis to close,
said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!”
(I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.)

So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv
where great scholars with lofty IQs
informed me that (since I’m an Arab)
I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes.

At last, done with learning, I stumbled
to a well where the waters seemed sweet:
the mirage of American “justice.”
There I wept a real sea, in defeat.

Originally published by Café Dissensus



The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men ravish, dishevel her . . .
till both are cut down
by mere ticks of the Leveler.

I believe I wrote this poem around age 20, in 1978 or thereabouts. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean.



The Hippopotami
by Michael R. Burch

There’s no seeing eye to eye
with the awesomely huge Hippopotami:
on the bank, you’re much taller;
going under, you’re smaller
and assuredly destined to die!



Ballade of the Bicameral Camel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a camel who loved to ****.
Please get your lewd minds out of their slump!
He loved to give RIDES on his large, lordly lump!



The Echoless Green
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

At dawn, laughter rang
on the echoing green
as children at play
greeted the day.

At noon, smiles were seen
on the echoing green
as, children no more,
many fine vows they swore.

By twilight, their cries
had subsided to sighs.

Now night reigns supreme
on the echoless green.



Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch

I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.

I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.

And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque—
a metaphor myself. How could they know,

the undiscerning ones, that in the glow
of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque?

Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose
or choose or name myself; I came to be

another of life’s odd dichotomies,
like Dickey’s Sheep Boy, Pan, or David Cruse:

as pale, as enigmatic. White, or black?
My color was a song, a changing track.



Spring Was Delayed
by Michael R. Burch

Winter came early:
the driving snows,
the delicate frosts
that crystallize

all we forget
or refuse to know,
all we regret
that makes us wise.

Spring was delayed:
the nubile rose,
the tentative sun,
the wind’s soft sighs,

all we omit
or refuse to show,
whatever we shield
behind guarded eyes.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



The Shijing or **** Jing (“Book of Songs” or “Book of Odes”) is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According to tradition the poems were selected and edited by Confucius himself. Since most ancient poetry did not rhyme, these may be the world’s oldest extant rhyming poems.

Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
thick with vines that make them shady,
we find our lovely princely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
whose clinging vines make hot days shady,
we wish love’s embrace for our lovely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
whose vines, entwining, make them shady,
we wish true love for our lovely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

Shijing Ode #6: “TAO YAO”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The peach tree is elegant and tender;
its flowers are fragrant, and bright.
A young lady now enters her future home
and will manage it well, day and night.

The peach tree is elegant and tender;
its fruits are abundant, and sweet.
A young lady now enters her future home
and will make it welcome to everyone she greets.

The peach tree is elegant and tender;
it shelters with bough, leaf and flower.
A young lady now enters her future home
and will make it her family’s bower.

Shijing Ode #9: “HAN GUANG”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the South tall trees without branches
offer men no shelter.
By the Han the girls loiter,
but it’s vain to entice them.
For the breadth of the Han
cannot be swum
and the length of the Jiang
requires more than a raft.

When cords of firewood are needed,
I would cut down tall thorns to bring them more.
Those girls on their way to their future homes?
I would feed their horses.
But the breadth of the Han
cannot be swum
and the length of the Jiang
requires more than a raft.

When cords of firewood are needed,
I would cut down tall trees to bring them more.
Those girls on their way to their future homes?
I would feed their colts.
But the breadth of the Han
cannot be swum
and the length of the Jiang
requires more than a raft.

Shijing Ode #10: “RU FEN”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By raised banks of the Ru,
I cut down branches in the brake.
Not seeing my lord
caused me heartache.

By raised banks of the Ru,
I cut down branches by the tide.
When I saw my lord at last,
he did not cast me aside.

The bream flashes its red tail;
the royal court’s a blazing fire.
Though it blazes afar,
still his loved ones are near ...

It was apparently believed that the bream’s tail turned red when it was in danger. Here the term “lord” does not necessarily mean the man in question was a royal himself. Chinese women of that era often called their husbands “lord.” Take, for instance, Ezra Pound’s famous loose translation “The River Merchant’s Wife.” Speaking of Pound, I borrowed the word “brake” from his translation of this poem, although I worked primarily from more accurate translations. In the final line, it may be that the wife or lover is suggesting that no matter what happens, the man in question will have a place to go, or perhaps she is urging him to return regardless. The original poem had “mother and father” rather than “family” or “loved ones,” but in those days young married couples often lived with the husband’s parents. So a suggestion to return to his parents could be a suggestion to return to his wife as well.

Shijing Ode #12: “QUE CHAO”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The nest is the magpie's
but the dove occupies it.
A young lady’s soon heading to her future home;
a hundred carriages will attend her.

The nest is the magpie's
but the dove takes it over.
A young lady’s soon heading to her future home;
a hundred carriages will escort her.

The nest is the magpie's
but the dove possesses it.
A young lady’s soon heading to her future home;
a hundred carriages complete her procession.

Shijing Ode #26: “BO ZHOU” from “The Odes of Bei”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This cypress-wood boat floats about,
meandering with the current.
Meanwhile, I am distraught and sleepless,
as if inflicted with a painful wound.
Not because I have no wine,
and can’t wander aimlessly about!

But my mind is not a mirror
able to echo all impressions.
Yes, I have brothers,
but they are undependable.
I meet their anger with silence.

My mind is not a stone
to be easily cast aside.
My mind is not a mat
to be conveniently rolled up.
My conduct so far has been exemplary,
with nothing to criticize.

Yet my anxious heart hesitates
because I’m hated by the herd,
inflicted with many distresses,
heaped with insults, not a few.
Silently I consider my case,
until, startled, as if from sleep, I clutch my breast.

Consider the sun and the moon:
how did the latter exceed the former?
Now sorrow clings to my heart
like an unwashed dress.
Silently I consider my options,
but lack the wings to fly away.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)

Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation



On the Horns of a Dilemma (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn is so ***** it lofts her thus?

I need an artist or cartoonist to create an image of a male rhino lifting his prospective mate into the air during an abortive kiss. Any takers?



On the Horns of a Dilemma (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn deforms her esophagus?



On the Horns of a Dilemma (III)
by Michael R. Burch

A wino rhino said, “I know!
I have a horn I cannot blow!
And so,
ergo,
I’ll watch the lovely spigot flow!



The Horns of a Dilemma Solved, if not Solvent
by Michael R. Burch

A wine-addled rhino debated
the prospect of living unmated
due to the scorn
gals showed for his horn,
then lost it to poachers, sedated.



The Arrival of the Sea Lions
by Michael R. Burch

The sound
of hounds
resounds in the sound.



Hounds Impounded
by Michael R. Burch

The sound
of hounds
resounds
in the pound.



Prince Kiwi the Great
by Michael R. Burch

Kiwi’s
a ***-wee
but incredibly bright:
he sleeps half the day,
pretending it’s night!

Prince Kiwi
commands us
with his regal air:
“Come, humans, and serve me,
or I’ll yank your hair!”

Kiwi
cries “Kree! Kree!”
when he wants to be fed ...
suns, preens, flutters, showers,
then it’s off to bed.

Kiwi’s
a ***-wee
but incredibly bright:
he sleeps half the day,
pretending it’s night!

Kiwi is our family’s green-cheeked parakeet. Parakeets need to sleep around 12 hours per day, hence the pun on “bright” and “half the day.”



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!

Published as the collection "When Pigs Fly"

i always feel invalidated and robbed
of the comfort of knowing that
i'd choose that ultimatum if it was ever a choice
but without that i have nothing
to fall on except knowing
that i have to endure and that is the
only ultimatum

she accepted people’s bad behavior,
because she thought,
they went through  difficult things.
yet, she invalidated her own feelings,
even if she knew what she went through.

I shouldn’t really be writing this naïve drivel. I have no idea at all of the hardships these desperate people go through. I wanted to imagine how it must feel though to finally find yourself in front of an uncaring bureaucracy. Obviously I, a secure white Englishman, whose history goes  back hundreds of years in this my home country, am far too safe to understand. My pen came up with this. I hope it doesn’t offend anyone.

The hopelessness…

Invalidated…
It was such an ugly word
So many tall letters
It looked faintly absurd.
But the word simply robbed him
Of chances he had
Struggles to get here
So brutal, so bad.
Beaten, *****  and robbed
He’d slipped out of Mogadishu
His parents both dead now
He was there sole issue.
He paid all his money
For a hopeless sea trek
And got washed up on shore
Now the boat was a wreck.
It was filled to the gunwales
With people like he
Many were lost
As the boat wrecked at sea.
But he never gave up
He just fought all the way
And now six months later
He arrived at this day.
The bureaucrat before him
Had a large black word stamp
He was clutching it so hard
He surely had cramp.


And then there it was
That strange looking word
That made him an alien
Akin to a ****.
So all of the struggles
And all of the pain
Now left him deflated
It had all been in vain.
How desperate he’d journeyed
To leave behind war
What now! Invalidated!
His future unsure!

©Joe Wilson – The hopelessness…2015

Before I begin, let me make one thing perfectly clear:
Everything I’ve ever given a **** about, I’ve been unabashedly critical of.
So believe me when I say that I appreciate ever word out of your mouth I’ve spanned the distance to hear.
You have all these years that you hang over my head, dangling them, subtly mocking from the end of a thread.
Yes, darling, you’re well aged and well-read but I’ll be ****** if I will let my experiences be invalidated by a few years and your fiery, well-meaning arrogance, let that be heard as it’s said.
It’s true that you know me better than most but don’t get it twisted. You sure as hell don’t know me better than me.
Pretend all you like that I’m buttered-up and convinced that your life lessons and late night calls have set me free, but you know as well as me that’s a lie fed through your precious mind’s teeth.
I boil and I freeze so I know I can stand the heat, but just remember one thing:
You’re intense and addictive but baby, the scorpion still stings.
And one twin will **** well bite while of your praises the other sings.

My last long distance relationship was with YaHWeH
And we’re on break
But when I can’t help myself
I drunk text him
Thumbs fumbling like they’ve forgotten
Keys I used to know with eyes closed

“Why do you give me emotions
If they are only going to be doubted?
Invalidated continuously?
What would it be like to feel something
Without being punished?
Prayer emoji, prayer emoji,
Cry emoji, upside down smile.”

And when the emotional puking is done
And I’ve resigned myself to silence
And acid green Listerine
The universe chimes
“One new message.”

Taking a deep breath,
Pushing down apprehension
And the nauseous excitement
Of a boy texting back
Read.

“They are not always thus.
Each time someone was there
In your corner,
Maybe not the most voices
Maybe not the loudest
But there.

You are the master of your destiny, Love
The master of your punishment
You do not have to feel punished
You are rejoice made flesh.”
Peaceful smile, peaceful smile
Kiss emoji.”

I pause, reading it once,
Then twice,
Swallowing then nodding
Keys now vaguely familiar.

“Sometimes I forget.
Shy emoji, shrug emoji,
Monkey covering eyes.”

“God is typing……”

“That is what I’m here for.”
Kiss emoji, smile emoji
Blushing beaming smile.”

I’ve been treating myself like there is something very wrong with me, particularly my emotions. Every emotion I get (most often, my “negative” ones), I’ve been monitoring and trying to control, when all I simply needed to do was to allow for their expression and not do anything. For a long, long time I’ve considered myself to be someone ill and in need of healing; what a difference a label makes. To be “ill”, in essence requires that someone “do” something to fix themselves as a “problem”. The very nature of thinking yourself “ill” promotes action and effort. I’m glad I don’t go to a dr, can you imagine how many other disorders and syndromes I would have to “fight” and contend with.

A lot of the time when someone gets traumatised, or undergoes some sort of negative event, they always look to the happy part of themselves as the “real” them, or at least the part of them deemed to be acceptable enough to be “real”. They lament losing the “real” them. But who are people really? Are they only who they are when they’re happy? Does the extent of one’s being only pertain to their happiness? What if a part of me is in despair, what if a part of me is in intense fear and anxiety — aren’t these parts of me also real and equally valid as happiness? Particularly if they’re perfectly natural reactions to intense suffering and pain. These parts of me scream for catharsis after having been invalidated for a long time and instead of allowing them, I've condemned myself as being ill for feeling them. This is why society is in part sick; repression is healthy and expression is deemed ill. We drug away “negative” emotions for fear we are somehow damaged for harbouring them.

From now on, I am no longer “ill” — what a difference such a perception makes in how you treat yourself. Whatever you do is acceptable, whatever you do is allowed and expression is an inevitability. My intense sadness is not a problem, my intense pain is not a problem, my intense fear is not a problem — do you know how freeing such an attitude towards self is?

I have fears – they are very real to me. But contrary to what the some may think, my greatest fears are not rejection and abandonment.

My greatest fear is that everyone will continue to turn their heads while victims are screaming.

My greatest fear is that survivors will express exactly how they feel, whether verbally, or acting out, and they will continue to be invalidated by being told they need medication and therapy in order to control their behavior, thereby reinforcing what they learned as children.

My greatest fear is that victims will continue to be silenced by therapy, or numbed from medication, and the clinicians, the researchers, will continue to ‘theorize’ and develop treatment that, in the long-run, is not helpful because they, themselves were NOT abused and have no idea what really should be done.

My greatest fear is that survivors will continue to be lab rats in the development of treatment that is not helpful, they will continue to drop out, time after time, and they will continue to self-harm, ‘repeat the trauma’, and possibly commit suicide because they believe no one cares.

My greatest fear is that the statistics will grow and no one will do anything about it because they do not know what to do. These are the facts:
             A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
             More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.
             Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4.
             It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as
             such on death certificates.
             More than 90% of juvenile ****** abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way.
             Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all
             religions and at all levels of education.
            About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing
            the horrible cycle of abuse.
            About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one
            psychological disorder.

And this reflects only what is reported. Imagine what that percentage would be if all of the unreported cases were included.

And of the millions of children that survive the abuse, many grow up to be adults who are able to put it behind them, succeed and present themselves as an acceptable member of society, and many of them do not. But what are we DOING about it? When will people stop turning their heads? When will we finally stop, look and listen to these children being abused and to the adults who were abused as children?

When will we, society, decide that child abuse, and ****, and ****** assault are important, and affect millions of lives every year, and that it can be just as deadly as cancer. When will we finally stop whispering and turning our heads and actually face it and do something to stop it, and effectively treat those who ‘survived’?

I hope it happens in my lifetime, and I hope I can make a difference!

im sad because my brother leaves again in a few weeks and i only saw him twice
im sad because i never had a dad
im sad because i "recovered" and i hate myself more than before
im sad because my medication doesnt work
im sad because i have no money
im sad because im not good at anything
im sad because i have no culture
im sad because people are uninformed
im sad because im sick
im sad because im being invalidated and told to just "get better"
im sad because everything feels like its falling apart
im sad because i have no god
im sad because im lost
i wish i could disappear
i wish i could find a way
to make a way

A trinity of three styles one man no religion one morning over a lifetime

Temporary (we tat too)

Temporary love
has no precision definition
so if I say
love you forever,
as I do,
know know
just know
this particular
phrase
is temporary,
unique and forgivable

as temporary
as our permanent tattoo,
the one embellishing you,  
the one marking me,
the two hearts tat
that means
we are a
tat two

If you begin a poem,
a love, a tat
with temporary,
usually, but not always,
you have already failed

See http://hellopoetry.com/poem/if-you-begin-a-poem-with-i/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Invalidation

my living bones, twisted.
my words, slurred,
disfigured with a panache,
that makes the mirror
turn away, ashamed

invalid. in valid.

I have been invalidated,
I spit at your too late heroics,
unwanted.
I spit at myself,
for missing the moment,
when choice was mine

I would have self-destructed, freely,
reborn in an act of self-validation,
be my own living will,
if only I had not been enslaved to my
*******
Fear

invalidation, the Cain mark of every failed man

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bootyoir

three day weekend has commenced.
it's con-occlusion
now in rapid descent
mini-vacation, ****-sensation.

the only question remaining,
present but debated,
as yet undecided,
whose turn is it
to answer
the doorbell,
when the delivery guy
brings our break~fast

for it is forbidden,
a transgress,
to egress
from the bootyoir,
except for the
call of nature,
and naturally,
I am calling
you,
comeback comeback
hungry time
it's time we
co-authored some
bootyoir poetry

Vernarth leaves and articulates in them to guide and accompany them with this imperishable itinerary, coming from the undivided becoming that was normalized with its evident parapsychology, creating certain polycellular substances in the accentuated multi placebo effect by injecting them with clinical blindness, to then reactivate them in the ejido of Bethany as a path of going and death, back and Life, with whom they revived from the anginal dizziness, that even some faltered when they saw Bethany full of Borricos who led them with the allegory as if the real world had just been made in a variety of towards a speculative problem and its limitations. Vernarth could glimpse with his glances certain affected areas of some who were with the entourage, essentially in the wear of their pancreas, hormones that were launched with radiant flashes of celestial suns, with extracts of muscles varying with irradiation in super stocks, inhibiting radioactive parts of Cinnabar that finally brought them all together when the phase of Cinnabar that was deployed as an aid to the cutting of the heads Speleothemes or Speleotomies, becoming radioactive by generating concentration in large eminences of snatched electrons, in order to begin to open the layers of the bathyal zone at four thousand meters of depth without light, up to the Neritic where large cemeteries with whale mammary arteries flowed back, and together with toxins from sea snakes. The hypnosis that Vernarth exercised towards all those who absorbed aspiring to have enough dynamics, and generate prayers of all kinds for when they reached the Metelmi tunnel of the Profitis Ilias. With the management of the visualizations of her emotions, meditation and prayers were rewound after a neat trajectory of wealth and well-being Venusiana.

The power of their unified minds has been successfully adhered to for hundreds of years since they were fostered. From the first hypnotic third with the mesmerism of the chiroptical, rather of the four species of Vlad, Fruit Chiroptera, Vampire, Indiana, Egyptian, which would mainly be the carriers of fertilization of the lands of Patmos, and their pollination together with the Lepidoptera, also gave them the magnetism in this way:

Says Vlad Strigoi: “Eventually it suggested to me from the hypnotic trance that led us to varieties of suggestion in the dermis, which it branded us as suggestive ectodermal. Under the keys of the nervous system if I have to have a conscience or exquisite wisdom for all the blisters that in frugality it is convenient for my species of chiropterans to shelter them, and not my human comrades. So I got over the death of my older brother, and then I succeeded him, where I went some time to moan him on the Danube. I was exiled in Edirne, and from there in my second reign, I went to Wallachia, many episodes happened and early in the morning I was visited by the rest of the Boyars' bats, fleeing from themselves, there were thousands and thousands I had to take care of from them. Later I went to Valdaine, Chauvet. Welcoming me to Wonthelimar so that one day we would regain the true kingdom of manumission in the darkness of Wallachia with my monastic brother Vlad Calugarul "

The blisters of thousands of Vlad's Chiroptera burst when he referred to his brother Calugarul, beginning to fall from the upper angle into cheesy leagues of flying animals, who wanted to control the pain of man, all protected by psychic mental waves emancipated from the presumptuous angle of Vernarth, and of the laziness of his spasms, and migraines that we're frightened of some by the entrails of the physiology of the platform. Upon reaching five hundred years, there were four hundred left to approach the quantum borders that the Souls of Helleniká transferred to them, the entire timeline was covered with a tunic that was moistened by turbulent water that appeared from overseas, producing dramatic conventional meteorologies, where The line of sight of the horizon lay three times where it was, to indicate that the humid plain of the tunic was in concert with the setting Sun. From this regulation plan, the prime time was counterpoint, for a link of half an hour before approaching midnight, before reaching the Profitis Ilias, specifically the Metelmi Tunnel in the Raedus Codex. Many species were unable to tolerate the immunity of such an event as they emerged to the surface and began to collect cells that revived engulfed in themselves, to later become impregnated with Wonthelimar's entourage and then predisposed to enter the geological cavity.

The collectivity of time was dissipated, all the nature that was of a coherent past was beginning to visualize itself towards a state of immunity mechanism, due to the trances that deprived it of hope of living in a new beginning before reaching Patmos. From Agios Andreas, expulsions of malignancies that were expressed with the Apsidas Manes were still felt, being very well alternated by Marie des Vallées who deconcentrated conventions and individualities towards the lacerated that still did not form outgrowths on their bodies removed from Spinalonga, while she continued as always In its most absolute darkness and exile, only portraits were enough to project itself on a populated island, which would be rescued from involuntary excretions and depopulation, being a human settlement. More than a hundred experiments were missing to scale the island to a superiority that was far from a medical shelter site, which excludes it from knowledge of prevalent and invalidated concepts of a miraculous life that was beginning to be written in Agios Andreas. The power of Faith self-healed in the bodies that had yet to be awarded the healing intentions of collective minds that flowed among all, when they were guided by the Saint of Normandy after having clear evidence and for how long they would be on this islet, for also rejoin the investiture of the Himation of Vernarth in the Áullos Kósmos, indemnifying the intervals of the Vas Auric and the Cinnabar. All prayed inclined towards a transformation of the permutations that inspired a quantum healing, that moved the waves of the seas in unison with their prayers, that creating a quantum healing atmosphere in all channels, and for all their atoned intentions. Telepathy apprehended all their emotions, prevailing the vital energy that contemporary in the prayers of the new earth field that greeted them became at their astonished feet.

The hospitality of Agios Andreas had Theus and Vikentios defined to be with her, to have total compassion with the Saint and to recover their ancestors with a focus of energy that were invaded by hyper healings similar to an ultrasound, which emanated from the hands of the Santa, for each of the individuals who remained to be definitively healed and then redistribute them in the new spheres of execrations, which hung from the indigenous Manes on the island, which delimited the improvement of many human beings who lived long periods here, overcoming dimorphisms in the reproductive organs of ancient cavemen, with leprosy in the ***** of their ******, but the testimony of dimorphism motor skills will lead to species totally free of this scourge of the ***** bacillus, to perfectly synchronize a field of healing energy, from the magical thought of the Saint who assisted them permanently, to prepare themselves in the new regions before they had what to make the last decision to integrate in Patmos. The membranes of the nuclei of the sun that healed them and reconvened themselves from the molecules of an energized level of matter celestially congruent, with the sensitivity of the affected organs, until some cells imprisoned in the cells of lost morbidity, hypnosis was reinstituted bilocate de Vernarth who assisted them from his eclectic Portal before superior hypnosis that led them to mutate their bodies into astonishing birds, which were retransformed with the Birds of the Stymphalus.

depression is often compared to falling down an endless hole.
but
it’s actually more like a hot air balloon,
launched by those who tell you to change.
change your looks, your personality
be yourself, they say
not like that, they say
you let them launch your balloon
believing they’re trying to help you fit in
and you watch them grow smaller
as you slowly rise into the atmosphere
until the oxygen grows as thin
as the strings holding together your sanity
and you panic and scratch at the balloon
trying to poke a hole, thinking only about descent,
and your fingertips begin to bleed
and your wrists are cut on the harsh nylon ropes
and you collect scars because you can’t collect your thoughts
and all you want to do is fall
so you jump
and as you’re falling, you feel good.
you feel free.
but as you plummet towards earth and you can see the ground you begin to regret and spread your arms, desperately flapping but it’s too
late
and you hit the floor with a sickening,
bone shattering
crunch
then you float back up to the sky that ended you
and you see
your family
friends
teachers, everybody who’s ever loved you and maybe even hated you feel the ripples of force as you hit the ground
and they scream and rush to your side
trying to help
trying to do what they tell themselves they would have done
if only they had known, if only you had told them
but you felt silly and invalidated and you didn’t want anybody to see
and you didn’t think they would have saved you
so you kept it in and stayed in your balloon until it was too much
the oxygen was running out
with your will to live
but those who are alive cry
tears falling as quickly as you did from the sky
hitting the ground with splashes nowhere near as loud as the crash
that cut your life short
running their fingers over the scars that you hid
the pain that you endured up there in the atmosphere, hidden among long sleeves and fluffy white clouds and fake smiles
and they wonder why they allowed
you to go up in the balloon in the first place
and they begin to blame
not each other, but themselves
and some launch balloons of their own
telling themselves that they’re just grieving,
just wanting to see what you did in your final moments
but their balloons spiral out of control and
they find themselves falling
just as you did

the sun is scorching through the parking lot in pillars or light, shivering on the pavement in waves of reality shaken by matter, it reveals the change in matter. so fluid. i see an old man walk up to the gas pumps by the mr. mikes. he walks past the car wash, past the little barrier between the road and the grass on the side. stands there, looks back and forth as if calculating speed and distance of passing vehicles. in shock i see that he is trying to figure when to jump.

he stops, turns, and begins to walk up the busy main street. as he goes, he take slips of paper out of his coat pocket, stares at the receipts and then surreptitiously drops them behind him. instead of children dropping crumbs in the woods, i see an old man shedding silent messages in his wake as he trudges through suburban forests of pavement and condos. how strange i think and pick myself up out of the car, running past the chain link fence rounding the edges of the hardware store parking lot. she won't even miss me i think fleetingly of the person inside who might come out soon.

the old man is walking at a parallel angle to i, as i was too hasty to know his story before changing the outcome of his journey. he sees me, and stops to face me on the opposite side of the street. we make eye contact, a car whips past, then an ambulance flooding the hues of the air red and blue. i remember there is an accident up the street. there were almost eight or ten cars pulled over near walmart. traffic was backed up and the **** in front of me had been rubbernecking like his middle name was bashful. somebody was probably dying a mile from here. he looks at me a second more and i feel the sadness wafting off of him, so strong it crosses air, barriers, vehicles, straight shotgun windshield shattering screeching into my chest. he turns and walks away. continuing to leave his trail even after knowing he had been observed.
i run across and bend down to retrieve the papers casually, clamped lips around the cigarette i had somehow managed to light, my body's natural response to everydamnthing. i do not look at the papers, just stick them in my plaid breast pocket and rush back to the car. a few hours later i am ready to read them, and i unfold the papers.

first
1: PRE COFFEE 2.00 F
2: SCALLOP POTATO .99 F
3: SHAKERS CHICKEN .79 F
4: POULTRY .79 F
5: POULTY .79 F

SUBTOTAL 5.57

CUSTOMER COPY
EBT APPROVED
EBT FOODSTAMPS

and then
DISTRICT COURT
CASE NUMBER 1161CR001443
DESCRIPTION 1161CR001443 Commonweath vs. M*, Michael J
On Behalf Of M*, Michael J
Payment Type                                Amount
CASH                                              130.00
GENERAL REVENUE FUND               80.00
VICTIM WITNESS                             50.00
Change                                              .00
Balance Due                                   20.00

Comments:



this feeling of overwhelming misery comes over me. i allow it to flood in and fill me with images of this man's life. his shame, his despair, his shackles, that cause that feeling of life being a bad migraine that never goes away.
but then i feel sympathy and compassion seep in afterwards, so silent and gentle. i think of how my presence may have changed that man. to see someone run to him, show him he is not invisible, not just another lost soul in the court system, not alone and invalidated by society simply for existing, not all of society is like that. i hoped my awareness would shout to him too, perforating the silent barriers to say "look, you are not unseen, you are not unheard, i know you exist! it's not time to die yet michael."

michaels seem to stick to me. their stories are vast and painful and hard to peel off, like dry glue. their struggles worthy of attention. michael you are real. michael, i see you. michael someone is listening, somebody knows that you exist. i know it is passover and it probably feels like you are dying in your sleep with no blood painting your doors for protection, but you do have that blood. it comes from your body michael. your struggles become your pain become your understandings become your transcendence. michael, you are intelligent, i can see it in your eyes. now do yourself a favor and

don't jump.

DISCLAIMER: READ THE WHOLE THING IT IS MUCH MORE GENIUS TOWARDS THE END



Bypass the circumlocutions of elementary rhetoric and the obvious bulges into the ethereal realm of supersolid supercalendar emigrations of the wednongues of vogue emigrating into a new frontier of boundless awakening that blisters the sore solid metaphors of a crumbled bricolage of articulate history becoming a reiterative gabble of entropy that curdles the blood-boiling hatred of those envious of those that capitalize on the true girth rather than the flaccid otiose etymology of differential physics becoming a denatured figment of prideful imagination on a frolic with desuetude in the normalization of the wernaggles of ewnastique that defile the ridicule of even the most astute aspirations of those that despise history rather than reveling in its subtle ironies that swelter in connotation rather than suborn the cadged bridewells of those that are estranged by the Dousk Remix rather than the Voulez-Vouz Danser populism of true urbacity expanded upon a national stage as an anthem not for profligate saturnalia but rather an ode to the odium of the reckless titanism of titanic intellects clashing with the dudgeons of intermittent eye-rolling irreverence double-dealing a stacked deck of pleckigger on an intellectual stagecraft for bandwagon apostasy that leads to solidarity among tentative allegiance. We barnstorm for a grift in the grimace of an alpenglow winter to lead to the salvation of all people united under the banner of neat nexility rather than long-winded elocution reserved only for notched caliber against the nativist diatribe that serves the subservience of the engineer of the white chattel indoctrinated into turnstiles of professed irreverence for demarches of solidarity that is gainsay for gain rather than pittances for pitfall. Rhetoric should be duly curtailed against the overcomplication of hypertrophy and trimmed into the sweet success not of saccharine fads of foofaraw but engineered resistance that galvanizes albatross intellectualism into a revved engine without purpose that mobilizes because of estranged impotence in the revelry of the subtle rather than the cordial tethers of emergent entelechy of the esemplastic orthobiosis that we should all strive for not just as pioneers of the socially engineered harbingers of a remedial society but also for the trendsetters that communicate with the canvass and the celluloid rather than spelunking dormitage of drifted anomaly perceptible to everyone but heralded as prominent by the rigged ambeer of a toxicity of a plumage of city over state and country over planet. We need to provide the verdure of the verdant forest that survives the conflagrations of rage indoctrinated by systematic attempts at stilted ignorance that is engendered more by Leftism than Right-Wing thinkers because in general when observed in organic settings we notice that the Right-Wing escapes the sloganeered jaundice of limited bounds for otherwise boundless thought and provides more seminal pathways that reconcile normative virtues with entrenched inveterate harbingers of economic success. The faulty deadstocks that propel the retinoise of the anomaly among Leftism to disregard the girouettism of a world that is so piebald with dishonesty that it elects a patronage that seethes with passion but aimless in its curiosity for deeper embedded candor because the popular might count themselves among the aristocratic Left but the truly Promethean belong to a centrist tribe that borrows the ingenuity of spurned but never spurious interpretations of a sputtered history that remarks with revelry  rather than disdains with #CancelCulture irreverence that seeks to deracinate all context for insipid utopianism that is a shared prerogative of the delusional Left against their complaints of Sebastomania among right-wing zealots that are equally invalidated by the frogmarch of a dilettante history curbed in storms of a pure tempest rather than a banal reiteration of novelty phrased with participant intonation rather than blathers of whispered arbitrage ennobled by hypocrisy immune to criticism among those that crusade for economic justice without understanding formal flombricks of the true gnomic riddles of alchemy fundamental to global panoramic pleonasms becoming the aleatory vagary of admonished warning that spars against spartanism. Instead of pilfering from the exorbitant defalcation of immunized partisan bromides against the ratcheted warranty upon defective obsolescence we must coalesce around the imperious ****** of divinity bequeathing the living water of a fully-lived life that qualifies its felicity not by junctures but by an overall harmony that conforms to the finicky demands of an overly polarized complexion of dimpled conformity founded on girouettism that earns more traction than the deasil sundial emergence of brimstone rejection for alabaster limelight we must urge others to ditch the conformist utilitarian usucaption of the usufruct of manipulative sports for domineering talents suborned into inclement straits because of unwitting albatross that replicates into a fission of uniformity encapsulated in the half-assed witticisms of attempted belletrist succeeding only in alienating the noxious fumes of alveolate diminutive reduction rather than expansive detritus that scrapes the wreckage of a turmoil to build masterworks out of broken sculptures themselves indemnified from a categorical judgment by the panoramic oversight of proctored civilized ambition. We need to exhort self-education that hinges upon not a listless acquiescence to a second-exit impulsive barnacle to the urchins of brimstone because of an insipid blather of flapdoons of brittle banality because the hackencrude is an outmoded entity to the vast resources of the sizable capital of the growing power of the intelligentsia over the weakened grasp and wrangle of terminus meeting consuetude weakly enough with pleasantry to appease but ultimately a complete witwanton persiflage of sizzled destruction rather than the savory contemplation of the cotqueans of majesty derided but never derailed by terminal revivals because the generativity of the titanic original might not be a popular indoctrination but the liberated thought of the untethered is ultimately more decisive in world affairs than the synergistic hive of bees building an imperious defense against dynasty built only upon provincial hatred of hidebound illiteracy combustible into the brazen bravado of a reckless intrepid effrontery against civilized chains into the ******* of complicit interconnection rather than dissolved dissolutions that solve global problems more fundamentally rather than driving through avenues of wide pressures gilded with expansive growth but ultimately bereaved by the ultimate succor of the youthful exuberance of captive audiences rather than the wily connivance of genius unbounded. God is obviously a benevolent provider of all bounties and despite the conspiracies that predicate heterodoxy the uniform mannequin of a mascot Democracy ultimately becomes a fickle bandwagon allegiance to relationship rather than a true witness to authentic ******* to a subservient relationship to a creative God synergized with energies that should exceed all galloped windlass into demarche and expose rather than rundles of ridicule interminable because of the permanence of kitsch memorial rather than living sculpture that breathes a swiveled light that beckons preened self-accountable responsibility to a dutiful matriotic duty of optimism rather than a contrarian futility of those that despise the unequal suave crackjaw dementia of the temulentia of derangement among crowds that provide fewer bounties and more deprivations calculated to indenture need rather than motivate want. We must motivate want by fueling ambition rather than quelling dissent in defensive posture because that strategy of antinomian discord is a dead-end street against an inveterate enmity that can never be fully deposed but only opposed with nominal futility raging with violence rather than seething with the motivation to reform because reform is an efficacy mobilized. Novelty of wednongue propriety grown through the heirs of drastic impertinence gilded from the siphon of lavadero hypogeiody blasphemous in bletonism that guards a piebald scrivelo because the sought dementia of an overwrought alacrity is a purpose without a terminus but an ambition soaring through scraped ice cream stratosphere that marvels at the minutiae of the civilized anthill that becomes a beehive of industry when the rationale of moral reform becomes insuperable rather than suborned into effete recursive cycles of pittances of pitfalls obsessively pondered but never solved because the fustilugianation of a forever tampered travesty is the esemplastic rejection of a categorical aim that leans of windlasses of elegance that surpass the levy of hatred and achieve sizable filagersion to squirm above the squawk upon populace rather than the consternation of an urbane but cloistered metropolitan arrogance contravened by the historical emergence of happenstance locales fostering the most well-guarded treasures of bohemian pedigree rather than dimpled resolve faffling on ergasia in bromidrosis rather than cavorting with a skeptical indoctrination by default evaded by those that equate an improbable scenario with a definitive solution to acatalepsy quandary because by reckoning with indeterminacy we grow in historical lineaments and solve global detritus by recycling the rattled brevity of promontory preens of plumage into a recursive ostentation defalcating heavily from sturdy macroeconomic proofs of the trendsetter rather than the trend and therefore grapple with profound personalized disdain rather than cordial harmony. Essentially by the logical positivism of proof we remind ourselves that obviously a chattering blather swims in tentative irony as long as it is a penultimate relativity because the lack of capstone ensures that the relevant treads beneath the mountain of rapprochement in benign endeavors to survive and thrive in definitive conclusion rather than intermediary conclusions of amnesia in jaundice. By the gnomic apothegms that guard the fortress of the demassified we have quantulated that the preposition of continuance is in fact a guarantee of the fickle supremacy of the recent and even more preponderantly the supremacy of expectancy of latent junctures that never manifest becoming a dictatorial rule of driven alacrity of wastrels that should fast from conclusive opinion and rather favor the primordial fabric of the inveterate truths rounded by the conversion of alchemy solidified by calculated canon converging with esoteric apartheid against the simultagnosia of the simpleton drivel of primordial myths bowdlerized from history neither lewd nor depraved but moribund because of the conclusive ****** of a peremptory intermediary certainty predicating a more precise foresight. The lackluster luster of numinous foghorn subliminal graft is a nativist confusion of legionnaire mettle swaddled by the cosseted grasp of interminable boundaries that demarcate linear time even when supersolid filigrees of elemental confusion erratically swerve into oblivion that becomes a forestalled happenstance so hapless that the connivance of alveolate synergies necessarily precludes event from becoming indelible because the tentative judgment wallops the tributary incontinence of the warble of axiolative jaundice materialized by crystalline fabrication neutered by soundbyte sclerotic calculus inveterate in summations of conclusion only because of peremptory weights upon geometric certainties rather than logarithmic dampers of attenuation that spar against spartan priggish epithets upon the flamboyant grit of grisly specter of speculative sepulchral venal vanity. The timberlask cineaste irony of the partisan usucaption of sapwood is a pirated timber of startled alarm becoming a useful or useless cacophony of barnstorm for the deadstock of past cadasters of rigmarole in the docimasy of pretense in impartial circumstance in specialized oratory bounded by a hemmed bailiwick of verdure denatured by the flombricks of subtle persuasion that ignores minority fringes of opinion that occupy that majority that cowcatchers brush aside rather with cruel contemptuous unkempt slippery agenda for drivel that spawns ingeminated redoubled explosions in participle bias rather than conglomerate arraignment of arrayed brooked swamps turgid not with the pettier travesty but the charade of a brokered ceremonial calculation against the wrikpond spurious by degeneration into corruptible complicity that thrives in obscurantism but never obscurity when the omnified owns a capitalized swiftboat of never a temulentia but always an optimism in the curvature of lineaments into the self-educated shepherd of the ultimate autarky rather than insubordination in the scrappy schlep of demographic ripples of swift enrichment at great personal flops in the floppy disk of a Democratic enrichment rather than a parched rectiserial hidebound tome. A quirky time stanched by tomes of patricide against family ingratiated by parrots to anthem but lacking the lettered verve of ignoble but parsed parsecs of finite light captivated into prismatic conscience we launch the demerited ploys of foible into the heralded controversy rather than the unheralded mercenary hands behind dogmatic ripostes livid because of the suave prestidigitation of the sublime mastery of the syncopated irony of mismatch attuned to radical rhythm we become bloated slaves to a rich lineage decried widely in attempts of covert coup raxes of a largesse of continual primipara perversions of courted cotqueans of uxorious justice that by defalcating from tributary orthobiosis in specious conjecture esteemed by rattled martexts aspiring for fraternal solidarity with the ****** esteem masquerading as the auctioned flivver that the merchandise of fluminous optimism cannot be an effusive blanch of blarney bolstered by bumptious bromides of brunt blackmail but rather the artform of subterfuge needs the insidious and invidious traction of creepy Thriller subtlety to garner the vapid traction of immobilized discontent foster to malcontent rarely abridged by even the most polite courtesy of diplomacy because of inherently insatiable demand that it skulks in undetected quarters flexing in the shadowy penumbra of transparent crackjaw enigma becoming an obvious blister or a gabble of raw jaundice sweltering into thermolysis by the eventual convergence rather than the improbable divergence of fissile time beckoning its own flashy revolution while denaturing the very presence of delusion as a herald more of the authenticity of animadversion rather than the sclerotic carapace of ragged asphyxiation in the aplomb whisper entombed forever by milquetoast inefficacy in hypersensitivity rather than a flourished malfeasance of a predatory grip upon seizure among catatonic graves of incontinence braving tribulation for crucibles of the most prosodemic surgeries of the furtive froward recalcitrance of deliberation in ignominy that enables that transmogrified skyscraper of Titanic lies to become a sunken vessel of harbored prestige lost on penultimate dice rather than winning pokerish villiany. Essentially the jeer of Morel Under a Disco is a winning brandished authority to chug the capers of inscrutable difference in blandishment imposture to cavort with an elegant plot twist that enthralls abiding decay to revert into a primordial confidence of livelihood to deter the frogmarch of time into the despairing quagmires of a livid balkanization of a simultagnosia of ageotropic monoideism fomented on fervor that leads to the paralysis of privacy and the expedited furor of moribund depraved proclivity so that the offset of morale and rationale can outfit civilization to brave the tempests of cordial divisions cemented by courtesy in order to safeguard against the yeggs of paranoia seeking ultimately the craven caper of disillusioned subconsciously felt retraction of indelible deeds into evaporated constructs that vanish too quickly to spawn the vigor of a cadged and utilitarian expanse of reiterative generativity that sustains the spanned sapience of primordial alacrity to ensure that brevity in outlook becomes longevity in subsistence because without a logical positivism grounded in unshakable tenets of God the demoralization of the vast majority is ensured and entombed in aimless squalor that leads to sheepish temerity compounded by wistful latency in regretful regression rather than a spandex bluster of a bravado of obesity to weather the persnickety wednongues of perdurable badges of instinctual shame slandered into prima facie denatured transmogrified cultures seeking cosmogony out of ordinary bricolage because the eventful triage of the nimble eludes parochial sight while the vastly capable outfox and outpace with such frenetic verve that they fasten against accident and transcend against heterochrony in ridicule that the unseasonable but seminal sauce flavors better the partially indentured optimism of a curated matriotism better than it serves the obviously interminable cycle of listless demiurges of malcontent that fuel conflagration rather than reformation to their own remorseful peril. Thereby, it is obviously concluded that to micromanage a society you must exert the capacity of a selective magnetism obviously predicated on demassified capacities for oaths of gratitude to endear and endure in the humane heart for the majority that sway few but encounter many that they find proper scruple grounded on axiomatic God to sustain not a lifeless priggish inclination but a bounded felicity that is not a carapace of an indigenous and insidious decadence to the extent pursuits of happiness swelter among the marginalized majority bereaved in powerless squalor slave to temptation not to derelict fascination but to provide aim to aimlessness and predicate their worldviews not on Racial Identity Theory which postulates too many counterintuitive pessimisms that are essentially neutered fustilug predicates of a world that requires such drastic seismic reforms in societal dynamics that the earthquake capable of such a realignment would exceed a 10.5 on the Richter scale which is 32x more powerful than the biggest earthquake in recorded history that would be so catastrophic in its implicit implication of the pretense that the consummation of the theory achieves the traction necessary to jostle every crowd into alignment that the collateral damage would endanger the very integrity and vitality of the Republic itself while exerting a tremendous existential dread of radical permutation that enables many travesties that abnegate the prerogatives of a privileged society in search of a facetiously engineered impossible utopia that could only be achieved by a dictatorial authoritarianism working in concert with benumbed sloganeering to engineer pessimism and malcontent rather than nurture the fair-natured optimism of a society that flourishes because it assumes naturally that the universe conspires in the favor of prosperity. If any hint of casuistry is evident in these postulates I wouldn’t be surprised but for rhetorical sanctity it is necessary for a nation bereaved of national icons not to despise the captive imagination of tyrannical transparency but grow from the liberating and partially liberal parable of a life maximized in limber for romantic enthralled growth that heralds with due consideration the paragons of time with reverence rather than soundbyte enslavement of parochial interminable twinges of a newborn and widely shared collective guilt of a decisively antinomian and pessimistic view on the evolution of human societies beyond catchy kitsch verve nexilities of bravado mutilating thirsts for inclusive mandates that are Boa Constrictors prowling with serpentine vitriol to vastly over-represent extreme fringes to dissuade nuclear families in an overt ploy of depopulation because the truer pathway to liberation is one that feeds the hot hand in the casino and bets that the winners will always win by deregulating their ability to bet large sums because of a transcendent supersolid mastery of time that the march and demarche of a boundless prosperity gouged by the fair demands of egalitarianism enables the card counter to achieve such a decisive advantage that his indentured socially coerced eleemosynary inclination to feed the flock endures throughout all epochs because of the necessary and incumbent scruples of God-fearing men to distribute their winnings won by cheating time to conquer time itself.

I don't understand why
people hesitate
to compliment others.

Have we all not had those days
where we really felt like
all we needed was some appreciation?
Those days where our efforts
were nothing but invalidated and dismissed?

The universe has presented itself to you
in an ethereal way that is unique to you and solely you.
Let the cosmos influence and inspire you
and let your words and your work elate and embolden others.
Admit your awe and affection and maybe
you can be that one piece of inspiration
that someone else needs that day.

The enabler or possibly rescuer is often a individual which steps help an individual that has an compulsion or who might be based upon an item to stay regarding in their negative practices. The average person that you are making could be working at any of the: consuming an excessive amount of, hurting pills, becoming busted, wagering, present an eating disorders or maybe even working an excessive amount or perhaps not sufficient. When you are securing or simply masking for through making reasons or maybe lying down for your children, you'll be able to come to be overly trusted to create on their behalf. A intentions could be to provide service to the other make will finish their substance abuse and no matter what it may be this really is ones own dependency. On the contrary, by just assisting such, you are the item easy for that dependence or possibly horrible common practice to go on cheap ghd hair straighteners outlet. It doesn't matter how well-intended how you behave might well be, by preserving all of them out of objectionable conditions, frankly, that you are facilitating all of them stay away from responsibilities they should be spending by themselves along with their habits. Maybe you discover yourself to be imagining or even concentrating on your other's actions and even complications around your own personal or perhaps are feeling worried concerning habit and so are usually managing these cheap ghd hair straighteners outlet. You perhaps pin one self with regards to situations. Perhaps you're perhaps even conscious that the truth how you behave plus behaviour to become a nanny might be helping the person. Most of the time because a codependent enables one more its satisfying a requirement inside of these to actually feel wanted in order to provide structure in just anything they discover as the disorganized event. Regardless of whether you supply many other somehow or simply quite often as a result of stating next to nothing, you are which allows. Helping is definitely a clear symbol of very low self-esteem.

It is normally since you also are yet to got any expertise to say no. Getting the fear connected with reducing the other person'a appreciate. Once an individual answer what you see seeing that irresponsible actions, regardless of whether you let them know just by conversing right up this is, you become some sort of rescuer and invite his / her behavior to keep. Because codependents, we tend to grapple with needing finding look for for endorsement out of some others. Furthermore concern really being deserted or even invalidated, which is why you result in saving or perhaps enabling an additional. In our thoughts, the world thinks we'll be noticed rewarding together with a accomplishment since we've got made it simpler for one additional. It's possible that we could basically preventing battles and additionally problems damage would certainly arise after we would words all of our experiences. For an enabler, people are determined to defend the other person even if we will have to loss a little something with our personal lifespan. All of us you can easily "fix" what ever difficulty all the other ****** looks. We all normally realize it's another person which is the individual that preferences enable. As it pertains down to business, it is usually either which might be short of advice. Since we comprehend things are all how they seem to be on account of a lot of our helping and when we decide to research guide, where exactly do we turn? Very first, it is recommended to discover that merely over weight . the cause of the second peoples condition.

We will have to recognize that we simply cannot influence all the other and / or stop everything you look at as his or her situation. It becomes really hard, though we must eliminate coming to your other artists enable cheap ghd. Also . for these people as well as make sure you conceal or even come up with reasons in their mind. Set controls about what you should or maybe isn't going to have or maybe implement. Once the some other realizes that you won't end up being coming over to their particular aid or simply resuing these folks everytime, they are willing to end up being at home with attending to by themselves on a regular basis. There are plenty about novels around at codependency. Check your native book shop or simply selection. You can also find self-help individuals for example Al-Anon ghd outlet, Alateen and additionally Codependents Unknown. Nearly everyone is depending on the 12-step style of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Consult with any local group and even network wellbeing teaching programs. Unless you really feel with a team setting, we also have private procedure you can actually look for. Understand how to rid yourself of the particular handle a person has had finished many others. Let them encourage on their own. Store some chargeable for their own personal responsibilites together with their behavior. Learn how to pay attention to your personal specifications and then emotions. You know what is wonderful for your current well-being. Indulge in brand-new desire that you can get whenever you flip the treatment lower back relating to personally. Take responsibility will cost you all by yourself and discover to be a far better existence since you undertake require them!
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what does (s)he see in me?

my heart feels like lead

all the color in my life is gone,
but all the cones in my eyes are intact.

I never should have woken up

am I that dispensable?

I can't remember what it felt like
before the darkness came.

That just invalidated all my efforts

I’ll only be a burden

They’re just being polite

Why should I even bother?

I wonder if my family sees
the hurt in my eyes
and elects to ignore it

when will you realize that everything you
say to me takes a toll on my heart?
my love for you is unwavering, unchanging
and it just goes unnoticed by you.
i feel invisible and invalidated.
i can never tell by your tone of voice
how you feel or what you're thinking.
i want you to tell me how you feel,
tell me what you're thinking.
let me in. just, let me in.
i can't breathe without you,
but you confuse me.
we'll sit and talk for hours,
conversation flowing between us like water,
but it can turn to ice in seconds without warning
and you leave me freezing.
we can be inches, centimeters,
even millimeters apart
and it would still feel like miles.
you and i can't ever be too close,
we intertwine like ivy whenever we can.
but it's not enough, it will never be enough.
you have kept me warm for so long
my body has almost forgotten what it's like to be cold.
almost.
there are days that you remind me how the cold feels
and it terrifies me that i have given you the power to do that.
but even when i am frostbitten,
i let you keep my heart warm.

Cry,
her eyes succumbing to their selfish demand
which they so often did
her sobs old news,
but a more definite pastime
Than numbness.
Driving invalidated by a lack of destination
Stop signs blurring
In salt water, a stew of ******  Christian music
disingenuous howls louder than thoughts, and
Radio static filling spaces like confusion
, "I feel broken", she informed the rear-view mirror
For lack of better words

Her acidic tears dissolved the soft armor
Of her twins in the back seat.
Who added their mother's grief
to the bruises on their insides.
And mourned the cigarette smoke
She swore would never be there

So the sad little Saturn was weighty
and drove ruts in the pavement
with dysfunctional hurt
and she was subject to trite metaphors
Which she spewed at an alarming rate

For she never got rid if
The ****-tinted glasses
That were taped to her face.

Who am I but another statistic
Destined to be the next trending tag on Twitter
More martyrdom made for the minority
Hated for who I am and as they think I chose to be
Who am I but another snowflake
Bashed and beaten for my identity
Invalidated for who I know myself to be
Fearing each day that comes to pass
Who am I but a name that doesn't feel my own
Confusion rattles my brain
As I stare at the name I've known my whole life
So close to me yet so unfamiliar
Who am I but myself
As no one else chooses to see

I hate being maternal
I hate being fearful
I hate being traumatised
I hate being quiet.

I hate my attraction to men
Because it makes me fearful
That I’ll have kids
And they’ll be neglected, empty and loveless.

I hate being anxious
I hate losing control
I hate my upbringing.

If it weren’t for the confusion
And the belting and the yelling
I wouldn’t be scared.

I hate my attraction to men
Because it made me fearful
I was told that they’re rapists
And they’d take advantage of me.

I hate being weak
I hate being gendered
I hate looking and feeling small.

I wish I was only attracted to women
Because I’d be less fearful
I wouldn’t worry about having kids.

I hate feeling inadequate
I hate feeling like a machine
I hate feeling weak.

I wish conversion therapy worked
Because I hate being attracted
To any man who might hurt me
Or force me to have kids
Or force me to be his slave
Or refuse to accept who I am.

I hate being viewed as a woman
I hate when I try to express affection
Women laugh at it, and men take it the wrong way.

I hate being invalidated
As a non-binary person
Who doesn’t want to cause anyone pain.

I hate ****** attraction towards men
Because if it weren’t for self-control
I’d dig my own grave
And possibly that of unwarranted children.

I hate being an unhappy child
Because if I was raised lovingly
I wouldn’t be anxious
I wouldn’t be cursing my sexuality
For including men

Because I wouldn’t be scared
Of having kids
Cos I’d know I would raise them
The happy way I was raised.

If I was raised lovingly,
I know I’d raise kids that way too
And they wouldn’t suffer
They wouldn’t blame me
And the cycle of raising kids lovingly
Would be passed on throughout generations.

Tell me I’m exaggerating
But my dad swore
He wouldn’t raise me
The way his father raised him.

But I was terrorized
By his beltings
Just like the ones
His father gave him.

So I hope you understand
Why I hate part of my sexuality
And why for the good of others
I don’t want kids.

I want to stop this cycle
Of fear, pain and suffering
Even if it ends me.
Even if no-one remembers me.

It’s good for my conscience
To say this right here and now
I hate being scared
And I’d hate for anyone
To be afraid of me.


11th October 2017

To be honest, I've never felt more alone
Sleeping on the floor every night isn't fun
Missing your company, not out of habit,
but out of the fact that I love being with you
I can't cry here, I'll be judged and have my feeling invalidated
I love this city but if home is where your heart is,
Then mine is two-thousand five-hundred-seventy-two miles East
I can't call you while I'm inside the house because I'll be chastised
I heard your voice for the first time in weeks
I sat in the parking lot and cried for an hour.
I'm tempted to buy a ticket home
I'm tempted to give up
I'm tempted but I can't,
I'm tempted but I'm scared.
At this rate, I'll end up dying in this city
At my own hand.

Young man only thirteen high before his dream's
Taking doses of everything,
Painpill here, something there, a few Soma's in between....

Daddy shouldn't of left out
His first bottle there to begin with,
Yet daddy gave his son those pills
Sin's the son must live and tryeth to forget...

And now the sky falls
The earth to the boy quakes,
Yet now a man he seeith all
All the lies,pain , and heartbreak

He found it out the hard way
Making deal's in alleyway scene's,
To many false Lovers to him
They all telleth tales to maketh him believe...

And so he continues to swallow down his white pills
Just to feel some reality, wherein nothing else seemeth real!!!
And though those round thing's aren't authentic, he does it from the pain, of all the farce one's that cometh again and again....

So he couldn't take none more,  that he got
Trapped in a nightmare, of numbed out demonous plot....
He took a few last white tabs, swallowed them down,
He blasted his music inside his room, blocked the door so he couldnt be found.....

Took his belt, from his closet door, Wrapped it around his neck
Couldn't get no genuine amare from noone, the next life out did he check..
.. As the invalidated he left behind to them a note, mum and dad and everyone, this life I didst not hope....

So his soul clicked, snapped outta his shirt, he fleweth away like a bird, only in his young age, a shock for everyone, for him they hadst no words..... Now he was a ghost!!!

Their only word's were they were soo sad he hadst taken this way out, now at themselves they were mad, because it was them be was talking about..
How they hadst forgotten him, and all the stuff he hadst told... He was a young angel, who so young gave up soul...

The boy who died a man, payeth a visit every now and then,
He stoppeth in with the other suicide's of were hurt and heartbroken....
And up above the man canst seeith the Heartbreakers still break,
Thinking in his mind he forgives them now, though their still fake.

And yet though their fake, he intercedes to God for them in prayers.
Because he's a true seraphim, he didn't even belong here...
His character is unlike them, he was the truest to come around,
And now the other's wilt knoweth the jewel whom they hadst let down...




©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry

Inside my little world I try to focus
long enough to look into your eyes
and keep the dearest particles of light,
captured in May,
released in June,
restored in July,
severed in August,
inside.

I cannot remember
the last time I felt
this melancholy.

/

Careless laughter
and needless fantasies
we indulged in,
of spending even more
time than we did,
more than we should,
more than we had,
more more more…
It was never enough.

We’d drown ourselves
in the romanticised idea
of youth
and a lifestyle
better suited for
invisible wanderers
than for kids from the suburbs.

We’d stay out too late
mimicking the artists
who failed to get their pain across,
imagining we understood them.
We’d be up all night
guessing each other’s thoughts
and retelling our life
down from childhood up until then.

Contemplations of jealousy
and assumptions
rooted in instability.
Long walks
through cracked pavement
and jokes to hide
our invalidated pain.

Songs sung out.
Songs screamed out.
Songs of hope.
Songs of loss.
We’d hide ourselves
in music and the arms
of whoever was
conveniently located.

/

And I wouldn’t take any of it back.

‘poetry is unfair
for those who’ve arrived late,
there’s no new words left out there
poetry is stressful
because how can the english language expect us to wrap our souls into just a handful?
poetry is rude
feelings have to sound pretty
though life is actually quite crude
poetry is limiting
there’s only so much paper, lead, and ink
and there’s never been enough to get across what i think
poetry is too demanding
forcing our thoughts, our dreams, and our plethora of feelings,
to make some sense
to appeal to others
to stay within the coherent fence
and poetry is competitive, a jealous ***** at that
we’re all so rushed to send our souls into combat
because the last thing we’d want is to be deemed a copycat,
it seems to me that we all crave is to be deemed something or someone, as long as it’s “unique”
poetry is confusing
because in all reality, each soul has of languages its own variety,
and value to society
it matters how we speak
but not with the languages you can learn from a dictionary
it’s the ones deep inside us, that you may not be hearing
that tell who we are
both pretty parts and scary
but who is poetry to expect me to know when someone is forest green, though appear seafoam?
i’m pretty spot on when it comes to my colors
i’m still scared so it’s rare that i voice them to others
because poetry is contradictory
for example, i know i’m not the only one in the world who’s got colors in their head, chaotically swirled, or at least that’s what i hope
but whether or not there’s someone wandering near,
feeling lilac tunes passing also through their ears,
their poems to mine could be completely opposite
to me, yellow’s eminent
but to them, possibly irrelevant
and it’s so **** frustrating
because we can’t all be right, can we?
society picks their favorites
and the rest of us are negated, painfully invalidated’
this form of art, this way of life is so unrealistic that it should fill me with strife
but it doesn’t
and there’s a reason why

because poetry is fair
be the first or the last,
the whole point is to share, we were not put here to strip others bare
use whatever there is that takes ahold of your soul,
who cares if it’s new, used, broken, or old?
it came from you, from your entity it poured
this arrangement of words, feelings, and selves
they’ve never seen this before
poetry is a release
it’s gifting to you the stitch to your seams that’s been slowly tearing, the most recent cause of your despairing
for me, when i’m writing, it stitches me up with each letter from my cup becoming a word that becomes a phrase, one step closer to the glory days
when the english language will lose it’s power
and no longer have my soul in a haze
the english language is over exaggerated
we treat it with such respect
and tell ourselves it has something of us to expect
but it’s just letters, syllables, and sounds
it has no real power over us and by that i mean
it holds  us to no real bounds
poetry is real
all it is, is what we feel
and when we feel, there are no obligations
there’s no “should” or “shouldn’t”
you don’t have to keep up some fake reputation
feelings don’t have to be pretty
and life doesn’t have to be crude
your truth is your truth
so just write, and to yourself don’t allude
poetry is limitless
because while you may run out of space on that page, and yes it’s annoying to not have a place to keep going, you’re not confined to a cage inside your notebook lines
you don’t need the pencil lead to know that there’s something going on in your head
paper is limited
but we,
our souls,
we’re infinite
poetry doesn’t ask for much
just that were true and we do it for us
“to make sense” is too generalized of a concept
being as “sense” means something entirely different to all of us
i’ve had a problem with coherency, it’s never really agreed with me
but that’s only because i’ve convinced myself that i need to convince others
and that is impossible
people will see what they see and they’ll believe whatever they think you mean when you show them your poetry
but no amount of explaining is going to give someone else your eyes
you can try all you want to appeal to the crowd
you can scream what you really mean, but it doesn’t matter how loud
they’ll take it as they need to
so you might as well just write it all for yourself
poetry is confusing
and you’re never going to fully logically understand a poem that didn’t come from your hand
but that’s not the point, never was
the point was to put most things on pause,
and listen without your ears
to be able to hear somebody else’s “because”
poetry alone does not have rules
it’s our tedious brains and overwhelming insecurities that give these common misconceptions their fuel
“unfair, stressful, rude, limiting, demanding, competitive, confusing, and contradictory”
these are all words we throw, at ourselves and the art, when we’re scared
and our self-esteem is falling apart
and we’re worried we’ve done something wrong
but in art,
when you truly identify with whatever it was you felt enough to amplify,
you can’t fail
this form of art,
this **** way of life,
this ******* paradise
is one of the best reasons that i am alive
and why i’m able to do so much more than just simply survive

I’m writing because it’s midnight, and that’s what happens. My fingers start itching and words start running around in my neural pathways. I’m writing because I’m not really sure I have anything to say.

That’s not true though. I’m writing because there’s always something to say. There’s always something worth hearing, something worth breathing in after it rains. There are metaphors I’ve already overused, so why not use them one more time. There are metaphors unexplored at the bottom of these literary chasms I chase my mind down into and somebody’s got to find them.

I’m writing because I have nothing else to do. Because it’s midnight and the world always starts falling asleep right when my sense of security starts waking up.

I wish you could see me like this in the daytime: unafraid, that is. Unafraid of what sort of patterns my fingers will stroke out on this invalidated copy of Microsoft Word that keeps asking me to validate it. We all want to be validated. You’ll have to get in line.

I’m writing because there are words like efflorescence that roll off my tongue like new pennies dropping into wishing wells.

I guess I’m writing because I’m sad.

We’re all a little sad though, some of us just see it when we look in the mirror. We see it under our eyes and in the empty space around us. We can see it where others can’t. In the empty space inside us.

I’m writing because there’s an ephemeral “her” to be written about, and she’s not even me. She’s this sad girl who curls up in bed at night and wonders what it feels like to be loved by another human being and wonders if it will ever happen to her. She’s one of these girls you pass up and walk past without noticing. I’m writing because my whole existence notices her.

I guess I’m just writing because well… it’s what I do. It’s what I do when I’m empty, it’s what I do when I’m full, it’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I do when there’s nowhere to run to and no one to run from. There’s nothing chasing me; it’s just me in this dark room.

I’m writing because the sound of keys is nice. It’s really nice. It’s the sound of pancakes on the griddle on Sunday mornings when I was young and of heavy breathes against the curve of my neck when I wasn’t so young anymore.

I’m writing because one day I’ll be older and my sadness will be out of touch. It will be a thing of my youth when I was self-indulgent and my universe was still small enough to only spin around me. Because one day you wake up and realize all the pettiness is still there but you don’t matter to yourself anymore.

I’m writing because I do matter. I do matter.
I’m writing because I can.