"lemmings" poems
May we live in and see interesting times, the old saying goes
another offers that when the mind is blind, the eyes cannot see
for me my days are interesting and the laughter readily and often comes
for the grapes of wrath brings forth mirth filled grapes on grapevine tendrils
As lemmings and sheep enact bellyaching absurdities, as the ridiculous does
Veracity on sojourn and falsehood in residence with doors firmly closed
Hamlet re-enacts hapless role, with Red Robin Hood and vigilantes to a tee
eager audiences, participatory scenes in towns and cities, leaving empty homes
come all and vent your spleen and satiate your prejudices without paying a fee
This land belongs to us, it is our birthright and we will send Hamlet to the catacombs
Nothing is private anymore, rights and freedom nailed, anywhere we roam
Ophelia not only went to Italy, she went to Hull, Turnpike Lane and even Essex
but a joke here, if all these were good, why did she come to me, you simple gnomes
perchance unlike you common goons, she knows distinction has no comparison to thee
Your vacuous hate filled mind cannot see that difference in a Prince, that regally looms
Act two, dim, fooled actors in their Beggars Opera, screaming, 'we oppose' with glee
so called republicans, laughable in their ardent favor, ignorant of their lobotomy botches
we will do Hamlet's head in, totally unaware theirs been done in, for the brains of fleas
in a civilisation, our conscious and stable populace, roots for vigilante and mob rule, yeah
for a man of distinction is a threat reminding you of your insignificance and lack of tomes
Come friends, lets see how the home of Democracy, hounds a citizen for us all and we
lets know that Robin Hood is alive and taxing, and 'Windrush' is still active in dispatches
indigenous people power, meets criminal gang stalking, meets racism and we all drink tea
and in true cowardly fashion, its all done by insidious, indictable, nefarious, malcontents and psychopathic crazies
It is our proud duty that we should all ruin Hamlet, for mediocrity has no distinction for aspiration et excellence
Copyright LaurenceA. JUNE 2018.All rights reserved.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 8:00 PM UTC
- by Ashley Capps
Ophelia, when she died,
lay in the water like the river’s bride, all pale
and stark and beautiful against the somber rocks,
her hair an endless golden ceremony.
She made the water sing for her; it flowed
over her folded arms.
Not so my father’s sister Karen,
swollen in a day-old tub of water
when they found her,
needle tucked into the fold of her arm,
her last thing: a wing.
So everything went as nameless as the men
who lifted her naked from the tub,
or those who rolled her
into the mouth of the furnace,
which is what you get
when you don’t get a service,
when your mother’s years of grief turn
last to rage: I won’t pay for it.
Leave me out of it.
And even though they finally said
it wasn’t suicide; a mistake—
no one knew what to do
with all of that anger,
or in the end how not to blame her.
Even now, in her unmarked container.
*
People once believed a deeper reason, some dark secret
motivation to the way the lemmings threw themselves
en masse into the sea. Were they weary
of their lives; could they, too, despair?
Or like those second-vessel swine
when Jesus exorcised two babbling men of their demons,
driving the demons through a pack of bewildered hogs—
the way they plunged?
The truth we know now: they leave when food is scarce,
when they’ve grown too many;
believe the roads they follow
lead to new meadows, a place to start over.
I think of Karen, feeding
and feeding her veins, how it is possible
she saw us all suddenly there—miraculous
and festive on some bright and other shore,
like the life she had been swimming toward
all along, trying to get right.
Like those sailors long ago,
that tropical disease, calenture—
when, far from everything they knew,
men grew sometimes delirious
and mistook the waving sea for green fields.
Rejoicing, they leapt overboard,
and so were lost forever,
even though they thought it was real, though
they thought they were going home.
—by Ashley Capps
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 11:49 PM UTC
Somehow the gate's been opened
To the urban zoo;
And the rural petting farm
Is something gone askew.
The wildebeests and monkeys
Are leading lambs and lemmings,
They're trumpetting their call,
I hear them through the concrete wall.
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
.*oh forget Disney H'america... technicolor H'america was the bomb... gentlemen prefer blondes... oh **** no... the seven year itch... the Rachmaninoff scene... bell, book & candle scene... whoever the genius was behind the technicolor project, outmatched the Disney in 1950s H'america... little town America... big little ******** worth of Europe... eddi reader...more like: keep the cats, a woman may desire luxury, but a man a freedom... keep the town, the summit, the fireplace... keep your luxury... just give me the shadow, the sun, the moon, and the road: perpetually greeting me.*
oh forget looking
for scapegoats
these days...
full blown schizophrenia,
happening,
all over the anglophone
world...
me?
i'm just looking
at the lampoons...
sorry...
lemmings...
and the English?
top the table in western
world...
they thought they'd be
bailed out by
the H'americans...
good luck rolling
that pin-ball...
not gonna happen...
they have their own ****
to deal with...
it could have...
but now it will never
work out, no anglophone
alliance bail-out plan...
it's a ******* farce...
it's a bogus in the bogie
in the ******* coalmine...
forget the canary...
**** i'm seriously flipping
the coin on phrases...
FDR contra DJT?
magic!
no... the politicians were always
going to place the card...
the joker... free-fall dance-loose
feet...
my bet is...
it'll fall flat on its face...
the eastern European Achilles
heel of the europhiles...
that's a supposition,
not a proposition...
or thereby, pre-....
but i do love being a spectator
of rare sport...
en masse schizophrenia...
a nation, divided...
what a load of ********
the English thought that their
anglophone alliances would
last, would encrust them in
a new globalization mechanism...
even the ******* Icelandic people
think they're European...
what did the English think?
just east of Las Vegas?!
an island surrounded
by a massive prehistorical lake
"facility"?!
no one is looking for scapegoats
these days,
there's no one to blame...
mea culpa, mea culpa...
these days?!
everyone is looking for the lampoon
brigade!
- and let me tell you...
mea culpa mea culpa...
no one is looking for a scapegoat
worth kristallnacht;
people are looking
for a lampoon...
or...
karmesinrotherznacht,
the night of... broken hearts;
broken, crimson hearts.
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 6:54 PM UTC
perfunctory actions
zombie habits
sheep normalcy
blindly following the cud chewers
lemmings fall to their deaths
slowly
genetically engineered crops
dusted with pharmaceutical poison
laced with irradiated petroleum pesticides
fed to the babies of the poor –
wealthy voyeurs eagerly tune-in
as the impoverished masses rot
for viewing pleasure
leisurely strolling across manicured lawns
those in power scoff at the growing spectacle
unaware that the cake is stale
and the masses smell blood –
hurriedly, accountants shuffle tax rates
mix those with interest credit
season it with mortgage fees
and serve it on wall street
place mats
taking stock of stock market gains
gamblers do double gainers off high rises
adding to the flesh being consumed by the under class
under classed –
underclassmen, underpaid, stretch under ware elastic
as waistlines expand with the debt ceiling
both symbolizing the slow decline of
the American dream
screaming into the sewer
fewer eyes look back as disease dulls the iris
loss of the inner shine
glowing reflection of living organisms
fading as the day
slips into the blue-black –
night falls on a nation of imbeciles
brain dead patients
broken by depression and weight-loss scams
hearts crying out for care
personal and compassionate
instead are met with sterile robotics
and sanitary “C” students dressed in white
fearful of lawsuits
and spiders
they prescribe to symptoms
without knowing insurance number 87319A23-S1
is a human being, just like them
also living in fear
of the same establishment –
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
learn your questions.
discern the myriad as One, and console your misery with service.
pour your fumes into the heart of mars; press pause when your gods
make you nervous. and when they don't exist, you whistle while you hurt...
as if
the Master Plan
had jokes.
but know this.
your cathedrals have killed people, and your faith was crushed -
whenever sincere. so i
bid you peace. a peace with
tranquil thoughts and night lemmings;
squealing
right over the Cliffnotes to Oblivion, in vapid terror and happy herds.
their little parachutes; cumbersome, with snapped threads to a forum, that unpack, once filled
with air and
parents .
you inherit
the edge of your vague notions.... that expand
upon dissent .
heretic tick
BOOM !
then make love, all day Wednesday
learn your questions. gain the gist
of your out-risible ignorance and invent the humor of "precise submission"
as humility will boast , enthroned above the kingdom of desire
aching hermetic in a mob. but knobs -
that turn, despite severed hands
turn Truth's *****
learn your throat.
hold only the notes to your music
to a golden standard !
Brandish your exile, like a rogue -
from it's sheath of Turin
[ and flash! ] it's blade of grasp
in Walt Whitman's
Verile Phase...
face your loved ones, but only
with the face
that got away.
return...
return unbridled and
unkempt. more windswept
than lost and found
haunted...
and remember
eat whatever
you **** well please
because
" **** Dr. Phil, Really ? "
Have you ever seen an anorexic
Buddha ?
and bought that one ?
if you have...
you might be
ascetic.
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 12:57 PM UTC
Like so many
Lemmings
they rush to southern climes for
greener pastures
year round golf a
Slower pace
Cheaper prices and
Tropical temperatures
Leathery
Tanned
Unnaturally taut and
Sun-spotted
they crowd the local haunts and
Clog the highways.
At best they tolerate whoever is not
Pensioned or
Privileged
At worst they ban the
Underage
Unfortunates
from their gated communities
and social gatherings
The pendulum has swung from a time
when the Old were at the
Mercy of the Young
to the present
when Youth is
Oppressed by Senescence
Once democracy’s backbone they now wax
Conservative having obtained their
Slice of the pie
Now there is no pie
Mother Earth has been trampled to death and the
Toiling hands of those who
Stoke the fires of industry are
Blistered and discouraged
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 2:27 PM UTC
When he was seventeen years old,
your protagonist
asked his father
a question about heartbreak, his own perhaps.
The father
answered:
"Why would she love you?
I can see why?
You're acting like a *****
Each line a question,
demanding an answer.
Answers your protagonist
did not have.
So your protagonist
ventured out into the
world,
and became a rambler.
Rambling off nonsense
with the rapidity
of lemming chatter.
He became
the great Rambler,
mumbling about
love,
until even his dreams
became ****** up streams
of language.
He caromed off cliffs of reality
bumping against those barriers
of his fatherland
until he was hurtling
into the rambling ocean
to drown
unconsciously.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 9:28 AM UTC
Hate and ridicule comes to the forefront. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot you see. Differing opinions must be silenced, that is just how it has to be. Hiding behind children used as human shields, to deflect attention from the problems that are all too real. Spreading lies and fomenting dissent, that is the mantra they live by everyday. Dissenting at the ideas of cutting a budget or project, that uselessly gives tax dollars away. Individualism is overrated, on government you must depend. If you dare to move off of the grid, you must be insane. A disease for the unwashed masses who walk around like a heard of Lemmings. Liberalism, the modern incarnation of Marxist communism.
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 1:21 PM UTC
Like lions licking lacerations
Limp-lipped, lucid lamentation
Loyalties lax, love's liquidation
Lapping lust's lye lemonade
Like lemmings, leaping liberation
Loose-limbed, lurid lachrymation
Learning love's lone limitation
Life: liars lie, lovers lay
Jan 10, 2017
Jan 10, 2017 at 7:44 PM UTC
Remember when you were a child
And you answered back with "I don't care"
Well, it's high time you did
This is the time to care
With the corona virus attacking everyone in sight,
You have to care
IT DOESN'T CARE if you are Chinese, Spanish, American, Canadian, British, Australian, Korean.
IT DOESN'T CARE what color your skin is
Whether you are white, black, brown, yellow or blue
IT DOESN'T CARE if you are straight, gay, bisexual, trisexual, gender transitional
IT DOESN'T CARE if you like horses, or dogs, or cats, or fish or lemmings for that matter
IT DOESN'T CARE if you are a doctor, nurse, stay at home mom, teacher, warehouse worker, priest, homeless, bricklayer, hockey player, nun, librarian, store clerk
IT DOESN'T CARE if you are a celebrity, sports figure, local politician, have one friend or a thousand
IT DOESN'T CARE if you eat vegan, meat, have celiac disease, smoke, vape, eat through a tube
IT DOESN'T CARE if you believe in God, Buddha, are Jewish, Baptist, Agnostic, Atheist, Wiccan, or talk to the trees
GOT IT? IT DOESN'T CARE.
YOU SHOULD CARE.
You told your parents "I don't care". Well, you better start.
CARE about your family, friends, and yourself
CARE about your neighbors, their family, friends, and relatives
CARE about your work mates, their families, friends, and relatives
CARE about the front line workers, theirs families, friends and relatives
CARE about the world.
LISTEN AND LEARN. LISTEN AND DO. LISTEN AND CARE
Don't listen to blowhards who call it a hoax. IT DOESN'T CARE...it's waiting for you if you do
Don't follow the stupid internet suggestions like add bleach to your water. IT'S DOESN'T CARE...it's waiting for you too.
Don't plan on being in Church for Easter. IT DOESN'T CARE...It's waiting for you as well.
GET IT? FOLLOW THE WORDS OF THE MEDICAL EXPERTS, NOT THE POLITICIANS.
IT DOESN'T CARE who you listen to, but, It's waiting.
START CARING...NOW!!!
LISTEN, LEARN, DO AND CARE. STAY SAFE.
Mar 26, 2020
Mar 26, 2020 at 11:53 PM UTC
As feathers fall upon the soft spring snow,
Terror freezes the knowing like black ice,
For careless eyes pierce the veil below
In search of blood in gory paradise.
The wanted flee like pigs in blind terror
Of such a doom, each step hard as their breath.
A cracked smile on the beak of the horror
As he drops into the chaos, fearless.
Yet he faced something he did not expect.
Said the eagle to the mouse, "Why not run?"
The mouse simply smiled as she spoke up,
"Why not fly?" as the cougar caught his lunch.
And now the lemmings and mice run again;
The cougar was hungry, the eagle dead.
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 9:14 PM UTC
If you know why
salmon swim upstream
in a suicidal attempt to
get back to their beginnings
and why lemmings head
en masse for the sea
and why drones who
service the queen bee
inevitably die,
then tell me why
I who should follow
their lead hold back?
Am I afraid to find
that the pain of leaving
might be less than the
pain of staying behind?
Is this what salmon, lemmings
and drones all know?
And so they willingly go?
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
"The pity of war, the pity war distills". - Wilfred Owen"
Just as a feral war begs for armistice,
a season of peace engenders
a violence vacuum that begs to be filled
as surely as a hollow begs for a pond.
It seems a cosmic battle rages
between the oversouls of people
who would chisel a sculpture to grace
and those who would hack off its arms.
History’s fools fire up their bully horns
shouting proud oratory to ignorance -
and lemmings goose-step to the precipice -
doomed to plunge into a sea of misery.
Then there is quiet - guilty and reflective.
How could we let this happen
with so much gain and loss in the balance?
and the sculptors of civilization
find fresh marble to once again
carve reason, beauty, purpose
from the acrid ashes of pride.
But the oversoul of hate will brood and re-fester
as long as it's thought noble to **** for a cause.
© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 8:50 AM UTC
Close your eye; Dissolve into the uncertainty of the dawn. It's coming regardless of how prepared or at peace you are with it. It is coming for you; It is coming for me. It is coming with bloodied fingers and cruel words. As the light blinds us; Dawns bright light. So cold; so cruel. Let it wash you into the sea with impure intentions. Let it's fingers wrap around your neck like a lover. Scream; Yell; Shout. Nothing is nothing; And we are all small nothings in the sea. Swept away with all the shipwrecks and whale bones. Decay is all we are; Big bags of decay. We waste and we squander all of our being. As non-existent time ticks on; So does our dying bones to the dawn. Let us close around our deep bruises and bleed our black sour blood to the wind. For if we don't live, what are we left to do but decompose into ash and waste away to the earth. It is an unsightly faith for which only we with our "superiority" hold dear. As we count and die by the dozens. Like flies; We fall off the cliff face like lemmings. One after another; Mother after brother. Down they fall. So they perish. Or so they fly; Fall; Die; Live. But the truth of it is inevitable; We are all dying in our skin.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 AM UTC
We were all there
The anime girl and the flower child
Surf boy and the Queen of the Pixies
The lads with the tattoos and ***** in pink coolers
And many others with us
And many many more around us
Holding beer cans and buckets of Hot Chip(s)
Stuffed into The Flaming Lips
We sat on the hill where the sun sat next to us
Smoked grass in the grass
By our Beach House
People sliding up and down the hill like a Flume
With a Boy & Bear for company
And a First Aid Kit
And the Village Brass Band
From Pleasureland
We had to hand it to them
They knew how to use those horns in the wee hours
As we marauded around the hillside
The valley and the Enchanted Forest
With its lemmings and white tigers, kookaburras and pixies
All vying for the title of the Best Sense of Humour
Where the sun came up between the trees
And everything went pink
You couldn't tell the canopy from the clouds
In the alien sky
With the moon in dark night at one end
And the ****** first light at the other
Until the light wins and day Falls
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 5:29 AM UTC
I find questions to the answers damning;
They quote the darkest volumes,
And speak in whispered tones
That haunt my mind with lemmings.
Thrilling chills reverberate
Throughout my spine, intoxicating
The superfluous influx of aeon.
In Elysium I await.
Forgotten songbirds’ melodies
Are ripe within their own stages,
However, the message behind their incantations,
Mocks the frigid winds of change.
Apologetic reverences deny the peaceful hum
Of every ***** and flute of desire
And of all the lyres to be strummed.
Stumbling upon a corpse of old,
Necrosis doth eat away,
Putridity and phobia have at last been lead astray,
Maggots upon maggots, an **** of disease,
Now struggle for control here,
In the epitome of our dying age.
The eyes that once saw hope,
And the heart that once felt love,
Our absentee in place of rot,
And are swapped with rustic carrion.
The dismal breeze that flow
Swiftly under the crest of raven-wing,
Solidify bones as well as the toxins that
Cryptically burn and sting.
A creation of mass panic, euphoria
Are bound to allow riot’s treason,
A repentance of nostalgia
For uncountable reasons.
Alas, we have but come close enough to success,
To amount in a drowning of failure,
To kiss the shores of dreams come true,
And to be denied of those dreams’ savior.
Jul 6, 2013
Jul 6, 2013 at 12:09 AM UTC
Don’t pass Go and don’t collect two hundred
Societal standards keep us encumbered
Put these shoes on and try to walk a mile
I’ll be here waiting, disguising my guile
To open your eyes and empathize
To live the life of another
The greatest gift of humanity
Leaves a soul to wonder
When the night falls, when the street lights go out
The curse of the romantic is always the mind
When the wind picks up, screaming its shouts
Contemplating secrets he never thought to find
Beginning to end, end to beginning
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Playing on words, if the chicken laid the egg
The end to beginning, metaphorically speaking
Rambling on, a generation at a screen
The romantic left wondering at a timeless wonder
Opening your eyes, but closing them to dream
Leaving the rest for the poorest to ponder
Incapable of empathy, desensitized to fear
The literal end is always so near
Listening, watching, a self sentenced pledge
I watch the lemmings step up to the ledge
Sheep to slaughter, minds of fodder
Couples dancing, funerals entrancing
Services held, services dealt
Always wondering, wondering whats felt
Tears appear in the corners of eyes
Nothing left to use for disguise
Nothing but emotion left to bare true witness
The meaningless words of a false forgiveness
When being yourself is creating yourself, what is left to see?
The strangulation of freedom, an oxymoronic irony.
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 10:31 PM UTC
It’s like when you’re little
And you notice yourself breathing
And wonder if you’ve been breathing this whole time
Or if it only happens when you think about it
Well, I’ve been thinking much too hard for a long time
So hard that I didn’t notice
The world forming a routine around me
And my unconscious willingness to fall in line
The girl who shunned the lemmings
Followed the crowd all the same
I considered myself a product of anxiety
Not a victim
Not a survivor
But the result of
Someone who thrived on frenetic energy
As worries danced out a stuttering tachycardia
This is the life I was given
Though I prayed for days of calm
Prayed for the safety of routine and predictability
And the comfort they would hold
For I am afraid of nearly everything
So I have been wishing for days without fear
Bowed my head under the Heavens and cried in all the languages I have
Peace, paix, ειρηνη
It was in the pursuit of peace
That I blindly accepted all offers of security
Built myself up with grades and responsibilities and qualifications
With the assurance it would be worth it in the long run
Suddenly I saw the boredom I had asked for
And felt no relief
No comfort
Just the paralyzing fear that I’d settled for a life I did not want
My trembling limbs were made for anxiety
But I’ve been bingeing it
So the lack thereof is just
Empty
It would seem I am addicted to frenzy
Though I always want out
A pendulum between the extremes
Never resting on moderation
Never resting
Period
Sep 17, 2012
Sep 17, 2012 at 11:38 PM UTC
time
too late!
soon.......total war
total agony
we have squandered our "talent"
the devil is inside the house
the devil---whom we ignore
in favor of "lovers"
whom we abhor
-------
the "poet"
crawling aimlessly
thru vain words
in search of fandom and praise
a trail of vacuous inane "poems"
mar the silence
and like vampires
drink the blood
of human consciousness and empathy
-----
lemmings lemmings toward the sea
off the cliff
we
go
go
go
go
go
Dec 21, 2010
Dec 21, 2010 at 11:31 AM UTC
What does a lemming have but deep love
Among his lemming clan? And how
Happy they are, falling from above
Right next to their family and friends
They run and they jump
In one big fat clump
Falling to their scary, watery death
Not a fun plunge, but perhaps we can learn
To love like lemmings
Until we have nothing left
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 6:31 PM UTC
It doesn’t really matter to me
How the universe came to be
Or whether God even exists.
I care nothing about kings and queens
Or anyone “in power”.
For I’m “The One”
Who leads this Life.
No-one else but me.
However impressive you are
You still are not Myself.
All that counts are the people and things I Love,
Even Like.
So if you’ve got nothing to offer me
Get on your bike.
No man is an island, so they say.
Yes, I’m not independent in every way.
But I’m an individual who is true to my soul.
To remain unbrainwashed is always my goal.
They try to make us run with the crowd,
Like sheep or lemmings led into the cloud.
It’s Media Hypnosis
Through that gleaming TV.
Only by being ourselves
Will we ever be Free.
Paul Butters
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 6:40 AM UTC
running from the bulls
a stampede of innocent bystanders
enraged at that ruby color
sweetheart red
passion red
blood red
mixed together,
one and the same,
no distinction.
off the cliff like lemmings
scurrying subconsciously
instinctually
fascinated by that edge
enchanted into oblivion.
the praying mantis
tracking her mate
plotting, planning his demise
a smile oozing with sweetness one moment,
then the heartless attack,
out to ****
smacking her lips,
knowing full well of his fate.
all I learned
I learned from you.
like mother like daughter
Mommy Dearest
you truly are
the cruelest teacher of them all.
Apr 21, 2010
Apr 21, 2010 at 10:32 PM UTC
Just because we have phones and computers
doesn't mean we should stop everything we're doing
just to check up on them constantly.
Society breeds lemmings.
There's a fine line
betwixt convenience and plague,
utility and plight,
nurturing and smothering.
No one owes you anything
just as you owe no one anything.
Life is deeper
than the tools we craft
as conveniences;
If you can't get ahold of someone
when you really want to,
perhaps you oughtta go do something for yourself:
Think. Read. Breathe. Create art.
Drink a glass of water. Drink a glass of wine.
Sleep. Meditate. Dance. Cook. Laugh. Think.
You just may be amazed what you can learn and accomplish
when you turn your focus inward
without explicit regard for time or space
or your computer or phone.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 10:46 AM UTC
Good morning, God, good morning,
Another lovely day is dawning,
I woke up and the car started, good,
Let's have a peaceful day, as we should,
I do wonder if God is sardonic,
All these armed conflicts, not platonic,
Nuclear weapons amassing, quite ironic,
So from all the waking lemmings,
Another lovely day is dawning,
Good morning, God, good morning......
Dec 18, 2016
Dec 18, 2016 at 11:24 PM UTC