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You always read about it:
the plumber with twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
From diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the big event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That's the way with stepmothers.

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince's ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little gold slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.

As nightfall came she thought she'd better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
The don't just heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.
Jeff Raheb Aug 2014
Dal Lake

I float on Dal Lake
Suspended
between the thick soupy crisp air of soldiers
water lilies, Kashmiri bread
and the Muslim prayers
that penetrate the hardness of war
chanting Allah Bismallah
Floating Islam
Holy words drenching the air
Drenching the green cloth of Hindu soldiers
Sliding down the cool metal of a rifle
9 years of war
1,000 houseboats lie empty
in the Himalayan fog
Intricately carved furniture
Thick with dust
and the powder of blood and bullets

Himalayan silhouette etched black
against the song of lotus gatherers
Foggy voices like cloud of moon
Lotus lake
Gray of war and desperation
Children beg
1 rupee
1 rupee
1 rupee
Endless monologue
Parched like lotus shaped paddle
They throw flowers to me
endlessly
I throw them back
endlessly

Time passes slowly
like smoke on a lizard’s tail
trailing in the thick, rancid air
of burning meat and maple leaves
Like a shikara
moving over the glass of Kashmir

The sound of a dozen Bangees
floating over the water
Hollow, solemn and mournful
Echoing against the hardness
of the surrounding mountains
The circle of Himalayas
Like a womb
around the prayers of Pachin

In the middle of the lake
I hear the call to prayer
Azan Nemarz Suba
Azan Nemarz Pashin
Azan Nemarz Degar
Azan Nemarz Sham
Azan Nemarz Koftan
From dawn till dusk

Azan
4 mosques
4 singers
4 directions
staggered by a breath
like an imperfect echo

Azan slips into the pockets of island soldiers
Waters the impatience of soldiers on the shore
Steals into the vacant eyes of soldiers in the Mosque
They want to go home to their wives and children
They want to leave the place of prayer, which is not theirs
The place of prayer, which has seen death
The place where God was pushed out
In order to not see the killing
To **** what they don’t see
The place, which was no longer a refuge

Outside

Dal Lake turns to the color of red lentils
cooking in a dented metal ***
In the Shikara boat we eat dal and rice
and throw scraps into the silver water
where it washes up
onto the ***** boots of a soldier
I hear the dull gray click, click of his rifle
as it touches the ground

The prayers have ended
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to **** but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad

Millions of daughters walk in the mud
Millions of children wash in the flood
A Million girls ***** & groan
Millions of families hopeless alone

Millions of souls nineteenseventyone
homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan

Taxi September along Jessore Road
Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load
past watery fields thru rain flood ruts
Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts

Wet processions   Families walk
Stunted boys    big heads don't talk
Look bony skulls   & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise

Mother squats weeping & points to her sons
Standing thin legged    like elderly nuns
small bodied    hands to their mouths in prayer
Five months small food    since they settled there

on one floor mat   with small empty ***
Father lifts up his hands at their lot
Tears come to their mother's eye
Pain makes mother Maya cry

Two children together    in palmroof shade
Stare at me   no word is said
Rice ration, lentils   one time a week
Milk powder for warweary infants meek

No vegetable money or work for the man
Rice lasts four days    eat while they can
Then children starve    three days in a row
and ***** their next food   unless they eat slow.

On Jessore road    Mother wept at my knees
Bengali tongue    cried mister Please
Identity card    torn up on the floor
Husband still waits    at the camp office door

Baby at play I was washing the flood
Now they won't give us any more food
The pieces are here in my celluloid purse
Innocent baby play    our death curse

Two policemen surrounded     by thousands of boys
Crowded waiting    their daily bread joys
Carry big whistles    & long bamboo sticks
to whack them in line    They play hungry tricks

Breaking the line   and jumping in front
Into the circle    sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward    on the mud stage
Teh gaurds blow their whistles    & chase them in rage

Why are these infants    massed in this place
Laughing in play    & pushing for space
Why do they wait here so cheerful   & dread
Why this is the House where they give children bread

The man in the bread door   Cries & comes out
Thousands of boys and girls    Take up his shout
Is it joy? is it prayer?    "No more bread today"
Thousands of Children  at once scream "Hooray!"

Run home to tents    where elders await
Messenger children   with bread from the state
No bread more today! & and no place to squat
Painful baby, sick **** he has got.

Malnutrition skulls thousands for months
Dysentery drains    bowels all at once
Nurse shows disease card    Enterostrep
Suspension is wanting    or else chlorostrep

Refugee camps    in hospital shacks
Newborn lay naked    on mother's thin laps
Monkeysized week old    Rheumatic babe eye
Gastoenteritis Blood Poison    thousands must die

September Jessore    Road rickshaw
50,000 souls   in one camp I saw
Rows of bamboo    huts in the flood
Open drains, & wet families waiting for food

Border trucks flooded, food cant get past,
American Angel machine   please come fast!
Where is Ambassador Bunker today?
Are his Helios machinegunning children at play?

Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID?
Smuggling dope in Bangkok's green shade.
Where is America's Air Force of Light?
Bombing North Laos all day and all night?

Where are the President's Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies    merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine    food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam    and causing more grief?

Where are our tears?  Who weeps for the pain?
Where can these families go in the rain?
Jessore Road's children close their big eyes
Where will we sleep when Our Father dies?

Whom shall we pray to for rice and for care?
Who can bring bread to this **** flood foul'd lair?
Millions of children alone in the rain!
Millions of children weeping in pain!

Ring O ye tongues of the world for their woe
Ring out ye voices for Love we don't know
Ring out ye bells of electrical pain
Ring in the conscious of America brain

How many children are we who are lost
Whose are these daughters we see turn to ghost?
What are our souls that we have lost care?
Ring out ye musics and weep if you dare--

Cries in the mud by the thatch'd house sand drain
Sleeps in huge pipes in the wet ****-field rain
waits by the pump well, Woe to the world!
whose children still starve    in their mother's arms curled.

Is this what I did to myself in the past?
What shall I do Sunil Poet I asked?
Move on and leave them without any coins?
What should I care for the love of my *****?

What should we care for our cities and cars?
What shall we buy with our Food Stamps on Mars?
How many millions sit down in New York
& sup this night's table on bone & roast pork?

How many millions of beer cans are tossed
in Oceans of Mother? How much does She cost?
Cigar gasolines and   asphalt car dreams
Stinking the world and dimming star beams--

Finish the war in your breast    with a sigh
Come tast the tears    in your own Human eye
Pity us millions of phantoms you see
Starved in Samsara   on planet TV

How many millions of children die more
before our Good Mothers perceive the Great Lord?
How many good fathers pay tax to rebuild
Armed forces that boast    the children they've killed?

How many souls walk through Maya in pain
How many babes    in illusory pain?
How many families   hollow eyed  lost?
How many grandmothers    turning to ghost?

How many loves who never get bread?
How many Aunts with holes in their head?
How many sisters skulls on the ground?
How many grandfathers   make no more sound?

How many fathers in woe
How many sons   nowhere to go?
How many daughters    nothing to eat?
How many uncles   with swollen sick feet?

Millions of babies in pain
Millions of mothers in rain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of children    nowhere to go

                                        New York, November 14-16, 1971
Matty D Feb 2013
Welcome to the land of golden trout

Where black bears roam and hawks still shout

In the eastern Sierras, hills of the west

Tales of the Adventurers and their first test.

Forming an alliance in Santa Cruz

They left together, unwilling to lose.

Packing up and heading down the trail

They knew as a team they would never fail.

Without a moment’s hesitation nor shred of doubt

The crew took their Tools of Tenacity out

And in less than three months flat

The Adventurers finished, exclaiming “that’s that!”


But who composes this mysterious crew?

Wait just one moment, I promise I’ll tell you.

First, there’s Nico the Noble, the leader so fearless

Who also frightens many when he’s not beardless;

Followed by Ben the Benevolent with his hearty laugh

And never without his Capitals hat;

Kahn the Courageous has his wild antics

Telling stories with Buckeye semantics;

Jamie the Just and her vegan ways

Had to eat lentils for most of her days;

See Jen the Jubilant with camera-in-hand

Shaving logs for as long as she can;

The team’s newest member, Maggie the Merciful,

Has now experienced the wilderness in full;

Tim the Wise lacks alliteration, unlike the others

But has chased many cows, some scraping their udders;

And at last there’s me, the Notable Narrator,

So our crew’s legacy can live forever.


In our quest the crew has changed slightly.

Those unable to handle the tasks lightly

Had left- like Mary, Bobby, and Stary the Skeptical

All well-admired, and mostly respectable.


Now let’s shift our story to the work completed

In the struggling meadow, its health near-depleted.

Using fallen trees that have long-since passed

We found a clearing with their numbers quite vast.

Cutting the deceased into sixteen-foot longs

And lugging them over thickets and bogs

Our team stacked them perpendicular

To the stream, or creek, in particular

And in a magician’s “ta-da!” moment

Water rose up to our new component,

Flowing over the freshly-made dam

Then briefly meeting with dirt and sand

At the bottom. Multiplied by thirty

And that was work: rigorous and *****.

But why were the Adventurers sent there,

To build check-dams and do repairs?

It was, in part, human consumption

That led to the meadow’s near-destruction:

America’s insatiable need for beef

Will not, for a long time, see any relief,

So Industry has pushed forward, sending cows to the fields

Grazing and growing to become our future meals.

But little did Industry know how devastating

Hundreds of cattle leave an ecosystem suffocating.

Trampling grass and dispersing banks underhoof

The bovine are easily guilty, there’s so much proof.

Stupid, noxious, and obnoxious creatures

Recognized by these, easily their best features.

Incessantly screaming day and night

They are more like demons by every right.

Yet the Forest Service lets ranchers send

Hundreds of cattle, seemingly without end.

And while the Golden Trout crew fixed things,

It’s not enough to ease the strain the cows will bring.


So what can we do, if anything at all

If we go veggie will Industry stall?

Can the end of beef save the earth

Is society only worried when we gain in girth?

That’s not for me to say right now

It’s up to you to answer the “how?”


But I digress, I must end the story

Of the Adventurers and their summer glories.

In the end they saved the meadow, saved the day

Held the bovine rampage at bay,

Raised water levels, erosion erased,

Then was the time to leave that place.

So the Adventurers hopped in their van,

Eight warriors mean, lean, and tan,

And took off down the mountainside

To Santa Cruz and the oceanside.

Each followed one’s own path

But only after taking many baths.

The Golden Trout legacy will live forever,

Only made possible by the best crew ever.
9/3/2012
(c) MDC
Timmy Shanti Jun 2012
To smile at the carnation,
So gallantly growing,
At peace with this world.
In silence...
I tune in a short conversation
Between minds and bodies -
Incredibly cold.

My heart has surrendered
To nightingale's song.
I dream of Rhode Island...
I'm leaving! So long!

The winds of Sonora,
My nannies and friends.
My love for Evora -
My tears know no end.

The shadows of Mordor,
With sunrise they fade.
Grace, Kindness and Splendour:
Three Buddhas in jade.

I feed roastede pidgeone
To poor ryebread crumbs.
Avoiding curmudgeons,
I'm playing professional dumb.

Caressing the grass-blades,
I live in a drop.
Arcadian arcade:
There, God has no job.

In hurting the Nature
We drain our souls.
Let’s all at once cease
Being ignorant ghouls.

...To stroke the carnation,
To gently kiss buds.
To eat simple meals
Like lentils and spuds.

To carry some water,
To chop down some trees.
To stop feeling rotten.
My soul is at peace.

The time is forever,
The purpose is now.
No “when” and no “where”,
No “why” and no “how”.

The light effervescent,
The sound circumaural,
The hearts ever-pleasant,
The dreams polynomial.

...Collapsing eternity,
Upheaving humanity,
Rock-bottom fraternity,
Defying the gravity.

Creative destruction
Is staunchly forbidding.
The wisdom of ancients
Is widely-misleading.

Depleting our anger
Is key to survival.
Harnessing the hunger,
Improptu revival.

Combustion of senses,
Precarious laughter.
Incurable sepsis,
Delirious canter.

Regrets are forgotten,
Bright days are all-cherished.
Let’s live unbegotten
Until we all perish.

13.06.2012
My Dear Poet Jul 2022
I’m sorry
if I’m a little lost
when the mind is free
the body follows at a cost
till you’re broke and can’t pay
the soul is stolen away
leaving the shell of a ghost

Forgive me
if I’m a little used
when you’re careless
you casually bruise
till you’ve bled no more
have no life to pour
the spirits withered
and abused

My apology
for being a mess
when what’s of value
becomes little to confess
when what you hold
is worth all the gold
and you give it up
for lentils or less
RJ Days Oct 2018
Each sorrow is the child of a happiness
you thought would never end;
Every happiness is a sadness
I may not survive—
a brilliant October day
lying back in dock hammock suspended
quoting bits of Rilke and starlight anthems
the shadows cast by buildings and frogs
ink drawings made on August nights
by our beautiful chain-smoking artistette
admiring a giant spider friend who’d
spun her majestic web and vanished
while we were swimming
backdrop of bay and boys and cherries
creaky boardwalks under bare feet
and stickiest pine and sand darkness
photos over wing clouds below
creepy call to prayer from ancient Mosque
at twilight punctuating strange dreams
perfect reconciliation on hotel balcony
McDonald’s after soaring from Black Sea
to Bosporus Straight, edge of Asia
visible on the horizon and all of life
a nightmare from which I can’t get woke
terrorized by ***** donor bonesaws
homophobic maternal afternoon rejection
peace that passeth no understanding
when you’re a ******* genius or just
a few points lower sorry never enough
compassion leaking through pores
drawn out by steam more darkness
Eucalyptus perfumed
another flaccid experience on a stranger’s
bed recalling Hippocrates on the drive
away after more bad ***
shots of sauces and grilled roasted
poached lentils bespoke chickens finery
malodorous wafts limestone smoothed
by centuries of acidity oily tourist touches
but they’re in Mexico Australia India
we’re back at home twins calling
each day an error of time rounded off
the incorrigible quark refusing
to cooperate with Einstein choosing its
own entangled path and lighting fools
what beautiful skyline
what amazing celebrity capture
what nostalgic group assemblage
what **** cute puppy who’s no more pup
what swanky tailored look
what smiles what smiles what seriousness
the soft and supple features curves lines
practiced looks and wayward hairs
a simple flourishing according to the lens
so much that skin conceals and eyes
beer garden sidewalk orations
wedding after party for April fools
we were who dance grabbing rings
swinging wildly discussing the vulgarities
of gastronomy and digestion
tumbling into diners midnight offices
brick lined streets magical talks
demonstrations and ideas unbounded
carving pumpkins into likable politicians
we think are statesmen and wailing
when she loses winning a trophy case
buckling under weight of moral victory
the thought of skyscrapers lit
shining under heaven unsubtle insinuation
we’re better than all this nonsense
and stronger having raised this glass
and steel by our own hands, our parents
rather now maybe that’s confusion
erecting higher stairwells to escape
encroaching seas and bums below
all memory all happy every laugh
each rumination on the hours
kisses cocktails cuddles laughter
that perfect vest completed outfit
those thrift store jeans that shirt
that secondhand one speed bike
those lunches with the priest
those brunches with the students
those happy hours with the coworkers
those dinners with the beard
all interchangeable parts in show
theater of recollection one subway car
one taxi ride one bus to NY or DC
one flight to Seattle or Vegas
or some Floridian seascape, mansion
each cog or bit like paper currency
imbued with no value but buying
the totality of lived experience
from which to draw upon in sad elsewhere
—but they cut deep, well meaning though
whenever was now isn’t and can is blind
to what day will ever be when I can say
in truth now sadness isn’t.
How memories, even of happy times, can feel smothering when recalled from within the Bell Jar.
no dead birds in the oven
no innards in the stuffing
nor fatty drippings to be scraped and poured

the smell of roasted veggies
wafts through  the wintry air
pumpkin and sweet potatoes
marshmallows  green beans  lentils
turnips  & collard greens
hashed browns & black-eyed peas
quinoa  sorghum cuscus hummus
carrots  leak  broccoli Romanescu
gumbo in southern regions
wild rice dishes in the north
tastily spiced with turmeric
cumin and baked paprika
Indian curry  soy sauce  chipotle
as well as with the usual suspects
of garlic  salt  and pepper
and whatever fits the taste of hosts

in short
a venerable feast to demonstrate
how nature feeds us a large cornucopia
of plants for our delight and sustenance

in short
no need to **** a bird

                * *
vegetarians rock

we don't derive satisfaction
in skewered meat, spit kebab, meat buffet or a banquet
we are told of how much we are lacking in nutrition and protein
we don't mind to eat tempeh,tofu,lentils,eggs,diary or skewered vegetables
we are vegetarians of family preference, religious reasons, animal rights or health issues

researches found that your love takes twice more
requires so much energy to digest
more energy less fatigue and stress
to live long without stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure or diseases of kind
well I'm not cynical, eat small pieces

just because we don't hear
just because we don't see
doesn't mean it's not there
the pain these creatures we domain over feel
heartless humans without hearts to feel
maybe we open blind eyes
maybe we turn deaf ears
to them
but I tell you it's there

we hear and
we see
we are different from you
we are different from the ways of the world
we love it
we are vegetarians and
we rock!
it is safer a vegetarian life style to a disease-full life
Andrew M Bell Feb 2015
Mading relieves Manute from guard duty.
They share a meagre meal of millet porridge before
Manute returns to the refugee nation of southern Sudan.
The noon sun is a harsh sentence for a parched tongue but
they talk not of coffee or juice-laden fruit and
rice and lentils are mountain memories their stomachs can ill afford.
Instead they curse the clear skies that rain only strafing jets and
pray for their dry-breasted wives on pilgrimage to the aid station
carrying children swollen with the promise of death.
They snarl rumours about al-Bashir’s lapdogs
in Khartoum growing fat on food intended for them.

Jason waits, informed by cell phone of Laurie's imminent arrival.
He orders a wheat beer, its earth tone inviting on a silver tray and
its musky sweetness washing away a morning of phone business.
The noon sun is a warm blessing through the picture window but
they talk not of haloed hills or the light-laden river and
recession and retrenchment are market memories their ulcers can ill afford.
Instead they debate '63 cabernet versus '74 chablis and
moan about their reconstructed wives driving halfway across town
carrying children swollen with the promise of private schooling.
They snarl rumours about Key's cabinet
in Wellington while wolfing crayfish and Steak Diane.
Often I can't help thinking about the people in the world who have nothing when the junk mail and TV ads blast their clarion call for us to consume. Isn't all this consumption the reason our planet is under severe stress?

Copyright Andrew M. Bell. The poet wishes to acknowledge that a different version of this poem first appeared in the pages of The West Australian newspaper.
Anthony Williams Aug 2014
your brain is obese
it's 60 percent fat
and a quarter of that mess
is cholesterol -  and that's bad
like everyone's brain
although I have to ad
mine is 40 percent lean
so I can sell you my diet
of raw fish.. lentils.. beans
and the wisdom of this poet
on his fast track brain train
a thin title to start...
How Can I Be So Mean?
by Anthony Williams
Wrenderlust Oct 2013
The café rumbles like the belly of a fasting saint,
voices competing with the clanks of silverware.
In the tearoom a boy with a tangle of wires
leaking from an unzipped backpack
struts between tables, billing himself as a "human hotspot".
He wears the same glasses you do;
they slip down his nose as he leans over to flirt with the waitress
in the red apron, who taps her nails against the cash register
and laughs at his bad jokes, she tells me, because
he wears his pants too high, just like her brother used to.

A man with a soup-stained button down and a bald spot
introduces himself as Peter Ling, proprietor,
oracle of the inner city rummage sale,
advisor to the lost and hungry.
He doles out pithy wisdom and lentils into mismatched bowls-
"You want therapy? Try your ex boyfriend."
The four of us hide our grins, and flee
to his cavernous basement. As we go spelunking
through the puddles left by a burst pipe,
clambering past bloated books and warped furniture,
Emma Miller swears that she slept here once-
on a moldy brown sofa crouched like a hibernating bear
among empty Heineken bottles.

The expedition yields four boxes of acupuncturist leaflets
and a damp antique suitcase filled with seeds,
who seized the opportunity to germinate,
their tiny roots searching fruitlessly
in the mildewed silk lining.
Ling says he's going to try gardening this year,
serve up spaghetti squash grown out back by the garage.

We sowed pea shoots and salad greens
in glass jars pilfered from a claw-footed armoire
that lay on its side, defeated, like the last of the saber-tooths.
I named one for you, tucked Eruca vesicaria sativa
into potting soil, and set it on the balcony railing-
tempting fate and gravity, because you always liked a little excitement
with your afternoon cup of rooibos.
I didn't see the girl who knocked you off your perch,
saw only the sun's sharp gleam off the glass
as the jar plunged, graceful as a slow-motion train wreck
on its arc toward the concrete,
and Peter Ling reached up with his big, calloused hand
to break your fall.
Shay Ruth Feb 2015
Sometimes, if I try, I hum between the tumbling
Hills of the world bracing domesticated beasts.
They graze and grunt all over again,
Entering slumbers following the daily sweep
Of lactic creeks, thin enough to guide tree roots.
Dusk is explained by the party of two, embracing the dividing sun.
Look left to see coral reef skies swim attempting to grasp what is to the right of the Sun:
Silhouettes outlining prayers flattening dimensions of rugged Mosques
Still dusty from wheat flour and patterned by uncooked lentils, that
Slipped through missing seams of Burlap, blackened from the hearth
Malleable as a result of dependency.

Though only half of my sight functions, I reason that
Earth shifts without you. Watching centuries and some odd
Years of changes, I yearn to know where you have gone.
I peer from the peacock’s tail, feeling the pulse of the
World tick away as the fearless pray to someone new.
Your countenance, I interlaced with feathered fingers
Depicts movements, curves. A shame to be without
Language to fill the contours of a nebulaic expression
Or swindling modifications.
You put me here. My eyes anyway.
Expecting me to retire along with buildings for your worship
Powdery paint has spilled and faded along with
Others who have modified your appearance, their someone new.

Even as the shadows swells
A million replicates of Io, moo and sway home, tired from the
Beating sun, to which eyes remain fixed.
One momentary memory visits.
Vision simulate traces of wonder, travelling on
Pathways believed to be conquerable. The people have learned
What I have not. They pause, breathe.
Mohan Boone Sep 2020
6 sirens snoozed to the wind and a petrified banana
burrowing down in the slow lane
billowing blue smoke
like white horses over a bombora

accelerator airflow regulator out on his own
zonked
lopping around like a white flag stuck at half mast
3 weeks after the funeral

smug green peppers and salt hung rabbits that have travelled and
have seen things and
know exactly,
what you have done

spray painted bees, howling
window cleaner 10 jobs in and still using the same water
Bill Clinton,
£4 a week

Yamata Yamata, no jacket
Spanish ceramic pots that I told you are sensitive and
**** THEMSELVES
in the dishwasher

ritual
like sunday prayers or Chinese mushroom powder in the morning
4 of your 5 a day sounds impressive but when you start the day on
MINUS 10
you spend the rest of it buying back lives

duck soup Danish

milkman’s left the bottle behind the bin where you will NEVER FIND IT

tonight — blue moon
last night — no moon
wednesday — moon doing bad things in a capsized kayak at a
full moon party on Zanzibar

coat hanger for an aerial
rocket launch to the ursa minor

£3.49
bottom shelf
all the answers you need for less than the price of a day-rider

and then tomorrow
bombay lentils
bombay lentils
bombay lentils, everywhere.
Raj Arumugam Oct 2010
I, Kinmgo Kaput, Lord of the Three Grand Lands
that Sink Every Time there is a Flood;
I, Lord of the Queen of The All Basins that Deliver
Rich Harvests and Rice and Lentils and that rules
the Nether Rooms in the Mansions;
I, Pharaoh and Lord of All Kingdoms
that ever existed before my Time on this Wretched Earth;
I, Lord of the Rich Lands and Lord of Wood and Metal
and Lord of a Thousand Such Designations;
I, King, Emperor, Pharaoh, Son of Heaven
and Descended of Stars;
I do solemnly swear and declare
you a Nincompoop for reading this, wasting your time idly
looking at lines not worth the space they inhabit;
You, waster of time reading lines of second-rate verse
rather than feeding the poor
or offering your hours at the House of the Wretched;
You, waster of time reading poems and verse
not worth the alphabet the language inhabits –
You, I declare a Nincompoop
and may you waste your hours in the Underworld
translating the lives of Ants into clay tablets of verse
that disappear after each line you carve;
and may you, nincompoop who wastes such time reading such empty verse,
may you so waste eternity

And thus have I spoken and thus is it recorded on this wall,
the Solemn Words (no laughing or sneering there!)
Of Kinmgo Kaput, Lord of the Three Basins
That have been left Unwashed
by the Queen who lords over Home
The above is a translation of a recently-discovered hieroglyphic proclamation of the Pharaoh Of The Three Basins
Regina Williams Oct 2024
the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i’m cold,
and my shaking fingers are
shooting missiles toward you from
fifteen miles away.
texting is the worst form of communication.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
can’t you ever answer the
******* phone when i call you?
do you even love me? do you
care that i’m in pain?
do you care that i’m waiting here,
alone, cold,
while you have your car and
some other ***** snuggled up under your arm?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
what am i supposed to do,
leave you when you say you don’t care about me?
others have told me that i’m resilient
and i don’t want to make liars out of my friends.
i can take this. i can take this.
i’m not afraid of pain.
keep hurting me. tell me to **** myself
and i’ll kiss your calloused fingers
and worship you like nothing else.
i am on my knees
and the lentils you had me kneel on
are beginning to cut through my skin.
baby? do we still call each other,
baby?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
do you remember that morning
when you called me a fat ******* *****
because i spilled coffee all over the kitchen floor?
do you? because i do.
and i would crawl through the coffee and the
scattered glass like a dead man does through hell,
trying to get to something better
but knowing they never will.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i am not crazy.
well, i am crazy.
but i’m not crazy here.
here, i need you to hear me.
don’t just say you do-
actually do it.
pull my heart out and look how it
pulsates with love.
every beat was made for you
and you just won’t look.
you won’t listen.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i have put my hands
through blazing fire to
soothe your enormous ego
and you can’t pick me up
from the ******* bus stop.
****! what’s a girl got to do
to find a man that will
lick her wounds and devour
her fears? am i not worthy of love?
should i just **** myself?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i’m a mistake. i am unlovable.
i am a ruined being left alone by God to
suffer in this hell we call life.
everything he says about me is right.
i’m difficult. i cry too much. i’m too depressed.
i’m crazy. i’m crazy. i’m crazy.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
what was i thinking?
i don’t need a man. i don’t need anyone!
i am more godly than anything up in the sky
or beneath the earth!
i am the vacuum of space
and i’ll suffocate those who think
i’m anything less than perfect.
why won’t he pick up
the ******* phone?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i check my phone.
it’s 7:11pm.
the bus isn’t coming.
i don’t think it ever was.
This is a fake scenario. No person was a real victim of abuse. No persons were harmed in the making of this poem. This is a work of fiction. It is a look into the mind of someone with borderline personality disorder, spoken as a woman with BPD.
Joe Cole May 2014
Yes tis just a simple stew cooked six hours in the pan
But a hearty filling meal and I hope you find it grand
Diced beef, lentils, pasta to mention ingredients but a few
All of them do have their place when I cook up a stew
Tomatoes in abundance I have placed in there
Carrot and potatoes diced with precision and care
Sliced green beans, leeks and onions play their part
Its lucky I was trained a chef so I knew where to start
All slowly cooked in a succulent gravy with added rich beef stock
As well as button mushrooms simmering in the ***
This stew to be served with a crusty roll, food so very fair
I invite you to my table,  and I will serve you there
My kind of food and its cooking right now
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2011
Found in regions dark and dank
Where vaulting caverns, huge of span,
Hide tablets lost in dust and mire
Upon which wrote... are Runes of Man.

Ancient wizards, bent and thin,
Travelled far with guiding hand,
Clad in gowns of filth and sin
To meet in Pharaoh’s desert land.

There beneath the shade of palm
Bequeathed the olives, lentils, lamb,
They forged the Runes of wisdom’s balm
To guide the future world of man.

Runes which set and redefined
The boundaries of humankind,
Hieroglyphics  hungered for,
For which a Pope would ****  to find.

Mantras carved in granite stone
Which call a halt to man’s excess,
Which drop the sword of heaven’s wrath
On they who wilfully transgress.

Runes which set the matrix line
Cage temptation’s flaccid paw,
**** the greed of Satan’s spawn
And limit mankind’s lust for more.

There is a limit to resource,
There is a point, which gone beyond,
Unravels all that's won before
And leaves a chaos... pale and wan

So seek to find the Runes of Man,
Venture into Hell's hot maw,
Plunge the depths of oceans deep
Claim and keep... by tooth by claw.

These ancient Runes by ancient men
Who gifted us their wisdoms grace,
Who gathered in an ancient time
To future proof this human race.

Marshalg
@the Bach
Mangere Bridge
22 January 2011
Nadia Aug 2019
In a moment of defeat and despair,
we begged, “What will you eat?!”
"Noodles!" She declared.
"Noodles," we agreed, "noodles are fine."

And so noodles upon noodles upon
noodles we’ve tried: noodles boiled,
steamed and fried; strings, tubes and
swirls; noodles shaped like bunnies,
unicorns and dinosaurs; in sauces
and soups, in cheesious goops;

noodles with veggies (until veggies
were banned); noodles with
mushrooms (only from a can);
noodles made of wheat, lentils, rice or
corn - noodles made of everything
noodles could suborn.

Noodles for lunch and for dinner -
noodles again and again and again
- and what then? How many times
can one noodle? How many noodles
until brains begin to spill onto plates
in a braineous-noodle-ous state?

Noodles for breakfast - can’t do it.
Noodles for lunch - can’t get thru it.
Noodles are banned! Noodles are
not welcome near here - never again!
At least not today anyway.

Ok, fine...


NCL August 2019
Bathsheba Dec 2010
“Love animals…Don’t eat them”
On the back of the truck
Do they really think that we give a ****?

As far as I’m concerned they are there to be eaten
Does it matter so much if there battered and beaten?

The food chain is there for a reason my friend
Lentils and rice don’t appeal
Why pretend?

Morels and ethics
You use as your source
So neatly nurtured from your feminist course
Stroking your egos with ignorant bliss
Never to experience that succulent kiss

Steak starts to sizzle
Smell starts to ensnare
With wild abandonment
I really don’t care
Juices cascading
Rivers of fun
Full and content now
Deliciously done

So take your morels and give them a poke
And as you swallow your ethics
Try not to choke.
She'd walked to work at sundown  
When the blue dissolved to evening              
Past the roadside vendors cooking fires,
Not yet bright enough for deepening                
The outline of the factory-house
Where night-time shifts were gathering          
'Round the early evening cooking scents,
Boiled rice, and bread and lentils
Carried on the twilight breezes with  
A light refrain that mentioned
The hunger in her mid-riff
And the mild persistent headache
At the urgent anxious anger that
Her fears and hopes resembled.
And the nagging hopeless worry
That the money wouldn't stretch.

Treading lightly, sandals slapping
In a rhythm never blindly
To be misconstrued as anything
But a walk to work, and quietly.
One hand clutching at her sari,
Coughing mutely through her head-shawl
Barely breathing through the mocking
Of the jeering tuk-tuk drivers
Past the dust cloud covered concrete
With the reek of sun-soaked diesel
And the mouthing finger-thrusting
And humiliating cat-calls
That permeate her modesty
And her sense of self-retrieval
With a fierce determination
That the future must be faced

She'd felt the first forced tremble
In the walls and floors beneath her
And the slowly sliding shifting
Of her sewing, soiled machine
As it cannoned past the T-shirts
Through the carefully folded blouses
And toppled from the table top
To smash against the floorboards
When the building crumpled inwards
And the chaos and the screaming
Chased the panic to the exits
Down the staircase to the ground.
Then the ceiling at the center of the
Wide, high whitened work room
Caved in with crash and cursing
As the lighting dimmed and died

Now, far above she hears the cadence                    
Through the gauze of dimming clarity              
Fire truck sirens moan hysteria
Within the tinnitus of silence                
Tumbled past the dust caked boulders
Of the colorless construction                            
Prostrated down below
In the humid darkened stillness.
Trapped and jammed into the spaces
Where the falling floors had forced her.          
Where the grinding groaning echoes
Of the debris and the torture                        
Close her throat to swells of  panic
For her mother and her daughter              
In the two-roomed cardboard shanty
Miles above and hours away

Barely conscious, breathing lightly
Through the dust and reek of faeces
Thinking of her crowded back-room
Where she'd bathed her infant daughter
In the tin-roofed cardboard shanty
By the stinking standing water
And where her husband’s insobriety
Nightly terminates in snoring
After shouting and the swearing
And occasional forbearance
When her mother’s stifled terror
Terminates in tempers risings
And the all pervading violence
That resolves in resignation
And completes the shaming sequence
By the act of copulation

In the wreckage work continues
Where the rescue teams are scrabbling
In the arms of their dilemma
To keep searching or accepting
That the paradox of seeing and then again
Believing in the hopeless expectations
That some persons can be found
Far below and hours away
The burning thirst has found her
Past the pain of her right shoulder
And the numbness in her legs.
The acrid smoke that holds her  
Transfixed in shallow coughing
While the sari starts to smolder
To the agony of breathing
As she hoarsely tries to scream

In a conference room in London
In the tautly tensioned Aerons
Women smooth their sculpted short skirts
As the slicked-down young supplier
Holds a T-shirt for inspection
To the murmured confirmation
Of the busy buoyant buyers
That the pricing must be right.
Miles above and hours away
Six degree's of separation
Form a loosely joined connection
Out of mind and out of sight.
One by one the vendor cooking fires
Turn to embers and to ashes
While miles below and far away
Comes the dying of the light.
Sarah Mar 2016
I've got so many things to
do
today,
like wash the car
sometime between
early spring
showers-
and to soak the lentils,
I keep forgetting to soak
the lentils until it's
already time
to cook the stew-

I've got so many things to
do today,
like love you,
like to love you with
conviction
like I do.
Stephan Aug 2016
.

She watched as the poor stood at the back of a truck and
received their portion of rice
and thought,
now that’s nice

Then gazed as the middle class pulled up to a window
and were handed burgers, fries and shakes
and thought,
that’s all it takes

She then smiled as a white gloved, tuxedo wearing
handsome young man presented her with
roasted duck with pork and lentils,
macaroni and brie with crab, mushroom risotto with peas
and pomegranate pavlova with pistachios and honey
becoming a happy observer
and thought,
it’s so nice to have a private server
Just a joke. :)
olivia g Feb 2018
i can’t remember how many times i’ve been told
that the language of love is all i speak.
i laugh and say that
“i am a poet,
young love and
dead love and
to-the-grave love,
i sing of them as i sleep
and dream of them once i wake.”

we as poets surely know that
no amount of unsent letters
will bring her back to bed.
we know that we cannot charm our ways
into the hearts of anyone worthwhile
with our words alone.
and we know that cigarettes aren’t cute and
that pregnant women never drink alone
and that tripping on acid is not poetic,
it’s just really freaking stupid.

let me know why no one writes poetry
to commend the humble playground swing
who hardly even creaks in dissent as
another parent plops another screaming baby onto it.
and it pains this poor swing that
Daddy gets to be so blissfully unaware
of the very full and angry diaper,
and that they are the one to stare it in the face
because that’s just what swings do.
we could spin this tale into a revolution
if we cared a little less about our next first kiss.

when the pen meets the paper,
we find it easy to forget about
the girl gazing deep into her soup
because instead of boy-watching,
she is wishing death on her mother
for adding the lentils but forgetting the peas.

the great poets of ages past and present
make every bathroom trip a journey.
panicked sprints to catch the bus
are part of God’s plan, no doubt.
and she only hated the sweater you bought her
to celebrate her summer birthday because
“it was the very same shade of gray
that painted the sky when her boyfriend
traded her in for a broad with thicker thighs
or maybe even for a guy with socks twice as high”.

dear poets, for the love of love,
please don’t drown in her eyes anymore
because i won’t be there to rescue you again.
quit searching her freckles
for constellations in the dark
and just relax for once.
enjoy how naked she is.
and don’t say that the moon
is your old friend from high school
unless the yearbook photos can prove it.

these mountains in our minds
have every right to be molehills,
and sometimes it’s okay to
let the ocean just be the ocean.
I might have been King
were it not for that thing,
the noose,
nice and stretched, loose around my neck,
hangs well with Saint Christopher
and an old wedding ring.

I might have been King with the baubles and bling and a throne to sit on, I would have looked good on that but that wasn't to be, paupers like me queue up down the churchyard and the dead underground think that their lives are so hard, it's not good to be judgemental though when you've only got a bowl of lentils to see you through the day, woe to the man who scuppered the plan who thought up the plan to disinherit this man and woe to him too, I get this every time I kiss the midnight goodbye,
'up yours', says the King with his crown full of bling, my position's secure of that I am sure, well he can ******* too.

— The End —