Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Andrew Parker Feb 2014
Cyber Bullying Poem
2/6/2014

Let's talk about cyber bullying.
I wonder if you instantly thought,
"Oh gosh this is gonna be intense."
Well maybe, maybe not.

Some forms of bullying aren't intended to be intense.

Sometimes bullying comes from the smallest things you can do to someone.
Sometimes bullying just takes a minute to type and press send.
Sometimes bullying just takes another minute to close your web browser.
Sometimes bullying just takes a third minute to walk away fine.

Bullying is possible in just three minutes:
send a comment to anyone anywhere in the world
ruin their day.
destroy their confidence
personally insult someone you don't know personally
influence their minute, hour, day, week, month,
life, suicide.

But this poem isn't about suicide,
it isn't about life or death.
It is about those small things you say to someone on the internet,
without ever realizing
you are a cyber-bully.

This poem is about the time I met an internet troll.
Someone who says things in chat forums to elicit an elevated response.
I was in middle school, one of three Jewish kids.
I posted on a forum about video games,
and for some reason
another middle schooler on the same forum as me,
somewhere unknown in the world,
posted off topic about how the Holocaust was great for population control.
*******.

This poem is about the messages you get on your dating profile,
that just say "hello" or "hi."
Because you took the time to fill out and divulge personal information,
and the best they could come up with was a measly greeting?
26 letters, 10 numbers, and 46 other keys at your disposal,
with unlimited time
no pressure at all,
but you'll use a hell of a lot more keys when you retaliate to my angry response.
*******.

This poem is about the debates you get into on FB.
someone posts a provocative status about cultural misappropriation
or about how English should be the national language,
and you respond unable to resist,
trying to keep it professional and scholarly,
citing sources doing your thing,
until they make a personal insult,
unrelated to the debate topic,
maybe about your political orientation or religious beliefs.
*******.

This poem is about the person who you were supposed to go on a date with,
but they told you about how they once got upset at their ex,
and posted their photos on Craigslist.
******* and no thank you!

This poem is about the poems that I've posted on my blog,
that someone out there thinks are open to public criticism,
as all art should be they said.
Maybe if I was published and making money, sure?
Maybe if I actually thought your opinion was valuable?
Or maybe, just maybe, you could be a cyber bully.
Spewing your **** like the internet is your personal toilet seat.
*******.

This poem is about the minutiae,
the minutes in which someone can damage you,
because your screen on your computer has no filter,
it won't protect you from the cyber bullies,
who say small comments that make a big impact.

No happy inspirational ending,
other than that I hope they read this poem on the internet,
and maybe feel a little bullied themselves.
Andrew Rueter Apr 2018
We are all birds of a flock
That is pervaded by hawks
Predators who sympathy block
Until it's in conflict we're locked
Brought on by hateful conclusions
Conjured from shameful delusions
Trying to avoid societal fusion
Based on a diabolical illusion

They claim to love the man who digs the ditch
But this comes off as a hollow pitch
Because they all seem so rich
And say that the poor have a glitch
And their worst nightmare would be to switch
They're aware of other's values and interests
But they ***** their brothers like ******
Using hatred and ignorance
To make up the difference

They're so jingoistic
Creating misfits
To shift focus
Away from them
They're the locust
That chew the stem
Obtaining the power of love
Inside of their glove
That they use to shove
A misappropriation
That strangles a nation
At the rate of inflation
Yet the hawks show elation

When the going gets tough
We hear the same old stuff
Something about 9/11
Or who gets into heaven
They find simple answers
For complex issues
I hope their sinful cancer
Happens to miss you
But their negativity takes many forms
Anything from budgets to bullet storms
Tearing down bountiful fields of corn
To build another convenience store

These vultures keep consuming
While resources dwindle
Their desperation causes fuming
So they cheat and swindle
Surviving by eating the dead
That died from violent words said
Coming from the greedy vulture's head
Until every single animal has viscerally bled

These hawks used to look so regal
Until we experienced chemotherapy
Now they've become bald eagles
Always trying to steal my hair from me
But we're different species apparently
Because I have no feathers to offer
To further fill their nest egg coffers
So they forcefully take what they want
And then their shameless riches they flaunt
Using perceptions of status to tease and taunt
Hoping we'll forget they're the ghosts that haunt
A world of immutable truths
Even the richest can't elude
They build a curtain that's crude
To protect their fortunate brood
Fearing it will be dismantled
By an activist carrying a candle
So the vast majority can get a handle
On a future other than slavery
But to finally fight back
Requires the utmost bravery
And it's courage we lack
Can be found in my self published poetry book “Icy”.
https://www.amazon.com/Icy-Andrew-Rueter-ebook/dp/B07VDLZT9Y/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Icy+Andrew+Rueter&qid=1572980151&sr=8-1
Black girl roots.
Black girl magic, stemming from their black girl roots.
From their magical skin, full lips and hips, beautiful roots of their hair
Is the genetic anatomy of a black female that incomprehensible?
Full lips on display lined with collagen filled comments,
the peanut gallery of social media filled with distasteful outrage by the same things they inject to achieve yet,
riots on social media streets over the distasteful cultural misappropriation of all that is black yet,
It's distasteful to live somewhere, to live here, beautiful islands bathed in sun and filled with black people that aren't even conscious of their background...that aren't conscious of their 'blackness'.
To be so ashamed of their blackness. Their very roots.

Ashamed of their roots.  What a time to be ignorant Trevor.
Black History Month is now, yet there’s a rampage to eradicate the very aesthetics of blackness rather than appreciate them.
Dear colonialized principal of C.R. Walker High School, quit.
Dr. Claudius Roland Walker, the school’s namesake, built a hotel for blacks who were being discriminated against and
I imagine he would build a coffin for your revulsion of all things black,  
We’ve moved past your self-hate and the disdain you have for your very roots.
Black hair is beautiful and can never be unkempt. Let me say that again.
Black hair is beautiful and can never be unkempt.
Black hair is a statement that you and nobody that inhabits
this dying planet has the authority to deem untidy or inappropriate.
It took our ancestors far too long to comb through fields of complications
the root being wearing their natural hair and through natural hair movements
to have some nescient minded leader deem it disheveled.
Our roots have permitted our black skin magic, we absorb the rays of the sun,
magicians, and for my final trick, watch my skin glow like gold
dripping like wet paint onto a canvas of unfinished art
left behind by our old souls.

Oh my black people,
a juxtaposition of media sensationalism led by governmental lies, descendents of slave owners insisting that our black hair is something to be ashamed of,
it seems we have our heads so far up our own *****
we're getting too used to the essence of sh-t.
Then the chant goes up, the battle cry,
"This isn't the United States, there's no misogyny, there's no racism, there's no-"
Shut-up.
"Are you angry?"
No, I'm black and I'm angry!

Our mindsets rooted in the prevalence of self hatred, leaves of mighty oaks desperate to remove themselves from their very roots,
requesting emancipation from the very ones that have us enslaved,
begging to be cut loose from the European hand
consciously and subconsciously unshackling the left as we tie the right.
but where are you going?
When has a plant ever survived without its roots?
How dare we neglect the nutrients our ancestors left behind and chase the suicidal pesticide made to eradicate our total being?

Dear god if you're listening, as the cry of former sages went up I also cry,
emancipate yourselves from mental slavery and take me back to my golden home,
where I belong.
Take me back to the very roots I am taught to be ashamed of,
so that I may feel the energy of what once was.
Take me back so that I may cultivate my roots. Take me back so that I may live to tell the truth.
Just take me back.
My people deserve the truth as I find them in the lie,
smearing the proverbial “creamy crack” on hair and skin,
My people deserve more than a painted picture of Cesare Borgia Son Of Alexander Pope 6 as Jesus.
My people deserve to know that Jesus was black and that the Catholics were snakes in the grass abusing their power during their time of reign. Uh oh, the snaps got quiet.
Oh but my people deserve to know that perceived infallible Bible they see today has been edited and destroyed to hide the secrets. Why?
When mama and grammy worship pictures of “Jesus”, why wouldn’t white be right?
Jesus in the pictures mama, he’s a white man, he has straight hair, he’s the savior,
aren’t we supposed to be just like him?  
but
Little black girl with your, black girl magic and your,
magical skin, full lips and hips, beautiful roots of your hair
your crown, your skin, is beautiful. Your roots are strong.
Got excellent help from a friend named Gail on this piece.
saranade May 2015
My pretty friend, the definition,
...a Chopin-esque romantic, needing intervention
frantically resilient, a mere honorable mention
...burning for forgiveness with hypertension
Craving your redemption.

In the secret section you mention
...there's tension in your confession
another missed connection
...misled by another's deception
the impression on the connection
...a misconception on another selection
rejection is a whole new obsession
...this seventh dimension perception
the impression is to employ prevention.

Because Attention Attention!!
...need I not mention
there's no landing affections
...just internal tension
my infection is your retention
...misappropriation.
......misapprehension.
Rejection
It is not wrong to be white
and to have dreadlocks
Though,
you may look like a pleb
but you offend me not
Nor would it offend
a black rastafarian man
of a temperate manner

I don't know any women
with white skin and
straight hair that get offended
by afro-caribbean women
wearing a straight weave
You're all just too soft now,
you're all just pet peaves

Stop getting offended
on behalf of other people
that don't even take offence
Excuse me,
whilst I build a fence
around myself hombre
Not to keep me here
but to keep you at bay

Cultural appropriation
doesn't exist
Cultural misappropriation
doesn't exist
You're all just
champagne socialists
You should get over it

Yes, you mate
The one that thinks
he's above
everyone
and must decide what is
politically correct
and whose life matters

In the end all this is
is a series of cultural
exchanges and we're
all wading through ****

Face it.
A bit of salty food for thought.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Let me explain.
This poem is about sleeping, dreaming,
the failure of my inadequacies in poetry to heal.

Three years after its birth, it is exactly what I am feeling this day.
It is long rambling and you won't stay for the whole movie.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erudition is perdition,
dreaming in words, accursed,
death to the visionaries,
release from visitations
of over-staying, unwelcome guests,
Johnny Cash, Jesus,
Forefather Jacob, Bobby Dylan
and their whiny,
smug-smiled missives
on behalf of the
all knowing, dream invader powers,
who
just-happens-to-be-know-it-alls.

These guys,
sub rosa angels,
electioneering,
hand shaking  
you into dreams
that make you wonder              
unceasingly  

I have renounced chants n'
dreams that
wander                              
meaninglessly

so if there is no
repeal of the stupification
of the human condition,
just invent words that  fool
willful and mostly please
nobody

don't ask and don't tell,
then we can agree
that a life,
its peculiar
Hallmark Card of grief,
cannot be
disambiguated

yours is yours,
different from mine,
single poems cannot solve
multivariate equations,  
un-blow mind sensations
that circumnavigate my mind    
as I edge along the
borderline tween the
United States of self-realization,
and a State of Mexico
drug-induced, seductive and
self-administered pat down,
a colorless, tasteless, dreamless
evening in the company of
a rest-once-and-for-all,
sleeping pill

Repudiate yourself,  
privately you
hyperventilate,
but others willing to borrow
those surfeit of rapid
misunderstood breathes,
stored in brown paper bags,
that will be divided
most ingeniously by the
Misappropriation Committee
for wordy oxygen tanks,
desperate for refilling

Recant, Renege,
Renounce, Repeal,
Repudiate, Retract,
I herby foreswear
all previous poems, please
Return them

Back, send them,
so, I can end them,
desist any new arrival of vaniloquence,
direct 'em to  the trash box of inconsequence

My wrongful w-rightings
are now cashiered,
my cool is in mourning,
my plateau is flat but
upsided downded,
words drownded,
both sides now, spring silent

Tried to swim to safety,
to Spanish Harlem
but no hablo espanol,

In Miami, they done me in
for the crime of
insufficiently thin,

In Ghiradelli Square
they deemed me too blond
not 'ciscan enough
yet, in Frisco fairness,  
done deported me,
making me to choose
tween Los Angeles and/or
Orange County

So, poet poseur, where you gonna run too?

My better half sleeps,
my left half weeps,
so conditions normal.

Satan laughs,
offers me ***** or poetry,
knowing full well that having
foresworn, addictive wordmongering, liscentiousness
that a single letter
would stupor me into a
drunken poetry slam at
St. Paul's Church,
into Satan's collection box
of wordy sinners,
where lost souls, ex-poets,
prevaricate
vainly, in hopes
that anyone will let them
transubstantiate
in order to avoid their
expiration date
on Stub Hub

surrendered the master key,
turned in my ID badge,
opened inner sanctum no more,
poetry boy is ratiocinated,
peril dispatched, swear that I've
excommunicated the voices
determined to disintermediate

the compromise I've reached,
help is contraindicated,
ex-officio is my new grace state

please, devices decontaminate,
otherwise, poems disintegrate,
excoriate them, don't wait,
to disassociate'em, insufficient,
remove them from hard drives,
yank'em one and all!

let the diet begin,
no more food for thought,
no more dreams
wrought and recorded,
permit the ambient calm
of the still of the night
that engulfs,
to harmonize with the flatline
dreamless sleep that the
mind monitor machine
etchingly, quietly records

let hours of research
be rewarded,
by my imbibing the product of
laboratory pharmacological
fine tuning

***** S.,
what outrageous ego
let me suppose that in
mine own words,
I could improve upon
your lovelies,
with now bland homilies,
recitations of my anomalies

What id sexed my brain,
was I completely insane,
to imagine that I could
improve upon:

"and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the
thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,
'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream:
ay, there's the rub"

Finished: Nov 27, 2010 4:44 AM
the same mood haunts me, three years on...six months on this site today
ahmo Oct 2015
There are eyes that confront,
but there is no remorse.

Brown carries a negative connotation
and so the story carries on.
There will be eyes of this coloration,
but rarely a tale of happiness.

The theories behind formulas
don't take emotions into consideration.
It's kind of a misappropriation,
if you think about it,

We spend lives following
sequences, patterns, developments.
But we're only becoming dense
as we're hollowing.

I wish to love
as I wish to breathe.

I wish to love
as I want to believe.

This unreachable constellation
is a similar misappropriation.

I am a ball of yarn
hopelessly tangled
and
ignored.

You are a seamstress-
weaving optimism
and pragmatic emotion
for the forlorn.
Reece Apr 2013
With wings like barn doors, perched upon the tower and scathing
The king fell, the Earth moved and let him drift slowly to death
Bukowski on the bedpost sang rosy melodies through tin can headphones
and the daffodils of a thousand fields wilted at the news of her death
Needles fall from the *****'s arms, a rain drop escapes

Coca-Cola bottles strewn on a green carpet, smooth under foot
and the festival casualties drift aimlessly to their scorching cars
Pills fall from pockets as a forlorn criminal collects coins
The clouds disperse from the estate, reggae disrupts cats making love
Bass that resonates, crumbling cars and the warring between neighbours

Lay with her as the coffin descends, gun crime statistics
Spinoza makes accusations from beyond, ethical misappropriation
Stop talking, for your voice could make an angel weep
but the children still scream, running, frenzied on the lava streets
Cracking bull whips at the backs of a slave, ******* passion, weeping
and the sun sets in the East, proverbial ******* to the populace

Franzen now teaches me how to live such a lonesome life
While the night holds me like a mother once would
Until I pass,
and the arms of Susanna Blamire beckon
Hold me close
I'm scared
Ottar Aug 2013
all things green are not created equal,
what brings mean hearts a revival,
the green that some die for,
the green the mint strives for,

there are no green initiatives, only a green economy
there is no interest, that will starve the old, their bank
cupboards bare, soon they will eat their own flesh.

they ayes may have it everywhere so be aware, watch your step there
the green that binds our hands,
binds our feet, binds our minds,
bind us together in defeat.

this may sound like a call but really it is one voice with a bad echo,
bouncing off the walls of misappropriation and missed understandings

stewardship is taking care of what was given, (not earned)
he who made stewards of us is going to call (out our names)
to find what we did with the Terra entrusted with us (what a rush)

embracing the wrong green blinds us as it binds us to a rocky
spire, that double edge blade hacking at the legs of God's footstool.
the light talk about saving a planet, ****** Janet, what fool's
we have been, we blame colour blindness for corporate greed,
oh the
green that bind us
to every wrong to which we own,
will now cost us the best spot closest to the throne.
reading allot of green lately, spin doctors are having their way with the celestial virginal idea
seniors that have investments are having to spend the capital portion (flesh) just to survive, due
to artificially suppressed interest rates, but remember I am not an economist (and the people said
that is obvious)
Jack R Fehlmann Jun 2015
Owning only stolen air,
I function, uniquely
To gently own the unseen
Felt feelings, I look to master,
The tiniest remnants,  tattered
Torn and misappropriation rule
Fantastic forbidden fragment
Fall into hell, held, unshared
No podium,...
no  speaker,...
nor a crowd, of any sorts stirring
Aggitating,  aggrieved masses
slaves in their blissless mindset
Sherry Lore Sep 2015
I always wanted to do spoken word poetry,
but paper is too forgiving.  
It's so easy to pour onto paper
what you think,
how you feel.  
To become what they want...
expect, hope, fantasize...
to hear.  

If there's a misspelled word:
bitterness, anger, frustration, blame...
there is always the spell check.

Or if there's a typo:
misunderstanding, miscommunication,
misappropriation... miss-everything...
there is the backspace key.  

And if all else fails,
and the words are too much:
too far, too long... so long...
there's always delete.  
And start again.

Paper is too forgiving,
I've imagined how it feels:
scribbled on, removed from, blotted out.  
And then discarded once I've been read,
or not.  

I mean, how much paper is recycled
that's never even been touched...
till it's tossed into shredder to be
reshaped, remolded, reconstituted...
to become something else.  

How many poems are written
that never even get read.  
At least words spoken out loud
have a chance if screamed...
or whispered...
loud enough,
to get heard.

Yes, paper is too forgiving
I started writing this as a journal entry and it turned into something else.
Sam Temple Oct 2014
preemptive comb-over
greying chin whiskers distract
crows-feet stretch along the horizon
fluctuating flatulence
aging
bright eyes shine brown
as a youthful disposition
attempts to fill old space –
spaced-out on the space-heater
I stare into the dimensional riff
where the floor falls away
and my incorporeal energy being
floats
freely –
medicated and meditative
my motivation for misappropriation
magnifies
I mount an attack on Amazon
adding material trash
to my ever-growing carbon footprint
……turns out the American dream
takes VISA –
pinning for Pine trees
I leave the safety of internet shopping
expedition and adventure
in the Cascade wilderness
40 years does not an invalid make
and the lonely mountain trail
gives peace and solace
to my ragged and frayed
emotions –
emoticon laden text
forces me back to civilization
emaciated, but emancipated
I step back into the world
refreshed –
Ken Pepiton Mar 2021
As a sculptor, I think with a hammer,
another says,
as a nail driving man, I think, with a hammer,
- and foolishly,
- let my mind wander into the future
- when I am framing peace of mind for earth
- as it is in heaven, when I pray, with everybody.
amen.

Sing it wit me now, IF I HAD A HAMMER,
sing it, children, like it's 1963
- jump cut -
- drama ****** trauma Glynnis Johns dark, dark
- kiva experience, in a Saturday matinee, for Goyim.

It is literature, and certain cinematic forms of thought,
first formed here, where angels lead latter day
losers out of the maze by the the sheerest merest thread
of extended gnostostical snot-tis-snot-tis
but but button starters
for
lack of a nail,

no, no, nada fails for lack of a nail, but
for lack of move made with intention to make

a fact, form a circumstance of nextifity,
actual knowing
conscious ware being, acting in the role of soft,
gentle ware of ancient patience
wisdom work
as one wise in the ways of simple truth, take sublime,
for an instant
stitch take
stand, as a ware waiting a command, apps to teach
extending reach, games we teach our selves,
after watching constant streams of data,
very matrixy cinema allusion to the illusion envisioned

as if
belief is not a factor in what you think I am. Word.
No ethnos misappropriation, child. Word is all I am.
I ain't no body.
I ain't ever'body. I am consci used sense since when
ever
begins for us, me and you, writer/reader amusing device,
conceived
in the mind of a truth as true as any everwas,

come on, tune to the news, good news don't go bad.

reconcile a while. breathe and wonder if…

then wonder if the author knew
or if he dared to learn. Asking allowed, Truth,

what lies do I believe about you?

First answered prayer this one character claims true.
Truth says, you believe too little.

I accept that. Is there ought I might do?
Yes,
I do recall, all I know is in my bubble of known, so

pops are inevitable, as thumbs stopping hammers, midswing.
Amusing myself, and others who frequent this end of the pond.
Speak up
Speak Nigerians,speak for you poses a mouth that heals a nation.
It is in thine voice of thy mouth and thy vibrations on thy body that remedies spring forth.

Speak Nigerians,speak against the calamity that befall your land.
Speak against the hand that hurt thee.
Speak against the innocent blood spilled to please others.

Speak Nigerians in a united tone so your voices can be heard.
Speak to tell your fears.
Speak to make it clear.
Speak to put the nation right.
Speak to put an end to police brutality.
Speak to put an end to misappropriation of funds.
Speak to put an end to intimidation and High-handedness.
Speak to put an end to deteriorating health facilities.
Speak to put an end to weak institutional structures.
Speak to put an end to electoral misconduct.

Speak to put an end to unemployment as a normality
Speak to put an end to poor social amenities
Speak to put an end to injustice
Speak to put an end to oppression
Speak to put an end to sectionalism played by our political elite
We are tired of freedom of speech guaranteed but freedom after speech denied


Arise o compatriot
Arise fellow comrades in the struggle
We clamor vehemently to put and end to bad governance
So our future can be secure
        
                 Ojuolape Isaac Mfa
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2015
pedantically clean and orientated by monday march and morning? can’t be a poet, must be a schoolteacher of english - as it goes, chaotic on the poet’s bookshelf as inside a painter’s studio.*

the best poetry, i find, is done,
by the misappropriation of nouns:
just for the giggles
of that misplaced king o’ whisked
into pheasant pleasantries:
troubleshooting plato’s cave
in the panasonic flatscreen;
because - mighty internet - allows
my input too - isn’t a passive digit input
to get the cookie feeling of staring
en masse at “the most historic moment in broadcasting history.”
Ken Pepiton Oct 22
In the stacks of all we knew, LOOKY HERE,
in 72 minutes we walk a parsec, and Earth turns
two degrees, and Annie Jacobsen's whole
do no more, is all our denoument.

- pardon our verbosity, we had free time -

What news good came lately my way,
I long to think I did expect, my way
was new made, after the majority attained
use of Google translate thinker augments,
weform a contextual we, excluding
orders of social harmony
allowing liar laws life,
justice and way
eminence
eumenine specificity, so many specified known
wasps classified royally cosmopolitan,
mental peace presensing sub-untilificious

royal rules, only queens reproduce,
only idle bees are never seen busy,
and some can see syms when societies
all stop to think, for a minute,
and just breath, in, then out
we form awesome thinks expansive,
to mostly
support generally useless bums, like me.

{estimated reading time queries are invalid}

This is why, don't ask why again, or else,
imagine that…

The idle mind is where repairs are made.
Pairs connect, mate in mind and hold
thoughts as long as you imagined…

With this tool,
were I one willing, and able,
to master its functionality, imagined

ever learning along with reality
expanding the need to know,

all the things possible in this window,
between my time and thine, whole
worlds away in words never writ
with ink or wedge in stone nor clay
wished for siderealities, as many as
all the stars within augmented plain
sight, as through any stained pane,
presenting dancing pixels just there,
edgewise,
in our per ifery margin, where beauty
squirms eusocially,
all lights holding mean-peak
at an instant's attention
max red or green or blue, fading to black.

Pain, in jokes and drama, pain
is the essential underlay, the gesso
McLuhan saysotoo
over which we pigmentate, media
mental in original intention, obedient,

under law older than Shadrach,
the law of the Medes and Persians,
the power of attorney given priests
of the authors of our orders, classified,
as it is writ, thus it must be… sacred
ready readers, only.
Reading makes inclusion work as wisdom,
instant completely functioning beautifully,
breathe-ing
as if, asked
and answered, at the moment, called
Wisdom, come, entreat with all warring in me,
Wisdom, come, gentle minds twisted by me,
Wisdom, come, make us make believe.
-------------

Eerie, eh, not holding any thought, being
thought spiritual enough to find any word

so idled as to be posh fluff or street crud,
slung to signal inclusion in the with side,
the meaning in life is the message
in this medium prepositioned
opposed
to the without side, those at emnity
with truth's way

Into the comfort zone,

danger free, follow your toes, theories
of everything, meditatively perpendicular,

norms, and circles, churning burning effort,
ef-ing walls extend effects solid ificate
to hold the ash and tailings,

mined precepts seeding crystals
in caverns,
never witnessed, now known, so true,

two dichotomies make one tetrad,
and whatsoever we agree
to make believe

we may, and think it not robbery
to play,

make functional fun, little impulse to smile,
and think I know this idea, functions in me,
wink
and now, you, unless we lost you at the
NAND gate, excluding unbelievers, then a
NAND gate excluding unbelievers in live words,
NAND gate excluding no second guessing, here

we are, all in one window, thinking
we are our kind,  tied
at our common sense ability,

to stretch a point,
to make a thread one pastless point thin,
to tie a premis, a premission, permitting ponderous
whying
heavy duty gullibility
in terms
of mortal sensibilities,
this'll kihl you. I realized. Accidental as the idea silent
aitches let us talk end existence kihling bad ideas

to use pain
to teach, 'ow, why how is always
thorny issues, way back, seemed common,
we learn how fire works
by being made aware,
- not by being burned, a touch is enough
- skin as sensitive as a frog in parable lies, leaps
as touch response reflex functions all start running
what ifs against wonder ifs, wishes versus prayers,
-no, frogs won't simmer to death, they leap
using frog sense,
worth of knowing how long
to wait in winter, learning
worth of knowing bears know something
of weather. Co-mental commenting we think.
Thought hard fruit, thinkalongtime fruit, ra' good

Singing salmon songs I never learned, thinking bear
market strategies make less sense than bullshat
macroeconomic dimensions extractable
from meta data,
under all we ever stood up from under,
in the bubble of all I bet I knew for sure,

boldly accumulating in arterial informal plaques,
and films in limenal tunnels holding quarks as ones,

two bit chirality problem,
solved, cut it six ways,
two heads, two mouths, in one, out the other,
inside outside all at once, so easy, we imagined,
image that, two eyes, two ears, two nasal passages
into synodical pressure sensitive chambers
sinus sorting
of pheremone signal
to act analagous senders
to whale domes, catchers,
signal
from noise, gnosisnot say so,
sniff, feel cold nose, think so,
swallow all pride, and pretend, we made up this mind,
and it uses words we can understand
in all the unbarbing thorny issues
of zoological superfluity, among

watchers and waiters serving as idle ants,
with angst relief primary function,
just take air for granted, free
grace in time of need,
sleep if you are tired, easy,
weary way we know we go, has
cost. Pain exists, you know, you can imagine
in art, in jokes, and most certainly dramatic series
that carry followers
through decades exposed
to commercials announcing urgent solutions,
- now, no commercials, we bingegulp seasons,
- sometimes at a sitting, depends on dope
skating on easy learning absorption skills,
ever learning the drama never ends,

ask your doctor, now,
back to the global equivalent of one
Paredo Distribution, eighty percent of TV
is daily faire for twenty percent of people,
eighty percent of readers reading this far,
get to this bubbles popping edge, on a side

zoom to a scatter graph, who breathes in
who breathes out,
all around the world
whiling away, in trust we make peace seem.
.. seen as through smoked glasses, liquidly
Gaussian blurring edges
where the frame
holds the light we see through
to think like this

is real
at word level. Live rethinking, first men
tale-ings
after refining whying wishes
to know.
More, or less.

Everything, all at once, is chaos, whence
art abstracts beauty patiently, trusting wishes
what if its another trick we have no defences,
we get eaten alive,
for cultural misappropriation.

Dear is a value to be weighed using full bandwidth
Sakal, show thy self letters ready for measure,
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, indeed
שָׂכַל defined several of seventy ways,
spelled to take a broken heart
and mend it with a realization.

If my need became your need,
we would be in love,
that would really
defeat the use
of preparation, peeling potatoes,
prudence, ever ready to entertain,
pounding clothes down by the riverside,
watchin' babies being washed off and blessed,
שָׂכַל knowing waiting is suffering, not pain
watchin' life like National Geographic, before TV.
A messenger's whistle, hear
ah
Message to the mass essences
of little looks mira-clues, seen miracles
since who knew when today
would continue as today. As if once more.
Dear Prudence,
did we come out to play, as if today,
was one of those times that we all seem
to have, recollected
if it could seem alright.
שָׂכַל prophets spake, Ai make secrets known,
the whys for all the wars so far. Pride, indeed.

Why? Would that defeat the use,
and not the purpose
of preparation, final product,
Battlefield Earth, truths uses versus lies uses,
us as we
who think it all through
to the seed
in the fruit it self desirable
to make one wise considering
שָׂכַל science falsely so called, still makes believers.
Slow down.
Jello time reminds second glancers,
when time is not as dear, as an instance
in re co gnosis, swallows gnosis known nots,
- wise was the serpent discerning decision trees.
what would ever make us all think one thought once,
then never think it alone again, we all ways, big all
think this was the way, we walked in,
the same way we walked out, all
set to comprehend wisdom and knowledge and
yada da da da we who work
   in living once idle words,
our side ways won, when we did not fight,
we never lasted al-mental
this long before, but
when we get old, we keep our wits, we got older
sooner than later, so we know
more than our dads, too.
- old friends well imagined
- happy ever after any way,
don't aspire, little maker
of good sensed peace,
to stave off thermo nuclear war
by your self, aight, here we go,
make up a master mind board
of suggesters
by your self,
HelloWorld,
with you
in a minute,
I am in a consultation,
relationships with dead friends, such are
deeply personal, core ties to old times, remember
we can hear them say the same damnedlies, or listen,
שָׂכַל together with stars consider real the times

analagous to tuning back when zero beat, was sought
to make one wise,
in Genesis, esoteric
in the gaps,
she saw he never knew, so Cain did, for sure…

hey, old enemy of me, I cannot remember why
I was afraid of you, and never got to know you,

but I recognized your art, the other day,
in an old, old magazine ad,
then that leads to us in a sense, innocent,
a lost soul I had no sympathy for, I was his bully,

so he's dead and we're okeh, spiritually, we talked,
I told him I had changed, he told me he'd broken,
got busted in Oklahoma, went to prison, for ****,
got religion then went nuts, and I said

I can relate.

So we stay in touch in the spirit.
I don't know how he died, but we were in situations,
where sixth grade bullying had been forgotten,
when I call this character
into my life, as a friend, known to many
mistreated in this mortal moment, laughing ever
as a complexity of never ifery, it did not ****
you to know, boys were always boys,
we always think of Infinite Jest, and laugh
at the coincidence we both read Foster Wallace.
Always sorry, for the trouble we allowed
our wild child payback voter against
peace at any price, what price glory?

The little monstors empo'w'rable in us all, rahrahrah

It was Donall Dempsy said it:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4897567/even-now-now-very-now/
The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4899302/walking-from-the-rising-sun-to-kildare-town/

Oi, this man's an inspirer of SAW such as wisdoms, never told,
could be, back when eighty percent
of us heard all our wisdom from drunks.
Now we read texts.

When the battles over,
and common sense is laughing,
some of it singing simultaneously

concurrently free presses in spirit and echoing
out side the bubble we met in as licensed wannabe

messenger shouting in the wild,
anybody home, we got lost.

As the earth moves relative to the sun, see
two degrees, is about, nearly to the Picosec
Seventy-two minutes, a parsa, in tradersprachen,

the realization, sure and certain utter destruction,
an agreed upon form of right use ness, national opinions

believe madness deters madness and nonsense in just code.
-it is not secret code, nor sacred, knowing is necessary, just
always was, all else you were told
to believe, with knowin' known
as sin, well we have recycleables
to trade, for those,
made
of the exact same historical threads
to here. On the battlefield, after all.
The point of anything we wished we did, done.

We can use our minds in ways once called praying,
we think we say we wish you the best, and hesitate, luck or grace,
favor undeserved by a wretch like me, ah, the maze,
the logos as spirit medium cord, twisted spider kite collection,
Ariadne, toss the lad a line, he's a ways to go until sense is common.
I hope you enjoyed that, it seems I asked for more, tooo often
Rob Cohen Nov 2020
City of flickering dust crusted lights
along homeless haven'd stained shaking sidewalks,
where lampposts tell twisted tall tales
seen in the reflections of shop window views
of the stalking capitalist machine.

Billboards bellowing lucid interpretations
smile over split milky-way highways
launching battery driven cars on candied clouds
nine miles high while dandruff snowflakes
fall from salon-styled stands of thin grey hair
onto executive shoulder-padded suits
into plastic snow globe promises of a white Christmas
for kids on the streets in Little Haiti
and Old North Sacremento.

Chinese manufactured diseased dreams
spreads through third-world African cities
malfunctioning tribe cultures into
building blocks for fly-by-night
phony hip hop street scene
high-tops of American *******
rip-off Beijing based monopolies.  

Cutting out native tongues
and fitting botched back street
plastic surgery transplants of jail-yard gang slang
false identities of cultural misappropriation
and heritage suicide by displaced majorities
who hope for bread crumb paths home
along folktale story guiding epiphanies
of ghost kings of the past bellowing from the sky

"REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE".
Moonsocket Jul 2017
Inside this mind once spoken for

I surrender my will to despondency

My reality laughs

offering up souls full of toys for misappropriation

Now I slide down to the vacant side

hoping to sit and watch the time

I know this place well

kicking rocks into the void

I grow weary waiting for impact

Life left me jaded by noble fiends

hate and spite for consumption

I've found it exhausting

after all

Hatred stems from fear

and I am terrified.....truly

Not only by the lack of pause reflected on so many faces

or by a societies unwavering commitment for disconnection

More so this notion I find in these quiet moments

When the eyes remain stationary

contemplating another boomerang trajectory

It's simply this

I've seen fear in all organisms

built into a disposition like DNA
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2017
have the concept of a needle in one eye,
and the concept of a haystack in the other;
plus a nose to figure out
                 where to place the needle
for the appropriate reference point...
of metaphor: or what's called misappropriation....
                         otherwise it turns out all lobsided,
         a crab's walk across a zebra... the "leaning" tower
                                           of pisa:
confusing, cross-eyed,
                       with the needle laid a metre away
from the haystack, easily visible....
                     and the haystack? what? kicked?
it's not going to turn into a, ******* tumbleweed!
i'm guessing a scarab beetle figured out
the potency of a lump of ****, sooner,
   than man ever had, with regards to a haystack...
no... kick open that pile of "****"...
            it aint'a gonna roll with the brush of a wind,
far, across arizona, akin to a ******* bonanza
                                     theme piece, included.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2017
you can never believe yourself sometimes,
how stupid it can get,
i could have spent my evening
watching, what would become:
a very thrilling game -
   instead? i gave up after the first half,
thinking that watching a few you-tube
videos regarding stale political affairs
from 2016 and drinking a beer would
be better than the second half of
france vs. the netherlands,
in a historic drama, whereby the netherlands
would be ousted from playing
a major tournament, in 40 years!
****... 4 - nil to france... and i missed that!
i watch these videos and think to myself:
i'm starting to build fatigue around them:
i used to be much more immune to the content,
it's literally becoming a brain-drain,
whether it's "legacy" or "alternative" media,
media's media, doesn't matter which side
you listen to: it's still the same economic model:
views...
     and that's what's tiring,
this, dare i say, diacritical(?) complacency?
well, i just did,
               at least i can admit that even within
the confines of my monologue,
i have the promiscuous (2nd dictionary definition)
audacity to argue with myself -
   something that is quasi-schizoid,
but: just necessary -
     and given that the medium where i encounter
this dualism is in terms of thought -
well: so much for being objectivity-crusaders,
when all i hear on the news interviews
is a bunch of, brats, shouting over each other,
and going into gear of being too emotional...
first of all, what's wrong with subjectivity,
if it can be contained by some sort of calm rationale?
why the sudden: oh, it's subjective,
ergo it's not credible! huh?
            a ******* peddle-stool moment from
i'm seeing and hearing, i just missed
the second half of a historic football match,
to simply get ******* watching you-tube videos
and drinking two pints of stella -
   and no, they didn't go down well,
          i had to walk an extra mile to burn off
the indigestion; **** knows, might have been
the beer, or the you-tube content.
you know, watching these videos,
   i sometimes wish i was able to watch
a hot-air balloon festival...
    it would make sense then,
         just chilling, with a beer, watching these
grand auroras of: mushrooms in the sky unfold
and startle me...
              and as god is my witness,
i've seen more foxes and deers in plain myopia
distance of sight, than i've ever seen hot-air balloons,
plenty of inflatable bouncy-castles of ego,
i mean... does anyone even consider revising
dialectics any more? sitting with some old
man on a park bench, and discussing a raleigh
bicycle? while at the same time having
the audacity, dare i say: tenacity to boot,
of: just chilling out and playing opinion ping-pong?
huh?! if i want a heated "debate", i'll strike
a conversation with someone... in a sauna...
and no, there's this blatant disparity via the old
world and the new...
  just because i've written something on
pixel "paper" doesn't mean i'm talking,
        unless it's in the comment section -
that's fine, i understand that -
   i'm writing this into thin air -
      it's called thinking aloud, and yes,
you're welcome, you should feel privileged that
i share this much, or as much as:
  so i was sitting there, as usual, on the windowsill,
opened a can, poured it into a glass,
wriggled my heel into my grand canyon of ****
and... that familiar sensation...
    well, i can't just leave the poor thing on its own,
and return to it as it turns stale...
i was already listening to some music,
and reading a magazine article about
the phenomenon of the once unfashionable trend
of beards in england, not so, post-circa 2013...
off ye went, to sit and **** into the throne
of thrones...
  i swear, this was the only compensation for
missing the 2nd half of the football match...
and that's, what you call "multitasking"...
my uncle does a better one though,
  i would too; he always has a cigarette while
taking a ****;
so no... this isn't talking, this is "talking" -
you agitate the white flag of a pixel page,
you attack everything worthwhile -
   what, just because thinking is confined to books,
who have censor publisher authorities
who demand the thumb of law, with re.:
(a) will it sell, be a hot crumpet,
   or (b) will it flop, and only be a niche product,
   like the niche product that raw herrings
are the counterculture misappropriation
  of the multi-cultural daft fascination with sushi?
i'm a raw herring boy, in cream sauce,
after all... baltic's the baltic;
ah... so much for these "alternative" media
outlets...
     i'd still prefer to chill with a beer,
                          watching hot-air balloons;
4 - nil... **** me, now that's a scoreline -
and i'm peeved to mind that the pitch was too
wet in 1974, and that the game should have
been postponed, semi-finals...
west germany vs. poland...
                 the poles were quick, the germans,
well, like any german: custard-limbs...
slow...
            ah... i can just picture that 1974
final: poland vs. the netherlands,
   grzeorz lato, szarmach, deyna...
hey, johann cruyff...
               now picture the fonzie pose.
Gods1son Apr 2020
"Hate" is a word that I hate to mention
But I strongly dislike these politicians
that are ******* us and
even the next generation(s).

The ones that have built almost no infrastructure.
The only structure they have in place is
that of funds misappropriation.

The ones that rule over us but are
themselves ruled by greed and insecurity.
They steal more than they will ever need,
jeopardizing the nation by their corruption.

Their country is living in difficulty and
they care only about their own prosperity.
They fool the people by doing good towards the end of their tenure so that they can win the next election.

These are not leaders, I call them Poli-thief-ians.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2018
can't help but see a somali smile
whenever thinking about god,
          an ethopian heart,
            and the feet of an englishman...
the left arm of the french,
       and the right of the russian...
tongue of an american,
   and the feet of an argentinian...
others get the nibbles
         on this crude pseudo-fantasy...
a reserve of any notable
examples of life with the chinese,
          and culinary antics
                       of the blue indians...
and then i think back to
an "identity"
                   of my own, pauper-kin...
translated into american
  as the gran torino:
                              ****-wit ******
in the form of clint eastwood...
sikh generosity,
  turkish speciality in giving
man the finest barbers...
         and the arabs for their prayer...
mind you:
         two days spent without
speaking a sentence in my immediate
vicinity,
      and you circuit
a numbing sensation...
                             to encompass more
trojan horse than
                a sponges' worth of a brain
comparative...
                only yesterday
the day was half awake, and half asleep...
   and i minded both
the insomniac, and the shadow,
trying to listen in on sparrows
          during the shortest night
                     encompassed by a june
on the english isles...
            typically within the confines
of: just shy of 4a.m.,
               but i still can't fathom
the blank slate, blank canvas *******
around with a set of rules
in the domain of grammar...
              not exactly sure why this bothers
me, but, then again:
   maybe it doesn't...
               there's always a chance
that i'm writing spew,
        out-dated
                                      concerns...
up to: and more importantly:
               true... till the day of my parting
is made official...
         between a caribbean concept of
lazy, and the mediterranean equivalent?
        hardly a choice...
                      it's not exactly true
that i fell asleep out in the open
     in a kenyan resort translating
night back into day,
      but that someone managed to drink
the brandy left just above my head
on a table...
                   i'm guessing
                  a macaque stole it from me...
    hard to exactly translate certains
animals in the: wild, wide open...
                                         baboon thieves?
lined up with
                             shiny red butts
                             like celebratory ulcers?!
can't exactly write about
     a macaques: fear-face either...
         you have to see it to "believe" it...
ooh! as a word is hardly
                        a snapshot of the reality...
which is enough to confine
you, happily, to a balcony,
               finding shade,
               as the hobbit monkeys
                tire you with their presence:
            in a much ado fashion
               munching on little bags
of saccharine... can't remember:
                          could have been sugar...
a comparison with people became
the last thing in my mind...
          clearly kenya gave me
         anything but an exchange
of cultures...
                        what sort of european
whitey would not act out
      preserving the little time consisting
of 2 weeks among other tourists,
   and not attempt to spend the time with
actual, authentic, monkeys without
the european caging of them?
    ever shared a balcony with a macaque?
not exactly petting a bonsai feline...
        but i'll admit:
            an animal as a concise tool...
    a labrador
              to walk the shadow of the teasing blind...
the alsatian
         and how sensible the provoked
bark...
              a rottweiler: which is,
actually my fetish in terms of ownership...
     addict sniffer dogs at
airports:
           sniff a line: can't keep 'em
on a leash for much longer...
                  ever shared a balcony with
a macaque...
    the bonsai representation of
some far removed cousin of a past
                  consisting with the current you?
black priv.,
             there's nothing else quiet
like it...
                it's like the complete pointlessness
of needing a mirror,
or a narcissus mythology...
     furry golf ball of
           moment...
                 man and the death of time,
and monkey: with time's birth...
and yet the two behind a glue factory
of not being completely detached...
maybe i'm reading too much into
this...
               as any memory:
    cinema cameo...
                     like the one in edinburgh...
   i have had too many
cognitive faculties erode before my eyes,
to "suddenly"
      allow memory to be
crippled,                 untouched,
                            "unfathomable"...
                               "off-limits*...

which springs to mind
  the first time i've learned of schizophrenia;
that pale-shade of a woman
who phoned me up and started
screaming about auditory-hallucinations...

i was on a roof of the scottish widows'
HQ tiling the concrete with
water-proof insulation...
             what was i supposed to answer?!
then it crept up on me...
         can mental illness take the form
of a virus?
              evidently...
           like any good idea can spread,
uninhibited...
                  an illness of such "abstract"
nature
                      can become contagious...

here?
     us, lepers, poets:
    with solid handshakes of a waggling
tongue,
               nothing more.

perhaps out of curiosity,
                          perhaps out of spite...        
              
i'm still to fathom the dichotomy-exit-point
from a cartesian merger (dualism)...
                     hence no adjective...
but it's there...
               but i'm hardly going
to not consider a physical reality of
         a cognitive dissonance
                       congregation-synonym...

  there's hardly a parallel...
              perhaps a misappropriation
of timing:
        but certainly a revealing crux,
later a pivot,
        subsequently a sine / cosine libra
dynamic.            

that humming sensation,
    of a breath pushed through
pursed lips
        allowing a vibration...
                  a vibration that's also akin
to being tickled...
      
   had i but two eyes in my mouth
to see with,
   and know, what i have two tongues
to peer with, lodged in
my eye-sockets.
AmazingsanPoetry Jun 2021
One who believes in everything is likely to suffer from the disease called believedietis.
I.e be prone to die of misappropriation of believe, leading to mediocrity and hypocrisy.
Just believe in what you love, inspires and motivates and drives you.. But don't mistake believing out-of necessity and survival with the later.
Yenson Nov 2023
It was after two o'clock in the afternoon or thereabout, he was alone indoors, a knock at the front door rattled the noon silence. Not again, he thought, for he already knew who it would be. He grimaced inwardly and headed to the door. He was wrong, it was'nt the pest neighbour woman from next door, this time, it was her teenage daughter and her younger brother. They tood there like two sour thumbs, presenting an inquiring sight for my already bored eyes.

Oh hello, my mam says can you lend her £5 till her giro arrives tomorrow? says Joan, plaintively, her brother peering inquisitively
behind her. He disguised the bored look and smiled benignly, he was about to say, ' but your mam hasn't repaid the £10 she borrowed last week' but he stopped himself. He hates embarrassing others, do unto others as you want others do unto you, was a strict edict to him. Instead, he opened the door wider, 'come in, I'll get my wallet. Like rats into a cheese larder, they scuttled after him as he turned into his lounge. Turning to face them, he immediately noticed their wide-eyed awe-struck gazes and immediately realized he had never invited anyone of this family indoors before.

He was later to learn, they had stated there was a hidden Palace full of treasures next door. To him, it was just a tastefully decorated and tidy flat. Little did he know what laid ahead. Take a pew, I get my wallet, he said, as he made for the bedroom. He return to see them starring at his record cabinet with the neatly stacked LPs and the gleaming Bang & Olufsen sound system. I see you like your music, says the girl, her eyes darting all over the room, the brother just sat there as if mesmerised. He was now wondering if it was a good idea inviting them in, for he could see from their deportment and gazes, they were overawed and almost ill-at-ease. He mused they might think he was showing off. he handed over the unreturning £5 and hoped they leave.

In years to come he would regret this afternoon. they did not leave after taking the money and he did not have the heart to usher them out. instead they settled in and the girl talked about them moving from Scotland and living in hostels, about not fitting in at school and how communication was difficult because of her accent, about her liking Reggae Music and Bob Marley. I watched her in her worn dress and stained sandals and the boy in faded t-shirt and ***** jeans, I'd listened to the commotion regularily emanating from their flat, was aware of the regular Police visits and the various anti-social happenings around them. Now she's six months pregnant and Bobby who got her pregnant didn't want to know.

I felt sorry for them, my wife and I had felt sorry for them from day one, on numerous occasions, they had come to beg food, eggs, bread sugar and even milk, it was obvious they were dysfunctional and Jim the father was always in and out of jail. I didn't know how to help other than just keep on being their Lender. Sat on our comfortable divan, she continued about missing school and leaving early because she was bullied by her school mates. Now I made a mistake, I had read somewhere that a good way to emparthise is to try and relate with the issue, yes, I said I know what its like to be bullied, I said. I had never been bullied, I was a Class Prefect from Form One, I was an A student, always capable and well adjusted. I was popular, liked by both the Tutors and my school mates and known for my humour and effortless coolness, even if I say so myself.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Little did I know, when in trying to empathise by saying 'I know what its like to be bullied' I was making a rod for my own back. Unsuspectingly I was talking to feral people, to predators and extortionist, little did I know, these are damaged morally bankrupt people, little did I know that what I thought were appreciative glances were my properties been scanned and listed for misappropriation, little did I know that in East London and suchlike areas, your neighbour can actually break into your house and steal from you. Little did I know that envy and jealousy can be such potent forces and little did I know that white is right and black is always wrong.

I managed to usher my guests out that afternoon by promising a Musical day to listen to Bob Marley, I shut the door behind me and buried my head in the book I was reading earlier. If you were to tell me what laid ahead for me and mine, I would have told you, you are crazy and would make a super imaginative Fiction writer.
Yenson Sep 2021
And the three lions
were caged and tormented
then starved roused and flogged
then grill gates opened to release them
ravenous and angry they trotted into the arena
where a lone moor was standing to be the dish of the day
the three lions circled the moor and roared and roared even  louder
but  strangely would not go rip up and eat the hapless moor
they pawed the dusty ground and growled and snarled
yet still refused to engage with the browned dinner
finally with a loud growl they turned away
back in their cages they told the others
these people stole us from our homes
we are not from this cold continent
we are not indigenous to this place
and that poor dinner was also
from our home continent
why do these thieves
and bloodthirsty
vagabonds
want us
to be
like
them
this is thievery and cultural misappropriation
we don't belong here for a start and look how we're threated
and we don't as a rule eat humans and not stolen ones at that
can you believe the arrogance cheek and barbarism of these people
As a student in Missus Grace Wells third grade 1967 class...
at Henry Kline Boyer School
a fairly prominent structure,
whose personage exemplifies
a storied history recounted below.

Henry K. Boyer

Early Life

Henry Kline Boyer was born on February 19, 1850, in Evansburg, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The youngest of two children to blacksmith Ephraim Boyer and his wife Rebecca Kline, Henry was raised mainly in Montgomery County, with his father at one point even being the official town blacksmith of Evansburg. He attended formal schooling in Montgomery County from a young age, with an aptitude for math and a love for English and history. Boyer later attended Freeland Seminary, which is now known as Ursinus College.

He completed his formal education at only sixteen years of age, and in 1866 became a schoolteacher at the public school in his neighborhood. Kline then moved on to other teaching positions, including ones with a “classical academy” in Philadelphia and a Quaker school in the Byberry neighborhood of the city.

In 1868, he received a grammar school teaching certificate and moved to Camden, New Jersey, to work as the principal of a school there. Boyer did this until 1871, at that time he left his position in Camden to pursue the study of law in Philadelphia at the firm of former United States Attorney General Benjamin H. Brewster. In 1873, at the age of 23, Boyer was admitted to the Bar in Philadelphia County, where he focused on civil cases.

Political Career Begins & Flourishes

Starting out as a lawyer, Boyer took up permanent residence in Philadelphia and practiced well through the 1880s, attracting political attention. He was an active member of the Young Republicans of Philadelphia, and “his growing inclination for public affairs led him in the Spring of 1882 to attend a meeting of Republicans … to (choose) delegates for the state convention.” He was announced then as a delegate for the Seventh Ward of Philadelphia. He received a strong showing but lost. In the fall, he then ran for and won his first race, for the Pennsylvania Statehouse. Winning handily, Boyer had gone from a lawyer to a politician.

Henry K. Boyer served as State Representative for the 7th District of Philadelphia County for six terms, both before and after his time as Treasurer. Boyer served from 1883 to 1890, 1893 to 1894, and 1897 to 1898. He became a powerhouse in the State Legislature, with some of his legislative activities involving being a driving force behind the bill that created the Pennsylvania State Board of Health, encouraging citizens to plant trees, and regulating pharmacies. His action on these matters during his first term did not go without notice, as on January 4, 1887, at the age of 37, Boyer was elected as the unanimous choice of the Pennsylvania House Republican Caucus to be the next Speaker of the House. He was elected Speaker again the next term, and for a third non-consecutive time upon his return to the house in 1896 after serving as Treasurer.

As Treasurer

The sitting Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Boyer was elected as Treasurer of Pennsylvania in 1889. The State Republican Convention, which less than 10 years before had denied his bid to be only a delegate to it from Philadelphia, unanimously selected him as their pick for Treasurer. Pennsylvania Senator Boies Penrose introduced him at the convention, with the Philadelphia Times quoting Penrose as saying that he knew of “no other man” for the job.

In his acceptance speech, Boyer said he was a “proud and happy man,” and that the party had “made a correct choice. … I assure you I will endeavor to merit your confidence.” Boyer was elected in what was the largest total majority ever given to a Republican candidate in a political off-year. When the returns were coming in, the Snyder County Tribune reported that “Well, we have got Boyer and are very happy.”

In the role of Treasurer, Boyer authored the extensive Revenue Act of 1891, and he saw to it that schools specifically received substantial funding. However, in 1891, Boyer was locked in a corruption scandal along with Auditor General Thomas McCamant. A Philadelphia politico had been discovered that year as being corrupt, so a sweep across the Commonwealth revealed allegations of corruption…as far as Boyer’s direct role in any corruption, it was written that he was “criminally negligent at best and corrupt at worst.”

The scandal ultimately did not lead to his removal from office after the Senate split on talks to oust him, although Dauphin County prosecutors charged him with the misappropriation of $600,000 in funds. Once again, it never got off the ground, and Boyer retired at the end of his term while immediately making another successful bid to the Pennsylvania House and Speakership.

Later Life & Death

Boyer went back to the House after his term as Treasurer, holding the Speakership once more. The Capitol burned down during his tenure, and Boyer led sessions of the Legislature from places like the nearby federal courthouse and Grace United Methodist Church. He resigned from the House on January 17, 1898, after being appointed as Superintendent of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. He retired from the Superintendent position in 1902, and after that, spent the rest of his life in various pursuits.

He was a fan of farming, especially dairy farming, and at one point through his retirement had a 130+-acre dairy farm that he worked painstakingly on. It was reported that at this farm, Boyer remodeled every single farm building, purchased the best farm implements, got everything up to date, and had some of the most fertile soil in Pennsylvania. Besides investing in his dairy farm, he invested in land and other buildings, such as an old hotel, and enjoyed planting as much foliage as possible around his many acres of land, just as he encouraged citizens to do in one of his signature bills as a state representative.

In 1910, he was living as a boarder in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, in 1920 he was living by himself in Lower Providence, Pennsylvania, and in 1930 Boyer was living in Red Hill, Pennsylvania.

Never married, and never having children, Henry K. Boyer died at the age of 83, days shy of his 84th birthday, on February 14, 1934, in Red Hill, Pennsylvania. He was buried at Chelten Hills Cemetery. The York Dispatch eulogized him as “one of the well[-]known figures of a past generation in politics,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer highlighted him as “an outstanding figure in Pennsylvania politics in the last quarter of the 19th century.”

His place of residence
currently repurposed into to Play & Learn,
formerly Boyer School, 35 Evansburg Road
as iterated above aforementioned building
constituted quaint grade school
(one classroom per grade),
wherein I still remember
The golden-rod is yellow;
the first line of a poem
titled September by Helen Hunt Jackson

memory of mine jogged,
when remembrance of things past
pertaining to my boyhood
at about eight (almost nine) years old
strongly instructed to memorize
and be able, eager, ready and willing
to recite said poem
(other classmates as well needed
to abide by assignment or else...)

despite being a diminutive lad
with a pronounced nasal sound
(courtesy of submucous cleft palate - split uvula)
approximately fifty seven years ago
reprinted here with permission of
Your Daily Poem
P. O. Box 14054
Greenville, SC 29611.

September - now follows suit
by
Helen Hunt Jackson

The goldenrod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentians bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.
From dewey lanes at morning
the grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
'T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.
Yenson Jul 2020
You did not see the soul or the man
in owned centered affray you winded sailed
no hearing, no quiet to listen you sip the glint wane
you saw the title  in mirages of the shattering you scaled

You did not hear the voice sincere
as you floated and flirted with primed conceit
in altered minds, frozen senses you dimmed in sphere
to genuflect as belle of the traders ball and take a topping seat

You did not give room to a heart
in your chambers, nor wave a pout, a nod to another's
rather in harsh mellows, harried come tarried to sour depart
all in self glorifying tarry, to be the raconteur to else's duped bothers

You did not do as humanly right
in any which form or shape, 'cept to wear disquiet fair
lauding oppressive storms, shading demagogues verbose delights
languishing in the twisted seedy verses of misappropriation a-share

You cannot see the man or the soul
for in empty places the vacuous find whatever they seek
chalets for musings and notions best sparse yet their grounded soil
to fight vain skirmishes, inflamed pride of those perceived born un-chic

Why should we write a love story..............

— The End —