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For 21 days I saw changes wrought
by the freedom of 22 years  
Secrets of razor wire straight and taut
Speak of those who continue to fear

I saw nature’s beauty in land and face
As black heel continues to rise
Via school, ambition they prep for the race
Even as secretly despised

What’s changed in Soweto? I did not live
But photos and newsreels survive
Pictures of shanties bulldozed to give
Whites room to extend their hives

Now malls; monuments to white retail
Built on Mandiba’s words
Polished chrome and marble hail
“Happy” workers in a black-faced world

Monuments ringed with vendors tribal
Carved goods for sale and cheap
The rands they make do not rival
What multi-nationals’ continue to reap

Happiness is shallow until sundown
When the curtain of decorum lifts
Showing reality’s new shanty-town
Where space and plumbing are gifts

I wonder if He would be okay
Seeing his people so used
As pawns for labor with little say
As black is seldom excused
  
The young know the time is now
As old hatred’s in shallow graves
To be unearthed by book and plow
Keeping dreams from stunting and fade
It may not seem as such, but I had a terrific if not educational time in South Africa. The Kruger animal photo opts, the Swaziland kindergarten where half of the five and six-year-olds are orphaned due to the aides epidemic. The glassmaking co-op where exquisite glass figurines are all hand blown from recycled glass. I witnessed the resilience of a proud people even as I was saddened at the extreme draught nature has visited upon man and beast alike.
JJ Hutton Jul 2010
all eyes,
all on me,
all eyes,
hanging
all over me.

milk the silence.

fingertips trace the
splintered podium.

clear my throat,
once,
twice.

"We shoulduh' seen this coming."

great opener.

"Our end was scored
by symphonies of sitcoms,
reality television, coffeehouse blenders,
and fanatical braking.

Our pride in resilience was the
spark that lit the powder keg.

Foreigners couldn't stop us,
for we stopped letting 'em in years ago.

Time couldn't stop us,
for our bodies are made of plastic,

and words don't dent us,
for our emotions are backed by
the most stubborn of metals.

We broke love when we were still young.
All us boys were aiming for quick fixes,
and all you girls were aiming for margarita mixes.
Ladies decided they wanted to nest around the
smoking age,
and if they were attractive enough,
us boys bit.

We all got divorced.

We all got into politics.

Some of us died for a country,
but none of us are sure why.

Some of us ran from debt,
some recorded folk songs on laptops,
some sexed their way out,
some drank themselves to death.

We shoulduh' seen this coming.

But we didn't, so that makes you and I, the idiots.

The smart ones had foresight,
and departed us early.

Now we idiots look to the murderous sky,
and wait."


all eyes,
all on me,
all eyes,
hanging
all over me.

milk the silence.

i raise my arms up,
as though the crowd is crucifying me.

they want to finish their burgers.
they want to stroke each other's egos.
they want to pass the blame on some
distant land,
and stick boots up ***** and wave a few flags.

"So civilization doesn't get to rust,
it goes out in a flash and is carried away as dust.

Mankind annihilates itself in a fit of boredom.

Get stoked for the funeral pyre."


all eyes,
all on the ground.
all skin,
all plastic skin did melt.
all forgotten dreams,
all torn from hidden seams.
all the thin, the fat, the republican, the democrat,
all the white, the black, the chinese,
the arabs, the jews, the druggies,
the christians, the monkeys, mtv stars,
toilet seats, pamphlets,
all the newsreels, dvds,
collector's editions, suvs,
all fuse together,
all in one immaculate heat.

no one even got a chance to applaud.
Copyright 2010 by Joshua J. Hutton
Mike Essig Apr 2015
How To Speak Poetry**

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and **** your head to one side when you talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material.

What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet.  Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad ***. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. The bombs, flame-throwers, and all the **** have destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on.

This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These pieces were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. Be good ******. The poem is not a slogan. It cannot advertise you. It cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition.

Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say *******. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them.

The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps ans sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty.
Not so many people are familiar with this one.
Robert C Howard Jul 2013
The bittersweet harmonies of
Barber’s song of ruing
carry me back two score years
to that day I sat intent on the bench -
Barber’s accompaniment on the stand.

Ben Walker exploded into the room
“Have you heard about the president? ”
My blankness answered,
“Kennedy's been shot! ”
My stiffened fingers lifted from the keys.
Dread-filled I stammered,
“Will he be all right? ”
Unable to utter the words,
Ben shook his head.

Scenes flicker on our mindscreens
like scratched newsreels -
tears staining Bernstein’s face,
Eroica and Resurrection
weeping our televised agony,
Oswald doubled over Ruby’s bullets,
a toddler's unbearable salute.

Watching motorcade frames
repeat in slow motion,
we careen on rubber legs:
a nation’s heart shattered in Dallas.

The somber song plays on:
Housemans’s words
Joined with Barber’s melodies:

'With Rue my Heart is Laden.'

*April, 2007
I was practicing the piano part of a song by Samuel Barber set to a poem by A.E Houseman (With Rue my Heart is Laden). I was preparing to accompany Ben Walker, a baritone friend who was to sing it an upcoming recital when he burst in and gave me the horrific news.
Brent Kincaid Nov 2015
I’m glad to be home
But home doesn’t like me.
While I was gone
Home didn’t wait for me.

Some treat me like a criminal
And some are calling me traitor
For doing my patriotic duty
And following my legal orders.
If had done otherwise there
I would have been in prison.
I don’t know what this is about
Or from where it has risen.

I’m glad to be home
But home doesn’t like me.
While I was gone
Home didn’t wait for me.

Do people now go to work
And decide what they will do?
And if they want to do nothing
They loaf around? Is that true?
I know they do in Congress now
But has it taken the trickle down
And now following orders is
Above the average working clown?

I’m glad to be home
But home doesn’t like me.
While I was gone
Home didn’t wait for me.

During our tour of duty, we all heard
Some Americans had complained,
Thought we ought to not be there,
Hated us because we remained.
They lost control of our peacetime
Right here on our own home base.
Yet they wanted us to stop the war
No matter that we would be replaced.

I’m glad to be home
But home doesn’t like me.
While I was gone
Home didn’t wait for me.

I saw forties newsreels of ticker tape
Falling on huge marching parades
Celebrating our fighting military
And the sacrifices they had made.
Back home now many neighbors
Curse at me and look at me as scary
Instead of a recently returning hero
From their own country’s military.

I’m glad to be home
But home doesn’t like me.
While I was gone
Home didn’t wait for me.

And Congress voted down help
For those of us who are wounded.
The V.A. used to take care of us
Before the ‘One Percent’ fine-tuned it.
Now many of my brothers and sisters
Who did their duty suffer defeat
At the hands of their own country
And lay dying in our city streets.

I’m glad to be home
But home doesn’t like me.
While I was gone
Home didn’t wait for me.
Sharon Talbot Aug 2018
I never knew until now,
Dear Dad, though
I listened to the stories you told,
Of War that re-ignited after the one supposed,
To end all wars, or so it was proclaimed.

You went abroad, your Varsity
Stalled, dreams put aside,
Long before I was born,
Before you met my mother or I was named.

Instead, you wanted to fly,
High above the Bay of Bengal
And the Andaman Sea,
Above the carnage, or so you said.
And that must have seemed a way to save
That sanity
You needed to take you through,
To come back and marry a beloved girl.

I watch the newsreels now,
They are old, with time and victory ingrained.

I can see you flying that high,
Himalayan peaks shining in your eyes,
Cold death above and horror below.
You told me stories, I recall,
Too young for me to imagine.
Now too old for me to hear them all.

You never piloted again
Except in your nightmares.
On a road between moon and sun
In your own history you flew
The infamous, undying path
Of The Burma Run.
My father, an Army Air Force Captain, put off college and piloted cargo planes over "The ****", on the Burma Run from India to China. He wasn't prone to tell stories, yet sometimes he would talk about his flights, the wonder and danger of them, being fired at, watching his friends' planes crash into mountains and land in a war zone. He was proud of his service, yet damaged by it, as is so often the case.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
in all honesty, i've become a supermarket ghost, one shelf stacker inquired whether the cheap ***** i'm buying is any good, well the beer Amstel is decent, but the whiskey i mix anyway - a wake-up call to stay away from writing ancient greek style epics, a shelf stacker at a supermarket, that's all it took, bye bye chaos of the north, or northern chaos, or whatever i tried to romanticise / or make a fetish of.*

concerning ᚾᛟᚱᛞᚱᛁ ᚠᛚᚢᚲᛃᚨ,
in an analogical form, very much akin
to mozart and joseph ii of austria
(the famous yawn - Amadeus quote
'too many notes!'),
people need nibbles!
nibbles! i tell ye nibbles!
like the opposite of cinema,
as bird-man states at the end of
the film: people want action!
explosions! alien invasions!
they don't want existential angst
screened, they're so sadistic in
this department that they want
the solo eventuality - they want
to experience existentialism solo -
existential: out of every exit of example,
themselves. bird-man got it spot on,
but revise cinematography using
poetry, and what do you get?
the destruction of western and even
middle-eastern narratives with
the haiku - the haiku ****** up
prosaic poetry like karaoke ******
up innovative ballet of the tongue -
translated bird-man's investigation
of cinema, put it against poetry,
yep, pair them up,
when cinema craves for action
and adventure,
poetry craves for nibbles,
no one is going to burden Homer
for the next 1000 years, or Dante
should it matter, they'll want
nibbles, haiku upon haiku,
short and sweet... fellas' bring in the
insecticide! we're going to smoke
those cockroaches out with one
smooth toxic cloud! puff! and they're gone!
poetry can be a cinema,
i mean, if cinema appeases the public
with extrovert activity without
the necessary identity of the protagonist
all the better... i dare you
to create a protagonist's introversion
as some point... Mr. Gorgonzola!
you're up next... messerschmitt nose dive
into a parabola... kneeee-uh -
you can just hear the propeller like
a shark fin cutting air;
if poetry is anything like cinema is
that less is more -
it's people we're talking about, after all,
cattle, you can join the cattle throng
any time you want, i know i do,
no point being optimistic about
your individuality or the individuality
process you devise,
you have to be pessimistic,
the wildebeests are optimistic when together,
the tiger is... well, a tiger, alone -
predatory antics are scaled against
herding, with stampede the only recognisable
antic - but me, between predator and herd,
in a vulture group (committee) / vulture feeding
(wake), etc. add hyenas to that
and we're above parasites -
pocket-proof of a group of foxes never existed -
solitary musings i say, theirs' the wanderings -
but with examples like ᚾᛟᚱᛞᚱᛁ ᚠᛚᚢᚲᛃᚨ, epic attempts,
you slowly begin to realise the un-importance
of your daily routine, the mundane reality
of it all, the lost excitement,
before you could **** out all the essence
of a little encounter, but when embarking
like Columbus to find only Jamaica you
end up finding three-continents and shrapnel
from the eastern face... well you miss
your spontaneity, your little consistency -
no due to atheism - it didn't **** off theology,
that remained constant, a fudge berg
in your imagination, it just killed off history -
we have pre-history and stones,
iron and brass in between, and then
we have 24 hour newsreels - who's going
to make up the time? we're taught
of being insignificant before we even decided
to become the next Audrey Hepburn -
****** shoo shoo they call us - ushers
of shoe-shine smiles - see what i mean
about trying to write epics in the 21st century?
enforced evolution, chicken nugget poetry,
not even a whole chicken, chicken ******* nuggets,
and yes, coarse words act as conjunction
lubricant, no offence, but they do -
so with bird-man telling us explosions are
the case for applauds and throwing
free bread around - poetry is all about
scavenger nibbles - haiku can almost be ranked
as a poetic technique equal to pun or metaphor -
we lost the narrative,
the narrative isn't coming back to
rejuvenate poetry - it's... gone!
or as they say where champagne is cheap...
chimp champs of the innuendo
wrote many more rocking-a-cradle poems
and never bounced a tennis ball
against the same wall
with the signature of the game stressed as
        i sat on a chair
        and cut my hair,
        without a mirror:
        kdump (linux) error, error.
how a little holiday into excess narration
proved the point of the everyday emphasis
once again spotted.
Rochelle Foles Feb 2019
there on the scaffold
          colorful cacophonous screams emanating from workman’s coveralls  
           captivated her
           rebel in real life



engaged by her lack of hero worship    dedication to her art     the common cause
            her fire drew him to her

and so they began to weave their tapestry

it tells a story
tumultuous
traveled
torn
tragic
timeless
true

brilliant hues
life
as art
compatriots
rebels
lovers
newsreels  
public pride
personal degradation
recovery
reconciliation

back on the scaffold
             cacophony revisited

back on bedrest
              resilient resisting unceasing unaccepting


scaffold and ego deemed titanic-like         demand artistic license  uncompromising
                     crushed   crumble  disintegrate  
               lose face    credibility

turn tale
and run to the one deemed feeble
whose
spirit knows no bonds                        
      as body knows no freedom

yet
is Hercules for them both

until
the day her plaits were drawn crisscross on her forehead
decorated with huge glorious blossoms
      plucked from the patio

lips kissed

last breath

a pair destined for the history books


a love
            rollercoasterlargerthanlife




FateD?


  










Frida & Diego: FateD?    

© 2017 rochelle foles
did you recognize this couple?
it’s my most influential ****** (yes, i meant to spell it that way) in life and art- the ever introspective woman, artist and tough as nails survivor, Frida Kahlo and her brilliant but wandering husband, Diego Rivera.
Now does it make more sense?
i challenge you to now read it again with thei. relationship in mind.  i’d love to hear your take on this!
thanks
rochelle
Martin Bailes Mar 2017
You may all think Matthew is perhaps up all
night reading Das Capital for fun
& spending odd days in his chair
pondering class relations in
late 21st century Capitalism,

or just plain transfixed by newsreels,
earnest learned scholars,
smiling breezy interviewers,
fooled or entertained
by an opinion about
this, a diversion about
that,

& that Matthew sits hunched
over a computer screen
fuming at life's repugnancies,
odious & loathsome actors
in the Politics Game,
desperately berating liars,
despising sycophants, cursing
till the end of days the evil-doers,
ill-wishers, & apologists,

that Matthew in pure Bolshevik-
style takes no prisoners, accepts
no quarter, tidies up after the revolution
by filling shallow graves with the still
warm corpses of the enemies of the people,

well, actually you'd be on the right track
in some ways to be perfectly honest
but still ...

Matthew loves a good soccer game, caramel
ice cream, bananas, bacon sandwiches,
watching pelicans at the lake,
children playing,
old folks chilling ...

he's not really some kind of Iron Man of the
People all Medalled with the Order of
Proletariat First Class ...
fanatic, without humor, obsessed,
despairing & fuming & just plain
at his wits end,

he actually has faith & can take a step
back & curse the fool while enjoying
the wind upon his face,

Matthew loves the play but hates the
lead actors & in the Old English
tradition shouts out from the stalls
"Look out behind you!" as he takes
a lick from his sweet vanilla cornet.
Candace D Henry Sep 2018
I watched you die
Wasn't there next to you
Nowhere in your site
Just on my cell phone
Watching you die
While the next meme follows in the timeline
I saw your family cry
I've never met them
Don't even know anyone who knows them
Saw them on a YouTube
While going through recommended videos
I tuned in to your hashtag
Followed for a few minutes
Liked a few tweets
But didn't retweet
Hit the arrow on the top left
And went back to my timeline
After I watched you take your last breath
You lay lifeless
Not fortunate enough to die in the energy of love
Immortalized in the death of many
But many isn't enough for change
Ever a hashtag
Sustained by newsreels and half­hearted court cases, likes and retweets
Until I watch the next you die in my timeline
Worse yet, I'll read of their demise in a headline
Just last week a man lost his testicles, teeth, and life after a routine stop on the highway, the story
didn't trend or make it into my timeline
I watched you die
Wasn't there next to you
Nowhere in your site
Just on my cell phone
Watching you die
Mateuš Conrad May 2018
/not exactly an easy poem to write...

let's just say that i was going to title
this poem: 3am extravaganza...
  and write a revealing diatribe
about how I went to sleep at circa
1am, after having finished watching
gone girl, to be woken by my
grandfather, turning night into day,
eating half a cream cafe
   with ketchup and acting the most
primitive of creatures,
an animal caged,
  perhaps by walls, then again
by the big pharma...
                me? little pharma boy,
he stumbling, wearing two pairs
of glasses,
                   and all kinds of images of
the horror of misery,
notably able limbed, with a
receding mind, or better still:
a mind like a magic trick with
no preplanned execution to awe
a crowd, just me, acting out
a quasi psychiatric nurse...
    nursing not so macho?
probably elsewhere than in
the abolished asylums of England...
    Mike?! Mikey?! Mister! Myers!
I'd hate to write the details before
my eyes and not imagine angelic Amy
tripping and sour in a slurring
tangent...
         not exactly extravagence with
a man nearing 80...
           bashed around his room,
turned on the lights in the corridor and
his room, the television, and the radio,
ate, circa 0.5kg worth of cream cake with
ketchup....
    all I can truly remember was my
incubator voice...
   minor quest and I'm sure his son
(my uncle) has seen very little of
his father's (my grandfather's circus)...
one qualm though:
    we didn't sightsee the Warsaw old town...
but much of Cracow,
and thankfully he went to see
Auschwitz twice:
    perhaps he still has sentiments
for Georgian Joe...
               came my role to ask him
a few details about the remnants of
the night, and his quest / attempt
at falling asleep sitting up...

    already too many details...
   funny... the youth and madness...
     never really looking into how
the romance and the poetry dies
a sullen and sombre death,
when mingling with old age...
    as such: these people would
probably rather become blind than
have to explain to the en masse
    the Chernobyl winds "invisible"...

no, Sienkiewicz is, honestly,
a tedius writer, not some national treasure,
in English: objectively...
    twice bolesław pruß...
         not exactly complicated,
not exactly tedius,
     not exactly: but exactly repetitive...

came a thought, an escape plan...
***** gut, Friday night,
a girl crying walking behind a boy,
a starry night, a candle and a quantum
cat sending me vibrations from
the outer-suburban spiderweb of my
distant hole, and closure library editions
of books, not found in the public
local...
    
still, to borrow from Sienkiewicz...
        
    bi den rôsen er wol mac
tantaradei!
    merken wa mir'z lac
...

(po rózach może on poznać
     gdzie moja głowa leżała)

     Walter von der Vogeldweide

  (by the roses he might recognise
where my head lay)...    

     and then back into the clutches
of the octopus and 24h newsreels...
and since did fame = insomnia?
          as ever, language overladden
with more metaphors than nouns...
  
to cite marlene dietrich:
      the Germans and I no longer speak
the same language...

    even though I speak English and western
Slavic... for some strange, godforsaken reason,
I might as well be speaking Mongolian...
    chameleon and at the same time hyenna
that best recites: a city with necrologues...
with claustrophobia made by
old testament neighbours...
       peacocking death,
and the gold filled rooms of
the easily seen blind, deaf and half
limbed...

             essentially:
ailments worth the concerns when
admiring the lifespan of butterflies...

1st of May and the holiday:
    the day of work...
I knew that the 3rd of May existed
as the day of the constitution,
but the 2nd of May was most minded,
even though not, an official
caldendar red-card day...

sure, in England the flag day celebration
happens, every 4 years,
after the group stages of
the world cup...
                  red and white over here,
and over there too...

once upon a time I was under the impression
that I spoke both English,
and that I too spoke Polish...
   as it turns out,
        the upper tier of idea is
no man's land for me....
      apparently there are necessary
people to talk about...
            back into a language of verbs,
back into the comforts of
buying apples rather than growing
apples on a farm...

point being:
I'm not Italian enough to speak
urban english,
     metropolitan, "left"...
  and to speak minor town Polish...
I don't have to say anything...
a waving white & red flag...
        translated into English:
too bad Jacob...
                 a name a jew and the whole
RIPPER tourism feeding
with glad eyes on brick lane
at the bakery selling salted
beef...
Rockefeller was a villain
back in the olden times
until he gave away all of
his pockets full of dimes.
A gentle kind old man frail,
caring, generous to a fault
sold his soul on newsreels
to an adoring sheep like cult.

— The End —