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jeffrey conyers Feb 2014
It might come UPS.
It might come FED X.
Either way you'll be notified.

It might come in a letter.
It might come in a card.
Surrounded by flowers.
Maybe even some balloons.
Either way you'll be notified.

Why not?
It's you I want by my side.
I don't want you for a token.
But more so, as my bride.
Either way you'll be notified.

It might be flown high by a plane.
Or sent to you in the rain.
I know it will bring you joy.
More so than pain.
Either way you'll be notified.

Why not?
You're the one I love.
Secondly only to the man above.
Mitchell Sep 2013
The retainer where she was put
Was made of concrete. My father told me they had
Dug the grave first, then poured the concrete in, waited for
It to dry and harden, then hammered in six
Circular spikes in the four corners, two on either side
Of the middle. They lifted the concrete cast out with a crane.
My dad was going to be charged 300 dollars a day for the rental,
But because of the circumstances, Home Depot let us have it for free.

-

Where was she?
Where had she gone?
Would I see her face again?
Would she want me to
Meet her on the other side of the river?

-

I answered my cell phone.

"Make sure to bring flower's."
She had been crying. Her voice wavered the way sun light
Does on moving water.

"Make sure to bring flowers," she repeated, "And
That you wear what your father and I bought you."

I nodded my head with the receiver pressed up against my ear.
We both let out a sigh. My mom hung up. I put my phone in my back pocket.

-

Lately, I had been seeing a shrink about repetition. He liked to use the word cycle.

"Everything is repeated," I would tell him.

"Life is a cycle," he'd disagree so to get me talking.

"Can cycles be identical?"

"Technically not. Some cycles are extremely similar, but no two cycles are
Completely the same. Are two people's lives ever exactly the same?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't know that many people. Maybe."

"You know lots of people, Camden. You have told me about many of your friends."

"Are we talking about the seasons?" I asked, changing the subject, "Like fall, winter, spring, summer? We are born, we live, we die, and we are born again?"

"That's a very natural way of looking at it."

"I know it is." I inhaled deeply, swallowing air and wondered what time it was.

"If you are so sure, why look for validation from me?" He liked this one, I could
tell. I imagined him shopping for clothes and then exploding in aisle 16 because of a sale on jeans.

"The word cycle is used by people too afraid to use the word repetition. Everything is
Repeated for the next generation, the next group, the next of the next of the next. We shift things
Around, give things to one another to shift life to make it look different, but, things remain the same. Everything contains the primal function we were all doing and living from the very beginning, only now, there is more of a separation. Music is still music, words are still words, paintings are still paintings, love is still love, death is still death, only done differently and more intensely."

"We are talking about man furthering technology because we, as people and creatures, are
Statistically more prone to flee than fight?"

"Why do you think it has caught on so quick?" I touched both
Corners of my lips with my tongue and suddenly realized I hadn't eaten breakfast.

"It is a theory," the psych nodded, "A theory with, I am sure, many
Palpable facts you could make a very nice report with to prove...something." He
Was at a lost for words and I felt guilty that my mom was paying him $75 an hour.

"We are very split. There are too many of us. Too many hands spinning the china."

"Who is we Harry?" The psych hadn't looked up from his pen and pad of paper, until now. I could
Tell he was annoyed with me either because he was making no progress or because the session
Had just begun and I was already digging into him.

"Culture. The government. You, me, my dad, my mom, the taco bell cashier, the geniuses at Apple computers, a paper weight, my dead sister. We're all apart of these shifts, all putting in a certain amount of energy and lies to keep the protection of the projection going. The question I keep asking myself is: do I want to use my strengths to be apart of this cycle or not?"

His eyes flared open for a moment like he'd swallowed a firefly, not at the question I had posed for myself, but from what I would soon see was from the mention of my sister. He had something.

"I was notified by your mother that you may not want to talk about your recently deceased sister. Is It O.K. if I ask you some questions about her?"

I was leaning forward on the couch with my hands clasped in between my legs. The psych had looked up at me now. He was sweating at the top of his thin hairline. Observing that I was staring at his building perspiration, he, trying to be nonchalant, took out a thin, white napkin from his grey shirt pocket and dabbed the top of his head. The napkin looked like cheap toilet paper. I'd have offered him some water, but I had no water to give and I didn't know where the sink and cups were to give him any. I figured he did - it was his office - so I asked him for some. He pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I got up and found a stack of paper cups. I poured myself a cup and went back to the couch, but instead of leaning forward, I sat back, relaxed, and let the expensive leather couch take the weight I had been carrying away.

"So," the psych maintained cooly, "Would it be alright if we were able to discuss your sister?"

I lifted the paper cup over my head and the psych's eyes, after I poured the water over my hair, my face, and clothes, was a mixture of what my mom's eyes looked at the funeral, defeated, confused, and with a loss of faith and hope. My father's eyes had only held hate, anger and the need to lash out at someone, but the only someone that would have fit the bill would have been God.

"Sure," I answered, "Let's talk about my sister."

-

I finished drying myself in the car. The psych had let me keep the towel.
I leaned out the window to look at myself in the side mirror. I looked fine.
Presentable. Accountable. Like I had been through something where I had
Faced my soul. Like I had used and abused my emotions. There was comb in my glove compartment, so I took it out and rushed it through my damp hair. Slicked back. The sun
Was out, no clouds, burning up the inside of my car. That taste that comes after
Finishing something that's supposed to do you good didn't come. I was left with an unsure hand.
Putting my keys in the ignition, I turned them, and felt the engine rumble in front of my legs.
The sun sat in the sky like a lazy hand and I had nowhere else to go but home.

-

"Let's go to the river today," my dad said over coffee and two over easy eggs on top
Of burnt wheat toast. "I'll drive and you and your sister can sit in the back and sing."

I looked over at Ally. She was gazing into her fruit bowl she had prepared for
herself because dad didn't understand the concept or how to make it. The lamp light above us
reflected in the smooth apricot yogurt and the flecks of granola scattered on top
looked like beige, jagged rocks. My dad's offer hung in the air and neither
of us bit the lure. I had just woken up and was unable to speak clearly, a decent
excuse. Ally was simply choosing to ignore him.

"What you think there Ally?" I asked her. I sipped my coffee. It needed more cream. I got
U, got it and brought the carton to the table.

"We can take the truck down there and load the back with the fishing poles and tackle
And inner tubes. We haven't...done that...in a long time," he said, chewing his food as he spoke.

Ally poked her fruit bowl with her spoon, silent.

"What you think, Cam?" My dad was desperate. He knew I'd say yes.

"Sure. I've got no plans this weekend."

"No schoolwork?"

"It can wait till Sunday. Only math and some reading."

"Ally, what do you think?" my dad asked, leaning over to her. I could see he was
Trying to be as courteous and gentle with her as he knew how to. I felt bad for him.

"Sure," she muttered, "That sounds like fun." I could barely hear her, but somehow,
I could tell she sounded happy.

"Perfect," my dad smiled, "We'll pack the car up Friday,
Drive up Saturday morning early, camp one night, then get back Sunday afternoon." He
Took a long sip of his coffee and swished it around in his mouth, then dug
His fork into the dry toast and ran his small steak knife over the eggs. A silent pop came from
The egg and the light orange yolk spilled out. "Perfect," he repeated, "Just great."

Ally poked a grape from her fruit bowl and dipped it into the yogurt.
I took another sip of my coffee and looked up into the fan, spinning above us.
We were going to the river.

-

"Your sister turns five today," my mom told me, "And that means
I want you to be on your best behavior."

I nodded, unsure what the point of a birthday was. I had had one before, or at
least I thought I did, and all I remembered was that I got presents and the colorful balloons
and the cake we all ate with fire kind of floating and burning above it. Somewhere
in that moment I remember thinking that the cake was going to catch on fire, then they, everyone,
some that I knew and some people I had never seen before, yelled and shouted to
blow the fire out, so I quickly did, but not because it was for a wish, which I later found out it was supposed to be for, but because I truly thought the cake was going to catch fire and they wanted me to take care of it. At that point, I was unsure what it meant to be alive or why to celebrate it all.

"This is her day, Camden," my father told me, "So I want you to be happy for your sister."

"I am," I said. I was wearing my favorite white and blue striped t-shirt and
New shoes that my mom had bought me for the party.

"Sometimes you have to think of other people," my mother continued, "And today is one
of those days. I don't want any crying because you didn't get any presents or that none of your
friends are at the party. There are going to be a lot of Ally's friends there, but not many
of your's...do you understand?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Do you understand, Cam?" My father repeated. His skin was the color of a burnt
pancake and he smelt like stale sugar and sun tan lotion. He was in front of me and was
holding a thin magazine with a man in a boat holding up a fish on a line on the cover.  

"Yes, Dad," I said again. I was hungry. I wanted mac n' cheese, my favorite food.

I had been on the floor, laying on my stomach watching Ren and Stimpy. They were standing in front of the television and I remember trying to wish them out of the way. Behind them were two, large bay windows where three palm trees stood in a row like tropical soldiers. I could see there was no wind because the three of them stood still, as if posing for someone. Their leaves were bright green, a mixture of the neon green Jello I used to love to eat and the orange Jolly Rancher my dad would always have in a tiny tray in the middle of the dining table. My mother hated having them there because it always tempted Ally and I, but he never moved it until he moved out.

"Do you like your show?" my mom asked, turning to see what I was watching.

I nodded, absently. Ren was licking Stimpy's eye because he was complaining about having
an eyelash in there. Stimpy was completely still and smiling like he does - dumb and content.

"Interesting..." my mother trailed off. She walked to the kitchen behind the couch and
Opened up the pantry for something. "You hungry, Camden?"

"I'm starving," my dad said, "Let me go check on Ally in the bedroom. She should be up
from her nap."

I got up from my stomach and sat back on my legs, "Do we have mac n' cheese?" I asked.

"Let me check."

She reached up for the cabinet over the stove where I could never reach and
Opened it. I rose slightly up from where I was sitting to see if I could see the glorious dark blue and orange package, but wasn't able to see over couch. I hovered there, still like a humming bird.

"You're in luck," I heard her say, "We've got one box left."

"Yay!" I screamed and got up, running into the kitchen.

"But," she smiled, stopping me, "You'll have to share it with your sister."

"No! I don't want to! I always have to share."

"What did we just talk about Camden?" she said, lightly stamping her foot.

I tried to remember, but couldn't. I shrugged.

"You need to learn to share, Camden. You also need to listen better when your father and I are talking to you. You and your sister are going to know each other a very long time and I want you to learn how to share now, so you two can be happy in the future."

"The future," I asked, "What's that?"

She paused, then said, "It's a time," she paused again, "Ahead of us."

"Do we know where it is?"

"Not exactly," she sighed.

"What's it look like?"

"No one really knows. People can only imagine it."

"Is it very far away?"

She opened the top of the blue and orange mac n' cheese box and poured the dry macaroni into a large silver ***, lifted the faucet, and let it run inside for five or seven seconds. She placed the *** on an unlit burner and turned to look at me. Her eyes looked far away and right there with me.  

"Closer then you think," she said and turned the burner on.

-

I turned into the taco bell parking lot. There was something I was trying to remember that was in my trunk, but I couldn't recall the picture. A haze blew over the windshield that was a mix of heat and wind; I wished to be somewhere else, someone else, someplace else, but, there I was, sitting there underneath the sun, like everyone else. If I was able, I would have unlocked the door to my car and opened the door and walked out - but - there was something else lingering underneath my fingernails, something I couldn't name.

"Two tacos," I said into my hand, "And a water."

"Pull to the window," the voice buzzed over the muffled speaker.

"Yes," I said through my split fingers.

In front of me, over a patch of clean cut green grass and a yellow, red, and orange Taco Bell signature sign, was a fresh gas station with a willow tree *** near the front entrance. He had a sign that hung around his neck that read Juice Please - Very Thirsty. How I knew this was because I had seen it every time I had been asked to fill up my dad's car every other Sunday. I had never given the tree a dollar, yet, I felt that I owed him something. I tried to pull up to the window, but my clutch was grinding and a cloud slunk overhead. I was tired and only wanted to eat.

"That'll be a two twenty-five," the voice said through the thick, clear glass.

"Yes," I said to myself, digging into my wallet for three dollars.

I ****** the three onto the thick plastic platform. A quick sweeping plastic brush pushed the bills toward the asker, and the bills were gone. I had no food. I had nothing. My money was gone and all I had was a gurgling car in front of me and an empty front seat beside me. A pair of clouds waded by my front shield window. A shadow drew itself out in front of me like a **** model. A beep. Sudden and behind me. There was sound. I looked over my shoulder and a black  2013 Cadillac was sitting there, windshield tinted grey, the driver a shadow. I was unsure what to do...so I pulled forward six inches, hoping the offer would be enough. I wasn't in the best neighborhood.

The window to the left of me slid open. An arm erupted forward with a plastic bag,
"75 cents is your change."

The hand dropped three quarters next to the plastic bag. I grabbed the bag with the two tacos and three quarters and quickly wound up my window. The face in front of me was a dangerous blur: smiling, frowning, not caring either way what happened to me next. The hands had gobbled up the three dollars and I was happy to see it go. Who needed money? I tossed the plastic bag onto the passenger seat and sped off two blocks for my grandma's house. Salvation. The holy land. A place with free hot sauce and two dog's that were stolen without paper's. Eden.

-

"What are you learning right now?" I asked Ally.

She hesitated, then said, "Something to do with science." She paused," Lot's to do with rock's."

"Rocks?" I stammered, not remembering a time when I learned about rocks in school, "What kind of rocks?"

"I don't know," she grinned, looking up at me, "All kinds."

I laughed and kicked a stone into the river. The sun was out and reflected on the water like an unpolished diamond. We had grown up a quarter mile away, but still, it felt foreign to us.

"I like it. There's some things you could see that you would never think to read about it in books."

I had read plenty off books. Most, I took little from, but Ally, I could see, had taken plenty.

"What are you doing in school?" Ally asked me.

"What do you mean?" I
Challenges and competition notified.
Every step codified.
Tears and sweat pacified.
Achievements and advancement glorified.
Regression and depression terrified.
Muscles and struggle verified.
Foes and conspirators mortified.
Plans of progress and purpose sanctified.
Grace and the Goodness of God testified.
Sweet pleasures of life.
Trials, Torment and Torture.
Eulogies and Elegies of visible characters.
Promising and decisive.
No conflicts, No dilemma.
pitch black god8 Apr 2018
5 Sensory Deprivation Relevations  (Happy Birthday Will Shakespeare)


I     the smell of sad

odor colorless like *****, similar familiar sidewinder effects,
musty invasive, it has no specificity, no locale centrale, well closeted,
saddling saddlng, in place, plain sighted better to toy our lives,
pervades persists, worse lingers, impervious to sprays
and even everyone’s good literature (even Will’s)
good wishes good intentions and mood prayers
to the nearest lay god
on duty at the spiritual emergency room on weekends,
stink

don’t think that this poem is for you; solely for the writer,
your doppelgänger ******, your mirror’s inside hiding out place,
I, who has your sadness smell into my skin cells crept
waft woof and warp wet weft-woven
into the sad receptacles hidden in my
head’s cubbies and the palms of my tree hands-covering face


there are cures so wonderful and inexpensive but unavailable
at the local Rite Aid, though they are the right aid recoverable,
so closer than close, so close that the internist
cannot prescribe them because he must inject himself first
because the live bacteria in the antidote can **** all

this odor lays down bamboo-strong roots;
to eradicate you must dig down deep,
six feet perhaps more, with heavy earth moving equipment,
uproot at the source, follow sad always all-the-way down and the root
great god gone,
but the saddest truth
stench odor yet present

II    the taste of joy

the joy of cooking is not a gene in my litany possess,
but the buttery taste of joy I know, I know,
it’s a real princess rarity,
the hard costs of finding and keeping it,
I’ve paid endlessly and willingly pay on

the taste of joy is like presents under the tree,
shock surprises delights lives/life, customized, infectious
(except for socks, no matter how joyously exceptional),
joy to those whose buds never blossomed for its taste
readable on some one else’s, anyone’s ****** expression

I think of it as the taste of fast traveling cumulus whites
upon my eyelashes blinking as they are speeding you by, but happy
for ten more behind before the evening stars takes over

the taste of joy is physical, there can be no denying,
concentrations can be found in the lips and the fingertips,
which you think of as a tandem, someone else’s on mine

but it ain’t necessarily so; the taste of joy, shared I, having submitted to others kisses carried on the wind that
found their mark and were well received,
poems from the heart
that arrive well,
as their intended is sleeping, and
as intended, as waking gifts

the taste of joy in droplet tears
when you are notified that words
you joined in holy matrimony made you cry,
because the reader did, wept for two,
the weeping of contentment released,
free at last from container confinement;
this particular taste of joy is in the  
recovery and recognition that these
are not for you,
just joy peculiar these tasted tears for whomsoever sheds them

III   the hearing of truthful

truth am told is oft served cold and hard up for the hearing,
best avoided tween noon and midnight and any time a
bathroom mirror is in the vicinity; though religious men lie
too easily; bathroom mirrors cannot; a character flaw for sure,
but the truth to be trusted is this: no one is truly contented, always there are the richer, the more famous, the employed and
someone above who has more, more burdens of a different sort,
better quality losses and pains unseen not dreamed of

truth tastes terrible and is awful sometimes noisy painful;
it hides well in the stink of sad exposed to the atmosphere when exposed it turns red humans blue

truth may set you free, free to be what are you are or truthfully
an admission of what greatness you have to release the trick is
use the correct scale, do not let the wrong sized ruler rule you,
the truth, if you hear, hear it unfiltered w/o the bias implanted
by not your people; hear your poet voice growl like a blues singer and be truthfully satisfied like no thing no person only you could hear it as you intended it be spoken

IV   touches of fantasy fantastic
secret confess: touch my fav cause when its juiced with
mental visions of what might be, it Saturday satisfies and let me weep happy smile silly and is mine all mind; yes another’s tip
has sorcerer powers of revelation
but alone by myself I yet
relevate
and flow; my hands are right sized, my arms reach around myself for so designed, and the pleasure is mine to give;
mine to take,
neither better or worse if self-administered,
touch myself anywhere anytime and fantasy over dreams wins,
rise up, touch is a language and I speak six or a hundred;
listen to the sounds of touching and be touched human

V  insights for the sightless

at last we close the deprived
with an elegant elevation
sight overrated when imagination exists,
cannot be restrained
this the revelation
you have proffered and preferred all this time

have pity on me
I crystallize the unseen with the replacements
of my conjuring
the other senses lend a hand
telling me look up look up, be life save life
let your madness blossom in the spring airs,
the coolness of a first fingered ungloved snow
sight,
a mathematical function from the other four derived,
sightless an impossibility for with one alone defeat the
sensory deprivation and give tongues to words

epilogue

read my face
incapable of,
deprivation
but how now silent bow my head to Will
for teaching the way of words
traced upon
a fool or a king's tongue,
two too human,
so that poet may ken
his senses keener,
all for the better,
for the betterment of all
and now you understand how came this poem to be writ
in the pitch black
Mark Toney Jan 2020
"Uh oh, we encountered an error
           Making this page for you.
           We've been notified and
           will fix it asap."

Excuse me, but what's your
Definition of asap?
As slow as possible?

My HePo adventure begain
With great expectations
Each day I try to upload
My profile and cover photos
Again and again and again. . .
Always getting the 500 Error—
          "Uh oh, we encountered an error
           Making this page for you.
           We've been notified and
           Will fix it asap."

Really?  Imagine that!

Excuse me, but what's your
Definition of asap?
As slow as possible?
If you're not going to fix
The process for uploading pics
Then why don't you just
Be straightforward and honest?

I think I'll try to upload again!
          "Uh oh, we encountered an error
           Making this page for you.
           We've been notified and
           Will fix it asap."

Really?  Imagine that!
Ad infinitum  
Ad nauseam

Since I've become a HePoet
Each day you also ask for donations
          "You look good today.
           Why not donate?"
Each and every day
Over and over and over. . .
Well at least you say
"You look good today"
I think I'll try to upload again!
          "Uh oh, we encountered an error
           Making this page for you.
           We've been notified and
           Will fix it asap."

Really?  Imagine that!
Ad infinitum  
Ad nauseam

Oh, here's the donate blurb again—
          "You look good today.
           Why not donate?"
Well, I'm glad you asked!
My response is as follows—
          "Uh oh, I encountered an error
           Making a donation for you.
           I've been notified and
           Will fix it asap."
                    That is, as soon as my
                    Photos are uploaded
                    But I won't hold my breath. . .
                    Don't hold yours either. . .

Otherwise, I like your site
Please get it right
Please


© 2020 by Mark Toney. All rights reserved.
01/01/2020 - Poetry form: Free Verse - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2020
April doesnt hurt here
Like it does in New England
The ground
Vast and brown
Surrounds dry towns
Located in the dust
Of the coming locust
Live for survival, not for 'kicks'
Be a bangtail describer,
like of shrouded traveler
in Textile tenement & the birds fighting in yr ears-like Burroughs exact to describe & gettin $
The Angry Hunger
(hunger is anger)
who fears the
hungry feareth
the angry)
And so I came home
To Golden far away
Twas on the horizon
Every blessed day
As we rolled And we rolled
From Donner tragic Pass
Thru April in Nevada And out Salt City Way Into the dry Nebraskas And sad Wyomings Where young girls And pretty lover boys
With Mickey Mantle eyes
Wander under moons
Sawing in lost cradle
And Judge O Fasterc
Passes whiggling by To ask of young love: ,,Was it the same wind Of April Plains eve that ruffled the dress
Of my lost love
Louanna
In the Western
Far off night
Lost as the whistle
Of the passing Train
Everywhere West
Roams moaning
The deep basso
- Vom! Vom!
- Was it the same love
Notified my bones As mortify yrs now
Children of the soft
Wyoming April night?
Couldna been!
But was! But was!'
And on the prairie
The wildflower blows
In the night For bees & birds And sleeping hidden Animals of life.
The Chicago
Spitters in the spotty street
Cheap beans, loop, Girls made eyes at me And I had 35 Cents in my jeans -
Then Toledo
Springtime starry
Lover night Of hot rod boys And cool girls A wandering
A wandering
In search of April pain A plash of rain
Will not dispel This fumigatin hell Of lover lane This park of roses Blue as bees
In former airy poses
In aerial O Way hoses
No tamarand And figancine Can the musterand Be less kind
Sol -
Sol -
Bring forth yr Ah Sunflower - Ah me Montana
Phosphorescent Rose
And bridge in
fairly land
I'd understand it all -
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
In my real life,
not a poet,
just an astronomer,
an observer of
universes, bodies,
places, faces,
visited, discovered,
named and oft,
best forgot.

I observe:

Some never find true love.
Some never fly first class.
Some of us
never see the
South of France.

Some of us wear
hand-me-down pants,
white lined creases when “let down,”
mocked, we never forgive ourselves
the shame of it.

Some never experience
reckless abandon.

Yet, some of us are
recklessly abandoned,
and never forget,
and never forgive.

Some of us lose
children, husbands,
avanti nel tempo,
before their time,
and
the anger is
forever, palpable,
costly.

Some of us
were raised by
someone else's parents,
and never rest easy,
the abandoned taste
always nearby,
a cruel living, breathing
teasing wasting

Some we can pass over
with ease,
as new tissue grows,
those cuts marked -
emotionally healed.

But the ones that scar,
the ones that visible scar
permanent reddened,
are the
holocaust deniers
that there is a real
promised land of
peace of mind.

Peace of mind -
not even for a second,
foretold but
unrealized,
a biblical myth,
a promised land,
a capitalist paradisal hoax.


Some never feel
public victory,
adulation, adoration,
always wearing the T-shirt labeled
Property of Someone Else.

Most of us remain
unpublished, undiscovered,
unremarked, blanketed,
cloaked in bills to pay;

Living a triumvirate of
heart ache, loneliness, worry,
our normal table fare
consists
of hand to hand
into the mouth
combat MRE's,
we engage,
to survive,
just stay alive.

We are not digitalized,
nonetheless,
we are
but digits,
our faces hidden, and
in no one's heart book
are we recorded,
friended,
yet our viewing habits,
purchases, secret sites
are enumerated, captured.

Some of us live
exclusively
in the real life,
never to escape to the
province of Wifi,
in the landscape
of the electronic mind,
an option for which
we are
untrained.

Perhaps sanctity of separation,
safety of text, email,
avec the ******* intrusion
of tweets are
the real life today,
games are always won,
and what we don't enjoy,
we just delete away

But In My Real Life
getting up is trying,
IMRL,
the trying is trying,
IMRL,
delete buttons don't exist      
in the keyboard
of our brains,
IMRL,
all we have is a
measly twenty six aleph bets
to find new ways to say
that living is striving and
what we feel is
oh so real,
not digital

IMRL,
when I laugh out loud,
the neighbors
beat the walls,
complainants,
registering their feelings
in my face,
in my book,
so to speak.

IMRL,
I got a friend,
maybe two,
all I need,
voices to help soften
the 400 blows of RL.

Their synthesized silence
of their breathing
on the phone
is precious unto me.

IRL,
limp from Friday
night to
Friday
night,
a bottle of Medoc
my weekend reward,
my bedrock cushion
in order to sleep.

After all these years,
gains and losses,
conversations with God,
I look up,
see the risk,
the slightest breeze
is a
hurricane wind.

The shaft,
of the
the sword
hanging above me
the hilt,
swaying in living color,
is no legend.

But what I have is
the ability
and maybe
the responsibility
to let anyone know
that
in my real life
anyone who touches me
with fine and good intent,
a momentary glancing blow
or a gunshot to the ventricle,
is part and parcel of
my real life.

This makes you real too,
savior, and hereby notified,
that you are not
just an observer, but
a poet of me,
an astronomer of my heart,
and namer of
a secret universe
inside of me.


Sept. 1, 2010

_____________________________
US Army jargon: meals ready to eat
nine  years ago I wrote like this.
Chapter XXI
Hegira to Patmos

They dropped their moorings from Cala Cogone early, when the tide seemed to be separated from the waters like a head distanced from its body. On a lavish and romantic day they went to Genoa, to continue the logistics of the trip to Piacenza. During the trip Etréstles was stretched out in the bow under a Sun that seemed to be fearsome as it was a digestive task that would make him ingest his own dream, which perhaps he aspired to be more than a journey. While he slept, at the helm Etréstles dressed in a black robe and the comrades also sleeping with dreams that they painted with sign gestures on their faces.

Dream of Etréstles: "With the memory off-center ..., I was still in Izzana, dancing by the clouds on gray tulles of the layers of the sky that tried to stop being a Kingdom without a Crown and Sword". They glimpsed the stones melting and turning into gauze juxtaposed to the aerosolites that unfolded from the Sorcery, landing on the hands and heads of Vernarth and Himself. As he continued his dreamy journey, he dialogued with the auxiliary legate of his own dream. “He tells her that he sees them beyond where their liturgies collide. They cross eroding the vanished and itinerant reason”. He gets up and takes the moorings of the ship and ties them to his neck. Then everyone cooperates to walk along the edge of the ship, which all moved barefoot. This is how I would wake up!

Vernarth tries to wake him up, shakes him, but doesn't wake up. And when he tried to avoid him from sleep, he saw that he had the moorings around his neck, along with two Unicorns who were escorting him and were looking towards infinity, auspicious that Genoa was already coming in front of their horns. The others began to wake up and ate reclining, almost as if without any desire to get up from the deck full of self-sliding linen, which allowed everyone to pass their own meals, including those that were semi-consumed rolling on the deck. Etréstles,  transferred the dream to Vernarth, once he went to his bedroom to rest before they touched the roadstead at the foot of the homonymous promontory, 36 km from Genoa.  Portofino, close to the hydro form of the Portofino Regional Natural Park.  Being able to find different entrance doors through S. Rocco, Portofino Vetta and Nozaregoino  that led you to paths with different levels of accessibility and landscape. On the route of the path that traveled from Northwest to Southwest on the same promontory, he received the full beauty of the Mediterranean vegetation, with its beautiful pines, bluish and clean waters of the Mediterranean, which filled his lungs and especially his stem, which silenced of peace to those who accompany you through this interesting and beautiful Natural Park with deep blue eyes.
Vernarth is wrapped with two layers of linen and stands in between eclipsing each of the Unicorns. They pass her horn through her pectoral, as if wanting to insinuate affection. But her propitiated gesture was to crown her with the Power of her phalanx, the impetus in Gaugamela, an Onyx Crown, to lighten the burden of sleep and wake up before reaching the shores of Genoa.
Calling in Genoa, they all descend in a separate part and say goodbye from afar, gesturing with their hands. Their ramblings revealed multi-level radiographs of the resolved aura that invited them to an enclave hostel, to re-enter the world of their daily chores. The Unicorns who would return back to Sardinia stayed on the ship that was in the blue bay. They positioned themselves at the bow one and at the stern the other, to lighten the sails and return to Izzana.

Vernarth and Etréstles walked with their bags, letting go of their feet towards La Via ** Settembre, they travel in an east-west direction, next to Corso Italia, the promenade that runs along the promenade, which is one of the favorite places to reform the destination of Piacenza. From this road they moved near the adjacent carriage station to the Caruggio neighborhood in Sottoripa. Here they entered an inn to eat and drink liqueurs made from natural herbal recipes and sweet citrus, some fish with bread, sauce and Genovés sourdough. to satisfy their hunger.
They had dinner and opened the exit to the terminal. Before, they went to the Ponte Monumentale where the church dedicated to Santa Rita is, called Iglesia de la Consolación, whose entrance, at the level of the old streets, is slightly lower than the current street. They pass a porch and enter. "Almost like a grand cloister sensation they perceived during their stay, as if centuries had passed, but which never ended in the wanderings of any secular period. It was the impression once entered and soaked on this road, which still remains active. From this original cloister, the invocation of images on the sides placed towards the church towards Via ** Settembre, as well as the closed portal in the market access plaza on Via Galata, recur, while the other two sides are they completed attractions to admire when the eastern market in Genoa appeared before them ”.

When they entered, the masks were passed over the bones of their faces, indulgent towards both faces of the visitors, under a freshness of gravitational atmospheric fragrance, perhaps from the connected baptismal font or the lateral nave or the three naves separated by square pillars illuminating them. This is where Vernarth places his right hand on his forehead and his mouth, as a sign of catechesis detached from The Vault, the central nave and the counter-facade that were painted in fresco in 1874 by Giuseppe Isola, after reading about the intertextual verifying thus Vernarth. (Visioni dell'Apocalisse, Gloria di Nostra Signora della Consolazione and Giuditta rientra trionfante in Betulia), while Etréstles frenziedly admitted the frescoes through the side aisles that are the work of Giovanni Quinzio at an angle close to him. Observing everything, he was already indoctrinating to reprint new vigor to enter Piacenza triumphantly and head to the Region of Patmos. Giuseppe Isola's fresco was the great motive that struck his reason for being where he was to continue the threads upon threads of his lineage as the great Commander of the troops of Gaugamela and his Phalanges. Here is the church in its first tune with the duty of limitlessness before its steps to dominions that will make it recover their powers, from where they were first seen dressing in the clothes of an innocent child.


In the apse, there was the choir singing baroque pieces, and followed by elaborate wooden stalls from the 17th century. In the Altars on the left, on the Fifth Altar, Etréstles, captures a simultaneous vision. From that moment when it was the disappearance of this Santa Maria della Pace church, which could have been one structure on top of the other, perhaps in ruins but if the columns could go further from where their originals are born. Until then both had separated from each other, and they would meet again here in the apse, where they never lose sight of each other again, to turn towards the exit that required them to leave the sacred precinct. In the terminal, a grayish float awaited them, with silver trim on the edges of the structure, at the top of the front roof it said "Where you must never go and be". It was just the transport of an allegorical float. They were theatrical traveling artists, who had places available for travelers to Piacenza. The one that they just approached to move to the home, where they had to register at their own will and rejoin this excellent session "Parapsychological Regression".The Trebbia valley, a few kilometers from Piacenza. Vernarth noted that a shaft of the chariot made a strange sound. To which he notified the driver, telling him what he caught on the rear axle of the carriage. They go down to inspect all; not being able to detect anything that it would suppose would be an anomaly of filming of the instrumental east. Etréstles sees that some steeds were grazing on some meadows and he tells them all. Vernarth warns him and immediately heads to them. It reaches only a sorrel that was running its tongue over its hoof. The others flee. Vernarth approaches, and notices that he had a wound in his left hoof, noticing that in the center there was a strip of Green color, He takes his leg, and examines it. He takes out his dagger and begins to remove the stake that was inserted into his damaged leg. The others were gone, restarting the trip to Piacenza. Etréstles managed to climb a steed, and followed him - The float remained without them supposedly to arrive safely at Piacenza. But at 5 km, before reaching the city they are struck by a lightning bolt from a sudden storm. What misdirects his route - the passengers were left intact, only fatally suffered the loss of the driver. (It was verified by Vernarth when he arrived at his home in Piacenza).   As  Vernarth rode fast in the storm, trying to catch up with the carriage. Stress them towards the same to reach their brother. They rode propagating the pastures that passed near the forests of Val Trebbia. When the storm intensified instantly, it was wise to take refuge and wait for the flood to decrease. They were always close to each other. Etréstles about 18 km from Vernarth, they did not know it, but the horses sensed each other. They already distinguished, that they were close to each other, but it was necessary to take care of the horse, and have to check its hoof again. He checks it and notices that it had a green stripe in the four parts, like a pigment already placed concentrically in the middle of each hoof.


Ellipses Gaugamela - Final War
Vernarth bids farewells farewell. Once the Achaemenides are surrendered, he prepares to review them. Walk with Alikanto across the ****** plain. Reviewing his five hundred dead and three thousand wounded, he goes to recirculate in the footsteps of the attack, manages to see lead as a sentinel gathered wounded horses, but not serious. He approaches him and says Khaire; asking what unit they came from. He tells them of the Hosts of the command of Hefestion. The sentinel tells him, that he was enraptured by the fact before his eyes to see that all the horses of the line of Hefestion, Alexander the Great and Vernarth, to fascinate him that they had a green stripe on his left hoof. Wedge riders are formed, lining up the stable, towards the court of the guards and Macedonian monarchs. She dismounts from Alikanto and checks the chestnut trees, managing to insinuate that it could be Medea's ploy of the smiling charm towards her Hetairoi dancers, whose elite had bracelets on each leg on each chestnut. Also with the offensive weapon, they acted as the Macedonian's personal guard. Vernarth recalled that, before starting the offensive, with his blessed Xifos he inflicted light wounds on the left foot of his Phalanges in the act of "overtaking them before being stained by the enemy"

Vernarth says: Here is the cavalry that has received so much praise for «hammer» in the strategies, because it crushed the enemy units retained by the «anvil» or the «phalanx» that I had to command and lead the charge, intoning the riders. And even more the circumcisions that he gave them before entering combat. With the Hetairoi I was organizing squadrons of 200 to 300 soldiers, while they were checking the chestnut trees. In the campaign, they would ride the best horses, ******* or on the blanket, they were awarded the best weapons available. Each carried his long throwing spear Xyston, accompanied by a Kopis sword, for hand-to-hand combat, which in the interlude would defend his flax and bronze breastplate, with respective protective armbands and helmet, before lightly tackling his aggression . The horses were also partially protected, but not their hooves! I gave them the final instruction by decree to take them to the altarpieces and attend to them, so that they check their left hoof.Thus giving signs of great concern about the green stripe on each of its left hooves. Sentinel Hetairoi, with some of his servants, gather the animals and transport them where they have been ordered to tend and examine them. As the designs collapse over the night in gloomy litanies, Medea bursts into a great green outfit saying:

Medea: Vernarth, rancid are on my memory the potions and designs of those who want to talk about me or offer me in their lust.Where the zeal of anxiety deceives the wishful arms that welcome the victorious pleasure. Hooves are my skeptics and famous decisions, because I am weak in will but not in character. Green is the pouring of my converted powers into the veins of the horses. They were carriers in their eloquent ferocity. Instead of blood, I had sap from the magic vessels that I transferred to them so as not to doubt the doubts. Their object is that a green band was encased in their hooves as a sign of the Hipnos promontory through their Son Clovis, to plunge all the forests of the raging underworld, towards the heart of each "Valiant Hetairoi".


Outside ellipsis / near Piacenza
Vernarth and Etréstles in a post-storm clearing, a soft breeze greets them and they meet again, they greet Khaire! And together they reroute to the empty pastures, which would gradually begin to venture them through the farthest forests of the Val Trebbia. On some brown plains with poor colors that visited him falling as they faded on his mirage. From this unusual crossroads they will supremely perceive the closeness of Piacenza in their breathing.
Now they are in the vicinity of the Cimitero de Piaceza. Then they will have to go home on the Via Giovanni Codagnello, on the calendar of January 2020. The Parapsychological Regression continues.


Piacenza Cemetery, January 20, 2020
Vernarth and Etréstles entered the necropolis long before sunset. They were carrying a cake to celebrate Vernarth's birthday. Night Patrol joined the visit. In particular, they followed a night watch service that was active, trusting their guide Piacenza or the surrounding area, with 3 internal night patrol passages 365 days a year, for the rest of lives beyond all material life, perhaps turned into marble statues.
They hired a special service dedicated to the approved service for 2 people .; They were active during the caretaker's office opening hours (the same opening hours as the cemetery). With this service they overcame difficulties to walk after so much traveling. They leave the green-hoofed horses, now turned into statues. They request authorization from the entrance cemetery offices, to honor their belonging and to please those who visit them on their behalf. In Genoa, after having passed through the exterior without entering, they were ecstatic with the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa (the most monumental in Italy).But if they enter the Piacenza, where the sanitary monumentality passed through the real function of such an enclosure in the contingency. It was commented by the neighboring offices that the migration of corpses from Bergamos were moved to Modena, Acqui Terme, Domodossola, Parma, Piacenza to carry out the respective ceremonies. Due to the great Viral Pandemic that decimated a great majority of Italian citizens in these areas. Vernarth became aware of the current reality, saw how a gravedigger conversed with the crowds, there was a nurse, a doctor and a prodigal man who concentrated on uploading moods to those who were there, almost like a caster, to relieve them of this transitory despite humanity.
They continue past the pyramidal pines, to the central pavilion. They sit on the edge of some flagstones, and take the cake to celebrate their birthday. They sing a hymn and they both enjoy it lovingly. Etréstles saw that he had a little cream left on his nose and cheekbone, running his hand to remove it. In the instant, the guard calls them; it was time to go because it was time to close the compound. They say goodbye with a monumental hug paying tribute to their brother!


Etréstles says: Honors Vernarth, for your immeasurable Valor! It is a great contribution that we divide our work and commitments. From here I go to the Messolonghi Cemetery. I will only wait for the crescent moon to meet the Charioteer, then leave with him and my beloved Drestnia. My Xifos Sword in my right hand and the head that I cut off in my left hand, in Gaugamela before that rugged fate! Khaire, My honors Commander Etréstles!. It remains in the shadow of some pyramidal pine trees of this sublime night, and then they distance themselves. Vernarth leaves the compound heading towards his house relatively close to the cemetery, on the Via Giovanni Codagnello.


Final session in Vía Codagnello, Piacenza:
Vernarth enters opens the door and everyone is waiting for him. Huge groups of friends, work colleagues, family, their pets, and especially the Parapsychologist, who had commanded this whole great session. They all approach her and in the instant, Vernarth awakes abruptly from the parapsychological session. They stabilize it and check your vital signs. There were many days of this odyssey. His awakening was mediatic, since they were attentive to him to question him and confess everything, but he was clear that his purpose would lead him to the confines of Patmos along with Raeder and Petrobus. It remained only to wait for the tenuity of a simple immortal warrior to assist in the services of John the Evangelist. The parapsychologist says you have to wake up, you can no longer be AND stay here in this temporary tube!
Once he has refused to wake up, he takes the itinerary to return to Macedonia. The visibly worn and stunned parapsychologist demands that he give up and obey his command. The effort was unproductive, only letting himself be carried by the grip of his right hand, taking his other with great vigor to remove it from shamelessness, from whom he does not suppress his pride to who still remains wounded by the swords that bleed his soul in Gaugamela. "Everyone is amazed and resigned !, pointing out that he must have always been in the surroundings of his beloved Macedonia, cutting the bursts of succulent insolence on the same temperate cliffs, where some variation of the sounds of the wind would make him saddle his Alikanto to acclaim the gods who came looking for him ”

Vernarth is engulfed in ambivalence, almost celebrating his birthday and waking up from his parapsychological journey. Both will take place, but the session will continue irrevocably. After a few days close to the first day of the crescent moon, he greeted him from a privileged place on his house Etréstles de Kalavrita who was with the Charioteer in his car and Drestnia, they went in that masterful car to join the chores of the Koumetrium Messolonghi (Editorial Palibrio - USA) .So returning to Messolonghi, to meet his disciples and essences of the foundation of his naturalness.


Hegira to Patmos
On a gray day in July 1820. Piacenza slept under the ambush of the revolution, in Italy there was a situation similar to that of another European nation. Vernarth was preparing his last details with the parapsychologist, to undertake his Hegira to Patmos, since he was a revolutionary and this was of great motivation to emigrate from this constant stage of Wars and sociopolitical processes. Manage to be a participant in this revolt in the Piedmont area. Its ideological axes were liberalism and nationalism. Given that the most affected countries were those of southern Europe (episodes from other areas, such as Germany or France, were much less important), with Spain as epicenter of a movement that extended to Italy and Portugal, and on the other hand Greece; It has been called the Mediterranean cycle as opposed to the Atlantic cycle that had preceded it in the previous generation (the first liberal revolutions or bourgeois revolutions, produced on both sides of the ocean: the Independence of the United States -1776- and the French Revolution -1789- ). As compromised great principalities of much of Europe were banned, it participates in great dissolution of collisions and invasions that involved it. In this way he would liberate his Homeland, especially his province of Piacenza.

Although the "Kingdom of Italy" as such did not exist, there were two great kingdoms that participated in the Revolutions of 1820: the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Piedmont. However, most of the revolutionary movements were driven by secret societies, such as coal. The Kingdom of Piedmont was also one of the most affected, since it was at the epicenter of Italian nationalism. It was controlled by Víctor Manuel I, member of the House of Savoy and defender of the Old Regime. The monarch had only been on the throne for 6 years, since he returned to Turin in 1814 due to the defeat of Napoleon. Since his return, various factions within the country advocated for a unification of all the Italian kingdoms. The unstable situation of its neighbor, the Kingdom of Naples, caused the carbonarians within Piedmont to revolt in March 1821.

Conclusive Hegira ellipsis to Patmos:
After this great conflict, he orders his parapsychologist to resume his final session in Patmos; he begins the procedure for the era that he had to trespass anachronistically, returning to the era of the Macedonian Empire. The parapsychologist asks him time, place, dates, clothing, customs, and manages to meet his request. He enters the portal, and in the backwaters of Messolonghi he meets Raeder and Petrobus. They were close to this heroic land, Messolonghi in the Gulf of Patras, the capital of Aetolia-Acarnania. Nothing less than in the land of his Brother Etréstles "Koumeterium Messolonghi".


"They all approach the vicinity, pray three times to heaven, and manage to be abducted to the underworld of Messolonghi. When they were snooping through the catacombs, they make out the surroundings of a luminous vault, thus distinguishing a woman passing by with others. It was the beautiful nymph Eurydice inaugurating The Constitution of a new Government”.
Eurydice and the gravediggers worked for the new government to be instituted. They were reviewing the last ground plans that converged on the tenth cemetery.
Eurydice ...: with the absence of Etréstles and Drestnia we will make her awakening continue, whose awakening phase closely relates to her wife.
Grave ...: Where do we start?
Eurydice ...: by the southwestern statue of Ashurbanipal, to pay tribute to Botsaris. Then, we will go up to receive the cordoned off tomb of Bramante and Ghiberti, so that the latter can advise us regarding the work to be erected.
They climb the northeast pavilion to the foundations of a mausoleum. They approach the slab of Ghiberti, who was loosening his fingers, sitting on the shore of a Pyramid-shaped cypress. Bramante vanished into the gray beams of light...

Ghiberti ...: I already know your mission. I am summoned to the Council on the day of the sailors' return. To start, they went to the mines to look for precious stones, stones to build Markos Botsaris.
Eurydice ...: Good! Well, in nine moons and nine suns they will return from the coasts of Morocco, the last docking point, so that they can then return. At the moment they are already warned.
Just back, there was a Lover with her right hand holding her chin.

Inamorada In Love ...: Five centuries ago I awaited my awakening, my lover promised to return ... with these verses...:
"I want to be different,
I want to take you my love...
and tell you that by missing you
there is no greater sadness than not seeing you ...
Forgive me for not coming back...
before my absence caused your death,
Wait for me ... I'm going to tell you ... how I miss you
Along with my immortality of feeling...!  How I miss you...!!

... He still tells me this, but from here, under the embankment of the cemetery I feel that he is far away and I can do nothing. Also, I have it in my memory and one day we will meet here. The Enamorada continues to sit and watch armies of soldiers being thrown into graves, their bodies severed. As she continues; ... there is more life here than on the surface, and the trenches replace the concave wombs, as vessels! As everything here lives, even the flowing and hallucinatory invocations are perceived from the Poets, Alchemists and Astronomers. They make the invisible go in a formidable adventure to the site of their magical hallucinations.
Eurydice ...: Stay on your stone, with your chiffon dress; here you will see the arrival of Etréstles. He will bring news from other lands to answer you. Now dispense if we delay, sadness will fall on the other beings who are being buried and transhumated. The Enamorada remained on the stone with her knees resting on her chest. Eurydice and her assistants went to their rooms. "
All this they manage to witness, and then go in search of Etréstles on the same tenth cemetery floor. Raeder and Petrobus were laughing and at the same time they were impressed, as if wanting to remember him when they have to leave directly from Messolonghi to Patmos, towards the Dodecanese region. In the meantime Vernarth was searching for his brother in all the nearby areas of the catacombs flashing penetrating light, unable to find him. He arrives at the ninth cemetery and is fascinated by a feminine image that would seem like a phantasmagorical chimera ..., it was Drestnia moistening some ferns on some crypts making gestures to see them already grown, even if they had just been planted...!

They approach her intimacy and ask her greetings, Drestnia answers them abstractedly that Etréstles traveled to Patmos to applaud the maiden ceremonies that would be wed in the spring in the nearby meadows. Being able to settle in The Monastery of Zoodochos Pigi, and who later went to the hills of Castelli, as it has been known that everything has been celebrated on a hill that many hundreds of years ago has sheltered our historical fragrances in the unity of the ethereal until the present. Such ruins among some works as well as the Temple of Apollo that will continue to survive with its prevailing mystery not revealed.
Etréstles gives them their congratulations and wraps his arms around Drestnia. They evacuate the cemetery, remaining abstracted in the internal darkness of the catacombs with fewer lights than a feasible twilight of darkness, as if immediately leaving Etréstles to be with him in the spring, shedding light on herself taking them to the Castelli hills, which they would figure in the sweetened exaltation of the pollinations of the nymphs on the maternal and ****** maidens.

They go out and spread their impulses over the promontory of the Koumeterium of Messolonghi with Raeder and Petrobus on Raeder's shoulders. Vernarth invoked the north with her staff where Alikanto would appear with her hooves with greenish stripes.

Raeder says:  Let's go. On those warm currents to follow we will not unite you Vernarth. Smiling, the fantastic boy danced, forming figures that enlivened him to hold on to the legs of Petrobus. They both stared at Vernarth and raised high above the warm clouds. Beneath the Messolonghi miniature, she had Vernarth's sights on them; she was putting reins and her Hoplite tunic, to mount Alikanto. He looks around and makes a big sign to Raeder to follow him to where he was, they suspend themselves and manage to go back to the highest mass of misty airs that would take them against the clock towards Patmos to meet Saint John and Etréstles.
HEGIRA TO PATMOS  /  COPYRIGHT
I been told.
Yes, loud and clear.
That within your heart love lives.
I been notified, yes loud and clear.

It flows like a river and rises like the sun.
And on a cold day love keeps you warm.
I been notified, yes loud and clear.

So, we float on the waves with no apologies.
You in my heart, you're a living dream.
And I don't need anyone to notify me of ways to be happy.

Cause I been notified loud and clear.
K Balachandran Dec 2016
"After mysteries am I, mysterious men too"
together when we slipped away from others
she told me with a grin, evidently hysterical,
it gripped me, for some unknown reason.

"More in to mysteries than anything else"
I gently notified to her  my intentions
"I've never been able to **** a male ****** ever"
She indicated the area of her present  curiosity
but isn't it strange,that she sounded wistful?

If I heard her right,she mentioned repeatedly
about,"The Third Brest,"as if she has a mystery
for me in store.When buried deep around my *******
her teeth transmitted a hunger, and I felt it:
what exactly a mother feels suckling her baby
her heart beat went out of control,I could see
the pangs of child that has never been fed
from her mother's breast, or fondled by her


And the mysterious part of the game
she saved for me was finally unveiled,
                                              my expectant eyes
saw a chest devoid of any kind of swell, except
the memories of the two full ones taken away
mercilessly by decease.I saw blood in her tears.
Eric Roeber Feb 2016
Lettuce is love, lettuce is life.
You walked up to McDonald's and ordered a mcdouble
I was behind you in line, looking for some trouble
I said, "excuse me sir, you know mcdoubles don't have lettuce, right?"
He said, "yes, but I can't eat lettuce at this time of night"
I was getting angry at this point, not gonna lie
I was like, "come on buddy give it a try"
He started backing away, a little intimidated
The farther away he went, the more I felt the hatred
How can he not want lettuce?
This dude's real close to getting fought
The cashier interrupted my thought
"I can get who's next in line"
I said, "cool, I'll take a McChicken, it's a bite of heaven
Actually I take that back, I want eleven"
You already know i didn't buy them for the chicken
I bought them for the lettuce, it's tasty finger lickin'
The cashier says "is that all I can get you tonight?"
I turned back to her said "naw, gimme a medium Sprite"
Got my drink and my McChickens, then tried find this guy to fight
He's at a table munching on his mcdouble by himself
I caught him looking enviously at my McChicken, lettuce spewing out health
I sat down at the booth beside him
Told him how I despise him
For not getting lettuce, how could one be so arrogant?
I threw a punch to his face hard enough to leave a dent
He yelled out in pain, tryna run away
The cashier notified me that the police were on their way
My fate was inevitable, but I did it for lettuce
It's been 3 years now, been locked up ever since
Lettuce makes me happier than ever, it's my only friend
My favorite thing in the world, nothing and no one can contend
Moral of this story: get lettuce on your sandwich,
Unless you wanna go to mcdonalds and end up with a bandage
I can finally conclude, after this long strife
Lettuce is love, lettuce is life.
I was just having fun with this one
softcomponent Feb 2014
kleptomaniac wearing thin
boots of ice and maggot flesh,
young in mind and old in body,
young in mind and old in *****,
old in mind and young in *****
-body.. no boddhisatva, just a
***** to the whistle. not so much
as if a choice, only something notified
on the newsfeed amongst a horde of
cleavage photographed by paid
professionals as breast-feeding has
no ***-appeal. whoever I think I am,
*thank you.
3

“Sic transit gloria mundi,”
  “How doth the busy bee,”
“Dum vivimus vivamus,”
  I stay mine enemy!

Oh “veni, vidi, vici!”
  Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh “memento mori”
  When I am far from thee!

Hurrah for Peter Parley!
  Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
  Who first observed the moon!

Peter, put up the sunshine;
  Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
  And call your brother Mars!

Put down the apple, Adam,
  And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
  From off my father’s tree!

I climb the “Hill of Science,”
  I “view the landscape o’er;”
Such transcendental prospect,
  I ne’er beheld before!

Unto the Legislature
  My country bids me go;
I’ll take my india rubbers,
  In case the wind should blow!

During my education,
  It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
  Fell from an apple tree!

The earth upon an axis
  Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
  In honor of the sun!

It was the brave Columbus,
  A sailing o’er the tide,
Who notified the nations
  Of where I would reside!

Mortality is fatal—
  Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
  Insolvency, sublime!

Our Fathers being weary,
  Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho’ full many a morning,
  Yet they are sleeping still,—

The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
  In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
  A marching to the skies!

A coward will remain, Sir,
  Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
  Will take his hat, and run!

Good bye, Sir, I am going;
  My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
  To wipe my weeping e’e.

In token of our friendship
  Accept this “Bonnie Doon,”
And when the hand that plucked it
  Hath passed beyond the moon,

The memory of my ashes
  Will consolation be;
Then, farewell, Tuscarora,
  And farewell, Sir, to thee!
luapharas Mar 2016
I find social networking distorted communication
you hardly see face to face conversations
just excessive clicking on keyboards
n’ anxious minds waiting for replies
no one takes the time to enjoy the company who is present
I can’t decipher true emotions through all this commotion of texts, and private messages.
talking to people who aren’t in the same location is vague
The internet is an addiction widespread like a pelage
my frustration with corrupted socializing starts with facebook
Never again will I sign up for any false friendship making world wide web connections
I give you no other choice.
use your voice,
to say what you need to say,
use your hands,
to paint what you need to convey
use your legs,
to sway your own way
What worries me the most, is its not only teenagers,
adults are getting ****** in too.
TRY logging off, being disconnected is relieving  
I’m notified about the **** that matters when it happens
can count the number of sincere friends I have on one hand
I don’t understand how some people  can spend hours surfing through a news feed filled with constant updates from others.
It took me two years to realize I was wasting my time posting about my journey through existence to people who don’t give a ****
What really make me insane is those people who post every **** detail of their life, as if trying to write an autobiography of ALL their vacations, foods, relations, moods
These posts of so called “picture perfect” lives is none of my business
So instead of sitting in front of a dimly lit screen trying to save battery power, I charge myself up and play this funny game called life
I spend parts of my day with my best friend mary jane
I might even bury my face into a book, which is highly doubtful
but more likely than me posting on social media about what I’m doing at this moment in time.
Now first impressions come from profile pictures,
and number of likes you get on a status.
Think next time you post something personal
cause thats being stashed in cyberspace, not knowing where its stored
posting when you're bored, about how you scored at a party last night
in spite that its your best friends girlfriend,
but you were to drunk to remember.
Even worse sharing photos of underage drinking
not even thinking about who can see the evidence
of your stupidity, not lucidly taking in your actions
but you look at the fraction 9 out of 300 facebook "friends"
liked your status, thinking you've got a stratus
letting it ruin your day,
bruin about how a girl with half her clothes on has
700 likes n’ 5,000 comments from pigs,
because thats what social media is
a popularity contest, with the best updates
sluttiest photos, and juicy drama
log off
doff the social content through technology completely
its easy.
brace yourself,
have to talk to my face
not through the space of miles, through your screen
I'm not an ordinary teen, just wanting to be seen for who I am
not my online profile
which you won't find because
I don't tell facebook what’s on my mind
tweet about what I eat
  instagram my outfit of the day
I am what you see, plus my poetry
my distinctive personality isn't shared
through an internet related source
This isn’t out of force, my own choice in which I rejoice in the fact that I no longer waste my precious time reading about everybody else’s life,
and just living mine
thus giving me more of a voice, rather thinking I need to type everything in my head
instead, I speak my mind aloud for everyone to hear,
bolder than my outfit, shoes, and my hair.
I do this without shedding a tear
you'd realize if you stepped back
you lack the strength
to go a length of time
its not a crime,
its time
to log off.
Rolling over.
Pressing the home button  on my phone
Awaiting a screen telling me of those notifications I missed during my slumber.
The time is 7:19, and there are no notifications.
I only anticipated one, from you.
Although the number isn't even saved, it's committed to my memory, but left anonymous to those that may try to find out.
I left you notifications, two, but neither were returned.
Back to this again.
He always had these random days where he'd disappear from me without a reason, and when I'd ask he'd offer a half *** apology that I could've lived without.
I never wanted to live without him however.
Oddly enough, he always asked why.
He wondered what kept me around through the half *** apologies and You have done what you had to do to get what you want, and it's almost yours.notification-less screens I always was mocked by.
I guess my love, but who was I kidding.
Maybe it was fear of being alone, sexually frustrated, unwanted. But I was those things even with his notifications, his apologies.
My mind is always in this reassuring "it'll all get better soon, and it'll be just like summer again."
Summer is here though, and he's not.
So what keeps me around?
It's 9:24 and I couldn't tell you.
I can only tell the time on this notification-less screen, never notified of where I went wrong.

Then my phone rings at 11:21.
In those seven minutes and 21 seconds the cycle begins again.
K Balachandran Nov 2015
The ship(notified) lost
leisurely drifts over waves
westwards, "Unhurried hereafter"
is the slogan written on it's mast
it would seem to an onlooker.
A net is cast wide,
to catch as much fish
as the tired crew now needs.
Each furious wave
that rushes towards the ship
changes tack, proclaims
a frothy message of peace.
No more communication exchanges
causing disturbances, no hurry any more.
None waits for the lost ship,
in any distant shore, with a binocular,
or spanning a Radar, uneasily .
The crew had already forgotten
every mission undertaken before.
It has no schedule, deadlines, plan
the ship feels more buyout than ever before
,just floats along, as if it's a tranquil thought,
towards the direction where
the purple sun prepares to set dramatically.
Accompanied by two astonished whales,
sailing along like two mates, the ship,
now a lone wolf,with a hidden yearning
has become more alive, once declared lost.
JustChloe Jun 2014
My cousin Diamond Johnson just received this email for posting a poem about her boyfriend Josh who isn't on this site.

*Silent screams  10 hours ago
Hello, so I'm not sure if you have a serious mental problem
or if you're just flat out *******.
but, Josh has never loved any other girl besides me and he will never love another, and the same goes for me as well.
We have had a mutual love affair for a year, and I don't appreciate you writing creepy poems about my boyfriend and making up fake "love" stories
If you pursue or try to have any further contact with him, so much as a message or a text or anything.
the police will be notified and I will pay every last cent I have to have them track you down and find you, and that is a promise
Now get a life, and stop trying to interfere in mine.
Diamond doesn' t know her or Silent Screams boyfriend. she had a boyfriend who she just broke up with (Josh) and now she is heart broken. Then she gets this email.
At once at the top of the Estinfalos, Marie des Vallées avoided all of them being injured and being swallowed by the strait. The bronze birds with great vigor avoided being part of the vast shore that hit them as Nephelleidae Helles. Here they were compelled by the Myth Frixo and Hele, in the process of their sacramentals. They took the assignments before running with the same fate as the children of Atamante and Nephele. Ino the second wife of Atamante wanted to get rid of them by burning the grain so as not to have crops. This is where the soul of the Herophilus Sybilla appears to them, consulting the Oracle of Delphi. The Children of Atamante were destined to be sacrificed, being Nefeles who sent a Golden Ram, the children were saved by climbing Ram's spine, taking him away from the executioners. When Heles was going to a great height he looked towards the sea that caused him vertigo, falling into the sea in its celestine waters, remaining from this instance with the patronymic Hellespont. His brother, Phryxus, clung tightly to his back and arrived safely at Colchis. Marie could see some Gerakis and then react in search of Heles, taking time to decide and enter. It was only a few hours before dusk, and the lacerated seventy were lowered from the Stymphalos to cross the waters in search. Marie joined the bronze birds with the interaction ratio of all the times that they would intertwine in the lines showing exploration, supplying what Theus and Vikentios did to grow in number, and with all the occurrences that occurred for the contemporary coincidence of thousands of years, for the current figure of millions of light-years that reacted towards the sky crashing in everything that a maximum roof allowed, and then allowed them to be in the interaction when crossing the Sea of Heles, where she always was, only being diverted by the bronze birds from above, and only being tangible by Marie's conscience when she saw that she had never fallen from the Golden ram, but had been only a weightless creature among the clouds of her mother Nephele, hanging around her neck some remarkable telesomatic beings sent by herself, in egregious tributes to her most adorable daughter. She subsequently falls into the sea, unblemished that Vernarth would go to rescue her from her. The Lacerates, Theus, and Vikentios gathered in the circular area of the Gerakis, leading them to the ancient Phrygian city of Dardania. The crowded currents of the celestial realm became ocean currents that lifted Heles's living body as Gerakis with her wings signaled to the Stymphalos to grasp her with precision. Silently the psyches of the bodies of the Trojan War were able to make Heles's rampage measurable, doing Vernarth's medication at a distance with Heles when her death throes accused her rejection of the balsamic intentions of Marie des Vallées. Then is she resorts to the bilocation of Vernarth managing to see from the surface the reckless surface of the sea, seeing a figure with a snowy white outfit and also a light blue tunic, in addition, she wore a crown of cocoons as a Diadema.

Nothing made it possible to presume that quantum was not bending in kilometers that separate Patmos and the Sea of Heles when this sacred figure was sighted that was glimpsed as psychosomatic physiology, for the good of the Second Age that Vernarth brought for them, noting that it was Bernardette Soubirous, which became immediate like a Benedict Akashic field. The small and large units of Massabielle's universe were pointed out from where this quantum elitrophic wave came, with living palpitations of Heles granting the inquiry of her by convulsions of his brain with small akashic vibrations before falling into the icy Sea. Non-local logic became arcane before this telepathic event, and the figure of Bernadette notified them by its coherence of subtle connection, that lately the light that she carried when she escaped from Ino will be rekindled, with the oblation for her was subordinating her, and that it would be supremely since there from where they would uproot her and then free her from the Akashic field from minor to major storm, where Marie des Vallées would let them know that she was safe. This space was already local, but it was detached from the terminal that made it originally from it for the connections of having it already on Patmos so as not to have to be transported by the Stymphans. Everything happened synchronously in unison, after the transpersonal boundaries of consciousness that were united among all to free it from these bonds in the freshness in Heles. All the micro-dimensional organisms became more than clairvoyant with the endowments of the falls and the uprisings after the rescue of Heles by Vernarth and the Akashic fields, applying the material field that was transposed in great extensions of material-immaterial time, before the immanent Electromagnetic gravitationally that could only be seen, heard and probed by Vernarth when he was meditating between the hemispheres of Aullós Kósmos, justifying nth parapsychologies where space is not empty and does not have a percentage mass in this case, and what has been called the quantum vacuum is in fact a cosmic plane (Akasha). Thanks to this information, it was conserved and transferred by the Akashic field, from the coherent universe of Heles, where it could be reconverted into a Sub Mythological being, thanks to a superhuman being happening at the site of the Dardanelles and which will also take place in another place in Patmos.

Marie des Vallées says: “everything that happened in one period also happened in the following times here at the Hellespont. Nothing was local, nor limited to where and when it happened. All things are integral, cosmic because everything is connected and the memory of all things extends to all places and times. Here is Vernarth who is the object and subject of his umpteenth parapsychologies, which are the replica of the joyous songs of Bernadette Soubirous's Rosary "

Vernarth sensing that Heles was in frank danger of life, mounts Alikantus and heads for the Strait of Dardanelles. Here he manages to specify that it was compared with the anachronism of the Bronze Birds, who had sailed through the upper Dodecanese, then over the Marmara counterclockwise from Kairos, meeting again with the Helladic period. Here it spread over Hellen; with the eponymous hamlet that boasted of the Stymphalos, as a coerced premonition in the pre-Helladic, towards the end of the Bronze Period. Thus, with this changeable phenomenon, Vernarth was directed, while he flew in the seconds of Kairos time as a symbol of subsisting in each deleterious life, almost with the powers of not getting intoxicated with any substance transited by the sea of the strait. Here Vernarth went to Alikantus, being this one from Thessaly and Sudpichi, right here among them Kanti appears with Etréstles, they came to tone up the survivals that would bear Heles after recreating the two great Ionic and Doric hydric colonnades. While Alikantus being of Cretan, the roots he had to emit breaths from the Eighth Cemetery of Messolonghi to revive the colonnades, to separate the waters and molecules that increased in density to move Heles from the depths of the ocean. Kanti was a super steed, he plunged under the Marmara, like a tiny sea to leave the waters of the Black Sea from one of the abutments of some seams of some Achaeans, which were disengaged from the seas that joined them. In this instance, the Helén together with Vernarth continued to release the ropes of a great Kizara that Nefeles had woven for her daughter, from here from the dean cloud and from the distress where she freed herself to go to her Gaugamellian aid. The Kizara was a Eurythmic wire rope, therefore its sound elucidated the sea and its celestial kingdom, magnifying and complicating Poseidon in the sea that actually resembled the sky. Therefore, Heles was with his ethnonym Hellespont who snatches her and redirects her to Helén, which was similar to her name, in such a way that the sky was embroiled by the point, from Helén by Heles creating the watery element of the Flood of Heles that was retracted by the impetus of Kanti and Alikantus when Vernarth increased with all his vivification when he saw her near the shaft of the Doric colonnade, organizing the waters that would rise from the susceptible Heles wrapped in a Himation that Vernarth had dispensed near the Vas Auric.
Nefheles
Uncle Mike was heading south
To Jamaica he would head
With the amount of hair that poor Mike had
He could only have one dread

A conference for his workplace
A nice resort and lots of sun
Mike was set to go an party
He would work and have some fun

But if you've read my other poems
Mike is not ...well, tuned in
You see his trip was almost over
Before it even did begin

The day that he was leaving
Mike was notified by mail
He needed a new photograph
For his ID card....no fail!!!!

He was already at his hotel
When the notice came to say
You must send us a photo
Or you can't come here to play

He bought himself a camera
A poloraid and then
He tried to take a picture in his room
A true multitasker among men

He put the camera on the hutch
Bent a hanger down to length
And then he tried to push the button
but, the hanger didn't have the strength

He knocked the camera all about
Taking pictures of the walls,
One picture of the tv set
And four photos of his *****

This would be a no go
He had to ask someone instead
How do you ask a stranger
Take my photo on my bed?

He made the plane to Kingston
Found the hotel, settled in
Now, Mike was in Jamaica
And the real fun would begin
Kimberly Clemens Aug 2013
If you were notified of every time
I thought of you
Since I got to know you
And I was notified of every time
You thought of me
Since you got to know me
I wonder if our stats would match up
Or be embarrassingly different.
Lucan Sep 2011
-- Wish You Were Here* -- standard postcard greeting
-- Poems aren't postcards to send home -- Anne Sexton

Dear friends, dear friends at home, resent
No pagan rite nor chance event
We've failed to photograph for you
With technicolor flair in the true
Late Tourist Style. Be satisfied

You're there, not here in Circe's herd
Or dodging stones some Giant's hurled
Or fending Triton's tempest blasts
Or lashed, like me, to a shattered mast
As tempting taunts roll down the tide.

When night winds grind the wheel of sleep
Consider Cyclops, counting sheep;
When home-fires cool, just think of us
Attending smokes more perilous!
Home-bound friends, be notified:

This holiday's a Trojan Horse.
The wine's gone bad. The weather's worse.
So mark our fates by this palsied hand:
*Have sacrificed most every man.
Now homeward-bound. Still terrified.
Copyright 2011, The Lyric; this is a companion piece to "Andromeda's Rant." "To Penelope..."was recently named the 2011 "New England Award" winner from The Lyric.
children should be seen and not heard Odysseus is not a complainer he keeps quiet he is taught to choke his voice swallow his hurt Mom and Dad are always arguing at one another raising their voices fighting he endures his parent’s criticism follows their orders he is trained to be obedient no negotiating his parents inhabit a surface world of strict protocol everyone laughs but it is a pretend way to dismiss what is actually occurring as long as they say i love you to each other then everything is accorded technically all right no matter how dysfunctional or painful the truth existence is a difficult challenge often overwhelming Mom and Dad push Odysseus in directions he does not want to go instead of surrendering to their wills he acts in response in fact a whole personality is being formed based on his reactions and having nothing to do with who he truly is how he actually feels he feels frightened by the world stressed by all the expectations put upon him in many ways he is way too sensitive crippled by his own sensitivity self-betrayed by his thin-skinned hypersensitivity he stays in his bedroom with the door closed he paints or plays with toy soldiers and watches TV he does not know where Penelope is maybe she is in her bedroom Penelope means everything they share secrets and conspiracies and a common enemy in Mom and Dad Penelope is the only one who recognizes his predicament sense of helplessness anxiety pain she is more nurturing than Mom Penelope and Odysseus have a special connection share a common or similar reference of perception Odysseus desperately needs to believe in his parents maybe Mom and Dad do not understand and assign unfitting advice maybe Mom and Dad do not support him in ways he needs but they are still his parents he values believes looks up to them they rooted that in him even if it is out of fear rather than respect he will always venerate Mom and Dad no matter what Odysseus wants to make his parents proud he loves and needs them Mom is an important person always on the go planning dinners dashing out the door gossiping on the phone buying and returning clothes getting them altered going to the hair salon meeting with the girls for lunch she is a busy lady and has a lot of friends Mom is more concerned about how things look than what is actually going on with her children parenting is a secondary concern to Mom’s hectic agenda of social popularity deep inside Odysseus believes Mom loves him he needs to believe that he paints a red heart on white sheet of paper and writes inside the heart in brown colored pencil MOM when he turns it upside down he reads WOW he reasons whether it is out of obligation or guilt or a mother’s tendency Mom loves him he does not understand but he is grateful secretly Odysseus is hurting bad his feelings are easily upset more and more he experiences a disturbed point of view he tries to ignore it  sometimes his thoughts run to morbid extremes he wonders why he cannot just accept and get along often he wants to be good and get better other times he wants to destroy himself things are chaotic and troubling at home he wishes he or his family would die his teachers complain he is a dreamer with behavioral problems he does not excel academically after eighth grade Mom and Dad are notified their son is not to return to Harper Mom cries to the school Principal in his office begging him to let her son stay the Principal refuses Dad lights a cigarette and exclaims to hell with Harper we’ll find Odys a better school Odysseus tells Mom he is going to be known someday not like celebrities on TV rather recognized for some great achievement Mom believes him and never stops believing in Odysseus
Mallow Aug 2015
The black dog is on my doorstep, he insists that he needs a drink.
Footprints are already impounded on all followed pavements.
The cake is poisoned with the stories of the greater mans word.
Eat it and your fate is within their wrist flicking reach.
End results and the finishings of situations
Are already determined beyond personal effect.
How many men are in your army? How many would have my back?

There is a man on a chair holding the club of master dimensions
I can see how he wants to play with my intents.
They force the doors shut blocking a sky that is taught to be blue
So we miss that it was turning green through foreign effects.

The black dog is on the doorstep, he insists that he needs some help
I stand on the zipline, looking over the city and the laid out maps.
If I was to say the sky was blue,
My hand you would shake and praise intellect.
If the same sky was deemed to be green,
Soldiers would be notified to create laws to control the insanity paradox.

The same man on the chair, dictates with a definitive howl,
I can see there is no room for small whistles or whispers.
The slammed door will not open despite my best efforts.
There is no way when there is one of me pushing one way and ten men pushing back.
Khrystle Rea Feb 2013
Fingers point in to seal what
allows waves to enter. It happens
naturally, attempting to
keep out a
sound linked to a dream.
Each day more deferred.
Singing along does
nothing but intensify it,
leaving my throat dry.
Eyes wander up
to the sky like
it has the answer. A
desire the size of a raisin.
hidden deep with in
bleakness; the
noise blinded by the sun.
Inside cues are unheard or
overlooked; left to fester.
Tunes once vibrant like
fireflies illuminating a
black field create a sore
unrecognized. Oblivious and
ignorant. Then
is what I run
away from; yet it does
not make the hum disappear; it
only dissolves the stink
to an unnoticeable hint like
bread rotten.
My core once full of meat.
I marched to the beat or
maybe it formed a crust
around all thoughts and
notified me when sugar
oozed out over
the brim of my truth. Like
examples before I fall prey to a
slide syrupy
and sweet
pulling me away. Maybe
I am scared it
will be just
perfect. Skin sags
as time passes like
light wind, unfelt; a
sensation soul heavy
fumbling to un-load.
Yesterday I began to listen or
correctly hear what does
exist confined. It
is looking to explode.
This is written in the form of a golden shovel which Terrance Hayes uses. If you read each end word of each line you will be reading one of my all time favorite poems by Langston Hughes called A Dream Deferred. The entire poem is made up of two poems; I wrote the poem that leads left to right.
Ksjpari Aug 2017
A man rightly called an Oxymoron
Now is angry, now sad, now happy on
The same thing – he takes piton
To handle us – later I knew ******.
Anurag is my principal, a true merman
Treats all equally – good or bad of John.
Tried to understand when called upon.
Talking to him is like dealing with silicon.
Full of respect and encouragement shown
For anybody if needed; angry on python
Trying hit him at back. Never confused on
Any topic, asks if not notified – an Amazon
Of Maths flows from him – my Hero, my trigon.
I am developing a new style of writing poetry where ending words of a line rhyme with one another, at least in last sound. I named it Pari Style. Hope readers will like it. Thanks to those invisible hands and fingers which supported and inspired me to continue my efforts in my new, creative, artistic and innovative “Pari” style. Thanks for your inspiring, kind, soft fingers.
cleo Apr 2016
Love to write  poem every night,
Poets have a wide heart,
In poetry, they cried,
It's another way to justified.

It makes them feel satisfied,
Every poem that they write,
It makes the readers inspired,
Every emotion they have inside,
In their poem, they applied
A poet can die but their poem  will still be notified.
#poem
Mariya Timkovsky May 2012
They stood proudly above the tall horizon.
Strong gusts of wind were second nature to them.
But when targeted, they didn’t stand a chance.
Cries for help erupted from their windows
And smoke billowed gray and thick
Higher and higher into the stratosphere.
While death cascades one atop another,
Life continues in my fourth grade classroom.
I tried to understand what there was the learn
Beyond multiplication tables
And long division – from the previous year
When suddenly the class erupted into
Stark silence
As authority notified the uninformed youth.
“Go home,” they said.
And home I did go
In fear that the smoke would follow me,
Sinking its claws into my skin.
That fear was not for naught.
It follows me to this day.
A decade of dark, deadly destruction
Carelessly cutting at the very veins that keep me alive.
judy smith Oct 2015
An Ontario man and his two children have turned up safe after getting lost in the woods on their way to an Alberta wedding.

RCMP Const. Jason Curtis says David Hill, 33, along with daughter Sierra Hill, 10, and son Riley, 8, set off from Edmonton International Airport on Saturday morning.

They were destined for a family wedding in Hinton, a couple hours drive west of the city, that was scheduled for 11 a.m.

Family members got a call Saturday afternoon from one of the children in the car that they apparently got off the highway and were lost in a wooded area.

The phone then cut out and Curtis says the family spent the night in their rental car before finding someone Sunday morning who directed them back to the highway.

He says he doesn't know why the Hills left the highway.

And exactly where were they?

"I don't know if they're entirely sure of that,'' Curtis said.

RCMP said a ping from the cell phone placed them in the area of Obed, Alberta, which is between Edson and Hinton.

Police said they launched a full search for the family out of concern for the ages of the children and for the fact that some of the group suffered from medical conditions.

Curtis said that after getting directions out, the family notified their relatives and police.

"It couldn't be a better outcome. Everyone's safe and sound. And we're just very happy,'' Curtis said.

"The people are moving onto their family event, though they might have missed the wedding.''

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses
magdalena Sep 2012
Can you still whisper my voice inside your head
Are you still aware of my tears,
my fears?
My aches and my nightmares.

Please Don't forget.
Remember hat I held your hand when you tried to run away
I gave you hope when everyone else gave you hate
Love was confused with lust.
Or was I too dumb to notice that
Somewhere along the way, you recognized my flaws and
thought I wasn't good enough.

But in case you weren't notified, I gave my all
while you cheated.
While you lied.
I carried us up
You tried sinking us down.
Baby,I made it. I'm alive.

Sorry to hear that you stayed under water
in your tank of
stagnation, and false hope.

Deferred love, my mind has forgotten,
But my heart has not
Tash Street Nov 2010
“Dear Lab,” started the angrily worded poem,



“We’ve put up with shenanigans and outrage and prats

And unfair bannings from you little rats.

We put up with no codes (quote) for our protection

And through it all you maintained our affection.



Now along you slither with your fancy new forum

And ask our opinion - just to maintain decorum -

but of our gentle requests: you deplore ‘em

Then leave all the mess to the red coated quorum.


pfft - Lab notified."
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
1431
poems in ye old inbox,
genteel knocking,
whispering thru stolid front door
love me a little lot,
little lot, love me?

this is not mere work product,
collegial-laid upon me for gentle shared, for pre-review,
Nottingham Forest arrowed, bow shaped
pithy comments,

these are the holy-of-the-holies
attention-me-crystal-cries,
prayers, wry observations, nature collations,
me and thee adorations, heart rendering
screams of need,
these are the moments in your life
raw-roughened gifted or threaded smooth cursed,
but tendered unto my caring.

(an aside:
perhaps you understand better now
why woman-in-the-moon imagery,
red bowed, grapefruit tasting hearts,
all the lovelies, word shape shifts a/k/a
Imagery
language delights!
but time-using, confusingly confuses,
and has been erased from my own poetry frame)

gnawing doubt me routs,
god gave me humans,
and gave them speech,
to bring me
closer to him
thru them.

somewhere in those 1431 essays of labor,
dashed off, handcrafted, pithy or poor,
just might be the one
justification for my opening my eyes
this poetry someday Sunday sun-day.

put the cofe on
(saving letters, saving time,
deleting unnecessary e's
from my life till when I am dying on
all-on-that desperate
e-n-ee-dy day).

loaded my shotgun heart with
loves and likes,
yellow thunderbolt bullets firing,
and considered yourself
notified
I'm a-coming over,
shoes on the cofe table,
breaking taboo's
gonna read 1431
and when dining done,

gonna pay attention to my muse,
my woman, cause she is the
original e,
that provides the raw materials,
in ye old nat-box,
that lets me love ever one of them,
she is the e
in me

and me will be in you,
starting now.
The cigarette butts were piling up out front
Where was that steady breeze?
So she wouldn't have to get the broom out
So, they would blow off to the trees
Way back in the corner though
One man continued to smoke inside
It was a right given to him years ago
No one ever argued, no one ever tried
The bar was smelling musty
No matter how hard she tried
The owner couldn't make it fresh
That's because all the food was fried
In the window, a brown and crumpled card
Notified the world "We're Open" now
But, outside of the old man, and the crew
No one in the outside world really knew
Visitors never came here,
they stayed away from here
The regs didn't care though
To them, it meant more beer
A college game was on TV
Two crap teams from the west
No one was really watching them
The regs liked the East the best
The carpet, full of burn marks
From cigarettes long burned out
Dropped from pursed and drunken lips
Who also no longer were about
The barkeep could tell stories
Though there was few there who hadn't heard
The stories of the past long gone
The regs knew every word
The posters drab and dreary
Selling beer from years ago
From breweries long since empty
And with tag lines nobody even knew
A poster for Black Label
and one for Jolly's brew
In the back sat a piano
Out of tune and never played
It had been out of use forever
The keys were cracked and grey
The bar itself was dying
A relic inside four walls
It was dressed in papered squalor
Like an old man with no *****
The windows showed their age
Shaking when the wind did blow
Ice was always building on them
There was more inside that in the snow
A breath of life was badly needed
The bar was really already dead
They hadn't made a dime in decades
They always ran it in the red
Today though, things would change
The door opened from the past
In walked a man of substance
Another character to the cast
He sat down on a bar stool
Ordered up, and looked around
And there standing in the corner
He saw the piano...with no sound
Asking if anybody played her
The barkeep said "No, she's long since died"
"Do you mind if I go and play her"
"It's been a while since someone tried"
He rolled it out from dark in hiding
Hit a key, and hurt his ear
Lifted the lid to look inside her
And then he ordered up another beer
He hit the keys and played a little
"Let's give this thing a whirl"
The sound it made was flat and pokey
"There's lot's of life in this old girl"
"I'll tune it up and come and play her"
"If you'd like...that is of course"
"Mr. if that's what makes you happy"
"But, I think you're beating a dead horse"
"By the way, they call me Johnny"
"Johnny Fingers if you please"
"I'll tune her up and play a while"
"I'll get her clean and bang those keys"
The barkeep offered up a contract
Tune her up and play for free
"If you're good, I'll pay you extra"
"The jury's out, we'll wait and see"
Johnny laughed and said "You got it"
"I'll play whenever you decide"
"I'll play whatever's asked for"
And he had a smile ten miles wide
The barkeep said "The venture's on then"
"Let's have a talk, and grab a seat"
"There are some things I have to tell you"
"Johnny....welcome to The Street".
A new character to The Street poems. Go back and read them if you haven't already.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2020
“but you Nat,
are a grown *** Hebrew man
so I shall not attempt 
to advise you to do otherwise.”

<>
been notified, identified, blessed and cursed, alotta of different ways,
but late at night, arrives a new coronation forthright,
about my all grownup ageist stay-tus & my ancient birthright

and I’m-athinking that as compliments go, that’s quite a
right-on complementary to my actuality, so not bad, tho
all-I’d-add is maybe, old school fool too, & do appreciate

that this observation comes with added cherry on top,
I’m finally old enough to make it ok to make mistakes,
and a hardy thanks that the words hard and lard din’t appear

when mentioning my cheekiest feature...

10:28pm nyc
in downtown lockdown

— The End —