Many were their numbers
Living in city streets and slums
Brothers and sisters torn asunder
Gathered up like bums
Nineteenth century’s answer
Created by Children’s Aid Society
Indentured servants to farmers and ranchers
Shipped in cattle cars like  propriety
Struggling in their suffering
Confused used and oft’ abused
Terror in their wayfaring
For being parentless accused
The disruptive ones placed in chains
Scattered to the winds across the land
The far west and the Great Plains
North to Canada and south of the Rio Grande

Billy here, Danny Boy there, and Sally who knows where
The Children of the Orphan Trains

r  13 Nov 13

(sorry, but not sorry)

There once was a potato plant,
(Because potatoes grow on plants...)
This plant harvested baby potatoes.
This was no ordinary potato plant, however,
It was SPECIAL!

Anywho, the plant grew several baby potatoes,
Who were harvested and shipped on a crate to a grocery store
in a cold, dark shipping truck.
The potatoes, they weren't scared! Yah know why? Simple.
Because Potatoes don't have FEELINGS!

....but if they did....they'd be scared. Take my word for it.

The potatoes arrived at the store and were bagged, ready for purchase. They sat together in a pile for hours,
thinking about (but not thinking about) what would happen in the future, why they were in this bag, UNTIL, UNTIL a homeless man (he looked homeless) reached into the bag, pulled out a single spud, and RAN! Out the store, down the street,
HE WAS OUTTA THERE! BYE-BYE SUCKERS!

Well, on his way to.... wherever he was going, he fell and dropped it. That's what stealing does to yah.
It rolled into an abandoned alley, far away from the man's sight. He couldn't stop and look for it, because he was being chased, so he ran away sourly, the potato being left cold and alone, without it's family to be piled up motionlessly beside it.

This potato was different. Unlike it's family, it could feel,
it could think and understand, even without knowing language at all, it's like the potato just knew everything and anything, without a purpose. And, another thing.
This potato, it was hungry. Very hungry.

Only hours later (again)
A parentless child walked the streets, searching for something to eat. They hadn't eaten in days. Of course, the child found the battered potato on the ground,picked it up and smiled.
It was the end of the potatoes life cycle, it seemed.
Or...was it? Seconds until the end, seconds until facing the terrifying wrath of the human's sharp, untaimed teeth, seconds until it got to see if there was a potato heaven or not, JUST SECONDS, something changed.

The spud; it grew. No, it didn't grow in size, but it did grow a mouth, and arms. And it could scream. Oh God, yes, it could wail like no tomorrow, so, quickly adapting to it's new form; it yelled ****** ******. The child threw it at a wall, screaming and running away.

..... Silence from the potato.
Sadly, it could withstand the grasp of a sweaty, homeless dude,
it could bare the growing silence from it's siblings,
it could even dodge the teeth of a starving ape!

But the potato was no match for a wall.
Mashed potatoes for dinner it is.

*** for tat only means that another generation seeks vengeance and war
Evening the score only means yet another must even the score
Just ask the palestinians and the israelis, just ask the tutsis and the hutus
Ask the protestants and the catholics, and the crips and the bloods
The hatfields and mccoys, too, were all about grudge
And what has it gotten us, where does it end?
Who is the enemy and who the friend?
I ask this because it seems clear to me
“Either you’re with us or against us” denies diversity
One man’s terrorist is another man’s hero
But you **** mine, I **** yours leaves a net gain of zero
And what about the children in whose faces war is fought?
What parentless future — or present — have they got?
And who stands to gain from perpetuating violence?
Who profits from the pain ... ... and the deafening silence?
Typically a handful of white men do, that’s who
It’s that top one percent, not you
A few families control the likes of halliburton, bechtel and g.e.
It’s their balance sheets that gain from the misery we see
Divide and conquer is their modus operandi, their mode of operation today,
Keep us fighting amongst ourselves and all blame ... is diverted away.

I remember how that Puxatony dirt
felt between my fingers. Gritty
and cold – the earth that covers  graves.
Falling from my palm, landing at his paws,
he curled around my leg, shivering.
Against my ankle, he rested his long ears.

Polaroids of a mothers chew-toy earrings;
memories of March spent playing in *****
backyards, forests, and playgrounds. We shivered
together, in the heat of Spring, with gritty
rock-filled driveways underneath our paws.
Lives, those playful daisies sprouting from gravel,

that we ate day by day; pushing graves
down out of mind, but spilling from our ears.
The summer wrought steel cages to grip awe,
with training meant, bent to destroy dirt
kept caked on worn-out sandals. Grits
scooped off a breakfast plate to a shivering

dachshund. His collar jingled, shimmering
as it clashed against his bowl. Cold gravy
and dry cat food, with textured scents. Gritty,
furry, and harsh. Ears dipped in water bowls
finding the only bath of the month, clearing dirt
from a death in the family. Soft, unknowing paws

treaded with grace, and a parentless pause
as we crumbled. Directionless grief shivered
the big men with their shrunken hearts, *****
from a three-hour drenching sob at the grave.
But love is not measured by the size of loss -
it is made of highs and lows; rough and gritty.

Seven pounds of compassion weighs with gridded
precision on my chest. Those tiny paws,
batting at my heart. Soft, two-times-too-large ears
crying with us and pleading through shivers
to enjoy everything. Now your graves are dug
together - between you only a foot of dirt.

Gritty reality seeps in from shivering
fiction. Your paws on your own grave,
I place my ear to the dirt, and whimper.

Here hails a huge, long and dragonish snake,
With myriads of dangerous heads on its thorax,
Roaming up and down in a nefarious duty
All over the African streets and hamlets,
Villages and terrains, the abodes of poor folks,
Swallowing daughters and sons of this land,
Swallowing a handful of them on each bite,
They are in a forlorn despair like never before,
Defenselessly succumbing to the dragon once in the grip,
Young and old, prebubescent and all others are cancers’ fodder,
Africa is truly diminishing to the abysmal jaws of cancer,
Forget of initial vices of ***, Ebola and leprosy,
Forget of the contemporary terrorism and ethnic warlordism,
Cancer is ruthlessly swallowing poor folks of Africa
Into its inferno of early deaths, rendering many parentless,
A knot for the living to put aside pride and seek genuine help,
For the myriad heads of dragonish cancer violently **** the prey,
I have seen sons and daughters of poor Africa in cancerous agony,
Often with a blocked food pipe when in the grip of throat cancer,
Non-stop vaginal bleeding at mercilessness of cervical cancer,
In the torture of brute pulling weight in grip of scrotal cancer,
On the top of maximum pain in the grip of breast cancer
Humorously desperate before menacing eyes of death,
When misfortunately in the grip of heart cancer,
Deathly starvation condemns many poor folks to grave,
Always when in the unlucky tentacle of intestinal cancer,
In this desperate land of Africa where basic hospital
Stands a luxury, affordable by the rich in the political class,
As the poor without choice die and die and die,
O who will take me out of Africa, this nonchalant Africa?
Before the dragon of cancer condemns me down to its
Inferno of pains and miserably violent death!
I fear death due to punctured lungs without solace,
I fear death due to stunted blood cells without succor
I fear death due to poisoned blood without palliative
When the cancerous heads of ; lung cancer, blood cancer,
And Liver cancer will besiege this land of Africa to hold me a captive.

everybody’s angel bodies
find happening midnight
on Kansas pavements
hipsters’ motherwords are wholely robed by time
instant everything is ordinary
buggered city  immortals --
annoyed, parentless, marijuana everymans
swiftly digging unknown eternity
groaning strange in the long mysterious night
roaring, vibrating kindness
from their holy tongues
blazing inner hideous human gold
draining ***** forever
draining everything
forever -
Moloch, Buddha, Abyss
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Another day
Another sorrow

Purpose more lost than a parentless child at Seaworld

Forget the pain of today and tomorrow
It's going to be ok
Pull your head out of your ***
You Stink and Your eyesight is ******

Think of yourself less and others more
No one cares about you why should you be any different?

It's been about a year
Of my 63.
Somehow I awoke
To the hell around me.
My naivety dashed
Against the rocks of
Parentless terrorism.
Gazing at the latest tragedy
Or slap against humanity,
I long for beauty past
At 64.
Knowing that it will not come
Except within my own self
Where I have a modicum of control.

I see fields and flowers
And taste the honey
Before waking up.

I am a motherless neonate
I am lapping up dew
with my forked tongue
I am sliding my plated belly
over the cool wet grass

I am entirely my own
I am scouting out rabbit dens
ambitiously
I am engulfing beauty
with my deep, long belly

I am a parentless subadult
I am basking out
under a full white moon
I am flicking out
my black-tipped tongue

I am an unashamed *******
I am unperturbed in my solitude
I am studied only in myself;

In another life, perhaps,
the sudden ruffle of leaves
to the left
would stir me
but here in my reptilian hide,
I am unflinching

I am a motherless neonate
and I blame
no one

The orphans are
mounting an assault quick,
grab your knives and your guns,
we'll show those parentless ******
that we also
know how to
have fun.

kiss me underneath the pale moonlight,
our toes buried in the red sands.
when the suns begin to rise,
continue to kiss me,
as if we are parentless teens.
you are my parasite, i have loved you for an eternity.
this is a bond that can't be broken,
our spirits have eloped.
our minds have now departed,
up into the nebulas and stars and dust.
i will never forget this pathogenic romance,
for as long as my spirit lives.
human we are not,
for we are the star people's kids.

A father of our nation
A father of determination
A light to the children that brighten the dark days
A man who destined freedom
through strive and struggle

A man of courage
who spoke words that lift the spirits of:
mothers who give births in squatter camps,
the homeless and parentless children,
and life prisoners

He is Rolihlahla which meant troublesome
but he was a peace maker
He fought to make a difference
Whenever life put him to the ground
He stood up every time and ran to his people

Utata Nelson Mandela

As their Screens flicker to Techno Beats.

A product of mass media and parentless houses...

Well done mankind on this your finest creation

These Brain Dead Damaged children which fill the streets.

Moneys their god and they covet their neighbour

Thwy Bow to down idols with their all new behaviour

Lets dumb down the masses. 
Make em incoherent assess

Cause Susy is better and that is not fair , mom told me to **** her and daddy don't care..

They have no need for morals and no need for despair ,

These Brain Dead , Damaged Children that fill up our streets

By: Cedric McClester

It’s not just the hearts
That they’re breaking
Or the MS-13s
In the making
Because of the
Family structures they’re shaking
By their Zero Tolerance
Immigration undertaking

It’s the capriciousness
Of the things that they’re doing
Not to mention the color
Of the families they’re *******
That lets us know
There’s a reckoning brewing
Because the whole world
Is in on the viewing

Men and women
Who have children
Yet their hearts are numb
Will reap the famine
That has yet to come
Who will be spared?
Not one single one
Because of the awful things that they’ve done

Is there a black market
In parentless children?
And are we complicit
In trying to fill them?
With new immigrants,
We refuse to accept
Because we’ve become
Morally bereft









Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018.  All rights reserved.

Colonial buildings litter the sidewalk,
derelict and rundown. A past that
is fading into the bustle of the street.
Casts mingle, but prejudice lingers.

Tuk-tuks weave through out streets,
collecting tired feet that need a rest.
collecting lunch off street venders,
who greet with smiles, as aromas linger.

Street children, parentless masses sit
on the steps, hands wondering for rupee's.
The taxi doesn't stop, so they shower the path
with change, and they think of their baby at home.

As the old world fades, heritage still lingers.
but contradictions of what was and is contest.
Old ways grasp at the change, but our streets
will soon be a metropolis of fading faces.

"Is this a good thing? or are we moving to fast.

The timid frozen morning air awakens from sounds of screams and metal car frames...cracking.

The cool lit night star air flashes from the fire burned tires and frigid numbed souls...cursing.

The smoky dust filled air sees tears of hate and bloodied stained floors....of fate.

The cloudy misty saturated air hears bullets striking and lifeless bodies....collapsing.

OH WHERE...have the spirit filled airs, the glittering filled airs, that hozhóogo air gone to?


The green-bluish water feels the sluggish toxic sludge and forgotten people...mitering.

Pure white solid crystals wrap around the intoxicated body, it's courage slowly....mystifying.

The red rock's seeping water blindly poisons the youthful smile and secretly kills...a-mourning.

The raging brown foamed water rushes by the pallet walled hogan and the shivering lil feet...mesmerizing.

OH WHERE...have the dew dressed holy ones, the chanting waters, the life healing and growing waters....gone?


The blowing fine dust creeps through the window seals, witnessing punches to her face and kicks to her chest.

Them dark black coaled rock mesas spot fields below of slow deathed and sugar-filled....people-a-mess.

Round red sun brazen rocks are embraced, by the abandoned lost wondering child...lil-one parentless.

Darkened mountain soil sees the people a-mess, looking up, seeking guidance of hope...restless.

OH WHERE...have the lightning bolted peaks, the strong holy ridges, them keepers of home gone to?

Water drenches the Earth Mother, Winds rage from our Sky Father,
Lights of the Star People shimmer brightly,
Rocky cliff faces begin to shake violently...

"Here We Are!"

The first ones and holy people yell mightingly,

"HERE WE ARRRREEE !!!!!"

Crystal ****, Crack *******, all of it is like a bullet to the brain. Living by the law of the gun, making money on the run. Millions flow into the banks, the people don't ask where it comes from. They just take their cut and then they move on. The bodies lay cold in the street, a 9mm or a pipe it doesn't matter which. The victims are just as dead. Leaving parentless children looking to be fed. The street breeds them, it is the way they live. Handouts only go so far, they see what is on T.V. the clothes and the fancy cars. I once was the same, then I got caught up in the game. Slinging on a corner just to make the rent, now I got more money than 50 cent. Gold and jewels I buy by the car load. The finest hotels and beautiful women who will sell their soul. You cannot tell me what money can't buy, my only limit seems to be the sky. So now I am standing on my own building like Donald Trump, I look at the billionaire next door and say hey dog whas up. I see all of the little people down below, ******* on a pipe or shooting up blow. Built on the despair and protected by guns for hire, I sit as the king of a drug empire!

So have me, by the tale of time;
Bygone the glance at another of mine.
This neck of the woods, I stand, that mocks
The glance at another, the talk at another,
The eyes that sag at another of these clocks.

Another week has gone and spent its boring browns away.
What the hell’s a scream this much without a glass of noise?
Have me a cup, yes please, the one with the silver crack,
It makes me at least a trifle conscious of where I stand to cope.
I'd guess I'd drink it up so fast and check for it again.
I'd tilt the cup and notice such it's also two past nine, again.
I'd get on up and stagger past my doubts and hopes and fears.
I think sometimes I'd sort of try to hide my face from who knows what.
Then walk on back in seconds flat and just try not to sprint.
I'd sigh, I guess, I'd live and fuss, and drinks will keep me up’ed enough.

Up an’ up, like dust soars up.
And down an’ up and down and up.
And stuck, I'll stare flat,
Stuck an’ just an’ just an’...what…
I'm lost, I've known that,
Flown through that stack a’ nothins’ but
Dull manifesto’s even wannabes only and
Then this and then that and
I'll keep checking clocks and-

No, heh, parentless wreck.
Yer’ mess’ed done for th’ full of our nights.
Far to beat the life’s an’ cheats
Or something else that's rhymes with beats.
Tomorrow, with life, with time and mess
And bedtime flyin’s through these statute-husks.
Ah impersiable lines you fuss an’ ****.
You hate yourself doncha’, kid?
And this mindless puddle got half your weight.
Adding and passing your maxing an’ venting.
But, more skin, you lie then. You wanna sound bigger.
Though minding these thoughts, now, it ain't like your litter.

You can trust me, it stops and it starts.
Mor’in a’ breakin’ these words are you shakin’.
Eh, may wings give an’ fall an’
You'll quietly thank me for ******* you now.
But now ain't no time that you know some about.
Ye’ may dictate and death-wait t’ rattle ya’ up.
An’ up an’ up an’ nothins’ the time.
The world’s isn't shakin’ just for you in yer’ mind.

So, hear me, by will’s only tie.
Betwixt sets a’ eyes who keep’in starin’ me down.
And these words for a time, I speak, they are mine,
They are simply all mine,
On this night, not’n fight,
That we sit through, in spite.
They are fine, all this mind,
Now it's two past nine.
You’ll live on again,
Forever, strange time.

Prognosticating patriarchs
pundits and priests
pencil paladins
in penthouse palaces
riding what they're writing
writhing while they're rising
everyone's got a chance
chants the gaunt equalizer
its equal lie heard
plunges us into the absurd
assured of justice and fairness
we become curt and careless
saying if you work in a hairnet
or get your verve from clarinet
you deserve less than a baroness
because she has parents best
but when I ask of the parentless
those talking point to the talking points
so what's the point of talking
when talking leads to pointing
the finger in anger at strangers
who they just called equal
but that was merely a platitude
I'm starting to hate people
and their selfish myopic attitude.

At the essence, someone can only lead their life according to how they wish to lead.
We all must go through the experiences that entertain our individual and distinct paths.
If we as human beings  choose certain behaviors we establish certain patterns that cause us to live in certain circumstances, adapt to various habits that pave the way for how we will end up living out  daily tasks in life.
The successful completion of these tasks attribute to where we go, if we lead, how we lead, if we stay stuck in where we are, and whether what we aim for persists and comes to life  externalizing itself in the outer world.
Now, if we are talking about the ways in which we lead our lives, the individual personality of the person becomes significant towards making that kind of recommendation.
If for example, one had to overcome more barriers and difficult obstacles due to risk factors outside of their control ie. being born into poverty, system involved, parentless home, drug and alcohol abuse, violence and other harmful or traumatizing events taking place daily, etc such barriers will certainly present limitations to the person, but over time with the proper help, steady support network, and mentorship to guide them through those challenges, they can change their patterns and cognitive beliefs and ultimately adapt to new behaviors that change the way they lead their lives (living the day to day among and together with others).
With this in mind, one should aim for the best they can hope for according to their individual and unique stories, the stories which make up the core of their lives.
One can and should aim for according to their new and/or changed experiences, realistically what they can handle, but I also personally and professionally as a therapist recommend that one strive to aim for what makes them happiest in terms of what the highest renowned spiritual thought leaders called the “ideal state of mind”, holding to their vision, or definite chief aim.
What one views as the best for them or what they see as the best with regards to their values, qualities, and level of self-respect and what they believe themselves to be worthy of is the goal or should be for anyone interested in pursuing the greatest quality of living possible for who they are and who they individually wish and see themselves to be. 😊
I do hope this helps or at least provides more insight on this topic.

Wanting
To feel you in my arms
Taken away to early
Not a chance at life
Parentless
So our love went
Seemless as a cloud passing  
Only tears shared for the moment
But not for the night