Hoping, dreaming,
Wishing, praying,
Fasting, petitioning,
Crying, weeping.

A hundred days,
Bygone.

Hoping we could once more see your face,
As impossible as it sounds,
Dreaming, that someone, somewhere, some place,
Finally finds you, and that you're at last home bound.

A hundred days,
Of excruciating pain.

Wishing against the logic of the world,
That you're still fine, and you'll fall into my arms once again,
Praying to God, gods, goddesses, deities of the world,
That even if you're not lost forever, you're still okay, not in pain.

A hundred days,
Of sleeplessness.

Fasting, maybe not because we believe it'll help,
But food does not replenish anymore,
Petitioning to the saints above,
To ask the angels to hold you, forevermore.

A hundred days,
Of yearning.

Crying for that solace only closure brings,
That somehow its not a conspiracy and that the truth is revealed.
Weeping for every single person, every heartbroken family,
Who's dreams and aspirations lay now buried, concealed.

A hundred days,
Of timeless sadness.

They say time heals,
The say it will get better,
But nothing can better what we feel,
Not even time.

A hundred days,
Without conclusion.

It doesn’t matter why I was there, where the air is sterile and the sheets sting.
it doesn’t matter that I was hooked up to this thing that buzzed and beeped every time my heart leaped, like a man whose faith tells him:
God's hands are big enough to catch an airplane

or a world,

doesn’t matter that I was curled up like a fist protesting death,
or that every breath was either hard labor or hard time,
or that I’m either always too hot or too cold
it doesn’t matter because my hospital roommate wears star wars pajamas,
and he’s nine years old

His name is Louis

and I don’t have to ask what he’s got, the bald head with the skin and bones frame speaks volumes. The Gameboy and feather pillow booms like, they’re trying to make him feel at home ‘cuase he’s gonna be here a while

I manage a smile the first time I see him and it feels like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
so I hold my breath
cause I’m thinking any minute now he’s gonna call me on it
I hold my breath
cuase I’m scared of a fifty seven pound boy hooked to a machine, becuase he’s been watching me, and maybe I’ve got him pegged all wrong, like

maybe he’s bionic or some ****.
so I look away.

like I just made eye contact with a gang member who’s got a rap sheet the length of a lecture on dumb mistakes politicians have made. I look away like he’s gonna give me my life back he minute I’ve got something to trade, I **** near pull out my pack and say


Cigarette?

but my fear subsides in the moment I realize Louis is all about show and tell. he’s got everything from a shot gun shell to a crows foot and he can put them all in context like:

See, this is from a shooting range and

see, this is from a weird girl

I watch his hands curl around a cuff link and a tie tack and realize that every nick knack is a treasure and every treasure’s got a story and every time I think I can’t handle more he hits me with another story. says:

See, this is from my father. see, this is from my brother. see, this is from that weird girl. see this is from my mother. it took me two days to figure out that

that weird girl, is his sister.

took him about two hours today after she left for him to figure out he missed her.

they visit every day and stay well passed visiting hours. because for them that term doesn’t apply. but when they do leave Louis and I are left alone and he says the worst part about being sick is you get all the free ice cream you ask for. and he says the worst part about that is realizing that there’s

nothing more they can do for you. he says:

Ice Cream can’t make every thing ok.

and there’s no easy way of asking and I already know what he’s gonna say, but maybe he just needs to say it so I ask him any way. Are you scared? Louis doesn’t even lower his voice when he says

**** yeah.


I listen to a nine year old boy say the word ****, like he was a thirty year old man with a nose bleed being lowered into a shark tank, he’s got a right to it and if it takes this kid a curse word to help him get through it, I want to teach him to swear like the devil was sitting there taking notes with a pen and a pad but before I can forget that Louis is nine years old he says:

please don’t tell my dad.

he asks me if I believe in angels,

and before I realize I don’t have the heart to tell him, I tell him Not lately, and I just lay there waiting for him to hate me. but he doesn’t know how to, so he never does.

Louis loves like a man who lived in a time before god gave religion to men and left it to them to figure out what hate was.

He never greets me with silence. only smiles. and a patience I’ve never seen in someone who knows they’re dying. and I’m trying so hard not to remind him, I’ll be out of here in a couple of days, smoking cigarettes and taking my life for granted. and he’ll still be planted in this bed like a flower that refuses to grow, I’ve been with him for five days and all I really know is Louis loves to pull feathers out of his pillow, and watch them float to the ground, almost as if he was the philosopher inside of the scientist ready to say that its gravity that’s been getting us down. but the truth is

there’s not enough miracles to go around kid,

and there’s too many people petitioning god for the winning lotto ticket. and for every answered prayer there’s a cricket with arthritis, and the only reason we can’t find answers is the search party didn’t invite us, and Louis right now the crickets have arthritis

so there is no music.

no symphony of nature swelling to crescendos, as if we bent halo’s into melodies that could keep rhythm with the way our hearts beat.
so we must meet silence with the same level of noise that the parents of dying nine year old boys make when they take liberties in talking with heaven. we must shout until we shatter in our own vibrations then let our lives

echo, and grow
echo, and grow
echo, and grow

Grow distant.


grow distant enough to know that as far as our efforts go we don’t always get a reply. but I swear to whatever god I can find in the time I have left I’m gonna remember you kid. gonna tell your story as often as every story you told me, and every time I tell it I’ll say see,

there’s bravery in this world

there’s 6.5 billion people curled up like fists protesting death, but every breath we take has to be given back, a nine year old boy taught me that.

so hold your breath. the same way you’d hold a pen when writing thank you letters on your skin to every tree that gave you that breath to hold.
then let it go. as if you understand something about getting old and having to give back
let it go like a laugh attack in the middle of really good ***

the black eye will be worth it.

because what is your night worth without a story to tell, and why wield a word like worth if you’ve got nothing to sell. people drop pennies down a wishing well as if the cost of a desire is equal to that of a thought. but if you’ve got expectations expect others have bought your exact same dream for the price of the hard work, hang in, hold on mentality, like I accept any challenge so challenge me
like

I’ve brought a knife to this gun fight, but other night I mugged a mountain so bring that **** I’ve had practice.

Louis and I cracked this world wide open and found the prize inside because we never lied to ourselves, never told ourselves it would be easy or undemanding.
so we sing in our own vibration and dare angels to eavesdrop and stop midflight to pluck feathers from their wings and write demands on gods hands

take the time to catch you

so that even if god doesn’t, it wasn’t because we didn’t try.

I don’t often believe in angels, but on the day I left Louis pulled a feather from his pillow and said this is for you,

I half expected him to say

See, this is the first one I grew.

-Shane Koyczan

Useless Money

I often get petitioning letters so many people trying
to find a place to live and only receive a bitter refusal
and see their children die of thirst and hunger.
I wish to help them, but no money in the world is
enough to stop this flood of humanity seeking a haven
flotsam, the wreck of the unfortunate and we can do
nothing but look another way.

Overwhelmed by the misery I can do little about, but
the woman from Myanmar who won a medal for her
tenacity, choose not to speak. The friendly Buddhists
are killing Muslims in their midst, they have become
refugees; the woman from Myanmar is voiceless.
She, the upper-class daughter of a Burmese general
Who aristocratic behaviour impressed us deeply,
But I ask why she is staying silent now.

He did not go far. How could he;
you were his everything.......

You love the concept of Parallel worlds..
his is now intangible--
no skin-clad temple to hold him down  
within the misgivings
and falleness,  that entails
all things fleshbound--
his illustrious spirit,  now encased  within
the utter boundlessness  of his
newly-dedicated housing of Prismatic Light.
This is now the new temple that contains
his eternal spirit..   and it is from
that impeccably-beautiful place,
that he now offers hope  
and petition without end..  on your behalf.
Face to Face, now..  his once,
deeply-aching spirit,  now finds
the perpetual Peace..  through true Resolve,
as he finds his neverending Encouragements,
now heading your way,  on the Wings of
what is now, no less than that of Unlimited Possibility--
    Raining down on to you..
    Reigning now in the Heavenlies,  

    no longer  diluted and misdirected
    by human agenda

And here you sit, beautiful girl--  Not seeing or feeling..
because you are still subject to the same  auspices
of falleness that eventually found its Unholy fruition
within his utter demise.  No longer subject to it all,
he is asking you to rise above it, also..
the prayers of a newly-recognized Saint--  petitioning
directly in to Love's very Ache..   asking
that the horror-built walls,   embedded
into your war-torn flesh  would come down,
no longer so devastatingly-thwarting  Love's deep
desire  to finally have the chance to  find
its beautiful  way into you..
Yet your out of control self-hatred  is hurting him--
almost as much as it is truly  hurting you.
The last thing your guilt-ridden spirit wants to  do
is cause him any more pain.  Feel his loving presence..
and you will also then begin to feel his deeply-Loving petition.
It is perfect.. as are you--  

    Once  you become separated
    from your hook-embedded, flesh.
He is There..
helping you to become able to have access to it,
   here.

That is where he is at.. that is what he is doing.
The Grace that he now so deeply embraces on your behalf,  will
slowly begin to buy you the internal freedom  that is necessary
to begin to become able to feel it all.  Throughout the years,
you have learned how to begin to believe.  If not,
you would have already blocked me again by now.
He is within the Realms of Magic, now.   You love Magic.
Feel him there.. as he truly now is..  and you will  begin
to learn,  through feel-- the things  in you
(that you so adamantly hold on to),
that are still hurting him.  Forgiveness..
from his Mercy Seat towards you.. is perpetual, and without end,
because he knows that you do not as of yet,  fully understand.

One day, you will.. and it will become to him, his greatest Joy.
It is not over. It is never over.. as long as that gorgeous,
war-torn heart still has a pulse in it.
Make sure that it will,  until you can feel..
and the Morning Sun will truly rise within you..  fully anew.  
Fully. Completely. Perpetually.
You will become the very glow  
that he already right now, sees in you.
You Love me just as much as you hate me.
Love's reason is here-- right here in these words.  You know
that it is all true. His spirit was far too beautiful  for the
pain-infused fleshtemple that previously contained it..
while he was here.  He left it for a better one..
one that is completely and fully, Perfect.

You can feel him far more often than your pain-wracked
heart and spirit will allow you to currently admit.
Perspective is everything, beautiful girl.
You love me for the glorious perspective that I am  able
to bring to you.
That is the only way that I want to be loved.
You  have been through enough.  
Lets get you two back together, through your  growing
ability to become able to see him..
and feel him...  as he is--
not as your obscure.. self-contempt, scarred view,
now only shadow-sees  him.  

You have work to do, beauty.
You are his exceedingly, Worthy Beloved.
There is so much,   so unfairly-attached to you..
that keeps you feeling  as if you are forever unworthy.

     He is 24/7 helping you.

That is what he does now..
and I can very much see why <3

Church bells ring of voices silenced
a darkened Moon is hanging low
crickets stop to hear the empty
as loving waters overflow

As angels call in voices singing
notify my heart goodbye
as deafened ears are opened up
no more tears are left to cry

Dying leaves, a crimson carpet
indigo ink at levied banks
waters flood my aching heartbeat
raising hands to you in thanks

Cloaking eyes, I'm in the shadows
petitioning  you another dance
whispering the coming reaper
if only I could have a chance

Softly come draped in darkness
ebony casts a ghostly glow
lovely bones in alabaster
putting on a secret show

Taking off the heavy waiting
holding down my paper heart
a poets voice cannot be silenced
by ticking hands you pushed apart

Silver tears they fall in quiet
in rivers taken right or wrong
releasing me & painful weighting
and sing me as I come along

Violins they speak so mellow
calling me as I go home
morning comes a glowing ember
left for you an Earthly loam

As the leaves outside are falling
and thickened air bids me farewell
whispering of my departure
& secrets I may never tell
although in this...
you mustn't dwell

Waving you off
in slow motion
blinking lashes bid adieu
darkened cloakroom,
veiling... hiding
memories of loving you

the only love
I  really wanted
the one I never... really knew.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

I woke up with a deep longing
to nourish the seed of my dreams.
A near life experience.
A vision of love
just beyond the horizon.
I reached for the stars
and burned in the sun.
I drank from the ether.
Showered in darkness.
The tide of emptiness receded,
washing clean the shores of my soul.
I harvested passion
and prayed with the meek.
I sang for you.
Cried for you.
Gifted my heart
in a box made of spirit.
I sacrificed beauty
to send you my kiss.
I cried to the heavens in silence.
I wailed to know you.
Begging forgiveness,
petitioning God.
"Do not let the sands of time
slip through my fingers."
"Do not let this yearning
pass to the fray".
My heart now beats into
a void of eternity.
My silence completes me.
We are now one.

I have no protest signs or support groups.
No one is petitioning for me in Congress,
Or campaigning for my equality in the hallways of my high school.
No one throws bible verses at me,
Or pushes me into lockers.
For the most part, no slurs are slung at me
No repent demanded.
But I face the same as every minority.
I am the Quiet Repressed
Lack of notariety only adds to my persecution,
I have no sisters in suffering to hold me up.
The insults called me
Are called by me.
Whispered in my mind when the fear flickers in someone’s eyes.
Freak. Unnatural. Too much.
I cannot hold a protest sign.
I cannot demand my rights from the people I’ve terrorized.
I cannot ask to be respected.
Do not think of me.
I do not live in you.
Deny my existence, suppress my need for understanding.
I am the silent presence, smothering all I touch.
And so, chaotic, I can touch nothing.
Nothing.
(Cassandra- “she who is ignored”)

’Ego sum hic.’

Calling to the dawn,
Baying at the moon,
Petitioning the horizon,
Summoning the faithful;

The yearning indefinite,
In pursuit of an enduring affirmative;
An echo searching for its source
In the boundless beyond.

’Ibi tu es, tu es, tu es, tu es...‘

Days go by petitioning
Laptop becomes recognition
Silence brings life in focus
Dreams stranded for discovery
Time moves in to look forward
The soul reflects hunger pains
Moments see a bigger picture
What must be done to display

I have died a million deaths
Became a haven of more graves than I dared to live
Became a widow of my own soul
Covered myself with the cloak of death mourning the glory of loss upon us
Dressed myself in more insults with a dash of curses than your devotion
As I dangled from the roof of your mercy petitioning for your worthy heart
Became an ambassador of your threats to disappear than your affection
But again and again I return to you
In hope that one day
you might believe that I am not what you are used to

Who needs enemies when denial is your best friend?

When you find every excuse to escape the truth once again.

I was desperate for answers

How could this be?
This wasn’t us.

This wasn’t the plan.

What am I missing?

How can I fix this?

Please help me understand.

I became the master of avoidance.

My punishment, long suffering, forever chasing the wind…

We’re told patience is the key.

Head-strong is a virtue.

But then comes ‘love’ and to hell with all the rules.

Feelings whisper to our souls in tones impossible to ignore… follow me, take my hand.

Don’t let go.

If all else fails we can always try again.  

And so we did.

We tried again.

AND again.  

And AGAIN….

Are we REALLY doing this AGAIN?!

And I’ve had this conversation with myself a million times replayed.

Do I love you?

I mean I do

Wait...

See the truth is, whether I still do or don’t the only question I’ve needed to ask myself all along has been this:

Do YOU love me like I have loved you?

Because it seems that sometimes our mind’s eye feeds us these beautiful lies

like this feels like love…

when it’s anything but.

And we forget

We forget to ask the right questions

Senses irrelevant.

We run blind

Face first into the night

Idolizing these pretty pictures we’ve imagined…

our vision is clouded with what ifs and the magic of ‘possibility’.

We make our make-believe our fake reality.

Operating on feelings completely void of sight…

Like the place where I left the benefit of my doubt, hopelessly settled into the creases of your filthy hands

The rest of your dirt hidden from all the world to see

None of this was ever what it seemed.

Like a sickness this disease of “us” infiltrated every aspect of my being.

You broke away at the foundation of all that I had ever believed…

In my desperation I sought counsel

I fasted and I prayed

Searching every last corner of my heart I laid my offerings upon the alter and let my tears fall…

Petitioning the heavens to intervene.

Tears falling down the soft rounds of my face, burning and purifying my skin all at once each drop like the devil’s hand, a steady knock upon the door of my shattered heart

tempting me to look back...

I turned the dead-bolt, finally destroying your key.

And with my weary soul and this half empty cup I began to pour every last ounce of myself into healing… into all that I am and everything you hate but were so desperate to keep.

With each fragment of the shameful mess you left behind I assemble a new fortress.

Piece by beautiful piece.

Maybe its time to stop petitioning the sky for answers, maybe its time to stop asking god for miracles and stop blaming the devil for our own wicked deeds.  Maybe its time we pull the love freely flowing in the air around us into our lungs and share it with one another.  Breath kindness and compassion to those in need, to feed the hungery, to protect the children living without homes, to share all that we have no matter how little it may be.  Maybe its time to stop imagining a better world and start building a better world.  Maybe its time we value the blood coursing through the hearts of our daughters and sons more than the number of zeros on our paychecks.  Maybe its time to give our time and attention to the things that need our time and attention.  Maybe its time for us to craft miracles through hands holding the hammer and nails and not praying to the hands with nails through them.  Maybe its time to have faith in ourselves.  Maybe its time to stop placing the label of sin on our children before they even take their first breath.  Maybe its time to learn how to love ourselves without shame.  Maybe its time to see the sky as blue or cloudy or grey or black and not the color of our salvation.  Maybe its time we save ourselves.  Maybe its time to spread love instead of teaching hate.   Maybe its time to put the old dogs of war down and stop willingly sacrificing our children to the machine of greed and the gears of death.  Maybe its time to stop pretending peace keepers are the same thing as peace makers.  Maybe its time to realize that bombs and bullets and fear are not useful ways of achieving word harmony.  Maybe its time to stop praying for better and to start doing better.  Maybe we can start today because maybe tomorrow will be to late...

Evil isn't hiding under your beds or in your closets, it's not lurking around the corner or down some dark alley.  It's not in the blade or the handle of a knife, it's not in the bullet or the gun or the bomb or the boom.  Evil only lives and breeds in the heart of  men and it is kept alive and well generation after generation, handed down to our sons and daughters as they are taught greed and fear and lust and hate.
So next time bullets go flying across the school yard or bombs fall from the sky and find hospitals instead of their "targets" or a child is beaten or murdered or ***** by its father or preacher or mother or sister or teacher or brother or friend... and you wonder what kind of monster, what evil would allow?
Look in the mirror, stare into the darkness in the pupils of your reflection and listen to the soundless echo of the blackness you find there.  Do not blink, do not turn away, let your eyes and mind adjust to the horror staring back at you... The evil infesting and rotting away at and in your own heart.  It's been living and thriving in the silent bubble you've built around your days and nights.  All the years you quitely ignored your hearts cries for help as evil made itself at home.
Every time evil made the front page news, instead of fighting back, you decided to just turn the volume down.  Knowing it was there and knowing it was wrong...  Were you hoping it would go away while feeding it your doubts and fears and hate?  Did you think that you could make it fat and satisfied and it would then find somewhere new to roam?
Don't look for the devil to blame or the absence of prayer in the classroom or the sky you claim to be empty of god... Stop petitioning deities to save you from the evils of the world when those evils are your own monsters walking and dancing and playing in the blood of your own heart.

ground swell
and furniture at odds
storage collage
the breathing flutter
shutter-ring
lists

head blood flush
rush until taunt
and breathing...
                     an ail

air
off of still
warmth
pudding the chamber
tow my breathing
as ought

a gentle petitioning
takes effect

my senses are hooked back up
and i observe i am sat awkward
; floor and wall
untightening into feeling

I'm so antivax maskless, I'm petitioning the courts to remove my polio and smallpox, diphtheria and whooping cough, and measles Vax from my *** immediately.

I want to be free of serums, free
to enjoy paralysis, coughs and fevers like God made me.

****  my glasses are fogged up.
Wait a minute.

Freedom is an ignominious thing

Yet many people have different perspectives on what they believe about the afterlife...yet none of those fancy stories of anyone coming back from the World of the Dead add up to par. I had a dream of a place that had 9 different circles and a massive entrance. The door was decorated with a gothic like Artistic depiction of millions of souls falling into a hellish pit engulfed in flames sulfur and brimstone. As I stood there perplexed the Massive door began to open and dust and a horribly uncomfortable amount of hot air cold chills and unimaginable terror set upon my very soul...a voice coming from deep within that hellish place called my name for help...petitioning for me to travel to the 5th Circle of what they call Infernus and retrieve a little Marmol Angel statue from a Half human Half Demon Man named Arxeus Demus III. As I got a little closer there stood a Skeleton King in front of me and said to me ..."Do you wish to proceed to the Underworld to go retrieve the items your friend wants to give you for safekeeping?"
Then I told him I am retrieving this from Infernus because I am responding to a friend in distress. There I entered the Pit's entrance and from there I made my way to the fifth circle and found Arxeus talking to a Succubus however I was interrupted by a Legion of Lost Souls trying to grab at me due to the fact that I was Alive and from the world of the living. I fought off the corruption best as I could and finally able to talk to Arxeus and express my concern to him He gave me the Marmol Statue of the Angel with a Letter ... As I made my way back to the entrance I realized that I had to travel thru a different route due to the fact that the Door was sealed shut and I was trapped inside this hellish place alone.
I realized that the only way to transverse thru this Infernal dominion where Sanctioned Fallen Angels resided was to send a prayer to the Holy Father in heaven and to ask of his holiness to guard me from evil and temptations that I may run across in this place. There after a long dialogue with my inner spirit and requesting the zeal of protection I was sent a powerful Arch Angel known as Nathaniel Lux Dominus...along with his guidance and protection from the perils that awaited within by crossing each circle things became complicated but I never lost faith in my Lord and his Hosts. At last I made it to the Ninth Circle and there I found a portal that allowed me to open for a short period of time a portal that sent me back to the World of the Living. Finally I made it out back to the world of the living and there I looked at the Marmol Angel Statue and opened the letter I immediately recognized the hand writing of my beloved friend and it gave me clear instructions on how to absolve the past sins that where not forgiven and allowed her to  transverse thru the sands of time and be redeemed in Heaven. I witnessed her soul finally be set to rest and be sent back to Paradise. At this I was completely set into a memorable accommodation for helping her bind soul be released back to God himself. In that moment I was filled with joy and deep happiness to be able to make myself useful to someone else. In the end everything was finally made right by the Spirit Of Truth Love & Justice. May she rest in peace may her soul be at the bossom of our Creator's Throne and be forever glorified for being who she was is and will always be a wonderful good hearted human being who was taken from us to join God's people in the Heavenly Realms.

                                                               R.I.P.         Bobby Fae Campbell

Has love taken a back seat
To je ne sais quoi
How shall I say this?
How I say this
My poem of economy
Somewhat gossipy
Always honesty
Let it be twisted
Or sordid
Perplexing complexing
Say ultra-expressing
Let it be newly and lonely
Never a phony
Let it have rhythm and rhyme
And turn on a dime
Let it live a life
That’s never been lived before
Never been thrown across the dance floor
Never met a matador
Never wanted to
The bull an unwitting ambassador
What revelation, new sensation
Unique oration
Bow down imagination
This poem, this poem
Can it stand alone
Proud among giants
That cut to the bone
Better-known
With wit and gritstone
Birthing a milestone
Scripting a headstone
Will it leave a legacy?
For posterity
Or passions’ peculiarity
Who knows,

I have loved
So, have many other
If love has lost its’ meaning
No lovely line matters
Petitioning God on hands and knees
Just chatter
What revelatory point of view
Are you
If love has lost its meaning
No pretty poem will do.

not in the heart again
for chrissakes it's like Swiss cheese already
he was off his medication as usual
far too much work for a dead end
saw his only ally in the embalmers needle
left his innards spilled in a compost bucket
several dueling scars graced his genitals
history in its entirety mocked his comprehension
had the nation in tears and then nauseous
if our perceptions already lie why shouldn't we
with that as a pathway to relaxation I had to laugh
even after a thousand years of AI research
the electronic government was helpless
resembling nothing so much as a delusion factory
alternatives to logic 101 with Prof. Spike
my latest version Microsoft forehead radiator
absolutely charmingly couldn't get any focus
but the Royal Society of Blind Philosophers
helped me with my little problem
because our endorphin soup is a bit thin
the quicksilver cooks ate first and fell asleep
having thrown their brains into the broth
during the air raid sirens of postmodernity
in the field kitchen of the gods
can there ever be too little truth
for an army of blood diamond wholesalers
now a bit more about paraelectrics
if only I were at liberty to discuss it
yes imprecision can carry signal
but the place is crawling with dilettantes
justifiably taken for a pack of fools
glibly wearing their secret **** plugs
it's a guessing game as you can see
petitioning for a visual diagram idiom
a devilish seesaw but let us restart
then the sun went down
and never came up again
as he stepped into the stone circle
chanting evidence is preferable
to the leaning moonlit tombstones
signal drifting drifting drifting
to all minds great and small
and smaller and smaller
the Internet is the yearned for Messiah
there it's done and out and not to be unseen
you wrestle with it while I proceed
dashing among startled commuters
their dictatorship of x-ray leeches
tossed him out of several monasteries
never met his production quotas
in a kaleidoscope of normalcy
howdy do nail in my shoe

From "Pageant of Naked Mischief" available on Amazon

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  A Synod on Synodality -
                                   What does that mean?


                    This Synod is intended as a Synodal Process. The aim of
                    this synodal process is not to provide a temporary or
                    one-time experience of synodality, but rather to provide
                    an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern
                    together how to move forward on the path towards
                    being a more synodal Church in the long-term.

                -https://www.synod.va/en/the-synod-on-synodality/what-
                 is-the-synod-about.htm


And let the people say: Huh?

Prelates and prince-prelates and princesses
Whose names are prefaced with gilded adjectives
Attend their meetings and cloud the ecclesiastical air
With catalogues of obscure polysyllables

But somewhere – somewhere in a little parish
Fading into a forest far from the highways
Or in an underfunded religious house
Along some decaying steel town’s crumbling streets
Poor brothers and sisters catch the morning bus
To nursing homes and migrant shelters and jails
To serve the drunks, the druggies, the ne’er-do-wells
The abandoned and lonely children of God

Because everywhere – the faithless and the faithful
Tangle with Satan in physical and emotional pain
In the ******, soul-shrieking hells of war
In petitioning faceless functionaries
For even a little help, a doctor’s appointment
A job, a meal, a bit of dignity
In the shadow of bishops flying first-class
And taking selfies in their playbox dressups

Prelates and prince-prelates and princesses
Exchange lecture notes and witty bon mots -
An outcast bypassed on the pavement dies
A knotted rosary tangled in her aged hands

Perhaps her last words were of synodality

The South African,
And even at large the continental economy,
Is rough on bankers and economists alike,
It has become a hub for capitalist business,
Corrupt politicians sharing the spoils,
Coffers not safe
Left-overs given to criminals
And the crumbs for the citizens
Each party in cylo even in cylos
Even race has lost the race to poverty
The runner-up being unemployment
Local investment is not even in the race
People have lost their ability to govern their patience
Essentially the economy is ungovernable by policies
It has become artificially influenced by patterns and trends,
By globalisation
With the only investment being foreign
Whilst local resources and labour
Are being exploited
Even the world bank is alarmed by the 80/20 wealth proportionality ratio
Its all about economies of scale ,
Margins and bottomlines
Sometimes even tax is not profiting
Debt has captured even the debt-collectors,
And tax-practioners alike
Making it difficult even to debit creditors
Black-economic-empowerment struggling to break-even,
Making it a loss trajectory
Entertainment industry booming whilst tourism is strough
No recovery from fraud
Crime at its peak
The economy is reflecting its health status that there is no adequate intensive care,
And no unity,
Even in classes by educational wealth
Imports does not produce exports
Not to mention the ports-system
Cant even afford to pay attention to service delivery
Subsidy housing erected everyday,
And yet there is no adequate infrastructure
It is a tendering system
Informal industry petitioning to be formalised
Whilst formal sector is behaving informally
The supreme housing of policy we knew as the parliament has become
A magic circus
The show sold to the highest bidder
Whilst the reserve bank has a weak bladder
So many loopholes in the system,  
In constitution the economy has no scapegoat,
The agricultural industry is not alive,
Development is banked
When we do a post-honourous dissection,
We see natural disasters instead of manmade causes