Alright now, right brain,
you're being insane.
                                                                  No, left brain! I'm just being alive.
                                                               You should try it---you might like it.

I worked hard to give him everything he cared about.
You were worried about the things that he was scared about.
I'm calm and collected when you act wild.
I am the adult, you are the child.

                                                     You think you're the right one every time!
                 You think you know everything, but you don't know anything
                                                                                                                     at all.
                                               Half of his problems were s'posed to be mine!
                                                                              But you wanted everything.
                                            I hope that you're happy--- 'cause he's sure not.

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

even a pencil has fear to
do the posed body luckily made
a pen is dreadfully afraid
of her of this of the smile’s two
eyes….too, since the world’s but
a piece of eminent fragility.
Well and when—Does susceptibility
imply perspicuity,or?
                          shut
up.
        Seeing
                  seeing her is not
to something or to nothing as much as
being by her seen, which has got
nothing on something as i think

,did you ever hear a jazz
Band?

        or unnoise men don’t make soup who drink.

[Intro]
Ah, it's a plane, it's a bird, it's a zombie, hahaha

[Verse 1: Meech]
The highest high, I'm Ayatollah
Rubber on my ****, allergic to baby strollers
Blue dream, that amazing odor
Ant is a pyrex, I'm the coke and the baking soda
Juice be the blue flame that create the whole thing
Rap game, crack game, apparently the same thing
If this was eighty-something I'd be in shell toes
Gucci link fat rings ashy *** elbows
Saving every penny trying to get up out this hell hole
For my super-thugs, hustling up off the jail phone
Life's a battle fool you better have your weapon drawn
How could I be scared of death, *****, I'm already gone
Money on my mind, your ***** on my zipper
Breaking up pound after pound, THC on every finger
You gon' need a boost from God to get as high as me *****
Excuse me, I meant to say as high as we *****

[Bridge]
Flatbush Zombie, A$AP Mobbin'
Hit a killswitch and put an end to any problem

[Verse 2: Juice]
Hash and ****, hash in a ****
Got **** by the ton, got blow by the load
If you wanna get throwed, A$AP Ant got the po-tion
Three fly *** ******* with we
Double-cupped them double D's
Hi-high *****, hi-high living
Three young *** ****** running ****, no slipping
Gotta know the game, gotta know the lane
Gotta know the pain, no handouts, ain't **** easy
Dark shades, on my Eazy-E, got ******* on my mini-me
And you ****** in the rap game can't relate
I'm real pimping, no fornicating
**** what you heard, I'm goin' ape
Smokin Grape Ape, **** your mixtape
That's a **** plate, Zombie style
A$AP, never mind these clowns
I love brain, zombie style, never mind these clouds

[Interlude: A$AP Ant]
Juice pass me the ****, Meech where the acid at?
A$AP Ant in this *****, uh

[Verse 3: A$AP Ant]
I'm a demon triple beaming, painting pictures
****** Mona Lisa, blood sheets, creeping for the *******
With the collar danny's, killing ******* sniffing *******
***** Wonka candy *****, three ******, one *****, one clip
One brain dead girl off your mind leave your brains on your moms
Razor blades dipped in bleach, tear your skin to pieces
Dump the body in Tennessee, highway getaway OJ bronco
Cap it baby drive 'em off the bridge, look into my eyes, vivid tears
I see fear, y'all some ******' queers
Grow a ******' pair, I'm 'posed to be here
'posed to be dead, overdosed on shrooms
Let's cruise, drive by on site
Ride like a bike, for my zombie homies **** tonight

[Bridge]

[Verse 4: A$AP Rocky]
A$AP ****** we aliens, cold-blooded *****, reptilian
Acid, acid, ambiens, only **** a ***** if she lesbian
Trill ****** run the city, got the key on lock
Juice got the juice, ***** Meech gon' pop
Addie in the Caddy with the heat on ****
When a Mac go brrra cause the beef don't stop, *****
My name is, that pretty *******
From the land of the lost of the gully and the gutta
See the Preds made a toast for the honey and the butter
Only die for two things, that's my money and my mother, *******!
****** know my name, did I stutter?
****** know me, man I keep it one hunna
I'm a stunna, Hood by Air for the summer
Toast to the God and it cost nine hunna
So-so ru-run up if you wanna
Mac in the backpack, right by the Macbook
And I rep that Harlem
And my Zombie ****** straight out of Flatbush

standing at the top
bleary-eyed and nauseated
holding on to stomachs,
glumly watching rain splatter the windshield.
dawn was breaking .
it was freezing and gray;
There was no sunrise.
beaten by fierce wind gusts,
Were we going to ride
that winding wet road?
the most tricky parts
feeling like an idiot
I was up all night,
somber meditation on mortality
we approached the summit,
passing through the gates
how am I going to know my limits?
The volcano had conquered me
how have I lived this long?
watch the sunset.
we made it to the top
passing through lush forests
up the arid moon-like summit,
I descended into the crater,
a rocky path of rugged lava.
this otherworldly place
black, orange, red and silver
Vents emitted plumes
the air is crystalline and still.
I heard no sounds
I posed for pictures
in the background Romeo was waiting.
We watched the sunset
It was sublime

Scarcely a street, too few houses
To merit the title; just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the short hill, eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer
This last outpost of time past.

So little happens; the black dog
Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history.  Yet the girl who crosses
From door to door moves to a scale
Beyond the bland day's two dimensions.

Stay, then, village, for round you spins
On a slow axis a world as vast
And meaningful as any posed
By great Plato's solitary mind.

Hi;

This is not a poem.

But given the infernal catastrophe that has befallen, I just think it is time for you Americans to listen to us people living 'out there'.

Here are my thoghts, that I submit to you with respect;


HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE: A HISTORIC MOMENT FOR AMERICA TO CHANGE ITS MISSION

Ayad Gharbawi

January 19, 2010 – Damascus, Syria


The recent Haitian earthquake is unusual in that it has destroyed the entire meagre ‘infrastructure’ of a so-called nation.
In fact, this 2010 earthquake succeeded in showing the world that the so-called ‘country’ of Haiti is nothing more than another piece of estate/land/property for a select, few oligarchs.
Anyway, the US response to this ecological/environmental holocaust that has befallen upon Haiti has been unprecedented.
America, under President Barack Hussein Obama, has behaved impeccably in Haiti.
The brilliance in Obama’s aid for Haiti is successful precisely because he has avoided previous attempts by the US to help on the basis of ‘humanitarian’ grounds, when those grounds happened to also include conflicts raging within them.
Obama avoided the mistake of getting America involved in a humanitarian crises that existed within a civil war – like what happened in Lebanon (1982-83), Somalia (1991-3), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999).
I write this article because I, as an outsider, wish ardently, to speak to you Americans.
Today, you Americans have the choice: either to follow the militaristic, expansionist policies of the US President, Theodore Roosevelt, or you may follow the path of the first morally-guided President of the US - Woodrow Wilson.
I urge you Americans to leave all countries where there are civil wars – such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and so on.
Let these countries do whatever their people wish to do against each other.
Instead, allow your great arsenal of democracy to help and intervene on humanitarian missions – in countries wherein there are no civil wars – such as you have been doing so magnificently in Haiti.
Use your power, your wealth, your US Army, Air Force, and Navy to help humans who need the helping hand of succour.
I tell you, that you Americans, once you adopt this peaceful, moral foreign; policy, you shall see that your enemies will fade.
Taleban have told you repeatedly, and have repeatedly contacted to you, telling you that they are engaged in an Afghani civil war. So why do you intrude?
Al Qaeda have told you repeatedly if you leave the Middle East, then they have no quarrel with you.
Why can you Americans not accept or understand that so long as you do not invade, occupy or create military bases in foreign lands, no one, and no organization and no party and no country will see you as an enemy?
This is a moment for you Americans do finally break off from the Theodore Roosevelt Principle (TRP) which is to attack, ****, slaughter and occupy any country you think is ‘worth it’.
And, at the same time, it is also a moment in history, when you can fully embrace the Woodrow Wilson Principle (WWP) of a foreign policy that is based on morality.
What you have done and what you are doing in Haiti is a pure act of WWP.
I believe the entire Third World applauds you and loves you for what your men and women are doing for the innocent victims of Haiti.
But, then, when other men and women, scream and shriek, saying: “Look at what these Americans are doing! They ****, butcher and ****** Afghans in order to support corrupt, drug dealing gangsters such as Hamid Karzai who, themselves, cannot control and, in any case, are not interested in ‘controlling’ their own country! So what else can you think of America’s real intentions?”
And what a good emotion-fuelled question, indeed.
What are you Americans doing fighting, losing American and Afghani blood in order to basically prop up and support criminal regimes such as the Karzai regime, whose only raison d’etre is to make profits through their various ‘business’ activities?
The more you Americans fight what are perceived as unjust, colonialist wars, the more you will create terrorists. It is a never ending cycle!
I argue and I passionately believe, that you Americans can do this. If only you US statesmen and stateswomen finally decide to adopt the beautiful, clean mantle of morality in your foreign policy.
Obviously, I do not have enough space to express my ideas and reasons. So, let me be clear: I am not advocating a slavish enactment of Wilsonian principles.
For, as an example, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US had to make a military move, because no country can allow a sick dictator to control so much of the world’s oil. There are clear instances when aggression abroad can seriously threaten US interests. But, in truth, the vast majority of the wars you Americans entered, were unnecessary: you did not need to go beyond the Yalu in 1950 in Korea; you did not need to enter the North-South Vietnamese Civil War.
Take Kosovo: yes massacres were committed on all sides. But you did not need to bomb Serbia. First and foremost, that should and must have been a problem for European powers to solve. Secondly, Kosovo was never vital for US interests. And the fact is, Kosovo could never be a so-called ‘state’. Today, it is nothing more than a geographical area run by warlords, drug dealers and other gangsters who each carve out their own territory. Was that piece of gangster-run land worthy of killing Serbians? No!
Take North Korea: let Russian, South Korea and Japan deal with that abnormal so-called state. Why do you spend money on your troops and camps there? It is not in your interests and yes, North Korea does not threaten you Americans!
The same goes for Iraq in 2003 – you did not need to invade that country for the simple reason that Baghdad posed no threat to its neighbours, and certainly no threat to Europe or to the US.  Again, you should have let the Iraqis themselves solve whatever problems they have on their fragmented plate.
You must see and feel that US lives are not expendable for pointless and futile foreign adventures.
America should help those who have suffered environmental catastrophes and who are in a war-free zone.
America should help stable, developing nations where accountability starts from Washington and right back in – Washington.
And yes, of course, America should only use its military might if it is directly threatened by any person, nation or organization.
And to reduce this hatred that has spawned against you: I tell you, a voice from a wilderness, one mute krill from amongst billions yearning for exactly what I yearn for, I tell you: remove your military bases from Europe, Japan, South America, the Gulf, and anywhere else. These military bases are seen by people as ‘evidence’ of occupation. You do not need to keep these costly outposts. Remove them. Reduce your military presence that, in any way, has no effect, except to increase fanaticism and anger amongst your people. This is especially so in the Gulf, where your presence angers the people – leave those countries and yes, you will then reduce your costs, which is obviously beneficial to you Americans.
Instead of military compounds and bases, why not enthusiastically create consortiums of companies to build American schools, universities, hospitals, housing projects and get involved in building infrastructure projects in nations that have good accountability, so no money is wasted and so can never go, instead, straight to the pockets of the leaders.
Build the world; use your superpower might to create hope in broken nations, and that effort will, in turn, build love and you shall see, your enemies shall decrease and your military costs will decrease and your building projects will bring you greater revenues.
The choice is yours: follow a Wilsonian foreign policy or a Theodore Roosevelt foreign policy.
I hope the Haitian earthquake catastrophe has shed some light on which path US foreign policy should take.

Ayad Gharbawi

Floating above the rifts of apperception I glaze over the gaudy faucets of imagined vector thrusts in hibernation by the lucubration of space-time materialized crystal in the somber beats of fetched farrago of choice slices in delicate hums of hemmed balance rantipole only in ethereal importance but otherwise supersolid above the sprauncy vagrancy of dilettantism. We shout a clarion virtuosity so that the conclamation of neovitalism conjures upon a spell of lapse and regress a motive for further crystallization of epidemiology into harmony with syndicated admonition sleek in design and parceled into renown by feats of completion rather than slugabed gregarious fountains of wasted ingenuity bleeding from the vacuum of an empty hearth in a hospitable dwelling otherwise cleared of imperfection. Right now, I levitate with transcendence with an approximated eidetic memory that is the surgical vibrancy of renewal rather than the chameleons of hidden talents buried by the walls of Jericho sounding tocsins of alarm that the anointed favor of choice destruction is only an encircled rapture of rhapsodies of confluence found in axiomatic truths ribbed with the futtocks of seaworthy but cauponate recidivism into the donnybrooks of apocryphal revelation preceding the whimsical fall of cascading permanence just as gravity so ordained it. We breathe the life of the ethereal numinous spirit of isangelous repute because we navigate the exquisite cobweb of reconciliation to surpass all understanding in peace what would be a miscegenated carcass of war otherwise apart from the incidental apartheid of the drones of causality ignoring the antecedent reality too much to register fathomed streaks of preventive endeavor because of the scars of a scrappy schlep of the rampicks of ecbolic servitude to moth-eaten star-crossed lovers of the mean menagerie of gutless succor renowned only in tepid rejections of harbingers bequeathed in succession but ignored because of the procession of “Billie Jean” politics.

   The citadel aflame with controversy buttresses carnality by witless contaminants of hidebound scaldabancos of ineffable destitution so craven in eisoptrophobia for their hypostasized indolent fatuousness of capitulation that they are but a minor punctuation in the largesse of centuries to favor audacity in candor over the prevarications of catastrophe to dented human pride against humane dictates of theodicy in fatalism that predestination experimented with its own vaulted verve to find permanent solutions engraved in the agrapha of time to solidify the redintegrated truth of God’s divine stewardship above the quisquilous deism of former regnant centuries of blench and blandishment. We revolt at the specter of rot only when the effluvia of disgust elevates the visceral reality above the utilitarianism of recycled prim nuisances of noisome lineage that yet balk because they are bereft of attention but not a vacant talent and therefore should the subsidies of man surpass the ignorance of appearances he will shrug of the demur of the scrimshank and sharpen his scrivello in the service of redemption found through cultivated prowess of gardens beneath where rivers flow above a cubic centurion of embattled visages of the heavens becoming the rampart for the vestigial clarity of Secret Masters to foresee the bypass that heals decadence and rebukes the formalism of puritan endeavor to sweat with exhaustive patience over the gossamer intertesselations of a ripe reality rather than a groveled fragmentary world shattered too much by exigent metanoia to mount the crenellated catchpole of vigilant enmity towards the stew of listlessness found in epigone and farce more than in organic fortunes. We flip the upheaval of society to squander our proportionate degrees of wealth on the necessity created by dire quandary which enamors by interrogations of pulchritude the verisimilitude of participle ivory dalliance of etched canvasses of simultagnosia for the librations of the liberated rings of betrothed liberation despite profound lurches of the mistetches of ignorance presiding dismally over the hulked disdain of glamborge rather than resselenque.

     The winter is a poor porcine glut of ciconine swelters because the prickly obtuse recoil of the delopes of caution find their permeable balance with a sort of photographic photosynthesis that braves the dearth of reprieve for the reprisal of nostalgic deeds found in the docimasy of riveted reflections because the preordination of God is the superlative champion of the witeless grandeval protectorate of infinite concepts guarded from the parvanimity even of the most strident minds squabbling over the braseros and battues of history as though those funereal stains of lachrymose regret outweigh the traditions of vaunted human progress because they are finicky about importunate pleas of subsidiary injustice rather than fulminations of the modern rebuttal to the disclaimers of an uneven history that shepherds the doubts of nihilism into ripe fruition at the expense of very expensive moral rot for the codlings of urbacity and mendaciloquence used to foment that tribalism of totemic justice. We see in Penuel the wrestling match of specters and heroic giants documented on the ageless pages and we notice the ironic twinges of struggle that kneaded the propriety of gentilian privilege that ultimately fostered an insurrection against chosen bravado among those that sear with zeal beyond the yordim afflictions of yobbery because the Jewish heart is stronger than any calamity even if it departs from the reverence of the colporteurs of the integrated syncretism of the attempted monolith that beseeches polyphiloprogenitive growth in mindset rather than in testy abeyance of forbearance because of known scrutinies into the tropology of wilted facts remanded by curious historicity that crumples without disdain when we memorialize the erasure of scepsis by modern standards of thaumaturgy.

    The minauderies of growth are a repositioned tacit allegiance to the untold fanfare and hearsay immunized against the broach of facetious levity to buoy discordant hearts above fumatoriums of relentless ignorance because coherent masterwork can be cobbled without such lapidary toil and toll on sincere affectations of wizened brevity. The seismic precautions for the forefathers of incidental convergences between expectancy and crystallized history are an ironic intortion of priorities because the heralds and tribunes matched the peerless foresight with the gerrymandered figments of apartheid between the imaginary and the real so that the delicate synchrony of events could unfurl a riveting carapace from the shells of protection even in amiable squalor for its impenitent attrition on the volleys of sensible rumor becoming fashioned in covert bedazzled errors in judgment leading to the triumph of the eventual civilization over the futtocks of the burial of the former trekleador of zenkidu belonging to provincial cadasters found so tucked in the hedges that discernment of frikmag would be an indelible scourge on the biognosy of the diagnosed endeavors that elapsed into remediated circumstances that brave the depths of deontological violation for the breadth of apportioned loaves and two swanky fish earning a place among the miracles of transcendent liberation from articles of decree imperious by sardonic disdain becoming nullified by the histrionics of a delicately staged orchestra that cements human achievement.

       We relish the frescades of a ruffled autumnal reminder of flourish above pothers of the screed of admonition swamped by nostalgic backtracks in the séance with ultimatum of design and the impregnated and carnal lusts of a world pitched in darkness with guarded lambent lights fomenting a perjury against tact for the deliverance of freedom in tacit agreement with owleries that every bonanza be tithed in their favor regardless of hibernation of spoilsports or their subsidiary remarks on indelible quills of invented manufactured realities we crave with desperation rather than cower from in requited nescience urging us to depart from affairs and stagnate the loyalty of fealty above the limber of utility mobilized above levities for solemn remarks and rejoinders. Promulgated above the robotic rubble of staffage haywire in wiredrawn contemplative resonance of tremulous subterfuge vestigial but immediate to the yardsticks of reprehensible malarkey, is the barnstorm for erratic dimples sauntered by the saunas of shelter above the chaos of ruined ginnels for the gimcracks of auxiliary duty to service, is the glorification of the sultry intimations of legions of remonstrance in guarded decorum about sunken atrocities lapsed in memorial to the incumbent brunt of sockdolagers of justice returning revenants from the bridewell of historical internment. The symphily of orchestras to cineaste symposiasts of surquedry in impudence beyond the brays of betrayal is the aborning mythos of regimented perceptions of a world that when magnified by minutiae appears starkly contrast to the gapped gubbertushed reality of the average patron of the arts to such an extreme gulf of receptive understanding that the qualia are dovetailed only in the swink of careful kisswonks to certify certitude itself when all the fragments coalesce into subjoined harmony to the substructures of inherent conscientiousness. The miracles at work that are vesicles and vessels for the swage of imprint above the loyalty of the imprinted tribunes of the fluminous is how hidden protrusions can emerge so victorious over popularized glazes on the pastures of a farmed culture itching for timmynoggies of innovation but only finding the etched remarks of pristine imagos of heroism dwindling in motivation to surpass the imaginative leaps accustomed to a newfangled laziness that bedazzles the guzzle of crowds but not the discrimination of the crowded morass of incompletion found in mosaics missing enigmatic philters of intoxicated love for the profound. So to be intermediary as a custodian for artistry we must cozen the wheedled imaginations not of the relic but the archaeologist that discovered the embedded prisms of attentive scrutiny for glinting sunshine inherent in troves of surpassed excellence beyond parochial sympatric blandishment of donnism rather than a resselenque that floats above demeanor to usher the cosseted age of treasure above the glib brocards and florews of past success.

      Immanent to the provisions of God as decreed from a syncretic reconnaissance of the pitiable gulfs that separate boundless divine love from the clavigerous potential for scrappy sympatric affiliation to **** through the barnstorms of internal comestions of conflated priorities we are ourselves prismatic in the indulgence of a tasty life sprinkled with zest rather than tempered with the vengeance of retorted animosity that we knead the pottery of ironclad resistance to a metallic conduit of pruned fulminations of unguided intuition so that the natural accord supersedes the goad of materialism for the sustenance of antiquity beyond its heyday for vital gains against the tauricide of panic and frenzy. The linchpin of all realistic attempts at the sympatric symphily of civilization is a guided remorse through the torment of affliction that sizzles without anteric barbs as it measures through engrenage how to pilot the vehicles of prosperity through the minefields of contingency that invisibly bequeath new hurdles and inestimable obstacles that collude surreptitiously to fulminate measured controversy against the backbites of restrained equipoise created by polities of the macadamized fabric of a welded smithy of a universe that with ubiquity proclaims above the senseless the harvest of conjugal repartee in sensible pride against militant bastions of incidental prejudice for a careen against the flyndresques of danger and the flyndrigs of glaikery alike for a humane spurt of enlightenment to tower peerlessly in supervision of entelechy created by esemplastic unity in apolaustic purpose. We cannot be puritans engaged in a pilgrimage to a palimpsest of priggishness because the daring elements of adventurism are necessary ingredients to catalyze the supply-chain of the innate gluttony of ego-seeking endless balance with a natural sustained biognosy that prizes biocentric harmony above bibliognost scepsis so that the enthused can flock with liberty divorced from libertinism. The ultimatum is a war between hedonism wed with donnism against eumoirety and self-restraint and this battle will be waged on the indolence of a future of cordslave tethers to interrogation of privy conceptualism hamshackled by the gradgrinds into the neat nexility of precise conformity that blacklists the samizdat because the genizah profoundly twists the already jumbled jengadangle and provides a junediggle of procession and ceremony rather than pomp without substantial grit embedded in the showmanship of a reality in need of a fourth-wall.

        It is ironic how we bewrayed our stewardship of the planet as a plenipotentiary sentience waged against the vesicles of instinct but more fundamental to this tattered but pregnant psalm is that the stronghold of our future is the tenacity of filial duty to enthrone the household with husbandry and restraint as an emolument to divine justice that sparkles opalescent in its own redacted notions of gravity imperfect in the taradiddles of science but refined by the eclat of the combustible syncopation of a reiterative trope of realism combined with surrealist caprice to henpeck affectionate violation above inviolable screeds of blood sport rather than conjugal affections afforded to the brood and the feast of the flocks that rein supreme over all things but exert inclement justice over the cattle and chattel of civilization itself. The minkumpf against the sacrilege of a prioritized kosher is to abhor the suffering rather than embrace the penitence of perceived but specious sacrifice which is an ornery thorn on the stained conscience of the yobbery of both the apikoros and the obedient because to attenuate all suffering even of instinctual beings we anneal our hearts to a glorified compassion that supersedes the relegated relics of pushful genuflection by succedaneum of sacrifice waged against the docile whangams of otiose theodicy. The filibusters against the regnant complexity of regalia that is a sprauncy poivrade with terpsichorean flairs to transmute the intimations of hibernated perfidy into finicky transmissions for the riometers that accord orbific merit in a lackluster time enchant the rollicking audience of this auditorium of the prevenance of the conquered universe bracing for the camorra of the insipid entreaty of defalcated casuistry—the prominent exchequer in hoodwinked political agitprop that forges ironclad allegiances to flimsy facades of the verisimilitude of dignity with recalcitrant but incondite bruits of venom militant against secular apostasy—that the fitful arrivistes that swim in dire dearth will be welcomed into the reconciliation of all time with a tempered lurid glint of revelation bounded by sunken albatross of hype unbounded with a peace insurmountable in prestige rewarded only with the highest reservations.


    On 3-1-2020 when I penned my philosophy—even at a slowpoke margin of crafty precision above rapid empirical faucets of folly—I was entirely selfsame with the autotelic engravings of the smoldering aboriginal talents within that many can swing through by tenacity for enormous plaudit but a flagrant majority will apprehend with flippant scollardical tenets of rebuke and remain honest in their appraisal only in meek resignation of parvanimity.
Consider the postulates of rarefaction whittled into a vehement zeal against the prostitution of our species to the anteric cycles of residual molds of dingy spectacle mired by the tyrannical towers of supercilious squirms of revamped novelty rather than enhanced by the freebooters of dirigisme that borrow from time the behest of philandered flairs divorced from the cadges of secular instinct and enthroned by the qualms of engineered virtuosity that is stark, barren but peerless in its outstretched clamor for luxuriant sprees against the silentium of grandeval asylum incurred by the flippant filigrees of recalcitrant modernism endangered by the irredentism of the future upon the whimsy of the present-minded momentary glare of rapture.  This impending architecture of nimble but subservient endeavor is a pinprick rejoinder against the wernaggles of prepossessed fountains of configured animosity against the stapled heed of a modality of trayned invictive invectives against the plodding course of fustilugianation that swerves in apathy of autopilot junediggle to emanate the surrender of epigone to the raktendure of the synaesthesis of the attuned perception of all superimposed minutiae delegated by calculated design into a synclastic focus on veiled caprice that is vaulted above the choppy and sketchy verdure of remiss perception to stellar continuities rather than mundane knickpoints of stodged blurs that magnify syncretic qualia into baseline congruity rather than staid torpefied resignation of the visage of thunder without the pangs of the widely vituperated lightning that bequeaths all certain notions but flouts the tortious saboteurs of the prim trucage of brittle fundamentalism.

     As the flawed paragon of a picaresque youth punctuated by vibrant plumage of self-wrought tropophilous usucaption of remote groomed frontiers of desolate luxury but buoyant morale into the ballasts of a nimble usufruct that hikkles yet still against still-framed thilloire--fatuous in endearment only to the polity of the waterdrip of craven but gravid disingenuous flickers of lambent cloaks of perfidy—that earned its birthright by meditative fruition rather than prodigal tallespin of indolent frapplanks of a vicarious personage rather than an autotelic haecceity showcases the folly of heterodyne inclinations meeting an impasse of accidental dislodgement. The interregnum between the spurts and sprees of luxuriance is a staid pause between continuities of afforded parlance becoming stapled demographic solidarity affixed to a strident gallop of effortful pushes against the tenacity of the slumberous wicked hibernation of vetust magpiety without hieratical internment because youthful industry beats hackneyed bludgeons of wiseacres of a stilted manufacture of steamy nostalgia for lickerish moments that dignify but undermine moral virtues but splash anointed and sometimes disjointed favor upon the congeners to a rabid escapade of a heedless love frowning on the girdles of the prim balderdash of heralded jolts dim on levity and puffed with elusive contextualized control of libidinous serrated defilement because the crotaline **** outmantles the sweedled limber of exploitable folly. The cosseted reality of wheedled gourmands of continuous perception rather than the Gaussian blur of the protean invention of stitches in time that obscure rather than magnify the supernal levity inherent to most artistry is a linchpin of lenient gravitas that levies the lavaderos of ripe perception into annealment.
Excuse the bravado of the gait of winnowed forks in a bronteum for heralds of megaloscopy fastened to the macroscian reality of indelible filigrees of countermanded controversy becoming its best behest in the sempiternal flowering of burgeoned demonstration rather than illustrious overhang of drab slabs of manufacture rather than organism that should be interposed between the constellated concepts of both apperception and the aggrieved counselors to obtuse obsessions that are an improper tutelary for a designated reprisal of the once profane now immediately gratified by ramshackle tenets of a guarded sublimation of the tenets of post-modernism into a sustained force of the internalized tabernacle of haecceity shepherded into exuberance by the manumission of spirit from the ******* of purblind scalds of defamation that incurs the penalty of flippant privation. The refuge the Lord provides is not contingent upon the vagaries of deliberation nor the calculus of oversight but the remontant amaranthine glower of a listed deed becoming an eternal reminder that a dismantled and disjointed world fathoming only remorse rather than the trudge of gentility against the headwinds of brunt asperity will always flout the successor rather than atone for the failure of the imponent condition that constellates around rudimentary drivel grubbing the momentary out of avarice for allotted merchandise rather than glommed magnets to amoeba sentiments for the kisswonk of ulterior motive beyond dungeons of desperation that lurk ghoulishly with spectral frights at the disfigurement of morale created by errors askew rather than a contagion of righteous valor.

   Ask the heedful servant if the captaincy of reneged commitment owes homage to dutiful instruction or whether it is a balking corpse of necrosis accorded to the omphalism of brutish carnal repose in times of sedentary silt siphoned in spelunked rijuice for preordination is a predominant specter for a world scared scurrilous and skittish in a diatribe against the very notion of tribal screeds embedded in the sedimentary heft of traditionalism above the pother of vacillation commended to the apikoros but counterfeit fiat system of a ruddy governance without a supreme magistrate. Now lets venture into the territory of visagists as we envision the swanky subversion of impoverished and nebbich visions of oligochrome that fixates on belabored but dead notions of rigid propriety and levitate above those concerns with a querulous transcendence that never wernaggles about the profaned irrelevance of burlesque tropes of sidereal friction but instead memorializes the thermolysis of permeable endeavor above staid countenances of imposture that lurk in the shadowy penumbra of the connivance of persona above the archetype of the tutelary guardian spirit that through windlass and sometimes deliberation affixes nobility to even the pedestrian in order to assize its proper proportions to granular ironies expounded into megalography transformative by the very rivets of its supersensible existence and cohabitation with histrinkage among human taboos.

   The handiwork of a permeable race prone to exacerbated proclamations of prerogatives bulldozed by the rapid percolation of insoluble quandaries to the gripes of the feast of foofaraw sometimes shelters our otherwise regnant concern about the plenipotentiary God that observes all latent affairs without the paramours that conflate vivid carnality with appeased luxury and superimposes a crafty system of seismic shifts in rantipole dances with numinous flux rather than dissipated militant suppression of the fracklings of dissolute pollution which swirk in their dastardly desperado endeavors to corral the entire monoliths that guard each province into a winnowed rumble of rubble by tarnish of Tyre rather than by the upstart rejoinders of Canaan. Every creature which has the capacity to perceive language is afforded benedictions by the overhailing force of the hypaethral heights of superlative ingenuity founded in the bolted speculation of the endearment of all to tropological seesaws embattled against the hearsay of nyejays that contaminates the telmatology of the ecosystem of revivalism rather than buries the leaden debts of the disjointed revenants of past prominence into recycled irrelevance for posterity rather than for anything but a machination of a clockwork apple rigged for a rotten worm to swindle the sweet delicate tempests of unforeseen disaster to perjuries against financial solidarity.

The spinsters of sardonic drollery underscore the imminence of an incondite cutthroat collapse blackguarded by the hucksters of incontinence grubbing every fetched noisome notion and congealing a bonnyclabber of desiccated mildew that proves vestigial when the victors of time earn their joyous serenade to the pinnacle of the totem of jaundice slits in wavy endeavors for the participles of sejungible syntax of the ephorized furor to outlast the draksteng of droned dereliction manned by half-baked spies of ulterior recitals for imprinted vicissitude in supremacy in synquest for frizzlounges rather than the pedestrian circulatory system of careworn polity. We vaporize the petty hatred of sympatric regelation that neuters the virulence of motivated impediments to the draconian surge of asperity that sinks temporal haplessness as a regaled blasphemy that crowns only the ringed betrothal to spumid serrated halts in slick superstition that is a buggery to the idea of insectivores devouring the erratic chantage of germane germs that pauperize rather than even blind the deafened to be a crutch to vehicular homicide. Melismatic sennet is a dirigible of immense herculean sinew without the traces of vestibulary retches of kisswonked grisly tepid intimidations of eccedentesiasts by the radioglare of wizened corrugations in thanatism that exhort the avatars of narquiddity over the natural departure of revenant souls back to their temporary hostility to crass lifeless decarnate immediacy that slinks with foibles magnified by vertiginous heights of scollardical reputes rigged by the rijuice of the plackiques of meaningless spoils for swashbuckler bonanza borrowed from serrated vengeance exacted in prominence to provide false avenues of extenuation to malefaction that is confidant to the panopticon of exemplary dimples meager in the largesse of the composite realism of a sizable imprint on megalography that outlasts impertinent excuses for dangerous trout swimming against the mobilized selachostomous frizz of sharks gathering to avenge disclosure with insolence and gravid atrocity of incisive surgical evisceration of attempted depositions that falter by innumerable facets of countenance that belie ultimate realism and the perdurable construction of a sturdy hive of bibliognost revelry.

     Even with the blaring sennet of majesty inundating my piecemeal perception with the marstions of flarium that is an efficacy in a flaccid world of otiose pretenses limpid only in folly but contraplex in ironic skewbald skerries of grubbed destination that is the terminus of karezza despite the maledictions of vehement guarded betrayals that conjure up lurid noisome virility against the gamines and gallywows that populate interstellar fictions of virtu rather than mundane pragmatica that astound with the resselenque of contaminated skeumorphs of latent fracture belonging to a skeletonized ossified reification of farce above historicity in seemly seamless countenance with overwrought princely stature deserving integrity to ripples through sparkling opalescence. The vapid insularity of the self-contained mythos of appeased groundlings is based on the rhizic and rhizogenic fracklings destitute in predicative flares to swelter above stratospheres of the illimitable into the dwelling of the highest serenity inherent to the pacification of truth to neglect its egregious errors of mistetches of a ripened pachyderm of bravery in times of austerity and now a reclaimed notion of sempiternal charades swimming above the punitive draksteng of dranger that is enlarged by acclimated attempts at foiled raltention hikkling against its own superior forces of galvanized preterition to elide over screwball insanity of derangement in this virtual paradise of inhabited souls belonging to former times congregating on the pasture of the evanescence of now for all eternity having the optative condition of incarnation above the ferules of the stagnant brevity of oversight in heavenly realms by postulate but not confirmed by regal logic.

     The troponder of the flickered lambent niceties of polity is a countenance that piggybacks on simpered jostles of negligent engrenage to appease sworn enmities among beatific havens for certitude swarmed by the fisticuffs of darbied bridewells of desiccated drainage traversing the distant disdain for the gravel of cemented slits of stilted pragmatica that is a gavel of atrocious estoppel mediated by heroic heresiarchs against pitiable betrayal for forceful remedies in acclimated servitude to the groans and groaks of a life of remorse and dearth rather than the glut of luxuriance in forbearance to its own intorted mirrored ironies that etch infinity with every scrawled rejoinder to austere ploys of checkered rumbles of threat and exigency posed by the clairvoyant hypocrites who benefit greatly by the design of the omphalism above the frays and brays of corporate dogmatism slowly outmoded by vibrant plumages of heteronormative originality beyond petty chantage. A hesitation overcomes the bluster of bravado as the restive earnest concerns of tribulation beset the minauderies of divine affection to reaffirm the teachings of the Gospel so that future generations genuflect beneath the altar of the ultimate stroke of sociogenesis and the blood ransom of suffering that promoted the human latitude and liberty against incarcerated throngs of virtue over caesaraproprism accorded to genuflection beneath denarii rather than absolution by tether to the eternal vine of sensation of the supersensible entelechy of all valiant insurrections against defective polities and renewed policies.

     We thus seek a transdimensional bridge between the morphean virtu of rudimentary alchemy of propitiation divulged by leverage and the teeming rambunctiousness of fiduciary tribes to the ultimate duty of man to consummate the future of eternity even in slowpoke mannerisms that sidle through rigors of entelechy and assize the masterwork of tutelage above the circumforaneous entrenchment of glut above the mastery of the subtle subaudition that beleaguers an adept conflagration of harnessed human ignorance staid in the incarceration of exotic virtues of freewheeling sapience never vulnerary to hospitable concerns that entrenches the verisimilitude of a refracted justice to reign over the stultification of a primitivism inherent to man and not man alone.

A bit off the heel and a bit off the toe,
It won't hurt very much, and they're pretty, you know.
I've got the perfect pair of shoes for you,
All you need is some fitting- an inch off or two.
A slice of skin here and a little blood there,
These are the most beautiful shoes you could wear.
Let you go? Heavens no!
I admire you so
With your perfect physique
And your delicate feet.
Oh it's only a smidgen, a droplet of blood!
Come now dear, no one's fond of a stick in the mud.
Come- rush to the ball and we'll all have such fun!
On second thought, maybe you, ah... shouldn't run...
It's worth it, though, isn't it? These beautiful shoes.
And darling, they look so exquisite on you.
There now, not so bad, and they fit perfectly,
All you needed was just a little surgery.
Now let's off to the ball and you'll dance all night long.
No silly, don't cry, you've got it all wrong!
I told you- you're beautiful just how you are,
Now come on and stop whining, you don't have to walk far.
But you see, there's no daughter, or stepmom, or shoes.
There's none of those things- there is me and there's you.
And you've got this idea of what I'm s'posed to be,
And as hard as I try, I'm not her, love, I'm me.
I'm afraid that no matter how much pain I bear,
I just don't fit in the shoes you are making me wear.

.  i really don't islam right now, as far as current archeological unearthing goes, circa mid 20th century, islam should look back onto its schism - and debate itself... whether or not Ali was, or wasn't given Muhammad's word as the just inheritor of the religion... since Muhammad broke, or rather, never kept his honor / promise to his son in law... mind you: the new testament could only have, and indeed did, only benefit the Byzantines (i love the variant of punctuation... bi-zan-tyne vs. bee-zan-teen)... and who do we know of, to be a respectable of both history, and the collective memory, from the Byzantine empire? not one... even by my standards: that's ******* harsh... the new testament was like a second Trojan war, against Virgil's aeneid... because why would the new testament even become beneficial to the western Empire? had it not disintegrated into protestantism, and subsequently secularism... the existence of the new testament has a time, and a space of supreme utility... the second counter of the Greeks against the Trojans... in the mythology of the Romans being the exiled Trojans... and, at its pinnacle, within the Byzantine empire... of course... but outside of it? like a **** inside a tornado... now if i were to rewrite the divine comedy... who would i take as accomplice? Horace? or Milton?

             if you ever read the footnotes...

  oh no, ******, you're not getting

away with this...

why is the mainstream media
concerned with the dead sea scrolls?

they're an extension of
the Hebrew tradition -
   they invite a debate concerning
the prophet Isaiah...

   the dead sea scrolls are an extension
of the old testament...

but the nag hammadi library -
which, "miraculously" emerged
within a coincidence of the
dead sea scrolls: simultaneously -
at the end of the second world...

right...
     the nag hammadi library is
no an extension of the new testament:
it's an... implosion...

     crucially: st. thomas' gospel...
which is contained in the library's oeuvre...
yet the mainstream media
thinks it's necessary to bother itself
commenting on the dead sea scrolls:
if you ain't a Hebrew,
the dead sea scrolls are,
seriously of no interest to you...

but the nag hammadi library?
    sure as **** it is...
              the whole investment in
myth, the Seth project -
              st. peter's apocrypha...
mainstream can go and **** itself
wondering why,
the dead sea scrolls were not
released for the public for 30 odd years...
mention the nag hammadi
library, and the ******* are twice
as clueless...

then you read the footnotes...
ah...
           the historical account
of josephus bin matthias -
   about the first jewish-roman war...
in the time of Nero...
      when the book of revelations
was written... as no precursor -
               by some obscure Greek...

as having inherited Christianity -
but not having moved in
the bureaucratic hierarchy -
   allowing myself
    the rite of confirmation:
baptism?
     oh yeah... ga ga goo doll
chant of a protesting toddler -

                there's this fine book,
by a german author,
concerning the gnostic cults...
can't remember the author's name...

evidently if i were hebrew -
i'd occupy myself with the dead sea scrolls...
but since i inherited some sort
of christianity:
                  i can tell you -
you need to look at the nag hammadi
library...
     concerning christianity -
the dead sea scroll fascination
   is probably on par with
the rejection of the old testament...
what the mainstream media
isn't telling you,
   is concerning the nag hammadi
library... unearthed in Egypt,
by some shepherd,
      incubated for, circa, 2000 years,
in some urns,
   in what appears
            to be Osama bin-Laden
                                  style caves...

what josephus bin matthias
wrote... and this archeological find?

thereupon felix -
               'a greater blow...
   was inflicted on the Jews by the Egyptian
false prophet. arriving in the country
this man, a fraud who posed as a seer,
collected about 30,000 dupes,
led them round from the desert (john
the baptist scenario) to the mount of olives
(the transfiguration scene),
and from there was ready to force an
entry into Jerusalem...
   the Egyptian fled with a handful of
men (the 12 disciples)'...

   because wasn't Jesus raised in
Egypt?
              and the archeological evidence...
where was the Christian apocrypha
found, in 1946 by a shepherd?
         Egypt.

dot dot dot...
      why would i even care about
the dead sea scrolls?
     the dead sea scrolls, last time i heard,
concern the wrongly executed prophet /
courtesan, Isaiah -
  who was cut at the abdomen
                        in an execution...

the crucifixion of Hey-Zeus is not
some cherry on top of the calamity that
befell Jude(a)...
            in its liquidation,
in what became the liquidation of
                    the Roman Empire...

but... i am curious about the nag hammadi
library -
            honestly:
   if the Vatican didn't have its head
rammed up the ******* cardinals' ***...
it could have escaped under hush-hush
closure...
   and the orthodox texts would be
left intact...
             but... given they have been
so ******* lazy about covering
this up?
    
    what happened to the Library of
Alexandria when Christianity
took the populist route?
                   em...
                         whatever "secrets"
are bound to the Vatican library...
   when a naked truth is staring you
in the face?
              does it really matter,
at this point?

                       not really...
     apart from retaining a catholic poetic
elasticity to the faith,
i.e. allowing metaphorical cannibalism -
i see... no point to be an Atlas
for the church...
   rather... a Samson -
            lodged between the pillars -
pulling it apart.

Through the country paths, I lazily loitered,
watching Nature in its changing hue
straying farther into the interiors,
sundry and sublime vistas came into view.

in response to zephyr’s warm embrace,
the silvery leaves joyously fluttered.
the bees busied themselves collecting pollen
and birds on tree tops merrily chattered

it was the *** end of verdant spring.
summer’s sun stood behind my head.
bleat of sheep was heard from far.
‘Good day to you’….. Someone said.

There stood on the hill, a boy around fifteen
obviously he was of tribal breed.
with a beaming smile, he greeted me
but on walking to him, he ran like a steed

I saw him disappear behind the trees
and enter into a hut tiny as a nest
he lived in the lap of Mother Nature,
far from the city and its sooty dust

being coaxed, he hesitantly came out.
my tone of assurance and pleasing smile,
seemed to have won his confidence
as to a friend, he shared his eventful tale.

pointing to the sheep grazing in the *****,
he said, he earned a living caring the flock.
he stayed in the woods all day long,
feeding and tending his master’s sheep.

from dawn to dusk, through woods and meads,
he leads his sheep, calling them by their name.
un vexed, with simple pleasures he is content
and with a nomad’s life, he seems to be tame

he said, at home he has his invalid mother.
bringing her back to health is his mission in life
on referring to his mother, I watched his eyes glitter
nothing other than her illness posed to him a strife

from every utterance, I could sense his filial love.
even in abundance, while shadows line many faces,
on his visage, hope lingered as a dancing flame
to me he seemed above many, rich in other graces!

While parting, I handed him a little money
pausing unbelievably, with moist eyes
he accepted it, when a breeze passed caressing us
as if over a kind gesture, Nature seemed to rejoice!

Beyond a beginingless beginning.
It was but was not any "god" or "goddess".
It was but was not "deva" or "devi".
It was but was not "angel" or "demon".
It was but was not a metaphysical being of any kind.
It was but had not any name nor could it be named.
It was but had not any face nor likeness.
It was but had not any body not corporeal form.
It was but had not gender nor ***.
It was but was not incarnate or disincarnate.
It was but was not existent nor non existent.
It was but could not be described by any words in any way.
It was but had not depth nor height nor breadth nor volume.
It was but could not be measured in any way.
It was but could not be imagined.
It was but had not materiality of any kind.
It was but had not immateriality in any way.
It was but had not space nor lack of space.
It was but had not direction nor lack of direction.
It was but had not nothingness.
It was but had not somethingness.
It was but had not anythingness.
It was but had not beingness.
It was but had not light nor dark.
It was but had not wetness or dryness.
It was but was not nowhere.
It was but had not somewhere.
It was but had not anywhere.
It was and then it manifested the nature of its essence
and became the endless Universe and all that was in the Universe.
All that was incarnate.
All that was disincarnate.
All that was physical and metaphysical.
All that was existing and non existing.
And still it was.
It manifested itself in ignorance of its own nature as the Isness of the Universe,in order to participate in the existence it had created from its own nature on an equal and fair level with humanity.
It gave of itself by incarnating a small piece of its own nature into all human bodies,both male and female ,equally but different,at conception and then it made them all ignorant of their beginings as it made itself ignorant of its own beginings.
And then it set these Isness incarnated in human bodies the riddle of the existence that had arisen from its manifestation as the Universe and all that was in it.
It posed these three questions to Humanity and itself.
1--What am I?.
2--Why am I here?.
3--When I know what I am then what is my purpose.
The Isness of the Universe set each individual Isness incarnated in a human body the task of realising its own nature,which was a part of the nature of the Isness of the Universe, so that each individual Isness could then show the Isness of the Universe its own nature incarnated in a human body,female or male equally of any skin colour,dancing the dance of life,singing the song of life..
The principle governing our joint action on creating the Universe and all it contains,especially Humanity,was that before you can reach the heights of Existence you must  go through the depths of Existence.
And oh boy are we going through the depths playing these Mind games?.

www.beyondenlightenment.co.uk

It was but was not god nor  goddess.
It was but was not deva nor devi.
It was but was not angel nor demon.
It was but was not metaphysical being of any kind.
It was but had not any name nor could it be named.
It was but had not any  face nor likeness.
It was but had not any body or corporeal state.
It was but had not any form nor lack of form.
It was but not incarnate nor disincarnate.
It was but was not existent nor non-existent.
It was but could be described in words in any way.
It was but had not depth nor height nor breadth nor volume.
It was  but could not be measured in any way.
It was but had not materiality of any kind.
It was but had not immateriality of any kind.
It was but had not space nor lack  of space.
It was but had not direction nor lack  of direction.
It was but had not nothingness.
It was  but had not somethingness.
It was but had not anythingness.
It was but had not beingness.
It was but not Isness or non-Isness.
It was but had not light nor dark.
It was but had not wetness nor dryness.
It was but was not nowhere.
It was but was not nowhere.
It was but was not somewhere.
It was but was not anywhere.
It was and then It manifested the nature of Its essence
and became the universe and all that was in the universe.
All that was incarnate and disincarnate.
All that was physical and metaphysical.
All that was existent and non-existent.
And still It was.
It manifested Itself in ignorance of Its own nature as the Isness of the Universe,
in order to participate in the existence It had created from Its own essence,on an equal and fair level with humanity.
It gave of its own essence by putting a small piece of its own essence--the individual Isness-which is equal and autonomous and individual and independent--into all human bodies,both female and male,at conception.
And It made humans ignorant of their nature--the  individual Isness--
as It  made itself ignorant of Its own nature.
And then It set humans and Itself the Riddle of the Existence
that had come from Its manifestation of its nature as the universe and all that was in it.
It posed these three questions to humanity and to Itself.
1--Who am I?.
2--Why am I here?.
3--When I knowhow I am then what is my purpose?.
Who am I?.
Like all humans,and for the sake of fairness,
It manifested Itself  into ignorance of its own nature also.
The Isness of the Universe set humans the task of realising their own nature--which is the individual Isness--as an equal individual autonomous and independent part of the essence of the Isness of the Universe,so that they could then show the Isness of the Universe Its own essence and then share existence together.
The principle governing Its action in creating the universe and all it contains, especially humanity,was that before you can reach the heights of existence you must go through the depths of existence.
Why am I here?.
Obviously I am here to answer the first question.
After answering the first question --which can only be done existentially and not intellectually--
there would then be the third question to be answered.
The answer to the first question lies in regaining your existential nature--the individual Isness--as a small but equal,independent, individual,nameless,formless,genderless and non-physical Isness formed from the Isness of the Universe which is free from Mind and Conditioned Identity.
The answer  does  NOT lie in amassing the false knowledge of all "religions" and "political systems  that the Mind and Conditioned Identity have created in order to mislead the individual Isness from realising ,existentially,its true nature.
The Isness of the Universe  did not want a world of maniputed puppets,as the Mind/Conditioned Identity,does but in order to achieve fairness in solving the Riddle of Existence,it gave humanity these attributes and the ability to live out their opposites.
Freedom of Will.
Freedom of Choice.
Freedom of speech.
Freedom of Truthfulness.
Freedom of Association.
Freedom of  Debate.
Freedom from Violence.
Agreement to Disagree.


www.beyondenlightenment.co.uk

Forever ago
I looked you in the eye
And made a promise --
A stupid, stupid vow --
That I'd be your Bonnie
If you'd be my Clyde.

You smiled at me --
Crooked, imperfect
Utterly charming --
And asked me to lend you a light.
A lighter passed between our hands
Before a tiny flame illuminated our faces in the dark
A silent 'I do.'

From that night on
I've had things that other girls
Only possess in their wildest dreams
And, even then
Wouldn't dare say they desired.

I ride shotgun by default
In a ******* car
Much too fancy to legally be yours.
Gifts come in the form
Of beat-up leather articles
That you once wore
Though the lingering shadow of smoke
Is hardly enough
To mask the hint of drugstore perfume.
Sometimes
If you're feeling especially charitable
These offerings are accompanied by the more traditional heart shaped box --
Filled with bullets, of course--
Or a single deep red rose.
For some reason
Every flower you pick
Seems to have many more thorns
Than most of the ones I've known before.

What you seem to consider the best gift of all, however
Is your presence.
I suppose you think it works both ways
When you parade around town
Arm slung around my shoulders or waist
Smiling like I'm some pricey badge
Your signature accessory.
Your performance draws attention, of course --
Awe-stricken once-overs
Envious double takes
Lingering looks that make overzealous Average Joes
Trip over their own feet.
As far as my own feelings go
The envious rush I used to get from the lust-filled eyes of other women
Has long since faded
But the crawling feeling of some depraved pervert's eyes flitting from you to me
And your proud smile, devoid of any visible love
Continue to make my stomach twist itself into painful knots.

What all those adventure-hungry good girls don't know
Is that I haven't felt as powerful as they do in their dreams
In a very long time.
What those green-eyed Plain Janes won't understand
Is that I am little more than arm candy
Your passenger-seat second-in-command
Posed like some special edition, leather-donning Barbie doll
Instructed to sit still
Hold the gun
Look pretty.
They don't realize
That the ache that comes with loving you
Feels absolutely nothing like the feeling described
In the lovelorn writings they post to their blogs.
There's nothing beautiful about it
No reward for staying up all night
Chest aching
Sobbing into a limp pillow in some random hotel room
Trying my best to keep you from hearing it.
As much as I hate to admit it
Nothing you do for me
Makes it worth it.

They all seem to forget
That it was Bonnie
Running from one man who didn't love her
Falling into the arms of another
Already broken
Hoping he might be able to mend a piece or two.
They don't realize
That it was Bonnie
Who **** near got her leg burned off
Because Clyde flipped the car.
The fault was completely his
And yet
She was the one who took the brunt of the damage
Being reduced to having Clyde carry her around
For the rest of their numbered days.
They don't stop to think that this is anything other than 'romantic'
How unfair it is that the world allowed him to ruin her
That maybe --
Just maybe --
She didn't want to be a weapon for him to carry
But a self-firing rifle.
Something intimidating
Unpredictable
Never dependent
On some hotshot
That everybody believes that she was in love with.
The idea never occurs to them
That maybe
When the two of them went down in that infamous hail of bullets
Maybe she wasn't enveloped in warm thoughts of going out in a blaze of glory
But anger
That she didn't get away with it this time
And never would again.


I understand now
That
For all intent and purposes
Bonnie and Clyde are a concept that should have been left behind
Way back in the 30s.
There is no passion
In dying --
On the inside or the outside --
Next to someone everyone thinks that you love.
There is no love
In your arm around me
Squeezing the humanity out of me
Like a man-shaped boa constrictor.
There is no glamour
In sitting loyally by your side
Gripping my seat until my knuckles are white
As you drive your own getaway car
Laughing to yourself
Without ever chancing a glance at me.
There is no beauty
In being wrapped in a jacket
That smells like another woman
No satisfaction
In mechanically handing you a brand new lighter
So you can light another cigarette
To prematurely age your beautiful, James Dean number one-million-and-one face.
I feel no affection now
Watching you smoke up like the nicotine glutton burnout that you are
And I will feel only contempt if --
Heaven forbid --
I ever die by your side.
You exhale
And turn to look at me with sleepy, empty eyes
Letting the remains of your cigarette flicker out
Just like the novelty of having you around did.

Why I resent those girls now --
The ones with those eyes, so hungry and green with envy --
Is that, when we first met
I was just another one of them.
So pampered
So inanely bored
Such a 'hopeless romantic'
That I promptly decided to follow you the ends of the Earth
To every grimy hotel
Even to our demise in the desert, if you wanted me to.
It took me forever to realize I deserved better
And, by then
It was all too late.

While I despise those girls who stare at us now
Swooning, like they're so jealous of the position I'm in
My heart also aches for them --
A bit like the way you make it ache.
Though there's passion in this ache
That being the fact
That my heart is screaming
Telling them to run
Run while they still can
Run before someone like you
Finds them.

For all intent and purposes
There absolutely should not be
A 21st century Bonnie and Clyde.
These should be the days
Of girls spitting their own fire
And boys fighting their own battles.
This should be a generation
Of people learning to find solace in themselves
And reliance taking an unceremonious dive
Off a very steep cliff.
There should be no more green-eyed girls
And James Dean boys
Making each other miserable
And calling it beautiful.
This is the point where we should let Bonnie and Clyde rest in peace
Along with Romeo and Juliet
Annabel Lee
Homer Barron
And every other tragic antihero
Who died at the hands of love.

Forever ago
I made a promise --
A stupid, stupid vow --
That I'd be your Bonnie
If you'd be my Clyde.
Now
What seems like centuries later
I close my eyes
And try to fly somewhere else
In my dreams.
My last thought
Before I drift off
Is that --
Maybe someday --
They'll write poems about us.

I mashup me, myself, and thee: Part II

Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of composition. In chronological order, from the earliest to the most recent.
---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----


The three poems went about their business,
Bringing heaven to earth,
FYI, even Angels can't be everywhere, so,
God invented poems to do his ***** work,
Cleansing souls.

They rode in~out of town on a prankster wave,
A cheering throng was not around,
But a singular poet saw, recorded the vision,
And thus, this nameless poet,
Below unmasked, unsealed,
Cleansed one more soul,
And that soul, this soul, as required,
Paid it forward.
~
Nothing produced from this place
where routine means the gorge tastes bile,
When surcease is welcome relief,
Where dancing on ice in bare feet
Is step one to ripping your chest open by your own hands,
The toxins thus released rejuvenated by salted air,
Can be finally be transcribed onto paper
And realized.

Warn them once and then begin, you,
Get serious, delve, with hurricane unambiguity,
to torrential words upon the unsuspecting,
let them taste the rawness, only the truth provides,
let them know salt tears so briney,
They will flee this place, n'er to return.
~
One day she intro'd me as her fav poet,
To which I acknowledged by addressing her as
My number one fan,
Which seems to have stuck,
so I acknowledge her as such,
And always add a polite, respectful, winking,
Yes ma'am!
~
Like this new day,
there are always
new poems

Like last night's sunset,
day's efforts reviewed,
a special light,
a yellowed marker,
highlighting a few deserving

Take them home,
kiss them goodnight,
rest them in the poetry file
that is no file,
but a large fabric box where
sewing tools once stored

How appropriate and
how happy that makes me.
~
Yo! Yo!
Remember your first real high,
That moment
No absolution, no return.
That moment
When you admitted, confessed,
to yourself:

I am
Forever forward,
A home-grown poet.
I am
Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both,
Addict and dealer
A ****** poet

Yo! Yo!
So you do recall,
The exact moment,
God-spark-within, ascendancy gained
You lost control,
Wept words instead of tears!
A ****** poet ******!

Yo! Yo!

Sophie's Choice.
You chose writing over breathing,
Worshiper of the purest pleaure,
******* in deep the smoke-high of
Head-nodding discontented contentment
Stealing anything you saw
For to satisfy the need, the craven
Craving.
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!

Don't you're ever sleep?
Hear that the city, the state,
Gonna methadone your kind
In a special program
Teach you only language to sign.
**** poets!

I am a ****** poet.

The first step taken.
Admission.
Poetry is my default rest position,

My drug of choice.
~
Have you noticed here

Each poet declaims his fellow
The better one, his teacher,
From whom they shall learn and gather up
Inspiration

Gonna run for Congress,
My first bill, Poetry-care,
Will make it a requirement that
All citizens must contribute,
Exchange once a day
To this peaceful place,
Even just a syllable, a single letter,

K?
~
Literally my eyes see words awaiting coordinating,
Poems flying by, needing plucking,
How a child eats his morning cereal,
His rituals informing, of the man yet to be,
How our bodies lay, hair unbrushed,
Tying us into a conjoined knot...

No matter that plain words are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say, about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?
~
The ice of poetry,
glassine smooth
but
charged hardness,
hits you, ****** you,
unexpected snowball in the face,

the fire of poetry,
cherished phrase, a patois,
comfort food when
whole winter skies
swallow you bleak

mutual contradictions of poetry
savaging the soothed ego,
revealing the raging id

what's in a word anyway?
~
Please Pop, pick wise,
the life and lies, the faces and disguises,
I will need employ to achieve success
in the eyes of my reading beholders,
who own the liens on my soul
because of the promises I believed,
when you sang me
glowing lullabies of my future days,
how everyone would love my stories,
my poems, someday...
~
Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.
~
My life is on the boring side,
So welcome gents to look inside,
The surfed sites, the emails, hardly slimy,
But stay the fk away from my poetry!

Tis obvious from your midnight editing,
That my wordily, working body has been discretely
Simonized,
My data,
Googlized,
My poems,
Scrutinized,
A comma, a colon, a verb, out of place, capsized,
Little threads kept in door jambs, their alteration,
Your snooping presence, a confirming revelation
~
Where I write, here, all comes so easy,
Every glance a poem formed,
Every phrase a title to a poem served,
Every conversation overheard and those wind-lifted brought,
A seed, a germ, a word~worm hooked to the pole crook of
My finger saying, see man, time to get more ink and paper,
Go and catch us a few poems for dinner

The snapper weakfish word colors are
Running past my-by the thousands,
We will need a basket to catch but a fraction
Of what you see, more than more enough to share,
Only Happy Poems for all

It is this rhyming way I view the wold,
That is my freedom, is my-present essence,
How the poems come, how thy flow,
Peaking, I cannot berate, rarely eat,
Sleep a thing of the past (as you be aware, beware)
There is poetry in simply everything.
~
But if my aura be a comfort insufficient,
Let this surprise poetic gift awaiting your arrival,
Give you rest, from crying surcease!

For when the who, the why of me interrogatory posed,
Describe me in a brevity I ne'er possessed, say:
He was just a poet, and I,
Just, his lover, number one fan.

This truth eternal, never to change.
~
But I am open to learning, the arduous task
Of raising a teenage daughter,
After I have my head examined

Though I am just a bunch of eclectic electrons,
I got powers a few, like making life's happiness
Hearted happier, encouraging your forays into
You-know-what,
And when tables turn, a hasty retreat you beat,
For imaginary cappuccinos and poems we will meet,
Comparing notes on who felt lousier when...

But what I can do 100% is assure you
There is no lone nor lonely daughter extant,
Your voice not just clear but soft-edged,
For I have poetically adopted you,
Here and now, assuming you sign on the
.............................................................­line
~
Take these words at plain face,
and look not askance
at this fair warning,
for I am but a tragic,
empty vessel for you to fill,
you are the raconteur,
me, just a  
poet poseur extraordinaire,
street urchin, word merchant,
all my verbally, wordly goods expropriated
from the wind,  where your scattered thoughts
lie about, carelessly,
unattended
~
Guiltless in life, we but survived,
Hurting no one, no thing,
Yet, here we lie, ignored, unattended,
Yet, you fail again to see our connection?
You do not recognize us?

We are the shells, the husks of you,
Your poems unread, you labors unpreserved,
All wasted, for unless they are read, they die,
As you will too.
Some fast, by water, some slower, time-eroded,
All, ended, by drowning in the Sea of Who Cares!
~
What sourced this elegiac distich,
Too many poets, fully disclosing their downbeat, aroma of defeat?

The world is in a **** mood, not one of us, got nothing
Good to say, seems that love storms ripping hearts
With no trace of mercy, the radio has elected nonstop
Taylor Swift and Jonas Bro's
Just to make the point!

It is so easy to feel ******,
When the sun is unshining, elegant distich, **** me.

Thinking back, getting a good idea,
Found some long necked Corona overlooked,
Turn on the tv, pretend I'm a real cowboy,
And for god's sake, shut down poetry,
Good Bye Poetry, for the rest of the day.
~
once upon a time,
a traffic light rainbow,
stopped n' go, was a word design,
demarcated visions of spun sugar,
bodegas sold me
magic beans by the pound,
masterminded into cups of delight,
treasury's bounty overflowed,
now, dregs drain, sink stained,
as are my writing utensils,
my ink stained, us-less, fingers

come visit me, unknown stranger,
let us exchange fluidity, barbs,
a contest of kissing, eye lashing
wit ands shared vision stashing,
and together, once more,
write with our feet,
while holding hands,
becoming once more
poets of the street.

Only, come quickly.
~

But reading thy cries, an exercise,
Teeth-gnashing frustration.
It brings no relief.

So sad girl,
Write till you are righted,
May be it will snow on July 4th,
And tho unnatural,
So is thy grief.

Nonetheless, write me write me all about it,
Right us,
For tho snow falls, its loveliness,
Makes the heart rise up in gladness!
~
She brings me coffee in bed.
I propose a violin accompaniment.
Some babka, with nice-crumbly-in-bed
Streusel topping,
A concerto we could make!

Her derision snorted so loud,
The mollusks on the beach
From their shells come out.

"Good luck with that,
Put that fantasy on
Your **** poetry site,
Cause that is the closest you will ever get!"
~
For she will be my heroine for all time,

These words to expand with rhyme and verse,
T'is a welcome task, one familiar, but anew,
Each dawn each dusk, a daily trust, a love poem diurnal-birthed,
As if god created the world, but left upon completion,
With a grievous thirst, a new notion, he did burst.

He created the Eighth Day, for celebration of his
Most cherished invention, the idea of love.
This is where, the secret writ Eleventh Commandment occurs,
Love thy Poetry Gods, Honor them with daily verbs.
~
Officer...you should see me gut a

Poem,

Slice its belly open,
Sometimes straight, sometimes Askew,
Feed the gulls them
****** insides on the dock, by-moonlight,
Can ya cut me some slack?

Mmm, I see here in your license,
You are a disabled guy,
A **** poet ******,
Who often does his best work
Legally all alone in the HOV lane,
So I'm gonna let you off this time
Just with a warning!
~
We can share words, we can grant tiny easements,
We can weep with you unseen tears,
We can etsy you little homemade gifts
Like this.

That you can take and keep, and break out in time of need knowing full well that these words will not spoil nor rancid turn, cannot be out grown,, or torn, or rent asunder in anyway for once they are shared
They are irrevocable.
~
When you write,
It as if you write upon our
One skin,
For I am your tablet,
Your sole/sol/soul composition.

So stop kissing me
and
Write upon us.
~
This will not be the hardest poem I e're wrote,
But if there is no inspiration
For you to smote,
And armpits refuse to provide perspiration,
To source juices for a new creation,
Try this trick,
I promise you
No one will lick your ice cream cone,
Nor mistake you for Leonard Cohen,
But when you are done,
You will be High Priest of
Hello Poetry for the rest of the day!
~
You think you can write?
Then employ  a word outside your comfort zone,
Go it alone,
And write four sentences that will make
The hopeful reader stand up and
you twice as much, and shout

Hallelujah
*******.

Work. Poetry is work. Hard work.
Don't fret. But, think on it. Have the sweetest dreams.
In the morning, when you but awake,
A poem will be aborning in thy mind,
And dare I say it, you will find a new freedom
In free verse.
(I know you will slip in a rhyme or two,
I can't help but do it too)
~
Had myself forgot,
That a poem needs a
Frame of jungle gym sounds,
An aural aura resonance unbound.
Purposed to make the heart lift
Your ears say:

Say what!

It needs a tune,
An internal music,
It needs a lilt!
A cadence, that both
Marches and swings,
Even when'd urgent dirge
grief pours forth.
~
This Sabbath day you fog-hide
Your gift of bay and beach
So quiet implore, beseech,
Keep the sailors safe,
And your poets saved.

I ask much.
But I ask for all of us,
There are so many such
That are booster-chair needy
That I am succumbed, overwhelmed,
Enormity fearsome needs help even from a deity.

Small words, big hopes.

If you cannot grant it,
Won't wait for intervention,
Do it myself, answer prayers one and all,
Best I can, starting now with this
Po-hymn.
~
I used to sleep
With pen and paper on my nighttime table.
Nowadays, my iPad tablet rests upon my chest,
Not only does it keep me warn,
It takes my poems from within, Fresh Direct,^
Edits, credits, and delivers them to your door,
While I'm still sleeping.

Which is why they come at all hours.
It is also why they call them,
Love's Labour's Lost saving devices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**So I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
Can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse.

I am both: Addict and dealer, a ****** poet ******.

Oh that strange
minuscule Atom..
Atom has posed
with planets spinning
with electrons jumping
with self-contradicting
waves and photons..
These secret poses
Over a century
Reveal and conceal
An amazing truth..

Atom smiles slyly
such confusion here..
Yet now and then
A scientist is startled
By a mirror reflection
A poet Behold..
Self-knowing arrives:
My name is Atom
and long enough
have I posed…!

I have known this much talked about search for true love for over 10 years and I am aged 22 years now. There was this unforgiving loneliness till I was 17 years of age given that I am the only child of my parents who lives with them in a lonely campus of a research institute away from the small city.

A tumultuous relationship filled with resentment to the brim about my parents keeping me their only 'issue' was brought to the hilt and I was weary of being their arguably most beloved 'machine' who was supposed to live sticking to the 'guidelines' laid by them as the ideal only son.

We aren't from a landlord's family and have limited resources, so I was supposed to suffice in my parents' love and affection, studying at a fairly consistent dedication to bring forth the results worthwhile landing me a good job.

But who has been able to control a Romeo-in-the-making?

Answer: Nobody!

But my Juliet wasn't yet on the horizon till age 17, when I mistakenly took my first girlfriend who was my classmate till class 7, to be my last love. Period. Then for the first time I was introduced to the idea of 'love' by this sweet girl whom I dub "G3" over 11 months elder to me. I had proposed her, but it was not a pre-emptive proposal.

Our period of courtship had started over Orkut which was the most popular social website at that time. It was just friendship initially until I had unsuccessfully proposed two bimbets other than my first girlfriend. One of those two unsuccessful attempts was with her best-friend-once-upon-a-time.

I had told her about them both, she had even tried apparently helping me propose her best friend when I had told her that I had even written a song for my childhood crush over the years I had been away from my old school.

Her first reaction was, "I would die for having such a boyfriend! Wish it was I for whom the song was composed."

Then when I proposed my childhood crush, G1, I couldn't even mention about the song and she rejected my proposal. Period. I was distraught, I was broken & I was amazed at how easily she could've undermined my liking for her from the past 7 years.

To take my attention off the disappointment posed by my first rejection. I proposed a different girl, G2, non-seriously, knowing that another rejection was lurking behind the curtains of time.

Rejection 2 successfully diverted my mind away from the mess created. Anyways, I did have a girlfriend for myself. After all, people love guys who sing melodiously and can play guitar apart from having decent appearance, and believe me- I used to look this chocolatey young guy until I was 19 years of age.

The girl who later went on to have the place vacated by my first crush was her same best-friend-once-upon-a-time 'G3'. She went on varied lengths in narrating her own break-up story with the guy she was with. I got a second-hand  piece as my first girlfriend. It was no issues, at least till she was bickering about how he had broken her 'heart-of-a-self-proclaimed-princess' and we started having arguments and serious tiffs over what had been happening in her life.

We broke-up. I had enough of the hardships brought by myself upon her. She had taken to crying harshly over phone. I resented myself. I failed to identify that it was not true love indeed but only a mirage of the idea.

I next concentrated in studies and this time I prevailed over the hurdles offered by examinations and a second girlfriend, 'G4', who refused to openly accept she was going about with me was attracted to me. She'd go see the Taj Mahal at Agra and the Hawa Mahal at Jaipur with me apart from spending the night in the same hotel room but would still reckon me with my pending reappear supplementary exams and wouldn't openly accept a failure as her man. I was frustrated by her autocratic behaviour and opted for a different girl, 'G5'.

G5 was the prettiest of my first 3 GF's as far as looks were considered. We romanced around Delhi's historical places and malls; holding hands around cinemas and Old Fort walls in New Delhi. But still I was as ****** as I was when I was born.

May 7, 2010 was a scorching hot day with the sun ablaze overhead and me going on the busiest highway of India. I was going back to my home and met with a serious road accident en route that kicked me out of my senses into a frozen comatose state.

I somehow survived the life-threatening coma and was moving around in 52 long weeks, limping heavily all thanks to my parents and the kind physiotherapist. Thanks to a poor memory, I initially performed extremely below average at college.

Then I was all prepared to attack at all future examinations and nothing could stop me. I breezed past another girl 'G6', this was my last failure. She was confused between me and a different guy. Neither me nor any other guy with a high self-prestige would entertain the idea of being weighed as an option. I again moved on.

Then comes the continuing story of my true love. True love is the one that lasts forever successfully. She is incidentally my 7th chance upon the love pathway and last. I am sure this is her- my soul-mate.

She is my gateway to the 7th heaven, I find her presence in every aspect of my life. She is 6 years and 9 months younger to me and her descent in my life has been the best thing in my life. I celebrate and rejoice each day in her presence. Our tastes are so similar that we feel merely our X- & Y-chromosomes are different.

We patiently wait for time to last till the day till we perish after blessing our grandchildren. We live 250 kilometres away from each other and have only known each other through voices and photos. We are yet to meet. Till then I wait for the day my master degree gets over and she gets into a medical college.

Now I will end this post by saying that there's no end of love and no beginning of it - you just have to wait, identify and hold on to your truest love.

And there was Mame
posed between two Arabs
leaning against a camel

on a Moroccan beach
winding up her watch
clothed in a red and white

swim suit
and Johnny had said
You could’ve had her mate

the other night
she was yours
for the taking

(*** you thought he meant)
others have said
they’ve had her

and that settled the matter
and you just shrugged
and said

It never happened
it wasn’t that type of thing
(kissing and embracing

beneath a bright moon maybe)
but not what he
or others may have thought

as they saw that you and she
had gone off into the night
hand in hand

Oh you could have ridden her home
Johnny said
but it never entered your head

that night
with its stars and moon
and she beside you

listening to the Mediterranean Sea
**** the shores of the beach
laying on your backs

smoking and watching
the smoke rise
talking of home

and another land
and the future’s hold
and her hopes

and your wishes
and looking back
you know your life

turned out different  
wondering if her hopes and wishes
of the then

turned out right
or floated lifeless
like dead fishes.

This is a three-part, longer narrative poem, seen
as old photographs that follow the main character, My Aunt, Lillian Goldrick, across two decades.  It was written 30 years ago*
______

“Hey Kid!”     Part I

Photographs aren’t fair
stopping the soul where it’s not
in rectangular guffaws
surrounded by serrated edges, pickets, teeth?
to fence and stab in yellow, soft-covered booklets
with designated floppy phrase
“Your memories”

Happier than she could ever be...

A black and white day at Salisbury Beach, NH
hung over his hammock
Private pin-up girl
tilts her head against silver sheen of shoulder
Hair, dark chignon
except for a few wispy curls about her face
freed by wind
bleached by sun

Stopped

...for three decades
Legs slightly bent—long extended
that could stop trains, stop traffic

Stopped

Modest bathing suit, probably peach
cannot hide (not that she would)
the undeniable
And if there were question left
you could look at her smile—and love her
posed by he message scrawled in sand:

“Hey Kid!”

What kid? Where?
In the foreground?
In the camera’s eye?

In the background—
a Ferris wheel, a billboard
and  r-i-g-h-t  there—Can’t you see it?
Look again—behind her eyes
You can barely see it, but it’s there.
Remember?

The Depression
Only ten years before
It was April
Stroke, heart attack
Both of them gone, a year apart!
The priest came
Last Rites for mortally stricken
Candles, crucifix, the Catholic containment
of holy water that dams the tears

Kneeling around the bed
they said the Rosary

——————————

After VJ Day he came
to the house on the corner
of Commonwealth Ave.
She knew he was coming
but she could not be ready today
nor tomorrow
nor next week—or ever...

“Lill! Will ya come to the door?
She’ll be ready in a minute.
Hey Lill! Hurry up, will ya!
They’re waitin’ fer us!”

Upstairs in the dark hallway
her door clicks shut....
________


"Hey Kid"    Part II


The clock at Joe Rianni’s read 20 minutes to 12...

Crowd from the Phillip’s Theater—gone
though laughter lingers
in a Friday mood
in high-backed booths
where only an hour ago swinging free
were high-heeled shoes
legs crossed at knees....

Now on tables abandoned
deserted fields of French
fries lie cold in salt flurries

Only female straws wear lipstick
as do Luckys bent in ashtrays
Males, uniformly flattened
as powder burned, as mortar might
shells, casings—the evidence of war
Among explosions of tickled giggles
one was taken broadside...

listing     toward      stars
_______

...The clock read 20 minutes to 12

when she walked in--
And Rhea stopped swabbing black mica counters
long enough to absorb late-customer hate
and envy that such beauty can arouse
In voice hoarse and weighted like a trucker’s

“Whadaya have, Lill?”

“coffee”

The small answer settled at the soda fountain
and slowly struck a match...
She was falling from the slant
of her black felt hat
dripping off the point of pheasant feather
Gray gabardine suit
tailored from angle of shoulder
to dart diagonally
toward such a waist!
Turned to skirt hips
that arched and dove toward slit—
then seams that run the round of calf

that seem to flow
to ankles of naught—
...and all that seems

Black     high-heeled     above it

Coffee— cold, stale
Gray glassed-in stare
searches air and random walls
of coat hooks, menus, mirrors...
while lips ****** exiled words— replies

Dragging a demon from her Camel
slowly     purposefully
she exhaled a burly arm of smoke
that rose and laid its hand
against the ceiled atmosphere of embossed tin
Then leaning over her shoulder
in roiling emission of shrugs and sneers—

“Lill—There’s no way outa here!”
________


“Hey Kid!”    Part III

After kneeling backwards on their chairs
after nuns, catechism recited
After—
Five of them scuffed through leaves and litter
along the curbing
spotting cars that counted—
Bugs, beach wagons, flying bathtubs
A slower way home of hunting
shiny chestnuts and muddy finds
rare match book covers
and bottle caps that win ya things!

One breaks from bunch
and trials off to where
dimes turn to candies!
...at a dingy luncheonette...Joe Rianni’s
____

Here—behind smeary wall of glass
pleasure leers while holding back
those grimy fingers, lips that long
for jelly fish, gum drops, lollies
holding back the company
of Baby Ruth, and Mary Jane
O Henry or Bazooka Joe!
For less money but the same salivation
there were colored dots to chew and ****
from strips of paper that last forever!
For a little more, plus the sweet struggle
of desire denied
a kid could be proud owner
of a pea shooter or trading cards!
While in the mouth
were golden imaginings—
the chocolate foil of coins
and the candied pretense of cigarette adulthood
_____

Rhea didn’t see her in the line...

Only grownups with wallets and purses
Only grownups get waited on...
...because Rhea was a Gypsy!
Kids could tell!
by her big red lips and hair to match
by the nasty way she chased them out—
“****** kids!”
Only grownups get waited on....
_______

And the clock read 20 minutes to 12

While a child waits—
time stirs in a ceiling fan
   There’s a drift in attention
      along deepening endless walls
         toward a line of sleepy booths
              carved with

“I was here—in such and such a year”

Her aunt—at the last stool—like always
Their names too close
Confused too often

A little girl wonders
about the sight behind the sightless stare
loafers, ankle socks, the ‘40s hair
the gathered skirt that gathers ashes
as they fall from cigarette
held in yellowed fingertips
Tremors crimp the smoke that climbs—

              ...a strobing pillar

“Whataya want, girly?”

              ...the only movement

“Hey! What’s it gonna be!”

              ...in a shot—

“HEY KID!”

              Snapped

Before the gate has been closed,
before the last question is posed,
before I am transposed.
Before the weeds fill the gardens,
before there are no pardons,
before the concrete hardens.
Before all the flute-holes are covered,
before things are locked in then cupboard,
before the rules are discovered.
Before the conclusion is planned,
before God closes his hand,
before we have nowhere to stand.

Our first date at Rise
Holding your hand at the Firehouse Theater
Eating bagels you brought back from Montreal
Having lunch at Salata
Going to the Arboretum
The way you peeked out children’s house
Cuddling on the couch
Watching Game of Thrones
When you fell asleep in my arms
Drinking Amaretto Sours
When you would be silly
The sound of your voice
The maraschino cherry stem  you tied with your tongue
The Forget Me Not Flower Kit you gave me
Exchanging texts
The sound of incoming WhatsApp messages
Diner at Howard Wangs
You wearing bunny ears during Easter
36-28-41
When you posed for me
Your blues eyes looking up at me
Seeing your smile
Touching your lips
The way you smell
The secrets you would tell
Showing how you care
Hugging me tight
Letting me take care of you
When you cook Arepas
The gluten free Clafouti
The time you had the flu
Wearing Calvin Klein underwater
Your dainty feet  
Your goddess like figure
Your cute accent
Typing in the door bell code
Hearing you answer
The emoji of puppy heart kitten

Knowing you are my Bijou
Calling you Minou

I was asked today "what
are you really into?"
while I was walking to film
class.

He had changed direction
with a flair of drama
and was walking along,
interrogating me.

I had to think.

I wondered how
I would answer his
question, were it posed
by someone I was interested in.

"I like the smell of hormones
colliding, omnipotent in their
decision to do so and in doing
it."

Could I say that?

"I like to feel like a hormone,"
or
"I like being a hormone."
Were these answers?

"I like patting my contracted
******* against the *****
majora of my partner."

"I like sewing," I might say.

That is, the idea
that if I push
and she opens
both testicles
and ******* may pop inside.

Like a **** needle pulling
a ***** thread
through a tight weave.

I laugh, imagining what the little man
would say, but
he doesn't know why.

"Stitch her up, Doctor!"

I'm
laughing.

He just says "you know, I'm into
chemistry, biology. Just tell me what
you're into."

I've been silent.
Is he still walking with me?

All I think to say is
"music" pointing to the earbuds
dangling over my chest, song
interrupted
by his pedantry.

He says "you've always liked music"
as if we've had this conversation before.
As if we know each other.
And it seems like he will follow me
to class.
And sit by me.
And talk about chemistry
and biology
while we discuss Singin' in the Rain.

Hormones, sewing and music.

It's been long said in ancient Sanskrit texts,
"Yatha twam karasi,
Tatha twam bhogasi."

This roughly translates as 'As you sow, so you reap.'

This is true to the core but it's neither unconditional nor is it surely possible for you or me to be happy tomorrow even if we do good today. You might also have observed that sometimes you don't get exactly what you desired and yearned for when putting all your efforts. I will explain in the text that follows.

I am not Superman or a Godman blessed with super powers. I just believe in humanitarian virtues of course for all my life. And I don't despise the idea of theism. As some other people among the readers and their respective circles even I tame the same ideology about God having created the universe and then let us take charge.

I don't get involved in worshipping the creator, but I do thank that creator for having created us all. But how do I keep myself away from the various types of evils? The answer lies within.

What I identify as evil or deleterious to anyone or anything else, I don't do that and I totally despise all of it. Doing so I am aware that what I have been taking to and what I should get into. Whether it's my career or my love life, it almost totally depends on me and my Karma. The remaining few bits also depend on time and third parties who can affect my life greatly or maybe a little.

I don't know about what they quote other "Spiritual" people about and I feel that each of us can have our own views about time. I don't feel the urge to read about spiritual issues written by some well-publicised so called "Spiritual Gurus or Dharmatmas" who talk about out of the body experience.

The next time you think about some problem posed to you, your relative or a close friend, do try the following:
Just get out of your own mindset, think about the issue from a neutral point of view with your sixth sense (common sense) in right place. You're bound to find out the best way for solving it; let it be life or let it be any matter related to it.

I was purchased, used, and thrown out.
I got to see a few good times. Usually blurry or something got in the way, but it was still sort of ok.

The cycle starts over.

I'm purchased, used, and thrown out.
Once again I see wonderful things,
but usually posed and fake.
It was still sort of ok.

Until the cycle starts over.

Well let’s just jump right into it.

Everyone knows, the question right, “Which came first?” So let’s suppose, just for argument’s sake, in this specific case that is, that which came first was the egg. It’s also really the end of it in this case as well because there’s no chicken to follow. Just really it’s followed with the warm lettuce and the recooked bacon, the unripe tomato on a freshly baked bagel, which for argument’s sake is really the only part of the whole she-bang that’s actually any good.

But if that’s true then why even include the egg. Why abolish the chance for a chicken to exist? Why not just get a plain bagel? Well it’s about protein, you know. Does anyone really even like eggs or do we just eat them for protein? Does anyone like them, for argument’s sake let’s call it Tim Horton’s, does anyone really like them, eggs that is, when they’re cooked at Tim Horton’s? Are they even really eggs or just that powder, you know what I mean, that eggy powder like the powder milk that they have in the military? And if it is right, that eggy powder stuff, would anyone even care? Morally I mean, you have to assume people (which people I don’t know, some people I guess) stand behind eggy powder. But others right, you know the ones, who are disgusted by the idea of eggy powder. I’m one of those, not ashamed of it either and you know what, let’s just assume that it is eggy powder that they use at Tim Horton’s in their bagel BELTs. Would I have bought it if I thought it was eggy powder, probably not but here we are and I did and for argument’s sake let’s just say I already ate the whole thing. I mean morally I’ve just saved a chicken’s life but now I’m revolted by my having just consumed powdered eggs (right that’s what they’re called).

Let’s assume also that now I feel as though I’m figuratively standing on a moral high-ground but I’m also more or less disgusted by what I’ve just eaten even though I’m proud of myself for having eaten it, or rather not eaten a genuine egg. I’m ashamed of my disgust right and this has now proliferated into a casual nexus of disgust, shame and pride.

Q: Is it better to eat the powdered egg and simultaneously feel pride and revulsion or is it better to eat a real egg and **** a potential chicken?

This is an ode to Adderall,

that wonderful mixture of

dextroamphetamine sulfate

dextroamphetamine saccharate

amphetamine

aspartate monohydrate

and amphetamine sulfate capsules

that all combine together

to form a prescribable pill

questionably similar to the Schedule II controlled substance street drug

commonly refered to as "Speed."


This is an ode to the children

who are bundles of energy caged in a classroom

incapable of concentrating

on the miniscule tasks given to them

by pedagogical authorities that

promise societal success and economic happiness

to those who complete their work on time

without a fuss or a doubt as to why they're

filling in bubbles on paper in the first place.

The confused children who watch

as others with calmer brains

fixate eyes on textbooks

rather than out the window.


This is an ode to Society

deeming these individuals as broken

choosing to wound then medicate

rather than proliferate.

That took their inquisitiveness

and locked it in a book with the label "DISORDER"

stating that you will never be anything

unless you think and feel the same way we do.

And much like a mad doctor

lobotomizing those whom he thinks insane

they synthesized a pill

to dampen a torrential brilliance

allowing them to place their sedated children

back in the box where they belonged.


This is an ode to the college students

chained by academic standards

expected to excel towards great things

if only they reach that ethereal diploma.

The students who crave the artificial focus

the increased capacity for concentration

with the broadened spectrum of perception

the sense of purpose in the tedium

the ungodly ability to think clearly

and perform the meaningless tasks they expect of us.

The students who go through illegal means

to purchase said drug

to swallow or snort

and dive back into the mountain of responsibility

with a new found sense of productivity and motivation.

An ode to the students

unable to find purpose in studenthood

the ones who find more virtue in watching the sunset

burn clouds into firework oblivion

before then blessing us with uncritical night.

An ode to the students

who discover more education

in climbing to the top of a mountain

and yelling a nonsense decree of passion

just to watch the echo

bounce from shore to shore

in cathartic reverberation.

The ones

for which our pill

is the only possible manner

of assigning purpose to purposeless assignments.

These are the ones

who must binge

cram for days before

the big exams

going whole nights without sleep

or food.

The ones slowly cracking under the increasing pressure of academia

spending more time questioning why they must complete their homework

instead of actually completing it.


This is an ode to my brothers and sisters

who stand in horror at the mold we must fit into

crafted by an unknown unshakable entity.

The ones who lost the appeal of cookie-cutter success

in exchange for a small understanding

of the way things really work.

The cogs that twisted off the machine

and now sit lotus-posed in the corner.

My fellow birds with broken wings

still expected to fly.

My fellow carpenters expected to build their estates

yet not given the proper tools to do so.

The ones of cursed cold clarities

perfectly capable of clutching

those fifteen minutes of dynasty

yet refrain from doing so due to

the immaculate futility of it all.


This is an ode to a drug induced rant

that no one will read

the one that I chose to write

instead of doing my **** homework in the library

like a compliant student.


This is an ode to the pressure-oriented procrastinators

that delay and yet again delay

their petty necessary obligations due to purposeless and exhausted motivation.

Swallowing substances to summon some sort of incentive

to fill in the bubbles

and cater to the Society they find so confusing

the ones who only under influence of synthesized chemicals

find reason to squeeze into that culturebox

that cascades down a bumpy man-made conveyor belt

branding a diploma onto your forehead

injecting an occupation into your veins

transforming your pupils to dollar bill signs

demanding you breed children

to do the same as you have

and you'll never be happy unless you do these things

right?


This is an ode to those who reside in the shadows

of our broken social system

and conjure up great conversations

pertaining to everything and nothing

that are as wonderful and necessary

as the prints of your fingers

caressing down a comfortable torso

just before the sun rises

the untouchable indescribable realizations of life and love

that are completely irrelevant in their eyes

but are entirely necessary for our survival.


This is an ode to the overwhelming feeling of love

greatly exacerbated by a pharmaceutical delight

whereupon connections with other humans

become both incredibly appealing and oddly magnetic

for a few electric hours.

The oxygenating satisfaction felt

the instance just after the small talk architecture masks

fall to the floor

and right before we put them back on.


This is an ode to the minutes before the amphetamine crash

where the world still doesn't make sense

but we briefly don't mind

because a few fleeting moments of energy and purpose

in this otherwise detestable confine of reality

are all you can really ask for

as you complete the assignments

then step outside

to smoke yet another cigarette (they're absolutely wonderful on Adderall try it some time it'll **** you slowly but then again what won't?)

only to witness our Sun

breeding fire clouds in the east

illuminating the Western Abyss into purple-gold spectral oblivion

and in consequence therefore

between puffs of a necessary cigarette

you grin to yourself in quiet victory.


This is an ode to misaligned priorities

to those who when walking to everimportant final examinations

think not of the curriculum beaten into their skulls

but take careful measure to step on every crack on the sidewalk

who stare not towards the future

but to the beautiful reflection reflecting back from the broken mirrors

that are the weary days and weary ways

of this curious existence.

To those when stepping into the absurd spotlight of Society

unapologetically proclaim:


"Though I must play your game,

you will never win."

PLANET NAIROBI (When the sun goes down)
Nur…
They were on the verge of losing this battle… it was only a matter of time, and he knew that. Through the window, he saw them advance, with a fierce swiftness that would have put anyone opposed to them at unease. Trembling uncontrollably, he reached for his weapon and held it firmly, ready to martyr himself for his family’s honour and legacy if need be. For they were not, and never would be known as a family of cowards, they were royalty... and he would rather go down fighting than cowering, that was the bottom line. But he knew that his sword, as well forged as it was, would be no match for Rath and his five hundred man strong battalion. So, biting his lower lip he waited for the pounding footsteps to reach the top of the stairs where he stood, the one solitary guardian to the throne. Martyrdom was his destiny.
“Let he that stands between Rath and the throne fall like the city walls!” Rath’s dominant voice bellowed as it got closer, too close for comfort.
He braced himself.
Suddenly, the doors burst open. And Nur... Prince Nur, finally got to come face to face with the scourge that had terrorised the lands of the sea for so long. A man of whom he had heard about from stories as a child growing up. A man that had haunted his dreams for as long as he could remember. Nur realised that he had always been afraid of Rath, long before this moment, how was he supposed to fight this man when he was clearly at a disadvantage? For it was common knowledge that to go into battle afraid, was to go into battle prepared to lose.
Rath was a gigantic figure, and exuded the air of one who was accustomed to crushing his opponents and hadn’t experienced defeat in a while... if not ever. This man stood at almost eight feet tall, with rock hard muscles that seemed to pile on top of more muscle, threatening to tear through his dark skin. His long locks of unkempt hair fell over a face that could only be described as menacing. He had a permanent scowl that was complimented by his black, soulless eyes. And as they stared each other down, Nur couldn’t ignore the presence of sheer evil he saw in those eyes, a shiver of dread ran down his spine. He raised his blade.
“A child?” Rath barked, “A petulant child? Is that what this Kingdom’s defences have come down to? An infant?” He waved a dismissive hand at Nur.
“A prince!” Nur responded defiantly, raising his blade even higher and more confidently. This man may have been the epitome of terror, but Nur would be ****** if he was going to be talked down to in this manner, this was his palace.
“A prince huh? Prince Nur I presume? Your father was a brave man, I respected him. Even if I met his acquaintance only for a couple of minutes, before I slaughtered him. But I do respect a king that fights alongside his men, as opposed to other cowards I’ve had the pleasure of killing that had barricaded themselves in their chambers and let others fight their battles for them. King Thur was a rare breed... but a dead one all the same.” He laughed remorselessly as he said this. “And soon you will get to join your warrior father foolish one.”
Nur lost all sense of fear. Infuriated, his nostrils flared as he swung the blade with all the ferocity he could muster, slicing deep into Rath’s right forearm. Time slowed to syrup as he saw his adversary’s blood stain the sword, but realising that it wasn’t a fatal strike, he turned around swiftly, switching his stance just in time to see Rath’s massive blade come down on his head. Then there was a deathly silence.
The afterlife was nothing like he had pictured. It smelt of... he couldn’t quite place that peculiar smell. It wasn’t pleasant, but neither was it unpleasant, just unfamiliar. Then he turned around and saw her. He deduced that she was probably the source of the smell. He noticed that smoke came out of her nostrils and mouth every few seconds after lifting a sticklike object to her lips. Nur mused at how wrong the high priest in their kingdom had been when he spoke about the place in the sun... the afterlife. It wasn’t anything like he had described.
But wait a minute! He realised that the sun was still above him, in the sky. He could see it. He could feel it on his skin. So WHERE WAS HE? He felt dizzy, unable to comprehend. Only a minute ago he was in the royal palace, facing certain death. And now he was... he didn’t know where he was, or even what he was. Was he dead? Transcended? Was this just his soul? If so, then how come he still had his senses? All these questions raced through his mind at the same time. He turned toward the lady, who seemed unaware of his presence. She was tall and very light skinned compared to him and her hair was tied in ponytail at the back of her head. He couldn’t make sense of her attire though, she seemed to wear a lot of clothing, garment over garment that covered her arms and legs. She was also extremely beautiful and had a slim womanly body most warriors would **** for, he noted, and felt himself flush. He tried to see what she was squinting so intently at and concluded that she was just staring into space as she drew, he realised now, on the tiny stick and blew out more smoke. That was when he noticed how high up they were, this palace stood almost five times as high as theirs. It was overwhelming to say the least.  He got up and walked over to her, deciding to leave his blade behind so as not to come off as a threat.
“Greetings?” He said politely. She jumped as if she had just seen a ghost, dropping the stick she was holding. He had clearly startled her, so he took a step back lifting his hands in the air to signify that he meant her no harm. She breathed rapidly and began to speak just as rapidly in a foreign tongue. Nur couldn’t understand what she was saying, but the hostility in her tone and her demeanour was hard to miss. He took another step back, ready to defend himself from an attack if need be. He had heard tales of an island with warrior women who could match, and beat, even the strongest male adversary in combat. He decided to tread cautiously.


Nasim...
Nasim Naikuni was beyond peeved. Who was this ******?  He had scared her half to death and almost made her fall off the roof, not to mention burn her favourite grey, three thousand shilling trouser suite when she dropped the cigarette. And what annoyed her even more was that he didn’t seem to register how ******* she was. He just stood there with a blank expression on his face, like a schoolboy waiting for his mistake to be explained to him. Nasim couldn’t stand slow people, they got under her skin. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, which was taxing to say the least, seeing as she had been smoking just seconds ago.
“Are you slow?” She shouted, tapping at her temple repeatedly. “What makes you think you can sneak up on me like that you fool? You almost killed me. Do you realise that?” Then she stopped and studied him, out of breath. She noticed that he seemed unable to understand English and so she switched to Swahili, “Nini mbaya na wewe?” What’s wrong with you? Still there was no response.
She gave him a once over. He dressed strangely. His large, golden brown pants that fluttered in the wind seemed to have been made from an expensive material, though it was like no material she’d laid eyes on before. It bordered somewhere between silk and suede. His shirt was also made of a similar material, but leather brown in colour, matching his leather boots that were laced and reached just under the knee. He stood an inch or two shorter than she did, but she guessed that was probably because she was in heels. He had long hair that seemed to fall halfway down his back in one long braid. He looked almost exotic as he tried to communicate, but she couldn’t place the language or his ethnicity, for his skin-tone was chocolate brown but his hair looked almost like an Asian’s, dark and straight. He spoke in a tongue she had never heard before. There was also something really classy about this boy, whom she guessed to be around eighteen years of age or so. It was like looking at a darker, more pampered version of Sinbad the sailor.
Nasim relaxed a little and decided to give the fellow a chance to introduce himself, in whatever way he intended to do so. He seemed to pick up on this and started explaining something to her, making a couple of gestures, and at some point she thought she saw him mimic a fight, and then  point to the sky. Nasim still didn’t know what he was talking about, but felt a semblance of communication begin to take form. He directed her attention to another part of the roof, probably where he had approached her from. And she saw the blade! With catlike agility she swung her purse at him, the blow caught him square on the jaw with a thud! The bottle of perfume she religiously carried around in it serving a different purpose on this day. He hadn’t seen it coming and so had no chance of stopping it. He staggered backwards as she made a run for it toward the staircase but felt a hand grab her ankle causing her to tumble onto the hot cement floor. At that moment her heart sank, for she knew that she was done for.


Nur...
Nur was perplexed, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve the assault. The lady had seemed to be calming down, but all of a sudden she had lunged at him with a weapon he had first assumed to be a bag. Though, she didn’t strike with the strength that a warrior would have, and also had made an attempt to flee. This told him two things. One, she wasn’t accustomed to combat... and two, she had attacked more out of fear than strife. Which meant that she posed no immediate threat to him. Also, she was the only person he had met so far and his only hope of figuring out where he was. He couldn’t afford to lose her, not just yet, so he decided to try something he was ashamed he hadn’t thought of sooner. Nur spoke into her head.
‘I mean you no harm.’  He said, and waited. No response. He tried again, concentrating harder this time. ‘Can you hear me? I mean you no harm’
‘LET ME GOOO!’  Her thoughts screamed.
He could understand her, they had made a connection. Progress...

One year later. Nasim...
“Good afternoon people? You’re hangin’ out with me Nasim Naikuni on your favourite show Voices, where you can throw any question you have regarding life... and living it, at me and the voices in my head will answer them for you... yeah, you heard right, the voices in my head. I’ll be takin’ your calls for the next hour. Let’s begin shall we?” Nasim spoke into the microphone just before a voice-over added...
“NASIM NAIKUNI, THE ONLY RADIO PRESENTER THAT’S LITERALLY GONE BONKERS!” And then was followed by some rock music. ‘So what?... I’m still a rock star... ’ Pink’s lyrics belted out as Nasim removed her headphones to take a breather before she talked to her first caller. A breather... and also to have a bit of a chat with the voice in her head. She walked out of the studio into a corridor where she was out of sight, and concentrated, her eyes crinkling from the effort.
‘Hey, are you there?’
‘Uh huh.’ The prince replied.
‘Okay, we’re on in roughly three minutes. Make me look good babes’
‘Don’t I always?’
‘True dat. What are you doing?’
‘Breakfast.’
‘It’s one in the afternoon... ’
‘This is not my planet, therefore I’m not obliged to follow its rules. I can have a one o’clock breakfast if I want to.’
‘Brunch.’
‘What?’
‘Brunch, what your having would be brunch. Breakfast... aaand lunch?’
‘You see? You get all high and mighty on me about this and you even have a name for it? If it is so wrong to have breakfast at this time, then why would your people give the meal a name? I’m just saying.’ Nur said mockingly.
‘I give up’ She replied with a sigh.
‘Nas... Nas?’
Silence.
She walked back into the studio.
“Caller... you’re on air. Shoot.” Nasim said softly, leaning into the microphone.
“Hey Nasim, lovely job you’re doing by the way.”
“Why thank you dear, but I don’t deserve all the credit you know?”
“Yeah I know... you and the voices in your head... ha-ha! Anyway my name is George, and I’m kinda’ in a predicament at the moment. You see, I have a wife and a family... two kids, but I kinda’ got into this relationship outta’... obligation as opposed to real love...”
“Obligation?”
“Yes. I met my wife five years ago in uni’ and we dated. But looking back, I only got into the relationship because I felt I’d led her on and she loved me soo much, I just couldn’t disappoint her. So I got stuck in a phony relationship, at least on my part. Next thing I know, we are pregnant and... It’s been we ever since.”
“So you want to what? Get out of your marriage?”
“I want to be with the person I truly love...”
“Hooo... **! Scoreboard! Now we have lift off. And how long have you known this person that you truly love George?” She said this with a tinge of amusement in her voice.
“Six years... and we’ve been going out for the past two.” He sounded ashamed.
‘He sounds ashamed.’ She heard Nur say observationally.
‘No kidding.’ She retorted.
(In the past year or so, Nasim and Nur had come to an understanding somewhat. After she had struck him with her purse and the little scuffle they’d had on the rooftop, and after convincing herself that she wasn’t going crazy... or that the cigarette she had been smoking wasn’t laced with marijuana or some other hallucinogen, she finally gave in and listened to the voice speaking to her in her thoughts.
‘Please, just give me a chance to explain. I need your help lady!’ He sounded desperate.
She felt sorry for him, but still suspected she could be going nuts.
He continued. ‘I don’t know where I am. My father is dead and I don’t know where I am or how I arrived here, and you’re the only one that can help me right now...’
Nasim, touched now, replied. “How am I supposed to do that? And how are you doing this telepathy thing? Are you really doing this?” She shook her head violently, like a wet dog trying to dry itself, “I’m very confused right now.”
He looked even more confused. ‘Talk to me in my head, I think it is the only way we can communicate with each other.’
She didn’t know how to.
‘It’s simple, concentrate.’ He said reassuringly.
She tried. Still nothing.
‘I could hear you a moment ago, I don’t understand. Let’s try this slowly, repeat after me... Nur.’ He told her.
She heard him, and was thinking what?
He repeated, ‘Nur.’
She tried thinking the word he’d asked her to repeat as hard as she could but he didn’t seem to be getting anything. She decided that the cigarette must have been laced with something. Here she was, on the roof top of her work building trying to master telepathy, with a stranger who just happened to own a sword. This had to be a dream, a nightmare.
‘I must be high.’
‘Yes! Yes! You’re high!’ She heard the excited reply.
‘What?’
‘You did it!’ Nur said happily, ‘you figured it out. And yes, I was also meaning to ask you about how high we are.’
She had done it. Nasim could hear him and answer back, she felt oddly proud of this accomplishment. Then she asked puzzled. ‘High? You get high?’
‘I am high.’ Came the naive reply.
‘Oh...’
‘Why are we so high up? The palaces on our island are half the size of yours, are you that many in your palace that you need to build it so tall?’
Then she understood. And laughed... ‘Who are you? And how did you get here?’
‘My name is Nur... Prince Nur... how I got here? That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ He was being honest.
And thus begun an adventurous relationship between the two. Nasim took him to her apartment that day, passing curious and disapproving looks all the way. The most difficult part being trying to explain to her boss why she was coming from the roof in the company of someone who dressed like a ******, as he put it. She made up something. And he gave her one of those I’ll accept your story just because... looks. Nasim found that hilarious. But she was glad she had asked Nur to leave the sword behind to be recovered later. That would have been a tad difficult to explain. They got to her apartment block and were met by more disapproving looks from a group of nosey old women, the type that love to mind everyone else’s business but their own, as they walked to the lift. And when they got into apartment F6 on the second floor, she introduced Nu

[Lost Animals]
Cats probably aren’t even lost
Dogs are trying to find the way back to you
And then there’s butterflies and wild geese that can fly
thousands of miles and back every year and just know
The way home  

[Photographs of Abandoned Places]
Empty rooms filled with flotsam and jetsam
once colorful but now faded and dusty
what draws us here?
The emptiness, the mystery of why we would leave
our dwellings and go elsewhere

[“Don't Lost" Sign]
Our faces were cold and it was windy
we smiled and laughed anyway
warm from the dim lights and food we’d left behind
Don’t lost what? Don’t get lost? Don’t lose yourself?
Cryptic commands posed by an unknown painter with bad grammar  

[Labyrinth]
Isn’t it strange that we make a game out of getting lost?
Ariadne Gave Theseus golden thread to solve the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur
Cathedrals have them too, so we can meditate and walk through them
But what minotaur lies at the center of our labyrinth?
More importantly, can we defeat it?  

[Cultural Appropriation]
A clinical term for the simple act
of erasure, of losing.
A people, a nation a culture, a shared memory
who are we without these things?
Such power in taking them away and reducing the people to shadows.  

[Photographs of Chernobyl]
An eerie empty city of ghosts
The pictures show that nature will take us all back one day
there are trees in living rooms and schools  
The photos of howling, pain, mutation are a warning that we shouldn’t seek to have
So much power.

[Losing People]
Stoics say that when someone has died you have ‘returned’ them
This sounds better than losing I suppose
because they aren’t lost
they are gone. And they’re never coming back
No matter where or how long we look we won’t find them  

[Guiding Stars]
The palest of light that seeps into our atmosphere
we are under the same stars as everyone else wherever we are on this lonely planet
that ought to give some comfort, when I look up at night that I see the same stars
as you. I want to brush them into the palm of my hand and offer their light
to you so you could maybe see your words are what is painted on the inside of my soul.  

[Feeling at a Loss]
My tongue is tied and I can’t even think of words because I can’t breathe
around this knot in my chest that forms when I think of you and how I lied and why I let
myself lose you and so for a long while my heart cried oceans and I begged it to stop
So I wouldn’t have to think about the words that I didn’t say and the light I lost,
the brightest that came from your heart.    

[At a Loss for Words]
When someone says something you’re not even sure you heard right, you’re stunned
because you can’t even think of a response while the blood rushes to your face and
pounds in your ears like waves on the beach will you sit silent, stoic
not wanting to give away heat you feel just under the skin.  

[Losing My Religion]
How can you lose your beliefs? Unless someone stole them
Or the disgust with hypocrisy built on good intentions breaks in you until you lose sight
of what you believe to be real and all you can do is renounce it.
What happens if you never knew what to believe in the first place?
A crisis of faith is averted? But at what price?

[Lost Clothes]
The left sock, left glove, that ugly winter jacket you had as a kid.
Where do they go? Why do they just disappear? You just never find them. What do you
Do with the extras? What happens to the lost ones? Is there a land for lost socks? Are
they lonely, trying to find their other half?  

[Missing Person Posters]
Can you lose a person? No, surely not. How can let someone fade from you so far away
that they go missing? Maybe they let themselves fade. Pulled away.
Of course, they could be stolen, or forget who they are, but that is almost less disturbing
than thinking of than people running away or being lost by people
who are supposed to care.

[Lost Cause]
Maybe not so much a cause going nowhere as one that people tired of
too much work with no end in sight. So they left and let the tenacious ones
the true believers take over, to finish the ***** work and clean up the mess
is that how this grace thing works? Holding your tongue while someone else chases
glory only to abandon it when it is too difficult and they leave you to see it through?

[Lost My Mind]
My mind is currently wandering through some forested path on a mountain almost
on the way to touching the sky or lying on the bottom of a the clearest blue ocean
looking up through the kelp leaves and shimmering fish. Or between words of a book.
So forgive me, I missed what you were saying. I’m sure it was important. I was just
trying to follow my mind to those places. And be somewhere else.        

[Lost Souls]
The kind of thing you say talking about a girl with empty sad eyes raccooned by liner.
Or a boy who is always angry or in an altered state of consciousness,
so he can face his everyday. It is reminiscent of ghosts, who wander, not sure where to
go, or who to trust so they hold their despair and fear tightly against their chests.    

[Lost Time]
A euphemism for fainting. Or maybe used by historians for a time with no records.
It sounds more mysterious, Where can time go, except forwards? How can there be a
lost part of time? it sounds as though time has a private life, that it won’t share.
Unless asked politely. Which is what we do when we investigate the past isn’t it,
Looking for the lives of others.  

[The Lost Generation]
“Don’t wanna be an American Idiot” said Scott, and Ernest, and Gertrude.
So they sent each other invitations to their chic Parisian salons on creamy white paper
and said ‘darling let’s make it a holiday!’ and had a divine time with the French
so they wrote novels of despair and disdain and the pain of being human.
and drowned the pain in champagne and beautiful women and men.  

[Lost in Translation]
Some words that cannot be translated in English especially
ones that are raw and tender and romantic
ones that are universal feelings with no name that everyone understands
but the meaning is changed to make it something no one understands in English
So something universal becomes something ungraspable to all.   

[Lost and Found]
The one who crawled out the cave
out of the dark into the pure light so they were blind
Gave so much to come back for the others out of love?
Or a sense of duty? Or maybe they were just returning, as we all do
as we all will do someday.

All too often the question is posed :
What has happened to all of the " Real Men"?
Do they even exist anymore, or have they succumbed to extinction?

And the answer is no. They are still very much alive, just fewer in numbers. These days, if you happen to come across one, chances are you will find him at what, from the outside, appears to be him at his worst. After having been so beaten down by life, that he hardly resembles a man any longer. (Or at least to what your un-natural opinion of a man resembles) This, as a result of standing up for what is decent, fair and moral. You know, being a "Man", while living in a world void of any morality. But do you know?

Do you really have the ability enough to be able to recognize some one for whom and what they really are? Where do your eyes stop when they peer at someone? Do they penetrate through the car window? Past the $20 hair cut? Can they keep going, beyond the glare of jewelry and through the named brand distractions of the accessorized apparel? And even then, past the last line of defense for this facade, the camouflage more commonly referred to as body art. Which, just like any other item one don's for a masquerade, it sole purpose is to distract others from the truth of what little substance lies underneath the skin.

Those aren't real men or in many cases women either. A tattoo, or any other equivalent of artificiality can never be as honest as a Scar can be.
An Emotional Scar does more damage than a superficial one. A wound speaks more of the individual who bears it. Who's suffered the pain which came with it and who is constantly reminded by it. That is what true sense is derived from, Lessons.

However, when it comes to the moral Man's personality,
the world today & the people in it tend to push these types of individuals into corners. These types of "personalities" suffer to hold on to their integrity and pay terrible prices in order to do so. They sacrifice their security, their psychological state of mind & their physical personal comfort for it. And living in this world, for them, is like torture. So many have had the things and the people they fought for, loved and held dear, snatched away from them, just because they do, not what is easy & popular, but what is right. And these days, the difference between those three are worlds apart.

The lethargic effortlessness of life has made men like me, obsolete and replaced us with the self-serving Narcissist. No longer Gods creation  but a new creation of the self. Void of any empathy, understanding, sympathy or human emotion. Synthetic, and machine like, a Frankenstein incarnate. Look around out there and if you have eyes to see with, you will see that humanity has traded who they were born to be, for what is in fashion to be. They have given up the now elusive spirit of the human heart, for the abundant trend of the human ego. Take a closer look, it is like "The Walking Dead" out there. Mindless, heartless, merciless dead things, only doing for them selves. Consuming whatever they can, how ever they can & who ever they can, in order to stay well supplied and well hidden among'st the rest of us. Lying in wait to ambush us, victimizing us, selling us out, draining us like Vampires.
Men and Women like myself, start to feel as though we are the last human beings on earth, being hunted by these consumers. Always weary and uncomfortable. Going through life trying desperately to hold on to that which is real within us, so that decency does not vanish from our lives, by being chewed up and swallowed whole by a dead eyed world gone mad.

A horrible existence. This way of living/surviving is completely unnatural & brings with it a new type of loneliness & attached to that is the worst kind of hopelessness. A dangerous state to be in if one does not keep his wit's about him. And have the given sense enough to know, that If it were not for a God in heaven, there would be no hope at all. No reason to suffer un-popularity or ostracism. No reason to do what is right, over what is convenient . No reason to not just give in to the temptation of an easy life. A life where all that matters is numero-uno. Where everything else and everyone else is just secondary.

I would rather be alone & miserable for the rest of my life, than to be a self-centered, backstabbing, bloodsucking son of a b¡tch like the rest of you out there.

Now, getting back to these "Men" that so many our Women are attracted to. The men that keep letting you down time and time again. The ones who's possessions make them look like they are worth something, whom you so easily swoon over like some kind of hypnotized harlot. My dear sister, eventually those things get stripped away. Either by time or the trial's of life. And then what you are left left with is whatever pathetic thing was hiding underneath.

And that is what you get, for being led by your eye's, your hands, your ears and your selfish little minds.You listen to & are led by, every other part of your body except your heart, which is the Apex O r g a n over all others. Which has been given charge and authority, by The Creator himself over all of those other things you are always so quick to bow down to. And that is a d a m n e d shame. And that is your d a m n e d shame. And it is no one else's fault but your own.

You want to see a mans character or a woman's? Then look for their Scars. They will tell you what kind of survivor they really are. The kind that is self reliant or the kind that feeds off of the flesh of his brother or his sister to survive. The opportunist, The scavenger, The rat.

But thankfully, there is a God. One God.
And there always will be. And so the rest of the world can go on doing what it does, and taking what it can.
But it will never get what it wants, not from me. My individuality is my soul and it is held together not with pride, or greed, or vanity, but with integrity. And that belongs to Him. And when it is inevitably brought back to him, it will be brought to him intact, un-molested &
Immovable-

We posed like **** stars in adrenaline filled bodies
proud in young magnificence always, never understood
as we kept posing statuesque... that happiness
is not met by a youthful blaze, and like glass
is always brittle...
transparently solved the  riddle we saw when
we were too old to go back.

I posed a querry to the stone on the summit and from it I got neither bile. Nor *****.crickets chirping loudly into the night. The silenced with fright at once. Time passed through the hourglass with silty silence.

So I posed a querry. Slathered in razzleberry jam to the powers that am.
And the dedafening roar of NEVERMORE did bowl me over. So I posed another.  Smotherd in clover and lo and behold the universe expanded in deafening silence.

Alas I am left with para of noia .
Furtive. Distrustfull. Disgusted evunnn. As said snagglepus.
A wuss in sheeps clothing. Serpentine riddle. No front nor back nor side nor middle. Left wanting of truth left here to self ******.
Awww fiddle.  Hey didle didle.

The cat and the fiddle.... licking his chops
Playing all sides agin the middle

Shmaaart

Sometimes I'm left wondering -
Did you enslave me or did you set me free?
Your selfish actions posed as my best company.
A sense of power is what you gave to me;
In return, I granted you a sense of relief.
It was some kind of silent agreement that we reached.
It was some kind of agreement begging to be breached.
I still think of you sometimes, and I have to ask,
"What was he thinking when he did that?"
It disturbs me that most of it was just an act.
It hurts me that you didn't use more tact.

Poem thief can have my poems if it means you continue to share pieces of you.
Joined this site to get to know you and will not stay here if you go away.
Not into twitter or myspace but will join to be near you and hope you don't mind.
I pray you allow me to be part of your crowd on your private Facebook.
You inspired me to write poetry and to get better at what's difficult for me.
I don't smoke cigarettes to calm my nerves or drink ***** to numb a man's pain.
Admitting I'm a grown *** man reading your leaving comments and about to cry.
You affect more lives than you realize Betty Ponder and I glad you shared about you.
The one who steals poems can steal this one too it will mean more will know my feelings.
Glad that I got to read the pieces of you that you cared to share.
I posed a how do you know question to my parents about knowing if it's love.
Answer was when a person leaves your life and it makes you feel like
you can't breath and you get extremely sad when they leave and you want to
swallow your pride and get down on your hands and knees and beg them not to go.
I'm sad thinking you are leaving and I wont get to read pieces of you but still
got butterflies in my stomach thinking of you and want to beg you not to go.
I kid you not. You are the best of the best of all poets on this site and it's a ****** shame
you removed a lot of your fantastic poems they were the best of the best on this site.

Outwardly I am a titanium barrier, inwardly, a net of strings hold me together within confining my true self to my mind. The metaphoric needle posed between thumb and forefinger, sewing patch after patch across my ruined skin, holding in the things that threaten to burst. The thread is my self value, thin and dissolving.
Watching in the shattering mirror, who I am, as tears and blood slip past trembling fingers.  Reaching upwards towards light, but I drown in the darkness. I am swallowed by hopeless misery.
Floundering and toiling in the shadows of my own faith and nearly forgotten beliefs.
Sorrow floods me, consuming in a cold fire that doesn’t burn, but freezes to the core.
Refracting shards of light that escape like a song. They fall like a melody from my lips.
While the heat of the world swirls around me in shades of blue and black. I am bruised and ask "why do I hate myself?"
I never have an answer. Only the memories of a life so beyond dysfunctional that I have to resort to story writing to make believe a happy ending, never truly believing in it.

What were these whispered words that squirmed and infiltrated my mind, what are those lost secrets and memories left to fade away. Tormented, still I remain silent. Suffering quietly. Wondering if I'll go down without a fight, or would I take my own life. It is the loss of my humanity. I transcend in definition, no longer resembling who I was.  Silver tears, dripping from the eyes of the moon, as if such a cold distant satellite mourns for and with me.

Fear remains, as it always does, clutching my heart in an iron grasp. Despite the freedom of a new life, my knees are buckling, I’m poised to run, as if there were a place to escape to. Walls arise on all sides. I am locked in a box, where I hide away from the world, and I become, cold and distant as the moon. Fighting myself endlessly.
Hide everything I am from the world, and put it out of sight of myself, I don't dare to confront it.
I ask myself again. "Why do I hate?" I know a vague answer to it this time. I have allowed the evil and cruelty of a despondent life before this one to shape me, even after my resurrection, despite my belief and faith. I had let it consume me.
My heart, a thousand splinters of ice, would once break, even if it was looked at, or touched, cracked and shatter repeatedly. I only watch, making no attempt to heal myself. Content with viewing my own nails clashing with soft flesh that gives way to pain and agony. Slicing into cold abysmal depths, bleeding a metaphoric spectrum of ****** colors into my veins that then spill down the drain of my heart.

I wonder if there is any capacity within me, for the remnants of a shimmering soul to return to hope?   I'd abandoned love and hope for so long, had they dissipated completely. Do I dare to uncover such a startling miserable revelation?
My voice catches in my chest, as I sing halfheartedly for my freedom. To be released from my anguish. My voice not carrying past my lips, stolen by the wind of despair circulating around me.
I had changed, believed myself worthless and ugly. Melancholy, a kaleidoscope of emotions contrasting with one another. Dripping together to create the painting of my life. Magnificent, yet lonely and sad. Like forlorn splatter-paint tears down the side of eroding walls.

I was told once that I was shiny on the outside, and dull on the inside. Gilded. I want to change that. I cannot hide the scars I have been dealt, nor can I conceal the ones I've inflicted to my own body. I remember each slice to the skin with shame. That I had knowingly marred perfect flesh.
"What value could I possibly have if I'm constantly looked down upon?"  I pose questions like this to myself.
Everything they say makes me feel worthless, like I'm not supposed to be here.
Maybe I'm not, I wasn’t supposed to live was I?
“Worthless. Freak. Stupid.”
Do these words define me?
Are they who I am?
I am a shadow, As I sink into the depths of my own insignificance I stare speculatively, emptily up at the opalescent translucence far above me. I’ve always been worthless,  but now I am nameless. I’ve never been to solid in my own emotions, right now I don’t know what to feel anymore. Where and what is joy? What happened to the light?
I dissolve into toxicity and an almost chemical stasis of depression, seeping into my heart with the thickness of sick black tar, dragging me farther than I’ve ever been beneath the surface.

I become nothing, for that is what I presume I always was, nothing. Only a mirage burning holes into the fabric of lonely hearts longing, a haunting memory left to torment into seclusion and sorrow.
An empty shell of what once was a girl with dreams, is all that remains to decay in the dark. While the shudder of sobs dies down into a tempest of self loathing.
An incandescent nightmare, flares out like the petals of a blossoming flower, they unfurl and cover the dystopia of eloquently disfigured words that curl and uncoil, only to surround the wounds of me that pour from a inky black liquid that has replaced the blood in my veins.
The push and pull of the sorrow and hope mixing into the discordant symphony of life. The sound that is the melody of me.

Hanging from a Star
The girl sat on her star. The dark towering flowers around her, cast shadows over her blank face. She walked around the side of her star to the grass so she could watch the fiery sun and look down at the fluffy billowing clouds in earth’s atmosphere. Lying, hating thoughts floated up from the beautiful blue and green planet below. The girl had been watching earth since it was first created. Cain’s first thoughts of ****** were heard by the girl. She watched the black plague wash through the world, killing millions. The hell of the holocaust burned through her mind like fire across her own skin. Sometimes she swore she could almost smell the melting flesh and boiling blood from the sick world below.
The girl nestled down in the warm grass and focused her guarded mind in preparation to listening in on the earth, like she did every other day. “Her nose is so ugly.” “Why didn’t I do more today?” “I miss her.” “I need to put at least ten percent in savings if I’m ever going to retire.” “I hope no one else notices this huge zit protruding from my face.” “Why didn’t I just kiss him?” “The sun is burning my eyes.” She made her way through selfish minds of the shallow population and then moved for relief, to the newborn children. Images of parents, lights, and bright colors flashed before her eyes. Each new child’s face seemed to be surrounded in a beautiful clear light. The girl wished the children had never been brought to that terrible planet.
One child in particular tugged on the girls thoughts, making the girl want to focus entirely on her. The light around the child was brilliant. The baby’s ocean eyes were open and focused on the one beautiful flower in the room. The details of the daisy were perfect in the child’s mind. The baby fell deeply in love with the white petals that curled softly around the bright yellow center. The girl’s mind was entranced by the lovely child. The girl named the perfect child Claire and sent heavenly visions to entertain the child’s thoughts as the hospital buzzed around her.
As Claire grew, the girl watched her red curls flourish and darken with each day. Her blue eyes bloomed as she turned into a happy toddler and her pale skin stayed radiant and cloudless. Claire’s mommy was a large, reserved woman, but loved her little girl with all her heart. Her mommy sang her to sleep each night and gave her everything she could afford to. But the floor of the trailer where they lived was layered in mud, cat feces, and tobacco. Her father’s face and clothes were covered in stains and the beard that he never remembered to shave had remnants of chewing tobacco that he hadn’t spit far enough. Every night, his drunk, angry voice roared throughout the house, cursing at whatever he could get into his hands first. Each time this happened, the ******* the star poured daisies into Claire’s mind as Claire buried her china face into a soiled pillow.
After a sublime day of school filled with telling time and and reading silly stories, Claire  skipped back to her hostel under the warm autumn sun. She opened her front door to find her mommy in a pool of ***** and blood. Claire screamed in horror and fled back down the steps to the closest residence, trying to see through her own flooded eyes as she tripped along the avenue. Claire’s father never even went to the hospital to inquire about his wife. The hospital gave up calling him, and she was buried in an unplanned graveyard, under the cheapest tombstone.
Claire became the subject of her father’s wrath. Several times a month he would take Claire to bed with him and **** her. She cried silently as he seized her tiny body, leaving large dark bruises where he should have left kindness. The ******* the star filled Claire with exquisite thoughts as he blemished her, but a child may not always be calmed in a situation of pure agony. Tears streamed from the star, watering the daisies next to the trashed trailer.
The ******* the star watched as Claire grew and learned. Finally, Claire vacated the ***** trailer park, on her way to a brighter future. Then Claire met Him. His thoughts were black. Though his eyes scoured Claire’s body, his smile seemed sincere. The ******* the star tried to keep Claire away from him, but Claire was in love with his kindness and moved in with him. The bruises seemed to appear again on a larger scale all down her arms and across her stomach. This man’s hands were harsher than her father’s, but his constant words of kindness drew Claire in, melting her heart into his ice cold soul. Claire dedicated herself to the man, and just as she did, his temper turned fierce and there was fire in his hands.  Other girls seemed to appear in their small apartment dressed in scant ****** and smirks.
One night his fingers skimmed like sand paper up her frail arms and the smell of alcohol breathed down on her face. His fiery hands hit her over and over, slamming her into walls, bloodying her hands and knees, and knocking her out cold. He left her there, sprawled out on the floor, bleeding freely from several gashes. The ******* the star could not reach Claire. Her mind was gone. She thought Claire was dead, so in the path of the drunken abuser, the ******* the star put a murdering thought into a killer’s mind. The abuser was shot in an alley where no one would find him. Angry wailing poured down onto the streets.
Claire woke up and posed in the apartment for weeks. The ******* the star perceived in dismay, that Claire’s light was out. Claire drank whatever alcohol was left there and sliced her arms from wrist to shoulder. The apartment turned grimy along with her blood and oil matted hair. Some of her wounds became infected and her face was no longer a china doll, but a red splotchy entanglement, smeared with dirt and tears. For those weeks it rained steadily as the ******* the star wept. No pleasant thoughts were sent to any human’s mind, but the daisies grew tall and out of control.
Claire’s blackened spirit left the cool, ***** apartment one morning. Her tiny body abandoned in a corner, was huddled in the fetal position, covered in dust bunnies. The ******* the star made a noose from a black daisy, and for the first time, the sky rained blood on earth. Each morning thereafter, the ******* the star walked through her forest of black daisies, retied a noose , and hung herself from the bottom of her star, overwhelmed by the appalling nature of the world below, blocking earth out of her mind with her own pain and suffering.