can you see Pride’s face?
can you see the pride in Pride’s face?
boastful & frivolous.
Pride’s intentions are not of good will.

Pride just destroyed a home.
Pride just stabbed a friend in the back.
Pride ended a life-long friendship.
Pride just ended a simple argument.

he is a disease. humans are afraid of him.

can you see the pride in pride’s face? can you see the bad he creates?
can you see all the lives he took?

Pride is a crook. he breaks into the windows of your spirit and steals all the gold. that gold is your happiness.

Pride is a weapon. anything in his way is destroyed. Pride doesn’t have emotions. Pride can make you insane.

but Pride has an enemy. Pride has a cure. Humility.

Humility is Pride’s balance.

Humility can heal wounds. he is spirited & can bring people together. Humility is a weapon, a weapon of peace.

he is a conqueror. Humility is Pride’s balance.

can you see Humility’s face?
can you feel Humility’s embrace?
when are we starting to be humble?
when are gon’ respect each other?
can you see the pride in Pride’s face?

Pride cares about no one but himself. Humility cares for everyone & himself.

Teddy Bear Tribe.

I pride,
In many things.
Little and big.
Existing and imaginary.
Useful and unnecessary.
Almost ubiquitously.

I take pride in my mind, most of all.
In the many wonders it brings me.
It lets me wave
at the voyagers that zip by
as I swim,
weightless and cold
in the eternal stardust of would bes.

It lets me simmer
in the memory of a younger day.
Of all the loves loved
and the ones lost
I pride the ones that never gave way.
Like old paintings
stowed away deeply
fragments,
moving,
ageing effortlessly.

I take pride in the fact that I have one true friend
and not many.
I don't know why I take pride in it though
I would understand culling a herd, if I had any.

I take pride in a soul that has learnt to love so deeply.
Deeper than the rivers of the world
and tumultuous as the sea
I take pride in my dog, sitting
when I command it.
I take pride in the fact that,
At least he understands it.

I take pride in the words that I think
and regret the ones I don't.

I take pride in understanding the existence of truth
and its relentless need to run and hide away.

I take pride in my people
and in their endless rebellion against sanity.
I take pride in their manic displays of affection
despite their distaste for the same affectations.
I take pride in their synchronized entropy,
beautiful,
much like the death of a galaxy.  

I take pride in the songs I hear,
the sonnets of love and despair.
of first discoveries,
and fevered dreams.
Of Kings and conquerors
and knights against the regime.
Of their legends that soar and rise and
go beyond where the grave lies.

I take pride in the mirror.
Though broken and shattered beyond repair
it bestows me with honesty
about the one that I care.

I take pride in all these aberrations,
in these tiny little manipulations.

These effervescent little marionettes
forever dancing within constellations.

My pride, closed my mouth shut.
My pride, is wrapped in a chain towards my luck.
My pride, ripped the curtains off the wall
My pride, has me walking alone, oblivious to them all.
My pride, couldn't even make me shed a tear,
Death is real.
My pride, why couldn't I cry ?
My pride, flips a frown when I keep my head up to the sky,
My pride, shrinks my insides to dry.
My pride, sometimes, breaks my heart.
My pride, sometimes, I do not want.
My pride, kept my soul in shame.
My pride, keeps my spirit in the rain.
My pride, oh I wonder why you make me feel this way,
My pride, no matter what you say,
My pride, I will you put you aside,
And be thankful for what I have today.


©MH

Filled with so many wonders.
Mystery as to its insides:
A jack in the box ready to jump at its first chance,
A barren desert with the occasional cactus,
A whirlwind of colors blended together
A collection of identical grey, or
A small feeble fairy shielded from the world.

The closet,
A corner of the world
Protected from the daggers of reality.
The reality that so many fear
The closet,
That can easily turn its own daggers
onto its refugee.

The closet
Where the magical
rainbow-colored people,
Are surrounded by clouds.
Hugging their beautiful diverse bodies
Its warmth emitting the only comfort known.
Acting as armor for those scared of the unknown
Armor from the strikes of the evil
The strikes of the familiars
The strikes of the outsiders

The closet,
Where hiding the secrets within a soul
Is normal
Where blank pieces of paper lie,
screaming to be colored rainbow.
Screaming to walk with pride

Blank pieces of paper in secret
Protecting its true, bold and
vibrant colors
Crying to be seen
Crying to be honored

The closet,
Its clouds turning into hurricanes
Destroying everything in its path
Millions of questions,
Millions of concerns circling,
Circling into a pit of despair

The eye of the hurricane,
In a tranquil place
Lies an animated child
So small yet so strong
Hiding its flamboyant skin with dull clothes
Surrounded by chaos
And grey.
A hurricane of stress and fear
Fear of being out
Fear of being exposed
Fear of the unknown

The animated child,
Wanting to leave the secure place of a closet
Wanting to march with pride
Wanting to share its colors with the somber world

The closet,
A space where a weak small flower bud
Is waiting to blossom, waiting for its time
Waiting to spreads its soft-spoken petals
Waiting for its petals to stand with strength and poise

The closet,
where fairies,
Rainbow colored people,
Blank pieces of paper wanting to be colored rainbow,
Animated children,
And glorious flowers
Are given the space to reflect on what resides within one’s soul

The closet where
A sense of stability and security are ensured
Where true colors develop and are protected from the large erasers
wanting to keep plain colors, plain people
Where their once weak stance develops into a stance with pride and respect

Pride in their colors and flags
Pride in who they may love,
whether same, opposite, or multiple genders
Pride in what gender fits best,
whether male, female, or anywhere in-between
Pride in what pronouns truly describe their soul,
Whether it be she/her, he/him, they/them
Pride in how they love,
whether it be eros, intimate love, or agape, unconditional love
Pride in who and what they are

Pride to stand tall against those with conservative views
Pride to say that love is not confined between a man and a woman
Pride to say multiple genders exist
Pride to say *** does not always mean love
Pride to expose themselves to the true evils and malicious actions
Pride to fight for their God-given rights.
Pride to marry and to love who they want
Pride to say the closet was a space they grew out of
And learned from

The closet that gave them the confidence and strength
The closet that protected them until they were ready to
Fly  
Fly through a large city,
Fly over a field of flowers,
Or a tall forest,
Or the vast sky,
Spreading their passionate colors
Bringing life to the monotonous world

There's a lot of people in denial tonight
With the poison of pride
There's a lot of people not questioning why
Because of the poison of pride
They think that they know
You can't tell them so
They swallow it whole
The poison of pride

There's a lot of people that you can find
With the poison of pride
There's a lot of people in trouble tonight
Because of the poison of pride
They don't really know
It's a cancer that grows
That wont let them go
The poison of pride

There's a lot of people fighting tonight
With the poison of pride
There's a lot of people dying tonight
Because of the poison of pride
Bitter is the taste
Too little too late
When you come face to face
The poison of pride

There's a lot of people with no idea tonight
They have the poison of pride
There's a lot of people lying tonight
Because of the poison of pride
If they ever saw
Pride comes before the fall
And to think they thought they knew it all
The poison of pride

Pride ?

Let me tall you a thing or two if you think you have pride !

Pride ?

It's an ego trip !

Pride ?

Will make you look stupid !

Pride ?

Hurts people !

Pride ?

Does not show affection !

Pride ?

Can leave you all alone !

Pride ?

Is an addicts friend !

Pride ?

It can **** !

Pride ?

Does a lot !

Pride ?

Will leave you all alone !

So do you still think you have pride ?

Just be proud to be alive and let things will fall in place !

Pride, where’s your pride
I don’t know but mine I have never tried to hide
Pride, you don’t deserve any pride
Not of any kind
Not until you find
Find the one inside of you
Your own pride
Not the gay pride that you always try to hide behind
How can you have gay pride when you don’t have self-pride
Gay pride denied, self-pride need to find
Gay pride denied, self-pride need to find

Pride hurts loved ones of the proud,
Pride kills love and patience,
Pride destroys harmony,
Pride irritates!
Pride,
Pride,
Pride,
Pride,
Oh pride;I wonder when "I'm sorry" became a tongue cutting statement that its become so hard to use,
Pride!you defend yourself even when you know you're clearly wrong,
Pride;I hate you so much,
But perhaps there's an element of you in me because I'm only human,
Wish I could scrub each and every inch of me in order to have nothing to do with you!

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
I

THAT is no country for old men.  The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out Of nature I shall never take
My ****** form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

WHAT shall I do with this absurdity --
O heart, O troubled heart -- this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible --
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back
And had the livelong summer day to spend.
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
Until imagination, ear and eye,
Can be content with argument and deal
In abstract things; or be derided by
A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
I pace upon the battlements and stare
On the foundations of a house, or where
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;
And send imagination forth
Under the day's declining beam, and call
Images and memories
From ruin or from ancient trees,
For I would ask a question of them all.
Beyond that ridge lived Mrs.  French, and once
When every silver candlestick or sconce
Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine.
A serving-man, that could divine
That most respected lady's every wish,
Ran and with the garden shears
Clipped an insolent farmer's ears
And brought them in a little covered dish.
Some few remembered still when I was young
A peasant girl commended by a Song,
Who'd lived somewhere upon that rocky place,
And praised the colour of her face,
And had the greater joy in praising her,
Remembering that, if walked she there,
Farmers jostled at the fair
So great a glory did the song confer.
And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,
Or else by toasting her a score of times,
Rose from the table and declared it right
To test their fancy by their sight;
But they mistook the brightness of the moon
For the prosaic light of day --
Music had driven their wits astray --
And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.
Strange, but the man who made the song was blind;
Yet, now I have considered it, I find
That nothing strange; the tragedy began
With Homer that was a blind man,
And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.
O may the moon and sunlight seem
One inextricable beam,
For if I triumph I must make men mad.
And I myself created Hanrahan
And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.
Caught by an old man's juggleries
He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro
And had but broken knees for hire
And horrible splendour of desire;
I thought it all out twenty years ago:
Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;
And when that ancient ruffian's turn was on
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb
That all but the one card became
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,
And that he changed into a hare.
Hanrahan rose in frenzy there
And followed up those baying creatures towards --
O towards I have forgotten what -- enough!
I must recall a man that neither love
Nor music nor an enemy's clipped ear
Could, he was so harried, cheer;
A figure that has grown so fabulous
There's not a neighbour left to say
When he finished his dog's day:
An ancient bankrupt master of this house.
Before that ruin came, for centuries,
Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees
Or shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,
And certain men-at-arms there were
Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,
Come with loud cry and panting breast
To break upon a sleeper's rest
While their great wooden dice beat on the board.
As I would question all, come all who can;
Come old, necessitous.  half-mounted man;
And bring beauty's blind rambling celebrant;
The red man the juggler sent
Through God-forsaken meadows; Mrs.  French,
Gifted with so fine an ear;
The man drowned in a bog's mire,
When mocking Muses chose the country *****.
Did all old men and women, rich and poor,
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
Whether in public or in secret rage
As I do now against old age?
But I have found an answer in those eyes
That are impatient to be gone;
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,
For I need all his mighty memories.
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
Bring up out of that deep considering mind
All that you have discovered in the grave,
For it is certain that you have
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
plunge, lured by a softening eye,
Or by a touch or a sigh,
Into the labyrinth of another's being;
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost.?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.

III
It is time that I wrote my will;
I choose upstanding men
That climb the streams until
The fountain leap, and at dawn
Drop their cast at the side
Of dripping stone; I declare
They shall inherit my pride,
The pride of people that were
Bound neither to Cause nor to State.
Neither to slaves that were spat on,
Nor to the tyrants that spat,
The people of Burke and of Grattan
That gave, though free to refuse --
pride, like that of the morn,
When the headlong light is loose,
Or that of the fabulous horn,
Or that of the sudden shower
When all streams are dry,
Or that of the hour
When the swan must fix his eye
Upon a fading gleam,
Float out upon a long
Last reach of glittering stream
And there sing his last song.
And I declare my faith:
I mock plotinus' thought
And cry in plato's teeth,
Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul,
Aye, sun and moon and star, all,
And further add to that
That, being dead, we rise,
Dream and so create
Translunar paradise.
I have prepared my peace
With learned Italian things
And the proud stones of Greece,
Poet's imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
As at the loophole there
The daws chatter and scream,
And drop twigs layer upon layer.
When they have mounted up,
The mother bird will rest
On their hollow top,
And so warm her wild nest.
I leave both faith and pride
To young upstanding men
Climbing the mountain-side,
That under bursting dawn
They may drop a fly;
Being of that metal made
Till it was broken by
This sedentary trade.
Now shall I make my soul,
Compelling it to study
In a learned school
Till the wreck of body,
Slow decay of blood,
Testy delirium
Or dull decrepitude,
Or what worse evil come --
The death of friends, or death
Of every brilliant eye
That made a catch in the breath -- .
Seem but the clouds of the sky
When the horizon fades;
Or a bird's sleepy cry
Among the deepening shades.
THE TOWER
I
HDRWHAT shall I do with this absurdity --
O heart, O troubled heart -- this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible --
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back
And had the livelong summer day to spend.
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
Until imagination, ear and eye,
Can be content with argument and deal
In abstract things; or be derided by
A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
I pace upon the battlements and stare
On the foundations of a house, or where
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;
And send imagination forth
Under the day's declining beam, and call
Images and memories
From ruin or from ancient trees,
For I would ask a question of them all.
Beyond that ridge lived Mrs.  French, and once
When every silver candlestick or sconce
Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine.
A serving-man, that could divine
That most respected lady's every wish,
Ran and with the garden shears
Clipped an insolent farmer's ears
And brought them in a little covered dish.
Some few remembered still when I was young
A peasant girl commended by a Song,
Who'd lived somewhere upon that rocky place,
And praised the colour of her face,
And had the greater joy in praising her,
Remembering that, if walked she there,
Farmers jostled at the fair
So great a glory did the song confer.
And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,
Or else by toasting her a score of times,
Rose from the table and declared it right
To test their fancy by their sight;
But they mistook the brightness of the moon
For the prosaic light of day --
Music had driven their wits astray --
And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.
Strange, but the man who made the song was blind;
Yet, now I have considered it, I find
That nothing strange; the tragedy began
With Homer that was a blind man,
And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.
O may the moon and sunlight seem
One inextricable beam,
For if I triumph I must make men mad.
And I myself created Hanrahan
And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.
Caught by an old man's juggleries
He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro
And had but broken knees for hire
And horrible splendour of desire;
I thought it all out twenty years ago:
Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;
And when that ancient ruffian's turn was on
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb
That all but the one card became
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,
And that he changed into a hare.
Hanrahan rose in frenzy there
And followed up those baying creatures towards --
O towards I have forgotten what -- enough!
I must recall a man that neither love
Nor music nor an enemy's clipped ear
Could, he was so harried, cheer;
A figure that has grown so fabulous
There's not a neighbour left to say
When he finished his dog's day:
An ancient bankrupt master of this house.
Before that ruin came, for centuries,
Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees
Or shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,
And certain men-at-arms there were
Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,
Come with loud cry and panting breast
To break upon a sleeper's rest
While their great wooden dice beat on the board.
As I would question all, come all who can;
Come old, necessitous.  half-mounted man;
And bring beauty's blind rambling celebrant;
The red man the juggler sent
Through God-forsaken meadows; Mrs.  French,
Gifted with so fine an ear;
The man drowned in a bog's mire,
When mocking Muses chose the country *****.
Did all old men and women, rich and poor,
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
Whether in public or in secret rage
As I do now against old age?
But I have found an answer in those eyes
That are impatient to be gone;
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,
For I need all his mighty memories.
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
Bring up out of that deep considering mind
All that you have discovered in the grave,
For it is certain that you have
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
plunge, lured by a softening eye,
Or by a touch or a sigh,
Into the labyrinth of another's being;
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost.?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.
III
It is time that I wrote my will;
I choose upstanding men
That climb the streams until
The fountain leap, and at dawn
Drop their cast at the side
Of dripping stone; I declare
They shall inherit my pride,
The pride of people that were
Bound neither to Cause nor to State.
Neither to slaves that were spat on,
Nor to the tyrants that spat,
The people of Burke and of Grattan
That gave, though free to refuse --
pride, like that of the morn,
When the headlong light is loose,
Or that of the fabulous horn,
Or that of the sudden shower
When all streams are dry,
Or that of the hour
When the swan must fix his eye
Upon a fading gleam,
Float out upon a long
Last reach of glittering stream
And there sing his last song.
And I declare my faith:
I mock plotinus' thought
And cry in plato's teeth,
Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul,
Aye, sun and moon and star, all,
And further add to that
That, being dead, we rise,
Dream and so create
Translunar paradise.
I have prepared my peace
With learned Italian things
And the proud stones of Greece,
Poet's imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
As at the loophole there
The daws chatter and scream,
And drop twigs layer upon layer.
When they have mounted up,
The mother bird will rest
On their hollow top,
And so warm her wild nest.
I leave both faith and pride
To young upstanding men
Climbing the mountain-side,
That under bursting dawn
They may drop a fly;
Being of that metal made
Till it was broken by
This sedentary trade.
Now shall I make my soul,
Compelling it to study
In a learned school
Till the wreck of body,
Slow decay of blood,
Testy delirium
Or dull decrepitude,
Or what worse evil come --
The death of friends, or death
Of every brilliant eye
That made a catch in the breath -- .
Seem but the clouds of the sky
When the horizon fades;
Or a bird's sleepy cry
Among the deepening shades.

Pride os a strong  word
So many people use it
They have pride in their clithes
Their appearance
Their hair
Their homes.
However for me
Pride comes in some unusual forms.
Pride comes from text on a page,
And ugly ink splotch on a stark white dress
Pride comes from poetry
The elegant ways it dances from the poets mind as it plays its way across their lips or to their finger tips
Pride comes from new words
Never seen before combinations
New ideas and new arrangements
And endless sea with no boundaries but your own.

Pride comes from within me.
Pride in my poetry.

Calculated or spontaneous movements, both quiet and loud
We are who we're becoming, we were born to be proud
But pride has this level, pride has this curse  
Pride has this tendency of making matters worse

Pride is crucial and necessary, but pride causes pain
Pride is fear of losing one's edge and in turn losing potential for gain
But do we really have an edge, or just a lackluster illusion?
What's this feeling that keeps us inside this self-securing dellusion?

Sometimes I wonder if just for a day, I took all my pride and threw it away?
If I said all the words I've ever thought to say, would I see things start to go my way?
If I stopped telling myself the world can't see me without a mask
Creating a vision of openness, while leaving vulnerability all in the past

While I'm strong, and strongly convicted to my honesty  
I'd rather lie wholeheartedly, than admit I feel weak
Because remember that word, that strange hovering boulder
That tells you to take your welcoming heart, and make it turn colder

But what can we say when pride keeps us safe? Really what can we do?
Whenever I've tried to push it aside, I've felt things that felt together unglue
If the stakes don't matter than prides not a factor, we know what to bring
Yet we'll sit where we are, afraid to move for anything worth anything

I'm hoping one day, I find a new way to keep my soul safe
That I'll stay proud of who I am but not too proud to try
That I’ll look back to how I used to hold back and I'll be laughing
I'm starting to have faith, stranger things have happened

THE PREACHER GOODY GOODWILL walks center stage and steps up to the Dias; eyeing his congregation with a seriously serious frown. Clears his throat, takes a tissue and blows his nose. Then resumes eyeing all the families sitting before him. Finally-

PREACHER GOODY GOODWILL
Were you unsettled? Did my silence catch you off guard? Or was it my frown, sure that was it, you're not used to seeing me frown, you're not used to me stretching out the silence. And yet I wonder: why is it you were uncomfortable? Surely, even though you weren't prepared for it, it wasn't as if I came here with accusations of you - you Charlotte Ray, or you Jimmy Matheter, or any random one of you for that matter - accusations that you had sinned 'for you surely did as the Good Lord intended you too, you sinned and you will be forgiven if you simply give in to the Good Lord's Word and his wholly Holy embrace.
(BEAT)
And so I wonder - and I ask you to ask yourself - why were you uncomfortable when I stepped up in silence? Have you sinned and are ashamed? Too ashamed, perhaps, to confess said sin? 'For if that's the case then you are truly ******, having committed not just the sin you are ashamed to confess but now in the Good Lord's own House you are committing the sin of pride, you are certainly not humble as the Good Lord asks of us all, are you?
(BEAT)
Are we not told that "the meek shall inherit the earth" as written by the Good Lord's very own, very Good Hand in our Holy Bible?
(BEAT)
So who are you to walk with pride when He asks you to be humble, that's all he asks of you my friends; be true and humble, be meek among men, and He - the Good Lord Himself - will surely welcome you through the pearly gates of Heaven and into his warm embrace.
(BEAT)
It is not for you to be your own judge nor are you tasked with judging others; surely you must see how full of pride one must be to imagine he can rightfully judge others or himself, for that matter, and not be full of pride if he dares take on such a task.
(BEAT)
And let us be clear as He the Good Lord is clear, that to be Holy is to be prideless, to accept Him into your heart is to accept that you have sinned - and you have, each and every one of you - 'for we are imperfect beings in an imperfect world and who among you would claim to be perfect of His Own Son, Jesus Christ himself, was a sinner among men... oh, I see, I literally see your raised eye browse as if you truly don't believe me or perhaps you don't understand. So if I may let me give you just one example which is the one that speaks most true to your very own Preacher Goody Goodwill who does not and has never claimed to be great, oh no have I ever claimed that my good friends? I certainly have not 'for I choose to be good, just good at what I do which is all the Good Lord asks, while his own Son Jesus Christ, he too was a preacher like me, but he was great perhaps the greatest yes! the greatest of all time thus he wasn't very meek, to be great is to have pride and in pride we live in sin; and so, as the Holy Book informs us Jesus Christ died for our sins but consider that he, too, was a sinner among men and so he died for his sins too, he had surely lived in pride and he had not a confessor so he died a filthy man.
(BEAT)
Yes that's right he died as he had lived, full of pride and not so meek, do you see now what I say? You are not too full of pride that you'd consider your own sins and believe that you may judge what is right and what is wrong? No, I know you all as I do myself and you are Good Folks with good hearts and meek as lambs, are you not?

The congregation nods whole heartedly.

PREACHER GOODY GOODWILL
Good good, I know you are, you're good and meek at heart as the Good Lord intended, and so when it's your turn to confess I expect you'll remember this talk we just had, and confess as the Good Lord intended, let me hear all the sins you sinned for you surely sinned, and let me then offer you his Holy reassurance that the penance I deem is the key to your salvation and once you clean yourself of sin then salvation will be yours.

Now the Preacher Goody Goodwill scans the congregation, eyeing them all, one by one; then he smiles and they smile back - all is as it should be once again - and his warmth radiates within the Holy House as he concludes this Sunday's sermon by making the sign of the Cross across his chest.

PREACHER GOODY GOODWILL
You may rise.

It is so peculiar of man to desire imperfect,
But that's just the way to getting perfect,
In the quest of love,
We only never find what we seek,
Pride squanders what we desire most,
No accolade will pride bestow,
As love wont emerge to your blind soul.
For as long as you soar as Eagles,
The fattest Mice will be for Owls of the dark.
Love is stronger than pride,
Though pride soars great heights,
Love grows even when a man is dying,
Pride never. Except your pride despair,
Love being greatest to you shall never be fair.

Of anger, hate, greed and Pride
which is a greater folly
Anger for sure will make
you burn and cause distress
or death to the other. Hate
surrogate of anger, more
overt and consuming but
a child of anger. Greed
seems to have nothing to do
with the above two but breeds
anger and hate towards all
that thwart the insatiable
fire of greed. As there is not
anything that can fulfill the
gastronomy of greed.
Pride though looks pretty
and makes one perky
takes the pride of place
in destroying all possibilities
of human kind. As it is
the pride that sets one
upon a perch that deceives
Reality. A perch that
makes unreal real and the
Truth into Untruth
Anger, hate and greed
need the theater of Pride
to play. Pride is a crown
of thorns that makes
one perceive even pain as
pleasure. Pride is the
Maya, the delusion of life.
Refinement of ignorance
Is not Enlightenment.

By:D.E.T

Take a side
Take a ride
With own pride

Put that on your mind
That that pride may be a problem
Drop that pride at the bottom
Boy, can't you see this young girl

Wants her own world
Boy she don't want a pearl
She can see that you have too much pride

Take a ride
With your own pride
Cuz she'll drop you
And make you feel blue

She has her own shoe
Glue
She has a clue

Don't think she's a fool
Cuz you're the one being treated like a tool
You fool

To much pride
Step a side
Cuz there's a problem
You'll be at the bottom

If you have too much pride

Don't blame the lion for the pride
Don't let yourself whisper those insults
Don't see the bad and push away the good
Realize there's more to the pride than that
Because even though the Alpha Male
May not be who you'd choose
It's not up to you
Or me
Or he
It's up to the fittest
And his mighty roar may petrify the gazelles
Who ignorantly graze on the pride's land
Who sheepishly bolt away from danger
But the pride should have no fear
The pride should rally around the fearsome roar
Not be scattered around like gazelles
And when one member
Leaves the pride
He steps off the captain's seat
And begins to eat the grass

and this
I suppose,
is the life I'm living;

bundled up,
walking through the snow
with a hundred and two fever.

handling money
all day,
more and more and more money:
never enough.

taking money from those with too much,
giving it in turn to those with disgustingly too much.

alienated, dehumanized,
I work for those who think of me as a number. 60 hours a week,
I sweat and sweat,
selling a product I could never afford.
alienated and dehumanized;
I toil.


there is no pride.
my eyes: they no longer sparkle.
there is no pride,
there is no relationship with my product.

there is no pride in barely affording rent.
there is no pride in not being able to visit the health clinic.
there is no pride in being exploited.

go ahead, vamanos comradita,
speak out against, you know the worst they can do.

add a black mark next to your name,
call you:
radical,
dissident,
extremist,
in a word: othering

you are othered because you wish to eat the fruits of your toil.
you are othered because you're a human, you're not a number,
you're not a spot to be filled when scheduling, you're more than the recipient of corporate pay checks.


toil, toil comraditas,
there will one day be pride

"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For it's rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong

I will write for you
one more poem
I will sing for you
another love song.
If you like them
and think of me again,
then forget your pride, darling
Say goodbye to your pride!

I will smile at you
if I am hurt
I will sit next to you
and forget my sore
If you like it
and feel my heart
then forget your pride, darling
Say goodbye to your pride!

I will be the evening star.
I will be in your eyes.
I'll come in your dream
and brighten your face.
Even if you don't love me
then smile a little bit more
and forget your pride, darling
Say goodbye to your pride!

The Man, Charlie Pride
It was his entertaining that is country music that he provided
Heaven now sustains where Mr. Pride resides
From the Valleys to the Mountains
From the Shores to the oceans
Charlie Pride music having their own notions
His music bringing harmony and country music coming together
A Legend being like no other
Charlie Pride being his own creative style
Living his dream while
But Charlie Pride’s life came to an immediate end
Heaven now is his begin
To the world, lift your voice and sing
Charlie Pride lived his life to the fullest
Achieving musical wonders
But has gone yonder
Charlie Pride will be missed
H’s now on that high mountain
Charlie Pride’s success like streaming fountains
His words to the world might be, “Live your life like I do until the end”
Shed no tears
My spirit will always be near
Heaven has given me the preserver
I am now on Mountain high
I am among chosen to be with thy

I stand before you
A target for the bullets you spit
I didn't realize we had to read these claims out loud
Now I'm hearing you tell me I made a choice about who I am
You tell me I chose this path.
Your words are acid seeping into my skin slowly deteriorating the pride I used to hold
It's hard to be prideful when you're caught up in the accusations and drowning in disrespect
Please tell me more about how you are an expert in being gay
It's not like I'm a lesbian or anything
I obviously know nothing about the topic since I told you
People obviously choose to be gay and my experience as a gay person doesn't matter
It's not a choice though
It's a curse blessed upon you when you are born
A trait you find incredibly hard to love, I didn't choose the self-hatred and suicidal thoughts that came with this
I didn't choose the ****** harassment and public embarrassment
I didn't choose any of this
Being gay isn't like when you're at the amusement park and you decide to ride the rainbow roller coaster because it looks pretty
It's not a fun ride, it's a deadly one full of insults and discrimination that's hard to get back up from
It's being a target for people like you
You don't even realize how horrible and toxic the words you spit are to LGBT+ people like me
We swallow our words because we know you won't listen
Just like how so many lgbt+ youth swallowed a plethora of pills and didn't wake up
Wake up.
63% of these teens have attempted suicide in the past year
Do not tell me we choose this.
And if you think that it's fun to be gay you literally know nothing about our issues
Don't tell you're an ally then tell me you think you choose your sexuality
I didn't choose the life I was given
But you chose your words carefully in a way you thought would pierce me so you could win an argument
Not with actual fact but by just picking at your opponent till she feels like nothing
You probably never thought about it again that day
Yet here I sit, 24 hours later dreading the hour I have to spend in this classroom studying for my finals with homophobia
Wondering if running out could be the right answer.
I don't like running back to the closet but your words are shoving me into my hangers
I hear your voice whenever another guy puts his hand on my thigh and tells me about his lesbian fantasies
I hear your voice telling me I chose this
Hearing millions of voices telling me that I shouldn't complain because this was my decision
Not even asking me what I was wearing because being lesbian makes me enough of a **** already
I don't like your toxic spit because I know it'll spray on to the other gay kids around me that are vulnerable and insecure about their sexuality
I know your words will deteriorate their pride just like they have done to mine
You don't think you're homophobic because you don't shout the word “******” at gay people
But there's a lot more to homophobia than that
Like completely diminishing the past of LGBT+ individuals and belittling us down to choices
Believe me, if I had a choice I would have chosen to be straight because then I wouldn't have to sit in front of you while you disrespected my sexuality
I could be another blind ally that doesn't speak up when this **** is happening
I'm trying so hard to make things better for the kids like me
But you insist on ripping us open.
We bleed rainbows and a sense of pride you will never know
You don't have to find pride in your sexuality because no one hates straight people for being straight
No, we hate straight people like you who insist on being ignorant
This worst thing is is that you take pride in your arrogance
Holding your American flags high as you belittle my equality
You didn't have to fight for anything, you're a straight white guy who takes pride in his privilege
One that only insists on spitting toxins
I wish I could say I am stronger than your poisons but it's hard to find strength when so few people hold you up
If you really think I chose this path, then you should be worried about my mental state
Only people who hate themselves would choose this kind of pain
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find my pride again.

The memories go through my head,
every single day, every single day.
In my mind i'm suffering,
In my chest i'm aching,
In my hands i'm shaking,
In my eyes there's a hurricane there's no control.
I promised myself i'd be there,
no matter what i'll let go of my pride i'll fight it away,
put it back in it's cage,
like a kid try to make it behave.
I shave my fears away,
and i do it everyday,
every single day,
my fears of being alone but i guess it's okay
cause you want to be alone.
I try to be there for you but i can't be there if you don't want me to,
I block you out of my mind,
I drink like i'm blind ad forget of the pain,
then when i notice the scar i remember what it felt like.
**** this **** is harder than i thought,
******* for not being ready,
******* for everything.
******* for the condition i'm in,
but i guess it's for the best,
and they tell me it's for the best.
I talk to you about it,
and you say it's for the best.
And the funny part is i won't be here when you finally decide you need me,
i'll be long gone, and my pride will take the best of me,
my pride will be my everything.
And my pride will bring tears to your eyes,
and with those tears i will tell you to make me a river
so that i can build a boat and sail far away from here,
my fear will be over then my hurricane will be home,
and you will be jealous of the fact that i have moved on,
and by the time you realize you need me i'll be far away.
My suffering has ended congratulations to me,
and one day i will come back,
and that day i will have made my plans,
I will tear you apart same way you did to me,
I'll make you fall in love,
I'll make you fall in love.
And perhaps my heart will still care,
but my pride won't bear to lose.
My Pride won't bear to lose.
And after all this is over,
you will cry yourself to sleep every night,
they will all ask you what's wrong,
and you'll tell them that i hurt you.
Your family will finally hate me,
you're sitting there wishing things were different,
wishing you could go back in time and take back what you said,
You'll hate yourself.
You'll hate yourself more than you already do.
And what if all this didn't happen,
we'll stay on the same chapter and this book will never end.
I will pretend to be your friend,
but just a friend who knows you both can't be together,
I will get tired, and i will hate you.
I'll find someone else who i can't care about,
and in the end, My Pride will be My Everything.
My Pride will be My Everything.

Pride uses conversation  to tell something that is private or secret to many people.

Pride denies what the gospel reveals about our seriously sinful condition.

Pride doesn't need a spouse, only an audience of people to watch, read, and listen to something or someone.

Pride assumes I already understand everything I need to.

Pride is quite content with what it already knows.

Pride loves to talk reveling itself with an exalting form of self expression.

pride was her weakness
but then pride caught fire
now her pride is burned

pride was her weakness
but then pride grew tired
now her pride is yearned

pride was a relic of her insanity
her pride, her vanity
hit with reality
she is no longer proud.

"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

The pride of death is so blissfully taken away because of a sad funeral, "The Black Parade". And it's true pride is never seen how the dead go on to live their dream. How the gates of heaven or the gates of hell may open we'll never know, until we have the pride in death to show, and stopping the madness if death being sad. It's a new life into the good or into the bad, the raging fires or the clear blue skies will not show for the despised in others hearts. We will never be apart. Let the record show that today I will live again, and be seen in the true, the pride of death. Taken away from the dead and given to the living, so that halos can be given to those that apply, and the wings torn off of angels who die and oh how they cry... We're all gunna die eventually. We just have to believe in the PRIDE OF DEATH.

So give it back.