When I think back now to when I was little (to when I was young)
The words "I love you" I don't think were ever spoken, not in our house anyway (now I could be wrong)
It would have been something silly to say
That was something you'd only hear in a Hollywood movie
Between glamorous movie stars, glamorous people
It wasn't part of our reality
If you were feeling anxious about something and needed comforting
You'd be told not to worry, that you were being silly
You'd be given a hug maybe or 'a treat' something nice
Usually something sweet, a biscuit and a hot cup of sugary tea or cocoa
A chocolate sweet if there were any
You'd be allowed to stay up late and watch the late shows on TV
Me! I was always a terrible worrier just like my Mom
Food most often was the comforter, the soother, the remedy to all
(Some say our relationship with food is the closest relationship we ever have in Life).

Yea! I don't think the words "I love you" were spoken where we grew up
Our parents they loved us as best they could
But they didn't have the words, the words to say it
It was strange...it was almost like they were forbidden to.
Of course, you could love your neighbor alright and your neighbor's neighbor
And your neighbor's neighbors neighbor's neighbor
And all the feckin' neighbors in the whole feckin' world
But the one thing you couldn't, you mustn't do
Was love yourself, this was the Big No No, the Big taboo, the Great Evil
It was the one thing you must never do,
And every Sunday at church, the priest way up on his pulpit
He'd never tire of telling us
How evil and selfish and bad the Self was
And all the bad things it got up to
Yea, your neighbor was always better than you were
Put your neighbor above yourself always
Love your neighbor and you'd be alright
That was the message loud and clear.

                               2

So, so we got treats instead of words of love when we were little
On Friday nights when Dad would come home from work and the pub
He'd always have with him lovely Apple Turnover buns
And a bag of crisps for each of us
And so, we'd all sit there together in the evening in front of the telly
After the maelstrom of the school week with  its lessons and scary teacher
Trying so hard to understand and get your homework done,
And despite all we'd laugh and enjoy the TV shows
And this... this was Love, us all just sitting there with our buns and munching our crisps just watching the TV together
Knowing we belonged and that we were loved kind of...as best they could
And that we had a couple of days off, days of freedom
Before we'd have to go back to school again,
It didn't get any better than this.

And when we'd be going down the country to see our Uncle John
My Dad would always stop off to visit a pub
And he'd get us a Club orange and a packet of crisps
It couldn't get any better than this... this was Love
The lovely sweet taste of that fizzy Club orange juice
And those wonderful salty cheese and onion flavoured (potato) crisps or maybe salt and vinegar flavour
Or later on, lovely smokey bacon flavour,
As we'd sit there Dad would be talking to the barman or some of the locals
But we didn't care what was being said, it didn't matter to us
It didn't get any better than this
This was heaven... this was Bliss.

Sometimes during the summer months before we could get summer jobs
Maybe it'd be raining outside and we'd be stuck indoors and bored
But then Mum would up and say "I know I'll make some chips"
Now Mum's chips were really something special, they'd be lovely big chunky potato chips, hand cut
And maybe she'd have beans in tomato sauce with them,
And maybe there'd be a good film on in the afternoon
Well, this was it, nothing could top that, a good film and a plate of Mum's big chunky chips and beans
Sometimes she'd even make these lovely mince beef pies
With minced beef and flour and onions, salt and pepper on them
And they were really something else
It couldn't get any better than this... and this... this was Love
(I can still remember the kind of meals we ate
And my Mum in the kitchen, and my Dad).

                            3

It's how people grow up in the end I suppose
They find someone inspiring, some teacher or book that makes a strong impression on them (if their lucky)
Or a partner who broadens their horizons, makes them question things and expands their vision of life and all its wondrous possibilities
But what if you don't find those good books, those inspiring teachers
Those voices that'd offer you a better vision of tomorrow and what this life could be
What if you only found bad books, bad books purporting to be good
That'd rob you and leave you lost and desolate, fearful and confused
What if some of your teachers turned out to be alcoholics
That some even done away with themselves
What if the people you met were even more lost than you were yourself...

And you'd go to a job interview and the man, he'd look at you and say
"So, what are your aspirations in Life, what are your values, your goals, where do you see yourself a few years from now ?"
And you'd look back at him blankly, Aspirations! Values! Goals!
What are these words, what's he talking about...
What am I looking for in Life ?
To have some fun I suppose...maybe (if having fun was still legal now as an adult)
Fun!!! Whatever that was now ?
Or to get drunk and stay drunk, escape this grim world I'm in somehow
What am I looking for ?
You tell me...I don't know, what is there
For all I knew I may as well have said
"A Club orange and a packet of crisps".

                              4

Now the faces they have all faded away, the voices too, have all gone
There's only me here alone in this room
It's Friday evening and I've got a readymade dinner from the supermarket
Just need to pop it in the oven for a few minutes
And I got a Dvd from the Dvd store,
So I sit there and eat my dinner, I savour every bite
But still it doesn't last very long
And I can lick my plate but it doesn't make any difference
I can lick it all I like
But I can't make it last, and I can't bring them back again
Those people that are gone;
And the food, it doesn't taste the same, doesn't taste as good as it tasted back then
And the movies too, their not like the ones we used to watch...

When I die it'll probably be like that movie Citizen Kane, at the end his last words "Rosebud"
The name of his beloved childhood sleigh
He used slide on in the snow,
I'll say on my death bed "I too have a memory of Love and Joy, Yea!
A Club orange and a packet of crisps".

you are cold
to the touch
despite that smile
purporting warmth
wraith
ghost
spectre
from the corner of my eye
you cannot disguise
your shape
your shadow
your intent

Monotony plagues me,

Parchment dulled with gray;

Alleviation claiming my wishes,

My grasp purporting uniformity.

Eyes desirous,

Heart adamant,

A vista emerges,

Rainbows leaking onto my paper.

I scramble around a petrol token mug
purporting to be an ash tray stained in neglect
needling between ash and cigarette butts
looking for some spent tobacco to recycle
and breathe in the cancerous smoke of belonging.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"I am strong when you are feeble", he said.

The doctor twiddles his fountain pen
a parting gift from his late father
held with the poise of grace
and wielded like a lance
the pen can do many things for he and I
prescribe or chastise
the freedom with solitude
and the four white walls
of limiting restraint.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"We are symbiotic you and I", he said.

I wonder though is it:
Mutualistic
Commensalism
Parasitism or
Neutralism -
Who benefits who?

Do we bathe in each others glory
holding hands in the lost age of reason
comfort in the loneliness of winter
or just a dream of the endless
a figment of the imagination
and the passing of time
looking out of frosted windows.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"I lead you in the dark, I am your light", he said.

I sometimes step back into the gloom
He fills my capillaries
clogging up my arteries
with his dark and mischievous veins
calling out to faceless strangers
walking past in the haze
the ones the others do not see
just out of line of sight
mottled and disfigured and blurred.

"Have another drink on me", he said.

I am distracted by the minute
leading this shabby existence
and the opening of unpaid bills
and the carnage of last weeks washing
and the bottles of empty beer discarded
like a tramps ***** in the drying sun
monuments to a day before when we were younger
and wrestled in the long grass of salvation
and the long summer days of liberal libation.

"I am the one and only constant you will ever have", he said.

Without him I will be hollow
like a rotten tree trunk
gashed in initials of love letters
with a pen knife
saturated in the remains
of fortified wine bottles
and leaf litter molding
in the dying frost of spring.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
Just don't ever talk about us, is what he meant.

You're the one
With the loneliness
Pierced into the subliming anger
Rosen dermis
Time passed
Pale lavender
Like a broken dream
Unearthing itself from the exasperated soul
Within yourself
You're flowing like a river
Flooded with dead salmon
Hurt by the pressure of
Those million dreams
Of reaching the sky
Purporting to be fine
You're the imposter of the highest caliber.

disciples stumbling
in and out
of the darkness—
blind faith
in this or that
substance.

abusing
the psyche
with sycophantic
fantasies of liberty.
one step after the other.

the needle, the crackpot,
the Bible. all symptoms
of the same psychosis.
trade one god for another.
nothing but crutches
crafted from driftwood.

i have a problem
with a program
that fails 90%
of the time,
purporting to save
addicts by hooking
them on another
worthless fix.

You're the dealer
Who stole my possessions
You stood behind that red cupboard
And basked in your glory
You injected the venom
With a slight grin on your face
Purporting to be a master of your words
Incorrigibly lying beneath the rock
You're afraid of being revealed
Your alibi is kept track of
With smoke curling round the corner of your sleeves
Blood dripping down those poisoned ivy vines
You're hiding beneath the tunnel
Making your voice seem approachable
Trying to wind those other people
Into your farcical world
You're presumably sagacious but
You're corrupt.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

                                              Alfred Lord Tennyson

Grieve the fallen warriors of diversity.

A trumpet’s mournful sound now casts its pall . . .

Southern rumors: prophets of perversity

Non-profiting from Liberal wherewithal:

Poverty’s pimps. Their bold hypocrisy

Weinsteins loudly, colliding with our news;

Southern Law: poor as our democracy

Purporting to promote progressive views.

His name rang sweet in all progressive ears

But now the cypresses sigh out their song;

For scams must be exposed—though it wring tears

We hear the dirge; night’s shadows looming long.

Weep, oh armchair zealots of the cause

For Morris Dees, a victim of his laws.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               In Nature We are Only a Menu Item

Purporting to love nature is a commonplace
This does not mean that nature loves us back
We often look for nature’s smiling face
But nature looks for us as a tasty snack

The alligator is defended for being here first
The gentle boar is a creature of God
Anopheles wants only to quench its thirst
The innocent shark hungers only for cod

Communing with nature cannot be beaten –
Up until the moment when you are eaten!

Members of high table ,
Purporting to be posses,
emmaculate hearts,
Claiming to be closer than not,
To the promised land.

To the masses out there ,
Panick you not,
Let no one intimidate you,
Not even their dang captains,
What do you think they  own?
Only hopes and streak of failures.

From the little I have seen,
Having joined them a dozen months now,
My sisters there are but decently put ******,
My brothers are the thirstiest ,
Never satisfied with fruits from Eden,

Couples and other untold lot,
Are refuge seekers totally desperate,
And at the table all look innocent,
Like children and the congregation is on a roll,
I tend to thinks its safer outside than inside.

Blow after blow,
It will come,
Purporting to take your everything away...
Hold on, do not give way!
And when they stop,
Deliver your blows!

Keep on doing this, for as long as they persist,
For years, decades...

And then, they would seem to stop...
And, would really stop.
And then you celebrate victory...

Drinking in the halls
The eccentric people with
The hellcat, drink where the champagne falls
And they tell us Moses was at the helm of Earthly seas
Purposeful, purporting, punctilious that is the howling wind
That learns to speak through elders that have plenty of mouths to feed
Jealously beyond compare, the music belies the noise
Thence, the heart so barren, that words fall like wasted words
Talking about memories, thence beyond compare and laconic behavior
Iambic meters, the music sounds like it is tinkering my inner moonlight with its a spoonful of rhapsody
When the tempestuous storms are white then the maiden's talk of blossoming buds
Prodigal and prodding the terms of rain, and the raging fields of coruscation
These locusts cannot turn into blood, as the coral in her eyes shines with heated perturbation
Lust spake as it is should be taken for fair chance unless pardoned
Sunshine on your shoulders, I hold your hands like a flower that follows my wildflower
The misery that sermonizes the serious surprise, although maiden and beyond compare
The gumption so rare, the customary glances of belied and complicated fairness
The sword speaks when I fall silent to comparisons belied my heart in boughs of distress and troughs of harmony
White like the musketeers that never let the chance pass

Ideal to peruse the vast treasure trove
of lecture material
pertaining to aforementioned title
on the webbed wide world
especially gratifying to watch and listen
as various and sundry
noteworthy knowledgeable instructors
present material regarding
as topic yours truly
(Oh Henry) hankers to master
configuring networks and hosts
nsync with helpful visual aids linkedin with
purporting to master said concepts
easy as kindergartner to learn.

Young impressionable twittering
snapchatting reddit minds
analogous to sponge;
they absorb technical information
without experiencing intimidation,
which panicky reaction, I attest
impedes induces blackened
barbed pangs within mine breast
causing my heart to pound loudly
testing heart (violently wracking ribs)

inducing near bursting of chest
severely incapacitating formerly rapt pupil
to become distressed
reducing means of communication
to grunts and groans expressed,
whereby attempt to grow knowledge
ain't no funfest
as ye accurately guessed
trying to understand
mind boggling concepts

necessitates giving noggin
much needed and frequent headrest
perhaps overwhelming
sixty plus shades of gray matter
subsequently mine surviving kin
get told cause of death courtesy coroner
visa vis aneurysm discovered
after autopsy and inquest
which constitutes (dead serious)
no small subject to jest.

Despite (surgeon general's warning)
regarding unwise to teach oneself,
(and perhaps miraculously enough
become bonafide, certified and deified
as network engineer)
forthwith unnamed old codger
of these words, the person in question
thinking about aspiring to become
a sexagenarian geek
maybe ill advised
to gain technological smarts
even an itty bit
tis best to remain ignorant
and sustain dumbfounded bliss

Truth be told acquiring insight
to feel connected and integrated
with uber generational breed,
(would most definitely
give me a virtual lyft) yes indeed
allowing, providing, and enabling
he/him to experience traveling
as a gender binary male
(no offense intended toward
individuals who consider themselves
linkedin with lgbtqia umbrella
(hopefully my car won't
get vandalized nor keyed)
after I send this reasonable rhyme
thru cyberspace at lightspeed.

Though gung-**
to master intricacies of subnetting,
specifically accessing an excellent
powerfully pointed website
hosting Jeremy's IT Lab
Free CCNA | Network Devices | Day 1 |
CCNA 200-301 Complete Course
a mental impasse deters
that eureka moment.

space has always heard disembodied
voices--then mouths eventually
opened with shocks of sound.
when that involuntarily comes across,
incantations are dwarfed--meaning to.
as if through a corresponding row of
numbers, that give way to unlikey
shapes that compliment one another.
a cluster of grapes resting on the hip
of a naked woman, lying on her side.
light-canceling curtains purporting
the birthplace of darkness, net
motions loose as color left scheming.
though nothing stirs--per se.

In what is purporting to
be an egalitarian secular
state, New Zealand might
wish to consider their
arrogance and religious
favouritism by retaining
such an offensive name
for those of other beliefs.
Recent events, such as the
earthquake (an act of God)
must suggest his obvious
abandonment and thus it
is superfluous to dogma.

I am beginning to wonder
too, perhaps we need to do
a DNA test to ascertain for
sure, but my suspicions are,
that we are not, who we
have been purporting to be.

If Brussels gave permission for
the Mannequin Pis to backstop,
(Phallitically Speaking) a Dutch
****, not only the #MeToo, but
every organisation purporting
to buttress women's rights in the
EEC, would be up in arms at the
mere suggestion of a temporary
solution, to an ongoing situation,
as we have between Arlene Foster
of the North and Leo Varadkar in
the Republic of Ireland who is
known for his ability to facilitate!

the other day
a woman came up
to me
and squeezed my
buttocks-sorry
in the super-
market-she is very
attractive and i
did nt object and
thought no more
about it-
(we poets are a
breed apart-)
then, the next day
upon my descent
into *****, voices
rose from the ether
purporting to be
justice, asking if pro-
ceedings should com
mence..strange eh?