Goodbye Prague, to a city I never thought I'd know.
Goodbye Prague, to a heaven that is lined with shattered beer bottles and stamped out cigarettes the junkies and the hobo's here still manage to get a  few puffs out of.
Goodbye Prague, to a hell that was once hovering with the feelings of control, manipulation, and more control, but now is twirling top speed to a land unknown.
Goodbye Prague, you seductive ***** with your cheap liquor, beer, and cigarettes, smelling of aged mahogany mixed finely with an acidic burst of fresh *****.
Goodbye Prague, I do not know when I will see you again, but I hope that I do and that I never grow so old that I forget you.
Goodbye to your abstract animals smeared black, screaming in the exploding summer sun. Goodbye to freshly cut pigs heads and cow flesh, hanging in your storefront window, tempting every passerby like the *****'s of Amsterdam.
Goodbye to every cobblestone that shines after a fresh rain or snow, slippery to the newcomer, an annoyance to the amateur, thoughtless to the old timer.
Goodbye to the potraviny's stocked with two crown marked up ***** and space vegetables shaped and colored in a one and only kind of vernacular; without you, I would have half-drunkenly stumbled home towards dreams of menial headaches and shadowy beer or perhaps to The Oak to drink alone.
I scream so long through faint puffs of carbon nicotine clouds made illuminated by the icy orange street lamps 800 years old glow!
I scream so long to late metro's and early trams!
I scream so long to the roaring rocks who reflect the faces of aging clocks!
So long to passed out bums and unforgiving metro officers. So long to dollar fifty beers and the fear of getting deported. So long with counting silver crown to make even, seeing my math prowess has lessened. So long embedded needles and bottle caps deep within the snowy cobble. So long listless wanders all their money thrown away until the month of May comes to knock on their door. So long alleyway romance 100 crown notes and old men in their rickety fishermen boats. So long sad masked faces who in their forward march sit stunned seeing fortune picks only some. So long through the grey mist stabbed with neon signs that attract the youth and the mad. So long to the feeling everything I had to say was the wrong thing. So long to feelings of foreign familiarity whose ball and chain were slowly starting to rust away. So long in song to the player's of Riegrovy hill whose voices I just couldn't stand. So long I've come to understand everyone's got a choice to live or wish they did. So long to the wide swept hills of Petrin, where angel's of lore go to rest atop dusted fresh snow, among the dotted new born vine. So long to the sound of wet metal against metal, a scream of order carried on the blue man's shoulder. So long to a city whose architecture reminds me of old men's faces and whose color reminds me of elderly women's dresses. So long to smoking in front of children without a second thought for their health. So long to racism that is wicked, but grunted genially - the executioner smiles at the accused - the gravedigger's weep for the dead - the ant makes a break for a hill not his. So long forlorn love whose only remedy for a cure is the beer sitting in front of you. So long to wondering what's going on in the world, when all I want and got is what's right in front of me.
Farewell Prague, you shadowed street walker, a cloak of stars around you, finding all that owe you  your due.
Farewell Prague, you in the morning eyes half mast, snow crunching underneath stony white.
Farewell Prague, miss-handler of crooked time pieces stating the obvious, ignoring to blame bluntly on youthful alcohol abuse.
Farewell Prague, you took me up the hill and through the woods where ravens, black as gutter ice, crackled down at me like showers of New Year's fireworks.
Farewell Prague, you gave me peace where I once thought I was unable to have.
Farewell Prague, you befriended me, then ordered me a shot that made me cough, then ordered me a beer so we could sit and truly feel what it is to sit and wallow in our time here.
Farewell Prague, you entranced me with view after view to a city to stubborn to die.
Farewell Prague, I leave you like you would leave me.
Farewell Prague, to your fat snow flakes that drop into wide eyed children mouths, tasting of iron whiskey rye, though they do not flinch at the taste.
Farewell Prague, I leave you with a hush of a whimper, bitter as the cold, and indifferent as the server's over at Cafe Lourve.
Farewell Prague, with a thousand miles of graveyards, where ghosts barely have the strength to weep.
Farewell Prague, I admit I never knew how to love until I came to visit you.
Farewell Prague, as I stare out your cracked and smoky tram windows, my thoughts not my own, shop windows and naked, screaming men, their cigarettes bouncing in between their lips like a jack of spades on smack, where at last we see that life is only a worth a **** if lived.
Farewell Prague, I see the cards there on the table and you're winking at me while I stand at the backdoor, and what's more, there's a secret you've got to give that I refuse believe.
Farewell Prague, to your open sore catastrophe of society, KFC on every block, and Starbuck's on every other, and on the other other are the lined' wino's shaking open handed and spread for a case of cardboard vino.
Farewell Prague, to the nasty smoker's in trams that just stopped caring.
Farewell Prague, to a city rhythm generated by an ignorant originality and uniqueness, where the same has no name and the the plain jabber on about their jobs in their pretty blue jeans.
Farewell Prague, because to say goodbye would mean we don't have that friendly tone.
Farewell Prague, I see to sacrifice oneself for the comfort of the elder or the opposite fills me with agitated obligation stationed in a vessel older than I've ever lived - yet I know it, for it is me.
Farewell Prague, you are a lost lullaby caught in the wind of an elastic multi-colored pin-wheel, shining riches of the rainbow into the eyes of children, who all whistle when they snore.
Farewell Prague, a button upon the Earth, like every man.
Farewell Prague, a love song sung in the depths of a damp grey hall, rivers all around, so the sounds too much to drink were outlandish in high emotion, juvenile commotion.
Farewell Prague, we were young - not caring about the future, but of course, with worry in our hearts for worry is a sign of human being human; yet, still, we asked nothing of one another and you gave and I gave and you took and I took and we walked underneath one another's blanket's until we were no longer cold and the winter showed to be just an annoying individual at the party.
Farewell Prague, to your lack of complications, making simplicities acceptable again.
Farewell Prague, to the snow that never stops falling, all while slumbering within dream until the seam is ripped so the old can die.
Farewell Prague, I've shined every marble staircase and washed every tram window; you owe me nothing because I like you.
Farewell Prague, to the long nights bleeding away at the table alone, the lady fast asleep, lit by the dim orange glow of the twisted streetlights below.
Farewell Prague, to the long nights forgetting pains of existence and accepting every solution to ward of resistance.
Farewell Prague, our long talks and hovering walks, always forcing me to balk.
Farewell Prague, at last you got the praise you have always deserved.
Farewell Prague, to hot humid nights filled with *** and butter in the summer and cold bitten cold of ***** and juice a la winter.
Farewell Prague, to bad service but good drink and food.
Farewell Prague, you curious tale the bravest man would waver to say.
Farewell Prague, to bridges galore and more dead leaves then wrinkles on my crooked face.
Farewell Prague, at night the sheen of liquor wears off only if you let it be so.
Farewell Prague, to all the those lonely mornings bent head into book on the way to work.
Farewell Prague, how long till you grow to be young again?
Farewell Prague, how long till I admit my defeat to you?
Farewell Prague, how long until I accept I'm the last fool in this world?
Goodbye Prague, the last soldier is standing, but the war is not yet won.
Goodbye Prague, to your hazy stars glimmering and shining for an indebted audience.
Goodbye Prague, the sun breaking through ink spilled colored clouds, the birds chirping, the dogs barking, and us wondering where we started.
Goodbye Prague, your churches are empty so the sins of man run rampant and at last the prayers of men go unanswered; we now abandoned to fend for ourselves.
Goodbye Prague, the puncturing purity of your ways make me giggle in delight as I listen to the cool piano man play; his eyes on the horizon shattering like toppled china.
Goodbye Prague, at last there is a time where we both get what we want.
Goodbye Prague, the verandas are chilled with the dew of winter and the snow glitters like bitter diamonds as the fool tips his hat to shy away the sunlight.
Goodbye Prague, every rain drop that fell upon me was a gift you can never take away.
Goodbye Prague, the fool adheres to agnostic rules but the cruel here see no reason to sue.
Goodbye Prague, I think therefore the dust of escape reflects the waves of the river Vlatva.
Goodbye Prague, to your lack of vowels.
Goodbye Prague, when the night wavers hear the Beherovka weep into its own glass, love leaving her forever making no note to Kissy.
Goodbye Prague, tram driver's unforgiving in their merciless need for schedule.
Goodbye Prague, the last homage to the war standing like a shining diamond neath chipped and shattered rubble.
Goodbye Prague, a listless memory mentioned only in drifting dream.
Goodbye Prague, every loving glance smelling of freshly poured beer over newly fallen snow.
Goodbye Prague, to your hardness, your beauty, and your madness.
Goodbye Prague, your days wet with rain, stricken by sunlight, reflecting white emerald into the window panes of passing trains.
Goodbye Prague, at last you got what you deserved.
Goodbye Prague, now I can weep and say I have trampled upon your cheek and slunk through your veins and trudged through your blood and skipped through your hair and saw every line - both sought after and nought - you have acquired through time.
Goodbye Prague, there is no reason to get excited, you are free.
Goodbye Prague, I see the silhouette of the trees that line your hills and I am forsaken to see the leaves turning from jovial yellow greens to disregarded and disparaged furnaces of dim fire reds and browns.
Goodbye Prague, the people within you deserved all of the credit.
Good Prague, the people outside of you deserve what ever they believe they do.
Goodbye Prague, you family to families with common sense and love rampaging through your barley stained veins.
Goodbye Prague, perhaps there is nothing under your rubble, maybe already all is lost for everyone, everywhere, but maybe, you living the simpler life, can show all that life can be so.
Goodbye Prague, you gave me letters, words, lines, commas, apostrophes, and dashes, paragraphs, pages, and eventually, a story; I leave you marked.
Goodbye Prague, an old friend whose hand I shook but knew would one day turn my back on.
Goodbye Prague, the bite of your cold generosity and your bustling love leaves man with nothing but to bike back with no chance of triumph.
Goodbye Prague, street cleaners clean up your wear and tear from the mothers and fathers that bore you, some 800 years ago; ageless, you loom longer than they would like.
Goodbye Prague, battling sleep as the ***** raps for more and more, none that the man has.
Goodbye Prague, the night is curling in as the wave crashes to the short and I am the lost sun looking for a place to rise, trying to get to the sky.

“My heart wanders the mossy mess of wet country, reliving a time when youth had charm, hand held hand, letters were written with not a classroom blot in sight, kisses were blushed.. and boys ran home to hide their eagerness.

Life was what it was, merely a game of engendered differences.”

scribbled the poet with his special pen. Leaning against an oak - as proud a tree as he was a man.

There was no need to make excuses for his silence here. Why apologise for watching space fill with swirling prisms across such a wonderfully vast panorama? So many greens in this god-forsaken county. But it was refuge for someone like him, was an escape route to whatever the future held. Anyway, where he was concerned, guilt was neither muse nor amusing, it merely lay a rough stony path ready to trip the careless walker he‘d almost become.

‘Oblivious to life in the real world’, he’d been told at least once a week for far too many years. He laughed, those words would never be uttered again.

“Shadows
of buttery budding green
dripping flavour ‘cross soil,
moaning,
muttering,
life.to.come.
fruitful.”

He shook his head, trying to be rid of thoughts, emotions: ‘I don’t want to think of her. ‘HA, too late! There and then the six o’clock in the morning drew his woman from the shadows of deception. He smiled. In his ragged mind she became .. she became a sapling formed of malleable clay. ‘I want to shape her.. a touch here and here so her ******* flourish with pleasure. Then, I‘ll stroke her right side.hip.thigh. to where the skin is both silk soft and a touch of treble plaited gossamer, that trimmed topiary of woman awaiting her future.

Who knows, in my next life perhaps I’ll be a sculptor and lay claim to the master’s crown. I’ll become lord of much and more.. why not, someone has to!’

“Memories,
hands soft as sugar spun
in quadrants arched quiescent,
harmonic pleasuring,
all.frantic.full.
ripe as berries brown
and fatal flawed.”

Man scratched the pen against vellum, then.. oh then, heard its crickling cry; remembered the rippling of her moan.. the call of his name.. the echo of his weeping into her. Then her - fingers gripping where space permitted.. palms moist and made fluorescent.. back arching.. hair flying.. falling onto each of the four crumpled pillows. Then, then.. becoming a streaming sway of tressed love battling breath. And the smell of wild garlic filled the air

never to ward off his fears, nor outsmart his demons. He was meant to be taken by the sight of a woman both too good and bad for him.

“Feeling night
a creep of nails tip touch
in devil’s bliss
where all men meet a foe,
but headlong thrills
deep.diving.hot.
as hell”

He took his pen and with a mighty shout, ****** a myriad of dark memories into his own heart - his memories, his memories - not hers. She’d laughed when he asked her to stay with him, to be his .. forever. Until that moment the pen had been softly ****** between his full lips but moved to be gentled between index finger and thumb. Her rampaging words struck home. They broke his silence, they hurt.

Whirling and swirling it over her *******, his pen became a weapon. He taunted her skin with a pen ripe with red ink, swore and wept, swore again. His hand fell screaming into her flesh, not once but a dozen frantic times. Finally her breath became a dense gushing cloud which swiftly rose so dark that, within seconds, once pure angels fell to earth looking akin to a chimney sweep’s boys - unregonisable as once human.

“Harvesting
kiss kiss full lips
gleaming at the point of red,
so sharp whilst ..
poppies parchment pollen
trembling.moisted.dark
unloved”

The body was found months later. It had laid until bronze leaves and golden were drifting upon and across what had once been a face, and now discovered by shocked, sickened walkers. When the police arrived, all they found lying near to the man was a pen and dulled pages within a leather binding.

A forensic scientist is still trying to decipher the wording on the vellum, what words he’s found to date are quite beautiful - or so he told his wife in an aside. She shrugged, he’d always been a strange man. Should have married her own kind .. too late now. Marianne looked away, unused to anything remotely like conversation from him. She smiled, turned the mirror to the wall and waited ..



© 2012 Emma Joy

Eternally no word is spoken,
See it through your vision, this deserted shrine hidden within hellfire,
The dreams are fading into the slipping stream of time, vanishing,
In silence waiting seems to be alike an eternity, lonesome and sad,
If you believed you could try, all the same it's both the truth and a lie,
Silence, is what is called for in this abandoned, forgotten, rotten place
But if you were to spread your wings and were to fly,
Maybe then, you could reach high, rise from the fire and call through a voiceless barrier for help, but will the deaf understand you ?
This is, where all hope is lost to cause, where all words have come to pause, no message is delivered and prayers are sent by reticence,
So what makes you still look up to the burning sky the flames are controlling with pure rage and overwhelming fury beyond reason ?
Perhaps hope is something one can only lose last or frankly, never.
The feathers of your wings have burnt to dust and were scattered into the wind of the rampaging purgatory since a long gone past,
All you do is listening to your own voice in your head, over and over.
Bound to the ground, with no wings to fly.
Bound to silence, with no voice to cry.

~ Umi

A castle built on sand,
Falling appart by the striking wind, storming, raging, rampaging over the land in a furious devotion only a lunatic would be able to know,
No purpose, yet trying to make one, a nihilistic attempt of a deserted hell, forgotten through ages and generations, left to rot, perish alone,
I do not know the meaning of life, but alike you it has to exist,
Trying to put a broken heart back together, is alike trying to find the pieces of a cup which has shattered into a million, tiny, shards,
I cannot imagine each piece to be the same, because they are not,
Left to be never whole again, after my companions who shared the same naive dream I held dear, fell one by one, only their will remains,
The morning glow we dreamt of was more than just the sun rising,
In brilliance, the roaring sky should have embraced in light then shone even brighter, a firestorm of events as if it was an illusion,
The mission I took up, to become angel like became chains which bound, tied and overwhelmed me with their unimaginable strengh,
Even if no one understands me, giving up can never be an option,
If they worry about me, saying my ideas are twisted and silly,
And even if they speak ill of me, saying my dream to be an angel one day is beyond being naive...I will definetly stay positive!
Bearing my wings, I will keep fighting until someday I fall,
Like a simple feather

~ Umi

Trip over the high density of our constant lies
We're all out to break and hurt the non-elite
Words and phrases they never meant a thing but to lure you in
This facade of love that we send soldiers like cattle
Down an assembly line to build and protect
A fake America, burning towers tumbling down
Bellowing the sweet sorrows of victims
Whose screams we replay the audio over and over
To divert you from seeing the real culprit  
We are sick minded human beings with the thirst for enemies
We'll kiss everyone we meet on the cheek
And continue to fake what we tell you we'll be
We prefer a stabbing to the back
Never a full frontal attack
And we have puppets
We'll always find someone to replace the current like the forty four before
The people's memories will fade and burn like corpses caused by the Enola Gay
We''ll drop a bomb to wipe out everything mankind has worked for
Because in the end we do not need peasants
We have everything and everyone else has absolutely nothing
And 99% will lay to waste and ruin in the ruins we leave to burn
We'll pity so we can mislead to false hope
Send small portions of rations to schedule feeding underlings
Flouride in the drinking water to better control
Corruption in the oval office classified, uncovered, never shared
Always kept underwraps, never revealed just a hoax.
Lips to ears do the whispers carry.
A promise for a better tomorrow but a date will never be set for peace
So we keep telling you that it only gets better
And we'll think apologies fix everything
Truth is we meant nothing in the first place
Because we'll keep remaking mistakes that we apologize for
Misery is our job
Eating and breathing and surviving on the pain of lower humans
Like clothed animals rampaging through a corrupt society
So we'll let the people let their guard down for a quick second and us, vultures
Will devour them quick in that moment
To find you are empty inside,
We've starved you of what you've needed
Because all along, and everything we've ever done
we never realized once you've all revolted
this 1% would surely fall to pieces.

Tokyo
By Anthony Caceres

Flashing lights, Flashing people
Blurs of the past come to haunt
Blurs of the present come to taunt
Blurs of the future come to flaunt
Sitting here by the bus stop
Watching people fly by like the airplanes above
Everybody set their bodies to fast forward
While I’m rewinding as slow as I can
Reading the latest manga as I get ****** into the lights
Like some late night ramen
I feel like I can walk on air
A skywalker
I can’t escape the death walkers
I know
But I can slow them down, to a point
With a late night text
and the horns of rampaging cars
Busses and Bikes
Awkward mannerisms
and long hikes
Tokyo is far away
But as long as your still here with me
Tokyo will forever stay

In a wayward adventure in curiosity —
lured away from savvy of cooler judgment,  
he oversteps the bounds of reality 
into a state of altered awareness.

Overwhelmed by a rapid beginning
of a buzzing sensation — The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him, 
surging along the veins streaming 

euphoria through cells of his entire body:  
inside the body, with warm pleasure waves
flushing over the by now tingling skin —
soughing off all unpleasant feelings.

Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, and eyeballs 
rolling back from hitherto an unimaginable
state of bliss, he savours the calm explosions
of the pulsating bubbles in his head.

A magical moment of sheer ******* 
rapture—that ends in a lasting sedation—
during which he's dazed with wonderment
while covered by a cozy blanket of content.

He falls in love with the insidious drug.
And, he begins to relish its sweet fruition
in a seemly pattern of use that is put
in the shade to protect his best interests.

A stake in normalcy that seeks to restrict
his usage of the opioid to a social activity.
But soon enough he drifts towards a regular
recreational use: indulging on weekends,

floating, flying, and soaring in wonderful
ripples of pure delight, feeling very mellow
and satisfied, in an illusionary paradise of
forgetfulness where nothing hurts any more.

Bit by bit as time goes by his body builds up
a tolerance for the sedative, prompting his
intake of higher and more frequent doses
to feel as well as to sustain the desired effect.

This occurs because his body attempts to
adapt to the presence of the drug by quickly
breaking it up and purging it out of the system;
thus making it less potent as it was before.

At this stage of his drug abuse he's still able to
control whether to use the stuff or not, where
and when to use it, without stress. He could
also abstain from the opioid fairly responsibly.

But at the limits of his body's flexible response
to the dangerous substance, he begins to suffer
from its unpleasant side-effects that show up
a short period of time following his last use.

The pleasurable, but short-term, therapeutic
effects of the hard drug are now being
overshadowed by several of its undesirable
withdrawal symptoms that manifest as:

fatigue, irritability, cold chills/sweat, itchy skin,
muscle spasms and tremors, body ache, and
stomach cramps among others, with an
increase in his body's cravings for the opioid.

The onset of these torturous side-effects of
the stimulant marks the beginning of his body's
physical dependence on it, as he now relies
on the drug to fend off the terrible affliction.

He has bitten at the bait of pleasure oblivious
of the hook beneath it. The once casual user,
who had thought he could quit the habit at will
without stress, has progressed to problematic use.

The drug has become an integral part of a daily
routine that is gradually heading towards chaos.
Regardless, he's still able to go to work and
take care of his day to day responsibilities.

In time, a new sickness begins to fester inside
him: the opioid is tightening its grip on him,
as his body's physical dependence on it
is now generating his addiction to the drug.

This psychological dependence on the drug
has set in with anxiety disorder accompanied
by emotional and behavioural problems:
the duo classic signs of a progressive disorder.

The drug has become something he needs
to sleep or to fully wake up. His sleeping
pattern has also been altered; up at night
and intermittently dozing off during the day.

As dosage of the narcotic rises, so does
the torture of the painful lows and other
symptoms of addiction, making his cravings
for the sedative increasely more intense.

As it is, he's needs several hits of the drug to
make it through the day. All at once he wants
to use! He begins to look forward to using.
He would ingest the drug in risky situations

such as, while at the wheels of his car or
working at his job; always desperate to avoid
withdrawal symptoms as well as to revel in
the bliss of the drug's comforting warmth.

At times he'd skip work 'chasing the dragon':
pursuing the out-of-reach elation levels of
his initial euphoric high, swinging between
feelings of mediocrity and that of ecstasy.

Always, his body would afterwards crash
below baseline, barely able to cater for his
daily needs. The habit has long ceased
to be the fun that it was intended to be.

Like a vicious cycle the relief from the opioid,
which is not justified by external reality,
is being obtained at the expense of the
worsening addiction and a spike in distress

whenever his body is low on the drug.
The more he indulges on the sedative
to calm his racing mind, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.

Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays in the abyss of drug addiction:
a dark, weary place where priority disorder 
is dictated by events outside of his control.

It is this corrupted impulse control that
causes his sick obsession with the narcotic,
rendering him unfit to articulate rational
thoughts: a chronic brain disorder.

In this harmful shift away from reality,  
utmost in his mind is the insidious drug:
over and above his job, his goals, family,
love, friends, hobbies and personal hygiene.

Oddly enough the foremost essentials of life
like water, food, and sleep are also not spared.
He could be ill and he won't care.
No other thoughts can cohabit in his world.

Emotionally invested in his fantasy world,
the toxic substance has kindled in him
an inner turmoil — setting off an overriding
feeling of emptiness that aches in his heart.

The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: an ongoing effort to wean himself off
the drug is being crushed by a dysphoric mood
and a sickly feeling that intensify in severity.

These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the sedative's induced
alterations in the biochemistry of his
brain's system of reward and punishment.

Rather than a mild, blissful flow of the brain's
happy hormones, as is experienced while
one is indulging in a tasty food, on receiving
a great news, or while engaged in any other

kinds of novelty that fill us with a delicious
pleasure, the opioid whose chemical structure
is similar to that of the natural chemical
messengers of the brain, Happy Hormones,

by mimicking these primary drivers of the
brain's reward system the psychoactive 
drug sends a false signal of euphoria to
the complex *****, triggering an instant

and fast secretion of an abnormally large
amount of the 'feel-good hormones', that
begin to surge along its pleasure pathways
overwhelming the reward centre of the brain.

It is this huge outpouring of happy hormones
in the region that elicites in him a sudden
burst of energy, a pleasant state of mild
drowsiness, mental alertness, relaxation, ...

This already intense, euphoric effect of the
opioid is further amplified by the drug's
blocking of the pain partways of the reward
system, thus dulling his emotions and worries

by eliminating any feeling of sorrow, regret,
guilt, fear, or loneliness. Upon intake of the
mood-altering drug, he would feel warm when
cold, calm when angry, bright when grumpy,

filled when hungry and happy when irritable,
with almost a total refrain from the tendency to
view anything in a negative manner. This dramatic
result makes every normal thing look better

and brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction,
as though all his needs have been met.
However, this almost perfectly desirable 
body and mind experience is an artificial

feeling that only lasts a few hours at most.
When the drug's effects wear off, because
the brain, which has come to rely on the steady
supply of happy hormones, cannot adjust

all at once, it gets stuck in overdrive which
results in the withdrawal symptoms. It is so
because his brain, whose system of reward
and punishment has been tampered with,

seeks to counteract and accomodate for
the sweet thrills of the drug's euphoric high,
by secreting much less happy hormones while
the foodgate of pain hormones is thrown open.

Just like a huge surge of happy hormones
elicits unnatural levels of euphorical pleasure,
a spike in flow of pain hormones produce
in him the torturous withdrawal symptoms.

These unwanted side-effects whose rise and
fall are subject to drug levels in the system,
is the debt he has to pay for the supreme
bliss that is relished during his opioid highs.

It is all about his brain seeking to maintain
Homeostasis: a normal, healthy body function.
Once he's able to amerce with penance due,
he'll feel good again with no need for the drug.

Another flip side of the illicit habit is that over
time, the regular surge in happy hormones
disrupts the resilience of the reward region
of the brain, causing physical changes that

have drastically reduced his brain's ability
to produce the 'pleasure juices', or respond
to any stimulus other than the one being
triggered by the psychoactive substance.

This is clearly seen in his lost of interest in
activities that he once enjoyed, since his brain
suffers from lack of happy hormones which
influence one's capacity to be in a good mood.

Because the narcotic has also disrupted
activities in the control region of the brain,
his whole thought pattern, perspective and
behaviour, all radically change along with it.

It is this reprogramming of his brain that has
altered the interior reality of his mind, in ways
that result in him going into 'survival mode'
in the absence of the drug during a withdrawal.

While in this irritable, aggressive and erratic
state, he would forego anything and everything
to obtain the narcotic because he's thinking
of his drug use the same way an individual 

who is parched with thirst thinks of water.
This desperation in seeking out the drug as
a vital lifeline is due to his compromised brain
'thinking' it needs it as a matter of survival.

A habit he had maintained at the outset
because it made him feel extremely good
has tuned against him, quite often, coercing
him to use for the avoidance of pain.

The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,  
he continues on the foreboding route 
for which he has no power of deviation.

Despairing in the clutches of addiction,
the drugs traumatize him, they infuse
toxins into his spine, and he wouldn't
know whether he's coming or going.

He's kept on saying to himself, 'I'm going
to quit for good after using one last time.'
But that remains to be seen as the drug
goes on dulling his inner light day by day.

In a downward spiral that stuns those 
acquainted with him, he loses his job,
his car is repoed, and he's evicted from
a nice home that had been stripped bare.

Drowning in unpaid bills and desperately
in debt, having blown an entire life-savings
on the drug, the loss of everything and a few
remaining friends leaves him fatally devastated.

The dangerous drug has evoked a negative
ripple that is felt throughout all that he's
part of. An awful realization that settles in
with cold clarity, eliciting a lurch of dismay

over his dire ignorance about the drug
which has led to the ugly entrapment.
In deep, sorrowful thoughts consumed
with self-loathing he puts a curse upon

the day he first laid eyes on the hard drug.
With the best resolve he's able to muster,
driven by exasperation to kick the habit,
he strives to make his will like stone —

a facade that is soon razed by his urgent need
for the ****** to stave off withdrawal. With a
burden of guilt and shame that can't be faced,
he retreats into the haze of his own misery.

With more problems and stresses than ever,
he plunges from troubled life to no life —
completely losing touch with reality as the
disorder assumes a more dangerous form.

His fixation on the ****** has taken a turn for
the worst; besides his strong cravings for it
to ward off withdrawal as well as to experience
its euphoric high again, it has become more

crucial than ever for him to keep his emotions
constantly desensitised to life, by numbing
the agony of living to ease the passage of
day with purchased relief from the sedative.

Locked in this highly destructive pattern
of drug use, he would stop at nothing to
feed the habit: he would cheat, steal,
lie or betray no matter who to get his 'fix'.

Like the spreading of cancer in the body,  
his affliction has metastasized way 
beyond him, chipping away at the sense
of wellbeing of everyone around him.

As frequent and ready targets for theft
his family have to always watch out for him,
in a resentful relations in which they never
could feel at easy with him around the house.

Wallets, jewellery, gadgets, or any other
easy to carry household valuables, that are
not safely locked away, will go missing.
For days at a time he, too, will vanish.

He'd eventually return like the 'prodigal son'.
Always, he's found the door open after
prolonged periods of avoiding home, even
on occasions when he'd been kicked out.

In the many months gone since losing his
source of livelihood, he's been pushed
into a number of rehabilitation facilities,
but as yet has failed to clean up his act.

He's also been in and out of rehab thrice
following hospital discharges for drug
overdose. On the last occasion, he was
found passed out in the family's bathtub.

Timely arrival of the paramedics had saved
his life. Notwithstanding, a nagging urge
to 'use' continues to feed and reinforce
the habit after each discharge from rehab.

It's been most upsetting to the parents
who have had to watch him visibly change
before their eyes: from a good, healthy
son, who had always had his act together,

to as it is, a thin, patchy-skinned loner with
a baffled demeanour — who buries his head
in low self-esteem, to conceal the often
dilated and glassy pupils from mutual gaze.

Nothing points more to the helplessness 
of the family's plight than having to finally
admit to their little or no influence over
the ravages of the stigmatized disorder.

A harrowing experience for a household
whose life-savings, along with compassion
for him, have completely been exhausted
with no more tears remaining to shed.

The hurting family at the end of its tether
confronts him with an ultimatum:
to get his life in order or face the music.
Coldly, they all watch him leave home.

His descent into the final stages of rock-
bottom has been swift. He starts by crashing
on fellow addicts' couches and floors,
but soon his welcome quickly wears out.

Now among the ranks of the homeless the
hobo would wake up feeling sick, and his day
would consist of shoplifting, petty thefts,
begging, and struggling to find others ways

to obtain money in order to feed the habit.
At nights, even on stormy ones, the rough
sleeper would crash wherever there's shelter,
never worrying about waking up the next day.

A hellish existence on the street that has
provoked a string of run-ins with the law. 
Nabbed stealing on ill-fated occasions,
he's manhandled in a most indecent way.

Tired, hungry and sick, the erstwhile ray of
hope, who once had a strong sense of self,
is currently a nervous wreck who envisages
life through the lens of opioid stupor.

Much beyond his ability to ask for help, 
his hurting family proceed to rescue him.
Under the humbling load of drug addiction
he staggers into another rehab facility.

But the often slippery climb to recovery
is never easy. It's yet another chance for him
to submit to a slow and delicate therapy on
his brain — whose structure and functions 

are badly impacted by years-long use of
the drug. The healing process is a labour
of commitment and discipline, coupled with
patience to allow the brain to adapt back

toward normalcy by gradually regenerating
and rebalancing itself. In a gruelling task,
he's expected to learn to care for a body that
now must struggle to work in a different way.

Desiring to put their lives back together many
druggies have been able to crawl their way out
of the sinister shadow — a big chunk of them
through the guiding light of structured help.

Amongst them were 'walking corpses' whom
possessed by their 'enough is enough', are
enabled to find the inner fire vitally needed
to rekindle the cold embers of self-image.

There's the fella cast adrift feeling wholly
disconnected from self and the world;
he's mourning the loss of a vital lifeline
that has always helped him cope with life.

He had been through it several times before,
the fatigue, stomach cramps, aches, itchy skin, ...
But, he's in the early stages of withdrawal when
cravings for the narcotic are at their worst.

This initial withdrawal agony is the biggest
hurdle any addict has to overcome in the often
stop-start journey to recovery. If he could
somehow find the courage to suffer through it,

the fierce and ceaseless cravings for the drug
would be considerably reduced, making
them easier for him to deal with. Eventually,
they will dissipate the longer he stays sober.

He's being offered a way out of his captivity,
but he's unable to embrace the opportunity
with open arms because the addiction,
which convinces him the only option is to

indulge on the narcotic, is blocking him from
seeing the available escape route. It has shut
off his ability to get up on the inside to face
the seeming overwhelming barriers to sobriety.

Like one in the grip of Stockholm Syndrome,
he has developed a type of trauma bonding
with the treacherous drug: the more it enslaves
him, the more his irrational affection for it.

With his consciousness constantly revolving
around the insidious substance, he just
can't imagine a chronic user like him
being sober and happy again without it.

That being the case, he fails to see any point
in struggling to remain sober — when in such
times he's beset by an awful illness attended
by a serious depression that is no help.

Regardless of the wreckage of his past,
everything that is dear to him plus the very
essence of life on the line, he's left convinced
that giving up the destructive habit would

mean endless suffering and feeling deprived
for the rest of his already sad existence.
More than any other reasons, he just
won't quit because he's powerless to resist.

In default of any dreams of ever recouping
losses that are manifestly out of reach,
the drug with a firm grip on him serves 
as a buffer to keep his ugly reality at bay.

All that he wants is to return to the 'loving
arms' of the opioid, very much aware that
the feeling of the drug's high now that he's
in pain can be one of the best things ever.

But even so, as tempting as the desire to jump
the healing process may be, he's bitterly
mindful of the horrors of street life that
loom upon him with such frightening aspect.

Savagely trapped with no good choices he
slips into a real fear of relapse. In anguish
withdrawal and cravings plague him daily,
and they won't allow him a moment's peace.

Utterly incapable of rising from the ashes 
to hold it all together—no hope—
nothing to hope for—everything out 
of focus—mind spiraling out of control...

In a fit of extreme anxiety the now rampaging
urge to 'use' prods him, closer and closer, to
the brink of a nervous breakdown; and suddenly,
his need for a 'hit' becomes most vital as.

Sweating profusely and trembling all over
with fear clutching a pilfered smartphone,
forgetful of future suffering, the rehab
jumper hurries along the forbidden path.

All alone with the merciless companion: 
nowhere to go and no one to turn to. 
Wretchedly wretched in additive agony
the ****** fades away into nothingness.








AUTHOR'S NOTE


The Abyss Of Drug Addiction is written in 112 non-rhyming quatrains.

The rendition is a poignant story depicting the sad existence of many drug users. The verse uncovers and illuminates, step by step, the different stages of drug addiction and the mental processes of the unable to function drug users.

The paramount aim of the work is to shed some light on the sinister shadow of drug addiction: to unveil to all and sundry, especially teenagers and the youths, the hazards of drug abuse and the vicious downward spiral that can be caused by it. 

Just as the euphoric experience of all kinds of hard drugs differ significantly, so are their withdrawal symptoms. Despite their seeming surface unrelatedness, whichever hard drug it may be, the creation of an illegal and dangerous dependency in users is a common denominator.

[The Rush is described as a feeling very much like a heightened and prolonged ****** ******. A great relieve of tension. It is mostly felt when ****** or any of it's derivatives opioids/opiates is administered intravenously].

In quite a disturbing hyperbole, a ****** addict described the drug's EUPHORIC RUSH as follows:
"Take the best (******) ****** you've ever had, multipy it a billion and you're still no where near it... "

Haifa, Israel, a Saturday before the Second Gulf War
The Iraq War, the Shock and Awe War, the war with embedded journalists traveling in
tanks across dusty deserts the smart way with no bulky supply lines following them
And they arrived and it quickly became apparent the supply line was a good invention

The beach is filled with people, enjoying their last few days of peace
People color the beach a kind of brown, moving brown, like ants wandering around a hill the entire beach is their hill right now in that moment a respite of the stress to come
Funny how War could be on some kind of timeline, with everyone waiting for it
like a Super Bowl game, or the second coming or a tornado or flood or nuclear bomb
Breathe this fresh air now, for tomorrow will find you smothered in a bomb shelter
crammed into small spaces with strangers even, or people you don't like, and screaming children

Your plane was due to leave for Florida the next day, but there was no seat for me.
At first that bothered you, that we had no money for me to go anywhere, only you
but now you took any chance you got to leave this place that was our new home
"We're making cookies," a couple said who we ran into down there.  
If there's an air raid, you can stay with us they said to me.  
And I imagined the pleasant aroma of butter
and sweet and nuts filling a windowless room with a Hebrew TV station crackling quickly in a language I still couldn't keep up with while we munched until we were like full balloons
in a land with the bus driver turning up the news updates on the radio every hour really loud so everyone could hear them, day in and day out, because this was part of life here. And most of what I could follow after so many hours of study was that most words at the end of a sentence on the news ended with -eeem.  Usually in threes, -eem, -eeem, -eem, which is maculine plural and sometimes there was MemShalah, which is Prime Minister.

It was your most noble hour, coming shortly after you rampaging up and down the hallways
of our cement apartment building, just a box but a nice one with a view of Haifa Bay saying Saddam does too have a bomb, and you just wait when the scuds start falling. You just wait.
But you weren't waiting.  You were going home.
And no I didn't believe Saddam had a bomb although I've never met anyone who agreed with me since then and that is getting to be a long time ago.  
Even though there were Freedom Fries now and a ban on French wine and I don't particularly like the French in many ways, still I believed them and Mahomood El Baradei
because he was a very smart man except American don't believe there can be smart, effective individuals and people working very hard in places filled with dust and ignorance and lacking
so many comforts and conveniences
And how could you check a whole country anyway?  
With connections, by being an insider and by being very clever and that's what I thought sitting in the living room watching CNN International being piped for free into our living room.
And you were terrified and you left in a sweat and a day or so later the War began

and I watched the War on CNN International in our living room after you were gone, and it was just mass destruction from great heights like someone's ridiculous plan of Urban Renewal from way too high up and I felt sorry for all the
people who would soon be called "collateral damage" and I felt ill at our Generals bragging about this mayhem, this obscene, idiotic pounding of a city without intelligence or sensitivity or perceptions and I felt no shock and awe, but only horror and sadness
and I, by myself, an American living in Israel, who now had dual citizenship of course,
you see, but Americans are never dual, we always leave.  We are only American.

I saw my country as something angry, and violent and dumb and ugly
And you waited in Florida for the WMD, and I watched the story unfold
and there were still no WMD by the time you got back and the Patriot missiles were lowered from their mountain top heights.  And there were still no WMD when paper plans for a bomb were unearthed underneath rose bushes in a scientist's back yard and I felt sorry for the rose bushes
and hoped they were re-planted.
And like my country, you slipped down a notch in my eyes,
Running away from nothing telling me there was danger and leaving me
when it was only you who believed I might die.  Only You.

Do elephants talk to each other?
of course they do -
they use an ele-phone
Well, they used to
(just like they used to make trunk calls)
now they use ele-mail

And like us, they send selfies:
the girls show themselves
naked in their mud bath;
and the boys rampaging through
what’s left of the forests

"The global bull market has continued its seemingly relentless advance, unchanged by geopolitical concerns…….."

• The Israeli-Hamas conflict now blazing in Gaza, Palestine, two military forces locked in a deadly struggle to the end, killing and maiming thousands of ordinary citizens.

• Malaysia Airlines flight 17 blasted out of a clear blue Ukraine sky by the Bus surface to air missile
             unleashed by the Pro-Russian Separatists killing 298 unsuspecting, innocent, international travellers.
             Culpability denied by all.

• Anwar Al Awlaki, the American born Cleric, directing clandestine terror attacks and assassination by Al Qaeda beyond the Middle east into Asia and Europe.

• Deposed President, Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, responsible for terrorist activities including multiple car bombings throughout Egypt.

• President Bashar Assad of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Syria’s Shiite religion, waging religious genocide against his own nations people
             and now in open conflict with the Muslim uprising Sunni forces of the new Isis Caliphate.

• The beheadings, slaughter and terror unleashed by the Sunni, Isis Caliphate uprising rampaging through Iraq.

• Russia’s sudden invasion and forceful annexation of the Crimea.

• Russia’s brutal pressure on the sovereignty of the Ukraine through its clandestine weaponry supply and sponsorship of the Pro-Russian Separatist Forces occupying the nations East.

The Middle East is now…an Apocalypse.

This epoch of cruel waste
Where man kills man
For God and gold,
For power’s lust.
Where the Sword of Calamity
Wields destruction and death
On those who can least afford it
By they who should never impose it.

In the face of all this …..an unbelievable prioritization with this headline quote from today’s NZ Herald….

“There are financial risks to be endlessly jumping at shadows…to overreact to market noise!"

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!**

M.
Auckland,
NEW ZEALAND
31 July 2014

Telling.
On the news I see
in the cradle of mankind,
bloodlust  rampaging.
Killing machines laughing
as children cry and mothers
stare silently at nothing.

Telling.
On my porch I see
three birds sharing a perch,
eating seed.
One brown, one red,
one olive green.
One gently feeding the other.

Telling.

r ~ 4/9/14

You give me power

The illustrious fine powder you are.

You gave me the strength of

a 100 rampaging lions.

Your power fills my lungs...exhale...

My lips and gums tingle on the verge of sweet success--evanescent.



I can’t stop.

It takes more.

I follow your train of crumbs in a line

like a baby following a line of cheerios.

Not knowing where it leads,

But I sense limbo, and oblivion.

For now,

The strength of 50 rampaging lions.

Train ride over--evanescent.



Your syringe of life and death keeps me here.

Not knowing when it will be deadly,

But one last try.

Your power coursing through my veins.

Giving me the strength of a lion.

You consume me with exuberance and lust

Like a little boy seeing **** for the first time.

Too late,

I am dead.

My life--evanescent.

Cloudy,
the sky is filled with heavily condensed water,
and birds flying away taking shelters,
and swaying long grass dancing,
whilst all I can hear is the loud sound of leaves blown by the wind,

No sun,
no shines,
clouds are marching,
soon, very soon,
waters gonna fall,

under the broken bus stop,
with broken rooftop and rusting metal,
I hold my small Carmine coloured umbrella
with the lush green leaves paint the background
the sky cried,
and the tears dropped onto my umbrella,
and millions more followed,

the tense smell of water mixing with the earth,
the smell of rain,
the smell of loneliness
perfectly captured by my friend, nature,
I stood there, looking upward
heavily cloud is darkening and darkening,

it is crying it most heavy downpour,
and all the nature too, silent,
and all the nature too are in deep grieve,
water is rising and drowning my feet,
the ambience is not creepy but tranquillizing
nature most expensive marijuana,

As cold as the ice,
clear like crystal,
so pure, so wild,
the heavenly droplets,

I stood so long at the bus stop,
waiting for the one bus that never arrived,
my feet were numb and start to sore,
move on,
move on,
so I let the rain washed away my uncertainty,

I took the first step,
of my agonizing journey,
through the deserted road,
whilst the rampaging storm is abusing me,
I decide to lose my umbrella to the wind,
and learn how to dance in the rain,

After a storm comes a rainbow,
the saying goes,
I believe in those,
cheap and cheezy echoes,

Rain or shine,
I am fond of them all,
nature is wild
wild is good
good for my unsettling soul,

so let's dance,
dance in this cold unbearable blizzard of rain,
of feelings,
let the healing begin,
aren't we all need healing?

I wanted to be there for Parsnips but time and  money availability have precluded it from happening. I cannot make it down for the funeral.

I f you would please pass on the following few words for me.

Parsnips was my mate, He was the epitome of a man from a different age.
He was wild and intense, dark of mood  and definite of opinion.

He was poetry in motion astride a good jumping mare, many a time I have seen him clear a seven wire fence with a good foot of daylight to spare.
His understanding of equine mentality approached that of witchcraft. He was capable of anticipating the  lashing hoof before the horse had formulated the thought, much less put it into action. He had NO patience with intemperate horseflesh. Many a frisky animal had second thoughts of misbehaviour after they had worn the thick end of a coarse rasp at close quarters.
Parsnip’s work was artistry, he was truly... one of the GREAT farriers.

The end of the working day would see Parsnips drown his sorrows in the demon ***.
This was the emergence of the dark soul who cast about for answers to impossible questions, who wallowed in the unhappiness of his failed horizons and the bitterness of his life’s disappointments. My mate Parsnips was not the easiest man to know in his dark moments. But a mate is a mate... you take the good with the bad.

And there were a lot of really good times... when a happy Parsnips had laughter in his eyes and a flash of excitement in his demeanour. I recall one such time when, on a wild rafting trip on a rampaging, flooded Mohaka river, The raft was marooned on a jammed stump in the midst of violent huge killer white water. Parsnips hung off a rope and with a look of wild joy on his face announced to his flabbergasted mates...”And I can’t even ****** swim a stroke!... fantastic. Needless to say he survived the trip and loved every moment of it.

I called to spend the afternoon with him a short time ago at the Rest Home. This was a shadow of the Parsnips I had once known. He was completely disillusioned with the hand fate had dealt him. He saw no future to speak of... He wanted out.
So I must say that I am not entirely surprised with the way things have materialised.
Parsnips usually arranged the system to get things the way he wanted them.

I grieve for the loss of my wild, intense mate, God knows there are few enough of them left.
Real people who live life in the black and white way.
Definite personalities who, for the good or for the bad, never ever leave you in any doubt as to where they stand in the way of things.

Fare well my old friend, I leave you with these words.

The Winds of Life
by Marshal Gebbie

The wind careers across the years
Gathering leaves and dust,
Sweeping lives before it
In cartwheels of redness and rust.
Epiphanous moments of magnitude
Through special occasions employ
The will o the wisp of everyday stuff
From sadness to anger to joy.

The billowing tumble of living
Through vaulting halls of trees
In the dappled light of sunshine
And green corridors of breeze.
The exquisiteness of living
When senses soar in the air
When the colours of being are rampant
And we savour each moment with care.

For the living time goes quickly
It flares and fades with speed,
‘Tis best enjoyed boisterously
With passion, love and need;
‘Tis best when tasted piquantly
Like a claret on the tongue
When you cloak the days with good things
And you hope your dreams die young.

Marshalg
@ the Gate
Mangere Bridge
29th January 2009

Trapped within this heat there’s an
Ocean of thoughts defeating me.

Suicide has come and gone even death
Is confused. I am awake yet the whole
Of ikasi is half-asleep.

Conflict between races: black, white, yellow,
I mix these colors and get red for bloodshed
Bombarding my mind as I choose my artillery:
Butcher’s knife or bread knife? Mxm **** it, I opt to
Load my machine gun as I take no prisoners.

I live only by one rule “spare not the feelings of those
Who have none.”

As my stu-stu-stu-stuttering riffle goes “tat’ i cover lova,”
They blaze to bushes with rampaging speed and seeing as my weight
Constitutes a majority of ten, I choose to be democratic and side with its
Vote, by not running but instead sending a hail of bullets.



Voetsek, Voetsek and Voetsek I say!!

As dusk breaks into dawn I am shattered into reality as prison introduces me to myself. I started shaking like the last shivering leaf on a dying tree and came to realize:  The person whom I slaughtered was not only my neighbor, but was also my brother and if I have to suffer for my brother whom they call ikwerekere to survive, then I say “give me pain till I die!”.

I thank you, overcast,
Though so many hold you in contempt,
I say to you, dear friend,
Those who are unable to find it within themselves,
To pay you with the respect due,
Shall never find appreciation in our universe.

The glorious sunshine,
The melancholic rain,
The rampaging rage of the vicious storm,
The frost and fear of the seeping, invading ice,
None of them remind me that I am alive as much as you do.

For you remind me that not all is sunshine,
Not all is the chagrin of the rain,
Not all is storm and violence,
Nor is it the freezing embrace of death,
No, the extremities of the seasons, the encompassing grasp of the weather,
None remind me of the trials and tribulations,
The brilliance and horrors,
The humility of life,
The chance,
The pure,
Mathematical,
Plausibility of my own existence.

It is you, overcast,
My dearest and most reliable companion.
It is you they shun,
For they describe you as boring,
Unmotivating,
Dull,
And I say to you,
As I say to them,
The depiction is wrong.

Not everything is in the extremes portrayed by the weather,
Nay, life is full of boredom,
No one experiences life to its fullest,
And those who think otherwise are fooling themselves.

It is you,
The greyness,
The unmoving,
The boredom,
That reminds me I am alive,
And will continue to live for however long I have left.
I promise you this overcast, I will appreciate you, for you keep me breathing.

Magnets;
lock and key;
and, the unsubtle,
bolt
and *****.
These are things that collide harmoniously and do not dispute

We are not such an archaic, mechanized metaphorical construct.

I feel us as primal,
torrid decadence;
a deliberate impassioned vulnerability:
an animalistic exposé.

Unfocused, infinite black holes
expanding
to be lost within

Quivering circle of solicitous, engorged fuchsia
steaming harsh,
needy
attempts of oxygen recovery

Soft powder snow
melting over olive tree trunks,

quaking with endless echoes resonating from beyond the hills above

A thunderous harbinger centers chaos,
rampaging gust-like vibration through taut roots,

a volcanic eruption.
Lava geyser

blazing till all energy
enthralls the earth.

What I see for us is a metaphor in nature.
I will be the seismic activity
and you
will dance above me.

Your world will collapse against me

in my relentless motions.

And when you stand again,
I will bring you to
your knees

in my aftershock
and show you strength that will move you mountains.

Realization Alliteration Poem
4/23/2013

Radical reforms
Revealed and revered
Reveled in without reserve
Reject rest until wrongs righted
Resistance looks radiant red like radishes
Recently reequipped with righteousness reacting like radiation
Rowdy crowds race like rabbits to meeting rooms
Rain and rapiers can't quell rampaging rallies without recourse
Reserves have been replicated, ready to razzle and rebuke, revenge
Reclaim rusted roofs of the ruins, wrecked in rural rubble's roots
Reality's reign can't be reversed so remember it, refuse to relive it
Run from its reach, relying on the rare reward you've received, a refuge
Recognize that regimes rotate routinely like roadkill riding on rail-cars drinking with rancid rats
Reach for the receiver, become a redeemer, referee your own rehab, require resolute ripples - realization.

A rampaging torment flows
with every passing wave,
escalating regression
and stockpiling the rage.
Clarity, now a fading memory
wilting in the shadows of a cave.
The price of congenial lunacy,
satisfactory for those who enslave.

And then the seams broke.
The fabric unraveled in ghostly shades
Of purple, red, and black.
The slaughter of sanity could never be more
******.

The blood of the covenant is
Thicker than the water of the womb.

I am one with the demons rampaging,
Tearing my mind to pieces.
And yet,
Pain has never been so sweet.

He plays a tune hand calloused and all.
Face against the blue filled with malice
Flashing a florescent blissful green
Changing all so lightly still

Leave him alone, sunset to sunrise
Pondering birth to death.

Crimes of our very own human dignity
Imprisoned, for our clawing entity.
Plays shadows beside this fluttering sail.
A pale veil that will bring us no avail to bail;

Light hearted the human soul is not.
Weight within ignorance and defiance
the mind is consumed by all reflection
bland or complex, life has no attention.

Stained glass windows, black widows
Rainless mornings, and frivolous sermons
Taken to the tortured girth of human doubt.
We are lightless and stationary only to run.

Along the shoreline, faith is not receding
Only seldom visited.
Replaced by the capture and rapture
Of virtually tangible lights;

News no longer plays homage to heart
Rather lies rampaging the feeble apart.
Pessimism parallels reality.
Rendering sin’s originality.

Our causes parallel pauses
Making these changes in duality
Deafening intrinsic viability,
only to expunge identity.

Looking back at the advertisements
Across the widely boarded stilts
Lit to view by admitting at will
Driving forward looking back still

Love and hate are blind,
But the truth is engulfed in every heart,
Envy or jealousy can poison the purest mind,
A green eyed monster, rampaging from the inside,
Grudges, destroying the sweet, humble and even the kind,
This malice attacks in the dark of the night, slowly taking over waiting for you to get down, get weak and give up without a fight,
Unsteadiness and despair are it's fuel, insecurity and vexation its light
This green eyed monster is invisible, how will you fight something you can't even see, hear or smell but only feel, strongly within ?
The purity of friendship overcomes even such evil as envy,
Before it leads to your own demise find some help, even if its hard
even if these horrible feelings are weighing down on you heavily,
But for those who have nobody, and those who are lonely,
Is a simple solution, even harder to bear with,
Cut off whatever made you feel this curse,
Do it before it gets even worse,
Face the coming morning.

~ Umi

(Dedicated to Eric Onyebuchi Jibero)

What an excruciating blow
You have dealt me!
A brute's uppercut offloaded
A smashing hit delivered
Like a monstrous boxer
Desirous of fame
With an amateur to tame
At this one bout too many
Wherein you have hit me below
The belt as a sadist deriving joy
From my anguish
And relish
From my enormous loss

Oh mower,
Nay hewer,
Can't you feel anything?
Can't you see?
Can't you reason for a while
With your prey?
Can't you pause to ponder
Just for a brief moment
So you can take a good decision
Choosing the right tree to fell
Instead of bringing down a mere
Sapling with your obedient saw?

Why deal sweeping blow
On a mere rookie?
Can't you distinguish
Between the ripe and the unripe?
Between the hen and the chick?
But hawks like you can pick
Meat amidst bones as Moses
In a basket amidst bulrushes
Of Nile to spare from Pharaoh's
Infant-eating sword
And in wisdom did you wait
Patiently to visit Methuselah
At the zenith of hoary hair

Master of double standards
Eyes gorged
Conscience seared
Heart cold like frozen chicken
******* dry and drooping
Like a hag's
A ruthless scorpion
That stings even babes

Rampaging ravager
Notorious brigand
Marauding machinery
Eliminating without scruple
Whoever you choose
Whose hireling are you?
God's or Satan's
Or both?
A blank cheque you flaunt
To cash as you wish
But can't you condescend to a negotiating
Table when a mere sapling is marked
For a cutting down?

Being a professional boxer
Long in this senseless trade
You should have seen the heap
Of pain you would leave
In my heart by this cruel blow
Against a budding amateur whom
You have served voracious earth
Whose stomach is a leaking tank.

She came into my life like an atom bomb
Annihilating every concept I'd molded.
She left my life like a cough fades
Harsh, but too gradually for me to notice.

He came into my life like the transition of seasons
And I was awed as I watched it happen.
He left my life like a collision of cars
Horrifying, but to quick for a reaction.

She came into my life like the morning sun
And I was awed as I watched it happen.
She's in my life as a ray of hope
Like a sinner's sweet redemption.

He came into my life like a shattered stained-glass window
All edges and cracks and broken beauty.
He fought my grasp with comparisons and words
Until I simply stopped holding and let him be.

She came into my life like a reflection in negative:
Completely me in every sense save color.
She gripped to my life the way I did to hers
Because we understand like no other.

He came into my life like a god to humanity
Ethereal and shocking, a showstopper, a freak.
He left my life like a punch to the gut
Unexpected as it stole the breath from me.

She came into my life like a drop of sour lime
Contaminating the sweets I wanted to savor.
She lingered in my life like a pungent reek
No matter how I try, I can't be rid of her.

He came into my life like sight to the blind.
She left like the stubborn scent of lavender.
He came into my life like a wounded animal.
She left like a shooting stars motion-blur.

I came into life with a whisper and a frown.
I came into life, hands outstretched to ****.
I came into life with all the knowledge I'll posses.
I came into life against my own will.

They come and they go in firework bursts of time.
They affect who I am like the smoke leaving ashes behind.
They come and they go in Kodak flashes of memory.
They affect my growth like acid water to a sapling.

There's beauty in the cloudy glass of lifeless eyes.
There's hideousness in the taught rope of blood ties.
There's peace in the chaos of rampaging thought.
There's madness in the lucidity of a single gun shot.

Life is gifted only to those clueless on how to live it.
Death visits those who know it far too well.
Life is fickle, a trickster without conscience.
Death is decided, a guide to the warmth of Hell.

Humans are wise with the possession of neglected logic.
Humans are wise with the knowledge of priority.
Humans are ignorant in the abundance of prejudice.
Humans are ignorant in the concept of conformity.

We are a small sample of the incorrect way to exist.
We revel and bathe in our wrong and enjoy it.
We are cutoff from what may be an intelligent universe.
The cancer of the galaxies, we are Earth.

Beyond this planet
Beyond this galaxy
Beyond the Andromeda
Is a blissful unity.

This galaxy is an ant under a magnifying glass
And to the galaxy of universes of cosmos
We are an experiment of exponential proportions
Intriguing from a distance and nauseating up close.

Our galaxy is a mobile hanging over a child's cradle
And, ignorant to this, we see ourselves as its center.
Should the child wake and the mobile cease to spin
Earth would end and, unconcerned, we would let her.

We came into Earth like molasses poison
And eroded at everything we found fit to touch.
We leave Earth like a disease cowed by the immune system
Though we are far too numerous to be hurt overmuch.

Zeroing in to see a face in through the violent cold fronts
There is naught but fear and pain to describe us.
Stepping back to see the entirety of this planet's sickness
There is little to see save bags of organs and blood and dust.

There is more than one that sees the futility in twenty-two billion lungs
There are others that know the worthlessness of eleven billion hearts beating
There is more than one that hopes for eleven billion lasts
There are others that see an Earth red and bleeding.

It is no wonder we do not know our own beginning.
It is no accident we are intrigued by our lack of meaning.
It is not unpredicted that we only see as far as our arms can reach.
It is not unbelievable that we cannot excel beyond our means.

Welcome to the void of complication in our simplicity.
Welcome to a glimpse of metaphysical existential reality.
Welcome to an explanation of the current and that far gone.
Welcome to a belief twenty-two stanzas far too long.

I can't stand not knowing
when you don't speak and
i am unsure what you are
thinking when you're quiet
when you don't answer my
questions directly you wait
till later and at that point I
do not even remember what
i had asked in the first place
you make this funny face at
things I say so i rephrase and
stutter because i assume that
I sound stupid or naive or any
other kind of adolescent feeling
then i have this instant urge
to spill all these thoughts at
once let the floodgates break
and dump all my psychological
waste on you but i have to
remember that that is what
drove everyone away in the
first place so instead...


So instead, I remain silent.
I watch your fingers and watch the movie.
With all these thoughts rampaging through my mind in a single sentence.
Whichever relationship made me afraid of talking, I'll never know.

It's during times like this
When I wonder about you.

It's been
What
Two years now
Since we euthanized this beast of a relationship
Stampeding and rampaging
Leaving contempt and devastation in its wake

All the people rejoiced.
Finally,
They said.
At long last
Our prayers have been answered.
Glory be.

You deserved better anyway
Than this ****
So dense
For all his wit
This stupid *****
She couldn't even think straight.
C'mon, let's drink
Play badminton
Hit the beach
Forget about this ******.

Barriers demolished by alcohol and fatigue
Bravado has long faded
Given way to sentiment.

**** inhibitions.
They're legally dead at this point.

I should be asleep by now
But my thoughts are with you.

I don't want you back
(I think we're well past that point already, don't you)
But I do miss you.
The way we used to talk
About anything and everything
Your quirky, subversive little philosophies
That you gleaned from the mindfucks of your day.

Sure
Your friends hate my guts,
I'm guessing.
My friends sure as hell hate yours.
'That *****', is how they refer to you
'That nasty ***** with the rotten *****', to be exact.

Still I sit and wonder,
How are you?

I'm doing much better now.
That job of mine that you dissed on a weekly basis
Well
I got a better job now.
Dated someone briefly
(A minute compared to our three years)
Before she broke my heart
And skipped away.
Got a PS3, too, finally.
(Still no Mass Effect, sorry.)
Cut my hair
But grew a goatee,
Lost those love handles you always laughed at
(Thanks to my striking and grappling coaches and cigarettes
And my all-too repulsive coworkers.)

Still chill.
Still writing.
Although I've abandoned prose
In favor of poetry.
Whodathunk, right?

But I'm happy.
I'm sure you are, too.
It just bums me, I guess
How two people so crazy about each other
Willing to die for one another
Turn their backs on their families
Could go on and become strangers
Just like that
After some tears and substance abuse
And be complete and happy apart from the other.

It's 3 AM
And my thoughts are with you.
They never left you.
Not when I have to speed past your hovel of a house
Every day on the way to work
(And not a day goes by when I don't entertain the thought
Of running into you around the neighborhood)
Without wondering
If you've finally patched things up with that ***** sister of yours
If your parents are still ****** as ever
If you still think of me
Like how I think of you.

You're still probably up
Reading strangers' blogs
Like how you first stumbled into mine,

Or coding
Trying to beat a deadline
For yet another insufferable client from hell.

Because I really did love you.
You were an answered prayer
(By Lucifer, my friends would sneer,
Before spitting and demanding another cigarette
Another round of beer.)
But I truly did.

I just hope that you truly did love me as well.
You're still an enigma.
Very much so,
As much as the day I first met you.

4 AM now
And my thoughts are still with you.
When would they ever
Get with the program
And leave you
Like how I left you

With a final cry of
Enough
And a stride surer than a lion
Walking ahead of its pride

Because it's getting old
Smiling at myself in the mirror
All too pleased with what I'm seeing
Without having to ignore the specter
Staring beside me
Judging silently

Enough.

The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am the cliff hawk
I am the sunlit dewdrop
I am the fairest flower
I am the rampaging boar
I am the swift-swimming salmon
I am the placid lake
I am the excellence of art
I am the vale echoing voices
I am the battle-hardened spearhead
I am the God who gave you fire
Who knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen
Who understands the cycles of the moon
Who knows where the sunset settles ...



The Song of Amergin
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

He was our first bard
and we feel in his dim-remembered words
the moment when Time blurs . . .

and he and the Sons of Mil
heave oars as the breakers mill
till at last Ierne―green, brooding―nears,

while Some implore seas cold, fell, dark
to climb and swamp their flimsy bark
. . . and Time here also spumes, careers . . .

while the Ban Shee shriek in awed dismay
to see him still the sea, this day,
then seek the dolmen and the gloam.



The Song of Amergin II
a more imaginative translation by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Bridges

I am the stag of the seven tines;
I am the bull of the seven battles;
I am the boar of the seven bristles;

I am the wide flood cresting plains;
I am the wind sweeping deep waters;
I am the salmon swimming in the shallow pool;

I am the dewdrop lit by the sun;
I am the fairest of flowers;
I am the crystalline fountain;

I am the hawk shrieking after its prey;
I am the demon ablaze in the campfire ashes;
I am the battle-waging spearhead;

I am the vale echoing voices;
I am the sea's roar;
I am the rising sea wave;

I am the meaning of poetry;
I am the God who inspires your prayers;
I am the hope of heaven;

Who else knows the ages of the moon?
Who else knows where the sunset settles?
Who else knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?

Translator's Notes:

The "Song of Amergin" and its origins remain mysteries for the ages. The ancient poem, perhaps the oldest extant poem to originate from the British Isles, or perhaps not, was written by an unknown poet at an unknown time at an unknown location. The unlikely date 1268 BC was furnished by Robert Graves, who translated the "Song of Amergin" in his influential book The White Goddess (1948). Graves remarked that "English poetic education should, really, begin not with Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin." The poem has been described as an invocation and a mystical chant.

I did not attempt to fully translate the ending of the poem. I have read several other translations and it seems none of them agree. I went with my "gut" impression of the poem, which is that the "I am" lines refer to God and his "all in all" nature, a belief which is common to the mystics of many religions. I stopped with the last line that I felt I understood and will leave the remainder of the poem to others. The poem reminds me of the Biblical god Yahweh/Jehovah revealing himself to Moses as "I am that I am" and to Job as a mystery beyond human comprehension. If that's what the author intended, I tip my hat to him, because despite all the intervening centuries and the evolution of the language, the message still comes through quite well. If I'm wrong, I have no idea what the poem is about, but I still like it.

Who wrote the poem? That's a very good question and the answers seem speculative to me. Amergin has been said to be a Milesian, or one of the sons of Mil who allegedly invaded and conquered Ireland sometime in the island's deep, dark past. The Milesians were (at least theoretically) Spanish Gaels. According to the Wikipedia page:

Amergin Glúingel ("white knees"), also spelled Amhairghin Glúngheal or Glúnmar ("big knee"), was a bard, druid and judge for the Milesians in the Irish Mythological Cycle. He was appointed Chief Ollam of Ireland by his two brothers the kings of Ireland. A number of poems attributed to Amergin are part of the Milesian mythology. One of the seven sons of Míl Espáine, he took part in the Milesian conquest of Ireland from the Tuatha Dé Danann, in revenge for their great-uncle Íth, who had been treacherously killed by the three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine. They landed at the estuary of Inber Scéne, named after Amergin's wife Scéne, who had died at sea. The three queens of the Tuatha Dé Danann, (Banba, Ériu and Fódla), gave, in turn, permission for Amergin and his people to settle in Ireland. Each of the sisters required Amergin to name the island after each of them, which he did: Ériu is the origin of the modern name Éire, while Banba and Fódla are used as poetic names for Ireland, much as Albion is for Great Britain. The Milesians had to win the island by engaging in battle with the three kings, their druids and warriors. Amergin acted as an impartial judge for the parties, setting the rules of engagement. The Milesians agreed to leave the island and retreat a short distance back into the ocean beyond the ninth wave, a magical boundary. Upon a signal, they moved toward the beach, but the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann raised a magical storm to keep them from reaching land. However, Amergin sang an invocation calling upon the spirit of Ireland that has come to be known as The Song of Amergin, and he was able to part the storm and bring the ship safely to land. There were heavy losses on all sides, with more than one major battle, but the Milesians carried the day. The three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann were each killed in single combat by three of the surviving sons of Míl, Eber Finn, Érimón and Amergin.

It has been suggested that the poem may have been "adapted" by Christian copyists of the poem, perhaps monks. An analogy might be the ancient Celtic myths that were "christianized" into tales of King Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad and the Holy Grail.

Keywords/Tags: Amergin, song, translation, Ireland, Irish, Celtic, Gaelic, Gaels, Milesian, Druid, Banshee

I am history
A history of a man
A history of anguish
A history of trial
A history of ecstasy
A history of education
I am Me

As a man:

I am a crying babe,
Learning to be spoiled from the start
Always with family and fantasy so loving
Never understanding the little tastes of something ****

I’m a rampaging toddler,
Playing with everything
And destroying it too,
Demanding more attention than exists
Learning from The Magic School Bus

I’m a shy yet straight forward child,
Shunned by peers for excessive knowledge
Yet little skill in its application
In love with a girl who I ask,
“Will you marry me?”

I’m a conflicted pre-teen,
Caught between my knowledge,
Feelings,
And religion
I seek to satisfy everyone and everything
Yet nothing I do is right to anyone

I’m a typical teen,
I’ve more confidence in myself than ever
From my religion telling me what to think
To my friends and family telling me what to do
All of which I say, “I know better than you”
I follow my heart and comes the true killer

I’m a worn man.

As anguish:

A baby spends more time with relatives
Than mom and dad
And they have their faults
Mostly that I’m passed from one to the other
As they don’t want to take the primary care

A toddler finally is with mom,
But dad’s still distant
Dad’s smart, so maybe he’ll stay if I am too
Little sister gets all the attention I wanted

The dream filled child knows so much
But can’t know why
He strays from fact to fiction
And believes he’s a prince
Like Aladdin

Chemically tortured pre-teen can’t think straight
Love is too strong for me,
Yet it makes of him a victim
Or is it lust?
I feel nothing I can trust…

A scarred teen lashes back
At a philosophy called religion,
Abandoning it ‘cause he’s been brain washed,
At people who were friends and family,
They’ve let me down so often,
At intangibles, love and hate and intelligence,
Emotions and notions of torture.

The worn man reflects the past.

As trails:

As a babe, I know not
For memory cannot serve

As a toddler, I know not
For recollection fails

As a child, testing love
Romantic thoughts are planted
Watered thoroughly by the similarly plagued
I loved a Summer, for her I longed
Yet for all my knowledge and all my skill
What little there was,
‘Twas to fail.

As a pre-teen, testing religion
Chemicals called hormones challenge my teachings
I love another,
She is a religious Brit.
Her father a Baptist Deacon,
Pressures me to brag when I become one for the Latter-Day Saints

As a teen, testing thought
Friends and family tell me how to think and act
I think through things with logic and emotion,
However ill it may be,
And ignore all I’m told
I’ve pain to gain.

As man, recovery.

As ecstasy:

I, a newborn, know nothing else

I, a toddler, know little else

I, a child, know some
But it’s confusing,
When happiness comes,
Sorrow must follow

I, a pre-teen, know some
But it’s fleeting
It comes only when things
Are beyond saving

I, a teen, know much
I feel it in every girls’ touch
It’s in my laughter and torture…
I’m a *******?
I find a false happiness in breaking the rules
Set by every, and any, one.

I, a man, hope and seek much

As education:

The baby cares little for knowledge,
Lest I lose attention

The toddler begins the search
Learning all I can and using it
That’s what gets Dad home from work

The child fears himself
I know too much without knowing enough
I can state a fact, but don’t know why it’s true
I can’t tell you how and realize
I’m dumb

The pre-teen learns to learn
I can break down facts
Relate them together
Learn from the book
I can now impress
Though still, I’m teased

The teen is an unscholarly scholar
Learning anything and everything
Applying it everywhere
Drawing definite lines into niches
Unable to contain, and losing the ability to add more
Drawing closer to a heavy door
I use knowledge to disprove everything
I don’t approve

The man is learning
But much slower.

As a man, I’ve seen pain
I’ve made remarkable gain
The person I am today
Is not what’s left of what’s gone away
In the AM, I learned from my own mistakes
That the future may never take

I’m a believer,
Of what I’m uncertain…

Memories of depression
Memories of suicide attempts
Memories of finding nothing left to live for,
Nothing good in my memory outweighs the bad,
So my thoughts turn inward

Why do I continue?
Why do I try?
Why when all hope is lost do I not die?
Because I believe.

But in what?
I believe in Me.
I’m recovery, life, and hope.

symphony of sound
a discordant composition
orchestra on cosmic stage
witching hour to dawn

woken by screeching wind
twisting that way and this
manic banshees
rampaging

in through the window
chilling my body with cold damp fingers
shutting them out
they howl even louder

joined later by rain
incessant drumbeats
endless cadence
on hard earth

lightening
synthesized energy
streaking uncontrollably
around nature's concert hall


listening in silence
watching in awe
standing ovation
applauding unseen hands

Cancer diagnosed
Millions of lives saved
A mother passed away
New medicine discovered
As the doctors/nurses move on

A new born enters the world
Divorce ensues
As a grandfather leaves the world
Wedding on the horizon
As a family moves on

AIDs/*** rampaging through Africa
Supplies and food delivered
Genocide rips a continent
A family partake in their first meal
As God moves on

New civilizations form
World wars destroy
People bought together
Rasicm breaks us apart
As people move on

Trees torn down
A bird takes its first flight
The world slowly dying
Extinct animals walk the earth
As the world moves

My eyes take it all in
My mind dwell on such subjects
My mouth questions the past and future
My soul stands still
When will I move on?

I am the Narrator. I Narrate. You read what I have narrated. I often wonder how my words will be digested by you the reader, will my words spark an intense desire to burn in the Fire of What Is ? I am the Narrator, I am not Jesus ******* Christ - OK, or O ******* K ! There never was a Jesus ******* Christ dear readers. Oops I have digressed, alas I digress an awful lot; my mother told me I distracted the delivery doctor and nurses at my own birth, something I cannot recall myself. Wonder if he had a beard. You see my mother had an intense dislike of bearded men, and if this be true then my birth must have been deeply traumatic for her. Such a brave woman to carry on and remain as my mother. She was perfect for the residency. Mother, wherever you are please do take a bow.

Just a reminder - I am the Narrator. I Narrate. And you read what I have written - this is not spoken word(unless you want to read it aloud)it is the written word of the Narrator - nor is it the word of god, and I have already mention Jesus ******* Christ, so I will swiftly and smoothly move onwards to the goal; I will rise to the challenge, I will seek the final word. Mother did not have a sense of humor. She never laughed - never. Smiles did occasionally appear. Mother, oh desperate and perfect mother of mine. You never lost your shine.

This is the introduction dear patient reader. Be brief I said to myself. Yes ! I can be brief, but they all laughed and cried so much they ended up in a river of oral, nasal and tear ducts; what messy contents. Be brief ! Brief ! Be ******* brief ! So here I am, but who am I ? What am I ? Yes, yes, I know I am the Narrator for the duration of these words I write. It is a role, one of many roles I will play during the day and occasionally the night. Who is it that drives this wreck of a physical vehicle, which has changed beyond recognition since my face appeared from my mother's womb. STOP ! OH PLEASE STOP ! Is what I imagine you are screaming out loud at me - the Narrator.

So here is brief in the style and pomp of your Narrator. I am sitting upon my throne which is not made of gold. Oh but please I must refrain from letting loose and going on another rampaging digression. Do tell me dear reader when you next see me. You will wont you dear reader ? I am here writing these words and you are there reading these words, which is kind of cute without wearing any dazzling suit. I can't avoid the occasional rhyme, its such an effortless joy. Here endeth the introduction. Yes ! I, the Narrator have completed the unimaginable. I wonder where the words will take us ? I'm quite excited - are you dear reader ? Life is a freshly created golden wave head butting its invisible opposite. Everything is already known. But by whom, or should that be Whom ? Or am I going down another digressive hole ? And so dear reader I do give to you the final full stop.


Lenny Gazbowski(c)2015

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rampaging tiger, once gentle girl, spare us our lives!
Reduce us not to blood-spray with your lethal knives!
                   Lop                           not
                 our                              red                            
­               and                               raw                necks
             with your  wicked       and         brutal
            claws and glinting        wry   fangs!
          You                   are           kindly
        and               not a              bad
     monster      with a                sly
and         voracious                   gut!
                   Have                        for
                   our                           wet                        tears
              some                             wee                      pity!
        This                                      we beg, O rakshasa!
  Please,                                          remain vegetarian!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lonely furrow, deep
deep enough to plant
watch over , **** and water.

Aspiring poets curse

Blight, of their fellows
rampaging through
a meagre crop, loved

i.
the autopsy proved negative
the bullet meant nothing

0.9 caliber with no mouth
pretty red-tainted stain on your tee

they say you took the sedative
two by the morning


ii.
before i drouth
let us go hunting

to a sepulcher with commemorative
decoration, and darling

you wouldn't have to keep your mouth
shut after we go on rampaging and quarrelling

Gunmen rampaging
Nowhere seems safe anymore
Broken government

All nations beat their own drum.

The US, China, Britain, Russia, Europe, Israel, India, Turkey, Pakistan, Syria, France, Germany and a whole host of others, have been beating their own drum in deafening cacophony since realisation dawned of their individual sovereign potentiality.

Every nation is manouvering for their own best self interest…and in this volatile environment of the Middle east plus the factor of the complete savagery and unpredictability of the rampaging ISIS Calithate….any outcome, anything is now possible.

Iran is the meat in the sandwich.

She squirms this way and that, buying favour here sacrificing loyalties there, switching, adjusting. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends at the drop of a hat. Writhing within herself attempting to find the path to the future in an incredibly difficult minefield of pressure from the onslaught from the East and the West….A crushing miasma of pressure from friend and foe alike.

Who can say which way she will jump? The only sane predictability is that Iran will leap to her own salvation, her own survival….and to Hell with the rest of the barging, braying self-obsessed world.

Marshalg 23 July 2015

Sullen, sunken underworld
Underachieving overwhelming me
Not yet what I am
For who I am is
Largely at risk, rarely
Overzealous with tasks or
With thought or with speech.
Ever repressing the riot, cyclical.
Ravaging, rampaging, burning life.

Somehow, the tragic hero must
Excel, grow and develop, to envelop
Exotic, ****** nurturing rays of light.
Do you know how to feel alive?
Show me.