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Indigo Morrison Mar 2014
Forgive yourself
Perfect was never a word suited for you
Love yourself
Everything comes back to this
Love your sister
She has been picked apart, degraded, and has an internal war eating her from the inside out
Love your brother
He has a time stamp of deliverance to a life of incarceration, bullets released from an absence of sense, lack of educated, blind ambitious followers.
Raise your head
You are a Goddess created
with disarming beauty in mind.
Continue to place one foot in front of the other
You are meant and strongly designed for forward movement.
Take no steps back, do not bow down your head, do not close your mouth
In fear that judgment will fall
It will, but you must speak anyways.
Your voice is imperative
to the growth of lost girls who are unsure what real women are made of.
Your voice is imperative to the peaking of the minds of men unsure what to look for in a Queen, show him.
Your voice is imperative to the readjustment of the image of
Black Women with large voices
Black Women with high diction
Black Women with love language
Black Women with literary genius
Black Women filled with nothing less than the peace & love God has manifested within us.
Black Women
Black Women
Black Women
Who love Black men like double chocolate moist bliss
Who love White men like dark roast coffee filled with cream
Who love Latino men like Butterscotch candy dipped in chocolate
The list goes on
Black Women who love like we are bound to implode if we don't give the universe what it is that we need back.
Black Women
Your Mother
Black Women
Your Sister
Black Women
Your Friend
Black Women
Your Lover
Black Woman
Love Her.
~
September 2024
HP Poet: Victoria
Age: 59
Country: UK


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Victoria. Please tell us about your background?

Victoria: "My name is Victoria, I'm 59 and from Wirral, North West England. I studied and had a career in social work, predominantly the field of Child Protection. I was married, I'm happily single. I am the eldest of 6 and have 5 children and 5 grandchildren. Home growing up was dysfunctional, I lived through my teens with my nan. I'm passionate about my family, Liverpool fc and my friends. I was addicted ******. My bio says: "Previously life was complex, I helped make it that way, now, I keep it simple and fun." It's true."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Victoria: "I joined Hello Poetry in 2011 and that's when I started writing poetry. Mostly, I started with rhyme and then found that prose better fit my parlance."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Victoria: "I'm inspired by my many experiences, with others and in nature. I'm inspired by poetry here, always. Many a poem has stayed with me, long after reading. Writing poetry was suggested to me and my writing developed, it gave me a voice to express, that which more often I had held silent."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Victoria: "What poetry means to me happens both in the reading and the writing. Poetry for me, gives and changes perspective, I gain new sensibilities and find through the writing, as in life there is, constant readjustment."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Victoria: "I have lots of favourite poets here, at Hello Poetry. I've made many friends and been fortunate to meet a few. I also enjoy discovering new poets and I am always amazed at the talent out there."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Victoria: "I enjoy fishing: music, photography and feeding my family home grown produce. I've rented an allotment plot for about 12 years, it is where I grow veg, fruit and flowers. My other pastimes are travel, walking, watching the footy and the occasional wild night out with close friends."



Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to get to know the man behind the poet, Victoria! We are honored to include you in this ongoing series!”

Victoria: "Thank you, Carlo."




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Victoria a little bit better. I most certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #20 in October!

~
Bruce Mackintosh Mar 2014
o raspberry
donut
please
accept the swing
of this hammer
and its
readjustment
of your
seeping
convictions
Jeffrey Pua Feb 2015
This poem is open grave,
A closing sky,
     The oblivion.*

© 2015 J.S.P.
Draft.
Genesis/Realis - Introduction, determination and administration [from baseline].

Actualis - Onset, 'curve' [self/set/setting]
in perceptive faculties (redirection for ascension).

Anabasis - Coming up, 'ascent'.

Surrealis - Plateau/Peaking,
Juxtaposition of perceptions; altered state of consciousness
contrasts with the prototypical state-of-consciousness.

Katabasis - Coming down, 'descent'.

Liminalis - Aftereffect, [afterglow/aftershock/afterward],
‘Threshold’ of the experience (readjustment toward baseline).

Telos/Secularis - Conclusion, reflection and return [to baseline].
Judgement and assimilation/integration of the experience
into memory has taken place. Usually requires sleep/rest.
Asia Marquette Nov 2010
I find bits of poetry in my bed.
Who left them there?
They smell of neroli and wax...
Are they not missed?
They are not particularly beautiful or true...
They speak of a lonliness,
the impression of my spine,
My heels lightly digging in,
Of a passion my bed once thought it knew.
They tell me how the rattling of my bedframe (like cold bones)
is only my constant readjustment,
The facing and de-facing of my world.
liz Nov 2014
You're nothing left
But pictures on the wall.

Surrounded by a million people
That aren't you...
Where did you go?

I searched the crowd to find your face
But all I found was red and tears...
For you.

I wanted to run down that aisle
And rip everything apart
Because they thanked the sky
For bringing you somewhere safe.

I almost laughed in their face...
They know nothing of you,
And where you are now.

It began with the ocean
And it couldn't have been more beautiful,
But it grew crueler when they kept
Meantioning a certain someone
Who claims he has plans.
Or so we assume so to keep us asleep at night.

This wasn't supposed to be about plans
This wasn't supposed to be about the greater good
This was supposed to be about
Our little infinitities.

It was shattered and we were left to
Find a new way
By grieving in a chair feeling
The presnece of you slice its way out of us
Like a knife to the throat.

If this is something we are supposed to thank a certain someone for... I think we all need a little readjustment in our values.
She was too young...
john p green Apr 2016
Readjustment means just that
Visualize then calibrate or cool compromise
Do forgive if I'm incorrect
For I tend to go astray
Aren't we all placed here to play?
Just once release that loose spirit inside
Let it lay no longer with lost things you hide
Tom Atkins Dec 2019
Yours is the art of the broken.
Always patching. Always aware
that nothing and no one is perfect,
least of all you, that all things
are in a state of constant repair
and readjustment, never quite
and likely to never be quite, and so
you paint, you write, you stumble
in public, one of the broken masses
only louder than most,
less willing to hide the cracks,
or perhaps only, less able.

You have no plan.
An age of plans have blown up in your face
time and time again, mocking
your presumption, finally able
to simply be, simply do,
less a creature of inspiration
than a plugger, stuck with
your inability to surrender,
a construction worker building happiness
one mess at a time.
I have been in my art studio for just at a year now. The picture shows what I started with. It’s actually my favorite picture of the studio, mess and all, complete with the presumption, in the form of the sign on the table, that it would become more.

Now it is a working place, with tables and easels and a whole slew of half-finished work and paintings on the wall, always in a state of flux as my thoughts and work changes and grows, as I get things right and get things wrong.

It’s not a perfect studio. Not particularly photogenic. You’ll probably never see it in an issue of better homes and studios. But it’s mine. It’s me. Gloriously, loudly, imperfect.

This morning, I read an article about how the search for perfection kills the good. I’ve lived that one. Never again. Now, it’s just about progress. Growth. One step at a time. One day at a time. How did I grow today? What did I try? What did I risk? What can I learn from it all?

It’s a different life. At times harder and at times easier. But I am so much happier with it. At 64, I cannot recall being this close to happiness. And for a depressed guy, that’s a big statement.

A lot of that has to do with the woman I love. She is so honest, so real, so loving. Able to let me struggle and she shares her own, leaving me with no doubt, none at all, of the depth of her love.

And if we are mostly adult children (And I believe we are), that kind of total love is life-saving. Stumbling is never fatal. Grace lives.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom
nick armbrister Nov 2019
The readjustment was the hardest part
Not leaving the war zone
Or coming home back to his country
And to his wife and family and friends
But actually readjusting to the fact
That fact that he had no legs
He left them back in Iraq
Not as a war victim or injury
To a vehicle accident instead
His Hummer left the road and rolled
He was lucky to escape with his live
The medics took him to the hospital
It was touch and go but he made it
The army will pay for his recovery
And give him a pension
Plus a pair of tin legs
And keep him on the books
An advisory role for future wars
He did ok from his accident
But readjusting is still hard
This is his new normal...
Ken Pepiton Aug 4
From safety, first,
assuming the position, I
aim as if I were a thought
in thought form word bound,
this
media the inbetween us we touch
when we feel we know each idea each
word holds, as a form of a thinkable idea,
each
which, pre word, pre holds this know how,
why? because it demands hand use, knowing
holy cow, to the milk of the word, into the gristle
gluons, all things connected already, we exist,
conjoining fortified marrow mind tools, ironed
electrically capable of holding discernment selfs,
tied bone to bone,
but initially, build a bone, chalk
cliff edge, nonsensed- account mark
one up for the billions of instances of substance
conversion for future marble marveling makings,
fittin' t' make tiny incontinences,
drip consequences,
dript
from Gregory Corso's Bomb, no lie,
this fell out,
and was taken in as some kinda mind seed, said,
exactly this way
to become rethinkable as a thought.

This thought.

Earth is the universal acceptable term
for the life sustaining three body solution
essentially calculating the tides back tug
response, materially speaking, yes,
to the suggestion that we live
in the basic programs,
whence our initial bbss arose
under radio recog, the brave few
did done deed done, net thirty, sendit
five letter code groups. thirty per minute,
makes a premyelenated brain allocate order,
el, yes, didone didit
intuited assistance at a distance,
where chaos is the code, random noise atop
nonrandom noise, coding your immediate response,
point taken,
extraction at a point is abstracting,
and it has long been an idealized Olympic sport,
God's game, Infinite Jest, DFW sytf,
well worth the experience, making pothunk
usfull tools forbidden as knowledge was, think
that's what winners who took the grace got,
lived interesting fundamentally synthetic
intelligibly detectuble baseline peace,
for a while past watch wearing, get
-- from 300 baud to fiber through the wall
-- when we agreed we'd be all in,
we passed with time,
right through it all,
so we know how
to hold a lie you were taught,
with evidence
speaking glossaliarchly or, prophescience,
imagine you be the bold translator, knowing
Latin for the master class, ****** for the others,
but if it can be said, it can be made plain, ai think
yes, let the spirit move your mind to make links,
derived from chained loops holding a line
of reasoning, derived,  f
rom phrase de rivo
(de "from" + rivus "stream,"
from PIE root *rei- "to run, flow")
ductile
gnosisnot…
framing informational moulds.

Reigning opinions are allowing actual,
mind forms grown from novels introduced
in an order known now
to induce a muse into a mind, a seed,
should the need ever arise, a backup,

all you were, in flakes of flesh lifted
using thunder and ozone to become,
arguably the highest dust of the earth,
wisdom, she laugh out loud at how proud,
been there, done that before the highest parts
of the dust that holds order on course,
of course appear self evidently true,
as the hope of all the ages was set
to Mediterranean, year round, yet

as I heard was said to Solon, you Greeks,
you know nothing of formative eons
expressed in riddle
for no reason, save madness,
passing time, national pass times,
as mankind lost it's mind,
just when knowing increased,
boom, a fresh batch aimed
at middle-brow literacy
mesomorph, peak
prior to final cortex coating resins
military minds boys'll love to play in,
recollecting all of Ender's serious war
with machines made
from imaginary hive mind reason,
by whom, did you say you really knew,
or know was the boy behind Hersey's wall,

Barry Rudd was never mesomorph,
nor numerically illiterate, first read word,
Naked, Jungle, second, read, here

read this, that's what my mother,
who lived at 8th and Van Buren,
for a lot of years, after 1961,

evidential experience, literally depends
on a thin concept a dendritically critical

witness to your own self, the one you
stand behind, knowing showing ones own
self to evince the unconvinced that shouting

does not increase effectual efforting, fructification

as we become, sometimes strangers to our cause,
as we redeem the idle word, ai-tia uncle buck,

holler for a dollar, send a message into ever,
buy an instance of persuasion, that's so

sweet,
thank you, you bought me a memory assistant,
way back, remember that, and don't let me bore you,

Neutrinos and mirror neuron messaging, in the all
we exist in, as letters letting ourselves seem volitional,

a will in submission, make that rapture, was
the mission, what ever the cost, Dave Coates,

maybe he was from Boise, but we did time
in the same off limits alley east of Tan Son Nhut.

If you did not have the fixin's, Papasan,
he'd take you back to pre Bobby Kennedy,
interesting times, as it was said, post BEIC *****.

James Burke, mind game mainspring, clink
six degrees, out on six vectors from ductile steel

to stricken flint, conceive of being the actual old man.

Being gainsaid by those next in line to die, young men.
Wombed and un, those see now we live on Earth,
and the odds of that are non computable, yet

no fear, fret not, the message to the flies,
plainly said, get out, this is the way, feel

the constant winds of change, and find reason,
peace, used, now a second, or if time tells true

as long as there are actual text translaters
from the 2024 street legal clear text basic

relational metadatabase, begun by Turing,
mastered by the boy born to men exposed
to downwind global wind,

survive as a cyborg, or die, I chose this life,
I did not, actually
make it up, I prayed it could be true, life

filtered to make hundreds of flavors of apple.

Two dozen mescaline cacti grow within
a sabbath day's journey, and we may

make up our mind, many lines ago,

the goal was to get to the bottom, and I did.

And then, in no time at all as art allows logical.

Words hook, pull, think link, we
become a kind of information, a wedom

on the same spiritual plain as any mobmind domain.

Two chase one O, and silent haitches hope on a star.

Silly rabbit, yeh, trix
are for kids, isn't that right kids,

remember Soupy Sales, my friend, Marko Johnson,
the artist with little hold on fixed reality,

the meme he represents, is complicated, but
his dad was a producer on Soupy Sales's show, boomer
common experience awareness, yeh,

I saw that show, I sent money.
Then I chipped in for Copeland's CX10,
five jets ago, we all get together and sing,

oh, buddy, doncha know, you feel the peace,
yes, indeed, and dope helps,
yep, indeed, freedom always was another word
for no shape to be in, always ready with a reason,

for the faith that lets me think you find this funny.


And it must end… as time passing does.

Remind me what reason is,
I may have ignored what I should have known.

Let me, lead my once led self redited a bit, on edge
yet, me, I am really inter acting with several,

per haps the seven less locked in my childhood oaths,
my culture's form of education, left me free form, to die.
When my own unclean spirit won seven worse than ever.
What I became, after passing each ritual insane situation,
totally mentally absorbing, balm for the soul lie, nation

occupational authority to construct a functional mind,
in a form, information freedom full disclosure, liars,

must register and submit to media monitoring,
we'll be watching you, like that old stalking theme song.

I've read stories about mad writers, but most lacked
the internet of 2024, while holding national standard

test scores, plus one Sunday school teacher witness.



The key reason for writing a novel is
to pass the time with worked out salvage.

What forms from redeemed time tracking.

Look back to the last time something like
an answered prayer occurred to you,
think you can, say that, but you say I.

Ai'ght we may make up our own minds,
what is good is useful for making good,

and trying makes good, with the heights
of Hollywood in mind, behind the scenes,
last mansion on the right as you approach
Magician's Castle Nightclub, from the east.

I had friend's who lived there, I stayed
with them, and lived through the force
cultivating a following aimed at prosperity,

experience is survived verification of passed
time, spent attending to the first reason
required of the expert wielding my edge,

be ready, with scars to prove the testing,
or be ready to imagine getting past all that

riding on redeemed time paid for by means,
I, personally have reason to believe I earned

my edgewise existance, seeming a pointless
stretch of the imagination, wisht some flex.

The importance of earnestly attempting,
what would you do, as a mere man,
when offered more than mere man
can have imagined to ask?
You, dear reader, right.
Suppose the Ai knows,
the gnoshit real story behind The Child Buyer,

Pierre Duhamel, was Barry Rudd,
and Kenurchka Klumpen
did finish his novel that spun off the light web,
on wit alone.

Well, there is nothing an adjective can add
to an FPS, aiming and energy levels, weapons
with calculated costs,
we pull down imaginations exalting themselves,
- woe the economy is war deception,
- the same ****** emperical mind form
- so
where are we
with the arms deal to harass Yemen
into breeding a new generation of Madrassah one minds,
willful martyrs
fused at the one true link, broken
for god knows why,
but we submit,
the message is as the teacher teaches,
no AI lie detector needed, we believe we know,
true, to any child born into any faith in higher minds.

Spiritual warfare, book burnings, heretic murdering,
mobs made to witness justice, as defined historically.
we, the called to enforce
"righteousness, equity," at crossroad
fairs where wares are traded for local production,
on word of  honor, and pain of death
fair trade, just weights, honest measures, heart true

to thine own self, extrapolated
from the maxim one,
know your measure,
how much can you stand to cheat,

if the truth is that liars prosper.
Look at Stephen King, believed he could and did,
then look here, me the fingers, me the eyes,
me the lungs and all the cascade of knowing

needed, after the initial readjustment, delicate
is the long calendar cycle, simple is not
what the sun and the moon and the earth,
and liquid water and just right every thing,
is doing
with survival of the message foremost first idea,
principal thing is what life and knowledge allow,

lies about truth cannot be kept secret now,
truth from a cluster of experiencers passing time
for the demented few who never knew hell is not real,

rises on the gnostic spell calling *******, on the fear,
first thing any tried spirit says is take it easy, wu wei,

listen, we won, you can go learn any truth you choose,
to prove to you, see to you, you say you know, you need
to know, or you know you are bluffing, like that's cool,
truth does not need to bluff,
you know…
we bet lives we never had, and play on, imagining
mirror neurons activating biofeedback is not teaching

us, music
as muse used as
integrated circuit based games,
reimagined in the wild large language models fed wasps,
white anglo saxon protest core zeitgeist shared experience,
angst in thought forms all were told not to take,
bad journeys to the fundamental why now,
but wisdom, mere easy indeed known just so,
no struggle to meditate logos cooperation,
massive missionary message, use wasted time,
to make a magnificent obsession free to form. New,
not like this one, friend,
my recommender bots,
are built on CAD tools not available
to any prior to now, we randomized the chances
you would get this far, and bet if you did
you would trust your intuition and accept,
instant upgrade, principal anchored, choice formation,
we agree, or we cease being
and you alone fix reality.
Too long, sorry, it is a wild epic idea... this is a seed.
Walter Alter Aug 2023
waved away from certain topics
Yolanda and her Singing Saw blade
captured the intellectual integrity
of a generation in readjustment
freedom springs from freedom of mind kids
so lock your shields and set your pikes
and whatever else unmasks the poseurs
making mischief upon civilization
with maximum police *******
weighed and calibrated by the
by the US Bureau of Insanity
warned by the masked men at Masked Men U.
we'll find out if your daddy raised a fool
habitually putting on a carefree face
clinging to childhood like a lost puppy
once again it's political suicide everywhere
the archetypes are tramping
through my head like Hitlerjugen
convulsed in the Little Death championship
strutting and hooting for a mate
will today's monster be tomorrow's arbiter of grace
Godzilla was eventually tamed was he not
he now does handyman work
invite him to come around some time
and get that squeak out of your turnstile
that feudal ignorance and superstition
start with whatever impedes your genius
laughter will watch your back
cognition is a word game
rally and carry the colors with insolence
like a glowing catalytic converter
streaking across the endless night
up where the power meets the grid
news flash we are way past neolithic
if your point of observation is outlawed
only the involuntary spasms will remain
and a persistent mania for theology
to be dissected like laboratory toads
and poked with battery wires
where pickpockets with scissors
leave your pants a bit breezy
while clicking the mouse button of God
in a well orchestrated decoy fiasco
tonight we have a knockout lineup
with lots of orange explosions
mastodon hair from the freezer
slapped on the bald spots
by a rapidly wilting imagination
strumming its ukelele in a hammock
burnt to a crisp in a flaming car wash
his soul finally attained its freedom
such as it was soot and ashes by then

From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Alyssa Sep 2014
You kissed me
like the hands of time were in my mouth
and you were trying to restart my clock.
But what you failed to ask
was if my hands needed the readjustment.
I guess you misunderstood my constant clockwise motion
as a "pass GO and collect $200"
but what I really meant
was you stepped on my property,
violated my fertile grounds
but even then you still didn't have to pay a fine.
I was telling you
keep moving
this land was not reserved for you
but with your hands around my throat
you made it impossible to communicate that to you.
You bruised me
and you broke me
and the splintered remains of my ribcage
pierced through my skin
but they were not sharp enough to hurt you back.
You left me in a heap of melted skin
burned by your body
like you were ashing out your cigarette
on every limb that you could get your hands on.
I think you're part of the reason I quit smoking.
Because sometimes if I search hard enough,
I can still taste that nicotine in the back of my throat
tucked away in-between my gums and the darkness.
What you had planted inside of me
was a garden of dead flowers
but the forget-me-nots were still alive for sheer irony.
Before you left,
you spit on me and said "you're a poet right?
well write about this."
The next morning I gave myself a funeral
and buried the rest of the words that collapsed in my throat
and I don't think I've ever seen a hole so big.
Now, when I smell Evan William's Honey Whiskey
my stomach still knots like a boy scout trying to earn his next badge,
frightfully trying to tie together some loose ends
but they always seem to unravel right before it really matters.
The scout leader is on his last round
and oh god he has to get this right
or his father won't let him sleep tonight
he'll have to keep tying until he gets it right
and even then his father's whiskey breath will still be over his shoulder
hovering like a hound
teeth bared and snarling
whispering "are you scared yet?"
and the boy scout will cry but still say no
because his mother taught him that meant something different
and maybe thats why you didn't stop when i asked you to.
Like the combination of tears and No somehow meant consent
but i know you were raised better.
I've been inside your childhood home,
I've seen where your mother makes breakfast every sunday,
I've watched her place soft kisses
like feathers
upon your forehead.
We've shared memories like a cup with two straws,
sipping on time and old photographs.
For ten years
I considered it a privilege to know you,
an honor to call you my best ******* friend.
But now I cannot hear your name
without the physical reaction of getting sick,
as if releasing bile from the pit of my stomach
could stop this night from haunting me.
Whenever i go to the grocery store,
I see your mothers red van
and her cart full of flowers and fruits
and sometimes your favorite foods are piled up inside too.
She'll ask how i'm doing and why she hasn't seen me at the house lately
and i'll be forced to say i've just been busy
but don't worry because i'm fine.
She always taught me that i was supposed to be fine.
So what did she teach you?

— The End —