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jake aller Mar 2019
World According to Cosmos Updates March 3, 2019

Note: I am taking a two week trip to Vietnam and will update my blog when I return with my reflections on my trip, updated publications etc.

Cosmic Dreams and Nightmares

I don't dream dreams.  I dream movies complete with action, music, food, smells everything.  In this one I had a vision of  a possible future. it was so vivid, almost as if I were watching the hearing take place.

Three stories

Dream Girl (true story)
General Zod (flash fiction
Sam Adams Vs. the Social Cleansing Board
Six Poems
Morphing Images from Hellish Nightmare
Endless Movie
Worlds within Worlds Lost in Hell
Rafting to Hell
Satanic Torture
Micro Stories

Don’t Go Jogging in the Middle of the Night
Don’t touch this button!
Don’t open the door
Don’t go to the theater tonight stay home with me
Don’t go to Dallas I have a bad feeling about the trip


Dream Girl
Cheating Death 100 Times
Guardian Angel
Medical Mystery
SLA Hit List

Dream Girl – A true Story – reprinted from Dreams and the Unexplainable
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

Author Unknown

The dreams started when I was a senior at Berkeley High School in 1974. About a month before I graduated, I fell asleep in a physics class after lunch and had the first dream:

A beautiful Asian woman was standing next to me, talking in a strange language. She was stunning—the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was in her early twenties, with long black hair, and piercing black eyes. She had the look of royalty. She looked at me and then disappeared, beamed out of my dream like in Star Trek. I fell out of my chair screaming, “Who are you?” She did not answer.

About a month went by, and then I started having the dream repeatedly. Always the same pattern.

Early morning, she would stand next to me talking. I would ask who she was, and she would disappear. She was the most beautiful, alluring woman I had ever seen.

I was struck speechless every time I had the dream.

I had the dream every month during the eight years during which I went to college and served in the Peace Corps. In fact, when I joined the Peace Corps, I had to decide whether to go Korea or Thailand. The night before I had to submit my decision, I had the dream again and it made me sure that she was in Korea waiting for me.

After the Peace Corps, I still hadn’t met my dream woman. I got a job working for the U.S. Army as an instructor and stayed in Korea. I kept having the dream, until I had the very last one:
She was standing next to me, speaking to me in Korean, but I finally understood her. She said, “Don’t worry, we will be together soon.”

Why was that the last time I had the dream? Because the very next night, the girl in my dream got off the bus in front of me. She went on to the base with an acquaintance of mine, a fellow teacher, and they went to see a movie. I saw her and found the courage to speak with her.

We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet that weekend.

The next night, she was waiting for me as I entered the Army base to teach a class. She told me she was a college senior and she had something to tell me. I signed her on to the base and left her at the library to study while I taught, and then we went out for coffee after class. She told me she was madly in love with me, and that I was the man for her. I told her not to worry as I felt the same.

That weekend, we met Saturday and Sunday and hung out all day. On Sunday night, I proposed to her. It was only three days after we had met, but for me it felt like we had met eight years ago. I had been waiting all my life for her to walk out of my dreams and into my life, and here she was.

Her mother did not want her to marry a foreigner. One day, about a month after we met, she invited me to meet her parents. I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels for her father and drank the entire bottle with him. He approved of me, but her mother still had reservations. After a Buddhist priest told her my future wife and I were a perfect astrological combination, she agreed, and we planned our wedding.

The wedding was a media sensation in South Korea. My wife explained it to me years later. At the time, I was overwhelmed just by the fact that we were getting married and I didn’t fully understand how unusual this was. My wife was of the old royal clan, distant relatives to the former kings of Korea. In the clan’s history, only two people had ever married foreigners: my wife, and Rhee Syngman, who was the first President of South Korea. My father, who was a former Undersecretary of Labor, came out for the wedding, which fueled even more media interest. Our marriage defied the stereotypical Korean-foreign marriage where the women married some hapless GI just to escape poverty and immigrate to the U.S. We were the first foreign/Korean couple to get married at a Korean Army base. Over 1,000 people came to the wedding, and my father was interviewed on the morning news programs.

This all happened thirty-seven years ago, (45 years since the first dream) and I am still married to the girl in my dreams. Now in my dreams she watches over me when we are apart.

General Zod Conquers the World
SETI and the search for extraterrestrial life goes on overdrive when scientists report what appears to be radio and television broadcasts from a planet eight light years from earth, the same planet as the Vulcans came from in the Star Trek universe.  The programs show a world where dinosaur-like creatures are running the world and there appears to be a civil war.  Over the next six months, the world is transfixed watching the alien broadcasts which are translated in English via a supercomputer program.  In the broadcast, a nuclear war has occurred. The surviving party regains absolute control and announces the formation of the Galactic Empire.  General Zod is the First Emperor.  They have discovered Earth as well. The aliens launch a crash project to develop interstellar travel so they can come to earth and conquer the earth.

The revelations that there is an external threat to the planet causes the United Nations to get together with the help of the United States and Russia another space powers, they put together Space defense International organization and also invigorates efforts to make the UN a real Planetary government including finally conquering climate change.

But it was too late. General Zod’s son arrives to take over the earth. He makes a broadcast saying that they were liberating Earth in the name of the Galactic Empire and that resistance would be futile.

They land at the White House and when President Trump comes out to greet them,

General Zod cuts off his head, and then cuts off the heads of all the staffers as they come out White House. After an hour of unimaginable horrors, including mass rapes, blowing up the Pentagon and the CIA,  General Zod announces that he had taken over the world.

Life will continue as before as long as people behave and follow the rules they would be fine Resistance to the new empire will be met with instant death.  Life in the Empire is not a democracy. They would not tolerate Freedom of speech, and Freedom of Press, and Freedom of Assembly And the freedom to oppose the State. The state is everything.  As long as humans remember that they would be just fine. They took over the United States because it was the biggest country in the world. And that his forces will take over the rest of the world but in the next couple weeks. If people on earth accept the new order, their safety would be guaranteed. Companies would be taken over by Galactic Empire companies, and everybody would have to learn Galactic standard. Within one year older languages will be banned.

Sam Adams Vs. the Social Cleansing Board

the summons
Sam Adams was worried. He could not sleep. He got up at 4 am and wrote in his journal and tried to cope with the dread that was overwhelming him. He had received the summons yesterday that he was to report to the social cleansing board for a review on whether he would allow to continue to be on the automatic permit list or would be referred for final status determination. Sam was a retired Federal worker trying to live on dwindling savings.

Sam had Alzheimer’s and was rapidly depleting his life’s savings. Two years before he had been released from prison, one of millions of ex political prisoners. His crime? Authoring anti-government poems just before the beginning of the Christian States of America, right after the second civil war. Unfortunately for him and his millions of ex-prisoners, his side lost the war. He wanted to flee to the United Provinces and settle down in California but lacked money to move. And getting a job at his age, with Alzheimer’s and his political rating was proving difficult at best.

All of which added up to a 90 percent probability his last days were approaching.

Under the new rules imposed by the Christian republican party in the newly established Christian states, all citizens over the age of 18 were on the permitted list if they met all of the following criteria. He tried to think why he was being referred to the board. Perhaps it was because of the recent crackdown on social deviancy. Millions of homosexuals, transgenered people, atheists, drug users, alcoholics, and non-religious people had been rounded up and eliminated according to the rumors. Perhaps someone had fingered him as a possible deviant. He fit the stereotype, no children, known drug user, known alcohol user, suspect politically, atheist and now Alzheimer’s patient. And he was not racially pure having some black blood, some Asian blood and some Jewish blood. And he had married across the racial divide which was now illegal.

The story was that if you flipped and named names you would sometimes be spared for now, and if your info was correct, you could be rewarded. Of course, those whom you flipped were not too fortunate. That was probably the story or someone could have heard that he was an ex political prisoner, or simply that he had Alzheimer’s’.

He had no children. And he was a secret atheist and had been involved with the dissent movement and had spent five years as a political prisoner at the start of the Christian Revolution. He was determined to make a stand and denounce the whole rotten system before the board although that would probably seal his fate.

As an Alzheimer’s patient he could no longer work. His wife had died the year before while he was in prison after she had been deported to her native Korea. She left him some assets but he had little idea how to manage his finances and he was behind in his rent and had received an eviction notice which had probably triggered the visit by the social cleansing staff who recommend a final status determination. But it was just as likely he was on the list because someone flipped on him.

He also did not make it last time when they came for him at midnight. Always at midnight the story goes.

The soldiers came took him away from his wife and locked him up for two years. They deported his wife whom he heard had died shortly afterwards. He spend two years at hard labor in the dessert near Las Vegas and was released into Las Vegas.

Las Vegas was a different town now that the casinos had left town. All that was left were back office operations, and underground ***** and *** operations and underground casinos. It was a hot bed of political dissent and there was an underground railroad to California, which was not part of the Christian states. Sam had been preparing to leave which was a crime and perhaps that is why he was on the list.

The hearing would be at 10 am. He was meeting his lawyer at the hearing board but his lawyer was not too optimistic.
the Permit Criteria
The basic criteria for being on the permit list were:

For Males

Age 18 to age 70
White race
Married to a white woman with children
Must be either working, in school full time, serving in military duty, or working in prison if convicted of a crime.

Homelessness was not allowed. If unemployed and or homeless, would be referred to social cleansing department unless one had a relative who was willing to take care of your needs.

Since there were no pensions or social security anymore and no government provided health care, one must have sufficient assets through one’s work, or savings or through one’s relatives to provide for one ‘s needs. If not you would be sent to the social cleansing board for final status determination.

For Females

Same basic rules applied but if one were married, and had children one would be on the permitted list, if children are older, if spouse’s income is sufficient one would be on the list.
If single or divorced, and homeless one would also be subject to social cleansing unless one’s relatives would willing to sponsor you. Since there were no pensions or social security anymore and no government provided health care, one must have sufficient assets through one’s work, or savings or through one’s relatives to provide for one ‘s needs. If not you would be sent to the social cleansing board for final status determination.

For Aged People

Additional requirements for the age you were expected to take care of your basic needs through employment and savings and the help of relatives. If you were evicted for non-payment of rent, or judged to not have sufficient assets left to sustain your basic needs including medical care, you would be referred for final status determination.

For all people additional requirements applied.

****** deviancy, drug use, alcohol use, gambling, *** outside of marriage, homosexuality would result in immediate referral to the social cleansing board as all were banned conduct that could result in final termination.   Being a member of a prohibited religious class could also be grounds for referral as would a pattern of not attending Christian services. Finally, if one had been arrested for political crimes one would be marked forever.
<h2>Sam's Rating</h2>
One had a government social rating. Sam knew that his rating was a D meaning that the government would be watching him all the time, and it would be difficult to get a job. Only the A’s and B’s were guaranteed to be on the permit list.

To be a A you had be to a true believer, had to be white, had to attend church on a regular basis, and had to be employed naturally.

To be a B same thing but you could be a B if you were a minority, or had engaged in alcohol or drug use under the old rules.

C meant that there was something wrong with your background, you were an atheist, you were a minority etc.

D mean that you were a serious threat to the regime.

E meant that you would be terminated.

F met you were terminated as it met Failure to survive, and family members of F were also labeled F as they were usually terminated at the same time.

Being associated with banned political movements, including reading banned materials could also lead one to being referred to the social cleansing board as all were grounds for either termination or criminal prosecution if under the age of 70.

The board has three choices - granted temporary status extension, referral for termination, or referral to criminal prosecution.

The termination would be carried out quickly. There would be an optional funeral at your Church, then the execution through the method of your choice - firing squad, beheading, electric chair, or gas. The default was gas where you were put in a room with up to ten other people and put to sleep.

Afterwards your body would be cremated in an electricity generating plant with the ashes turned into fertilizer products. There were no burials allowed unless one was rich enough and connected enough to request a burial exception. Most people did not qualify.
the Hearing
The hearing started. The presiding Judge, Judge Miller was a stern face white man in his 70’s and a true believer. He was sent to Las Vegas to clean it up as Las Vegas was the wild west, a hot bed of dissent, illegal drug use, illegal prostitution and illegal casinos. It was also near several political prisons so many ex cons lived there.

The Judge was the chairman of the Nevada state committee that did not exist and was a senior official in the Federal committee that did not exist that brought together government, business and church leaders to coordinate government policies and that secretly ran the Christian States of America.

Probably a score of A thought Sam.

The judge announced that he had reviewed Sam’s file and was shocked that Sam had escaped final termination. He said that the previous board had erred in simply sending him to prison. He should have been eradicated as a social evil, as a cancer that needs to be removed from the pure body politics. Sam and his ilk sickened him. Sam was a free thinker, an atheist, a mix race mongrel, married to a non-white and was therefore guilty of crimes against the white race which was a crime. The Judge was determined to see justice done.

He asked Sam a series of questions. Sam’s answers sealed his fate.

Sam, what is your occupation?

None for now.

You realize that under the law you must be working, in service, in school or in prison?

I can’t find a job due to my age, my Alzheimer’s; and my political record.

That’s irrelevant. You are just a lousy atheist *******. You deserve no sympathy. And have none from me.

Are you white?

No, I am mixed race, part native, part Asian, part black.

I see you were married to a non-white and had no children. Good for you we would not want to see more mongrel children. Such children should be eliminated at birth in my opinion and will be starting next month when we begin enforcing the racial purity laws.

What was your crime? Let’s see reading prohibited writings, keeping a journal, publishing an anti-government blog, authoring anti-government poems and stories. You served two years at hard labor?

Yes

Do you still write?

Yes, everyday but I no longer publish on line.

Good. No one would want to read that trash anyway.

Do you go to church?

No

Do you believe in God?

No, I do not believe in an imaginary man in the sky.

One more anti-religious statement from you will result in an immediate ruling of termination.

Do you drink?

If I can find it yes

Do you gamble

Yes, when I can

Do you support the Christian Republican Party and the Christian States of America?

No, I do not.

Okay, I have enough for a ruling. Sam Adams, you are hereby sentence to termination. Tomorrow morning at 7 am you will be turned into electricity and fertilizer. Take him away.

Next please.

At midnight there was a knock at the door. A black man appeared and said he was a friend and he was being smuggled to California. Sam rejoiced and went with his new friend and reached SF in the morning, escaping death for the 23rd time in his life.

the End

Poetic Nightmares

Morphing Images from a Hellish Nightmare
Note: From a real nightmare End Note

I am in a room
Drinking at a party
And smoking ****

Watching people all around me

Change into hideous creatures
Monsters from the deepest depths of hell

Everyone in the room
Has been transformed except me

The Chief of them all
Wears a Trumpian mask

Complete with orange hair

Half human half pig

His deputy
Wears the face of Putin
But his body
Half human, half horse: if

The other creatures wear masks
Many of them wear
Green Pepe the alt-right
Symbolic frog masks

And have T-shirts
Bearing alt right slogans
And **** symbols

And as they prance about
They chant alt. Right slogans
And neo-**** chants

Jews will not Replace us

And the rest of these creatures
Are hideous ugly beasts
With only a vestige of humanity left

And these monsters are engaged
In all sorts of foul evil deeds
****** violence death

All around
And non-stop
violent drug-fueled ******

As these creatures
Half human half monsters
Half male, half female creatures

Snort coke, *******, speed
Smoke **** and drink ***** shots
Scotch, bourbon and beer

The Trumpian Pig leads the charge
Starts engaging in ****** with Putin
Who chases after people

Cutting off their heads with his sword
They turn on to their fellow creatures
****** and killing each other
and eating their fellow creatures

All night long

Then they attack me
Screaming

Jews will not replace us
And I wake up
Screaming

As the sun comes up
Just another nightmare


The Endless Movie

Watching the TV coverage
Of the great government shut down
Of 2018-2019

I am reminded of a movie
As I fall asleep
Listening to the TV

Blather on and on
About what it all means

Mr. Natural pops up
And screams

"It don’t mean s….

“Dude, the endless movie
Is about to begin”!

A middle-aged white man
Down on his proverbial luck
Just been fired

Replaced by a foreign worker
Or a robot

Or just fired
Because he was no longer
Deemed useful
To the masters of the universe

If he was lucky
He'd  be given a watch
And an IOU worthless pension

And the man wanders into a restaurant
Pulls out a gun

Eats his breakfast
After the official breakfast hour

Puts on a Pepe the green frog mask
Drops acid, Snorts speed
Drinks a shot of *****
And coffee smokes a joint

Snorts ******* for good measure
and smokes a cigarette

And walks outside
steals a bus at gun point
Filled with passengers

He tells them
They are hostages

And he puts on his vest
With the dead man switch
Next to the bomb

He announces
Via tweet

He is going to take the bus
To the proverbial *** of gold

Hidden deep in a cave
And when he got there

He would release the hostages
And disappear into the mine
And never be found again

And as the bus careens around the mountain
At 100 miles an hour
The dude sprouts out

Conspiracy after conspiracy theory
About Obama the Muslim communist

secret gay working with George Soros
the Jewish money people
in league with the shapeshifting lizards

and Mueller is one of them
they are all after him
because he knows the deal

And the passengers are transfixed
Half hoping, he would make it
Half hoping, he would be blown away

And as the bus careens out of control
With the wheels falling off

And the cliff looming ahead
You realize we are all doomed


Worlds Within Worlds Lost in Inner Space
A man woke up one day
Lost in inner space
Went so far down
The proverbial rabbit hole

That he did not know
Where he was
Nor what time it was
Nor when it was

As he stared out
At a bewildering world
A world lost in inner space
Deep down in his dreams

Filled with nightmarishly real
Monsters, demons and ghostly apparitions
He saw them and began running
Running running running

With the hell hounds behind him
Leading him to the edge
of the pits of hell itself

abandon all hope
ye who enter here
the sign read
above the entrance to the pit

and there was a devil standing there
armed with a clipboard
and a computer spreadsheet
Satan was the ultimate bureaucrat

Name barked the devil
Date of Birth ?
Date of Death?
Don’t know? That won’t do at all
Hmm

Car accident due to drunk driving
And you killed a child
Bad on you

But here in hell
The punishment fits the crime
And the devil laughed
Joined in by the hell hounds
And other nightmare creatures

A bell ran out
In the purple crystalline sky
And slowly the worlds receded
And he found himself alive

In his room
And vowed
That today
Was the day

He would quit drinking
Quit taking drugs
And quit chasing strange woman
And having wild libertine ***

He picked up the phone
It was Satan’s aid
Be careful what you vow
We are listening

If you fulfil your vows
You might find yourself
Escaping life in Hell
It is up to you to choose

And the man got dressed
Went to work
Thinking deep thoughts

And drove off a cliff
And back down the endless
Worlds within worlds

Satanic Torture

I find myself
In a dark room
Strapped to a bed

The light turns on
The large TV comes on

A smiling image
Of Satan fills the TV
He is dressed
In a conservative business suit

Looks like he came
Out of a corporate
board meeting

surrounded by demonic aides
who constantly shove papers
at him

He looks up from his lap top
And smiles
A deadly so insincere smile

His voice booms out

Welcome to Hell
My satanic slaves

I am Satan
Your new master

Each of you
Has been sentenced
To an eternity of torture

And the punishment
Must fit the crime

So, for you
Mr. Jake Cosmos Aller
Failed aspiring poet
And novelist

Your torture
Is to be strapped
To that bed

Unable to move
As you are filled
With the need
To **** and ****

But you cannot move
And your skin
Is crawling with bugs

And itchy
as Hell so to speak
and you are so sleepy

but you cannot sleep

the TV will play
endless repeats

Of some of the worst TV
and movie shows
ever produced

Starting with my favorite
A Series of Unfortunate Events

Featuring your favor annoying little girl
Carmetta! Singing for you forever
As you are the ultimate cake sniffer

Welcome to Hell


Rafting Towards Hell
I woke up
To find myself
Rafting down a river

I looked up
At the cliffs
Towering above
the roaring torrent

and see the dark demons
of my terrible nightmares
chasing the boat
firing flaming arrows

and I see werewolves
goblins, ghosts and monsters
running along the river bed
screaming obscenities

as they chase me
to my doom

and I see the waterfall ahead
and see my pending doom

as I rush over the edge
of reason



Micro Stories
53 word stories regarding unheeded warnings
Don’t Go Jogging in the Middle of the Night
It all started with a jog in the middle of the night. Despite my wife’s warning don’t go jogging in the middle of the night.  Broke me heal in a million pieces, 14 operations ensured, mutant MDR Staff almost killed me, almost lost the leg. . should have listened to her warning.

Don’t touch this button!
Don’t touch this button the former President said.  I said, what this button? And that led to the launching of nuclear weapons, going to defon three, and world war 3 with millions of people dead end of civilization moment. Should not have touched the red button.
Don’t open the door
When you find yourself running for your life chased by demons from hell and backed into a corner in a burning house filled with flames and are about to die in a million horrible ways you remembered that they warned you not to open door number three in this crazy reality TV show.
Don’t go to the theater tonight stay home with me
Mary Todd Lincoln had a vicious headache and was not in the mood to go out.  The President though ignored her wishes and told her that he had to go to the theater that night to show the world everything was okay now the war was ending.  Should have listened to her.
Don’t go to Dallas I have a bad feeling about the trip
Jackie was known for her moods and her premonitions. Something the President found both amusing an annoying. She told him that she a vision of death waiting for him in Dallas that day.  The President dismissed her foolishness as he put it and went to Dallas to meet his fate.
true love story.
In 1974 I had the first dream. While sleeping in a boring class, I saw a beautiful Asian woman standing at me speaking a foreign language. I fell out of chair yelling who are you?   I began having the same dream month after month for eight years.  One day I realized she was in Korea so I went there in the Peace Corps to meet her. In 1982 I had the last dream.  She said don’t worry we meet soon. That night she walked off a bus, out of the dream and into my life.  We’ve been married 37 years.
Cheating Death 22 Times
Also, a true story.
I have cheated death 22 times in my life.  I was born a preemie, almost died at birth, and had all the childhood illness at once.  In 1979 I came down with Typhoid  fever in Korea in the Peace Corps.  In 1991 almost got hit by a train. In 1996-1997 had 14 operations due to a mutant drug resistant staph infection, almost died several times.  In 1997 I had an acute stomach ailment that almost killed me, due to excessive antibiotic usage, if I had waited 30 minutes more would have been dead.  And had dengue in 2010.
Guardian Angel Saves My Life
Another true story
In 1990, I was teaching ESL in Korea.  My wife and I drove to the East Coast of Korea for a weekend away. She was in the US Army then.  As we drove towards Sorak mountain, I was filled with the need to get off the road right then. I had a premonition of doom, so did my wife. We got off to drive around another park returned a few minutes later and saw a 25 car pileup. We would have been dead if we had not listened to that inner voice telling us get off now.

Medical Mystery
Another true story
Back in 1996, when I was in the hospital fighting a mutant staph infection after a disastrous jogging accident that led to 14 operations, the internal medicine doctor said that there was something else going on. He finally discovered that I had a rare parasite, a tape worm of sorts that remained inert, its only becomes active if you take steroids then it blows up like a basketball killing you instantly. Six months later I had to take steroids due to frozen shoulder syndrome, and if I had not gotten rid of it, I would have died a medical mystery.

SLA Hit List
True story

Back in 1974 my father was a local politician in Berkeley, California who was on the SLA’***** list as “an enemy of the people, a fascist insect that needed to be killed”.  His crime?  As President of the community college district, he began requiring IDS for students and staff to combat campus crime at the local community colleges.  We had 24/7 police coverage for a while. One morning I saluted my father, “good morning fascist insect”.  My father, being of Germanic stock did not like the joke as jokes are alien to the German DNA.


the End
based on dreams and nightmares
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
In my mind, I raced against time
I smoked peyote with the Apache
I chased Kangaroos
Through the bush with the Aborigine
All the while
...I searched for the power within me

In my mind, I outpaced time
I drew cave art with the Neanderthal
I climbed to the top of the mountain with the Sherpa
I hunted seal out on the frozen tundra with the Inuit
All the while
...I searched for the power within me

In my mind, I eclipsed time
I wrote poetry while under the tutelage of Langston Hughes
And I created visual greatness while apprentice to Gordon Parks
I even stood on the wall with Che' Guevara, like a Sentry standing watch
All the while
...I continued searching for the power within me

In my mind, I turned to face time
I wrote an addendum to the Emancipation Proclamation
And I saw the ugly truths
Of freedom's farcical Declaration
All the while
...I continued searching for the power within me

In my mind, I embraced time
I sought to free my nation from the pandemic perils of *******
And I prayed that we Americans would be free of
The snares of racial and economic divide that still has us chained
I did this while searching for truth, in this, our most tenuous hour
...then empyreally, God reached for me, touching me, and I finally found my power

* Reprinted from 'Exegesis a Decade of Poetry by Mekael'
© July 14, 2009 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
Dawn and I dawn my caftan
With pen in hand
I close my eyes
And start crafting

I put on my djellabah
Which begets my lojong
...and soon
I begin to float

Like paint, ink blankets
The sheets of my Bengali jute
...and soon
I begin to coast

In this moment
I exist happily
Outside of all I know
About me
* Reprinted from 'My Hajj A Collection of Poems by Mekael'
© September 16, 2011 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Feb 2014
Arrogantly
We fight over
…pieces of the earth
Ravenously
As if driven by
…blood thirst

We beasts, we stir
We ****, we pillage
…her aquifer
We dishonor creation
When we act like
…we weren't born from her

* Reprinted from 'My Hajj A Collection of Poems by Mekael'
© September 16, 2011 by Mekael Shane
III Sep 2014
Her lips were like makeshift
Velvet candy,
Her eyes gleaming green
Like a cat's,
Slits of gray and chocolate
Rounding her iris and
Hair made of fire and sun
Alike,

She was a book that could
Chill your soul with the gaze
That warmed your thoughts,
A book whose edges were frayed
And cover was worn,
But oh, how her words dripped
Heavy with ink and passion
As though she had been reprinted.
For the Chipmunk in My Yard
By Robert Gibb
I think he knows I’m alive, having come down
The three steps of the back porch
And given me a good once over. All afternoon
He’s been moving back and forth,
Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,
While all about him the great fields tumble
To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky
To be where he is, wild with all that happens.
He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows
Living in the blond heart of the wheat.
This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires
Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots,
Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter
On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.

From What the Heart Can Bear by Robert Gibb. Poem copyright ©2009 by Robert Gibb. Reprinted by permission of the author and Autumn House Press.
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Curtis Sep 2012
anywhere u go
its about what u do
who u know
what u have
take a piece
and one for the road
take and take
is all we do
judged like a book
every single day
in one glance
no second thoughts
hardcover hollywood
special editions
and just for dummies rule
those text book kings
and things of the past
replaced by
sefl-help gurus
with a thirst for power
history books burn
and dictionaries die
bibles and korans
wage war for deeds
written in oil
more precious than blood
lawbooks lie
with family trees
while notebooks fill
with pointless lives
but my story is written
with my sweat
and tears
filled with pages and pages
of love and fears
i dont need to be
hardcovered
reprinted
bound up
and edited
forget the colors
and the revamped image
no motion pictures
just a story
on my shelf
the last of them all
the Paperback Boy.
Jim Snape Jul 2015
Growing up in a small town,
we didn't notice
the background figures of our lives,
gray men, gnarled women,
dropping from us silently
like straightpins to a dressmaker's floor.
The old did not die
but simply vanished
like discs of snow on our tongues.
We knew nothing then of nothingness
or pain or loss—
our days filled with open fields,
football,
turtles and cows.

One day we noticed
Death has a musty breath,
that some we loved
died dreadfully,
that dying
sometimes takes time.
Now, standing in a supermarket line
or easing out of a parking lot,
we realize
we've become the hazy backgrounds
of younger lives.
How long has it been,
we ask no one in particular,
since we've seen a turtle
or a cow?
"Straightpins" by Jo McDougall, from Satisfied with Havoc. © Autumn House Press, 2004. Reprinted with permission.
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
Souls sold for
Antiquated crude
As bitter enemies crossed over
Frozen tundra and vast deserts to duel

Quietly does the Dark Wraith of death
Sweep across the blood soaked terrain
And the Angel of Mercy does the like
To ease our fallen soldiers' pains

America's nefarious war in Iraq has been for naught
Many young lives were
Recklessly packaged for this reckoning
Packaged, parceled, and bought

I've often wondered
If the dead would
Protest against the government's lies
If they could

So many lives extinguished on both sides
They breathe no more
Doomed to the cold cauldrons of their eternal sepulchers
By the wicked Gods of war

* Reprinted from 'Exegesis a Decade of Poetry by Mekael'
© July 14, 2009 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
Tribal beats are sounding
Inside my head; echoing and pounding
Demanding that I come home
But which way do I go
How do I leave this waste filled battle zone
I am like you
Traversing through the detritus alone

Tribal beats are sounding
Inside my heart; resonating and pounding
Demanding that I come home
But which way do I go
I'm waiting out in the dark alone
Hoping that the Angels will release me
So that I can find my way home peacefully

* Reprinted from 'The Road to Damascus Poems by Mekael'
© November 3, 2008 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
We float
Through purple-velvet skies
Out where black holes are born
And the Milky Way lies

We fly
Through purple-hazed skies
Out where nebulae fade
And an apricot sun spies

We coast
Through purple-blue skies
Out where the platinum moon sits
And supernovas explode as we sail by

* Reprinted from 'Love Letters the Select Collection by Mekael'
© July 29,2009 by Mekael
Lael Kafsky Feb 2013
My big sisters made every mistake in the book
A big book
I know
because it was like a manuel that I received at birth
Slid under our doorways
They gave out copies
They reprinted chapters
They drew out maps
They sketched out the details
We flipped through the pages
Turning each lesson
******* earing the good ones
Like the time my sisters got so mad they kicked in the door
Or the time my sister tried a creaky houses old pipes
Leaning over
"It won't flush"
Swoosh a wave of water
Or the lesson about heartbreak
Reminding my brother Joel and I
to look with our eyes closed
But hearts open
Because they said that's how you know the difference
And don't settle down to quickly
They whispered between hallways and bed sheets
Because marriage is forever
And people aren't gaurenteed
My sisters authored pages and pages
Roads leading to roads to new roads
And the book grew older
The book came out!
This time celebrating parenting
Remember to lock the front door
Because that toddler with the wild red hair will
try to
Houdini escape everytime
Or sometimes softer
Remember that this life is yours
And you are steered by your choices
Said the sister with the bright blue
Eyes
And midnight colored hair
And she said sometimes
You will have to trade in your ballet slippers
For bare feet
Just so you can truly have your feet on the ground
And listen said the other
Sometimes resolving and letting go
Is easier than holding onto tightly
As she shows us her bruises.
And be yourself Lael
And don't try to hard Joel
Because the boy with broken heart can't be fixed
And the girls with the wild sides can't be tamed
And make sure you both stand tall
But not looking down
Look straight ahead at the horizon
Because we've already done it like that
And the sun will always guide you back to blue skies.
And I if it doesn't they said
We sure as hell will.
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
Lovely is she
Who came
And rescued me

She courageously
Showed me her heart
It, with its tracery of scars

And though the hurt she bears is profound
It has never stopped her
From looking to the stars

* Reprinted from 'Love Letters the Select Collection by Mekael'
© July 29, 2009 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
Perhaps
One day
My son will ask
'Dad, why do you climb? '

Smiling
I'll reply
I climb
So you can fly

* Reprinted from 'Simian Soul Poems by Mekael'
© July 21, 2010 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Jan 2014
Each night I stalk
In measured steps
...on the widow's walk

Hoping that I'll draw nigh
The apportioned thread
...of the soul I bought

* Reprinted from
'Tomorrow Today Poems by Mekael'
© January 1, 2014 by Mekael Shane
Mekael Shane Feb 2014
Who is she
To clothe herself
…with light
And wear it, as if it were a garment

Who is she
To make the Angels sing
…with joy
And melody, synthed in perfect harmony

Who is she
To make me believe
…in things
I feel, but cannot see

Who is she
To open up and separate the skies
…to part deep, ancient waters
As if she's the myth alive

* Reprinted from 'Tomorrow Today Poems by Mekael'
© January 1, 2014 Mekael Shane
The beauty of people,
Like the beauty of books,
Has many different forms.

Young and fresh,
Old and well kept,
Weathered many storms...

The beauty of youth
Gets noticed more
Like a brand new books
Fresh from the store

With plot lines that remain
Secret and sweet mystery
But of course they lack
Weighted words and history

Old and taken care of
Just a little frayed
It's in great shape for it's age,
But still, it's going gray

People will admire it
For how it holds itself
But it may be missing out
Just sitting on it's shelf

Then there's books
With covers stained
Dog-eared pages
In some pain

These may be my favorite
I read them by the stack
You know they've seen the world
They've been there and back.

Maybe they'll be rebound
Reprinted on fresh trees
But for now they are content
To give us torn out pages
And fill us with their memories.
wordvango Jul 2017
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber ******* or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit——

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

Sylvia Plath, "The Applicant" from The Collected Poems. Copyright © 2008 by Sylvia Plath.  Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Source: The Collected Poems (Faber and Faber, 1989)
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Poetic T Sep 2019
If we die
           For less than,



Our humanity.


We aren't worth

   The flesh were printed on.


Worthless copies of  nothingness.
           That are reprinted in vain.


Let our humanity be the virtue,
         That we live for.
Haddie Brenner Aug 2019
The humdrumness of happily ever after,
Dull, like grains of sand.
Like waves, ever perpetual,
Ever repeated,
Ever reprinted.
Rainbow Grill
Mario Vitale
mariovitale227@yahoo.com

Bio (auto)

Mario Vitale (Welcott, Connecticut) is an established writer with over 1, 000 poems. Featured on writercafe.com

The following work is Copyright © 2017, and owned by Mario Vitale and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Rainbow Grill

It clings to the cliffed shore,
to the wintered face of the thistle path,
to the fingers of the old man’s glove
as he waves his memory homeward

In that breath between come and go
she moves up from the bay;
gold turns her stride,
the line of her dress,
the soft sea pulling at her feet

When he reaches out
and the frail birds fly
and the sun and the sky
have married deep into the sea, it clings

Even as his shadow threads retreat,
it clings, even now as it dissolves to mist.
a demonic silence and calm preserves this place
i call home:
today i was recovering from working
at the AC/DC gig at Wembley: henchman man:
wager man... wagey...
such pivotal hierarchies in the high viz
community outside of the construction industry:
human chess
it would seem: is the end result
of this working dynamic...

                   i'd call it my dream period but it's
more or less my nostalgic impromptu
retrospection thinking of myself writing in my mid-20s
but i really can't see:
in the classical period music was innovative:
it inspired philosophers such as Nietzsche
but these days i can't say: much about music...
it became an art form relegated to the piles
of dung of Beelzebub's ****** archiving of important
matters:
a total messy ******* he is...

            coughed up whiskey into my nose
which was a sobering experience
like a Pakistani girl
telling out in full claustrophobic no personal
space antic of taking a lift
imploring me to stand in front of her
imploring me to smell my skin and my ***
and my love to block out
someone else's bad personal hygiene...
and then i said: well: like nicotine
like caffeine: a whiff of ammonia: a chemical salt
or acid
          someone's poor personal hygiene can
become a stimulant: especially if you add to that
the torrential rain:

but my dry period?
i was young and not boring enough:
so i'd pick up a book and take out a snippet
and work with that:
i suppose i could rehash that youthful distress
by picking up
Ulysses - i don't remember any of it:






                                                      / /

nothing: nothing comes to mind...
         so when music used to be innovative in the infancy
now hardly irrelevant
but AC/DC are not an innovative band
if say: Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin were...
or god forbid someone take up the Q of Pink "barber" Floyd
because that's not Nirvana relevant?

i guess music of the 20th century
might require someone listening to classical and reflecting:

weird antics for the closure of a day
and it's impeding reopening after a nap
circa 8pm through to 12am
in the day made perfect timing to
send off a Taylor Swift t-shirt:
medium... almost a large:
regardless: she wanted to have it scented with me
so i rubbed the early stink from lying
in bed first...
then walked around in it...
then took a shower:
didn't use deodorant (but squeezed some in
when i finished packing the package
to get the plastic smell out...
the air around the item)
i rubbed myself cleaner than mirror versus
the glass
in i guess: if i can remember:
was a honeycomb and macadamia nuts
soap...
          then i washed my hair with Argan oil
infusion...
and beard too: ah: maybe the shampoo was
the macadamia nuts infusion
and the soap was just the honeycomb infusion...

but no deodorant on the body:
just into the back...

friendship bands
and me playing with my mother's makeup drawer
while writing her a letter
some little nothing something perhaps sweet
and to think i'm suited to a Christian girl
and i'm supposedly this Catholic
which is supposedly a novelty in America
like J.F.K was a novel Catholic
in the land of Protests and hyper-inflated individualism
that's so fake it beggars-belief...

Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose
thoughts you're chewing. Then who'd wash up
all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on
tabloids that time. Teeth getting worse and worse.


J. J. Ulysses page 217 reprinted Penguin classic 2000

as i said: innovative: music once was
no longer so and
it's a shame that those who wrote music are
more alive than some people
who are alive and haven't been gifted with
much: but as in that Dead Can Dance song
about great men:
Solomon, Caesar, Socrates... and there is a third:
how fortunate the man with none...
how fortunate that no one should remember

but even then what's that to life: expected...
if anything: a kind surprise to an otherwise unwarranted
***** of the hope...
some higher demand the everyday expectation
to the materialistic grit (spoken like a true
teenager)...
but just so: my riches are in books and in music
records:
at least one painting of my own:
a sitter in Grey
by Candlelight...
a sword from the forest i called my Cossack
SHASHKA...
              
           just a breaking of a night within night
to tip over the scales of time from day x
to day y
                      by nocturnal musings:
    having signed the Last Will of my parents
i am now the inheritor de facto
of this house and garden:
it's almost comical when
Joe stood before me at cordon 6
wearing a Quadrant Supervisor bib and
almost gesticulating at:
well: why haven't you been promoted?
well: who gives a ****
it's a wash-a-hand-hand-washing-hand
not nepotism but quasi-nepotism
of the family breakdown and making new friends
in the playground
so children are growing up my lord
but the elementary
and the pedagogy remains the same:
perhaps if with children you can pretend
to be an adult with responsibilities
when when in psychiatry you pretend to be a god
because that's not me saying:
Prometheus my Guide:
but at least you have to pretend to be a god
since god is so abstract
and that's what people required other people to
become: in just the verb and noun orientation
of this delicate ballet...
not by any stretch of imagining grandiosity
not in any way profound
there's the nearing of the bad grammar god
and his fetish is pronouns
and being a Dyslexic his favorite demonic ****
is at the pulpit of a pseudo-Protestant
i.e. Protestantism against itself:
dying off without a Catholic antagonist since that
path deviated and found root
in the life now enjoyed by the Spanish, French,
Italians, Pollacks...

                         i could mention the Irish but is there
a point of mentioning the Irish as Catholics
and not simply as the Irish:
the sublime masochists... which the Pollacks can't be
but what's horrible about us is
a Catholic Work Ethos that we don't share
with anyone: beside the Irish: in that span of rubric:

Spanish
French
Italians
Porto-Geese (easier, i'm not going to spell it correctly)...

ah... jeez: what a Chopin's nocturnes sort of
night:
it's blessedly raining outside and it feels like
the proper July:
did i forget to mention that there's a lesson
in geography to be had, right about now?

it bothered me: the English mentality
concerning Eastern Europe:
Poland is Central Europe with Germany
you ******* PLEB...
deafness and more deafness: no intellectual music
no conversation:
just innocent bystanders: collateral ditto virus...
geography bothered me in the lexicon:
is that common speech of man? hmm:
gonna get myself a Jane Austen tattoo...
not on my skin: but on the silk
bothered by the wind
itching inside my mind like no other caged ego
to thought or being:
just ego-nothing
beside what is already available
with i-think and i'm-not: i-am...

                           familialism: something
borrowed from Anti-Oedipus: i don't understand
the French intellect so well:
please can i gravitate towards German High Intellect
with some dabbing in Scandinavian:
everyday-ism?

   the French have a freakish morbid intellect
bent on destruction and painting with language:
i don't want to paint when i write...
i want to abstract: find solutions:
complications:
impasses...
              facts: i don't want to find bad grammar
and a chemistry lab
of boorish wordings overtly hyphenated into
compounds like di-hydroxy-carbonate blah blah...

who is the real psychotic?
i have no knowledge of a Spanish intellect...
Italian maybe with Machiavelli but
that's irrelevant:
Giuseppe Belli:     (o.k. **** me, shoot me
my youth was greatly invoked to age beyond
my peers because of Dante: *******
and yeah yeah ******* twice
because i had Horace and Ovid in my life)

inzomma, da la predica de jjeri,
ggira che tt'ariggira, in concrusione
venissimo a ccapi cche sso mmisteri...

      just look how Latin devolved...
to sign language and spitting
and eyes darting and foundations
like Rome and the Italians is an observational
view point of a mountain range
some weirdly anthropological
no people discovered or conquered
so aboriginal blah
i mean: just looking at the language
that's Italian: that used to be Latin:
it's a bit like looking at the Polynesians
originally from Taiwan:
perhaps they didn't gain height
rowing all that time no sight of horses
but they bulked up
and i can see something Oriental about
them with the exception of their tailoring
to a darker color of skin: complexion...

bad Latin to come:

in brevi, et ex sermon nos accepit
summa summarum,
                          idiom: say how it is... to:
            obtusis-lingua-acuere:
blunt tongue sharpening...
               videtur: mysterium est mysterium...

perhaps that's the non-authoritative
variation on Latin:
certainly not Italian: or what happened
when Germanic blood of the Lombard
achieved the fold to the Razor and Papacy:
the Pope a Drowning Man...

that lesson in geography:
well... whenever listening to a meteorological
dial-up
with a person in the luminary of a quasi-fire
that's the t.v. screen:
believe me in 100 years what will
the t.v. beside a fireplace
a radio and then what will internet access be

i'm listening to my favorite nocturne:
i've currently digested:
47 minutes:

nocturne in B♭minor op 9 no 1
     "         "   " minor op 9 no 2
and the list goes on and on
but i'm too lazy to type each song out...
but it would look pretty:
i gather there's that aesthetic concern
and if i wanted to spend years
on art
i'd become a grave sculptor...
not some celebrated Rodin bound
to the museum:
CENTAUR and the Urmahlullu...

in some there's this tease toward anticipating
Wagner's Das Reihngold: the entry
of the gods into Valhalla:

         like we all know the play on Les Mars

♯C
#****

       ah! subliminal! HELMHOLTZ! HELMHOLTZ!
just like
Les Marseillas... apparently a right wing
revival, non?
but instead a Fringe Red seeking majority?
i did say: Serenity Red:
not simply - but the left was becoming
constipated communicative-ly: all lively...

number: first: 1812:
ah yes: Tchaikovsky and the Polish Plumbers
Orchestra...
some Dostojnie: Igrzyska:
  
               geography!
England is part of Scandinavia!
England: Scotland:
Ireland:
this is not Western Europe!
this is Scandinavian Territory!
if Poland is Eastern Europe:
collectively...
blah Ukraine blah Czechia
blah Lithuania and not Russia
blah Romania
and blah some more maybe even Greek
and Turkish:
forget Serbia Croat

but England is Scandinavia:
it's not WESTERN EUROPE:
what is western Europe but an Atlantis
figment of the imagination
if Germany is Central Europe
and Poland too
have to look at the planet from sunrise
have to rotate the planet into
vertigo mode horizontal....
not some meteorological Chinese script
the westerners read weather
at X Greenwich
and Y equator: Kenya:
Z? the winds and casual tornadoes?

  England is Scandinavia
in temperament and feels:
                   it's not Western Europe:
there never was: beside
as the bad apple export to America...
Scandi to the north
while the also northern bunch
finding recliners and cheaper weather:
the Goths via the Spaniards
and the Berbers
toward Argentina...

               then again to a waltz:
still a nocturne waltz...

                       but that piece with
the reverbretating insinuation of the piano
working as a bass guitar...
not the waltz no 7 in c (sharp) minor
op 64,2

                absolved from the hierarchy of cultures:
that Germany transliterated
away from a superiority complex
of ethnocentrism of white via white versus:
such heightened exploration dynamic:
peace to mind: a piece of:
the langui: a **** in boots and a freakish:
i don't event want to remember
dreams...

         if no longer ethnocentric then cocktails
in Berlin with a hyper-inflation
of race mixing like
it couldn't be a sand story:
this new Dune
not a desert
but a "jungle" of Concrete:
this Nedu:
        planet of sand without wind
this concrete grey
this fudge packing:
this also glass and mirror and mannequin...
this planet we live on
i give a name:

           Nedu.
        formerly called Earth:
              Nē̆dû has spoken and spoke at its
crux of nadir: thus.
As a student in Missus Grace Wells third grade 1967 class...
at Henry Kline Boyer School
a fairly prominent structure,
whose personage exemplifies
a storied history recounted below.

Henry K. Boyer

Early Life

Henry Kline Boyer was born on February 19, 1850, in Evansburg, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The youngest of two children to blacksmith Ephraim Boyer and his wife Rebecca Kline, Henry was raised mainly in Montgomery County, with his father at one point even being the official town blacksmith of Evansburg. He attended formal schooling in Montgomery County from a young age, with an aptitude for math and a love for English and history. Boyer later attended Freeland Seminary, which is now known as Ursinus College.

He completed his formal education at only sixteen years of age, and in 1866 became a schoolteacher at the public school in his neighborhood. Kline then moved on to other teaching positions, including ones with a “classical academy” in Philadelphia and a Quaker school in the Byberry neighborhood of the city.

In 1868, he received a grammar school teaching certificate and moved to Camden, New Jersey, to work as the principal of a school there. Boyer did this until 1871, at that time he left his position in Camden to pursue the study of law in Philadelphia at the firm of former United States Attorney General Benjamin H. Brewster. In 1873, at the age of 23, Boyer was admitted to the Bar in Philadelphia County, where he focused on civil cases.

Political Career Begins & Flourishes

Starting out as a lawyer, Boyer took up permanent residence in Philadelphia and practiced well through the 1880s, attracting political attention. He was an active member of the Young Republicans of Philadelphia, and “his growing inclination for public affairs led him in the Spring of 1882 to attend a meeting of Republicans … to (choose) delegates for the state convention.” He was announced then as a delegate for the Seventh Ward of Philadelphia. He received a strong showing but lost. In the fall, he then ran for and won his first race, for the Pennsylvania Statehouse. Winning handily, Boyer had gone from a lawyer to a politician.

Henry K. Boyer served as State Representative for the 7th District of Philadelphia County for six terms, both before and after his time as Treasurer. Boyer served from 1883 to 1890, 1893 to 1894, and 1897 to 1898. He became a powerhouse in the State Legislature, with some of his legislative activities involving being a driving force behind the bill that created the Pennsylvania State Board of Health, encouraging citizens to plant trees, and regulating pharmacies. His action on these matters during his first term did not go without notice, as on January 4, 1887, at the age of 37, Boyer was elected as the unanimous choice of the Pennsylvania House Republican Caucus to be the next Speaker of the House. He was elected Speaker again the next term, and for a third non-consecutive time upon his return to the house in 1896 after serving as Treasurer.

As Treasurer

The sitting Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Boyer was elected as Treasurer of Pennsylvania in 1889. The State Republican Convention, which less than 10 years before had denied his bid to be only a delegate to it from Philadelphia, unanimously selected him as their pick for Treasurer. Pennsylvania Senator Boies Penrose introduced him at the convention, with the Philadelphia Times quoting Penrose as saying that he knew of “no other man” for the job.

In his acceptance speech, Boyer said he was a “proud and happy man,” and that the party had “made a correct choice. … I assure you I will endeavor to merit your confidence.” Boyer was elected in what was the largest total majority ever given to a Republican candidate in a political off-year. When the returns were coming in, the Snyder County Tribune reported that “Well, we have got Boyer and are very happy.”

In the role of Treasurer, Boyer authored the extensive Revenue Act of 1891, and he saw to it that schools specifically received substantial funding. However, in 1891, Boyer was locked in a corruption scandal along with Auditor General Thomas McCamant. A Philadelphia politico had been discovered that year as being corrupt, so a sweep across the Commonwealth revealed allegations of corruption…as far as Boyer’s direct role in any corruption, it was written that he was “criminally negligent at best and corrupt at worst.”

The scandal ultimately did not lead to his removal from office after the Senate split on talks to oust him, although Dauphin County prosecutors charged him with the misappropriation of $600,000 in funds. Once again, it never got off the ground, and Boyer retired at the end of his term while immediately making another successful bid to the Pennsylvania House and Speakership.

Later Life & Death

Boyer went back to the House after his term as Treasurer, holding the Speakership once more. The Capitol burned down during his tenure, and Boyer led sessions of the Legislature from places like the nearby federal courthouse and Grace United Methodist Church. He resigned from the House on January 17, 1898, after being appointed as Superintendent of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. He retired from the Superintendent position in 1902, and after that, spent the rest of his life in various pursuits.

He was a fan of farming, especially dairy farming, and at one point through his retirement had a 130+-acre dairy farm that he worked painstakingly on. It was reported that at this farm, Boyer remodeled every single farm building, purchased the best farm implements, got everything up to date, and had some of the most fertile soil in Pennsylvania. Besides investing in his dairy farm, he invested in land and other buildings, such as an old hotel, and enjoyed planting as much foliage as possible around his many acres of land, just as he encouraged citizens to do in one of his signature bills as a state representative.

In 1910, he was living as a boarder in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, in 1920 he was living by himself in Lower Providence, Pennsylvania, and in 1930 Boyer was living in Red Hill, Pennsylvania.

Never married, and never having children, Henry K. Boyer died at the age of 83, days shy of his 84th birthday, on February 14, 1934, in Red Hill, Pennsylvania. He was buried at Chelten Hills Cemetery. The York Dispatch eulogized him as “one of the well[-]known figures of a past generation in politics,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer highlighted him as “an outstanding figure in Pennsylvania politics in the last quarter of the 19th century.”

His place of residence
currently repurposed into to Play & Learn,
formerly Boyer School, 35 Evansburg Road
as iterated above aforementioned building
constituted quaint grade school
(one classroom per grade),
wherein I still remember
The golden-rod is yellow;
the first line of a poem
titled September by Helen Hunt Jackson

memory of mine jogged,
when remembrance of things past
pertaining to my boyhood
at about eight (almost nine) years old
strongly instructed to memorize
and be able, eager, ready and willing
to recite said poem
(other classmates as well needed
to abide by assignment or else...)

despite being a diminutive lad
with a pronounced nasal sound
(courtesy of submucous cleft palate - split uvula)
approximately fifty seven years ago
reprinted here with permission of
Your Daily Poem
P. O. Box 14054
Greenville, SC 29611.

September - now follows suit
by
Helen Hunt Jackson

The goldenrod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentians bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.
From dewey lanes at morning
the grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
'T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.

— The End —