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In the face of war
Loudly our fears drum.

The lioness ready for a feast
I heard Lucifer is angry against God
Battling to get Him to His kneels.

Blood is reigning
The blood sucker awaken
In pieces the sky has fallen
The moon now a commoner  
And the sun a drunk wanderer.

Where are the innocence
The black cloud acquires,
Vultures need the flesh of the angels
Their bone the dogs also desire.

The dragon has been unleashed to flood the world,
This time, no one is right enough not to be wrong,
Yes, No saints, No Noah,
No ark to sail to a new world.
Death our creditor, we the borrower
The covenant can't be erased not even a word.
See what we have done to ourselves fighting our creator
See how we successfully drive ourselves to our destructions.

If God finally conquer the Armageddon
In the recreation of a new kingdom
I will want to be the Adam without eve
Dying to see what difference that will make indeed
Because this world is such a complicated trip
The returnees will hate to repeat.
The night sky is wrapped in curls of black
and the air purrs, fizzes with the sound of hot
fluorescent lights, choking the air with vacation colour,
blinking fast like there’s something in their eyes.
Gulls guffaw in circles over 174,
where inside old wallpaper is torn
and dated lampshades dangle from above.
Two pegs on a line outside my box,
the bed is rickety and isn’t as fit anymore.
The novices, the returnees
seek silver and gold in the oasis
before their feet sting in scorching sand.
Win what you lose, lose what you win,
hold onto it before it tumbles back onto white cushions.
Money hiccups out of ugly machines
when they have a session of indigestion.
Young girls, carefree and cute walk around in a daze
as chubby men waddle along the pavement
thinking of that next pint.
Lined up at the bar with peanuts and bottles,
the large screen projects to all.
A clink of glasses and a click of snooker *****
past nine, past ten, past eleven as well.
And then the plug is pulled out,
everybody settles down to sleep,
but we all know they’ll do it again
when tomorrow’s summer evening calls.
Written: July and August 2012.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, based partially on notes I made in my notebook while on holiday at the end of July and early August 2012. This piece is unlike some of my recent work, as it was not uploaded as a Facebook status update first. The poem refers to my holiday to the east coast of England (a place I have been many times) and describes what I saw during my stay there.
brian mclaughlin Jul 2015
Vietnam

A terrible time for our country
The fear of what was called
the domino effect
Communism would be at our doorstep
if we did not stop the North Vietnamese

It was our own freedom
we were told that hung in the balance

We sent our young men
they fought
many died
others crippled and those who were fortunate enough
to simply make home
became the victims of a nation
that showed no support for the soldier

But the war was not about our freedom

It was about fear

Fear that traveled throughout our government
that we could be next

Of course history now shows
that was not the intent of the North
all they wanted was their country reunified

Our boys came home
the nation turned its back on them
many today still live in the streets
as do present day returnees from the middle east wars

It was the Vietnam veteran
who vowed
never to let another vet go unappreciated

The people have learned
but sadly
the government hasn't

The fear they have now
is the loss of profits
they continue to send
other peoples children
off to war that for these youg men
and now women
holds death and dismemberment
without giving those fortunate enough to return home
proper care and support

Today is so different from yesterday

Yesterday
the people spat upon the returning soldier

Today
it is the spittle of the government that they wear
Anwer Ghani Feb 2020
Oh, Cedar, how many aspirants loved you and the immortal Gilgamesh knew how to write you a poem. I am from the distant cities, where the sun is without robe and no eyes, only a story of waiting and something of an ancient fragrant. I am an old traveler, I learned the trip by accident. I also tell you that I am a small sailor and inherited the sea song from my grandparents. The hard wave I will know its desire. I will know it, and I will keep a little silent, so I may remember something. Yes, I will wait as a cedar tree overflows with returnees.
Semihten5 Sep 2017
diffuse colors in my eyes
one day they will be erased
they will be like colorless water
returnees  essence people
Nat Lipstadt Apr 22
Here, of course, is New York CIty,
soon enough, my innate 4000 year old
internalized migratory patterns signal,
remind, now be time need to flee to mine
own Walden Pond, no pond, but a wide
bay upon a small river that feeds the
Great Atlantic, and silence & solitude
with assists from animals, the trees,
lovely breezes, the overlord, overloved
sun, will restoreth my soul, when I walk
beside green pastures and forests on country
unpaved rounds, and the poems hang from
the breezes, ripe for the love of a grasping~plucking:

A great reveal though, currently:

Though my soulful body be over 100 miles as the
crow flies from there, here, where I
was/born/bred/educated/nativized/citified/raised/lowered/ be buried/
and yet reside,
the mayhem vibrant+indigenous+unique
to Isle of Manhattan, where the streets cannot never be
clean enough, always, my eyes cloud over at the 10,000
acts of knindness, rudeness, unimagiable beauty, and sadly,
random violence on every street corner, surrounded by broad
ways, temples of arrogant prideful structures of Tower of Babel
ginormity, all pointing up at Him, asking pointlessly, patiently
for an answer that never comes, to
Why Here, Dearest God?

on this Algonquin island, with Indian trails *still
extant,
trapped tween two diatomic, fast flowing rivers, do we masses
yearning to be free, live here, a man writes (see below) about
the walks he takes upon it paved banks for soul restoration
and new infusions and certification of the answers you've always, |already have known:

every walkabout
in its own way, is a
gray, grayed, concretized
green pasture unique,
topped off with a combinatory
poem and symphony,
that 90% restoreth my soul,
each art, conducted uniquely,
each in its
own particular,  
genetic birth sac,
nourished by the
atmospheric placenta


in the B.C. (Before Covid)
there was a joy at a city's
restoration, excitation,
after many decades of
wilful neglect; Covid
made many flee to
verified green pastures
hundreds of milkes away;
most have now returned,
like the Hudson and the East River,
their/these tides reverse, what goes North,
changes direction, naked to eye visible

So the population too, two way >flowing<
returnees and departees, always churning
the city's populace; here is a story of a man
who escapes but always returns, whose spirits
tidal wave flow from the sheltered sanctuary
to the madcap foment of a city in perpetuity,
revising its demeanor; from both flows do I
draw the water that feeds my words, and each
poem, differentiated, by the accent of my local

this is a city poem, born and bred, from my very
old head, which was birthed in a hospital by its
central park, and will see my ashes scattered within
its con~fines

(see notes for the story of another New Yorker who walks)
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=44&emc=edit_ur_20250417&instance_id=152734&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=new-york-today&paid_regi=0&productCode=UR&regi_id=17556971&segment_id=196172&sendId=196172&uri=nyt://newsletter/4f1c8476-a85a-5781-912f-f1741fc9811a&user_id=0e2bfe72b2cf96f30ceaa6e616d59ce6
Anwer Gani Dec 2024
Wait, O faithful dawn, wait, for my heart is still beating despite this wounded world.  I like the color of the dawn, it fills my lungs with the breath of the revolution, so I fade away in the love of freedom. Then the yellow word does not have space on my lips. My eyes I carry on my back, and my hands I make a boat overflowing with returnees.
To you, dawn and my lips melt in the heart of marble time, this is how the dawn reminds me of all warmth.  Oh, the owner of great concern, my voice is petrified in the midst of cities overflowing with stars, whose lights wander over my cheeks like lost ears of grain searching for walkers.
To you, when you are a spacious beach, those hearts are no longer able to travel to it. It is the radiance that removes the boundaries within me, so there is nothing left of me but a voice that transcends freedom and space. Your hands I see them, wiping off my forehead the strange dust of waiting. Raise me beginning to shake hands with rain. So, the earth announces the beginning of the growing season.
To you, every butterfly stretches over the flowers of my memory, like the pearls of a sleepy lake, every smile explodes in the sky and your eyes keep my joy when the dust increases, O ungrateful earth, O ice capitals, wait, wait for victory.

— The End —