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CA Guilfoyle Jan 2015
Santiago - by David Whyte
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall, and the way forward
always in the end the way that you came, the way
that you followed, the way that carried you into your future,
that brought you to this place, no matter that it sometimes
took your promise from you, no matter that it always
had to break your heart along the way, the sense
of having walked from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
to have risked yourself for something that seemed
to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
that called you back in the end to the only road
you could follow, walking as you did, in your
rags of love and speaking in the voice
that by night, became a prayer for safe arrival…

by: David Whyte
excerpt from SANTIAGO
Continue reading...
Brandon Halsey May 2012
Homosexual Longings For A Guy Named Pete
We sat together in your bedroom
Watching lesbian ****
You salivated at the grotesque display
Of the spread channel from which you were born

You once told me you were disgusted
By the male physique
You showered with your eyes closed
Or risked gagging over the bathroom sink

Among the girls you were popular
They stared at you to pass their day
Your mind was filled with their numbers
My mind filled with words I couldn't say

Senior prom snuck up on us
But you found a beautiful date, indeed
I asked an ugly girl to accompany me
And out of pity she agreed

We danced in the converted gym
Under a gaudy mirrored ball
I was stuck between you and her
With my back up against the wall

Afterwards we went to your house
Your parents were away
And their unlocked liquor cabinet
Only heightened our desire to play

Our dates removed their prom gowns
Then helped us get undressed
We drank till we couldn't stand
And fell to the floor in a heap of flesh

I finally saw you naked
A beauty my eyes could hardly see
You were a God among mere mortals
And even lesser men like me

My date's eyes were filled with lust
And I smelled the alcohol on her breath
I performed the perfunctory motions
And sank into her depths

As your date's head bobbed under the blanket
Your moans of pleasure steadily increased
I was energized by your proximity
Which was the sole reason for my release

We left our dates to sleep
Within their sated bliss
Already you wanted another girl
You could ***** and then dismiss

In the kitchen we finished the bottle
And talked of our recent conquests
Together we shared crude jokes
Made at the expense of the opposite ***

An awkward pause followed
And you gazed into my eyes
I felt the alcohol take effect
And placed my hand upon your thigh

Your mouth then met mine
And our tongues were lost within
Your hands trembled as they explored my chest
You didn't know where to begin

In a mirror you caught your reflection
And fell from my embrace
You said I was disgusting
And spit right in my face

In anger you pushed me away
Asking for forgiveness I dropped to my knees
You said that soon everyone would know about me
Because in this town gossip spread just like disease

At home it hit the hardest
I was my mother's boy no more
My father called me a disgrace
And kicked me out the door

Rejected by friends and family
I have no reason to stay
I'll buy a ticket to another town
Somewhere I can keep my memories at bay

I'll rent out an apartment
And decorate my pastel painted walls
I’ll furnish my new life with a phone
That I know you'll never call

I'll find myself a new group of friends
Someone who understands
The exquisite pain of being
Of falling in love with an ignorant man

I wish that my dreams
Weren't haunted by your face
I wish that I could fall asleep
Without clutching a pillow in your place

I'll listen to bitter love songs
Because on pain I can rely
I'll learn to hide my emotions
And laugh when I really want to cry
Continue reading...
W. H. Auden
The Quest
I. The Door

Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

II. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start
From the best firms at such work: instruments
To take the measure of all queer events,
And drugs to move the bowels or the heart.

A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly,
Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;
Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun,
And coloured beads to soothe a savage eye.

In theory they were sound on Expectation,
Had there been situations to be in;
Unluckily they were their situation:

One should not give a poisoner medicine,
A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
A rifle to a melancholic bore.

III. The Crossroads

Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,
Each to his own mistake; one flashes on
To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie,
A village torpor holds the other one,
Some local wrong where it takes time to die:
This empty junction glitters in the sun.

So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell
These places of decision and farewell
To what dishonour all adventure leads,
What parting gift could give that friend protection,
So orientated his vocation needs
The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?

All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear,
But none have ever thought, the legends say,
The time allowed made it impossible;
For even the most pessimistic set
The limit of their errors at a year.
What friends could there be left then to betray,
What joy take longer to atone for; yet
Who could complete without the extra day
The journey that should take no time at all?

IV. The Traveler

No window in his suburb lights that bedroom where
A little fever heard large afternoons at play:
His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not there
Which went on grinding at the back of love all day.

Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found
The castle where his Greater Hallows are interned;
For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round
Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned.

Could he forget a child's ambition to be old
And institutions where it learned to wash and lie,
He'd tell the truth for which he thinks himself too young,

That everywhere on his horizon, all the sky,
Is now, as always, only waiting to be told
To be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

V. The City

In villages from which their childhoods came
Seeking Necessity, they had been taught
Necessity by nature is the same
No matter how or by whom it be sought.

The city, though, assumed no such belief,
But welcomed each as if he came alone,
The nature of Necessity like grief
Exactly corresponding to his own.

And offered them so many, every one
Found some temptation fit to govern him,
And settled down to master the whole craft

Of being nobody; sat in the sun
During the lunch-hour round the fountain rim,
And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.

VI. The First Temptation

Ashamed to be the darling of his grief,
He joined a gang of rowdy stories where
His gift for magic quickly made him chief
Of all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,
The town's asymmetry into a park;
All hours took taxis; any solitude
Became his flattered duchess in the dark.

But, if he wished for anything less grand,
The nights came padding after him like wild
Beasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth had met him and put out her hand,
He clung in panic to his tall belief
And shrank away like an ill-treated child.

VII. The Second Temptation

His library annoyed him with its look
Of calm belief in being really there;
He threw away a rival's boring book,
And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:
"O Uncreated Nothing, set me free,
Now let Thy perfect be identified,
Unending passion of the Night, with Thee."

And his long-suffering flesh, that all the time
Had felt the simple cravings of the stone
And hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spoke
That now at last she would be left alone,
And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

VIII. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
"All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil's Waltz."

All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

IX. The Tower

This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a ****** made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
"Beware of Magic" to the passer-by.

X. The Presumptuous

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was as daring as they thought him,
But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel of a broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory,
And stuck half-way to settle in some cave
With desert lions to domesticity,

Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,
And met the ogre and were turned to stone.

XI. The Average

His peasant parents killed themselves with toil
To let their darling leave a stingy soil
For any of those fine professions which
Encourage shallow breathing, and grow rich.

The pressure of their fond ambition made
Their shy and country-loving child afraid
No sensible career was good enough,
Only a hero could deserve such love.

So here he was without maps or supplies,
A hundred miles from any decent town;
The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes,
The silence roared displeasure:
looking down,
He saw the shadow of an Average Man
Attempting the exceptional, and ran.

XII. Vocation

Incredulous, he stared at the amused
Official writing down his name among
Those whose request to suffer was refused.

The pen ceased scratching: though he came too late
To join the martyrs, there was still a place
Among the tempters for a caustic tongue

To test the resolution of the young
With tales of the small failings of the great,
And shame the eager with ironic praise.

Though mirrors might be hateful for a while,
Women and books would teach his middle age
The fencing wit of an informal style,
To keep the silences at bay and cage
His pacing manias in a worldly smile.

XIII. The Useful

The over-logical fell for the witch
Whose argument converted him to stone,
Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich,
The over-popular went mad alone,
And kisses brutalised the over-male.

As agents their importance quickly ceased;
Yet, in proportion as they seemed to fail,
Their instrumental value was increased
For one predestined to attain their wish.

By standing stones the blind can feel their way,
Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight,
Beggars assist the slow to travel light,
And even madmen manage to convey
Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish.

XIV. The Way

Fresh addenda are published every day
To the encyclopedia of the Way,

Linguistic notes and scientific explanations,
And texts for schools with modernised spelling and illustrations.

Now everyone knows the hero must choose the old horse,
Abstain from liquor and ****** *******,

And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:
Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,

The way through the waste to the chapel in the rock
For a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock,

Forgetting his information comes mostly from married men
Who liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then.

And how reliable can any truth be that is got
By observing oneself and then just inserting a Not?

XV. The Lucky

Suppose he'd listened to the erudite committee,
He would have only found where not to look;
Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,
It would not have unearthed the buried city;
Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,
The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the book.

"It was not I," he cried as, healthy and astounded,
He stepped across a predecessor's skull;
"A nonsense jingle simply came into my head
And left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded;
I won the Queen because my hair was red;
The terrible adventure is a little dull."

Hence Failure's torment: "Was I doomed in any case,
Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace?"

XVI. The Hero

He parried every question that they hurled:
"What did the Emperor tell you?" "Not to push."
"What is the greatest wonder of the world?"
"The bare man Nothing in the Beggar's Bush."

Some muttered: "He is cagey for effect.
A hero owes a duty to his fame.
He looks too like a grocer for respect."
Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.

The only difference that could be seen
From those who'd never risked their lives at all
Was his delight in details and routine:

For he was always glad to mow the grass,
Pour liquids from large bottles into small,
Or look at clouds through bits of coloured glass.

XVII. Adventure

Others had found it prudent to withdraw
Before official pressure was applied,
Embittered robbers outlawed by the Law,
Lepers in terror of the terrified.

But no one else accused these of a crime;
They did not look ill: old friends, overcome,
Stared as they rolled away from talk and time
Like marbles out into the blank and dumb.

The crowd clung all the closer to convention,
Sunshine and horses, for the sane know why
The even numbers should ignore the odd:

The Nameless is what no free people mention;
Successful men know better than to try
To see the face of their Absconded God.

XVIII. The Adventurers

Spinning upon their central thirst like tops,
They went the Negative Way towards the Dry;
By empty caves beneath an empty sky
They emptied out their memories like slops,

Which made a foul marsh as they dried to death,
Where monsters bred who forced them to forget
The lovelies their consent avoided; yet,
Still praising the Absurd with their last breath,

They seeded out into their miracles:
The images of each grotesque temptation
Became some painter's happiest inspiration,

And barren wives and burning virgins came
To drink the pure cold water of their wells,
And wish for beaux and children in their name.

XIX. The Waters

Poet, oracle, and wit
Like unsuccessful anglers by
The ponds of apperception sit,
Baiting with the wrong request
The vectors of their interest,
At nightfall tell the angler's lie.

With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenomena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering.

The waters long to hear our question put
Which would release their longed-for answer, but.

**. The Garden

Within these gates all opening begins:
White shouts and flickers through its green and red,
Where children play at seven earnest sins
And dogs believe their tall conditions dead.

Here adolescence into number breaks
The perfect circle time can draw on stone,
And flesh forgives division as it makes
Another's moment of consent its own.

All journeys die here: wish and weight are lifted:
Where often round some old maid's desolation
Roses have flung their glory like a cloak,

The gaunt and great, the famed for conversation
Blushed in the stare of evening as they spoke
And felt their centre of volition shifted.
Continue reading...
Kenneth R Pariseau Feb 2021
Waterfall
As I stand before the mountain of confidence called hope, I see a clear path up, not too steep, not too straight, but this path is embodied with rewards to the top.

At the top, there is a magnificent tree made of gold, silver leaves and Copper roots. Hope mountain held a perfect prize awaiting me, a Tree called Faith.
This sight to behold was everything I wanted, everything before me was so clear, but at the bottom where I was, there was a River.

This River was called Shame.
This river was filthy, the water was calm where I was, but looking downstream I could see the rapids of rage, the ripples of conditioning before the raging rapids were inviting.

The dreary stonewalling fortification on the banks allowed no light through, downstream was scary and looked impossible, why would I go that way? why even look?
I looked upstream and saw a blinding light, what could this be? I was so curious, so I waited, a true gentleman always waits.

Two days later the light took shape, as it came closer I could finally see, I could see a lifeboat with a caring nurturing beautiful woman.

As this beautiful woman came closer, I could see the river was being supplied by this woman, I could see she was the source.

The river of Shame was being fed by this woman, this filth in front of me was coming from her, but the beauty was something I've never seen, this beauty had me curious.

This beauty made me forget of the supply to the river.
  What I saw wasn't real all the sudden, what I believed was now real.
She came close enough for my heart to be heard, since she had no heart she was envious, she hated what others admired.

She wanted my wholesome heart, so she used her falsehood love bombing to create one, dreamingly admiring the mountain, we were planning different paths right then.
As I stared at the golden Tree of Faith glowing upon Hope mountain, I didn't notice the river was rising, as the numbing waters were rising it covered my feet, I didn't notice she also took a piece of my heart to claim as her own.

She used toxic gas and light to create a projection that this heart was hers to give back to me.

I didn't know any better so I accepted this ambient abused heart, this unfelt abuse gave me amnesia, this hidden poison of my cognitive dissonance gave her all of me.

Since she had nothing and that's what she craves, I had everything so she wanted to enslave.
I forget about the mountain with the tree even being there. I forgot I was here.

Her lifeboat was awkward, it was shaky,
it has imperfections, it has holes,
   her lifeboat is sinking,
     her heart is missing.
my knightly kind hearted empathy,
   my buffering and nurturing sympathy         pick this beautiful woman up
      I pick this gem up because of her idealization of me.
I can clean this insidious gem because she makes me believe, but through the veil I cannot see.
I throw her over my shoulder to carry all her weight, it's hard to move, hard to breathe, building a new boat was extremely hard, carrying her pain was extremely hard.

Everyone thought it was impossible to do it, my shear will power to commit ****** one foot in front of the other, I just didn't know that going downstream was impossible.

What about the mountain?

I couldn't remember from the amnesia, the dark night blinded my sight of the mountain, the drug in me was you and it consumed, i fell in love with misery and misery loves it's companies.

I stared the snake behind the veil in the eyes, standing tall on her pedastool made of spackle it breaks, I fall onto piercing confusion, I pull out shrapnel's of dissolution, I'm covered in her blood of invalidation.

I'm already floating in the boat with her, this wasn't my plan, this wasn't my reality.
I gaze upon this woman, sun shining behind her, no clouds in the sky.
floating downstream she tells me it's faster, that we'll end up behind the mountain higher.

I'm not worried now, I'm now contempt with shame.
I already forgot reality, I already forgot i'm going downstream, I forgot the searing pain, I forgot what I believe.

I'm relaxed, I'm tired, I'm still happy in love with this spellbound misery.

As we drift slowly through the stonewalls, no light shines through, I ask her for assurance, it's getting dark, I'm getting scared.

That's when the veil comes off, that's when the unnatural beauty grows quiet, that's when my voice screams silently within these stone walls.

This isn't her, this isn't real,
I know there's love I can feel, that was our bond, that was our deal, not to steal.

I fall over board and the water is cold, there's leaches, the debris is so random, the shameful water is moving faster, the all consuming cold confusion, random gaslighting and triangulations moving in around me faster.

I immediately can't bear it. My heart pulsates hard, my mind misfires my flight mode, i cannot intake the overbearingly unowned toxic Shame, her coldness activated my fawn mode, I froze, I start to doze.

luckily she had my leg, luckily she knew excessive admiration CPR, just as my body went limp in the agonizing River of Shame, she pulls me out. luckily she got me just in time, luckily she saved my life.

I awoke away from the stonewalls, it's sunny and safe again, we're together through impossible odds, we built this boat and she saved my life.

The abuse amnesia made me forget, the cognitive dissonance was real, I am not.

The mountain was now farther away, I was worried, I grew fearful, what I wanted looked farther away, that's when everything became gloomy, my goal was no longer there, but she didn't care, she knew where the river went, I believed her, I still do.

The ambient abuse made me anxious, the atmosphere was maddening of fear, it carried anxiety, I couldn't see it, but I was breathing it in.

Her eyes were so incapacitating, her heart disorienting, her soul captivating, she had a better plan, for us to press on and build another boat, to add another life, to believe in her, to not stare at the knife.

We build another boat, were out of the shame waters finally, she's helping me, were soon to be a real family, but the only thing real here was me.

Everything is better on the land, were dry, it's sunny, it's better to feel the nirvanic sand. It's here we bring our new seed, to be sprouted downstream.

I now believe in this new mountain downstream, I don't even remember the mountain I seen, were pressing on downstream past a levy, were now in the River of Grief, we're off to the end of make believe.

This river is really turbulent with rapids of devaluation, the splashes make me irrelevant, the dinigrating actions around make me small, I feel lost and confused, nothing makes sense anymore at all.

At the mouth of the River of Grief it opens up into a valley. She jumped onto a rock of vanity and pushed the tree of disloyalty upon the boat.

This throws me out head first, but luckily I have our seed safe and sound, luckily I learned how to drown.

I turn around falling and see her at the top staring down, she smirked and throws enormously heavy anvils of bereavement to make me fall harder, to keep me down longer.

Evil is real, but only if you believe, I crave the flattery of illusionary love, I still had amnesia, I love misery, the feeling reminds me I can feel, I love my slow death so I say I'll find you, I have the seed, I'll wait for you.

As I fall the thorns of numbing premeditation pierce, the pain is searing, as I fall i'm locked on her, my falsehood of love is still enduring, I don't feel the discard, I ignore the distaste.

I land in a field of hopium still protecting the seed, my amnesia is now worse, I can't remember her smirk, I can't remember the weighted anvils of bereavement, I can't remember the tree of disloyalty, I still can't remember the mountain.

My movement is heavy like concrete, my heart sits down at my feet, my mind is nowhere to be found, my spirit is fading on this ground.

I gather everyone from a nearby village to find her, it's impossible, they can't see her, she never existed, my amnesia was now delusional, the hopium mixed realities, nothing was real, there was nothing I could truly feel because everything was wrong, but I believe misery needs me and I yearned.

I say she's at the top, we have to throw her a rope,
they say it won't reach what isn't there,
I say we need a ladder to throw the rope, they say the ladder isn't safe that high.
  
I say everyone can hold the ladder while I climb perilously to the top, they say it will never work, but since they can see me, since they see a part of me is still real, everyone holds the ladder for me.
      
While I acend with my broken dignity, I acend with a fatigued heart, I acend to find what I believe, no matter how hard I try, I will be taking my destined decent.

The top of the ladder is shaky, I spent forever getting there, it's scary, the heights bring great fear over me, more than I've ever felt, but my knighthood makes me overcome anything.

I suppress, the seed is safe down below, I'm here to impress, I can see her now, only much less.

Her snake skin is peeling, the sun scorched blistering skin shows immense pain, witnessing this releases empathy, the caring knighthood in me naturally wanted to save her again.

So I wrap what's left of my discarded soul upon my broken fatigued heart and I use my trauma bonded mind as bait.

I throw her the rope,
she catches the rope,
I tell her to tie off the rope,
she ties a noose with the rope,
her neck is now wrapped with this rope.

If she falls I can't stop the tightening of the rope, if she falls I already know I'll jump for her and release from her neck this rope.

We jump together and I release the rope around her neck, I see the ground coming fast, but I love this snake, I'll die for this snake because I believe, false beauty inside is all I see.

I grab her and turn her away from the rushing ground, I fell once, I can take the fall again.

She is already hurt, immense pain, she will not feel no more pain, because I'm not hurting for I'm with misery again, I believe I can take all the pain for her, the hopium was numbing everything I consumed.

I awoke to a distressed angel, flawed personality, beautiful nightmare, mirroring the devil, but what I saw was a veil over the snake eyes, what I saw was what I believed before.

What I had wasn't real, who I am is no longer there, for I had ambience amnesia, nothing around me fit, nothing around me was grounded, nothing around me was divine.

The eyes that gazed upon me were captivating, spriling, time froze and only she was moving, the feeling was there, a drug within me, the drug was her and I longed for the misery, I yearned for the pain to remember what was real, I needed the intermittent reinforcement, I wanted my all bets in investment back and I risked a short sale.

We faded into the black, into a new boat, she made this boat, she had plugs in  holes of the boat I couldn't see, I believed it was perfect, I didn't know what awaited was a life long anguish.

I still didn't know what was downstream is impossible, I didn't know this new River of Anguish has piranhas of triangulation, I didn't know the rapids were of oppression, I didn't know the rocks causing these rapids she already put in place, I didn't know it was so black around me in this place, I didn't know my seed would become two, I didn't know I would have to choose.

I didn't know true love was in front of me in my hands and not behind the veil, I thought it was her, all the villagers knew, but as I drew closer to the snake the darkness only grew and the seeds too.

The feeling of my lingering mortality reverberates, she built me a coffin and chained it to my ankles, with this immense weight, I carry it with me just in case.

We floated very fast down this River of Anguish, everything seemed fine to all others including me, the darkened skies covered the evil, the cold waters made my body numb, the seeds were held up high to be be safe from the tormenting waters.

As I held them up high, I didn't realize she was still holding the schraded butcher knife in the water, I didn't believe she would hurt me, I didn't conceive the possibility that knife I didn't see was there all along for me.

The waters of Anguish smothered me, the triangulating piranhas slowly nibbled on my feet in the water, the rapids of oppression kept me gazing in the water, the rocks of malice in the water tried to tip me over, but my balance was true and the seeds were safe from harm, but I am not safe, I'm dying inside.

I don't know why, but after every agonizing stab from this knife when I'm not looking, it hurts, but the numbing knife only helped me when it was pulled out, it has holes in the knife so she could pull it out without me knowing.

I always turned around and cleaned the knife covered in my blood, I always gave it back to her, but every wipe upon this blade made it grow, and every wipe made the label on the handle more clear.

I find out in the end this knife is called narcissistic rage, the brand of this knife is called gaslighting and my blood is the supply.

I didn't know any of this until it was too late to save myself, my reality wasn't real, my dreams are gone, my nightmare is all consuming and existent, my seeds are still safe, but I am not.

When I start to notice the knife exists, I forgive her, the conditioning made the skies darker, I wipe the blood off and give it back, the knife is now a sword, it's name is discard.

The waters are uneven, the piranhas of triangulation feel like strangulation, my clothes are still soaking wet with anguish, my hair is slimy and covered in Shame, my feet are cold and numb from the grief.

I can't understand why I'm here,
  I can't understand why I'm actually meant to be here.
  
Every turbulence has thrown me down, she pushes me over head first, as I try to lean up to breathe she has her foot on my neck in the cold numbing river, but this river does not affect her, this river is warmer than her, the warmth from anguish pleased her, the piranhas followed her commands to bite, she smirked as the rocks she placed crushed against my head.

She waited until I went limp every time, but she knew idealization CPR, her deceit was without compassion, her rage was without sympathy, but I had severe ambience abuse amnesia, I still couldn't remember the mountain, I am now trauma bonded from the stabs she's counting.

I only saw her veil, her gaze convinced me I placed these rocks here, her gaze made me ignore the stonewalls around me, her pure hatred was covered in false intentions, her illusion was my isolation.

As everything was becoming clearly dangerous, as everything went pitch black, I look back and see the light from the mountain glowing, I see there is something wrong where I'm at, I see the seeds are not growing, I start to see the pain all around me.

Non the wiser, I keep coming back from drowning, I keep falling for misery, I keep wiping my blood off the blade, I keep isolated, but now I feel there is something painfully wrong, the reason abates me but I feel it, it hurts, it's camouflaged by deceit, it's all in my head, my coffin is soon to be my bed.

I look to the shores, there are other villagers worried, they are waving frantically, they're pointing at a waterfall ahead, this waterfall is called Doom, this fall would be death, the sound is raging, the mouth all consuming.

I see the stream to the side that the villagers are pointing to, I see the calm waters awaiting our safety, but the boat will not fit.

Only me and the seeds are real, everything else around me is illusional, the trauma delusional, the possible harm to the seeds was not refutable, my love for misery was unsuitable.

I could see my life was in danger, I could see the stream nearby screaming safety, I knew the seeds needed me, now I can't stop shaking.

Without her knowing what I was doing, I turned my back towards her facing the water, I knew she was going to stab me over and over again until I turned around, I now see the hypnotic eyes behind the veil. Not turning around only enraged her, the blood on the knife was condesating.

  The safety of the stream for my seeds was a new found glory in my exodus.
  
I paddled with my small hands this large weighted boat towards the stream, her knife was venomous, the water was echoless, the air imparted dreadfulness, all of this was dimensionless, all of this was not real, unless I let it be, now I can see, now I can finally flee.

As I came closer to the stream the waterfall grew stronger, the pain larger, the sound louder, I knew we were closer to the end, I knew I needed to jump off with my seeds, but I know the torment will end.

I melted my enduring pain inside with molten lava heartache to mold anew, I compartmentalize because I have to choose.

I had a vision that if I jump, the seeds will be safe, the climb to the mountain can still happen, I knew I was right about how I felt all along, I realized the veil couldn't cover the true self, I now believed In me.

I now know the water air and land were not what she made me believe, I knew I didn't choose this path, I knew I could survive, I know the seeds are going to be safe now. I know because I manifested instead of throwing in the towel.

Once close enough I finally looked at her and smiled I love you, jumping into the river I could feel the bitter cold agonizing tormenting river smash me with bereavement and disillusion by dissociation, I felt the coma of trauma surround, for I am now trauma bound.

I hold my seeds up high, I kept them safe because they don't feel the water, they're starting to sprout already, no more decay.

As I climb out of the frigid waters and still dripping wet, the drops are red, my feeling is coming back, my back is full of knives, I'm scared but I survived.
Knowing the worst is over I look back to her, she is consuming the river because she was the source, everything dark folds in on itself because the light cannot touch here, for this black hole is collapsing in on itself, I cover the seeds to shield them of this exorcist, they're safe here because my love is relentless.

The tormenting pain makes it hard to stand tall, still going through bereavement of a false reality where I lost it all, the answers we're all lost in the waterfall
"" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ”"" "" "" "”" "" ""
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Brigitta Cuadros Jan 2018
GUILTY
At age 7, I was guilty
when I accepted an invitation
to go into the apartment of a neighbor
He smelled of beer as he groped me.

At age 10, I was guilty
when I walked home too late
because I missed the train
He popped out of the bushes
exposing himself.

At age 12, I was guilty
when my uncle forced
tongue into my mouth
because I could not
get away.

At age 14, I was guilty
when my uncle forced
me to sit on his lap
while in my bathing suit
and I ran away from home.

At age 16, I was guilty
when my uncle convinced
everyone that I was a liar
and I quit school.

At age 18, I was guilty
when I gave birth to
my first child,
because I was ignorant.

At age 20, I was guilty
when I saw the cardiologist
in the reflection of a lamp
*******  and the
police laughed at my report.

At age 30, I was guilty
when my employer
trapped me in the elevator
to ***** me, because I
was his subserviant.

At age 36, I was guilty
when I earned jujitsu honors
but risked going to jail
for defending myself.

At age 70, I was guilty
when a neighbor brought
me fruit and grabbed my
breast, because I was alone.

At age 72, I am guilty
of being a ferule woman
for 50 years and for
NOT be silent!
How many times must a woman be guilty for her existence?
#meto
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James Jarrett Jul 2014
The law and loss of moral authority : An essay, not a poem
To put our current legal situation into context you have to ask one basic question; what is law? Is law as we have been lead to believe, the codification of statutes defining what is illegal or not? Or is there some inherent property of moral righteousness that must exist for that law to have force?

I will argue that there is a moral component of law that must be present to make the system of law work. I am, of course, aware that there are many places that laws are passed that have no moral basis at all. There are dictatorships around the world that oppress their peoples and use their codified statutes to imprison and **** any who dissent.

The ultimate example of this is was the **** Germany government who made it legal to **** Jews. It was not only legal, but a system of laws was implemented to guide their extermination. But those laws, even though written out with penalties for those who did not follow them by the legislature, were illegal.

It is a basic component of the human being to know right from wrong. It is the reason that human beings set up laws in the first place. They are set up to make sure that innocents are not victimized by the predacious in our societies. In virtually every place that a human society exists, whether on a group, tribal or civilization level, there are always laws that govern behavior. Even those that break the laws have a sense of righteousness. In prison populations, if the prisoners feel that they are being treated in a fair and just manner they will comply with the rules and follow the system. Take away that feeling of just and fair treatment and prison riots and mayhem ensues. The prisoners realize that they have broken the law and when treated humanely will accept their punishment for the most part. The prisoners know that they have committed a wrong and they knew the possible penalty beforehand and knew what they risked. If torture, mal-treatment and other injuries are added to the punishment then a situation of self-righteousness is set up. The only way to control a prison population under those circumstances is with solitary confinement and complete isolation; if left to exist within prison society it would quickly conflagrate into confrontation.

In places where law exists without any moral authority there is always rebellion brewing just under the surface of society. The dictators and bureaucracies of these societies must rule with an iron fist because they know that one moment of slackness will have them swept from power and executed or exiled. Every single individual who is subject to these laws knows that they are illegal. How can they be illegal if they are written into law you might ask; Is that not the definition of law?

My argument is that it is the moral component of the law that is essential for it to work. It has nothing to with writing a statute and everything to do with human nature. We are after all the ones who create the laws, then write them and in the end follow them. It is at the very core of our nature to organize and codify law because we are innately social by nature and always end up forming some type of society that must have rules. It is also our own feeling of self-righteousness that makes us create the laws.

Certain things are innately wrong and one person should not be able to do this or that to another, and that is the basic creator of law. Laws don’t start out as regulations to govern society. They start out as basic rules of moral behavior; don’t steal from those in our community, don’t **** anyone and don’t try to take my wife. It is this same sense of self-righteousness that drives us to rebel when we know that a law is being applied without any righteous basis.

Take traffic laws for an example. Someone is driving down the highway when they suddenly see blue lights in the rearview. They were oblivious to their speed, lost in thought, and look down at the speedometer and see that they are doing 70 M.P.H. When the cop walks up and gives them a speeding ticket for doing 70 M.P.H. in a 50 M.P.H zone, there is little room for self-righteousness. Most people knowing that they broke the law, and one enacted for public safety, will accept the ticket and pay it without even showing up in court. The next example is the opposite.

Someone is rolling down the highway and the only difference in the scenario is that when they look down they see that they are only doing 45 M.P.H. They continue on for a while, waiting for the cop to go around them. When they eventually pull over, part of it is curiosity as to why he would be stopping them. In this case when a 70 M.P.H. ticket is handed out the reaction is going to be entirely different. That person will go to court. In addition to going to court, if not resolved there, they will spend large amounts of time and money to right the injustice. They will actually spend time and money far out of proportion to the actual injustice that happened because they are self-righteous.

Now imagine that the law was written like this: If you are driving down the highway you can be pulled over and issued a speeding ticket at any time no matter what your speed was. That is the point where the law goes against human nature. People would naturally begin to rebel against it because of its inherent injustice. In the second case it is not only that person’s right to rebel against the law, but also their moral obligation. They have a moral obligation to rebel because they should be seeking to re-establish moral law. If they live in human society then moral law, compatible with human nature should be the rule. If this is not the case, then they are being set up to have very bad things happen.

The Jews in **** Germany also had a moral obligation to fight and for the most part they did not (With the notable and heroic exception of the Warsaw ghetto and a few others) and were led to their slaughter. They had a moral obligation not just to themselves, but to their fellow Jews and compatriots. They were obligated to save their children, their mothers and fathers and other humans and in the end, for the most part did not.

Instead they followed the laws of **** Germany. (Just as the German soldiers at the Nuremberg trials did) They agreed to be registered because to not do so would be breaking the law. They showed up in groups to be transported away because to not do so would be breaking the law. They gave up their goods and businesses and money because not to do so would be breaking the law. There were, of course, severe penalties for breaking the law such as being imprisoned or just disappearing into the night and that drove most to comply.

I know that faith also played a part for many and I am not judging their actions or inaction. I am simply stating the results of what happened by their following the law and putting forward the fact that we are all morally obligated to act when law becomes illegal or immoral.

When law has lost its moral authority and becomes nothing more than something punitive to arbitrarily punish enemies then it is not true law; or at least not true to human nature , by which we all act. In that case all the law becomes is a fear of retribution. No one cares if they break the law for they feel no guilt about doing so and we humans, for the most part, are moral beings. Personally I don’t rob people because it is against the law. I don’t rob people because of the fact that it is morally wrong and I have no desire to violently take from another to gain wealth. I will die before I take the sustenance of another to live.

Once the moral component of law is removed only fear of punishment remains. If someone follows the law it is only because they don’t want to be fined or imprisoned; It I not because they have a moral imperative. But fear only goes so far; when the law becomes illegal its moral authority is transferred to those against whom it is used. They now have righteousness on their side and righteousness has a way of cancelling out fear.

Counter-intuitively, the more injustice that is piled on the more it is met with resistance. The IRA is an excellent example. By the 1960’s their membership was flagging and their armed struggle against the British was at very low ebb. That all changed on ****** Sunday when British troops opened fire into a crowd of demonstrators and killed and wounded a number of them. Instead of being frightened by this, they were outraged and active resistance against them doubled. A vicious cycle was started as the British escalated their actions in response to the increase in attacks and therefore caused even more.

The result of the British crackdown was the highest membership in the IRA in history and the start of a real shooting war. The level of violence escalated to a point never seen before and eventually drove the Brits to sue for peace. The danger of enrolling in the outlawed organization was more than offset by the sense of self-righteous outrage that was generated by the deaths and military lock down of entire neighborhoods. When one joined the IRA it was not a matter of if you would die or be imprisoned, but rather when. Still, even knowing what the outcome would be the ranks of the IRA swelled to enormous numbers. When the British military began a covert assassination program to **** suspected IRA members and affiliates, instead of instilling fear it just added to the sense of outrage and drove more to join and fight.

It was the (Legal) injustice of what was being done that gave the moral righteousness to the IRA and drove them to war. I bring this all up because we are now, in our own society, entering an era of legal lawlessness. We will be forced to make choices about how we respond when confronted with these laws. From the patriot act to the NSA spying, the NDAA authorization of indefinite detention, the IRS and the DOJ it is becoming clear that we are living in an increasingly lawless society.

The lawlessness is not on the part of the people, but rather on the part of those writing the law. The irony is that as the laws become more illegitimate the numbers of them are increasing exponentially. There are already so many federal laws on the books that at any given time any given individual is guilty of a crime. We have now become beholden to the very institutions that are supposed to be serving us as a society. Instead of serving us, the people, they now serve the bureaucracy instead. The bureaucracy and the institutions thereof have become the center of law giving rather than we as citizens. The law, rather than protecting us has become an instrument to protect the bureaucracy and punish those who disagree with it.

We have come to the point where our laws are becoming as corrupt as any given banana republic and if we do not actually want to become one, then we need to make a stand and say enough is enough. I am sure that while I have been writing this that I have committed at least three crimes; either by what I have written or done or thought or possibly what type of lighting I used. Do I care? No not at all. My sense of self- righteous indignation has grown to the point that I have no fear. I have no fear of death or imprisonment. The level of outrage has grown in me to the point that I will go to war.

Will they put me in prison? Go ahead lock me up with a captive audience and let me speak the truth to them; I will leave with an army of self-righteous individuals. Of course the speaking of this truth is illegal in prison, but at this point what is law? We all have hard choices coming up in the future; choices that could affect the rest of our lives and need to decide how to act. In the end how we act is going to be influenced by how the legal system acts. Let me end this with a question: If you receive a letter from the IRS informing you that you are subject to an audit, is your hard drive going to crash? I know that mine is.
#war #abuse #police #state #law
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Thomas Thurman May 2010
For Fin
When your creator took her crayon box
That day she thought to draw you all alive,
She found a certain green to sketch your locks,
Another green to show you grow, you thrive;
A green of richest thought unlimited,
A green to match the green of your creation,
A green to go, to boldly forge ahead,
A green for lands of peaceful meditation;
  The Greene King, standing proud with all his queens,
  Jack-in-the-green, surrounded by his trees;
  A thousand other shades of other greens;
  The greenness of the deepness of the seas;
And I, I fall and marvel at the light,
A million greens, like fireworks in the night.

That day she thought to draw you all alive
She drew your outline, sketched you, and refined
And shaped your eyes, that surely saw arrive
The laughing people in the frame behind,
The humans, dogs and kittens, trailing plants,
Who fill your background; all you love are here
Around you in the middle of the dance,
And as you watch, still more of them appear
  Beyond your face within the frame advancing
  Children and relatives and loves and friends
  Holding their merry hands in merry dancing
  Extending off beyond the picture's ends;
I know your other folk would say the same:
It's such an honour dancing in your frame.

She found a certain green to sketch your locks,
A deeper green, a perfect green attaining;
And now another from her crayon-stocks;
Refreshing and repeating what's remaining:
She bleaches it and tries another shade
Then leaves it for a while and grows it out,
Returns it to the colours that she made
Begins to work again, and turns about;
  And why this careful labour to provide you
  With perfect colours captured in your hair?
  She knows your colours mirror what's inside you,
  Eternal greens within you everywhere;
And still beneath, the ever-growing you
Shall dye, and yet shall live with life anew.

Another green to show you grow, you thrive;
Out from the snow the snowdrop breaks in flower.
Who could have called this sleeping bulb alive?
Yet buried patiently it waits its hour,
Counting the snowflakes slowly settling
Their weight upon the heavy earth above;
One day its Winter changes to its Spring.
Who can predict the power of life and love?
  Hope that at last the final frost is dead.
  Faith that the Winter dies and Spring shall rise.
  Love for the life that up through blades has bled.
  Joy to a hundred children's waiting eyes;
For every hour it slept beneath the ground,
A thousand wondering eyes shall gather round.

A green of richest thought unlimited.
I try to say I love you every day:
I know I keep repeating things I've said.
Perhaps I'll try to phrase another way:
Suppose I counted all the money ever
From now until when Abel risked his neck
With my accountants, who were very clever,
And wrote it on a record-breaking cheque...
  It wasn't half your empathising, was it?
  Your thoughts are treasured more than bank accounts;
  The bank won't put your loving on deposit.
  And could they take it, given such amounts?
The jealousy of cash makes misers blind,
And who needs money when you have your mind?

A green to match the green of your creation!
She took her time in sketching out your features,
Shading you well, and, drawn with dedication,
You took the pen she gives to all her creatures
And set about some drawing of your own,
Filling the art with arc and line and shade,
Showing your work the care that you were shown,
And making them as well as you were made;
  And much as life your drawing hand was giving,
  Another life from deep within you drew:
  A life, not merely likeness of the living,
  So separate, yet such a part of you:
Who finds your baby-picture on the shelf
And smiles and finds you, showing you yourself.

A green to go, to boldly forge ahead,
Should shine on traffic lights for every person.
If you should find a colour in its stead
That stops you-- not an arrow for diversion,
To Edmundsbury, Hatfield and the North,
Or any other place that's worth the going--
But rather reds that block your going forth;
If traffic signals freeze your days from flowing,
  Your life is green and you deserve the green.
  And if you try to go about your day
  And greens are coming few and far between,
  And reds and ambers blare about your way:
If so, I pray your days to hold instead
All green, and never amber, never red.

A green for lands of peaceful meditation.
You call: Come stand upon my sacred ground,
Come sit and breathe the peace of contemplation,
Come feel the grass beneath, the lilies round,
Come sleep, come wake, and drink the quiet waters,
Come to the maytree, blackbird, waterfall;
Come know yourselves the planet's sons and daughters.
The people pass and pause, and still you call:
  It's waiting for you when you ask to try it:
  Peace (and the air) cannot be bought or sold.
  You'll never gain it if you try to buy it:
  It's not an asset crumpled fists can hold.
All that you have is nothing you can lose;
You stand on sacred ground. Remove your shoes.

The Greene King, standing proud with all his queens,
Guarding a land of oaks and aches and cold.
It's not a normal place, by any means,
This island of the oldest of the old,
Where bow the ancient oak and ash and thorn
In homage to a figure on a hill;
Deep in the hills where Wayland Smith was born
You stand, an English body, English still.
  For odes and age and air and ale have filled you,
  Made you their own and promised you belong;
  And since their homesick longing hasn't killed you,
  I think you'll be returning to their song;
Come, take your time, and sit and drink with me!
What say you to another cup of tea?

Jack-in-the-green, surrounded by his trees,
Had given birth to leafy life aplenty,
He'd introduced his firs by fours and threes,
And sowed his seedling cedars by the twenty;
The field was filled with trunks and twigs and roots,
The soil was sound and fertile, and the fall
Would fill the forest floor with growing shoots,
And none but Jack was there to watch it all
  Until you came to wander through this field,
  To walk within the ways within the wood;
  Your mind was brought to peace, your spirit healed,
  The forest given form and blessed as good;
Jack-in-the-green will wonder all his days:
your presence never ceases to a maze.

A thousand other shades of other greens:
"Leaf", "emerald", "sea", "bottle", off the cuff;
"Viridian" (uncertain what it means),
But there's so many. Names are not enough.
Yet, in another life, your maker might
Have picked you out among primeval glades
To work as keeper of the rainbow's light
And in another Eden name the shades;
  If so, the planet's poets will rejoice
  That, given life together with a name,
  The colours sing a stronger, clearer voice,
  And every hue will never seem the same:
Each of the shades looks loving back to you,
Its namer and the one who made it new.

The greenness of the deepness of the seas:
A home to fish of many a scaly nation.
Follow the shoals; the smallest one of these
Swims as a fishy summit of creation.
Yet every one's indebted to the shoal,
All subtle in their difference from the rest:
A fish of friends, a member of the whole,
A mix of traits, a taking of the best.
  So you and those of us you love so well
  Will grow along with other friends' increase,
  Required ingredients in the living-spell:
  Each person brings a necessary peace.
The level-headed people mix with mystics,
And both are living mixtures of holistics.

And I, I fall and marvel at the light,
This changing light that grows throughout the years,
Extinguished not by hardship nor by night
Nor foolishness nor sadness nor by tears.
When we were separated by the sea
I wished myself amidst your myriad days.
My wish was mirrored in your missing me;
Your maker joined our wishes, joined our ways;
  She placed our hands on one another's heart,
  And you and I began a lifelong learning
  Of one another, like a magic art
  Whose telling grows with every page's turning,
And holds our friendship as a growing bond
Till seventy years old, and still beyond.

A million greens, like fireworks in the night.**
I fear this sonnet never can be done.
So many colours burst upon my sight
I cannot tell the tale of every one.
But I can tell how vast excitement fills me
When all the flying sparkles fill the sky;
I want to tell the world how much it thrills me
To hold you close, reflected in your eye;
  I want to tell in all my earthly days
  And yet beyond, of what you mean to me;
  I want to say I love the myriad ways
  Of what you are and what you'll grow to be;
These counts combining made the building-blocks
When your creator took her crayon box.
Written as a Valentine's present for and about my partner, Fin.

I recorded myself reading the poem at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27EykqTr-w8 .
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Victor D López Dec 2018
Unsung Heroes #1: Emilio (maternal grandfather)
Unsung Heroes

Although I stand on the shoulders of giants,
I fail to see much farther than the bridge of my nose.
The fault in mine. The shame is mine.
For I am unworthy of you, my beloved dead.

Emilio (Maternal Grandfather)
Your crime was literacy,
And the possession of a social conscience,
That made you yearn to see your beloved Spain remain free,
And prevented you from suffering fascists lightly.

You did not bear arms,
For you abhorred all violence,
You did not incite rebellion, though you
Rebelled against the foreign and domestic enemies of freedom.

As best I can tell you were an idealist who,
In a time of darkness,
Clung passionately to the belief,
In the perfectibility of the human spirit.

You would not abide the lies the regional papers carried,
And translated news from American and British newspapers,
About the gathering storm,
Sharing the truth freely with all who would listen.

You gave speeches, and wrote speeches delivered by others, in support of a doomed
Republic collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption.
You were warned by friends of your imminent arrest and offered passage back to the U.S. or to
Buenos Aires where so many of your friends had already found refuge.

But they would not get your wife and nine children out,
And you refused to leave them to their fate.
They came for you, as always, in the middle of the night,
These cowards with stern faces hiding behind machine guns.

They took you prisoner, not for the first time, to the Castillo de San Anton,
A fortress by a most beautiful, tranquil bay,
Where they tore out your nails, one by one, and those their
Gentlest caresses while they asked you for names.

You endured, God knows what there, for months,
And were sentenced to be shot as a traitor at La Plaza de María Pita.
But the Republic had friends, even among the officers of the fascist forces,
And one of them opened your cell door on the eve of your execution.

You had contracted tuberculosis by then, yet, according to grandmother, you
Managed to swim miles across the bay in a moonless night, to safety in the home of
Another patriot who risked his life and the lives of his family to hide you in
His root cellar and made a trip of many miles on foot to find your wife.

He found your home and told your wife of your unexpected reprieve,
And asked her to send some clothing and some shoes to replace your ***** rags.
You eldest daughter, Maria, insisted on accompanying the stranger back on foot, taking
Clothing and what provisions she could quickly gather and carry to you.

From time to time you accepted the hospitality of an overnight stay
In the attic or hay loft of a
Republican sympathizer as these were not hard to
Find in the fiercely independent
Galicia under the yoke of one of its own. But mostly you lived in the woods, with active guerrillas for years.

You lived with all the comforts of a hunted animal with others who would not yield,
Your only crime consisted of being on the wrong side of a lost cause.
I hope it brought you some comfort to know you were on the right side of history.
It brought none to your wife and none to your youngest children.

As you paid the long penance for your conscience, once a month or so, after some
Time passed, you visited your wife and children. You were introduced to the little ones
As an uncle from afar. They did not know the bearded wild man who paid these visits
In the middle of the night and left wearing dad’s old, clean clothes.

The older ones, Maria, Josefa, Juan and Toñita, all in their teens, told the little ones
That their “uncle” brought news of their dad. The younger children, still wearing the
Frayed cloaks of their innocence, accepted this, not questioning why he stayed in
Mom’s room all night and was gone before they awoke the next morning.

Your grief at playing the part of a stranger in your own home, of not embracing your
Children on whom you doted, one and all, for their protection and yours, as there were
No shortage of fascists who tried to ply them with pastries and candy,
Seeking to use their innocence as a weapon against you.

Your parents were relatively wealthy business owners who farmed the sea but
Disowned you—perhaps for your politics, perhaps for choosing to emigrate and
Refusing to join the family business, or perhaps for marrying for love in New York City
A hard working girl beneath your social station in their eyes.

You lived just long enough to see Spain delivered from war,
Though not freed of her chains.
You were spared the war’s aftermath.
Your wife and children were not.

No books record your name. Most of those who knew you are dead.
Yet flowers have long perpetually appeared on your simple above-ground burial site in
Sada that holds your ashes, and those of your eldest son, Juan, and second-
Eldest daughter, Toñita, who died much younger than even you.

Your wife has joined you there, in a place where
Honor, goodness, decency, principle and a pure,
Broken heart,
Now rest in peace.
You can hear all six of my Unsung Heroes poems read by me in my podcasts at https://open.spotify.com/show/1zgnkuAIVJaQ0Gb6pOfQOH. (plus much more of my fiction, non-fiction and poetry in English and Spanish)
#spanishcivilwar #spain #galicia
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Mukeshimana Boniface Sep 2013
Sovereignty
Not any character of the jungle,
At the time power was kept by the single
Lion kind, risked jumping into the lions’ jaws,
Against their rapacity raising paws:
The hares and hyenas they could strangle
And devour; in their minds best were their laws
Providing rights of the mighty
As common and full sovereignty.

The era was worsened by men-hunting,
Whose guns were used the wildlife menacing.
The weak of the forest saw that succumbed
The lions, who were the first shot at, welcomed
The hunters and their faces showed, smiling.
They were deceived when the first seen were harmed
Like the lions by the same haughty
Men set against their sovereignty.

Some lions who survived called the animals
For a meeting, and the men-criminals
Were the main topic of their discussion.
The lions warned, “Will wipe us away those men
If can’t stand together as animals,
Fight them and save lion, hypo, hare and wren…”
Mocked and heckled the assembly
That ne’er had enjoyed sovereignty.

Each one’s motion was that there was no need
Of obeying on the lions, who to feed
Their cubs with their flesh used to take pleasure.
They thought their forest had become seizure
Of the men for lack of unity; freed
It’d be with or ‘thout a lion as major:
They’d trust who would bring unity
And help them enjoy sovereignty.

There came a time and there came protectors
Of the animals to stop the hunters
From destroying on the environment.
They showed in killing there’s no contentment.
So the hunters ceased to be predators,
And the fauna had no more sentiment
Of hating the humanity
That brought them peace and sovereignty.

Some of them were kept in zoo
And the kingship of the lions they did boo.
Cows, rabbits, goats - were domesticated,
And more than ever they were protected.
Such treatment them gave of humans new view:
The protectors or authors of the deed
Looked like who’d brought brutality,
But in their hearts reigned sovereignty.

Later on the lions found that in the strong
Claws dwelt no good power, but can be for long
Which is applied to all comfort giving,
That a king marching in front of trembling
Souls, as if to hell angels would belong,
One day will see his strength brought to nothing,
But where freedom ain’t scarcity
Kings and subjects share sovereignty.

What the beasts failed to know was the keepers
Of the zoo were children of the poachers,
Who’d found unfair deed what their fathers did,
To take good care of them had decided
And did not want to be called game-seekers’
Generation. In the action could read
Great kindness and humanity
The beasts savoring sovereignty.

A former foe may become a good friend,
Who breaks off with the past and turns his hand
Into protector, support provider –
Like Human Rights Activists. No wonder
Where they are from, people’s torn hearts they mend.
A protector has ne’er been intruder
As long as for tranquility
He works and preserves sovereignty.

A sovereign nation is not like a house
With its closed doors, and inside, like a mouse,
A wife is beaten and loses her life
Without neighbours’ intervention as if
Not hearkening the victim, and the louse
Of man not stopping is to save the life.
Is a land where people’s safety
Is denied full of sovereignty?

If at The Hague someone is indicted,
It means not people he has protected,
Nor that he has well governed Liberia,
But ‘cause people’s hearts he has filled with fear
And a lot of trouble he’s invited.
After shedding blood there and here,
The lions who’ve made their claws *****
Should be there washed for sovereignty.

Wherever the lions rage it’s no matter:
Matters the will to keep the world better.
Some Devil’s advocates would call nations
Not in Syria to find indications
Of crimes as if is found a wife-beater
At Holy Land or brothels it opens.
In a place where reigns sanctity
Won’t dwell breakers of sovereignty.


A rot of conception of sovereignty
Reeks when gangrene holds sway o’er a country,
In which Democracy swings at cannons;
Debates are feared that aim ruling with brains;
Wear noose as necklace who would change carry,
And the song “Independence” is hangmen’s.
Where lions and lambs live with loyalty,
There is unshaken sovereignty.
This poem aims to think of what sovereignty is and especially of its true concept.
http://www.amazon.com/author/bonim007
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Aldous Ayala Dec 2016
Pneumonia
woke up 2pm this morning
squandered all the afternoon
building magic fortresses, high on rainbow rock
til my eyes got sore and i got dizzy
from a sunny, golden-yellow glare
opened up the window, let in the draft
let in the air

(and risked pneumonia)

and I started thinking clearly then,
I started thinking when,
the deathly cold, cursed, no-remove,
fresh air got to my brain
and i sat there by the window
kept it open, 'spite the wind and rain
just following my train
of thought

(and risked pneumonia)

i felt that neither ice nor fire can do me harm
but why is it right now i feel too cold
yet still too warm
feel like a fire can freeze me,
and a breeze may bring me heatstroke,
feels like some sick ******* joke

but i started thinking clearly then,
i started thinking clearly when
my temperature went down
and i got to thinking,
and looking back
to before cold felt warm

and it came to me, i realized...

(i didnt catch pneumonia)
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michael reid rubenstein Oct 2010
Doc Holliday's retort
none of you understand what i’m saying is i’m not like any of you never married never parented children never owned real estate don’t believe in government the law hate rich people not afraid to lose everything risk life for the chance at a better life yes i graduated from Philadelphia dental school practiced medicine several years dashing handsome cordial Georgia physician yet knowing i was dying then of tuberculosis i wanted to feel alive know danger taste possibilities ******* greedy ranch and railroad barons all you cotton gin grist mill moguls loud mouthed Yankee carpetbaggers bounty hunters self-righteous snake oil preachers with your fearful farmstead flocks what the hell do you think Big Nose Kate and me were doing in Tucson why i risked my life at Tombstone’s OK Corral i’ll tell you why because we were desperate beyond your comprehension long-drawn-out careworn hours twisted in desperation insufferably plodding nights so desperate Kate relieved me daily yet in back of each our minds we understood we were both slaves to ancient unfair corrupt economic system that provided enough whiskey to cope desperate for money allegiance shelter frantic enough to face loaded guns aimed firing at me it was hell on earth glaring sun beating down desert dust blowing burning eyes bullets cutting everywhere 1880’s revolvers lacking accuracy even with expert gunsmith modifications young men riddled with bleeding gunshot wounds in 6 years i was dead age 36 hey Kate was no cakewalk she was a ***** who knew how to play me flirting charming admiring exaggerating her strange Hungarian lust encouraging provoking prostituting on her knees back tummy fingers mouth managing somehow to become acquainted with Arizona Governor George Hunt then surviving to age 90 you modern day sleepers who read this rambling cower at airport security passively submit to insidious militarizing culture invasively inspecting camera scanning for cuticle scissors nail file weapons all ludicrous absurdist theatre while real bad guys can easily tape 3 McDonald’s plastic knives together or ball point pen pierce pilots passengers throat arteries skyjack planes hijack bus trains you are no safer than you ever were before Homeland Security Czars foreign wars where we don’t belong riding has grown so weary courage ruthless longing vexing generating entire industry of airport security corporate mall tariff duty free shops inflated restaurant menu prices liter bottle of water $4.99 welcome to America **** me now or **** me later who cares what i look like what i wear if i’m dry shaven smell like goat if i cough up chunks of lung spit tuberculosis germs on polished floors just so long as i pay the toll fee and don’t go shooting off my mouth
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Barry Andrew Pietrantonio Apr 2012
The Rocking Chair
Do you see that rocking chair,
rocking on the front porch?
Unsteady, creaking, rotted wood,
rocking back and forth.

Do you see that elderly man,
sitting in that rocking chair?
Fragile, old, withering away,
running his hand through his grey hair.

Do you know that elderly man,
and what he's done for our country?
Fought, killed, risked his life,
all for the "Land of the Free".

Do you feel for that elderly man,
sitting alone on his front porch?
Has no family, no wife, no kids,
no one to carry his torch.

Where did that elderly man go?
For sale sign in the front yard.
Heart attack? Seizure? No, suicide.
Looks like living got too hard.

Do you see that rocking chair,
rocking on the front porch?
Unsteady, creaking, rotted wood,
alone it rocks,
back and forth.
Copyright Barry Pietrantonio
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The Faithful Dreamer May 2016
My Mother, The Fighter
She has fought through illness and heart pain.
She has seen tragedies, time and again.
She risked her own life so I could be born.
Not listening to the doctors who said to abort.
She has stood through life's trials,
and has come out stronger.
She is my Mother, the Fighter.

She has questioned God.
But her faith has not faltered.
She has placed herself in His hands,
for however long He gives her.
She is my Mother, the Fighter.

She is gentle-spirited, yet a warrior.
She is quiet, yet bold.
She is my Mother, the Fighter.

And she is still fighting.
She has endured long.
And continues to endure.
Whatever comes.
Her story will be told.
To future generations.
I will tell her story.
Her legacy of faith.
For I am her daughter,
and I love her.
She is my Mother, the Fighter.
With her Faithful God behind her.
---dedicated to my loving mother on this Mother's Day.  I love you, Mom.
Thank you for teaching me to fight the good fight of the faith, and to persevere in prayer and through trial, without giving up. You are truly a blessing to me.
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Gracie Knoll Dec 2016
Rest In Peace Princess Leia
Princess Leia, we bid thee bye
May the Force be with you as you fly
Through unforgetting hearts and minds
As Empires fall & the Rebells rise
Your story unfolding before our eyes

We look at your legacy of New Hope
How you melted the heart of Han Solo
Risked your life to save the galaxy far
Did your part destroying the Death Star
And in your heart forgave that vile Darth Vader

Such a person we shall remember
Rest in peace Carrie Fisher.
RIP Princess.
#star #wars #rip #princess #leia #darthvader #hansolo #deathstar #carrie-fisher
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Jordan Apr 2013
Security by Hunter S Thompson
Security … what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

Hunter S. Thompson age 17, 1955
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Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2011
A Girl By The Lake
It was one of those rare and beautiful sunny days the kind that is so bright it enriches every visible living thing. Still there was a lie being lived and told in this captured moment she stood straight and confident her dog set by her she was looking at the natural wonders in awe and appreciation. It was plain to see she was healthy and lived in wonderful surroundings had an all around good life. What I saw I fought forest fires in the service one in particular in the Los Padres National forest. For five days over half of the California division of forestry assisted us plus hundreds from fort Ord were called into help at times there was ninety foot walls of flame. That’s what she was really looking at her needs she would never see in her privileged life the flames of life’s destruction are forever growing closer. We lost a cat operator as he went south to fight a new fire we risked our lives he gave his. The alternative hike up to the secluded pine ridge in this pristine national forest set and look across the great valley that ends at the far horizon where mountains rise to tower in there majesty without sacrifice and risk this would be your view a charred blackened destroyed environment dead displaced wildlife as far as the eye can see filled with sadness you stumble back to your car racing to get clear of this natural disaster. Now bring the true reality of this girl’s situation into view knowing that at every turn she is being bombarded by modern life for the ultimate goal of keeping her from the most important thinking she will ever undertake. Where do I stand with my creator between her and this all important and should be all consuming endeavor. But there is a den of noise arising from modern convenience of every kind then the choking effects of materialism. If this isn’t enough then you face the greatest threat there is one true Word. Then the imitators act as interference the static they produce drowns out the true flow of guidance that can’t be duplicated the answer the enemy uses begin the erosion use the echo of men’s philosophy effectively sounds sincere truth varied ever so slightly but as it continues its course over distance and time you end up with the same damnable truth that our boys are fighting and dying to defeat in the Middle East. Truth sooner or later requires sacrifice and death to preserve it that is the true test what did it cost the one who desires to lead you and your family on the most important course you will ever under take. Take this journey with Paul one who was enlightened as much and truly more so than any other in ancient times. Follow him to the most sacred ground made so by unerring truth amidst gainsayers and scoffers and some of them came out of that darkness to light everlasting. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an unknown God now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”

…When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. It’s your choice where you invest the rest of your life the wise have no hesitation the only drawback this cost everything many will not pay that price so they join the ranks of the deluded. Outwardly sophisticated inwardly they run with the pack of ravenous wolves who crucified the true eternal one. Go ahead judge if these words are true you will hear them again sooner than you will ever wish to hear.
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Andrew T Jul 2016
Controlla
Control the guns. Or unload on one. Under the hopeless sun. Or control the shooters who stole his future.
Patrol in stupor when the gaping hole is super. Rolling in supras.
Holding and maneuver, round the bend. Good lord, glad I found the pen. But white men found the pen. In there, Black men down and spent. And they're wasting away in the pen. Write a letter to their friends. Either their behind the bars, or drinking in bars, or rhyming these bars. Spit it like I got tobacco juice in my mouth. Another shooting in the south, while I watch from the couch.

Kendrick said we gon be all right. And I'll believe him, when everyone has the same rights. When the white man know wrong from right. But just because you're light in your skin, it doesn't mean you're gone from light. Let this song break fights. Still though, as long as we're nice, you'll still invite us to smoke bongs and pipes.

But when the summer heat scorches the streets and the Porsches, next to the fortress with the smooth grain porches, you will ignore this. Warning shot coming at you, hot enough to light torches. I wake up every day thinking life is gorgeous, but at night I still walk like the tortoise.

No more of this.

Blood spilling on the pavement, now you wonder why I lounge in the basement. They say practice patience. They say keep waiting. They say there's saving. Pop a pill, forget about life, start raving. Po-po after the po, so send Edgar Allen Poe with a raven. Calling us kings, like this Game of Thrones, but this war is ancient. God vs. Satan. Medusa vs. the Maiden. Neo vs. all the agents.

Take hits before I escape to the matrix. Tired of eating fake ****. Make spliffs, out of makeshift wooden ships, that Cuba Gooding Jr. Gripped. Won't take lip, go and save it. Why are they loved and we hated?

Emotion flowing from the mac and the healing potion flowing from the track. Go in the back. Put the slow motion in the stacks, the records from class, tethered in snacks. America's anger is growing in fact, because every one knowing life's back. Shoot the body and throw it in the back. Fiction, or reality? Turn on the television, that has driven your vision to a complacent state of living. And you wonder why we're so forgiving?

But we're never forgetting. This here is armageddon. This is how life be when karma getting to be like, getting to be like, getting to be like fatal. Like Cain did abel. Death, or disabled. Missed the fable, because I kissed the label. Then the bottle, as I went and risked the stable. Now I'm gathering my crew and we're ****** and a holes.

Hear the shot ring from Baton Rouge to Chicago. Thinking about becoming a florist. Foreigner in this land of tourists. Listening to beats from Morris. Joshua hit me up for the chorus. How many black Americans need to die? If it were white people, would you ignore this?
#control #kings #rulers #blacklivesmatter #pharaohs #controlla #theslain
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Peter Simon Nov 2014
An Ant's Awful Adventure
In a straight line I walk,
A lot of work, without talk
Under leaves and over rocks
Heavy lifts to keep our stocks

The Queen has ordered this
Everything she wants, we can't miss
Now, I regret I've followed her wish
'Cause I've risked my life with this

The enormous creature's over our heads
Makes me wanna break our thread
Its gigantic limb slowly lands
And the last thing I could do is wave my hands...
#sad #life #awful #bug #ant
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Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
Death by GPS / in continuum imito
reinventing the resurrection of the Roman Empire with
a pseudo-Christ in tow will prove fatal -
or simply propelled to an established
norm for all the wrong reasons
other than a quasi-Narcissism fully embracing
fetishes beyond the standardised
practises of human evolutionary concerns -
see how Darwinism is incubator
of fatalist vocabulary? too much arrogance -
they're nothing more than Spanish
Inquisition leeches - because when was
atheism intended as a fashion statement
with mismatched socks and matching
loafers? probably never.
we already sought to put atheistic economics
on the guillotine tablature -
the temple named: all men are born equal
was always Samson's prize for demolition's
just escapade, in or anywhere outside of
a Glasgow housing estate -
a Scot making a joke about Scots:
how was copper wire invented?
two Scots arguing over a 2 pence coin...
a stretch Armstrong moment i'd like to see.
all we need is Hillary for the unholy alliance
to materialise - the birth of horse racing
and womanised politics -
and are you the baby tarantula on the back
of mama tarantula? no? oh... don't
expect much from mama tarantula
if you're not part of her family and genetic vector.
the resurrection of the Roman empire as cited
by Divine John has a major fault...
the original intention prior to the authority of
Augustus was based on republicanism -
not democracy - the autocracy evolved from
republicanism, not democracy -
and if this be the McDonald model of work
ethic and success, it will be hard finding a few wise
old men to quench a rise in despotism -
the naive-expectation will over-power them -
we could see America as our safety laboratory once -
where the fates of Greek democracy and Roman
republicanism were played out -
rule of the many v. rule of the informed worthy few -
if elections came about the former would
have a lot of numbers anonymously signed X -
while the latter a few numbers but identified with
articulate signatures - democracy is basically
a stab in the dark, that precipitates to a vote of
no confidence - and an immediate imitation of
Pontius Pilate's quest for conscience and washing his
hands in pseudo-Dostoyevsky's the machinist,
with bleach - ****** courtroom -
when older poets recite their republicanism knowing how,
the newer ones recite their democracy knowing neither
how or why - thus the resurrection of Rome built
around democracy and not republicanism -
the washing of the hands and loss of conscience -
this prophesied resurrection of Rome was not based
on republicanism but on democracy, for the simple
fact that democracy had its martyr - a republican member
should another be fixed to compete with him -
no Platonic notation of the idea behind the republic
was ever established - but indeed a lot was noted
concerning democracy - which in practice wasn't
a practice in dialectics, but in dichotomy -
the polarisation of opinions in the simplest terms:
man v. woman, old v. young...
the republicans only had one dialectics ruining them:
the dichotomy between one man and the many -
is man to be as automated as insect or Satanically
rebellious and in his own sway "himself"?
there need not be a conjuring of biblical myths with
this concern - man was not temped for insight
into the disparity of good and evil and subsequent
confusion of attributing each its invested share
of expression in the world of choice -
but man was made an ontological alliance with
the famous villain (i too, akin to Milton's sympathy
a pledged allegiance do make an oath to consummate
a rival marriage, kindred of celibacy shared
by truth or perception, royal, named Elizabeth I) -
for if not by rebellion Satanic not make elemental conquests
or at least improve on them?
Francis Bacon died attempting to conjure up
a refrigerator with a dead chicken - dying from
hypothermia, or a really bad cold; never mind that,
if the resurrection of a united pseudo-Rome is to be
established it cannot take root in democracy -
but it already has, and is doomed to fail
given one of its former provinces risked all to exit -
it has to be rooted in the origin, in republicanism -
but it can't take root there, given the lost vitality of ancient
old age and modern old age leaving behind
only disparity - audacity of youth in every sphere
of life - and the blatantly over-stretched comforts of
old age - the American experiment of having
democracy v. republicanism staged failed -
that was the intention - to see which one was more the success
story of the revival - i appears neither or precisely both -
in that democracy has fuelled the city-states once again:
globalisation and the city-states: London, Paris, Germany...
they exist as separate entities in a web segregating
themselves from national politics and associating themselves
in global politics with only their counterparts -
the Greek city states have been revived by such dynamic;
so if democracy fuelled that, then surely republicanism
has fuelled what happened in the British exit from the union?
coup d'état in Turkey (on the waiting list, joining in
2020 along with Serbia and Albania etc.) - if you can't see
xenophobia and a choice of politically correct vocabulary
you don't see the naivety of Polish pensioners and English
pensioners - Turks at home in Germany - but let's revitalise
the memory the Iraqis share with Mongols and the sacking
of Baghdad and the Siege of Vienna between Turks and Poles -
i've assimilated into British society i don't identify with
such ethnic historicity - i was taught history including Roman
conquests; do i think the Scots will break from the Union?
i think they'll break for ethnic moral - that's
the other member of the unholy alliance, a real cat fight,
2nd Ms. Thatcher in Downing Street? the youth voted
in - the old voted out - when they were concentrating
on the gender gap a milieu gap was convening -
outside of London the impression of the family environment
suggested the youth didn't vote, in the urban environment
youth mingled with youth, to later hear their parents
or grandparents were dying ****-stained in care-homes...
strange: you always seem to wish to be part of a Mongolian
horde in such times for the oddest but the most blatant
reasons... oh yeah, and i read 5 books today...
well, i told you, once you read enough books of your
own choice you end up reading poems and reviews to
give yourself some slack...
- les parisiennes by Anne Sebba (review by Daisy Goodwin)
  (always women reading books by women,
   and men reading books by men... what sexism
   in this post-sexist culture of FEMININE EQUAL)
- Paper: passing through history by Mark Kurlansky
    (review by John Sutherland) p.s. best citations
    from this review... maybe some other time...
-  The Age of Bowie: how david bowie made a world of
     difference by Paul Morley (review by Will Hodgkinson)
-  the Girl who Beat Isis: my story by Farida K(h)alaf with
    Andrea C. Hoffman trans. by Jamie Bulloch (review by
    Catherine Philp)
-  Pinpoint: how GPS is changing our World by Greg Milner
    (review by Damian Whitworth)
and finally...
- All things made New: writing on the Reformation by
    Diarmaid MacCulloch (review by Robert Tombs)...
                                indeed,
                                 the terrible has
                                 already happened;
never leverage on
a positive thought when
working from Pompeii -
as the lessons of failure
from the past magnify -
there is nothing
but hindsight and pessimism
in the past to unearth -
while uncertainty and optimism
toward the future readying
itself for the burial rites
of the already unearthed artefacts
in continuum imito (in a continuum of imitation).
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Ted Scheck Dec 2014
The Philosophy of Theft
I was driving
And thinking
(Dangerous, I know)
Thinking, hard, fast,
And even, slow;
(Did I slow down)
That is a question
Best answered for
Another poem.
(My driving?
My thinking?)

You distracted me.
I wish you would
Please
Stop doing that.
Sheesh.

I was thinking about
Robbery.
Of the armed persuasion.
Why 'armed' robbery?
Weaponized sounds better.
More exotic.
Forearmed?
Elbowed?
Wrong limb classification.
Handed robbery, unless
Prosthetics are involved.
Hooked robbery?

Unarmed robbery-
(Unhanded? UnHAND, me,
Sir!)
Is that just simple
Theft?
And is a simple
Theft ever really
Simple?
Ah, the philosophy of theft.
I think I want that,
Therefore, I exist,
Because want cannot
Exist on its own.
(Or, maybe: Want
Has pre-existence;
It is VIRTUAL
Minus the virtue-part
Until it becomes…
ACTUAL)

I’ve stolen over
My years.
I’ve taken things
That pretended to belong
To someone else.
They belonged to me
Even less.
Ad Victorum Spoilas
(To the victor, goes the spoils)
Spoiled is right.
I still feel
Residual guilt over
These crimes.
I’ve never witnessed
A violent crime.
Never been in the holdup
Of a middle.
Never seen a man
Wearing a ski mask
Running perpendicularly.
(Why are women never
Mentioned running?
Away from the scenes
Of robbery?)
Heels.
(Men are, I mean)

Stanley Kubrick Scenes
Of Robbery:
The Shining: Uncut
Take 146:
“This time, Jack,
Pretend you're a ballerina
Holding up a
Leotard store.”

I cannot wrap my
Mind around the thought
Fathered by the impulse
Grandfathered by the
Desperation of needing
Wanting
Something so badly you’d
Wager your ability
To wander, to mosey on
Along the boulevard, up
The hill, past the
Graveyard that you only
Remember was the dead
Sleeping a mile past it
In the car with which you
Are legally able to operate.

Hey! I think I’ll grab
This gun, and put bullets
In chambers, and possibly
Hide my face behind
A silly mask, and then,
Possibly, point it at
Bank Tellers?
Pregnant Ladies.
Clowns.
Mimes.
OK, I can see threatening
Mimes.

Besides appearing to
Be the most harmless of
Professionals,
They get paid peanuts.
And they get guns
Stuck in their faces
All the time.
So step 1 goes with
Hitches, glitches galore.
Video surveillance.
Dye-marked money bags.
Security guards lurking.
Dudes with cameras.

So you’ve stolen
The public’s money.
You’re in the getaway
Car, ineptly named,
Because whatever the
Percentage
Of bank robbers who
Free, clear, and cleanly
Get away has to be
Impossibly low.
What do you have, now,
Now that you have
What you risked sharing
A cell with Bubba
To steal?

Sadness. Grief. Guilt.
Stained hands.
Equally stained heart.
(And oh yeah, lots
Of marked/unmarked
Bills)
Do you feel anything
Anything at all?
Having your fun
Stuffing bills into the
Garters and ******* of
Bored strippers?
Buying expensive alcohol
And, later, waking up having
Vomited and voided yourself
In the back of a limo
That has, on top of it,
A giant chicken?

None of us,
Not ONE of us,
Knows the time of
Our demise.
We will be gone
One moment,
And Here before Jesus
The next.
At the Foot of the
Judgment Seat of Christ
Himself. Almighty God.
Quaking, trembling,
Feeling the truest form of
Respectful fear,
Fearful respect.
Shed of our human skin
Our spirits filled with the
Substance from the choices
We omitted and committed.

I know Jesus Christ
As and Is My Savior.
The god of money
(Mammon)
Will not be there
To Judge me.
God has ears, eyes.
He sees, hears.
Every thing.
ALL THINGS.
Little gods are both
Blind and deaf
(If the blind and
Deaf can be said
To exist for non-
Existent things).

Jesus will recognize me
As one of his own.
Satan might be skulking
Around, looking for
Those who chose anyone
Else but Christ as
Savior.
(Like the green cottony
Stuff that many think causes
The world to rotate)

The sweetest words I’ve
Ever dreamt of hearing
I will hear from the
Mouth of the Man who
Created everything
By speaking it aloud.
The ore in the ground
That eventually went into
The gun that I never pointed
At someone else
While taking things
That didn’t belong to me.
The trees that yielded
Some of the paper
(Most of it’s linen)
That was the money
In someone else’s
Account
From the bank I never
Robbed because I was
Too afraid of the
Consequences
Of
Theft.
Continue reading...
GitacharYa VedaLa May 2014
Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel
I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.

Parting with his poison - flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room -
he risked the rain again.

The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One.

With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said.

May he sit still, they said
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world

against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh

of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.

My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.
Belated Mothers day wishes
Continue reading...
Karijinbba Jul 2018
Insurance Fraud
There was a very cautious man
Who never laughed or played
He never risked, he never tried,
He never sang or prayed.
And when he on day passed away,
His insurance was denied,
For since he never really lived,
They claimed he never died.
Jump into life lose win grow shrink live hate cry love love and love children men women cat dog anything share what you learn so others won't have to suffer.
#insurance #denied #laughter #sang
Continue reading...
Aaron Shxaeetί Mullin Sep 2014
Crossroads II
I went down to the crossroads. It was time for my life to start but I was dealing with a sticky throttle. I couldn't find my voice, I couldn't find momentum. When life got moving, then everything was coming in fits and starts. When I wasn't completely stuck in the mud I risked running myself over because I went from no traction to full traction in a fraction ... everything came so fast and furious.

So I sat there at the crossroads and there was the devil, waiting … he was waiting to see what I had to offer. When he saw that I couldn't or wouldn't offer the things that he wanted he stayed away. The devil had a certain amount of integrity, he was of the old ways.

As a stubborn individual, I decided not to leave. I felt the crossroads still had answers to offer up. Soon another entity came, it was god. God wanted to make a deal with me. I should have felt relieved, here was Mr. Omniscience himself. All he wanted in return was my eternal soul, he wanted me to live a god life so that I could go to heaven. When I thought about it, I decided that this deal was ******* than what the devil had to offer. At least I could eventually swim out of hell and give it another whirl. God didn't offer much hope for a second chance. He was willing to sacrifice his son so that I would have eternal peace. **** this dude. He should be tried for crimes against humanity at the most preposterous and for infanticide at the most basic levels.

But maybe this story was best told as a trinity. Maybe Jesus walked this Earth so that he could sacrifice Himself. He knew the choices that were offered on this planet. The devil you know versus an eternal rest. Of the many preposterous things that we could do in worship maybe worshipping cows made the most sense. Maybe jesus took some bones of his father and came back to earth so that he could resolve this injustice. Maybe Jesus was ******* story overlaid on ******* story or maybe there was truth buried somewhere deep in our collective. Maybe it wasn't jesus that stole some of his father's bones but maybe it was eve who stole some of her father's bones and she sacrificed herself so that we could wake up out of dreamtime. So that she could take a bite out of the apple of knowledge and so that she could wake us all up to the beautiful things that lie under her feet.

If I am to ever worship anything in this world then it would be eve.

Meanwhile, back at the crossroads.

Zeus or Allah or Yaweh or Krishna or whatever you want to call Him had all the best intentions. I was one of his children, he told me. If I would repent at this crossroads in my life then I would be able to live alongside all my brother's and sister's in a place that defied all physical laws (that I'm aware of) for eternity. So, God was telling me that I should not live in this life ... but instead, live in the next one. This was just a practice life! He wanted me defy the laws, the architecture that had been laid down for us … he wanted me to defy the Code so that we can go get 'stuck' in dreamtime for eternity. And that was it, I saw where the integrity was emanating from. It wasn't from this pseudo-god or from dreamtime or from any other unhealthy alternatives. The answer was the crossroads itself. The answer was under our feet. Under my feet, the whole time. This planet, as an expression of the stars, has all the answers that we need at this time. We need to relish these crossroads that we come to in our life and own it. Don't take ownership for what's under your feet, take ownership for everything from soul to crown ~ nothing more, nothing less
Published 29 September 2014 @ YXY

Revised 26 September 2014 in Her Queen Majesty's airspace somewhere over Kanata.

Originally contemplated 31 July 2013

This is source knowledge. I believe the Tao is the key to mastery of life
#eye #betwixt #anisotropica #inastorm #robertjohnson
Continue reading...
Homer
The Odyssey: Book 04
They reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon them where they
drove straight to the of abode Menelaus [and found him in his own
house, feasting with his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his
son, and also of his daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that
valiant warrior Achilles. He had given his consent and promised her to
him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the
marriage about; so he was sending her with chariots and horses to
the city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles’ son was reigning. For
his only son he had found a bride from Sparta, daughter of Alector.
This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven
vouchsafed Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who
was fair as golden Venus herself.
  So the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making
merry in his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his
lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them
when the man struck up with his tune.]
  Telemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate,
whereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw
them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went
close up to him and said, “Menelaus, there are some strangers come
here, two men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we
take their horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as
they best can?”
  Menelaus was very angry and said, “Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you
never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their
horses out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have
supper; you and I have stayed often enough at other people’s houses
before we got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in
peace henceforward.”
  So Eteoneus bustled back and bade other servants come with him. They
took their sweating hands from under the yoke, made them fast to the
mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they
leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led
the way into the house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished
when they saw it, for its splendour was as that of the sun and moon;
then, when they had admired everything to their heart’s content,
they went into the bath room and washed themselves.
  When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they
brought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats
by the side of Menelaus. A maidservant brought them water in a
beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to
wash their hands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper
servant brought them bread, and offered them many good things of
what there was in the house, while the carver fetched them plates of
all manner of meats and set cups of gold by their side.
  Menelaus then greeted them saying, “Fall to, and welcome; when you
have done supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such
men as you cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of
sceptre-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you
are.”
  On this he handed them a piece of fat roast ****, which had been set
near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the
good things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to
eat and drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head
so close that no one might hear, “Look, Pisistratus, man after my
own heart, see the gleam of bronze and gold—of amber, ivory, and
silver. Everything is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of
Olympian Jove. I am lost in admiration.”
  Menelaus overheard him and said, “No one, my sons, can hold his
own with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but
among mortal men—well, there may be another who has as much wealth as
I have, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much
and have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before
I could get home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the
Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the
Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are
born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that
country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good
milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I was
travelling and getting great riches among these people, my brother was
secretly and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked
wife, so that I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth.
Whoever your parents may be they must have told you about all this,
and of my heavy loss in the ruin of a stately mansion fully and
magnificently furnished. Would that I had only a third of what I now
have so that I had stayed at home, and all those were living who
perished on the plain of Troy, far from Argos. I of grieve, as I sit
here in my house, for one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for
sorrow, but presently I leave off again, for crying is cold comfort
and one soon tires of it. Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so for
one man more than for them all. I cannot even think of him without
loathing both food and sleep, so miserable does he make me, for no one
of all the Achaeans worked so hard or risked so much as he did. He
took nothing by it, and has left a legacy of sorrow to myself, for
he has been gone a long time, and we know not whether he is alive or
dead. His old father, his long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son
Telemachus, whom he left behind him an infant in arms, are plunged
in grief on his account.”
  Thus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he
bethought him of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard
him thus mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with
both hands. When Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him
choose his own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find
what it was all about.
  While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted
and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought
her a seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the
silver work-box which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her.
Polybus lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the
whole world; he gave Menelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two
tripods, and ten talents of gold; besides all this, his wife gave
Helen some beautiful presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a
silver work-box that ran on wheels, with a gold band round the top
of it. Phylo now placed this by her side, full of fine spun yarn,
and a distaff charged with violet coloured wool was laid upon the
top of it. Then Helen took her seat, put her feet upon the
footstool, and began to question her husband.
  “Do we know, Menelaus,” said she, “the names of these strangers
who have come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?-but I
cannot help saying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or
woman so like somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know
what to think) as this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left
as a baby behind him, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in
your hearts, on account of my most shameless self.”
  “My dear wife,” replied Menelaus, “I see the likeness just as you
do. His hands and feet are just like Ulysses’; so is his hair, with
the shape of his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I
was talking about Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my
account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle.”
  Then Pisistratus said, “Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in
thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and
is ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one
whose conversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My
father, Nestor, sent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know
whether you could give him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always
trouble at home when his father has gone away leaving him without
supporters; and this is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father
is absent, and there is no one among his own people to stand by him.”
  “Bless my heart,” replied Menelaus, “then I am receiving a visit
from the son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for
my sake. I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked
distinction when heaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the
seas. I should have founded a city for him in Argos, and built him a
house. I should have made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son,
and all his people, and should have sacked for them some one of the
neighbouring cities that are subject to me. We should thus have seen
one another continually, and nothing but death could have
interrupted so close and happy an *******. I suppose, however,
that heaven grudged us such great good fortune, for it has prevented
the poor fellow from ever getting home at all.”
  Thus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept,
Telemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his
eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom
the son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus,
  “Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told
me you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it
be possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I
am getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the
forenoon I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone.
This is all we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads
for them and wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died
at Troy; he was by no means the worst man there; you are sure to
have known him—his name was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him
myself, but they say that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight
valiant.”
  “Your discretion, my friend,” answered Menelaus, “is beyond your
years. It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a
man is son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and
offspring—and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his
days, giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him
who are both we disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore
to all this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be
poured over our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another
fully in the morning.”
  On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their
hands and they laid their hands on the good things that were before
them.
  Then Jove’s daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She
drugged the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and
ill humour. Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear
all the rest of the day, not even though his father and mother both of
them drop down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces
before his very eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue,
had been given to Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt,
where there grow all sorts of herbs, some good to put into the
mixing-bowl and others poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole
country is a skilled physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon.
When Helen had put this drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to
serve the wine round, she said:
  “Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of
honourable men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of
good and evil, and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will,
and listen while I tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name
every single one of the exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did
when he was before Troy, and you Achaeans were in all sorts of
difficulties. He covered himself with wounds and bruises, dressed
himself all in rags, and entered the enemy’s city looking like a
menial or a beggar. and quite different from what he did when he was
among his own people. In this disguise he entered the city of Troy,
and no one said anything to him. I alone recognized him and began to
question him, but he was too cunning for me. When, however, I had
washed and anointed him and had given him clothes, and after I had
sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the Trojans till he had got
safely back to his own camp and to the ships, he told me all that
the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans and got much
information before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things
the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I was glad, for
my heart was beginning to oam after my home, and I was unhappy about
wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there, away from my
country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is indeed by no
means deficient either in person or understanding.”
  Then Menelaus said, “All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is
true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes,
but I have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too,
and what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the
bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and
destruction upon the Trojans. At that moment you came up to us; some
god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and
you had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our
hiding place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name,
and mimicked all our wives -Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats
inside heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our
minds whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from
inside, but Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all
except Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped
his two brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was
this that saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took
you away again.”
  “How sad,” exclaimed Telemachus, “that all this was of no avail to
save him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to
send us all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of
sleep.”
  On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that
was in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and
spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests
to wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds,
to which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus,
then, did Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt,
while the son of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by
his side.
  When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Menelaus
rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely
feet, girded his sword about his shoulders, and left his room
looking like an immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he
said:
  “And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to
Lacedaemon? Are you on public or private business? Tell me all about
it.”
  “I have come, sir replied Telemachus, “to see if you can tell me
anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my
fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who
keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of
paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your
knees if haply you may tell me about my father’s melancholy end,
whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other
traveller; for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things
out of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly
what you saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service
either by word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the
Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all.”
  Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. “So,” he
exclaimed, “these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed? A hind
might as well lay her new born you
Continue reading...
Nicholas Mercier Coulombe Feb 2017
**** Pruning
I convinced a man he could prune his own ****.

That if he spliced it just so,
two little pink shafts would sprout in it's place.
Wriggle themselves growing into two separate fully functional phallus.
And I watched him.
As he reluctantly reached for the shears.
And went through the five stages of grieving.

"There's no way this will work.

******* for telling me this secret!

can't I just take a pill to grow a second **** without having to cut this one off?

I don't think I can live without it..."

but just think, I reminded him.
after you do this.
You're gonna have TWO *****.

"I'M GONNA HAVE TWO *****!"

TWO *****.

And with almost no other thought, reasoning or belief.

He closed the shears



He opened his eyes.

His flaccid privilege laying there.

"When does the growing start?"
He asked me, pained.
His big brown eyes swelling.

"It doesn't."

"WHAT?"

"I lied to you, it doesn't grow back."

"It doesn't grow back? Not even one?

"Not one, not two,
no **** for you. I lied."

"Lied?"

"Lied."

it was easy,
to convince him.
Just had to promise he'd have two times the power in the long run.
If he risked it all right now.
#funny #humor #feminism #value #shock #comedy #***** #**** #**** #privilege
Continue reading...
AJ Jul 2017
Chasing Sunsets
i've found myself swerving off the road when the sun is setting.
when splashes of orange, pink, yellow spray across the summer sky my eyes wander away from the road and i'm lost in the color.
i've risked my life just to catch a glimpse of heaven's painting, and i think that's how it is every time i look at you.
i chase sunsets like i chase you,
always wanting to see more of you and not being able to stop myself.
you're as beautiful as a sunset,
and i'll keep chasing you until i crash.
i was driving home from my boyfriends house and i swear it was like chasing a sunset. 40 minutes of chasing
Continue reading...
Tark Wain Jul 2014
The Plant (Long but please read)
A plant grew in a forest
beginning as a sapling in a crowded opening
two inches tall
with no idea of what it was becoming
it rose slowly
but consistently
as others rose above it for light
it reaped the benefits of leftovers
this plant grew
not to be the tallest
not to be the prettiest
but it grew
It took in carbon dioxide
and released oxygen
it did its job
it was a good plant


eventually like most things this plant died
after being trampled by a young boy
this boy visited this forest everyday
its nature was his greatest toy
he knew the surroundings by heart
from the tallest tree to the smallest shrew
he saw all in his dreams
he knew all the plants save for a few
one of those few was our plant
although it stood tall, it was not tall enough
although it was pretty, it was not pretty enough
it died unremarkable
it was a good plant
it did its job
but it died without a trace
because it never risked to take another's place


and so the boy grew older
he left the forest for an office
in the hopes that one day
he’d be rich enough to return
so he climbed the ladder
and said all the right things
he was a good man
he did his job
until he met a girl
a girl so powerful
so unmistakably perfect
he had to rise above the others
he left his job because he hated it
he stood tall to reach the sun
he took risks not because he had to
but because he wanted to


this man died poor
he did not succeed
there was no beverly hills
no millionaire mansion down the street
this man never climbed that corporate ladder
never got lost in the rat race
never missed the birth of his son
never broke a promise to that boy
he took a risk he shouldn’t have
an unnecessary leap of faith
he looked back on his past
the trouble he left in his wake
he remembered that plant
the one he didn’t see
the reason he is who he is
the man who became a tree


take risks because you should
because one day you will die
buried under dirt
while your life has passed you by
life is too short
too precious
to be a good man
to just do your job
#life #death #nature #earth
Continue reading...
vircapio gale Sep 2013
window *** and wandering. pane 3
(history)

Quell the bard was silken-clad and ever young.
her flute connected earth and sky,
tamed lightning in the higher notes..
her ancient horse would winnie to her song
of endless breath she blew her story even into stone.
having borne the stigmas of a *****
her martial prowess struck,
trampled disrespect to cacophonic dust
while over hills and vales he carried her--
a love-sick equine heart at peace at last upon the road
between her thighs, commanded loyalty of beasts and men.
none claimed her for their own,
though some risked instant death to try

..stirge beaks tap on bones and rock
to seek corrupted blood of elven kings,
who having reigned and fallen
to a royal troglodyte of dragon times,
paint each eon with ambivalence...
i conjure what my heritage beholds
--reclusive double-tongue to hoard all words,
reinvent religions for a lark

what legend am i privy to the making of
that hasn't had its underwires stripped,
hung about a square in lewd display of Fact
to purge a sense of mystery awry?

i am alone within my fantasy.
its symbols still mythologize my i.
i will not bare it here, or anywhere--
concealment is its freedom, and its boon--
in which a frame of tenuous material appears

where antidote addictions cycle musically,
the timeline's summoning
a game of recompense, compensating wanderlust
won by whim and licorice for thought;
it finds familiarity untamed--
adolescent anchorage aweigh--
adventures into wildernesses lost




.
*stirge: a bird, bat or mosquito-like monster with a long proboscis which ***** blood from its prey
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Dreams of Sepia Jun 2015
Angel Wings
a love song
by O. A. Unwin

for Joseph Rembrandt Clarke
poet of the Bronte Country


Immanuel Kant
'' We are rich not in what we possess
but in what we can do without''




I.


Midnight hospital rooms flicked eyelashes
off the slow duel of hours

imagine tall lynch mob grass
or Sing a Song of Sixpence or Bye, Bye Miss American Pie forever

Today I remembered my upbringing
spoke of Turner,Ginsberg,human rights,
painted, swore,tore up a newspaper


the Nurse looked at me and said
' Not doing very well now, are we''
Dear Roman Empire, Tribunals


Otherwise this Southern town's
all hills, steeples, clouds
unsteady heartbeat of sandstone swept sideways


occasional channel fog krimi & arthouse
and lives ending whiskey half way to the sky




Welcome,set down your bags
to you I am a stranger in your land
to me you were a visitor in my town

Recently I have learnt that those who love
live life on the wrong side of the looking glass
and are forever being given speeding tickets


I also wander Redcliffe Wharf these days by the swallows' nests knowing that Angels tread the earth in the form of people like you

I have been there.
I have seen the Light.
I have drained my soul
out in tears Absalom oh Absalom
I have known the Wall
of my prodigal body a Tempest
Angel wings clipped by old ladies
on Old Market bus stops
catkin feet rotating the underdressed night
under the Arsenic Wheel of Stars
I have gambled my future
on the mere shout of your name
I have risked my very life

I should be a woman serene as a fish by now in a pond by a mansion house beneath Redwoods

this is not dignified.


Dearest, did I **** up
may I call you this
or shall we be
empty footsteps
Stasi hallways
a disconnected phone

No. Wait.
I am doing this all wrong

Dearest, gentle zeitgeist poet
of Yorkshire and the North
the way your writing
fleets me of your subtle frame
remembered briefly from one night
the inner fire of your face
and eyes mysterious as pagan gods
or lonely hermit huts and bright
as Northern Seafront lights
blinking renegade the dusk
amid the heady din of amusement arcades
the smog lilt of your lovely voice
now I know these things about you
I am a Matryeshka lost
but at least it's easier to write
of imagined boyish swagger to Elvis
or the way you might also sing jazz
I belt out Duke Ellington in the bathtub
oh lets dance lets dance


Turn, turn
Sunset on Sunset
pages, pages back
I am an August rose
in bloom over you
in Welsh view suburbs
A Brothers' Grimm fairytale
that mother cuts down
and I tie it back onto it's stalk
with a vial of water
as if it's calling to me
to say  'thanks for letting me die here'
red, red, Russian red
that's no way to make your bed
but it reminds me of my Grandmother's garden
so it's also English
and then there's the thought of you
so it must be French red,
the color of love
Existentionalism and Rousseau
Elinor and Marianne
hothouse flowers or wild
I was always the latter
wild, wild
a bold freedom of a child.




 in Jane Austen's ' Sense and Sensibility'  the heroines, Elinor and Marianne's contrasting characters
are described by their love of flowers. Marianne prefers wild and this
is a tribute to her free, delicate spirit, the stern Elinor prefers hothouse.








I.I


This is bad.
I'm done dancing.
actually I was recently a mermaid
& my legs still hurt on land
I can't write good poetry about this.
It's too serious.
It's all je ne sais quoi
& unknown potential of star signs
I've read of the way you wrote
of a girl all bells and incense
and think now that oh you are Love, love
love itself-fragile and kind
beneath that manner bold
and cheek as a Sunday brass band bright
' Your name's a bit of a mouthful isn't it'
that's what you said,right?
but you can't fool me,Love
are you the all the vibrant flair of gentleness in my Soul

your trance of attention to detail
the way you've loved places and people
the thought that there is such a man
pierces me like Van Gogh's last hours




dearest, dearest
you're my drug
that's just the way that I am,
or used to be
I'm a Romantic.
Neither capitalist
Nor communist?
Me too.
Soulmate.
Yep..
Drastic.

But that's
all the word that's left.
Now I'm just in trouble
and need wine.

To think I'm usually
quite good at Scrabble.
I don't normally do Kitsch.
I promise.Be Kind.
I must remind myself of this:

Love is a house of cards.
could we just be a plane trail
a radio signal
a satellite
forbidden bliss.




I.I.I


You're right
the Southern middle classes are ****** up.
as for me Dad all kindly alcoholism
and Kolobok* frame died
Step-Dad walked out.
All my umbrellas broke.

I've tried

but it was pointless loving my parents
poetry and paleontology
just can't live together.

*
I should have been an heiress
but my mother
lazily lost the place
and kept me poor & this stings
or did till I grew a backbone.
Our landlord's in New York.
Our house
is surrounded by cypress trees

You only live once.

or so I thought.
but I've lived and lost so many times
that I'm simply glad that I just bought a typewriter
for a quid
and am proud.

* Kolobok - a character from a Russian folk tale, made out of dough.

I.I.I

**** this curiosity.
A question.
Arise, arise Atlantic dreamer.
Why are you you
America, Europe and England
and goodness knows what else



By Descartes's* fire
I beseech you
are you a dream
Am I Ariel,
or else
a marvel comic heroine
pick and choose
toss your dice


Lets face it
we are both gamblers
because we're not afraid to feel
& we are both Kafka
when I read you
I'm the Zen
of my transnational dreams
I can't help this.
Where are the boys I used to kiss in my head.
This is maybe just how the Mad are.
I'm mock bubblegum brains.
You are my roman candle


as I said
I'm not a little Bristolian
& Southerner at heart
so I'm a pirate.
that's that.

I am sewing our flag in neon thread
I am eyeing you up
the way Smugglers eye up cargo
the way Kings draw up maps
the way salt melts in water

& the way books looked and felt
has always been important
so you must know
my mother read me Ruskin as a child.


Tell me, friend
could we be Northern lights
by whom & what was the last film you saw
Woody Allen,
Wim Wenders,Gatsby.
lets make a list
have you seen
'Goodbye, Lenin'
it's hilarious.
tell me of yourself

Berlin, Berlin
einz zwei drei
no, this is not the Polizei
or Blitzkrieg grandmothers
just hide and seek
Do you like gingerbread
Why is my neighbor called  Pete.

* Rene Descartes - 1596-1650, french philosopher
* Ariel - Ariel, a magical spirit from Shakespeare's ' The Tempest'
* Ruskin is one of Rembrandt's favorite authors
* I used to live in Berlin
* One, two, three, no this is not the Police
Please be kind. This is a highly personal poem. There is more to it but it's too long to post in one go. It's the true story of my love for a fellow poet & how I wandered 3 days & nights through the town of Bristol in the rain, without sleep, calling his name & later ended up in hospital against my will for what they called psychosis just because for a while I was scared for my life. A diagnosis I hope to overturn someday. The poem starts off talking about the hospital. At about this point I told Rembrandt of my love & of my tragic experience & he rejected me. This was 2 years ago now & I'm still trying to get over it. I hope to publish this poem someday as testimony to my love for R. & this experience.
#love #memories #hospital
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summer May 2016
Our Heartbreak Story:
I knew i shouldn't have gotten close,
shouldn't have risked everything,
to make you happy,
to be there for you,
only to have you hurt me,
it started like a dream,
a girl like you,
confident and willing to talk to me,
despite my looks and my thoughts about myself,
i remember the days we spent,
sitting and talking,
laughing and smiling,
talking about art,
about flowers,
about our different taste in music,
it's okay because i wanted to be near you,
i wanted you to know me,
like me,
but then things changed,
you changed,
your jokes began to get more real,
too painful for me to bear,
i started to get upset,
feel things i never felt before,
you,
you shouldn't be having this effect in me,
you,
i love you,
a little too late for that,
a little too late for everything,
you moved on,
did i mean anything to you?
did you love me?
the way i loved you,
did you feel the same?

i guess not,
you moved on,
as if i was nothing but a chapter,
in your book,
i tried,
i tried to move on,
soo badly i wanted something more,
than to feel this craving for you,
and to know,
i couldn't have you,
i tried to listen,
to the other girls,
tried to take my mind away from you,
but it always,
always came back to
you,

i heard them,
but i wasn't listening,
all i could really hear,
was your voice,
and the last thing you said to me,
sorry,
a stupid little word,
sorry,
i ****** up,
sorry,
i wasn't enough,
sorry,
you had to leave,

what's the point anymore,
of anything,
of caring for you,
only to have you use me,
what's the point,
on wanting love again,
wanting someone else,
for them to do the same thing,
find someone better,
leave me,
without telling me,
and break my heart,

yes,
you broke my heart,
yes,
it will take a while,
yes,
i still think about you,
yes,
this is all too painful,

i message you,
i waited and waited,
for your reply,
my eager little heart,
thinking maybe you will say something else,
but no,
all you said was sorry,
i thought that maybe,
i would feel something from it,
feel closure,
let it go,
but it didn't,
these feeling won't go away,
and i need them to go away,
please,
can you just,
go away,

I knew i shouldn't have gotten close,
shouldn't have risked everything,
to make you happy,
to be there for you,
only to have you hurt me,
i wrote this poem on request from a friend. he was going through heartbreak. we share the same story, the same pain, the same ache and desire for the person who left us. i thought i would help him get it out of his system, so i wrote him this poem. but i didn't think it would have a huge effect on me. but it did. so here it is, our shared heartbreak story.
Continue reading...
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
the root cause
The root cause

What makes so many
Weep and write,
What is the root cause?

Natty boy, c'mon,
This question, repeatedly,
asked and answered!
Turn the radio on!

No, scorn me not,
My answer sino-complex,
mine too.

Many of our devices
Record waves, cycles,
Of which the length, shape,
Endless are the variation.

Your expertise? Your cycles?

Read my **** poems,
A to V.
Even the equations.

I have known heart ache so real
My chest hurt for months.
The doctor had no pills for that.
Risked everything. Lost.
My own weakness seek and sought,
Self-destructing me.

I have known the soul ache that makes
Rising From The Bed,
The most agonizing decision.
A life and death incision/rescission.
A go/no go apparition questioning.

All this long after I was a man.
Two children, reso-possible?
Nope. Choices limited,
Sat in the sunroom,
Contemplating all this.

Say what you need to say.

I try every day to just grab,
Hold, get fastened to me,
The tiniest scrap.

So when I walk by the river,
One atomic iota of sun, a single rain drop,
Gives me cause to pause.

The cycle begins again.
Still unclear? Get graph paper.
Copy this overlay down.
My manic-depressive cycles lookalike,
But the amplitude variegated.
In 59 seconds, Live and Die,
A calculus point on a monthly cycle,
Which in turn, but a point,
A microscopic dot,
In a cycle longer,
A Hundred Years War.

You ok dude?
.
Where is this coming from
On the commencement of a
Three day weekend?

Fair question.

There is a button here,
Randomness incorporated,
Into some poetry sight.

Led me to a eleven year old, poet.
Now,
Know, you understand...the question, posed.

The tiniest scrap of hopeful buried here
In plain site.
These colorful, wordy points,
Scattered, on the cycles,
Usually at the highs and lows.

Maybe I did not answer it well enough.
Maybe nobody can.

Yo, need a job.
Yo, need money.
No cycle in my savings account,
Only a straight line downward sloping.

so I grab an iota of sun,
a solitary raindrop,
make a plan,
write this poem,
a cycle
inflection point.

I ask this question
Every ten seconds stil,
If you must know my truth.
Dueling banjos in my head,
never ever
have stopped playing.

This poem-answer,
Not my best.
But a cycle turning point.
Again.

Having fed the beast,
Maybe I'll get five minutes till
I write it again
In a different shape,
En pointe,
Standing up and beautiful,
I am a twirling ballerina,
who can twirl with out ceasing,
knowing the perpetual motion secret.
For but another mini-cycle

I am endless.
It is endless.
But dear god,
why must you commence with the young ones,
aged eleven?


6:40am Saturday.
I see you read this, but you don't like it.
Shocking....


See Nat Lipstadt · May 24
In The Sun Room (Suicide: Here are my truths, here are my sums)

-------------------
Nat Lipstadt · Jun 25
Evening-tide: Dementia, King Lear, Humpty Dumpty and Me
Continue reading...
Hal Loyd Denton Apr 2013
A Girl By The Lake
It was one of those rare and beautiful sunny days the kind that is so bright it enriches every visible living thing. Still there was a lie being lived and told in this captured moment she stood straight and confident her dog set by her she was looking at the natural wonders in awe and appreciation. It was plain to see she was healthy and lived in wonderful surroundings had an all around good life. What I saw I fought forest fires in the service one in particular in the Los Padres National forest. For five days over half of the California division of forestry assisted us plus hundreds from fort Ord were called into help at times there was ninety foot walls of flame. That’s what she was really looking at her needs she would never see in her privileged life the flames of life’s destruction are forever growing closer. We lost a cat operator as he went south to fight a new fire we risked our lives he gave his. The alternative hike up to the secluded pine ridge in this pristine national forest set and look across the great valley that ends at the far horizon where mountains rise to tower in there majesty without sacrifice and risk this would be your view a charred blackened destroyed environment dead displaced wildlife as far as the eye can see filled with sadness you stumble back to your car racing to get clear of this natural disaster. Now bring the true reality of this girl’s situation into view knowing that at every turn she is being bombarded by modern life for the ultimate goal of keeping her from the most important thinking she will ever undertake. Where do I stand with my creator between her and this all important and should be all consuming endeavor. But there is a den of noise arising from modern convenience of every kind then the choking effects of materialism. If this isn’t enough then you face the greatest threat there is one true Word. Then the imitators act as interference the static they produce drowns out the true flow of guidance that can’t be duplicated the answer the enemy uses begin the erosion use the echo of men’s philosophy effectively sounds sincere truth varied ever so slightly but as it continues its course over distance and time you end up with the same damnable truth that our boys are fighting and dying to defeat in the Middle East. Truth sooner or later requires sacrifice and death to preserve it that is the true test what did it cost the one who desires to lead you and your family on the most important course you will ever under take. Take this journey with Paul one who was enlightened as much and truly more so than any other in ancient times. Follow him to the most sacred ground made so by unerring truth amidst gainsayers and scoffers and some of them came out of that darkness to light everlasting. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an unknown God now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”

…When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. It’s your choice where you invest the rest of your life the wise have no hesitation the only drawback this cost everything many will not pay that price so they join the ranks of the deluded. Outwardly sophisticated inwardly they run with the pack of ravenous wolves who crucified the true eternal one. Go ahead judge if these words are true you will hear them again sooner than you will ever wish to hear.
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Nikki Whittaker Dec 2013
Hazy Dreams and Gunshot Wounds
He had his own scent
His own type of aura
It came off like clouds of dust
From within his skin, burnt sienna
He had something shiny there
Some kind of hazy dream
But if I ever asked about it
He'd say it's not what it seems
You see, my daddy was a smoking man
But I didn't know quite yet
The meaning of that phrase
Not to its full extent
I was intrigued with his eyes
And the way he spoke
I would watch forms shape
From thick, grey, and poisonous smoke
He had something earthy there
Wrapped in some tin foil
He would rub it in his hands
And trade cash for his spoils
You see, my daddy was a merchant man
I learned that on a cold night
Sitting alone in his rusty jeep
When the other men wanted to fight
My daddy looked to me
Telling me to look away
Maybe, I should have listened
It was took late anyway
An explosion sounded
It's echo ringing in my ear
My daddy on the ground
Convulsing in fear
Screaming, someone was screaming
I stop to listen
And realize it was me
My feet were moving
And I was there next to him
Trying to stop the blood
That was covering my skin
He had a look on his face
Like he was trying to explain
But every time he tried to speak
He didn't know what to say
He had some kind of waste there
The wind had scattered all around
He was too deep in this world
No way else to fall down
You see, my daddy was a smoking man
Right down to his core
Couldn't see past the nightmares
To get off of the floor
He got lost in his hazy dreams
Somehow the pain would ease
You see, my daddy was a merchant man
But he let himself get burned
He risked everything he had
And got nothing in return
He took chances with gunshot wounds
Had some silly notion he was immune
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Amanda Oct 2015
Momma
Yours were the arms that held me
on the very first day I was born.
Looking back at pictures,
I can tell how much you truly adored
the little babies that commanded your attention
on that frigid November day.

You held our hands as we took our first steps,
and you held us when we cried.
You laughed when we’d take little stumbles;
you’d put soap in our mouths when we lied.
But your love for us remained,
Unwavering —
Nothing could take it away.

Before you knew it,
You were watching us walk across the stage;
both high school and college flew by.
You attended every single ceremony;
we were never left asking, “why.”
You have remained our utmost support system -
you’ve always made it all okay.

Through tough love & your strength,
you raised us the best way you knew how;
we’re quickly growing into young women -
Grammy would smile to see us now.
She would be so proud of you;
she’d laugh and shed a tear.
“Mare,” she’d say, “Look at your beautiful babies..
My god, it’s been so many years.”
She’d leave you with a slight kiss on the forehead;
you’d turn around and she’d be gone.
“A dream,” you’d think,
but she’s always here with us,
though it feels like it’s been so long.

Momma, I’m sorry;
I know that we fight.
I think that you’re wrong;
you know that you’re right.
our personalities may be
like day and like night…
but I am you, and you are me.
I promise I’m not blind to see
that for us, you have risked everything -
     for us, you have done everything -
     for us, you are everything.

I’ll sign off here; it’s time to go.
But in your heart,
please always know:
You are the absolute best mother
& Momma, I love you so.

Happy Birthday.
#iloveyou #happybirthday #momma
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Craig Harrison Aug 2014
Hero
What ever your reasons
what ever your story
we owe you so much.
You woke up everyday and risked your life
to give those alive today a future,
from me I'd like to say thank you
you are a true hero.

Despite my own views on war
you risked your life to save us all
you helped give us a future
and helped preserve our freedoms
from the bottom of my heart, thank you
you are a hero
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Lazarus Bertsch Jan 2021
5 Pills
He saved my life,
but he couldn't save his own,
He risked his life,
To be where he was goin,
5 pills took his life away,
5 pills and bein drunk won,
Now I stand at his grave,
Here lies my cousin,
Who was only 17.
rip to my cousin i will not say his name.  2003-2020
#sad #depressed #death #drugs
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Jaide Lynne Dec 2014
Heros
I hate to break it to you but heroes like Superman, and Batman, and Spiderman don’t actually exist.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t heroes in this world, they just aren’t in capes and spandex. They can’t fly or shoot lasers from their eyes. They can’t lift a car with one finger and they aren’t affected by kyptonite. These heroes are people you pass every day, you may speak to them, and you may not. But they are there.

The 18 year old kid who takes care of his brother when his parents leave and decide not to come back he is a hero.

The 9 year old boy who saved his friend by pulling him out of an icy lake, is a hero

The mother that decides to leave her husband and take her kid with her when he starts hitting them, she is a hero.

Those who stand up for what they believe in, are heroes

The little girl who used the Heimlich maneuver (which she saw on a disney channel show by the way, see disney can teach us useful skills) to save the life of her 1st grade classmate who was choking on an apple, is a hero

Every friend that will drive to your house at 3 am because  you are home alone and you are scared of what you might do if you are alone much longer. Every friend that tells you that everything will be alright, and that you may be ******* up, but that doesn’t mean that you will always be that way, friends that remind you things can and will get better. Are all heroes.

The woman who caught a baby that fell out a window is a hero.

The firefighter who risked everything to save a little girl or little boy is a hero.

The men and women in blue are heroes... Or they are when they aren’t shooting innocent people...

Or the man who broke his neck and had to give up the career he had done his whole life, but then turned what could have been a devastating change into an opportunity to follow his dream and is now happier than ever because he realizes that life is too short and can end too quickly to be unhappy, and now he is one of the strongest, funniest, most joyful person I’ve ever met. He is a hero.

Or the woman who went back to school after her divorce and now is happy and able to not only support her self but also her family.

These people are real life true heroes, not some made up ******* with super powers. Because you don’t need to be able to fly or see through walls to be a hero.
#life #strength #heros
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Andrew E Savage Jul 2011
True Happiness
I stood lone in the darkness, omitted from you.


You stood there, your beauty radiant, your eyes glimmering.


Through all of my desire, I could not reach you.


You seemed so unreachable, beyond my grasp.


I desired your company, your touch, your presence.


I risked my innocence, my sanctity, my inner peace,


I risked it all for the minuscule chance that I could see you,


Hug you, kiss you, embrace you to no end.


As doubtful as it seemed, you did not abhor my desires.


You took them, and magnified them with your own.


I found you, and you accepted me.


I have found true contentment.


I have found


True happiness.
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— The End —