We've crossed the road into teenage haste
Generation gap
With confusion, harum scarum, mistrust, disparity
Not knowing who to listen or follow
Family, or so called, not your friends
You keep thinking we the parents our your enemy
When we only try to teach you
Embrace you with the facts of life
Are life, Are love has been
No More, No Less  
You know we given the best lessons of life
But it's your choice to make it right
You can't keep trying to keep pushing
Not expect to get pushed back
We our your parents
Not your friends
My word as your parent is bond
Don't take and misstep
Out of your place
Cause even though
Still you're moving around to find the right direction
The wrong direction will be probation officers
In your face
Think long and hard of the identity you want to choose
One time, two times, three times
You Lose
I'm just talking and giving tough love
All can be remove
With your last desire
To breathe free air
Your wake up call could be
Being locked up
In the streets with a dare
Bang, Bang, you're dead

So can we sit down without a lot of frustration
Talk things over
Everything changes in life
Nothing stays the same for long
Soon you'll be an adult
To make the choice
If they are wrong or right
Just don't make them now
Preferably not ever
Strange day's of a teenage life
Doesn't stay the same
Forever
One thing I do know
God doesn't put us here
On Earth
Without a purpose or a plan



(upwc)-Zenobia/aka/LadyZ710-1/30/10

The yucca plant from my mother’s garden sits
unattended and on the verge of death next to her
eldest rose bush, now wildly overgrown and lightly
blushing in the cosset of the midmourning sun.  Its
withered rosettes droop down to its bed of maroon-stained stones
in crisp, harum-scarum patterns as if the plant is spending its life
like currency trying to touch its toes.  I oftentimes
find myself wondering if the reason behind this
slow rotting of mother dearest’s garden is hidden within her
five-year absence.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say
her nursery missed the d
                                              i
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                                                     g
                                                        i
     ­                                                       n
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of her weathered hands.

She was the biosphere of my world; I suppose that
it only makes sense for the earth to match my thirst.  We
sit side by side, that yucca plant and I, as we struggle to
nod our heads towards daylight while we rise on
the side of the house that is more or less
cloaked in shadow; the side that she would sunbathe
on during scorching late afternoons.  Perhaps without her
body giving shelter, all her garden is doomed to
atrophy like muscle in the sunlight.

I find irony in the way that my mother’s favored plant
was the “ghost in the graveyard;” a perverted parallel
to the game that she never wanted us to play.  I think it to be
sort of sardonic that her pride swallowed the possibility of
a cure being found within that ****** plant’s roots. She,
a third generation American girl,
had blood as muddled as the mud
that buried that yucca’s heart.
The boundary line between Mother and
nature coalesces into one:
                                               Gaea
                                               six feet under
                                               melting into soil
                                               I hope she becomes seawater.

SAD VALENTINES FOR BREAKFAST

Oh my how red **** struts(thinks he's a sultan)    
striding in and out among his harem-scarum hens

talking to themselves
like some lost senile sentimental souls.

Foolish fowl!

They lay eggs for gentlemen
and kids on long hot summer holidays

they hide their eggs like broken hearts
like old love letter secrets

safe in unseen places.

But see Auntie Nellie *****-nilly as a fox
stalk the chickens and expose them

cruel as the NEWS OF THE WORLD.

See her raid the haystacks
(backseat of the old car)    
rain rusting machinery

her apron pregnant and precious with
the warm and brown gift of eggs.

Red **** crows loud against the morning marigolds
while children's voices babble sleepily into wide awakefulness

love letter secrets staining their lips
sad valentines for breakfast.

When the sun came crashing from the sky
we knew why the oceans all ran dry
and we,
like harum scarum lunatics watched all this, believed it was a magic trick and later it would be alright.
But the night grew strong the longer it went on and we were wrong to laugh and play while everything we had,
faded into grey,then black and we realised it would not be back at the click of the fingers.

Some vestiges of a memory lingers on and fables told are of a day of gold and light and might we hear the story one more time,as told by the old man with more time upon his hands,about the distant lands where men could see,it seems an eternity of gloom has left much room and yet not to expand but contract back into caves, and slaves we were to ever think the madness could go on without some form of retribution,
some divine or godly intervention
an architect whose own invention had been superseded by  what those whom he had invented needed?

It's all too late
we'll have to wait for another spot that turns up in a universe,where nothing worse than this could possibly occur
and though the candle is unlit,a bit of it will fall into another lighting of the sky
and once more I'm sure we'll wonder why
the magician always spins a double zero and wins.

We need more Martians , they nattered at me all the time,
More monsters—people like to be scared,
As if those callow youngsters,
Growing up with two cars in the garage
And three sets at the country club,
Their fraternity mixers at Whittier or Occidental,
Knew the first **** thing about terror.
Still, they wanted me to grind out the harum-scarum hokum
They enjoyed watching two-reelers on Saturday afternoons
While men were doing hard work in Leyte and Manila,
As if the transitory fear of some ghoulish bogeyman
Would last through the thirty-second epics
Featuring some cartoon bear shilling for beer
Or bunnies extolling the virtues of toilet paper.
Let me tell you what fear is, I would say time and again,
It’s a padlocked fence and a smokestack
Which isn’t churning out a **** thing.
It’s the jobs you can’t get because you said something
(And more likely, you didn’t) twenty years ago.
It’s one more envelope from the bank or the phone company
With bold red lettering on the front
That you don’t open because you know what it says
And how it doesn’t matter one bit,
Because you can’t do a ******* thing about it,
And these promising young men would just look at me
Like I was some poorly made-up extraterrestrial
From one of their Buck ******* Rogers potboilers.

Several of my neighbors here were among the men,
Mostly boys in truth, who marched with the 126th New York,
Taking fire at Petersburg and The Wilderness,
At Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.
We have spoken about the horrors of war,
The kaleidoscope of confusion and dread,
No direction leading to shelter, no road guiding the way to home.
They have said that, as frightening as the sound of the minie *****,
Zipping overhead like malevolent flies,
And the cannon were, what they found truly awful
Was the manner in which those fields,
So like the ones where they had flushed out quail as children,
Became foreboding nightmare landscapes,
Containing a dark madness
That they never dreamed could have existed.

the sonofabitch tremor
  from a tall cup of americano

i am somewhere in the heart of Libis
  feeling the libidinous snarl
  of trucks, the poignant treason
    of leaves slamming against each other,
  the bamboozle of the youth

   this is my 5th poem sliding out
    of my whetstone mouth
   sharpening the dull blade of tongue
    as the harum-scarum of the swivel
   door crafts a rising hullaballoo.

    spilling coffee on my ****** white
     this sonofabitch tremor
    terrorizes the purity of the *******
       clenched against no succor,
    eyes squinting in lachrymose fretting
      palpebral shade of tossed out gray
        caprice of clouds — no
  
   more coffee
      for me,
          these words nudging me
   keeping me awake with
      persistence.

slipshod toboggan feeling
before nakedness reeling
past dried vandals on walls
  colorway harum-scarum

entrails of blinded sides
  open to eyes and their
possible misconceptions

such that
baring all is showing less
and showcasing more
   is no other than pretension

going guillotine
sick or sane in one
asylum afloat
like flotsam there
  and jetsam here

   hoarded onomatopoeic
cacophony: street beat
  back to basic superstition—
no continuations or ellipses
   tell-tale that gamblers all
and losers swell, the jazz needed
   to synchronize in tune,
an off-beat gyration in split-screen
   flat affect. exeunt.

New age blindly falling from grace, fighting a hidden enemy

Teen and anxious once the norm now a psych diagnosis, distress taken as some bad label

Faceless facts hard to retract, flashing light world in blight, Harum-scarum analysis isn't reality

Inner truth now given to a mental sleuth, hidden truth never seen, cause and effect does it mentally disable or inadvertently enable

Swallowing knowledge left us choking,  repetition offers no variation, life has no on or off switch, harder to remain stable when emotions are constantly displayed openly on the table so irrationally

Paranoid covered in a blanket of fear, selected target our mind now a part of the market, pointing at humans being inhumane part of the game, being playful becoming a lost fable

Why always recall when you're about to fall, simple shuffle of memory cards can show greener yards, following pre-plotted maps leads to another casualty

Not as bad as it appears, forget learning to simply survive, permanent pessimist, Impossible to relax when buried in facts, wasteful worry replacing meaningful ways to remain grateful

Instant diagnoses blown into multi tethered prognosis, finding middle ground when being told you're not normal or crazy leaves many lacking, losing leverage when searching for adequacy

Mass medias senseless sayings gather no moss to keep the blues ball rolling, taking fun from function,  new dog and pony show, subconsciously afraid, living life now seen as something fateful

Digging our own graves, personal pall bearers for basic thought, selling freedom for an unfulfilled diagnosis, words a magic elixir, removing ways to face fear rationally

Social wisdom masking the freedom of a child to walk through a puddle instead of a lifetime of insight finding knowledge to walk around them, remembering to smile gives strength to go the extra mile, life on life's terms need not be painful. R.C.

=======================================
You look after me when I fall asleep on the floor
Good people love their vowed chaste life to keep
In bare, naked, and cold base of that ground's kiss
I feel your warmness close me as a quickfire touch

Togetherness is better than a single big tree in the desert
Solitaire diamond may be mesmerizing Moon but are rare
Your sound of silence in a sea of magic is a perfect harmony
You always captured the mood here well in changing events

Many seasons came and went but we are in this family house,
Spouse never shakes but awakes to fulfill fate and destination
Someday our grandkids will be there to greet us at the door
Time will come as a witness to strange but real vantage point

Life is really not a harum-scarum shadow of Alice in the glass
Color alone does not make any difference but the art in bliss
I am lucky that still, water runs deep beneath the surface
And we are uncaged Souls in the comfort of sweet darkness

Written by
~~~Jawahar Gupta~~~

SAD VALENTINES FOR BREAKFAST

Oh my how red **** struts(thinks he's a sultan)    
striding in and out among his harem-scarum hens

talking to themselves
like some lost senile sentimental souls.

Foolish fowl!

They lay eggs for gentlemen
and kids on long hot summer holidays

they hide their eggs like broken hearts
like old love letter secrets

safe in unseen places.

But see Auntie Nellie *****-nilly as a fox
stalk the chickens and expose them

cruel as the NEWS OF THE WORLD.

See her raid the haystacks
(backseat of the old car)    
rain rusting machinery

her apron pregnant and precious with
the warm and brown gift of eggs.

Red **** crows loud against the morning marigolds
while children's voices babble sleepily into wide awakefulness

love letter secrets staining their lips
sad valentines for breakfast.

SAD VALENTINES FOR BREAKFAST

Oh my how red **** struts(thinks he's a sultan)    
striding in and out among his harem-scarum hens

talking to themselves
like some lost senile sentimental souls.

Foolish fowl!

They lay eggs for gentlemen
and kids on long hot summer holidays

they hide their eggs like broken hearts
like old love letter secrets

safe in unseen places.

But see Auntie Nellie *****-nilly as a fox
stalk the chickens and expose them

cruel as the NEWS OF THE WORLD.

See her raid the haystacks
(backseat of the old car)    
rain rusting machinery

her apron pregnant and precious with
the warm and brown gift of eggs.

Red **** crows loud against the morning marigolds
while children's voices babble sleepily into wide awakefulness

love letter secrets staining their lips
sad valentines for breakfast.

Earlier today April 4th, 2022,
which supersedes bald faced headlines
pointing finger and
Putin blame for Bucha killings
squarely on head & shoulders
of Russian autocrat, née
yours truly lathered
his hirsute higglety-pigglety
thinning oily tresses.

Hark….the herald angels sing,
snapchat and twitter Uber view doo
for mass communication mediums
stop the well conditioned presses
when I, a regular schlemiel
took shampoo to mine matted mass mop
(lame and feeble dreadful locks)
of straggly follicles, and commenced
to dispense with the heady ecosystem

viz rare crop of flora and fauna
(some rank as endangered species)
rub and band together
to scratch envy of flaky key
neigh bring ponytails
and create quite an niche,
and where also can be found
lousy knit wit vendors ready to scalp
and give shaft to razor sharp purveyors,

who mane lee scout out
available head room to nap
without a stir, tub bed down
(praying  Holy Scott no wash out
nor Harris mint occurs),
or burrow vis a vis,
where subcutaneous porous droplet size
water ship down pieces of
prime residence found

counting one mister
comb lee bald faced realtor
amidst competing rival
bulb buss (h)Edward scissorhands
(with knot to heavy a price toupee)
affianced to rapunzel,
whom he sheared split ends
as her barber of civil,
one dapper dan duh ruff dude to offer

lice cent shuss insects a tonsured cut
above other stylish habitués
(preferring to fraternize,
glad-hand, and hobnob
amidst a cluster of big wigs
housed by yours truly - Samson
in gleaming puffy pompadour
pads tightly secured
with the best dreadlocks,

which harum-scarum
green barrettes serve
as first line of rinse able defense
IdentityGuard (with franchisee
Bob O Link averse
to split hairs, but fierce
as a Mohawk and ring leader
to protect any curl of mine)
waving away intruders,

who if insist tubby persistent
and tangle with fate
cannot expect camaraderie
from buzz cutting crew i.e. the fuzz
to give expletive filled lathering,
severe shame poo wing subjugation
plus an up braiding experience),
and teach stragglers
they will suffer a real perm

in hint bang up job
and experience embarrassing cut up
if they brazenly brush
against brylcreem of the crop
rooted as rightful heirs (hairs)
of tousled doo mane
and thus tail all told.

Imagine if ye will
earlier one blustery February sixteenth
two thousand twenty one,
yours truly experienced atypical thrill
perusing pages of heavily laden word book
marking where I leave off reading
courtesy no frills inked quill
(sold to yours truly courtesy original
big bird on his deathbed)

plus jotting down page number
so mundane effort to marry me interest
with me lingua franca (English language)
neither void nor nill
aforementioned laborious literary task
persevered despite forgoing
eating and sleeping might ****
(reading every last word)

hoop ping diligence improves vocabulary
making me maxillary stronger
no matter chronological years
considered smidgen whipping
over third scored Sam Hill
Earth orbitz around nearest star
traveling at (pun one mach two)

warp speed amidst escadrille
whereby accompanying aircraft
eventually zooms into Brazil
housing disproportionate Amazon
rainforest biome encompassing
6.7 million square kilometers and shared
by eight countries.

Even before (the square root of 3844)
years ago exiting the womb
Logophile mine self anointed
nom figuratively feathery de plume
no matter mine cranium
ready to explode ka-boom
I continue to parlay mental energy

like some garden variety harum scarum
and jam additional minutiae
(at thee expense not preserving sanity)
despite very limited (maximum) headroom
to decrease hydranencephaly
the whole hare brain scheme
rigged up with shunted
(think chutes and ladders) flume.

One definite lament
until death doth do me proud
constitutes deficient intelligence
genetically (father) endowed
imbibing cerebral thirst for knowledge
constitutes the lack of photographic memory
nsync with fifty plus shades of gray matter
ofttimes smoldering like dark storm cloud
to retain information I read aloud.

Quite an exciting
(seat of pants) life I did asseverate
less to impress any anonymous reader,
whose interest I did pique and captivate
versus (verses crafted) more so to delineate
quirky passion (couched as poetic endeavor)
inexplicable how to formulate
though no justification be given
hoop fully only kudos to generate.

SAD VALENTINES FOR BREAKFAST

Oh my how red **** struts(thinks he's a sultan)    
striding in and out among his harem-scarum hens

talking to themselves
like some lost senile sentimental souls.

Foolish fowl!

They lay eggs for gentlemen
and kids on long hot summer holidays

they hide their eggs like broken hearts
like old love letter secrets

safe in unseen places.

But see Auntie Nellie *****-nilly as a fox
stalk the chickens and expose them

cruel as the NEWS OF THE WORLD.

See her raid the haystacks
(backseat of the old car)    
rain rusting machinery

her apron pregnant and precious with
the warm and brown gift of eggs.

Red **** crows loud against the morning marigolds
while children's voices babble sleepily into wide awakefulness

love letter secrets staining their lips
sad valentines for breakfast.