Twiddled knifes upon glass eyes, cry the insight of reprise, amongst a galvanized pride, in flight from spotlit skeletons, denied of sunlight, without a fight of adrenaline and puking on the side of missed roads.

An abode, of foreboding wealth within a duffel bag, drags the corroding moral codes of trolls controlled by ignorant over lords over the coals, before another log is tossed in the fire.

Before the fog of the fading embers, dislodge the common splendor, from the lives of nine to fivers, tending to the totals of the dead versus survivors, in vocal onslaught of the names of the slaughtered daughters of liberty that faltered in the after glow of nevermore.

Anymore,  i only wish to dream.
dream of better things that sing in the blood, and shrug the smugness from drug-less fiends, in consumption of peeling seams, and paint-chips.
Cancerous fractions entrap us.
Just ask the plaintiff.

Sustain it ...

In stillness.

Mastery over illnesses.

Embrace the contaminants of my inanimate imagination, swallowed in the shallows of a nation lost to bacon and broken beautiful.

Tokened suitable with corporate suitors to the masses. Blinded in the flashes of dismal diobolitry ,upon uprooting the touting in the jealous shouting of the shenanigry of driven villains, knowing of the chronology of the buried devilry, toiling in the ecology of a dying star.

My gods aren't too far from yours.

My stars aren't too bogged for more.

My more, your cut off point.

Disjoint the facts, let the words womb themselves and slither in the delivery, of malicious adhering to the tongue, in the atrocious abominations of falsified accumulations of the letters manifestations of fruitful creations abiding to immaculate consummation of lost thoughts that prevailed in one long exhale of a run on sentence.

No penmanship in breathlessness, as i faint in my confessions of restless lessons learned in burned futures overturned in grief.
Burned in the disbelief of fractured animals, cannibalising the chastised cultures of the mechanical signals planted in our cores.

Arms forward and moaning for more.

Always more.

I claim victory in my plastic citizenry of pity and tragedy, where i too can proclaim my self godliness and engage in bliss with the rich.

Im an emo ***** with blood on his knife and a list of names read aloud from the braille niche upon glass eyes, where to see is to realise, the severed root of the bloodline, in slow chromatic decline over time, until the with, is without, and the made mark is gone and the new birth is spawn to embark upon, brawn over brain the simple rule shall remain, conned in the game of numbers, slumbering from under the wonder of man vs machine. Again ranting in my rhyming declining into boredom.
Seldom to abandon the foreboding doom i cant shake.
Stephen king meets Dr seuss for a lovely kick of the chair and a hug of the noose.
Never to lose when smiling.

Little Princess Perfect without a single flaw
Thought that she was perfect in every way she saw
But one day she ran into a crazy, orange man
Who said "I am better and will beat you because I know I can"
Princess perfect laughed and her court well they laughed too
"You cannot win against me and my loyal crew!"
Little Princess Perfect and the man with funny hair
Got into a contest that seemed far from fair.
Princess Perfect with her legions of subjects said
"You're a sexist bigot and have an orange head!"
So the man replied to her face "And you're a crooked cuck!"
"You're also sick and greedy you lying, corporate schmuck!"
Little Princess Perfect who thought she'd already won
Laughed and played and called him names while he continued to run
"I will make this kingdom great once again I vow!"
And multitudes applauded him as he took a bow.
"You're all deplorable!" Princess Perfect cried
"How can you sleep at night taking this orange faced man's side?"
"Princess Perfect your days are numbered." he said in return
"People want this kingdom great. That's for what they yearn"
"People will never choose you!" Princess Perfect said
"Look at the polls you orange ****! You're as good as dead!"
And all her court agreed she had already won
So laugh and play they did having unending fun.
Then when the day came to decide the combatant's fate
Princess Perfect with her court could hardly stand to wait.
"Get ready to celebrate my loyal, faithful fans!"
Princess perfect cried to all throughout the land.
And as the kingdom came together and began to count the votes
Princess Perfect felt a lump deep in her throat.
"What the hell is happening?" She cried to her staff.
The totals made no sense to her and all had ceased to laugh
"This is impossible! He's pulling way ahead!"
Princess Perfect panicked and her soul filled with dread
"I am Princess Perfect! I know I cannot lose!"
But the kingdom voted and the crazy orange man they did choose.

The reckoning will come as surely as the sun will rise and daylight rides again to blind the eyes of sightless men.

I wait uneasily upon the steps,repeating to myself excuses that I've made and pray that Gabriel will look,not to closely at the book he holds.
In the folding up of time where punishment to crimes are closely linked,I wonder was it all worthwhile,
the guile of man,the awkward realist with his unrealistic plans.

It never made the sense I thought it might,another one or more or sightless,lightless walking tightness,can I now begin to see,
what never made much sense to me or is it more illusions that I face,is this dream of death just one more dance to put my life in place?

I wait uneasily upon the steps,
I always did.

enlighten — verb (used with object)

to give intellectual or spiritual light to;
to instruct; impart knowledge to; Archaic: to shed light upon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
like an overdue library book,
the omission of a
failed commission,
makes me a bad boy.

request submitted.
progress stalled,
dust accumulated.
guilty of failure to perform,
a fineable offense
where I come from.

perhaps it was the word?

Enlightened...

down too many paths possible
this word obvious, but not,
a distortion, to me.
the definition I seek,
is not in dictionary listed!

for I want to enlighten you,
make you lighter, carefree,
But Not Through Spirit or Intellect.

for what spiritual guidance
can I give thee,
that would not burden you,
with collected do's and don'ts.

my intellect impoverished,
reduce to grunts and curses,
my opinions, even if valid,
are simplistic truisms.

nonetheless, I want to enlighten you.

"put the load right on me."

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me."

Give me those-parts of you,
convoluted, twisted, that need bearing,
but cannot be borne any more,
for there comes the line,
where the totals are recorded,
the sums noted,
black or red,
matters not,
disposal ready,
my truck is marked
Heavy Load.

make me fat with seven years of plenty,
plenty worries, plenty troubles,
shed those pounds of weighty words
that gain no recognition,
misheard, misunderstood,
or just ignored,
so I can enlighten you.

what skill you posses,
doing this noble thing?

skill is simple,
merely human,
only the human touch
can enlighten,
take out the trash.

I am your man.
what makes you
heavy hearted,
enlightens me,
and makes you
lighter than air,

thus, miraculously,
we are both enlightened.

send what you need to be rid of,
promise, I will read and keep,
every poem you send.

By: Cedric McClester

They’re holding ‘em
At airports
Stopping them
From coming in
What’s being done
To some Muslims
Border on a sin
Is this the price
They pay
For their desire
To be free
It smacks
Of blatant racism
If you’re asking me

They’re holding ‘em
At airports
Like cattle
In a bin
In the name
Of homeland security
“Least that’s
What they pretend
The countries
Have been named
But none from Nine-Eleven
Their number
To be exact
Totals out at seven

They’re holding ‘em
At airports
Because of
Their religion
You can say
What you will
But he’s made
His decision
Based on
Little else
Other than
Irrational fear
In the face of principals
We used to hold dear



Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2017.  All rights reserved.

"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."


Started:    June 21, 2011
Finished:  August 14, 2011

"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."

Purportedly, the final words of Bobby Fischer, the reclusive, oft bizarre-acting Chess Grandmaster, whose life deserves your examination.  

I wasted decades of my life in a loveless, sexless, miserable marriage. I read his dying words, and the poem~notion was born, but the words had their own timetable and it made me crazy.

All the facts you need to read this old poem are now in your possession.
~-----------------------------------------------~
Mos­­t poems used to just tumble out,
Sudoku words combos,
Gunslinger I was,
poetically licensed to shoot
from the hip (the lip?).

Then you go mute, until that second,
When once again,
Machine gun stanzas fall like
Cheerios
Spilling all over the kitchen floor,
As they always do at Two Am
When quietude is in high season,
And the whole house is sleeping.

Once in awhile,
The title~idea recorded,
But the poem unwrit,
just won't come.
*** but no ******.

The words smack you,
Write me, I deserve it,
A challenged duel glove
Goes kissy kissy on your face,
But the words,
The choice of weapons
Eludes for weeks, months.  

So Bobby,
Your challenge
Long ago accepted,
But my reply imperfect,
Has lain bound and gagged,
A poem-in-progress
Hid in the trunk of my heart,
Unable to escape, even when
Escape attempted, unsuccessful.

From June till August moon,
Your dying words have been
A cancer growing, within,  
Hiding from my bullets
Invented to radiate,
Your final words, explicate,
Explode and expose.

Your life,
An essay on life in solitary,
Anti-social would immodestly describe your life best.

How came you then to exclaim,
Re the glories of human touch?

Ah a dying man's last regret,
A simple cri du couer,
Nothing extraordinaire,
A basic 101 shoulda/woulda
Of "I coulda done it better,"
What's the big deal?

Until this exact second,
Sunday rain jolted body from bed
Do I instant understand my obsession,
The import to me,
The need to capture
The haunt of the healing
Of your dying words.  

Life is small, miniaturized
When numbered in decades -
Five, six, seven,
Maybe,
Eight nine or even ten.  

How came I to pass so many,
Discarded whole decades,
Of the few we garner
Without the sustenance of
Human Touch?

How came I to allow this disaster to pass?

How did I advance to the next grade/decade,
When a failing grade was scarlet tattooed
In ****** scars upon my chest?

Would be easy to dismiss as just another whiney rant
That is no longer relevant to you,
Lies I told myself, no longer resonate, over, now.

Never.  

Everything matters.  

Summation.  Accumulation.

Day Counter Totals  reveal gaps of years
That cannot be refilled so your accounting
Must include a retelling of the
Wasted days and acknowledge with your dying breath,

Nothing is so healing as the human touch.
~~~~~~~
Happy 3rd Birthday poem.

If you could promise me one thing,
it would be that you'd never change.
No matter how many ways I rearrange
these meager words,
they will always find a way to spell out
"I love you"
And that's beautiful.
But we do not worship beauty anymore,
we bend our knee to concepts such as
violence and objectification
in a culture that paradoxically forbids it,
for every vulture picking the bones of something
that once was amazing,
there is a man getting fat off lies
and grazing.
This is for every child who will die this year,
who will take it upon themselves to make a message
that people will choose not to hear.

This entire atmosphere is clouded from the fumes
coming out of the hallways and classrooms,
where each flower blooms
only to close it's petals up again in shame.
Where each name called is meant to stand for
horrors and destitution
and our prostitution for convenience
will always shift the blame.
This is for every bully that got pushed back,
for every attack returned
and good night's sleep earned.

This is for you,
or anyone like you,
who has ever had to feel the shock value
summing up to totals we could never coalesce
and I will not digress from this topic.
It has burned holes in our armor,
into our good judgements and mind
where our credit cards will be declined
because we didn't take charge.
Problems like these will only enlarge,
we will never be happy,
until we deal with this.

I have absolutely no clue what to do
Not an inkling
Logic screws me over, but
the entanglement has so vexed
the chambers of my heart
When I used to daydream, it was good
too breathe in the hopes of seeing you
look at me, think of me
Now the companion I find in you
is a stranger

-cj

Theory of a dread
Music in the naked thought
For more, than a kind thank you ahead
Where the cloth is worn, with a purposed climate to rot?

Music with a proud name...
Torrid whole kindred, and a dole of lead
In meager how, the gift of nothing shame?
Reasons and similar essence to rise, and fall with need...

Mercy for a minstrel of heirs?
Taken to lies and school's of thought...
Sweet avarice, do we know you one step more?
Like a bird of war, we see the tried and true, became not...

Them said, the tone of your voice is a sultry longing...
Strength and totals of sincerity, to show you a vaunted
Gold, and the many of sitting for a though, a song
Of guided misery, the stare of unison that joy meant...

A hat full of sunshine, is a waiting lover...?
Known for mutual live and lets give the moment...
With but a song to share, are we a sallow order to those?
With a realm to touch and mendacity in the eaves, is again a lament...?

The shyness of veracity, in your hand for ourselves?
That knew the day of your haunt of justice, wantonness
Courage in the affront of thunderous drama, to acquire a force
Of silence and reason in a marvel of distance, as if the name of our blessing...?

A halting dream with shall to swallow, and the instinct...
Of curiosity with a bridge to essential mere, the times are a changing covenant...?
With the shadow of youth, the honor of what was a method succinct...
Tales of sour chance in the good nature of fear, today is a lovers love...?

Tows of since
Synchronicity is to be married
Working heed, and the beauty in silence
As a reward once lent, is twice carried...?

Tallys and totals
The future has us to fare a new question
That calmly collected, is a sanity we hold...
With a callous before careful hand, we should a blessing...

Marvels in love...
State and sake affluency, the fickle lives
That make you and me, the score of does
A changing season protecting order of or what denies?

Patiently, the run of a lifetime
Spoil in thorough stead, despair to care once more?
For anything more, moving faster than a harmony's light
The tale of destiny, with lips to prove strangers know the words...

Half a mind to open a vanity...
With another's neglect, the truth be golden adage
To a liming hope, the act of redoubt, in all sanity...
With a holy mercy, for anyone who would learn it, a world's rage?

Epitaph to a wishing wind, alive in the senses
We adjust to humanity, with tears come the spite of terror...
Sincerity to follow and act, upon a world of wisdom's ends
That were, the stone of seclusion in a lover's midst, a gain of heirs?

When we are born
there's no Wrong
or Right
there's no Black or White
there's no indecision
We sleep when we're tired
we eat when hungry
We cry if something's not right
we laugh at anything funny
We see with perfect vision...
At Kindergarten we make our first
Best Friend
The one person that held our hand
when milk time was a disaster
and we napped together
and home time came faster
because Friend times Fun
equals Time goes By
and One plus One
equals Forever Mine
In Little School we first meet
Prejudice
It's the pretty girl
wearing the pretty dress
while your hand me downs
scream your secret shame
It's her you blame
when your lifetime friend
who wore the same milk mustache
as you at Five
takes her side
the waves of I don't get it
washes over you on a tide
of unreasonable insanity
but your Vanity is total
to One minus One
equals Alone on a Beach
totals I Am No One
By High School you're confused
by the elevated status
of the praying mantis
the chickadee that seems to be
an all boy zone that is open 24/7
and the gentleman
that snakes out his hand
to land on your rear end
euphemistically called
the Octopus  
by then...
You've never really got it...
It made no sense
as the informative years
just saw you sitting
upon a bench
crying tears
that you eventually sniffed
upon you Third winter sweater
gazing upon a frozen pond
in the middle of an empty park
you saw the cracks the ice skaters
didn't
but it didn't make you feel better
So you call out... Crack in the Ice!
They look blankly at you twice
and continue to skate
with their own voice in their head
With a shrug your mantra sighs
I did what I could, I can't beat
someone else's vice...
Here come the working years
here comes the awkward fears
Of What if I'm not good enough
Where do I go when I've had enough
Where are my friends that I never made
What if I can't make new friends
Who can I talk to at the end of the day?
So heartbreaking...
to know that your best friend
that wore the same milk mustache
got married 2 years ago
and you weren't invited to the wedding
Even though you lived 2 doors down
for nearly 15 years, shared boy stories
and plenty of chocolate talking
and now she's having her second baby
while her husband is Manager
of the local Tyre King
and stupidly I thought
She got everything!
Except that I couldn't go to her wedding
because I was in South America
and I remember my Mother called
and said You remember Yvette?
She's getting married to Steve
he's going places, they'll have a family
next July, the joy on their faces!
So dear, how's things in Africa?
and I laughed with sorrowful Joy
at my mothers voice and said
Well Mom, the sky is Red
bleeding with sorrow
for all the animals slaughtered
but here's one truth about your daughter
She's actually in Brazil
about to board a boat
to travel further south
to places remote
to take vital medicines
and vaccines to those with no hope
She's taking her fully qualified Doctor
self, alone
Unmarried is not unfulfilled
Solitary is not a life sentence
our lives could be filled with
a million people, but in silence
eventually we'll get it

Spinning sights and broken tongue,
Buzzing mind and punctured lung,
Blotted ink and battered word,
Confusion nearly all absurd,
Incomprehensible speech,
Brain draining leech,
Lost in each second I stand,
Breaking the land,
Earth-shattering sounds on repeat,
Static shock in the feet,
Losing all my stability,
No more time feeling free,
The gear don't grind the way they once did,
The thoughts and the pain of which I cannot rid--
Myself of inside,
The rippling has died,
I use the same rhymes,
The same sounds are my crimes,
I can't find anything fresh,
The old and the new just mesh,
An endless war in cycle,
The past holds on as a barnacle,
Dead and decrypt--
Yet a living enigma the bites,
These are just not winnable fights,
I hear the tunes and raps each day,
The same beat comes back to stay,
I ramble and shoot the time away,
The loss of cognitive play,
Running myself deeper in dirt,
The spotless stains on my shirt,
Coating all spots with sugar sweet,
Hiding the blatant signs of defeat,
No holding back this noise anymore,
The bide developing more in store,
Inside it all begins to roar,
More and more until it hits the floor,
Inspirational deficiency sets in--
The internal daemons begin to grin,
Power beyond uproars a din,
Edging closer to the ending fin,
Rockstars crash and singers scream,
Sun will shine and moon will gleam,
The spectrum of emotion--
The pyramid of devotion--
The dictator of feeling--
The reaper of stealing--
Glass cracks to shatter//
Rings clink to clatter//
Cars crash to crumble,
Players pray to fumble,
Runners fly to fall,
Underdogs lose it all,
Dark horses seem to stay in last,
Dreamers hold close to the past,
Daredevils cheat the very laws--
That haunts us all within out flaws,
We can't keep on the cleared path,
Hidden roads hold heavy wrath,
Silent soldiers protect the shy,
Outspokens embrace the lie,
The sky is green a color so few--
Can see that grass is blue,
Like tears of the ghosts,
The lost on the posts,
The graffiti is art on the street,
A cunning feat,
The masterpiece of unknown,
Now to all optics shown,
We hide in sheep skin,
All in the lost and found bin,
The wolves are shot down,
The cities are made from town,
Built dreams on land of soils,
Gleaning earth of all spoils,
Vampiring dry the life of other one,
Conquering totals sole for fun,
Parasitic beasts roaming free,
Nothing here that I can see,
All is lost beyond the creeds,
Damaged souls pray to their beads,
Pleading to the heaven power,
Silent gods chose hell to shower,
Nothing free in all my vision,
Temporal lobe incision--
Lobotomized and clueless drone,
Rusted metal on broken bone,
WORDS WORDS WORDS//
Unbreakable wooden boards,
The words are inundating my life,
Sparking repetition and strife,
The double edged blade of a knife,
Out forth the bleeding is rife,
There's nothing left to say//
More will come another day...

strict obligations to mind technique -
a range of techniques to identify
a paced scribble done haphazardly
for the effect of unquestionable timing
as time itself question, settled
for lazy afternoons and volumes upon
volumes - well, the bore of schoolchildren
being taught the standard of communication
as grammar in all its guises and adding to
this the identifiers of poetics, shackle
them in metaphor conscious expression
and they'll excessively rhyme -
e.g. yeah mm, yeah, birches of the brood,
mm, yeah, wave to the navigator
and limousine driver, mm, yeah,
mm, yeah, ******* in the alley, poetry
the ultimate straitjacket of language
use, so many constraints, mm, yeah,
******* of rodeo doing disco with a hand
spare waiting for prompt of the **** salute -
mm, yeah, pottery and poetry are moulded
although pottery with the hands as one,
poetry by exchanging patterns of a tennis
statistics of serve depending on what's
more accessible via the index through to the thumb;
mm, yeah, birches in the hoodlum choir -
knuckle dusters and nail clippings among
broken skulls - already the constraints of grammar
we all yawned at, then came poetics
and the second tsunami of disgruntling -
father grammar, son poetry, the holy ghost
a multiplier of yawns among gradations from
a* through to f - like a musical scale -
now i realise i joined the abhorrent crowd of
artistic expression, i never knew could be so
**** unauthentic, maybe the missing orchestration,
the prophetic voice in the wilderness -
the lack of materialistic concern for bees' wax
to accumulate for envious purposes -
a hole with chlorine-cleansing chemicals
that's neither salt or sweet water and no wish -
a massive bathtub and a different form of ******* -
i know teaching grammar is like teaching poetry,
too many rules, too many rubrics, lists and lists
of things happening but not actually happening -
the faking of poetry on account of identifiers
as marked accessibility and respectability -
but never the essential coarse experience -
so some forgive the excruciating test of grammar -
they say 'if comprehensive therefore satiated' -
but then the anti-poetry with an army of instruments
uses only rhyme to akin itself as to why
B. Dylan's lyrics were debated in poetic circles -
i really did choose the wrong art -
or perhaps i'm only saying that because i can
create quarters for four agile limbs to comprehend -
let's say one celebrity had photo-sensitive
epilepsy - the stability of scarce lightning
against the lunar and solar cycles - but then
overexposed to a syringe of phosphorescent luminary
injections of insomnia -
the modern ailment summarised by insomnia
in all the totals asserted - the fear of death
entombed, now the fear of not ably falling asleep
or the fear of not sleeping at all;
indeed a heresy some might say -
but in Dante's theology i find purgatory as
a courtroom - the judgement necessarily passed -
depending on what duality you are a disciple of(: / i.e.)
hell (your own company)
                                             x
                                               heaven (the company of others)
or
    hell (the company of others)
                                                      x
 ­                                                        heaven
                                                          ­  (your own company);
indeed no chiral assertions,
                since both add up to a pitch-perfect coordinate
                with parallelism's coordination of (+,+);
                 neither subtracts the other's accumulation,
                perhaps in the interchange
                (+, x), (-, +), (-, x), (+, ÷) -
                after all there can be worded expressions
                of utilising pure mathematical
                symbols to understand political
                dynamism -
e.g. (by adding you multiply the chance)
        (by taking away you add to an understanding)
        (by taking away you multiply the chances
         of non-recurrence or recurrence)
         (by adding you end up dividing
          the chances of expressing the Σ);
all in all, a chaotic foundation approves to architectural
order tumbling down into prone attempts for
new truths stabilised by vogue of the times
and later dismembered and disavowed from practice
and admiration.

He contemplates the Bible
As he adds up every page
Religion's an equation
As he totals every age
Of Man and Beast and Angel
(He's a thick and dowdy sage)

He tries to sum redemption
Through his numbers in a book
He thinks he sees sin everywhere
He's too afraid to look
And so he squints with whetted pen
(to carve his Heaven's nook)

He sits and waits for Rapture
As he whittles souls away
He does it all by numbers
In a slick efficient way
And when it doesn't add up...
("Forgive them... Let us pray.")

I’m in the library, at school, trying to write an article for the school paper (and I'm not even ON the school paper). I’m on a forty-five minute deadline to complete a story someone else did poorly - on the edge of my vision I see someone step up to my table - a boy, I can tell, without looking up, from his school uniform. I’m hoping whoever it is will go away.. 44 minutes.
“Uhh-umm,” I hear.
My eyes flicker up and I ID “Everett Priestly” - one of God’s less ambitious efforts.
After a moment.
“Uhh-umm,” he does again.
“Parsley,” I say, without looking up.
“Priestly,” he answers with a sigh, "wanna play HOUSE?" he says conspiratorially, with a smirk.
"We were 7," I say, liberally applying syrupy boredom.

I’ve kind of known Everett Priestly forever - he lives two doors away from us - then my family became ex-patriots until three years ago. His family is rich, he’s handsome and I believe someone once told him he was charming. He fancies himself a lady killer but I’m willing to bet that he kills them with a combination of daddy’s money and poor driving.

“I’m awfully busy - on deadline Mr. Priestly - please send me a text,” I say, again, without looking up.
“I don’t have your number,” he says, patiently. “Would you like to go to Sandra’s party with a group of us Friday night?”
“OOOO! Let’s keep it that way,” I smile - this is too easy - 42 minutes.
“It’ll be FUN,” he says, with a smile in his voice - Oh, God, he’s trying charm.
“Everett,” I stop writing, look up and lean back. “You ask me out every two months. If you’ve made a bet with someone - like we’re living a teen movie - I’ll payoff the bet for ya if you just give it a rest, OK?”
He really IS good looking - but kissing him would be the apoco-LIPS.
“Why do you always say no??,” he asks, with a helpless 1/6th shrug and his GIGAWATT smile.
41 minutes.
“See you in January,” I say, as I slide my laptop closer in, give it my obvious, full attention and hopefully, start back to writing.
“Come to Thanksgiving!,” he says, as inspiration strikes.
“January would be MLK day,” I remind him. “Everett, PLEASE - deadline,” I plead (not looking up).
Everett, makes a snarky sound, turns around and slowly moves away - like a man headed for jail - he really SHOULD try out for the drama department, I decide. 40 minutes.

When Everett turned 16, his daddy gave him some kind of expensive foreign sports car - a really, really, really expensive sports car. Six hours later Everett guns this formula-one race-car out of a gas station, loses control, and totals it. The girl with him had to get stitches over her right eye.

His friends call him “EV” - they say it with a kind of a southern accent - that I can’t decide is fake or not, which gives it a hint of - “Elvis” - had a replacement car within 48 hours. He wrecked THAT one in less than six weeks - and his date got a concussion in the roll-over.

If he wants me to get in a car with him, he’s gonna to have to taser me.

I love you, dear brother
And for you, will I always be there
Always, have we been close
Right from our school days
Playing a lot of street cricket
Having loads of entertainment
In the form of masala movies
Listening to AR Rahman classics
Debating on Harry Potter-related topics
Playing carrom and chess
The list used to be endless!

I love you, dear brother
So much fun, have we had together
As children, teenagers, adults
Indeed, have we had many a memorable moment
Playing cricket inside the house
And creating a fair amount of chaos
Racking up highly unrealistic totals in book cricket
Going up to the terrace in the evening
And in the process, watching bats
A fair amount of travelling
Especially when it came to trains
Playing the game "20 Questions"
In regards to both cricket and Harry Potter
Going on talking and talking till the wee hours
On a variety of topics
Seriously, were those days epic!!

I love you, dear brother
For me, have you always been there
Advising me from time to time
Always managing to stay calm
Whenever have I gone on ranting and ranting
Taking time out for me while working
Being a shoulder to cry on
Checking on me often
Bringing out the best in me
Not to mention, I'm sure you will agree
It was thanks to you
That I became such an ardent fan of Harris Jayaraj!!

I love you, dear brother
You are going to have an exciting future
So happy am I, for you
Now, is a treat due
Soon, will we meet
Wish you all the very best
And may God bless you
With a truckload of love, happiness, peace and prosperity!!

Understand the name
Ushered with soliloquy
Urged and formed with particularity's same
Utterly and heralded if decency...

Us, words to live by...
Totals of uniqueness, a use for today
Simple replies to vestige, the way we live...
And the example, of a question to winds of strange...

Changes, the toward in the capricious deed, a harmony
To look beyond the overt, the escapism and the mayhem
We favored for a legend of the everyday, a breaking testimony
Ready to live in the times, a comparison to lend and whim

The this of thus, a lovers blessing, still a richer lessoning?
To which we never knew, a hap in the meager throe of light
That said the more, the news of sincerity for its guessing?
Was a marvel of unction, to let a reach of bests, become might?

That somber need
Enabled with the calm of a noble friend
Poise is us once again, a promise amid the heed
Of causes said for, sated with and a salt to the end

Privilege, do we remember your silent approach?
To the truth, a vanity we share to know a callous sorts of, you
Taken with a harrowed moment, to these we will know
The taint and the tender, asking in platonic voice, is ought too; soon?

Order to chaos, at a glance?
As a wholesome venture, of what we pronounce
Is adding the white of the eyes, an all of influence?
Has come to the fore, and shown the doldrum it haunts...

Peace and a real thirst, for a clue in the wry...
Sated with the coming hours, of decency we meant, will
The provision of seldom, toured and biased in courteous, shyness
An angel with passion to earn and each, insists dread, still...?

A place in the heart of civility...
A face asking the table of conscience, to look for the irony
Oft tutelage and their solaces, a penny to spend on originality...
A faith in the unknown, we reveal is fright's epiphany?

Voices we have heard, that made the point of a lifetime
With range and devotion to verify, the elucidation of meagerness?
And its boding history, the total of enumeration in the face of trying?
And the fertile now, and subtle distance to weighing the opuses we elect

Alcohol and judgments character?
Instinct is a shrewd contender, for what was a world of significance
And alarmed firsts, to the longest visit of intuition, or its faring?
A method of uniqueness, to show a calm of whimsy that is a seasons chance...

Meted reasons with a clash of simplicity for you...
Tales of reproach or in defense of totals, the schemes of things
Looking the part and petition of suppose, the tear we reveal is, due
The hands of antipathy in vice and demeanor, the identity we saw, become a meaning...

Some nights I stay up counting my good deeds.
Wishing they would amount to something other than totals.
Maybe good deeds can.
Maybe good intentions will.
The meaning of a wish.
The want of a dream.
All we are, is not what we're content with.
Always hoping.
Hoping for something else.
Something more.

Does not knowing what we don't have, make a difference in what we want?
How can you miss something you never had in the first place?
How do you know that feeling really exists?
Or maybe...
You just hope it does.
Being full and satisfied with life right now.
Maybe that's enough until something comes around and shows you more.
Of what you could have.
Of what can add to your right now happiness.

And what if we know exactly what is missing.
Of what we did have but no longer do.
Of what was so temporary...
We didn't realize it's importance until it was no more.
How can we know a moment is
'The Moment' when we are in it?
Doesn't seem fair.
To believe we should hold on tightly to every now.
Then when it passes, it's a memory.
No time to catch up.
Like being asked to answer a question you hadn't heard.
How do we know that's it's all supposed to matter?

It
All
Matters

Especially when it's over.


*©NDHK

she descends the stairs
and he remains on the landing
both linger, telepathetic moments
written on that invisible wall
with intimate totals of wonder
militant, the outside try to terrify,
to augment the doubt
lengthen the halves- but
all superstition dies in that second

-c.j.

Talking tea
With a summoned friend
More than a shadow of due, we...
Know the skirting of justice, to end

Tea with a risen moment
To verify the calm, of seem in a worldly cast
Of duty before youth, a travail to know and lament?
The tally of sore senses, ready to accept here for ask

Somber news, inevitably the voice of regiment
And reason, are you all in life, a rational yet
Come by beauty, of sincerity and just terror to relent
A having dance of minds loved by the appetite we whet

See the misery we appoint, to another
Cause and effect, with a bidding lip of real
Enough totals of shared more, the need of an open bother
To come forward for the soul, if not a spirit of courtesy to feel

Into the void of common questions and answers
To the fate of hours we destined to hope
In the name of couth, and its most frightening tear
With the place and tale of nearness, with a choice beyond cope

Tear the chide of need from your face...
Sent with the love of us, might we sake a new rainbow
You drunk like a passion of demand and the order of says
The chastity of heed we all know could, an eye of heaven to owe

and there was me walking past
some imaginary graffiti...
at this point: i forgot to concern
myself with the narrative...
it's there: arrived at...
on a whim...
            i am beyond apathetic...
it's not like a feminist nun
could...
spend her time listening to...
a misanthrope...
but we all know...
what the good philanthropists
get up to...

first one read the acronym...
B.L.M...

   another reads...
     A.L.M.

  which is crossed out...
and a footnote is added...
with some emphasis...

        that B. does indeed M.
                        
   hell... i'm throwing a penny
into the pocket...
and ******* against the wind...
with my own...

spin on topic...
   O.B.L.M.
       well... given: A.L.M. needs
to be... negated.

truly: i don't know whether
my tongue is sometimes tied
to expressing a presence of body...
294 havering road was confused
by the postman for 294
pettits lane north...
   so i delivered the package...
12 hours "late" and took
a walk with four ciders...
to catch... twilight in the woods...

i said: ee'mah rather than em'ah...:
it read emma... and wright...
i'm in england and i don't speak
a lot of english...
                i write enough...
    i like to call myself a grammatical
tyrant of this little space of my
own...

and to walk... is to feel one has
legs...
   to hell with owning a car...
when one could still...
love a ride of a horse...

  to walk for a good 4 mile...
up a hill into shaded wooden
nighs of twilight...

a right ol' tourist in these
parts... smoking some marijuana...
headphones tight...
on the cranium like a crown...
about to... take the 103 route
from the north eastern tip
of greater london into...

      but the demise...
as the bus sped away en route...
i didn't see the tourist
on the upper-deck of the double-decker...
on the lower-deck... at the back...

if i had the marijuana...
and the same joy for riding buses...
i'd be sitting on the top deck...
looking buddha-amused / buddha-bemused...

i really did come to the conclusion
that: i wanted to drink to feel a tilt of
a drunkard in me...
4 ciders are 8.2% a pop...
       16 units... and all that ***** whiskey
mixed with bourbon...
and i'm still... typing away like
a hyena...

i dream so rarely... but i woke up with a dream...
forbidden fruit...

    Kirmiji Orzalacht
   Orżalacht - and I saw the word
written in elaborate runes -
   with gold-flakes to dorn its labyrinth...
told I was copying it with
too much detail...
     pressured... told to keep
the phonetic essence of it...
it opened a portal...
       a garden...
   "to bring back the garden
started but not he gardener"...

i haven't heard: or seen... a word..
for that matter: two! in such details...
is it an anagram?
   Kirmiji Orzalacht
                    Orżalacht...
                     ­    i wouldn't just wake up...
and need to write these words down...
phonetic: kir-me'yee o'j'ah-lax't...
                      it doesn't translate...
even with phonetic efforts...

    come to think of it... walking england
along...
one can confuse and pardon...
a people who have been given...
the isolation of the icelandic people...
yet all the perks of a melting ***
of the continental ******* wormhole of history...
the definite history: european...
but also... the double definited...
when some foreign entity feels inclined
to overcome the natives...
it's not... akin to cross the Danube river...
or the Oder...

          with a clarity of borders bound
to the confines of an island...
oh... this pretty land of spare souls...
readied for... retention in foreign *****
of alien fathers and surrogate mothers...
as the raj might prescribe...
with her litany of insurgent spices...
cumin, coriander, cardamom...
chilli... turmeric... star anise... etc.

          a magic hour! twilight in the woods!
the sun is... turned into a drowning man...
her last resort of a horizon of day...
is riddled with razors...
and she's cutting her hands to stay afloat
upon the "meridian" 180!

what mistanthrope?
and at what hour... could i entertain...
the company of a single crow without
a commune...
or the rabbits readily prancing...
             i couldn't abhor the plumber
for the plumbing...
              i couldn't... abhor... the god and
readily given... ghost of self:
the surgeon...
              but...
       when it comes to drinking?
       i much rather exhaust my legs...
and feel that i still have them...
having walked...
                and i much prefer drinking
alone...
  the woods are a cushion for the ears...
and... somehow...
all the eyes warrant a desire to peer at...

drinking with people has always
been my worst lot of... wasting time...
i can't remember...
the last person i drank with...
who succumbed to a hardened:
pensive mood...
always that feminime... melancholic...
diatribe sorrow...
fetish tear-****-offs...
            
                 who could ever want to know me...
i should have remained at...
        Taizé...
                         i would have have gladly
sacrificed the world... thrice over!
to live the life most mundane...
rather than have to suffer...
to live... a life... most mediocre.

tongue licking tombstone slabs...
i hope... my words...
fall like... mountains...
upon a concentrated lot of... stones.

"part and parcled" and that "oh my":
the tender hand of argument:
a left... a right... a left-right...
and right-left and some...
quasimodo (0,0) vector cull for:
that long lost forgotten: "oopsie"...

        oh! right! it's called: the culture... "war"...
it was called the cold war
when the russians were pressuring
everyone to play... their version
of the roulette!

fine... at least when: agianst the russians...
you know... siberian psychopaths...
complete animals... siberian
warlords of some grass some snow...
some siberian tundra...
culture... "war"?
more like... cultural sparring...
war against who and with that:
against who: with what?!
we're only sparring...
there was never a culture war...
there was cultural sparring...
which... evidently had to become
something ******... in terms of...
what was... hoarded...
exchanged...

there is no more a cultural war
than there ever was a cold war...
i like to call it cultural sparring...
hyped-up invigoration tactics:
war! sign me up uncle sam!
sign me up: papa bad bear: russia's
a'coming siberian neglect!

what war?! we're only sparring...
and people somehow have this
deluded presence of...
if we were at war...
there would be a...
                          Schwerer Gustav...
there would be... a Spitfire...
there would be a b-52 bomber...
  culture war...
         "war"... concerning someone
who has ingested the cultural export
of h'america for the past 30 years...
we're not at war!
we're only... merely... sparring!

grandiosity of cuck-filling ****-supreme
and... there has never been...
a Helen likely: worth of instigating...
a "genesis" of events!
*******...
    cultural war?!
                i want to... scream!
would you either eat an oyster...
or some... caviar?
can you please... provide me...
with a slow motion cinema of...
a movie: the presence of an oyster...
i'll eat anything that doesn't move...
i'll **** anything that does...

caviar wins!
concentrated fish stink and palette..
anything than...
attempting: slurping...
a metaphor... a brain...
a wriggling brain chimp: + some
gerbil... oozing out a crescendo of...
loitering... scrambled... abortion
towing: "typos"...

what cultural war?
if the chinese were conscriptd to march...
it wouldn't be an advent of the mongols
at baghdad...
if the chinese were conscripted to march...
lucky for all of us..
they designated a wall for themselves
to be: riddled by a buttocks...
and roots and... a hyphenated orchestra
of blooming...
        
india can spar with china...
2 billion their own equal...
someone goes missing...
it totals up their own concern for:
"cost"...

             there is not cultural war...
we're only culturally: sparring...
anything elevating such events as:
overtly serious is... giving toward misgiving...
it was originally orientating a:
lessening of statue and abiding to probe:
caricatures...

if there was a war... trigger-happy...
trigger-itchy...
       but there isn't a war...
if there was a war...
  israel would... concern itself
with much more than its...
proxy-encrusting-stature-of-a-levelling...

culture war is such an...
over-inflated term...
                     culture-sparring...
like cultural-sparring when the cold-war
was at its height...
cold war... poker salvaging...
two sides warring with: de facto joker
hand-outs...

              no... not this...
this is... a postcard from a heaving
sigh of a haven: that's not heaven...
something more realistically:
heaved... a ridicule with a clue: stone...
because...
that's not what... a levelling
of a mountain gives concerns for...
some rubble plateau...
some... itch... some...

                 ah! that... das boot... theme!
because... who are not...
the german... in grieving a romance...
when not being able to...
give levelling...
to... the crime of frothing waves...

that much i might mind...
the magic hour: the twilight in the woods.

Kirmiji Orżalacht:
               i might somehow wish to want:
to loiter...
             TORA TORA TORA...
it truly is... a samurai slit...
of affairs...
       one army attacks another army...
the palestinian shielf preface...
the japanese attacked a military presence...

auschwitz and nagasaki...
perfected gain of: war...
men ascribed to the expression
of the theatre of war...
warring...
but no... it was not... "fair"...
the pearl habour "unfucked" / "unloved"
had to find...
their suitor best...
when... civilians were to be minded...
a pointlessness of auschwitz...
the blink-of-an-eye hiroshima...

       it was... a fair attack:
         so... who gives a ****... the h'american
soldiers were... sleeping...
sun-bathing in the hawaiiean sun?
        it was... a... fair... attack...
i don't need to be asked permission...
for a worth of persuasian...
years since TORA TORA TORA...
years since PEARL HARBOR...
          with whoever it was that starred
in that... custard fish of fetish...

            great h'america...
auschwitz prolonged by years...
hisroshima: dead-end...
in a blink of an eye...
             because "ukraine" somehow still
matters... the... starvation project...
of the 1930s...
                
  the attack on pearl harbor was
an honest act of war!
the dropping of the atom-bomb...
on hiroshima...
the use of civilians...
to end a war...
                    what is so fair:
as to then heave a monopoly
of exporting movies to...
the last: beside "your" owned
corner of the world...

     to heave a breath against those
best providing...
that's one thing...
anyone well paid would
be best assured to simply shut... up...
but not... when one is sold
a propaganda narrative...

   pearl harbor was once...
tora tora tora...
                      i don't even want
to entertain this narrative...
and their liberty...
and their shining emblem...
whatever it is that they thought
they had...
this mongrel nation et al hybrid
loitering... yes... all that...

there was a once upon a time
invting my parents
to go over... "there"...
           to... schlomo...
and to... jarput-e...
             a ******* stance for a 7/11...
                 how about...
the magic dries up?

How loud can I get the music?
I hit the volume button a couple more times for good measure.
I’ve spent two years crafting a playlist for moments just like this,
Moments when I have a
Thousand anxiety attacks at once.

1.
I think of more and more reasons
To resent you for leaving me.
I hate that I can’t comfort you.
I hate that you can’t comfort me.
I hate that you left without a second thought.
I hate that I miss you when you treated me like ****.
I hate that thinking of you makes me cry.
by Another Ex-Best Friend.

2.
I live a good life.
I have a lot of things I’ve always wanted,
Made true by a draw of luck that sent my anxiety to the back burner.
I was happy.
I was really happy.
But I’m not happy anymore, and I can’t be sure why.
I no longer want these things,
But people ask them of me and I smile and
Either I’ll go or I’ll make an excuse.
There’s no telling these days.
by The Suffocating Cynicism.

3.
I wrote a poem about telling you
All the things you did to me that apparently you never noticed.
It was 3 AM.
It seemed like a good idea.
Now I look at you, calculating when I’ll get the chance to bring those words to life.
And I swallow them right back into my fractured heart,
Because looking at you terrifies me.
Being near you makes me sick.
This can go one of two ways:
Either you turn your life around in a flurry of realization and apologies,
Or you leave a couple more bruises and some blood and
Maybe a restraining order in your wake.
by Your Latest Conquest.

4.
Somehow you ask so much of me without even realizing it.
You’ve grown.
You’ve changed, just like the rest of us,
But there are still so many things you refuse to change
Because you have sculpted guard rails that block them from your view,
Carefully crafted and immaculately cultivated.
There is no escape.
I wonder why I feel this way, because I should love you, and I do love you,
But sometimes I want to cry because you consume my life
And I cannot escape.
by Your Life’s Work.

5.
There are things that stand between me
And my greatest achievements.
If you notice,
They both have “me” in them.
Did you know I wrote a book?
It has one scene left,
But I can’t finish it because
Nothing feels right and no one knows
What that ending needs, because no one
Knows this world as well as I do, like the back of my hand and a shred of my heart.
I want someone to give me the answer.
I want someone to finish it for me, because endings are important.
Endings are necessary.
They need closure and a reason to return when asked.
I finally stopped keeping my work clutched to my chest,
And thought maybe I would show it the light of day.
No one noticed.
I laughed and tried again, posting it in a couple of places,
Drawing nonexistent attention.
I’ve created obstacles I cannot scale.
by The Woeful Worriers.

6.
Very few people are able to see a person’s pain.
In my experience, it totals to one.
One person can tell when I’m hurting, and she lives 9,000 miles away
In tomorrow where life is sometimes a little bit better.
She’s the only one that gets pictures of my first foray
Into a ****** world I told myself I would never enter.
I told her it looked cool.
She disagreed.
I broke down.
She checked up on me every other day, and it hurt even more.
Eventually I stopped wearing long sleeves,
And stories stopped swirling in my head.
It became apparent that no one cared.
No one was going to ask about the healing scar on my arm.
Do I care? Because honestly, I can’t tell.
I want people to notice,
To know how much I’m suffering and tell me it’s okay
To take a break from all of the things that are drowning me.
But if people notice, they’ll know.
They’ll know that I’m suffering,
That I did this to myself,
And their footsteps will crush the eggshells they walk on.
It’s less genuine than Her. She’s been there. She knows.
I thought one person in particular would notice,
But it makes me laugh in hindsight,
Because she never noticed a single thing I did.
No one notices.
I’ve come to terms with that.
I’ve come to terms with the dark room that my own thoughts lock me in,
That no one else has a key
And it is my own responsibility to find my way out.
It’s like a sick, grotesque Escape Room.
If only I had the motivation to find the clues.
by The Silence.

7.
I’m happy.
Honestly, the last six songs were all it took
to heal me and cure me and take away all of this pain.
I’m smiling,
See?
I feel lighter.
Until this verse ends and the next begins,
Pulling that feathered feeling over my head and suffocating me,
Reminding me that nothing is okay no matter how hard I try to believe it.
I have learned that I am a very good actor.
I lie so often that I started to believe it was the truth.
But the truth doesn’t like to be ignored.
It came back and reminded me that I was never okay.
by Recurrent Denial.

8.
I can’t breathe.
My skin feels oddly cold even though I’m sweating,
And the deep breath I pulled into my lungs
Catches in my throat.
I have two options;
Hold it and suffocate slowly, deliciously, inching into darkness and leaving hell in my wake.
Or, I breathe out the stifled sob it has created and resign myself
To another break down.
Another one.
They never end.
As much as I like the first option, it isn’t very easy to suffocate yourself by holding your breath.
You see, your body has this thing called self-preservation,
Even if your mind doesn’t.
So I choke out a sob and wince at the ache in my throat,
Catching my breath and catapulting towards hyperventilation.
I close my eyes and breathe through my nose.
**** that.
I keep breathing, ignoring the tears on my cheeks, just trying to breathe,
Because apparently the body likes breathing even if it’s a hindrance to its inhabitant.
**** it all.
I curl my hands into fists and open my eyes, breathing deliberately.
I lick my lips and breathe away the tears,
Because I so cannot be bothered with this right now.
It lasts five minutes, and then it’s tucked away
For later.
I was always really great at repressing break downs until
They piled upon each other and exploded in a gut-wrenching fit
Of tears and swollen fists and maybe a tiny bit of screaming.
That’s how I broke my piano bench.
by Another Fractured Name.

Instinct (and the candor it took)
Kiss me when the intentions are ripe
Longevity is a toothsome notion, as if a guiding music
Has the voice to carry, a welfare from here to sun's light

The seen sought, a voice with more than a lip
Of a marvel meant, and deemed a friend?
To the fate we stir, with all of a hosts extravagance, a wit
Of summary heed, to a lived example, praying to be lent

Caught in a hushed tone, the truth...?
Is for any who would listen, a stone of charisma...?
Caring but for the our of decision, we have let a youth
Become the notoriety of since, and a charity of weal to say:

I grow a fruit, with kindness in mind
Tense and awkward, a hope of sincerity's homage to choose
Between a holier water that laud has to rhyme
Or an earthen seclusion of devotions, if may is to be few

Blow and service to an ideal, a harrowed simplicity to vaunt
The gifts of are, a might the fate of all who came
Or is a wealth its own reward, the other opinion in a song?
With babbling lips, and an echo of hearts, the irony of same...

A course of decision, in the name of solidarity
Sent to effused, if not enthusiasm of coping with worth
As a herald of powers and judged same, as the doting charity
We made the privilege, of a prowess in cares, that is many certain

Heed a friend when they are somber, and justice will come
See a friends need becomes the letter of sigh's, and decency is a gift
Keep a friends shadow in reach, and they will know more than home
Heathen a friends smile, here and now a shared eye will lift

Totals of serendipity?
And the quasi focus, of life on knowledge
With a realm to its unction, the reality of another candid liberty
Has become us, the timid and guaranteed forth, of persuasion come of kinds tenuous age

Dear South Africa, worry not
Chokers, you guys are definitely NOT
Done your very best, you have
A lot is there, to love
In the way you play your cricket
Certainly, are you not easy to beat!

Dear South Africa, worry not
Losing, is the end of the world, NOT
You guys have scaled many peaks
Never given up hope
Even when the situation has been bleak
Always, have you gone deep
Whether it be chasing totals
Or for that matter, defending them
Never, have you not given it your all
So, no need to raise an alarm
Just because you lost one final
Which, by the way, was your FIRST
And you certainly played your best!!

Dear South Africa, worry not
You guys have done a lot
Brought in big hitting batsmen
Beefed up your spin attack
Improved your batting against spin
And of course, terrific, is your pace bowling attack
In short, have you taken all the necessary steps
In order to improve your winning chances!!

Dear South Africa, worry not
Always, do you guys fight
Till the very end
Soon, may your title drought end
Please keep repeating this to yourselves
"We are NOT chokers
The World Cup, will we soon WIN!!"
Amen!!