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D Conors Oct 2010
If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.

The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

_
"Lao Tzu is believed to have been a Chinese philosopher (a person who seeks to answer questions about humans and their place in the universe) and the accepted author of the  Tao te ching,  the main text of Taoist thought. He is considered the father of Chinese Taoism (a philosophy that advocates living a simple life).

Read more: Lao Tzu Biography - life, name, death, school, book, old, information, born, time http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ki-Lo/Lao-Tzu.html
Written by Lao Tzu
Lucius Furius Jul 2017
"23: July 24"
"24: October 5"
"25: February 19"
"26: December 14"
  
The words went right to the pit of my stomach.
All doubt was gone.
I'd graduate/be drafted in June.
By September
I'd be in Vietnam.
  
My high school gym teacher had been an Army sergeant.
He stepped on our stomachs as we did sit-ups,
"toughening us up".
I've had a problem with authority
(unsuited, temperamentally,
to obeying unconditionally).
I'd be a poor soldier in the best of wars.
  
But if a job required some independence/ingenuity --
a pilot or a spy, say --
and if the cause was right
(World War II, for instance),
I could fight as well as another guy.
  
I don't like fighting,
but I'm not so naive as to think it's never a necessity.
There's always someone who, given the chance,
will take our possessions and make us their slaves.
So who should decide
if a particular war is justified?
This seemed to be my own responsibility.
  
Vietnam? I decided it wasn't.
Weren't we protecting a democracy?
No. Thieu lacked popular support.
Wouldn't Thailand and India fall?
No. The domino theory was questionable at best.
Weren't our national interests at stake?
No, not really.
I'd decided I shouldn't fight;
They'd decided to make me fight.

The physical was set for March.
Unless I failed,
I'd go to Vietnam,
go to jail for seven years,
or go to Canada for the rest of my life.
  
In studying Army regulations,
I found a fascinating chart.
It showed for each particular height
the greatest and the smallest weight
the Army would accept.
I'd heard of people who'd gotten out
by injuring themselves intentionally.
Some exaggerated a minor back pain.
Others faked insanity.
Losing weight seemed nobler;
lying/mutilation, not required.
  
The low for me was 118;
lose twenty pounds and I'd be out.
(At 5'10", that's pretty thin.
Could I do it and not get sick?)
My parents thought for sure I'd die.
  
Help from doctors was out of the question;
on my own I studied nutrition.
Cut down on calories,
maintain needed nutrients
(protein, essential fats, vitamins, and minerals).
Once I found a working combination,
I stuck to it without exception.
Cottage cheese, wheat germ, and fish were staples.
Bored fat cells chose self-immolation.
My weight dropped to one hundred and twenty.

In cases where the weight was close
I'd heard the Army sometimes winked:
("Oh we'll fatten this guy up").
I decided to lose to one hundred and ten.
  
Contrary to my parents' fears --
though vigorous exercise made me dizzy --
I really wasn't sick at all.

The Army sent a special bus
to take us to the physical.
Once there, we stripped to underpants,
moved like cattle from each room to the next.
I weighed 110.
They classified me 1-Y
(examine again in a year;
if still unfit, reject).
Losing again would be inconvenient,
but free of worry since I knew that it worked.
  
I'd brought some food.
I drank and ate it ravenously.
  
So what did I feel on that bus heading home?
Triumph? Elation? No.
Relief, sadness, and guilt.
Relief because finally I was free of this mess.
Sadness and guilt because someone else
would be made to go and fight in my place.
It's true this person, on some level,
had chosen not to escape --
but maybe he just hadn't thought it through. . . .
  
Now for a bold statement from a slimy ex-draft-dodger --
I'm sure you'll think this hypocritical -- :
Each of us must be ready to serve.
Responsibility for protecting things we love
can not lie solely with the professional military.
(Future wars could overwhelm them.)
  
Service isn't always guns.
Service might be joining the Peace Corps
or electing leaders who effectively distinguish
false threats from real ones -- and pre-empt war.
  
Wars should be rare, ****** upon us.
No more propping up tottering dictators.
No more shoving "Democracy" down people's throats.
No more sacrificing 10,000 soldiers so we can pay a
      quarter less for gasoline.
  
Wars should be necessary and just;
everyone should serve.
Hear Lucius/Jerry read the poem:  humanist-art.org/old-site/audio/SoF_025_draft.MP3 .
This poem is part of the Scraps of Faith collection of poems ( https://humanist-art.org/scrapsoffaith.htm )
Icarus Dec 2009
the skin toughens with every bruise
the top layer sheds
the next one steps forward for another beating.
pretty soon numbness sets in.
its called learning.
it takes a little getting used to,
some time and tough luck
a little bit of twisted logic
a shrug, and a stubborn capacity to endure.
like onion being peeled, the tears well up
when the dried layer comes off.
so... you beat me up, and i take it.
if you smile past your raging fits,
i learn. we move along. nice and dandy.
just do not give up on me.
one day, i will be reasonably numb.
and then we will comfortably
beat each other to a blissful stupor.
so lemme have it if you feel like it, love.
i am an eager learning ******.
just hold me tight
whenever you pounce on me
and let me know when it is over.
zero Dec 2017
He sits next to you on the train.
Your heart flushes as he smiles your way.
There's something about him that draws you in,
maybe it's his dreamy hair,
that seems to shine in the morning sun,
or maybe it's the book he was reading,
or maybe it was his hollow eyes,
the ones with the rings under them that makes him
look like he's three weeks past bedtime.
His four patches on his blue, denim jacket,
each with sassy comments on them, stating his hatred for Trump,
or his place as a Feminist?

The colourless rainbow tattoo on his wrist,
next to a heart.

It has her name on it.
And you sit and wonder...

Am I her?

You aren't.

You're not his tattoo,
the one that sits on his wrist.
A name that is passed carelessly throughout the carriages,
The name that stops at the platform.

You are a gentle thought,
unravelled in the minds of others,
growing and nurturing,
exuberating kindness as you do so.

You are not his tattoo,
but a garden,
soon to flourish and grow stronger,
toughening through harsh winters.

You are not his.

You are an evergreen mass,
you were born to live
and you thrive as you do so.
To the people experiencing negative thoughts because you're not his tattoo.

Wait a bit...
You'll soon grow into a garden, and feel the sun on your face.

And you'll think;
'Why was I so worried before?'

-Dilon.xo
Celestial May 2022
My mom is mischievously, mysterious,
    with her momentum.
But perfectly perpetuating her
    purpose on earth.
Never wavering wondering, or
    wishing for it all.
Only knowing.

She is in her palace.
Filling her chalice.
Toughening the callus,
That's needed..

Necessary negativity to neutralize,
        The highs and balance the lows.
Candidly correcting the corrupt
         With a simple smile.
Lifting the leveled and the loveless,
          With ease.

There is no tail,
That could make a wail.
Only mine of I fail,
But, I won't walk that trail.

I'll take the teachings and trials,
      She will give.
Learning love and limits
      With a laugh.
I just want to say,
       Thank you
For my life and the love you've given.
       You're perfect, just for me.
Poem for my moms bday and mothers day
Regan Troop Jul 2011
You've awoken my appetite
It's the middle of the night
So what am I suppose to do
You shouldn't feed me past midnight

Why did you choose to reignite this spark
Why did I choose to let you
I've been doing so well toughening my heart
Just to prove it weak, against you

Don't expect me to come back so easily

Please, don't expect me to at all

I'll forever hold you in my heart
But for now, we must remain apart
wes parham Oct 2014
This thing, the words and all?  I was trying on a new skin.
It was made of the old -the familiar, too, but transformed.
Something added that could take root,
Take me out from the norm.
Take on a new identity.
Perform.
Squinting at a light, held at arm’s length:
My own spotlight.
So you could watch me act it all out,
Over and over, forever on the page.
but nothing ends as it began.
My troubles, my worries, my lust, my greed,
All fictionalized and petty.

Disgust and shame.
Anger and fear,
Are not advisable
Unless they bring about change.
Even those, now left behind.
Moulted.
Shedding my old skin.
Toughening up the new.
The muse seems to have fled for the moment, so I don't have much in backlog of drafts or scribblings.  Maybe she'll return later, improved and healthier.  Little less bitter, I'd like to imagine.

Read here by the author:
https://soundcloud.com/warmphase/moulting

"I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released"
Alyssa Underwood Jan 2020
Evil will always invite us to a feast of retaliation—that seductive chance to pay an offender back with more evil, disguised under the pretense of protecting what is rightfully ours and of defending our dignity. Reciprocated malice is what it craves most of us, as it thrives on infecting us with its slimy, slithery, leprous self. It seeks voraciously, insatiably to ensnare, enslave and devour us, for it's a hideously monstrous creature sent from deepest caverns of hell. Its predatory intent is to extinguish our light with its darkness, and if we open the door to it (even a crack) it will reach around with long, lecherous fingers to grab us by the throat and choke the life out of us with such force and speed that we won't even see it coming.

But goodness has an invitation of its own, an invitation both to us and to our offender, an invitation to drive out the infection of evil and illuminate the darkness. It invites us, when offended, into the precarious but glorious adventure of turning the other cheek. But first we must understand clearly that this turning of the cheek should never be mistaken for turning a blind eye to continual sin. It is NOT ignoring the hurt or diminishing the harm done to us so that we might spare ourselves the dreaded inconvenience of rocking the boat and disrupting our own greater interests, nor is it foolishly submitting to evil's unhindered presence around us and control over us while cowering in the face of it. It is not attempting to self-righteously shrug off that which feels to us like a serrated knife twisting in our belly or burying, beneath the layers of an ever toughening heart, the fallout from an ongoing betrayal which mocks all that is decent and sacred. It is not weakly accommodating habitual, sinful behavior in the name of peacemaking, giving up the good fight of faith in order to give in and just live with it while our soul suffocates in the meantime. It is not saying that it doesn't matter, that it's okay or no big deal. To do so (and I have surely done them all) is to deny the powerful truth of the gospel, the truth of the serious and highly offensive nature of all sin, the truth that God absolutely hates it, is greatly angered by it, calls it what it is and that He desires (and has made provision through Jesus Christ) to set sinners free from it, not simply overlook it and leave them entangled in it.

So we too ought to have a righteous anger toward the destructive nature of sin, both in ourselves and in others, seeing it as God sees it and calling it what He calls it by humbly speaking the truth in love and pointing them to Christ. And once we have removed (or are willingly, honestly engaged in the process of removing) the obvious plank(s) from our own eye (including a crouching fear of uncomfortable but necessary confrontation), we are supposed to do what we can (whenever and however the Holy Spirit leads us...that part is most essential) to help others (with mercy, meekness and wisdom from God) remove the speck from theirs. We are called to 'restore gently' (Galatians 6:1) and '****** others from the fire and save them' (Jude 23) as the Lord enables us by His sovereign and saving grace to do it, to enter fully into His kingdom work in this dark world and into the risky business of loving even our worst enemies. It is our high privilege and duty as followers of Jesus Christ and those who bear His name on this earth to participate with Him in His work of redemption. He alone can save and deliver from sin, but we are called to be some of the instruments He providentially uses in the process.

Turning the other cheek (as Jesus taught it, commanded it and lived it out) is a shrewd, deliberate and Spirit-led extending of extravagant grace and unselfish blessing to our offender, along with a daringly tactical invitation to him to show his true colors and his true intentions, whatever they may be. Exactly how this looks and plays out will vary greatly depending on the unique circumstance or relationship, and we must always rely fully on the Lord (on His word and through communion with Him in prayer, His perfect example and His prompting) to give us wisdom and creativity in carrying out our part with humility and discernment, never forgetting that we too are in want of much deliverance from our own sins and besetting habits and therefore in desperate need of others to graciously do the same for us.

We must ask and believe God for His step-by-step direction in all of these things and be willing to follow Him no matter what it might cost us, even if the price is the seemingly unbearable discovery that our offender does not and will not love us—a possibility which may feel worse to us than death. The paralyzing fear of such a devastating revelation can easily become one of our greatest stumbling blocks to giving truly wise and beneficial gifts to those who hurt us, especially if they are among those from whom we desire a particular intimacy and acceptance.

Are we willing to face even more rejection? Are we willing to set aside our own 'need' to be loved by them in order to courageously, unconditionally love them as Jesus loves them and as He loves us—with a yearning for deliverance from sin and restoration to intimacy with God that requires the laying down of oneself for the sake of the other, the spending of oneself on behalf of the spiritually captive, naked, hungry and oppressed? And if not for their sake, are we willing to do it for the sake of our own intimacy with Christ and our own soul's hunger? Are we willing to rest completely in and rely only on His perfect and never-ending love to fill us so full that it cannot help but spill over to them? Are we willing to trust that He is enough for us in all things and at all times through all situations?

However complicated the situation may be, offering the other cheek is meant to be a sacrificially loving and boldly open invitation for our offender to make a clear and definite choice between repentance or continued and greater evil. It gives him the freedom, the responsibility and the obvious opportunity to decide exactly what he will do with our 'other cheek.' Will he 'kiss' it with genuine kindness this time (as a pledge toward true restoration) or strike us once again? The choice and responsibility are his alone, but either way it will eventually expose him for what he really is and his intentions for what they actually are and, perhaps, by the mercy of God bring him to see his need and desire for true reconciliation and healing. Our part is simply to hunger for him to hunger after God and to do what we can to cunningly provoke such an appetite.

But even if that never happens, even if he chooses to remain in captivity to sin, evil will no longer have a safe place to hide in the shadows. And once it is out in the open we can look it fully in the face with our dignity intact and without backing down or shrinking from our call to always be the aroma of Christ, and we can overcome it with the power of good through the strength of Jesus and the praise of His name (even when the situation and the Spirit dictate that it is wisest to keep our mouth shut and 'not cast our pearls...'). And because of Christ's satisfying love and all-sufficient grace, we can do it again and again and again, not with reluctance and resentment but with overwhelming compassion and unexplainable peace flooding our soul, even in the midst of earth-shattering pain. We can defeat evil by our very refusal to give into it or become part of it and by our determination to rest in the Lord and His promise to defend us in His perfect time and in His perfect way. And that is the heart's ultimate 'vengeance' against evil, for surely it cries out resoundingly for it.

So rather than taking our desired revenge on the evildoer (our offender), we can take it straight out upon the evil one (the devil), upon our real enemy and on his evil schemes. One of the weapons which the Lord has given us to carry out this precise form of tactical warfare is forgiveness, and we must learn to use it regularly, skillfully and lavishly without giving way to fearful intimidation or self-serving cowardice. 'And who is equal to such a task?' Only the Spirit of Christ living in us! We are utterly dependent on Him to do it in and through us and, unless we yield to His grace and power, it will be an impossible undertaking.

Dear wounded and hurting ones, we have been issued distinct invitations to two mutually exclusive feasts, and it is time now for us to choose which one we will be attending. There is much at stake in our decision, and so we must journey to the foot of the cross to make it...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"why can't I be a man that likes pink,

why can't I be a woman that likes to surf the wind,

why can't I be a man that cries tears of joy,

why can't I be a woman that's not a mommy

why can't I be a man, without toughening up,

why can't I just be

be a human"

Wutherings Bronte
https://www.instagram.com/wutheringsbronte/
PrttyBrd Jun 2014
Changes within
Changes without
The game without fun is useless
Rules are guidelines not facts
And so the wall begins
The first brick laid in tears
Pushed back across the line
The next laid in blood
Words lashed out
Toughening tender hearts
And the foundation is set
For the wall of regrets
31914
THE CANBERRA CROWD ARE A PACK OF YEAH MATE YEAH KIDS



YOU SEE, I DISAGREE WITH ARGUING WITH PARENTS

I ALSO FEEL MY HOOLIGAN CREEPING INTO MY TOES

I AM A FAMILY PERSON, WHO AIN’T SHY

I DON’T WANT TO BE TOLD TO RELAX BY A STUPID NERD

I DON’T **** PEOPLE OFF, NERDS **** PEOPLE OFF

AND I AIN’T A NERD, YOU SEE, TODAY I WAS FUNNY

COME ON SAY, I LIKE YOU BRIAN YOUR FUNNY, SAY THAT MATE

I HATE DAD’S VOICE IN MY HEAD, TREATING ME LIKE A SHYPERSON

BUT I WAS SHY WHEN I WAS YOUNG,

BUT I LIKE TO BE CALLED A FAMILY PERSON

YOU SEE, I SEE DAD, SAYING I THOUGHT YOU WANTED ME TO DO THIS

I WAS A BIT OF A HOOLIGAN WHEN I WAS YOUNG

BUT I AM REFORMED, I STILL LIKE FISH AND CHIPS

I HATE VOICES TRYING TO MAKE YELL ON THE ROADSIDE

IU NEVER LIKED DOING THAT

IT’S HARD, TO BE TREATED LIKE  A LITTLE SHY BOY

BY THE GROUPS YOUR WITH AND YOUR VOICES

IT’LL BE FUN TO MEET GREAME THORNE’S FAMILY

IT’S FUN TO LIVE IN A WORLD, THAT THE MENTALLY ILL

ARE MY FRIENDS

I KNOW HE’S MY FATHER, BUT I HATE IT, NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE

SAYING DAD WAS INSPIRATIONAL, YEAH, BUT HE SEEMED TO LIKE TEASING ME

WITH THE REALLY PERFECT PEOPLE, I LIKE DAD, AND I WISH PATRICK WOULD

TELL ME, LIKE BE HIS MATE AGAIN

YOU SEE, JUST BECAUSE I AM 45, DOESN’T MEAN I SHOULD GET PUSHED DOWN

BY ******* DAD, HE WAS *******, YEAH, DAD, THE SMART APPROACH

WOULD TEASE LIKE A FAMILY PERSON, CAUSE DAD’S WAY WILL NEVER EVER WORK

HE TRIED TO CARE FOR ME, BUT, IN THE WRONG WAY

I WOULD’VE LOVED IF DAD WAS ONE OF THOSE COOL FATHERS

WHO THINKS SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A 333 LONG BENDY BUS IS COOL

I FEEL THAT DAD WAS TRYING TO AVIOID GETTING ROBBED

BUT I HATED DAD DOING THE STUPID FIGHTING CALLING ME FOOL AND COWARD

DAD IS NOW ELIZABETH ANN CAMPBELL,

HERE IS A THOUGHT, TEASE ME THROUGH CYBER SPACE, AND CHANGE KIDS WAY OF THINKING

I LIKED PATRICK BACK THEN, BETTER THAN DAD, I WAS LETTING MY BROTHER MOVE ON

THE REASON WHY I HAD MY PARENTS OVER FOR XMAS PARTY DINNER

WAS BECAUSE I LOVE PARTIES, AND NOBODY BESIDES ONE MATE WANTED TO COME TO MY HOUSE

SO I LOOKED LIKE A CULE KID, YA KNOW, DAD HELPED ME LIKE THAT, I DON’T NEED TOUGHENING UP

YOU CAN’T STOP FIGHTING WITH FIGHTS, IF DAD WANTS TO SAY I AM NOT YA DADDY

SAY IT THROUGH ELIZABETH ANN CAMPBELL

AND I PARTY RIGHT TO THE END OF THE WORLD

I HATE BEING TREATED LIKE A BIG GIRL, GET THESE VOICES OUT OF MY FUCKEN HEAD

I AM A FAMILY PERSON, PLEASE I WOULDN’T MIND HAVING KIDS BUT I ACCEPT THAT, I AM NOT LIKE LYLE

I WANT TO HAVE YOUTUBE COMPANIONS CAUSE I HATE PATRICK TELLING ME BE A KOOMARRI TO MUCK AROUND WITH

I KNOW THEY ARE TREATING ME NORMALLY BUT I BELIEVE MY ITCHY FEET, IS MY HOOLIGAN LEAVING MY BODY

IT’S NOT MY LITTLE YOUNG DUDE

I DON’T WANT TO FIX MYSELF UP WITH MY PARENTS

CAUSE, I HATE BEING TREATED LIKE A HOOLIGAN, NO MATTER

YA SEE, FROM DEEP WITHIN, THERE IS A LITTLE SHY BOY, THAT NEEDS TO GET OUT

YOU SEE, I HATE BEING TREATED LIKE A BIG GIRL, A SHYPERSON, SO TO SPEAK

YA SEE, EVERY ITCH, IS MY HOOLIGAN, ANYONE WHO GETS ITCHY INFECTION’S LIKE MY ITCHY INFECTIONS

IT MEANS YOU EITHER HAVE AN EVIL PAST IN THIS LIFE, AND AN EVIL PREVIOUS LIFE

EVERYONE HAS A HOOLIGAN TRAPPED INSIDE THEM

BUT I BELIEVE YOU HAVE TO REALLY ITCH TO GET RID OF IT

YA SEE, I LOVE LIFE, AND I LOVE TO PARTY IN LIFE, I WISH DAD AND PATRICK WOULD GET OUT OF MY HEAD

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ATTEMPTING TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT, I DO SLEEP, ON THE CHAIR

BUT DAD WANTS TO BRING MY BIG MAN INTO ACTION, BECAUSE HE WORRIES LIKE A COTTON WOOL ADULT

THAT IS WHY, I TOLD HIM I WAS TEASING HIM, I TEASED HIM BY SAYING

YOU SHOULD SMOKE AGAIN DAD, I AM PATRICK DUNBAR AND GREAME THORNE

AND I REMEMBER, BEING ALBERT WALDRON, AND THAT HOTEL, WAS THE BEST HOTEL IN THE LAND

I AM HEARING MY BULLY WITH MY BROTHER, AS I AM TYPING THIS STORY,I AM HEARING MYSELF THROUGH PATRICK

YOU SEE, I HATED DAD, BUT I GREW TO LIKE HIM, BUT HE SEEMED TO TAKE THAT ALL AWAY

REALLY, NOBODY CAN SEND BRIAN ALLAN TO BED, JUST BECAUSE

YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND I WALKED AROUND FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

I LIKED THAT THEN, BUT NOW I MUST GROW UP INTO A PARTY LOVING MAN

A FUN LOVING GUY TO BOOT

I AM A FUN LOVING GUY, AND THEN EVERYONE SAID, *******, I SAID, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO MUCK AROUND

DAD IS LOOKING OUT FOR ME, BUT HE IS FUCKEN COTTON WOOLING, I HATE WHEN PATRICK IN MY HEAD BE’S A FATHER FIGURE TO SAY I’M NOT YA DADDY

THAT IS NOT NICE AT ALL
naivemoon Aug 2013
it's 10:18pm and my heart aches a little for your touch. it aches a lot for your touch, actually. it shrivels up in a ball and goes in the corner of my hollow chest and buries itself in sadness. it misses you, maybe even more than I do. after you left, you see, my heart and I have yet to be on good terms. we fight. we fight a lot. we fight about stupid things like starting up a conversation with you. stupid things like crying and letting it out and toughening it out. stupid things like that. now, this is not a midnight jumble of words but it could easily be that if it were midnight. now, I do hope you're happy and your heart and yourself are on good terms. I certainly do hope so.
Vale Luna Jul 2017
Ten teaspoons of pure suffering
With a sprinkle of love toughening
Add a pound of tormented soul
To mix up into the life bowl
                      
A tiny pinch of happiness
With a huge handful of darkness
Now give those two a solid roll
To mix up into the life bowl

Maybe add a dash of pleasure
Which must be light as a feather
Add chunks of torture for that toll
To mix up into the life bowl

Don’t forget a cup of heartbreak
Including all friends that are fake
With that, your recipe is whole
To mix up into the life bowl.
Robert Guerrero Mar 2021
It's all it takes to make me happy
All I need to put a smile on
3 things reason enough
To become a better man
Than I was a second ago
My daughter
Innocent and energetic
Heart of gold
I'd plate with titanium
So it would never be broken
Lock away in a far away castle
Too high for even dragons to reach
But I know you can't hide
The radiance of her eyes
Intrigued by everything
With a giving hand at her age
My Family
Jokes and burns
Scares and bruises
We give each other just for a laugh
Toughening each other's minds
Keeping the wise still sharp
Forging the young
Into durable adults
Prepared for anything
Ready to take charge
Tearing out walls
To open their own doors
My friends
Uplifting and always there
Significant to someone like me
Who fears the dark
Wishing to never be left alone
If not for them
I would have given up
On chasing the dream
Of becoming a man
My little girl is proud of
It's gratitude before me
Oceans of debts
Money could never pay back
Only my success could do
Proving to them all
Their failure to give up on me
Wasn't in vain
That I was truly worth
Every drop of effort
They didn't realize they put in
A simple smile
A helping hand
An "I got you if you need me"
Late night talks
Advice I didn't think I needed
It all molded me
Every bit of kindness
I didn't think I was worth
I say it's 3 things
Yet that's just the categories
I've placed the thousands of hands
I refuse to let go of, in
Thank you
From my soul
To the tears that fall
As I write this
While I'm supposed to be working
All of you saved me
When I couldn't save myself
Yes, I really started crying at work writing this. My appreciate runs so deep. I feel as if I'm in a better point in my life and things are looking up. I've been focusing on more of the positive things in my life. Through therapy, anger management, and being free from a very unhealthy relationship, I feel myself maturing at a rate that terrifies me bc I don't want to grow up just yet but ik I have to. My priorities are in line and I'm becoming proud of myself in everything that I do thanks to all the people that have become a major influence in my life, who I almost lost bc I fell deep in a rabbit hole of depression and almost gave up on my life. Even considering the unfortunate events that got me out of that I'm looking at the positive side of even that and being grateful that if not for the things that transpired I wouldn't have found the happiness that I'm slowly getting accustomed to. Now if only I could achieve one thing that's weighing on me I'm pretty sure I'll transcend to a Bob Ross level of Happy. Once again...nine out of ten if you're reading this you deserve this...THANK YOU.
Amanda Aug 2018
My heart is
Crystal glass
Hear it
Sing with
Loves clear tone
Then shattering
At the break
How deep
Splinters cut
Creating the scars
Under the cover
Of a toughening skin
petuniawhiskey Nov 2014
2
on the film

there’s a story

and its told in black and white

in the writings

there’s a meaning

like when we stay up in the night

and in the winter

we dreamed that we would have our

life in our hands, and we’d be alrightwell now its summer

and you’re flashing me a light

in the middle of the night

i’ve always been running

and i ran into you

and i guess you ran in to me, too

but i’m still running

i don’t know what fromi don’t know where to

but i hope i’ll still have you

when it’s over

when our death is coming true

and if its true

when you say you can’t handle back ‘n’ forthand i’m too

misleading for what its worth

well, i’m sorry

but its a price you’ll have to pay

i never chose to be this way

a different person everyday

sometimes i don’t know what to say

can’t form the words like i could form some softened clay

i keep things in, but i don’t mean to keep them far away

i’m toughening upi’m getting righti love you, and thank

you for the fightsand your uppercut into meand how you

push my face into your kneeand your teethbreaking

sincerityand your hurtful honestyyeah it hurts mebut

what does not **** me makes me strongeri hope you hit

me a while longeri hope you’ll kiss me when i’m

weakwhen i am bleak and incomplete
-dylan napolitan
Plain Jane Glory Apr 2014
Pardon me in my attempts to shovel through the ******* alone
if only I could read enough books to become the great Athena,
listen to enough Patti Smith so that I could slowly slip into her shadow,
or walk enough paths so as to become so rugged yet feminine as Mother Earth herself

if only I could know all, be all, see all
if only I could accept happiness like I accept sweet kisses,
each always turning sour, anyhow

Ignorant, clueless, helpless, I stand with feet on coals

I want to set off running
preferably before these volcanos erupt
and I'm cloaked in this archaic ash forevermore
Stuck holding fast to a pose so foreign to my own heartbeat

I want to set off running
Arms open to the greenest of leaves
and coolest of falling raindrops
Like a tigress on a mission,
Leaping into certain life

I want to take off running
I want these two feet to carry me somewhere that I don't feel so huge and clumsy, but small, with fingertips cradling grinning vibrations that travel with a touch

I want to take off running
into the pages of science fiction books
onto strange and foreign planets
have their creatures pick apart my stagnant brain
I want to be turned, insides out, by aliens

I plan to run until my legs give out,
until there are no planets, no stars, no more books to host me
until my arms are full with words and wisdoms,
and my lungs collapse, exalted

……..

I always saw a beauty in dried roses
They know they are lifeless, yet they hold
darkening and toughening, beautiful in death
with reds darker still, and romance tangible
Sumus System Jan 2019
Cracks form in my tender heart
A Hardening and toughening dart

Tears dry and stop their flow
Not of happiness but of sorrow

The pains dulls over time
More present however, in its prime

Still living at almost functionality
Slowly losing touch with reality

The sobbing halts in a bind
Not of peace, of a broken mind

My heart is broken and almost unfeeling
It’s evolved and become great at concealing
I learned to survive by distancing myself
hazael-fae Oct 2019
She is a blob of energy
dancing
frolicking through the clouds.
The storm tangles her
sending her up twirling.
She rides through the storms
toughening her skin.
dancing through the winds
a beautiful tale of who she is.
Strong.
She can handle anything the wind carries
Suman Saha Mar 2018
Comparing yourself and your journey may be habitual, but it gets you nowhere. It always finds a corner to cover your past and come back to you again with ringing bells and ****** on country pleasured, childishly?
If I told you,
18 years ago,
I didn't quite know how to raise my back,
Would you give your hand for a support?
If I told you,
16 years back,
I didn't quite know how to say hello,
Will you let me say hello again?
If I told you,
14 years ago,
I know I ****** at the hot sack races,
Will you play with me again?
If I told you,
I know I was usually slow with the bicycle,
Will you still ride with me?
If I told you,
10 years ago,
I know I splashed around more than I swam in the pool,
Will you still swim with me?
If I told you,
8 years a go,
I got trapped in a berry tree and couldn't rescued myself,
Would you had come for my rescue?
If I told you,
6 years ago,
I didn't quite know how to 'dress up',
Will you still take me out?
If I told you,
4 years ago,
I was an absolute tech noob,
Will you still sit with me on the computer?
If I told you,
2 years ago,
I felt my heart toughening up to feel like a stone,
Will you still pore over my bruises and wounds?
If I told you,
I was an empty ocean,
Would you have filled me up with rainfalls?
If I told you,
I still don't know how to say I Love You,
Will you still let me?
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2020
the precursors of mourning have already begun -
the shadow is fleeing:
the eyes no longer show signs of glee -
where there were once two diamonds
in the skull's sockets... are but ambers of
dying frenzy -
               these are the precursors of mourning:
it's heightened since
a daughter is crying: her son is pretenisouly
solid - a harsh connotation...
she herself has said: by tomorrow you should
probably leave the house and let
me do my girly "thing" and wallow -
a girl tells a boy he's not supposed to:
as much as he might want to allow himself
to also tow along some tears: he's not supposed
to...
seems like: perhaps i was a boy then...
and the beloved dog of the family died
and one were allowed to weep over so much
animation and nuance in a bark:
but soulless the essence died... nonetheless...
even then... the man who is about
to die ventured to restrain himself in giving
me the news when i was having a sleepover
since: boys don't cry...
it's funny-numb: it's teasing tears that
are not supposed to be shed...
in the last years of his dementia he would still
remember... that same dog...
a mongrel-esque tease of an alsatian
by the name of Bella -
              me, him and the dog taking long
walks... me climbing trees
the dog barking up the tree out of concern...
he couldn't remember details
of the lives of his children...
but me being the solo grandchild...
well... aren't i just ******* special...
- and yes these past years i already witnessed
his death: we were once the graveyard
hyenas as i took him for a walk...
to his mother's grave... to his grandfather's grave
and he would also say:
this is where the two josephs with lie:
side by side...
              i'm hour away from visiting
the old country: dear "mother" will receive me
as she always did: a comfortable sensation
when landing in Cracow...
all that is modern and horrid and competitive
and obstructive to any force outside
of its cement - Warsaw passed-by...
   i'll travel to a little ****-hole of a town of my birth
from the warsaw western termnial:
where i will be approached by a mingling of
ukrainian "tourists": i'll probably spot one
or two mongols...
if it will be a sunny day: i will feel inclined
to savour the sensation that:
even Glasgow - at its most outer grim...
it would only require sunlight to elevate
a reaping presence of glum toughening -
               such this life bestows -
                         lottery, random chance...
purposively agitated wills composed
of a **** / reaping of life...
             until this choice plateau / plateau of choices...
it is unimportant for the lineage
of this man to have survived:
after all... i have not "bothered" to keep
it... rejuvenated... i had no... lineage
quest... no family name...
although... if i invoked my mother's
maiden name: Batuk... almost resonates
like Bathory... origins in the Czech sphere:
- and he implored me to call him
once a month to talk any sort of crap
with him - i hardly ever did:
we came to an understanding that
to talk... a conversation would require
****** features contorting, eyes...
probably some hands too...
is that a regret?
                  it could very well... but not
really...
i have to "man up"... there's the wait:
from the hospice to the shallows:
grave being the riddle and as he stressed
countless times: death the great leveller -
the only democratic auto- prefix:
that no one can "just" veto...
and by all standards of mortality -
born 1939: herr! bite bonbon! circling
around 82 isn't bad for a man...
it's already pushing the expectations...
so my tearing into a soppy-****-blind-poodle
wouldn't do enough justice...
after all: aren't we supposed to feel less
grief for life stretched to its limits...
even he conceded his dementia furore as:
all my friends are dead...
i sleep, i eat... i **** i watch t.v. -
i still vaguely recognise a crossword
puzzle... all that's necessary now is to
sometimes refresh myself
with a familiar face...
i do want to wriggle in feminine emotions:
still his contest:
make your heart small...
             hardened to a coil and inviting
a pebble to circumstance it further:
then you will have all other details in your
grasp, grit... boiling over crescendo...
how i want to weep...
but this impeding ceremony...
his jokes about being buried in uncomfortable
shoes: how he joked about the hebrews
being buried sitting down: so they would:
upon resurrection... get up first...
and not too long ago... a year...
my grand-uncle died: my grandmother's brother...
etc. etc.
how he joked:
             hmmph! a sarcastic sound...
this one disagreement they had:
the accusation was on the lines of:
he said that i was brought up by the communist
party (and the P.R.L.) while this...
semi-******* of a grand-uncle... one footed
with the lost foot a ghost limb:
after this daughter had a miscarriage:
newly converted to god, church and the law &
justice party mantra...
my grandfather will die: negating
any communist party affiliation...
                      so much for Poland per se...
what could possibly need to happen...
next up on the chop-a-block of: inevitable...
my grandmother...
and isn't that going to be a woozy...
a new definition of division...
my mother a daddy's girl...
my uncle a momma's boy...
           my father? abandoned by his parents
is beside stoicism:
i'd pinch a suggestion
at psychopathy - now news of death:
just this... working up to cul de sac certainties...
hours from now and i'll be
bed-side at the hospice talking
to a vision of a corpse not yet formalised...
to exercise the final testament of
his nigh...
               - point being...
his death is what i was anticipating...
              at the end of this rainbow is
the death of "my" tongue...
travel to Poland to speak some nativistic first
coming?
with strangers?
lined up they die and i will not need
to... that's probably as it always should have been:
i can't imagine engaging in
anglo-integration projects
where the tongue is first to die:
because: i'm sikh turban pronounced standing...
i could easily be mistaken for
a german: and that's hardly a compliment...
i have been a german many a times...

- but to be prescribed so much deadening
energy: for the most appropriate masculine
traits... unfathomability and a fortitude of
changelessness -
a sternness and a bleak blind certainty...
i wish i could allow myself the same...
mollusk-esque softness associated with
a pet dog dying:
perhaps i should focus on...
a vessel of a memory of me making this
world all the more hostile and
unfathomable...

from noak hill across three country parks
i ended up in chigwell row...
i admired the sensation of
feet forged to a marathon walked...
i muttered the most inaudible:
find me more aloof... more secluded...
let me join the ranks of those
already sentenced to the base reality
conundrum:
that death is a liberty and that...
i have no fear of dreams per se...

otherwise: thank whoever it is i have
to thank for the least of my talent being
exposed:
there is no: go gently into that good night...
blindness for one...
is not the cobweb of smoke
and mirrors of dementia: the latter...
i have to cherish the exactness of my
gargoyle face to keep these last remaining
tremors of life being gifted with:
an old curiosity...

i will not rhyme what's already
a technical matter...
that i want to wed my eyes my breath
with that of death impeding
and find him there: old joseph batuk...
while my father was "missing" from
me aged 4 through to 8...
because the western lands
required brain / labour drain...
i was the one who punctured his
bicycle wheel when he was engaging his
last days in employment...
that he was a drunkard from time to time:
well... i sure as ****
out-competed him...
i became a bigger drunk than he
ever was... yet by the vanity in me
owned... and by the diabolical belief
in the hebrew demiurge:
i teamed up with project focus
and spew such details... from time to time:

that it is somehow still only about me:
is because... i believe in being
reunited... in the sacred phlegm of Hades
were i have possession
of the most essential faculties to
entertain eternity:
but i no need for ****...
or for gluttony therefore no need
for taste...
i won't be needing these ******* sacks
or an islamic sacred garden harem
to satisfy my death-robbed blues
of unexcavated potentialities:

i want to catch death with its 21 supposed
grams...
how i meditated death of late
by merely walking: expecting to
chance myself with harp and
plough...
that i am forever reminded:
      to be sitting on laurels...
   as ever... to write this belittling of such
little... to be sitting on laurels
is to write poetry:
when one is expected to churn
out expectations with hammer, sickle...
and the brood's best interest...
of which: i can disclose none...

therefore to dance a romance with death:
i want to be there at my grandfather's
second birth...
when there's a fathoming for
a necessary eternity while he's my post-stamp
collector: which he was...
where so much of a year
is me and him preoccupied with
months upon end
admiring neptune...
sending vagueness via postcards
on sunbeams:

first came the atom bomb...
then the tightening cipher of a corrected
explosion in the variant of a beam...
of photons...
terribly accurate scientific verbiage...
if only my hometown assured me
a life in his line of work...
in metallurgy... well... the town collapsed
and so my father had to emigrate...
would be tree-chopper destined
to canada: stalled in england... present day...

death so... what a fine word in
quasi-germanic...
english...
   it sounds so much more horrid
in slavic: śmierć...
no amount of diacritical elevation...
should the same word resurface in
ancient: Ruś...
                            смерть...
smerts! ******* "smurfs" and all...

death o noun too hollow...
and if i didn't believe orthography existed
in english: only spelling mistakes...
well...

death "contra" deaf...
is very much akin to:

     morze: sea -
       może: maybe...
                
        but i implore to be forgiven:
since the english tongue doesn't employ
any diacritical markers:
from either above or below...
i never thought more of expressing
nuance, regarding it...
as the base: "spelling mistake"...
hell... to elevate such mistakes
to orthography status...
you imply i might demean all
that... metaphysical jargon focus...

a. g. barr's ice cream soda...
probably the only sort of drink
worthy of culprit memory...
mine own impressions
are mostly associated with soviet-esque
lemonades...
and turbo-chewing gums...
as boys we were supposed
to have this hunger for:
machinery tip-toe ***** envy
**** magnet:

ol' grandfather and me...
i liked to test horses for a gallop...
he would... tease some others with
an apple and a sugar-cube...

a life so completed but having
to leave one so ******* empty...
i don't care if death is so benevolent in her
praises of justice:
as blind as deaf and as tongueless as
she wants to stress herself to be...
i will not dare to cry...
perhaps... a year from now...
when my own presence in this world
is gravitating toward a new assemblance
of anonymity:
when... already...
my  neighbours are hollow ushers...
imps and diabolical idling...

at the hospice i want to see death
give birth...
i want to be this fairy-godmother
of clingingness and
obstruction...
fazing...
              for the ode of inbreeding
nuances of genes: which he didn't mind...
when he would reserve a stash of
newspapers for the "quasimodo"
that above him dwelled...
and how he would celebrate the antithesis
of inquiring for scissors...
slit lick and itching for a scratch...

you can't work around
having to employ cipher! not now!

the daughter cries for a father:
yet she's so estranged from him nd was...
this supposed: for the life to be bettered
by her offspring... mr. uno!
no... she's crying out of nostalgia...
i'm wanting to cry from...
a memory of me is about
to die within and with someone
nothing this world can compensate
me with...

collateral: lizard skins and hardening...
stone baron...
furthering of life is "nuanced"...
if this is the precursor of
son burying mother...
etc. in that quadratic...
i most certainly want to play
the role of coroner...
burning of bacon...

from the years 2004 through to 2007...
the summer escapades...
bicycle... fishing...
a man can become this completeness
in a memory that cannot be shaken...
obstructed with...
how i abhor readying myself for the
ceremony and the wake...

how the death of my grandfather
is less than
the grief already testified by his daughter:
my mother...
and how my father is this...
******* limbo rubix cube of cipher
decipher cipher decipher...
numb...
               when i supposedly burry
my father i will have to borrow burrying
someone else...

but before all that:
i want to chase death and laugh:
you's one siding antithesis shadow!
you's a shadow!
ha ha! i want to become this
inglorious... fester...
as to how death is defeated...
it's appreciated too literally...
it needs to be...
i can't allow death its grandiosity of
metaphors and church / clerical whimsical churns...
death is death is...
the beauty of the scents of autumn...

- yes, now that i'm scouting for excesses
of freedoms: i bemoan all those
readily cherished...
i have attired myself a beside:
this grievance of a "patriarchal" supposition...
by no way blinded
this lost excavation posit...
  death of "one" nearing the focus
stresor of selling... bubblegum...

death has to achieve a stature of mediocre...
so human yet so debased from man...
if i were to burn upon the pyre
of pagan worship... that death might
impart onto me a wizening...
a detail left in an obscurity of creases...

after his death i might "finally"
read Zły - leopold tymrand...
which i probably will: given how mediocre
all of knausgaard had to become:
celebrating flaubert's madame
bovary...
here is a detail and a corner...
a slab of death's riddle:
stone bound... epitaph thus missing;
but the immediacy so focused
upon a serenity of disclosure...

here lies the emblem of
the last carousel of life...
best kept impossibly immobile...
to lessen the creases...
and how one might...
appease the harems
of woo...
with french poodle jarry yoddles...
no one is to wed themselves
to my "unearthng":
sooner...
this poor rabbit blind...
en route toward my escapist
foundation furore....

to be "happy" is to be hardly
conceiving of... being...
inquiring...
to be happy is to be: dumb dumb
dumbfounded:
lost for words...
a limitless "etc"...
******* dim-wit... yeah...

last "things" i wanted
from the concept of completeness
was... "happy"...
for ****'s sakess with happy...
i don't want to be happy...
i want to be happy....
i want to be "sad"...
as long as i remain inquisitive!

i die or precusror: and therefore:
"button up"... i might fidget with
the nimble crow for all
that the curation of:
that requires the edible...
regal overtones overthrows
a h'americanana... of
a lasting... impossible... first...

and there's a "thirst"...
and then there's a "drowning"...
and an expectancy of
the... great... h'american way'vre....
veer into nill!           q?!
As a bricklayer's assistant
he was a farmer's son first:
by result of a school mockery
he has been extracted
from the roots.

Location between distances
to yourself in a safe mode is
the perpendicular engineering
of toughening.

I am looking

at the holy picture as
he breathes calmly
during sleep

my father
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2020
chopping two heads of garlic for:
however long that might have lasted -
each tooth cut into a fine matrix
of miniature cubes -
cut to the point where a fattiness
oozes from each garlic tooth:
sticky saliva-esque ('l) and it's not...
the kind that comes bursting
with onions spitting venom -
how bewildered to be answering
the door when a delivery man
has just dropped a package
and you've also... just been cutting
onions...
   a tear that has to transcend
both grief, happiness and pangs of
beauty -
the garlic?
     the feel of fingers after having
fingered and slobbered and
come glutton on the equivalent
of **** and a devil's dozen
of oysters -
                a recipe for pickled
cucumbers: that they were cucumbers
that would become gherkins...
yes... thinly sliced 4kg of cucumbers
to 1kg of sugar... this and that:
some curry powder...
left in 2tbsp of salt to gush with brine...
and then... the pasteurißation
process - fudge packed into jars...
the lids not fully twisted on...
some breathing room -
"baked" in an oven at 120 degrees
for less than an hour...
taken out... the lids firmly ******* on...
then the jars flipped upside down
to stand...
for safe-keeping...
to boil the impurities away...
boil giddy broth and all that scratching
youth of cucumber away
for a smoothness accustomed
to marble...
funny that... the onion - how it is
the only vegetable to have some variation
of a venom and is still
the only metaphor of a snake -
the tears i shed over these Baßil plucks...
   in english: ß is an interchange:
once a sharpened S...
i know of sharpening eSSeS...
cute acute is the final form:
           ślizg (off ślizgać: to slide -
i.e. one has the slang attache -
a bit like: having the groove)...
you can almost hear it: at the end of
each hush: it's never a hush:
it's a huś of a librarian...
        a howl of it might i add...      
- crude caron is the: not yet blunt...
meat-eater.... teeth indentations... grooves...
          shackles...
the crown: šaro-
             followed by two halves
of a crown -ść               i.e. greyness -
which is still not borrowing from
the ingenuity of the russians:
szczera (too many consonants my ***...
too many vowels you roman dogs!)
   SH-CH -
                       Š + Č = Ш + Ч = Щ
        we could have the "ingenuity" process
of this evolution of... an "apostrophe"
from the depths...
   but... catherine the great was
a german lass... and even though: Ц
sits proud and could have been...
                    it wasn't... since...

Ц ≠ CH(eap)
         or CZ(art)
           or ČaXa...
      it could have: what was it...
a mirror inquisition of mu to begin with?
give me 100 years and a book burning
and i could "correct" this burden...
so it ******* fits...
i'd even call in the mongols to implement
this change...

the germans already say: цentrum
and write zentrum - herr tseit!
                                 herr schtick-a-lot: цar...
щerość  - truthfulness...
                                         / ščerość:
two coronas halved -
or... sharpened...
                     and to think... this little adventure
has me dancing above a latin script!
and... deviating from some ur-greek...

we could do this minor change:
"pan-slavic" borrowings from
the 19the century in the balkans
under the ottomans -
           this hypered breathing tool
to extract the yet Siberia - Hades bride
a near pristine ****** -
in this cosmopolitan confused multi-
of an english...
i am here to express and drag back
into the "darkness" of the east
memento...

  that the greek had names for
some of their letters: omicron, omega,
alpha, beta, gamma...
but that the latins had:
vowel-and-consonant: syllables
instead of proper names...
delta - a sensation for a prefix letter...
and a suffix name scoop...

cut my ***** off and feed me
operatic candy...
when you open a bag of
    chimichurri chimichurri:
chim chim churri...
no... when you open a bag
of been-sprouts after
the best-before-date...
    you know the perfume if you have
ever... fermented grapes:
it's that in-between scent
of fermentation -
it's quiet off-putting...
but it's passable...
              but english is both
the currency of the present...
the language of empire
the lingua franca: although:
the crescent moon in the shackles
of the sheikhs:
who moved these youths into
europe if not the project harem...
and fatso old cat laze'ohs of
the woman's drudge:
a heaving tide of custard flesh...
boiling with lazy bop-bop of
bubbles...
                    we can discuss it in
english: never mind the natives...
we came, we saw...
some of us didn't bothered feeling
at home...
although: we once hoped to be...
never... *******... mind!

i'm here for two "letters"... well...
sounds... in the russian text...
great orthographer that i am:
the english can have their metaphysical
this certain debate that...
that uncertain debate this...
it's not like the english will ever
employ diacritical markers...
a recurrent theme: a stressor on my mind...
it will never be allowed
a pop fission - it will not claim
an epidemic status -
mind you:
the priests the psychiatrists and the
prostitutes... minor of the 3:
the four horseman... the "poet":
the poo-etcetera...
  try try, try bring fail...
"ignore, ignore": "happiness"
will find its trail...

                 but once! in a time of...
poesy and cerebral palsy!
sound: ping pongs of echoes pf
dying elephants or whales...
            the stomach of the disgruntled
indigestion that's the best assumed
presence of: sea...
            
it's become certain:
in youth to write while listening to music...
tone deaf i: too could reach
a tornado of words... that...
let's be frank: i never recite what i write...
i write best from what's
yet to be seen... i uncover what's hidden...
i don't pretend to measure sounds...
if my voice had the same sensation
to encompass blowing into a saxophone...
no... a horn...
this monotone gravity of breve -
this great aeon bespoke sloth of
an otherwise riddling tongue turned
into an ancient worming from:
from a time when man did not pass
onto his futures -
a memory of some ancient - fabled oned -
a once that turned out to be:
full of replicas! i.e. archetypical
wounds... that forever bleed...

best this written in a silence that
wakes up with an imitation wind...
two letters... russian... beside ur-greek
to me... exported to as far east
as Kamchatka.... which is practically
north of Tokyo -

it's a contested scenario... this...
Цц vs. Чч -
if it was handwritten for the envisioning
of... the:        Ш + Ц = Щ
i'm sold... aren't you sold?
  ah... envious of handwriting fluidity -
now: digit plucking - each letter a solipsistic
"counterstrike"...
     yes... looks like we have ourselves...
the... *****...
             clearly...   zee... ШИЦ!

inversion of mooment - the crows are
near tonight: they are quarreling with the gods...
or perhaps that's just the ***** foxes
teasing leather -
   that i write and there's no music
to distract me: elevate this already
impossible...

i go to sleep with alarm bells ringing...
robert duncan's realisation that he was a poet
aged 17... upon leaving high-school
i did stand before the entire cohort
of my contemporaries and recited a poem:
over which i cried two days prior...
an epileptic seizure gripped
my body from neck down...
but i did manage a recitation...
    i was supposed to become a chemist
now i'm looking for a part-time occupation
in the n.h.s. as having:
good organisational skills and...
a sense of humour...
or some BICS: for... part time gigs at
the ol' B... B... C...
i don't mind i just want something
to execute an elevated trance of
robotics to let my mind wander...
outside the confines of robo-brutus-robos:
anti-caesar: oh look! "us"!

two "inconveniences" of the 20th century
motivate me...
the despots and the shan franshishko poets...
there's that famous gozilla
of a tornado... there's that...
Bulgakov centre piece of a collection
of... best kept hush-hush among
the moth community...

   that language toys with me that
i don't want to have a competence with it
concerning that i don't have a narrrative
that i'm all tickety-fuckety
when it comes to clocks and eternal silences...
a clock on earth... vacuum...
a boiling kettle on pluto...
given only these two ***** for juggling...
it's... kinda boring... isn't it?
how is one expected to juggle
only two *****?
two oranges... better image... get go image!
i juggle time... i juggle space...
both so impossibly impersonal:
i'd loot a grave for an epitaph that
might make an irish joke down
a pub about them...

       and they kept 'em "*******" in the sports
and kept 'em prized athletes... coz cousing
'arab?
well... they knew those hebs
were expendable from the ghetto-go
prior to the gassing stipends...
it's not these whites keep:
samson strength of david-esque
ingenuity...
it's not like the hebs matter in the world
of sporting events...
gift of the gab... i guess that's what
prizes them above all else...
gifts of "superstition"...
to me? there is enough phonetic evidence
to summon me to showcase
that... the tetragrammaton is...
a spider in a web of english:
surd H(atches)...

        a breath of a dying man
about to... pOUNCE!
but the jews were never cotton pickers...
they were never athletes -
if they ever built the pyramids...
i wonder...
it's not like... they... possibly...
hebrews are intellectual creatures:
they are not... about to be caricatured
with fully functioning limbs
readied for the ******* colliseum...
unless they might me...
nero's torches...
and the greek conspiracy -
after all...
           wouldn't the greeks have
conspired....
to topple rome...
in order to therefore...
retain a dominance of power:
byzantine: years after the western
"concept" crumbled?

you don't keeps jews to have
the masses entertained:
you keep the ******* to falsetto
the ******* roll-a-bit sort of gimmick...
run around... kick a coconut...
come back with a lion's golden mane...
jason and the argonauts...
casimir and the ******* cosmotaunts:

*** note on biGGer?
better: sniGGer!
i count less in niGerian -
the offensive sound - less by scent
of "things": a heb is not a jew is  yew:
from a ***...
you can't leave these tracers or:
otherwise we: shun the *****!
that's great: i too spell a sound without
a necessity to connote malice...
but of course: borrowed lithuanian
that i am: under the hellish
anglo-saxon brute manifesto...
all is glacier and glycerine and
toughening of Karen east of any
that's east... the mouthful of
the Danube...

       to "bleep" out a sound to
mishandle the necessity of meaning:
if the blacks can own a ******
why can't i... not own a ******
in his stead of... to tattoo myself
all aryan:
the jew that never made it to
the coliseum as a gladiator -
this burning ***** hair floss of
st. peter's crux...

  we are still in favour of african
mind: less productive:
readily this body made...
there's now clue as to why
a thought concerning:
Proteus - Herr Frankenstein's monster:
Einzstein: Zuerst- also a -stein / - shtein...
zweite-christus-und-stein!

it's unlike a must it's not this
competition with: social inclusive standards:
of what?
the saxon: project that -
one year excluded the irish...
other year: made great fictions
surrounding Libya...
i have before me a history:
that in part i cannot inherit...
i have these... fickle restrictions:
panderings: walking on egg-shell
moments for...

in my own wery brittle: sam's son:
didn't herr voltzwitz stress:
son of sam-
         em... -uel
                 or... -son?
                          jacob my dear fiction...
continue: bring forth
these nuanced goods...

and my two morning synchs...
a cat that wakes me come nearing 5am:
to watch him: entertain myself...
him taking a **** or a ****...
into a tight bundle of imitation
sahara...
or another... to attire her with
creases of the hand...
to pet her... so that she feels
obliged to sleep in my bed...

there i was concerning myself:
does my beard reveal the cubism
of a violin?!
i still have two russian letters on
my mind...
i'll burn them into my forehead
so that i can allow myself to sleep...
but besides?
there's this, courtous conversation
i am to be having - past participle
and future: yes... i mean no...
i will not be having this
african gladiators contra the yiddish
intellectual sludge extension:
no anglo-saxon sensibility will
save me from this: it's own...
hidden lick o' "squander"...

   pandering... for... enough ******
autonomy... to clean offices...
and find the joy of a mind's escapism...
pandering to who beside
the ******* tended to orators
and giggling politicians?

this is enough of a night's vanquish...
to have: as i have: have tamed.

p.s. there's no proof in you "not being" racist
by having ****** a black girl...
i just wonder: could it have been enough
when the trans-racial incorporation
sequence to create the copper-skin
pseudo-arabs begun...
when it was still a taboo...
   not now... i don't know vot "vey"
vont.... or'zzz dunst noot vont...
lebanon?

             i can see myself, though...
******* some copper-skin imitation
h'arab as far tainted as:
lemon-squinting: there's no sunrise:
come the blessings of beijing...
yeah... i too would like to marinade...
or at least have that prawn flesh
tenderness:
to be able to cook in enough
critic acid... without the use
of over boiling water...
it's called tenderising or:
some other magic word...

            *** notes: yes yes...
thoroughly throughout...
fishing for russian nazis...
            ah ha ha...         deaf-tone... joke.
AydanL Jul 5
Old roots toughening into spoilt memoirs;

too much attention
without any real love.

(and the joyous times exploring
alone every inch of where I lived,
and who I thought to be on my
side, my level.)

A saga to be continued with no
one involved.

Stay sacred, stay sane. truth you are bound to claim.

Money isn't always certain.
Take a peek behind the glamour-

Power demands lunch breaks,
requires importantly restraint, but to never stop. Infact it is a fantasy.

For it is key to give it up.
Leaders have no need for secrets either.

Responsibilities shared, options
given of which we would then gain.

Our rights, acceptable conditions for striving.

Stay sacred, stay sane.
Keep it in the back of your head.

Goodnight-hello, good morning- goodbye.

Don't worry I'm smoking.
This is my life,
and it has power over me.

Everything is meant to be.
Tyler Apr 2022
rushing tumbling at the heart of the sea.
how long have I since been ****** down, rumbling, toughening, by the ocean's regrets?
waves of disapproval. waves my face crashed through.
stronger. stronger. stronger.
the pressure made me.
I finally headbutted the floor, but it wasn't enough.

tsunami caused behind me;
I dig to the core.
hurricane of emotion;
I caused boats to overturn.
something singing terrorizing songs against me;
the current I swim into.

a buoy I could be,
the anchor I must.

dont get pulled by the riptide,
grab me by my shell,
I shall be your sea turtle,
in me, do you trust?
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2020
there's absolutely no need to write
these days -
perhaps if i were much much
younger and idealistic -
what love... what oh what woe...
could have could be (etc.) -

today i found myself in love
with england for: however many
a time...
the rolling hills cliche -
but i was alone: yet i was legion...
i was no anglo-saxon
with an army...

i strolled the countryside and
for this moment of certainty:
i was truly allowed to
hold firmness of aloofness -

beside the rabbit i crouched
beside two meters away...
a wild thing i was almost eager
to pick it up:
was the rabbit blind?

it's beyond questionably unfathomable...
well... there was that fox
that decided to come to soup kitchen
in my back garden
for nearing two months:
at a time when i desired
a dog... because: cats don't really
eat leftovers... fussy eaters...
no gluttonous slobs among,
         them...

my new earned pleasure:
to walk is better than to talk...
yet even i found myself talking
to the wind:

verbatim:
imagine! bewildering that such places
still exist!
even if for an hour...
later i found out that this was
historical ground i was treading...
related to henry VIII and edward
the confessor -
teasing passing through
a village havering-atte-bower...

i didn't see a human face for hours
and hours... i did see birds-of-prey,
i saw i noted...
i didn't bring a pen and paper...
i was so entangled...
i was so freely there...
i was so... freely there...
unlike where i am now:
"here" attached to an extension
of thinking...

come to think of it... i was so pristinely alone
that if i were asked anything
outside the realm
of casual formality: if i were to be implored
to bid good day or a hello...
i'd straighten out a *******
banana and call it: the staff of moses
if i had to deal with this bogus societal-
never on a street am i ever
asked for a hello...

why do people find it necessary
to bid these ****** hello impromptus
when facing the base for all dreams...
i never liked talking during
***... i never like disturbing
the language of the fields and the teasing
moors and the chimes of branches
with anything that isn't jokingly
spontaneous:

like today: imagine... such places do
exist... where one can truly spend a worth
of an hour or so alone...
with the birds of prey flying
above... with horses grazing...
with a rabbit: i presumed blind...

it's most decidedly unnecessary for me
to write this: but i can't allow
a good glug of kosher malt to waste...
if i'm drinking i'll have to find myself
writing...
such that i need to restress a fondness
for this equipment:
a pair of feet...
no need to run... if i can catch up
with noon and make it home
come sunset...

i will most certainly not prescribe myself
to live under the cooking instructions
of a chicken sold by a supermarket...
1h40... 1 hour and forty minutes?
to cook a large chicken?
like all women are the best cooks
and the chicken ******* need
to be dry as a brittle (trans-grammarism)...

i wasn't listening...
shove enough thyme / garlic infused butter
under the skin and give it a maximum
of 55 minutes...
mismatching my rooster albert bartlett
tatties... i was hoping for a synchronised
swan lake esque event concerning
the oven enterprise...
bad luck moi...

     a thermometer is so key... to eating
a pleasure roast of chicken...
i'll understand pasta undercooked...
teasing al dente: but over-cook it...
and serve up mush of melting glue:
kept together by a "miracle"...
same with chicken...
oh god... over-cooking or undercooking
meat is... i will dare to say...
never mind... 165°F for chicken meat...
i can't eat chewing gum made from
chaw-chaw-chaw barbarous chew...
welcome back to civilisation:
lost wanderer...
              
i honestly don't think i needed to write
this: that i didn't...
but i did... i hope i can be excused
with "keeping my **** together"...
i'm not a fan of drinking in front of
the mirror...
or putting my hand in a hot bucket
of water...
why does drinking supposedly
encourage commerady...
why is drinking supposed to be this:
social event...
drinking alone is bad...
walking alone is doubly bad...
well **** yeah! let's have us
a *******-wanking of a marathon!
a drinking **** to boot!

drinking alone is all that is "leftover"...
if it weren't for the add chance
of utilising a plumber...
once in a blue moon scenario:
since the previous generations
invested so much in the plumbing...
it's not a question would i be better of...
i'd be: off of now...
in this currency conundrum of...
impersonal justifications...
a hybrid anonymous butcher...
or some... variation and "other"...

give me the sky! the wind! the fields!
and the time necessary to not encounter
some ******* baseline pedestrian
who... upon venturing upon holy ground...
public footpath nonetheless...
seeing all this nature has to...
pass me by with an invitation for
a hello hallow how'do'you'do...
         weird:
if i walked down the street and
all that pleasing concrete was in the way...
would i get the same "invitation"...
then why, bother, my, silence...
when i'm standing on grass... looking
at trees?!

unfamiliar territory i am sure...
i don't need assurances of teasing poker...
get on your ******* bus and leave us
to its...
it's hardly an "english" thing...
is just happens to be a human bollocking
working up to a crescendo that's only
now apparent: who dou 'illed with
'reats again'st the theat're?

         the rabbit! the rabbit! the rabbit!
was the rabbit blind?
i didn't sneak up on it...
hello words: congest my mind allow
the voyeurs in...
i won't be here long...
                 that space between
the ears and the eyes... i suppose the eyes...
like candy-outgrowths...
bulging i pretended to blink
they were still intact...
a camouflage... this close to a wild
"thing" you'd find me expressing
details of moth wings...

that there's a an M25... that there's an A406...
and there's the great...
walk-along to ******* alone
work-around for feet primo...
i think it's called a circular...
like a hand of an hour
i imagine walking around greater london
7 times...
it really is a bogus project...
but it's a mad enough
beginning to allow myself to dream...

like in those old movies...
oceans, eleven?
the 'ctor roost and... the professional
boxers... treated as mere cameos on
screen...
so... here's my cameo...
i have yet to find such a footed
riddle as i have...
no ******* from noak hill will tread
these parts...
i'm sure of it as i am sure:
it's not that i'm a lover of nature...
there's no david attenborough
voyeurism involved to produce
a semblance naturalist...

words architecture,
words architecture...
word... ugh... architecture...
      words grammar architecture...
it's not that it's ugly...
it's just so well-arrived-at...
it's pristine... unshakeable...
words, grammar... architecture...

i want to walk...
to hell with running a marathon
while mr. c.c.t.v. is jerking off
a commitment of transmission...

acorns and oak-fill... lost for words...
chestnuts! chestnuts!
all that is evolved monkey
and devolves back into a bear...
sounds mad enough to 'ave some...
i just like to imagine...
digressing with winter nonexistent...
this parody of insomnia:
whether via work
or via...

one alcoholic vs. one hundred
workaholics...
vs. one thousand bureaucrats...
vs. 4th industrial revolution
staples in the millions...
cost effective "work"... and "effective":
a work not as: the best
that can be done...
but as a public service loitering...
ahem... sorry... "provision"...
have people forgot that
there exist a version
of humanity that somehow
has to be appeased...
that people can perhaps relapse
into their trained-monkey phase
and treat a supermarket
cashier as he or she were
a heart-surgeon...
or are we all so *******
desperate as to: settle our grievances
on mediocre pyramidal schematics .
tiers invoked... blah blah...
whoopsie: it snows.

grandiosity herr engels: i gather....
but for all that toughening of limbs
and of making concrete assurances:
to borrow bones to somehow delve
into carving marble...

how to turn a gorilla into a weakling
man pursuit...
brain hijacked by a mushroom...
and retell squirm with
a man-beefed-up-bear-in-tow...

it's not merely... impossible...
this of the fewest least...
it's this rugged tease of
     an avalanche...
a stampede...
when in fact... it was merely
a wriggling of a centipede.

demiurge ave!
   demiurge ave!
  as one probably does...
walking past a curation of budding ***...
she's teasing 15...
and she gives off quiverings in
the air...
she's so teen...
so prone to angry...
  all that she is... is a scent of bubblegum...
she's too young to become
complicated with ***...
and *** has become one of those:
metaphors... drawing water from
a stone...

i'm too tired of wanting what isn't readily
available...
in the availability of a harem...
i'm too tired to want
what i must, most necessarily
never have...
then again... again: i will heave
not having above what i could
perhaps want to heave: rather than have...
all those pornoflicks from
******: should i be irritated by
******* tailor-me-pretty...
a kit-kat of fingers usually does
the "job"...

         yes... my heave: my harth...
my liquid lunge...
my  best and therefore by least...
forest of a crown.
izzn Jun 28
they say grief is a silent breeze
like a pang of chill air on tuesday evening
when it pierce right through like a bullet
all strengths coalesced into a collapse

it would be the last thing in my mind
that blue charcoal dimming the february sky
3 months of lovers, how fast they expire
i always wonder, will it actually be alright?

summer come through, late of june
a boy is the last thing my head fixed upon
a soulmate, let alone, when im far from home
must human nature resent process of progress?

now i am walking in the sand, bare feet
i dont even like the beach,
but im too down to climb something i cant even reach
and im too upright to succumb to a fatal destiny

solitude is the best remedy
for only i get to listen to me
in midst of voices and screams, lies clarity
hold on to that wisp of reasons for its sanctity

a theatrical life,
we choose the roles and scenes
it get hysterical at times,
we think we're small when all's but a big screen

i am twenty two and this is maturity
tears fell, chin up and greet everybody
homesick is not a disease
i still get to laugh, i still get to live

crying because the weight of my mother's smile
toughening because of my father's vulnerability
ridiculous jabbers my brothers gone through
all part of what makes me, me

and gratitude is a warm blanket
like a comforting hug on a friday afternoon
when it tug your heartstring,
a hopeful future embrace within

i am thankful for the life i've lived
the good, the bad and everything i've yet to credit
bravery has its own merit
so i'll have a forward courage to live...and believe

a belated gift;
i am celebrating me
9 days late to my own birthday celebration,
22 sounds like the start of a serious adulthood!
galaxyofentities Dec 2019
I just wanted the world to see me
but I dont, because even I can't see myself
I look into the crystal glass
and couldn't see a future
just bursted dreams and a wicked fortune teller
she tells me things so horrible
they can only be lies

and so I lie alone on the stone pedestal
my skin bronzing under the sun
my bones toughening up with rain

I just wanted the world to see
who, the, ****, brings, a book, into, a forest?! it's like these people living in the desert forgot, "somehow"... this fertile land of Europe is what? formerly sand dunes and fantasy? you know how much effort it took to uproot these trees and make this land fertile for a harvest?! like... this is a forgetfulness?! because the sands were easy and the mountains that were before them?! you ******* **** ****** ITES... this... this?! was easy?! to turn the forests of Ukraine into the bread basket of the world?!

Uzair! Uzair! you ******* myopia glue
to glass!
Ooh: Zer!
not ******* Za'ir
you ******* plonker...
check your goggles
make sure they're not sunglasses...

for ****'s sake...
that stubble is no beard!

and if i were to give all this
up
for some cougar ***
on Kauai
with suspicions of psychopathy...

but i did nothing to the girl

FAUN
FAUN
there's the labyrinth there's:
Leopold Göth (Amon):
i'm tired of being the "good guy"
in the lexicon of American
English with
equations of winners
and losers

like mortality is this antithesis
of a sickness of this tongue
this scribble...

so i wandered into the forest
no... no psychological parody, please,
i'm into the racist nuggets
and nothing could,
quiet match up to:

UZAIR!
you ******* goggle eye my
******* google or GANDU
what?!

so...
i took the sin bin approach...
walked into the forest...
found my artifact of antithesis
monotheism
for which the newly arrived
tribes of polytheism
weren't too, too... sure
about...

beside Amir and Ahmed and
Hah'med...
MEDI-TERA-EAN...

the ******* looking at
me all blank:
you ******* Sudanese donkey
bring sprout:
stop coughing up useless
phlegm at me!
******* Jewing ****!

yeah: constricted language usage:
MAtthew will *******
hear you and pass it onto the STASI
police...

"**** me, like i had some sad
sort of wriggling hand of authority..."

NETTLES...
NETTLES...
baptism by nettles
pinch puncture: will do...

i feel... alive!
if not mint in my mouth then
nettle teasing on my fingertips
which is not akin
to the Swiney Tricksee Canadian
bull...

      oh the *******?!

here you are: castrated and de-bollocked
if you were ever to be asking
but grandma grand hag
i took

my spintzer mah fizzle
you never
know, truly,
how to, dissociate the Germanic
from the Saxon
to the English: ping ping
almost "pre-history":
like Sudanese is the Lingua Franca...

what the **** Uzir...
Uz I Air Ear...
one ******* ear?!
one ******* ear?
i stomached ancient Romans:
oops... long gone...
the Jews are still here:
renegade in genocide...
you people ought be sleeping...
but you're still here...
so let's assume you are the genuises
while i conferred with
St Andrew and came up with:

with all the thyme, oregano...
mint is to the mouth
and lips
what NETTLE is to body...
MINT-NETTLE...

    if you were me and you see
the compulsion of having children
without having any
subjective attachment
you might know
how to credit
and differentiate and how to:
put the **** to locker by tow
and toughening: a together...

or via: i walked into the forest
and what came missing?
my shoes
my sunglasses...
possibly my ego...
if this was the appropriate time
i applied a deodorant of itch
where mint was missing

itching body itching fingertips!
why i, wasn't allowed to
be an SS-man! why?!
such a ****** affair of...
"ambitions"...

you call this good existential advertisement?
like some ****** Schmuck
Chopin wannabe
wht ******* concerto: NOCTURNE...

i've been grinding metal like
culminating in paradoxical thing-thinking:
from a diamond
to graphite of scribble...
no itch to etch on stone...
hmm... i do... begin to realize...
relish...
the Hebrews should have followed
suite akin to:
the Assyrians becoming: Syrians...
the Romans becoming: Italians...
the Greeks becoming: Russian...
the Raj nee: Raj... whatever...

Matthew Matthew MAtthew...
thank **** i don't use my second name,
no one's seconding...

but i did walk into the forest and played
a very rare instrument of purpose...
dead tree is a guitar...
pillar of giggling when
there is smoke, and fire...
and a wooden stick as bow...
i clamored for the indentation of echo
and hollow...

what did i receive?
i can't remind her, Edie,
of the terrible men in her life...
but i can't suffocate with all this
revival and hope for:
by simply: being: good...

i left the forest having foraged for
baptism in the nettle
like any Roman centurion... good: to: go...
i foraged for feeling
i foraged for music
i foraged for touch
i foraged for aloofness
i foraged for:
egocentricity
and politics...

          turns out the Israel of formerly-known
Hebrew is more alive in north Amjerica
than in Europe:
i'm glad ISlaam came to Europe...
there's nothing to defend
not scripture no nothing...
i welcome Islam within the abode
of threat of the ergonomic
and work:

ha ha: even Socrates didn't invent
a philosophy of work...
Heidegger teased at the idea: prospect...
of people talking metaphysics while
compulsively averting
that not sold mantra of:
ARBEIT MACHT FREI...

oh sure... the universe is a clepsydra
of nuance and parody...

but i did walk into the forest
and scrubbed my body like a baptism
or like any reverent Islamist
before prayer...
i scrubbed by body with nettles...
because i had no mint in my mouth
to give me Pavlovian giggles
of ooch ooch pouch a kangaroo:
indigenous
the ******* ****-worshipers
want to do with a "decapitation"
of a limp... ****?

it's not that i don't enjoy women
but...
there's enjoying and there's: "enjoying"...
mantra of the polytheistic
and polygamy and the harem!

*******
*******
*******

let me just grinder my reindeer
and army of metal
and we'll be sorted... savvy?!

— The End —