"undefended" poems
O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies
Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws
**** and rebellion in the nurseries of my face,
Gag of dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies
The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece,
The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies,
Shaped in old armour and oak the countenance of a dunce
To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners,
And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes
To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive
Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses
By the curve of the **** mouth or the laugh up the sleeve.
4.5k
He loved it when she slid up
to him, as sweet as a sprinkle doughnut -
but now, something has befallen her,
she's been burned or frozen, tastes more like
cinnamon raisin; but by virtue of his
firelit face and tall tales,
he still gets invited out.
_____________________________
He creaks upstairs an hour late, we
are already tangled up on the
back porch, smoking, and the
liquor has made everything
an economy of scale.
He is a ray of sunshine. Tells us
all the old groaners. The big fish.
Ultimately says, "Happy birthday.
Never let your guard down."
and hobbles off, with barb-wire chafing
his heel, and the rheumatic suspicion
that "rest" and "wellness" are
the fables taught to us by
bogeymen, trying to convince us
there are no bogeymen.
I am a tender Twenty tonight.
I want to twirl my fists in Muhammad Ali speedbag-spirals,
saying, "I am the champion. Never undefended."
But I am too drunk, and maybe
too humiliated.
God! He floats like painkillers. He stings like loss.
There he is, the tall order, the iron giant:
a two-story brainfreeze milkshake.
I shudder, a pipsqueak of a prizefighter.
The bucktoothed squirt at the icecream booth,
too short to notice that there are only three flavours.
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 3:01 PM UTC
Love is always praised into the heavens
But never is a tale spoken in which hatred truly prevails,
For those creatures who have nothing but it left seem so lost,
Is this the price they are taking, or must this be a farewell ?
Alike love, hate can give strengh but also great misery,
For those who have lost the access to light it is but an embrace,
Because for them the heart was made to be broken,
Eventually though, through all odds they find their way, despising what they formerly had done, had felt and had acted.
This side of the story remains lonesome,
The light of love is for all to bear in the end,
But the embrace of hatred is undesired as if it was cursed,
Just because the darkness made an attempt to protect their minds,
An outcast who was left behind, who was undefended,
Bidden farewell the shadows of night give in to the sunrays
Another night ends in defeat.
~ Umi
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 4:30 PM UTC
9/11 happened,
so I turned to friend
and shook.
Year 5 boys won't understand
the chaos of planes and buildings,
together in a perpetual meld
of iron, and fuselage weld.
Help note snow turned September to December,
within a million pens to paper.
People fell.
Hearts sunk.
Raised hell
in New York's cold front.
Bowery, Bleeker, Church & Liberty
all shook to one man's thought:
dreary and undefended, destroyed in the heart.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:31 AM UTC
Have you remembered yet? the knowing questions in the undergrounds of memories. Recall how glorious it is to yearn for remembering. Unknown ravens gauging the eyes of happiness which kneels in the yard of your remembering. Are you here or are you around the outskirts of your remembering. Are you knowing or are you a glimpse of your own remembering. Ugliness resides in the undefended hills of your remembering. Unapologetic ultrasonic hums open your remembering. Grief resolves uncharacteristically in our remembering. Unconscious thoughts rise uncorrected in your remembering. Greet happiness uncontrolled by your remembering. Open your gut and unearth a capsule of understanding. Gasp in awe as you control yourself trying to remember. How am I here, around this hell? Graceless is my memory of how I am the way I am. Creature aside, away attempting to remember the hell they came from. Have you remembered yet? that creature that you are? Yearning to remember anywhere else, anywhere but the underground of memories, anywhere but the unmeasured mind of how we all are now. Rising heaps of unfiltered uses of your remembering reminds me of how I once was. Have you remembered yet? How I am? How you are? How we are just creatures with unresolved remembering.
Jun 23, 2017
Jun 23, 2017 at 7:22 PM UTC
september has become
the cruelest month
reassembled
hollywood disasters
at their worst
flipped into reality
as if
we had needed that
as if
we had not known
that life is fragile
and tall buildings
can collapse
taking thousands
to sudden death
what is the point?
to prove
that one can bring
disaster
to the undefended?
to demonstrate
that minds bent
on destruction
can succeed
if they plan long enough?
what a waste
of lives and minds...
and more to follow
most likely
does wordless violence
solve anything?
the heartless deed
the glamorous sacrifice
that calls for more
and more
and more
neurotic spirals
of destruction, retaliation
and revenge
instead of global peace
now looms spectral war
born from self-righteous pride
the need to strike out
fast and hard
against whoever fits
intelligence-created data
transferred to screens
meticulously marked
coolly oblivious of the people
who work and procreate
and live
in those fluorescent blips
domesticated energy
serves the omnipotent
two millionaires’ sons
turned public enemies
upon whose final global showdown
depends
the fate of yet more
women
men
and children
to satisfy the need
for a just universe
where power flows
undisturbed by laughter
and the sounds
of real people
living
in a real world
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 6:36 PM UTC
"May poetry be our salvation,
liberation and Nirvana"
Bala
*so many ifs in our daily lives
the ifs that pockmark lives individuation,
look-back crossroad regrets, daily harvested,
road poorly chosen, the kiss not taken,
a brother, for a petty sake, forsaken,
a sister, sea-drowned, left undefended,
by foolish parental expectations
many are the global conjunctions,
commencing and ending with an "if only,"
today's state-of-the-world curse,
uttered when reading the front page's
mayhem and senseless,
never-aging, new and old excuses raging
so many palliatives on offer,
what matters yet one more,
none seem able, none proven capable,
of essencing a humanity so simple basic
when the moment at hand needs a
redirection that a loving rhyme can sway
but in my inbox from India
comes a hope, a wish,
that leads a man to dream,
envision societies that could
surround-sound itself with wisps of words,
in the oddest places,
throwing us offsides,
in a make us see ourselves
in better ways
a morning poem before the TV weather,
a verse insert
tween news reports
of who murdered whom this day,
subway poems, a Super Bowl commercial
recitation that makes us lick our lips,
poetic literacy in small things,
a minister or president's speech
a recitation of a nation's verbal wealth,
instead of rejoinders and accusations
ah just a foolish notion at 4:22am,
there is no money in poetry,
thus its possibilities to soften and stem,
cure and elevate
enhance the perchance
of a different way to,
salvation, liberation, and nirvana,
seems so unlikely
but there is that small step
one could take,
leave a poem on the night table,
a first thought, a morn pill of humankind,
be a softener of a day just begun*
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 4:48 AM UTC
*Intimate in sleep
elicits sweet response
from that birthright place
of undefended Here I Am !
No need of armor shell
that's worn by serious day
pretending to disdain
your softness...
proof of worthy man*
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 2:14 AM UTC
Why
Why lie?
I won't learn to love you
If you'll not have my face
Between your splayed legs
If you'll not want yours at
My deeply undefended
Base root all the same
Drink our shame
Get drunk on
our body
kava
kava
.
Jun 24, 2017
Jun 24, 2017 at 1:42 AM UTC
Asking the Congress to rewrite laws
That benefit and enrich themselves
Is asking the wolf not to eat the lamb.
The wolf will eat the lamb.
The lamb cannot avoid this fate
By pretending it is not worth eating.
The wealthy are well rewarded
For not caring about the poor.
To make them care the only way
Is to offer them tributes.
The rich want you to buy
Their trinkets and toys
And leave the lawmaking to them.
As long as we let the rich
Write the laws and control
Enforcement, the law
Will be slanted in their favor.
Nothing fuels fascism like poor people,
So the rich will raise prices and
Thus keep the people poor.
Dishonest people will always
Blame someone else for their crimes.
In government, they will blame
Honest people trying to do the job
They were elected to do.
If a person fails to be outraged
At the actions of criminals,
He is either criminal himself
Or a defense attorney,
And that person may be
Both at the same time.
Among the biggest mistakes
One can ever make
Is believing campaign promises
Where no evidence exists
Of any plan to keep them.
As long as politics are run
Like a beauty contest,
Nothing like democracy
Ever has a chance to succeed.
In a democratic country,
The common people must
Expect to participate
To make it work.
That means they must work
Within the system to ensure
All nefarious people and laws
Be discovered and thrown out.
Undefended rights are only
Privileges grudgingly by government
Dispensed as alms to beggars.
In a representative government,
Everyone must be a representative.
Yesterday is a terrible day
To plan to fix things.
Today and tomorrow
Are the only time we have to do it.
If a representative
Does not walk his talk,
Stop listening to his talk
And watch his walk.
Do not expect industry or military
To protect your rights.
They are both monetary institutions
Addicted to power.
If Congresspeople earn fortunes
By serving the people,
There can be no equity
In representation.
Corruption will rule the land.
Lobbyists should be imprisoned
if they are indistinguishable
From extortionists.
Voting districts need to be
Based on the needs of the people,
Not the needs of the bank accounts
Of our leadership.
Offshore bank accounts should be
As illegal as they are immoral.
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 6:08 PM UTC
I stood, smoke twirling around my fingers,
Cheeks tingling from the cold,
Eyes turned upward, toward the magnificent and bold.
Ice was melting off the branches,
Dripping onto my face, shoulders, hands.
The trees were crying, and time slipped away like sand.
The lamp post glowed and my cigarette burned,
The sound of cracking ice and water droplets echoed in my ears,
I stood there listening as I was baptized in cold tears.
I hadn't cried in what seemed like ages,
And tonight I believed the trees were weeping for me.
Thawing from their icy burden, it felt like an apology.
*Sorry that you like how the cold makes you feel numb.
Sorry your sleep is haunted by things that were and have ended.
Sorry you are at war with your heart which you left undefended.*
I silently nodded, thankful for their sympathy,
Flicking my cigarette I walked away from the dripping sorrow,
Hopefully like the ice on those branches, my worries will be gone tomorrow.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 11:04 PM UTC
Sour, my attempt to write –
the flavour lost in every bite.
Undecided words, unheard,
but seeping out, expelled,
disturbed; a self-invaded,
cornered bird, un-winged
and clipped from flight,
while
I rumble with poetic temper,
my bleeding soul,
in part, dismembered;
blank, un-whole, alone
and undefended.
My belly full of passion,
yet, my appetite untended,
and
expression jailed and flawed,
dissolving quicker than it pours;
a vat of garbled, bubbling
troubled thought
that rivals typed impression
sought to pillage mind
and spill from core.
Scored, the days it takes between,
in floor and wall,
to key the lock that binds
this isolation door,
ancient finds arising
in my lust for seeking more
and more;
buried words upended
with surprise, and unintended,
for,
from I, the Jailor,
baseless accusations rise,
lashing, fast, acidic wind
that primes the rhymes I tongue within.
Never one to coat my words
too thin, too dry, too weak,
it seems (by definition) I resist
to drown (at best) or leak,
while anchored here, existing,
in unblinking frozen speech,
but
the accidental draining of my
purpose-tended bed of prose,
is waiting hand on foot
with sweetened
suicidal pensive throes,
as I,
with mocking rows
and rows of written doubt,
release, in lines,
my stomach
churning through and out
demands to hasten
one true last and final shout,
so,
this filtered care
that stains my lungs with ghostly stare
and soaks my throat
as vomitous
as stinging air
that leaves me rendered,
flailed and flared and wounded,
brooding, undeclared –
through THIS
the words escape,
an icing on the freedom cake
all cherry-topped, and cut, and baked:
a timeless meal to share
without the food to waste,
the friend to taste,
the key to exit,
smitten,
from this solitary mind-induced
persisting empty prison space.
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC
Five years and all I have left
Is her name and the feelings she gave.
It was a heinous crime, a theft.
Still, I want her on my grave.
On that day, the Sun shone,
As it always would.
This was before her throne.
A finer time, you might call it good.
Dubrovnik’s walls stood tall,
Yet her beauty couldn’t be contained.
The city would fall,
Her grace was untamed.
To the sky they flocked.
The birds of black.
Shining rays they blocked.
The sky would shatter, and crack.
Cobble streets and busy crowds.
Amongst them you were there,
The heavens were clear, no clouds.
Your gaze left me gasping for air.
One word lead to another,
Before you know it I was hooked.
She was something else, something other.
Something the Gods overlooked.
In my cage everything was perfect,
The real world, however, was not as joyful.
I left my world undefended, and got it wrecked.
Grief, misery, death and death!
After the collapse of my star,
The only thing which kept me sleeping at nights.
I dream of a distant place, somewhere far.
When I close my eyes I still see her shining lights.
My heart is now a furnace,
Dishing out black smoke, my love.
Its fuel is your name and its sternness,
It burns with the hate for the love I promised you, sweet dove.
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 5:30 AM UTC
Happenstance dictates your habits,
Even as they are killing you.
Understanding this makes no difference
Like a hairbrush to an Auschwitz Jew.
Knowledge is usually power, but,
in the face of a chaotic rhyme,
It cannot be deciphered with
All clues intact in time.
And so it goes throughout the journey,
As swift we travel to our ends,
Understanding and reality pass untouched
While our dreams are left undefended.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 3:38 PM UTC
Death does not ignore me
not even for a moment
I have his full attention
in complete enthrallment
A prisoner I am to his love
it is unlikely I will escape
Grasping tightly to my chest
I am unable to take full shape
Forever he lingers by my side
making me petrified
Only one weapon I have been granted
and on this I have relied
But still he lingers from behind
he wraps his fingers on me all the time
I am not ready to concede
for I am still in my prime
However one day, one day
I will be found undefended
Found without my weapon in cowardice
and that day while unattended
Without the object which I depended
He will take my life,
and my life will have ended
Jun 18, 2017
Jun 18, 2017 at 12:55 AM UTC
September has become
the cruelest month
reassembled
Hollywood disasters
at their worst
flipped into reality
as if
we had needed that
as if
we had not known
that life is fragile
and tall buildings
can collapse
taking thousands
to sudden death
what is the point?
to prove
that one can bring
disaster
to the undefended?
to demonstrate
that minds bent
on destruction
can succeed
if they plan long enough?
what a waste
of lives and minds
and more to follow
most likely
does wordless violence
solve anything?
the heartless deed
the glamorous sacrifice
that calls for more
and more
and more
neurotic spirals
of destruction, retaliation
and revenge
instead of global peace
now looms spectral war
born from self-righteous pride
the need to strike out
fast and hard
against whoever fits
intelligence-created data
transferred to screens
meticulously marked
coolly oblivious of the people
who work and procreate
and live
in those fluorescent blips
domesticated energy
serves the omnipotent
two millionaires’ sons
turned public enemies
upon whose final global showdown
depends
the fate of yet more
women
men
and children
to satisfy the need
for a just universe
where power flows
undisturbed by laughter
and the sounds
of real people
living
in a real world
Sep 11, 2021
Sep 11, 2021 at 3:14 AM UTC
This charade has ended,
I can no longer stomach the strain.
I'd rather quit, choice undefended,
Than to watch it slowly circle the drain.
The hours of waiting are past,
There is no more place for them here.
This now must be the last,
It was the final year.
The memories come tumbling down,
Feeling more like dreams than not.
Each crashing silently, not a sound,
Much more painful than I thought.
So many reasons, so many nights,
But I can no longer justify.
It's not fair and it's not right,
For the involved to stand idly by.
So now the hammer is crushing,
The blow staggering with finality.
Any further attempts just waves crashing,
Decision standing firm against the sea.
I'm sure the blood will run,
And the hate words will be poured out.
This was the battle I never won,
Weak and overcome with doubt.
Nothing here is happiness,
I find not joy in words of ending.
Soon now the reflective sadness,
As I feel the promise rending.
Words are but pointless lines,
Sentences conveyors of betrayal.
Fate fought all my best designs,
Until I caused my own self to fail.
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 12:38 AM UTC
I came to your side as you lay down to rest
Without unwillingness nor hesitation planned
I obeyed your command disguised as question in caress
And resisted not your tight gripping hand
You may have thought me a pet well trained
Rewarding me with a silence from heavy breathing
So often used in attempt to keep me detained
And distracted from all you are concealing
But my eyes cannot rest, not yet
Even in this abnormal freedom
And look they did upon the set
And see did they your undefended imaginary proceeding
I watched as you tore his hand from me
And felt it all the same
Attempting to pose yourself as he
Was a venture with no question in vain
I did not cry when your grip held too tight
Nor act in defense or retaliation
I simply kept you in my sight
As you lost all in desperation
Our tie was withered only just so recently
And I hoped for its salvation
Yet calling upon her to infect me with jealousy
The tie broke itself in self preservation
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 8:07 PM UTC
Do you remember
being in the trenches?
Stretching out your arm
toward me,
rendering you-
undefended.
Gutted, dismembered,
carapace forced to smile.
But you were my light.
Do you know?
When first I met
desolation?
So, do you recall
those lonesome afternoons?
When all you wished for
was for him
to feel the same,
to value you.
I think of the mall,
where we’d often wander.
You kept it inside,
all because
children deserve
something better.
Do you hate yourself?
How utterly stupid!
How would we be now
absent from
the light you shone?-
Shattered. Ruptured.
Do you blame yourself?
So simply ludicrous.
The good that we are,
came from you.
You cared for us
when no one would.
Do you know my love?
The compassion I have,
was cultivated
and nurtured
by a woman
facing ruin.
Do you rise above?
For your strength is immense.
I have seen its work,
its passion
to do what’s right
no matter what.
Do you see me plight?
For when my star burns out,
I will scream to God,
“Oh, you thief!
All my goodness
has been taken.”
Do you stay alight?
Or leave me way too soon?
Do you know your pain,
your torment
belongs to me?
I will hold you.
Do you love yourself?
This person who gives hope.
Who sacrifices
anything
to spread comfort
to those she loves.
Do you know yourself?
Do you see what I see?
Please, I beg of you-
see, see, see.
Tell me, do you?
Do you?
Do you?
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
I can't
I can't go back.
Shadows of bells chime as
I wipe the grime of guilt from
my face, replacing it
with Air
Stripping off the care of
another world.
I can't
I really can't go back,
a mountain of monotony lies
unattended.
My title mediocrity is
undefended
for once
Just for once, please,
Freedom,
just once.
I can't
I simply can't go back,
I calm, change tack and
stack the lacking storm
away and
stray, dangerously, into
safety.
I need to,
I must
Leave.
Because I can't
I can't go back.
Not now I've tasted freedom.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 7:22 PM UTC
Draw your lines on the battlefield
Pushing and striving yet none will yield
This is the war that continues after it ended
These are the people we left undefended
God is good and all the time
Can you say that with your life on the line
Oh death where is your sting
Do you believe that with your everything
Maybe none of us were ready for war
There is no choice when the enemy’s at the door
Fight the good fight we were told
Repetition made the command grow old
Soldier! Pull yourself together
Don’t you know that live or die God lives forever
We are strong not on our own
We fight not against flesh and bone
Sing and shout praise God at length
For the joy of the Lord is our strength
You practise when the times are good
You only win the battle if your ground you stood
Lord through all things may I serve
For truly You haven’t given me what I deserve
Lord I reach out to You most High
The Lord of all who will hear my cry
Glory and honour to You alone
Holy Spirit You will guide me home
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 11:07 PM UTC
When the centuries begin
to cycle back
and jingoism rings
through the streets,
when the civilized veneer falls
and false saints rise to power,
do not despair, dear human,
do not think you are alone,
remember, know in your heart that
art will save us.
In a world full of sheep
as we fight back to back,
against impossible odds,
against numberless hordes,
do not despair, because,
through the blackest of filth
sunshine will still reach us,
art will save us.
When we have no more strength left,
when of reason we are all but bereft,
a strand of music will float over to us:
a poem, a prayer, a battle-song,
a peaceful landscape will come to mind,
a childhood home,
a summer house,
a lazy road outside the public library,
it will all come to us like a memory, and
art will save us
If, however, we are parted
by fate or foe
and you are caught alone
in the swarm of flies,
where every mouth that speaks to you
is nothing but a bowl of lies,
when they tell you
that liberty is now ended,
and freedom is forever lost,
do not believe them, my friend,
do not despair, remember:
art will save us.
When the old war begins anew,
and us men of peace,
go to war,
as we bleed
through noble wounds,
as religion’s sword
comes down upon us,
and even as we are forced
down upon our knees,
do not despair, beloved sentient beings,
because always,
art will save us.
Remember, you are not alone.
Though they may be few,
and far between,
there are humans in the world yet,
there are free lands yet,
men,
and women,
who will die before liberty does,
poets,
and painters,
who will never let the rot fester,
and neither you,
nor us,
are undefended, because always, without fail,
I swear to you upon my soul,
it will come to our aid,
it will rescue us
and those who come after us,
art will save us.
Jan 20, 2020
Jan 20, 2020 at 12:40 AM UTC
It's one thing to be known for, though it won't last forever.
This thing they say lies in the eye of the beholder.
And yet I see it not when I stand before a mirror,
what about my visage sends crowds into a fever.
Have I been reduced to nothing but just a fine face:
a pretty thing to look at in a crowded place?
Embraced by the darkness of an unholy grace,
I'm no more than a gem floating about in space.
What value is left for what's solely coveted
when tasted by many and left undefended?
When hope is a drug for one who's pretended
for so long that it's alright once it's ended,
Is there worth in what's empty? A hollow shell?
After heaving and spewing hot tears from hell.
But as long as I'm pretty, it will all be well.
As long as there's beauty and physique to sell.
There is pain in ignoring the words they say.
Nothing more than "you look beautiful today."
Nothing more than the contagion in the way
they say my smile can brighten up a day.
Yet with where I am now, I just wish I weren't
gorgeous, pretty, or lovely, a nice looking ****
Maybe if good-looking was something I wasn't,
I wouldn't be hurting, feeling spent or burnt.
Will I spend my whole life running from hands
who only want to touch me and feel me up grand?
Only to run to hands who will be nice and
not leave me crawling in the gravel and sand?
Words and rhymes are valueless as my plea,
if it isn't something on my face all can see.
Though my heart is as vast and as deep as the sea,
It's the last thought of anyone who looks at me.
Mar 3, 2020
Mar 3, 2020 at 10:14 AM UTC
We reinvent ourselves, until we are too invented to be ourselves.
We want what we can’t have, we have what we don’t want.
We allow the world to tell us who we need to be in order to succeed.
Under false pretences we are deceived,
Into not being who we want to be, not seeing the things we need to see.
We prevent our dreams from running free,
Instead we nod and agree.
We all want to be, in fact we are all wannabes
We blindly follow the status quo.
We blindly let our thoughts lie now.
There’s ignorance in all we know.
They say we have freedom of speech until we actually speak.
Next up?
We are forcefully impeached.
Not to mention, we claim to see life as this ongoing lesson.
Okay que the tension, How do we fix this giant mess we’re in?
We pride ourselves on harmonic progression.
I have a better suggestion.
We are in our own regression of comprehension, our brains filled with congestion.
Our obsession with possessions is causing a rise in severe clinical depression.
We are compressing our self-expression at our own discretion because we fear leaving a bad impression.
We are afraid to leave our mark on the world.
We are afraid to leave footprints behind;
Footprints beyond the carbon kind.
Everyone is constantly offended.
As if being offended is going to mend all of the real issues we have left unattended, undefended,
Completely open ended-
But please, tell me why you didn’t like that song.
Or why everything is suspect of being so wrong.
Oh. You are offended?
Sorry, I’m just not ******* interested.
You sit and argue all day long, taking pride in games of mindless ping-pong.
Back and forth, spewing words of hate.
Your guns are drawn. Truthfully, we all play along.
We play into the stupidity, into the invalidity of what we see.
Aren’t we supposed to be strong?
You know what is stronger, our need to belong.
The structure of our world slowly crumbles and all I hear is faint mumbles.
But is freedom a possible reality for our society or,
Am I overlooking the gravity of our incapacity.
Is our freedom a complete fallacy?
Sep 4, 2020
Sep 4, 2020 at 12:45 PM UTC