Beware the catch 22
You're damned if you don't, and damned if you do.
Take a drug so cancer won't restart
Side effects give you a congestive heart
Thin the blood so a stroke won't begin,
Internal bleeding and you just can't win.
I got a wolf by the ears
Can't bite me yet, but I'm shedding tears.
When I let go, he'll take a bite
I'm losing my grip, I'm turning white.
You're sorry for those single Mothers
Didn't have husbands, just "significant others"
So you subsidize them with taxpayer billions:
Now more on welfare, about six millions.
You need the cops to pursue a story, to prove you're not mad
But the story is extreme, so no investigation will be had.
Between a rock and a hard place, you're stuck in a bind
I don't blame you for going out of your mind.
You need experience to get a job, but there's a Catch22
Without a job, can't get experience, so what can you do?
Life writes riddles that are hard to circumvent
The path you thought was straight was crooked and bent.
Turn to the left and the trouble grows,
Turn to the right and the same wind blows.
So you laugh a little, though you really feel blue:
That's the strange world of Catch-22.
Everything turned back and went
Their own peculiar way
I’m about to forget
What I thought to say
Blues are punishing for war
Reds are punishing for peace
Still I walk through my old door
Using my old bunch of keys
Between a rock and a hard place
I am used to be
I would like to be amazed
Tell me what to feel
I’ll be listening in awe
Wash me with your summer rain
Love to hear your words aflow
Can you please say it again.
Let it out
Let it out
Let it go
Shed a tear, shed some light, let it show
Growing up, growing cold, I grew strong.
Keep going
Keep going
Keep proving them wrong.
They want me to take it and take it and fake it some more.
I turn around and they stab me expecting me to bleed out on the floor.
I don’t and I won’t. It’s a surprising twist, but it’s not the end.
They go looking between a rock and a hard place where they hope I’ve been pinned.
I’m not there. I’m up here. I Don’t think I’ll be coming back down.
I’m not sorry for anything aside from being acquainted with such a sorry a** town.
I’m getting out. I’ll get out if it’s the last thing I do.
I may be misunderstood and I like that.
It means I'm nothing like you.
Life was a burden till death set me free -
Now granite gravestone being hard on me?!
November 15, 2021
Caught here in a pandemic
state of suspended animation
we gradually move towards
comprehension of the old axiom,
between a rock and a hard place
as we hang here held between
the jaws of the vice of survival.
Indeed, times are as hard as steel
but such times can’t stand up to the
tenderizing torch of hope and faith
that has sustained us in all our testing
trials, tribulations, and oppressive pains.
Just like a stoic perpendicular tree
standing still by the storming waters,
we will not be move from our cemented
hope and faith in our God of deliverance
who never has nor never will fail us.
The Psalmist reminds us that God’s anger
endures but for an instant and that in his
love, he nourishes life; that though weeping
suffering may endure a while, joy will come.
Indeed, while we may now be shedding painful
tears, promised joy is definitely on the way.
Thus, let us no longer whine to God about
the present great storms that we now face;
rather, let us stand strong and shout out loud
to those storms, that no matter how great they
may think themselves to be, our God is greater!
Germ
By Jeremy Schumock
Jerm is my name
I used to think that was lame
After all, isn't a germ just a disease?
I hated that name
I felt like a pickle stuck between a rock and a hard place:
Relish.
After thinking I was contagious or underdeveloped,
I learned a germ is actually just
"The source from which something develops."
A germ is not a disease
I, Jerm, have no one but me to appease
Jerm is a seed planted in the soil
Watered with curiosity and countless years of animosity
Fertilized with the gift to empathize and compromise
And love as its source of vitamin D
Jerm is a seed that will not spoil
What was once just considered bacteria
Will soon (germ)inate,
And see that it was worth the wait
Like a flower knowing spring is coming soon
Like May slowly fading into June
And like anything else destined to bloom,
G[J]erms too are entitled to change,
And will inevitably grow into something of beauty and purpose.
Let go of cargoes of folly
Your imagination entertains
Unless you want Molly
To catalyze the increase of strains of pains
You loathe to endure
In a bid to preserve the sanity
Ensconced in the mind you lure
To expunge the vanity
That invades the chest
Caught up between a rock and a hard place
In Cupid’s vest to test
The robustness you loathe to displace
In circumstances advanced when you flirt
With fire expecting a spin on a merry-go-round
Until cavities of reality hurt
So bad you no longer push around
Sleeping dogs that are best left alone
In peace unless woken up
In their ozone full zone
When you steal delights from the cup
Where Pandora releases cargoes of lunacy
So vile they sear attackers
Mad enough but no tough enough to sample the delicacy
Concealed in crannies and crevices of coquettish bunkers.
E-yes search for exit,
L-ooking for better way out,
A-s status is tough.
Form: Acrostic Haiku
I'm caught in a web and I can't break through
I'm trying to get free, to let go of you
Stuck between a rock and a hard place
My memory holds that smile on your face,
I love you so much I need you to know
that's why it's hard to try and let go
I wanted you to be my start and my end
to let go of love, I leave my best friend
The feeling you gave me, it's hard to find
it's being unique, being one of a kind
I'm caught in a web and I can't break through
but one day I know I'll get over you
Between a rock and a hard place
I sigh
I cry
Between a rock and a hard place
unable to speak
growing weak
Between a rock and a hard place
Unable to move
stuck in this groove
Between a rock and a hard place
I am still here
you are still near
Between a rock and a hard place
just where you left me
wondering why
parched and dry
you watch
as I die
Between a rock and a hard place
I've tried to give us a thought
About the issues that we're yet to sort.
Between a rock and a hard place you are caught
And that's why this idea I've bought:
Life's too short
So I wont sit back and watch me rot.
My heart and soul cast their vote
And it has fallen to me by lot
To move on, not
Because you ain't hot
But cause love has taught
Me a lesson worth a note:
That if you and you're mate once fought,
And in your hearts there's still space worth a dot
For his memories, and wont consider his/her thought,
Then its like a boat
Lost at sea with its fuel running short.
Because I love you
do I have to stay
Because I care
do I have stay
Im confused and lost
I made a list like I was told
But the bad out way the good
So what am I suppose to do
Do I stay and see were it go
Or do I leave and just move on
IDK what to do
Im stuck between a rock and a hard place
I need answer but IDK where to go find them
I guess all I can do is just sit and wait
but hopefully it not to late
i almost fell between a rock and a hard place,
it rained a hard rain yesterday
and hurt blossomed with echoes of thunder,
five o' clock this morning birdsong fills my ears
and the ground is saturated with unshed tears,
you are the shoulder on which I lay my grief,
you are arms and an arm's embrace
you are hands that tear open old scars,
and hands that expose a wounded heart
last night
we loved and made love
not needing introductions
to the mouth of need,
long into dark jungle mist,
we danced like fools
and roared like beasts
tangled roots
falling
into
our place in the sun.
why am i feeling this way
why do i say what i say
do what i do
fully knowing what will become of it at the end of the day
why do people play the games that they play
so unpredictable and not sincere in their ways
tricky tricky flaky and finicky
wishy washy and twisted as it is
i continue to ask for more
blaming myself for allowing to be played with like a toy
boys will be boys
step on you, piss and - on your feelings
and have the audacity to say they had good intentions
my eyes see and my ears listen
i am wise to the lies they be spitting
been through it many a time
know the game and how to play
so why is it i refuse to throw my cards in and walk away
attracted to the drama and suspense
ignoring my gut intuition and common sense
i go along for the ride without strapping myself in
repeatedly again and again
so i ask the question that keeps reappearing
"why am i feeling this way"
stuck between a rock and a hard place
confused when i know what decision to make
They say you cannot see conviction
But I know where it is
It hides deep inside our hearts of stone
Till Jesus makes us His
Some people try to run away
When they hear The Master's Call
Others pretend to see the light
But they bear no fruit at all
Jesus is the Rock of our Salvation
So harden not your hearts
Try your best to hear His Voice
When His Invitation starts
Conviction isn't hard to find
Just seek The Master's Face
For Jesus is the Rock of Ages
But a heart a very hard place
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