This latest theft, stole more than just my money,
It took my soul and left nothing to spare.
With little remains to even fight back with now,
My defeat is final; the white flag is in the air.
Any strength once known has been exhausted;
Chains of despair are left hanging to drag aside.
My new companion is known only as poverty,
Rarely sharing much to diminish the pride.
Looking inward, I seek to learn any lessons,
That could prevent this from happening again.
Although my next thought dwells on any value,
Since my recovery is so unlikely to even begin.
Could this be a lasting piece to the puzzle,
Where survival rests upon those who steal and take?
As if this culling would thin out those weakened,
Leaving those strong enough who want to stay awake.
This may be the greatest hardship that's unseen,
When those can steal what they don't even see in the heist.
So while this theft isn't pawned or even brokered,
The damage is often beyond what is normally priced.
Event: Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902—Measles epidemic in the concentration camps.
In the voice of: Sannie Botha (a survivor).
Jan’s cough kept me awake all through the night.
The children are all coughing in the night;
the fevers gave us all a mighty fright.
The red, now itchy, spots on body parts;
“Oh! Son Jan, don’t you scratch the itchy parts,
as scabs and scars will follow just like warts.”
If only I had negosiekist* at hand.
The muthi† in friend's kist – her helping hand –
but mothers dug graves with bare hands in sand.
Now I might stop to shake my balled fist.
The Tommies‡ shake their riffles in tight fists;
they're no older than Jan when they enlisted.
The torment was breaking all of our hearts
and the fragile peace brokered, never lasts.
Brilliant bright brazen Brazilian Brutus brokered brave
Broomsticks bragging beyond bellowing birch branches
Bypassing bitty bites brought on by bystanders.
Right in front should evil dare, no words still,
Even if beyond you bear, no words still.
In market square a girl is tormented,
You can’t bear her bosom bare, no words still.
In public space two bawdy bullies brawl,
Their puffed up prides need one pare, no words still.
A slavish mind has taken root in time,
Nation’s robbed as never ere, no words still.
Buds and blossoms are brokered every day,
Grieves the green garden’s grandeur, no words still.
When pilgrimage-like parents pine in pain,
Stones get worshipped in all care, no words still.
Exploring vast sea if you suffer storms,
It’s fine you braved to dare, if no words still.
___________________________________________
Ghazal |14.08.2023| apathy, indifference, lack of concern
Based on a Gujarati Ghazal by Rakesh Sagar:
My Judgement Day is nigh at hand...
The outcome... far from certain.
Where some have claimed a piety...
Having peeked behind the curtain.
I've loved and lost... been tossed...
The winds of chaos at my back.
I've brokered kindness as a currency...
But still the Hounds attacked.
The slings and arrows of misfortune
Have been their own reward.
Did I rise to meet the challenge?
Will my service be ignored?
So on that day... that special day
When I answer for my deeds.
I trust the test is not too onerous
With the belief I might succeed.
But alas... I have scant information
About my future time and space.
My only hope... the question asked...
'Is the world a better place?'
The End
War criminals
Is Putin a war criminal if judged by the western criteria
that makes him, along with George Bush and Tony Blair
war criminals; who can forget Falluja, where thousands
of innocent people were killed in their homes in a hail
of bullets, no one thought of saving the civilians.
I think of Libya the NATO/USA/Britain reduced to a failed
state in the thirst of killing Gadhafi, the eccentric despot
who had done more to bring Libya into a modern country
than anyone else had dreamed of.
He brought water to an arid state and made it green.
There was a peace talk brokered by South Africa, were
Gadhafi offered to resign but rejected because
we wanted him dead, and we succeeded.
The western powers have now managed to make a short
war into a long one using Zelensky as a frontman.
It is Putin they want dead; nothing else matters, not
the death of thousands of civilians caught up in this mayhem.
But for NATO or Brussels risking the life of their own people
carrying out a policy that eventually will bring Europe to her
knee by hunger and frost; may they all be damned.
They slip by like drops of water
hardly noticed after the puddle drys
They seem so unconcerned
Those fleeting moments of time
Brides are given in Marriage Cities are built at a rapid pace
Bright lights add to the splendor
Business deals are brokered in hast
That, once so freshly painted
With time falls away to ruin
Imbers, dying from the beginning. From the fleeting years that burn
The clock ticks off the seconds
Minutes disappear through the glass
The hands of time strikes the hour
And moments add to the past
It’s the days that make life fragile,
How fast the years fall in line
They say that time heals all who hurt
That love is stronger than time
The sands of time runs out
leaving only memories behind
Pointing its weathered finger to Jesus
He defeats the moments of time
the psychiatrist
I saw him on the you-tube he was elegant and forceful
and worth listening too although I found his views unbending
and he brokered no opposition.
His view on marriage was ideal but totally impractical
did he not know that women often instigate divorce because
to twerp or a wife beater.
I wonder if he is married to his wife to prove a point, it could be
his wife agrees.
A stern father raised him, and that made his success full.
Well, I was raised by a mother who thought me about literature.
His reason that women go for nursing is that they are caring, this balderdash,
the reason we have few female architect and engineers is that
this road to success has hitherto been closed to them.
His lectures are aimed at the educated middle/class and only them.
He looked a fine man dressed in an expensive suit and wore
shiny brown cowboy boots.
His vanity shone through he looked like a can man by referring
to what weighty medical journals had said on the subject.
I have met his type on the internet by conmen telling me on the web of a new cure for diabetes.
'Starfish!' said I, 'thing of a moray eel.'
Be it black ocean space;
Or in the breathing coral seas;
Back into my memories squiding;
To warn me about the sea turtle;
The cetacean coral reef crabbing;
Sharks and piranhas kidnapping;
I heard a tentacled, seagoing inking;
I wrote a story with the octopus pen;
I was a harbour porpoise and you a tuna sandwich;
The brokered bottlenose whale blossoming;
The sphinx moth singeing;
Only this and a sturgeon;
In there stepped a shovel nose 'whale shark';
In there stepped a 'lake trout.';
Dolphins lookout;
To warn me about the bluefin;
The foul flatfish forging;
All my soul within me gorging;
In there stepped a coral sea cucumber;
I have dreamed of the spadefish;
An echo murmured back the word, 'channel catfish!';
The brook trout smiled;
I felt compelled to sniff the squid;
Smells like fish;
It was squish;
Take thy bluegill from out my heart;
Embrace the wish;
Starfish
6/20/20
WRITTEN WORDS BY James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
In your parched desert land
As the pendulum swings
And your friends are all gone
Still you’re moving right along
Like it doesn’t mean a thing
In your parched desert land
Thinking life’s unforgiving
Why not swallow your pride
Take an honest look inside
Join the land of the living
In your parched desert land
Your manufactured death valley
Kind response was so important
Yet your manner was discordant
Isolation’s blind alley
In your parched desert land
When they take the final tally
You’ll surrender the fight
Find exquisite delight
In your brokered finale
March 9, 2020
F F I series FINALE
Brian Strand, sponsor
is love exstincted
and soiled by it haver
is love borrowed
and brokered into
a new persons having
or are lover gold brickers
who moonlight
until tired and in need of rest
than are these new positions next
by design
that the authors of these storied
mentions are acted out
in performances
to be seen by those who relate
to the drama
then when those audiences tire
of you are we then appointed to new positions to
exhaust one another
in the boredom of believing
love keeps people together
or do lovers keep each other
so that their belief in love and loving
can survive from
each day to strengthen those
tomorrows
where we'll need one another
Those feeling unsecured,
who be in brokered deal need,
listen to this vary interesting message carefully
I got what you don’t have,
but what you want financed desperately
You most certainly can get it from me,
this promissory promise
gets my profit lending approval
My actuary guarantee ... you can bank on it!
I’m a giver of usury
And I take no pleasure
in taking your vital possessions —
The necessary things you and yours
need to survive
But I most assuredly will repossess them
should you not comply
To the fine print agreement
that was co-signed on the dotted line
I’m a giver of usury
For every dollar you borrow from me,
I will want two returned,
vary quickly
I am bound by the loan shark code of honor,
to bite the hand
which fail to repay me
This is the default judgment
agreed upon by you, with much debt gratitude
Signed in sweat and blood
to receive the money
In the long run,
I made you so short-term happy
In deed, I am a giver of usury
I think that salt's addiction missed the most,
Its calories of no import
But Lord its cost I swear is high.
In later years we look for ways to coast
But soft drinks tend to make us sport
Such weighty problems plague the eye!
Weight climbed the slope to unknown turpitude
My feet were shamed and out of sight!
There wasn't much to do but cry!
I found it hard to take the altitude,
To tie my shoes a frequent plight,
And back pain often brokered sigh!
I used to think a meal’s a fine reward
For doing what folks paid me to,
But now my work is how I play!
And Love's the path that strikes the sweetest chord
For poetry is all I do,
It's how I start and end each day!
When what you eat is what your spirit loves
Your weight, your wealth, will fall in line!
It's not just words, or goals that rhyme.
You'll know! When ‘purpose’ fits your hands like gloves
Then life will be your Valentine,
And Love the way you spend your time!
Long Tooth
September 15, 2018
I asked for your blessing…
instead you explained
What I should be thinking
to lessen your pain
You told me if only
I’d say it this way
My words could have meaning
and influence—sway
But power and fortune
are not what I sought
If influence only
gets brokered and bought
So the blessing passed over
your lecture now done
A last vow to myself
—from you I must run
(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
I sought knowledge
I acquired wealth
I raised a family
I met my spiritual obligations
and paid my social dues,
Is this all there’s to life?
Say O Lord, it ain’t so!
I broke no hearts
I brokered no dubious deals
I was faithful to my vows
and lived within my means;
Is this all there’s to life?
Say O Lord, it ain’t so!
I dabbled in all forms of art
and savored classical music,
Jazz, Rap and Rock n ’Roll
I immersed myself in the
world of literature,
I traveled to all the
shores of the earth;
Is this all there’s to life?
Say O Lord, it ain’t so.
I dove deep into the
murky depth of envy,
I wallowed in the
muck of self-pity,
I have flown high
on the wings of love
and descended into the
pits of hatred and jealousy;
Methinks there ain’t much else
If life can be summed up merely--
A tear here and a smile there,
A fall here and a rise there,
A melody here and a grunt there,
A sin here and a pardon there,
A peace here and a conflict there,
A life here and a death there...
I pray, O Lord…say it ain’t so!
~02/23/17
~Your Best poem
in the last year contest by Silent One
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