As Rich a Lie
They kill and kill
the clock ticks on
as bodies become clay
burnt trees scar the forest
as they continue to slay
silence is complicity
while the sky keeps falling
I didn’t meet my monster in the dark.
I met it at the inner bargaining table,
where I sat across from myself
and tried to reason with a hunger
that wasn’t really hunger at all.
It knew every argument I’d make~
I’ll start over tomorrow,
just this once,
I deserve something small to take the edge off.
And I watched myself nod with complicity,
even when I knew the script by heart.
The table was crowded with ghosts:
loneliness pretending to be appetite,
fear dressed up as craving,
shame taking notes in the corner
as if preparing a case against me.
I kept thinking I needed more willpower,
but what I really needed
was to stop negotiating with pain
as if it were a reasonable guest.
One day, I finally looked across the table
and saw the monster wasn’t a creature
but a wounded version of me~
the part that never learned
how to ask for compassion and comfort
without claiming it in secret.
And that was the moment
the bargaining stopped.
Not because I won,
but because I finally understood
who I’d been arguing with
all those years.
Don’t say anything sharp lest the implication cut…
Search bar complicity,
Algorithm conspirators,
Digital manipulators,
Bending law to suit perversion,
Our sexualised youth,
Internet fed,
Corporate political lies,
Dressed as a lifestyle;
Undressed,
Exploitation as a business model,
The fifteen year old bikini model,
Jailbreak Jailbait,
Enter Ai,
Prompt; Undress…wave morality goodbye.
End…
by D.N. Read2026©
Why Did You Let
That THING Out!
Trauma Of The
Life Force Of
The Life Form
Of The Light
Frame - Perceived
By FRee Will
By Choice...
Now Familiar...
What Can ONE
ELECTRON
DO That Wasn’t
Impossible
Already?
Have Mercy
Have Humor
Have Complicity
Enjoy... Spit It Out!
Relax.
****
-Gray Squirrel
05-14-2026
Being in the shelter is not planned by anyone who enters it's doors. Lost opportunities,drugs and alcoholism,gambling bad choices. Open your eyes to the road ahead,you are at a crossroads, make the right decision for a better tomorrow, create your destiny at this road as to ensure its a smooth road when leaving. Find yourself and take the right steps to your dreams. Don't be entrapped by complicity and comfort of shelter live. Chose the road of advancement of your live on this path. Be mindful that tomorrow your destiny will be decided by today's choices.Use the resources at your disposal for it will not always embrace you walk tall and proud when you leaveDo not approve yesterday's choices that brought you here. Fight with yourself and rise out of your addictions and bad choices
If silence is complicity
In the times like this
Blessed is simplicity
Of a traitor’s kiss
Men of power are indeed
Born to be betrayed
Their overstated creed
Needs to be well paid
They expect the qualms of guilt
For the life I treasure
Thinking that I’m not too thrilled
Living under pressure
But I'm used to being despised
Quite the same as them
Might be used to moralize
Easy to condemn
The more political they get
The smaller sounds my voice
Cross me out, and go ahead
With the others choice.
Oh Echo why, did she beguile.
Queen Hera with loquacity.
Thou mountain nymph whose winsome smile
Did mask Zeus from complicity
With sylvan nymphs, his sole desire.
Those dalliances once revealed
Set jealous Hera's heart on fire.
Echo was blamed, her fate now sealed
To never speak, till others spoke.
And only then, those last words said.
Then bite her tongue, or she would choke.
This punishments inside her head.
A woodland hiding place she found
In solitude and loneliness.
One day she heard a youthful sound.
His voice her lips, it did caress.
Then " do not hide " Echo replied.
This paragon of many charms,
Bemused he said " please do no hide "
When Echo ran towards his arms,
Narcissus cast her to the ground,
Extolling death, to her embrace
As from her lips, his words resound.
She disappeared without a trace.
To wander evermore alone.
Those mountain caves were her domain.
Soon blessed death, turned bones to stone.
Her voice was all that did remain.
8 / 16 / 2025
Dead Babies
You know where
silence is complicity
insidious war crimes
dance in this vile air
Holocaust encore
feels so close I could walk up and
with my finger touch the moon
seems like nothing else
exists and i’m alone
swaddled in a tranquility
that’s magnificent and surreal
i can feel it pulsate to the beat
of Mother Earth’s cadent heart
there’s a distinct aura of tangible complicity
and this is where i belong
right here in the now of it
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
To triumph, all the wicked need is our silence as they pursue their tyranny.
For in that silence, we will sadly find that our path lies beside complicity.
True courage stands and speaks its mind; it is undaunted, damn the cost–
It knows the power held in every voice and just how much could still be lost.
This is why, in these times, we must all speak–loud and proud and clear;
Why we must have faith in one another and why we cannot give in to fear.
Why we must stand firm in the face of hate, even when it feels we must move the heavens;
Remembering, always, the simple, eternal truth that from our lips leap weapons.
Blossoms line my laden descent
down to the perked watering hole
that plays empty theater,
awaiting my creative path,
a royal welcome -
represented by accumed variety and presumed clarity,
of intentional therapy of renewed sensable youth.
Periscope complicity is channeled by heart's stereoscopicity,
Dryad/Satyr Satire, no dry ads, only wet views.
Season facets a wild cherry scent to your vantage point
of attitude and beauty proximity, of dripping cues.
Draw the liquid curtain on the canvas
of insanely intimate hues.
To a crash on the rocks of the mind-blown
by windswept rescue chasing you behind a messaged massage,
Baywatch, Oasissed Dunes and slow Djin mirage.
Nature is no stranger to being the muse,
Rebel with a cause,
cause maybe this time you stay
and snuggle awhile, sailor.
When youth is so vibrant and sets us aglow,
and no words are mentioned through sorrow:
we are the seekers of wild adventures,
pushing hard beyond all boundaries!
In the prime of everything that sparkles joy,
we aren't afraid to explore the great unknown;
falling to earth and savor the complicity of sin
as the Fallen Angels did: we will pay too dearly!
A motivation to declare life and safeguard it:
is to cleanse ourselves of all wrongdoing,
of all vanity to pursue vainglory as the great ones did;
are there precious thoughts that gathers no dust?
We can find them in acts done by saints living or dead,
or in a hymn to love: whenever it's rejected as a vain thing!
When we witness those tragedies that make us cringe:
is it a punishment from cruel Nature or angry God?
Young lives are mainly lost to Fentanyl and syringe!
Should we go on, making believe each mind is sound?
As she saw dead bodies of some innocent people
In east of D.R.Congo before sleeping,
she had a nightmare.
Seeing some goons
wearing dangerous masks with guns
attacking her family.
She screamed for help and no one came.
So the bandits killed them so badly.
She was so confused,
crying for losing some relatives.
Woke up morning frighten terrible,
thought of some bad things
to happen to her family members.
Her husband tried to clean her mind.
reminded her about the last news of the war
in east of DRC which could be the cause of that nightmare.
some terrorists cut some people with bush knives.
Some civilians stood to defend themselves
as they suspected the complicity
of the international community...
supporting the rebels M23 and others
behind the troops from East African Community
in northern KIVU
to fulfil to balkanise D.R .Congo
into many countries
Which many Congolese
hate the most.
October 29/2023
The sticky summer heat lingered on my skin,
Much like your hand on my leg.
As my feet swung back and forth, I tried
Not to look at you.
My twin size bed couldn't fit the both of us, yet
You sat. I thought I saw something in your eyes,
And by saying nothing, you knew
I said everything
Mute words fell upon deaf ears
And with a searing pain in my chest
And a pinkie promise condemning me to complicity,
The truth was sealed away.
Like a beast, it grew in my chest
Devouring my insides,
With no regard or perhaps too much,
Consuming me whole.
O' woman that I adore
Teach me how to be reborn
Firstin me a love soul real
teach me how again to feel
Caressedmy spirit soul
Speak Life to me renew me so
I'm : was lost but you found me cold
O' Beloved woman so grow
Embrace me more
Your praise is my virtue
You're my holy Hallelujah
Beautiful call on me whisper
Love embrace my heart as I taste
Your light you're fired sparks
That ravish me with complicity
Speakto me ever so sweetly
Dearest heart speak my life whole
I am yours forever more
Once again speak my life whole
I am yours forever more
Come unto me my love COME
7/10/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr 2023
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