Long Empathize Poems

The emotional, mental and spiritual fallout courtesy Colt Gray

Apalachee High School,
located in Winder, Georgia
witnessed an active shooter,
whereby the alleged lone gunman
(actually just a teenager of fourteen years)
killed four people and injured nine more
the latter hospitalized with...

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In one sense,
the Cafe CoOp
started as my therapeutic retirement dream.

But,
in quite another
the CoOp goes back to when I was eight,
and I thought,
assumed really,
everyone indulged in Thought Experiments
about what would my optimal Eden Paradise.
restoring peace and...

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When oppositional cognitive dissonance 
deflects focus from compassion,
I've learned to go back to when I deflected focus from her.
She sends me passive-aggressive messages,
bread crumbs leading back in time 
to where she began to feel alone,
marginalized,
siloed,
anxious,
neglected.

If...

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I don't think it's just me.
I find myself challenged to change LeftBrain cognitive beliefs,
languaged abstractions of personal feelings,
perhaps because it is not possible to change Right Brain's
Elder feelings of co-passionate trust
where dipolar co-arising positive pleasure
is...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - IV - Primo Levi

Shema
by Primo Levi
translation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses, 
who return each evening to find
warm food, 
welcoming faces...

consider whether this...

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I question my own interplay of psychology and political science.
Does this too facilely root analogy within ecology of climate health v pathology?

Intersections of sociology and psychology are at least academically commonplace.
I have a friend with...

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I am sorry
about my judgmental,
sadly disdainful,
tone
in earlier messages.

Even worse,
I remain embarrassed
for spreading it out
for key staff
and leaders
to well-positioned see
and hear
and feel,
touched by wounded toxicity.

My training 
and experience
includes victimized by homophobia
and healing through community mediation.

Within this...

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Fr. Time is with us today, again, 
or still bilateral, 
I guess I should before
and after say.

No, you just did
how I will play.  
You would be redundant, 
to say it again, 
like I just...

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They weren’t thinking things all the way through as I weren’t able 
They took me for granite and used me in the wrong way possible 
I need some reassurance tonight to get through this plight...

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Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones. 

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red...

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I want to respond
to the retired Marine
who watched Democratic Congressional Leaders
during the State of our crippled Union event,
disappointed at how their patriotism,
their loyalty to sacred sacrifices of soldiers
appears too tepid,
jaded,
ungrateful
as compared to more thunderous enthusiastic...

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Dear Sue,

I am remembering our strong negative responses
to the young woman who surreptitiously read
her aunt's very private diary,
filled with vulnerable statements
of the most intimate nature
and transparently lusty spirit,

Yet, though secretive,
then took a bold black marker
and...

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Remorseless sweaty palms

despite being prescribed glycopyrrolate.

Though the angst riddled psyche of mine crafted youth, long since receded, ebbed in the past, infringement, impingement, and indecent wracking wrath of mental illness, that even as a middle...

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What lies between extremes of boredom and bliss
for you
and those you most love to work and hang with?

If your Business As Usual day
sends messages within
redundantly reiterating how life is always coming too fast
too needy
too deprived...

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The coincidence of Advent
and the HW Bush eulogies
reminded me of DJ Trump's challenge
to laugh about himself
at least as quickly and quietly as he laughs against others.

As compared to any recent US President,
he comes in dead...

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Without form and void, 
The world gave a lunatic gaze. 
Lack of luminous light love bought,
Darkness did give her a chase. 
Open to no one was her, 
Water beneath and air above. 
Open to someone...

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Step out with me,
if you would be so kind,
on my melting island of ice.

Full-heated summer sun
feels good on our backs and shoulders
and faces turned down and in to hunt,
to fish.
We start this day with gratitude
for...

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Step out with me,
if you would be so kind,
on this melting island of ice.

Full-heated summer sun
feels good on backs and shoulders
and faces turned down and in to hunt,
to fish.
We start each day with gratitude
for warmth...

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Passion in waves, intense they pummel

Rolling me over & over & over.

Crushed. Help me grow; 

Go on, depart, now - a head start

With all this crap stuck in these spokes

Might slow me down, but watch...

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It was in the sorrow
That I learned to empathize and care
It was in the darkness
That my heart spoke the best prayers
It was in the silence
That my voice sounded tender
It was in the fear
That I found...

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i heard a...what do they say...a spine chilling scream
...is that the saying?

a spine chilling scream
followed by

'he's dead, my G_d he's dead'

the phrase echoed 
inside the whole of me
like tennis balls bouncing between two parallel walls

i...

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Mindfulness. . . what know I of mindfulness?
My mind is full of many things,
but unfortunately for me, that is not the meaning of mindfulness!

So, am I mindful at all?? I hear this type of thing...

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IN RETROSPECT

I remember, two years ago, today
I wrote my first poem “Reflect” in my first
self-published book “Love and Celebrate You”.
In the silence of the night before, I was pondering
and asking what could I do that...

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The dilemma of unfolded experience 
Thief of the universal peace
Thunder storm that terrifies the universe
You are the creature that lives invisibly within
The tremendous bug that bugs the planet earth
Uncomfortable but certainly portable to carry
Possibly replaceable...

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Note to Grover Norquist
and others with corporate political non-responsibility persuasions:

When you were 21 you "decided that nobody learned anything about politics after the age of 21."

A few financially well-greased years later, as a professional lobbyist,
you...

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