Long poem by
Gerald Dillenbeck | Details
We need to talk.
Is this one of those times
where you need to talk
and I must pretend to listen
while you rant?
Well, yes,
if you could extend this favor.
Your topic?
Social Darwinism.
Isn't that the birthplace of unfettered Capitalism
and Fascism
and Totalitarianism
and anthropocentrism,
and plutocratic ecopolitics,
where greed to breed
and bleed-out others
is doing what comes naturally?
Umm, yes.
Or at least those are its long-term degenerative faces.
Do you find any hope
for a happy face
when talking at me
about predation and piracy
and chronic competitive survival issues?
Yes.
I mean no..
Or yes and no.
Exactly.
That's why we need to talk.
And listen.
Yes, to both sides of Darwin's evolution;
I mean, our revolution;
and both.
The Win-Lose survivalist competition's zero-sum side...
And the sexier nurturing nutritional side
of WinWin cooperative fertility.
Yes, this living organic world
in which rights and responsibilities of reproduction
are Earth's more matriarchal cooperative vocation,
understory of all our blood and gore
climate of pathology,
monocultural competing histories.
Please tell me we are not heading
to Left and Right reprise,
for this anthem grows exhausting
to my cooperative WinWin ears.
You preach to our gospel choir
as if we were Pirate Darwinists
rather than socially regenerative evolutionists
already.
My chronic frustration shows
only to those who agree with me already
as those other aliens will not WinWin BothAnd listen.
Well baby, we all hear in stereo,
or at least most of us can.
Just lay out Darwin's BothAnd experience
and scientific observation.
I'll try to keep this short.
Already too late for that
I fear.
Darwin,
biologists,
and human people with reproductive experience,
or even just reproductive desires,
live and breathe and beat within and to Earth's cooperative rhythms
of mutual WinWin fertility.
If this were not our understory of ecopolitical
multigenerational
and multiculturing change
toward healthy long-term growth,
then WinLose competitions of prey and predator
could not sustain
as a majority norm,
as an overwhelming median status,
much less as a monopoly story of nutritional economics.
So you would remind us
of what we already know from cooperatively fertile experience,
any system,
to remain a viable system,
must capture a WinWin double-binding positive feedback yield
within its interdependent ecosystemic environment
adequate to multiculturally sustain perennial development.
Those systems that fail
with predominance of producing WinWin outcomes
over consuming WinLose incoming
are failing Win/Lose ego-centric,
because not ectosymbiotic eco-centered,
systems.
Yes,
I hope that was why we needed to talk
and listen.
But,
what about this Type A personality argument,
that too much contentment,
hoarded wealth safeguarding egos from discomfiting challenges
and Win/Lose threatening competitions
produce Queen Bee satiated outcomes,
absence of motives to get ahead
or behind something better,
and long-term dysfunction
of over-bloated monoculturing egos
and supremacist families
and elitist tribes
and anthropocentric dis-humaneing species?
Nothing breeds failure
like too much WinLose success.
That is,
although I hesitate to say it,
LeftBrain Either/Or deduction,
and reductionism of RightBrain's appositional agreement,
finding discomfort
from excessive barriers to active ecopolitical cooperation,
cooperative-systemic supports for co-ownership and democratic governance
without which reproductive rights and lefts bilaterally unbalance,
leading to self-dissatisfied suboptimizing depressions,
lack of regenerative motivations,
and eventual chronic stressed Type B behaviors,
like suicide
self-anger and loathing,
fear and paralyzing paranoia
about overcrowded climates of growing pathology,
Earth's landscapes of deadly Win/Lose demise.
I'm not sure what is my double-binding both-and positive take away,
much less yours.
I wish we could stop hearing Social Darwinism
as an antisocial oxymoron of capitalism.
Darwin,
like all those enraptured within Earth's reproductive nature,
heard and saw both our cooperative WinWin understory
of matriarchal-line regenerate fertility
and the competitive WinLose history
of predator piracy over preying victims
that someone else will be today's weaker loser,
even if I might have to help Mother Nature along
just a bit
by giving some other barely standing person
a nudge under the train
so the rest of us have more room
to get on
and stay on our trembling train
for one more daily ride.
You know, dear,
sometimes we get lost in your mixed metaphors,
and yet the days of the Great Train
requiring a daily human sacrifice
to continue our torturous ride to hell
are largely behind us.
I hope that's true.
Yet, I hope we might all cooperatively board
a more regenerative SocialEvolution Train
of Left and Right
BothAnd
WinWin thrivalism,
to let go of Left or Right
EitherOr
WinLose survivalism.
Sounds more like a prayer for revivalism
of reproductive rights and wrongs
of social ego/eco-systemic bountifulism.
Did we talk?
You tell me.
You're the one with Type A need
to competitively talk and act out
in your speaking means not listening
assertive way.
When I speak,
I assume the only person deeply listening
for what we might say next
is me.
Which is why we need to talk more.
Maybe.
But also why you always want the last endless word.
I resemble that.
[Yes you do,
but if I say this out loud
then you will continue more language
about what both is and is not true
and when
and where
and why;
an anthem as well sung
by a WinWin hopeful cricket.]
I can still hear you,
you know.
I feel more like a hammering away red-headed woodpecker,
hungry;
not ever, even once, satiated.
[Now that you've had the last word,
perhaps a bit less hungry.]
Still hungry.
[0-sum WinWin namaste]
That won't work either.
[ ]
Closer.
[...]
[.]
Copyright © Gerald Dillenbeck | Year Posted 2017
|
Long poem by
Scott Howard Myers The Gypsy King | Details
Set upon the new world stage within the burning fires of hell. Silently posed factions of the elite, suppress the true inherit of Mother Earth. The meek children bending over for millennium, taken spankings of bare bottoms, pelted slavery.
Upon entry to rule, the open stage of smoked mirrors began to reflect back upon the podium of lies. Taught by scholars from university books of political science. Fearful of leadership matching mirrored images, of false pretense, babbling rhetoric. The stirring masses of discontented, individualistic, thought of as dead - enders, trouble makers, and rebel rousers, rallied aimlessly.
With super hero, Captain Do Gooder, bleeding helpless on the floor of Wall Street. Weary lost hope combatants mustered courage, and accepted destiny. To this point, someone shouted against the wind of change. Felt by all who sensed the importance.
"To death do us part of the purpose to which we, the united, stand for justice".
The chant began, as Captain Do Gooder was dragged away, and cuffed, once bleeding helpless on the floor of Wall Street.
Damn the torpedoes. Damn the torpedoes.
Captain Do Gooder, fallen, bruised ego matching skinned knees, lays helpless. Who will save them now.
Second glances from high rise penthouses. Serving champagne and caviar. Brought iron clenched hands once hidden, to draw the stage curtain down.
With Captain Do Gooder nowhere to be found. The voice that came from pain of pupil. Born within broken dreams of promised lands. Realized nothing was coming cheap on this occupation.
The dusty streets found Captain Do Gooder aimlessly stepping against the winds of change, down Wall Street. The well-intentioned, arrested and broken spirited, lost hope of recycling any salvage rights taken from them by Metro.
Was this the end of the well thought out, pushed down occupation.
Was this the beginning, of the underground faction. Where was senior generation X hiding. Only Captain Do Gooder and the well-intentioned, world stage occupiers, hold the key to that Pandora's box of hope.
The peoples across the oceans were already springing far ahead in their own, more brutal campaign. For they had no cushion on which they were raised to kneel against. Tyranny ran over them. A lesson yet not felt, or learnt, or taught, in the new world. No chance of city mayors issuing eviction notices. Bullets, tanks and bombs were of the order. Brought down the line, traced back to the ones our United Nations to this day, refuse to acknowledge.
While leaders there home internet shop, and pump out the lies. Everyone dies.
In the heart of the continent of center, where unto which as mankind sprang forth, for its first and ever conquest.
The lights kept dim, to obscure the violent cleansing. A facade to disguise once moreover, the brutal tyranny for which the greed of the elite, control the dimmer switch. Diamonds and oil fuel the fire of war and oppression, on this stage of greed and guilt. Too far away, and too many distractions upon center stage for one to see or care. Thought and looked upon by most as racially motivated. The origins of all mankind, to be left, far too far, behind. The true forsaken people. Why is man unkind.
So..........will Captain Do Gooder raise the bar to which drinks for the house, and all around, will quench the thirst felt by ninety nine percent of the people............mother knows best.
Yet, still, self-inflicted roadblocks of appointed destiny, drop kicked long days past. Faint light shining far ahead, within the tunnel of hell, brought up to land. Firm above the depths to which it sprang. The truth of world order.
Wait......what do we see......do our closed eyes deceive our cries........................................
We see Captain Do Gooder catching second wind.
She breathes deep now and all can hear her war cry, no longer whimpering softly. As in past tense situations, given way to dazed and confused wall street *****es.
She builds momentum, as our brothers and sisters lay dying and bleeding. On the streets of some not so distant for telling, of what's to be, will never not be coming full steam ahead and plowing through the hidden agenda. One step beyond the line drawn in the sand of time, we thought would never be crossed. Give way thoughtless future tellers, and takers. Still holding firm with paper cuts, deep into the hands who printed and prepared such slave papers, kept by the elite bankers.
Captain Do Gooder returns renewed and refreshed. Our true Mother.
Captain Do Gooder feels strong, as bruised knees and scraped hands heal.
Brush of destiny sweepstakes, allots winnings of earth shaking, volcano erupting, tsunami tidal waves, with bonus draws of worldwide chaos. Future draws are to be held with worldwide winners. Grand prize, dead oceans rising.
The next generation have no fear digest writes the next chapter.
Hold the press down firmly wall street backbiting backbenchers. Drawn into the crossfire, on her mark, place the x on the next general who dares not fall into civil disobedience.
Captain Do Gooder has grown teeth, and she is biting down hard against the line to pipe riches, spoiled from her lands. Stolen from the first pilgrimage, fifteen thousand years old, lost empire.
How dare you steal from, and pollute the minds of her children. Yet old enough to drink and drug and die in war. How dare all of us.
Meanwhile back at the ranch. Captain Do Gooder hugs tight that tree of life, to which sprang all this elbow rubbing and diversion. Wall street huddles in her corner, painted red to match the lengths to which an end will surely bring to it.
Painted red for all to see.
The end to friendly letter writing, give peace a chance, make love not war, generation taking a bow, and snow birding it, to false sense of security land. Like the ostrich with its head in the sand.
Copyright © Scott Howard Myers The Gypsy King | Year Posted 2013
|
Long poem by
Ir0nic ZiNk | Details
Social settings have stigma attached to this.
Atmospherically climactic negative correlations sustain society.
Civilized individuals are naturally monogamous; serially…
On the other hand gender segregated facility.
Men and woman,
Penis and vagina,
Birds and bees,
Conditions and stipulations…
A rule book is the Illusion-Larry governor of our entire moral existence.
The Holy Bible has cryptic recommendations and of curse; The Ten Commandments.
Normalcy normally considered just as plain ole normal; steamed clean normality.
Wait a minute; I was under the impression that the bible is the rule book.
Adolescence lost in questions asked, internally more so than allowed.
Inside lies us something that works as a top adviser for the rule book.
Lieutenant Fear sticklers order as butterfly wings flap within our core physic.
Free of verse, these entrapped insects sporadically fly lacking rhythms or meter.
I would be not-so normal in my conspiratorial claim: Fear Enslaves.
Stomach aches, waters flood eyes, drools insanity saliva, deep throat in roof of mouth,
Vomit warning is issued by our unconscious advisers on vital bodily function.
Fear whips the butterflies cursing ecstatic projectiles; dark fills black eyes in dilation.
Sacrifice is humane.
Humanity is sacrifice.
Masks are worn.
Worn are masks.
Unable to find common decency enough being truthful for—
Lies are constructed and valor; stubborn ego.
Forgiveness is, as common decency does, not.
Being truthful obviously enabled associated failure.
Morality needs much more reality.
Reality needs much more morality.
Needs need, and want, more realistic morals.
Much needed is trust as tangible hope—tangible hope cannot trust as is.
Furthermore-you, allow me how-to, introduce-do
A new must-view interlude-ado:
It is now okay to choose being your very best you.
You can be the best with no need to feel guilty for doing so; phew.
Simply show compassion, do not belittle by boast, and humbly have actual humanity.
Active humanity... Humanity in motion…
Being the wish to see change by lead example; thus… Becoming exemplary—
However latterly it is, of equal importance taken to account for misleading (more in mistaken) perception of what is humane and what is not humanity...
Ask yourself, this self that you are now able to love, while seeing your old self you image to always remain as that you, you used to hate.
Only currently be aware to the ironic reality, which is that you are, and have always been correct in, your chosen judgment, to hate yourself...
This is because you were lacking the self righteous tools (fearfully hidden core physic presented in slave ordered butterflies by G. Illusion Larry)
Find the ability to rise above this tyrannical tyrant called Fear.
You need courage; my friend(s).
The courage to provide gumption to ask yourself; morally and realistically
Question; ponder if what?
Allow it how; naturally (serial).
What is humanity?
What is not humane?
AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP
Conditions and stipulations
Unable to find common decency enough being truthful for—
Reality needs much more morality.
Sacrifice is humane.
Men and woman
Free of verse, these entrapped insects sporadically fly lacking rhythms or meter.
Normalcy normally considered just as plain ole normal; steamed clean normality.
Worn are masks
Penis and vagina
On the other hand gender segregated facility.
Wait a minute; I was under the impression that the bible is the rule book.
Birds and Bees
Lost in adolescence questions asked, internally more so than allowed.
Social settings have stigma attached to this.
Furthermore-you, allow-me how-to, introduce-who
A new must-view interlude-ado: An Open Relationship
;) A relation among people of a social climate atmospherically open and honest about who they truly are. A place where mistakes are made by women rather than made into woman. This civilization is actively involved with each other in an "open-relationship." Allow this not how to get confused by simple meander-like simplicity—being soullessly limited to the birds and the bees. Open your emotional availability towards more normal relationships in general, you know, the ones that actually exist in real life and arguably beliefs to be morally right than this current negative stigma hyped up society of our misunderstanding(s). Get active in your humanity. Needs open mindedness and compassionate understanding. Allow tangible hope’s arrival; embrace the amazement of…
An Open Relationship...
Ir0nic ZinK
7-04-16 @ 2:30 AM
Copyright © Ir0nic ZiNk | Year Posted 2016
|
Long poem by
Gerald Dillenbeck | Details
Shalom, Aloha, Namaste
Identity is rooted in socioeconomic health of mutual trust,
beginning in utero
swimming about in embryonic nutrition,
rather than active distrust
or more passive mistrust of the relatively unknown
yet somehow paranoic alien, Other.
The psychological fuel for polypathic political trust
is capacity for empathy,
which grows bicamerally within mutually subsidiary economies
of co-empathic positive intent,
co-arising nonduality
in more ecstatic peaks of good beatific as beautifully edgy humor.
Empathy is a teachable,
because learnable,
listening and noticing skill,
stretching to include those aliens of self and other doubt,
occasionally even abusive terrorists within.
Mature co-empathic bicameral skills
are what we might call healthy mindfulness,
ecoconsciousness of Self as holonically syncing with Other,
intent toward mutual integrity,
trust,
love,
regard,
esteemed equivalence,
emerging from comprehension of our Original Intent
as regenerative cycling Earth's SpaceTime fertile paradise
of Positive Deviance Psychology,
Political ChoiceMaking for Positive Nutrients,
Economically Cooperative WinWin TransActions,
deviant from vacuous dissonance and chaos,
random WinLose irrationality,
endless notnot polynomials of double-binding ambivalence.
Zero-centric mindfulness training
is not only the stuff of sit at home,
chant and drum meditation training and sensory experience
of nutritional sounds and tastes and sights and smells
with concomitant affective feelings
of resonant trust, dissonant mistrust, assonant distrust, hate, fear, anger
trusting things might be better
if I can just cathartically,
purgatively force myself and others to calm back down
from active distrust to at least more passive mistrust
about our continuing future lives together
in more peaceful silence of mutual breathing,
in as out.
While shared centering space and sounds can be useful
especially as household units,
and prior to important political and economic discernment events
processes
systemic networks of positive transitional evolutionary intent,
stretching mindfulness through each active loving moment
of each day and night
is optimally sustained only in a safe-risk environment
of political and economic cooperative nurturance,
where power competitions are normatively agreed to remain subservient
to greater cooperative nurturing,
Both-And powers of consensual discernment
to discover together highest and best political ecotherapy
and economic health optimization outcomes.
We are best within our democratically-inclusive empathic wheelhouse,
rather than the mutual immune fears of unknown
mysterious and unfortunate threats
and other competitive LeftBrain too-reductive dominance
in defining extended families of synergetic confluence,
requires (0)-centric disciplines of mindfulness
but these are more accurately embraced as Tao-disciplines
on behalf of Love as Nature's KindTrust Expansion,
rather than suboptimizing political/economic goals
of Anger and Fear Management and self repression
of the static/stuck Panic-Terrorist within to feel better
managing damage control,
safety and security,
defensive mutual time out preferences,
restraint procedures
and economic investment boundary policies
to contain our LoseLose worst hunting and ungathering fears.
The Haudenosaunee definition of grace,
gratitude,
thanksgiving,
"the words that come before all else"
under ideal compost incubating circumstances
of mutual-mentoring
creative
Both-And political and economic cooperative discernment
might bilaterally nuance,
grace evolves the words that come before as after all else,
as above,
so below;
as Exterior Landscaped
so Interior Landscaped.
The belief that anthrocentrism is fundamental
to wise political and economic regenerative planning
for future generations,
is the Original Sin of fundamentalist self-idolatry.
Our capacities for healthy mutual co-empathic trust development
far exceed such a limited and limiting sense of our own personal,
familial,
and EarthTribal identity,
history of cooperative enculturation and intelligence.
Radical Revolutionary Earth (0)-Soul Centrism
is bicameral ecoconsciousness
of polypathic highest as healthiest beautiful minds and words
that come both before and after all else.
Our co-empathic democratic multicultural trust
in healthy cooperative futures begins this and each EarthLoving Eternal Day and Rich Composting Night,
Aloha, Shalom. Namaste.
Copyright © Gerald Dillenbeck | Year Posted 2016
|
Long poem by
Darian Rehder | Details
The signs started in December
When she started waking up in tears each night
She was a normal girl with dark brown hair and darker brown eyes
She had plenty of friends and a loving family with just one thing missing
Her father.
Days passed by and turned into weeks but only felt like a few seconds
Her life just whizzed by faster and faster until it was just a whirr in front of her eyes
Darkness filtered into her heart and mind until she didn't know if she could go on
But she had to. She couldn't let her mother and her sister drown in this same pain
She wouldn't let them.
She pushed all the darkness into the depths of her own heart
In hopes to save the hearts of the two people she had left
Because what else was there to live for now?
The rest of her world had crashed and her mother and sister was all that was left
She wouldn't let them drown in pain too.
She watched as they started to heal in her loving arms
Their hearts started to lighten up once more
But hers was just as dark as it was before
And growing darker day by day
But she wouldn't let that stop her.
Suddenly a year had passed... and then two
It only seemed like seconds to her but everyone else started moving on
Her mother and sister no longer needed her nurturing care
But she needed someone to hold on to
Anyone...
With nothing left for her to take control of, the dark pushed past her boundries
It found a way into her soul
Until all she could see was dark and no light
But her mother and sister were healed now
They didn't understand
The tears came back and engulfed her soul
Bit by bit until she wasn't sure why she was still alive
The grief took over like knives
Piercing her skin over and over and over
It hurt so much.
She started to wonder what it'd look like to be dead
She could see him again if she was
Wouldn't it be so much easier than having to endure this pain?
Wouldn't it be so much easier than having to live knowing she'd never see him again?
It would.
So she started to hate herself
All that negative energy was starting to take toll
Everyone around her was breathing while she suffocated more and more by the second
She wished she'd just choke already instead of living in constant pain
If no one would put her out of her misery, she'd have to do it herself
She couldn't see any light anymore
So she grabbed the pill bottle off the shelf and just hoped it wouldn't take long to die
Deep down she still had a spark of light, but she just couldn't find it
And now it was too late in her mind to change, to turn back and try to look deeper
She was done living.
That's when people started to notice that everything wasn't as peaceful as it seemed
They started to see how deeply depressed she had become
They wanted to help her see the light again before it was too late
So they sent her away to see doctors and to take pills to make everything better
It was a start.
She didn't see a change at first but suddenly she could think clearly
Maybe what they were doing was actually going to help her see the light again
Yes, she still wanted to die, but maybe that wasn't the only option anymore
They cared, and behind all their own problems they were trying to understand
They really were trying
Six months longer she would be treated and cared for
Until suddenly she was sent home from her treatment and care with a smile on her face
She had a new perspective
Someone had helped her ignite that spark in her heart until it was a glowing ember
She had been reborn
Sometimes you have to be able to experience the worst of it
To come back shining brighter than before
And if she had died that cold day in October, she wouldn't of ever seen the best of it
Or known that it would get better
and it did!
And she now sits at her laptop, with a smile on her face and warmth in her heart
It's never been an easy road and it won't ever be
But at least she knows she's lived through the worst
And it can only get better from here
So whenever she feels lonely or gets back into that dark spot again
She can look back on what she's learned and can read this poem
And remember that she survived the darkest depths of depression
And she will continue to survive it as long as she lives
Because she is stronger now than she ever was before ?
Copyright © Darian Rehder | Year Posted 2013
|
Long poem by
evrod samuel | Details
THE CITY AND THE STATE OF PLAY TODAY
No one worries about morals today
They follow the rules they create
So to them all is ok
Those on the outside looking in
Are the only ones feeling queasy
As avarice and selfishness triumphs
So easily
Good corporate citizens they claim to be
Industry awards abound on their walls
As thank you tokens from themselves
Yet society harbours a lot of ill-will
As it feels the often brute force of
The raid
Grab
And destroy mentality
Of people only wishing to make money
Any which way
While Using up all of society’s communal resources
Sharks abound
The waters are forever bloody as they
Know no fraternity and would gladly
Cannibalize anyone with no influence
The ability to upend competitors
A cherished characteristic
In a bullish machismo drenched environment
Bullet proof psyches
Absorb and repel any pangs
About unfairness
Blocking any regulatory or chattering classes’
Attempt at nirvana and equality
They employ better paid lobbyist
So always have the upper hand
In influencing policy
The gravitational attraction of money
Towards another even bigger pot of money
Numbs any cautionary instinct
That would take a long term view
The thrill of instant riches
Overpowers common sense
And even decency
Fat cats they all wish to be
The slickness of glossy tongued lobbyist
Who spin wrongs till they become rights
Embolden oestrogen low males with no inbuilt brakes
To take risks that eventually cost them disgrace
They are champions of graft not of society
Loopholes in legislation
That were built in by too friendly politicians
Coupled with ambiguous suits and claims
Cause far reaching hardship when the good old days are long gone
The villains only muster some phantom national pride
When begging for a lighter sentence
Some are forgiven
Others fatally wounded by an unforgiving public
Lots of money can be made both legally and illegally
As one racket is closed another materialises instantly
The conveyor belt of dishonesty
Overwhelms bureaucracy
Who is not David to the goliath that is money
The ethos is wealth
The acquisition and the maintaining of gains
Not often acquired through hard work
There is no limit of acceptable financial comfort
For the millionaire always wants to be a billionaire
And the mega rich super rich
Money must always be hidden from the taxman
Shareholders want tax free dividends
Investors want tax breaks for buying with other people’s money
Infrastructure and new runways must be built
But not from the pocket of those who wish it
With their hands outstretched
And always wanting more and more
From a government too eager to please
We have a tax system geared to the advantage of party donors
And non-domiciled moguls and tycoons
Who know no philanthropy unless it is tax efficient
Disadvantaging society by
Never paying their fair and moral share
The largess they reap so selfishly
They wish not to share
Wages are low
Taxes are nil
Only the investor wins as we pay his bills
Fast paced expansionist dogma
Is preached within city limits
Only the highest paid
The biggest company
The greatest profits
Are allowed
They are held up as ideals that all who
Wish to succeed must follow
Gunslingers they all appear to be
Rushing in to capitalize on the wanton success of their peers
The cloud of misery left behind
Is never seen for the look forward
Never backward
Hindsight is never welcomed in this parasitic environment
The political will to weed out these reckless demons
Is lukewarm at best
The revolving door of government creating opportunities
For industry and industry gratefully accepting politicians post government
Ensures that self-interest is king
An economy built on flawed assumptions of wealth creation
Is one that must forever be in hyper-drive
Creating ever expanding demand and supply
That is as real as a thief’s conscience
When taking the rings off a dead persons fingers
Money must always be made for
There is no alternative
Wealth is good
Poverty to them is laziness
The city is not the heart and soul
Of the nation
It is but one player in a system skewed in its favour
We all must share in the wealth of this country
To ensure its longevity
Copyright © evrod samuel | Year Posted 2013
|
Long poem by
curtis johnson | Details
A Can Of Coffee
By Curtis Johnson
I do not remember telling him how his kindness to me made a major impression on my life, but I did share the same with his wife and daughter some time after his demise. Moreover, I suspect that he knew that what he did for me had a lasting impact upon my life. I have no doubt that with plan and purpose, with prayer and personal interest, Bob gifted me with a 2 pound can of ground coffee. From the beginning, I discerned that Bob was not trying to satisfy my taste for coffee. At the time, I was not a regular coffee drinker, but rather I drank coffee as a survival tool when I was a delivery driver. However, as a result of Bob’s good deed, I started to drinking coffee every morning.
I must tell you that the primary action of Bob was not about doing a good deed, but about connecting to another human being that was in many respects ‘disconnected’. Nor was the gift of coffee really about the coffee, but rather it was about reaching out to another man who at the time had very little interest in personal interaction. You see, Bob’s coffee contact with me is one of the answers to a creeping reality in our communities today. My reality of disconnection was my own response to disappointments and adversities. Our world is in a ‘major disconnect’ for its own myriad of reasons.
Blame it on the internet and cell phone if you wish; convince yourself that our culture and the millennial generation have divided and separated us from one another. Tell yourself that emails and tech messaging is the new normal. Nevertheless, may we never cease to reach out and physically touch. May we forever look people in their eyes, showing and telling them that we care.
Yes, there is a real and present need to reach out to the strangers, the visitors, the quiet and invisible ones, and the one who comes and goes, with few ever getting to know their names. May we go the extra mile to acquaint one’s self with that one who would rather not be bothered. We do not have to smother or over zealously invade their privacy, but we must respectfully find a way to enter their space.
In my case, Bob broke through the thick wall that I had built, and on which there hang an invisible sign that could be clearly read by any who dared. Sometimes, if we like Bob, would dare to read the sign but ignore its request; or if we would but pretend that we did not see the expressive face and body language which said, “Don’t bother Me”, we might just be surprised with the response we get. Love is not bound with a fear of barriers and walls. Love sees no partition that it is not willing to penetrate.
Bob was a loving conduit through which the electricity of God’s love flowed. The coffee was simply an instrument that could easily have been an invitation to dinner, a gift card from Starbucks, or a ticket to a movie. The tool is relative; it’s the conduit that really matters and makes a world of difference.
No, it was not a ‘random act of kindness’, but rather a very specific and targeted act. As a result of Bob’s one act of kindness, he opened a doorway to my heart and life that led to a wonderful, though short, friendship. There were several occasions in which Bob and I would engage in interesting conversations. As a result, I learned of Bob’s many interests and of the service station business he once owned.
I recall a story of a heat wave that hit Chicago several years ago. A number of elderly people died not only because they were without air conditioning, but because they had no one who checked on them on a regular basis. They lived alone; they died alone. This tragedy caused the city to implement a system of connecting with the elderly in ways that disallow a similar misfortune.
Bob never lived to see how I began to open up and relate to other people. It’s amazing what things can happen when we simply allow ourselves to be conduits. Bob was a conduit through which love flowed from his heart to mine. The tool was a 2 pound can of Coffee. The power of love and a can of coffee. Who knew? cj08262014
Copyright © curtis johnson | Year Posted 2015
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Long poem by
Kim Morrison | Details
From Pretty Pink Bows To Baby Bassinets
Well little girl you are in high water now and the sand is moving swiftly under your feet. You never expected to get pregnant at fifteen and now you are scared, confused, heartbroken, and you are lashing out at everybody because you do not know who to trust at this point in time. You do not know if even those closest to you are offering you wise words of advice, deliberate words of coercion, or self-serving suggestions. Unfortunately, not even the most well intentioned person can answer the intensely personal questions that are in front of you now, but that will not stop them from trying because even the most intelligent people in your life are often too arrogant in their own beliefs to realize that attempting to answer these kinds of questions for you is kind of like a cowboy trying to rope the wind. However, many will still try because they care about you in some way and many out of concern for you will think they have all your best interests at heart. Yes little girl there is a world of folks out there just chock full of good and bad intentions, yet few understand that the road to perdition can be paved just as well with either. You never intended to get pregnant, but you did just the same and now you are at a crossroad in your young life that even adult women have a hard time dealing with. However, despite your tender age, you are going to have to wipe the tears from your big beautiful blue eyes, find some big girl panties to put on, and sit down and render your first real adult decision on an issue that will alter the very course of your life and the lives of others, no matter what you decide.
Stop saying to yourself why me, why now because it is you and it is now. Stop thinking that you are too young to make this decision because you thought you were old enough to make the decision that put you into this situation begin with and now you have to deal with the consequences of that choice. Stop wondering what to do and thinking that your prince charming is going to walk back in your life and make this decision easier for you because he is just as worried, scared and confused as you are right now, so chances are real good that there will be no glass slipper in your story Cinderella. You can wish and hope all you want for the fairytale solution to appear in one hand, but it is all but certain that the other hand is going to get full first and you are not going to like the aroma. Some would say that you are a little girl making an adult decision, but the reality is you tossed away the little girl card the moment a real baby with real needs appeared in your dollhouse. No sweetie you are a big girl now whether you like it or not or you are ready for it or not and the situation you are dealing with is as real and emotional as it gets. Do not be over whelmed by all the advice people have offered you, but consider it all when you make your decision and pay no attention to the religious nonsense some folks like to spew because it is designed more to make you feel guilty or to scare you than to help you. The people around you, like it or not, are going to have to support your decision because it is yours to make and yours alone. Nobody can hold your hand on this one because regardless of what others might think, right or wrong, you are the one that is going to have to live with the decision you make here. This is a solitary walk on the beach moment for you and during that walk you are going to have to explore not just what is rattling around in your head, but what is down deep in your little heart because the best decisions you will ever make in your life or for your life must always come from both. One of life’s most challenging tasks is constantly trying to find the harmony between one’s head and one’s heart. Blessed are those rare few times one can turn the chaos and discordance of life into a beautiful symphony.
Copyright © Kim Morrison | Year Posted 2014
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Long poem by
Scribbler Of Verses | Details
someone always told me this with tears in her eyes...
(for Lata Sethi's late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi)
a wife left South Africa in the 1960’s to join her husband
who was in exile at the time...
in 1970 the husband was sent by the African National Congress to India to be its representative there...
the husband and wife spent two years in Bombay...
one afternoon the husband fell and broke his leg...
the wife knocked on their neighbour’s door, in an apartment complex in Bombay
the neighbour was an old Punjabi lady...
the wife asked the neighbour for a doctor to see to the injured husband...
a Parsi ‘Bone-Setter’ was promptly summoned...
the husband still recalls his anxiety of seeing ‘Bone-Setter’ written on the Parsi gentleman’s bag...
by the way, the ‘Bone-Setter’ worked his ancient craft and surprisingly for the husband, his broken leg healed quite soon...
but still on that day, while the ‘Bone-Setter’ was seeing to the husband...
the wife and the old Punjabi lady from next door got to talking about this and that and where these new Indian-looking wife and husband were from as their accents were clearly not local...
the wife told the elderly Punjabi lady that the husband worked for the African National Congress of South Africa and had left to serve the ANC from exile...
and that they had left their two children behind in South Africa and that they were now essentially political refugees...
the Punjabi lady broke down and wept uncontrollably...
she told the foreign woman that she too had had to leave her home in Lahore in 1947 and flee to India with only the clothes on her back when the partition of the subcontinent took place and Pakistan was formed and at a time when Hindus from Pakistan fled to India and vice versa...
the Punjabi lady then asked the foreign woman her name...
‘Zubeida’, but you can call me ‘Zubie’...
the Punjabi woman hugged Zubie some more, and the two women, seperated by age and geography, wept, sharing a shared pain...
the Punjabi woman told Zubie that she was her ‘sister’ from that day on, and that she felt that pain of exile and forced migration and what being a refugee felt like...
Zubie and her husband Mosie became the closest of friends with the Hindu Punjabi neighbours who were kicked out of Pakistan by Muslims...
then came the time for Mosie and Zubie to leave for Delhi where the African National Congress office was based...
the elderly Punjabi lady and Mosie and Zubie said their goodbyes...
a year or two later, the elderly Punjabi lady’s daughter Lata married Ravi Sethi and the couple moved to Delhi...
the elderly Punjabi lady called Zubie and told her that her daughter was coming to Delhi to live and that she had told Lata, her daughter that she had a ‘sister’ in Delhi...
Lata and Ravi Sethi then moved to Delhi...
This was in the mid-1970’s...
Lata and Zubie became the closest of friends and that bond stayed true, and stays true till today, though Zubie is no more, and the elderly Punjabi lady is no more...
the son and the husband still have a bond with Lata and Ravi Sethi...
a bond that was forged between Hindu and Muslim and between two continents across the barriers of creed and time...
a bond strong and resilient, forged by the pain and trauma of a shared experience...
and that is why, and I shall never stop believing this, that hope shines still, for with all the talk of this and of that, and of that and of this, there will always be a simple woman, somewhere, anywhere, who would take the ‘other’ in as a sister, a fellow human...
and that is why there will always be hope...
hope in the midst of this and of that and of that and of this...
hope...
(for Lata Sethi's late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi)
Copyright © Scribbler Of Verses | Year Posted 2013
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Long poem by
Caren Krutsinger | Details
Picture this.
Exploding pipe bombs.
Land fields that can take your arms off.
Driving off road, and frenzied, with excitement
Adrenaline RAGING.
Oh, yes, Syrian Teenagers,
It is “Let’s See If We Are Really Alive” day.
Okay, we’ll let in some Africans too, but
Only if they are wearing hoodies.
The Mexicans want to join us?
Okay, but you have to climb the T-Wall first,
As a little joke, to amuse the Donald.
Yes, it is happy MIND Field Day in America!
We got tweeted the details last night.
It’s like Hunger game Day, and Grab the Poppies Day.
HAHAHAHA Why would I use the other word?
I’m not the misogynist racist tweet-stupid chicken bully!
I’m not even allowed to say “You’re fired.”
So, today in the land of “Let’s see if you’re alive
We have a side game called “Let’s go after Syria
So the Congressmen and Senators
Who only want to keep their jobs at all of
Our expenses,
And possibly the expense of the
Social security fund which they
Have decided to STEAL from us….
The Congressmen and the Senators
Who are also learning how to tweet
And be stupid declared today
“I won’t have to show my taxes or
Pay a vendor day, and the little guy
Can play in the exploding pipe bomb field
Because it keeps the adrenaline pumping,
And we want to see if they are really alive.”
Hey, I’m in!
I am the first in line.
I want to take my jalopy and drive recklessly
Across the mind field. I really really do!
Some younger women are behind me, laughing
Because they think not only am I invisible, but
I cannot hear them.
I can hear you making fun of me I tell them,
In my mind because I’m polite and socialized and
I’m so excited about the races and the thrill of almost
Being killed minute by minute with the stuff they are going to
Catapult in – toilets, old refrigerators, Russian foot soldiers, etc.
That I can BARELY think straight.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” the handsome door man says.
“Excuse me.”
He excuses me and a bunch of excited young men
And Bernie Sanders and a mask-wearing Bette Midler,
And we all stare at each other in anger as all of the young
Available beautiful WHITE ladies are ushered in.
All of a sudden I realize all the beautiful young gorgeous
Brown ladies are still out here with us and I start screaming
And shouting and tearing it up.
Bette and Bernie understand immediately. The three of
Us lead the fray, and we become a mighty mob and
We are yelling and screaming and demanding our
Turn until we look in the glass T-tower walls and
See the mayham that is taking place. Young beautiful
White women are being killed and maimed with pipe
Bombs, and three-headed dogs are ripping their legs off
And stuff. There is blood and screaming and gruesome
Real tearing them up over there. The others are watching
In horrified fascination, and I can watch no more.
I turn away and begin to cry.
I cry that America has become so corrupt
That a misogynist chicken-bully who professes
To be a rapist could have been elected to office
In our country.
I cry that we have elected a President who
Did not pay any of the little guys when they worked
For him – the plumbers, the electricians, the tile layers, the air conditioning men.
I cry that the only ones who thought they
Were admitted to the T-arena to participate
In “Let’s See if They Are Alive Day” were young
White women, not those of us in hoodies, or those
Of us from Africa, or the Irish, or any of the young men.
I guess it makes sense.
Because the ones whose vote counts now are the
Hillbillies, and the trailer trash, and the glued-to-the-Fox
REAL news channel people,
The non-thinkers,
The non-dreamers,
The ones who get
Angry if we want to
Abolish the electoral
College, because we would like a vote too.
Please ignore all of this; I don't do politics
in Kansas, where only the elitist Republican's
vote count.
I am learning.
Copyright © Caren Krutsinger | Year Posted 2018
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