We spent the summer of '99 waiting for the sky to break.
The old seer had promised us a king—
not of crowns or gold, but of sheer terror,
dropping from the heavy heat of July.
People pulled what they needed from the ink.
Some swore it was the third beast waking up,
a fundamentalist storm ready to swallow the map,
while others just saw the familiar rot of politics
finally bursting into a global fire.
Either way, the dread sold a lot of paperbacks.
The prophecy became a ghost in the movie theaters,
a blockbuster specter we could safely watch
while pretending the end of the world was just entertainment.
The world didn't end, but the earth keeps shaking.
With every new war on the evening news,
every disaster that leaves a city in the dark,
somebody always dusts off the quatrains again.
We tell ourselves it's just a myth,
until the horizon bruises,
and we catch ourselves looking up.
You are a famous star of love.
The star of love and dreams.
Character so high up above.
Suspended in the night dreams.
You are twinkle twinkle little star.
How I wonder what you are?
Up above the world so high.
Like a diamond in the sky.
You are star of strength and entertain.
I see thee stand.
And smile upon my pain.
And I am strong again.
You are star of millennium.
In the millions of stars sparkling .
A glowing star.
Like king of the ring.
A bright future as sun.
Imagine your name up in the stars.
In the Milky Way Galaxy.
Like Moon, Earth and Mars.
She was a believer until life took away grace from inside her bosom now she is a deceiver!
A receiver of gifts and her body an amusement park for all perverts to lay their dirt upon peace by peace she breaks into the unknown.
Love cursed her to never fall for the right ones her choices got her on one knee trying to seize the one fate chose only for destiny to give her a wake up call.
She woke up to the aroma of the flowers blossoming within her only to realise she lost the sun whilst chasing the stars.
Astral Backlash, Cosmic Dimension, Environmental Fermentation Gradual, History, incidental Jubilation, Kinetic Labryinth, Military Negation, Optomistic Pessimism, Quaint Radical Skeptimism, Toxic Utopia, Vague Willfullness, Xenomobic Yougsters, Zero
"O, to have a kingdom
Its subjection so sweet!
Golden, like Solomon's
Footstool, for my feet.
Rest from my enemies,
Trampled into dust,
Falling at my feet,
Like so much sawdust.
Behold my sovereignty!
My judgment is supreme!
Try to fight back, and
My methods are extreme!
Wealth from my wisdom
Will secure all my dreams,
Then to stay in power
Requires constant schemes."
"Ironic you should blather
While I execute your demise!
Messiah sits at My right-hand,
While I squeeze you with My vise!
'I AM' building Him a footstool,
Putting ALL beneath His feet!
All enemies will be vanquished!
Your subjection is so sweet!
Come worship at My footstool,
Be subject to My decree.
The wicked will be trampled,
But the righteous shout with glee!
Let the kings of the earth tremble
At the darkness I'll unleash
My storm clouds, see them billow?
So, repent or perish, capisce?"
"David had it in his heart
To build a house for Me,
Complete with a footstool,
So this kingdom I'll repeat."
Millennium Park
a reclaimed landfill
once succumbed
to the deafening shriek
of sea gulls and bulldozers.
Now a rolling hill
gazing down on the skyline
of The City of Boston.
A blanket of greenery
laid over a once open sore
inviting the weary
to sit, to succumb
to the blissful stillness
as the wind sings
in the long-needled pines.
John G. Lawless
©2/22/2022
Galacticly heavenly, imagine Jupiter, kryptonite lunar moons
Sliding between celestial blue and dark moody skies
Wherein lived a Dragon who incredibly, loved snow
Fell in love with a fairy, millenniums ago!
Began courting daring Evelyn fairy gorgeous,
She was, declared his love thunderously, universe knew,
Of his eternal love for this immortal being,
Who toyed with snowflakes, flirting, but never ageing.
Stupendously, Translucently, universally, vigilantly, willingly,
Love zoomed towards a forlorn dragon and fairy,
How and where would they find constant snow,
Obvious, teleport to Antarctica did this damsel and beau.
Entering Competition : Alpha Lines Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Joseph May
02/08/2021
Slum
Where hard looks and thin soup oppose,
the spider, cockroach, rat, and mouse dispute
in patient litigation or in border raids
our title to this world.
There is no mystery, it boils down to food.
Our ruined lunches providing theirs
as Roman baths provided stones
for abbeys of a different creed.
They too win converts. With earbite and cold fear,
patient, persistent, numerous,
their inquisitors huddle together in dim light
to study our disgust.
Greyly, brownly, blackly surpliced
they muse on our improbable millennium.
A thousand ships your face launches
Pitting my ship against a fleet of others
Snatching my heart, in a morass of mud drugging my haunches
Pouring torrents of my tears and fears in front of my brothers
Rendering me disconsolate
Wondering why I let you in
Although it ain’t too late
To clean up the savoury scene
In which I swim in the juice
I find hard to invest or taste
Even when I manipulate the sluice
In slow motion or in a haste
To beseech your adorable facial asset to tone down the torment
On me you inflict
To establish whether blues you foment
Initiate no conflict
Between your conscience and hearts you singe
At will
When terrified hearts in front of you cringe
As you swill
The red wine of pain and strain you rain
On hapless hearts crazy enough to fall at the feet
Which in the main
Under duress greet
Your sublime beauty
At night, at sunup, at sunset, at dawn when by the nose
You pronounce me guilty
Of presenting you a Valentine red rose.
A MILLENNIUM DAY
Unicorns and Amazons
chasing in a derby race;
what a noble thing for us to see !
Saint Peter tapping-out the rhythm
whilst old Gabriel leads a tune,
and Saint Francis sings harmony !
Mary and the ladies hence-
spin and play
making and baking !
The Heavens envelop
and Eden's times are warm-
Man, Earth and Love !
Rhymes that made no reason
seem all splendid in this season-
betwixt has made the scene !
Jesus sits beside His Father,
and ponders with the children-
dashing as a noble Prince !
could things be any grandeur?
the millennium bug
lives in the human brain
hunts, capture, eats all things
stores the game in stomach
but leaves dry carcasses only
to those that feed it earnestly
AMERICA AT THE MILLENNIUM
I stand now at the crossroads of a new millennium
And look back at the highway America’s come from.
I see a road once full of a fear of God and truth,
But somehow we got detoured, on a new road we are loose.
I see its shoulder littered with pornographic trash
Strewn through the guise of freedom or just for some quick cash.
I see a field that’s planted with marijuana weeds
And harvested by pushers with all their evil deeds.
I see an intersection with prostitutes and bars;
Nearby a homeless mother, there freezing in her car.
I pass a hundred billboards that advertise the wares,
Each promising fulfillment of every want or care.
I see all of the traffic, the people come and go,
Yet where this road is headed is tragic, that I know.
We’re zooming toward destruction, toward judgment, and toward
hell;
We need a sign to warn us, the danger clearly tell.
We need again the Bible, the map we cast away;
We need again to worship, to honor God and pray.
We need to make a U-turn, come back where we came from,
Make God again our leader in this new millennium.
I am climbing up Diamond Head Crater
on a cool, overcast, great Hawaiian day.
Memories stretched to thirty years younger
when in the center thousands came to play.
When optimism and joy ran rampant
and all possibilities could be touched.
When parents, two sons and an infant
daughter came to sit in an era drenched
in blood and love, colorful flags and beads.
Baby girl was baptized before the crowd,
who are now long lost in space and deeds.
An era that saw the edge and bowed
out for comfort and affluent digs.
Leaving us grey ghosts to wander in kiawe twigs.
I was a good, honest taxpayer
That nurtured a moral dilemma.
Why should I perpetuate
The state I’ve grown to hate?
Subject to the authority
Of a fluctuating majority
I refuse to comply
You can accept, I’d rather die.
To be truly honest
Why vote in a rigged contest?
Plant free trees in a forest
Felled by the loudest lobbyist.
A good, honest player
Pays the public piper
Of their own free will
Or swallows the pipers pill.
21 August, 2016
St Paul’s gazes out over the modernising City
Where the Tower shrinks in its corner
Fearful of the vicious Shard
The Abbey and Houses of Parliament
Keep Westminster alive
Under the gaze of a watchful Eye
The hustle of the restless Oxford Street
Is matched by the bustle of Soho
The British Museum still reigns supreme in Bloomsbury
Despite constant tourist invasion
On the river the Cutty Sark is rehabilitated
And Tower Bridge still opens
The Boat Race can be seen every year but not from the new Garden Bridge
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