Fear of the Outsider, the interloper, the alien
Is as old as humanity itself.
Xenophobia doesn’t just apply to someone foreign
And “not like us”,
It applies to anyone who may threaten
Our way of life, the status quo, the norm
And way “it’s always been.”
From local bar to climbing crag, surfing beach,
Ghetto corner, and Union shop floor,
The locals, sometimes multigenerational deep,
Tend to claim their turf
With the worst of human qualities;
Fear and loathing
Sublimated into snide ostracism,
Backstabbing gossip and withering looks
If not fully expressed with seething hate
Slander, bullying and assault.
Meanwhile life goes on for the Xeno
Head down, eyes averted, pathways diverted,
While in their heart
They recognize the love their haters have
For their cherished way of life and ground
Is not exclusive
And no different from their own.
(9/6/25)
Nothing lonelier than being alone in a crowd
standing still in a bustling sea of aliens
they speak their dialects and look
right through me as if I wasn’t there
Feeling insignificant I don’t belong
and everybody knows it
like an imposter trying to fit in
but wearing the wrong camouflage
I try to merge with oncoming traffic
but they ignore me and won’t let me in
refusing to give me a chance
I am not worthy and they let me know it
Secretly part of me thrives in their ostracism
content that I have made my attempt
that like amber in layers underneath
there is more to be found in silence
Inspired by movie “Lost in Translation”
AP: 3rd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
Do you think life as you know it/
Is all that exists/
Wow... you are blind to think that/
When God says no God before him/
Is God admitting there's other Gods/
This life has consequences/
We really are judged/
When we leave this life/
Whatever God you believe in/
You are judged by your actions/
You are judged by your heart/
Your actions says a lot about your heart/
Lose the hate/
Lose the ostracism/
Lose the discrimination/
Lose the bullying/
Lose the social distancing/
Lose the slander and defamation/
Those in power sets boundaries/
Those in power sets restrictions/
Those in power are not God/
Those in power are judged, too/
God or any God, any Goddess/
Only cares about our actions and our hearts/
Learn to understand/
Learn to develop agape love/
Because this life is not the only reality in existence/
Love is the universal keyword/
Agape love is the universal keyword/
I'm on the outside, looking In
Quite often I feel like the only word
in a poem that doesn't rhyme,
or I'm a nickle, five cents short
when I'm in need of a dime.
You make me feel like I don't belong.
Distress is written all over my face.
I'm the only wallflower at a dance.
The shy one in need of a hiding place.
I don't want to be the odd puzzle piece
that everyone overlooks and rejects.
I have a heart that's been wounded.
Your ostracism has crippling affects.
Too young, they said
We get very upset and loudly condemn men who have
sex with women at seventeen or younger.
Our vehemence against men who sleep with under-aged girls, in our Western society is, quite frankly, not honest
Our ostracism is also fake, it is designed to show that men
side with women in this immoral matter.
Many men have also unwittingly slept with mere “girls”
especially in the bar and nightclub milieu, where women tend to, when tarted up, look older than their years.
In some cultures many young women get married at fifteen, (Romeo&Juliet were 15 and 14)
I think in these cases, say like Edward, the prince, we must forgive and not condemn men to forever be
excluded from polite society and not succumbing to the hatred that lacks charity towards the trespassers.
Lovers gather, yelling "carpe diem"
Lovers kiss, living with totem
Lovers fall, counting walls
Lovers forget, crushing falls.
Love birds chirping as one
Under a tree skipping one by one
Above the bassinet where cuckoos nests
Below the cradle are loving breasts.
Rush to me and sail with me
On a gondola in Venice we flee
Gaping romanticism in idealism
Dying dualism without ostracism.
We revel 75 years of Independence,
from colossal colonial rule
it was unanimous struggle
that helped us get through.
Entitled to rejoice this liberty,
but the conundrum is, Are we truly free?
Haven, ma chez
I listen
to my invisible guest
I do not speak, but wait,
then it slips away
leaving a tragic face.
I recollect merry mo;
Us: Pythias and Damon,
till he fell ill to eclipse of human reason.
Thou art still in shackles
if bound by civil perils:
ostracism, vandalism, arson
Bias and prejudice.
Had we raised voice,
his people wouldn’t have to suffer a great deal today.
Authority sits by,
Leisurely watching ruckus nearby.
All in noisy silence
Suffering place and time.
Bill Shakespeare is wanted for hate speech,
His study’s surrounded with tape.
The local police were slow to react,
He may already have made his escape.
There’s a chance that he’s gone into hiding
To work on the draft of a play;
Anne Hathaway helps with enquiries:
Where’s old Bill? She’s refusing to say.
She cannot abide the intrusion,
As detectives examine each sonnet,
If she pops down the market she wears a dark cape
And hides her face under a bonnet.
She’s missing the warmth of her husband,
His sensitive hands and dark beard.
She hopes that they’ll soon be together
But meanwhile, her dear Bill’s disappeared.
And Bill’s understandably nervous
’Cause writing these plays is quite hard.
He enjoys married life with his beautiful wife
And his neighbours now call him “The Bard.”
The risks of a long legal battle
Could distract him for over a year,
If the courts rule against his linguistics,
That might end his productive career.
This poem references the emotions of fear, hope and love now that historic scripts are frequently re-appraised - and sometimes condemned - against modern norms and expectations.
Fanatics,
tyrants,
authoritarian
Do not forget
the spiritual law...!
Do not forget
the universal truth....
Who has superior knowledge,
summoned is to teach!
For those of little knowledge...
It's a spiritual truth...
Creator's Law!
Who with the will to act like this,
will be honored by the lord...
who is not willing to do so
properly will condemn himself
to ostracism
and exile... from here
To other uneducated spheres... !
Be Wise up!
I feel equivalent to an alien
as if I don't belong
for I am Pleiadian
I'm extremely headstrong
Although I understand struggle
I imagine we could still overcome
if we can learn to juggle
then to this we wouldn't succumb
Have we become to ostracism
when someone doesn't meet our criteria
magnifying a prism
as if they have diphtheria
I recognize it's difficult
but we must somehow comply
to obtain that which is Biblical
and this to apply
Today, I climbed a high mountain.
Mountain where I shout my disapproval.
Disapproval of today’s social illnesses.
Illnesses shattering the life on earth.
Earth, our valuable mother.
Our kind mother’s mind’s unhappy today.
Today, days are red and prickly to dismay.
No walks but talks of wounds and worries.
Worries symbolizing contemporary sorrows.
Sorrows as the sun’s been sent off brightness.
Blazing conflicts for misery with societal evils.
Evils of acute and endless sticking on power.
Power of killing your people and feeling a doer.
Happy becoming the almighty guide.
For polygamy and alcohol abuse push wide.
Here and there dangle abuse and corruption.
Corruption and police harassment in evolution.
Harassment causing animosity and nausea.
Disorder, anarchy and negligence for criteria.
In media, tribalism and phobia en vogue.
Tribalism and ostracism feeding conflicts.
Wars predicting our fateful future in shifts.
The future’s now plunked in deep black darkness,
Slaughtering hope and causing death in a mess.
Death buries us all, and evil’s no more comedy.
Poem by Mugisho N Theophile
Unseen
Between shadows
Opinion is unheard
Feeling emptiness on the soul
Nobody care is she alive or dead
Sadness reflects in her lost eyes
Blank stare in the dark night
Weeping past days
Alone
Shadows
Cloak as a veil
Perceiving ostracism
As exclusion of daily life
Confining forever in four wall room
Inner fiendish voices propound
Secluding in a world
Fantasy rules
Reason
4-25-2016
Pope Francis's belief in the Almighty
has been brought to serious question,
when, on his speech on Origins,
the Bible received nary a mention -
save for a passing glance at Genesis.
His credibility has dwindled rather perilous
it seems - considering, of course, Catholicism's
typical rep of condemning holy writ to ostracism.
The acolytes "explode" with his
acceptance of Naturalism,
Evolution and Bigbangerism.
In a pinch he waved his magician's wand
and pronounced all prior blasphemies - gone!
God - he stated - has no such pointy stick
of which to create all, with a simple flick
of his wrist. The Almighty has limits
and shall conform to Francis's rigid
interpretation, thereof. He tips his hat
in one last show of priestly decorum:
I wish you all a most bless-ed
novus ordo seclorum.
NOTE: The term "novus ordo seclorum" is Latin for "New World Order". If you ever forget how to say it, or spell it, just pick up any American federal reserve note - it'll be right under the pyramid with the all-seeing eye.
How can you stand there and claim God isn't real
He is all around, in what we can see and feel,
In prejudice fueled by hatred, flowing red
Ripping rapids through compassion's dry riverbed;
In neighborhoods teeming with prying eyes
Bulging over fences, in bedrooms, and private lives;
In gilded parasites sitting atop golden seats,
Leeching the life from those who starve at their feet;
In fuming hordes swarming the streets of Egypt today,
Erupting in a destructively violent melee;
In fear spreading like an infectious disease-
Fueled by ignorance, desperate to appease;
In the status quo, being viciously defended,
Holding so many chained in the shadows, descended;
In families wrecked by thundering storm systems
Raging rains of shame and icy ostracism;
In pests swarming where they just don't belong,
Forcing the fragile yet powerful hand of the law;
In minds trained shut to imagination and reason alike,
Blinded by pestilence which consumes all visible light;
In wars waging on at home and overseas,
Smearing innocent blood in His name.
The sickness of God brings man to his knees.
If he exists matters not, but he's real just the same.
Get your head out the sand man lookup to the one who can like an eagle He will teach you to fly never alone Bye and Bye
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