One day at time
Just like going rhyme by rhyme
Predictable as a metronome
Mental health is like living under a dome
Sometimes life is hour by hour
Praying the next minute doesn’t turn sour
Keeping yourself safe is a daily challenge
Any sense of normality is to be scavenged
Reality adjusting in the neuro cells
Voice telling me to say farewells
Fights don’t need to be physical
However the long lonely nights are critical
The mind doesn’t rest or stop
There is no switching off or drop
As the mind spirals down
Gasping for air as you drown
The body itself is heavy
Wishing it was over already
The daytime passes as if you don’t matter
Feelings heavy and lacking laughter
Drifting into the background
The mind doesn’t stop or rebound
Just other people can keep you steady
Day time becomes less deadly
But as day turns to night
It brings back the fight
Just to stay alive
A battle just to survive
The sequence on repeat
Every moment sinks further in retreat
A down fall predictable as a metronome
This is the feeling of home
When mental health breaks
Ichi Katauta: “First Value: Love of Closure”
harlequin stage, left
vibrance peels a tapestry
the wilted absolved its grounds
Ni Katauta: “Second Value: Love of Survival”
squirrels store the scavenged
empty nests v-shapes southward
healthy surrenders the weak
Sedokada: “Sixth Evaluation: Love of Perpetuity"
bunnies graced the moles
foxes leap at the snowbound
bears, closeted in caverns
finesse touch canvassed
barren wastelands abiding
instants of sunlight’s promise
Old Joe and Jill went up to Capitol Hill
Stayed four years, longer than they had-oughter
Then Old Joe came tumbling down ~
As she scavenged the carcass for his crown
The DEI VP's heart exposed as stone after
DEI = Didn't Earn It
VP = Vice-President, Kamala Harris
I could write so many words
Created to move, shake, and inspire growth
But I'd rather tell you of babies in baskets
Mothers placing offspring in steel cages
To ensure their continual safety
While piling food, toys, and drinks
On top of tiny legs
Making sure eyes are on the screen
Feeding empty mouths with scavenged product
...gotta bounce babies in baskets
Written by Trudy Schrader on 09-16-2024
The barren ground bleached by the sacred sun
scantily clothed children and dogs run
Trees scarred by scavenged limbs
Burned in pyres as sunlight dims
Low water levels recorded on painted rocks
Boats cannot reach out of water docks
I have seen he planet of the damned
The hardened earth refuses tent stakes
another hill make your Achilles ache
The ground crackles then suckles in the rain
lack of jobs, beer in hand men complain
Barking dogs and muffled screams of passion
children cry in starvation fashion
music lifted by campfire plumes
Angry voices friendship consumes
I have walked the planet of the damned
Where people's lives reduced to what they own
Homeless families are not alone
friendship the ultimate mark
the ability to see light through the dark
I have lived on the planet of the damned
And life goes on without being crammed
Under the cover of daylight, beneath the mill
and hustle of teaming crowds; a need
and a life-grinding poverty
swept her down a wrong way.
She strayed into streets so narrow
entered them as a shadow-less shadow
stayed where rank rooms were rent by the hour
where tussled bedsheets her only ownership.
A small child might have slipped past
the ranks of pot-bellied loungers,
but the pimps were as thin as switch blades
and their eyes scavenged
for any walking flesh.
No one kidnapped her; abused her much,
she was taken by her own weakened self,
nabbed by an ever willing surrender.
Did she come to a dark end?
Only the flickering city lights
at the end of a day
can both ask and answer
that long searched for question.
The sun-soaked shining valley of his lucent life
Drained the symphonic cadence of ecstatic rills
Swirling around the scattered glint of nuggets
Cascaded with the cadence of gilded instants.
Dislodged sentiments in stream of euphoria
Floated unbound in turbulent tides of time
In the torrent of the cloud-burst fallen sky
Flowed in the flood to terminal obscurity.
In search of transported treasure trove eroded
Buried beneath the strata of stagnant sludge
He was the first to wade in the sunk murky past
Mudlarked in the desolate bay in twilight hour.
In the lilac light of the setting sun fading fast
Each time the surged tide of turmoil ebbed out
He scavenged the mud of memory layer by layer
Retrieved the golden moments he lived to adore.
________________
July 23, 2022
Phrase used : #1
Contest : One In Five 2
Sponsored by : Joseph May
Seagulls can cover hundreds of square miles of ground.
For them, so much scavenged food can be found.
Despite their numbers steadily on the increase,
the amount of food they can find will never cease.
There is one thing about these birds I especially hate:
That is when they dive bomb on us and defecate.
They remind me of the zeros attacking Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
I don't know about you, but I don't want them near me.
As for feeding seagulls, don't even bother to care.
That would be like putting Donald Trump on welfare!
I don’t know why crowd cover this,
Atmosphere full of air pollution
River full of chemist contamination
I don’t know why seedy cover this.
There are buildings stand sturdy
As the inner of economic
As the base of legality
As the nodal of metropolitan cosmic
But slumber still mushrooming
They have and they haven’t contrast
Too hard they are still humming
Scavenged in every time on trust
Back from the Dead.
I viewed others lives through a telescope
For far too many lost years
For I, lived in limbo
Gave up hope
Tried to climb a slippery slope
I know what darkness is
It's a place in hell
I know
Only too well.
I felt the pain of acid rain
Hundreds of tiny razorblades cutting my tender skin
I don't know what the future holds
But I know where I have been.
A single fish
In an endless ocean
Drank hemlock
And liked the poison
Laid naked in the gutter
While the scornful Ravens with hideous eyes
Beaks and claws
Tore and scavenged on my tender flesh
Every day
A fate worse than death.
I stood on the edge of the abyss
Staring at the deep inviting chasm below
Swaying backward and forwards
In the wind
Not knowing not sure which way to go.
For my heart has many festering wounds
That never seem to heal
My life is just a circle
On a perpetual spinning wheel.
But suddenly
I have awoken
I feel again
At last, I see the light
The shackles that once held me down
Now gone
At last, I have a life
Nightmare over
For I am free
To live the life I always dreamed of
And be the man
I long to be
Reborn.
Peter Dome. Copyright.2019.
Knife and pen, both should be warned,
Tools of deed and death,
Heart and life, they were scavenged,
By any means, please keep your faith,
Perhaps, you can dream like Creath.
There once was a bully named Ump
With broom handle stuck up his Rump
He bragged, "I'm a rat!"
And they voted for that
As they scavenged for food at the dump.
Cast out and ashamed
People did not mention her name
She roamed the streets
Scavenged to eat
In a judgemental world
That saw her as weak
For loving someone that she shouldn't
And though she was cast out he was allowed
To carry on his unhindered
She though he loved her
But he considered sticking by her
And being cast out too
Was just too much for him to do
So he left to face this life alone
And remains in the comfort of his warm and loving home
Because he was forgiven
And she was punished
No she roams this life diminished
Without even that love or memory of it too hold on to
And it left her angry, bitter and confused
And through the dirt that smeared her face
And her clothes that were such a ragged disgrace
The remained a feminine beauty hidden beneath
The wild exterior that now exists
And that she needs to survive on these streets
And her dry eyes no no longer have the capacity to weep
And sadly she has lost all her belief
In love and humanity.
I see the stars and I see you,
I feel the warmth in your adieu,
I feel your presence but can't see you,
I see your soul in the lightest hue...
The picture is so clear and bright,
Yet, I feel this paranormal fright,
Of being scavenged to death by sight,
By the people-werewolf's, using all their might!
This fear persists, it's all blue,
Your absence makes it purely true,
That I don't belong here, it's not thought through,
Of tears I would make my drink brew...
Hence I search for the light in the infinity,
I see something in this dark vicinity,
A hint of the blossom of serenity,
I pray to make it fake, for the false amity..
Several small visitors came today.
Arriving one by one
they gathered on the back of the worn cushions
of the aging tattered lawn chair
shaking off the cold drops of rain upon their feathers
they sang unstoppable songs to the heavens.
They scavenged and foraged for some fallen crumbs
from seed remains or bread or fallen cookies
most content that something could be found.
Wet feathered, they prinned and cleaned their quills dry
all the while scanning for predatory competition.
Eventually, each one took brief protection
safe and secure beneath the over hanging eaves.
Then as quick and quiet as they came
they slipped away into the brush
or high up into the bowing trees.
The rain fell fast and bold globules
riding on the brisk tempest of wind
and in the cold afternoon chill
these welcome rested visitors
flit away in the silent hours of spring.
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