Written By: D. Collins 5/15/25
To Piggy-back what was said by Kendrick Lamar.
I concur that what he said is the way things are.
Around the corner from me used to be Compton High.
On 120th and Central was that Centennial prize.
I go back in the day to the 1960's.
When Fort McArthur took care of our safety.
I remember Barton Hill in the San Pedro Hills.
Abraham Lincoln in Compton to learn fighting skills.
Junior High was the beginning of what was felt.
7th Grade meant I had to go to Roosevelt.
I lived around the corner from the Pilot House.
A Sailor's stomping ground where mom met pops.
Sugar was my very first pup,
With floppy ears and a tail stuck up.
Eyes so wide, full of delight,
Chasing sunbeams morning to night.
We ran through fields, just her and me,
Barking at clouds, wild and free.
She’d dig up secrets in the yard,
Then zoom around, a tiny guard.
She loved the breeze, the muddy streams,
And napping deep in dandelion dreams.
A heart so big, her joy so loud,
My best friend—I was so proud.
Through woods we wandered, side by side,
She'd sniff the trails where squirrels would hide.
Every stick was treasure found,
Every puddle her stomping ground.
But more than all the fun and play,
Was how she loved me every day.
Her warm little body curled in bed,
Her soft sighs near my sleepy head.
Sugar, my first, my brave little soul,
Filled the cracks, made my young heart whole.
An adventure, a gift, wrapped in fur—
A lifetime of love, because of her.
I'm just two seconds away from losing my mind...
I worry ,toss, and turn and sleep is hard to find...
The things I go through no one knows the Hell in which I live...
He takes and all i do is give, give, give...
Always taking blame for any wrong doing...
Him always acting like "He's the one "....
Crying and staying weak come to find was his way of keeping me down...
My Mom told me over the years "Never let them see you frown"...
As I get older and learn to accept my place in this life...
I learned laughter and ignorance went along way in the strife...
Over time he noticed less and less...
That his tantrum and my reaction would leave him to guess...
In a head that he thought was his stomping ground....
He learned that I was different and would look around...
We had our years and it wasn't always a dream...
But years later I realized it wasn't as bad as he made it seem...
Cause over time he would come to realize...
That the scared little girl look was no longer in my eyes...
For I had grown and gained strength in all of those "life moments" too...
To the point now he knows what not to do.
Saw a blurb on MetFest
Held today, at the museum.*
Musical performances
Outdoors – I had to see ‘em.
A former stomping ground
Pre-Covid, but it’s been a while.
Once there, ‘twas like I never left;
I couldn’t help but smile.
The melting pot that is New York
Was fully there on view,
A pleasure to observe and yes,
Some upbeat music, too.
A group of female drummers
Followed by a cool brass band,
Then a bunch of Double Dutchers
With their jump rope skills on hand.
The locals and the tourists
All applauded, laughed and danced,
Toddlers, teens to wheelchair seniors,
Every passerby entranced.
Vendors set up on the sidewalks,
Food carts had their treats to hawk;
What a lovely day in sunshine
At the MetFest in New Yawk.
*Metropolitan Museum of Art
An ill tempered young woman who claims to love god but hates authority; yet she spews blunder and blasphemy in her painstaking state of gossip.
While I sit and listen to her menace like behavior; similar to a dictator rallying troops for a revengeful cause.
Her spiritual being announces a trumpet for the Roman empire as they persecute Jews in the time of change.
She seems indifferent yet coerced into an angry ill tempered young woman that mocks God but worships Idols in the time of Cesar.
Taking advantage of the weak.
Then she bows down and no longer speaks…..
t-rump...reigning sourasst...
made his fortune as a stand-in...
fall-guy in wall-street emergencies...
financial vehicle bank rupture blowouts...
someone has to cart the monetary debris away...
and so profit from institutional destruction is t-rumps...
home stomping ground where he is now seeking bailout...
money for his republican party and corporate supporter investments...
now that the ruptures in those public institutions are as visible cracks...
in a wall on which t-rump is leaving demonstrator marks and is hoping will fall...
stan sand
Dear Mama, walking and thinking of my childhood days,
waves of memories crashing in, as I hit replay.
You're in every scene, appearing with the morning light.
I can talk to you, even though you're far from my sight.
I wish I could stop these tears escaping from my eyes.
I am grown; it's the heart of a little girl that cries.
Fragments of memories, they seem to spin 'round and round'
as my heart travels through a familiar stomping ground.
Dear Mama, falling leaves of memories scatter my path.
Start of a new season, running from the grief and wrath.
I hear echoes of footsteps; I'll never be alone.
Your path will be ably tended, never overgrown.
I found your paved path; it's clear, as far as I can see.
Each step a bit easier; you left your shoes for me.
Wonders of the world abound
on our earthly stomping ground,
in the seven seas profound,
midst the heavens round us wound.
Images from reaches vast
by astronomers amassed
show in varicolored cast,
cosmic glories unsurpassed,
stories of the great immense,
begging questions why and whence,
scenes stelliferously dense,
bringing past to present tense.
Oh how tantalizing to
lose oneself in starry view
of galactic vision new
where a poet’s words ring true!
Tennyson’s ‘Far--Far—Away’,
penned for Music’s haunting play
with the sounds the words convey
as they whisper, swing and sway,
tells of ‘far’ from past long gone,
murmur from ‘his own life’s dawn’?
breath where ‘doors of death’ go on
through an open curtain drawn?
Whether time or space be meant,
or spacetime together bent,
still, whatever sense is lent,
far’s remote in its intent.
After sunset’s crimson blaze
we may raise a dreamy gaze
in escape from troubled days
to celestial splendors praise.
Will our search of cosmic sphere
teach us to esteem what’s here?
Oft stargazers too I fear
must look far to see the near.
~ Harley White
A meathead is definitely not an ostracised ostrich, a warbling wavering walrus, a small but vintage vibrant beetroot who claps in time, a mascot at a match, a backwards facing grinning umbrella in bright sunlight, an automatic dimmer switch winking, nor is it a tattoo of a cartoon place-mat. Basements cook eels. Slip slide slip slide smile nothing now noted north nautical nonetheless nonsensical note. Been beer beans. Wow in a jar of a car. *** Hahaha presenting a show are we? Fictitious fictional frameworks falling. Hahahha off a cliff are the best sunsets. Xxxxx dilatational diluted dripping dramas draw.
"oooo Ng hai saja hai"
Epilogue
Z
If I were an elephant, I'd lumber around
Gracefully plodding on my stomping ground
If I were an elephant, I'd flap my ears
High above the savannah with no equals or peers
If I were an elephant, I'd cover myself in mud
I'd clash with other bulls, especially during rut
If I were an elephant, I'd cause a great stampede
Crushing all the poachers before they could succeed
If I were an elephant, I'd collapse all circus tents
And I'd save all pachyderms from being in such events
I wouldn't be arrogant, but elegant and eloquent
I wouldn't be petulant, but prevalently excellent
I wouldn't be negligent or hesitant or feculent
I'd be so affectionate and have an even temperament
I'd be the most eminent in my thought development
I'd never be a detriment to a human settlement
I would be the most intelligent and it would be self-evident
To the peasant and the president if I were an elephant
12-5-2016
The heads did bid me to the place
For a toll of thirty and some.
Where the trees are green,
The earth is brown,
And all the flowers flourish in-between.
With heed I rolled about the place
For a spell of three and some.
Under that canopy of distress,
On the tough stomping ground,
A nightmare with a business address.
In a show I did depart that place
With plaudits of three hundred some.
Bandit blooms and much miff filled my stage,
But by and by none came to bat for me,
For fear of turning the page.
Treading on topic the logical man fears,
So potent it's like a ringing in his ear,
Its a stomp on his stomping ground without your knowledge,
Of even knowing the affect of its topic,
Defenses rise from an outward view,
While inside the process of growth is becoming brand new,
The boldness of that love is changing their belief,
From a different perspective they may have not seen,
So use to their own outlook, the fear of change,
The comfortable is getting uncomfortable because it's not the same,
Perspectives clash, their seeing new light,
Yet this is part of the process of gaining new sight,
The doors opened in a way unexpected,
Man's control takes a seat, while love redirects it,
I have my platinum muse
It is a flighty, windy memory
Of a memorable, miserable encounter
With someone that reminded me...
I have not even fooled myself
Into believing something so weak
As the crippled, dying cupid
That is love at first sight.
The woman I am marrying,
Wasn't loved at first glance
She was a shallow puddle of mud
At my eyes first introduction.
Though, as I splashed in the mud
I was swept off my feet
Back into the primal wilderness
Of a child at play.
Caila makes me truly happy
Like a young boy
Tenderizing his stomping ground
After a heavy spring rain.
When the mud dried
I knew it was the remains
Of a memory when I was a child
Of being happier than ever.
What rose from those sterile ashes
Was a woman, a beautiful woman
She has flecks of gold in her veins
Eyes that emeralds envy
She didn't come and go,
Like the coy but beautiful Emma
Emma is only comparable
To a whiff of a nostalgic scent
Caila is my golden totem
Every moment we spend
Is frozen in time
Comatose, in its prime
Caila is my one true love
When that is no longer a fact
I will have forgotten about Emma
Completely, but sweetly.
Tis’ my abstract notions, which cause the commotion’s,
polluting your impure thoughts with my truthful potions,
concocted from truthful explosions, lassoed by mind energy protrusions,
upon the ignorant lay the confusions, as it shatters their illusions.
As hearts are striped of clutter, and laid bare,
karmic debts in the black, stomping ground fair,
everyone’s on track, there’s enough to go round and you’ll get your share,
have faith in the universe, your place in the circle awaits, pull up a chair.
Leather was absolutely everywhere
The smell of liquor lingered throughout
Long hair, spiked hair, blue hair, green hair
The music was what it was about
We, as teens, came forth in droves
To get polluted and to listen real good
Totally awesome, standing right by the amp
Listening, as one really should
This club in Staten Island was my stomping ground
Snuck in with a bottle of JD in my jacket
Musicians came and played all their songs,
Though my parents thought it was all a racket.
The music was great, each group I heard
Like Generation X, Catholic Girls and Joan Jett
Here I saw the Ramones like five times, too
A better time, no one could ever get.
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