Gaping has a big nose beside his gaping mouth, his gall known to all!
I nearly hanged, it was my fate
In seventeen eighty nine
I had stolen an old fur tippet
And claimed that it was mine
They put me into prison
Then sent me to be tried
The verdict came back guilty
and many tears I cried
But through the grace of mad King George
came a welcome dispensation
My sentence was commuted
and I was handed transportation
The journey was horrendous.
Eleven months or more.
Till we landed in Australia
That far and distant shore
And what this place has given me
When all is rendered down
Is a life I never would have had
In the slums of London Town.
sincerely, yours, Mary Wade
Transportation of convicts to Australia began in 1787 and continued until 1868. During this time, approximately 163,000 convicts were transported on 825 ships
They say there's more of you,
back in the day.
You're a shell of a man,
that's what they say.
Go back! Find it, find it!
Less, less, you cry.
Not sad; angry, empty.
Try again, you lie.
Yet it spreads further,
beyond the now, the why, the how.
Never better, but sometimes worse:
what will time allow?
Do you know where to look?
As you close in, it fades.
Not away, Not ever away...
It turns back, the deeper you wade.
In you there's a reflection of me.
In you there's light everburning.
The 70's brought a wake-up call, embracing some needed change.
Some women with unwanted pregnancies were self-mutilating, so insane.
It seems we are now regressing like a patient who's demented.
Why would a women's right to choose now be legally circumvented?
Too many women lost their lives in a blood bath so obscene.
Botched coat hanger abortions and
other unsafe means.
Do you hear their voices?
Can you count their screams?
We have learned nothing, or so it seems.
Too many women's lives ended tragically.
Where are their death statistics?
Are we too blind to see?
God help a nation that forgets it's own history.
I
Our cry, silenced.
We watch the murder of our freedoms
Like spectators at a lynching.
Our Twenty-first-century forbearance rubbed out,
Our twentieth-century sensibilities never happened.
High court corruption,
A misogyny hell-bent on a 19th-century revival.
In its myopic mendacity,
In its mockery of fundamental democracy,
We all take great comfort in knowing
A woman’s body is now state-regulated.
There is great solace in knowing how
Raped little girls will be forced to give birth.
II
Our cry, silenced.
Oh, see all the words never included,
Never even considered in the Constitution:
“Lesbian,” “gay,” “desegregation.”
Too busy were the founders with tending
Their slaves in 1789.
Too busy they were in stealing land from
Native Americans.
The founders never wrote of Jews or Muslims,
They never knew the word “Latinx.”
But something in the mischief of children
Tells us who we really are today!
Not when women were executed for witchcraft.
Not when the founders made a Constitutional guide
Like sausage.
Published: Dissident Voice 10/23/22
wade then Roe her boat
while for Biden we would vote
poem of mine I wrote
Unwanted
You were never unwanted
From the moment the Creator
Touched you into life
There was someone who wanted—
To catch your first breath
To wipe your first tear
To kiss your first bruise
To always be near
From the very first moment
Someone who wanted—
To give the nameless a name
To sit on the floor
Playing a silly game
Someone who wanted-
To watch you dance across the floor
To cheer louder than all
When you achieved the winning score
From inside the womb
Where life begins
She didn’t believe
With selfish lies undaunted
You are more than a choice
More than unwanted
From the beginning
God had someone who wanted—
To be called mommy
Or dad
To laugh with your laughs
To cry with your cries
To watch you soar beyond the skies
Someone who wanted—
You
©J HIRTLE
Women have noticed with alarm
Justice has lost all of its charm
Despite lamebrains
The fact remains*
Doctors have vowed to do no harm!
*FACT: One does not become an individual
until the umbilical cord is severed.
Until then, Matthew 18:9 instructs:
"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,
and cast it from thee"
Fertile fields of sunflowers flank the picnic space.
Where the fragrant roses are scarlet or any other shade.
And where people exchange pleasantly divine grace.
A unique way to gain love, respect, and halcyon glade
This planet may purely exist in aware people's braincase.
Peace, though, keenly enjoys odd dream wade.
Would Wade Then Played and Laid
in water would wade
had a great time when we played
then in sun had laid
Jim Horn
You filled my eyes to overflowing,
and quenched my thirsting heart
You poured your vision into my soul,
beatific to impart
All banks you flooded as dreams wade in,
and currents gently surge
My spirit safe within your flow,
re-baptized to emerge
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)
Down South In Water Did Wade
While down south in water would wade,
After on sandy beach played and played;
Some tea drank;
On hammock sank;
Looked up at cloudless sky when we laid.
Jim Horn
Seems like all days in a south summer
are lazy ones.
Do I have any competitors that about
southern life enraptures along with
all of the alligators.
To slash and parry your blade
And into the battle you wade
Feint, strike and advance
Though you may death chance
Your foe will still say: Well played!
God's Water Wade Horn Haiku
In heaven was made;
My love away will not fade;
God's water did wade.
Jim Horn
Hope Thailand Boys soccer
team will all survive.
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