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 Jul 14 Ken Pepiton
Maddy
Doesn't matter what tbe mountain is
Could literally be a mountain to climb
A dream or obstacle
A long overdue goodbye
You just know it is time
Short lived or subline
Excuses will no longer do it
One step at a time
Fresh attitude
How successful you are does not
matter,
But how important and worthy you were to others.
14/7/2025
Shackled each one hand and foot
They’re loaded roughly onto
Transport planes like cattle
On their way to slaughter.

No luggage goes aboard with them -
Not a toothbrush in a pocket
Or a candy bar to hold them.
Were they even notified- of course not.

What country are they they going to
And what is it they’ll do there?
Who is going to meet their plane?
Who will remove their shackles?

Are there concentration camps
For lack of else to send them?
Will they be caged like chicken farms
Or stacked like hay in barn lofts?

Music for this grim tableau:
“The Plane wreck at Los Gatos”
Sung mournfully by Joan Baez
Who’s seen this debacle before.

Who ordered up this travesty -
This evil on TV Paraded?
Why was there no better way
To send unwelcome people home?
                   ljm
The above song is also called "deportees" and is from the 1960's when they were deporting farm workers from California. Some things never change.
every poem gets the exact number
of reads it deserves
<>

nah, I don't think that for
a millisecond,
shoot,
not a ****** nanosecond (1)

truthfully
I'm torn up inside
and my thinking
absolutely
could be wrong
or could be right
absolutely

just like the optionality
of believing in god;
has to be some force
of intelligence that
could create such
microscopic complexity randomly
or just thinking the world
is just a series of accidentally
interactions

so
who's to say what's good,
what's not so good,
and by what standard
one should judge

Is this a poem?
Heck if I know

and what sbout the poems that
get not a one,
a single one, absence of curiosity,
an unheralded execution.
death by silent ignorance,
a master's mastery of exactitude
all because
just because

Is that a collective decision
by an unconscious collective,
the best moderne equivalent of
the unmarked death

of just a single one of
your billions of brain cells (2)(3)

all I know is
that my confusion is confirmed
my constancy is inconsistent
my equatorial balance is
gonzo, dragging me down,
each division wants to piece me up,
and today,
right now
got no answers
at all

how do I define myself?
what categories do I fit
within?

and yet
that answers one question!

do not write interrogatory inquisitions
at 1:15 am
(unless you're a DUMB lucky *******
who believes they got
answers
)
(1)
a nanosecond is significantly smaller than a millisecond. Specifically, there are one million (1,000,000) nanoseconds in a millisecond
(2)
A human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons. Additionally, there are roughly the same number of non-neuronal cells called glia. In total, the human brain is estimated to have around 170 billion cells.
(3)
During brain development, many more neurons are produced than are ultimately needed. Around half of these neurons die off before and shortly after birth, according to Harvard Gazette(they probably just made it up)
i don't know how old i was, 8 or 10.

I climbed out the window
onto the roof of the garage.

it was summer.

I lied down
and gazed at the stars for hours.

i reached to touch moonbeams,
and with my finger
drew a circle around the north star.

i dissolved into the hush of stars
free of want or need.

a single heart beat.
I, the wind, moon, stars.

I long to lie on the roof, again,
gaze at the stars
and filled with wonder.
If you are afraid to die
Then you are not ready

A person is like a light bulb
The light comes from within

Death extinguishes light
from the outside in

But the live wires of life
will still remain

Waiting on someone to turn the switch on again

Death pats itself on the back but then

Life puts the dagger into
it's empty hand
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