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Carsyn Smith Dec 2013
Lost
in the dark forest of flux
not knowing where to turn
unable to see what's in front of me

Hansel can see me
but chooses to toss bread crumbs
in the comfort of shadows
instead of saving me.

Unknowingly
he's led us to the Witch's Cottage
and we won't emerge the same

Forged in her crucible
we had no choice but to change
into the blindman and the trickster

Now we're burnt and tattered
singing the eerie hymn that becomes our story:

Silly circles 'round the mulberry bush
the blindman chased the trickster
the trickster pulled a nasty prank
Bang! goes the blindman.









Don't look me in the eye.
You may have led us there,
but I followed knowing where
we would end up.

My name is Gretel
and my Hansel has lost himself
in a dark forest of flux.
Ihdini Hadi  Oct 2016
Blindman #3
Ihdini Hadi Oct 2016
Tired living like a blind man.
Because it was hurtful,
Cannot seeing thing,
Doesn't mean,
cut by knife,
wouldn't hurt.
Ihdini Hadi  Oct 2016
Blindman #2
Ihdini Hadi Oct 2016
Tried to living like a blind man.
Because it was painful,
To seeing thing,
without feeling,
of anything.
Ken Pepiton Mar 2021
}} who would lust to list to a guy named Waldo? I asked…
This guy I know, Al, he says it contains references to mort-ifying experiences, AND those could boost our points made, so AI suggests I read: Ralph Waldo Emerson, from 2021-
If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.
A man must consider what a blindman's-buff …
{*******, looks it up, it's like Marco Polo in a public pool}
he goes on
what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity.
{ he assumes his audience is a we, We all play, back in his day, this game was considered religion, and
religion was some form
of Christianity, the rest were heathen,
in that game,
conformed religion was the only winning
peace time occupation,
which Blake bitten poets might imagine fitting into,
who knew?
at that time, now
the game is set, default mode
on cult startup,
first hook is, God called you because
you are like us a loser without hope, without help,
Tetzl, build me a tourist attraction,
make the Germans pay,
then
have all the ******* artists paint its walls
to prove each believes
the story the edifice shall tell.
{listen, she whispers, hear her first entreaty only once}
Now breathing is like expanding the game:
inspirational sci-psy-psi, know as we say we know,
we are those who know,  ecce ****,
-------- those evil inquisitors, were me -
-------no - I was Jaques De Molay,
sure, ri-ight,
and I'm Oscar Schindler, when he saves Anne Frank.
HEY
WE CAME TO EXPOSE A SHADOW...
so the seeds we sow
grow where hearing ears
cross reading eyes and all
the best ideas come in double

space-ing to allow for lines that wrap at the frame, fully phreakin' justified, on any screen with leading letting space be normal, thus limiting out of bounds imaginary
reasons
why lines come in expensive short lengths,
||
last issue of The New York Times composed using hot metal (2 July 1978) was titled
Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu

|| the hot metal was lead. Like bullets, but letters.

In this medium, messages know
there are no valid reasons
for long justified lines and
space is not only there there
between lines that start at 10, to leave fixit room,
an ancient way of making room for right in wrong code.
Add a lin -oops line
Etaoin and Shrdlu and lorem ipsum, too
RW-if old waldo had been enabled,
as I am,
with mortally infinite paper
and ink visible to any eye,
Now Waldo, tell Seri to spread the word, y'back..
.
he may then
have written in my short line attention span,
concept upon concept
except ...
reception
falters…
WE LOST THE HOOK>
NOBODY KNOWS WHERE WALDO FITS THE PICTURE

Here's Waldo: 2021, with no ******* comments…
---------------------------
The objection to conforming
to usages that have become dead
to you
is,
that it scatters your force.
It loses your time and blurs the impression
of your character.
If you maintain a dead church,
contribute to a dead Bible-society,
vote with a great party
either for the government or against it,
spread your table like base housekeepers,
— under all these screens I have difficulty
to detect the precise man you are.
And, of course,
so much force is withdrawn
from your proper life.
But do your work,
and I shall know you.
Do your work,
and you shall reinforce yourself.
A man must consider
what a blindman's-buff is this game
of conformity.
If I know your sect,
I anticipate your argument.
I hear a preacher announce
for his text and topic the expediency
of one of the institutions of his church.
Do I not know beforehand that
not possibly
can he say
a new and spontaneous word?
Do I not know that,
with all this ostentation
of examining the grounds of the institution,
he will do no such thing?
Do I not know that he is pledged
to himself not
to look but
at one side,
— the permitted side,
not as a man, but as a parish minister?
He is a retained attorney,
and these airs of the bench
are the emptiest affectation.
Well,
most men have bound their eyes with one
or another handkerchief,
and attached themselves
to some one
of these communities
of opinion.
This conformity makes them not false
in a few particulars,
authors of a few lies,
but false in all particulars.
Their every truth is not quite true.
Their two is not the real two,
their four not the real four;
so that every word they say chagrins us,
and we know not where
to begin to set them right.
Meantime nature is not slow
to equip us in the prison-uniform
of the party
to which we adhere.
We come
to wear one cut
of face and figure,
and acquire
by degrees
the gentlest asinine expression. {;}

There is a mortifying experience in particular,
which does not fail
to wreak itself also
in the general history;
I mean
"the foolish face of praise,"
the forced smile which we put on
in company
where we do not feel
at ease
in answer
to conversation which does not interest us.
The muscles,
not spontaneously moved,
but moved
by a low usurping wilfulness,
grow tight
about the outline
of the face
with the most disagreeable sensation.
>
I find I digest short lines better, and waldo doesn't mind being paid a bit of attention, he had some ideas that breathe easier in this century,
Ihdini Hadi  Oct 2016
Blindman #1
Ihdini Hadi Oct 2016
Put an act is not a big deal.
Being honest would be a big shot.
Trying to be a blind man.
Act like can't see anything,
Maybe I can keep everything.
roanne Q Jan 2013
This is not an accident. I used to call him
a lazy criminal. Scooping hearts and spilling blood,
leaving footprints, fingerprints. Stains.
Eyes folding over -- the blindman or the beggar?
Lips that blossomed into blueprints.
Hands that rhymed with dreams, instead.


The weeknights, dark and warm
in a season of curled paper.
No speaking -- guilt only follows
past the second trip through the door.  
And then the mornings.
More sun in him than the greenhouse
where we watched dragonfly wings.
A pattern about him
like dragonfly wings.


In those days we knew
what it meant to point
without wounding.
We knew how to need someone
without wanting,
without loving.
jul 2012
Faleeha Hassan May 2016
Every time my father is late from the front line
Sickness strikes my mother
and I tour with her the hospitals of Najaf.

I write to him ‘come back to us now,
Make your sergeant read my words: I am about to die’.

He returns my letter, laughing:
‘We are the amusement of the blindman’.

Oh, you River of Jasim, you tore my years
Between my father’s assumed victories
And my mother’s wishes in the emergency room;

They used to plant hope in her mind
By sticking on the glass door,
Two notices confirming: (awaiting death certificate).

Her heart ages so fast
And I ***** from hearing the chants.
Every time the presenter says ‘Victory is on the horizon’,

My grandmothers’ eyes rise to the ceiling -
She hides a mocking smile.

With rage I scream at the screen ‘no victory’s coming’.

She whispers: ‘god is generous’.
‘You sound like my father when I asked for new toys’.
She quietens and we contend,
Awaiting his return before a new battle,
Fearing that a last fight may end the life of a dove.
Translated by Dikra Ridha

Najaf: an Iraqi city, where the poet was born and lived most of her life.
The River Jasim: is a river situated between Iraq and Iran, the location of many battles during the Iraq/Iran war.
In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house
Into whose courtyard a blindman followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older

Soon it will be fifteen years

He was old he will have fallen into his eyes

I took my eyes
A long way to the calendars
Room after room asking how shall I live

One man processions carry through it
Empty bottles their
Image of hope
It was offered to me by name

Once once and once
In the same city I was born
Asking what shall I say

He will have fallen into his mouth
Men think they are better than grass

I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay

He was old he is not real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water

We are the echo of the future

On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live
Angelica Lemburg Nov 2014
One fine day
    About midnight
Two dead soldiers
    Got in a fight.
Back to back
    They faced each other.
Drew their swords
    And shot each other.
A deaf policeman
    Heard the noise.
Came out and
    Killed the two dead boys.
If you don't believe
    This lie it's true.
Ask the blindman
    He saw it too.

— The End —