Amongst the monardas
Horsetail, Susan's black eyes
You can almost feel it:
freedom, life.

It could just be the heat.

1970 Odysseus visits cousin Patsy in New York City she introduces him to her best friend Lauren’s older less attractive more reclusive sister Tanya Mulhaney extremely wealthy family father founded corporation manufactures pinball machines which years later develop to video games then casino empire he favors and spoils Tanya but dies suddenly her envious sisters and mother gang up on Tanya is pale skinny flat-chested copious brown bush Odysseus sits in bathtub with Tanya and he probes in a way they hits it off maybe no boy has ever touched her in that way her complexion is so fragile slightest fluster prompts pink blotches on her cheeks neck chest back he admires her book smarts he’s attracted to her refined strangeness he thinks her bush and flat-chest are **** she laughs shyly offers to take him around the world he accepts Odysseus tells his parents Mom goes crazy yells into telephone what are you a ******? you father and i work like fools to send you to the best schools so you can make something of yourself you’re going to throw everything away to be a ***? i tell you we’ll disown you you won’t have a home to come back to do you hear me? we’ll disown you! she sobs how can you just walk out after all we have done for you? you ******* kid! Odysseus takes leave of absence from art school he and Tanya take Iberia jet 12 hour flight with stopover in Iceland to Belgium Tanya sinks into one of her moods swallows several pills to help her rest sitting on other side of Odysseus is curly haired skinny talkative musician claims he has jammed with Miles Davis and other jazz greats Odysseus says yeah right and i’ve shown with Johns and Twombly where exactly are you heading in Europe? musician answers he is a scientologist on his way to visit L. Ron Hubbard in England Odysseus does not know what Dianetics are and wants explanation he asks many questions and musician talks for hours they enjoy each other’s rapport as jet descends in Brussels they exchange home addresses in the States 9 months later when Odysseus returns to America a friend notices scribbled address while skimming through his travel journals Odys! how did you get Chick Corea’s address? do you know him? do you realize how brilliant he is? he’s a keyboard virtuoso! Odysseus questions Chick Corea? who’s Chick Corea? he looks at journal page then says oh that guy i sat next to him on the jet to Europe so he really is a famous musician huh? wow!

in October 1970 Brussels is damp chilly Tanya wears hip-hugger jeans black turtle-neck top North Face shell she huddles her arms around her chest smokes cigarettes looks through hotel room window out into gray overcast sky speaks in defeatist voice i didn’t bring clothes for this weather she picks at her plate in hotel restaurant glumly vacillates later in bed after refusing *** decides they leave tomorrow fly to Canary Islands for several weeks to get tan before traveling through Morocco during winter months Canary Islands are laden with Swedish tourists including bikini clad young girls many not wearing tops Odysseus is thinking about how to swing some of that Swedish free love once Tanya gets drunk succumbs to Odysseus’s ****** overtures it is good  one day while returning to hotel from beach 2 Spanish police stop and question Tanya and Odysseus police order to see their passports then command them into squad car police bark in Spanish rifle through their daypacks point a finger Odysseus can smell alcohol on their breaths Tanya and Odysseus are terrified police drive off main road to remote location abandoned ruins no one is around police order them to step out police drive off laughing Tanya’s complexion is crimson she sobs they could have murdered us no one would know who we are or where to find us we’re lost where are we? Odysseus looks around replies don’t worry we’ll be all right i watched where the driver was going we’ll retrace their trail

they fly to Tangier travel south by train Tanya is irritable insisting Odysseus carry her backpack Casablanca is ***** 3 men peer from sunglasses act suspicious wear tattered trench coats Tanya and Odysseus snack at cafe which provides hookahs for smoking hashish Odysseus scores several grams Tanya laughs suggests they rent car drive south travel to sandy beaches of Diabet for 6 weeks in the morning she paces around French hotel room with cigarette in one hand ashtray in other like she is sultry 1940’s Hollywood actress she stays in room and devours Penguin Classics Tolstoy Stendhal Proust Huysmans Zola turns out Tanya is sexually frigid she buys Odysseus anything he wants but does not put out they take train Marrakech it is sun drenched with blue skies mountains in distance Odysseus wants to go out explore get ***** with the natives he visits Medina daily witnessing many bizarre scenes he does not understand a woman squatting over an egg a man with no legs dragging himself through marketplace holding up cigarette butts in his hand he meets a professor who is out of work because king of Morocco has closed the universities due to teachers’ strike professor explains woman squatting over egg is fortuneteller and man dragging himself has been offered crutches many times yet makes more money playing off pity of tourists cigarette butts are for sale the professor invites Odysseus to visit Berbers in mountains Odysseus persuades Tanya she reluctantly agrees the 3 travel by bus in first-class front row seats vehicle filled with lively families chickens pig bus driver has assistant who lugs people onto bus or shoves them out door at a midpoint bus stops in little town everyone exits bus then men women children urinate in street local venders sell trinkets snacks Odysseus buys nibbles shish-kabob that later professor informs is roasted cat and dog they reenter bus wait suddenly butchered lamb flank is flung onto Odysseus’s lap a man climbs aboard bus stairs then grabs large carcass and heedlessly walks to back seat Odysseus wipes blood and slime off his jeans Tanya demurely giggles bus climbs mountains arrives at small Berber village professor leads them along narrow winding street of shanty huts sheltering merchants open kitchens professor tastes from various steaming iron kettles finally decides on one they are directed to rickety roof where they sit wait a boy comes up with plastic bowl filled with water and small box of Tide following professor they wash their hands then minutes later proprietor brings up simmering *** of couscous serves it with scratched raw plastic bowls no eating utensils they eat with their fingers Tanya seems bothered declines to partake she withdraws into silence after meal she becomes irritable complains of headache says she needs to return to Marrakech she remains standoffish on bus all the way to French hotel

after Marrakech they take boat trip to Italy while onboard Odysseus meets Italian Count who has an eye for him Odysseus wears Jim Morrison beat-up leather jeans Bruce Lee t-shirt scraggly whiskers Count wears thin manicured beard tiny red Speedo swim trunks Tanya grins amused Count offers Odysseus and Tanya to be guests at his villa in Milan city flourishes with stylish clothes loud lively restaurants classical sculptures covered in car pollution following several weeks of aristocratic wining and dining amazing 11 course elegant soiree Odysseus botches compliance with Count’s desires they are asked to leave Tanya laughs hysterically they board train to Germany based on Tanya’s tour book they find historic hotel with wind rattling windows coin operated hot water bath in Munich Tanya stays in room Odysseus goes to dance club meets brown-hared pale skinned German girl neither speak the other’s language he pays for hourly rated room they play German girl in animated gesturing warns him as he is going down on her but he does not understand until several days later scratching beard finds ***** seeks A-200 lice treatment German version leather pants disposed Tanya knows but says nothing she buys Volkswagen they drive through Black Forest Tanya wants to visit King Ludwig’s castles Odysseus does the driving mostly they listen to the Who’s “Who’s Next” and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” he follows Tanya’s instructions not knowing who King Ludwig was eventually he learns Ludwig was colorful character built extravagant Disney like castles and friends Richard Wagner Bavaria is cold gray brown deep forest green scenic Swiss Alps visible in southern view they drive from Neuschwanstein to Linderhof to Herrenchiemsee then Freiburg lodge in bed and breakfasts Tanya grows restless by all the driving decides to ditch car along road in northern France as Odysseus unscrews car license by road side several cars stop French people concerned they need help Tanya is anxious hoping for clean get away from abandoning vehicle they board train to Paris Tanya speaks a little French in spring of 1971 they are backpacking in search of hotel on Left Bank it rains all morning sky is overcast Tanya reads “Pride and Prejudice” Odysseus draws in sketchbook at sidewalk café sitting next to them are older Parisian couple man detects they are Americans he turns to them expresses in English his contempt why can’t you Americans learn from France’s lessons in Vietnam? Tanya and Odysseus don’t look up they feel like dumb ugly Americans within days they leave Paris

cross English Channel by boat they find temporary apartment in Earl’s Court in London it is overcast almost every day within a month they move to larger place in Chelsea with backyard with run down English garden Odysseus weeds garden plants tomatoes lettuce carrots radishes flowers Tanya stays in her room smokes reads at night they go out to ethnic restaurants one night they visit Indian restaurant a very proper English woman sitting at next table orders exotic fruit for dessert Odysseus asks waiter what kind of fruit waiter answers mango Odysseus has never seen or tasted mango English woman delicately eats the fruit with fork and knife Odysseus orders mango for dessert he attempts to imitate how English lady proceeded fruit slips around on plate finally out of frustration he picks it up in his hands bites into it he is aroused by how luscious mango is sniffing with nose scraping fruit’s skin with front teeth then ******* the seed Tanya makes a face suddenly the seed slides from his grasp shoots across table Tanya’s cheeks neck turn scarlet voice raises stop it Odys! you’re disgusting! are you intentionally trying to embarrass me? why are you doing this? he replies i’m not doing anything to you i’m enjoying the most delicious fruit i’ve ever tasted who cares what it looks like? later she laughs about incident offers to buy more mangos promises to take him shopping at Harrods tomorrow he goes along with their arrangement until it all seems like pretty background scenery to an empty intimacy missing all his friends back at art school he writes about his loneliness he feels trapped in Tanya’s web several times he sneaks English girls into his room when Tanya jealously confronts him he admits he has had enough and wants to go back to Hartford she suggests at the least they fly to Bermuda for several weeks to get tan before returning he declines on June 30 1971 Odysseus returns to Hartford and Tanya moves to San Francisco on July 3 Jim Morrison overdoses in Paris

Jimena Hubbard was a poor lovely boy
Who grew up in the countryside
Rocks in his fists
He squeezed them hard
His muscles did the twists
And now his hands quietly wave away mists
A fish out of water
He wandered with otters
With berries and kittens
The world was his fodder
Then Jimena Hubbard met Hummina Bubbard
And Hummina Bubbard is now Hummina
Hubbard

So are
Martina
Lunesta
And Farina Hubbards
Through their old folks ponds
They swam and they ran
In their mouths, crabapples
And in their fists, rocks
They played in the dirt
And tied hair into knots
Then Martina
Lunesta
And Farina Hubbard
As grains do sway
Untied their knots
Now Jimena and Hummina
Rest in the soil
Three daisies in place
Where their love once toiled.

Remini also reveals in the book that Nicole Kidman’s adopted children Bella and Connor only spoke to their Australian mother when forced to.

The New York Daily Newsobtained a copy of Remini’s exposé, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. In the book, Remini claims that Suri, who was then seven months old, could be heard crying throughout the pre-wedding dinner.

Remini writes she went to see what was going on, only to find Cruise’s sister and an assistant staring at the child as she screamed on the floor.

Remini says the women were staring at the child as if she was [Scientology founder] “L. Ron Hubbard incarnate”.

Remini also writes about Bella and Connor Cruise’s strained relationship with Nicole Kidman. Sharing a ride to the airport with the then-teenagers after Cruise and Holmes’ wedding, Remini asked the two if they’d seen Kidman.

“Not if I have a choice,” said Bella, according to the book. “Our mom is a f*ing SP.”

(Within Scientology, SP is reportedly a Suppressed Person and designated enemy.)

Remini says that Cruise and Holmes’ lavish nuptials at Odescalchi Castle in Italy was the beginning of the end of her involvement in Scientology. Prior to the 2006 ceremony, Remini — whose mother and stepfather were Scientologists — spent 30 years in the controversial religion and donated US$2.5 million ($3.5 million).

But Cruise and Holmes’ wedding reportedly pushed the actor over the edge.

In the book, Remini recounts how she finally convinced the women in the bathroom to pick up Suri and give her a bottle of warm milk.

Remini reckons her actions infuriated Cruise, and she was then treated like an outcast for speaking up. Tensions reportedly flared as church workers tried to separate Remini from close friend, Jennifer Lopez. Lopez was the daughter of a Scientologist, and the church hoped to use the Cruise wedding to recruit her to the cause. According to the book, Cruise reportedly even pressured Remini to invite longtime friend Lopez and husband Marc Anthony.

When Remini failed to co-operate, she writes that she was very publicly snubbed in the reception line by the famous couple as punishment.

The actor also describes in the book how Cruise was left at the altar for 20 minutes, waiting for Homes to show up.

As the 150 guests grew increasingly uncomfortable, Lopez whispered to Remini, “Do you think Katie is coming?”

Remini recalled the reception as being like a high school dance filled with amorous teenagers.

She writes that Norman Starkey, the Scientologist who performed the wedding ceremony, was “******* Brooke Shields on the dance floor”.

Remini was also outraged to see Scientology’s married Chairman David Miscavige treating his assistant as if they were on a date.

And she reported the high-level Scientologists attached to Cruise and Holmes, Tommy Davis and Jessica Feshbach, “were all over each other” at the festivities.

The two later divorced their spouses and married.

Remini also revealed that Cruise had seemingly replaced Hubbard as the church’s new figurehead. “Tom Cruise seems to be running our church,” she said.

After the event, Remini was summoned to appear at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, to explain her wedding behaviour, with the most damning accusation made by Holmes herself.

In a report so punctuated with exclamation marks that it looked liked it was “written by a seventh grader,” Holmes contended that Remini’s wedding behaviour “disturbed me greatly. [She] made the party all about herself.”

Holmes recently apologised to Remini in a statement saying: “I regret having upset Leah in the past and wish her only the best in the future.”

After months of interrogation and a US$300,000 ($420,000) bill for the “auditing,” Remini was forced to launch an apology campaign.

She sent expensive gifts to all the important guests, including director JJ Abrams, who were reportedly upset by her attitude.

Remini also apologised to Kevin Huvane, Cruise’s powerful agent who also represents the likes of Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston.

She called to personally apologise after hearing that he was telling others how “disgusting” her behaviour was.

Remini considered leaving Scientology at the time, but didn’t as it would have meant cutting ties with her mother, stepfather and the many friends central to her life since joining the church as a teenager. Ultimately, Remini’s family would also leave the church alongside her.

After Holmes left Cruise in 2012, Remini aggressively ended her relationship with Scientology a year later by filing a missing persons report on Scientology boss David Miscavige’s wife.

In Going Clear, Lawrence Wright’s damning HBO documentary on Scientology, he dates Shelley Miscavige’s disappearance from public view to 2006.

Los Angeles police closed the case with a statement that Remini’s report was “unfounded”.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

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Winnie the Pooh is trying to think
As are Plato and Socrates
While The Little Rascals get rambunctious
And The Marx Brothers cause calamities
Jim Jones stirs the Kool-Aid
And Georgie Porgie makes his move
Bo Peep and Miss Muffett start to blush
Red Ridding hood just swoons
The Muffin Man does a deal
With Johnny Apple seed
These beings and people our real
In our Surreal Reality

******* lets the paint splatter
And Moses parts the sea
Belushi buys an eight-ball
Bruce is on trial for obscenity
Rorschach is on the case
Right behind Sherlock Holmes
John the baptist goes for a swim
Along with Brian Jones
Jack and Jill meet Hansel and Gretel
They're hungry, they're thirsty
These figments of imagination do exist
In our Surreal Reality

Rasputin was so evil
As bad as Captain Hook
Now was it ** Chi Minh or Nixon
Who said "I am not a crook?"
Mao Zedong looked at Stalin
With a shared murderous grin
Booth stormed the Ford theater
And shot President Lincoln
Kennedy and King we're both casualties
Of the process of the deciphering
Of our Surreal  Reality

Zeus said to Aphrodite
"Wow, you look real good tonight"
And Handel says "Hallelujah!"
As the Wright Brothers take flight
Baby Face Nelson
Teams up with Dillinger
Moe, Larry and Curly
Mengele, Mussolini and Adolf ******
Three bears, three little pigs
Along with three blind mice
Sit together, while Maurice Sendack
Cooks them chicken soup with rice
Charlie Bucket had a buy out
Wonka gave up his factory
Fiction or nonfiction it's all a apart
Of our Surreal Reality

Chicken Little tried his best
To warm The Little Red Hen
Of the sly trickster
They call Rumpelstiltskin
Rimbaud applauds Leonidas
And his 300's final stand
Da vinci  paved the way
For both Newton and Edison
Folklore and war heroes
And those with intellectual mentality
Are all just pieces
Of our Surreal Reality

Wee Willie Winkie's scream
Wakes up Rip Van Winkle
But not Sleeping Beauty who's been asleep for thirty years
But has no acquired a single wrinkle
Caligula has lost his mind
And Nero's lost his fiddle
What does Beethoven's hearing aid
Have to do the March Hare's riddle?
Abbie Hoffman fights for civil rights
Thomas Jefferson for democracy
Products of the conceptual
In our Surreal Reality

Berryman writes an ode
To Washington's wooden teeth
Manson speaks of Helter Skelter
Neruda damns the fruit company
Charles Schultz frames the story
And Seuss gives it rhyme
Some where far, far away
Taking place once upon a time
And the villagers all had omelettes
Thanks to clumsy Humpty Dumpty
It's all food for thought
In our Surreal Reality

Santa brings us presents
And Cupid bring us love
But we can never get back
The members of the 27 Club
Warhol makes his movies
And Buddha meditates
Joseph Smith reads the golden plates
Mohammed and Jesus save
Theses figures bring people hope
In life's dualities
Trusting faith
And our Surreal Reality


Han Solo is in carbon freeze
Don Juan's preoccupied
Sinbad sets his sails
Simple Simon didn't get his pie
Caesar looked at Brutus
Brutus looked at Saddam Hussein
Hussein looked at L. Ron Hubbard
Who prayed to Eloheim  
Dionysus can out drink us all
We cringe at Achilles fatality  
As Ra soars through the skies
Of our Surreal Reality

Aristotle says to Shakespeare
"Well Billy you old bard"
Frodo trades the ring of power
To Fidel Castro for a Babe Ruth Baseball card
Biggie and Tupac write their lyrics on paper
Ted Bundy is put in jail
They're making another skyscraper
For King Kong to scale
Hemingway is too far gone
Kant's take on morality
Einstein says it's all relative
In our Surreal Reality

Churchill said victory
John Lennon said peace
Judas gave back the silver
Then hung himself in a tree
Tojo and Kim Jong-il
Wanna be as cool as Brando and Dean
George Carlin warned us all
Now Hermes leaves the scene
So do the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker
Followed by Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three
As they make their way to find
A sense or Surreal Reality

Odysseus pines for Ithaca
Paul Bunyan chops the trees
The Jersey Devil has not been found
Noah herds the animals by twos not threes
Anubis wraps the mummies
And Augustus leads Rome
Bugs Bunny laughs with Pryor
All at the expense of Job
So what can we all make of this
Is this all actuality?
Symbolism or nonsense?
Realistic Surrealism or Surreal Realty?

Hail Mary! A pseudo-Buddhist
practices pragmatic paganism
with the guilt of a Catholic,
due to their samaric duties
handed from the true-blue Krishna.

But soft, through yonder window
a star collapses and light
is ****** through and destroyed
in a black hole foretold by
Hawking and, why not, Hubbard.

People are polyamorous
for their mono/poly theistic god(s).

But, how dare they be so bold
as to think they know about
anything about any-*******-thing.

Dear friends,

Outward we go, outward to the vast infinity, the great mother ship of all entities, past present and future.
Outward to the cold reality of limitless space where pinpricks of light reflect time which began a million years past.

The great unknown where for eons, since man descended from the trees, his very hopes dreams and prayers have been directed.

Beyond the maelstrom of the sun's living cauldron, beyond the titanic violence of coronal outforce, there lies a false calm. A vacuum of seeming emptiness which harbours a promise of galactic peacefulness but delivers the potential likelihood of eternal, calamitous catastrophe.

This is the realm where God's and Devil's reside.
This is the realm of unimaginable forces and stupendous violence.
This is, at once, our hope and our damnation...
THIS IS THE UNIVERSE.

This is the realm where man has sought communication as long as he has been able.... With utter futility.
For all of his advances in technology, his network of huge radio telescopes, his continuous Asceti transmissions, the development of the World Wide Web, the orbiting space station, the wonderful Hubbard telescope and his advances in space exploration and travel....THERE HAS BEEN NO REPONSE FROM OUT THERE.
SO WHY IS IT THAT MAN HAS HAD NO COMMUNICATION FROM SPACE?

And of time..eternal time ....anticipated as tomorrow. Retrieved as the now and dispensed to the yesterday. Are all three interpretations valid as manifestations of time or are the tones of future and past merely renditions of the actuality...the present?  If that is so how can the light of the stars, emitted so many eons ago, be seen right now as a reflection of the actuality of real time? Has time stretched or are the factors of space distance and time linked entities?

Is eternity a factor of time and space or is there another spectrum. Another source creating equilibrium in the quantum flux? Is size a factor... Is our solar system a submicroscopic nutrino attached to an atom on the **** of an incredibly slow living, gargantuan, multi universe sized ant?
.
..and if this is so...There's no wonder that there have been no replies to our efforts to communicate
...We are infintesimal.....Nobody can find us!

Serenely in the morning air, magnificence defies
Predictions of catastrophe from those whose word implies
That chance, that willing player, who skirts around the scene,
Would show her cards, calamitously, to render doom obscene.
....But for now the peacefulness and order everywhere
Has lovers in the lane ways and laughter in the air,
Has Autumn leaves cascading and white caps on the bay
With balmy clouds in blue skies to reflect this perfect day.

(Though....Forever now humanity could decry me as a brute
For I have, inadvertantly, crushed that ant beneath my boot!)


Marshalg
Looking up through the cold clear night air at 'Foxglove', through the myriad of crystal stars...and beyond.
27 January 2013

A word of explanation: The poem in italics depicts a scene of normality in the big picture, the megamacro world out there, where, like us, they have their own insecurities, their own great unknowns....and like our world, way down here, it is a place where accidents can happen!
Mg.

The plane is emotion.
The form is a gentle rider,
she pushes bullets off cliffs, she hugs the stars.
Catches the moon eyeing her with one
great big hand wrapped on its ****;
spins the bell of her dress
round and round.

Sifted from the Earth, man moody
cleft in heaps of his entrails,

no progress has been made.

My metal mother pulls hula hoops for zulu,
she rips down the shelves and pulls
Bobby Dylan from the wall. She says,
"grrrplleeopzhrka." And the smoke gets into
my eyes and burns my nostrils too.

In the great wind screen, footprints of man,
Native American blood weeps on my bright
Summer burning, no regency cleared. The
outlook denied. It sits stagnant, maddening
with its blockhead on sideways. Heavy, old
mutter hubbard wilting gold in her stare.

Mess comes. She spoils, her skin is loud
and anointed, her fecund white placard
is thinner than air. People look at each other,
a goblin, two trollops, the green woolen winter-wear
of a soldier in despair. Only a putrid noon, escaping,
cuts the flesh from the garden. Cuts out all the weakness,
the hope, the love, every thing owned, every one cleared.

The skin trap and oyster flap. The rich mixture of voices,
nothing holds common that bond, that few could look upon,
that youth could-

none of the old things work anymore.

Just a wicked boredom trickling in blood down her legs, just
the lust trickling down her legs, dear mommy, I obey.
And when the summer months set in mahogany, and the icicle
feat swallows us up, dear-
death
Winter
lips
moths buzzing
mouths
fuzzz
your sweet bomb
bon bon

Mother spinster’s sporcy spindle spaed a specious spider splenetically spinning a sparkling specimen of the spired and spherically eggish; still though spinose although sporadic, seemingly soft, deceivingly so, sacred, secret special place to stave off such besetments!

  Her enchantment’s curse, no less the worse, arachnid terse in webs of verse, or plainly verse we shall rehearse from high above to stage below or thought to hanging from strangely gallows, the sickly web a trap thus cloven of heaven’s weaver said to woven in all her life never betrothen, she cast aside all such resentments!

And so Old Mother Hubbard then went to the cupboard speaking her cursed ways…

  Along came Ariadne, the spider beside thee, winding her spinning, pointing thus pinning upon her the blame for all days. With no voice to speak, evading flood did she seek, a way up from the sea on the laurels of Mother’s uprooted tree. So was it ended, uprooted, upended, the guilt, blame and controversy. Umun-Hubbur, Humwawa, Humbaba, star-weaver and Hubbard and Ariadne!

I am scared!
Scared of this world

Robert Godwin Sr
Alyssa Elsman

How many more have to die?
By my kind,
By their kind,
Because they blame some other kind
What ever happened to just being
kind?

Daniel Parmertor, Russell King, Jr., Demetrius Hewlin

Where were you when the World Trade Center went down?
It’s something everyone alive then will always remember
Never Forget! was our brand motto for American Pride

Krystle Marie Campbell, Lü Lingzi, Martin William Richard, Sean A. Collier, Dennis Simmonds

And now, the death of another is so commonplace
That we forget what and where.
It’s no longer personal enough to register where in our lives that it struck us
Only note that another life has been struck down
Add another tally to the equation
And still it does not add up

Trayvon Martin
Tamir Rice
Samuel DuBose
Delrawn Small
Philando Castile
Terence Crutcher
Heather Heyer

We are completely desensitized
And decentralized
We keep ourselves disconnected
(because we just can’t absorb,
Take,
Process it all)
It’s not us
It’s not me
It’s somebody else
Somewhere else.
Until it is
Then we care
How much can we take, before we break

Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Clementa C. Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman Singleton, Myra Thompson

The tragedy is the comedy
We laugh so we don’t cry
Sakia Gunn
Richie Phillips
Nireah Johnson, Brandie Coleman
Glenn Kopitske
Scotty Joe Weaver
Jason Gage
Michael Sandy
Sean William Kennedy
Duanna Johnson
Lawrence "Larry" King
Angie Zapata
Lateisha Green
****** August Provost, III
Mark Carson

I can’t say I’ve never thought of committing violence.
Hell, when my ex-wife cheated, it occurred to me
And I can’t say that I have never hit another
I’ve been a kid
My whole life is designed just to grow up
But, I’ve thought of killing myself far more often than the thought to harm anyone else have ever occurred to me
Because my problems are mine;
My fault,
And I am not seeking some scapegoat

Keenya Cook, Jerry Taylor, Million A. Woldemariam, Claudine Parker, Hong Im Ballenge, James Martin, James L. Buchanan, Premkumar Walekar, Sarah Ramos, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, Pascal Charlot, Dean Harold Meyers, Kenneth Bridges, Linda Franklin née Moore, Jeffrey Hopper, Conrad Johnson, 1 unnamed victim

I am not going to deny that being a white male hasn’t allowed me to sidestep a whole level of *******
One day, angry white males will be the minority
And we’ll have no one left to blame, but ourselves.
If we don’t **** everyone first
If we don’t **** ourselves first

Michael Arnold, Martin Bodrog, Arthur Daniels, Sylvia Frasier, Kathy Gaarde, John Roger Johnson, Mary Francis Knight, Frank Kohler, Vishnu Pandit, Kenneth Bernard Proctor, Gerald Read, Richard Michael Ridgell

Jonathan Blunk, Alexander J. Boik , Jesse Childress, Gordon Cowden,
Jessica Ghawi, John Larimer, Matt McQuinn, Micayla Medek, Veronica Moser Sullivan, Alex Sullivan, Alexander C. Teves, Rebecca Wingo

The earth has already decided that we are a plague upon it
Maybe climate change is the natural response to the abuse of our gifts

Nancy Lanza, Rachel D'Avino, Dawn Hochsprung, Anne Marie Murphy,
Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Leigh Soto, Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Madeleine Hsu, Catherine Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, Ana Márquez Greene, James Mattioli, Grace McDonnell, Emilie Parker, Jack Pinto, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Avielle Richman, Benjamin Wheeler, Allison Wyatt

What is this world going to teach my son?
That he’s better because of how he looks?
Or what I’ve taught him:
You make yourself better.

Jamie Bishop, Jocelyne Couture Nowak, Kevin Granata, Liviu Librescu,  P
G. V. Loganathan, Ross Alameddine, Brian Bluhm, Ryan Clark, Austin Cloyd, Daniel Perez Cueva, Matthew Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy Herbstritt, Rachael Hill, Emily Hilscher, Matthew La Porte, Jarrett Lane, Henry Lee, Partahi Lumbantoruan, Lauren McCain, Daniel O'Neil, Juan Ortiz, Minal Panchal, Erin Peterson, Michael Pohle Jr., Julia Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Samaha, Waleed Shaalan, Leslie Sherman, Maxine Turner, Nicole White

I work as a data analyst
So, I ran the numbers
But, these are more than numbers
These are people: sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, friends, lovers.

Stanley Almodovar III, Amanda Alvear, Oscar A. Aracena Montero, Rodolfo Ayala Ayala, Alejandro Barrios Martinez, Martin Benitez Torres, Antonio D. Brown, Darryl R. Burt II, Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, Angel L. Candelario Padro, Simon A. Carrillo Fernandez, Juan Chevez Martinez, Luis D. Conde, Cory J. Connell, Tevin E. Crosby, Franky J. DeJesus Velazquez, Deonka D. Drayton, Mercedez M. Flores, Juan R. Guerrero, Peter O. Gonzalez Cruz, Paul T. Henry, Frank Hernandez, Miguel A. Honorato, Javier Jorge Reyes, Jason B. Josaphat, Eddie J. Justice, Anthony L. Laureano Disla, Christopher A. Leinonen, Brenda L. Marquez McCool, Jean C. Mendez Perez, Akyra Monet Murray, Kimberly Morris, Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, Luis O. Ocasio Capo, Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez, Eric I. Ortiz Rivera, Joel Rayon Paniagua, Enrique L. Rios Jr., Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, Christopher J. Sanfeliz, Xavier E. Serrano Rosado, Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, Edward Sotomayor Jr., Shane E. Tomlinson, Leroy Valentin Fernandez, Luis S. Vielma, Luis D. Wilson Leon, Jerald A. Wright

I did research to try to find all the victims since I became abruptly aware 16 years ago
There are too many
I could not discover a single database that contained a comprehensive record
No one can keep track of it anymore
I know I’ve missed people
I know there are 1000’s of people now missing people
Even 1 was too much

Hannah Ahlers, Heather Alvarado, Dorene Anderson, Carrie Barnette, Jack Beaton, Steve Berger, Candice Bowers, Denise Salmon Burditus, Sandra Casey, Andrea Castilla, Denise Cohen, Austin Davis, Virginia Day Jr, Christiana Duarte, Stacee Etcheber, Brian Fraser, Keri Galvan,  Dana Gardner, Angela Gomez, Rocio Guillen Rocha, Charleston Hartfield,  Chris Hazencomb, Jennifer Irvine, Nicol Kimura, Jessica Klymchuk, Carly Kreibaum, Rhonda LeRocque, Victor Link, Jordan McIldoon, Kelsey Meadows, Calla Medig, James ‘Sonny’ Melton, Pati Mestas, Austin Meyer, Adrian Murfitt, Rachael Parker, Jennifer Parks, Carrie Parsons, Lisa Patterson,  John Phippen, Melissa Ramirez, Jordyn Rivera, Quinton Robbins, Cameron Robinson, Lisa Romero Muniz, Christopher Roybal, Brett Schwanbeck, Bailey Schweitzer, Laura Shipp, Erick Silva, Susan Smith, Tara Roe Smith, Brennan Stewart, Derrick ‘Bo’ Taylor, Neysa Tonks, Michelle Vo, Kurt Von Tillow, Bill Wolfe Jr.

and NOW I’ve run out of lines and time to read off all 2,977 people who died in 9-11
Isn’t that a tragedy?

I see you hiding beneath
Old shirts and memories
***** jeans and worn-out shoes
That have walked a saddening mile
Weakest armour of cloth
Ripped and torn by cruel adolescence
Cursed with hate or blessed with indifference
I see you in there

Surrounded by toys
Some broken, unneeded
I see you and I know that you want to play with them
But time seems to have withdrawn permission
Or maybe you're frightened
Of how happy they once made you
Reluctantly believing they will never again make you smile or laugh
For they have become little more than fodder for the garbage heap
You find yourself beneath

On the other side of the locked door
I bend to peek through the keyhole
Expecting no more than shadows on the wall
But I see you

I've watched you walk in...
(you didn't know I was there...sorry)
...and it broke my heart
To see how swiftly you ran to the door
To behold the look of relief on your face
That broke up and melted the death mask of grief
Saved by grace
When you stepped in and turned the lock
A beaten veteran getting off a plane, whose salvation is the tarmac beneath him
You kiss the ***** carpet and call this place "home"

"How can a man be born when he is old?
can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb, and be born?"
Behind a locked door
You found the answer
Discerning flesh from flesh and spirit from Spirit
From the crowded confines of  your mother's womb

I wanted so badly to see the look on your face when you emerged
Refreshed and ready to battle demons
Or downcast, crestfallen for another day
It would have been worth the waiting hours to bear witness
To the power of this basement haven
Alas, sleep was not as curious
I could not risk your discovering me
Where I was not meant to be
Fallen from my hands and knees
Best to settle for forbidden glimpses through a keyhole
Best you didn't know I'd stolen a tiny part of your soul

I see you there, hiding from the light
Books on shelves half read or dog-eared to the very ends
A hardback Bible, the binding cracked, it's pages would spill out on the floor if not for your curiosity
66 books held tightly in your grasp to hold them together
In order
Camus, King...Baldwin, Irving...tattered paperback
Koran, Augustine...Srimad Bhagavatam, L. Ron Hubbard...sturdy hardback, spines still cracking
Barnes & Noble books unnaturally pinched between mold smelling garage sale bargains and bulky Salvation Army bookends (Webster's Dictionary, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Bullfinch's Mythology, Asimov's Chronology of Science & Technology...anything thick and sturdy enough to squeeze in a row of lesser volumes)
I see all those books but I don't see you reading them
Still, I don't wonder why they are there

I only wonder of you
Why you lie like a skeleton
Beneath piles of junk

I only wonder how
You find comfort there
And not in the arms of the ones who love you

Out he shot like a screaming hyena, the Pig’s wig to the side
His trotters were performing a jig, he wasn’t quite sure.
Usually he leaves the house so full of respect and pride
And was particular about anything he touched or indeed wore.

“The Duck’s gone” he yelled to nobody that was about
“My friend has up and left me” sobbing out for all he was worth
“Does nobody care, can anyone hear me if I shout”.
“Talk to me, it doesn’t cost the Earth”

By now the Pig had got his bloomers in a twist
Started searching all the cupboards he could find.
Seeking out the little places he had inadvertently missed.
Looking in all the secret hideouts a Duck would hide.

The Pig sat in a corner and waited for the duck to come back.
He waited a couple of days and he was wondering whether he was dead.
He something outside, he thought it was a quack.
In slid a skinny leg and a webbed foot as brown as wholemeal bread.

In slid a suitcase with stickers “I was here” on from a seaside resort.
In came an enormous stuffed donkey toy with “Made in Spain” on it.
The little devil has been abroad without me, he thought
He has got the nerve I have to admit.

He was getting crosser and crosser by the minute
He was a nice shade of violet and blue.
The blood in his veins putting pressure on his three piece suit
In fact he was getting himself wound up and in a stew.

“Where exactly do you think you have been” enquired the blue blob
“Oh I have been to Majorca for the week, told you when I booked”.
By now he’d heard enough and his head had started to throb.
The Duck had squeezed in his saucepan cupboard and never looked.

The Pig was still chattering on firing the same old question
The Duck was stuffing himself silly with Spanish sweets
Devouring one after the other in no order or hesitation
Never before had he had such nice treats.

The pig finally tapped on the door of the cupboard and spoke
The Duck could not answer owing to too much food being in his beak.
The Pig was under the impression he was copying a bloke
When the Duck let out a gigantic squeak.

A line of ants were frog marching a leaf around his leg
He froze like a solid lump of ice on a hot day.
His legs were shaking like they were scrambled egg
And his mind had gone into panic and was far away.

The Pig the protective one, at once became a superhero role
The door between them came down with a crash
To the annoyance of the Duck who had his head in a pudding bowl
Promptly hid the bowl and sweets in a flash.

“How dare you interrupt me” shouted he with a frown.
His legs were twitching from the ants which were bothering him
The Duck got up off the floor and proceeded to jump up and down,
The Pig thought his actions were foolish and pretty grim.

One week later the Duck reluctantly emerged from the cupboard
And began to prepare something for friend to eat.
He ransacked the shelves like old Mother Hubbard
Rescuing some tins of something or other which were now obsolete.

Which was fine by the Pig, he ate anything he could get his trotters on
He was just pleased to be reunited with his dear old friend.
He dined until whatever the meal was called was gone
He did not enjoy the slop and once more had to pretend.

Oh, brave new world,
What the **** is this
Phenomenal metamorphosis?

I was cocooned by Kafka in Prague
Drank too much absinthe
Shocked by Tesla in Budapest
Shot by Serbian snipers in the rabbit hole
Saved by Jesus in Rome
Had a hell of a time with heathens on a party bus
Walked the rim of Vesuvius
Met a gypsy princess

Came home to mama's basement
Finished reading The Names by Don Delillo
Went back down to Florida
Where I lived with grandma in Spring Hill
Fell deep for a siren
An angel who saved my life
Had a nasty fever dream
Hell broke loose and I wrecked my car

Flew back to Los Angeles
Went to church and prayed
Stayed and worked for the family business
Explored Hubbard's cult, smoked *** and played

Too many sins to mention
I must confess the motherlode
No human here is much like God
How sad it is to know I'm in control

A butterfly pinned down in hell
You can reflect your face or soul

Sandy Hook Call to Love
by Michael R. Burch

Our hearts are broken today
for our children's small bodies lie broken;
let us gather them up, as we may,
that the truth of our Love may be spoken;
then, when we have put them away
to nevermore dream, or be woken,
let us think of the living, and pray
for true Love, not some miserable token,
to command us, for strength to obey.

The first line in the poem above came from President Obama’s speech in which he wiped away tears as he discussed the Sandy Hook killings.

###

For a Sandy Hook Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails, when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream while winter scowls
and nights compound dark frosts with snow?
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?

###

Sandy Hook Call to Action
by Michael R. Burch

We see their tiny coffins
and our hearts break,
so we ask the NRA―
"Did you make a mistake?"
And we vow to save the next child
for sweet love's sake,
but also to protect ourselves
from enduring such heartache.

###

I dedicate my poems to the victims ― may they rest in peace ― and I urge all Americans to act now, before the next massacre. If we don't, our loved ones will remain continually at risk:

Epitaph for a Sandy Hook Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

###

This poem is for mothers who lost children at Sandy Hook, and in other similar tragedies ...

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
Of one fallen star.

###

Shooting Gallery
by Michael R. Burch

If we live by the rule of the gun
what can a small child do,
but run?

###

Sixteen of the students who died at Sandy Hook were six years old; the other four students were seven. I wrote the poem below for another child gunned down by a madman. While we cannot legislate sanity, we can be sane enough to legislate away the "right" of serial killers to purchase assault weapons so easily. We can defend many small victims from such carnage, if "we the people" have the wisdom and the will to defend them.

Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who was born
on September 11, 2001 and died at the age of nine,
shot to death ...

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm ― I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring ― I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the brutal things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short ... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here ...

I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bear them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

###

US or Them?
by Michael R. Burch

The NRA wants money in the till,
thus Adam Lanza had a license to ****.
Our government’s the serial killer’s shill
and will be, unless WE express OUR will
and vote to save our children from Boot Hill.

###

This haiku below makes me think of the students and teachers of Sandy Hook, who were trapped in a war zone:

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
―original haiku by Watanabe Hakusen, translation by Michael R. Burch

###

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

It seems to me that the NRA has declared a war ― an open season ― on our children, by insisting that assault weapons must be available to every Tom, **** and ***** Harry. But what will we, the people, say and do?

###

Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost―
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone―
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past―
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

###

Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this―
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live six artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...

###

Here are tribute poems for exceptional children who should be alive today:

Emilie Parker,
the horror grows starker
as we see your sweet image
and cringe at the carnage;
but dear, how you mesmerize
with those vivid blue eyes
and death cannot sever
our hearts from you, ever.

###

Dylan Hockley,
a blue-eyed "gorgeous boy,"
was super beyond
death's power to destroy.

###

Jack Pinto,
who idolized the New York Jets' Victor Cruz,
is now Cruz's hero
and neither can lose.

###

Grace Audrey McDonnell,
our "beautiful, sweet little girl,"
wherever you are now,
there's a far brighter world.

###

Avielle Richman
had a "spirit that drew people in"
(and an infinitely knowing
and cheeky grin!).

###

Noah Pozner,
"extremely bright"―
your mind and your smile
both exuded light.

###

Jessica Rekos,
a "creative, beautiful little girl"
who loved horses,
are you now riding Pegasus
down heaven's courses?

###

Benjamin Wheeler,
"an irrepressibly bright and spirited boy"
had brown, soulful eyes
and a spirit no killer can destroy.

###

Ana Marquez-Greene,
as sweet a child as we've seen,
you "beat us all to paradise."
Was it because you were so very nice?

###

Charlotte Bacon,
our love for you is unshaken;
as you "lit up all rooms" down here
you now illuminate heaven, dear.

###

Daniel Barden, his family's light,
once brightened this earth, and now brightens heaven―
not a bad trick for a boy who's just seven!

###

Olivia Engel,
angel,
your only possible crime (I've been told)
was "being a wiggly, smiley six-year-old!"

###

Allison Wyatt,
so shy, so sweet, so caring,
loved to garden with her mother.
Six pink candles, then an eternity of sharing.

###

Catherine Violet Hubbard
when you were here
the cupboard
of life
was never bare,
but full of light
and your electric hair!

###

Josephine Gay
had just turned seven;
now she will always be
"a lovely part of heaven."

###

Caroline Previdi,
"sweet, precious little angel,"
we fondly remember
your infectious smile.

###

Chase Kowalski, age seven
seems awfully early for heaven;
but since there was never a better child ...
perhaps the angels called, beguiled?

###

Jesse Lewis, so full of life,
you could fill a room with bright laughter;
I'm sure you're entertaining angels now
and brightening the Hereafter!

###

James Mattioli,
exceptional swimmer,
without your bright presence
the world seems much dimmer.

###

Madeleine Hsu,
what we know of you
is so limited, but we love you too.
May your loved ones keep your memory secure
and your memory give them the strength to endure.

###

Here is a memorial poem for the school's lovely, valiant principal who, according to accounts, ran to defend her young charges the minute she heard shots being fired, lunging at the shooter in an attempt to disarm him:

Dawn Hochsprung,
each child's courageous friend―
you defended them all till the unthinkable end;
so let your kindness and valor be sung.

###

Rachel Davino protected her charges
from the killer's barrages;
like her loyal friend,
she was loyal to the end.

###

Anne Marie Murphy,
fun-loving, hard worker;
you defended your charges―
no coward, no shirker.

###

Lauren Gabrielle Rousseau,
who loved to teach, and who loved children so,
we're glad you achieved your dream
that final year, and how lovely you seem!

###

When Mary heard shots being fired, she could have run away to save her own life, but she joined principal Dawn Hochsprung by leaping to her feet and running to protect the students she loved so much.

Mary Sherlach, who courageously ran
without thought for her life to the aid of the children,
taught not just them, but also us,
love's surplus.

###

Everyone loved Miss Victoria Soto;
she was every student's friend.
And when a killer threatened her charges,
she defended them to the end.

Keywords/Tags: Sandy Hook, school, shooting, massacre, students, children, teachers, gun control

Just another metal bird
with a dictated flight path
I'm just another ****** up ray of sunshine
Too many people that come and pray at my shrine
L Ron Hubbard was just the start of an ideology that's too dangerous
Too many people following a leader instead of their ideals, it's so real
yet it's only as tangible as the wind
it's not what you think
it's really not what you think
wishing life could be darker
just so I could enjoy the brighter day that I've kept a bay, that I've slept away
starting another fray.
just so you can feel at home, raised on a battlefield of the sexes, getting off on your exes pain, one more kiss in the rain, one more kiss that will maime,
another made up character that we look up too, just to hope we can be true to oursleves, cause after all were different, like everyone else.
yet anywhere else is a better view, than your own eye sockets.
Hiding more than your ring finger in that pocket, destroying your mother and building rockets.
it's our adolescence, time to fly on our own, and leave those that raised us behind. in a neighborhood that watched us grow.
I've seen the terror churn inside too many good people...
maybe that's why people still believe in god, not because they think he's real, but because they hope he is.
because maybe.
just maybe.
He'll be at the end of this long and dark tunnel.

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
Jack died on ***** and Jill on pills.
Mary lost her little lamb
but she just don’t give a ****.

Little Boy Blue blows a new horn,
he’s the star of animal ****.
Humpty’s crack was caused by bad smack,
and Little Bo Peep finally murdered those sheep.

Old Mother Hubbard sells shrooms from her cupboard
and Mother Goose used to be called Lady Loose.
Old King Cole like to smoke pole,
while Little Miss Muffet licked **** on her tuffet.

All the kings horses banged all the kings men,
then headed to the Caterpillar’s ***** den.
The Pied Piper dropped E in the village well
and danced all those children to techno hell.

These fairy tales I’ve tainted, they’re twisted and sick.
So read it again and hide it away quick!
Mom and Daddy will yell, this isn’t ok,
but I’ve painted the truth at the end of the day.

Life isn’t all sunshine and roses and smiles.
Sometimes it’s darkness, loose women and their wiles.
I’ve just told the truth my dear little friend,
I hope you enjoyed it but this is The End…

Dear God above I beg of thee to reveal yourself.
Dear God below I beg you to make your presence known.
Dear King of Olympus cast down your thunderbolt.
Dear Xenu will you show us if Hubbard was right?
Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster I'd even accept you.

I can see no evidence for a God, but I beg to.

It was Freddie Hubbard on the trumpet
blowing on about some blue moon,
as if the yellow one that has occupied
the night and sometimes morning sky
wasn’t enough, when I decided to write
a poem about thinking about tomorrow.

How I will rise before the rest, run a few
miles on a treadmill overlooking a busy
boulevard and read the private memoirs
of a justified sinner. And when the tomorrow
that I was thinking about comes with its new
minutes and hours, its new obstacles and

headaches, I will think back to today
and remember the morning kiss you gave,
the silence between your body and mine,
the amount of times you changed your outfit
before the lake, the museum: the live dances
from cultures around the world that kept us from

viewing new installments, the interracial ballet
dancers tip-toeing to a tune well-known to childhood
ears. But the one memory of yesterday that will be
with me until death do us part will not be of the
Shakespeare that I read nor of the raspberry
cheesecake we shared but of you: sitting alone,

waist-deep in a bubble bath. ******* pert and
motherly exposed. Resting comfortably above
your ribcage. Showing more beauty than age.
A glass of cabernet sitting where the razors and
shampoo usually sat. A young adult novel in the
white palms your small hands. But yes. The one

memory that will be with me until death do us
part and well, even after that, will be of me looking
at you: naked in a tub, your glasses over the bridge
but on the edge of your nose, and the rest of my life

before me.

Only yesterday when the headlines told me we're okay,
we're on the mend,there's improvement on the way
Only yesterday and I paid to read it,paid to read that crock of..
.. in a bit I'll get over it,get over all the barefaced lies
that I read in the daily, which I now despise and
I shall not buy that rag again.
At times the news is,to say the least,less the news,more of a feast
of fairy tales.
i.e
Mother Hubbard had no home,had no cupboard and therefore did not give her dog a bone but they say she did.
Well,
she got rid of that old Mutt and now lives in a garden hut,but the papers never tell you,do they?
Make hay says the Times,
which Hay? say I
Will hay? he's dead
Hay On Wye?
but that's in Wales and holds another crock of fairy tales.
Mary never had a lamb or if she did she ate it one day,when in a jam and had no food to give the brood back home
which by the way was by a field of hay and the home where Mother Hubbard once gave a dog a bone
and that was only yesterday.
I'l go online today
it's far less confusing.

Out he shot like a screaming hyena, the Pig’s wig to the side
His trotters were performing a jig, he wasn’t quite sure.
Usually he leaves the house so full of respect and pride
And was particular about anything he touched or indeed wore.

“The Duck’s gone” he yelled to nobody that was about
“My friend has up and left me” sobbing out for all he was worth
“Does nobody care, can anyone hear me if I shout”.
“Talk to me, it doesn’t cost the Earth”

By now the Pig had got his bloomers in a twist
Started searching all the cupboards he could find.
Seeking out the little places he had inadvertently missed.
Looking in all the secret hideouts a Duck would hide.

The Pig sat in a corner and waited for the duck to come back.
He waited a couple of days and he was wondering whether he was dead.
He something outside, he thought it was a quack.
In slid a skinny leg and a webbed foot as brown as wholemeal bread.

In slid a suitcase with stickers “I was here” on from a seaside resort.
In came an enormous stuffed donkey toy with “Made in Spain” on it.
The little devil has been abroad without me, he thought
He has got the nerve I have to admit.

He was getting crosser and crosser by the minute
He was a nice shade of violet and blue.
The blood in his veins putting pressure on his three piece suit
In fact he was getting himself wound up and in a stew.

“Where exactly do you think you have been” enquired the blue blob
“Oh I have been to Majorca for the week, told you when I booked”.
By now he’d heard enough and his head had started to throb.
The Duck had squeezed in his saucepan cupboard and never looked.

The Pig was still chattering on firing the same old question
The Duck was stuffing himself silly with Spanish sweets
Devouring one after the other in no order or hesitation
Never before had he had such nice treats.

ThePig finally tapped on the door of the cupboard and spoke
The Duck could not answer owing to too much food being in his beak.
The Pig was under the impression he was copying a bloke
When the Duck let out a gigantic squeak.

A line of ants were frog marching a leaf around his leg
He froze like a solid lump of ice o a hot day.
His legs were shaking like they were scrambled egg
And his mind had gone into panic and was far away.

The Pig the protective one, at once became a superhero role
The door between them came down with a crash
To the annoyance of the Duck who had his head in a pudding bowl
Promptly hid the bowl and sweets in a flash.

“How dare you interrupt me” shouted he with a frown.
His legs were twitching from the ants which were bothering him
The Duck got up off the floor and proceeded to jump up and down,
The Pig thought his actions were foolish and pretty grim.

One week later the Duck reluctantly emerged from the cupboard
And began to prepare something for friend to eat.
He ransacked the shelves like old Mother Hubbard
Rescuing some tins of something or other which were now obsolete.

Which was fine by the Pig, he ate anything he could get his trotters on
He was just pleased to be reunited with his dear old friend.
He dined until what=ever the meal was called was gone
He did not enjoy the slop and once more had to pretend.

Fractured Fairies

the stalk was tall but Jack climbed high
they said he was looking for a golden goose
but the giant wasn't keen on him getting by
he caught the little brat and kicked his caboose

old mother Hubbard lived in a shoe
she had lots of sole and a rather large tongue
her old man was proficient in kung foo
when she bent over he kung foo'd her ****

Alice lived in wonderland she was constantly high
her and that crazy rabbit eating mushrooms wild
they looked into the looking glass and my oh my
they both had golden locks so neatly styled

once upon a time there were three bears
they couldn't eat the pourage on their first attempt
they shaved their bodys except for their ***** hairs
found out they were Jewish and now verklempt

little Miss Muffet sat on tuffet eating her curds and whey
along came a spider and sat down beside her
and she stomped him good put a crimp in his day

Mary had a little lamb what a big surprise
the doctor's scratched their heads in disbelief
they just couldn't even believe their eyes
but when old McDonald had a farm good grief

Gomer LePoet...

Lockdown
People say I’m a schizophrenic but don’t hate for sometimes life just gets so hectic. Don’t know if I need a exorcist or a medic, or maybe I should ask a priest and get some advice so prophetic. Maybe I ask buddha or maybe I forget it all by taking a hit of *****. Should I ask Joseph smith or Muhammad but weren’t they just humans too, should I go ask Ron Hubbard’s ghost but don’t know how much that would actually do. Should I ask the great nothing that atheists swear by, perhaps I should I look into mysticism or should I give a ouija board a try. Hello mr.therapist we meet again, what do you think because the wheels have fallen off this wagon. Put needles in me like a voodo doll, because I’m messed up and rely on adderall. In the mental asylum talking to myself in my safety jacket, and my imagination is strong just the other day I pretended I was the guy from full metal jacket. **** ***** maggot causing a racket and sometimes I’m a inspector playing around with gadgets. Go-go gadget for I will eventually catch that dastardly wabbit, could make this my habit because I might as well for I’m bat ****. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batman getting rid of these bad men who hold bad omens. O men of little faith we should sit back and wait, for it’s a strategist mind state. Hello darkness my old friend the worlds on lockdown wondering when someone’s going to push the button.Clean up on aisle insert country name here, but people think I’m as ridiculous as the mad hatter there’s always a conspiracy somewhere. Like 9/11 was orchestrated by your own government, or how the moon landing was screened on a elaborate movie set. Perhaps the earth is flat, perhaps Matt groening is a time traveller have you ever thought of that? What obstinance I must be ridiculous, what is this a sedative uh oh now I’m starting to lose consciousness. Woke up in a interrogation room, and had a person lurking in the shadows with red eyes I thought he was zoom. Want to get out of there in a flash, but I’m locked down so I can’t make a dash. Now it says here that you’ve been saying **** you shouldn’t, and it wouldn’t matter to us if you disappeared but that would sure **** for you wouldn’t it? Look here men in black you can’t control me, for I got a brain unlike the rest of these zombies. You can’t just zap this away and make me forget, and if you discard me I’ll just be a martyr that stood up to this *******. Well if that’s the way it’s going to be then you leave us no choice but to do things the hard way. Bring it on *****!

Bedtime stories we tell ourselves
Are actually quite funny if you really think about them
They all seem a little dark in their own way
Kind of like humpty dumpty
Who is this egg and why would be sitting
On a wall in the first place
And they always show the picture of him
Sitting with a pained grimace on his face
As his eggy innards are flowing on the ground
Or even the story of old mother hubbard
We sat in her cupboard eating her curds and whey
Who actually swallows a spider when they are eating
And if they did would they really die
Sometimes I wonder about the people who write these bedtime stories
And nursery rhymes
And wonder why parents keep telling their kids these stories
That seem to make little sense
But still seem to be very popular
Maybe we are just so used to telling them
That we don't actually sit and wonder
About what they really mean
Or how ridiculous a lot of them are
Maybe I just think too much about the little things
But I can't be the only one who thinks this way

Here's their "knowledge"
Here's the scoop
NOT scuttlebutt... the REAL ****!
Be ye Popeye or Betty Boop
They will draw you in their loop...

This rope will hold you... it ain't loose
You will find it is a NOOSE.

This is interesting to read
Though it's crazy... that's agreed
You'll think these people smokin' ****!

In the beginning there were some thetans
(Interesting that rhymes with SATAN)
They were bored with all the waiting

They were bored. Nothing to do.
These thetans could be me or you
Then... VIOLA... right on cue...
Here's an idea! The other shoe!

YES! Let's PLAY! We'll play a GAME!
It will be FUN! IT HAS A NAME!

M atter. E nergy. S pace. T ime.
The MEST universe! How sublime!
To find it's secrets will cost no dime
But thousands of BUCKS!
Should be a CRIME.

So these thetans all AGREE.
IT WAS THAT AGREEMENT, you see.
The M. E. S. T. Universe. (Smokin' TREE?
Was Ronnie Hubbard on LSD?)
We were AGREED you & me
That this game would then just BE.

Dynamite brains blow off my HAT?
It don't need no S.A.T.
My mind needs no extra watts
To figure out the problem with THAT.

Can you think of ANY COUPLE
Whether married for 60 years
WHO AGREE ON EVERYTHING???

RIDICULOUS.

So there you have it.
Their Genesis
I'll bring you more.
There's quite a list.
But I think you have the gist.

SCIENCE FICTION!!!
Not M. E. S. T. but MISSED!

Catherine E Jarvis
SoulSurvivor
(C) 2/23/2017

A Story of Scientology and the Mental Health System Connection

SEEKER

Now I can hear you saying to yourselves,
"So. You said you were smart. Why did you get involved with a crazy cult like Scientology?"* Well. Two reasons. 1) I was raised an atheist (Humanist), but had a seeker's soul. I became very spiritual, like I said. I also had a desire to HELP people. Humanity. I still do. But because I had a godless upbringing I was left open to deception. And 2) I found a boyfriend. Or, I should say, he found me. One of Scientology's tried and true methods of recruitment.

I had another friend, a ***** Jewish scientologist (yes, there can be that sort of thing, as you can be "any faith" and still be a scientologist... hmph!). She introduced us. I was impressed by two things. He was an instructor at the "Mission". And he could tell you things that seemed psychic. One of the procedures for impressing people to sign up for classes and "processing" was this. Doug would position you in a certain part of the room. He'd have his back to you. Then he'd tell you to walk away from him... then stop abruptly.
He'd be able to tell you when you stopped! And he could do it every time! This really impressed me. Until I found out he looked into the reflective surface of a large glass covered poster that was on the wall! Lol! What a con artistic magician HE was! HA!

I was totally gone over by the registrar (salesperson). She stuck to me like glue until she FINALLY figured out, Yes! I had NO MONEY! So I didn't get any training or processing. Which was a BIG part of why I stuck around. I didn't even read "Dianetics" by L Ron Hubbard. Doug told me a little about it. But most of his energy was expended trying to get in my pants... a fruitless endeavor to say the least!

He was instrumental in getting me up to Phoenix for the fateful "Flag Orientation Tour". The recruitment campaign which would change my life forever...

*Where I signed my life over to Scientology's Sea Organization for the next BILLION YEARS.

The air smelt of doom
Mystery hung in the room
No one was allowed to leave
Right on the job was Mr. Steve.
One by one they were called
He had them mauled
With questions often uncouth
But he had to get to the truth.
The smart as well as the shy
Had something for alibi
The tall and lean Mr. Brown
Said he was out of town
Ms. Percival said she wasn’t there
Had gone out to see a theater
Mr. Hubbard was stubbornly quiet
His face pale and ashen white
Ms. Christie who leant on a crutch
Was talking irrelevant too much.
Each one of them denied having heard
Any sound that could take them off guard
Tim the butler slept through the night
Janice heard nothing after putting out the light.
Mr. Steve fumed as his vexation grew
Knowing for sure not all said was true
The ****** has been committed by one of them
Who could it be in this hide-and-seek game?
Was the offence committed for material gain?
Who could benefit from these men and women?
Or could it be, more ghastly and strange,
The ****** was done as an act of revenge?
He couldn’t find flaws with any of alibi
There was no evidence to nail down the lie
He found it unsolvable, and that irked Mr. Steve
His reputation was at stake as a great detective.

Can't Afford

Life is slowly falling apart,
can't even afford to go to Walmart.
Can't even afford the Dollar Tree,
no window to throw out my *** of ***.
Can't afford to pay my bills,
no money left for my bi-polar pills.
Can't afford to eat or drink,
I'm broke, is what I think.
No more water, no more electric,
I'm even to poor to be eccentric.
Can't afford gas or cable,
Yes, I am mentally unstable.
Can't afford to buy a pen, wrote this in blood,
in my tears, I'm drowning in the flood.
House is in foreclosure,
listen closely, you can hear the bulldozer.
Had to sell everything I own,
nobody will ever give me a loan.
I walk around in my underwear,
like Mother Hubbard, my cupboard is bare.
Not one job to be had,
can't afford to call my mom or dad.
Walls around are closing in,
no way out, I just can't win.
Can't afford to live, but afraid to die,
doesn't that make you wanna cry.
Can't afford to wipe my own ***,
lets see you try to use broken glass.
If misery loves company,
where's the rest of the people with no money.
Can't afford a hair cut, my hair is so long,
my life is like a bad country song.
Tried selling drugs on the street,
things went good till I got beat.
In conclusion, I so **** broke,
my life turned out to be one fat joke.

Being an optimist after you've got everything you want doesn't count.
                               - Kin Hubbard