This here...my heart is a book
Sadness and hope inhabit most pages
Marred by past experiences that took
Scribbled are the ironies and broken adages

Worn pages tainted by the lowest of my days
Dark ink leave them smeared and stained Fresh ones stay crisp; free from nays
Awaiting dreams and wishes I have not gained

Silent are the pages still left unwritten
As though I have saved them for something
For future chapters yet to happen
For you to come and begin your writing

Welcome the pen that would herald a new start
Imagined it's ink to bear the flightiest notions
It would speak in volumes ensnaring the heart
It would sing a song with the sweetest of emotions

Seep in, dear ink, into my pages past and new
Seep through, dear ink, feel free to make your mark
Seep strong, dear ink, maybe you could undo
Seep true, dear ink, and bring light to the dark

But rip not the old for they forever will speak
Lessons that are learnt, strength that was bestowed
Tears that's been shed, happiness that I seek
Gloom that was braved, hope that I have sowed

Come, my heart is your book
You are the sole pen to my infinite pages
Ink are your words that would fill every nook
Eternal is the bond that would last through ages

This here...the rest of the pages are yours
Occupy them as you have in my everyday
I was saving them not knowing my course
Almost as if I knew you'd come to pen the words you'd say

A promise as sure as the sun would rise
A promise made as good as the noblest of men
My book is open to our laughs and cries
As long as you would forever remain my pen

what did i get myself to?

Four letter word and dime and a nickel and a quarter of your time
to a bliss passing by 595
your breathing and chest sinking
your lips calm and keeping ,upon the hours
of a dosing night a lasting high
your front teeth milky white meets my frosty space
the diving hips
a collar trips
man i feel you pull through and it isn't enough to call me some coward
some dancing ***** hanging on to your very lips
you said maybe is there a way
i said nah yoo i ain't raised for that
i am a forty five pound lean launching machine
from outer space to your living set
and busy strutting with vowels and annunciations since i got the power
for the heys and nays
i got the power
i got the power so it
ain't easy to unfold and what hasn't been told before
i ain't some player, goldie lock mean hater
prestigious for the one word betrayers cause it is out bend and crying doesn't work anymore
i got the breast knuckles to my chest and i say the fury of a quiet man is lethal
i am begging you to tell me you aren't danger.

must recognize our Form
in the mirror,
see our Face, and make our reflection
as we kiss it, though it regularly sickens
Us.

I

We are still Us, though
that probably means little if it ever did;

We have been amended beyond recognition
from centuries of lobbing
off limbs, appendages, stitching clauses
like bandages then forgetting about them
if we ever shower,
disfiguring the pale torso of our Body
politic, naked and middling before posterity
grotesque genitalia dangling
hopelessly, and useless
between marble columns
unable to unite in congress assembled
erasing pluribus unum;

We're our Legs, buckling under obscene weight
now cloture’s invoked, the question ordered
on history with yays and nays,
discourse long reduced to the nuances
of blusterfuck;

We're our Buttocks, passing gas
bills, denying a snowball’s chance of
melting in frozen hell or on house floor,
and our Brain, lobotomized
better half yearning “Yes, we Can…
…ada” beckoning the coasts, blue dots
on blue dot ever browning;

We're our Fists, clenching gavels
while advising Mother Earth to **** up
because even without her consent,
reality’s adjourned;

II

We're our Skin—yes, our Skin—, thin-
ly veiling contempt insufficiently concealed
by layers of spray tan and unmarred
by blood sweat tears of our foremothers
and our Brow, not sweating more perfect
when it's so easy to turn and follow storybook greatness,
when our Fingers, callused from tweeting
Little Bits of *****,
which though once again retitled
and re-released, remains a classic,
completely unrevised;

We're our Ears, nostalgic for the crack of doom
and we're our Tiny Hands, unable to help themselves
from popping a Tic-Tac and grabbing
onto those titillating, dusty buttons
on the hydrogen jukebox;

We're our Eyes, heavy
as a defeated queen
with makeup running, blessing us
all for this operant foray into madness,
ever observing how our Arms, which
(torches now extinguished)
flail in confusion amid incalculable darkness
still hoist our pitchforks low and
our Tongue still grievously petitions
for more deplorable words amid
hallucinations of victimhood;

We're our *****, *******
on progress, except
which—failing to rise to the occasion—
nonetheless manages
to flop over and strike once more: a dis-
chord in common defense of
fragile white male privilege
always showing, never growing,
general welfare and tranquility flushed down
the toiletbowl of history
hoping those old turds never
resurface, still ignoring the stench of injustice
and the chipping of gilded porcelain;

We’re our Lips–which neither Broadway hits nor
newspaper clips nor high minded pleas alarmed,
and with Dr. Franklin’s warning notwithstanding–
We are our Lips on treacherous steps which will be
all executive power herein vesting;

III

We're our Palms, grasping rope amid air
saturated in deathly vespers, which tugs
down-up toward unearned heavens;

We’re our *****, pretending to be
our Mouths which chide & otherize, while
our Shins expose their cuts to ****,
bullet-holes welcoming the swift infections
in what dank sewage now pours from open
Overton windows, broken along with
any pretense of civility; ultimately,
the only thing we could shatter;

We’re our Holes, shamefully enjoying
the prodding and poking caresses
of anarchy, be-
moaning un-
Equal Protection law & order bestows,
depriving life, liberty, property
when our Hearts, weary of
the long hard due process, supremely
malign centuries’ holdings;

We’re our Immunity, sovereign it be
fighting all insults foreign and domestic
and our Voices rising in lamentation
for what we’ve lost and what we’ve barely kept;

We’re even our Hair, unkempt, distracting us
from enduring corruption of our Blood;

We’re our *****, too. No, never mind.
We never had any. But She did,
and class despite the strength
of glass;

IV

We’re all that still, and our Souls'
politic too, fractured much asking
what Un-
ited States we’re in;

a who
so what
that nays
or nary
a not
a knot of narys
guggled to
from shrill    th
                    roat
                                                            she called the kettle B
                                                         l
                                                              ack

JUST as you are.

In yays,
In nays,
In dirt,
In praise,
In all,
In nothing,
In cold,
In sweat,
In confusion,
In conviction,
In tears,
In presence,
In chaos,
In faith,

He says “Come."

More grease to your elbows
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
More paraffin to your elbows

We will go on a honey-moon
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
We will go on a sugar-noon

Full-stop
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not
Fool-stop

Slap slapped, sleep slept
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
Slap slapped, sleep sleeped
I own ten sheep and fishes
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
I own ten sheeps and fishes

He is going to three stadia and banks
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
He is going to three stadiums and banks

Tall, taller and handsome, more handsome
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
Tall, taller and handsome handsomer

Give him his book, and give her, her book
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
Give him, him book, and give her, her book

Shall, should and must, must
We say, I hear
Why not? Why not?
Shall and should and must, mould

This world of nays and yays
We say, I hear
We say, I hear
This world of ups and downs

This crazy world of English
Why not, why not
Why not, why not
Where I am so proud to be an alien.

The departed mortals.
Newly deceased stand at the crossroads.
Black candles drip wax.
In a dark musty cavern.
Smell of confusion.
Blind panic fills the air.
Was their time naturally right?
Did they pass after an age of ages past?

Were they the executioner's fodder?
Rapists from far continents.
Swinging high from gibbet.
Or did they die?
As casualties.
Gift from war,appallingly.
No pleasantries.
Send casualties not not to hell.
Most manipulated by powers that be.
Suicide maybe took a vengeful grip.
As down the road to hell they slip.
To be the devils morsels.
To tease the hounds of hell.

They listen for the missing bell.
The toll calls entry to heaven.
Infants and innocents.
Always get the ayes.
No time to commit mortal sin.
Queue moves slowly onward.
Ayes to the right.
Nays to the left.
One direction seals eternal fate.
Will it be hell's fires?
Or pearly gates!

By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

Rain pounds the awnings like Parliament,
a groaning, moaning opposition to the motion
outward into morning.
Rain rustles in the street like referendums,
dense, verbose, broken into articles,
footnotes, addenda, dog-eared.
Drop by drop,
a gavel cracks in a plastic bucket,
the ayes and nays tallied,
it seems the roof is leaking.
But in a narrow victory, by god,
the clarity of water has been struck down,
must needs repair is denied appropriation.

What is relevant?
Am I?
The guardian of my world and its core?
Defender of my lies and my saline?
Protector of my secrets and my dreams?
Or does my immobile body lie still?
Still as a fallen tree, years after erosion

What is comfortable?
Am I?
With the innocence that I victimize?
With the harvests that I destroy?
With the choices that murmur their doubts?
Or do my bones creak with malaise?
Locked into place like a villain at the end

What is everlasting?
Am I?
With a court of misconceived notions?
My mortality held in question?
The bevy of epithets dispersed in my honor?
Or does the realm erode with every misdeed?
Cracking from the strain of my imprudence

What is fallacious?
Am I?
The sayer of nays from a golden throne?
Baseless breaker of laws and hearts alike?
Miscreant traitor of my own kin?
Or is this truth aching for the surface?
Like a seedling stretching out for the sun

I wonder some days,
As if my life is in a haze,
My parents just say it's a faze,
I don't think that is how it plays,
All I hear and see around me are nays,
As I struggle to do my pays,
As long as it stays,
It will take many days.

silenced by the impossibility of reaching you
in my eyes, with the worst hue
my brain full of hays
stricken by the  nays
will we ever?
it seems we will never
get to hug
life will only shrug
newly touched hands
are now full of bans
in unknown realms

By: Cedric  McCleter

He’s like, really smart
In a dumb sort of way
And that becomes more apparent
Each and every day
Check out his tweets
Or the things he has to say
Which only goes to show
The man is not okay

He’s like, really smart
In a dumb sort of way
Even though that’s not
What those who know him have to say
Cos his intellengence
Is rarely brought into play
As he barrels in
To any kind of fray

He’s like, really smart
In a dumb sort of way
If we were to take a vote
The nays outweigh the yeas
A sad and sordid fact
So the impression stays
And despite all that he’s said
He’s no friend of the gays

He’s like, really smart
In a dumb sort of way
Early morning tweets
Are his way of making hay
But they just put his ignorance
More clearly on display
Which he cannot deny
Nor ever take away












Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018, All rights reserved.

Past East Street, farther than the Parkway drive
Where the trodden path ends; where ends the 8 to 5,
Where the strained eyes close, where the dreamers thrive,
In its 5ft. glory lies my lair, The Hive.

An oxymoron, the contradiction
Where else shall you cease, to exist?
To be shackled, and freed?
If not on your bed, but in your head?

Thus, on a pulpy heavenly plate,
Neck up; so to goes my crown, my glory
The what ifs and the would be;
Along with the ayes and nays to bury
To traverse the beyond to inifinity
To, and remain sedate
Amidst the activity.

If by justice you mean vengeance, I,
your honor, am not to be counted.

In all this well-pressed protocol,
In this stark polished hall of justice,

There is nothing to judge, no verdict
or debate beyond a reasonable doubt

That the condemned is condemned by agreement.
Are we to haggle over the price?

You **** through we thirty coughing "peers",
this pool of citizens chosen by lot to consider one thing,

One sentence, which any reasonable soul
would hope never to be compelled to entertain,

And in so doing, twelve of us will become complicit,
will mark the furtherance of abhorrent justice

with simple "ayes", for "nays" are not permitted, no lock
allowed for the twelve that truly become his peers.

Plato was right about democracy
As America now does show

So was Herman Melville
Look out! 'Thar she blows!

But I seek no sacred kings
Just pass my lonesome days

The Wind Cries Mary
Jimi's Purple Haze

Will I see Seattle again?
Or see Shakespeare's plays?

No way to know. No way to know.
2037 prays.