so the Manager called in
a staff member
and he said:
"Tom, take this new guy
round the workplace
and smarten him up"

So Tom took me round
the office and then
we went to see the Secretary
and he said to her:
*"Do check my Department report
My language is perfect -
just  righten up my punctuation"

I'm not a winner.
Now, before you all rush to tell me how great I am, and how I should really have more confidence,
Take a breath because that's not what I mean.

When I say I'm not a winner, I mean I don't want to be.
I mean that whenever I try to cut corners in my life, and get the better of it, and come out "on top"
I just end up feeling...
Empty.
I'm not a winner.
I don't get to do the I'm-just-having-fun, wild, crazy stuff.
Not because I'm not able, not because I'm restricted,
But because at the end of the day no matter how much I think I've changed, it does nothing for me.

Who I am is the person who would rather, despite numerous but half-hearted efforts to the contrary,
Spend my life alone than with anyone but the girl I love.
The person who's done with the party after a couple of hours, and wants to go do something quieter.
The person who looks long,
Thinks deep,
And doesn't win because she doesn't find it fulfilling.
What I mean when I say I'm not a winner is that I am a lover.
I know what I want, even when I try not to.
And I try to ***** out feelings that limit me, that confuse me, that make me afraid,
I try to at least shelve them and pretend I have control.
But always it boils down to a moment of clarity:

I am not a winner.

I do not win over my heart.
I do not want to.
I have no use for excess, no time for compromise, no patience for pretense.
I fought to be the one who has control, the one who doesn't care,
Who takes risks just to prove she can,
But
The truth is my real risks are being saved up like lucky pennies in a jar, and I can't truly spend a single one on anything but love.
And I've been spiriting them away, trying to give them out to everyone I know
Just so I won't have to be brave enough to box them all up and set them on her doorstep, but I can't do it.
I'm kidding myself- It's already happened.
There's a girl walking around some far off city
With my love tucked away in her coat pocket like a stray coin
That you don't spend because its weight against your leg has become habit
And I am fooling myself to think I have even the slightest bit left back here to offer anyone else.

No matter what I try, the answer I come to is always the same.
I think I'm so clever, getting around it, finding a new path
But in the end it's always the same shade of lame attempt to be
Less serious
Less in love
Less... brave.
It always boils down to cowardice, and once I see that, I quit trying and smarten up.
Plain and simple, I've been trying to win.
And I've failed.
Not because I was not strong enough for the fight,
But because I never wanted what I was fighting for in the first place.

Ana knows I can't be alone,
So she will mourn by my side,
While I count down
From the start
When...
Love lived a decade ago;
Calendar dated 10th century,
Top chest smeared with last millennium's dust and dried rose petals,
Bottom shelf stacked with the Recent epoch's chronicles in scrolls,
And I wrote this anecdote during the late Eocene,
But I am now an era old;
Too short of memory to remember fairytales,
Too outgrown to believe magic tricks or play a game of chance,
Too outworn to have my heartstrings plucked,
Too callous to bear a soft spot,
Too archaic to belong in any contemporary world,
Too ancient for a technological revolution.
Fixed in a period that won't age,
Absent of a timekeeper, missing every timepiece;
My antique mind couldn't only smarten up for
This relic of a body, camouflaging skin-deep among prototypes,
Preserving the fossils of my endangered heart.
Maybe one day a noble clocksmith will come
And build us a time machine.
Maybe I'll have my youth back
When Ana teleports back to Erin,
Where her misplaced soul will finally be home with the gods,
For I think I'd do fine without her anymore,
As I land inside a time capsule,
Or wake up as a hand-me-down,
In time at long last with today's pendulum clock.
I'd be lucky if it's the clocksmith who takes such artifact.
But until such time warp,
Ana knows I can't be alone,
So she will mourn by my side,
While I count down
From the start
When...

Talent show
Whimsy is our art
Our taste in methods and sights of owe
Welcome us to your town, a hay day with time to smarten

Catch a rising star
The pout of energy realized, remaining in view
Is our call to excellency, a closely required more
To the stir of when passion, has the sense to live for who

Carry me to the stage
The show is about to start, a seeming melodrama
That when served, is the callous voice we saw rage:
The tartness of life today, is tomorrow ours for a better dilemma?

Which in wolves eyes, the taste of complexity is ours
For a knock, a door, a calling hour; to achieve a known
Place of redoubt, that has no ear for wishes, beyond powers
That claim the world for a note, of courage come too soon?

A heated conversation, now is a readied mouth
With courage to take the lead, in round paces of what went
With the moment we know, the coping stare of another, proud
And silent, until a shadow of doubt, has become meant...

Through the longing, the strength of a need so refined
Wealth of a thought, is our reward
To tell a tale of composure, that has seen the times
And given the cue of adroitness, has become a life to guard...

Audacity
So simple an argument, for a watching eave
Tell-tale heed, to groom itself in lights, worth nativity
And with austerity to care, the faces of destiny in love, never leave

Now I’m gone tell you a story                  
‘Bout a short bald man in a suit;
He liked everything to be neat as a pin…
Who knew one day that man’d go crazy and end up in the loony bin?

So this little bald man had a family
And a pretty daughter named Mary
She was coming out that season…
Her Daddy thought that day’d never come - now he felt it was beyond all reason

Well this man’s name was Jerry
And he was mean as a snake
Folk say he’s ex-military…
‘Cos of that one time he stuck a dog with a rake

Well now this stout bald man liked duty
Said he wanted to control nature
To be like Moses and part the sea
That’s why his garden was on the cover of country life magazine

Now it wasn’t hard to find a husband
For his little grown up girl
When men queued up twice round the block
To catch a glimpse of Mary in her favourite frock

Now here comes the end of my story, an end that I'll soon tell
It happened the day before the wedding
When Mary’s old Daddy was going through a real mean spell

On this day he went to the Barber’s
To smarten up what little hair he had
But that Barber didn’t cut it quite right…
One tiny hair stuck up and Jerry’s face went white...

At the sight of that blonde hair crowning the top of his head
Jerry whirled around and struck that Barber down dead
It was safe to say poor Jerry’d seen red
And when they found him?
Well Jerry was drowning
In the sticky sap the Barber had bled.

Now that’s the end of this tale, apart from the “Where are they now?”
Six months down the line Jerry pleaded guilty
Now he’s locked up in the state penitentiary...
You can visit him one until three.

When we were knee high we couldn't wait to be where we are now
high school didn't matter but god did we ever
stress about the little things that weren't so little in our eyes.
School was just a thing we couldn't wait to be rid of
our friends were gonna last forever no matter what our parents said
we had our lives all figured out.

Now we're college drop outs paying bills in apartments
you picked out with that person you thought was the one
left at square one wishing for your youth back
so you can shake your ******* teenage shoulders
and scream to smarten up cause they were right.
They were right.

Echoes all around me,

coming from every which way,

of evil laughter,

taunting me.

Louder,

stronger,

make it stop.

It comes from within me,

where no one dares to venture.

For in my mind,

it is like a cemetery,

on a cold October night.

There lies,

all of my passed on hopes,

my rotting dreams,

and my buried wishes.

My heart six feet under,

in a ragged coffin,

forgotten.

Dig it up,

save me,

I beg.

There I stand,

at the iron gates,

with nothing more than,

my tortured screams.

No one listens,

no one ever does.

The laughter will never stop,

until I smarten up,

and realize,

I only have myself.

my spelling has been rather poor of late
from the words some letters were omitted
this day I shall not goof up on my slate
those grave mistakes won't be permitted
a friend did tell me to smarten my act
she said she'd observed so many errors
in my compositions this be a fact
she stated that I must stop these terrors
by employing greater concentration
on applying my pen to my lines
exact spelling is a good validation*
using this tested way I'll not get fines
to-day no letters have been forgotten
*henceforth my pages won't be so rotten

To those that dwell on sadness
and think of hurt and pain.
What really makes you sad?
Are you sure its not all in vain?
To the one whose partner left them,
is he or she worth the agony and strife,
If they could not appreciate you and
accept you in their life?
To the teens rebelling and behaving
like a brat.
Do you really know why your like this?
Your game is getting old, to you no one wants to chat.
To the ones drowning in their sorrows and beer
down at the local bar.
Please be careful after and don't you dare
get behind the wheel in your car.
To the young ones dabbling in and getting high off illegal drugs.
Better smarten up and kick the habit so you don't
wind up like street thugs.
To the ones crying suicide and "watch me cut my wrist."
Maybe think of what your doing.
Is it really worth the risk?
To the stranger in the club that thinks
talking ***** will get me with him in bed.
You are obviously delusional, I'd rather kiss
a frog instead.
To the woman that gets abused
better leave before its too late.
Some are not as lucky as I've been.
Some don't get to choose their fate.
To the lonely souls out their crying all the time
why they think their life should end.
Just remember you have options.
You can allow Jesus in your heart that leads
to a path that will mend.
So to everyone that's listening, to this I say...
there's more to life than heartache,
"just don't give up so easily", I pray.
We always have a choice and one
is always grim.
Don't you think that you deserve
one that isn't dim?
There aretwo roads to follow.
Which one will you choose?
One way leads to happiness and the other
you will lose.
To those that are depressed and homesick
and do miss.
My heart goes out to those that have a heart.
I hope you soon find true comfort, joy and bliss.
So to those that are suffering, you see
you don't have to raise your voice.
To those suffering, you have a choice.

Sherri Harder

It's the same every day I'm a groundhog
Time to get to racing
but I'm shaking when I'm waking
Feeling sober but Its almost noon
can't remember what I've taken
What a cycle what fun
Until you're entire bodies aching
And you're wading through a pool of sweat
Quiet nodding in and out and hear the voices fading
You know exactly what they're saying smarten up and start praying
Alcoholics tell me I'm anonymous
And to act the way they say to me
Just another day another hour count the minutes til graces me


Not another dose another ** is gonna save me
Not some new clothes couple bros couldn't change me
Work yourself to death try make a lot of money
For shelter, warmth, for something in your tummy
Then for the real warmth seeping in your tummy It's a traditional leftover from
The latin liquor bunny
He's like the Easter kind, just got one thing on his mind
Except he comes every day
feed your body and mind  
It's all fine it's all fine
Except I basically got brined
Head and body now I'm dyin
Wouldn't change it for the world, couldn't change my mind

You sicken me lately
I can't look at you it's crazy
All I hate in myself plus more
Is in you and maybe

I shouldn't be taking
This approach by saying
Things that sound mean but
All I mean when I say them

Is for you to realize when
People don't like you
Thrse are many reasons
Why they spite you

Your easily frustrated
sense of humor of a fool
You swear too much and u
Never completed high school

You still wear your pants low
It looks like u crapped urself no lie
No wonder u can't ***** train your
Son who thinks why should I

Not crap myself if my dad still
does, look at his pants
And if u feel like your going nowhere
In life this is y u can't advance

You have a history of drugs
Hang with questionable people
Your pasts path had alot of
Smoked grass and acts of evil

This all adds up to equal minus
subtracted from your life
No luxury for u and the son
U had when multiplying real nice

Now divide you two from his
mother with a remainder of u
Who seems to have a fraction
of his **** For brains to the power of 2

And if your getting mad at me
Don't bother because
I'm the only one willing to tell u all
this, being blunt with truth and love

Hoping to help u salvage
What time u got left
Now reflect on all I've said
And take a deep breath

And when I stop talking u
U Will realize what is clear
That this whole conversation was
With yourself in front of a mirror

telling yourself all u needed to
Hear was a reflection to smarten you up
So this is a letter from me to me, or me to us
Wake up... ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,That was really ******....

The world needs an Italian grandmother
Dispensing wisdom and clarity by the cup
With a gentle slap across the back of the head
Followed by a simple utterance, smarten up