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guy scutellaro Jul 2019
the average cost of a funeral is
$8,515

death is unaffordable for me

put me in  big oblong cardboard box

2 feet by 3 feet by 6 feet

packing list enclosed

fragile (not really)
      please handle with care

keep upright

       or

supine

send me to the
grande vide

postage due
ghost queen Nov 2019
You ask why I am anxious, why i am depressed, let me list for you the reasons why:

Global warming
Melting glaciers
Heatwaves
Polar vertices
Category 6 hurricanes
F5 Tornadoes
Droughts
Desertification
Floods
Wild fires
Snowless winters
Ice free arctic
Antarctic ice shelf collapse
Greenland glacier melting
Perma forst thawing

Ocean warming
Ocean acidification
Coral bleaching
Sea level rising
Coastal erosion
Over fishing
Fisheries collapse
Plankton extinction
Fertilizer run offs
Chemical pollution
Raw sewage dumping
Red algae blooms
Vibrio explosions

Ozone layer depletion
Lack of fresh potable water
Acid rain
Top soil depletion
Dead soil
Deforestation
Banana palm tree cultivation
Evasive species
Overpopulation
Urban sprawl
Insect apocalypse
Animal extinction
Lower biodiversity
Bird apocalypse
Bee apocalypse
Bat apocalypse
Amphibian apocalypse

Aging nuclear power plants
Superfund sites
Radioactive contamination
Three mile island, Chernobyl, Fukushima
Endocrine disrupters
PBAs
Autism
***** count collapse
Effeminization of men

Noise pollution
Light pollution
Chronic stress
Diabetes
Metabolic diseases
Over eating
Obesity

Drug resistances
New and emerging diseases
Epidemics pandemics
Swine and bird flu
Genetic modification
Biotech tech
nano tech
Crispr
DNA
genetic testing
Designer babies
Aging population
Health care rising
Unaffordable medications
Uninsured
Medicare of all
Medical bankruptcy
Social security bankruptcy

Rise of terrorism
Rise of extremism
Far right
Alt right
Lack of education
Masculine identity crisis
Emasculation of men
Decline of boys
Rise of girls

Increasing depression and anxiety
Increase anxiety depression among young girls
Lack of human connection
Social isolation
Social awkwardness
Snowflake generation
Disintegration of the family
Suicides
Social media addiction
**** addiction
Drug addiction
Alcohol addiction

Lack of equality
Political corruption
Kleptocracy
Corporatocracy
Plutocracy
Oligarchy
New American aristocracy
Too big to fail
Privatize profits, socialize losses
Decline of democracy
Fascism
Terrorism
Religious extremism
Religious tension
Political divisiveness
National unity
Second American civil war
Helplessness of the common man

Big data
Data protection
Algorithms
Internet tracking
Lost of privacy
Artificial intelligence
Singularity
AI white collar job lost
AI automation
AI back office
Autonomous AI
5G supremacy
Quantum computer supremacy
Virtual reality
Augmented reality
Cybernetics
Chronophobia
Outsourcing
Off shoring
On shoring

Over education
Under employment
Skills gap
3rd world immigration
La reconquista
Cultural dilution
Status quo
Declining economies
Housing crisis
Housing cost
Homelessness
Illiteracy
Hunger
Unemployment
Full employment
Racism
Intolerance
Race relationships
Increasing crime
Student loans
Credit card debt
High mortgages
7 year car loans
Inverse yield curve
52 week high

Wars
Military interventions
Social uprisings
Dwindling resources
Resources conflicts
Rare earth metals
Depletion of helium
Peak oil
Fracking
Water wars
Climate refugees
A list of worries people face today that is causing anxiety and depression
Mystic904 Oct 2017
Ye won't comprehend what I mean
Unless acquire the eyes to have seen
Emotions by their true image
Do you know what I mean?

Once harnessed power to play with emotions
Impossible seems revival, work no potions
When crawl back half alive
Anaesthetised images, walking drunk motions

That deep sorrow, sadness and pain
The efforts and struggles all in vain
Isn't what you cry for and say?
Ask thyself,
Who drove you into that lane

Pitch dark corners of thoughts arouse the feel
Four stanzas including this one's just half meal
Clouds of this kind circle forever
Pressing the haunting words, in time I'll heal
--------
<>
Presence of happiness none sees, a pity
As we surmise, there does exist a Deity
For a reason, all this emerged
In everything, there might be something pretty
<
>
Once gripped that strange feel in the prayers
Shall form over body, invisible protective layers
Addition in tons, not kilos
Of sagacity, on each climb of the stairs
<>
Life devoid of expectations isn't the option
The mindset's worthy enough for adoption
Great expectations pave dirtiest of roads
Too precious to be displayed up for auction
<
>
On Him can we lean and must firmly believe
Direct contact's the medicine for mind's relief
Affordable yet unaffordable jewels await
For the closest beings in His regard to receive

F.A teeri
Cedric McClester Mar 2017
By: Cedric McClester

It’s, “affordable housing,”
That we can’t afford
Our cries in vain
Go largely ignored
So please don’t ask us
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
If you don’t want us
To respond untoward

They show us an unaffordable
AMI
For people who barely
Are just getting by
So to call it affordable
Is a bold face lie
That try though they may
They cannot deny

We’re brought together
To plan and plot
Our community’s future
Are we not
But they won’t admit
To what’s already in place
Like a zoning change
What a disgrace

Ultimately we’re told our future’s
Up to us
And if we believe them
As they say we must
They seek our ideas
Like they really matter
But I know all that is
Is just chitter chatter






Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2017.  All rights reserved.
Pearson Bolt Jan 2016
vote for nobody
because nobody cares
that you're a wage-slave
that healthcare is astronomical
and college is unaffordable

nobody tells the truth
about global warming
nobody gives a ****
about smashing the patriarchy
nobody understands that
black lives matter

and since nobody
has an ounce of
integrity it's in our
own best interest
to let nobody have
all the power

if nobody can stop
the endless war and
ubiquitous surveillance
apparatus that subjects
the world to invasive
violations of privacy
then i will give
nobody my support

nobody pledges allegiance
to all brothers and sisters
and organisms on planet Earth
and feels the weight
of each life crushed
by the gears of capitalism

nobody sits alone in
the school cafeteria
nobody begs for change
on the front-steps
of Goldman Sachs
nobody pirouettes atop
a Charging Bull

nobody stares
back at you
in the mirror

a vote for nobody is
a vote for everyone
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
- Emma Goldman
july hearne Oct 2018
i like to listen to bobby womack
sing "fly me to the moon"
while thinking of jeff's blue origin rocketship
exploding in the air

all his pride
crashing down in pieces
recorded for the whole world to see

because i have walked
unhappily down the streets
of soulless south lake union
where clueless people walk by
dumbly raising rents
congesting traffic
thinking they are off to change the world

crying about peter dinklage
yellowfacing herve villechaize,

their stupidity knows no bounds
always hard at work in south lake union
producing nothing that won't be obsolete
the second it is completed
purposely designed to make our lives unaffordable

**** jeff and all his tech bro henchmen
who do nothing but steal the sun from the poor
a white european actor
a white european actor
Simon Nov 2019
Consciousness is tailored for everyone’s efforts. The software, which includes the hardware it’s circumvented towards in order to specialize the countering of what makes it special in its tip top shape that won’t be the downfall of order itself. But the countering of how one tailors our operating systems day in and day out. Like computers and their operating systems. All are specialized with there own software that makes calculations after calculations day in and day out. Sort of a repeatable process for everyone’s pleasures to invoke upon. Circumventing the hardware that mounts an all-out assault of processes exchanging daily operations both inside and out. Guess you can say a operating system is a computers consciousness. Doesn’t matter how advanced one is to claim by performance alone. Sooner or later, the obvious is in its performance through actions alone. Performance is never equal, until you have a operating system that’s proud to be awake and functioning! Now what’s this about tailoring consciousness…? Nothing… Well, not really anyways. Were all tailored ever since birth. Natural inclinations among our living conditions pits us against rougher life styles then what our own kind is actually going through on the other side of there own spectrum. Spectrum's including a posher life style. Tailoring our consciousnesses proudly without guilt or suffering paying the wages in a more illusional priority to what truly counts for something being a one-sided treating operating system. Operating systems are just that…functioning platforms for our waking states to conjure up on a daily basis. Removing this operating system, would be like removing ourselves. Seizing to exist in our fully established biological states completely! Whatever state your consciousness is divided by, don’t tear it away because yours just seems to not function up to the claims of what lifestyle you (THINK) you should be tailored by. Whether you asked or not. Thou understandably it’s not your fault to what lifestyle you were brought up by. And the poverty that produces those brims full of guilt or suffering pays more wages to what is the true operating lengths of what the world is truly founded upon. Operating systems in computers are safe because there functioning. Tailored to be the tip top and posh lifestyle that one was engineered when sold separately. Which in tune was given to a higher base operating system that’s now channeling the wills and wants of what this engineered system is occupied to function with. More priorities in all! WOOT! Our consciousness sits back while judging harshly based on not feeling, because feeling is made more then just a waking state system. Its functionality isn’t important because it’s drawn out to be a system. Hence a somebody to tailor your own self importance’s up because your awake and functioning. Consciousness is tailored to exist because it’s there to see how the vessel that binds us all together, gives us our self importance in the first place. (Snapping of someone’s functioning width gives rise to friction counting for something jaw-dropping!) Achieving the snapping mechanism in one go. Thou many services kept trying with processes battling for perfection. Forwarding the plan to notion the regards of…what…exactly, pray tell?? They say we mirror our believe system out into the world. We make mistakes which spawn greater examples for the self importance eliciting the lesson of forgone truths straight from our focused conscious could elaborate on. Just like how apparently consciousness could reflect the universes true purpose in (WHY) the operating system acts the way it does. Hiding its true tailoring arts in such a twisting bind, it’s unaffordable to even speculate on. It’s simply beyond our pray tell minds to operate on. Yet we interact with it on a daily basis. Twisting, while binding something isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not forgetting to include the involuntary postures shooting out the benefits to this natural, possibly biased claim. (What riches foretold such events to come…?) Obviously, nothing to what tailored these operating systems of ours. Electronic computers. Bioelectrochemical humans. Creations or creator. Tailoring their computations and biological processes to the highest degree. Everyone has a operating system that lets you consciously interact with the software that permeates the hardware holding it all together. Just like how a skull holds a brain. Which holds the nestles of mind. And mind carrying out the calculations of software bounded to the hardware that mind is also bounded by the brain. The universe is massive, yes! But a network in itself once said, (that no matter how big or massive your typical construct might seem to absolve all constraints of triumph! You need to look a little closer.) Humans dedication towards operating systems? Tailoring conscious properties?! Computers being creations of advanced operable, functioning exercises which circumvent those daily practices are too beneficiary to the thing that bounces back to a functioning mirroring mechanism playing for keeps with the lifestyle we all play ourselves in our own nestled corners. The universe is no different. But it’s not as big as you truly give it credit for. (Tailoring consciousness hears a snapping of someone’s functioning width giving rise to the friction counting for something without jaw-dropping results!) Maybe tomorrow when your operating system is all deemed redeemable by no good lucky efforts. You might start to benefit yourself among close surroundings that play you to look too far ahead of what is already tailoring you up to play the part directly towards.
Tailoring one's own awareness with the operating system that bodes well with everyday riches, produces harm to the rightful of places.
Disha Mehta Jan 2014
A pretty young fille
Around her is a happy feeling
Moody and waivy
Always gossiping and charming
Emotionally high
She's a delicate darling
Dreaming and aiming high
Dedication is inherent
Working hard towards her belief
Bonded in her family
She's a wonderful fairy
Easily hurt
She must be taken care of well
She's a sweet heart
Unaffordable to lose
I must tell
Caring and naughtiness dwells in her
Innocence is what brings purity in her
Colors are what life is for her
Not to be mistaken, she's a strong heart to hear
Wall to her family
Flower to her friends
She's a butterfly within herself
Pouring your heart out is what you would feel to do
When she's making her presence all around you
Comforting you 'n making you happy
Yes my friends, all i am talking about is MY VERY OWN MITTU!
So, here is she..! She's Mittal who is my best friend since half a decade.. Shez simple and so is the poem dedicated to her :)
my first poem here!
Lynn Greyling Dec 2014
Where  once  the   grasses  played  and  ploughed,
in  faithful  winds  had  swung  and  bowed,
there  now  lie a thousand  flies  adrift …
All  choked  in  sod  and  soaked  to  death.

A million  artificial  stars
be  falling  stars  that  never  stop.

And  on  the  surface  tracks  of  dust
be  grinding  footsteps  hard  and  fast,
too  cruel  for  moon  and  earth  too last.

Groping  hands  of  eternal  fright
not  finding  what  they  ever  might .
The  treasures  they  will  no  more  find,
obstruct  their  eyes  and  make  them  blind.

                                          
Through  brutal  conscience, smog  and  fire
our  paradise   has  changed  to  mire.
~
August 2024
HP Poet: Guy Scutellaro
Country: USA


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Guy. Please tell us about your background?

Guy Scutellaro: "I'm an adult basic education specialist at a local college, "a teacher". You have to be part psychologist, part coach and I especially enjoy working with students from other cultures and countries (Egypt, Greenland, Palestine, Kashmir) it's enlightening."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Guy Scutellaro: "I been writing poems and stories off and on for years. since HP I've been writing consistently. I guess I've been on HP 6, 7 years. I use to send the poems out, had some poems in the small presses. recently, I sent some poems to one small press. the editor sent them back because the pages weren't numbered. I won't send anymore."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Guy Scutellaro: "I go back and reread my poems. I amazed at some of the **** I come up with. Sometimes I have just a word or phrase I'd love to use and I begin with that. The poems, stories are 80 percent fiction. Words fascinate me...simple words. there's a difference, for example, "a" house, and "the" house, a completely different connotation."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Guy Scutellaro: "At one phase of writing I eschewed capitalization. no one word is more important than another work. Punctuation, I thought was unnecessary. the same thing can be accomplished using line breaks and spacing. But now, I see the creative value of using capitalization and punctuation."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Guy Scutellaro: "The poets I love and are most grateful too are the poets on HP. There's a gentle kindness that permeates the poets that comment on my scribblings. Their words are greatly appreciated. I recommend reading the "Latest" poems. there's a desperate and endearing beauty that appears on those pages at times. Perhaps it's the desperate, heartfelt honesty that attracts me to the poets I read and admire: Sylvia Plath, Shane McGowan, Robinson Jeffers, Anne Sexton. desperate, heartfelt, honesty is something I'm shooting for in what I write. but I'm not reluctant to throw in "*******"."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Guy Scutellaro: "I enjoy listening to music. lately, I'm into big head Todd and the monsters, cowboy junkies. Other interests are the outdoors, backpacking, mountaineering. Although now it's unaffordable as I m paying back my kids college loans."



Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to get to know the man behind the poet, Guy! We are honored to include you in this ongoing series!”




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Guy Scutellaro a little bit better. I most certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #19 in September!
~
Leisa Battaglia Feb 2021
America.  Known famously as the melting ***.
It's suddenly become more important than ever if you're white or not.
We've spent years creating a society that tries to be color blind.
Now, no matter where you look, talks about the color of your skin are all you will find.
Everyone, besides Native Americans, is an immigrant here.
The color of anyone's skin is no longer so clear.
How do we separate all the different races?
I see many different races when I look into people's faces.
Because I am a Republican, I have been accused of White Privilege.
I choose to measure people based on their actions and knowledge.
The hilarious thing is I'm being judged and I am not all white.
Turns out, that doesn't matter as long as I belong to the party on the right.
I supported, contributed to, and voted for Trump.
That makes me worse in the eyes of the left than a ***** with a ****.
I'm a minority in more ways than one.
But the amount of ***** that they give is none.
I have a job, no welfare or Medicaid here.
But, for people coming into this country illegally, their fate is clear.
A free ride, where Americans like me, are left to take it in the rear.
Tax increases, unaffordable healthcare, no more free speech due to fear.
Everything you say that doesn't align with their agenda will be erased.
Just like they'll cancel you if their values and ideas are not embraced.
I am a woman and my heritage draws from many different places.
French, Honduran, Puerto Rican, English, German, and Italian; just to name a few.
We are all a mixture of many different backgrounds and races, even you.
Yet, I'm accused of White Privilege, based on politics alone.
So what if I work hard, pay my own bills, and own my home.
I believe All Lives Matter, not just the black ones.
Because no one is all black or all white, not our daughters or sons.
We'll never be united and strong until we realize this obvious fact.
America has been weakened in the eyes of the world based on the "victim act".
Slavey is a thing of the past and we should leave it where it lies.
Any society that tries to erase or forget its history eventually dies.
Republican or Democrat, we're all Americans here.
So, I won't be silenced out of fear.
A member of the working middle class.
I'll say what I want, keep my gun, and the left can kiss my ***.
John F McCullagh Jul 2013
In Detroit, the "motor city".
The wheels are off the cart.
Auto coverage? unaffordable-
four thousand just to park!
So many buy no coverage
or pretend they live elsewhere.
The apathy is palpable
Local government doesn't care.

There is a high court precedent
handed down from Robert's chair
The President must get involved
to save them from despair.
He will assess the situation
and appoint an auto czar.
to force all to buy insurance
It will be called "Obama-Car"
Residents of Detroit give false addresses or don't insure their cars as coverage there is triple the price of the surrounding counties.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
Nothing ever changes,
where the worth of this and that is set.

Tell'em all, who hook ah, ha, chiral

reality, hearing, hmms and bzzz meeee
whining all kinds of things,

down, dirt hertz low, as one of those
contrabassoons,
French bubinga wood,
-Google it, it is as magic may be yet,
magical contraptions contrived
in a mind,
in stages,
whistle phone, I ignor thee,
Lady, of Spain, I adore thee,

If I had chosen a differing way, some time ago,
decided I was made
to be a river kid,
but come to find out, we breed best, where
our mothers were born,
- high green vales
- home feel romantic, as such antics were
portrayed, more, more, more
in the bread and entertainment
citizenship bought
for thirty man years
of absolute loyalty
to a bevvy
of oaths
by
any child shaped for leadership, bonded
entered into the system, asked
to swear
in the name
of all that is holy, set apart, behind the curtain,

not in Oz, Jerusalem
in that mind Christ used,
right, Romans-
let this mind be
in you… word level logic magic any may imagine
we pluralize our individuated minds,
and join in seeking clear channel communication
- tear ye the dusty curtain -
after all the outs are in for the evening,
cool of the day,
spirit and truth,
wow
we
make breathing work, come to think about that,
if your will is telling us some thing we may think,

3 major sneezings 3 by 3's, gobsogreasygoferguts,
we survive,
having coughed up a tiny, eyelash-size hair,
meta vessle,
where my bet is in the bits on this side,
war
has no
lever see,
free is bein' out of bounds. We may consider Kerouac,
his teletype paper rolls that he could imagine
becoming my entire system
liquid crystal frame nets fishing
for sentient mindshare where global peace, accepts
string theory as
my gnosisnot, is it spirit if it is true. If we are paradox-
ical, we are not stupid as a species,

we've bought a bill of goods, they used to say,
we found reason to believe,
we were lied to
for a set of reasons.
- first being we all lie, we think we know.
The onto logical truth, in my case, is - in 2023,
my life is good, I am a slob, and out of the way,
so, settled in some ways, is dust fine, we flake away.

My choice is to consider the reader, who reads
for fun,
kicks
in text
be unaffordable - attention is commodity
in any other context,
some things
are words, mere, as a word,
is one of them,
a class of flavour overlooked missed,
mere [hap]
anon,
we turn the radio on, and all we hear is humms.
Abnormality, in truth we find such things used beautifully, often,
passing in flashes one can respond to for - some time, a measure of it, may
be per haps
Ghazal Aug 2015
Oh what a wonderful phase
We are in right now, us five girlfriends,
With defunct love lives and no immediate hope
of securing a boyfriend.

Oh what freedom there is, in
branding ourselves "unaffordable platinums",
And priding ourselves at being too good for
those mortal, fallible, self-proclaimed "alpha" men.

Such hypocrites we are, actually,
Ridiculing and belittling that cute guy,
Still discussing his every move, nudging
and giggling at each other when he passes by.

But hey, call us hypocrites, evil, mean-
All of it we whole-heartedly accept.
Right now, we're living life in moments,
And our bucket list of madness, we mean to "check"-

Aimless flirting - check!
Pointless bedtime discussions - check!
Choosing a guy and then dissecting
His every habit - check,
His dressing style- check,
His twinkling eyes- check,
That had met ours today over lunch break- YES! Check!,
His last aloof message- check,
Sending an even more curt response- check,
Our hidden hopes that he would reply,
With affectionate words and also apologize,
For all the times he wasn't all that nice- wistful check.

Oh we're a bundle of emotions, us five,
Sans pressures and restrictions that a guy brings along,
Sans complexities and compulsions that come free
With his supplies of testosterone.

So, broadcasting this to all you gentlemen out there,
If you ever venture into our line of sight,
Prepare to be scrutinised, evaluated, and then rejected outright,
By this precious, exuberant pack of platinum five.
burgundy tshirt Mar 2015
Life's colors exist in red, yellow, and blue, an unaffordable simplicity existing only on the gray wax paper taped to my pallet. My hands are sweaty underneath my gloves, slick with linseed and paint. Leaves fall and stick to the surface of artificial canvas smeared with the tracks of pigment on my brush.
There I dance, grass caressing my bare feet, hair guided by the gentle breath of wind. An improvisation of ultramarine and alizarin crimson and titanium white, time transcends, though the shadows move. In this moment, nothing else matters except for the performance of light, color, motion.
different style of poetry.
3.12.15
Carly Two Oct 2011
Cutting, like rings in a fist-fight.
Jumping, flying, drowning, floating

She said trying to fall asleep was like jumping.

Promises like traps:
with bills
and utilities
and watering bans
and road construction
and mixed district schools
and mall-fires
and field trips
and infomercials
and unaffordable abortions
and MTV
and Show and Tell
and homeless people
and freemason bolo ties.

You’re sick
You’re sick

She said she just wanted to know what it felt like.
Copyright, C. Heiser 2011
Why had Andy chose to quit smoking?
He had no job,
                        no ambitions,
                                              no passions.
No reason for salient speculation on the beaming waters
of the immaculate Pacific horizon from those unaffordable balconies
you see in movies, with sports cars rushing toward them on
that unnamed California byway.

“**** them all,” he thinks, crinkling the now emptied package.
He'd rather be reformed and forgiven
            or punished for what he‘s done.

Not both.

Stretched on the rack for his failure.
To acquire a Malibu suite.
To cup silicone *******.

To fix the loose handle on their porch‘s door,
              and smile while reciting, “I do.”

“One more won’t hurt,” says Andy,
as the woman in his shirt wraps her hands
around the shoulders.
The cloud circles his head, as they laugh about the sunset.
MMXII
Kewayne Wadley Aug 2016
She was a victim of my creative stimulus,
But I, no Frankenstein.
Great change brings sudden fear.
In brutal honesty,
Could she perhaps see I was the one dead searching for life through her all along.
All along I the sheet of paper that's become delicate to the wither of her hand.
The ideals and sketches
Alert that any moment I could be *** up and thrown to the side.
Without the modest nod of ink from her pen.
With careful eyes, thoughts only divert so long.
My hand longs to touch
But my mind is not so such anymore.
At this point religion became unaffordable.
I now suffered misery of a different sort, not wanting to lose what we've created.
I Feared she'd flee once she sees me for what I really am
A hideous creature searching for an perpetual sense of resurrection with
The acceptance of growing old with someone
brandychanning Jun 2020


neglect and respect do not rhyme,

{will grant you one,
will give you none.

will demand one,
will send you some.

you poets,
always thinking
you can get away
with murdering
the English language.

***** of assonance,
you do not fool me,
I’ve killed a thousand
men’s “original”rhymes,
while you’ve been
fast sleeping,
they’ve been
fast seeping.

I’ll give you no quarter,
won’t spare a lousy dime,
my spare change,
is poet-unaffordable,
cheap suited hucksters.

work and ****
do rhyme.  
you can be one,
if you do not
put in some.

work by day,
slave by night.

awake to the sun’s
inquiry, what have
you done for me
lately?

IF

all you have to show is this
scribbilus miscellaneous,
tear up your lice-ence,
poetic and DMV, you
ain’t going nowhere.

was branded by hot iron,
early on,
brandy channing.

your best nightmare,
guidance counselor,
extraordinaire,
great big fairie,
poseur, exposer,
m u r d e r e r
of awful poetry}


WHAT,  
what do you stand for?
neglect and respect
rhyme,
you stand
I can be an angel with my wings alight with fire
take flight and sing as part of one large
flaming choir, or I could be
the depths you want to see
as you look into the ocean,do
you want me to become
the fun in the fun house,the titmouse that makes you squeal,the breath on your lips that make you feel so very, very nice or the unaffordable price that I won't make you pay and
the heat of your day turned into the spice of my night
the shade on the lamp light or the shadow you find as you tune slowly in to what's going on in my mind?

Would it bother you to know that I'm as slow as a snail
would you sail as quickly to this dangerous shore
and be grounded,
though not wrecked as I want more and more of you? do
you think when you sink into sleep that the angel with the wings on fire is there just for the heavenly choir and not for you
did you never believe that your dreams would come true
and if they could would you be
as happy as me
when I'm watching you sleep as I stand guard and keep
the nightmares away?

Sail quickly into this bay
let us lay down and die while our cries fade away
making love in the forenoon
what a wonderful way
what a day to begin.

I am the slave of desire
take hold of my wings and put out this fire that drenches me,quench my thirst,burst me apart and then look into my heart and what do
you feel as I peel off my skin layer by layer
will you say a prayer as we enter?
The pupil and the mentor and which is which but one and the same and oh what lessons to make games from.

The bomb explodes
the fires die down
I open these eyes that have seen so much more than the breakfasts of dreams in a bowl,
upturned and empty on the cold bedroom floor
I want some law to be enacted that would stop these distractions that brings mornings to life and send eyes open wide, where once again I'm beside myself with the passion of loss.

As I burn so I learn and I feel the need to read between the lines, which are the scratches upon the faces from some other times
or lines of other rhymes we have read and lost or ****** away into the bottom drawer.
There has to be more than I see
more than me
more than we or what we become
more fun as we squeal and we feel what we are
something that lies somewhere behind the distance of the distant star
or another bar on the fruit machine
that bandit we see but have never seen
let me think on, and in dreams I'll belong
to the truth of the night
with fiery wings I'll take flight and we'll
start all over again.
Jimmy Solanki Jan 2014
A palace on the clouds
A dream on my skin
A love unaffordable
A life in my rein

Shallow doubts
on the existence
I know not who I am
A part of the resistance


Anyone can run
Some may still fight
But I shall stop
Jump off the horizon
A sea of serenades
Awaiting my return
A time of waiting
A time to mourn


Break a glass ceiling
emblazon the heart
With a wail of the proud
A never-ending run
A forlorn start
A piece of the brave
A piece of the strong
Shelby Predrick Apr 2015
Cobblestones, colorful, decorate paths
Like tiny, petite mosaics in swaths
They lead to something dreadfully fathomable
What it is and what it wants are all but unaffordable.

I walk along the road, a naïve maiden blue
Stretching past the town, it was sun-lit too.
A moment to ponder came in my mind
A second to escape, an instant to die.

Everything goes on just as it is.
Grasses of evergreen hug and kiss.
Aqua skies unfold their maps
As I wander still, not knowing of the gaps.

Soon after, the masses become grey
Horrifying red splashes me away.
I come face-to-face with one I'll never forget
A beauty at its shell, a gun in its net.

Captivating, electrifying beams and grins
They capture a lady's soft heartstrings.
They twist them into vines of terror, all fine
And make them into fishing lines, thus meant to dine.

What may be is what you believe
A last solemn moment recalls the eve.
The days of sweet, blithe roses are gone
In place are thorns, emerged and raw.
Nuha Fariha Aug 2014
You know how it is,
the lady tells me,
Growing up with five siblings
In South Philly

The look in her eyes,
mistrust and scorn,
tells me that she doesn't believe me.

I tell her,
Growing up in a third world country,
where you only eat once a day,
where you get electricity for two hours max,
running water even less,
where everything is an unaffordable luxury
You know how it is?

Living in a one room apartment
cohabited by cockroaches,
married by age 16,
dead by age 30,
You know how it is?

Being homeless for so long
that clothes are literally
sewn into skin
You know how it is?

But I don't.
How it is is not a competition,
not a sick, perverse way to measure
who hurts the most, whose life
represents disaster best.

I nod.
It is how.
Tax
This government’s greed’s cut into my need
By taxing tobacco smoke,
I needed my **** to concentrate,
They’ve turned it into a joke.
So how many lines of poetry
I’ll never be able to write,
All for the sake of the Nanny State
Insisting I quit tonight.

I see it as persecution of
The few of us that are left,
Turning us into a cash cow that
Has left us feeling bereft.
I thought that the days of fascists died
In the bunker with ******’s crew,
We seem to have re-elected them,
They’re telling us what to do.

We should be allowed to live our lives
The way that we always did,
Making our personal choices then
And not be ruled by the quid.
They keep on edging their taxes up
To make us submit by stealth,
By making it unaffordable,
They say it’s all about health.

What will they do when we all give up
And they find all their coffers bare?
What will they find to tax us then
To make up the smoker’s share?
Maybe they’ll tax the pollies perks
That they vote themselves at night,
Whenever the world’s not watching them,
But that never happens - Right?

We seem to be ruled by a den of thieves
Who make up rules as they go,
Their arrogance you would not believe
As they crush the ordinary Joe.
It’s time that we formed a voting block
To target the safest seats,
And toss out the whole corrupted lot
By dumping them out in the streets.

David Lewis Paget
Dresden May 2019
An empty chest
A stomach of pain
Swirling thoughts
Around in my brain

Countless hours
No time to live
Everything I am
I have to give

There's no point
Unless there's love
An endless equation
No one can solve

Day by day
It's all the same
Misery and sarrow
With someone to blame

Are you living?
Finding happiness
Or are you surviving?
Combatting mental illness

No courage to get help
Independence is key
Aid is unaffordable
Never free

Kindness of the innocent
A beacon of light
Someone to follow
Out of the black night
My parallel would not be you
Voice/soul/essence of soil
That I sink my feet into eagerly
For its coolness
Against the stones littered tarmac

A strange sight; behold!
Straying far from home ; a luxury unaffordable
Not worth the ruin, not right the game
Chance gambles a shame to the sweetness
You exhale; my heart wanes

Candy forever out of reach; my lips quiver
Succulence so overwhelming I stagger; err
Before remembering its not my place to destroy
What has yet to be tarnished by his demons

Let it slip slip away
My dreams they await
A haven to gaze and delight
Diluted goods never felt better.
3 Am rambles
Jeremy Bean Jan 2016
Sitting here
with beer in hand
drinking
awaiting better days
but the better days are so few
and the dull nights grow longer
so I crack another open
and discard the last
empty as me
to the corner
not sure how many this has been now
not sure. . .
days. . bottles. . . whatever
drowning aching thoughts
consuming
waiting
for something
maybe for the phone to ring
or a visit from the ones
who have forgotten you
but the women you want
come too late
the ones you dont
come to frequent
neither really care much
they will outlive you anyway
most likely
most do
drinking
away the money
you would otherwise spend
on unaffordable things
that you dont really need
as you cast another
to the pile
bottles upon bottles
in bins
and bags
clattering on a cluttered table
along with crumpled retrospection
hell. . . .
at least there is a bright side
Michigan does have a 10 cent bottle deposit
in which you can take them back
to buy more beer
Ann Beaver May 2014
All this destruction
Is an unaffordable construction
Of an escape door.
Sometime simple, sometimes more.
What did I want?
What did he want?
They say people are better than objects
I think not

— The End —