Tag: free verse

Step two

although the thought that we wasted
money, misplaced our trust and threw away
our time sickens us to no end, we must

accept these logic-defying feats of idiocy
as learning experiences; otherwise, we will walk
no further on the NAA no-path. We must

say it again and again,
we’ve been toe fooled, we’ve been toe fooled, we’ve been
toe fooled.

are we home yet, Shanti? This must become our
anti-mantra, a non-affirmation
affirmation capable of penetrating our ether-filled minds,

helping us to admit that Jesus.com has nothing to
do with Nostradamus. Now is the time when we must
learn to question every Tom, Dick and Guru who shops

in a health food store, see that the only implants in
need of removal were inserted by the most dangerous E.T.
of all: Earth’s very own Extortion Terrestrials.

this is a difficult task indeed, for only those who’ve put their
inner children to bed know the difference between retail
spirituality and spiritual retaliation.

(From 12 Steps For The Recovering New Ager. Submitted by Ana Prundaru)>

4 AM in the Morning

I saw my dad was on my mom
and my mom said
Go to the office.

My dad was hitting her
and when my dad left
he took my phone.

His friend
was blocking the stairs.
His friend’s name is James

and my dad kicked my mom
and he told me
to go in my room.

But I went to go get
my mom’s friend
who lives in our back house.

My dad knocked on my door
to the patio and I opened it
and he came in

and told me
to close the door
to the family room.

Then I heard yelling
and I came out
and my dad was hitting my mom.

It happened
at 4 am
in the morning.

(Floyd Mayweather’s young son, Karoun, in a police report September 2010. Submitted by Richard King Perkins II)

Filey

Almost mid-way betwixt
Scarborough and Bridlington,
Filey Brigg,
being a nose of cliff thrust out into the sea
to form a horn of Filey Bay.

Here, there, are sands
i n o n e v a s t g l o r i o u s e x p a n s e,
from the Brigg to the Bempton Cliffs –
six miles of them all round the bay,
so spacious that there could never be
any overcrowding.
The beach
shelves
gently.

(From Every Woman’s Enquire Within: A Complete Library and Household Knowledge for all Home-Loving Women, 1939. Submitted by H L Foster)

To do list, October 21, 1950

Be kind,
resourceful,
beautiful,
friendly,
have initiative,
have a sense of humour,
tell right from wrong,
make mistakes,
fall in love,
enjoy strawberries and cream,
make some one fall in love with you,
learn from experience,
use words properly,
be the subject of your own thought,
have as much diversity of behaviour as a man,
do something really new.

(Activities that critics claim a machine could never by fundamental nature perform, from Alan Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950. Submitted by Daniel Galef)

A Hiding Darkness

The monsters
in our cupboards
and our minds
are always there
in the darkness
like mold
beneath the floorboards
and behind the wallpaper
and there is so much darkness
an inexhaustible supply
of darkness.

The universe is
amply supplied
with night.

(From Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning. Submitted by Anabella Maria Galang)

Profits

in the
real sense
of the word,
pro that
wonderful,
fun, and
deliciously creative
force that
bathes the body
in delight and pleasure,

and what you are actually against is porn sex?

a kind of sex that is debased dehumanized formulaic and generic a kind of sex based not on individual fantasy play or imagination but one that is the result of an industrial product created by those who get excited not by bodily contact but by market penetration and –

profits.

(From ‘Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality’ by Gail Dines. Submitted by Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer)

Some Sort of Shining

I can still see the bright-crimson glow.
This wasn’t any ordinary fire,
It was some sort of shining.
I’d never seen anything like it in the movies.
That evening everyone spilled out
onto their balconies
and those who didn’t have them
went to friends’ houses.
We were on the ninth floor,
we had a great view.
People brought their kids out,
picked them up, said, “Look! Remember!”
They stood in the black dust,
talking, breathing, wondering at it.
People came from all around in their cars
and their bikes to have a look.
We didn’t know that death could be so beautiful.

(From Voices from Chernobyl. Submitted by Howie Good)