POETRY ONE
Most People Are Not Like Us
by Angela Snyder
i hate you
i love you
i hate you
i love you
you're fantastic
you're terrible
you're a man
you're a boy
you're a complete asshole
you're my dream come true
you rip me up
you complete me
i HATE you
god i love you SO much
leave me alone!
don't ever leave
I'm begging you to stay
I'm throwing you out
I hope you rot in hell
I want to be with you forever
I hope you get what you want
I hope it makes you miserable
I hope you succeed
I hope you fall flat on your face
I can't wait until you're out of my life
I can't bear the thought of you going away
you're perfect for me
you're destroying me
you suck
you suck me sooo good
I want you to fuck off
I want you to fuck me
I want to shit on you
I want to sit on you
I love you!
I hate you!
Your existence torments me
Your existence gives me hope
how can i ever love another?
how can i ever love you again?
I can't stop thinking about you
I know you can't stop thinking about me
I hope it drives you crazy.
I hope I don't go insane.
How could I hate you?
How could I love you?
How could you betray me?
How could I get back at you?
How can I stop this??!!
How can I find peace?
I trusted you and you weren't worthy of it
I trusted you and you were worth it
most people are not like us
this happens every day
we belong together
i hope i never see you again
don't contact me
keep my email address
shove your money up your ass
don't forget the check each week
don't leave me hanging
dont leave me
FUCK YOU
FUCK ME
Fuck!
Damn, you'll probably never even read this.
have a nice life
POETRY TWO
The Wolves Within
Author Unknown
An old Grandfather, whose grandson came to him with
anger at a schoolmate who had done him an injustice,
said, "Let me tell you a story. I too, at times, have
felt a great hate for those that have taken so much,
with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you
down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking
poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have
struggled with these feelings many times."
He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside
me; one is good and does no harm. He lives in
harmony with all around him and does not take offense
when no offense was intended. He will only fight when
it is right to do so, and in the right way."
"But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The
littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He
fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He
cannot think because his anger and hate are so
great. It is hard to live with these two wolves inside
me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes
and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
The Grandfather solemnly said, "The one I feed."
POETRY THREE
Way More Than Adequate
by Jacques B. Nichols © 2000
There is a place where the soul travels
It is where a marriage has taken place
Vows were spoken there that cannot be broken.
No amount of external pressure can break the vows
A vow made not to another, but to thy self
The vow is to know thy own truth, not maybe another’s.
On the outside all manner of effort and compromises
Can take over the stage and the play goes on, though badly
It is shameful, despicable when this is allowed to happen.
Safety remains so long as the internal vows are not broken.
And what are those ‘to thy self be true’ vows?
They are to hold oneself free so that you can give up freedom.
When the ONLY ONE finally enters your life
And the freedom that you are giving up is the soul’s choice
When will my soul be willing to give up its freedom?
When will your soul be willing to give up its freedom?
Do you know what ‘giving up’ means?
It means that expecting perfection in another is out.
All the tenderness, the wets exchanged, all the closeness
While wonderful and sweet, cannot be mistaken
For the choice to give up one’s freedom.
How will we know whether we are at that place in our hearts?
Are we now ready to give up our personal freedoms?
In exchange for each other’s promise to only speak the truth.
And what is that sacred ritual that matters so much
That is tests our very souls?
It is ‘TRUTH’ spelled ‘TRUST.’
Give me one kind of trust, the one that is not blind
Nor is it prying, spying and imagining
It is trust wrapped in love, where imperfection is OK.
Ok it is, because as a poem my parents loved said:
“We may love a bit, and scrap a bit, and chum a bit,
we two, but in all the world, there is no one else but you.”
(Name)___________________, love me, trust me be true to me.
I, (Name)________________ will love you, trust you and be true to you.
Give to each of us our freedom to be imperfect.
Allow the passage of time to be the final measure
Of whether my soul has made new vows just for you
And the Heavens will one day welcome us hand in hand.
POETRY FOUR
by Lalla
Playfully, you hid from me.
All day I looked.
Then I discovered,
I was you,
and the celebration
of that began.
POETRY FIVE
The Last Word
by Glenn Murray
Two brothers
Two others
Live three blocks apart
In two different (ha!) worlds
One who thinks he's different from his brother
And one who thinks he's different from his brother
Two peas at odds
Something happened fifteen years ago
And they haven't talked since
Haven't spoken
Agreed
Argued
Endured
Or shared the same sidewalk
Who remembers why?
Who knows or cares?
It's the principle of the thing!
One day the argument ends
There is no meeting
No resolution
No settlement or forgiving
No peace of mind
There is cancer
And there is death
There is one brother who won't go to the funeral
And one who isn't there by choice
But now there really is one brother who is
Different from the other --
Dead
And one who has to live with
Never being able to say I told you so
POETRY SIX
On the Nature of Human Compassion
by Alden Nowlan (1933-1983)
I said to a herring gull with a broken wing:
Bird, I am sad for you.
If I could make you trust me
I’d take you up in my hands,
carry you back to the city
and hire a veterinarian to heal you.
Or if my stomach were stronger
I’d use a stone or a club of driftwood
to shorten your death.
And the herring gull answered:
Man, you are not sad for me,
but for yourself, so great an egotist
you can put on the body of a bird
or play Mephistopheles to a housefly,
what you call your compassion
the conceit that all living things are
Alden Nowlan in disguise.
(From: The Mysterious Naked Man, Clarke-Irwin, Toronto, 1969.) submitted by Glenn Murray
POETRY SEVEN
Author anonymous
Emotional pain scars your heart
Pluto wounds the deepest
Tattoo that scar like an antidote
Transform into that Phoenix
The scars won't go
They are there for life
Transformed, they are your gift
Tattoo that scar, remind yourself
Of when you cast that pain adrift
POETRY EIGHT
A New Light on the Road
by Merlin Hampton
I believe that love is everything
said about it in I Corinthians 13.
And, I also believe that love
is the following:
Love does not sanction inferiority,
and it does not acquiesce to errancy.
However, it is full of enthusiasm for others,
and it sees beauty in everyone.
Love does not always obey the rules,
nor does it demand perfection.
Love rejoices in pleasure,
but does not run away from pain.
Love seeks its fulfillment
but it also seeks to do no harm.
Love is not only radiance,
it is also the pull of gravity.
And it is the tension between
these two opposing forces—
which also complement each other,
that perpetuates all of existence.
POETRY NINE
Your Shadow
by Brendon Downes
Your Shadow is close, in your flesh, in your bones.
Under bed, in words said, in warped thoughts, in your head.
In your friends, in your job, in your strangest of moods.
Look around, deep inside, everywhere hes imbued.
Dont look in the dark, the twisted and black,
search in the light, nay, hes closer than that.
When you think he is gone, thats when hes nearest infact,
he’s pulling your strings and laughing at that.
If you can feel a dark presence, an impending doom,
what you have witnessed, is your Shadow in the room'.
POETRY TEN
You are a Dancer
by Terri Vernon
Face your worst monster,
it won't go away until you do.
Confront your demons,
they demand a good fight.
Turn toward your shadow,
and reclaim your discarded parts.
You are a warrior,
like it or not.
Your monster, demons and shadow
are your secret, sacred allies.
The battlefield, a dance floor
You are a dancer,
like it or not.
POETRY ELEVEN
Shadow Dance
by Ting Du
The Imperfection is a journey
leading to Perfection.
My unconscious mind is like an upside down black umbrella,
hoarding onto all the unfinished past lives’ story-lines
Time to flip this lopsided umbrella,
raining cats dogs
within my subliminal shadow side.
Fumbling, bumbling
beneath the mysterious
subconscious iceberg,
exploring an immense terrain
within my inner foggy soggy...
untouched underworld.
Shaking hands with all the faulty imperfected selves
Allowing all my inner naughty kitten, clumsy puppy
a chance to explore
some fresh insights
out in the wide opening world.
Embracing every quirky cute animals within me
Set them free…
Swimming among the multitude beauty of this
inner union-ship,
humming along the joy of my heart,
dancing out the rhythm of my soul.