1963 (The year the real America died) – by Ronald K. Mc Kinley

Miss Suzy – A Love Song – by Mary Getlein

Cosmic Grandeurs and Warfare – by Laura Shepard Townsend

Lives Without Time – by Humberto Gomez Sequeira-HuGoS

Forgetting – by Emily Wood

beats – by Steve Tegel

Reflectionless – by Arist Niciforos

Adullam – by Roger Houston

Haiku – by Devakinandana

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1963 (The year the real America died)

Fifty years ago I became a man.

My father, then my president died.

My father died from a blood clot; my president died from a bullet.

My innocence also died; so did America’s.

It was not real, like a dream. But it was real; it is real, real as pain that does not go away.

My father dead in bed at home, my president dead in a limo in Texas.

I was in school at the time. My teacher was called to the office, left us kids alone. She returned to a noisy classroom crying. The room became quiet after she said,” How can you be so noisy after your president is killed?” We did not know. I was thirteen.

America has never been the same. You can see it; you can feel it. Who would it benefit to have him dead. Ask yourself.

How can a few men shut down the whole country? Tea anyone?

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” – JFK

– Ronald K. Mc Kinley

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Miss Suzy – A Love Song

she skips, she turns and runs

she sings –

oh how she sings

she opens her mouth wide and sounds pours out:

a blessed sound

lift up our voices and sing!

she lives that commandment, every day

she writes her own songs

and performs them

she is a teacher,

tenderly telling the story of what it is like to be human

what it is like to be in love

and not loved back,

she’s our own Judy Garland

such a tiny body to bring out such beautiful sounds

her posture is erect and beautiful

as she is

she’s a flirt to all, a lover

she is interested in people

and makes it personal

she is delighted in discoveries, young and old

she is jazz, jazzy, jazzified

she is Miss Suzy Williams

and we are lucky to have her

a singer, a teacher in the art of living and loving life

she never holds back,

packs all her craft into song after song

living gloriously in the moment

magnetizing the audience

they can’t look away, they are drawn to her

and bask in the warmth of her smile

– Mary Getlein

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Cosmic Grandeurs and Warfare

On a Mesa

High above San Clemente

The sun is in its daily surrender to the sea.

The wane of light distills the sky

Into a serene backdrop of cerulean

For sanguine striates of scarlet

Swathed in lustres of fire blazes

As Finale a flicker, a

Flash of emerald bids adieu

In splendorous surrenders of amethyst horizon.

In antithesis, to the East,

Explosions of clouds spatter the sky

Etched in neons of silver as

The supreme orb of moon, round with tribute

Mounts amidst tumbled shapes

A Full Moon Rise synchronized with the Sun’s Setting

My soul soars with portents and possibilities

But wait!

The music of the spheres

Is displaced by an overture of boom cadences

Ah, it is the Marines in Camp Pendleton

In practice with heavy artillery

Games to simulate wars

In Afghanistan (or wherever we might find them)

Such a Malevelance of Projectile Blasting

On this night

This night of cosmic grandeur

No time for the regard of the Earth

Nor Her Universe of Infinities…..

Of Star Light

Or Constellations,

Ancient and guiding

No siree!!

The Marines to whom it has been charged

To protect and to serve, we are

In pursuit of the Real McCoy,

YES SIR!

And by the way,

Blasting to smithereens

Lots of the Do-Re-Mi!

I wonder about the wildlife?

The Bobcats and the Bunnies

What about the Trees

As the men of war convert the magnificence

Of High Desert

To a Wasteland of Bomb Craters

Too bad, they’re missing the boat.

And, man, why don’t we stop them

For their own good?

– Laura Shepard Townsend

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Lives Without Time

By Humberto Gómez Sequeira-HuGóS

For María del Rosario Aguirre Durán

I am a particle of dust

structured

in the thoughts of awareness

produced

by the fusion of electrons and neurons

concatenated

in the chemical current

of the germs of lives

without time

created

by the explosion of stars

in the void.

———————————————–

Forgetting

By Emily Wood

Sometimes I forget who I am

Who I am

Sometimes I forget who I am

Who I am

Sometimes I forget who I am

Who I am

Sometimes I forget who I am

Who I am

So I close the eyes

On this tumultuous head

A thousand fears strike – Take me over

But I remember what I said

Have patience

Have patience

Have patience

Have patience

And it opens me

Tears streaming to the ground

There’s no hope

I don’t need it right now

Faces appear – I become them

Feel through their skin

And then there’s mine

In its insignificance

I’m all over

I’m all over

I know now

I know now

But do I stay here?

Can I stay here?

Should I stay here?

Will I stay here?

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

Eyes open

To the place the girl was sitting

Someday I’ll choose

For now I’ll try to stop forgetting

————————————————-

beats

By Steve Tegel

sometimes

i hear people say,

“i make beats.”

but beats are found

not manufactured.

why is your turn signal

so funky?

it’s no accident that

every machine works

in time.

the first beat i ever found

came from a dryer

and a washing machine

operating on clothes.

the second beat

was produced by the

machine designed to

wipe the rain off the

windshield of my

mother’s car.

the byproduct of any

machine is music.

in this sense,

music is waste.

beautiful waste.

if you turned on a blender

and a powerdrill

at the same time

you’d hear harmony.

i am also a machine.

(a machine designed to

detect and decode the

musical waste of

other machines.)

when human machines

discovered rhythm

everything else probably

made a lot more sense.

i cannot hear the music

made by the machine

which records these words

on this screen.

but someday

someone will discover it

and invent a new dance.

————————————————

Reflectionless

To live in the light

of the world.  Is the

top of life only to

be revealed.  A flavor

in time, as a child,

since gone.

To find again

unmasked, you

must shatter the

glass of the mirror

that holds your fears.

Release the pain

of what you believe

is true.  It is your

quest to validate

the truth.

Sift from those

who feed what

they would have

you eat.  It starts

when you care

enough to live now.

To be a child with

love, break the

glass.  BREAK

THE GLASS!

It will reveal itself

and you will play

in the fields

once again.

Free the false

reflections that

have bound your

truth of what you’ve

known to be real.

To live in the light

of the world.  Is

the top of life

only to be revealed.

A child in the field

…of truth sifted,

and free to play

with the others

in love.

for my diva daughter

Arist Niciforos

—————————————

05:55 Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013, Adullam ….. A wolf, apartment-sized, lays

on my floor, Where melting moonlight found a place to pour. Was quick to note

the symbolism. Saw The irony in this. I heard the call. It woke me up. It would

not let me sleep. It made me take dictation: record keep. The wolf, oblivious,

just snores away. In moments, will begin the light of day. I let this

interruption slowly steep. Then rendezvous once more. Plunge ever deep.

Somnambulation. Writing on the wall. Awake, and dreaming. I’m beyond the pale Of

ordinary, rising at this hour. With this last line, begin another tour …..

Roger Houston, Post-Beat Romantic (formerly  a metaphysical cavalier)

———————————————–

Haiku

Dive Deep the self wait

outside there is nothing Real

Can you see Her smile!

– Devakinandana