Where one man can survive,
Two will fare well;
Three and their Families will form a tribe,
A thousand like-minds form their own Nation
With Nature as the ruler of their lives.
Brothers:
Find your Brothers!
Find your own piece of land to envelop,
Like Minds:
Share your thoughts.
Let customs and traditions develop,
Let respect be the medium of exchange.
Let brotherhood of your minds grow along.
Love your brothers the way you love your own self;
Give our children paths to choose from
That can’t go wrong.
Come together,
Oh brothers!
Come together.
Your life on Earth is just so long:
Dig the Earth
Know what comes of your digging,
Learn the simple life of Nature –
Relax,
Let it guide you along
POETRY CORNER
LISTEN (Anonymous; with thanks to Liverpool Bereavement Service)
When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving me advice,
You have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
And you begin to tell me why
I shouldn’t feel that way,
You are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
And you feel you have to do something
To solve my problem,
You have failed me,
Strange as that may seem.
Listen!
All I asked, was that you listen,
Not talk or do – just hear me.
Advice is cheap
10 cents will get you
Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper,
And I can do that myself;
I’m not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering,
But not helpless.
When you do something for me
That I can and need to do for myself,
You contribute to my fear and weakness.
But when you accept as a simple fact
That I do feel what I feel,
No matter how irrational,
Then I can quit trying to convince you,
And I get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.
And when that’s clear,
The answers are obvious
And I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.
Perhaps that’s why prayer works,
Sometimes,
For some people,
Because God is mute,
And doesn’t give advice or try to fix things.
“They” just listen and let you work it out for yourself.
So.
Please listen and just hear me
And if you want to talk,
Wait a minute for your turn;
And I’ll listen to you.
POETRY CORNER
HOWL (an extract; by Allen Ginsberg, 1956)
“I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness,
Starving
Hysterical
Naked,
Dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn
Looking for an angry fix,
Angel-head hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
To the starry dynamo
In the machinery of the night,
Who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyes and high
Sat up smoking
In the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats
Floating across the tops of cities
Contemplating
Jazz.”
POETRY CORNER
WORDS (by Martin H.)
Words (by Martin H.)
Words –
They fill the blank page
Bring paper to life!
Don’t mess with their power,
Words can kill
Can harm you
Should they feel so inclined.
And when that’s not enough,
Words
Playfully
Can weave a spell for you
Just you
Only you, you, you, you!
To make you stop
Stop!
And think.
Words
Caressingly,
Can nurture you
In its heaving bosom
Give you eyes to see
Ears to hear
Smells to smell
Orgasms to moan with:
Ill-literacy
Is like life lived without love
A waste.