"Look at all the useless mouths," said the king to the court jester. "Useless mouths, sire?" the jester replied. "The hungry mouths of useless people!" the king responded. "Fond of themselves no doubt, and surely they are hungry. "But are they any good to me?" The jester only sighed. "The kingdom cannot feed them all, not now, and not tomorrow. "Someone has to say who lives and who shall die. "That task falls to me. I say, first feed the soldiers." "There will be nothing left for others, sire," said the jester. The king shrugged. The jester held his tongue. "Come, my friend, let us go out," the king said to the jester. "I'll walk among my people, and this will make them glad." "Your useless people, sire?" The king said, "Hush. "The people like to see that I can leave my throne." So they went out. A crowd drew near around them, then it drew back. Someone threw the first stone.
The eyes on the wall are scared you will never speak again The paint the eyes are made of is scared you will never speak again The wall the eyes are painted on is scared you will never speak again But whether you speak or do not speak, you are not alone The wall and the paint and the eyes and these words say so
What will be yours,
after all giving and taking,
getting and losing?
In the end,
only people,
beloved and loving
And in the end after the end,
not even they,
not even you
are we what we are told we are? herded cattle nothing more? hooves and horns, complaining tongues, given ladders without rungs no way up no way out wealthy cattle high above safe and sound looking down but if they fell oh, if they fell they would feel our horns they would feel our hooves wealthy cattle high above someone please give them a shove
Then what is? I ask. What is? Flesh lying alone? The grace of quest? The haunted, lazy houses are unaware that they are upside down. They quiver with loneliness. Some show signs of decay. Others are neat as can be, and some are so attractive one might almost.... But no. Go your way. Up through the body rises soul, soul, soul. It is everything that the body is. It was theirs but no longer. I have it.
It's time to write a poem Time for words in order Never mind the feeling You lack a destination Today your words may wander One following another Like a walker's footsteps That will do for order The footsteps of a walker Wading in the water Spread out and out as ripples And seem to disappear Yet waves of light spread out From each and every ripple And the light-waves captured By a watcher's camera Give rise in turn to waves From pixels on a screen Or ink upon a page And they spread out again As we are here to see Ripple to ripple, wave to wave Wave to wave and word to word The wandering goes on Goes on at least for now Perhaps it goes forever
searching for her roots by RichardLeach, literature
Literature
searching for her roots
Tenderness went searching for her roots. She looked in the tunnels under New York City and met the mole people living there, who were strange and not as scary as one might think but not exactly not scary, but she did not find her roots there. She looked in the sky, which seemed like a clever thing to do, and on a cloudless, sunny day said to herself, "Yes, my roots are blue", but the next day was overcast, were her roots gray? Can roots be one thing one day and another the next? She could not say. She went to the house of a friend who was a musician and sat down at the friend's piano and tried to play her roots, but her fingers did not know what to do. She hit the piano with both fists and that sounded something like roots she thought, but then again, maybe not. She went to the house of another friend and while they were having tea asked her, "Do you know where my roots are?" And the friend said, "Of course I do. They are hidden within your fruit." Tenderness said, "Yes? I guess?"