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Recorded Reading (2:43): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jobin1a30b90bg5qct7ud/No-Other-Language-is-Understood-Here.wav?rlkey=izsne5wgrndo5j9h2ubkm2nbn&dl=0

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No Other Language is Understood Here

Why do I waste time manifesting love?
What error has possessed me all this time
Even to try to make upliftment of
The gift and burden of my lyric rhyme?

Why not just do as everybody does?
Why not just “go along to get along”?
Why not give in prevailing standards to
And sing a more expected, sanctioned song?

I, after all, have been stoned on this night
Have been infested, poisoned, fumed and mocked,
What was this “brotherhood” insisted I
Potential we had? Oh, I talked and talked,

Did not I, like a common idiot?
A rube, a simpleton, a perfect fool?
At last I think I see me graduate
From my society’s Callusness School

Let’s see if I have understood the rules:
If I see someone hurting ~ hurt them more
If I can take advantage ~ leap on it
And in relationship ~ always keep score

Communicate only brief cliches in,
Perpetually look advantage to,
Seek self to benefit before all else,
And every other with suspicion view

Gosh ~ I can write now much more easily
A very diff’rent kind of poetry
Mocking and belittling everything
About every other sad, sorry soul I see!

Why not, if castigated anyway
As revolutionary, really be?
What was this bug, constructive wording for?
I with my blind detractors should agree!

My opposite of revolution, sure ~
From affirmation unwilling to swerve,
Demonstrating reconstruction instead ~
Did not get me the credit I deserve

Because in such a bludgeoned culture, in
This teenage-reading-level, dumbed-down land
A message of constructive evolution
Just isn’t something they can understand

So let me put my wine down, and my book,
Plop down before the TV with a beer
And get to talking hatred too, because
No other language is understood here

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This poet is physically disabled. Public housing being insufficient to her medical and creative needs, she is presently living, in order to continue working, in her minivan, publishing all of her works using one thumb on the touch screen of her smartphone, surviving at an income of a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. She would treasure any donation you might care to offer ~ http://www.UgiftABLE.com ● #72D-31S.

Please be aware that it takes several days for the poet to be notified of contributions. International patrons please contact the poet via email or post a comment for the necessary numbers.

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