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TEARY-EYED

When a newborn enters the world
When a loved one leaves the world

When it snows on Christmas day
When family comes from miles away

When you find the one you truly love
When you have to depart from ones heart

When a pleasant memory comes to be
Well those are all the things that are
           Teary-eyed to me

Eddie Presley Herrera (c) hillfiger@hotmail.com

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I FEEL LIKE POOP

watery eyes stuffy head
I think I would rather be dead
than face the world tomorrow
I really should stay in bed

yet I know I must face another day
and like it or not my instincts say
that my life should be on pause
or certain circumstances I will pay

tonight I'll have a bowl of soup
and if tomorrow you see me droop
you can bet your bottom dollar
that I probably still feel like poop.

Chuck Reimer (c) genex@cybrzn.com

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CALL ME

I was born to a woman;  I didn't ask to be here
A product of what you taught me or better yet what you didn't
You look at me and see my father, 
I didn't do anything to you but yet I feel pain
Scorned for a night's passion I cry
I've taken years of abuse many times not knowing why
Growing up all I needed from you was love
To determine how I might turn out, you held in your grasp
Now a man I walk out into the world
The things I've done, I've done out of necessity
I've been called everything from dog to criminal
I lie, cheat, steal cause pain
I am man; I take the blame for what I've done
A man doesn't blame others for his mistakes 
But tell me, does all the blame lie on me
Love, respect, responsibility are what a young man needs to be to taught
All I got was pain, grief, and constant reminders of my mother's mistakes
Never once was I taken aside and told, love you mother, love you sister, 
love you wife. I bust out into the world full of hate; deep down 
I even hate my mother for the monster she made
Not born that way, I was bred that way.
Real men don't show their pain, but we do hurt just the same
I try to return to the comfort of a woman but that fails
She wants what I can never truly give her,
Something I was never told I had
Call me dog, blame me for the pain I caused you.
My only mistake is trying in the first place;
I'm not capable of being what you ask for 
All men aren't like me, not all can even 
understand even though they claim they do.
How many crimes have I done because of you?
How many times have I tried to please you?
I do whatever to keep you happy but you don't even know the pain
Asking me to share what can't be shared, not even described; 
True hatred for the world one step away.
I look at you my sister and I see a queen I should treat with love and respect
But I can't give it to you, I was never taught that and now it's too late.
So now I'm a terror and some poor woman has suffered
At my hands, at my mind I deliver unconscious blows to your soul.
If my mother could see me now would she be proud?
The vicious cycle has started again
Now my son prepares to enter the world.  What will become of
him?  Will he be the one who finally breaks the chain?
I pray that he does, but yet I can't teach him for I'm not there so
it's all up to you.  Like it or not, look into his eyes and see me.
The story hasn't ended, it's just begun, again, and again.
Your little man awaits your wisdom, deliver it or watch me win.

Kelvin (c) lee_0003@yahoo.com

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HALF ON A MAYBE

It's because you are my lady-
The salvation and resurrector of my will-
That we laid down and accepted the maybe.
When we smelt, the alloy is steel.
In our love and lust, you are my only baby.
For all your love I would kill.

Whenever my passion grew hard like steel
I came, I came to you my baby
And my tenseness you would kill
Playing roulette the ball bouncing maybe
hips rolling round like the wheel
Whispering, Damn baby, my sweet lady

Blood back in my head from my now limp will
I could contemplate consequences of maybe
Would or wouldn't I feel breath set free after a kill
We made cautionless love before without chance of a baby
So from the sandman a little rest I'll steal
In silent dreamless night with eyes open lay me

thinking
this is the wrong time of month 
for planting seeds
The magic beans I'm throwin
might need harvest in 8 months
cause I'm one down now
I'm sittin straight up in bed
at some ungodly hour
asking whatever gods maybe for power
And she asking, "Baby what's wrong?"
I'm thinking my money's wrong,
And you ain't right. 
Hiding my wrinkled forehead in the night.
I answer, "Nothing."

It's the doctor with the steal
Over a table staring at my lady
We contracted to kill
Because we can't afford no baby
Under the grind of the wheel
So we went half on a maybe

Reyhan Wilkinson (c) raw2587@mwsc.edu
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LOSS OF INNOCENCE

We were children,
Patriotic, brave children,
Innocent of Horror.
All too soon,  
We were forced to grow up,
To face danger and bloodshed..
Terrors real and imagined,
Waited there in the dark.
But grimly determined,
We stood our ground,
Though the reason got lost,

In the fight.
And we were Proud!
Then we came home...
Some of us whole and some of us not,
And no one cared.
All these years, we've stumbled along,
Bewildered and lost, remembering and lonely...
Scorned, ridiculed and ignored,
For something out of our control.

And now we're men,
Hardened and inside ourselves,
But it's not too late,
Won't you try to understand?
We were just children.

Dorothy Benner (c) dorilvn@N-Link.com