The Saudi Years

1. It Came

I’m ready
This is the year
Before, it was unseen,
Seemingly obscene
To think it, even queer,
But this is the year;
Its arrival’s quite clear.
I feel it my eyes and ears,
I see it in my fears;
It’s written upon my heart,
Where before it was far,
But yesterday, nearer
And today it came �"
It’s finally here!
I hope we’ll never part.

by Maxwell Ryder Glen

2. Clam

Neither can a clam clamor or clamber;
Nor does he claim to be dumber than he is lame.

3. A World That Emerged

I am here to relate a tale of a curious world that emerged not long ago on Earth. It was a world full of urges, money and scourges; a world that emptied its foodstores for GMO corn; a world that saw the last of the eagles soar, and new predators born, namely Tony and George, who spawned religious and confessional wars among their Gentile prey. Pawns of a ponzi scheme devoid of any gentility, and predicated on hostility. It was a world of little promise, violence and gore; of blood-red dawns, greed, rotten to its core; that sold little boys and girls to Boko Haram and Catholic orders; one sure of the Coming, but not the coming day. How did the end begin, you ask? Well, lies, for one; but more than that, how about 1948? It was a world that festered as a sore, until the puss burst forth, oozing out its pores; disseminating far and wide its spores, until its evil impregnated more and more, making single mothers out of unsuspecting fathers; and so it died a death, making good women w****s, boozing their attackers on power, forcing victims to cower in the sight of man's unholiest rapier and shower; these victims were bought in bars, then knelt in stalls, or laid across the backseat of cars. That, and the bored couldn't stay the course, and verged on the malevolent, the deviant, in all its discourse, acting sexually untoward. And then came the purge of the police in their various urbs. Life once hailed and respected, never was the same; and became a silence never heard before; the races that had finally begun to mingle, inter-marry, and knock on neighbor's doors, were yet again, embroiled and torn. The reckoning became a stillness jarred in urns: mantlepieces of the poor; headstones they couldn't afford, so they fired their loved ones to ashes. Over the years, tears dried up, fears disappeared, while conspiracies still burned the memory of oil-plenty societies now extinct and replete with every disease. Battlefields became insurgents or asymmetric warfare - terminology for genocide - but never liberation movements, stalked by catafalques, prayers, and funeral dirges; empty pledges were exchanged, as well as glamorous words extoled, but actions didn't extend beyond presidential lecturns or kingly thrones; and the deeds of God were no longer sown, grown or sold, but spurned for a lower concern; and gone was the ancestral home - humans had returned to itinerant nomads, roaming alone. It was a world where weal was incurred on the rise of the Kurd, that left truth immersed in the dirt, the copses of corpses lining kilometers of pipeline corridors: sandy yurts, inert from their eternal repose. So weak was justice, it was assaulted from above on the wings of drones; outside of any court jurisdiction, peacenik bombers constantly roved; which only struck a chord among the righteous, while the men at Fox, Jesus's plea ignored, never bothered to turn over a stone, but to throw one. Soldiers physically worn and psychologically shorn abroad on foreign shores, came home as vessels of Satan, and vassals to their lower-case corporate lords; till today their limbs amputate and adorn freedom's overtones; they're clothed in tattered Hollywood dreams, that once pulled the masses through their day-to-day routines, recalling epic scenes, until they became automated, redacted asses, addicted to shooting shotguns whilst quaffing shot glasses at girls' birthday bashes - damned candy asses! Can stupid ever be coward? I doubt it. This world grew ever more dour after ignominy became the deformity over which they had no power; and still-birthed were the emotions flushed with each abortion down toilets, the rape-seed of some handsome John's fetus; the cursed of Lot's children had gotten lost in the word consent, refusing the Heaven-sent in preference to some heathen man's rinse, who sought not right from wrong, not least practiced repentance. Stripped of dignity, they preferred getting sotted, jiggy with it, often risking venereal spotting. In the old humanity there was a real longing, but they had gone so far that they had called on the Apocalypse, not from their hardened hearts, or their sweetened lips, but by Providence.

4. A Dedication to a Friend

I'm not yours yet, so don't rush me to be; let me go through the progressions of me.
I'm at the stage I meant to be, and I meant to say the things I do.
Even if I regret them, they seem redundant or they outrage.
You have lived your life, so let me live mine before I change, and I will.
Life is to be lived in stages, and like bottled wine, aged in a still.
If you open the bottle too soon, you'll have lost its vintage and thus on this man must you wait.
Though I don't make a lot of sense, let me ferment; the grey hairs are my vintage, my wisdom �" don't forget;
so give it time till this oaken barrel's sated, this cask of amontillado's breached, spigoted, and dated;
and my apologies if I ever sound bigoted, or way too frank;
I may be sour grapes now, but maybe later I'll be a mellow merlot, a fine chardonnay,
or, dare I say, a white zinfandel you drink in your old age. Your patience will also have been the essence of my lovely bouquet.

5. The Chosenite

What have the Chosenites chosen today - to laugh away human rights? To kill, destroy or maim? Kidnappings fake? Ghettoize, lay siege or blame? To yank children from streets? To unleash settler gangs in the West Bank? To maraud, bomb or pillage? Set fire to cars? To machine gun sheep? Cut down teens, olive trees or Bedouin villages? And blame Hamas - I'll not mention Gaza - and bleet the same ol' refrain: Islam permits human shields? Though the IDF would wield a child just the same, and sit it on the hood of their jeeps, those contemptible creeps! Everyday it's more of the same, Pharisees propagating their racist stink in their efforts to defame. Where art Thou, little g-d, Naftali Bennet? Oh, that's right, on the tele, the BBC, your bully pulpit in times of need, to stump and sell it, calling it any way you can spin it: a Palestinian is not human, after all, but a killer creed! Slaughter him! Then we'll honor him by telling him he ought to be proudly victimized as a goyim, and thus a servant; though he's just Abrahamic kin, and just as semitic as We are him. Such propaganda's not just lame, it's asymmetric and insane; and it serves to tame the beasts until we can take and fake and take again, in a vicious circle that's win-win, rendering Judea and Samea bantustans. (The asp wraps around the neck, much like the Ukrainians have done in Russian Donetsk). Oh, and here's another trick. If we get in a bind, we'll just kill our own kind to expand our biblical home outside its confines, bulldozing any ol' Corrie or self-hating Noam that whines. Even We need to sacrifice Our blood to achieve our ends: To the Jordan and beyond, Euphrates to the Nile, in revenge of Rome! Do it quickly, O Israel, while America's stolen and in denial.

6. Fobbed

If it's government you sought,
It's the devil you have bought;
If it's the slogan, "Yes, you can"
That you believe is the light of your land,
Or one that led you to Zen,
I would like to mention, you've been
duped, yet again, because you would do no better voting the Elephants back in.
If it's Barack you wanted, just tell'em:
"No, we cannot!"
In fact,
Just because they pretend to care,
Doesn't mean socialist Donkeys don't rob,
Or wouldn't steal the very clothes you wear.
If it's your country you want back,
Now is the time to act!
There's this governmental tactic
To acquire subsidies in the form of taxes,
To fund their despicable acts
In Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq
If it's all for your love of Uncle Sam,
And the freedom you once had,
Damn, then it's time to go on the lam,
Because it is YOU who is the sacrificial lamb;
Because it is YOU they'll put to work
in the FEMA camps, to quarry stone
Or oil shale in the Tar Sands,
To pay off America's debts alone.
If you choose to stay, then you have
no one to blame, but yourself
if you explode one day,
while the oil hacks are legislating
laws that back their plans to frack.
Get rid of the delusions you've donned,
It's your conscience that's been hacked
It's time to set your sights on God
Because man has used you as a pawn.
It's not merely a fever you've caught
That'll be gone by the light of dawn;
You've been fobbed -
You've been taken advantage of
by the Bretton Woods' mob,
Because the world's been fixed since
Yalta, Potsdam, and even Tehran.
The U.S. is no longer a place
To hang your hat on, so tell your friends that
They are all wrong! And tell'em to wake up
And stop smoking crack, or bowls
of medical ganja, and empty their bongs!
Tell'em that trillion upon trillions
are owed the Chinese in bonds!
Tell'em their education means nothin'
If they amnesty student loans!
If you can't manage to convince them of these things,
Then it's best that you simply leave.
Be a member of the international scene,
Improve your lot abroad, and be free.
And stop sitting at home, waiting for
your door to be broken in by cops,
Just abscond! Flee your bondage!
For more martial law is in store,
So risk your friendships: beg, plead and implore
Quit watching psyops on Fox, and get lost!
Quit watching those damn Kardashian w****s!
America's time is almost up!
Get up, get off your duff, put down the beer,
and forget about LeBron's latest flop;
It's all smoke and mirrors, so tell your peers
To leave the country before it is overrun
By armed thugs and Boy Scout queers
The end is near, so judge what you hold dear:
Orwellian dystopia or freedom from fear?

7. In and out

I was in an out of books
Almost as much as I was
Into womanly nooks;
Constantly in the mood,
And as often as I could,
I partook,
Chasing that mysterious
Spook
Up inside its fleshy hood.
Though these fish
Weren't hard to hook,
Satan, I knew,
Was lurking everywhere
I looked.
I realized then I should
Have had my head
In the solitude of books,
Instead of thieving crooks.

8. All for Nought

It was cold
The cold is not what
I remember, though
I remember my feet
And their unwillingness to go
My heart was fleet,
I felt it would explode
It galloped distraught,
But must've jumped up
And got lodged in my throat,
For I had nothing to say.
My voice was lost in a choke,
While my head was in a fog
Fraught with chaotic thought.
In that moment,
My soul cleaved in two,
And the other half of me
I left in you
At the tram stop
Until smaller and smaller you got,
Until you diminished into a dot,
And before long, you were gone
Our life together
Had come to nought.

9. Amerika
October 27, 2013 at 3:34am

Yes, welcome to Amerika,
Where all are stripped of hope,
Where most are looking to tipple,
And others, for just a poke
Man, are we a joke!

My God,
if only men didn't have to work so hard
for a pack of smokes
He can no longer publicly smoke.
That's okay, Snoop will tell you,
"There's always dope!"
The next thing you know,
Floors in bars will be littered with roaches
To go along with patrons' Jack and Cokes;
The sheer lunacy of it all has me stoked.

Amerika,
Where robber barons and politicians
Implement policies of the Hammer and Sickle;
Before it was a dime we earned,
And now it's just a nickel
Their finickiness has gotten more fickle!
The power of the dollar left us with the French tickle.

Amerika,
Where the NSA spies on its own,
And even Angel Merkel!
No doubt, Skype has seen
Its share of every kind of deviant jerk,
Prone to his sexual perks,
And late-night virtual twerks;
Snowden has caused men and women
To zip their mouths, Button up their flys,
Purging their sinful urges,
And flouting their political rows
Only in social media circles.

Amerika,
Where people's lives are left daily in a pickle;
Where they worry less and less about quality,
And more about size,
And if it's ribbed or dimpled.
If only things in America were simple,
Like the beauty of one's heart,
Or the texture of one's eyes,
Or emphasizing what lies between
one's temples;
But instead, we're left so little,
And thanks to Desperate Housewives,
We fool ourselves into believing
We're lacking or miserable,
When in fact we're considerable.

Welcome to Amerika, everyone,
Where sex of every kind isn't just a civil right,
But is now an art, when it used to be crime
Its prevalence makes me want to barf!

America,
The land where everyone begs to differ,
Where Red States worship the Gipper,
And with whom Blue States just bicker;
Even Chris Matthews gets so high,
He'll tingle and quiver,
The thought of which only makes me sicker.

Amerika, The home of wet t-shirts
And strippers,
Of political gridlock,
Where all are flipped off,
And reality TV leaves us simmered;
Where egos are as over-sized
As the fountain drinks and fries,
And calorically speaking,
Are just as empty as the political lies
On which we dine.
Of the deception and crime,
We only have a glimmer;
And with the passing days,
We, the People, don't get ticked off,
We just get dimmer,
Having lost our minds
In capitalism's shimmer.

Amerika, The land of the free,
And the home of the brave,
Where the Second Amendment
Is of the first and foremost rank;
Where it's commonplace to fire Your AK at the gun range,
School, work or any other public space;
Where gun violence is so rank
In movies and video games,
It's insane!

Only in Amerika,
Where six month's at a time,
They move up the debt ceiling:
Where ends the climb?
Where drones fly freely, and kill to save lives;
Where budgets blossom in defense of the needy,
Yet the "real" terrorists
Are never confused for the military,
Let alone, the greedy.

America, to sum Her up,
She's a damn shame, indeedy!

10. A stone Unhinged

There once was a Druid named Lurid,
who was fatally stupid, and knew it.
He tried his hardest to lose it,
but didn't have the heart, aptitude
or will to do it,
And neither could he brew s**t,
So he threw up his hands, and said,
"Screw it! I'm too young, dumb
and full of fluid to do this;
I'll just get hitched
to a smart chick that's brilliant;
So he packed his bags for a trip,
Putting on his charm, he made his pitch,
laying it on real thick:
He blew her kisses, held her in his arms,
and wedged her on his broomstick,
doing whirligigs in the lickety split.
But when she still wasn't convinced,
- after all, she was a witch -,
and not being totally stupid,
Lurid telephoned his friend, Cupid,
Who suggested a prick of his
Arrowtip might do the trick.
Indeed, it did.
She turned beet red, lost her head,
becoming lovesick,
and ever after Lurid's,
Until next Spring, when the b***h
had Cupid's twins.
Lurid the Druid then did what many
expected:
He left his crib, got stoned,
and came unhinged.

11. Anti-ode to the morning dove

So what if they're monogamous,
so what!
In dispraise of the bird we mistook for love,
I am here to wake you up.
Enough is enough!
So, imagine having twins,
And then imagine sacrificing one.
In the case of two betrothed doves,
this is what I saw:
The building of a nest,
The laying of two eggs,
A hatching of a clutch;
As I understood,
It looked like a happy lot.
But then favoritism met the brood,
And to only one squab food was brought,
Until he got too strong,
And out plopped the weaker squab!
During this fratricide, where were dad and mom?
When did they make this unconscionable call
to sacrifice their young?
I don't know, but
The willful favor of one over both isn't love.
It never was.

12. Dumpster kitty

Dear Dumpster Kitty,
all nestled down in that nitty-gritty,
munching on that gristled, rotten s**t.
You sure are looking mighty pretty
in that yellow trash bin of yours;
acquiring worms and
housing nits in your fur.
Purr!
Purr!
Purr!

13. Yean, Woman!
February 22, 2014 at 9:55pm

Yean, woman, but don't lean!
And if you do so, don't show
Your seam, or you'll surely
Look as a sight unsightly seen,
Revealing your womanly site
As Marilyn once did in white.
Crevices are not for friends,
Or the world's delight,
Just your husband's eyes!

14. Yoke

When you take off the yoke of religion,
you simply become a beast of burden,
untethered, astray in the field,
foraging on what the Earth yields
Thou art a disbeliever that grazes,
merely a heifer that steals,
rejecting your Lord's graces
manifest in in His verdant spaces.
Thank and worship Him Who saves face.

15. Women These Days

We live in an era where women are groomed to be s***s,
Taught to be Miley Cyrus, a Kardashian, or some such;
Taught to be more like men in their thrusts.
Yes, we live in one of those worlds.
A world of fast and meaningless words,
And even faster girls,
Where on the first date men now spill their pearls:
What happened to watching a bloom slowly unfurl?

16. Crank Meets Wretch
February 19, 2014 at 2:56pm

One day a crank and a wretch met,
They were insatiate friends till death
All they ever did was inveigh and kvetch
Until hate was fated on their breaths,
Inveterately ingrained and etched.
One day they came across an ingrate,
and in great disdain and hatred
beat him lame for his complaints,
those that once pained them the same.

17. Saudi Part 4

I stopped trying to understand their worth
They're like the mob
That snap their fingers and act like Gods,
IstaghfirAllah!
They commandeer their shagala to work,
No matter they be Amerikis or Bengalis,
Or just communal thoughts in a mosque;
Their deeds and gestures are absurd,
It's our bad for staying here at odds,
Pretending we've been bought
Yet there's no need to be distraught,
For we worship Allah, and his Word
One day, we'll look back, and scoff:
"It was only their nature just as beasts in a herd."

18. An Epic Dream

I thought I was born in an epic dream,
I had my parents, friends and playthings
Life abounded, smiles came in droves
Happiness teemed,
Frollicking in streets, creeks,
Meadows and groves,
And after hours, in sheltered homes
Or so I thought it seemed,
Until I grew old...
And realized that people played on teams,
Listened to different lords,
Worshipping their Stones,
Living morally broke lives, unseen,
In and out of their abodes.

19. Diamond ring

how small, you ask, can a hangman's noose be?
well, try only as small as a diamond ring
though it renders the the bearer proudly estatic,
the sight of her finger, now harnessed,
makes men ischemic, selfish and frantic;
he may violently & suddenly act out of malice.
once hermetic and fiercely nomadic,
he feels his monogamy's become mathematic,
it's the end to hedonism and dalliance.

20. Finis terre

TRUTH OR DARE,
FINIS TERRE
FINIS PAX AMERICANA,
FINIS GLORIAE MUNDI.
SALUTE, MORIBUND-U.S.
TED BUNDYS
THAT FINANCE TERROR
AND FUNDIES
IN FOOTWEAR OR UNDIES.

21. Opulence

Bright are the b*****s that get it,
That flash their tits to win him;
But dumb are the men that simply
Sell these lap-dancing Bridgets,
On the whims of carnal sin, their riches.
Such fidgety Gidgets seduce men,
Reducing them to mental midgets
Whatever happened to getting digits,
Getting hitched, or better yet, just forget it?

22. Men in blues

Men in blues recruit destitute youth to be dewy troops in boots that loot the fuel of militant fools for couth men in suits who tout their coups as news and shout their views as few.

23. The dopamine

I got excited:
I projected,
I channeled,
I pretended I'd won.
I felt like the kid I used to be,
Dreaming on the sofa,
asleep;
If only for a second inside this dream did creep,
A former self of me.
Or maybe it was just
the dopamine.

24. Til Aurora’s light

To the abdication of their God,
Laurels bend in respect of Him;

Lofty, wooded steeds
genuflect to the prevailing winds;

Leaves whisper mournful creeds;
In the summer breeze, limbs swim,

The diadems hiss.

By day's end, the aspen are rent
By their Monarch's leave-taking

Nightfall's tenebrific kiss.

And with their adieu in oscillating
waves, comes a leafy screed,

Hopes and fears converge:
Will their sovereign King emerge?

To paint the firmament lapis,
To free the blinded with seeing.

Until then, these vassals are prey to the night,
And the evil menace it brings;

And the owls that roost on their boughs,
And the hoots and howls they sing,

As they delight in captured mice.

Silohuettes accentuate under Artemis' crescent; all's afright

In the anticipation of Aurora's light.

25. That lady I love best

I can't stand selling you the lie
That are my sweet and tender eyes,
Just to cop a ride between your thighs;
If I could choose a better life,
It would be to make you cry,
Causing you to become that
Vulnerable woman I first met,
That lady I Iove best.
That is how our love is best apprised:
Your gazing consternation
Is your most powerful hex;
It renews my love-sighs,
No longer are we euthanized.

26. Talking of the coffin

We avoid talking of the coffin often,
Yet our coffins are in the offing,
So don't wait for coughing:
Good deeds are flocking - stop gawking!
Seize the day that's dawning;
Don't sit under the awning, yawnin'
God's graces you should be stocking!

27. Shadows Crawl

As the perishing day lurches forward, we only notice the sun-fall
As the brightness palls, we never ponder the shadow's crawl,
Or the moving bulb encased in the latticework of boughs and leaves,
Elms and arbors are mosaic lampshades of yellow, black and green,
Buildings are induced to birth phantoms in the late afternoon;
Shrouds, at first, sprouted as feet,
Cast lines that never live detached of their edifices,
Their extension is an artifice, for they aren't angling for fish
Darkened firths cut out from the swaths of sun-drenched earth,
Their girths stain sidewalks, going undisturbed by pedestrians crossing streets,
They rear and reach: ivy vines that jet up and over murals and walls,
Until obscurity stalls their stalks' creep
Veiling everything, the penumbras die in their own murk,
The day's funereal march to gloom yields to the bloom of night;
All is swallowed in the maw of this haunting urban twilight.

28. Ignore the Conclave of Your Faith

Hop-scotch, four-square,
Kick the can, truth-or-dare,
Childhood’s a sacred
era without cares
One that cannot be erased,
And one that abides in
the expressions of the human face.
It is the realm where our adulthood hides,
Of who we are to be in life,
Of how we are to die,
bitter or satisfied.
So therefore, young children,
With Catholic clergy
don’t go making eyes,
Unless you want to cry
as a victim of scarred thighs,
Avoid them like the plague,
And ignore the conclave
of your faith...
For things will never change.
Now run along to play hide
and seek, but hear my pleas:
Stay away from dark corners
Where defrocked men of cloth
prey and creep,
Unless you’d like to reap
a hurt so deep
Each time you clasp hands
on your knees,
Remember that God needs
no intercessor
In the form of man or a priest.
Ameen.

29. The Thrill is Gone

I lost my thrill to live,
because the world
taught me to chase it
and indulge in my sins.
I lost my will to live,
because my beating
heart beats not for me,
but my fellow humans
beings, dying of need;
I am dying, frankly,
because I have lived
above and beyond
my means to give,
and because giving
isn't a friend of men;
he's just a selfish
money pit --
a consumerist pig.

30. Your stellar kiss

You were my
Romantic love,
My setting sun,
The waxing moon
And stars above
Then you were none,
But a metaphysical
Distance that bridged
Our senses once
By the celestial orbits
Of comets and planets.
Your void despaired
Me so greatly,
But not as much as
Your absent kiss,
Which humans didn't
Fathom could exist,
Which God Himself
Couldn't recompense
Or mimic in
Another vixen's lips
That would ever
Have me forget.

31. Vignettes of Riyadh

With the jarring thud and a scratchy rumbling that followed, a cat vaulted out of the yellow oil-barrel trash bin into the snarl of oncoming traffic. The convection from the sun-glazed asphalt dizzied the car plates in an array of invisible waves as the imprimatur of the late day streaked the street sherbet orange where tires tread. He waited, standing, to observe the cat being flattened, discoloring that shiny groove with cooking entrails. He watched the cat rolled out on an old, charred cookie sheet. (Dead animals were not picked up here. And not unlike Chinamen masoned into the Great Wall, one had to imagine the feline pressed into its shallow grave.)
With successive strikes, the cat had bounced at first, but then the tires began to roll straighter until it became an embedded rug of blood-spattered tabby. A halo of bright red became maroon; then the maroon blackened with soot. The sidewalk from which he jumped where the man now stood, offered the perspective of a juvenile’s art-class drawing of an animal frozen in stride, walking. The cat had stuck out his tongue to his tormentor in jest. It's a good thing it can’t feed the maggots and other vermin of the city, he thought. Too squashed. Too hot.
Finally disinterested and entertaining thoughts of napping cats caught tumbling into garbage truck compactors, the man moved on down the street to find another barrel to kick. Over the busy city hung a crescent moon.


32. A Pearl

Cloistered in the darkness
of an oyster,
And poised to be hoisted,
Harvested from a shallow sea bed,
Lives a pearl of sea-faring roister,
Lodged in her clammy treasure chest.
She dreams of her freedom
And grandeur away from
maritime moisture;
Of being foisted upon some
rich lady's breast;
Yet little does she know
Of her impending bondage,
Being chained on a necklace
around her master's neck.

By Maxwell Ryder

32. Valentine's Day

The delectation of halcyon days,
Patronage of the arbor’s shade,
Merriment on the promenade,
Just a beau and his maid
Seductive flirtation, artful gasconade
Strolling along in love's embrace,
Luxuriating in Cupid's Day,
Without strife, without haste,
They are immune to all that
Is strident, and all that is hate.
What a wonderful world we live in
When God’s gift is a dame!

By Maxwell Ryder


33. A Father's Attendant, His Son

Ya Mohammad,
You sat there so silent,
Obedient in your duty
You were your father's attendant,
On par with his servant.
Though there were guests,
You moved at his behest;
Picking up his glass,
Getting seconds,
Playing fetch
You stood on his right
Ready to take flight
at any request.
How obsequious?
How curious?
Yet, I think
Your loyalty's spurious;
It's to the God above.

By Maxwell Ryder

34. Occupy II

Living in our ghetto squalor,
'We the People' holler for accountability
Of each and every government dollar;
We harp on Wall Street,
Plaintively calling for the downfall of
The Money-W****s, JP Morgan and Citicorp,
That borrow and gorge on mortgages,
Parlaying them off American shores,
Speculating away these denizens' hard work,
And what was Uncle Sam's retort?
What's mine is not yours!

By Maxwell Ryder

35. One to Thirty-four

At One,
you've barely begun
At Two,
you're a toddling attitude
By Three,
You've learned to properly pee
At Four,
you've lost the touch to adore,
And by Five,
you've answered with Nine,
looking forward to more.
At Six,
it's time to meet other school kids
Dad takes you the first day,
but mysteriously calls in sick.
At Seven,
it's time to get your front teeth in
By Eight,
bedtime stories are so lame!
At Nine,
it's a struggle in the lunch line
with ole what's-his-name?
By Ten,
you've learned about original sin.
Then comes Eleven,
and its pre-teen indolence
With the arrival of Twelve,
you're back in form giving us hell
At Thirteen,
you're a brat that gleeks well
By Fourteen,
your friends deplete the streets,
But some stay on to sell weed
At Fifteen,
you smoke your first cig
and dream of a girl's tits
By Sixteen, you're behind the wheel,
while your parents on pews kneel
At Seventeen,
you wish you were Eighteen
At Eighteen,
you would have traded an election year
for the right to drink a beer
At Nineteen,
you've pierced an ear,
or colored yourself queer
At Twenty-One, you're finally legal:
Time for a Bud in the pub,
And good riddance, Twenty,
You were no fun.
But by Twenty-Two,
you've already drunk too much
At Twenty-Three,
one more year's just one too many,
So Twenty-Four comes and goes,
leaving Twenty-Five coming in tow...
And Twenty-Six just blows!
It's Twenty-Seven that makes
you know, that Thirty's comin'
And Twenty-Eight's too late
To get off 29's train
Forget it, it's fate!
Hold up, Thirty-One,
I am ready again for some fun!
With Thirty-Two comes the blues,
But by now it's old news --
You should be a parent
with your own toddler of two!
Thirty-Three is temporarily glee,
If only for the Three that's doubled
At this age, crow's feet are subtle,
And you prefer goin' to work
with stubble.
By Thirty-Four, you're disgruntled;
You've become bored
Feel carpal-tunnel sore,
And, at least once,
Considered a mistress or a w***e.

By Maxwell Ryder

36. Letter of Salutations

Dear So-and-So,
Dear Someone I Used to Know,
Dear Dead and Gone,
Dear Someone Ever and Anon,
Dear Persona Non Grata,
Your memory goes
On and On,
Yet I never get past
Our salutation, Dearest John.

By Maxwell Ryder

37. Democracy

Bogarting and cavil,
Democracy's been
Bucked from the saddle;
It's rotten to the core;
It's simply empty gabble
Covetous of mine and yours;
It's a gallimaufry of
Chattel, pimps and w****s
In need of urgent reform.

By Maxwell Ryder

38. An Arab

Once again, I've been
asked to describe an Arab.

For the record, I am scared
of them:

They raise their voices;
They fuss, fight and kick
Occasionally, they even spit,
And they act like they've
never sinned,
Yet, they are friends.
They are Siamese twins
joined at the hip,
which makes them
the closest of kin to sin.

Arabs are famous for
finding ways to steal your s**t,
Calling it charity from their lips.
Collecting money at traffic lights,
Little street urchins pimp.

Arabs are killjoys of fun;
They fall asleep
before the midday sun.
They wake early
So they can get up
Before the hurly burly,
To pray to God
for the ease of eternity
They have on earth
already.
But, until they get there,
They would like to be
CEOs before the age of thirty.
It's absurd, really!
Such shallow minds don't
seem so girthy,
But all aren't unworthy.

Those are just the ambitious ones,
The majority stay up,
Paying more homage to fun,
And Detroit:
They spin their wheels
to annoy,
In the process being coy,
They flash their BB pins
While touching their groins,
Because they are more
in touch with their loins.

Arabs, it seems, never get
the point
Then again, they they were
never meant to,
It's just as their religion
annointed:
God called them the
worst of nations he
has ever appointed,
So how can they
not feel slighted,
dazed,
or even disjointed?

And many Arabs because
of this are gay,
Or they play a hetero
charade.
Of status, wealth and fame,
Arabs will make a parade;
They snap fingers at
their waiters in haste,
And in distaste, they cluck.

And, oh my goodness,
do they f**k!
Some f**k so much,
They walk like ducks,
Claiming they are gimp
from a game of pick-up.
Needless to say,
they've all lied to us
and are painfully limp
From last night's romp
In bed with their lover's
rump, instead.

It's all simulated piousness,
Arabs would rather
be in the club, just hookin' up,
Or smoking a hookah,
Or blowing back scuds.
For heaven, they are waiting
patiently for the day
God will usher them in,
Pointing to all the luxuries
therein, and say:
"This is the Heaven
you've worked hard to earn,
Spurning all your yearnings
there on Earth."

For an Arab the dream is rehearsed.

By Maxwell Ryder

39. Scotch on the Rocks

I'm an American,
but sometimes I'm not
I'm French,
I'm Polak
Between two cultures
I'm caught.
Don't forget the
whiskey
I don't drink,
but I'm also
as Scottish as a
Scotch on the rocks.

By Maxwell Ryder

40. Warring Factions

War of the world, and always will be: those that believe God is man's invention versus those that think man is God's.

By Maxwell Ryder

41. Take Leave of Me, Autumn Leaves

In the words of Pablo Neruda,"love is short, oblivion is long." But adding to that, is the pain that is living within me, of what I wanted to be with you, and couldn't be: a father and a husband. You stripped me of that, and it is not something I can easily forgive or forget. On most days, I take two steps forward, and then two steps back. And it is easy and perfectly okay to have such harsh words, I think, for someone who took away so much. Dignity has its boundaries in anger and acrimony. Be disgusted all you want, you c**t. You got what you need, and not what you deserve, so keep your "urges" and I'll keep my hurt. I might have good thoughts, or so they sometimes start that way, but all they leave behind is a scowl or, at best, a fixed-less stare that embarasses me when I have to explain it away as, "It's been a long day." The lies I have to tell for a hurtful past, that shouldn't hurt me today.

When the leaf falls from a tree in autumn, in that short moment, you feel happy that you are a part of something beautiful, the color of the forest, the dropping sun that anticipates the grey Fall day ahead, which makes you relish the moment even more. But then a painful realization hits you, that that golden leaf will rot. It will grow brown, wet and trampled by cold November rains, blackening and disappearing into the peat under winter snows. No trace is left of her by spring. Even leaves have a chance at oblivion. I ask God to grant me this oblivion, too, but every autumn I re-visit the golden leaves at Tyniec, the salt of tears I cried, and the investment of my heart in a person that I thought I would go to my grave with; but every time the leaves rot again, and again, and I am standing alone with my tears in that forest of rotting ghosts, with no one to hold or behold.

This summer, hiking in Beskidy, specifically hiking on Lysa Hora. I saw Babia Gora (and the rest of our mountain-trekking plunders) in the distance on the lookout point, and I smelt Krakow just beyond...and the smell of rotting leaves that were still green and in-season came to my nose. They had died before they'd even fully lived, and so had I.

I pray for salvation from autumn leaves. Take leave of me.

By Maxwell Ryder

42. September 11th, Not Forgotten

The problem as I see it, the Americans are smart, way smarter than the rest of the former superpowers. They will stave off revolution so long as freedom and a good way of living are provided. A lot of people would never question a system if it is providing an adequate way of life and the kind of unlimited freedoms the US provides; and most could never imagine that there is something behind it all. The other part might imagine it, but says that it is well worth the trade off and stays quiet and patriotic.
However, I know that no nation that is on top is not doing things behind closed doors, and doing very ugly things, unethical things. We are kidding ourselves if that one day China "takes over" they will not do these things; they will, and so will the next guy.
The Soviet Union did awful things, but in the end why did it fail?
It failed because of the economic situation, it could not provided a truly better life...it was better in some sense, but the Soviets failed because of the limited freedoms and lower standard of living it provided.
So long as the United States maintains that very high standard of living and keeps freedom paramount, it will be able to do what it wants even it be unethical and immoral.
And, yes, 9/11 the American public swallowed hook, line and sinker.
I honestly do not hold Americans feet to the fire, because they can't really do anything even if they wanted. Representative government is a little too remote to make drastic differences quickly. Direct democracy would be better to confront government about its abuses, its crimes. And most Americans are too busy working their tails off just to make a buck. Capitalism is vicious. You gotta go to work everyday! There's no time or money to take the day off and organize protest or petition the government. And even when you do, the government will shut it down like the last sit-in on Wall Street. Don't get in the way of money-making because that's the bread and butter. The freedom, and the droning rhetoric to maintain it through fierce patriotism, is just a distraction and a facade.
Do I miss OU football? Yes, I do. I would like to be sitting with friends and family watching the game on most Saturdays,
but since I believe with all my heart that the United States was involved in the murder of many innocents on that day,
I have since felt that my best interest is not pretending and flag-waiving. My conscience will not allow that. The next question you might ask is, so why are you there? They do unconscionable things, too. They do. But since it is not my society, and I do not have the same expectations as I would for this society as I would for my nation, and it is more about what I held America to be for so long, what I thought we were, so I can live here without a real dilemma.
I really started looking at the laundry list of things, and realized that we were not so good as we claimed we were for so long, which for me was the larger hypocrisy, because everyone knows that Noriega, Ahmedinejad, Saddam, Mubarak, Assad, Gaddaffi, Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin, you name the dictator, were all a******s.
We know that, and we do not have to pretend. But America??? All this flag-waving and patriotism, and for what?
Moreover, I cannot live there if I am gonna have a******s yell at me in the stands because I can't "honor" a flag that has let me down - the flag that we were taught in our civics classes that stood for freedom and sacrifice. Little did I know that the sacrifices being made were so big, and oftentimes false ones. When a country has to murder their own to survive, or in this case thrive, because America is doing well...I am done with that country. Done.
If I lose my passport and I become a man without a country, I guess I will cry then. In the meantime, I pray every day that Americans can, at the very, very least, have a real examination of the facts, witnesses, and what happened that day. The commission was a joke, the report was a joke, and though conspiracy theorists are made fun of instead of lauded, they do make logical, reasoned arguments on many of the facts of the day. They lose to flag-waivers that assume a lot.

By Maxwell Ryder

43. Gun Control

I think a society that bears guns, and especially one that allows proliferation of them, is a highly paranoid, volatile, immature, and under-educated society, and is ultimately irrational and ignorant to think that life will be any less dangerous with them. However, if a supreme government does not have its people’s best interest in mind, and acts Machiavellian to the core, which is how government acts (I do not care how benevolent they profess to be); and a government covets its people (by unlawful detention), their money (through unlawful taxation), revenue or property (out of unlawful search and seizure, domain, or attack), then I think it is the citizen’s right to own an object of force that will stem this unlawful action, because the Constitution guarantees freedoms of conscience, life, liberty, and property, all of which further commute the citizen’s right to the pursuit of happiness. If an assault rifle best protects those unlawful, tyrannical actions of government, and if government truly believes itself to be the people’s protectors, then, allow people to have them to offset this bargain/promise; but outlaw it for sport, and regulate the purchase of it, because a regular bow and arrow will do. For example, allow people of political conscience to own it, but they must then accept a label, “political”, “radical” or “paranoid” in trade, and be interviewed and undergo extensive psychiatric testing. Also, give the public a way to know such information, like a neighborhood knows a convicted sex offender has moved into the vicinity of citizens of good standing, which might create dialogue and transparency with that person as to why he chooses to own such a gun. If managed and regulated well, America will grow bureacracy, but it also satisfies gun owners and people of the pacifist stripe as well. Jason Alexander’s tweet does make good points, using the quote of Alexander Hamilton to illustrate the irrationality of the specious unity, professionalism and skill of militias. Gun owners are really just individuals with basic gun training who are usually highly paranoid of others, and not militias per se. They are more often potential malcontents, rogues, or vigilantes �" but in equal numbers, they are conscientious, law-abiding citizens, too - armed to the teeth, and they do not shoot at anything more than targets or animals, generally.

By Maxwell Ryder


44. I want a Free Syria

I want a free Syria.
A Syria without smoke
and mirrors,
A Syria with a vision,
A Syria without fear,
A Syria that is neither
Muslim, Druze Or Christian,
But One without divisions
I want a Syria
that Lives in unison,
A Syria without tears,
Famine, war or venom
A Syria respected abroad,
And treated without derision
A Syria for Jesus and Mohammed,
The secular and the Quran.
Let Her also be a friend
To Jerusalem, Washington
And Amman
(and not least to Erdagon and Riyadh!)
This is the Syria I envision,
Free of blood feuds and dominion,
And not One of making
Minorities minions!

By Maxwell Ryder

45. Motorcycle poet

I am a motorcycle poet,
Expressive, yet stoic
I carry no baggage,
There's no place to stow it.
Flashy and quick,
I speed away in a
lickety-split,
Spinning my rims
Just to anger motorists,
Protecting my naked wit
with my prophylactics -
a black jacket & helmet.

By Maxwell Ryder


46. The Pursuit of Passion

My little friend called passion,
You are so out of form or fashion
Summoning you to action
In a moment's notice
Is not just brazen, it's hapless.
Fetching you out of my mental grip
Is no cinch, but largesse,
And rarily does it happen
In a pinch - that's crassness!
When seeking your attention,
I often feel frozen and tactless.
To find you saps my strength,
Dimming my wit to s**t,
You've left me mentally spent
And verbally flaccid.

By Maxwell Ryder

47. Viper

looking of a heart-shaped leaf,
this killer, in fact, has a beef;
a coiled viper contemplates
her captor with a menacing scowl,
the yellow beads hyping
her poisonous jowls.

By Maxwell Ryder

48. The grave truth
Steeping in a cold rain,
Autumn's leaves
Seal the freshly tilled grave,
Tucking me in for eternal rest.
Death's behest
Causes Earth's weeping
to seep deep below.
Falling upon me, a wet snow
In a slow-motion shower
I am caught,
Lying under deciduous rot,
I pass the the nights
Peering at stars above
With eyes wide shut,
Freezing under cloudless skies.
Lying under foggy spring
Blankets, supine,
I feel they are colder than
Winter's white duvets.
Flowers six month's old
Reveal themselves, wet
And without smell,
And faded as hell,
They crane their necks
Over their glassy sills,
Drooping jaded.
Eyelash-studded orbs
Peer down and whisper
A lamentation the ground
absorbs:
Tearing up with dew
In this summer seance,
Down drops the truth:
It's as if the living
Believe our deaths
To be a mutual solace,
A time of camaraderie
We pass together
In the nothern solstice.
By Maxwell Ryder

49. Capitalism’s Amok

Though we rave and scoff
And make a mockery of the muck,
Democracy and capitalism's
been bought, sold and quaffed
just to make a buck.
Its drunkenness swills from
bottom to top, blinding
the world's most heartless toffs
To pursue all the lucre
the have-nots haven't got;
Grinding down these worker-bots
in far-away factories,
Who sleep on cots, and not real beds
until they have to get up again,
looking like the living dead.
Employing children just to spin
the spinning ginny for nothing
more than pennies on a shilling
just to make a killing,
They are overseen by the angry
foreman that they call "friend"
who brandishes a whip at the hip.
The system's done gone
and killed our morality,
We've taken it to the hilt,
Ignoring our insanity, and
more importantly, our guilt.
It's buried us under a mound
of s**t a billion times bigger than
Bunker Hill. Yet it's the sin of
our actions to enslave that I'm
most concerned with still.
We have our freedom, but are
we really free when men and
women in far-flung, leafy lands
live afraid, starving, owned by
right hands?
Are we really free when
human beings' consciences
can't breathe?
Where's the acrimony of the
vox populi to put a stop to
such debauchery?
Can't there be fair division
in a world of plenty?

By Maxwell Ryder

50. Kool-aided Life

Everyone drinks the kool aid,
so don't pretend that you don't.
Though many will claim
they don't drink it, everyone
does quaff its essence some;
Though no one claims
to fear or want,
Everyone sleeps
with their dog or gun.
We all bear our stones
on our backs, shouting
our insults until the whip
once again cracks:
"Keep the assembly line intact,
Atlas!"
Democracy's a fat cat,
but it's all an act
Before the final curtain falls,
With broken backs we crawl
on all fours to our beds,
Resting our weary heads
by the eternal dawn.
Life was fast,
and now it's gone!

By Maxwell Ryder

51. Birth

An unwieldy catheter
is thrust through a vein
constricted and calm,
Your mom,
that opened her maw
and regurgitated
you to the world
as would a python,
eating its
prey in reverse
through
its expandable jaw.
Life hangs in the balance:
you are her prey,
her nourishment,
and momentarily,
only as a child could be,
you are stuck in her craw.

By Maxwell Ryder

52. Women's Circumcision

To those in Egypt,
To those that give a s**t:
Cutting the c**t's not hip,
and the thought alone
should make one cringe!
This problem's legit.
Ladies that no longer please
themselves, or their deen -
The omission of halal screams.
Amazonians no longer in bed,
The men of their dreams
go elsewhere instead,
Libidos lie unfed, or left for dead.
Selling out to parents' volitions,
it's a mutilative coalition
that hates on marital satiation;
A patriarchal notion
that a woman's orgasm's a sin!
Cuts lead to infection, mental scarring -
even fusion;
It's a miscarriage of justice
Why do some follow such heritage?
The Prophet's equated
traditionalists to heretics -
It's antithetical to reason,
these cannibalistic clips of the dermis.
Continuing's treasonous
These heathens have had
their season!
Make your decision,
Stand together with us in unison,
F**k women's genital circumcision!
Support women's rights without derision:
The uncut truth for women's win-win:
Men spend better in unsnipped slit!
To all Egyptians,
your future's (and hymen's) on the mend,
InshaAllah, Amen!

By Maxwell Ryder

23. My Someone

You were my someone,
You were someone that filled my cup.
You were my someone once.
You were someone who dressed me in my smile;
When you were alongside, I felt bold and styled.
For you only would I have gone that extra mile,
'cause you were my someone once.
You were my special hug,
You were the face that cheered me up,
And you were always just right and just enough;
You were my someone that showed me I could love.
But you came and went as a thief in the night,
robbing me of my love, my smile...emptying my cup,
And what is left me is not enough - they are but crumbs!

By Maxwell Ryder

57. What is Truth?

What is truth?
The truth has been called all sorts of things:
a friend, an enemy, propaganda, even Santa.
It's been labeled as God, a fraud, even a trick;
the truth's even naked enough to make one sick.
Truth’s so fixed to the near-present, that it
counts less as time grows distant, leaving people
complacent. When others vehemently insist on its
existence, most people do not care for it, unless
it's a truth found in a holy text, or apostolic epistles,
Or the shepherd’s crook. But, let's be honest,
The truth there is a bit fickle.
Truth is only as honest as it wants to be,
and only shows as much as you want to see, or believe.
Truth is manipulated and manipulative -
unnecessarily descriptive, and too repetitive
to sound convincing of itself - as if it’s got someone to please.
It's been decreed by those most in need
as the desire to believe in the God unseen.
Truth's a placebo that gives relief and hope;
Often there only for show, Truth appears,
at times, to be a joke. Fictitionalized and demonized,
The truth’s more than once gone up in smoke.
And when it's exposed, it tries to be hidden again
When naked, it asks to be clothed.
Truth has been called names, like a game,
Someone to confuse, abuse or even use
Truth is something more people say, and less they embrace -
But what is it really? I have no idea,
But the truth is often a revelation of shame,
particularly as it pertains to despicable acts
of the human race.
Can we honestly call it a safe or heavenly place?
For truth's disappeared without a trace -
it's a conspiracy without a face.
For those who seek it, truth's a refuge we crave
after deep psychological pain.
Truth is diverse, yet it pretends to be so many other things,
but the one thing it's not, and that's rehearsed!
It purges the perjured; It nourishes the nurtured;
It gets hot enough to curse;
The truth's also strong enough to reassure the spurned.
It's dignified and kind, but just as often hurts.
Truth needs space, revealing itself at a future time and place.
It never looks the same from person to person,
but remains the same from culture to culture �" now that’s absurd!
Truth's always in the news,
but it's up to us to accept it in part, in whole, or refuse.
And some are in complete denial of the truth.
It is universal, ageless, and therefore not exactly young or old;
But truth feels dishonest if it's peddled or sold;
And most would just as soon exchange it for gold
and call the truth annulled.
Truth is experienced in a moment's notice like a jolt.
Such truth revealed leaves those forever cold.
What we make of the truth, I cannot honestly say,
Around the truth, I no longer know how to behave.
At times, truth hides itself in the occult, the old Skulls and Bones.
I've been told that truth is justice, and that it's blind,
and that it is our final word that binds.
Truth leads us on, it brings us to our knees and makes us cry.
It can also set you free - Symbolically, the truth is a lovely tree;
sitting by its lonesome in a meadow, leafy and green;
Casting its shadow to a traveller braving the heat.
Though truth is brave, and many a life it's saved,
it's sometimes so oft-repeated that it sounds defamed,
stained, or even just damn lame!
In time, truth dissipates, losing its exposure and fame;
It merely becomes another history of its former glory,
Written over and over again, I've lost belief in such a story,
for I know damn well that the truth’s not that gripping, but boring
Its all doggerel! Ultimately, truth is the words we sell
to others, and ourselves.
At all cost, avoid its a bottomless well.

By Maxwell Ryder

58. Potholes of the Devil

I swallow and wallow in
my fears, my tears
I follow them,
Leading me astray,
they're constantly at play,
filling my days
in a number of ways,
and often in staggering arrays;
They aren't hollow, either;
Neither are they shallow:
They are demons of fearful
and epic proportions,
Potholes of the devil
My mind's dishevelled.
To dispel them
will take a plot of ground
and a shovel.

By Maxwell Ryder

59. His Omnipotence

Some call it metaphysical, some call it chance.
An atheist winces, calling it improbable song and dance.
But I give Him credence; He's lent me this life as evidence.
My soul's His omnipotence, forged by His majestic hand.

By Maxwell Ryder

60. Boy Without a Mouth

I sit before you looking
unperturbed
and without demur,
But what can't come out
is a scream!
that I've been mortally hurt,
by the mortar of a devil
that made a martyr out of me.

Don't show me that mirror!
I know what I've become;
I'm a monster from hell
with a movement
and an agenda to sell,
A poster-child for Homs
and the free Syria to come;
And, for a day,
or until I pass away,
I'm a clip of Youtube fame.

I know what it's like to go without:
without a voice,
without a choice,
and now without a mouth -
I miss my smile;
Bits and pieces
litter the ground
My blood nourishes the soil
and "the underground".

I will miss my future life
with child and wife;
I will miss my mom,
but mostly I will miss her
mourning my loss -
She's exiled in life,
but she's among the living, -
In this world, there is no
bigger cost;

Though all that good is now gone,
the anger of the world is One;
It stands in unity with Syria,
and her rage will set her free;

Don't show me that mirror!
I know who I am.
I was a boy once,
and very quickly I became a man;
I was young,
marching in unison
with the liberation song,
the word of liberty was stuck
to my tongue,
but it was cut short,
blown off for sport -
the regime sees me an adult -
My lips were assigned a grin,
and the promise
of a better life to begin,
so don't show me this mirror!
I don't want to see the work
of animals believed to be men.
Mortal silence, instead,
has become my eternal friend,
And it's just as Bashar Assad
would have wanted
when he blew off my chin!

By Maxwell Ryder

61. Saudi's Tahlia

Saudi's Tahlia Street is:
Screeching tires
and burning embers
of lip-clenched,
orange-tipped
cinder sticks,
burning up like timber,
Cigarette butts
flicked in thrusts,
exhaled as cloud puffs,
mixed with burnt rubber
Dunkin' Donuts.
Caffeinated cups.
Silver-boxed Davidoffs.
Drowning in their love
of material stuff,
they swear and cuss,
making oaths,
raising a fuss,
their hands do the
work of their mouths
Over and over,
they talk of nothin' real,
drowned out by the
the peals and squeals
of Maseratis',
Lamborghinis'
and Ferraris' belted steel,
or Bedouin teen creole
that menaces the streets;
Saudis serenade these
greasy Lebanese
that come here to steal
the looks of Saudi queens
wrapped up to the tee.
Down and up,
Desert Arabs cruise this
boulevard of broadways;
they only come here to play
for a woman's hand,
not giving one damn
for the exorbitant.
For Arab society,
it's a heyday of craze -
Partying in blackened cars,
Drifting,
It's their only form of faith
or charm,
in lieu of elixirs from a bar
Blanketing smoke on
patrons of outdoor cafes,
it's hard to say
they are a people that pray,
They fight with each other,
saying:
"I f**k your religion
and your mother,"
can you believe it,
to another islamic brother.
Saudi Arabia:
A paradox like no other.

By Maxwell Ryder

62. Fire and Water

Water extinguishes fire,
and fire dries up the water,
To each is he beholden
to the other
Though they cannot live
with each other,
Thus is the man and wife:
They live merely to quench
each other's strife, and
on occasion come together
to create another life.

By Maxwell Ryder


63. Turned out of their Homs

The scourge of the walking-living,
lamentful dirges they are singing;
the streets have freed Syria
of their embattled homes,
no longer the domains of the bold;
Assad's liberated the city of Homs,
turning out his carnage to the cold,
to fight with their guns in a
falling snow.

By Maxwell Ryder

64. Merely Stains on a Page

Blood stains on the written page,
their permanence remains
On paper, it's indelible:
my hurt is framed.
On human skin, it's erasable;
wounds bleed out, not in
Scabbing over, they fall off the skin
Unless you avoid closure,
unless you die with them,
there's nothin' you can do, then
So don't die with you wounds intact;
Keep the blood on paper,
and the faith that she's never
coming back.

By Maxwell Ryder

65. Saudi (Part 3)

Oh, ye, jointed skeleton donned in thope,
Wearing a dress,
Honestly, how do you cope?
Art thou a woman? No!
You walk the tightest of ropes,
Artful Dodger,
Where's your Koran?
Art thou just a bugger of men?
When your holiest book's tucked out of sight,
You become a sodomite tending to fright;
You seek haram under the cover of night.

By Maxwell Ryder

66. A letter from Freedom

Dear Inhabitants of Earth,
Forgive me for this capitalistic pearl, full of wimpish lads and impish girls that so easily shag, I wanna hurl;
Of non-stop fads: like Gucci bags, tight pants, gang-banger sags, and bust-a-nut call girls;
Of fields and fields of plastic bags and broken glass that defile our lands - our future's black.
When I add it all up, is it so much better than that time of gulags the Soviets had? I'm not so sure.
Or have I just given your consciences a diversion to abuse this jewel, the world?
Sincerely yours,
Freedom

By Maxwell Ryder


67. Facebook

Dear Facebook, I've got news for you: you are neither a face nor a book. You've trumped the good of this world, but I've brooked you as long as I could. Though you unite us, a billion ones, I am sick of all the fuss; you aren't even a cuss, because you only live within us, and don't really exist without us; You are ones and zeros, just! while we are pairs of adenine, guanine,... cytosine and thymine. (Out sticks my tongue!) Our God is ours, and We are yours, Don't get a big head or arrogant notion, because we are the chosen, not you! I can delete you in a moment's notice if I choose, and with little to-do.

By Maxwell Ryder

68. What to do?

Where are we?
if only I knew.
Oh, looky there -
I've lost my shoe!
Venturing round
Poland anew,
a beautiful girl
sits beside me
in blue -
What should
I say to her?
What should
I do?
Nothing.
Sit back,
relax
and watch
the snow
blow through,
with only the
clickety-clack
of the train
bound for
Krakow to
soothe!

By Maxwell Ryder

69. Me

who are we?
who aren't we?
must we be "somebody"?
and if we can't be,
is it just good enough
to be me?
By Maxwell Ryder

70. No Headlights

driving slow and creeping up,
those are the signs
they're in search of butt;
no headlights
tells me what's up

By Maxwell Ryder

71. It Must be Decreed

Riyadh.
She's odd
Or is it a He?
But I am not shocked
I did it in three;
It's the four-plus
years that has me
stumped, you see
It must be God,
and it must be decreed.

By Maxwell Ryder

72. Train Tracks

Sitting on the tracks,
nothing's moving,
memories attack
In the delirium of thought,
I harken back
to a time of moving trains
and pulsating veins,
where I lived a life
full of the inane and insane,
Yearning for fame,
but nothing came of it,
just the tepid pile of s**t
on which I sit!

By Maxwell Ryder

73. Wisdom of the Morning Sun

the wisdom in getting up is not just the pleasure of pissing in the great, white porcelain cup, but the sheer joy of expression in taking a dump, and not just! it's also to see another of God's suns, the chance to get another hug from someone you love, or the chance to lift your coffee mug without being smug.

By Maxwell Ryder

74. Carnal Story

I am a man.
my name is Horny,
and I have
a carnal story:
I love you
everyday of
the week,
but I love you
less when
you speak.
I love you best
when you're
on your knees,
or spread eagle
for me,
and I'm inside
cumming with glee.
But to admit
such a thing,
doubtlessly,
ill of me speaks.

By Maxwell Ryder

75. Breath of Yours

I breathed a breath of yours
that was as fresh as
the Baltic shore,
In it carried hemlock's spores,
So I dreamt the death
of a w***e:
That was to even the score
I died a death
that was mine alone,
and not yours
I'll miss you forever
in one way or another,
but mostly I miss the who
I was with you more.

By Maxwell Ryder

76. Children, Ignore the Conclave of Your Faith

Hop-scotch, four-square,
Kick the can, truth-or-dare,
Childhood’s a sacred era without cares
One that cannot be erased,
And one that abides in
the expressions of the human face.
It is the realm where our adulthood hides;
Of who we are to be in life;
Of how we are to die, bitter or satisfied,
So therefore, young children,
With Catholic clergy, don’t go making eyes,
Unless you want to cry as a victim of scarred thighs,
Avoid them like the plague
And ignore the conclave of your faith,
For things will never change.
Now run along to play hide and seek,
But hear my pleas: stay away from dark corners
Where defrocked men of cloth prey and creep,
Unless you’d like to reap a hurt so deep
Each time you clasp hands on your knees,
Remember that God needs no intercessor
In the form of man, or a priest. Ameen.

By Maxwell Ryder

77. A return to Bedouin and bling

Climbing above the clouds,
God suddenly unveils the shroud
Shooting up through the pillow,
Poland now lies below invisible,
dressed in its white nimbus coat:
"Oh, how I'd love to sit in it!"
But I know full well I'd just fall
right through,
landing in some swampy brew,
dead and bruised
Instead, I view the sun and blue -
they shout God's glorious news!
The angelic winks from heaven
glance off this bird's metallic wing,
carrying me back to the land
of Bedouin and bling.

By Maxwell Ryder

78. Life of Plenty

Food's on the table,
War for me's a fable,
To love,
I feel I'm not able.
I was a clown moved
to the cradle,
Evicted from my mother's
watery stable
Of sin I am capable;
Change is not favorable
If a woman walks by
in sable and fox tail,
babbling of Babel's fate,
dabbling in mink, ermine
and mother-of-pearl,
To me it's all cabal,
she's looking to get nailed!

By Maxwell Ryder

79. Dying

I am dying,
there's no sense in crying -
we all die eventually.
Let's hope that death
will be like the beginning,
without memory, fanfare,
or fighting.

By Maxwell Ryder

80. Dervish

I'm in a state of aversion
I feel as a dervish,
I spin and pour out
my perversions
that I've incurred
and now purge,
Suddenly, I yearn
for them back again
Can I spin in reverse
and pull them in?
To do so's a sin,
To think so's absurd
I'm a Sufi dervish -
around and around
I twirl and whir!

By Maxwell Ryder

81. Sometimes the right hole makes all the difference in life
A good example of how a mixture of religiosity, fear and ignorance feed upon each other to the point where rationality is lost, occurs frequently in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I know of a real story where the people were so religious that they did not uncover to have sex. This couple for almost five years could not get pregnant. Due to this inability to get pregnant, the man divorced the woman to marry a new woman. This supposedly infertile woman was to get re-married to another man, but the new husband wanted to check to see if she was fertile. She was. Any guesses why? Her old husband had been putting it in the wrong hole. Thank God they finally got to some medical professionals to give them the most basics that their parents never cared to give them. I am almost positive that this woman was bad-mouthed because of that other man's ignorance.

By Maxwell Ryder

82. Broads of Warsaw

Running high, my fevered head floods with partial rhymes and the profiles of charming dimes,
walking the streets of Warsaw, wearing clothes meant for warmer climes.
Mini-skirts in four below? Thank god they have the decency to cover their toes, those f*****g hoes!
Dressed like this, it's not just their nose they'll blow,
but some man creeping up with a notion to propose to a madamoiselle in fish-net hose.

By Maxwell Ryder

83. Ravens of Warsaw

Raving about Warsaw's snowy
morrow,
Ravens strike a contrast against
the winter's milky marrow,
All decked out in the blackest
of sorrow,
They talk of the days of yore,
As well as warmer days before
them that are left in store;
Flying over the moor,
they caw and squawk,
And even holler
They challenge birds of prey
for preeminence
under wintery skies of grey,
They invade nests and hollows,
turning them to gallows:
A smorgasbord.
Socially, they flock to talk and gawk,
Carrying on like a bunch of w****s
acting bored
You'd think they lived in squalor,
these birds of deathly pallor,
But their "bordellos"
are majestic oaks
and gargoyles over cathedral doors,
The world's most ominous
of feathery omnivores,
When I look at you,
I feel shaken to my core
Perched and leering at me,
You seem closer to a predator;
I feel unsettled by your throaty
decrees and ebony mettle
Your words aren't shallow;
They resonate and rattle
Yet you're just a savvy scavenger,
and "nothing more."
Your lore's already immortalized
by Poe's lost love, "Lenore."

By Maxwell Ryder

84. Saudis (Part two)

Religious and young,
spunky, yet frail;
Hypocritical as hell,
they're a crazy bunch,
I can tell.
They front
and spin deceit well;
Their gesticulations sell
Though Arabs are fun,
though they present themselves
as learned and One,
under Muhammad,
Give them a test,
and they'll most certainly
cheat or fail.

By Maxwell Ryder

85. I apologize, but I am not a war s**t!

Hello, I'm from America, but I am not its son.
Nor am I a war s**t!
Yes, you're tired as hell with us:
the Iraq War was a goddamned bust;
Afghanistan's still growing opium,
the most islamic of drugs,
But I've got something to say
on the subject of Syria:
"It's a country not nearly
as dear to us, because there's
not a drop of petroleum
under its crust, though Damascus
was the prettiest city there ever was!"
Americans have packed up their stuff,
headed toward Washington,
and the election Obama's just won.

By Maxwell Ryder

86. Wife

What defines the perfect day? What makes it a successful one? What gives a man hope? It certainly isn't a selfish grope or getting lit on dope. Is it more than just coping with the restlessness of a depressive sigh, or the wariness that the end of a day is drawing nigh? Time escapes me incitingly, deposing my soul like William Bligh. Have I said my proper goodbyes to this debauched time? Will God appease my dying urges for a former life? If half of happiness is a wife, stop thinking and book ye a flight to your destiny and marital strife; she's waiting to be taken into your arms, forever hence being blithe.

By Maxwell Ryder

87. Life line Fades

The music drifts away
The songs that
I knew her by
are no longer played
Time takes her away,
melody by melody,
bar by bar,
refrain by refrain.
Memories fester,
reminders of
the best of her,
She's like a wound
nestled on a joint.
My life line fades;
I've lost the point.
By Maxwell Ryder

88. A wasted Man

This is all I know:
My vanity and
My fight with God,
What a terrible man
I've become!
Prisoner 9-1-1
This is all I've ever done,
but reflect on a past,
And fret about having
my dreams dashed
My wound is an open gash,
and yet I wear it like a sash
This is all I am -
A broken man, getting on.

By Maxwell Ryder



89. Syria or Oil?

While the forces of Captain America re-coil next door,
and the wine bottles of Barrack and Sarkozy roil and poor,
my idealistic mind is soiled with thoughts of hypocrisy, death and toil.
Rebellion to the dumb lion cub is being foiled:
the outcome of Zionists less loyal to freedom than oil.

By Maxwell Ryder

90. Saudi Rhyme

Honey's sweet
and butter's yummy,
But nothing's better
than my hubby's money.
We defy God's creed
when we define our love
in Gucci and Armani.

By Maxwell Ryder

91. Saudi II

Big beards and prayer beads are just a bluff, this society's been thrown under a bus. He don't care a lick about c**t, cuz all he's searchin' for is Harry Butt - his best bud - the man he first loved. Don't believe the myth of jihadist bunk: all they have designs on is western fun and Chinese dollar-store junk. Capitalism's won under the hot Saudi sun. Starbuck's anyone?

By Maxwell Ryder

92. Two is a Sign of the Divine

Two is a sign of the Divine:
Adam and Eve,
Easier believed in than seen.
Given that evolution
Is too difficult to glean
With its lengthy passage of time
And Austrolopithicae,
Or Homo Habilis,
Hominids which are claimed
To be the predecessors of Us,
then how can we say:
Who came first,
The chicken or the Egg?
A Woman or a Man?
Or was it just a chicken
laying an egg,
procreating the next generation
Of sunny-side breakfasts?
I believe it was the C**k and Hen!
Just the two of them, saliently
Poking at each other's gems
What a romantic whim!
But the militant feminists will claim,
It was Eve giving birth to Adam,
And later getting frisky with Him
in the Garden,
Stealing his heart and not his rib,
And only once He had grown
To the ripe old age of year untold.
To call God an Intelligent Design,
And His creation just some amino acids
that accrued thru space and time,
Or a Someone that was crucified
Outside of Jerusalem, Palestine,
Is to call Him something
So undignified, and
So anthropomorphous, it's blasphemous!
And neither is it analogous!
It's assinine and carelessly blind!
Our goal as Homo Sapiens has been
To give God no credit,
And us human beings all of it,
Because that's what He wanted,
To celebrate You and not Him?
How shamelessly we wallow in sin!
To say, "Life is written,"
And all along we've known it,
Is to avoid ownership of this work
called the Earth, and all that's in it,
It's megalomanic Shirk!
All of you Christian secularists
have gone beserk,
With your go-go girls and cappucino swirls,
In the creation of your Godless world!

By Maxwell Ryder

93. Assignment #1

The art of writing a persuasive essay lies entirely with the commitment of the author to both his task and stance.
If he is not committed to the task, because he neither sees the imperative in writing the essay, or has too many distracting factors in his life, he will fail. If he does not believe in his argument enough, simply because he is writing the essay for a homework assignment that will lead to a perfunctory diploma, he may manage the task, but his lack of commitment to his stance will make it obvious in the delivery that he has failed all the same to be persuasive.
Why write about something which you are not passionate? Writing of this nature is generally trite, and asks too much of the writer to have an impassioned opinion about something at a time they might be passionless about life, or because they are just not that opinionated in nature to begin with.
Thus, again, I think this is my biggest challenge in writing this persuasive essay. It is the fact that I am not committed to what I am writing about, and I do not see how it correlates to obtaining my diploma. It is asking me to be something I am not - and very suddenly, too - which is being devoted to something.
I believe, and the someone in charge of reading and evaluating this essay can disagree, in matters of organizing my writing, I do much better. Of course, I could improve in the structure of thesis and the supporting details, but who couldn't? As my high school creative writing teacher once said to me, "The writing process is never done, and you wrote your essay too quickly. Do a re-write." I completely disagreed. I can remember being content with going to the computer lab and writing something very hastily in order to have more free time to myself to play games.
This feels like how I am approaching this assignment now. I know the distraction of Internet games will doom my motivation to write the best assignment possible. I also feel, and as a married man should, that my obligations at home have successfully derailed me from my task. Oh, and did I mention I am balancing school with a full-time job as an instructor? So, the solution to how I could be more successful in my professional and personal writing would be to reduce distraction and be committed to writing and re-writing my essay, but I just do not care that much and don't have the time these days.
Recapitulating my initial statement, the problem of proving how dedicated I am to the task and the assertion I have made is, again, the main frustration that writers face in writing something persuasive.

By Maxwell Ryder

94. Life should be merry

Talked to God today. Here's what He had to say: "Pop a pill, pop the clutch, then pop a cherry. Remember that life's not a thrill unless you're merry; so f**k a lot, smoke some bud, and drive towards the sunset in a Chevy."

By Maxwell Ryder

95. A part of me

A part of me is a part of you
that can never be echewed,
that lies concealed within my gloom,
that spells my heart's impending doom
Growing, it hardens my sinews
and wilts the bloom of my once-happy soul
Yet, the virtues of you I can no longer extol.

By Maxwell Ryder

96. The "new" Big Ten

Colorado is getting waxed in the new Pac.
Nebraska can manage as a Legend.
Now we are left with ten!
Exit TAMU and Mizzou,
We are left with the Big Eight,
But not the old crew, plus Texas too!
Add in WVU and TCU,
And we are the new Big Ten,
But not nearly as damn big as them.

By Maxwell Ryder

97. Red Sands

I measure my life
In the sands of Time:
I am minuscule at best;
One rock among the infinite
Silence cleanses the grime
Of my dilapidated mind,
Expelling the sad by the by
The wind is the only chime
Of the Past's continuity,
An airy witness,
Linking Us to the present
From an Earth once wet.
Red dunes warm my feet
Long after three,
The powdered ruby awakens,
Giving out Her secrets
And clues to sediment peaks
Across the dunes'
Spinal taps, cutting edges
Finely crease hillocks;
They look as camel humps
Miraculously dumped;
Sands that fleeced flint from
the Heaven above;
Folds and flaps,
Red blankets, draped and vast,
Hiding the primordial sea catch
Shadows begin their lengthy dance,
Our die is cast.
Tired, I nest on
A wind-whipped crest
Dressed in it's knife-sharp best,
I contemplate how worthless
I really am in these Red Sands,
And rejoice in my smallness
What happened here so long ago?
God only knows.
An emptiness grows.
A harmattan blows,
Scattering a fine spray below,
And up my nose!
I sit and think about my life;
It's been quite a show
The desert's a biome
Where you spiritually go
To take stock of everything,
Seek inner peace,
And grow.

By Maxwell Ryder

98. Holding a Beer

The page stares
Lined in a blank chorus of
blinking striations,
It glares
Rambunctious in its sterileness,
Timid in its rudeness
Filling nothing,
And emptying the filled
It angers a choking within
I cough up somethin'
A dream from yesteryear:
I am holding a beer.
Opposite me
Over a hand-clasped mug,
Back she peers.

By Maxwell Ryder

99. American Politician Making News...

The darling of America's Tea Party gets tea-bagged! Palin pops Rice's champagne cork, spilling the bubbly all over the American political scene. Glen Rice claims she 'looked presidential' giving it and getting it. "She's got my vote," quipped the former NBA star, characteristically chomping on his Juicy Fruit outside of a Miami club.

By Maxwell Ryder

100. Fleeced and Herded

Is it guidance you seek?
I am into you deep
I dream of your warm fleece
In ecstasy, you scream, you bleet,
Yet I am gentle, I am discreet -
I am your shepherd,
You are my sheep.
After a moment of pleasure,
We return to our herd
Happy and cured.

By Maxwell Ryder

101. Where's My Jill?

Don't say a word!
Have you heard?
What I am looking for
Can't be searched,
A sexy crazy nerd
To harvest my sperm,
To give me hope
In an uber-crazy world,
To give me comfort
And the occasional thrill.
You are my super pill!
I am your Jack, baby,
Please be my Jill.

By Maxwell Ryder

102. God is Love, Love is Our Women within Us
The apotheosis of Love,
The deification of It
Where's God in all of this?
Doesn't He grant us this kiss?
God versus Cupid,
Isn't it stupid?
One's the Creator,
One's a little winged cherub;
You were given me
By God's command,
By God's writ,
Not by some lil' pipsqueak's
arrow tip!
Love you shall not worship,
You are within me,
The very matrix of my own rib;
With the help of God above,
Adam begot Eve
With God, do not dissemble,
Do not deceive!

By Maxwell Ryder

103. Love in Kerak Castle

I possess the keys to your castle
I await the day I can unlock
That magic, those shackles;
I run my fingers through your
Jet-black hair - it's so fair!
Before the tourists come,
We could sneak below -
Into the dungeon we go,
Where I will ravish you,
Completely, through and through;
With thoughts and images of you
All chained up in the fetid
Darkness, the darkest of labyrinths,
I kiss your lips
You raise your head in ascent,
Searching your hero's glint,
You suffer a cold flinch...
I've gone limp by the tears
Assembling in the ducts
Of your anguished squint:
Salty streams that moisten;
I stand transfixed.
Gravity brings down our eyes,
A realization that our lives
Can never cross paths.
As you reach with your bindings,
I am torn, I am rejoicing:
I have you, but do you me?
Of course not, your hands
are not free...
How would you ever please?

By Maxwell Ryder

104. Clouds

I miss clouds, so fluffy and amiable in their blue-sky stable. Mares and stallions of blue pasture, so majestic, white and playful.

By Maxwell Ryder

105. Where I Am
Is it a daydream
Or more like a dream?
My days oxbow
Until they meander
Nowhere special,
Nowhere concrete.
The curves of my life
Taking turns pounding
My conscience at night;
Nothingness laps
At my meninges.
I feel fraught with spite,
Lying there till dawn's light.
Maybe it's just the date
That lies before me in wait:
A day when God will tell
Me if all of this was in vain -
The suspense is insane!
Until then, I hesitate,
Contemplating my fate,
Initiating my next step,
While allaying my pain,
I set my joint ablaze.
Sin isn't a phase;
It has it cyclical place
In the redemption of me.
I am somewhere I began,
Or so it seems,
Or maybe somewhere
between.

By Maxwell Ryder

106. Musings of a muslim in Guantanamo?

The in-between of death and life,
The extremities of strife
Living on the brink,
Dying to get to paradise,
I contemplate immortal bliss
With the nameless and faceless
Versus sin with a known temptress;
Seventy-two trysts with women virgins,
Not tarts with damaged hymens!
For a jihadist, is it enough?
Where'd they come from?
Were they on Earth once -
The princesses, slaves or vestals
Of some royal Arab hunk?
Will they be sewn up?
Will there be junk in the trunk?
Should I pay no heed to spunk?
Is there prophylactics or
procreation in the Heaven above?
Will God forgive me for such
petty notions to come?

By Maxwell Ryder

107. Smoke screen in a far-away Stan

Life is a sitcom
Of dramas to be won:
There's a puppet show
going on,
And it revolves around
Iran, Iraq and Islam.
Who's is the puppeteer,
The Master of Puppets?
Let me make clear
The facts and secrets
The US will never reveal:
Fret not, you marionettes!
Our president sends
Osama his final regrets
As a muslim and pet.
The truth is never legit:
Are Qaddafi and the CIA
the only pals in bed?

By Maxwell Ryder

108. Move on

Move on.
Give up.
Grow up.
On her, you've dined long enough.
You've bitten off more than you
could chew
Since the time that you were two;
Save your sanity from the
memory of her moods;
The persistence of your fixation
is boorish and crude.
Why do you continue to brood?

By Maxwell Ryder

109. Shut the f**k up!

What?
Shut the glut of smut
that spews incessantly
from your labial cusp!
Words rounded by my tongue,
My mouth talks it up;
We've had enough!
My mind flickers frantically,
To and fro,
Like a banshee,
Riding the top of my throat,
I'm not in control.
Deviation.
Expiation.
Vitriol.

By Maxwell Ryder

110. Morass

I am surrounded.
Iniquity, stupidity, insobreity
Can't You see the pleasure
It gives Thee for us to fail
and lose the Creed?
In and out, we weave;
It's no pleasure for us,
You see, I wanna scream!
I function externally
in Society, but
Internally, they push
my buttons: I bleed!
I am seized by inaction,
Paralysed by this
out-of-control faction
Inside and out,
A war's in progress:
the police of my mind,
scampering around
day and night,
brandishing truncheons,
chasing down demons
and stupid hunches,
like phagocytosis.
Yet, it is my mind that
they've bludgeoned.
Still, the devils remain amok,
causing a ruckus:
F**k this fracus!
They can all kiss my a*s
I'm gonna live as is,
Wedded to this bliss,
Stuck in my own morass.

By Maxwell Ryder

111. Upon Waking

My eye scrolls down an empty pillow. There's no urgency to use the other eye just yet, as it lies buried and crumpled in my pillow. An empty side of the bed is all there is to see. My eye is still sticky from its morning break, unleashing a customary reality of visual opacity. The color of my bedsheets parodies the light filtering through my window. My bedsheets match the desert landscape that engulfs the city, flinty yellow with brown specks. They merge together as I emerge from sleepiness. My first concrete thought is to recall dreams caught in mental cobwebs. No success. Such distraction is a fruitless activity.
A surge of wakefulness reinforces an absence on the other side of the bed, and in the other half of my soul; I reach over with my left arm to feel the cool ply of empty-bodied sheets. I play a futile game. I shut my eye, hoping when I open them both again I will see a different picture. After a moment of eagerness, I crack open the left eye that sits above my right, and through the bluriness of my criss-crossed lashes, I see that I have not fooled myself and what I already know to be true. There is no pair of eyes to volley a look back at me, or to wake if still fastened. There's no smile to meet mine, breaking my will to get up. No love-making and calling in sick today. Getting up is always a better option to keep away the evil thoughts that begin festering in my head. So I get up and start my day...again.
As I trudge in my slippers toward artificial rain, a thought grazes by my mind along with my night shirt: Does a woman's presence in my life make me a man, or does trying to be a good person in spite of her not being here make me more noble? Sometimes I wonder. Upon thinking again, this random cogitation just serves as a cop out. No one in their right mind thinks that way, but you, stupid! Can I rewind and start my day in a less burdensome way?
Activity! Even movement keeps the devil of details away. It is a routine I've created, certainly, but it's a good way to keep everything in my mind at bay. I run the shower. In the meanwhile, I make my bed and jump on my page. The very gyrations my computer makes are bells and whistles that knock away invading genies. My day falls before my conscience in pieces. Not making a mental organization of it, and my obstinance not to make a list of things to do, is a kind of rebellion to it; but it's also a tool. All these scattered thoughts are better left swirling about, I say, because they will knock out demonic thoughts that orbit in my mind. I am aware of the thought I do not want to have.
The transparency of the water meets my face. I hum with its cascade as nose, lips, forehead, and, finally, my entire head lean through it. My chin falls between my clavicles - a rivulet of water moves over my sternum and down my belly. The motion makes me succumb to the authority of the memory. I can't seem to clean my soul no matter how many showers I take, I think momentarily. The water rolling over my closed eyes harkens me back, flashing an image: She looked up, all glazed over, lost in tranquil bliss, the shower spray sending rolling beads down her shoulders and voluptous chest nestled just under mine.
My eyes splay open. How much time has passed? Did I fall asleep standing? I look at the swirl around the drain, somewhere in it is a fallen memory that circles downward. Have I washed myself? Another day begins under the duress of her hex. It's time to get out and get dressed.

By Maxwell Ryder

112. A Poisoning Nostalgia

Do you ever look at
An old pair of shoes
And get the blues,
Because you suddenly
Go back in time,
And it trips a fuse
Of your old life
And all that bruised
Your ego, which was
So lovely and infused
With hope?
One glimpse,
And suddenly I am confused:
Again, among your fruits,
It's my dope;
I am still on your rope.
The past has lassoed me,
Pulled me in,
Tripped me up,
Stripped me of hope.
She drags me along
To infinity and beyond!
When I get the notion
To stand and be strong,
Father Time pushes me over
With his repetitive song:
"The day is long,
And your baby's gone,
Ever and anon.
It's done;
She's been won
By another's affection;
Everyone expects
Your defection from
This crazy obsession."


I take another puff on my bong,
My pain goes on and on.

By Maxwell Ryder

113. There Will Come Another

There will come another,
One that fetches your eye,
One that'll make you fly
For the one that didn't notice,
Do not bother, do not try;
She is but a number,
Becoming the one you forgot
God didn't open her eyes enough,
And she'll endure and suffer
With a lesser other
Her mistake is from the good
Lord above.

By Maxwell Ryder

114. Depression II

Humans are vessels. Some days they're half-empty; some days they're half-full. Blessed are the souls that feel fulfilled. Cursed are those that reach for a pill.

By Maxwell Ryder

115. I Still Feel You, Oklahoma

There was a young boy who grew up in a natural place. He lived on the verge of a grassy sprawl where deer, hawks, coyote, and quail still reigned in their domain. Before the prairie chromatized with spring's calling, the boy cherished to smell the airy elixirs of warm southern winds whisking his cheeks and ears, bending back the defrosted, grey-brown chaff that northern winter winds combed over. He looked up to the azure ceiling tatooed with streaks of white wispy cirrus as he high-stepped and parted the crispy grasses. His steps slumped into the cold moisture of thawed earth, which refrigerated his ankles and gave him the sensation that looser loam awaited in the stalks ahead.

By Maxwell Ryder

116. Drowning

The baggage I carry,
Down a lonely escalator I tarry,
Running after an empty thought:
"Will I love or not?"
In this endless cycle,
I am caught, punning
and being chummy to c**t;
My loneliness feels blunt
So far down has my lonely heart sunk,
that I am sure I'm not me;
The apparition of me has drowned
in a sea
I am just this physical body,
spiritless,
Stamping imprints, wonderless,
Far, far from my universe,
Under the empty ocean of me.

By Maxwell Ryder

117. Dying Twice

If death is the absence of life, then I've been dead once, infinitely speaking,
but not twice.
Do I fear death?
I certainly do not.
Can I avoid it?
I couldn't then, and I've been dead once before, so it is out of my hands!
The known is that death precedes conception,
And it is bereft pain, memories, or even feeling.
It is a big blank: a great nothing endless in duration.
Suddenly, I became and was, but Who fashioned my eyes other than Allah?
He said, and my soul became one, forged among the bonds of my amino acids.
He said, and my tympanic sack hastened to beat - one, two, three!
He said, and my eyes opened. I had sight, I could see.
Before, I was zero, fetal, and as benighted as newly born mice.
And when I return to my second death, the absence of life,
I will have lived once, died twice, but not thrice!

By Maxwell Ryder

118. The Terminating Smoke

I don't know where
This world's going,
And I don't really care
All I know is it's headed
Somewhere,
Any direction, but there
There is where, you ask?
I haven't a clue,
But the sky you look upon
May soon lose its hue.
Blue it won't remain,
But neither should you be so;
Don't cry for its fate,
Don't submit to your hate;
When you see the mushroom
cloud billow from afar,
Stand, salute and nod
to God's mutual assent,
This is man's final descent
We are honored to fulfill His will
Our deaths, God contends,
Will be humane and quick
He is merciful, Amen.
God speed to the new breed of men!

By Maxwell Ryder

119. Inspiration

Inspiration, you have a different name from day to day. Sometimes you are gone at play. When I need you, you've gone away. It's difficult that you can have your say, but I can't. You are whimsical - you come faintly, you come in waves. You come like a forty-day flood, and inundate - I can't keep up! You're apocryphal; you're stuck up.

By Maxwell Ryder

120. Memories

Memories stand the test of time,
Man, she was a dime!
Memories are oft spawned by nostalgic chimes:
"It was the summer of '69."
Memories are not erasable,
yet they're hardly relivable
Warming parts of the body,
memories can be naughty:
That dime's still a milf mommy,
but there's no use getting chummy;
She has a ring and hubby
Memories are subliminal,
so forgetting them feels criminal
After all,
Memories are all I have,
Because memories replace the moments
just passed.
A wind blows the springtime scent,
and memories are those times
I must relax, inhale, and take it all in.
Memories are skewed by time;
They are the moments I felt the most sublime
Memories are in the crunch of fall
leaves underneath my feet,
Memories are also those moments
which have brought me to my knees.
Memories even represent tears rolling
down my sweetheart's cheeks,
Memories were the summer days
I spent playing in the streets and creek
Memories are being young,
And the mulberries you ate
from the branches higher up:
There were so many yum-yums
to be plucked!
But, may I remind you that
Memories were also the feelings
of getting dumped.
Some memories are sticky,
Some are washable;
Memories are forgettable,
while others stand redoubtable
Overall,
They are something you can't disavow:
I'll never forget the way she yelled,
Or how good she smelled,
But the best was her back
as she spun into an orgasmic spell
Memory tells me that I don't have that now.
Memories can't just be bought, pawned
or quelled,
Alas, memories are Heaven and Hell.

By Maxwell Ryder

121. Hypocrisy, America's democracy

Western governments are diseased.
While Arab regimes scream
Under the weight of brutal oppression,
There are no concessions,
But death!
Both countries in different ways
are bleeding red
Vampires of stealth and draining wealth
Sit back and watch massacre,
Toil and disaster
Of the Arab neighborhood
Getting fat on their burgers,
Talking empty platitudes,
They preach a democratic attitude,
Only helping countries
Possessing the sweetest of crude.

By Maxwell Ryder

122. I dream of the day...

I dream of the day I'll meet you
and have the right words, too
"Who are you? " I might ask, confused;
I dream of the day I will know
the form you take, but not obsess in it
because it's your intellect I crave;
I dream of the day when we can
watch the stars together
and bathe in a tub after,
being merry and gay;
I dream of a day when you
will satisfy my needs, and I will yours;
Until this time, I am stuck in a land,
the land of empty sands
that fill my heart and quench my spark,
that I may recognize you not;
So far, I dream of no one.
You have approached me not,
And for this I feel distraught;
So, I dream of a day when
I can just dream of you,
Or the precursor of you:
Is that really you?
I dream of a day when I say,
"Are you who I think you are?"
For even speculation of sight
is far better than my dreamless nights,
where you don't harbinger your coming,
where you don't occupy my thoughts:
Where are you, my special Who?
Come hither, and forsake me not!
I dream of the day when we do not
feel so far removed:
You are so, so distant!
I'm not even prepared were you
here anyway - what would I say?
Will my knees shake?
Will my voice strain?
Your arrival doesn't feel imminent,
so how can I say?
At least come to my dreams,
and there we can play;
Or, are you never meant to come at all?
Upon me shall thou ever call?

By Maxwell Ryder

123. Buried, uncounted, rotted and forgotten
It's not my fault
My limbs are mangled,
That I sit atop a dead brother,
My fellow country man, Toussant!
I look about the maddening throng
That pretends we're not here,
That no longer has cover,
But sits under a sky's shelter;
I feel as a leper.
It's not my fault, dear sister,
I was dumped exposed!
When you stare, don't do so long,
Let your parting glance
Give me closure and clothes;
Be not too intense, too fond;
Respect those that are gone.
Let your macabre thoughts
Be less horrific;
Be reverant,
Don't break out in song.
I was a man in the prime of life
With a son and wife
When the second floor above
pancaked us alive;
It's not my fault it's stripped me
Of time and pride, or that
I lie on the streets exposed
To indignant eyes;
I seek the cover of night.
In my nakedness
I feel retched, desecrated;
Why am I not under
A cover at least,
Like that guy on the
Other side of the street?
Someone cover his feet!
Have they ditched me?
No one's looking now,
But my gut feels swollen,
My friend below's emiting
A noxious smell,
But surely that's not me,
Or what I had for dinner?
The crowd's got toothpaste on,
My guess is they'll pitch
Us before too long;
Their looks have gone
From aghast to disgust -
They've soured and frowned.
God, was I meant not
To be buried in my
Family's plot of ground?
We're in the way of
Survival and moving on;
Not long till I'm tossed,
Burned and never found
God, I feel as if they blame
Us for this broken ground.
Mother Nature's the
Culprit of my country's
genocide,
Not Hitler, not Stalin;
Why then do I feel so
Undignified?
Tomorrow,
I'm to be bulldozed
And limed in an open pit;
Until then,
I lie in this open crypt
Below the firmament
in Port-au-Prince,
Uncounted and forgotten.

By Maxwell Ryder


124. To all my b*****s

To all my b*****s
in skirts and britches,
who I've made laugh,
brought to tears,
rolled up in stitches;
I've loved you all,
big and small.
Now the game's changed,
Sisters stay away,
play jaded and fake;
They've learned to be filled
Without seeing our spill.
More interesting still:
There's no thrill;
no woman to call
my Prozac pill;
No one to cuddle with,
Or snuggle with;
I'm still clenching
a pillow to my hips;
By morning,
she's been stripped.
A sad existence for a man
so capable,
so handsome,
so longing for love
and tantric fornication.
Where's my patience?
My devotion
to the notion
that I'm the White Knight?
My belief in love
at first sight?
Or spawning an orgasm -
This Hero's delight?
God, I miss the night!

By Maxwell Ryder

125. Chop-Chop Square

The incomplete
Half of me,
The transgression
I did not see,
The fornication
I fancied,
What went wrong
At the age of three?
Nothing,
In as far as I can see.
In response,
I was overcome
With fear and awe,
And I grew my beard
For my merciful God.
Facial hair, however,
Didn't long inspire;
It was only a sign
Of repression and ire,
Yet somehow
I lost all sense of
Desire.
Succumbing to the Incubus,
The Heavens rattled above;
Arabs' sabers now court
This contemptible cuss
I'd touched the Fire;
I threw my hands up
Plaintively to the Lord,
The angels, His choir:
Save me from this trial!
My head hurts,
My heart's burst,
Walking alongside
My body in its hearse
Where's my remorse?
The answer is, I've searched
Heaven and Earth
I feel the pain,
But locating it feels
Like my greatest shame,
Like some vice,
And not some device
That improved my life.
The separation's in sight!
In reverse,
I go back in time;
I contemplate a pool.
I was born
A narcissistic fool,
And God knew it, too!
Do flies recognize
A dead man walking?
In my ears
Is a constant buzzing;
I am led on a procession
To the Ceremonial
Chop-Chopping,
The cannibals' dinner
Is in the offing;
I twinge in the sting
Of Friday's heat,
So unforgiving.
The witnesses are
gathered;
I see my funeral pyre.
Most are women -
All stacked together,
And so similiar.
The charge:
I've violated their
Secret lairs.
Some make faces
I can't see;
Some just stare;
Some count out
The thirty-three prayers
My head is bare
Of thought and hair:
I've entered the Square.
I look upon the crowd,
Not a tear, not a frown;
Neither a whisper
Or a whimper,
Nary a sound,
Save blood that pounds
My tympanic gong aloud
Before I know it...whoop!
With a deft swoop
My head's rolling
On the ground;
The sight of my own
Decapitated body astounds;
Spectators quiver
In the presence of
This human sliver
As my vision fades out,
I'm heaven-bound.
By Maxwell Ryder

126. A sexual encounter

My thoughts are occluded
By a look, your smell,
One glance & whiff of you
In heat brings me
To the Gates of Hell
Closely, you approach me,
I merge and melt into thee,
The butter of your
Tongue and palate
Wrapped around my
Skin-shrouded mallet,
And lightly tickling
My lips with your
Exquisite fingertips,
I cower; I am cowed
I am lost in your kiss
My will lacks prowess,
Devastating are whispers
Of a devilish bliss -
My hairs stand on end
Enraptured and engorged,
A fleshy sword is forged
On an orgasmic tilt,
I ascend!
As I pulsate and
Titillate to no end,
Your tremors grow
Ever more apparent;
You sweeten & redden
As would a melon,
Distending, you ripen;
You ebb, descending,
Stirred and shaken,
Exiting the throes of
Your own passion
With a whimper of love
That grazes by my
Auricle, riding your halting
Breath into the ether
of nothingness -
What's left, but the death
of our sinful tryst?

By Maxwell Ryder

127. Helios

Helios pales white
In the high, hazy sky
As He swan dives,
Polluted and dusted,
The horizon's sublime;
Time's alive in hues,
Clouds encrusted:
Pink, purple, orange-rusted
Down climbs this blazing orb
From His day-time perch;
Helios nestles down
In the extremity of Mother Earth
Another day of my life
Burned, wasted and spurned
For what have I lived?
For what have I yearned?
The answers aren't readily discerned
Much like the desert,
Desiccated and colored,
I've been left in the lurch,
Painted, scarred, tortured.

By Maxwell Ryder

128. Poland

A low is upon me,
A fog descends
upon the trees.
Rotten leaves at
their feet.
Mother Earth distends
As She absorbs the
Sky's tears.
Depressed looks portend
A winter of fear,
A longing for rejuvenating
warmth,
And a high consumption
of beer.
This is Poland.
Cheeks reddened, noses flush,
Children resemble nimble
snowmen;
They look swollen all bundled up.

By Maxwell Ryder


129. Me Without You

Do you miss me?
I miss you
Every time I think,
I think in themes
Your face in the
Spangle of autumn leaves;
Our love under siege;
Rhymes that pleased;
Digs that teased
Hand in hand,
Our beach cove,
High-stepping waves
Until in we dove.
Yet, I think of you most
When autumn winds blow;
When springtime cherries grow;
As the waning day slows,
And it shows...
Just like that red nose,
Those revealing clothes,
The anger and pain
Of another menstrual flow;
I'm congested in thought,
My mind gets caught
In the traffic of who,
but you;
Sometimes it makes
me sick,
And especially blue.
I am crazed, I tell you!
And in a haze, I blare:
"Where'd you go?"
Utterly unaware
To the dismissive stares.
People will ask me,
"There again,
You've gone away -
Your glare's astray."
Sometimes, I think it's better
That it's there I stay,
Because I am unreliable
To myself and "in the way"
I am stuck in the realm
Of our lost love,
Dare I ask you the same?
I know it's naive
Than to think it true.
Why'd you abandon me
To a fate
Of me without you?

By Maxwell Ryder

130. Blow, Desert Wind, Blow!

What's a flag
If the wind don't blow?
Just a prideless
Garment wrapped
Around its pole
Can't spread its wing,
Or show its colors
Limp it hangs
Until erected by
Harmattan's harlots
Madame Nature's vectors
Of moving pleasure.

By Maxwell Ryder

131. Addled

Today, you walked by
my grey matter
a little older,
a little fatter,
all my thoughts scatter,
I shudder.
"What's the matter?"
Why do you ask?
What gives you the right?
Don't you see that I'm sadder
than the darkest of nights?
My heart is black;
I'm bereft of sight.
Leave me alone;
go fly your kite!
Your very presence
mucks up my life.

By Maxwell Ryder
​
132. Poetry, where did you go?

Writing a poem takes away
the ho-hum, and then some;
Am I good at it?
Probably not,
But I'll give it a shot
It's better than not!
How does it go?
Should it start with a rhyme?
Or write on the fly?
Does one know
how to steal the show with
words and blurbs?
Pretend as I might,
I don't give up the fight;
I charge forward with all
my mental might,
Eager to strike a chord
with a ballad of words,
designed to charm the ear
of some maiden from yesterday,
Because the validity of poetry
is lost in posterity,
oblivion and lore -
Where are you, Poetry?
You've gone to dazzle some w***e.
Come back! Come back!
Bewitch us once more,
you decrepit hack!
Your absence pains us;
Our longing's denied
for your anticipated bliss
You've left us for nought
By the by, like the sweetest kiss.

By Maxwell Ryder

133. From You to a Who

Why give you the satisfaction?
I don't see why I should;
You've done me wrong
telling me about your new dog;
I'll tell you now,
Our relationship died with that furry mop!

Telling me you have a new flame,
and I will put your love to shame;
Our love is buried and gone!
Give me the heart,
Give me the strength, Oh Lord!
I want not,
Seek not,
Help me to be a cold,
calculating c**k!

You want friendship,
to straddle two sides of the fence?
Listen, hoe, I've been inside you
before,
Why should I settle for something
other than this?
I won't.
Why do you continue to meddle?
Take back that s**t you peddle!
Leave my affairs, you useless w***e!

Don't make me abhor you even more
than I already do;
It's too bad, like Bush, I can't toss
my shoe at you
To show my contempt of you
And your stupid new hairdo!
I would if I could,
But instead I brood about you
and you new boyfriend dude;
It's sad but true.

Your intentions are clear;
You want to wound,
So I seek a coup,
the annihilation of you -
past, present and future;
I don't want to know at all!
Don't get an inkling
to message, write or call!


Take fright in the fear
I might post all of your pics
for all your peers' sight
On the Net,
So any guy in advance
will know what's to get,
Sound unreasonable?
Take heed of my threat!
No birthday wishes,
No forwards of any kind,
No texts of regret;
Take hold of your spade
and personally dig your grave!

Can you believe it?
I am sorry we ever met;
It would've been better
not to have appeared that day
outside the cafe,
But in the matter I had no say;
It was love,
You were legit,
Until today, I gave a s**t,
But from now on you are just
a figment,
a thought,
a pair of tits.
Before today, you were a hope,
a hug,
and a woman heaven-sent.

Today is the celebration of me
and the dirge of you,
Hooray! We're finally through!
Be gone with you, you stupid Who!

By Maxwell Ryder

134. Convoluted

What is there left to say?
It's all been said before,
but, I'll say it once more:
"There's nothing left to gain,
but money, reputation and fame;
Once you have your education,
More knowledge might be useless,
It might equally impress,
Unless you are Socrates
and a knowledge of nothing profess"
More is less.

by Maxwell Ryder

135. Ode to a Saudi

Who's a Saudi?
He's an Arab,
He's Bedouin,
He's Muslim,
He is a sheep,
and the Lord is his shepherd;
He claims not to want,
but follows his own herd.
Concubinage,
Pop a fresh cherry,
Buy a nice carriage,
These are the things, he claims,
that make a good marriage.
Not the blessings of wives and children;
Bahrain is, after all,
a waste-dump of sin,
and it's just over the bridge!
Night after night,
Prostitutes on the floor on all fours!

A Saudi uses his right hand,
again and again,
The left,
What's it for?
If nothing but sin.
Chop it off!
Use it no more!
Left, you are Satan's w***e,
The destroyer of men.

A Saudi loves kebsah -
meat and rice;
They are his life.
Sometimes, he's more
devoted to them than a wife.
Divorce her,
He can with a few words,
Divorce it easily,
Not on his life!

Speaking of wives,
A Saudi has four,
and he's jealous of all of them
Sleeping around,
Entertaining men,
So much so that
He keeps them under his watch
in the same building,
He's even suspicious
of the next of kin.
Girls after menarche
can't interact with cousins
It's more than paranoia,
In Islam, it's a sin.

A Saudi is...
A fan of vacations in Spain,
Of Barcelona FC,
Xavi and Messi,
And, in general,
of Al-Andalus;
And if you ask him the news,
He refuses to believe that
he ever lost to those Latinized Jews.

A Saudi is a fan of polygamy,
One wife for cooking,
One for cleaning,
One for her deen,
And the last one
He'll save for his old age,
A young Moroccan queen
Um, can you say sodomy?

A Saudi celebrates Ramadan;
He stays up late, shopping,
Entertaining lots of guests,
And, for a lack of sleep,
He's coping with two hours or less!
How they can function,
I am continually impressed
Masha'allah!
They are indeed blessed.

A Saudi drives Toyota or GMC
There's no in between...
Okay, maybe a Chevy.

by Maxwell Ryder


136. An Arab

An Arab's mentality is
impoverished,
void of fun,
entitled,
unified like One,
in Mohammed's spirit,
arrogant and opinionated,
"God, I hate it!"

An Arab is
undereducated, yet privileged,
like a king himself,
wanting, wanting,
demanding
the best service, the best health.
Avarice and greed
are the name of his creed;
Shall I go on?

Yes, well, the positives
There's hospitality,
enough to make one feel
uncomfy,
even incarcerated;
I'm telling you,
it's abrasive;
Reject it and you are deemed
inconsiderate.

An Arab likes -
Women,
though he sees none;
Drink,
even if it takes just one;
And sex,
even if he's a gentleman;
Chatter (about anything),
it really doesn't matter;
It's all in the banter.

An Arab hates
Infidels and Jews,
Although his Prophet
lived with them,
He would the latter choose
to murder or abuse.

An Arab craves Pepsi,
not Coke,
and not just when thirsty,
And drinks like
he's got a kidney to lose;
Additionally, an Arab loves
his coffee,
his tea,
and counting in threes:
"For the love of God, please!"

An Arab burns gas
because he can;
He thinks nothing of conservation,
much like a Haitian;
He's damned his nation
with pollution and bad education
What's left, you ask...
Islam?
A return to privation?

by Maxwell Ryder

137. Love Triptych

A Beginning
With a smile and a wink,
a bulb was stirred,
formerly dormant and shy,
It germinated - we don't know why.
A shoot, knife-sharp and eager,
cleft the clinic of the underworld;
It rose, cured and high,
Paparazzi flashbulbs went off!
The firmament approved the union;
Love was vivid in its greenness,
unique in its constitution,
A raindrop from America
the very cause of its fruition.

A Middle
Sunny spring days
met with warmth and Cupid's hue,
saw walks in the countryside,
the doffing of shoes,
and two people not afraid to express their views.
Yes, it was a very merry time,
A time to be lost in the news
of love and hot physicality;
But not lost was an idea of totality,
spirituality,
or even of posterity...
Or so we thought.
But these times of good vibe
were not to last;
They were riven by the gaiety of imbibe, alas
For shame, for shame...
Love, how easily we've forgotten your name.

An End
Yes, Dearest Love...
The rest is yours to write,
But it appears the flower of our irrigation
has wilted, am I right?
Or has it been jilted?
Torched on the altar of love,
the torrid Saudi sun sharing the blame;
But, one day last week
Over the phone,
You sounded in need
of your American steed,
Was it a game?
Or am I to blame for this silent refrain?
Reveal, Sweet Flower,
that which has silenced you in this hour.

By Maxwell Ryder

138. Wanting to become me

What I wasn't, I am now;
What I am, I couldn't figure out.
I think I'm an author of humanity,
I sit and ponder the Coming.
In the meantime, I set about to looking
for that thing I've been lacking.

They think I am a someone
in possession of that something,
Someone imbued with talent, kindness,
and compassion for children.

Compliments and all praise aside,
I'm a human inside,
In possession of nothin'
but the gelatin that is jettisoned out
after a moment of hesitancy and doubt,
Or the indecency of the flesh and skin,
The derivative of my lust and sin.

But my life's lasted as long as a thought.

It's not hard to doubt,
And,
I have so many!
So fast they come
In succession, they leave me fraught
With emotive indecision over love's labors lost.
Who am I in love?

Biologically speaking, I was just a penis;
Disparagingly, I was a fertilizer of c**t.
Spiritually, though, I am now a man in need
Of companionship and a woman to carry my seed.
And today I have a creed that's not a front,
But what am I really?

It's racing toward an afterthought -
a time when my flesh will stretch, wrinkle and rot.
Did I become me?
Did I do enough?
Did I give it a shot?

I know that I've made a progression;
I am firmly pointed in the direction to do great things,
But I lack the maiden to unlock my seed,
Which double as the thoughts that defile,
define and constitute me;
Ones that inspire thoughts to kiss paper;
Those which also shock, shame and flatter.

Scattered in the serum of our human batter,
My men are searching for Thee,
Coursing thru and penetrating Your Womb,
They disseminate in search of "the She" -
The component of my future progeny.

I must become what others didn't believe me to be:
An author of children, poetry, and books;
A man that matters,
And not one on tenterhooks;
And not one in tatters, just waiting to be;
Or, someone to this point I haven't been -
Loyal and free of sin.

Father above, hear my pleas;
Set me me free from this former burden of me,
And reveal my long-awaited destiny.
Set this woman before this man, please!
Truly, I am ready this time,
Ameen!

By Maxwell Ryder

139. Too late

Poetry will win her heart; but if left for a waning moon, too little, too late it is to repair a rift in fate. A man's best left to weep and croon, start over anew.
By Maxwell Ryder

140. Depression Preys on Us

Depression follows you
Everywhere you go:
It leaves you blue,
It digs a hole.
Boring thru skin and bone,
It'll bleed you cold!
A social man becomes
A souless one --
Joyless and sorrowfully old.
Though he's wise,
He's devastated to his core.
He sleepwalks through life,
Living becomes a chore.
Though friends come and go,
Seemingly plentiful and beau,
He stands fretfully alone
As would a stone.

By Maxwell Ryder

141. Tribute to an unknown boss

Up, up, up you go!
Again and again,
Up the corporate ladder you ascend;
They are truly just and wise
To promote and recognize
Such a man as thee.
And never has there ever been
A boss more caring and better than he!
Although your eyes do now descend
On us from your new post above,
We cannot forget your humility,
The motivation and know-how you gave;
It is with us always,
Acting as your omnipresent influence,
If you only you knew of its significance!
Thus accept our well-wishes
And blessings for continued success,
As our meaningful commitment
And special tribute to you,
Our most special Who,
Our boss, who has the talent
To inspire the same desire in his newest crew,
And once the leader of us, the luckiest few
May God continue to bless and keep you!

By Maxwell Ryder

142. Satan's W***e

Dancing on a bar,
I spotted my damsel,
My femme fatale
eyeing me from afar;
Miłosz,
the vehicle of my creed,
Did she snivel?
Was she teased?
It seemed but drivel to me,
But she betrayed her commitment
then and there, I conceive.

I was just a handsome face,
where pick-up lines lacked grace,
The Clinic of all places,
Whose elixirs brought together
new flesh,
And, six years thence,
my subsequent death
Her pestilence was bundled in
reticence,
innocence,
Skulking,
behind the cutest of faces;
Lurking,
in the hysteria of her swingin' hips,
Later of which became the charge
of my existence,
The kindling of my concupiscence.

While the kiss of my first
true bliss, Joanna Danys,
Was something longer than evanescence,
The purest of evils, I realize now,
can exist in the form of a
woman's visage;
How could I've known then
she would be my fall from grace?
I didn't...
I was smitten,
By the love bug I'd been bitten.

I am now out of the game,
Her new lover's to blame;
I continue to seek her scorn,
I revel in my shame;
I remind her of the deceit
she left in her wake,
But it's to no avail;
She's a fortress now,
A new man's her veil,
her buttress and caress,
But who is it, alas?
The mere thought of it
brings me under duress.

If only I can silence my brain,
and from thinking refrain;
Rationalizing what happened
and why,
I can only sigh;
When I receive an email
detailing her indignation
and blame,
It is, but momentarily,
adequate compensation
for the deficit of her
tender affection;
Her words are a serum,
but also weapons that maim,
punish and bludgeon
my broken heart...
How I rejoice in the rapture of pain!

A new man's won her now,
In an instant I became a How;
But she's a coward to tell,
And only at a virtual distance
has she given notice;
No matter that I became a Who,
just another dude,
I slumber, mutter and wander;
Stumbling about,
I loiter in thought, and even hunger
for another chance;
I sit on the fence,
a slave to my nostagia and doubt
Reveal this man, you cruel sow!

She's let another man into her heart,
And soon after,
to my male ego's discontent,
Her labia will part
thrust...thrust...
Gasp!
At last,
He's flushed you out;
She's been broken,
And in that moment of groping,
you've been passed on
As a cheap token
Of a past place and time,
And like a child's toy that
once possessed shine;
Feeling discarded that
your lover's departed,
Suddenly you smile...
A revelation draws forth,
It's an epiphany, of sorts.

You think Him naive,
To his fate even blind;
Give it time
After their hormones expire,
they'll look as any kind;
As her impending emotions
turn to self-immolating notions,
Endorphins misfire,
Her love morphs to ire;
The children you wanted with her,
he will not sire either.

In the end,
you chide yourself for not
having done more,
But to begin with, she wasn't yours!
She's Satan's w***e,
a connoisseur and consumer
of men,
Currently mistress to an
unwitting bore;
Lacking wisdom and more,
He's at the mercy of her menses,
Battling her self-esteem,
as she wrangles her nature
in order to please.

I am on the outside of Love
looking in,
As I try to forget this she-devil of sin,
I look to true love to anoint me again.

By Maxwell Ryder

143. Ode to Coffee

You are my donut's opening act
You are aromatic and black
You are my morning crack
Though you are yourself
Bitter as hell, unless sugar
Or milked, and in that case,
you are often spilt on my lap:
You are coffee, my number one
Guilt. I live for moments with
You, mug in hand, and all
It takes is one swill. To drink
You is your only demand.

144.
People are all kinds:
Some are hateful
Some are shy
Some are callous or dry
Some are so disrespectful
of life and death,
It makes me sigh.
Some are just so full
of themselves,
We don't know why.
The variety makes me
Shake my head,
Laugh, and even cry
They say it's the spice
of life,
I don't know why.

By Maxwell Ryder
September 30

145. I am here to relate a tale of a curious world that emerged not long ago on Earth. It was a world full of urges, money and scourges; a world that emptied its foodstores for GMO corn; a world that saw the last of the eagles soar, and new predators born, namely Tony and George, who spawned religious and confessional wars among their Gentile prey. Pawns of a ponzi scheme devoid of any gentility, and predicated on hostility. It was a world of little promise, violence and gore; of blood-red dawns, greed, rotten to its core; that sold little boys and girls to Boko Haram and Catholic orders; one sure of the Coming, but not the coming day. How did the end begin, you ask? Well, lies, for one; but more than that, how about 1948? It was a world that festered as a sore, until the puss burst forth, oozing out its pores; disseminating far and wide its spores, until its evil impregnated more and more, making single mothers out of unsuspecting fathers; and so it died a death, making good women w****s, boozing their attackers on power, forcing victims to cower in the sight of man's unholiest rapier and shower; these victims were bought in bars, then knelt in stalls, or laid across the backseat of cars. That, and the bored couldn't stay the course, and verged on the malevolent, the deviant, in all its discourse, acting sexually untoward. And then came the purge of the police in their various urbs. Life once hailed and respected, never was the same; and became a silence never heard before; the races that had finally begun to mingle, inter-marry, and knock on neighbor's doors, were yet again, embroiled and torn. The reckoning became a stillness jarred in urns: mantlepieces of the poor; headstones they couldn't afford, so they fired their loved ones to ashes. Over the years, tears dried up, fears disappeared, while conspiracies still burned the memory of oil-plenty societies now extinct and replete with every disease. Battlefields became insurgents or asymmetric warfare - terminology for genocide - but never liberation movements, stalked by catafalques, prayers, and funeral dirges; empty pledges were exchanged, as well as glamorous words extoled, but actions didn't extend beyond presidential lecturns or kingly thrones; and the deeds of God were no longer sown, grown or sold, but spurned for a lower concern; and gone was the ancestral home - humans had returned to itinerant nomads, roaming alone. It was a world where weal was incurred on the rise of the Kurd, that left truth immersed in the dirt, the copses of corpses lining kilometers of pipeline corridors: sandy yurts, inert from their eternal repose. So weak was justice, it was assaulted from above on the wings of drones; outside of any court jurisdiction, peacenik bombers constantly roved; which only struck a chord among the righteous, while the men at Fox, Jesus's plea ignored, never bothered to turn over a stone, but to throw one. Soldiers physically worn and psychologically shorn abroad on foreign shores, came home as vessels of Satan, and vassals to their lower-case corporate lords; till today their limbs amputate and adorn freedom's overtones; they're clothed in tattered Hollywood dreams, that once pulled the masses through their day-to-day routines, recalling epic scenes, until they became automated, redacted asses, addicted to shooting shotguns whilst quaffing shot glasses at girls' birthday bashes - damned candyasses! Can stupid ever be coward? I doubt it. This world grew ever more dour after ignominy became the deformity over which they had no power; and still-birthed were the emotions flushed with each abortion down toilets, the rape-seed of some handsome John's fetus; the cursed of Lot's children had gotten lost in the word consent, refusing the Heaven-sent in preference to some heathen man's rinse, who sought not right from wrong, not least practiced repentance. Stripped of dignity, they prefered getting sotted, jiggy with it, often risking venereal spotting. In the old humanity there was a real longing, but they had gone so far that they had called on the Apocalypse, not from their hardened hearts, or their sweetened lips, but by Providence.

By Maxwell Ryder
March 4


146. Don't worry yourself with whom I was or where I've lived;
I'm with you now, so there's no one else or what might have been.
The past isn't as important as the moment now,
Or the moment before I wasn't yours, for I am yours now!
So make do with me as often as you can,
For the moments left in store, walking hand in hand
Through heaven's doors, burying our sadness forever more,
Because destiny and Creator say we can.

By Maxwell Ryder
January 1 · Al Madinah ·

147. Takfiris

The takfiris,
They are eerie
Not islamic,
In the least!
These Khwarijis
aren't even
muslim, really.
Bearded Harpies,
Swooping down
On Christians
And Alawi
From their aeries;
They are
taloned warriors
Of the pagan god,
Aries:
They are the killers
Of Ali,
Not righteous
In the least!
Sent by outsiders,
In theory,
Saudis or Israelis,
To kill Syrians,
To victimize
the already weary
Under
Religious tyranny,
They defeat
Issa's
And Mohammed's
Decrees of peace;
They kill themselves,
And others,
In the illusory quest
To be shaheeds,
Yet their deeds look
As bloody as
Torat Kings;
They have the taste
Of bloodthirsty fleas
As they fan their hate
Across the Middle East,
Falsely claiming
to be jihadis,
Targeting the regime -
they instead
starve the needy!
It's another stain
On humanity...
And on Islam, not least.
God,
I beseech Thee:
"Where's their
justification
in the Quran
and hadeeth?
Why have such
forces been
unleashed?"

By Maxwell Ryder
December 15, 2013 · Al Jazirah ·

148.
Just the scribblings of a man, mad and down on his luck,
I'm a young buck that no longer gives a f$ck
There, I'll admit it: life's no longer fun.
I am waiting on the Lord to take me on up;
I want to leave this mundane front for His eternal Kingdom above,
And be gone from this infernal deception of marijuana and free love,
Which are merely weapons of mass distraction,
And no disrespect to the Rastafarian, but:
"Use your brain, luv, we just gave up public smoking!"
It's a breech of the public's trust
When no one wants to push for the truth of 9/11,
When we're worried about the ABCs of the FBI and the CIA's GMCs pulling up,
NSA surveillance, the DoD, and the NYPD warring with drones -
We're so close to going behind the sun, it's scary.
Instead, we are on the run from gun-toting youths
That walk into malls in Nairobi, Kenya,
Newtown or Colorado schools,
shooting the whole place up,
killing more than a few!
It seems there's only one thing left to do but to debunk their truth,
Refusing to pander to what they claim is news by calling their bluffs,
And calling out the pundits as bogus, and the s**t they write, muck!
Tell the politicians to fix real issues:
Our government's messed up!
Its preoccupation is Wall Street, big business, making money,
But not fixing debt ceilings or medical coverage,
Or the IRS and its covetousness!
After all, when there's nothin' left in the budget coffers,
And talk of chemical weapons in Syria have fallen asunder,
Or the war with Iran has nothing to offer in plunder,
You see them turn their eye and jackboots
To wage a war on us, the heretical, gluttonous f****r!
Was there ever such a thing as a Una- or a Boston bomber?
Sometimes, I truly wonder.
Thanks a lot, you damn good-for-nothin'!
Wake up, sheeple and get out from praying under your steeples,
Novus Ordo Seclorum's almost been won,
Fast approaching's the unthinkable:
The shofar's about to blow the horn to signal the coming war;
It's been done before,
So bow down and whisper a prayer to your Lord - the End's in store.

By Maxwell Ryder
November 12, 2013 · Riyadh

149.
Don't tell me it's about tools. We have all the tools for our success in front of us, but they are also the tools of our demise. The world is just a distraction in our path to succeed. Turn it off, and no one will be aware of your will to succeed, or your goodness, because everyone's now there - lost in the ether. You can disappear in the disconnect. Keep it on, and you will be parted and parceled off by the monster itself, your energies and dreams denied by keeping in the loop, and not being a part of the world where you are more needed. It is a weird phenomenon, and I don't know how to rectify it, much less balance it.

By Maxwell Ryder
November 9, 2013 · Al Jazirah ·

150.
Is that how to derive the term,
As a load of sprats laden in our dads' ejaculate?
Bollocks full of brats, delivered
from his gonads?
That teem and swim as salmon
gone mad,
Spawning upstream after a blessed act?
All chafing to become the next
boxing champ or beautiful lass?
And not just spilled as chaff, spurt,
Or as God's wrath, spurned?
Either dead from the yearning
Or the over-exerting,
How can this release of seed
not be Nature's cruelest scene
of mass killing,
The likes of which we've never heard or seen,
And simultaneously, its most wicked curse?
Without sounding absurd, or daft,
This is how I would interpret it, alas:
Our world is the product
Of the above-mentioned word;
We are all one-in-a-million creations,
Mother-of-pearls starting out
tucked away in human purses,
Gems of carnal urges
Found in men's meddlesome swirls
That offer Earth boys and girls.
In the murderous competition of such efforts to insert and assert their worth,
Is also life's composition and verve
So don't get mad, ask why, or feel hurt;
Just get thyself a wife, and enjoy life's sweetest surges,
For the other definition of "squirts," ain't just urchins, but marital purges.

By Maxwell Ryder
October 31, 2013 · Al Jazirah

151.
he may violently & suddenly act out of malice.
once hermetic and fiercely nomadic,
he feels his monogamy's become mathematic,
it's the end to hedonism and dalliance.


152.
A rule I abhor:
When using nor,
I haven’t used neither,
But that appears to
Break one rule more,
So I’m not gonna be
Negative and use either!
In which case,
I’d just be a boor
For not having used or,
So, for grammatical growth,
I will stay positive
And just adore both.
Unless, of course,
You’d like to avoid neither both,
Nor either and or,
In which case,
Should I punctuate more?

Maxwell Ryder
October 3, 2013

153.

A man's his will, and not its lack. Stop selling yourself to cheap thrills; it's time to act, not as a child but as a man. With your habit to succumb to temptation, imbibing libidinous libations, you've shown us yet again your spineless back. Get with it, boy! Get your life on track!

By Maxwell Ryder
July 20, 2013 ·

154.
Your genuflection to randomness, market capitalism, agnosticism, and even atheism in everything, sorry to say, is a determinant to your belief about the world, which is one that says anything is possible, but God. Out of that belief you are less inclined to believe that man also has a manipulative hand in anything through this conglomeration of beliefs, because you just cannot see him as corruptible, impactful force, and because you've trumped his inherent goodness or corruptibility being wedded to your prejudice to statistical probabilities and improbabilities. Through this bias, you are putting way too much credence in man's assumed morality over his governance, and much, much less on his generative force for change, and the underlying assumption that this force for change is good for him.

155. Prostitute Curse

Maxwell Ryder
June 19, 2013

156.
Even a question can be a fascinating and revealing thing. When it is not answered or evaded, it means a lie is present somewhere, or a personal space has been invaded. If you just spew a litany of more of the same after you've been asked something directly, it is a clear indication to me that your mantra is hiding a phantom in your philistine tantrum. Die troll!