Abuse

She came forward
teary-eyed

I saw fear

I was a figure of authority
"representative of God"

"taboo" subject

shamed, manipulated
weighed down by distortion

work harder

she failed
she was judged as unwilling

she tried harder and harder

more,more,more
Finally, exhausted

grace was lost

Poet's note: This found poem was created from the introduction by David Johnson, one of the authors of "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church"

Resolving Race Issues

We're saving the world, after all

I've watched his eyes
I've listened
I tell you he's the one

That's what you said about
There are doubts about

him

He's too malleable
Too willing to submerge

So what do we do?

him

make me look like
his favorite

We're saving the world, after all

Poet's note: Created from the opening lines of one of my favourite science fiction novels, Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"

Heavy Metal Rockers Want Respect!

Chains
Megadeath T-shirts
leather pants
fish-net stockings
Tina Turner hair
sober hotel guest
cocktail lounge
bar scene
from Star Wars

Poet's note: This found poem was created from a passage included in a book edited by Glen Kenny. The passage is from an article titled "Heavy Metal Rockers Say They Want More Respect" by Dennis McDougal, which appeared in the 3rd October 1988 Los Angeles Times. The book is "A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on Twenty-five years of Star Wars"

Star Trek "Creator"

I believe I am God
a small canister of ashes
on board the space shuttle

Poet's note: This poem was created from phrases off the Epilogue of the authorized biography of Gene Roddenberry and also from the Appendix in the same book. The Appendix is titled "Terrance Sweeney's 'God and Roddenberry'" The book was written by David Alexander and is called "Star Trek Creator". Gene Roddenberry was an atheist. He was cremated.

Encore

the psychological uprooting
the feeling of ended chapter
one more portion
of oneself slipping away
into the past

sit light to Life
to all its phases
The useless
word is
"Encore!"

Poet's note: This found poem was created from one of Professor C.S. Lewis' last letters written before he died, portions of which were featured in "Seeking the Secret Place: The Spiritual Formation of C.S. Lewis" by Lyle W. Dorsett.

Mammoth Love

I grabbed at His love
like a starving refugee
scavenging for food
like a selfish child
snatching sweets

I needed more love
than a person could spare
I needed
the mammoth love
of

God
will never resent us
for the
b-----r-----e-----a-----d-----t-----h
--------------------------e
--------------------------p
--------------------------t
--------------------------h

of our need.

Poet's Note: This poem was created from a portion of Beth Moore's amazing book "The Beloved Disciple"

Dying Jackson

Paris on the ground
balled up crying

Propofol

Prince standing there
slowly crying

Propofol

His eyes were open
his mouth slightly open

Call me right away
Please call me right away

Poet's note: This found poem was created from portions of an online article about the Michael Jackson case. The article was titled "'Shocked' Children Saw CPR on Dying Jackson"

Unholy Ana!

Thinspiration
a spiritual-ascetic flavour
fasting through
metaphors of bodily purity
food through
imagery of angels and angelic flight
Exhortations like
Ana's Creed and
The Ana Commandments

Poet's note: This found poem was created from the "Thinspiration" entry under the Wikipedia article titled "Pro-ana". I came across it while doing research for a photography project. Under this article, there is also an entry about Ivonne Thein's photo exhibition titled "Thirty-two Kilos", which was intended to be "a mocking and satirical take on pro-ana. To Thein's dismay, however, many images from the exhibition were nevertheless later shared online as thinspiration."

My take on Pro-ana? IT IS UNHOLY!!!

A Savior's Guide to Effective Communication

drawing in the sand
cooking on the shore
cursing
fig tree
dipping bread with traitor
walking on water
calming storm
illuminated on mountain
hearing heaven
descending Dove
eating a somber meal
with eternal significance

Poet's note: This found poem was created from a portion off my favourite book on prayer called "Creative Prayer" by Chris Tiegreen . The chapter is titled "God is Not a Formula". In this chapter, Tiegreen writes: "If Jesus had written a book titled "A Savior's Guide to Effective Communication", it would have no conclusion. It would be open-ended because he kept varying his style."

People Who Abstain (a self-poetry8?)

I used to be a whore
and so
so many are on
the complicated pandemic
of love
just thinking about it
can make you swoon

or wretch

abstinence
is
easily-breakable bracelets
tossed carelessly
into the cellar

people who abstain
are
black-and-white
house-bound
too ugly to get laid, living
under the alias of ‘abstinent’, ‘ unhappily
booty-free’
they wear glasses
read the Bible

and write

Poet's note: This is a found poem created from the description of an allpoetry.com contest courtesy of the very young and very talented poet “greenewhiplash”. The title of the contest was “Watiting ‘til Marriage: A contest on Romance and Society"

Shoot Your Honour

my mind tortures me
with thoughts of what might have been
and what might be to come
I can feel my mind

I used to love what they were
how they thought
and now I dread it when they come
cause I loathe the way they make me feel

I am filled
WITH AN ABSOLUTE SENSE OF OUTRAGE!
that you who have no knowlegde of me whatsoever
have the power to condemn me

because you cannot see the pain
there's no blood
there's no screaming
so you can't see

your honour.
if you saw,
you'd shoot
it

Poet's note: This is a found poem created from a scene off the brilliant movie "Whose life is it anyway?" which I watched yesterday night on TCM! The movie is quite funny yet deeply touching too. I was particularly moved by the court room scene and it just screamed to be turned into a found poem :-) Here's the scene:
http://youtu.be/CCpk1PQviz0

The Cult of Steve

church meetings
reach the grasp
of "mere mortals"
amid the chosen
Jobs invokes
power and precision
summoning up the sights and sounds of Star Wars, Space Odyssey,
King Jr, Kennedy
and Moon-walking
astronauts.

Poet's note: I wrote this last week (I think on 30th September). It was created from a passage included in a book edited by Glen Kenny. The passage is from an article titled "The Cult of Steve: All Hail the Prophet of the Personal Computer" by Wes Smith which was featured in the Chicago Tribune on 23rd October 1988.
The book is "A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on twenty-five years of Star Wars"

Introibo ad altare Dei

Introibo ad altare Dei
I’d answer like a Do-wop
Backup singer dancing behind the lead
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum
Those late-Latin hit tunes
Tantum ergo and O Solutaris, hostia
Competed with Richie Valens
Donna was her name
Skeeter Davis sang
To know, know, know him
Is to love, love, love him
Doris Day sang
Que sera, sera
The King sang
Ah well-a bless my soul what’s wrong with me
I’m itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
A world of girls with twirling skirts,
bobby sox and budding blouses,
Buddy, Skeeter and Elvis

Poet's note: This found poem was created from Citino’s “I Shall Not Want”: The Twenty-third Psalm Comes to Cleveland, Ohio” which is a chapter in his book “Paperwork”

3.3077 minutes ahead

She wanted him
She had been chaste

There was
confusion in communication

He'll never lie
with me again

infinite love
and sorrow

her hope had
remained embalmed

he was embalmed
in time

***

She tried to visualize love
No, it wasn't possible!
But of course it was,
if worked out intellectually
if she just lay flat
not love-making
merely a formal prostration
to the exigencies of glands
and time flow

She sat up in bed;
longing for movement,
freedom

***

they had fallen into routine
so as not to bump into each other
They conversed in bulletins
did not ask questions
unless questions were necessary
They walked slightly apart
They made detours round each other's lives

What had he said?
That was lost.

'Don't worry' he said
It could be worse
We could be a day apart
3.3077 minutes
allows us a measure
of communication

Please time your statements
So that we do not talk at
Cross
Purposes.

***

I want to know your feelings
how you are
what you are
thinking

I am not suffering
I have completely recovered
There is no reason to foresee
that my perceptions
will ever lapse back
into phase with yours

They have remained
an unfluctuating
3.3077 minutes ahead

Poet's Note:
This is a found poem from portions of one of my favourite science fiction short stories. "Man in his time" has been haunting me since the first time I read it. It is the story of a man who - due to a mishap during his space expedition - crashes back to earth only to discover that he is exactly 3.3077 minutes ahead of earth time! Can you imagine the chaos this would cause in his relationships?

Actually, you don't have to imagine. The author of the story, brilliant Mr. Brian W. Aldiss, does an excellent job of outlining the resulting chaos and communication misunderstandings.

We poets, dreamers and other visionaries can relate to the idea of being 'ahead of time'. We do understand that it takes a toll on our relationships. All we can hope for is to find more people who are close to "our time".

Smells like an Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing bells for those who live as cattle?
Herded together by a homogenized culture industry?
Load up on guns,
On the monstrous anger of guns
Express anger.

Express amusement,
Entertain us.

It's hard to find
The tenderness of patient minds.
It's less dangerous with the lights out.
Each slow dusk is a drawing-down of blinds.
Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

Poet's note:

This is a cento (a kind of found poem). Cento is latin for "patchwork". It is a poem "made up of passages from poems by one or more authors, a patchwork of quotations, a literary collage, a pastiche (in its sense as a mixture of poetic excerpts)"
Source: Poetry dictionary, page 53.

This particular poem is dedicated to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain who committed suicide around 5th April in 1994. He was 27. The cento is made up of lines from Nirvana's song called "Smells like teen spirit", comments from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore about Nirvana and lines from Wilfred Owen's poem titled "Anthem for doomed youth"

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was a British war poet who served in the first world war. He was killed a week before the armistice. He was only 25.

"Nirvana were their generation's greatest voice, and continue to be...they identified and validated a complex and factionalized youth demographic, one alternatively entertained and disserviced by a homogenized culture industry....Nirvana expressed anger, amusement, satire, defeat, emotion and debate."

-Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.

Approval of Abortion?

maternal mortality
all corners of the country
medics see mischief in move
to distribute the drugs

Misoprostol.

heavy bleeding
ante-natal
quacks in back streets
vaginal bleeding

Misoprostol.

pro-abortion agenda
pushed in a veiled manner
praise
'saviour drug'

Misoprostol.

Poet's note: This is a found poem created from an article titled "Bitter row erupts over 'abortion' pill' written by Francis Mureithi. It appeared in the Saturday Nation dated June 18, 2011.

Secy!

Yeah, I have that effect
on people

's spelling.

There Is No God?

He
suffer
and scream and cry
He loves you

Poet's Note: This is a found poem of a found poem I came across on http://foundpoetry.wordpress.com The found poem titled "ten things he does not want you to do" was created from George Carlin's 'There Is No God'

Nothing you say is safe

I couldn't believe my eye
when I heard about this guy
just flat out GIVING away
his nuts?!?

Poet's Note: This found poem was created from a spam email I received from one Jessica Anderson titled "Nothing you say is safe Mildred" :-)

The Hogshire Haikus

DIRTY HARDCORE HEROIN

easier to obtain
dirty hardcore heroin
than valiant Valium

PILLDOM

pilldom is a field,
limitless, molecular,
atom by atom

PILL FIEND

celebrity chests,
love affair with little gems,
unrepentant fiend

Poet's Note: These are found poems created from Jim Hogshire's "Pills-a-go-go: A Fiendish Investigation into Pill Marketing, Art, History and Consumption"

Beauty, Ballet and Boredom

Birmingham from New York
Ballet work
shop.

Two parallel rows of dancers
At the bar
With the teacher

At the head
Collective arms and legs

In contrast to the two rows
Of torsos
And the bars
Themselves

Young lady
Behind the ballet
Master
Yawned a
Big, round yawn.

Poet's note: This is a found poem of a portion from the essay "A Philosophy of Photography and of Some Visual Art in General" by Rick Garlikov

Sterile Snapshot

Two hot and sweaty naked bodies.
I don't want to take her place.

Keep her then.
Do some medical experiments on her...

Prayer Spider

Spider
in her
web

Purple coneflowers
are over
the miniature
violas

Garden spider
Cross spider
Aranaeus
Diadematus

Something so small, stunningly,
instinctively, weaves, creates;
Each gossamer line
Deceptively delicate

I think about a man I know
It is in prayer I carry him now.

Poet's note: This is a found poem from "Praying People" by Cindy Crosby

i Vai for your attention

Whispering A Prayer
still on repeat?
Remorse and happiness
and pain too
Jubilation and triumph. Transcendence

"Two months is too little"
That is when i question god

i Vai for your attention 2

having sex on stage
Where the Wild things are
Oh the energy!

The Asian chick
"Held"

Coupling Couplet

Would you still come
If you knew I won't sleep you?

Telepathy

it's normal
To be staring
Willing numerous thoughts
To reach by going through

you're away
clueless

is out of order
to reach you
using telepathy!

(Poet's note: This is a found poem of a poem I wrote about ten years ago)

Apple Cult

We know
What we get
Windowers never know

We like things that work
Combined with the Mac

We even sacrifice virgins
To the computer gods
To get the Jobs done!

Earle and Ella

Ain't no drug
like good ol' pain
listen blues
when in good mood

"Lovers leave and friends will let you down
but you're the only true thing I've found"

"Good morning heartache
You're the one
Good morning heartache
Sit down"

Catching now

I remember hearing you
taking a holiday
that was months ago
I don't see you
I thought you had found
some hot...
and forgot...
about this silly....
You told it was urgent...
that you needed...
I wonder...
Are you in trouble?
Have you killed yet?

God, we have to catch now,
have to catch now.

I love getting from you

I love getting from you are so witty!
If we skin
What shall we do with the skin?
What is it you would do to cure me?

Shotgun

stick to those plans
start making new ones
you, me at home
not during this century!

The time is right
twist your opinion
chase me through the streets
of the city with a shotgun

chase me through the streets
of the city with a shotgun

Codeine as I wanted

usual drama
winds from sahara
Sounds heavenly to me
periodically

shooting pool
hyper as hell
asprin like a sleeping pill
codeine as I wanted

Touch

I wanna say I'll keep on praying
but...I'm still fighting
with Him.

Who's winning?

i was too much of a smartass
i have a stone outside
it's been there for me when no one else has

I see your point. Smartass.

My stone...it's visible
I've never liked visible
I like a challenge

i like to touch
I pray He shows up in
front of you to touch Him!

Band in my mind

Sabbath
Purple
form a bond with the band

That's brotherhood!
It does last for life
The band, in my mind

Cheap

Hugs
Sitting on the toilet
That's a start I guess

Basic human needs
Your body and mind
Missing

Visit for a week
Keep my hands off you
Feel cheap afterwards

Keep my hands off you
Feel cheap afterwards

Found

your mail, I find it amazing
we share far away
years
strange sound
touch

I would love to taste
but I would prefer
the source

I love the idea of
living behind bars

I have found you!