When those creative juices,
Do not flow very well.
And inspiration, it reduces,
And you have nothing to tell.
There are no new rhymes for you to make.
And no new metaphors to bake,
Into a nice poetic cake,
Served at a picnic by a lake.
Alas..
There is no picnic.
There’s no cake.
No trees, no water.
There’s no lake.
And the inside of your head,
Is more dry than a dry lake bed.
You’re stuck inside a barren hell,
When you’re going through a long dry spell.
Author Archives: Miss Kitten
No! A fence? But…
Seriously, man, what’s with the fence?
Is your paranoia so intense,
You actually thought we were watching you?
Does that seem like something we would do?
Whatever you’re doing, we do not care.
Having cocaine sex parties over there?
Walking around in just your underwear?
Walk around naked while you’re at it,
Because we simply do not give a shit.
We’re just sitting here minding our own.
Not thinking of you. No interest shown.
Never talking to you, except saying, “Hi!”
And then you freak out and wonder why,
We actually said hello to you.
That’s simply what nice people do.
But you didn’t like it, not at all.
So much so, you built a wall,
To keep you safe from all the spies.
And from all those other prying eyes.
A BIG WALL to keep out Peeping Toms,
About as subtle as an atomic bomb.
A expensive stupid social blunder.
But now we cannot help but wonder.
Just what is it that you’re trying to hide?
What’s really going on inside?
We didn’t care at all before,
You built that wall.
Now we want to know more.
Sarah Slam
There goes Sarah Palin,
Railin’ against country and king.
Rocking that beat poetry thing.
Has she ever endeavored poetry?
Because never so clever was she.
Taking the time to toe to line and find a rhyme.
She’s got the drive to stay alive and to thrive you know.
At least she said so.
Just like a feral Lewis Carroll,
She’s using words you’ve never heard.
Words like, “skwirmish” and “refudiate.”
To elucidate or make it clear,
She said she’s a no-fear Shakespeare.
She was a bad politician, that failin’ Palin.
Should have made poetry her mission.
Gardening Leave
Being paid to not show up to work.
It sounds like a fantastic deal, doesn’t it?
What could be better?
What, indeed.
How about not being considered so much of a threat,
Or so unpleasant to have around,
They don’t need to pay you to stay home.
What is one supposed to grow in this garden?
Delightful sweet Gratitude, perhaps?
Or maybe, some other fruits.
Rotten Resentment.
Hard Bitterness.
Sour Self-Doubt.
All very difficult to swallow and digest.
There’s no pleasure in this garden.
No satisfaction.
Only missed opportunities,
Still clinging to their branches,
But well past their prime,
And peak freshness.
Dried up and no good.
Mr. Tangerine Man
Hey! Mr. Tangerine Man, get away from me.
You’re so creepy, and I don’t know where you’re coming from.
Hey! Mr. Tangerine Man, get away from me,
With your little sausage fingers you’re so proud of.
Though I know that people love you, and I just don’t understand.
Loyal to your brand.
So blindly follow you, though you’re so creepy.
And your appeal amazes me, grows bigger every day.
Endorsed by the KKK
They’re white supremacists. This doesn’t bother you.
Hey! Mr. Tangerine Man, you are scaring me.
I’m uneasy about your fake tan and your hair do.
Hey! Mr. Tangerine Man, you are scaring me.
You’re so racist and the people keep on following you.
Right over a cliff, towards the apocalypse.
Their senses have been stripped, as you smirk and purse your lips.
Your hands too small to steer the ship, cannot wait to get a grip,
On the nuclear codes.
But first we gotta keep the Mexicans out, so we’ll build a great big wall.
Over two hundred feet tall, and make them pay for it all.
You promise that will show them.
Hey! Mr. Tangerine Man, get away from US.
I entreaty you to leave the United States alone.
Hey! Mr. Tangerine Man, get away from US.
Do not dilly dally, just shut up and just go home.
There is a Place on a Small Island
There is a place on a small island.
A place so full of stories and feelings,
That it feels heavy with them.
Like its history has gravity and weight,
And you can feel the very pull of it.
Reminders are everywhere.
Piles of obsolete household items.
Old rowboats and oars.
A boathouse with an ancient padlock.
The company that made it no longer exists,
But it still works.
And every now and then,
Some surprising and special,
Piece of the past is rediscovered.
Like a horse-drawn buggy,
Forgotten in the corner of an old shed.
Long dead are the horses that once pulled it.
As well as the person who put it there.
Other reminders aren’t so well hidden.
Old farming machinery lying exposed,
In the fields of grass that used to be wheat.
The Old Man and his wife used to make bread,
From their own milled wheat flour.
Until eventually they stopped farming,
And he left the machines lying there.
Gathering rust, abandoned to the elements.
Maybe the Old Man meant to remove them,
But eventually became too infirm,
And died before he had the chance.
Now those rusty skeletons adorn the landscape,
Like pieces of modern art sculpture.
Permanent artifacts, telling tales,
Of the island’s agricultural past.
However, not everything has changed.
The sheep are still there,
Still kept in a two-hundred year-old barn.
And still eating the same grass,
That countless generations,
Of their ancestors ate,
At the place on a small island.
Just because something is free, it doesn’t mean it has no value.
Okay, so apparently some people think that if Bernie Sanders were elected POTUS, and he was able to make higher education in the United States free, it would make higher education essentially worthless. Their reasoning goes a little something like this:
If college were free then everyone would go to college, right? Universities would have no entrance requirements whatsoever and would accept anyone who applied. And you would certainly not have do any studying at all in order to graduate, so naturally everyone would finish college. Therefore, every single person would have a degree, even the people cleaning public toilets. Everyone would demand a living wage. The impact on the economy would be disastrous.
Do you really want to live in the kind of world where everyone makes a decent living? What about our god-given right to piss and shit all over the poor just because they’re poor? That’s what Jesus would do.
Anyway, if you are one of these people, please keep the following in mind:
The idea that everyone is going to have a degree just because college is free is ridiculous. Here in Sweden, it’s believed that you shouldn’t have to pay an extortionate amount of money or saddle yourself with a huge debt in order to obtain a college education. Therefore, tuition for higher education is free. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone goes to college. Some would rather start working right away, just like in the United States.
Furthermore, the value of a university degree here is not diminished in the slightest just because you weren’t charged any tuition. University degrees are not easy to get and universities are extremely selective, more so than in the United States. After all, they want to make sure they aren’t wasting tax-payer money on someone who isn’t completely qualified and committed. I have two degrees and excellent transcripts from a top liberal arts university in the States. I have tried twice to get into university here and they’ve rejected my application both times. And yes, you still have to study your ass off in order to earn a degree. A four-year bachelor’s degree earned at an American university is worth only three years’ worth of credits here.
It’s totally nonsensical to assume that just because something that is free it has no value. A “free” university degree here in Sweden is actually worth a hell of a lot more than one you bought and paid for. After all your hard work, you were deemed worthy and granted the enormous privilege of being accepted to a university and earning a degree. And NO ONE takes that lightly.
Go Fuck Yourself Weekly: Daryush Valizadeh aka RooshV
“How many noes does it take to enter a vagina?”
“Make rape legal if done on private property.”
This is one of those instances when I’m honestly not sure whether this RooshV person is actually serious or whether his extremely misogynist – what he terms “neomasculist” – views are simply trolling everyone, with feminists as the particular target. The statements above and the following statement seem a little too calculated to be genuine:
“Under my proposal, a girl will protect her body in the same manner that she protects her purse and smartphone…If rape becomes legal, she will never be unchaperoned with a man she doesn’t want to sleep with.”
Apparently, he thinks that a woman’s body and her genitals in particular are the same thing as her purse and her smartphone. You know, just some stuff that’s up for grabs if it’s not locked up. I suppose if he saw someone’s phone sitting on their desk at work, that he would help himself to it. Why wouldn’t he? Obviously, they wanted him to have it. And likewise, any man who finds himself alone with a woman should feel free to coerce her into sex, or if that doesn’t work, simply force himself on her. Technically, it wouldn’t be forcing her at all since she gave him her tacit consent as soon as she stepped across his threshold.
And, hey, if rape on private property was legal then there would be a lot less rape, right? It’s a win-win situation. Only a rape committed by a stranger in a back alley is a real rape anyway. If a friend or a colleague or classmate gets a woman alone then he’s entitled to her body.
The message to women is clear: if you don’t feel like having sex with a man then don’t be alone with him, ever. And as for the men, if you’re in a committed relationship and you really don’t want to cheat on your significant other, then for God’s sake don’t allow yourself to be alone with any woman. You know you’re incapable of controlling yourself.
Mediocrity
Mediocre [mee-dee-oh-ker]
adjective
1. of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate:
The car gets only mediocre mileage, but it’s fun to drive.
Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill.
Antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable.
2. not satisfactory; poor; inferior:
Mediocre construction makes that building dangerous.
Synonyms: meager, low-quality, second-rate; so-so.
Antonyms: excellent, superior.
Look, I’m really trying not to allow myself to fall into the pattern of simply whining for its own sake. It’s easy to say, “oh, woe is me,” and expect everyone to shower you with kindness and sympathy. No one appreciates a drama queen, which is perhaps why I took so long to admit that I was having serious problems with stress management at work, to the point where I just physically broke down and mentally burned out. Even now, I hesitate writing this down because I don’t want to be seen as a whiner.
After all, it’s only stress, right? It’s an occupational hazard of being a teacher. You learn to handle it, channel it, and make it driving force in your working life. In my case, everything starting falling apart when I could not stop worrying and obsessing about work, about wanting it to be productive and positive and knowing that all my efforts at making it such were completely futile. Then I tried to achieve a Zen-like state of simply not giving a shit, but that didn’t work at all. My colleagues are really good at maintaining that balance of caring just enough, but not to the point of obsessing over it. It’s a very typically Swedish lagom (meaning:”just enough”) mentality. And while the principle behind it is admirable, in my experience it often leads to a state of complacency that justifies expending the least amount of effort possible, which leads to substandard work, which leads to mediocre at best and often poor results. But I just care too damn much.
My Swedish colleagues have no idea what its like out there. I’ve worked in schools in America and in schools in Sweden founded by Americans. They expect results. Real positive results. Mediocrity should not be the goal. Mediocrity is not acceptable.
Broken Blade
I used to be a teacher,
As sharp as a well-made knife,
That was meant to be used roughly,
Every day to take a little punishment.
Tempered and sharpened over the years,
Hardened and indestructible,
But at the same time, flexible.
Slicing through problems,
So gently and delicately.
Like they were almost nothing.
I used to be a teacher,
Able withstand the abuse from students.
That’s part of a teacher’s job description.
You take it and if it wears you down,
You sharpen yourself,
And go back to work again.
But long have they been,
Desiring my absence.
All their efforts,
Focused on this task.
They missed no opportunity,
To sabotage.
Contaminate.
Humiliate.
To wear down my former sharpness.
They’ve done it.
They win.
I’m nothing but a useless dull blade,
That finally broke in half,
But I used to be a teacher.
Random Misanthrope 