Fate of the duck

It was three o'clock in the morning when the storm hit the farmyard, Nobody had expected a storm this severe, not in July. But even if old man Tyler had known it was coming, he would probably not have thought to move all of the animals into the strong brick barn,

Doubtless his last thought would have been for the three ducks that lived on the farmhouse pond. He'd never truly liked the ducks, but Mrs. Tyler liked the occasional duck egg, and so he'd bought two ducks and a drake last year, and had moved them in to the old
duck house that his grandfather had made over a hundred years ago.

But tonight would be it's last night, for as the storm whipped around the farmyard, a strong gust of wind hit the side of the duck house, and flipped it over and over until it lay smashed against a wall, its door hanging open at a crazy angle, and feathers swirling up into the night sky.

Tyler stirred in his bed as he heard the crash, but thought that it was a stack of apple crates that had fallen over.. He decided to re-stack them in the barn the next day, and went back to sleep.

Meanwhile, in what was left of the duck house, there was panic and pandemonium. a slow trickle of blood had started dripping from the lower side of the smashed building, at a place that used to be a side wall.

In it's cartwheel across the farmhouse, one of the ducks had been killed, her crimson blood now dripping slowly from her beak, and running down her white breast, staining the feathers a deep pink as the blood ran to the ground.

The other duck was so panicked by the smell of the blood and the storm, that she exploded from the door of the duck house, in a flurry of feathers and straw and took off into the night sky. The wind carried her higher and further than she had ever flown before, and in a moment she was no more than a tiny white speck in the night sky. Another moment, and she was gone.

The drake, also alarmed by the whole incident, flew out of the doorway, quacking loudly against the storm, and for his loss, until all of the other animals on the farm started to wake up and tried to understand what had happened.

When he realized that it was pointless calling for the lost duck, and that he had to find some kind of shelter, the drake went to the barn to find a dry place to stay. Molly, the carthorse stood in the middle of the barn, slowly chewing a mouthful of hay, when he walked in.

She turned to the Drake and asked him what had happened.

In wild and excited quacking, the drake informed her, that his house had been destroyed, and that both of the ducks were now gone, one dead, and one lost to the night. She bent her head down to his, and blew a comforting horse breath towards the young drake.

"What is your name young drake?...What do they call you?"

"I have no real name," the drake replied, I always hoped that the farmer would call me Charles, but he doesn't seem to understand me."

"Then I shall call you Charles," said Molly, as she blew him another comforting breath.

"you may stay with me, here, in the barn. but I have a few rules that you'll have to follow."

"Rules?" Said Charles.

"Well, I think it's simply awful how you talk," Molly said with a slow horse like rumble, "you simply have to learn to nicker and neigh.. I have been doing it for years, and all of the other animals love me, people simply cannot stand the cacophony that you ducks make in the morning."

Charles jumped back, surprised "me? talk.. like you... you mean not like a duck?"

Molly nodded her head in a slow carthorse nod, and drawled a slow "yes" and then went on to explain, that there should be no flapping, (as she found that somehow slightly frightening, although she wouldn't explain why) no quacking, no preening, and no coming back to the barn wet. (Although she was willing to make an exception on this night).

Charles, dejected, asked "But why, if I am a duck should I be like you?"

With surprising annoyance, Molly retorted "Because I have lived here for 10 years, and doing what I do has worked for me. That's why."

Charles resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't make any progress with Molly, said his goodbyes, and wandered back across the yard in the cold to the small hen house, to talk to the rooster. At least, thought Charles, the rooster knows what it's like to be a bird.

The rooster was far more accommodating, and woke his hens to tell them the news.. They fussed around him and dried him off with their wings, clucking assurances of sympathy.

The rooster, Chanticleer, (although most of the animals called him Colonel C.) waited until Charles was dry, and seated on the edge of one of the nests, before he began.

"You'll be up and out at 4:00 sharp with me for the morning crow, then we'll be collecting grain with the ladies, and keeping lookout for the cat. There is going to be no point in sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself with me young lad."

"Crowing....?" said Charles, his voice trailing off in disbelief.

"Yes, well, I don't expect you to completely master the thing on the first day, but as we are making you welcome here, you'll be taking crowing lessons from me and then we'll be assisting the ladies with their wing stretches and dust baths, and keeping a sharp lookout for the cat."

For emphasis, he ended his reply with a short crow, which made the hens around him sigh with admiration and respect for the old bird.

"Bbb but I'm a duck" pleaded Charles, I just need somewhere to sleep, and then I thought I would head to the pond for some wading and paddling in the mud. The cat doesn't bother me there, and I'll be no trouble here I promise."

Annoyed, the rooster clucked "But you have to pay your way here sonny my lad, we have some compassion for your immediate situation, but it's our way around here, not yours. You'll be crowing at 4:00 and that's final"

Charles realized for the second time that night, that nobody could truly understand his situation, and that charity and compassion came at a price too high for him to pay, for he was a mere duck, not horse nor rooster, and whilst by comparison with both animals, it had been shorter, it was what he had known all of his life.

Certainly he was willing to repay the kindness bestowed upon him by the other animals, yet none was willing to see him as he was.. To recognize that he was just "him" and that using the storm as the chance to change him, was unfair, and would only make him far more miserable than he was already.

Truly at this point he was far more devastated and miserable than any of them had fully understood. None had seemed too interested in even trying to understand. Nobody seemed to understand genuine empathy.. Not even a fellow bird.

So once more, Charles said his farewells, after thanking the hens for thier kind words, and headed out into the cold wet night.

There was one animal that visited the farmhouse who had always been polite.. Had often told Charles that he would be welcome at any time, and had sat and talked to him from the edge of the pond, and had admired his plumage, and had always said that he wished he could swim as well as Charles did.

Charles often felt a little uncomfortable by the attention.. Something in his gaze, and in the intonation of his words had seemed a little too intense, a little too sharp.. But as he walked towards the sprawling patch of brambles at the back of the farmhouse, Charles attributed that attentiveness to sincerity, to a genuine desire to help, to become his freind.

In fact, he thought, as he wandered into the brambles, I should have come here first.. At least he will accept me as I am, unconditionally, and will understand the pain I am in.

A step or two later and he noticed a white feather on the ground in front of him. It was colored with a deep pink, as if ..... He realized that it had come from the duck who he thought had died...

His heart skipped for joy in his chest, he realized that she must have simply been wounded, and had decided to come here for shelter. He quacked again and again at his relief and then quacked a happy greeting to his old freind, and marched happily into the foxhole.

Be strong and know I am with you

My child so tender, cry not for the broken dreams of today,
As we commend your cherished pet unto the ground,
cry not for the friend who now lies still,
nor for the milk that fell and pooled,
and frustrated you as you tried to drink.

I will be there to be your guide,
to help correct the things I can,
to understand that one so young,
cannot defend from pain so deep.

Today's sorrows will fade yet more will come,
and I promise not to join the lines,
of people who will seek to hurt,
and to deceive on every turn.

As you awaken to this life,
you will be hurt, of that I am sure,
your tender heart will face attack,

And grief, hate and tragedy will become
familiar faces upon life's tempestuous seas.
Yet do not let despair paint ugly scars across that heart,
fight on through the storms to face the light.

For your heart is worth more than gold to me
At every step I shall defend you,
with more strength than I would defend myself.

It matters not if this is today,
with milk and glass upon the floor,
or thirty years from now when
things all turn to dust before your eyes
and threaten to break you, as I know they will.

There is no price that can be put upon,
what you gave to me by just being here,
so as always I swear to never charge,
nor place a condition upon,
what I will always gladly do for you,
I say this from the goodness
and strength of my heart,
that you created when you were born.

So be strong my child, for more tears are to come,
and remember that when you are in your
most joyous moments, or your darkest hour,
you can call my name,

And I will be there.

Hymns To the Silence

I have always been a great fan of what is undoubtedly
one of the best albums I have ever heard:
"Van Morrison's Hymns to the silence"

And for the past few days, I've been thinking a lot
about silence, stillness, and all that comes with it..
so although it's an AMAZING album, and I love it...

This isn't a tribute to Mr. Morrison's work..
it's a tribute.. or something.. to the silence :)


I cried out across the waters of silence
Searching for a point of reference on the horizon,
A familiar face or shoreline to show me how far I had traveled,

But no wandering soul in that silence called out to me,
And though I strained my eyes to see through
The icy blackness of the silence,

No harbor lights shone to guide me,
I felt nothing underneath me, but rivers of icy black,
That pierced the soles of my feet and chilled my legs to the bone

And above me, that same dark and cold penetrated my head,
And froze my thoughts in that still dark, silent moment.
I raged against the silence, shouting until my voice was hoarse,

And realized that the silence took my words and dissolved them
Like a single snowflake as it lands on the warm black asphalt
At the beginning of winter, I too was absorbed by the black,
Adsorbed by the silence.

I felt it’s fingers clutch at my remaining thoughts,
Pulling from me every emotion, every concept that was me,
And I struggled to hold on as I stood there..

And then in an instant it was over..
the icy hand of the silence
swept over me like a cloak, and in one movement it
took me down into itself, and I became still..


There was nothing to fight, for as much as I was there before,
I was gone now.. as much as the silence had been waiting before me,
I was now part of it.
Seamlessly moving though a void of eternal dimensions,

Concepts of boundaries that I had cherished and regulated,
Concepts of time, space and reality,
They were all different now,
I was one.. one with the most magnificent..
The most magnificent nothing… and I felt the pure dark energy

The energy of night, the energy of an ethereal entity
Which stretched across the ages..
That touched all, and all touched it..
In that moment, I was no longer searching for the shoreline,
For I touched all shorelines that had ever been,
I had no need for the lights from a single harbor, for I wandered simultaneously along every dock, and I felt the brick and paint of every house..

I touched every heart and mind, every leaf and rock was my home…
I had never felt so much loss of self,
So much destruction of all that I was…

Yet I had never imagined so much power,,
The unstoppable force of an indescribable energy.

A moment, and it was gone.. the cloak had lifted and I stood,
As a young man, under the streetlight,
Not far from my home..

I heard a car horn on the street not far away,
And I felt a surge of relief
That I was here, and now…

Yet I felt greater, a loss for the stillness and sanctity of that moment,
I felt as though I had lost.. I had lost something that
Was part of me, part of my soul..
Part of the silence that is within all of us had gone..

And although I would not have ever imagined
Wishing for the blackness to return…
I turned towards home,
Pushed my hands deep into my pockets to fight the cold

And as I wandered homeward, I sang hymns to the silence.

Scary Future

Today is the first day of the rest of my life..

Cool huh?? INSPIRING…

But then I drift a little, and look back… (and yes, I know that the statement is all about looking forwards)..

I see train wrecks…

Unimaginable apocalyptic catastrophes, most of which I was solely responsible for…

Some were set up for me by circumstance…. But in reality, I’m to blame for most of the crap that I have had to wade through..

My close friends, of which there are really only 2 or 3, know all to well the nastiness and idiocy of my past…

The stuff that marched Bill Clinton from office..?? Please.. Don’t make me laugh… I’d shrug that off like a bad case of fleas…

This is life altering stuff.. The kind that makes you look back on your track record and see a carpet bomb that went off at every turn…

A friend of mine once commented.. “you seem to go through life, moving from one crisis to the next” (and yeah, I hated it, but it seemed true).. Another pal said “if you weren’t living on the edge every day, you couldn’t survive.. It is what keeps you going” (and I hated that also.. but again couldn’t argue..

I see myself now on a precipice… The chance to actually start carving the stone that will make today the rest of my life.. and seeing the monumental drop beneath me that will make all self-created screw ups and mistakes seem trivial..

There are lives at stake here.. and now, not just the lives that I might accidentally brush against in the course of my own stupidity, but lives that depend on me.. If things do not pan out.. if things aren’t suddenly gelled together in front of me in terms of new job, new home, new.. Everything, then it’s a looong way down.. And I truly do not want to fall now..

I set my sights on the future, but I am equally scared of it.. I feel like when Wyle E Coyote runs off the cliff.. Knowing that if he can just snag a few seconds of grace from the gravity Gods, he’ll have won the game.. But equally certain that as it happened before, he’s going to be down in the canyon in a cloud of dust that resembles a miniature Hiroshima blast..

This time there is no safety net to speak of.. This time it’s for life, for real, and for family…

This time, I have to pull not only a job, but a home (and a stable one) out of my ear (or somewhere) and do all of that within 30 days from now, while several monkeys sit and eat peanuts on my back..

I am against all odds…

But maybe that’s how I always survive??

Here’s to hoping that (at least) those monkeys can fly (wouldn’t want to be a monkey killer too!)


Be safe, be well, and be alert (your country needs lerts)

Job Application

Dear Mr Bush..

Although you're about to leave the white house, in following the news, I've noticed that you may well be an advocate for a system that will certainly help me a great deal..

Let me explain.. I have lost a bunch of money in my life.. Certainly not the billions that your banking groups (like Citigroup) have managed to lose, and I've not yet had a sufficient effect on the economy to create any joblessness.. However, without any formal training whatsoever, I have managed to poorly invest and squander what money that I ever earned, or was entrusted to my care...

I believe, therefore, that this obviously outstanding and commendable skill, makes me eligible for one of the current government's bailout schemes.. Whilst I am only one individual, I can guarantee to lose several millions each week, and you should therefore appreciate just how competent a money drain I may be able to be..

With that in mind, and in order to accelerate this entire process, I have, today, decided to step down as my CEO, for which I will award myself a severance package of several million, and rejoin the organization as Chief Liason Officer for International Relations and production.. As you will most certainly be aware, this new position will be exceptionally stressful, hence I am willing to charge a new corporate jet, a house in the Hamptons, a Ferrari, and a company yacht to one of your bailout plans with immediate effect...

I feel certain that you'll be willing to help me in the next few weeks, as it clearly appears you're doing all you can to throw money away as fast as possible, and sink it into organizations that have already lost trillions, and are still tanking...

After all, it's not like you're going to be able to walk away with any of it... so sure.. I fully agree, you may as well spend it all before you go... I'm certain the next guy will be able to take the heat when everyone realizes that all the money is gone (which I am certain is your plan), and by then, you'll be miles away :) - love it by the way!

In the certainty that you'll be more than interested in proceeding with this venture immediately, I would be more than happy to receive, by return, the first few million for me to waste.. Oh, and please don't think too hard about what is happening to all of those "average" Americans... You haven't done anything about that at all since 2001, so why ruin a good thing? LOL ;)

Thanks..


Pony

I forgive you..

And on the subject of animal rescue...

Here is one that I wrote, a few years ago...

I forgave him when he shouted,
I forgave his foul words,
I forgave him when my only food,
was only fit for birds,
I forgave him when my coat turned dull,
from standing in the rain,

when he beat my back until it bled,
I forgave him once again.
I forgave him when he left me,
in this rotten stall to die,
I forgave all this without a thought,
without a question "why".

But now I see you standing here,
you say I have to go,
you say I'll never walk again,
you're sad that this is so.

I see the gun,
I close my eyes,
I shall no longer live...
You took away my life of pain...

It's YOU I should forgive..

Sometimes it's just not possible to save every one.

Until you do..... you won't understand

Kathie Sullivan-Parkes, East Corinth, VT wrote this one.. (she also asked that if anyone uses all or part of it, that her name is given :)

It sums up much of my life, and why I have a small cadre of dogs all of whom have unfortunate beginnings....

Until you have held a tiny puppy in your arms as it kissed your face with slobbery puppy breath and felt the love,
Until you have held an injured or severely ill dog in your arms and felt their pain
Until you have looked into the eyes of a tired aging senior dog and felt their wisdom,
And until you have seen and understood the look in your dogs eyes that tell you their time on earth with you is over .... and you humanely let them go,

You will never understand the life of a rescuer.

We find beauty in the most incomprehensible places and the otherwise homely faces.
It is our gift to see beyond the dirt, terror, sadness and defeat and find the true soul that lies within.
We are Rescue.

I salute all you guys who work with rescuing animals... Man can perform no higher service, than the defense of those who cannot defend themselves

Tenderness

Oh softness of my heart,
wherein lies the pain of my tears and my sorrow,
If I could only pluck you out, and become immune...

Immune to the torment of my loneliness,
as my love lies on a foreign shore...
Immune to the pain of loss,
freed from the shackles of my emotions.

There is no opiate that will ease such trauma,
no surgeon can cure this malady,
and so as the sting of my loss once again returns,

I wish to grasp that inner part of me,
and destroy it, to never again feel so lost...

Yet I know that this is not merely a piece of an organ,
this Achilles heel is simply a door...
and whilst it opens to allow pain to invade..

It is also is the doorway for love....

Hence I will cherish the loss and the pain,
because I know that it is a part of love...

And I know that our joyous reunion....
will put an end to moments like these...

I love you...

How Heartless

D'Zhana Simmons (14 years old) is seen here crying tears of joy as she left hospital, having spent 118 days without a heart... This is groundbreaking stuff and they were apparently using some real high tech (and big) pumping machines to keep her blood flowing.... But I think they could have gotten this technology a lot earlier if they had just asked my ex wife.. As far as I'm concerned, she never had a heart.. ohhhhhhh snap!! :) .. But I certainly hope that DZhanna continues to improve... (something the ex never mastered!)

Did you actually write this?

This blog is a new one, yet already I have been asked
a few questions about it....

Almost all of the questions are "did you write this yourself"...

The answer here is a resounding YES... all writings are mine...

If I find some interesting snippet (like the White house thing)
which is not mine.. I'll be fair and let you know....

But all other entries, musings and poems.. they came from the same
strange and corrupted mind that is writing this entry..

The other questions have been more centered around
"Can I take what you have written, and use it somewhere else?"

I may be being asked all of this (at least my ego tells me)
because the readers are so awed at my literary skills or my insight..

...But the internal cynic understands that they may be more confused..
about how so much strange junk can come from one small brain all at once..

Whatever the case.. (and I'm not here to judge) ...
I know that with the internet..
there is a massive amount of copy and paste which happens...
and although I cannot even hope for any element of
glory or immortality... (Nor would I want it)..

I would just ask that you'd at least do me the decency
of letting people know your source..
when you distribute...

Not for any accolade nor attention...
But just so that I can know that at one time
I was here..
and I was heard...

Thanks...

And please forward this message to everyone you know
because I not only need the money, but
eleven pixies will eat your soul at midnight
if you do not immediately send this...
to seventeen close friends...
(most of which are already pissed off by your forwards)...

Remember.. Bob Jacobee, aged nine of Toronto, sent this
to just one person and within moments of clicking the mouse button,
heard Heidie Schiffer knocking at his door and wanting to talk to him...

The fact that he was only nine was his only problem...

But.. aside from all the foolery....

Please just name your source...

And you'll sleep better knowing my army of pixies..
aren't coming to steal your soul, or your nose....

all works are mine.. but they are here for you to enjoy

(unless otherwise specified) in which case contents may vary...

Thanks.

What if nobody was right?

Sometimes the silence gives me too much time to think,
and my mind invariably strays to those few special childhood moments,
maybe our lives are merely a series of moments,
and our anguish is caused by the loss of one special moment,
and our desire for the next...

But childhood brought with it a level of love and understanding,
which is so starkly absent from all of our current lives.
in the blink of an eye, we went from our mothers promising to buy us
the moon or a mocking bird, if only we would only just go to sleep,
and the unconditional pledge of defense of our most tender cause..

To a rude awakening, where we found a world filled with so much
turmoil, anger and confusion,
where murder rape and genocide are everyday words...
Sometimes in those moments of traumatic realization,
I have turned to the sanctity of religion and of God...

But religion is a poor ambassador in the realm of peace...
For years most churches have waged a war against
those who were in any way different,
from the crusades to the modern abortion clinic assassins...

These churches do more to propagate the ideologies of hatred and prejudice...
than the people of the world would have done themselves
if they were just left in peace to figure it out alone...

Now I see a growth in the tyrannical and bigoted branches
of the fundamentalist Christian movement, who instead of any form
of acceptance, preach wildly that if you are not an unquestioning follower,
then they will not hear your voice....

At these times I wonder what Jesus would truly have done...

For me the answer there is that a follower of any kind of fair God,
would embrace ALL those around him or her...
no matter what their beliefs.. or lifestyles
or how they voted last summer...

Unconditional love (as preached) to me should be just that...

UNCONDITIONAL

perhaps the answer lay with the hippies of the 60's and 70's..
or the Buddhists or Hindus.... Perhaps nobody was right there either..
And this is not just a question of faith...
this is a heartfelt desire for a return to the innocence of our youth.
a world actually devoid of politics...

where what is known and taught is not selfish behavior...
but of free flowing love and support....
one that has no boundaries...
no rules of membership.. and instead of fighting like
a pair of stray dogs on crack
about who may or may not have done what...
Bands together and looks for the solution...

I know it is possible if I look to the children of this world....
for them, there are no such boundaries...
for them all things are possible....
after all, their mothers just promised them the moon...

I hope when they finally realize that the moon might not actually arrive...
that what is there for them is somewhat more understandable,
than the chaos and pain which I see in the world....

Until then I'll sit in my moment... and remember what it was like
to have sand between my toes..
Ice cream and chocolate on my face...
a bucket full of freshly caught worms at my feet,
and a positive view of the adventure which lay ahead :)

One sunny day in 2009

I didn't write this one, but it deserves distributing :)

One Sunny Day In 2009

One sunny day in 2009, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Ave, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the Marine standing guard and said, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine looked at the man and said, “Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The old man said, “Okay” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The man thanked him and, again just walked away

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same US Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said, “Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, smiled, and said, “See you tomorrow, Sir.”

It's not easy being green

I have never had so many trashcans,
for paper for wood and for stuff,
for bio and glass and old bottle caps,
for oil and for clothes drying fluff,

The law here says I have to recycle,
but I hear that it truly costs more,
to sort and process and stow all the rubbish,
than to put it all in one heap like before!

They tell me that it burns much more energy,
to recycle and clean up our space
so why am I still sorting garbage,
when it just leads to more and more waste?

There truly is no easy answer,
and sorting may be better of course,
but I truly believe that I'm not the solution,
we should cut it all off at the source.

I am tired of plastic shrink wrapping,
I truly think it should be banned,
when we could grow natural fibers for packing,
instead of polluting the land,

My kitchen was never the issue,
it's the throwaway junk that we buy,
so now I am still sorting rubbish,
and asking a small question why.

If we tackled the cause of the problem,
we'd not have so much of a chore,
and find our kitchens full of trashcans,
and wasting more fuel than before.

Howling at the moon

The dark plaintive cry of the wolf emanates from his soul,
it stirs within us our most primal instincts as we feel his pain,
his sorrow and his passion for his pack...

No violin nor saxophone, even in the hands of the most skilled musician,
has ever matched the atmosphere of the worlds most mournful cry...
in a moment we are captivated by the raw emotion
which echoes across the darkened hillsides..

we feel the pain and heartache of a thousand generations
and the power and depth of his sincerity...
we empathize with the trauma and sadness of the moment,
and try to understand the message as he turns his head to the skies
and lets the wind and the hillside carry the ancient story...

I hear the wolf and I want to console him,
I do not envy his position, nor his anguish,
but I envy his ability to let his emotions flow,
in a way that we are unable to do..
Right now, in the stillness of this night,
when I again cannot sleep...
I want to turn my eyes towards the moon...
and howl like the wolf... And let it all go.

Lambs to the slaughter

I remember the words of the old man who taught me the trade...
He assured me that I would get used to the fear.. To the sounds and the
last struggling moments of these poor creatures...
Certainly I have learned to leave much of
the sounds and smells behind me when I leave work,
But after all these years, the nightmares still haunt the sanctity of my dreams.

I see the innocent eyes of the poor creatures,
as they walk purposely towards their doom,
I hear the pathetic scrambling as they try to escape,
all of them panic at one stage or another,
when they finally realize that it's all too late,
that everything has gone horribly wrong..
and whilst I wish I could somehow change everything,
I am a mere pawn within a system that has been herding these innocents
to their doom for many thousands of years.

I have no voice, yet sometimes I wish I could scream at them,
to scare them away and to show them how so
many more of their ancestors were sacrificed here,
to make them flee and somehow eke out a life of liberty and safety on their own.
But they are all just so trusting, they think that as they walk into the building,
They will be treated as they were in the past..
That all of the rules of fairness and decency are still in place

But one by one, they are all hoodwinked,
and the final deception leaves their eyes wide open, not with terror
but the sheer evil betrayal that occurred the moment that they arrived here,
and lost everything... Yes, I still have those nightmares
I still wish I could make somebody understand, to warn them of this terrible fate

But my only consolation is that it has given me steady work for many years,
every tear of pain helps to pay for each brick in my house, and whilst I still wake often
knowing I am enshrouded even here, at home by such misery.
I know that in some small way I am making a little difference to these poor creatures...
Sometimes it sucks to be a marriage counselor.


(oh, and I'm actually not a counselor, but I got the idea of writing this a few weeks ago, after meeting one!!)