PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Camp Courage,

Sometimes known as courage,

A place that is filled with,

Love, hope, smiles, and friendship,

Courage will always have a peace of my heart,

You could say it’s a home away from home for me,

It’s a place I love so much,

I have been going there every summer for more then 10 years,

Every summer is so different,

Filled with love, hope and courage,

New friends,

Old friends that I love so much,

Kids that come back from year to year,

And new kids that come each year,

Smiles, hugs, and laughs,

Are what I love so much,

Every summer I hope I make a differents for someone,

I love to hear kids laugh,

See them smile,

And ask for a hug,

I love to hear the kids and friends say my name,

Crazy Mist or MD,

Is what they sometimes say,

Or,

There she go’s,

Watch out,

I love this place,

And I know I can be myself,

It will always be in my heart.

2007

misty yanish

the morning sea of silence broke

rippling into songs of birds. the tides of people

starting to work. we went out in search

of something. no-

-one knows what.

busy markets and cities crowded. people running

into each other. we moved

sandy desert, sand chocked throat, no

water or even sweat.

they left me, i saw them

i saw the blue lipped horizon

swallow them. no more

i rest now. i lay my body on the green grass

tied tight

motionless

in shackles of numbness

i think

what Work is?

i must be addicted to smoking, twenty dollar bills

watching greenbacks with sunburns

chemical smoke

but, i'm just a face in a frame today.



cheap, stationary monument to the forsaken gifts

poorly dressed symbol of the self-defeating underclass

store branded

a dull yellow box on the shelf.



shivering in a chair

too weak to get up and close the window

who am i?

forever waiting an injection of life?

preparing the needle from within?



the tides of my body are coming in so slow today

my chest is caked salt residue

i breathe out the dying sea

i dry up and prepare to be blown across the loose prairie

a lightweight inertia.

Standing in front of the class on your first day,

heart thumping away in your chest.

Assuring yourself they’ll all like you,

”Just go out there and do your best”.

A hand shoots up at the back,

The body attached jiggling up and down,

itching to remind you it’s time for milk and a snack.

When they’ve washed their hands and picked up the paint,

You survey the carpet, a nice shade of primary colours,

like you’re going to faint.

But skimmed knees soon become a breeze,

and you sing nursery rhymes.

They like story time outside under the trees.

And you deal with that one little monster,

the darling who’s determined to be a tyke.

You hear stories about the Tooth Fairy,

and about learning to ride a bike.

Finally your heart swells up with a tear,

Looking back thoughtfully “How did we get so far?”,

at the end of the year.

Luck is for the losers that can't take steps

It's for that girl with no date

hoping when she get's to the bar

shell get "lucky" and some guywould speak to her





Luck is for the kid

hoping he'll get "lucky" and

get a job, while sitting on his

ass playing video games.



Luck is for the lottery players

hoping that by doing nothing but

spending a dollar a day and, watching tv

They will make their lifes so much better.



Luck is for the losers, the lazy

and the ignorant. I'm not lucky,

I work, because Luck is lazy too.

I don't wait around for the Lazy.

As if I could ever stay away huh? Another installment in the life of Billy Boarster the incurable bum. Another egocentric saga of self-pity and cynical gibberish to entertain your empty souls. Another venture into unabashed self-degradation and undignified honesty. Strap yourselves in, here I go…



Aaah, Nigeria… just clocked up my first year anniversary the other day. An entire year endured on the soils of the most fucking corrupt, polluted and hopeless nation on this earth. Another year chasing the dollar… Another year spent without the company of my own son… or his mother… or any other fucking family member or personal friend that give a smidgeon of meaning to my life. ‘Meaning’ left the building a long time ago… ‘purpose’ followed shortly thereafter… the last virtue still clinging onto the fence must be ‘sanity’.



As we drive I stare. I stare straight or sideways or any way… I just don’t focus my gaze upon any motherfucker on the side of the road. It’s just become too much of an inconvenience. Beggars, hecklers and seller all want my gaze. They are on constant 24/7 lookout for it. As soon as they find it, they jump on it with the vigor of a grizzly bear slashing a salmon out from the stream. Oh, if you’ve only seen two bread sellers running after a minibus of very poor passengers, losing their sandals as they try and outrun each other, just to make that N10 commission they get on a loaf of bread (about 10 Aussie cents, but it’s probably less than N10 as for the commission they get).

After picking up the last passenger, we set off for Ikeja, where the party was being held. Being exhausted and somewhat hung-over from the previous night, I didn’t really want to go, and traveling to the mainland after dark, without an armed police escort, was strictly forbidden according to company policy. Still, the guys managed to convince me to come, saying it’d be “an adventure”. It was some American bloke’s birthday, and he lived way out near the airport because that’s where he worked and ran his business. I’d apparently met him at a party the previous week, though I was too drunk to distinctly remember him, and he’d insisted to the other guys that I come.



We traveled in a three-vehicle convoy, and coming up to the first mainland bridge we encountered our first “adventure” for the evening. There was a broken down truck ahead, slowing the peak traffic down to a trickle, so armed gangs of robbers were quick on the scene. They went from car to car, using Okada boys on the opposite side of the road as getaways. At first I didn’t register what was going on, when I saw two guys leaning in on either side of the front windows of the car next to us, yelling at both the driver and passenger. There’s always a lot of minor accidents here in Lagos, where people get out of their cars and yell at each other for ten minutes, before hopping back in to their cars and taking off. I thought this was such an incident… until the passenger handed over his mobile phone, some cash, and the robber pulled his arm out with a handgun in it! The robber then ran across the road and quickly jumped on his accomplice’s Okada and sped off. The two victims yelled “Thieves! Thieves!” to no avail, pretty much accepting what had just happened instantaneously as an everyday occurrence. This is Lagos after all. The guys in one of the other cars behind us witness pretty much an identical incident, but with different robbers, so we all concluded it was a gang on the prowl.

Let down your ego and let the love pour in

Let go of yourself and see the brightness begin.

Too many people just live the illusion

Walking around in a mixed up confusion.

Things will be better if you just decide

to do away with your pride.



The sunshine blows in and the darkness disappears

and so does the sadness and so do all your fears.

Take your whole life and throw in this twist:

A lot of what you see really doesn’t exist.

The moon is having a strange effect on the tide.

Do away with you pride.



Pride will get in the way when you’re trying to grow.

And make you question the things that you know.

Make you lie to yourself and cut off the flow

of the energy moving through you.



It takes such tiny pieces to make up something large.

And little tiny particles can make an electric charge.

There are so many things out there to find.

And it’s hard to separate your body from your mind.

Don’t lock it up and keep it all inside.

Do away with your pride.

The last thing you need to do is run and hide.

Do away with your pride.

third from the left, center to the right

abrasive, and disconsolate, emerging from the night

distill the light, the dimmest sight

what i thought was wrong, was always right



always down the same path, but different every time

collapsing and decaying, beneath the ladders i shall never climb

all was thrown away before i could get it together

open your eyes, past this disguise you will never sever



under the skin, all the tortures within

needles and pins, will ease away all the sin

yet another day past i'm sure to forget

carefully placed in this moment i'll soon regret



a soul gone under, all plight and plunder,

light gone without thunder

all my past will never last, future comes too fast,

the present was never even there to begin with



scabbed hands caress this wounded machine

cuts and scratches, all skin and bones between

failure of the system, you know the drill

despair of me, for I’ve learned the art of nill



...but sometimes the weak, crawl out from underneath….