The following poems are all original work of Joshua Spencer. None of these Joshua Spencer’s poems should be copied, re-transmitted, reproduced or altered in any way but by the written consent of Joshua Spencer . Thanks.

 Some of  these poems have been  written approximately two decades ago. Note that a few of the poems may be culturally challenging to a North American/European audience  while others aren’t. There  are a few poems that are more understandable from a Jamaican context, my native land. Thanks for visiting this page.

(1)

               Sorrow’s Doom.

Sorrow’s doom encamps my brain,

Driving me insane

Making my blood clot in my veins

And making impossible the control of life’s reign.

My head hurts

My heart races

And my thoughts cease to radiate consciousness

As sorrow’s doom looms and

Loots my cognitive structures

Ripping and splitting me apart

Stealing away from me my Darling’s heart.

My love oozes in spurts

From my bloodless coat

As my Darling goes into oblivion!

Out of Being

Heartless

And careless

For the one she leaves behind

Motherless, fatherless and wifeless

Making my life useless

Going around with a perplexed mind

At the call of sorrow’s doom

In my wife’s imagined bosom.

July twenty-five, ninety two

My Sweetheart and I

We went it through

Hand in hand along the beautiful aisle

But now all that exist are the spoils

Accompanied with a vacant smile

Tears, sorrows and doom

The clothing soil of stained

Hatred and grudge blossoming

Into sorrow’s doom.

(Joshua Spencer-July 1992)

(2)

                           Nature’s Seeds.

Sun stained face,

Coloured black from the rays,

Bathed in a continuous flow

Of salty stenched liquid

Just like the uncovered toilet bowl

Succumbing to society’s enslavement.

No house to rent

No money to spend

Entwined and merely protected

And covered by the vastness of earth’s sky.

Seeds of tears in rags

And tattered raiments

Remind them of the need

For a continuous supply of oxygen,

Of life or death?!

Survival merely lies within the vast

Expanse of wild forest

To nourish the seeds

To cherish

To grow

For the poor deprived souls.

In time , the seeds will be consumed

They will perish, stifle

And be malnourished

A six-foot-six casket

Will be their bed.

And Earth will fold in

The greatest of her stars will fade

And disappear into the Beyond

Into nothingness

And nature’s fertility will dwindle away

Taking across the miles the smiles

Across the valleys

And over the great seas

To be viewed on the other side

Of the hemisphere

By a few mighty organisms

Still to be trampled

By the competition!

No escape for the seeds

Of poor sun stained face.

(Joshua Spencer-December 1992)

(3)

                        Tension’s Grip.

How dare you

Entwine my being like a saprophytic plant?

Sucking at my flesh

A host for your sting?

Snaking my head

Stifling my breath

Racing my pulse

Accelerating my heartbeat

To pressure my blood vessels

To dilate my brain

To expand

To kill!

How dare you engulf my central nervous system?

Render me incapable of conscious thought

Conscious reasoning

Sexual appetite

Sexual joy

Unable to cope with life’s tasks

And challenges

Unable to communicate with my friends

My foes

My children

And my children’s children.

Let go of my being!!

Free me of your neurotic vibrations

Your rapid convulsions.

Your goal is clear

To induce sadness

To elicit madness

To create brain haemorrhage

To cause me to suffer

Us to suffer

My children to hunger

And my girlfriend to cry

A community to dress in black

In large numbers

With wet eyes and damped handkerchiefs.

With  outstretched hands

And clawish fingers

You grip my emotions

Making them

Making me lose control.

I know who you are

I am the STAR

You are tension’s grip

But with the Beyond’s help

I shall slip!

(Joshua Spencer-February 1990)

(4)

Poverty Dominates.

Poverty surrounds you.

Hunger embeds you

Your stomach aches

And your joys flow away like a river

And tears take its place.

In ragged, tattered and stained raiment

You hush a starving , crying child to rest

A body that utters sounds of thunder

As gas roams its impoverished structure.

A bird sings

A toad croaks

To cheer up your disturbed mind

But in vain

Your face crumpled like a crushed paper bag

Your teeth are black

As a moonless midnight

With your body emitting a stenched odour

That attracts the crows.

Jealously envy and grudge are killing you

And you are not to blame you are soon insane

The rich despise you

You are intolerable

And worse of all capitalism curses you!

You walk on the street to entertain the elite

You absorb the heat of an amazingly hot street

And they smile and laugh

And turn up their noses and pass you behind.

You return to a debilitated structure

To meditate to the divine

But in vain

Because he hates you

You are to continue

In your impoverished condition

You turn on your belly

To fill a vacuum stomach with gas.

(Joshua Spencer-August 1978)

  (5)                        The Urge To achieve

Continuous restriction of movements

Eternal hard work

Sleepless nights

Accompanied with little play-just to achieve.

No girlfriends, no dance

Stranger to the streets

In the square me, they seldom meet

Just because I am working to achieve.

Stupid, mad,  foolish, insane are common adjectives

Used to describe me

I walk in deep meditation

I do not see the rest of the world

I am different, indifferent, isolated

Just in order to achieve

My closest friend is my best friend

I hug her during lectures

And squeeze her tight for most of the night

Just for one reason, one purpose

The desire to achieve.

Frustration and depression do come upon me

But already I have made a pledge

A pledge to love her

To live with her for three long years!

I have started and must continue this way

Because my profession - I want to achieve.

Nights after nights

Days after days

I keep looking through, staring at

Studying from my friend,

My friend  book - to reach my goal

To  achieve.

I have started to achieve

I will and must continue this way

I must work hard each day

To bring about a change in my life

A change from dirty poverty

A change from the ghetto!

I must undergo an upper social mobility

And then look down on my black brothers

Throw them one end of the rope

And I must hold on to the other.

My black brothers shall be pulled up with me

And my race and I

We shall shout “We had to achieve, we have achieved!!”

(Joshua Spencer-September 1979)

     (6)          

            Are You really Gone?!

Why did we meet that day we met?

Now only to be left in the cold

I am left alone

Honey, are you gone?

A romance that lightens

And brightens my dull day

A love we share everywhere

But suddenly my emotions

Are crying out for sympathy

As I have to ask

Are you gone?

How do we compensate

For the wasted days?

What will we do with our few memories?

I guess it’s the inevitable

You have got to leave

But still I have got to ask

Are you really gone?

My joys are suddenly flowing

In the sorrow stream.

My days are changing to moonless nights

As I watch you gradually

And surely going out of sight

Am I seeing right?!

Are you really gone?

Dear God, if it is thy will

So let it be

But God, help me to remain sane

I am feeling this terrible love pain

Oh God, I have still got to ask

Are you really gone?!

(Joshua Spencer-February 1981)

(7)

                           Hatred Sings.

The black man laughs

A dog barks

A cock crows

And hatred sings.

A mother plays and comforts her child

A father hugs and embraces

And relaxes

And hatred sings

And hatred sings.

A policeman guards a royal home

A soldier roams and protects

Co-workers chat and grin

And occasionally smile

But hatred sings.

Politicians move around ghetto people

Nurses and doctors care for their diseased patients

But scorn stings

And hatred sings

And hatred sings.

Teachers teach their pupils

Rapports are frequent

But love and sympathy

Are superficial

Deep down they hate

And hatred stings and hatred sings.

Friends sing love and peace aloud

But deep in their hearts

Hate is being whistled

Bloody hate!

And hatred stings

And hatred sings.

Why pretend?

Why not amend?

Be a genuine soul

And be true

Love earnestly and sincerely

Eliminate pretence

Let the Beyond be your king

And hatred will not ring

And hatred will not sting

And then, will hatred sting?

Will hatred really be in the dust bin?

(Joshua Spencer-January 1982)

(8)

                                       The Power of Love

I look in the night’s sky

And what do I see?

A thousand stars

Smiling at me.

I wander down the rural path

In a desolate frame of mind

And suddenly being interrupted

By a roaring stream.

I get close cautiously, calmly

And peer down in the stream

What do I see?

A thousand fishes laughing

Haughtily with me

I stand in awe

I wonder what this could be

And suddenly

A pretty little bird

Comes a chirping at me

I flee from the scene

And what do I see?

A motherly sweetheart

Waiting at home,patiently.

Her smiles are light and soft

And velvety

In her arms, I fall comfortably

We switch the lights out

And turn out all the shouts

And all night long

We do the love song.

(Joshua Spencer-1984)

(9)

                                 Maurice Bishop

He was a young man and a stalwart

He was strong, fine and dignified

Loved by the people

The majority of his people.

Yet murdered by the hands of a few

Blood thirsty soul.

Cannibalized , eradicated and crucified

By blood thirsty, nasty, dirty

Ravenous ‘John  crows’

Who are the murderers?

Where are they from?

What is their motive for power?

Why do these vagabonds

Want to hold the handle?

 Not clear, not fair, I swear!

They are boiling for economic strength

Political  dominance

They seek to exploit

To exploit humankind - to destroy

Blood, sweat or tears

Which do you think?

(Joshua Spencer- March 1983)

(10)                 Why Am I Lonely?

Why am I lonely?

I walk the crowded streets

I listen to the beating of drums

The singing of birds

Yet my loneliness remains.

I have a few friends, social friends

We chat together and yet I am lonely

There is a feeling of depression

A feeling of sadness

A feeling as if I am in another world

Only with myself

And the sun shines but once a year

With the clouds always thick and black

And appear to be motionless!

Am I lonely because I need love?

Am I lonely because I have not yet found that one

That special one?

That one to hold me tight, to kiss me?

To make love to me  and care for me?

Why? Why?! Just why am I lonely?

(Joshua Spencer-September 1979)

(11)      Depression

Depression! depression! Oh , frustration.

Consideration- All because of depression

Is it worthwhile to be depressed?

Is it worthwhile to be depressed?!

It can cause cancer

Ohhhh God ,is this a reasonable answer?

Your body’s cells,

Your white blood cells all become inactive because of depression.

Depression accompanies frustration

This is not good

You eat no food

You are sick. Oh depression!

Leave me alone! Leave me alone!!

Welcome happiness

I’ll meet you joy.

Depression I have CONQUERED you

Depression, I’m STRONG

Depression, I don’t hear you?!

Depression, you are gone. Aren’t you?

Good morning HAPPINESS!

(Joshua Spencer- August 1978)

(12)                Maurice Bishop

 March of seventy-nine

Comrade Bishop set every phase

Every stage in time.

Everyone was doing fine

Discipline restored

Jobs started to flow

Like a brief and sudden shower of rain

Some whooligans came

And towed the Bishop away

The sting is hot

The pain is great

But the fight must continue

And the struggle prolonged

Relentless effort must be engaged.

We must fight for the many

Until victory has come!

(Joshua Spencer-1980’s)

   (13)            Mankind

Every man is God’s handy work.

Every man is important.

He has his skills and task to perform.

He has a brain and a heart and thus responds

To changes in his surroundings

Then Why? Why should someone be superior

Or let’s say inferior to another?

Are all men not made up of the basic units cells

Which go together in composing a human being?

Every man is a man, My friend!

(Joshua Spencer-July 1978)

 (14)                   How I Love Her

Why is it that she stays away?

Why can’t she give me a chance to try the game?

I think she is young, yes

But old enough to understand

How I love her.

Day and night I try

Days become weeks

Weeks become months

The months become a year

Yet our love, her love has not found gear.

Is it because of her ignorance of

How I love her?

Her lips are sweet, I am sure

She dresses so neatly, that I adore

I try so hard and eventually

She starts but then again I need more.

Could it be that she does not know

How I love her?

Please dear Deity, I pray!

Let her be my Queen today.

Dear Beyond, you know, I am sure

Yes God, you know

How I love her.

(Joshua Spencer-April 1980)

(15)             The Black Man

The man is from Africa

The man was once sold

The ex-slave, the slave driver

Truly this is the black man.

The man with a powerful brain

A strong man!

The one who has always been discriminated against

The man with such powerful a complexion

That other races try to isolate him

This is the true description of the negro ,the black man.

A servant and a master

A follower and a leader

He is poor , he is rich

What man with such unique behaviour?

Are you not proud to be the black man?

A good worker

Good at his task,

Not lazy as the others

And so was used as a substitute to the others who hated work!

He was enslaved!

But I’ll beat my drum and sing all day long

As I am proud because

I am the BLACK MAN!

(Joshua Spencer-July 1978)

(16)                       Everything is Gone.

Dinner has ceased from being cooked

The radio has stopped playing or gets low

Man gets hungrier and angrier and

So everything is gone.

The peace, there is none.

Harmony has deteriorated

‘Love’ can be  eliminated from the English dictionary

It has no meaning

It does not exist!

Everything is gone.

There are less residential areas

With less sophisticated mansions

More and more huts, barracks, erected in the ghettos

And ghetto life spreads

Killing, drinking of blood and sweat for water

And sleeping on board for bed

Everything is going, is gone.

Just a minute, I could be wrong.

Not everything is going, is gone.

I can see quite clearly one thing is coming.

I can see its face, its head and grinning teeth

I can see its entire body

Its unemployment!

Yes, one thing is surely and truly coming

Not everything is gone

Unemployment is still coming

With his eyes focused at me, at us.

Is everything right? Has everything gone?

(Joshua Spencer-August 1978)

(17)                             Life in Jamaica!

For the poor, it’s a pain in the tooth

For the rich it’s like a mother having been successful in a first birth.

For the rich twenty pounds of mutton

Tuesday, Wednesday twenty-five pounds of steaks and so

As the days go by there is a change of meal for the rich

A variety of nutrients for ensuring a balance diet

Sunday comes fifty pounds of chicken for one rich man and his tiny family!

Sunday fifty cents ilaloo or quarter pint of oil

But from then on ‘till ‘Satday’  in clear an nice Jamaican  language

‘So-so’ bickle for the poor man and his twelve pitney dem!

‘Studyration’ ‘fretration’, these are the words used by the poor

Words that never existed

Never written in the English dictionary

A mere glimpse at the poor man’s education.

Evolution, annihilation-  the rich man’s words

Well educated. The poor man hears but he does not understand

The rich mock at the poor as if trying to explain

He begins with ‘annihilation’ and said it means going out of being

Or complete calamity but again, the poor does not comprehend

The poor did not have the high school fee for a  basic education

He did not attend school.

He turns away wondering well hard.

Eventually he gets crazy

He is mad, he is insane

Making nothing repugnant to life in Jamaica!

(Joshua Spencer-September 1985)

(18)                The Black Man

Coffled to the African coast

He listened attentively to the sound of the chain

As it rattled at his banded feet.

He reached the coast safely and so smiled a little

Because he was tired

Smiled for rest.

He is imprisoned in his baracoon

Not long though, just temporarily

For the white man, the trader

Is coming to snap him like a dog snaps a bone.

The black man is converted to a piece of furniture

Dust must not be seen  on your cabinet

Neither must there be signs of fading

So he is shaved, oiled and polished

Ready to be sold.

He is bought and brought into the slaver

To face the journey through the middle passage

And due to the insanitary condition

He is infested with small pox

And the doctor of the slaver

The white doctor is tired of too much of him

He is left to die but the Beyond said ‘no’

So he lives on.

He reached the West Indies naked

And another white man grabbed him

After he was made to move

About like a horse turning a mill!

Covered his nakedness and gave him a handkerchief

To dry his sweat and tears

As he will be expected to work to death

With that cutlass given to him

To make the white man and his mother country rich.

But yet the black man lives on!

All that happened several years ago

And the whites have been forgiven, their apology accepted

But yet we still have to say the black man lives on.

He lives in the past

He will live in the future too

The black man is strong and will live forever!

(Joshua Spencer-May 1983)

(19)  Your Love keeps On Healing Me!

I often falter on the wayside

The challenges and the woes of life

Keep nudging at me,

At my optimism

But the knowledge of your love keeps on healing me

The glory of the morning’s sun

Brings along with it

The ironic sorrow and doom.

In the night, a pale and changing moon evolves

Around which life,

My life, seems to revolve

With an equal paleness

And I retire to doom

To a feeling of nothingness

A vacuum of hopelessness

And just then

 The knowledge of your existence

Frees me of the stench

And I’m made strong.

The youthful minds

The youthful beings

Yearn for hope, for knowledge, for eternity

For future strength

And are put to my charge.

The responsibility is great.

The task is nerve wrecking

And at times, I shiver as if I’m quaking

Wanting to die, to succumb

To life’s rough way

To society’s onslaught

To society’s torture

To nature’s pain

But I take a break and I sigh

And you become real as the sun is to day.

I’m lifted! Uplifted!

You are the one

Who makes me tick along

As your love keeps on healing me.

How discouraged I become sometimes.

The loneliness

The frustration

The sorrows

The usually long lasting illness of a relative, a mother and a friend

Even death!

And always as I decide

To hang up the hammer

You I remember.

A sudden hope oozes

In the vacuum spaces of my thoughts

Like a sudden rush of wind on a summer desert

Which envelopes my being

Engulfs my pessimism

And makes me merry

Your love keeps on healing me.

I realize how precious you are in my heart

And for every negative vibe

That inundates my soul, my being

I’m elevated and re-inspired

By you, through you

You , baby…

Your love has got a hold on me!

I’m inspired to greater thoughts, positive energy.

Your love has made me well.

I’m healed.

(Joshua Spencer-August 1992)

(20)                         Desperate Lover

I need you now

Please don’t ask me how

I need you desperately.

Your eyes, your shape,

Your dignity,

The very voice that calls my name

It means so much to me.

I always try to cheat a moment

To think of you

To re-live the few lovely times we spent together

And cover the wrongs you do.

Sweetheart, this is not a poem

Neither is it a rhyme.

It’s just a few lines

To let you know

That I love you so

And you mean the world to me

I am desperate

I am going crazy for you!

I am your desperate lover.

(Joshua Spencer-April 1980)

(21)             The Pain.

Swindled retrovert, recluse, introvert

Inhaling in the insane pain.

My mental potency stains and strains

Head lifted in high gaze to face the world

Though sly to shade the pain.

Cognitive overload

With my hurt and perceived discrimination

Enveloping and clouding my genuine talent

To attain peace of mind

The joy and full meaning of life.

The latent energy and heat to survive

Surpass the much perceived visible thrust of glee

A deep embedded, restrained emotion

Crying out to be free.

In a land masked with superficial love and equality

My intellectual being struggles with the rest of itself

To shout ‘cheat!’ and ‘discrimination!’ in my new home

But soon realizes that to do so means doom

In a wretched hemisphere pregnant with racism and gloom.

The criteria for a raise at work in my new home are clear

They are contingent not on one’s ability

The superior talent to effect a positive and prosperous impact on the job

But more so on one’s race

One’s claim to the waving maple leaf!

This is my pain.

Academic achievements and work experience are insignificant

In this  rugged, biased and onesided ball game

A grade ten education elicits a greater reward

If one is endowed with the right skin shade.

The underdog must be frustrated into retreat

And be pushed aside to bite the bullet

In this hemisphere inundated with aliens’ pain.

(Joshua Spencer-July 1,1999).

(22)                  Time Passes In A Flash

Its  happy yesterdays and yesteryears flashed by

With lightening speed right before its eyes

Its toddlerhood  spanned so narrowly, so brief

At times it has got to struggle with itself to stave off the grief.

A bright, wide-eyed , masculine  seedling

Ejected from its safe fertile soil

Into trampled, unfertilized and overused domain

Comedian and centre of attention

A garden’s jubilee.

So free, so happy, so strong

With the glee radiated  from a garden

Common to itself and its sibling seedlings

Blossomed quickly into a blooming flower

But without the sun’s rays to graze

It is dazed.

Its garden, its sun’s rays and fertilizers

Are quickly snatched away.

Its chlorophyll becomes almost non-existent

There is a feeling that nothing lasts forever.

And that’s right.

Time passes in a flash

Like a hundred metre dash.

Within seconds, it’s at the end of its race

Facing what was to be for decades

A truly rapid pace.

A race of time

A pace of struggles

A memory that is merely reflective and fatigued

By the wicked elements of nature.

The challenges ahead before it’s dead

As time passes in a flash.

Time passes in a flash.

It recoils and time’s pace has left it far behind.

Struggling to find momentum and thrust

To make force times distance equals work

Work in seconds - in times.

It faces its fortieth year with trepidation.

Long life for a plant!

Penetrating and elongating its roots, radicles and root hairs

But recoiling too often to feed from its past source

Looking back at the past

Wanting to turn around

To defy tropism - phototropism

To evade the outer, external glare.

To change direction

But that’s it!

It must face reality, the glare.

The past is the past

It no longer exists and will never return

The facts of life must be faced.

Time passes in a flash!

(Joshua Spencer - September 12,1999)

(23 )               Emotions

Emotions rock my heart

Emotions stall my start

Entrapped spirit dying to be released.

Sun and moon shineth

Along my path

Directing my steps

Balancing my glides

But emotions encamp me

Rattling against and flattering my heart

Joy and peace of mind are sought

Each and everyday

I’m longing to be jolly and gay

To laugh my laughs and cry my cries in peace.

But emotions envelope and rope me to the floor.

I cry day and night to relieve

And release the pain

But in vain

Emotions pent up and buckled potentials

Prevent me from enjoying my saltless tears!

Emotions rule my mind.

Emotions at work

Emotions at play

Oh! I long to cry in peace

To rock my heavy head to the monotonous Rhythm

Of my tired heart.

I feel my screams

Against my thumping chest

Into my capillaries, arteries and veins.

It’s a vindictive pest!

Emotions must find a free pathway

And it will

To avoid the spill and fill

Without the use of a pill.

The reticence must be prolonged

Merely to surface in poetic prose

Concealed!

Emotions! Emotions! Emotions!

That’s a feeling - real or imagined.

(Joshua Spencer - November 27,1999)

(24)                                Fluctuating Life

                                           Life’s a castle of  hope

                   An amazing grace which provides a base

                       That saves a wretch, a  wretch like me

                   Caressed in its warmth to flourish, to thrive.

                     Life with its  struggling and debilitating way

                                    Broken family life and tree

                        Evading glee, inundated with sadness

                                  Lost prestige and status

                   Life’s bafflements and hassles, derailing forces

                     Had me restrained and gagged to the ground.

                             It is this life that affords me the will

                              A vehicle to achieve great honour

                             A profession, a university education

                   Leadership skills with an ability to have my obstacles spilled.

                   Spilled away and dissolved among the particles of the ocean

                             To the bottom of the deep blue sea!

                             This is the same life that crowned me

                                  A second class citizen, a slave.

                       Repressed, oppressed, exploited and cheated

                   Entrapped to a duty that is likened to a  burning  sore
                                           Unhealing , unsevering , torturous pain.

                   A life that lures me to an unwelcoming hemisphere

                   That makes no qualms to identify me as the underdog

                                          A minority without might.

                             Yet the greatest scholarship is life itself.

                                 The wisdom it endows empowers

                               And makes mockery of the numbers

                                   Of systolic and diastolic rhythm

                                  In a human’s life, a  human’s heart.

                   Life’s mystery is a richness unsurpassed and unsurpassable.

                                               Life, oh life. Good life!

                                       At the dusk of  this precious gift

                                           I enjoy death or doom

                                        A  permanent recess and rest

                                      From the things I love to do

                      To a vacuum of the unknown, non-existent eternity

                                             That persists into infinity.

                                                This is life.

                                     Life with its fluctuating ways.

                                             It ebbs and flows

                                            It pushes and pulls

                                      At my,our survival skills

                                              But it certainly isn’t fair

                             And outrightly is not what you make it.

                                          Life, one must face it, even me.

                                             Life is a fluctuating beast!

                                      (Joshua Spencer - February 17,2000)

(25)                                         

                                                                   “I”

I see the day’s dawn turns to dusk.

Its brief light of hope thins into massive darkness

Causing me to stumble.

I hear voices laughing outrageously loudly

Synchronized with a weeping wale

Echoing  tunes, a tune that signals that its anatomy

And physiology are nearing their peaks of endurance.

There are whispers everywhere – so deafening

That I am scared to describe them as such.

But I must.

No one seems to hear them

Cause I am whispering too!

I feel my heart skipping like a rope

Flattering my mind.

Yet my doctor says I’m fine.

I trust my doctor is right but I don’t trust his insight.

I feel my time has come

I feel my suffering is winding down

I know I will make the news

I have given you all the warnings – You did nothing!

It won’t be long. I - - - I.

I’m just a poor, black insignificant one.

(Joshua Spencer – August 6, 2002)

(26)

                          Springing Flower

Little seedling with a massive head and radicle

Rolls down the sloppy stream

To the force of gravity’s pull.

Flowers are grazed by, and with its sprinkles

And push their shoots up to meet

The sun’s gaze.

Their root and radicles penetrate deep into the soil

To sip out as much nutrient

To thrive.

Once the equilibrium of water, air and sunlight exist

A powerful, fruitful plant grows and spreads

Its massive branches and roots about,

To support life.

(27) Suicidal Watch

Crawling swiftly through

The vacuum space of time

All that is conspicuous and present

To this rodent sniffing and licking at its freeway track.

Steadfast in its stride to feast on the cheese

The bate on its fatal trap!

The rodent now somehow ironically assumes an intelligence so deep

So philosophical- Long ago discovered by the psychologist Skinner.

She begins to question her quest for life

And ponders on the unknown – Could it be her escape?!

Apart from burrowing in her holes

And nibbling on the rashions of her environs

 and wastes of her masters

She hungers steadfastly twenty four hours a day.

This rodent feels nought of life

Approaching more rhythmically in thought and being

The path to mortality’s beat.

What hurt and pain can a rodent bear?

What meal she needs but the natural grass?

That breeds hope

To clothe her youngsters’ nest.

That’s her natured role.

The chanting, cheering voices in her mind’s ears

Almost schizophrenic .

Now convincingly inched only a stone’s throw

From that weapon of relief and peace.

She pauses to welcome it with glee.

And every time that she misses her meal

And every moment that she longs for affection

From alien and homely rodents

Every second edges to a truer and growing desire

To eat of the bate set by the masters of the terrain.

The watch of time

The time of freedom

The freedom of pain

Suicidal trap induced, beckoned.

The pain to ease will cease

With the eating of the cheese.

And all will be well

Her hurtings will sleep into infinity

With her deity

And who knows, there may be hope then!

Sure her flesh will provide nutrients for a battered soil

To be re-cycled to man and beast alike.

She will not have travailed into mortality in vain.

( Joshua Spencer – August 6, 2002 )

(28) Oh Sister!

Oh Sister, I feel your pain

When I look at your pictures

And show them to friends, too

Oh sister, I really, really do feel your pain.

When I remember the sparks

The sparks in your eyes

The natural vitality of youth in your being

Your creativity, your passion for life and glee

Oh sister, I feel your pain.

When I know that there is nothing

Big brother can do to set you free

When I imagine how much you're missing

Missing your jubilee

Dear sister, oh sister

I share your pain!

Oh sister! Dear sister!

It's hard to imagine

And admit that this is your bit

What regrets you must hone

In your new European home.

Sister, this piece is for you

Even though I dear not send it to your palace

For fear of disturbing your solace

Oh sister, I really do feel your pain!

Oh sister, you have learned

A hard lesson.

Too bad your teacher, is our sister.

Oh sisters, we all feel your pains!

(Written by Joshua Spencer - August 3, 2003).

(29) Resonating Sorrow.

What resonating sorrow she feels

In alien's territory, her vacuum home.

How repetitive has become this dulling, weakening feel.

Having her face snatched to the ground, grasping for breath.

Bruising, whaling and stifling her squeal.

Resonating sorrow has stalled her speed

Daggered her shield

Drowned her swimming, buoyant hope

Having her thrust, desires and intellect bind

With an apparently fatal and permanently knotted rope.

Resonating sorrow flourishes and solidifies.

Its subject's voice unreachable and unhearable

In its mere non-existent, atmospheric, deficient realm.

Her vacuum home is no medium to detonate her squeal.

No air to breathe or to support her aching, shaky, vocal tremors.

How long will she cope in this vacuum gape?

Will she be cajoled to dope?

To be bumped over the slope

Left to perish and deteriorate further from her dream

To the scum of this merciless, alien trap.

(written by Joshua Spencer - September 2, 2005)

(30) Cherished Fruits

Battered branch with its pollinated flowers

Blooming laboriously among a rugged, hounding breeze.

Engulfed and fiercely caressed by nature's tortuous thrust.

With confident endurance, it ebbs at its trunk's vibrating cambium

Activating a deep penetration of its body's root, radicles and root hairs

To establish great defiance of gravity's cruel pull.

It cherishes and guards its budding fruits

With unrelenting, sustained energy.

Every single one of them.

In every fleeing moment of time

Until they are fully matured and ripe.

Ripe enough to nourish

And replenish life as was nature's goal.

Not left unprotected to be cast in the pool.

To be prematurely disseminated

Without having the guidelines or the rules

Not to be left exposed to the elements and the graze of earth's mules.

This branch cherishes its fruits with all its being.

The souls,

The matured soulful fruits have escaped the brunt of nature's thorns.

Having acquired the genetic strength to grow, to survive

To stay alive

Beyond the shallow enclave of their parental nest.

(Written by Joshua Spencer, September 6, 2005)

(31) Sleeping Slumber

Oh what sleeping slumber I bear.

Oh Beyond, I wish I could remember

The good old days of Casanova

To have my tears evaporate into laughter.

Sleeping slumber, sleeping slumber

I despise that month of October

That gives right to my birth

Oh I wish this scorpion zodiac would

Weaken its lion's grip of constraints and pain.

Sleeping slumber is all that I have got.

My family, my hope, my dreams have baffled like a ratbat

Out of my reach

And into a whaling, aching ditch.

Sleeping slumber, sleeping slumber

You're all that I've got.

How would I've survived, had you not stayed with me?

How else would I've found this medium to flush away my tears?

How would I've conjured the energy and the will to stay awake all night long?

Pondering well hard, my future plan.

Sleeping slumber, sleeping slumber, you're all that I've got.

Your intertwining,fluctuating, joyous pain
Evokes non-erotic energy, amidst my stead.

Energy to stay alive, not to dive

In the deep, dark, slimy ocean

And lose sight, focus on life.

Sleeping slumber, sleeping slumber

You're all that I've got.

(Written by Joshua Spencer Sept 7, 2005)

The above poems are all original work of Joshua Spencer. None of these Joshua Spencer’s poems should be copied, re-transmitted, reproduced or altered in any way but by the written consent of Joshua Spencer . Thanks.

Plagiarism is a crime and punishable by imprisonment or excessive fine.