Sugar Baby

Sugar baby

plaything for daddy

showers her in money

she’s his honey

Fulfills her lifestyle

widens his smile

hugs and kisses

never his mrs.

he’s paying her college fees

she’s often on her knees

has a child to feed

gives her what she needs

Is it prostitution?

or business transaction

Is either getting hurt

is it all just sport

Sugar is nice

to life adds spice

but too much can be bad for you

I hope their actions they don’t rue


by Susan O'Reilly

http://hellopoetry.com/-susan-oreilly/

Jail

Sitting in my cell
thinking
what the hell is wrong with me
I'm going down
for prostitution
and don't know what to do next
waiting
to see what the judge
has in store for me
I am scared
to death
I let a pimp abuse me
and let him walk free

damn

I wish I could go back in time
scared to look my mom in the eye
scared to become judged
by everyone I know

How am I just going to let this ride off me?
So now
sitting where I started
all because I'm too scared
to talk about what's going on with me.

In my cell
everyday, thinking
why
I let him walk free

Now I am doing a 6 month bid
for someone who doesn't even care
where I am

I'm in jail
In my cell
aching from the pain
of jail.

by Paulette Essie

A WARRIOR IN CHAINS

WHEN

A WARRIOR'S

SPIRIT IS WHOLE AND STRONG

HE IS NOT AFRAID TO DIE

IT'S OF NO AVAIL

TO THREATEN A WARRIOR WITH DEATH

FOR DEATH HAS LITTLE MEANING

TO LIVE

A WARRIOR NEEDS

FREEDOM

FOR IT IS THE INDIAN WAY

TO ENDURE

A WARRIOR NEEDS

THE RIGHT

TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

A WARRIOR TAKES

CONSOLE IN THE

SACRED PIPE

FOR IT IS HIS RELIGION

LIKE A DIEING POOL

OF WATER

A WARRIOR BECOMES STAGNANT

WITHOUT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

FOR IT IS

THE

INDIAN WAY

A WARRIOR PERISHES SILENTLY

ALONE

FOR HIS PEOPLE CANNOT

HEAR HIS WORDS

WITHOUT THE FREEDOM

OF COMMUNICATION

IN PRISON THERE ARE

FEW

HUMAN RIGHTS

MY BED HAS BEEN A CONCRETE

FLOOR

MY BLANKET HAS BEEN MY

OWN BLOOD

I SURVIVE

WHILE THOSE THAT

ABUSE ME ARE

HONORED

BUT I AM NOURISHED BY

THE GREAT SPIRIT

EVER TRUE AND UNWAVERING

I DO NOT FEEL LOST

I AM NOT ALONE AND WEAK

MY PRINCIPLES REMAIN

STEADFAST

MY BELIEFS REMAIN THE

INDIAN WAY

by Bobby Garcia

The Bandit

Upon his way to rob a Bank
He paused to watch a fire;
Though crowds were pressing rank on rank
He pushed a passage nigher;
Then sudden heard, piercing and wild,
The screaming of a child.
A Public Enemy was he,
A hater of the law;
He looked around for bravery
But only fear he saw;
Then to the craven crowds amaze
He plunged into the blaze.
How anguished was the waiting spell
Of horror and of pain!
Then--then from out that fiery hell
He staggered forth again:
The babe was safe, in blankets wrapt,
The man flame lapt.
His record was an evil one,
Of violence and sin.
No good on earth he'd ever done,
Yet--may he Heaven win!
A gangster he . . . Is it not odd?
--With guts of God.

by Robert William Service

Dalai Lama - The Nobler Truths of Life

The Dalai Lama continues to laugh
addressing
a large audience.

The interpreter is super-serious
has no time for laughter
The English was like a net
the Tibetan words butterflies,
flew from the flower-petal lips of the Dalai Lama
sometimes to sit on the ears of the Tibetan kids
sometimes on the gold-flecked robes,
maybe the wedding dresses
of the Tibetan women
taken out only on special occasions
but worn away at the hems
this bit of sparkle left
like the trace of light  in aged eyes.

The Dalai Lama was expounding
the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism
He raised his arm and
like three little dots of ‘therefore’
there were the marks of childhood vaccination
peeping through his ochre robe.
They whispered:
   Aha, someone is talking about such high principles
            but is from this very world
            this very epoch
            and he’s just a  man.

Right in front of me, rapt, a grandfather
on his shoulder  a chubby little boy and his gurgling bottle
wiping his running nose
on grandpa’s sweater —
He must have been like that  —
the Dalai Lama
What do we know of Tibet  —
Rahul Sanknityayan or Rinpoches
monasteries and chow mein
cheap sweaters and sandals, China,
snow, lost eyes, round faces and faithful Lhasa Apso pups.

How do those noble truths
connect with
such random bits,
the ignoble truths of life?

Does truth too have hierarchies?
A caste system?  —
Brahmin truths at the top
and then the Shudra  truths at the bottom?

Hunger and
thirst
heat and cold
attachment and cruelties
Love and hate  —
are these truths really lower?

Dalai Lama, you tell me, please:
if the truth is like these mountain ranges —
high and low.
I prefer living in the deep cave of a small truth
occasionally coming to you
to learn the nobler truths of life.

My Love Reveals Objects

True Love Ways from ne033x on Vimeo.

my love reveals objects
silken butterflies
concealed in his fingers

his words
splash me with stars

night shines like lightning
under the fingers of my love

my love invents worlds where
jeweled glittering serpents live

worlds where music is the world

worlds where houses with open eyes
contemplate the dawn

my love is a mad sunflower that forgets
fragments of sun in the silence


by Isabel Fraire

Choice

Out Of Time from ne033x on Vimeo.

I'd rather have the thought of you
To hold against my heart,
My spirit to be taught of you
With west winds blowing,
Than all the warm caresses
Of another love's bestowing,
Or all the glories of the world
In which you had no part.

I'd rather have the theme of you
To thread my nights and days,
I'd rather have the dream of you
With faint stars glowing,
I'd rather have the want of you,
The rich, elusive taunt of you
Forever and forever and forever unconfessed
Than claim the alien comfort
Of any other's breast.

O lover! O my lover,
That this should come to me!
I'd rather have the hope of you,
Ah, Love, I'd rather grope for you
Within the great abyss
Than claim another's kiss-
Alone I'd rather go my way
Throughout eternity.

 
by Angela Morgan

Some Sad Facts About Suicide

1. The word “suicide” comes from two Latin roots, sui (“of oneself”) and cidium (“killing” or “slaying”).ⁱ
2. People have committed suicide in an endless variety of ways, including swallowing poisonous spiders, power-drilling holes in their heads, sticking hot pokers down their throats, choking on underwear, injecting peanut butter into their veins, crushing their necks in vices, and hurling themselves into vats of beer.^b
3. In China, someone takes his or her own life on average every two minutes. China accounts for nearly a quarter of the global total of suicides with between 250,000 and 300,000 suicides a year.^b
4. Among famous figures who committed suicide: Sigmund Freud, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Hannibal, Nero, Virginia Wolf, Adolf Hitler, Ernest Hemmingway, Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh, Jack London, Dylan Thomas, Judy Garland, Rudolph Hess, Pontius Pilate, Socrates, and possibly Tchaikovsky, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe.ⁱ
5. It is more likely someone will die from suicide than from homicide. For every two people killed by homicide, three people die of suicide.^b

The suicide rate in the United States has been climbing steadily since 1999

6. In America, someone attempts suicide once every minute, and someone completes a suicide once every 17 minutes. Throughout the world, approximately 2,000 people kill themselves each day.^b
7. Suicide is the 8^th leading cause of death in the United States.^b
8. The most common types of suicide include copycat, euthanasia, familicide, forced, honor, Internet, martyrdom, ritual, attack, and cop suicides.^b
9. The acne medication isotretinoin (Acutane) has been linked to a possible increase risk of suicide. The FDA requires Acutane to include a label warning that the product may be linked to suicide, depression, and psychosis.^b
10. The spring months of March, April, and May have consistently shown to have the highest suicide rate, 4-6% higher than the average for the rest of the year. Christmas season is actually below average. Some studies suggest greater seasonality in suicides in rural rather than urban areas.^g
11. When her husband Caecina Paetus hesitated to kill himself honorably, his wife Arria (d. A.D. 42) snatched the dagger from her husband, stabbed herself, and handed the weapon back with the words “Paete, non dolet“ (“Paeuts, it does not hurt”).ⁱ
12. French philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) perhaps best explains the divergent views philosophers and theologians hold concerning suicide when he said, “What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”^e
13. David Carradine, famous for his roles in the 1970s series Kung Fu and the Kill Bill movie trilogy, was found hanging in a hotel closet with a yellow nylon rope around his neck and a black rope around his genitals. Family members deny it was a suicide.^a
14. Autoerotic asphyxiation, also know as sexual hanging, is a type of abnormal sexual behavior in which a person (usually a young male) tries to restrict the flow of oxygen to the brain (usually with a rope around the neck) while masturbating to enhance the sexual experience. The practice arose out of the observation that men executed by hanging often got an erection and sometimes ejaculated. The practice is mentioned in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.^b
15. A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live Web cam while some users egged him on. There are also several pro-Internet sites that give detailed information on the most effective ways to commit suicide.^c

Older adults have the highest suicide rates, more than 50% higher than young people

16. While there is a common perception that suicide rates are highest among the young, the elderly, in fact, have the highest suicide rates.^e
17. Some studies suggest a correlation between a sport team’s performance and fans’ suicide rates.^f
18. Sylvia Plath’s (1932-1963) novel The Bell Jar, about a gifted young woman’s mental breakdown, mirrors Plath’s own breakdown and is considered to be one of the best-told tales of a woman’s descent into insanity. It was published only weeks before Plath killed herself.^g
19. One of the first defenses of suicide written in English was John Donne’s (1572-1631) unorthodox Biathanos (1609). In his work, Donne proposed that suicide is not incompatible with the laws of God, reason, and nature. Other writers such as Voltaire (1694-1778) and Hume (1711-1776) also attacked suicide taboos and led the way to abandoning legal punishments of suicide attempters.ⁱ
20. Many cultures have prohibited a normal burial for people who committed suicide, although the restrictions varied according to time and place. A common practice in England until 1823 was to bury a suicidal person at night in a crossroad with a stake driven through the heart. In France, the suicide’s body was dragged through the streets and then hanged from the public gallows. In Prussia, early laws required the victim to be buried under the gallows.^j
21. One in seven Canadians has seriously considered suicide, and more than 3,500 Canadians kill themselves each year. Canada’s suicide rate (currently 12.3 per 100,000) is consistently higher than the United States' rate (currently 11.2).^b
22. Over the last decade, the suicide rate among young children has increased dramatically. In 2002, suicide was the sixth leading cause of death of five- to 14-year olds and the third leading cause of death in preteens. Suicidologists are alarmed that children as young as age two are also increasingly attempting suicide.^b
23. Five to 10% of suicides take place in mental hospitals.^e
24. There is some evidence that suicide attempts during the first week of the menstrual cycle may be associated with low levels of estrogen.^g

American troops are committing suicide in the largest numbers since records began in the 1980s

25. During 2008, 140 American soldiers committed suicide, breaking all previous suicide records in the military. In the first four months of 2009, 91 soldiers committed suicide. If this rate continues throughout 2009, by the end of the year more than 270 soldiers will have killed themselves, leading some scholars to claim there is a suicide epidemic in the military.^h
26. Caucasians tend to have higher suicide rates than African Americans.^b
27. In ancient times, sometimes groups of people would commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner or tortured by their captors. For example, in AD 473, 960 Jews died in what appears to have been a mass murder/suicide on top of Masada rather than be enslaved by the Romans. Only two women and five children escaped this death.ⁱ
28. On November 18, 1978, the dynamic leader of a religious group called the People’s Temple ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced juice. In all, 913 people died, including nearly 300 children. The leader, Jim Jones (1931-1978), shot himself in the head.^f
29. In India, a Hindu wife was expected to throw herself on her husband’s burning body on the funeral pyre so she could enter the next life with him. The practice (called suttee) was abolished in 1829 by British India, though isolated cases of it have occurred into the twenty-first century. The term derived from the goddess Sati, and the term sati is now sometimes used to describe a chaste woman.^b
30. In Japanese culture, seppuku (“stomach cutting”) was a ritual suicide performed by warriors (usually Samurai) about to get captured. During the ritual, the warrior would slice up his abdomen and stretch out his neck, and then one of his comrades would behead him with one stroke. While the practice was banned in the seventeenth century, it has persisted to this day.^b
31. Only seven instances of suicide are reported in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. Old Testament suicides include Samson, Saul, Saul’s armor bearer, Ahitophel, Zimri, Razis, and Abimelech. In the New Testament, Judas Iscariot is the only recorded suicide.^b
32. Hegesias (320-280 B.C.) was known as the “Death Persuader” or the “Advocate of Death” and belonged to a minor school of Greek philosophy named Cyrenaics which advocated an early version of hedonism. Hegasias' lectures prompted so many listeners to commit suicide that he was forbidden to speak.ⁱ
33. Aceldama (“field of blood”), where Judas killed himself near Jerusalem, became a pauper’s burial ground after priests bought it with the 30 pieces of silver flung at their feet by Judas.^b
34. Though the Bible doesn’t specifically prohibit suicide and there is no particular word for the act itself, Christianity general condemns the practice as initially stated by St. Augustine. He was concerned with the decimation of Christians by suicide and condemned those who committed suicide just so they could gain immediate entrance into heaven. He successfully supplanted the Roman ideal of heroic individualism with a Platonic concept of submission to divine authority. In A.D. 563, the Council of Braga officially condemned suicide.ⁱ
35. The Qu’ran explicitly forbids suicide as the gravest sin, more serious even than homicide. Muslims believe that each individual has his or her kismet or destiny, which is preordained by God and must not be defied. But killing oneself as an act of jihad (holy war) is not considered a suicide.^b
36. In the Mayan culture, hanging was the only method of suicide deemed appropriate and anyone who committed suicide this way was guaranteed a place in the afterlife. They even had a goddess of the noose and the gallows named Ixtab (“Rope Woman”).^b

Hanging is the leading method of suicide around the world and is particularly popular in rural areas

37. Hanging is the leading method of suicide worldwide.^b
38. Although women attempt suicide about three times more often than men, men complete suicide about three times more often than women.^f
39. Four out of five people who commit suicide have attempted to kill themselves at least once previously.^f
40. Suicide is the leading cause of death for people with schizophrenia.^f
41. A number of suicidologists have criticized news coverage of suicides, citing that reading about suicide victims in the news often triggers copycat or “contagion” suicides.^f
42. During the Middle Ages, suicide was often equated with murder and even diabolical possession in various parts of Europe. Three common penalties existed: confiscation of property, degradation of corpse, and refusal of burial in consecrated grounds. These views persisted throughout the eighteenth century.^j
43. Although Nero (A.D. 37-68) insisted he wanted to commit suicide honorably, he actually had himself killed by an attendant. During his lifetime, he had caused several suicides, including that of his teacher Seneca, the poet Lucan, and Petroniu, who is thought to be the author of Satyricon. These were all compulsory suicides in lieu of execution.ⁱ
44. Levels of a brain transmitter called serotonin is considered a possible predictor of suicide. Some researchers found that people with low levels of serotonin are six to 10 more times likely to commit suicide than are people with normal levels.^f
45. Suicide rates tend to reflect economic conditions. In the United States, for example, suicide rates declined during the prosperous years after WWI and WWII, but rose during the Great Depression. Ironically, suicide rates tend to decrease during times of war.^b
46. Oregon and Washington are the only states that specifically allow physician-assisted suicide under certain strict guidelines. A few of these guidelines include being diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death in six months, making two oral requests and one written request for assistance separated by 15 days, and persuading two physicians that the patient is sincere and is not influenced by depression.^b
47. Beliefs about suicide varied in ancient Greece. The Stoics and Epicureans, for example, considered that one’s destiny was a personal choice. Cato, Pliny, and Seneca all thought the choice of suicide was acceptable. On the other hand, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid, and Cicero opposed suicide.ⁱ
48. Some scholars suggest that there are national preferences for modes of suicide. For example, the Russians prefer hanging, the English and Irish prefer poison, the Italians prefer firearms, and the Americans prefer firearms, poisons, and gas. Proclivities for certain methods tend to travel with immigrants wherever they go.^g
49. In Rome, razors, scalpels, and daggers were more common methods of suicide than hanging (which was seen as unclean and shameful), jumping, and poisoning or other drugs. Less often, but not rarely, the Romans starved themselves to death by refusing to eat or set themselves on fire (immolation).ⁱ
50. Martin Luther, Puritan religious leaders, and philosophers such as John Locke, Rousseau, and Kierkegaard were adamantly opposed to suicide.i
51. In America, the most common suicide method for both men and women is firearms, accounting for 60% of all suicides. For women, the next most common method is ingesting solid and liquid poison or pills. The next most common method for men is hanging/strangling/suffocation.^f
52. Though there is need to practice caution in the comparison of religion and suicide, studies suggest that in the United States, Catholics appear to have suicide rates higher than Jews but lower than Protestants. Generally speaking, higher suicide rates are found among the multi-denominational, loosely federated Protestants.^b
53. Several U.S. state and national studies suggest that suicide attempts among gay, lesbian, and bisexual high school students are higher than their heterosexual peers.^b

Abuse in early childhood may change the genetic structure of the brain, leading to a greater susceptibility to suicide

54. Experts believe that early exposure to child abuse may disrupt the proper development of communication pathways within the brain and, consequently, abuse victims are more likely than their peers to commit suicide.^f
55. There is increasing evidence that individuals with a family history of suicide are more vulnerable to becoming victims of suicide themselves.^b
56. While some studies seem to suggest a link between the use of Prozac and suicide rates, the makers of Prozac minimize a correlation.^b
57. No suicides have been reported in the several small South Sea Islands and the Hindu Kush Mountains of India. Countries that rank unusually high include Hungry, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan. Countries on the low end include Philippines, Angola, Jamaica, Mexico, the Bahamas, Kuwait, Jordan, Kenya, and Egypt.^b
58. New and less stringent attitudes toward suicide emerged during the Renaissance as churchly taboos began to lose their power. For example, Shakespeare’s tragedies typically present suicide in sympathetic terms, as seen in the suicides of Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Romeo, Juliet, Brutus, Antony, and Cleopatra. Sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne argues that the right to die was a personal choice, and Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) justified suicide as a form of euthanasia in his Utopia.ⁱ
59. A provocative 1982 book titled Suicide, mode d’emploi is both a how-to manual and a political manifesto encouraging readers to exercise their right to die. It contains information about those prescription drugs that ensure a “gentle death” along with how to calculate a lethal dose.^e
60. Famous literary suicides include Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (Madame Bovary), Victor Hugo’s Inspector Javert (Les Miserable), Goethe’s Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther), Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise (Thelma and Louise), and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina).^b
61. Most European countries formally decriminalized suicide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although it remained a crime in England and Wales until 1961 and in Ireland until 1993.ⁱ
62. Kamikaze (“divine wind”) pilots are an example of an altruistic suicide. More than 2,000 young Japanese died in this manner. The number of ships they sank is a matter of debate, with figures as low as 34 and as high as 70.^g
63. Attempted suicide was once considered a felony in Kentucky.^b
64. The first suicide note is thought to have been written by an Egyptian four thousand years ago. In his poems, he describes the pain of his existence and the attractions of death.^b
65. Russian poet Sergei Esenin (1895-1925) wrote an entire poem in his own blood that served as suicide note.^e
66. In a study of genuine suicide notes versus simulated ones, the genuine notes are much more specific about giving directives concerning property distribution and insurance policies and more concerned with the pain and suffering of others. They are more likely to express psychological pain and more likely to use “love” in their texts. The simulated notes give greater details about the motives of suicide, mention the act of suicide itself, and more often use euphemistic phrases for death and suicide.^e

Signs urging counseling are posted at the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular place in the world to commit suicide

67. Popular suicide locations include San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Japan’s Aokigahara Forest (“sea of trees” or “suicide forest”), and England’s Beachy Head. In all these places there are posted signs urging potential victims to seek help.^g
68. The jump from the Golden Gate Bridge is 250 feet. Trauma from the jump is dramatic and can cause ripped blood vessels, demolished central nervous systems, and a transected spinal cord. While a few have died from drowning and one from a shark attack, most die from the impact of the body on the water. Only 1% who jump survive.^g
69. The Eskimo, Norse, Samoan, and Crow Indian cultures accepted and encouraged “altruistic” suicide among the elderly and sick.^f
70. Roman gladiators would sometimes thrust wooden sticks or spears down their throats or force their heads into the spokes of moving carts so that they could choose their own time of death rather than another person’s imposed time and way of dying.ⁱ
71. September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day.^b
72. The top predictors for suicide are diagnosable mental condition, co-morbid substance abuse, loss of social support, and access to a firearm.^e
73. Children of parents who commit suicide are a higher risk to committee suicide later in life.^e
74. The first suicide recorded in the Bible was Abimelech, who lived in the twelfth century B.C. He was the son of Giddeon (Jerubbaal) and a concubine, and he attempted to kill his 70 half-brothers so he could be king. In his final battle, a woman dropped a millstone on his head, and he ordered his sword bearer to kill him so it wouldn’t be said he was killed by a woman.^b
75. Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult killed themselves in March 1997 in a mansion near San Diego. The victims were between 18 and 24 years old, drank a lethal mixture of Phenobarbital and vodka, and died over a three-day period. They believed their spirits would rendezvous with a UFO behind Comet Hale-Bopp.^e
76. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) writes about the Wood of the Suicides in Canto XIII of his The Divine Comedy. He writes that Minos sends a suicide victim’s soul to the Seventh Circle of Hell (below heretics and murders) where it falls into the ground, grows into a sapling, and then into a tree. Harpies feed on the tree, causing it great pain. After Judgment Day, the suicide victim’s soul will hang from the thorns of trees.^b

Divorce usually leads more men than women to suicide

77. Divorced people are three times as likely to commit suicide as people who are married. Moreover, children of divorce are at a higher risk for committing suicide when they grow up. Divorced and separated men are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide than married men. Divorce, however, doesn’t seem to lead more women to commit suicide.^f
78. Though studies remain inconclusive, among the professional disciplines, doctors are twice as likely to kill themselves as the general population. And female physicians are more likely than their male counterparts. Some scholars have identified psychiatry, anesthesiology, and ophthalmology as specialties at greater risk for suicide, with pediatrics having the least risk.^b
79. Druids or priests of the Celtic people believed that those who killed themselves to accompany their dead friends will live with them in the after life.^b
80. Prolonged exposure to extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields such as those emitted by large power lines may double the risk of suicide. Researchers suggest that electromagnetic fields may reduce the production of melatonin, a hormone that maintains daily circadian rhythms, which are also associated with depression.^b
81. The last time someone jumped off the Empire State Building was in 2000, but there have been more than 30 suicides at the 1,250 foot skyscraper since it opened in 1941. Most people who jump never made it the street, but landed on one of the building’s setbacks.^g
82. The suicide rate for Alaskan Native Indians is twice that of the U.S. population, and in western Alaska, the Eskimo suicide rates are even higher. The most common method used is hanging.^g
83. Fiji Indians have the world’s highest female suicide rates. A major cause of the rise of suicides has been the erosion of social structures and values. Additionally, early Fiji Islanders forced the many wives of a tribal chieftain to kill themselves when he died. The women would actually compete to be the first to die, believing the first would become the chieftain’s favorite wife in the afterworld.^f
84. The odds that potentially suicidal adolescents will kill themselves double when a gun is kept in the home.^b
85. In the United States, Nevada consistently leads suicide rate statistics, with Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming variously falling within the top ten. Highest regional rates are generally those of the Rocky Mountain and West Coast areas, with the South showing the lowest rate, except for Florida.^b
86. Since the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, more than 1,200 people have jumped to their deaths, making it the number one spot in the world for suicides.^b
87. Abel Griffiths was the last person who committed suicide in England to be dragged through the streets of London and buried at a crossroads. He was a 22-year-old law student and was buried in only his drawers, socks, and a sheet in June 1823. The usual tradition of driving a stake through the corpse was omitted. Crossroads represented the sign of the cross and the steady traffic over the grave was believed to help keep the person’s ghost down. Also, ancient sacrificial victims had been slain at crossroads.^b
88. In the movie Soylent Green (1973) starring Charlton Heston, people in an overcrowded world are encouraged to enter special suicide centers. The corpses are later processed into Soylent Green wafers as food for the overpopulated world.^b
89. The first scientific study of suicide was Le Suicide written by French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917).^e
90. The M*A*S*H theme song is titled “Suicide is Painless” and contains the lyrics “. . . cause suicide is painless/It brings on many changes/And I can take it or leave it if I please.”^b

Most insurance policies include a suicide provision, given that the suicide took place two years after the policy issue date

91. The usual modern life insurance policy will pay for death by suicide provided that the death occurs two years or more after the initiation of the policy.^b
92. Between 10% and 35% of people who commit suicide leave behind a note.^e
93. Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. A.D. 55-120) reports on the ancient practice of pinning down the body of suicide victims in bogs. The practice predates Christianity among Germanic tribes and was done to prevent the spirits of the dead from haunting or harming the living.^b
94. Monday appears to be the day on which most suicides occur. Saturday sees the fewest.^e
95. Some experts believe that 25% of drivers who die in auto accidents cause them subconsciously. “Autocides” are suicides disguised as automobile accidents.^b
96. Nearly 10% of fatal police shootings in the United States are a result of “suicide by cop.”^b
97. Many more suicides are linked to psychiatric illness than to serious medical disorders such as Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or cancer.^e
98. Many Jews imprisoned at Treblinka, one of the most notorious World War II Nazi concentration camps, chose to kill themselves as an affirmation of the freedom to control their own destiny.^d
99. One suicide victim who committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge left behind a note saying: “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.”^e

-- Posted July 15, 2009

References
^a Duke, Alan. “Carradine’s Body to Return Home, While Questions Remain.” CNN.com. June 5, 2009. Accessed: June 23, 2009.
^b Evans, Glen, et. al. 2003. The Encyclopedia of Suicide. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Facts on File, Inc.
^c “Florida Teen Broadcasts Suicide on the Internet.” New York Post. November 21, 2008. Accessed: June 23, 2009.
^d Goeschel, Christian. 2009. Suicide in Nazi Germany. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
^e Jamison, Kay Redfield. 1999. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
^f Joiner, Thomas. 2005. Why People Die by Suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
^g Lieberman, Lisa. 2003. Leaving You: The Cultural Meaning of Suicide. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee Publisher.
^h “Military Suicide Rate.” ChicagoTribune.com. May 29, 2009. Accessed: June 23, 2009.
ⁱ Minois, Georges. 1999. History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture. Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.
^j Murray, Alexander. 2000. Suicide in the Middle Ages: The Curse on Self-Murder. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

from http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/07/15_suicide.html

Far Away In The Near Distance

Far away in the near distance.
Stands a dream with no signs of resistance.
This dream exists in each and every one of us.
Yet we look back and forth.
Truly trying to understand.
Who is this weird man.
Talking of dreams and man.
I speak of happiness and peace.
If we all could understand.
We kill one another.
Then ask the question why we struggle.
If life is given.
Why not give it a chance.
Love and forgiveness a dream we all can agree.
Is something you and me can see.
Far away in the near distance.

by Edward Morales

Seven Great Love Letters

1. Ernest Hemingway to Marlene Dietrich

"I can't say how every time I ever put my arms around you I felt that I was home."


 2. Napoleon to Josephine 

 "Since I left you, I have been constantly depressed. My happiness is to be near you. Incessantly I live over in my memory your caresses, your tears, your affectionate solicitude. The charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle continually a burning and a glowing flame in my heart. When, free from all solicitude, all harassing care, shall I be able to pass all my time with you, having only to love you, and to think only of the happiness of so saying, and of proving it to you?"


3. Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera

"Nothing compares to your hands, nothing like the green-gold of your eyes. My body is filled with you for days and days. You are the mirror of the night. The violent flash of lightning. The dampness of the earth. The hollow of your armpits is my shelter. my fingers touch your blood. All my joy is to feel life spring from your flower-fountain that mine keeps to fill all the paths of my nerves which are yours."


4. Georgia O'Keefe to Alfred Stieglitz  

"Dearest - my body is simply crazy with wanting you - If you don't come tomorrow - I don't see how I can wait for you - I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours - the kisses - the hotness - the wetness - all melting together - the being held so tight that it hurts - the strangle and the struggle." 


5. Beethoven to his 'Immortal Beloved' 

"Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, Be calm-love me-today-yesterday-what tearful longings for you-you-you-my life-my all-farewell. Oh continue to love me-never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved. Ever thine. Ever mine. Ever ours." 


6. Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas  

"Everyone is furious with me for going back to you, but they don't understand us. I feel that it is only with you that I can do anything at all. Do remake my ruined life for me, and then our friendship and love will have a different meaning to the world. I wish that when we met at Rouen we had not parted at all. There are such wide abysses now of space and land between us. But we love each other." 


7. Henry VII to Anne Boleyn  

"But if you please to do the office of a true loyal mistress and friend, and to give up yourself body and heart to me, who will be, and have been, your most loyal servant, (if your rigour does not forbid me) I promise you that not only the name shall be given you, but also that I will take you for my only mistress, casting off all others besides you out of my thoughts and affections, and serve you only. I beseech you to give an entire answer to this my rude letter, that I may know on what and how far I may depend. And if it does not please you to answer me in writing, appoint some place where I may have it by word of mouth, and I will go thither with all my heart. No more, for fear of tiring you." 

You Have A History

You were only six
But your eyes seemed hundreds of years older
And when you asked me if the lines on your palm told your future
I couldn't help but laugh
Because, babe, you had it backwards.

The curvy one growing up from your wrist is the stem
You were once a flower
And the zigzag striking across your palm is the path
You were lightning
The squiggly one that dances from the base of your thumb to the pinky
Isn't it beautiful to know how to fly?

Remember you were a bird
And the ebbing lines running across it all
Waves, you were the most wonderful sea
The ones slowly sliding down from your first finger
Paint.

You were god's masterpiece
Then, finally the short, straight, horizontal
Lines rushing all too quickly across your fingers
Oh, isn't it obvious?

Human.

What I Have Lost

I lost my mother to a gun
Ever since then I’ve been on the run


On Mother’s Day I cannot phone
She’s not here I’m all alone


After she was killed I heard her voice
She said, “I’m sorry I left, but I had no choice.”


The man who killed her never did time
It never cost him one thin dime



by Betty Phillips

Cynthia Leigh Waters

Child

Yearns

Never-never Land

Touches

Hurt

Instant Love

All Mine

Loving and Lovable

Emotional

Intricate

God’s Child

Hard Life

Wondrous

Admirable

Trusting

Eclectic

Romantic

Sunny

You were my joy and my life,

My everything, my all

You were an answer to prayer

I loved you so much

I had to give you away

You weren’t a toy

I would have broken you

You were my sunshine

After you were gone

I lived in perpetual darkness.

I became an underground animal

Never seeking the sun

You are my sun

by Betty Phillips

What I Have Lost

I know through the years

There were good times and bad

Unfortunately what hurts

I remember the bad

I’ve disappointed you

In so many ways

The drinking, the drugging

Almost forgetting your special day

I know you’ve lost trust

Today is a new day

I’m sobering up

While missing you the same

The days are getting better

I’m recalling the good days

I know that this year

I’ll remember your special day

by Jill Smith

Paw Prints from Heaven

Though you can't see me, I am always around...
Though you can't hear me, I am speaking to you...
Though you can't touch me, I am reaching for you...
The images you see, but cannot explain...
The energy you feel, but cannot see...
The love that you feel, when thinking of me...
My presence you feel, when walking outside...
My hugs remembered, never let go...
My heart that I gave you, that you now wear...
The things you are seeing, that no one can explain...
And the things that you hear, with no one around...
These gifts that I give you, are my Paw Prints from Heaven.

- Romeo

Grieving a Soulmate: The Love Story Behind "Till Death Do Us Part"

"Grieving a Soulmate" is unlike any book you've ever read, even though the story is universal. It's about the death of a lover. This book takes on a difficult and very personal topic with courage, out-of-the-box thinking, and deep love. Ranging from the practical to the emotional - and frequently blending the two - Orfali's style of writing makes a difficult topic easier to manage. He writes in an easy style that is analytical, yet speaks from the heart. The content is thought-provoking, unique and original. It's your gentle and informed guide to the deep grieving that accompanies the death of a soulmate.

This book should help you quickly overcome the red-hot pain of grief. It also tells you how to reconstruct your life, find meaning, and deal with the big existential issues from a secular perspective. It's a survival guide for the last stages in a soulmate relationship. Above all, however, "Grieving a Soulmate" is a love story.

"Grieving a Soulmate" by Robert Orfali is available in paperback and e-book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others.

ISBN-13: 978-1936400669
Paperback list price: $14.95
E-book list price: $ 6.99
Book's website: GrievingaSoulmate

Bio: Robert Orfali and his soulmate of thirty years, Jeri, were both in the computer software field in the early days of Silicon Valley. They co-authored three best-selling software books and went together on several world tours to promote their technology. Jeri was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, in 1999, shortly after they moved to Hawaii. Jeri and Robert spent the next 10 years fighting Jeri's cancer and learning how to live with it. Jeri even learned how to surf during her chemo years. She went from "Silicon Valley Executive Woman of the Year" to "Waikiki Surfer Chick." Jeri received one of the most moving surfer funerals ever. Her ashes are in the ocean at Waikiki.

Trailer by Vickie of VickiesBusinessServicesdotcom

Songbird

High above in the trees.
Nestled among the leaves.
The songbird sings.
Her voice is heard on the breeze.
Sweet melodies floating across the seas.
The songbird sings of love, joy, and sweet romance.
A forever lover’s slow dance.
Whether at night or break of dawn.
Like a fairy with a magic wand.
Her voice can be heard across the skies.
This songbird so fair.
Touching the hearts and souls of lovers everywhere.

by Lamar Cole.

Hope

Hoping for peace on Earth;
Wishing upon shooting stars;
Taking chances to make things right;
Helping others, and listening well;
Making problems disappear;
Giving heart in all we do;
To give love, and never take;
Will give us hope; and one day peace.

by Abegail Samson

Feather of the Heart

I take a feather from my heart and I want you to take it with you

Then I will know forever more that you will always carry my love, 

deep inside your heart 

May this feather of my heart always illuminate and help you to rise 

I pray that on the wings of our love our hearts will be guided, 

so that our spirits are one 

When we are apart, I will try to be strong 

When I wish to see your face, I close my eyes, and you appear 

I hear the words you speak and placed inside my heart; 

That my heart will be the greatest feather you could ever earn. 

My heart is in gentle touch of your hands, like a feather; 

as you speak, you call me your loving heart 

I am anxious for us to be together once again, my great love 

I will comfort your heart by placing my hand over it 

For it is within your heart that I will always call home 

I take a feather from my heart and I want you to take it with you 

By taking this feather from my heart, 

our spirits will never be apart, 

for I will always be with you 

For all eternity. 

 by Rollo West 

Lullaby Across the Plains

Fears ensnared within the winter drifts along the harden ground
One lone ember stares off yearning for heaven brothers 
As I watch its simple battle for survival from dust of ashes gray
To tombs that lie stone in forever twilight slumbers

In my sleepy hollow head like a saddened tune on flute play
I hear further, farther days ahead and think them some great enemy
But, louder are the years which shall follow as if it’s greater dread
So I return to thoughts outward of the plains lullaby instead

Outside the winds lost are moaning singing a sacred song
Warning, crawling like shadows long, carry astral visions rolling in
Caught like prey dancing in the trees by guardian dream catchers
Shamans of the din, their medicine cleansing, sweeping away village sin

The ember grows brighter as I feel the warmth on my Ojibwe people all around
Sounds of the old man elder still breathing, rhythms of the ceremonial drum
Hearst beating over silence of the coming whites waiting to steal away the clouds
And their cold tracks of steel lying like death dividing up the rivers run

Still I listen, to the plains that speak in nightless lullabies
So the cricket’s lie dormant the buffalo’s wintry song is a bolder snore
Like clouds upon the desert floor, beneath the watchful eye of the snowy goddess moon
Ghosts of warriors galloping across the plains looking for their home

So, I call out whispers to them “here we are” adding to the Algonquin tune
Smiling with eyes closing, I watch the ember stronger glowing hearth
Empowered by life, the gift of the Great Spirit, mountain coyote serenading love of light
And mother lays her hand across the plains tucking in all her children of this Earth

With this I sleep sounder for awhile longer
Although, knowing all things must end with death
But, the spirit will live on and on
Across the plains in its lullabying song, like the winter's breath

by Micheal Smith 

"Nunna Dual Tsuny"

wild roses now grow
as living epitaphs on
"the trail where they cried"

by Deborah Burch

THE LAST STAND

Where have all my people gone, the Navaho, Lakota, and the Sue.
Smothered beneath the white man blanket,
Chocking for a breath of airs life's sustaining oxygen.
The beating heart of native drums, are stilled frozen,
In the middle of it's rhythmic thumping, no pulses echo,
Can be heard on the open plain.
The weeping women kneel on sacred ground, shedding
A river of bloods tears, burning a permanent scare across,
A baron landscape.
Death's black raven shields itself, under it's crimson soaked wing,
Against shames immoral injustice. 
Greed's unsatisfiable hunger for land and riches fuels lusts desire,
Behold exterminations nay holocaust of the native inhabitance,
  Nothing remains alive except ignorance blackened shadow.
How much blood can mother earth be forced to drink before,
She drowns herself or spits up everything undigested,
 With sheer disdain and hatreds malice intent.
On a black and white chess board the winners takes it all,
Strategies grand masters playing with living pawns.
Treaties written in vanishing ink, promises disappear in thin air,
 Revealing a liars sharpened tongue.
The odds have always been stacked against those believing in fairness.
A rogue tidal wave of humanity has wiped out a nation,
And it's culture within the blink of an eye.
Flights appendages are clipped on the dove of peace, leaving it
Unable to soar above it's own habitat.
Wreckage’s refugees stumble in the ruins after math,
Rapes victims of civilizations civilized,
Are left devoid of their heritages lineage and legacy.
Elders chieftains representatives of a great nation,
Smoke peace pipes in the white mans hunting lodge
In Washington.
As human beings are hauled like cattle's cargo,
Taken to reservations burial grounds. 
Ancient ancestors lit up the heaven's vast expanse,
 By torches flame,
To guide the souls of the dead unto their great spiritual
 Plain beyond.
The pale horse gallops forward without a rider,
And the red people become a phantom tribe vanishing
 Upon the winds shifting tides.
Giving one last final trible battle war cry, 
Why my father but the great spirit answers not.
Behold America's legacy, a world trampled beneath
It's heavy iron fist, all in the name of progress or for the cause
Of Manifest destiny.

BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN

Echoes of the Heart

There are echoes I hear, old songs in the dark
of the Indian ways, of long ago days,
still heard all around, in our valley below...
Where their dreams of tomorrow, are still sung by the lark....
 
As the twilight would come, under a red setting sun,
with the fragrance of loam, and the tired walk done... 
they would bed under trees where the heather was strewn
they would burn a small fire, and prepare a warm meal,
with smoke in the breeze, while the whippoorwill's song
would, drift by the face of the moon

On their heels was the dust, in the noontime sun
They journeyed from tribes from the dusk of the past, 
wearing the colorful hope of tomorrow's new task 
Moving to where the buffalo roam
Then moving again, to find a new home

There are echoes I hear, old songs in the dark
of the Indian ways, of long ago days,
still heard all around, in our valley below...
Where their dreams of tomorrow, are still sung by the lark....

by Carrie Richards 

The Wisdom of Russell Means - Final Interview

"One is expected to know things, to believe things.  Knowing and believing are all in your head - there is nothing in your heart.  If you cannot feel that the earth is your grandmother, then of course you will find it easy to rape her, to behave as if she is under your dominion.  You will find it easy to believe that we humans are the dominant species, and to act as though the earth and everything on it are ours to do with as we please.  ... if all human beings were taken away, life on earth would flourish."


"We Indians do not teach that there is only one god.  We know that everything has power, including the most inanimate, inconsequential things.  Stones have power.  A blade of grass has power.  Trees and clouds and all our relatives in the insect and animal world have power.  We believe we must respect that power by acknowledging it's presence.  By honoring the power of the spirits in that way, it becomes our power as well.  It protects us."


" They don't understand that a slice of the pie isn't the whole pie - but they wonder why they are always hungry."


" If you learn from an experience, that's good - so nothing bad happened to you."


" All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused, and this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, the whole environment will retaliate, and the abusers will be eliminated. Things come full circle, back to where they started. That's revolution."

There Is A God

fast train from ne033x on Vimeo.

This poem may not rhyme,
It may not say what a poem should;
And the only reason I'm writing it
Is because a friend asked if I woukld.
So many things have been said and done
In this life of mine:
Some good to be embraced -
Most better left behind.
But, the truth is, And I'll say this but once;
Life is truly beautiful
If we just give it a chance!

Right now, my heart is broken,
Laying, crushed on the floor;
There's no reason for me to carry on -
What reason is there for?
I know where I've been -
I know where I am;
You can't imagine the pain
That I must muster just to stand.
Yet, stand I do,
And speak, I must;
For a message to share -
In what I've come to trust...

My heart has been broken
More times than you know;
By life, by man,
By even my ego.
I've spent two years
In a loneliness you can't imagine;
Unless you've been in solitary confinement
In a man made prison.
I've lost me soul mate
Just weeks before we were wed -
Do you know what it's like to really lose,
"I'm sorry, Danny, she's dead."
I've lost my children,
Everyone sees me as a thug;
When they were my hope -
My reason for getting off drugs...

Right now,
Even as I speak these words;
I don't ask for sympathy -
Just maybe that one person heard.
My love is gone -
Once again I feel pain;
Yet I stand tall and proud -
Faith in something beyond this rain...

There is a God!
I've felt Him here with me;
It's what carries me on
When I should have broke free.
There is a God -
I wish I could show you the way!
You'd break free right now
 And escape your yesterday!

My dreams keep me going -
Right here and right now,
A brighter tomorrow -
Of this, I vow.

I love you, Dara,
And I understand you had to move on;
For Blaze and everything good -
Beyond what we knew was wrong.

by ne033x aka Danny Watson

Somewhere I Have Never Travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond 
any experience, your eyes have their silence: 
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, 
or which i cannot touch because they are too near 

your slightest look easily will unclose me 
though i have closed myself as fingers, 
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens 
(touching skilfully, misteriously) her first rose 

or if your wish be to close me, i and 
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, 
as when the heart of this flower imagines 
the snow carefully everywhere descending; 

nothing we are to perceive in this world equals 
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture 
compels me with the colour of its countries, 
rendering death and forever with each breathing 

(i do not know what it is about you that closes 
and opens; only something in me understands 
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) 
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands 

by E.E. Cummings 

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

by Pablo Neruda

Poem in October

It was my thirtieth year to heaven

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood   

      And the mussel pooled and the heron

                  Priested shore

            The morning beckon

With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall   

            Myself to set foot

                  That second

      In the still sleeping town and set forth.

      My birthday began with the water-

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name   

      Above the farms and the white horses

                  And I rose   

            In rainy autumn

And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road

            Over the border

                  And the gates

      Of the town closed as the town awoke.

      A springful of larks in a rolling

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling   

      Blackbirds and the sun of October

                  Summery

            On the hill’s shoulder,

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly   

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened   

            To the rain wringing

                  Wind blow cold

      In the wood faraway under me.

      Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail   

      With its horns through mist and the castle   

                  Brown as owls

            But all the gardens

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales   

Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.   

            There could I marvel

                  My birthday

      Away but the weather turned around.

      It turned away from the blithe country

And down the other air and the blue altered sky   

      Streamed again a wonder of summer

                  With apples

            Pears and red currants

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s

Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother   

            Through the parables

                  Of sun light

      And the legends of the green chapels

      And the twice told fields of infancy

That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.   

      These were the woods the river and sea

                  Where a boy

            In the listening

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy   

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

            And the mystery

                  Sang alive

      Still in the water and singingbirds.

      And there could I marvel my birthday

Away but the weather turned around. And the true   

      Joy of the long dead child sang burning

                  In the sun.

            It was my thirtieth

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon   

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.   

            O may my heart’s truth

                  Still be sung

      On this high hill in a year’s turning.

by Dylan Thomas