Divided on Assisted Suicide

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DIVIDED ON ASSISTED SUICIDE

The topic of suicide is quite a controversial one.  For the most part, since Victorian times, governments have said we don’t have the right to end our own lives.  They have intervened and chosen to “protect” people who wish to end their lives.  While these intentions have been based on good, are we at a point where they can be challenged.

Currently, there are only a few European countries that allow for doctor assisted suicide in the case of terminal illness.  Even then, things are still controversial.  There is even a trend towards “suicide tourism”, wherein, people wanting to die plan vacations to these countries; a final pilgrimage to meet the reaper.

Certainly, there are many cases where one can say that suicide is the compassionate thing — such as with terminal illnesses.  And certainly, there are many cases where preventing suicide and connecting an individual to helpers (see my post ‘Remembering Helping Hands’) is much more appropriate.

No one in this world asks to be born, but for some, life becomes so painful that they ask to die.

Should doctor-assisted suicide be legal?  Should suicide be a right of individual self-determination?

Please join the conversation!

A great book I’m reading on the topic of suicide is called Night Falls Fast.  You just might want to check it out!  It’s available in e-book format from the Kindle bookstore as well in hard copy from Amazon.

Inspired by:  Daily Post – DP Challenge Mind The Gap

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One Night With a Vial Named Tasty

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ONE NIGHT WITH A VIAL NAMED TASTY

 

Gypsies in the forest clear

To buy and sell they have appeared

An old man

Wizard? nay!

Could he be?

A vial named Tasty in his hand

 ~

I barter

He begs

I dicker

and he brays and brags

A bargain we both find

Exchanging hands

And Tasty the vial

Goes in my satchel bag

Deep into the wood

I go

 ~

The moon peaks

White and silver shining

Dotting the pools of water and

Basting the trees in a delicate sheen

I find hunger

A sting in my stomach

Acid in my throat

 ~

I search my satchel for what loot I’d find

A hard boiled egg –

An apple –

And look now:

a bottle named Tasty

 ~

Taking sips of the sweet honey dew elixir

It plays a melody

And dances on my tongue

Then fades away

~

I grasp the egg and devour it so

The apple is gone down to a core

Within minutes I feel lost

Needing more

 ~

Leaning up against the trunk

Of the great tree in this marsh wood

Feeling fat and bloated and tired and insane

But hungry, still –

Oh so very ravenously wanting to bring

The melody and dancing

Alive!

~

My hands feel the green moss forest floors

My eyes see wild mushrooms and red berries over yonder

In a mania

My hands pluck and pull

Pluck and pull

Pluck and pull

Pluck and pull

Pluck and pull

And shove these down my gullet

Eat

Eat

Eat

More!

More!

More!

Tasty makes it so

 ~

I ate the night away

Until I fell into a fever slumber ‘gainst the tree in the wood

I awaken stiff and sore

– My satchel gone

Stolen!

Same too with my boots…

~

A note pinned to my collar:

“How was dinner sir?”

Signed:

– The Gypsy

Inspired by:  Daily Post Prompt – Dulled

Reflecting on Helping Hands

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REFLECTING ON HELPING HANDS

 

What has been truly humbling for me, in this lifetime, are the many tales I could tell of being down and out and having my needs met by the generous heart’s of others.  The world can feel cold, empty, and scary, no matter how old you are, how virtuous you are, how tough or thin-skinned you are.  I often see a bubble mentality, wherein, people are self-absorbed, greedy, and apathetic.  But does that characterize humanity?  I have been reflecting today on numerous memories of times when I hit a bottom in life and someone stepped in and did a simple act of kindness — a simple act of charity.

It can be quite an emotional thing to recall the ways people have touched you.  When you are vulnerable and falling apart — the simplest gestures can move mountains, and have moved mountains in my life.  This post would get really emotional if I told all of those stories.  In fact, the stories vary so much that I’d hate to stack them up against one another.  In each story’s uniqueness there is a central core of meeting a need that I couldn’t meet myself.  The individuals helped me from their heart and asked for nothing in return.

When I read today’s Daily Prompt — about getting a helping hand — I was bewildered about what I would write.  But perhaps it wasn’t meant to prompt me to write — too much, at least — but it was a prompt to remember.  I’ve spent the day thinking of different people and how they helped me.  It’s a remembering that restores the open heart.  It’s a remembering that when you are at your worst, someone appraises you as valuable.  It’s a remembering that builds a faith that says, “No matter where you are, no matter what your troubles, someone is coming.”

I encourage you, dear readers, to take pause for a few minutes today and think of times in your life when someone did something that helped you out, that touched your heart, that humbles you to remember that there is good in this word.

I chose today’s title picture very carefully.  When I was 17 years old I was kicked out of my Dad’s house.  I was very sick.  I had been assigned a Social Worker who helped me get a room in a downtown rooming house — the scary part of downtown.  I was on welfare at the time.  I remember going to a Salvation Army soup kitchen.  I think it might have been Thanksgiving because it was a turkey dinner that I had.  Price of admission was just to listen to the sermon and you got a stamp.  I remember that meal, during such a shaky time in my life, and I believe my hands were shaking as I sat alone and ate.  When I think back on it, that was probably the best meal of my life and always will be.  - Cozy

 

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. – James 1:27

 

 

 

 

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?   When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ – Matthew 25:35-40

Inspired by:  Daily Post

LGBT – Weekend Editorial from Cozy

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WEEKEND EDITORIAL – LGBT Q & A

 

 

I was over on 4channel.com and some “clam” posted these questions to the LGBT community.  Below the poster’s questions are my thought out answers.  Do you agree?  Comment!

Why do straight people always think gay pride parades are about them? about what they think? about how they feel? why are straight people such egomaniacs?
and why do uptight closet faggots always think the same thing? why do they even care what straight people think? is it because they just hate being faggots, so the very concept of “gay pride” is abhorrent to them? or do they only enjoy their “gayness” as a perversion or a kink? do they get off on feeling “naughty”?

And here is how Cozy responds:

Straight people who get off on going to gay pride parades are like white people who are all proud of themselves for having one black friend.

I don’t think straight vs. gay is really an egomaniac thing. I’ve met lots of gay whose flare egos were just as far off the map as the straights.

To certain degrees we all care what other people think. We all want to belong and to be accepted. It’s at different levels for different people. I envy people who don’t give a damn what others think — that’s freedom!

As much as all humans need to work on loving and accepting themselves, because basically we do judge ourselves way to harshly — no gay people don’t hate themselves. That’s a very ‘homophobic’ notion. I’d say that gay people are even more accepting of themselves because they’ve done something that takes a lot of balls (pardon the gender specific term).

The only people I know that have a lot of self hatred are transgendered… and that’s really a hatred of their bodies or naughty bits. And yes, I can understand that. That’s why people who are transgendered get SRS to switch — so they can feel who they really are.

From the straight world looking at gay — you might think it’s a pervsion. That certainly is what religion wants you to think. But it’s not a perversion if looked at objectively. I don’t know if OP [Original Poster] has checked out mainstream porn but go to TPB [The Pirate Bay - A Torrent Site] and click the porn torrents by seed and it shows you what an anal sex obsession the ‘straight’ community has. I’d say what you call perverse is just individual ways of being intimate and sexual.

We all get off on feeling naughty — except the Amish (maybe LOL?)

Be sure to join in on the discussion!  Comment and re-post if you can.

Thanks ~ Cozy

Ghosts In a Cardboard Box – A Poem

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GHOSTS IN A CARDBOARD BOX – A POEM

 

sounds of grandfather; dead but breathing still

a lonely cardboard box in the middle of a dank humid attic

shuffle him down ladders to the basement for a time

a look in their eyes said they’d never speak of the war

i suppose beer, rum, and darts says enough between some friends–

nobody mentions the medals..

i won’t pay for a poppy that made you deaf

some faux felt cheap plastic — what does that say?

i’ll pocket my coin and say you’ve already paid for the whole damn picture show

if you think i forgot you — guess again

in ashes you are more alive to me

than your breathing ever was

tick tick, tick tick

grenade?

no –

just your watch

*boom*

Blood Oranges – An Erotic Pantoum Poem

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BLOOD ORANGES – AN EROTIC PANTOUM

 

 

 

Running at the speed of dizzy cliff rock orgasm

Chasing lust through hemlock’s danger ’tis a dream

Loins lock and twist a lover into rhythmic spasm

Loneliness is ripping under-seams

 ~

Chasing lust through hemlock’s danger ’tis a dream

We’re all a voyeur in the bushes; in a hide

Loneliness is ripping under-seams

To the virgin:  ”Clench your teeth and open wide”

 ~

We’re all a voyeur in the bushes; in a hide

Rummage through the trash bin like a greasy hoard

To the virgin:  ”Clench your teeth and open wide”

Sailors get to fagging raw when they’re bored

 ~

Rummage through the trash bin like a greasy hoard

Shove green clover in your panties ‘mongst the bush

Sailors get to fagging raw when they’re bored

Time to give that virgin’s cherry a stretch and push

 ~

Shove green clover in your panties ‘mongst the bush

Save thy baby-doll eye-lashings for when I shoot

Time to give that virgin’s cherry a stretch and push

Taste the bloody Nile; Catholic oranges; forbidden fruit

 ~

Save thy baby-doll eye-lashings for when I shoot

But be forewarned you will never be the same

Taste the bloody Nile; Catholic oranges; forbidden fruit

You became a junkie the second time you came

 ~

But be forewarned you will never be the same

Loins lock and twist a lover into rhythmic spasm

You became a junkie the second time you came

Running at the speed of dizzy cliff rock orgasm

Wake Up Call – 3 Part Haiku

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SENSE – WAKE UP CALL

A THREE PART HAIKU

 

 

Crusted eyes shut, wake

Urban pejoratives bray

Light a cigarette

~

Squinting into smog

Noise of drills and commerce drone

Fill my lungs gray smoke

~

Pasty mouth quite stale

Craves for cityscape’s java

Tis a brand new day

 

 

 

 

Inspired by:  Daily Post

Shine On & 7 Personal Cozy Factoids

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Many thanks to Jen for nominating me for the Shine On award.  As a thank you, my friends, I would love to introduce you to her blog:  CLICK TO VISIT JEN

I wish to nominate a few friends, whose blogs I admire:

1.  One Brave Survivor Healing a.k.a. Amanda

Amanda is a wonderful writer of beautiful poetry.  Her posts are always uplifting and the voice she uses is authentic.  People interested in a real life person, creative to the core, living authentically who has triumphed over some pretty big challenges in life will garner a lot from spending some time on her blog.

2.  Black and Write a.ka. Dominic R. DiFrancesco

Dominic provides me and his readers with wonderful poems.  He has written in many various poetry formats and his experimentation always leaves the reader hungry for me.

3.  Shrinks Aren’t Cheap a.k.a I don’t know her real name

Edgy poetry.  I love edgy poetry and have been known to write some edgy stuff from time to time.  But here is a true master of knocking you out of your chair on a daily basis.

SO THOSE ARE MY THREE NOMINEES … PLEASE KEEP YOUR BLOGS SHINING ON!

{Rules}

1. Display the award logo on your blog

2. Link back to the person who nominated you

3. State 7 things about yourself

4. Nominate other bloggers for this award

5. Notify the bloggers that they have been nominated

6. Write a wish on a paper airplane and float it out the nearest window.   (Hey, we need new rules for these awards.  Rules that don’t involve tagging a dozen fellow bloggers!)

Paper Airplane. Wikipedia.

 

 

SEVEN THINGS ABOUT MYSELF

 

 

1.  Since becoming a daily blogger, I have noticed my self-confidence build.  I don’t have any training in the high arts of creative writing.  I remember first getting into poetry about 2 years ago.  Before that I didn’t appreciate poetry, and felt it was hard to understand.  I remember being interested in the challenge of writing poems and ordering ‘The Poetry Handbook’ by Mary Oliver (don’t waste your money folks).  Basically, my approach has been this… write it, edit it, and put it out there.  It’s like throwing it against the wall and seeing if it sticks.  I went from the naive notions of rhyming poetry to reading and writing mostly in free-verse.  I have also really enjoyed time spent writing haiku’s.  Tanka’s are a new interest for me.  The one piece of advice that helped me quite a bit as a poet is something that my friend told me, “Poetry is meant to be read aloud.”  This really helped me write my own poems and appreciate others.  Try reading a poem aloud and in different international accents and you’ll discover the love of poetry, guaranteed.

 

 

2.  Things I have empathy for:  Veganism (meat is murder), Crohn’s & Colitis, Anxiety / Depression / Mental Illness, People starving, The Homeless, Former Jehovah’s Witnesses, People confused about their sexuality/gender

 

 

3.  My favourite novels:  I like anything by Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, just about to start The Lost Symbol and must get his new book Inferno), Lolita by Nabokov, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and I like most novels by spy fiction writer Frederick Forsythe

 

 

4.  Long before I was a poet and a daily blogger, I was a songwriter and musician.  Check out some of my music by CLICKING HERE – you can download any of the songs for free!

 

 

5.  Who is my celebrity crush?  I’d have to say Avril Lavigne.  She’s Canadian, can play guitar, and doesn’t seem to age.  I would list Tegan and Sara but they are lesbians and so I’m already disqualified.

 

 

6.  For some reason, I got into a bad habit growing up, thinking that at least could be written as one word ‘atleast’ … Spell check informs me that this is not a word.  I can’t break the habit though.

 

 

7.  I have a panty fetish.  I’m quite up front about it with my friends.  I guess you can consider yourself a friend now!  Anyways, I just think that the shapes, the fabrics, the colours, are all very beautiful and accent the curves I love on women.  So it’s my fetish.  Did you know that in Japan you can buy worn panties from vending machines?  No, I have not been to Japan, and I think it’s a little creepy to have them in vending machines (imagine being the guy who restocks the machine??  WTF) but I do suppose that if I ever did go to Japan, after my time visiting Zen Monasteries I’d bring a whole bunch of panties back.  Creepy?  A little.  Still not as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey which I am not into, and by all accounts is very poorly written.

 

So that’s 7 things about me.  It just occurred to me that if you like these 7 things, maybe I should be playing that Miley Cyrus one hit wonder ’7 Thing I Hate About You’ which has a fantastic resolution with her listing the 7 things she likes about the guy.  It’s been a pleasure to stroll off the path this evening and do something personal.  Thanks for the award and I look forward to treating you all to some more poetry in the morning!

 

 

-RyRy

a.k.a

CozyblanketSnowflakeRepetitionCompulsion

 

 

 

P.S.

Accepting applications for email pen pal friendships … should something you read make you think, I’d like to know this guy, and you enjoy swapping emails you can email me at

ry_andrew@hotmail.com