Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Rheyne]

There is a depthless sadness in me today, yesterday and perhaps tomorrow

which into I sink but never fully

ever floating supended

unable to reach firm solid ground

of relief

of gladness

of bliss

but despite this

there will come a time

when I will

walk upon

solid ground

again

 

Days of Depression

Maharg67

 

This was beautiful and truly moving. This is the kind of poetry that I love reading. :-)

[Maharg67]

THANK YOU GREATLY RHEYNE!!!

 

I ONLY WRITE POETRY SOMETIMES BUT IT IS THE SORT THAT I BOTH LIKE TO WRITE AND READ. THAT IS IT IS POETRY FROM THE HEART AND THAT COMES FROM LIFE EXPERIENCE.

 

 

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Edited August 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Keanumoreira]

There is a depthless sadness in me today, yesterday and perhaps tomorrow

which into I sink but never fully

ever floating supended

unable to reach firm solid ground

of relief

of gladness

of bliss

but despite this

there will come a time

when I will

walk upon

solid ground

again

 

Days of Depression

Maharg67

 

This was beautiful and truly moving. This is the kind of poetry that I love reading. :-)

 

I didn't see this here M. I agree, a very heart warming poet you are. :happy:

[Maharg67]

THANK YOU, KEANUMOREIRA!!!

 

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Edited August 9, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-1-

GRAHAM MAHARG

IN TIME-SPACE ALTERNATE REALITIES

BACK HOME #1

IN A CRUMBLING CITY ON A DYING WORLD

 

So he ran along the streetlamp lit street until he had outrun the thugs, backpack bashing against his back, had tiredly climbed the stairs to his apartment that he was being evicted from and happily locked the front door behind himself. Clutched in one hand was the mail he had collected from the triple locked mailbox because of all the mailbox robberies lately. So far the three small, fairly cheap padlocks had done the trick. That and the big thug of a caretaker's son who often sat lazily next to the mailboxes drinking cheap beer and smoking nasty smelling cheap tobacco rollies.

 

Society was crumbling slowly but surely. Every day the rationing got stricter, more rocketships blasted into space taking the lucky few colonists with them, the climate became more beserker, life became harder, monsters became more frequent, fighting became more common, more secondary wars broke out, religious fanatics became more powerful and numerous, dogs slept with cats, milk went sour just a little quicker, bandicoots went wild and the world grew steadily worse.

 

Sometimes he would weep and he did not know why. It would come sudden like but happily enough only when he was alone.

 

Sometimes he would weep and he did know why. His plagued killed beloved girlfriend. His estranged family. His mental illness. His grim prospects. And not least, the fact that he was dying of cancer.

 

Everyday he would find more dead bodies of unwanted children and old people as he made his way through the slowly crumbling city. He took things from them to identify them. He tried his best to find them some sort of dignity. The packs of abandoned dogs were getting bigger and more savage. He wondered why he bothered to do this or to save those still alive. As a volunteer he gained a pitiful allowance and some vouchers from the dying government every week. From the struggling volunteer armies he got another allowance and more vouchers. For that he pretty much worked four days a week but during those days he worked twenty-four hours a day with out any real breaks. He was exhausted for his so called days off were often spent on other efforts like helping to defend the apartment block from invaders of various sorts.

 

He was surprised to get so much mail. Often it was pathetic as in glossy commercial stuff as if the minds of the corporate advertising people had become totally deranged in their removal from reality. Government often sent official statements, newsletters and pamphlets that were rarely read. He read everything he got as if clinging to the reality that he vaguely remembered from his childhood which was when his world, at least, had been a much better place.

 

Now he sat down at the big old wooden desk in the big old apartment that held much stuff stored in it in barely organised chaos thanks to his pack-rat nature. The first envelope was a government one. He opened it to find, not to his surprise but to his horror, that his rental vouchers were soon to be cancelled. In theory a new system of vouchers was to replace it but everybody knew that no system was to emerge to do that. Government was pulling out of the isolated city of Purth, Western Australia, was abandoning it and its people. That is except for the military to keep imposing martial law and salvage units who would continue to take what they could to send eastwards. Salvage units were soldier thugs who often stole by force in the name of the Federal Government and who did not pause to shoot people.

 

The second letter was from a rising People's Government promising that soon they would do what the previous Australian Commonwealth had failed to do. Problem was that there were now three such rebel governments and they spent more time and energy fighting each other than trying to solve the problems of the people.

 

The third was the exotic one. Very strange of black with fine golden lettering and a golden emblem like a game-wheel of exotic nature. It had only his name, not his address, and he wondered how it had gotten to him. As he studied the package he somehow sensed that an invisible but friendly force was observing him. He turned to find poor old Puppy looking at him with big sad sweet eyes, the experimental subject doggy with his useless fifth leg and third small eye in his forehead. He smiled and said. "Love puppy."

 

Puppy lumbered over and with some assistance ended up sitting on Graham's lap. Graham got a good licking and Puppy got kissed on top of his head as well as hugged. Then Puppy barked at the black and gold package as if curious. He had enhanced intelligence, far more than that of a normal dog. Graham and Puppy kind of talked with each other.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-2-

GRAHAM MAHARG

IN TIME-SPACE ALTERNATE REALITIES

BACK HOME #2

THE BLACK AND GOLDEN PACKAGE

 

The package had no visible means of opening and he soon realized that he had to solve at least one puzzle to get it opened. The hidden observer was still there, a warm female presence of some kind. He checked all over the package again and Puppy helped by sniffing at the package eagerly with his big brown nose. The warm female presence shimmered softly and the seminaked ghost of his girlfriend was then sitting on the desk itself with crossed legs. She was frowning at him softly as if wondering if he was still angry at her for her betrayal of their relationship.

 

He was! He ignored her! That she had ignored him, pushed him away, attacked him, while having regular sex with a monstrous demonic thug, as charmingly handsome as he was, was something he had never forgiven her for. For some reason she was tied as a ghost to the apartment that she had shared with him for over three years and could neither leave or move on into the Afterlife. Puppy still loved her and Kittykitten tolerated her happily enough so he had not tried for some kind of exorcism but he was sorely tempted to do so at times.

 

Then he noted the odd little difference in the golden patterning on just one corner. Carefully searching there found a tab and he pulled on the tab. Soon he had the first layer of sheeting of black with golden patterning and writing, very expensive stuff, folded neatly and placed carefully to one side. Kittykitten leapt, all scarred and muscular, onto the desk and the big fighting female gave Puppy a licking before she did the same to Graham. She hissed angrily at the ghost who moved back a little by simply floating backwards.

 

Katrina spoke in an oddly muffled voice, an old echo of her physical voice. "If you forgive me, maybe I will go away. I want to go to Heaven."

 

Graham snorted. "After what you did to me, to Melonie, to Rojer, to your family, to the Mount Lawley Volunteer Taskforce, to the Ministry of Social Security, to the Addams Family, and who knows who else, for the sake of a demonic willingly possed warlock, you are not going to Heaven."

 

Kartina snorted. "Sebastin was very charming, very handsome and you had to admit he was a lot sexier than you are. He had such a nice big car and he even had a penthouse."

 

Graham grinned. "Then all the people he had cheated, hurt and otherwise done nasty things to, some of them being very powerful, caught up with him and he was burned alive in his car along with some of his worst female and male followers. A man who sold his teenage daughter into sex slavery. A man who murdered over fifty people. A man who raped over a hundred people. A man who dealt in hard drugs, illegal weapons, black magic, dog fighting, sweatshops, sex slavery, dark pornography and anything else very bad that could make him an easy profit. You knew what he was doing. You knew what he was alike. You knew some of the people who he hurt and helped him do it. Go to Hell and burn in the endless blue ice."

 

Katrina grimaced at him and vanished with a shimmering.

 

Sometimes Sebastin's ghost would show up just outside the apartment block, a grimy thing twisted and distorted with his dark crimes, a pitiful thing of no real power but much self-pity. Mother Sandra had splashed it twice with holy water, causing it to burn and scream, but it had come back after a month or so as if it had no choice but to do so.

 

Opening the package further was a matter of pressing a thumb against a small black plate, of solving a small maths puzzle and then, at last, opening it up. Inside the slim black box, fixed to a black board in various ways, were a white gold finger ring, three black business cards with golden writing, a slim exotic white golden metallic pistol like some elegantly exotic raygun, a neat stack of slightly used looking $500 notes, a neat stack of high quality government issued vouchers, a neat stack of valuable commercial gift vouchers, three packets of what looked like exotic chewing gum, a white-golden slim bracelet, a slim black and golden face plated bracelet and twelve small exotic dice with varied numbers of shapes and faces.

 

Katrina then did a strange thing. She shimmered into existance and with a look of desperate fear on her face, she made a lunge for the package. The results were both astonishing and dramatic. There was an amazing flash of light, Katrina screamed in agony and vanished, and then Graham found himself blacking out even as he protectively grabbed the cat and dog to himself.

 

The last thing that happened was that he spoke out loud. "I forgive you, Katrina!"

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-3-

GRAHAM MAHARG

IN TIME-SPACE ALTERNATE REALITIES

BACK HOME #3

SOME EARLY CHANGES

 

He woke with a groan to sit up at his desk to the noise of Katrina, a physically solid Katrina, bustling around the kitchen making coffee and something to eat. He turned to note a very much healthier and fitter looking Puppy crunching on some fresh doggy biscuits. Mother Sandra was sitting in a new looking armchair. Everything in the apartment was now brand new looking, fully repaired, missing bits having been replaced. The long not working flatscreen TV was functioning smoothly again with a government emergency news bulletin so the world had not improved much.

 

Or so it seemed to him at first.

 

The heaps of maybe useful, semi-useful stuff were now all very clearly useful. Young Tiffanie and Gerry, teenagers from next door, were picking through some books. They argued mildly but Gerry was no longer in a wheelchair and Tiffanie had lost the croaky sound to her voice. Kittykitten slept curled up next to Bobby himself. She was no longer scarred and otherwise looked younger, healthier and fitter. He drew her over and rubbed hr so that she thrummed with pleasure in her sleep.

 

Mother Sandra turned to him and she no longer wore thick glasses. "Katrina told me what happened and how you forgave her. At least she has told me what she knows of. Sebastin had a hold on her in a dark spiritual sense. As long as you did not forgive her, he could manipulate her to some extent. So he forced her to try to grab the black and golden package though I doubt Sebastin knew what it was. He has gone now to Hell, to the deep blue ice as you call it."

 

The package was gone but not gone. He could sense its presence. Each middle finger of his hand now held a finger ring of white gold, slim and simple. Each wrist had a bracelet, a white gold one on his right wrist and a black with gold on his left wrist. He had access to a hidden storage zone of some kind. How big was it and what was in it? For now he was not quite sure. It did have the other items had had been in the package including some he had not seen because they were on the other side of the thin board.

 

He yawned. "So the explosion of light made some changes."

 

The younger looking woman laughed softly with obvious irony. "It went around the world at the speed of light. The world is far from being a paradise now but it has been rejuvenated, regenerated. The climate has become more friendly, more stable, as has the weather. The oceans thrive with life once more. The Amazon is its old rich self. People are fitter and healthier. The starving have been fed. The sick have been cured. The overly fat are healthily slim. The old are younger seeming. Mental illness and various handicaps are gone. Yet not all is good. New threats have arisen with the Light. Strange new creatures exist with us now. The Amazon has rejected all people from itself except for some original inhabitants who have gone back to their tribal ways of life. With fertile farming lands have come conflicts of ownership. With returned rejuvenated resources, have returned old greeds. The space program continues. People are still leaving because for some reason they are impelled to do so. People continue to travel to the Lunar Colonies, the L5 Orbitals and to Mars. If anything, far more people are leaving and are taking with them more resources than they were like livestock and agricultural seeds and seedlings, cut timber, crude oil, many manufactured goods, artworks, antiques and a great deal of stored data. Oh, can not forget the gene banks."

 

He nodded. "Can not forget the gene banks."

 

Mother Sandra sighed. "Many of the dead, those who died over the last hundred years or so, have returned to life. A are grateful to you for trying to save their lives or at least trying to find them dignified burial. I did not realise that you had been up to so much good, so determined were you to convince me that you were not a good person."

 

He picked up Kittykitten as if she was a big kitten and held her in his arms. He went over and sat down in another newish armchair, one that had been too damaged to use. Kittykitten curled up comfortably on his lap and went on sleeping. Puppy ran over to Mother Sandra and was soon sleeping, curled up, on her lap.

 

The woman speaking on the news bulletin was very excited, was somewhat confused and busy as new information came to her in the form of hastily printed out briefings. Soon they switched to a panel of three people because she was overwhelmed. The background was a big, now functioning expensive flatscreen showing video runs coming in from around the world.

 

The anchorwoman spoke. "The Great Exodus has begun. People are coming to Australia and New Zealand from all over the world. By any means they can they are on the move. Australia and New Zealand are not what they were but... just what they are now is not really known yet. Satellite linkages have been disrupted by the great Light Wave and many are still coming back on line. The International Spacestation, now three times larger than it was, has just started communicating with NASA and UNASA again. A great, formerly missing, Soviet submarine has just come into Sydney Harbour but offers no threat. Jet airliners are trying to land at international airports across New Zealand and Australia."

 

Graham was still waking up, was still trying to take it in. He sat back comfortably and closed his eyes. Soon he was asleep and was travelling in time-space.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-18-

THE ADVENTURES OF HELENE

SANCTUAHAVEN TRIBULATIONS AND TRICKS

 

The smells and noises of the stockyards drifted to where Helene, with neobaby, and the triplets were making their way through the outskirts of the temple city. They had been there for some days, had rented a house in the settlement that was to the side of the ancient city proper with its step-pyramids, but she had managed to learn little of real use. The oomans of the city were wary of strangers in general and seemed to be particulary wary of her. Her paid informants in the city seemed to have vanished from communications reach and her secret agents were finding nothing of use.

 

Except for one whisper that the Mythic Dawn, the deluded and dangerous followers of Mehrunes Dagon, had been glimpsed in the area in their red hooded robes. It had been late at night, almost midnight, when some nervous security guards of the Cattle Guild had glimpsed the fast moving cultists. The Cattle Guild followed the rules as imposed by Helene and the cattle were selectively killed in a peaceful, merciful manner. The numbers of cattle grown and killed were fairly small because the demand for red meat was fairly low for it was fairly expensive. Cattle Guild attempts to change this had failed miserably so far because of community attitudes as much as for the intervention of Helene.

 

AndroDixa, the silvery woman, came out of seemingly nowhere disguised as a local human cowgirl. Even her skin and hair colour and texture was changed. She was now a tall brown skinned, black haired woman in basic, tough cowgirl gear including a big holstered revolver-pistol. She was smiling grimly and was holding a red hooded robe. "The previous owner did not really want to give it to me so I had to persuad him somewhat. He is buried up over a bit beyond the last wooden fence towards the big old bell-tower."

 

The big old bell-tower chimed the hour, every hour, as a kind of clock for the whole area. It had become part of the culture of the area and when some newcomers had complained about the noise in the middle of the night, they had ended up leaving to live elsewhere so unpopular did they become. The bell-tower was old but it had been built in the time after the fall of the dreaded priests and their elite butcher soldiers.

 

Sam, Sal and Saz spread out clutching revolver-pistols. The neobaby stirred slightly in her sleep and resnuggled against Helene. Helene's attempts to find her mother had so far come to nothing. The night was coming fast. The evening of twilightish quality was starting to come to an end. In the distance some cowboys and cowgirls were riding on horse back as they brought in a herd of cattle for some kind of mass medical treatments, probably a soak in antitick substances.

 

Sal, a male triplet, spoke out. "Where are the Cattleguards?"

 

Cattleguards were cowboys and cowgirls in special body-armour and with military style autorifles. They served the Cattle Guild but in theory they were meant to serve the law before the interests of the guild. Helene did not trust to this and neither did anybody with any real understanding of the local political situation. Had the Cattle Guild been stupid enough to make some sort of agreement with the Mythic Dawn? She hoped not for their sake.

 

They came rushing towards the group, five Cattleguards, but the way they moved was wrong for Cattleguards. These fakes moved like people who did not regularly ride horses. They had autorifles, these Mythic Dawn assassins, and aimed them at their targets. But then came the thundering noise of automatic fire and bullets riddled the Mythic Dawners, killing them abruptly as their bodies shuddered and they cried out in shock and agony.

 

Real Cattleguards emerged into the open, eleven of them, revealing that it had been an ambush and that Helene had been used as bait for the trap. She was not pleased at being used in such a fashion and yet she was glad that the Mythic Dawn killers had been dealt with.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 25, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-19-

THE ADVENTURES OF HELENE

SANCTUAHAVEN TRIBULATIONS AND TRICKS

 

Helene stood looking out of the stone tower through an armaglass window even as rain drops spattered against it. The rain was luke warm, the day was fairly dark with clouds and the cattle had been taken into shelter in great underground chambers where they were well cared for. A whole Mythic Dawn coven had been slaughtered or so it seemed. She had the Cattle Guild to thank, or so it seemed. Trouble was she did not trust either the Cattle Guild or the council of five wealthy, powerful and influential humans who ruled it.

 

Lady Tashmire sat behind the great big elongated desk with two Cattlelords on one side and two on the other. She was beautiful, sharply dressed and was holding a small letter-opener knife as if she was trying not to stab Helene. "I hope you do not take offense, Helene, but you are being most stubborn..."

 

Helene cut her off with a wave of her hand. "What more do you want from me that is fair to the whole of Sanctuahaven? You would have me give you unfair advantage in exchange for what? Take care in what you say and even in what you imply, Lady Tashmire. You have now my permission to double your cattle number and cattle facilities. The demand for meat will rise as others begin to arrive in Sanctuahaven as refugees. They will be mostly human and they eat more red meat than do oomans."

 

Lady Tashmire visibly relaxed. She even put the silvery bladed letter-opener down. "Well, that is most welcome news."

 

Helene snorted. "I am not going soft, just you be sure of that. All the old rules are still to be kept. I will send you a hundred thousand goldsworth of resources to assist with your expansion."

 

It was odd that Helene, who looked so much younger than these five powerful figures, was indeed much older than any of them. She wondered if they would take the bait, if they would think she was going soft and do something stupid. She hoped not for despite Lady Tashmire being a pain in her a***, Helene liked her. She even admired the woman but Lady Tashmire was dangerous, especially because she had never forgiven Helene for killing her father.

 

Helene went on. "I need you to triple the size of the Cattleguardia. I will make sure they get new, improved equipment and supplies."

 

Cattlelord Rashanu, a dark skinned muscular man, spoke with a soft growl of doubt. "Why would you do such a thing when you have never trusted us. We are not fools. We know you have secret agents amongst the Cattleguards."

 

Helene shrugged as if that did not matter at all, was not even worth talking about. "A dark and dangerous enemy is going to attack the Sanctuary Zone. You will need to take your part in defending our fine and wonderful domain." She turned and bowed briefly to the five humans. "I must go now. Live long, wisely and prosper."

 

Then she vanished from that chamber with a sparkling shimmer. Even as she did she knew at least two of the individuals there were traitors, were linked to the Mythic Dawn, but to catch them she needed to make it easier for them to come out in the open where she could terminate them.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 25, 2010 by Maharg67