Posts tagged john poem

Poem and Quotes

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
-Shakespeare
“Romeo and Juliet”

Is a poet still a poet even if that person wears a bandanna, sagging pants and shoots expletives like bullets? Who determines the recipients of the title muse? When you think of poets, do you envision laureates like Robert Pinsky, Reed Whittemore, or Gwendolyn Brooks? How about Mos Def, Talib Kweli, or Tupac Shakur a.k.a 2Pac?

It’s about time that this generation acknowledges the ground breaking work of great M.C.’s, lyricists, or rappers like Shakur. The poems and quotes by 2Pac have enlightened a generation of youth. The gift he had to evoke passion, his sense of timing, and relevance to today’s world can not be denied.

Forward thinking college’s like the University of North Carolina, UCLA and Syracuse have registered that literature is a living, breathing, ever changing beast. Studying, Lil’ Kim to get a perspective on male chauvinism is feeding the minds of today’s youth and challenging preconceived notions of what poetry is. Classes that study the poems and quotes by 2Pac are learning translate the urban tongue into the “King’s English”. And they gain a deeper understanding of urban life.

What can we learn from the poems and quotes by 2Pac?

“First ship ‘em dope & let ‘em deal the brothers.
Give ‘em guns step back watch ‘em kill each other.
It’s time to fight back that’s what Huey said.
2 shots in the dark now Huey’s dead.”

“Learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant strangers, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
How can the Devil take a brother if he’s close to me?

I’d love to go back to when we played as kids, but things changed, and that’s the way it is.”

This is the rawest way of expressing the plight of so many communities facing this harsh reality.
Tupac is able to resuscitate empathy and compassion in those who would otherwise not care. It is easy to see that his desires and dreams are not that different from any other man’s.

I have read many poems and quotes by 2Pac. This quote from when he was alive sums up his views on how he wanted to be pictured, “”I feel like role models today are not meant to be put on a pedestal. But more like angels with broken wings”.

This by no means glorifies the violence, bigotry, misogynism, & pornographic, lyrics that are prevalent in today’s music. It is there because it is a reflection of life. And not all of it is deep and moving. Sometimes the mood is lifted and it is time to party.

2Pac and Dr. Dre collaborated on the club banger “California Love” to demonstrate that hip hop is not all about guns, drugs, racism and violence. Although, at a time when relations between east coast rappers and west coast rappers were deteriorating rapidly, some say that the anthem was a akin to giving the east coast the middle finger. Such is the politics of hip hop. One man’s expression of pride in his hood is another man’s diss.

The east/west coast feud reminded me of another great conflict in literary history. The Montague’s and Capulets would certainly understand the enmity between the two coast. Because they understood the power that words have. Our past power might sound differently but it does not lack the ability to raise your consciousness, tug at your emotions, and challenge your views.

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The Woman

The Woman

In the midst of moon lit snow covered mountains
under star filled skies in cool night air
hiding behind the beauty of the universe
a woman cries softly in the corner of a small room
drenched in sadness she tracks melancholy footprints
through the souls of those she touches
she does not mean to, but the hurt is there
those that have hurt her are there
and so she sobs softly.

She cries until there are no more tears
and when there are no more tears
she returns to the strong image
that she has always portrayed to others
Not realizing that others feel the same
Not realizing that she could reach out
But she can’t

The loveless marriage, the frightened children
they are but a mirror of her own life
and to shatter that mirror would be to shatter herself
She longs to shatter herself, this image, this facade
But this mirror is what holds the entire reflection of her life
She is afraid to let it go

To let it go, to see it shatter
would be to not know what she is
She is pain and while she no longer wants it
to not have it is to not understand
what the last 10 years of her life have been
But in that sadness in that small room
she breaks a pact she had made long ago

She is no longer a woman that doesn’t deserve
As time has progressed so has she
and she knows the time has come
With mascara stained cheeks she gathers her children
from their beds and dresses them quietly
This will be last time she cries in that small room

Leaving with her children in each hand she looks up
and realizes that for the first time in a long time
she is not separate from happiness
and that happiness was there all along
if she had had the courage to live it

No longer hiding behind the veil of the universe
Under a star filled sky in the cool night air
In the midst of moon lit snow covered mountains
She realizes that without the man who ruled her
she is complete
She realizes that without the man
she will never feel alone again.

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White With Haste

Dead leaves of days gone by—now fly:

White with haste, ghouls fly high;
Amongst old aisles, where footsteps once fell

Now tombs and tales and lurking madmen hail:
Here is where H.P. Lovecraft once walked,

And talked—and wrote gloomy tales…!
It is he, who howls now like a ghoul,

In the nights—white with haste; he
Who no longer can see the light!

His wings now are wings of dread,

His breathe is naught, cold with death!…

At twilight in the hoary haunted woods,

You can hear a whisper now and then
Some gleaming teeth that could be his:

Piercing eyes, waxed with death…!

Dead leaves of days gone by—still fly,

Ruffled with footsteps that once fell,
Here is where madness was dispelled…

Where Lovecraft walked and talked:

To his second self!…

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Five Easy Steps to Reading a Famous Poem

Famous poems are everywhere. They appear in places no one could expect – slogans on television, common sayings and phrases, and the titles of just about every artistic film or endeavor at the local video store. Because famous poems are so transcendent, we rarely if ever notice they are there and even less often realize who wrote them. Why not ensure the proper steps are taken when reading a famous poem then to better appreciate the author, the poem, and the time spent reading it.

Step #1 – Selecting a Famous Poem

Easy as pie, right? It might immediately seem so but finding and selecting a specific famous poem or poet to study can be a bit time consuming. Do you really want to read something that does not interest you? You wouldn’t simply buy a book off of a shelf because the woman at the desk told you it was famous. You would want to know what the book is about. The same is true for poetry.

Most of the famous poems in history are available for free online and can be searched for by topic. If you are interested in a war story, Homer’s Iliad has been enthralling readers for millennia while Shakespeare’s sonnets are beautiful love poems. There are numerous resources for finding that ideal poem.

Step #2 – Who Wrote the Famous Poem

Who is the author of your famous poem? The list of potential names is nearly endless. Here are a few of the biggest and brightest stars of the poetry universe to get you started:

Homer

William Shakespeare

Edgar Allen Poe

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Percy Bysshe Shelley

John Keats

William Wordsworth

The list goes on seemingly forever if you let it. The best way to find an incredible, famous poet is to visit the local bookstore or library and ask for recommendations.

Step #3 – Reading the Poem

Read it carefully and slowly. Simply skimming through a famous poem doesn’t do it justice and will only leave you wondering, why is this so famous? You could read a magazine if you simply wanted text to skim over quickly. Poetry is meant to be absorbed and to absorb it you must read it slowly and methodically.

Step #4 – Contextualizing Famous Poems

When was the famous poem written? What was happening in the world? What major events were coloring the life of its author? These are the questions you should ask when reading a famous poem. Every poem has a story behind it and knowing that story can make the entire experience that much more engaging.

Step #5 – Finding More Poetry

Once you find a famous poem that you enjoy, that strikes the perfect cord, you will want to find more of the same. Luckily, many of the poets listed above have enormous bodies of work. Most local bookstores feature large anthologies of work from most of them as well as combined anthologies with famous poems organized by subject or publication date. If you want to find more poetry, there are dozens of resources to do so.

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The Nefilim: Angelic Warlords

Prologue:

This was meant to be the sequel to the book: “Angelic Renegades & Rephaim Giants.” The Rephaim Giants, whom were the offspring, or hybrid of the Watchers, which was done for the most part in poetic form and represents a short novel; the author he could present the best impression that way, that being, more on the emotional, symbolic scale his images, impressions of them.

This sequel is done was done in both poetic prose form; now put into poetic prose for the first time, and a vast amount is being left out [two sections]. The story represents a vision the author had. There were angelic beings given the task by God to watch over earth, did just that for a while, then two-hundred of them took it upon themselves to go down to earth and co-habituate with the human female gender, in so doing they chose a most dreadful fate, to be buried alive in the pit of the abyss, within the bowls of the earth.

Their off spring [children] was the giants of the Old Testament, Genesis Chapter 6, and also presented in the Pseudepigrapha, in the book of Enoch, written about 200 BC. No one is sure when the time period of this first started, but these giants of old were called the Rephaim Giants. Eventually they would meet their fate, by killing off one another in wars. Then came the flood, and your guess is as good as mine, what happened to them.

In my first book I took a visionary journey, within the story called: “Meeting of the Watchers.” Now you may be saying, where these Nefilim angelic warlords come into play; and especially how does one link them to the other.

Well, as you most likely know, God works things out in accordance to his laws, which I put into place a long time ago. That is to say, one of my visions, which I wrote about in the book: “The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon,” is about these Nefilim angelic beings also. The Nefilim angels were before and at present the Watchers, although being from the same stock. But I didn’t go on a journey like I did with Serr’el, to meet the Watchers in this quest of sorts. I simple went on a journey in which I got caught up in, and maybe was not suppose to, in their space craft, and out of wanting to know, stayed within this vision, not letting go, and some times, things just work out surprisingly for you. And this is what I’m about to share with you.

I was kind of like looking through a porthole. And I wasn’t taken back in time like I was with the Watchers, some 13,000-years. I was in the present, and so where they; or so it seemed. Again, there are no birthrights here. For the Watchers may even have slid over to the Nefilim quest, before they were sent to the abyss, and could be living today on some far off planet waiting to visit us: for Armageddon, or perhaps they will start it. This is what my vision was about, the Nefilim. Even though the Shinning Ones are involved, and what are they doing up there, was my quest, to find out. These were no aliens my friends. These are powerful angelic forces, although the Shinning Ones seem to have some kind of angelic-humanistic link. Meaning, the Watchers and the Nefilim are from the same sphere (I think); and may go on journeys together, but they do not think alike completely: similar to the space program between Russia and the United States, it could be: in a far fetched way. Whatever may be, we all share the same God, like it or not. We just all think we got our hands in His pockets, thus, no room for the others.

This story or combination of facts, vision, dream, some travel involved (Easter Island), over time: 1980s, and 90s and the new century: put me on a space ship, in l984. Although it took me close to twenty years to put it into in story form, it is ripe for the picking right now: in 2002 it was written, and in January 2006, it is revised, or reedited, more on the latter than the first: for there was really not a thing to revise but the style in presenting it to you. There were twelve-beings; six were angelic, the other six of an unknown species [I call the Shinning Ones]. But I do have hypotheses to this historical-visionary fictional story. Having said that let me take you into their world, and my image, visualization, or call it dream-vision;

It was l984:

The Nefilim: Angelic Warlords

[And the Shinning Ones]

Poetic Prose

The Space Ship

[A Dream Vision]

I noticed a spaceship high in the sphere observing earth —it couldn’t see me, I thought, but perhaps it could. Activities— a white dote, that’s all it was, for the moment; I wondered what they looked like, inside that space craft (from where I was standing, watching, observing on flat dirt), underneath their helm; “…what do they look like?” I questioned my mind, or perhaps it questioned me, as if I was what they were thinking.

There were twelve-beings inside this space craft: call it second sight, if you like: likened to a large arena… it was inside; caught in our atmosphere like a mouse-trap, or akin to a fly to a spider’s web. It was, round and spacious, half of these creatures were wearing white suites, the other half, lit the space they walked, as if—if they were on fire, likened to a glow from the moon, I call them: the Shinning ones.

The ones in the white suites, their heads were shaped like dogs in coffin, plastic coffin goon, but tall and strong looking. Slowly they walked as if death had no rights; I suppose I should admit they got my attention, these space suites and all, and the Shinning Ones, but I wanted to be among them.

Yes, oh yes, it had its own reality, different than mine, I could tell, as I transposed my mind to their mind, as if I was lead on top of their heads, they didn’t know I was there, in their space, in their spacecraft, half spirit, half alive, still standing on earth’s ground, still looking at them, now amongst them, in some kind of shadow bubble.

I now was there, there I say, there: standing like a soldier, in the throne room of a spaceship; a ship that never was, or at least, it seemed it was never. A dream, makings of a dream, but real it seamed, as if I was a step beyond, fiction, and in reality, one in another dimension. —It was less than real, but better for my mind to believe that, so my subconscious said.

“Wake up! Wake Up!! “I told myself yet I couldn’t almost, but couldn’t, wouldn’t, dare not—what for, my mind wanted to go on a longer journey. This, my friend, was not, not a dream!! The—Angelic force had on white dog-shaped space suites. I repeat, White….

“Awe,” I cried, “There are Baboons inside them suites. “ How foolish can one be, so I said to me? I told myself, “Baboons.” I stood still, as if they could see me, but they couldn’t of course, I was, like they were to earthlings, invisible.

As I looked about the ship, around and around, I noticed these beings were very tall; I also notices holes, big round windows, that looked like portholes, that peered here and there, everywhere, and especially now, especially down onto, upon earth. The white plastic coated monsters walked slowly, in dolce, cigarette machine: flat unemotional stride; from a distance, the Shinning Ones looked like robots, somewhat pre occupied.

What was their quest, I asked—me, but nobody heard, not even my inquisitive subconscious, for it didn’t’ question me beyond looking: yet, I felt they were the ancestors of stones, perchance those old stones, perhaps those on standing stones on Easter Island that look out and up, high into the sky, out into the frozenness of a past-time, ready to become beings again. Otherwise, what were these statues waiting for? So I asked myself. Yes, oh yes, maybe these people, these: whatever you want to call them, a lost tribe in forbidden time; now coming back to still, what it lost (perhaps)?

Another…landmark in time like Atlantis, so this was, I told myself: there I go again, more foolishness, thinking out loud with no one to disagree with me: like having a dead horse by your side and kicking it to let you know you’re alive, and who can disagree with you? Not the dead. Enough said, they didn’t seem too busy, these ancient creatures, up till now anyhow, they all seemed to be in a state of: no time wasted on idle chatter, but no hurry; so it seemed, so it was yet, there awareness of what each other wanted, and the system of the space craft, was all in tack. An angelic thing, or intuition, I gather.

Maybe a demon thing, maybe nothing, nothing at all, maybe I can get out of this dream, and not have to write a damn thing, but here I am nonetheless, writing it. I think they feel me, sense me; like one senses love, death. Like one has a third eye, but no one knows where it’s hidden; this was really happening. Not like I was taken back in time. Only taken up to a…whatever this is…space ship of sorts, in a buddle of some sort, “I’m watching you,” and they’re watching Earth.

I heard one say: “Israel, the Great Circle.” Another says, Avalon, “The New Jerusalem.” I am not sure if I was saying hearing it right so many echoes in this invisible chamber—a bubble of silence at times, and having to read their minds, or absorb their defusing talk: which I call: Cadaverous Talk, the Devils walk… —heaven knows it’s draining. But now I was in their ship, a bubble in a ship, trying to see where I belonged, where all this was leading. Where is my map? I am talking to myself again, and no one to talk to but the membrane of the bubble I’m in.

“Serr’el, where are you?” it’s my angelic friend, protector of sorts. He was at the hospital when I had my heart attack, the stroke, back in ‘92. He was there, also in Vietnam, when the plane went down, in ‘70. Oh, yes, he was always around. By my side when I met the Watchers in a book I wrote some time ago, back in a dream quest, about l982; and again he was there when I was on Easter Island, awhile back, when the spiritual forces in the stones tried to nerve me out of their ruins. But where is he now, right this moment.

The second group of six, I call them “The Shinning Ones,” they shine like flames from the Sun… I’ve learned their history… it goes back to earth…75,000 BC.

(Thoughts) If I had no form, I would put on those plastic suites, just a thought, loose talk; suites, I knew they were not the Watches, the Ancient Angelic Renegades; nor the Rephaim Giants, the Watcher’s children perhaps, of Enoch’s time, when Noah was still young, in his prime. They had all been killed, buried alive, in the abyss of the pit, these ancient ones of a lost time.

Some went home to the Golan Heights, where they still live, others children of Og, the giants of Malta, or perhaps the ancestors of the demons of the Tor. Who were these? Observatory beings I kept saying, guessing trying to decipher in this bubble of sorts.

(More thoughts) Were we plants to them? Or rocks to look at? Certainly not human beings, as I see it, no, oh no: we, I, were, is: just things: circles in evaluation, wishful thinking.

(Observations) As I looked around their spaceship, I came to the conclusion, they were checking out different geological locations on earth. Landmarks, old and new, Israel from the heavens, Egypt from the Sea, Washington they flew by, over like a breeze; and China they could see people reading a world event; something that just happened, perhaps was going to happen. They searched and searched, as if they were mortal enemies of the earth, the skies, old and new living things; envious of earth’s atmosphere.

Searching the Ship

As I searched the ship, its hauls, rooms nearby, I never seemed to leave the observation area, not sure why; I whispered, asked myself: ‘…am I walking in circles?’ They were looking through devices. The ship standing still at times; and at times faster than the eye it flew like a raging eagle.

(Old Thoughts): I had heard of the return of such beings that had visited earth. Coming back several times (13,500 BC; 4500 BC; 1073 BC, and now, AD l984, as I’m writing this: I see); (Thoughts): and I’m sure they are up there now, AD 2002. I have not seemed them in almost twenty years, or a little less, it was in ‘82. I wonder way (?) Now revising my poetic prose (this story): in January of 2006: some say these wee the Shinning Ones, all twelve; I say both, the Nefilim, and the other. I say, they came, and they left, and will come back again.

Number One

(More thoughts) One of the beings seemed to be the leader, I call him simply ‘Number One,” (likened to a First Sergeant in the Army I suppose)) in lack of a better name)). He stood there thinking, as if he was working out a plan; trying to tie things together. His mind was busy. His arms huge, like a donkey’s tail, a monkey’s limbs, something like that; nevertheless, he didn’t move slowly, he was swift: oh yes, even with the white shell of plastic armor on, flexible indeed, likened to the Lone Ranger, or Zorro or some hidden superhero, I wanted to see inside his mask, his shell, to see his face again—for curiosity’s sake; it perturbed, akin to a dogs beak. It troubled me, troubled me so: how on earth would he eat: meat, or me, if he could; so again, deep within my thoughts, I asked myself this: how could it be: but I suppose not everybody eats like me: does the devil? I knew now, but I didn’t know then. He had a black—area around his chin, like that of whales, he was proud with sin. But again I asked myself and answered: does the dead eat? Or the ghosts, or the devil, or God Himself; nor do any of these need sleep. Thus, the question was answered for me, by me: or was my friend around, feeding my mind?

I told myself I would not leave this ship until I found out, why: what I should say was happening. Unless this vision ended before I could. And it may. At this point to me, they were merely a white object spinning like a dot in the sky, and I hitched a ride; at the moment, no more than this.

(Observations): as looked about more, I saw planets on the spacecraft’s monitors; and as time went by, we past a few in the heavens I could see through the window ports. How long was I on this ship I asked myself?
What dimension was I in, at 76,000,000 mph, in 3.125? I witnessed Mars, a comet fly by; a space shuttle of sorts, how fast did the gages read, 489,600 Kilometers, and that doubled.

Notes from the author’s journal: Some of this story was written while on my way to Lima, Peru, and Santiago, Chile, 2002. But the concept of the Nefilim came about while doing research on some of my other books, into the Rephaim Giants, and Angelic Renegades, also called the Watchers; a some fragments of dreams pertaining to them, and visions I had in l984. In, 2002, I stumble over an old article in a magazine I read, then had did some more research into the mystery of these ancient angelic beings; on my second trip to Chile, I went to Easter Island. Thus putting all of this together, and creating this story. And now in 1/2006, revising it to fit its time; unlike my book: “Angelic Renegades and Rephaim Giants,” this story has never been published: but again the visions and notes go back to 1983-l984. Perhaps it could be a small sequel. You are only getting one third of the story, the other two thirds are in prose, completely. And are other fragments of the same nature as the first which is not necessary to the fullness of this story, yet it is not complete; that being, part two and three. What they were looking for I think is in part three. In part two I remain on a ship, and see some things very strange if not unsettling to me; infants being hybrid in incubators, and mothers in glass rooms with them. Perhaps the first part was to show me the ship general make up, calm me down. And the second was to show me what they were doing on board, and the third hovered over Mexico City, as it did others places, but they wanted something, a skull to be specific [Teotihuacán]. If I find time, I will try to do the other two parts, if I find people want to read it, find out about it. If not, it is fine where it rests.

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Amin’s Barbarity

Amin’s Barbarity

[Genocidal Slaughter in Uganda/1970s]

Weep because I know all things: how

To eat the flesh of my dead;

To feed my foe, to the Nile crocodiles

(and watch their bodies flow over Owen Falls).

Corpses, corpse, vultures and wild animals:

Big Daddy they called me: I even plotted

A coup against my king:

Amongst many other things.

I became a madman they say

(hammering my people like iron bars,

car axles; pools of blood on all my walls)

Those countries would like to have crushed me.

The Whites and Asians hated me—; and I,

Yes I dismembered my wife and killed her lover you see—

Thereafter, I stitched her limbs back on, but opposite.

(And showed them to my many kids.)) Said: a bad mother she was.))

No, her breasts would never rest on his bed again.

I had many lovers, wives, and children

In Exile (Saudi Arabia) they came and bid me well.

I lived in the lap of luxury, until I died,

And now I’m here in Hell!

O’ beast of Uganda, I am; I am

No mans friend—Oh, God

Oh God, Must I endure

Your ardent Echoes

…Again, again

And Again

?

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In the Fighting Fields of Bagdad and Kabul

Outside, and within the cities

Of Bagdad, and Kabul,

The sands blow wild,

Between the country’s roads

The hawks and the scavengers,

Here, they bravely sweep, fly low

Seldom heard amongst the arms below.

In these fighting fields

Of Bagdad and Kabul

So many dead, long days ago;

They lived, felt twilight, saw home

Were loved, gave love, and now they sprawl

In the low and wild sandy fields

Where the hawks and scavengers never bow.

Pick up this battle with the foe,

To you, who sent us here long time ago…!

We bring to you the torch, hold it high,

Do not break belief, for here we die.

If so, we shall not sleep, in these fields below

Where the hawk and scavenger, fly low.

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One of Us

One Of Us

Naughty Poem

Vicki as you know I am not there,

I am sorry, I am on some distant sand,

but I just wanted to say “I love you”,

and I think these are words you will understand.

Because I have been ‘Blued’ for 18 years,

and in that time, I have missed many a special event,

but having said that, you have been there for me,

and I should know, my angel has been heaven sent.

Because you have often taken the load on your own,

your selfless actions have kept the family strong,

and never with any regard to your health or well being,

you have kept the home stable, all along.

You sacrifice every minute of every day,

and always, you are firmly last in the queue,

and Vicki, I just wanted to say “thanks”,

yes, I am very proud of all that you do.

Some say it is the military way,

some have said it is just the military life,

but I know nothing could be further from the truth,

I am so very proud of my wonderful wife.

Because you always put everyone ahead of you,

and all you ask is my love and respect in return,

but I am not sure I have expressed that so well,

so all my past efforts, I think I will burn.

Because you are so much more than a wife,

and I am going to tell you this before these lines end,

not only are you the love of my life,

yes indeed, Vicki, you are my very best friend.

I consider myself the luckiest man alive,

you and our daughter mean the very world to me,

and I just wanted to thank you for being you,

you have made my world a great place to be.

I want nothing more than to grow old with you,

I want you to see our love etched on my face,

because I am going to spend the rest of my life with you,

and I promise, for most of it, we’ll be in the same place.

But our bond is stronger than anything we know,

even though our relationship was a bit rocky in the start but Vicki,

I want you to know that you are here with me,

we’re always connected, no matter how many miles we’re apart.

But the longer we are together the more we become alike,

so I think you should give up and stop all the fuss,

come on! Get crazy, cross over to the dark side,

yes Vicki, it is time you became one of us!

But in the meantime, just know that I love you,

in truth, I love you with all my heart and soul,

for with you in my life, I am complete,

yes,you are the one that makes me completely whole.

And tonight, please go outside and look skywards,

and there you will see a twinkling star,

and that will be me, sending you my love,

telling you exactly just how wonderful you are.

So I will finish by saying Happy 17th Anniversary,

I guess that is really what these words are for,

s o here is to you Vicki, you are truly beautiful,

and here is to our everlasting love, for evermore.

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