Week+Eight+;D

=This week in SlamPam you have the chance to save the world. You have been linked to a magical microphone, a mega-mixer maxing vocals to the world. You have a chance to say something to every single solitary human being on this place we call home. Use it well...=

The winners write the history books. That statement might be as true as William Tell’s arrow, but who are the winners? The shiny red apple on the head of the outcome is never quite split clean but shattered into fragmented statistics where the largest number isn’t the one that comes out on top. It’s the group that screams the loudest. Maybe we should rephrase that opening line to the vocal victims write the history books. Who here knows how many Jews died in the Holocaust? I do I read it in their history book it’s 6 million. 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust and wasn’t it nice of them to mention that some Gypsies and homosexuals died too. And there might have been a footnote about Stalin and the unfortunate fact that he directly killed twice as many people as Hitler directly killed but then again one could suppose that Hitler himself only directly killed himself. But who’s counting? Stalin killed 20 million Hitler killed 11 million Jack the Ripper killed 11 The Unabomber killed 3 And I haven’t killed anyone But who’s counting? The writers have been counting themselves in their history books and I’m taking notes the whole time knowing that I can only count to six not six million and the whole time wondering why this book doesn’t talk about people. Yeah, people. Isn’t that what this world is made of? It’s not a system and if it is then its six billion systems, and the man, well there’s six billion of him too and we get so caught up in sticking it to him that we forget that there are people out there that don’t really care. In 1946 twenty three SSS doctors went on trial at Nuremberg, all were found guilty and seven were executed. The history books cheered and Peter ran. Peter is a person. He played the ukulele on the beach and dreamed of sailing off that island. His sister always called him Pika, his Hawaiian name,and though it means stone or rock he wasn’t strong enough to hold back the wall of water that drank his home. Also in 1946 a tsunami sent its biggest wave to the island of Hilo, Hawaii with the command to obliterate. When Peter was running in vain and pulling his sister to higher ground do you think he was thinking about the burning bodies of 6 million Jews no he was thinking about his mother drowning and do you think he knew or cared about the justice in Nuremberg because his island wasn’t getting justice or mercy and he was dying. His home was destroyed, culture washed away, he died and every single person he knew died so why aren’t we printing millions of copies of his diary and turning it into a series on HBO? Its because his diary is water-logged and floating in the Pacific and there was no one left on his island to find it. So the destruction of Hilo Hawaii was called a mystery. I know. I read the newspaper article. But what do I know? I only know what I read in the newspaper and history books which somehow think that it is ethical to print the word ONLY in front of the phrase “159 people” when to Peter 159 is lightyears bigger than 6 million and I think we forget that no matter which number you are a part of there are probably the same amount of people who are going to really, truly care that you’re not here anymore. On September 11th both the 2,966 and the 19 had whole countries mourning for them does that make them the same? Those 19 men died for what for what they believed, and so did Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln and so would I doesn’t that make us the same? God freed the Israelites, but what about Sodom, Gomorra, Jerusalem and Jericho, then why not New York City. You may call me unethical and un-American but when did it become un-American to think of the people. “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” No one. The Armenians didn’t write the history books, and neither will you. So maybe we should stop reading and start realizing that this is about people not numbers and what they don’t say in the books is that Peter and Anne they went to the same place and someone somewhere cried when Hitler died.

-Megan "Sympathetically-Politically Correct" Mitchell

Nothing around you is real. That's right, citizens of the world, the chair that currently houses your very bottom is nothing more than an illusion. You see, that chair was made by a man. A man who worked through trials and tribulations, calls and calculations, who wooed women and raised children, and sang his resounding song to the heavens only to find himself making chairs for 99¢ an hour in some factory in some middle eastern country that you probably can't pronounce. And that man, he was made by this magical combination of man and woman that would probably make your mother blush if you brought it up at the dinner table over the turkey that she cooked after a long day at work. Now, good people of Earth, I know what you're begging to ask: Why do I say that your chair isn't real? See, every day I hear one of you come to me with your cute little fables, the one written by your grandfather's grandfather's great-great-great-great-grandfather's most distant ancestor as he stood upon the sand dune looking at the pretty pictures displayed to him by his Temporal Lobe Seizure. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, you see, is a mental disorder which causes episodes of religious awe, prompting its victims to believe they're conversing with God and a veritable scientific explanation for your precious prophets and your hailed messiahs. Now, I can't explain why 84% of you insists on bowing down to the alter of nothingness but I can tell you that if 84% of the chair-making-mother-loving sons out there were to stop praying and start doing, maybe their chair-making-mother-loving sons would rear children who could grow up in a free world, a world void of your sacred holy hatred. See, now you think I'm trying to offend you, kind citizens, but before you light your oily torches and sharpen the points of your pitchforks, take a moment to tell me why you participate in this festival of hypocrisy. Listening to you is like opening a trick gift: inside the shiny red wrapping paper topped with the bow made by the bow-making-mother-loving son in some Asian country you probably can't pronounce is an atom bomb. Your wrapping paper is what you like to call love. You offer me the love of your Father, but I think you ran out a long time ago. You offer affection, but what you deliver is the biting hatred that drives people like me to the brink of insanity. Now, I know I haven't answered your question, and you still want to know about the chair. Listen. By your logic, If there's a watch, there's probably a watch-maker. Therefore, If there's no God, there's no universe. And if there's no universe, there's no milky way. And if there's no milky way, there's no Earth. No continents. No countries. No cities. No houses. No schools. No people. And if all of existence is void of chair-making-mother-loving sons, then I guarantee you, there is no chair.

Ellyn "YouKilledMyFatherNoIAmYourFather" Touchette

//The World As a Lego Set//

The world is a Lego set. We only have so many bricks left to build with. The green bricks are turning brown, The white bricks up north are dissipating, And the blue bricks are rising. And what about the translucent bricks? The one's that float around us as we walk about our business, Ants in a colony, Fish in a school, Pawns in a chess game. Even those translucent bricks that we cannot see are filling up with chemical bricks and disease bricks,Too small to be seen by the naked eye. And there are worse things floating in the translucent bricks besides, Things that aren't made of bricks. Things like loathing, lusting, berating, hating, cruelty, ignorance, Little things, Big things. All the same. Think about the bricks that build the model. We have the people bricks, the little figurines that can only bend their legs at the waist, and always smile, always smile, always smile plastic smiles intent on deceiving you into believing that behind the plastic mask is a machine willing to do the disagreeable task, with hands curled in the shape of a “C” and no real idea who the person wants to be. Did you know that the Lego company is Danish in origin and started in the 1930's? Neither did I. Did you know the name “Lego” comes from the Danish phrase “Leg Godt”? Neither did I. It means “Play well.” And have we? Have the people bricks played well? The people bricks have taken one another apart, cut them into arm bricks and leg bricks and torso bricks and nose bricks and ear bricks and tongue bricks, because people bricks can't talk without tongue bricks. People bricks have made red bricks fall upon the green brick ground again and again and again and again, and the green brick ground is turning brown, and it's not just from pollution. Blood turns brown when it dries, I don't know if you knew that. I did. When the Lego company first began producing people bricks, they made their skin yellow, and they didn't give them faces. They were all supposed to be equal to each other. Since then, people bricks have diversified in color, which is fine, no harm done. But it is the crimes committed, the wars waged, the animosity experienced, the sadness suffered which has done the people bricks harm. Why do the people bricks do these things? They are come from the same company. They are all just different shades of yellow. We're running out of time. Daddy isn't going to buy us any more bricks, the store is sold out. And Daddy isn't home, and he never will be. If the people bricks can just realize there is no Daddy, no more bricks, and you can replace a human brick with another human brick, but you can't replace the person. You can't replace the person, the persona, the personality, the soul, because it isn't made out of bricks, And if you destroy it, it's gone for good. If the world was a Lego set, I would crush it, scrap it, scrape it, and wipe it away, an excited child tearing down towers for the sake of devilish demolition. Maybe I would rebuild it, maybe it would be better. Maybe I would let it rest as a pile of bricks. -Adam "Sitting in a quiet library room reading Dickens when suddenly... BAM! A deranged murderer crashes through a nearby window and does a barrel roll and ends up on his feet. I calmly lower my novel, which had served the sole purpose of hiding my nun chucks. The murderer looks at me with wide eyes, and grins. From his back pocket he pulls a loaded handgun, a Glock, to be precise. He aims it levelly at me, and I rise to my feet. He fires. Instantaneously, my nun chucks are spinning, and I deflect the bullet into the ground, leap into the air, where I execute multiple sexy spins, and land on the attackers shoulders. Once here, I precede to do a flip and kick him in the jugular. He falls onto the ground gasping, whilst I stand over him. He gasps for mercy. 'Mercy?' I say. 'How about yogurt?' I just happen to have a container filled with the stuff in my back pocket. I remove it, and delicately spoon blueberry yogurt into my attackers mouth. Once the police arrive (I contacted them via telepathy) I explain the situation in vivid juice detail. The officers ask if I will join the International Badass Force Dedicated To Fighting Crime and Eating Steak, but I say 'No. My people need me.' One befuddled officer asks 'Who are your people?' And I answer 'Gorham High School Varsity Slam Poetry Club.' With this said, I fire my thrusters and jettison through the ceiling and into deep space." Bourgault.


 * //In Breaking News//**

Halloween was choked from behind by green and red Christmas lights.

Thanksgiving was clubbed with a plastic candy cane.

Ignorant but aware, you looked forward, walking by Miss Halloween and Mr. Thanksgiving as they were mugged in the dark alleyways of a forgotten suburb by small elf like creatures and a fat man in a bright red suit

You quickened you step. Running to the nearest outlet of a outlet of a store. Discounted wares and mobiles overtaking the model of your decisions.

The mind and soul has become blackened with the cancer of commercial Christmas. And shopping is your cemo. Thinking it would cure your relations and promote a return home from loved long distance travelers, hoping, praying for happiness forgotten to be returned through memories of a happier era. But it is of the opposite effect, and has already sucked the life out of your wallet.

Weren’t you just a little while before, dressed in a tiger suit and roaring at the moon, shivering through thin fabric, sneezing and hacking, tearing, crying at the bright flashes of black cameras, but still managing to giggle softly, Oh the Treats to be Had.

Didn’t you just finish speaking from a perched pedestal, a politician at the head of a long table, holding that primp and plump turkey, looking at the faces around you, and found peace. Peace in the family, in the spirit, in the thanks. In the giving. And the sharing.

And still your thoughts are elsewhere? Why are you thoughts elsewhere? Target, Walmart, Best Buy.

Where is your family?

They are at home, waiting under the christmas tree, noses pressed against the window looking out at the happy trick or treaters. Dazed like and unhappy.

-Sarah "I Actually do like Christmas" Kennedy

//Extinction//

Aw jeez, I don’t know what to say. I mean I had things in mind, But I guess it just gets to you when you finally, Are there on the scaffold, Overlooking every worker, And nonworker in the world, Each eye on me, Every ear tuned in. I don’t know where to begin...

Okay, now don’t freak out on me, But look at what you’re doing. Be careful with these “weapons of mass destruction.” You know, their destruction will truly Be massive if you so much As touch that button that says, “Press me, and sit back as all hell breaks loose.” Man killed the dodo bird, Man killed the passenger pigeon, Man can kill animals all over the world, And has already. Who’s to say man won’t kill himself.

Be careful when you aim this threat, In fact, I highly recommend you don’t, Because before too long, It will be too late.

Man almost killed the eagle, Almost killed the symbol Of America’s pride. But man brought the eagle back, And now it flies on, Much better than the passenger pigeon does, Much better that the dodo, Although the dodo was never much for flying.

But why did man bring back the eagle? To bring back the pride? After all, I was proud to see the Eagle removed from the endangered Species list. Would we stop caring about ourselves, If the eagle died? Perhaps we’d all be sad, And confused, And pointing fingers, And freaking out, And screaming, And crying, And weeping solemnly. But really, what does it take to show man That he needs to be careful?

Death? No, there’s plenty of that, And though man tries to Fix his ways, we still see millions Die. Not death.

But maybe extinction, Though, not much good it’ll Do to fix the world if Every last person on earth Is gone forever. But think too quick, And maybe man is as good as dead.

I’m not saying we’re careless, And I’m not trying to sound cynical. I’m just trying to warn you, Because who says I give a damn What happens once I’m dead. Maybe I’ll never live to see our extinction, (And I sure as hell nope I never do). But call me crazy if I’m the only One who fears that we are the Instruments of our eventual destruction. We are the dagger digging into our flesh, As the blood drains from our body, Slowly leaving stains, Until a photograph of our stomach, And a leaking volcano Look nearly identical to each other. I don’t want to be the instrument of our destruction.

Maybe we can be the Instruments that heal us. We are the scalpel scraping into our skin, And though it hurts so badly, Though we close our eyes, And hold our breath, And clench our teeth, Waiting for it to end, We know it will end. And hopefully it will end well. Because even when I die, I want to look down upon the world and say, Hey look! People! And I want to look down And admire what we have done. I want to look down at our world, And simultaneously look up at it.

Maybe we can be the Instruments that heal us. With a little novacain, You won’t feel a thing. With a little help from each other, We can make the dodo fly.

-Lincoln "Puppet Tree" Gray

Dear World, I request that you listen very close to what I have to say, it will just take a moment.

Did you hear that? No, probably not. You probably heard nothing, as too many people do.

But what you should have heard was everything. In that second, there was an infinite number of opportunities that passed by without being grasped, and they are now lost forever. In that second someone died and another was born, one girl just got her heart broken while another had their first kiss.

It’s someone’s best day, and someone else’s worst.

It’s all there in that second.

If white is the lack of all color and black is the presence, then we need to start hearing black and stop listening to the white.

We need to start seizing these opportunities. We need to start listening. We need to wake up.

~Nicole "in the moment" Gile

STOP. Yeah. I said stop. Slow down. Shut up. Just be quiet and stand still for one measly minute-- not even! Lay down on this hard packed yellow brick concrete and STOP. TALKING. Boby, I know it's difficult. But don't argue with me on this one. Please, please just hushhhhhhhhh. ... Are you listening? ...here it is. Clarification. ... It. Doesn't. Matter. Whatever you're trying to tell me, whatever is blaring down from the speakers, whatever your mom said this morning-- it's all invalid. Words are invalid. // Speech // is invalid. Listen. Listen. You're using my name, you're wearing it out and you're remixing it with last night's strip club vodka and slapping on another layer of noise plaster, noise pollution choking, beating, deafening our ears until all we can hear is ourselves!

Pollution. Diluted word power pouring into our steams and rivers and ocean and never once letting up for the baby krill, silent and salient at the bottom of the sea, who whisper silent secrets to silent ears, or they would if you could just lie back and listen. Hush. -Emma 'krill babeez' Alden