By Scott Bailey © 2017
Featured snippets
Knowledge panes
Keyword magic
Am I insane?
Chasing figures
Spun in the air
Where do I begin?
Where do I begin?
In response to my daily prompt Feature
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Snippets
Daily Prompt
Pleiades
By Scott Bailey © 2013
This mini-series of poems were written as part of a year-long daily poem challenge and published in my collection A Spring of Dreams. They are in a form called Pleiades (read about it here).
I chose to write seven of them one for each of the original Pleiades – the stars once called the seven sisters, and base the poems around the mythological characters.
Alcyone
Another spirit lost
Awash in the swell and foam
Anguished over lost love
Anger dealt him the blow
Arising from the sea
Alighting on the air
A bright bird arises
Asterope
A nymph darts between trees
Afraid of the hunter
Always close behind her
Away she flees in haste
Another danger lurks
At her feet as she runs
A butterfly is born
Calaeno
Caressed by the wide sea
Corals catch the new child
Carry her to the shore
Colliding with bright fate
Climbing into the sky
Coronal light shines out
Cascading to the sea
Electra
Ever shining bright spark
Equalizing her rage
Encompassing justice
Ever seeking revenge
Endless pain unanswered
Echoing from murder
Electra takes her aim
Maia
Mother of he who brought
Music up to the Gods
Malice turned to justice
Magic cascading from
Mother of the world storm
Mighty God of the earth
Must meet a mortal end.
Merope
Marriage was forbidden
Mortal husband taken
Masked in a veil of shame
Must watch her husband’s pain
Most faint in the heavens
Marred by following love
Misty those lives above
Taygete
The hunter is hunted
Twisting between the trees
Turned into doe from nymph
Trailed by her lover’s bow
Tumbling through the forest
Two golden horns that shine
To rise into the skies
In response to my daily prompt Cluster
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Ban
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Ban
The things
We don’t like
Or understand
Don’t agree?
Are you sure?
I mean look at it.
Intimidating
Scary
Dangerous
Just take a look
At what’s happening
The rapes, the murders
Think of the children
That’s it!
You know it makes sense
Join with us
Ratify it!
Stamp it!
Make it official
Make it law!
Good!
What’s next?
Blue eye!
I hate them.
Let’s kill all the blue-eyed
Bastards
In response to my daily prompt Ban
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The Arrogant Moon
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The arrogant moon
Believed he outshone the sun
But she disagreed
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #220 He&She
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Neutral
By Scott Bailey © 2018
In neutral gear
Idling
Sitting on the fence
Not taking sides
Until pushed
Off
In response to my daily prompt Neutral
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Family Life
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Berry
Suet
Logs
Have become
Something
To get
Excited about
In my life
How did that happen
In response to my daily prompt Berry
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Good
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Good
Good enough
Goodnight
In response to my daily prompt Good
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Steam
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The steam arises
Covers the trees and valleys
Verdant green below
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #218 Steam&Cover
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Grimace
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Grimace
And bear it
It’s got to be
More honest
Than an empty
Grin
In response to my daily prompt Grimace
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Daily Prompt Responses Today
Just too tired today so cheating – finding old posts that happen to have the word activity in them
Legacy
By Scott Bailey © 2018
When present is past
All the poison will still seep
Deadly legacy
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #217 Poison&Past
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Origin
By Scott Bailey © 2018
So the soldier walks alone
The origin
Of the species
Is
Competition
Survival of the fittest
The strongest
The smartest
The origin
Of our success
Is cooperation
Working together
Against a goal
If
For a few measly coins
We forget the latter
And embrace the former
The species
Will find
Its end
In response to my daily prompt Origin
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We
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Heroes are silent
Cowards protest loud and fierce
We are in between
In response to RonovanWrites RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #216 Hero&Coward
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Declaration
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Declaration
Protestation
Exclamation
Consternation
No explanation
No realisation
Just expectation
This small nation
Done
In response to my daily prompt Declaration
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Lace
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Lace
Disparate resonances
Delicate dowagers, making doilies
And fine trim for prim and proper ladies
And
Lacy underwear
Designed to be divested
In fast passion
And
Purity
White and bright
Smiling bride
Lead to the groom
Leading to the room
And back to the
Lacy underwear
In response to my daily prompt Lace
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The Strangulation of the Great
By Scott Bailey
So I was daydreaming in the bath – thinking about a book I read long ago – a biography of a famous 19th-century explorer and how he could be seen as representing men as a whole – but that’s a whole other post that will be coming soon.
Anyway – in the wandering way of my mind this lead me to thinking about how men have become demonised in the media generally. We are seen as stupid or beasts or slovenly – I could go on. But then, I thought women get it just as bad and then there’s ethnic minorities, the poor, immigrants – the list goes on. And on.
Maybe it’s just rich white people who get off lightly – but even as you read this what are you thinking? Of those Etonian brothers who keep their friend rich via nepotism and corruption while sneering at the poor? The rich wives from Chelsea with their lap dogs and expensive handbags and no clue about the real world?
See even they are demonised.
Why?
Who by – that’s an easier question. The media. And we all know that the media is run by those in power. I am no conspiracy theory nut – I don’t believe that there’s a tightly organised elite pulling the strings. Rather I think it’s like a self-sustaining system which lifts the people it needs to maintain its stability into positions of power. But whatever the reason – the media is the tool of that system.
So again why? Why demonise every single sector of society?
Control. If you cannot be proud of where you came from how can you rise to greatness? Great people can threaten the order of things, they can lead people out of their everyday drudgery and tedium. Out of wage slavery and obedience.
So greatness is stifled. In the modern garden of the world, the land is left to weeds and overgrowth. Anything that rises above the weed line is quickly cut down or sprayed with toxins until it wilts.
In such a barren and ill-tended garden, how can we expect flowers? How can we have anything more than poor harvests?
We should tend our garden better.
In response to my daily prompt Conspiracy
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Lush
By Scott Bailey 2017
“That’s proper lush, that is”
And you are in a time and place
While the grammar nazis squirm
Layer upon layer of meaning is conveyed
Language
Being used
For its intended purpose
In response to my daily prompt Language
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Tourist
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Some of us are tourists
Some of us are peddlers
Some just love the night
Some just have the feeling
That all of this is just inside our head
How can we control it?
How do we define it?
Is it in our head?
What if we just follow where we’re led?
On the tourist trail
In response to my daily prompt Tourist
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The Following
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Time to take
The initiative
Maybe
Or perhaps
Tomorrow
Already too late
It’s gone
When I wasn’t looking
While I thought
And fought
With doubts and fears
Follow on
Follow on
In response to my daily prompt Initiative
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Hunger
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The rumbling of the belly
Is the trap
The bait
Led us down a one-way path
No turning back
And keeps us here
In response to my daily prompt Belly
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Winter
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Winter brooks no fool
Or those lacking hunters fire
The cold teeth are sharp
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #214 Lack&Fool
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Gaping
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Always open, ever weeping
The wound of inequality
But still they slash, cut down their crop
And with contempt they fill their boots
Screaming sights and flashing sounds
Headlines tinged with hate
Keep us poor and keep us scared
Or else eliminate
In response to my daily prompt Boot
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No Safety
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Child lacking safety
Will grow to fear the wide world
And narrow their mind
In response to my daily prompt Narrow
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Platform
By Scott Bailey © 2018
This is my platform
And the train is leaving
Without me
Never got to say
What I had to say
Ticket in hand
In response to my daily prompt Platform
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Mobius
By Scott Bailey © 2018
My life is thin
Shallow
Two dimensional
No point
No end
Twisted
Mobius
In response to my daily prompt Thin
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Econobox
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Econobox
What a strange, strained word
A small, efficient, no thrills car
Feels like a word
Trying to hard
Like the marketing department
That came up with it
In response to my daily prompt Econobox
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Squat
By Scott Bailey 2017
Diddly Squat
Zilch
Nadda
The amount your beloved
Leaders
Think about your needs
They will bleed us dry
And squeeze us flat
As the weight of their greed
Bears down on us
In response to my daily prompt Flat
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Market
By Scott Bailey © 2014
The free market
It pervades every part of our lives
Every fabric of our society
Why
Why did we choose
To put all the power
Into the hands of the few
Greedy individuals
Powerful because of their greed
Who’s great idea was that?
In response to my daily prompt Market
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No Return
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Upturned trolleys
And wasted lives
Stilted rivers
Fish choked
Earth poked
To the point
Of submission
We cannot leave
Without causing worse
Now our only hope
Is to turn the tools
To better use
In response to my daily prompt Trolley
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Stressed
By Scott Bailey © 2013
Supposed to relax
From the endless stress of work
The phone doesn’t stop
In response to my daily prompt Work
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Dividend
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Your flesh is the price
Your blood sweat and tears
The dividend you pay
To no one you know
For reasons unknown
But still, you pay it
On and on and on
Until you have nothing left
No legacy
No remembrance
And still
It will not be enough
In response to my daily prompt Dividend
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Coming Home
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Unite behind them
And maybe they have a chance
So, come on England!
Sorry – couldn’t resist – so well timed!
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #208 Chance&Unite
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Criticize
By Scott Bailey © 2017
I can’t criticize
I am too little
Too belittled
I probably can’t
Even spell it
In response to my daily prompt Criticism
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Parachute
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Life
Where every step
Is a leap
Without a parachute
Forget that
At your peril
In response to my daily prompt Parachute
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Deport
By Scott Bailey © 2018
A simple solution
Deport the deporters
Problem solved
In response to my daily prompt Deport
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Common Perception
By Scott Bailey © 2018
We all see it
All perceive the truth
Children in cages
We know what it means
Here come the memes
The outraged status
Rules the day
Governments
ISSUE STATEMENTS
Then
We turn away
Muttering
Up next?
Ovens
Prepare your placards!
Or is all as it appears?
Where is the truth in what we see?
If we cannot believe what we see – we will give up belief.
And there’s the point.
In response to my daily prompt Perceive
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I Love a Title
By Scott Bailey © 2015
I love a title
My name underneath
The first few paragraphs
The format
The shape
I love beginnings
I love endings
It’s the struggle in between
In response to my daily prompt Love
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Employ
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Employ your words well
To communicate
Not condemn
Listen to all the depths of meaning
Conveyed
Instead of correcting
To shore up
Your sense of superiority
In response to my daily prompt Employ
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Wheel of War
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Brawn of the bear spent
The eagle sharpens it claws
This will bring no bliss
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #206 Bliss&Brawn
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A Quartet of Poems
Where the White Wolves Dance
By Scott Bailey © 2014
A ring of solid light
Hovers just above the ground
Spinning with infinity
Casts glamour all around
This is
Where the white wolves dance
It is said the be the child
Of the seed of forbidden fruit
Born from secret knowledge
Found on a hidden a hidden route
Around it
The white wolves still dance
The colour pulses wild
Blue, silver and pure white
Dragging hearts round and round
Beneath the starlit night
And so
On the white wolves dance
In a time-worn trench, they dance
Circling below the light
So deep the light they cannot see
The circle is out of sight
Yet still
On the white wolves dance
The circle has been burnt
Into their very eyes
So while the dark wolf dreams
And while the dear time flies
Onwards
The white wolves dance.
So high upon their mountain
On an island on a lake
Isolated and secure from
The world they do forsake
This is
Where the white wolves dance
Where the Dark Wolf Dreams
By Scott Bailey © 2014
A deep and dark filled cave
Upon a mountain high
Where no light dares enter
And no echo finds reply
Shallow
The dark wolf dreams
A rumble from within
Deep in the dark wolves throat
The echo of the growl
The terrifying note
Fitfully
The dark wolf dreams
Strong appear the chains
That bind him in his sleep
But stronger still the anger
That grows within him deep
Brooding
The dark wolf dreams
Bitter is the dark wolf’s heart
Long his memory too
Some will be spared his wrath
But they are counted few
Grim
The dark wolf dreams
Terrible his waking hours
Thus the grey wolves grieve
Any heart with secrets dark
Had better rise and leave
Briefly
The dark wolf dreams
So do not be deceived
By the mumbling and the snoring
Born of rage and constriction
Of rending and of roaring
And of waking
The dark wolf dreams
Where the Grey Wolves Grieve
By Scott Bailey © 2014
On a barren plain
Where food and joy are sparse
The desolate packs wander
Watching slow time pass
Here
The grey wolves grieve
With rose stained eyes
Patrolling their border wide
Preserving what is left
Of what they hold inside
It’s why
The grey wolves grieve
They gaze across the delta
To far off distant times
Where game and ease were plenty
Than in these austere climes
And so
The grey wolves grieve
Disgusted by the carnage
Where the red fox roams
On guard for rebel spirits
Keeping safe their homes
Where
The grey wolves grieve
Yet what they seek in earnest
Deep within their hearts
They know is far beyond them
Beyond their stilted arts
Endless
The grey wolves grieve
The packs struggle onwards
Huddled in their gloom
Their hearts so full of anguish
For hope, there is no room
In this land
Where the grey wolves grieve
Where the Red Fox Roams
By Scott Bailey © 2014
The timid beasties scatter
With tiny racing hearts
The scent of blood approaches
The herd all ways it parts
For here
The red fox roams
The scent of fear it rises
And fans the fox’s fire
Into enslaving passion
To raise the killer higher
Thus
The red fox roams
Filled with hate and ire of
Where the white wolves dance
The dance the fox desires
Denied its golden chance
Everywhere
The red fox roams
The world has grown accustomed
To fear of tooth and claw
The world has grown so weary
Of lives lived short and raw
Still
The red fox roams
The timid beasties scatter
Will never make a stand
They’ll not accept the secret
To gain the upper hand
So proud
The red fox roams
No one knows the course
Where the fox’s road is heading
All they see is darkness
The cast of all the spreading
Death
Where the red fox roams
In response to my daily prompt Wolf
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Fragility
By Scott Bailey © 2018
I watched his heartbeat
Fragile and fading too fast
Stops everyday
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #202 Fragile&Heartbeat
And in Memory of Lucas Henry Bailey
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Drop
By Scott Bailey © 2018
In the froth and the spray
In the spume and the churn
In the majesty of the mightiest wave
And the receding tide
Shines
A drop of water
A single drop
That one day
Will hold the heart
Of a child
In response to the daily prompt Tide
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Jungle
By Scott Bailey © 2006
Buy a jungle man.
Buy a jungle man.
C’mon bring the cash on.
Buy a jungle man.
Quick as you can.
They’re selling like they’re going outta fashion.
A little bit here, a little bit there.
They’re going fast,
Does anyone care!?
Crush a beetle for juice.
Let the cattle herds loose.
See those trees burn.
A bird of bright feather.
Has gone forever.
We ‘aint ever gonna learn.
Where the sun is beaming.
Once life was teeming.
Now all is dust.
While we strive for our goals.
We say to our souls.
Die if you must.
In response to the daily prompt Abrupt
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Sailing
By Scott Bailey © 2018
You sail down river
Obsessed with reaching the sea
Fertile hills roll by
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #199 Obsessed&You
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Nothing of Note
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Notable
For nothing
Our generation
Afraid of our legacy
Creating
Empty copies
Of the past
Where’s the new?
The optimistic
These days
It only grows
Where the ground
Is composted
With greed
In response to the daily prompt Notable
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Lunch Hour
Started by Scott Bailey
There were some friends. And a hall. An infinite hall, with marble walls and pillars that stretched forever into the distance.
And there were tables. Row after row after row of tables. On each table was a never-ending supply of a single dish. In that hall, on those tables, there could be found every dish that had ever been imagined, concocted and served up in all of human history.
With a thought you could be sitting before any dish you could think of. Or you could ask your neighbour for a recommendation and try something new. The name of the dish was enough to take you there.
It was time for the friends to eat. They entered and they took their paths through the hall. They commenced their lunch.
As they knew – it was a once only meal.
An hour later they reconvened, look each other in the eyes and assessed their time beneath the infinite arches.
The first spoke.
“I tried as many different tastes as I could. I jumped from table to table and I can honestly say that I know of no one who could have filled their time here with as many different flavours as I. Yet. Now I am here – wonder why? I stand here before you proudly stating the number of meals I have partaken off – yet I wonder why does that matter? Not one was complete. Have I missed the joy of a meal.”
He hung his head, deep in thought and regret. But the second friend spoke.
“You make me wonder. What taste did I miss? I did not try many different meals, For quite soon I found one that I really enjoyed. I sat down and savoured the taste. People around me did the same and we discussed the meal and more besides. I do not regret that – no it was heartwarming – but I wonder at the tastes I missed. Was there a better meal still that I could have savoured with more relish?”
The third friend looked haunted.
“I did not eat. I wanted to try everything but I realised this was not possible, that it was a dream that could only fail. Yet I felt that to just sit down and eat was an insult to the great hospitality and variety that had been laid before us. I fell in with a group of other like-minded people and we were determined to resolve this dilemma with the gifts of reason we have been bestowed with. I have been a fool.”
“You are all fools!” said a fourth friend.
“I knew the way – I understood the correct combination of meals that would allow perfection! I tried to tell you but you would not listen! So many people did not listen! Fools! But there were some and we understand that we have eaten correctly and that we will be rewarded for that. I pity you – you have wasted your lunch hour.”
In response to the daily prompt Partake
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The Internet Genie
Celebrating 25 years of his brainchild the world-wide-web – Tim Berners-Lee called for the creation of a Magna Carta of the internet to protect the openness and freedom it gives.
On hearing this I had a classic cartoon moment. Two versions of me one on each shoulder – the optimist and the cynic.
The optimist was the first to react. He said.
“The genie is out the bottle now. It has grown too big for the state to get any control over. What is more, people have grown used to the freedom now – they will not let it be taken back from them lightly.”
The cynic laughed.
“Don’t you believe it. It will be put back in the bottle trust me. And the people will demand it. Just you wait and see! All it will take are a few well-planned attacks. A few high-profile cyber hack or breaches that instil enough fear. Maybe a bank will lose all of its customer’s money overnight? Millions of people suddenly poor and with no recourse! Pile on a few power grid shutdowns, a few deaths in hospitals due to hacking attacks, a few high profile identity thefts resulting in wrongful arrests and the fear factor will be ratcheted up. A campaign by the Daily Mail and then the vocal minority will be hollering for the government to take control.
“And lo and behold – they will have this law – just laying in the drawer – ready to react.
“Have the last twenty years taught us nothing. Every riot, every murder, every terrorist attack was followed a few weeks later with a new law passed to ‘tackle the threat’. Did we really believe that could write new laws that quick?
“Just watch, bit by bit, horror by horror, they will get us to demand they make us safe and sound – and controlled”
I fear the cynic is correct. Lets us see.
In response to the daily prompt Genie
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Backwards
By Scott Bailey © 2018
One day, just for fun
The sun arose in the west
And the world went mad
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #197 Fun&Sun
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The Deep Deep Dark
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Beware the lure
The luminescent wonder
Bobbing in the deep
Hypnotic
Drawing you nearer
Snap!
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Slow
Also – rush reminded me of the opposite. A song which sums me up in many ways.
In response to the daily prompt Rush
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