“Poverty Is A State Of Mind!” Said Housing And Urban Development Chief, Ben Carson

Poverty is a state of mind
because what does it really matter
to Trump’s new housing chief
who is really the Mad Hatter?

You can’t fool yourself into believing
that your hunger pangs aren’t real.
You just keep telling yourself over and over
that on your empty plate is a meal.

The thing about mind over matter
is that it really doesn’t work.
When you lose your job and home,
Ben Carson is gonna smirk.

You see, it’s really funny to him,
he who has no brains at all
that your mind can’t make you rich
like that brain dead Neanderthal.

But what really takes the cake
is that this fool is the head of HUD.
He’s responsible for housing the poor,
I guess in houses made of mud.

This supposedly brilliant brain surgeon
says that “poverty is a state of mind.”
How in the hell did he operate on brains
when he is so obviously blind?

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2017 Shelby I. Courtland

“I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

For the love of !!!!! Let me get this straight. If I lose my ‘good’ paying $7.25 an hour minimum wage job at Micky Ds because of automation and I told my landlord that I’m really not of a mind to be poverty stricken and homeless and so could he please accept my ‘great state of mind’ as payment for rent due, who in unholy hell thinks that my ass would not be sitting out on the streets in no time flat??!!!

If I lost my ‘great’ paying job at GM due to robotics taking the job and I could no longer afford the mortgage on my house, how about I go to the bank and tell them that I’m not of a mind to be poor and homeless and so could I just ‘bank’ on that mindset to get me to be able to stay in my home? What the hell is the banker going to say to that? “Get the hell out of my office with that bullshit and start packing!” That’s what the banker is going to say.

What the hell is wrong with us when we can hear this type of tripe and there not be an uproar? It is already bad enough that I’ve had to hear of Donald Trump’s budget proposal that guts food stamps, Medicaid and he’s even going after the disabled which should surprise no one seeing as how he made fun of the disabled on the campaign trail. But as usual, the apathetic and complacent Americans just sit back and wait until the shit hits the fan for their ass in particular in order to get to wailing and moaning. And we had the nerve just a few months ago to post some shit about, “When first they came for the Muslims, but I wasn’t a Muslim and blah, blah, blah…” And now, they’ve come for the food insecure, the sick and disabled and what are we doing about it? The usual. Not a goddamn thing, the apathetic and complacent shits we are! GEEZUS Goddamn Christ, I fucking give!!!

Oh and before I forget, Ben Carson also stated that people who have to make use of HUD public housing and Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers should “not live comfortably!” Believe me, they are doing anything but. And I have the pictures to prove it!

This was the result of a serious roof leak. I toured this apartment complex and 6 roofs caved in and management did not evacuate the people in the affected apartments because who the fuck cares about those people? These people did not have a ceiling left. But I suppose in the eyes of Ben Carson, this HUD Section 8 apartment was still too comfortable.

The leak in this apartment was so bad, the carpets had to be removed and the tenants had placed buckets down to capture the water. But of course, this is ‘comfortable living’, according to HUD Secretary Ben Carson

 

This is what was left of the sink and the kitchen. The pipe. Real ‘comfortable’ isn’t it? I’d want to live here! I’m sure Ben Carson would.

Great ceiling lighting. Not much ‘mood’ lighting. But who needs to be ‘comfortable’?

Here, we have ants coming from a panel in the hallway. ‘Comfortable’ living for ants anyway.

This ceiling leak is in a bathroom. You can ‘comfortably’ take your shower or bath knowing that the upstairs tenant’s filthy bath water could cascade down on you at any time. This feature will never appear in ‘Better Homes And Gardens’. For sure!

 

Does your bathtub come with a ladder? This one does. Will this bathroom get featured in ‘Better Homes And Gardens’? Never fucking mind. We ALL know the answer to that one! Fuck Ben Carson!

So, there you have it folks, ‘comfortable living’ as established by HUD Secretary, Ben Carson. He’s ALL heart, don’t cha know! Each picture here was taken in a HUD approved housing complex of some sort. Each had passed inspection and was deemed safe, sanitary and decent. This is what is considered living extremely well to the point of being ‘too goddamn comfortable’ by Ben ‘asshole’ Carson’ Fuck that house negro!

“Jesus! A Minute Of Your Time!”

Some nights, when I cannot fall asleep,
I do not ask the Lord my soul to keep.
Once I believed, but I do not believe anymore.
He never heals the sick or feeds the poor.

His ‘holy’ men just take the tithes from fools,
who by rights should get a refund from their schools,
for believing in a fairytale of such bull,
and pretending that an empty cup is full.

If I once believed in God, that ship has sailed,
nor can I pray to a man they say was nailed.
For if they did exist, why have they ignored the cries
of all the ‘holy men’ who spout tall tales and lies?

Their brainwashed flock, they will believe,
those who get paid to lie, con and deceive.
And who promise that the sick will all be healed
and that Blacks will not be jailed or shot and killed.

Next Sunday, look at the picture on the wall.
Kneel before it and in a deep, southern drawl,
say, “Jesus, a minute of your time!”
“Why is Black skin at the scene of every crime?”
“What wrong did we ever do to you,
“that would make you hate us for it too?”
 “I listen to your word, oh Lord on high!”
 “So once again, I have to ask you why?”
 “If you exist, and there really is no sign,
at how much evil, will you finally draw the line?”

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2016 Shelby I. Courtland

The Entertainment Never Ends!

I have been strangely quiet
for want of anything to say
because everything’s been said
and I hit the button and replay.

Football season is over.
The Super Bowl is in the past.
We say we hate capitalism
but that hate don’t ever last.

We say we love this planet.
It is our home, for better or for worse.
And yet we fuck it up relentlessly
until they put us in a hearse.

Oh what hypocrites we are
when we scream our hatred for war.
And yet, we groom the next generation
to heed the call for more!

We say we hate our politicians.
We despise them one and all.
They don’t represent our interests.
And yet, we vote for them each fall.

We point fingers at another
and we claim that they are wrong
when in fact, we’re all depraved,
it’s why we cannot get along.

Oh yes I have been extremely quiet,
just watching shit hit the fan.
What need have I to point out
that the foulest seed is man?

There is endless war in Syria
 and Libya is filled with rebels.
All of this chaos was put into play
by American and NATO devils.

Poor Iraq, we hear nothing about
as if those folks are doing fine.
I doubt if they’re eating caviar
or drinking expensive wine.

But here in the land of the ‘exceptional’
the entertainment never ends.
We just gorged on wings and pizza
with our loud and drunken friends.

The stakes are high in this gambler’s den
of vice and greed and corruption.
And when Wall Street flounders again,
they’ll blame the poor for their destruction.

The bailouts will commence
and the players will play on.
While the huddled masses yearn
for jobs already gone.

At the risk of repeating myself, I repeat myself.

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2016 Shelby I. Courtland

1,400 people learn their jobs are moving to Mexico

A crowd of Carrier manufacturing workers erupted into anger Wednesday as they learned their plant was being relocated to Monterrey, Mexico.

Carrier, an Indianapolis-based heating, ventilation and air conditioning company owned by United Technologies, announced in a statement on Wednesday that the plant would undergo a three-year transition to Mexico starting in 2017.

Carrier is one of two United Technologies plants to announce a move to Mexico — the corporation announced on the same day it would also be moving a plant in Huntington, Indiana. The closing will eliminate about 700 jobs from the city in northeastern Indiana.

And now with the signing of the TPPA, is this situation going to get any better? But they tell us that the unemployment figures are so low as to be negligible. The lies just keep coming. Who in hell believes that the REAL unemployment rate is 4.9%? Seriously? Sears and Kmart stores are closing, left and right. The only stores that are doing a booming business are Dollar Tree, Dig-A-Dollar, Collar-A-Dollar and Holla-For-A-Dolla! This past holiday sales figures were dismal and that is an understatement. Target just closed up shop in Canada. Wal-Mart just announced the closure of all Express Wal-Mart stores. JC Penny is gasping to stay alive and even Macy’s is choking and the unemployment rate is 4.9%?!!! Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit!

On The Wicked Ways Of Man

I came back as a homeless man

And you locked me in a cage

The guards beat me ferociously

My Father was consumed with rage.

 

When next He sent me back to you

I walked across desert sand

A drone was sent to kill me

And I was back in my Father’s hand.

 

I was sent once more to shed some light

On the wicked ways of man

You once again, paid me no heed

since I had the deepest tan.

 

No more will I come for you

Your sins have damned you all

And when you die, you’ll not come here

In hell on your knees, you’ll crawl.

Written by,

Shelby I. Courtland

©2015 Shelby I. Courtland

 This one is for the Christians because you guys have just finished patting yourselves on your goddamn back  and screaming and yelling about how “He is risen!” etc., etc., and then got on with the business of hating on your foreign neighbors, got on with the business of playing fake ass do-gooders when you’re really taking all of the tithes that you bilk from the blind sheep and using it to purchase your fancy vehicles and take your grand vacations. I’ve watched as you beseeched the public for funds to feed the homeless, only to turn around and fill your pantries and freezers with the choicest meats and delicacies and gave to the poor and hungry, outdated shit and you smiled all day long over what your hypocritical ass was doing. Oh, you’ll get yours, indeed you will.

And if you are sitting somewhere expecting an announcement that Jesus has come back, are you serious? There will be no trumpet announcements and “Gather ye!” messages. Your biblical Jesus was poor and humble and walked the earth in a robe and if you truly believe that He will arrive driving a Cadillac Escalade with an Armani suit on, are you for real? You faithless shits wouldn’t know Jesus if he walked right through you. You wouldn’t even feel Him because you are dead inside. The only thing you care for is material shit and to see people who you think are your enemies, dead. You chase after ever more elusive highs because your sad and pathetic little world is really not doing it for you, is it? No, it’s not and that is why you have to deaden the awareness because you are not really living, you are just pretending because that is expected of you and you need stronger drugs and more alcohol to get you through the day because no one can know that you are not really as happy as you claim to be. But you won’t do what you need to do. You refuse to stop worshipping money and you just can’t stop being greedy, cold, callous, thoughtless and selfish. You pretend that you are not any of those things when in fact, you are all of them and so much more of the like.

If your Jesus did come back, what would He think of you? Yeah, I know and what’s more, so do you!

 

Behold, The Face Of Evil!

They picked him very carefully as all the world can see.
He’s easy on the eye and with a great personality.

Those who went before him set the stage for what would come.
He’s like a phantom in the night; we ask, “Where is he really from?”

Oh how little did we know, he’d bring destruction in his wake.
No Robin Hood he is, from the rich he does not take.

He’s a banker’s friend; a corporate tool who’s sent us spiraling down.
He hails from a gangster’s paradise in a city called, “chi-town.”

He’s led us straight to hell and he’s smiled the journey long.
We crashed upon the rocks as though he’d sung the siren’s song.

What’s left is barren land and the poor are all but dead.
Those who could not lose, put a bullet through their head.

The serfs are drudging painfully as they keep the rich afloat.
They’re scared to make a sound; they dare not rock the boat.

Their fate would be just like the rest; that’s not to be endured.
The Black man lent his face and the white man was assured,
that all would be as he declared; no detail left to chance.
The white man pulls the strings of the Black man in the manse.

Written by,

Shelby I. Courtland

©2013 Shelby I. Courtland

The white puppet masters are pulling the strings behind the charming, smiling, engaging, false, fake-ass face of Barack Obama, a puppet bought with blood money. He is a willing tool for those who consider themselves to be the elite. They are nothing more than worthless scum, depraved, lying, greedy, deceitful crooks with no compassion or morality. They are why we are constantly at war. They are why people are working for poverty wages. They are why we have homeless, hungry and uninsured people in this world. The hopeless, sunken eyed, gaunt people of the world watch and they wait……and they die because billions of people, as far as the elite fucks are concerned, are expendable and don’t deserve to live. If you are reading this, then you are just as expendable to those nasty bastards as I am and they will soon make a believer out of you! Don’t think so? Wait for it and I feel that you will not have long to wait!

Just Sit On Your Worthless Ass!

Photo Courtesy of
Shutterstock.com

I will no longer post such missives

about how fucked up we all are.

We know the danger we face

and what we do is quite bizarre.

 

We pretend that all is well

as we ignore what we can’t bear.

The writing is on the wall

and obviously, you don’t care.

 

Don’t worry about a thing.

Just sit on your worthless ass

and pretend that all is well

while they plan the next big crash.

 

Don’t whine and don’t complain

and don’t moan about your plight.

You never tried to understand

that the rich are a parasite.

 

You just hated on the poor

and blamed them for being so.

But what you failed to realize

is that where they went, you too will go!

Written by,

Shelby I. Courtland

©2015 Shelby I. Courtland

 

For those of you who have followed this blog for some time now, I thank you for your support but I am done repeating myself to worthless shits that don’t get it and I am including myself in the ‘worthless shits’ category because neither am I doing a goddamn thing about any goddamn thing. Apparently, we are all sitting around waiting on something or someone to save us from ourselves. Ain’t gonna happen. And so I have started a new blog because as the saying goes, “out with the old and in with the new.” I will keep this blog up for those who are interested in reading the fact that when we are all dead from either GMO foods, or from earthquakes caused by fracking or from World War III or from homelessness, lack of health care or from any of the other myriad of reasons for our demise that we could possibly have done something about and we sat back and did nothing because that was the easiest path to take, archive to your heart’s content. There is plenty of information here. I will no longer be checking out the blogs such as this one as I am only going to ‘follow’ poetry blogs that are ‘deeply from the soul and from the heart’ but I don’t want to read about how fucked up we are when that is already known. I am not going to continue to become angry over our fucked up situation and to no avail. I need some goddamn sunshine in my life and I ain’t getting it by concentrating on shit that’s going to remain shitty and just so you know that I mean what I say, THIS time, here is the link to the new blog that I have created and there will be no “We are fucking doomed!”, nonsense headed there!

Thank you all and for those that continue the useless, uphill struggle, for I will not say ‘battle’ because we never got that far; one less voice will not make any difference. Carry ‘quietly’ on!

https://poetryandprosefrommysoul.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

 

 

 

 

…About A Needle’s Eye…

Who cares about a needle’s eye?
Eternal wealth is what I crave.
I do not care about the poor.
Let them lie in a pauper’s grave.

As you attend your service to god,
You believe in him, you say.
But if you had my wealth,
to whom would you still pray?

Cease with the pretense,
that religion is all about love.
You know there is no heaven,
and no deity from above.

Whenever sheep awaken,
a shepherd is produced,
To keep the sheep in line.
another coma is thus induced.

An awakened world is dangerous,
so we invented a fairytale,
to keep from you the fact,
that there really is no hell.

Could you be kept in line,
if you were wide awake,
and not afraid of any god,
that religion could ever make?

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2014 Shelby I. Courtland

Matthew 19:24- Matthew 19:29
And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24″Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

25When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?”…

26And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

27Then Peter said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?

28And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.…
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.…

Now, ask yourself why the Wal-Mart Waltons are holding tight to their wealth. Ask yourself why politicians who avidly profess to being conservative Christians, continue to sell their ‘soul’ for money and tightly clinch to their chest, the bribes and kickbacks they get from lobbyists. Why are Bill and Linda Gates deemed such philanthropists but they are NOT so filled with love that they are concerned about ‘getting through the eye of the needle’ that Jesus Christ supposedly talked about?

Why do the rich seem to not concern themselves with a so-called ‘afterlife’? It is because they don’t BELIEVE in some unseen deity beyond the stars. They know better! But you’ve got to be kept in line, praying to god to fill your empty pantry so that you can feed your children while corporate executives swill the finest wines and eat the choicest of meats and delicacies. Why are they not concerned about getting to ‘heaven’, entering the Pearly Gates, meeting up with St. Peter, ‘getting through the eye of a needle’?

It is because this is all a lie! A big, gigantic lie to keep the sheep, docile with the hope that some deity is going to reward them for the hardships that they endure on this planet and not look at those who have hoarded all the wealth and rise up! Religion is a tool to control people and I’ve got to say, it IS working!

Wake up people! No one is going to rescue you or save you, but you! Stop allowing yourself to be controlled. The shit that the ‘poor man’s Pope adorns himself with could feed a small country in Africa, but you don’t see him refusing to wear it. If Jesus supposedly walked around, attired in a robe with a rope for a belt, is the Pope any better than ‘Jesus’? What is your bishop, reverend, pastor, rabbi driving? A horse and buggy or a Cadillac Escalade? Are they walking? Exactly!

When So Many Voices Speak

I cannot hear to write when so many voices speak.
At first I was a champion of the poor and of the weak.
Treading lightly for fear of hurting you, I reined my conscience in,
but now I find that I care not and so my healing must begin.
Tales of olden days gone by that never will stay dead
and when I think that all is lost, there is more that can be said.

Pray, tell me of your fears and I will seek to write them down,
and at night when I fall asleep, I think that I shall drown,
in the deep and murky darkness of tears that I have shed.
They seep inside my soul and consume me with such dread,
from all the voices I have heard as misery does take hold,
and of days of yesteryear and of a sun of burnished gold.

Oh, I hear you and I see you but not as individual souls
and whatever has been written can be found on parchment scrolls.
Your life was never joined with mine, we have seperate identities
and no matter what our faith is, we both fill the world with cruelties.
Wisdom, we will never learn and so our burdens shall remain.
Was man ever sound and whole or was man just born insane?

Written by
Shelby I. Courtland
©2014 Shelby I. Courtland

Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!

Here we go again!
It’s now Ebola’s turn!
The CDC, the WHO?
When will we ever learn?

Vaccinate me now!
If I wait, I know I’ll die!
So save me with a shot,
’cause Ebola’s in the sky!

Big pharma, do your thang!
We’ll pay you any price.
Just clear up this Ebola!
Do you have a cure for lice?

We’re all going to bleed
from our ears, nose and ass!
If they don’t find a cure
then there’ll be no middle class.

Who then would help the poor
and the homeless catch a break?
They need my clueless ass
because I give, I do not take!

Let the poor get Ebola.
It’s a way to weed them out!
You need my expertise.
I’m the one with all the clout.

Just ask me who should live.
I’ll tell you what I know.
If you’re high on the totem pole
then you are good to go!

Don’t breath the air with me,
’cause Ebola’s in the sky!
Why vaccinate the poor?
They’ll be fine, just let them die!

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2014 Shelby I. Courtland

If you fucking get Ebola, then you get it! Shit! People are dying all the goddamn time! Just like you do with the flu, stay away from anybody who looks sick. Stop flying! I know, can’t do that! Well then, that person who is sitting beside you coughing up blood, oh well, just think of it this way. You could have a long, lingering illness but instead you get to bleed out for a few days and then drop dead. End of fucking story! Geesh!!!! You motherfuckers just build up a goddamn crisis!

Oh, and one of my readers is selling ‘underground bunkers’, head on over and purchase one and hunker down, you scared ass shits!

You never heard? “Fucking LIVE before you die!” Everybody sitting some goddamn where scared of Ebola. Something’s gonna cart your ass on up outta here. Don’t think so? Wait for it!

Don’t Come Here!

Don’t come here tired and don’t come here poor!
You’re not to huddle beside the golden door.

It is not meant for you and it never will be
no matter how hard you try or how much plea.

You’re bringing pestilence into this land
and we’ve got more than we can stand.

Just ask the Indians why the white man won’t go.
He’s got it too good, their mortal foe.

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2014 Shelby I. Courtland