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Carlo C Gomez Jan 2023
keep the photographs
the city is overexposed again

take more walks in the nearby woods
the world we knew as children

watch out for frogs and detonators
mind the wires

new aerial boundaries at dawn
no one steps inside by choice

adapt to the proper order
and no sleeping under tables

the reflection tower is a good place to start
tourist trap, a certain approximate

bring the thing under the couch
in case of an unexpected visitor

more nightmares cut out of the newspaper
what is an Astra 600?

three different hat sizes
Hannie says yes to ménage à trois

the joy in discovery
the joy in forgetting

like God without a compass
not a lot, just forever
The Oversteegen sisters and friend Hannie Schaft worked to sabotage the **** military presence in the Netherlands. They used dynamite to disable bridges and railroad tracks. Additionally, they aided Jewish children by smuggling them out of the country or helping them escape concentration camps.

The Oversteegens and Schaft also lured German soldiers to the woods under the pretense of a romantic overture and then killed them. Freddie would approach the soldiers in taverns and bars and ask them to "go for a stroll" in the forest.
Ylzm Apr 2022
May Putin be crushed and his nuclear threat exposed an empty bluff
May Russians see themselves the true Nazis
And in true need of salvation than Ukrainians ever were
May the shattered save the mighty and the mighty serve the victor
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Sep 2020
**** Trump has embodied, for four years, the worst  behaviors ever endured by our citizens. He is a liar, a cheat, a racist, a misogynist, and a criminal. He is, in short, the most despicable human being I have ever encountered during my lifetime. The worst thing he has ever done--this is a tough choice--was his ordering the Border Patrol to rip children, even babies, from the arms of their mothers who had both the U.S. and international legal right to come to any of our borders, literally place one of their feet on U.S. soil and say they were here to seek political asylum (check out the laws). Instead, the traumatized children were put into cages and, in so many instances, never to see their mothers again. On November 3rd, we should be voting on whether **** Trump should be put into a prison cell for 40 years or for three lifetimes.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet, an essayist, a novelist, and a human-right advocate his entire adult life.`
Suspected of attack
On fascist Graziani
He was in house arrest
As the case was with
Suspects the rest.

A prisoner of war
Then  via Somalia
He was sent to Rome
Found a black lion
If left at home.


Together with
A prison inmate
From Yugoslavia
Called Julio
He made a rope
Out of a blanket
The reason
To descend down
And escape
From a tower prison.

In a show of contempt
Defying  officials' attempt
To smoke out a fugitive
On the hide
The two at eventide
Returned to open fire
And attack guards
To set  free prisoners
Indeed, victory was
On their side.

Leading  partisans
Abdissa made it his duty
To gruel fascists
With insurgent activity.

What was the outcome?
Parallel to the allied forces
When he entered Rome
With Ethiopia's tricolor
Around his wrist
He was accorded
A warm welcome.

Then he turned his face
To allied-forces'-
'For Berlin' race
In rooting out **** troops
He spurred the pace!

Asked to stay in Europe
He said shalom
"Home sweet home!
As written on the bible
Can an Ethiopian change
His skin
or a leopard its spots?
Doing so
Will it not be a sin?"

The unsung hero
Returned to Addis
Turning Fascist and Nazis'
Wild dreams to zero!
He is one of the black lions of Ethiopia. He demonstrated Ethiopians' heroism beyond Africa's perimeter. My poem indomitable Ethiopia is in the same wavelength.
The Unsnag Hero
Abdissa Aga was born in south western Ethiopia in a province called Welega.
It was when he was 14 he joined the Ethiopian defense force.
In 1935 when fascist Italy that was armed to the teeth with modern arsenals baptized the country with banned poisonous gas conducting innumerable sorties, he decided to reinforce the fight in defense of his motherland.
But Abdissa sustained injuries and ended up in a hospital. Later, he was subjected to house arrest around Piazza, his residential area.
After Ethiopian patriots’ attempt to assassin Rodolfo Graziani , whom Italy assigned to administer Ethiopia, suspected of involvement in the plot, Abdissa was once more detained along with 37 house-arrested Ethiopians.
After a gruesome time in prison, via Somalia, and then under the jurisdiction of fascist Italy, he was sent to Rome as a prisoner of war.
There he was under scrutiny. Along with another captive from Yugoslavia called Hulio, he was designing different plans to escape from the prison.
One day making a rope out of his blanket and descending down the tower prison he managed to escape. But, instead of becoming a fugitive on the run, returning back late at night to the prison and opening fire on the guards he let the prison inmates free to flee.
In so doing, he demonstrated valor is a virtue Ethiopians need borrow from nowhere. The unfolding carried across the message Ethiopians’ military prowess is not only showcased in Adwa but also in Italy.
Teaming up the prisoners from different countries he set free as partisans, he pressed ahead with waging fierce attacks on Italian troops in their own country. He was beating them by the rule of their own game.
As they knew Ethiopians’ heroism starting from Adwa they became very much afraid of him. In numerous engagements with them he did emerge victorious. He kept on ambushing and surprising the fascist troops.
Offering him different allurements they were sweet talking him to join ranks with the Italian army. He turned a deaf ear to their requests making clear joining a fascist force is a treason committed on own country.
When World War II broke out he joined the tide against the Axis powers.
United State of America and English were fighting with Italy that was supporting **** Germany. Stunned by Abdissa’s heroism they saw it fit to ask him to join the allied forces. Making use of this support , beefing up the muscle of his army he did a great job in disarraying fascist troops in their own country.
After the ignominious defeat of fascist troops, when the English and US forces entered into Rome he followed suit with an array of his fighters that tried Ethiopia’s flag round their wrist. When he, on par with the rank of a general, made a divine entrance into Rome hovering high Ethiopia’s flag  he was accorded a warm welcome by the allied forces.
Next he played quite a role in vanquishing **** forces when the allied forces mounted attack on **** Germany. He was still hovering high Ethiopia’s flag in liberating many Germany towns being pulverized in the crossfire. He played incalculable role in combing out brutal **** troops.
Promising handsome rewards the allied forces did try to persuade him to join them. But Abdissa put down his foot. He made clear “However poor my country may be, I will not abnegate it! My love to Ethiopia is next to none!”
Vexed by the cold shoulder greeting he showed to their offers finding a pretext they put him behind bars.
Later, released, he came back to Ethiopia to Join the Special Imperial guard with the Imperial given title Colonel.
Colonel Abdissa Aga died soon after the demise of the Emperor Haile Sellasie I.
The younger generation has to learn a lot from this exemplary heroism and love for motherland.
Anais Vionet Aug 2020
I’m excited - the
republican convention!
I love magic shows.

They will reveal, with
sorcerous skills a new Trump
- bighearted, and selfless.

The man we all know,
the emotionally crippled
horror, will wear disguise.

Who will be deceived?
The children in cages will cheer,
the virus dead will smile.

Our Nazis will march,
ghosts of veterans will wail,  
What a fine party.
The devil will dance in a magic show for the ages
TOD HOWARD HAWKS May 2020
Kristallnacht in now every day in America.

**** Trump is now America's full blown ******.

Goebbles was ******'s minister of propaganda. Goebbles said if you tell the people a lie big enough and often enough, they will begin to believe it.

The Washington Post has authenticated over 15,000 **** Trump lies in the past 3 1/2 years.

**** Trump's evil, egregious acts of irresponsibility, his gross incompetence, his de facto criminal decisions not to act at all to protect his 350,000,000 fellow citizens from the death-dealing coronavirus is akin to ******'s hatred of Jews and other groups he also detested and killed.

At the end of WW II, there were estimated to be 15,000 death camps across Europe.

Now **** Trump has his own death camps in America: nursing homes, huge meat-packing plants, prisons and jails, VA hospitals, the homeless, the poor, and especially the Blacks.

Among **** Trump's first statements about the pandemic reaching America included that all this was a "Democratic hoax," that there were only 15 cases in America, and by the end of that week, there would be zero, and so on.

And like the vast majority of the German people under ******, way too many Americans are afraid, I think, to speak out against **** Trump who wants to be, and is becoming, America's dictartor.

Those Americans who still remain rabid supporters of **** Trump are at best simply deluded, and what is even worse, those who support **** Trump, but choose to remain silent, wear cowards' clothes.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks.
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet, anovelist, and a human-rights advocate his entire adult life.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Mar 2020
April Fools' Day, 2020, will be brought to you by all those who voted for **** Trump.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet and human-rights advocate his entire adult life. He recently finished his novel, A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Mar 2020
Would that Hestia were in the Oval Office instead of **** Trump.
There would be warmth emanating from the veritable center of our
democracy instead of cold, cruel uncaring. Ignorance and gross incompetence are reasons enough for me to throw literally this imbecile out of the Oval Office into the Rose Garden, then onto Pennsylvania Avenue. He alone will be singly responsible for millions of deaths of Americans who contracted the coronavirus, but died from the unconscionable inactions of **** Trump that in turn resulted in myriad medical supply shortages that would have saved untold American lives. Hestia was the Greek goddess of the hearth. Even if she was a mythological figure, she would have at least cared about the well-being of the citizens of any Greek agora.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet and human-rights advocate his entire adult life. He recently finished his novel, A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.
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