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Let me climb the intellectual bandwagon of Chamara Sumanapala of the Sunday Nation in Sirilanka, to recognize a world literary fact that Taras Shevchenko was the grandfather of literature that paid wholesome tribute to Ukrainian nationalism. In this juncture it has to  be argued that it is ideological shrewdness that has taken Russia to Crimean province of Ukraine but nothing like justifiable law and constitutionalism. Let it also be my opportune time for paying tribute to Taras Shevchenko, as at the same time I pay my homage to Ukrainian literature which is also a cultural symbol of Ukrainian statehood. Just like most of the European gurus of literature and art of his time, Taras Shevchenko received little formal education. The same way Shakespeare and Pushkin as well as Alexander Sholenystisn happened to receive education that was clearly less than what is received by many children around the world today.
Like Lucanos the Greek writer who wrote the biblical gospel according to saint Luke, Taras Shevchenko was Born to parents who were serfs. Taras himself began his life being a slave. He was 24 years a serf. He spent only one fourth of his relatively short life of 47 years as a free man. The same way Miguel Cervantes and Victor Marie Hugo had substantial part of their lives in prison. Nevertheless, this largely self-educated former serf became the headmaster, the guru and fountain of Ukrainian cultural consciousness through his paradigmatic literature written basically in the indigenous Ukrainian language. He was a prototype in this capacity given that no any other writer had made neither intellectual nor even cultural stretch in this direction by that time.
And thus in current Ukraine of today, Taras Shevchenko is a national hero of literature and collective nationalism. But due to the prevailing political tension between Ukraine and Russia, his Bicentenary on March 9, 2014 was marred by hoi polloi of dishonesty ideology and sludge of degenerative politics. For many us who derive pleasure from literature and diverse literary civilizations we join the community of Ukrainians to remember Taras Shevchenko the exemplary of patriotism, Taras Shevchenko the poet as well cultural symbol of complete state of Ukraine.
There is always some common historical experience among the childhood conditions of great writers.  In the same childhood version as Wright, Fydor, Achebe, Nkrumah, Ousmane and many others, Shevchenko was born on March 9, 1814 in Moryntsi, a small village in Central Ukraine. His parents were serfs and therefore Taras was a serf by birth. At the age of eight, he received some lessons from the local Precentor or person who facilitated worshippers at the Church and was introduced to Ukrainian literature, the same way Malcolm X and Richard Wright learned to read and write while in prison. His childhood was miserable as the family was poor. Hard work and acute poverty ate up the lives of the family, and Tara’s mother died so soon when he was nine. His father remarried and the stepmother treated Taras very badly in a neurotic manner. Two years later, Taras’s father also passed away. Just in the same economic dint poverty ate up Karl Marx until the disease known us typhus killed her wife Jenny Westphelian Marx.
The 19th century Russian Empire was largely feudal, Saint Petersburg being the exception, just like the current Moscow. It was the door and the window to the West. Shevchenko’s timely and lucky break in life came when his erratic landlord left for Saint Petersburg, taking his treasured serf with him. Since, Taras had shown some merit and knack as a painter, his landlord sent him to informally learn painting with a master. It was fashionable and couth for a landlord to have a court painter in those days of Europe. However, sorrow had to build the bridges in that through his teacher, Shevchenko met other famous artists. Impressed by the artistic and literary merit of the young and honesty serf, they decided to raise money to buy his freedom out of serfdom. In 1838, Taras Shevchenko became a free man, a free Ukrainian and Free European.
As it goes the classical Marxist adage; freedom gives birth to creativity. It happened only two years later, Taras Shevchenko’s collection of poetry, Kobzar, was published, giving him instant fame like the Achebean bush fire in the harmattan wind. A kobzar is a Ukrainian string instrument and a bard who plays it is also known as a Kobzar. Taras Shevchenko also enjoyed some literary epiphany by coming to be known as Kobzar after the publication of his collection.
He was dutifully speaking of the plight of his people in his language, not only through music, but even poetry. However,  there were unfair and censuring restrictions in publishing books in Ukrainian. But lucky enough, the book had to be published outside Russia.

Shevchenko continued to write and paint without verve. Showing considerable merit in both. In 1845, he wrote ‘My Testament’ which is perhaps his oeuvre and best known work. In his poem, he begs the reader to bury him in his native Ukraine after he dies. Not in Russia. His immense love for the land of his birth is epitomized in these verses. Later, he wrote another memorable and compelling piece, ‘The Dream’, which expresses his dream of a day when all the serfs are free. When Ukraine will be free from Russia. Sadly, Taras Shevchenko came to his demise just a week before this dream was realized in 1861.
Chamara Sumanapala wrote in the Sirilanka Sunday Nation of 16 march 2014 that, Taras lived a free man until 1847 when he was arrested for being a member of a secret organization, Brotherhood of St Cyril and Methodius. He was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg and later banished as a private with the Russian military to Orenburg garrison. He was not to be allowed to read and paint, but his overseers hardly enforced this edict. After Czar Nicholas II died in 1855, he received a pardon in 1857, but was initially not allowed to return to Saint Petersburg. He was however, allowed to return to his native Ukraine. He returned to Saint Petersburg and died there on March 10, 1861, a day after his 47th birthday. Originally buried there, his remains were brought to Ukraine and buried in Kaniv, in a place now known as Taras Hill. The site became a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism. In 1978, an engineer named Oleksa Hirnyk burned himself in protest to what he called the suppression of Ukrainian history, language and culture by the Soviet authorities.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2016
quite recently, I received an extraordinary complimentary message to one of my poems, from a comrade in arms, dare I call him friend, that cored, scored me.  I post it below.  Not from braggadocio, or vanity, venal poetry sins.  But, it could not stand orphaned,
unrequited and unreciprocated,
for that would be a sin of even greater magnitude,

ingratitude

<>

this poem begins unique,
am struggling with a problem previously
unknown, never before even
close encountered

how do I commence?

poet wonders repeatedly,
a tune on the not-so-natty brain,
set on the machine's "repeat"setting,
this problematical for de minimus - 25 hour day,
this scribbler, this constant nibbler
on the Graham crackers life bestows,
befuddled muddled
for

this is never an issue,
it's the windup, the shutdown,
knowing when enough is enough,
that is the sorest point of his
elongated, can't shut up skill set

it cannot stand, it cannot just hang,
it needs a rabbinical wise,
responsible responsum,
a simple
thank you
holy, holy, holy
insufficient

these words, an almost wet smackdown,
catch me exposed, crossing Sixth Avenue,
against oncoming traffic (naturally),
while on cell phone bad boy,
doing his three R's,#
reading, writing & errrrr, deleting,
(yeah, yeah, I know, I know)
amidst my multiplicity of incoming artillery shells of
automobiles and messages,
this one,
seizing me up, me like a screeching,
near dying engine, broke from being oil-less,
nearly dropping my two large
20 oz. McDonald's coffees which easy
could flood this four lane
thoroughfare

you want to write like this,
are you mad, man?

all I ever es-say is what I see,
throwing in a rhyme or two,
a pinch of a fancy word to impress the
hoi polloi, and plenty salty sweet
to provocate a sensory ah ha
confusion

sir, why write like me,
when you pen this?

"yet all of this could
just as easily be,
the sum of two,
grateful hearts in equal parts,
the beat of two in rhythm thrum,
march in time upon one drum"
^

which pretty much says
what needs saying
all in one perfect stanza humming

but this note, is so far,
way deficient,
a mockery of what the situation requires and is deserving,
so multiple lovely muses redirect me
back to my email,
where I find this waiting,
in repose, this prose,
perfect

A compliment is a complement—
this I know, just as the clock
will always strike midnight
and history repeats. This is how
I can wake up the next morning
and love the world again.
^^

blossoming notion, this is but a complement,
where the line dotted allows free passage
from reader to poet, from poet to poet,
permitting the peaking reciprocity of completion,
and this complement
I accept, unashamedly, profoundly
for this is my 1/1,
for to make a whole, we still require
numerator, denominator,
of equal value

on this basis,
and this basis alone,
I accept your words

when prowling scowling late at night,
or early sun rising, old bones enthroned
in my Adirondack dis-comforter,
will come a-sneaking, a-peaking,
nobody-around-real quiet like,
for another look-see at this kookery,
in my solitary poet's by-the-bay nookery,

the thought comes,
maybe it's time to lay that pen down,
the Israelites have crossed that Red Sea,
dry and on their way to a land of promises,
when sure enough my coffee mug
spills onto an ant hill hard by the beach,
and oops, soiling the soil,
the Lesser Antillean inhabitants making an unholy ruckus,
and oops, ther goes another rubber plant, high hopes, poem aborning,^^^

but sir, be advised,
your excess foolishness is warming,
but we cannot without each other,
march to one drum,
our steps surely mismatched,
it is the reciprocity of
complementary numerical worthies that unites the fractions of us
into a singletary winter pea,
a whole of us,
in order to
"let us love the world again"
yes, a true 'story'
<>
#reading, writing and 'rithmetic
-----------
"some time back
this notion became clear to me.
have wanted to say it since;
this, your words, the perfect segue.

i have come to love
the style of your writing,
so much so as to adopt it,
as my own, though perhaps
in my own tone, voice, and
life experience.

much of how i write today,
I attribute to your influence...
no kidding, no hyperbole,
no gush, no mush, just truth.

whomever taught or influenced you
is to be admired most,
for in the style
i see most encapsulated by yours
is a conveyance that goes
well beyond words,
well beyond mere ideas...
it incorporates heart and emotion,
and more so,
the heart behind the heart,
in a way rather uncommon
to most poetry."^

S. Reimer
"After-math"
<>
^^ "On Being Told I Look Like FLOTUS, New Year’s Eve Party 2014"
by January Gill O’Neil

<>

^^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S94Bh3Qez9o
st64  Dec 2013
stoke
st64 Dec 2013
crackle.. crackle..
flicker-flicker
auburn-licks in tiny-spits
roast a pail on terra firma
then ask.. how steady ground-nutmeg falls in drizzles of mercurial-flow



1.
school girl gets pulled off her books
sorry, gypsy-girl.. but *you no welcome here

   free-style don't cut it here
we give you cash to make like a cow
and go home
surprise as youth stand up against old-guns
then folk get called names and puppets turn ugly
as terms like demografix get flung
like a band-aid over an open-wound

when diva is denied a croc
out of the blue.. plop!
three apples fall to the ground
and cheap bar-lines seem catchy
but get raucous laughter echoing from hay-strewn tree-top rafters
mocking-tirades.. lazy-suitor, hard-recruiter

women wearing missiles on their faces
induce a fear like no man has seen
earth-quaking in boots of unreasonable-fear
near ponds of web-toed frog-giveness
catching the sing of plastic-ridged bullets in eternal-flight


2.
you can work your crafty-*** off
and still be without water or a roof

teabaggers get tagged
and innocence is frisked
while a good man dies
and the world mourns
very few know the real-hardship  
of those soldiers
who served duty-bound years
yet swallow anguish for long whiles after

now learning comes fettered
with resistant-glass to ward off
ricochets of unwanted-strays
and tax is almost everyone's burden
interest defeats pure-growth
as indigent-footsteps keep crawling
while high-flyers keep raking it in.....
on the backs of hoi-polloi

bursaries offer step-up to some
but so many fall along the side
thanks to the malice of profiling
as your mail is leaked to bots and ads
another gun-shot goes off..
and affluenza gets you a cosier cell
as the lesson is sad-skipped
and rats keep lining 'em pockets with fewer parolees
so, who will really bat an eye-flip
when a judge breaks the law?


3.
so correct
it's all rather crazy upside-umop
adolescent-boy remains adamant against expectations
will not cede a kidney
to his father's burst one
drink, daddy.. yes, drink some more!




stoke the embers to keep lit
that which begs life







S T, 15 dec 13
oh, how 'enlightening' the news, at times
oft, I take a deliberate break from news-reads
just to ease the over-raked eye.. a tad :)
.......to.. to.. to style in some harmony in rare muse-curls
even by a full or half-day later

something I read, though.. a touch positive
not to wait for leaders to emerge to effect change.. but to be part of that.. be it.
prends la parole!



sub-entry: hello poetry

hello, poetry
good-bye, doldrums

or is it.. see ya later?
ha!
There are bumble bees around the corner,
Waiting to land on the tip of your nose.
Thick, flower nectar, dripping from above them,
Fated, to catch you in your, "Hello."

When the beaming sun beams,
We say lovely things,
And spread them about,
For those near,

To feel it within,
To take part in -

To share it with those
Who will hear.

When the sun disappears,
The moon's light rears,
Sprinkling taboo gems about,

For us to tiptoe and choose,
To place in a ruse,
Of words to enjoy during, Lights Out.

Neither a shortage of daisies,
To pluck from this field,
Nor, unwelcoming nuances met,

Only waves of inspiration,
Covered in chosen sensation,

An oasis for the itching poet.
I love the people on Hello Poetry.
=)

© 2011 Elephants & Coyotes
sobroquet  Apr 2013
Rush et al.
sobroquet Apr 2013
So you think you are a master of techniques of persuasion?
You shallow pips-squeak, mediocrity is your mastery
the obsequious hoi polloi that surround you are the pitiable averageness of conciliation
Sophistry and subterfuge are your game of compromised facts
syllogistic  arithmetic conceptualizing  doesn't make anything so
your addition is flawed by your bungled bombast of banality and guile
fortunately for you, your crowd will never study logic
fortunately for you semi-literacy is  de rigueur

You pompous swollen grandiose mass of hyperbolic gas
Fear is what you offer, lies are what you sell
your rhetorical flourish is as the stench of a waste  dump
fetid, corpulent, fallow and febrile
toxic
half-truths, innuendos, ambiguities, conjecture and asinine aspersions comprise your specious fare,
fostering rumours,  manipulating facts, you are the purported Biblical brood of vipers so extensively reviled against
Your relevancy is attributable to the dull stupidity so profusely prevalent today
Your "success" is the stuff of taint and treachery
You'll probably choke to death on a stuck piece of poorly masticated  flesh
so appropriate  and  befitting the demise of a professional liar
Anderson M Jan 2014
Glitzy gowns, crisp suits
Dainty personalities, well-groomed gentlemen
The crème de la crème of society
Poised reveling in an aura of importance
Flex their financial muscle
In the name of philanthropy.
Handing out gifts to hoi polloi
Their hands gloved
Smiling from ear to ear
Their noses twitching
Apparently un-accustomed to the “smell” of poverty
Has poverty…a smell?
Self-aggrandizement overwhelming their souls
Having warmed the hearts of the downtrodden
It’s a deal…sealed
Effortlessly
Scar  Jun 2016
Hoi Polloi
Scar Jun 2016
What is a guitar, but something to smash off the bedroom walls or throw from the roof?
"One thing good I can say about the hotel,
There were plenty of skanky crack ******
Strolling the boulevard.”
So began my Expedia travel review.
As usual, I got less than I’d paid for.
My review title:
“Next Time, Sans the Engineering
& Construction Inquietude.”
Pulling into the parking lot
One immediately recognized the scene,
A modern version of Cecil B. DeMille.
The 10 Commandments.
Pyramids of Egypt
Reconstructed, Escher-like
As a 21st Century construction site.
Oh, yes,
Everything Habib had in mind
When he subcontracted
The entire task to Hershel--
Hersh from Kanersh--
The famed,
But cursed
Jewish architect.
I digress, yes, but only partly.

Noise-induced stress, anyone?
The electrified multi-frequency drone,
Saturates like a post-war Levittown
Sea of Cape Cods . . . cods?
Bacala: stiff, salted, yellow & oily.
Cacophony:  a Festivus for the rest of us.
Oh yeah, Mr. Costanza.
Post-war?
Hardly, the mahogany wax
Still faintly, freshly sober,
New cards shuffled.
New cards dealt.
At that mahogany conference table
We weep at stacked decks,
Aces & Kings for the privileged few
Deuces & treys for the hoi polloi.
That hinky Bretton Woods poker game,
Convened while the war went on,
WWII still raging, guns still firing,
Tanks still rolling & rolling along.
There sat the Ruling Elite,
The 1%--as they are calling us these days--
We didn’t even offer
Our Gold Star mothers,
A moment to
Hold their breath.
Not one decent interval of silence.
Nein, nein, nein.
It was let’s get back to business.
Capital resuming its
Uncivil War on Labor.
First, add decades of slow boa squeeze.
Inflation, insidiously mocking Calvin--
Your ethos of work
In smithereens--
(Smithereens.
[From Irish Gaelic smidir n,
Diminutive of smiodar,
Small fragment.] ...)
A recipe for Sisyphus,
Your down-the-ladder warped reflection
Stares back at you as your
Up-the-ladder false hopes
Go escalator bye-bye; and by,
Staring at you,
Pinning you to a wall
With Econ 101 clarity,
As taught by Karl,
Another wily Jew:
It is a treadmill, after all,
Noting again the clever juxtaposition
Of a Jew and a handful of Christians,
Devotees of random Protestant sects.
The following link is a gift to some struggling writer @wattpad.
(Who Cares ON HOLD INDEFINITELY Chapter Twenty - Page 1 ...
www.wattpad.com/4225578-who-cares-on-hold-indefinitely-chapte­r-twe...‎
Apr 22, 2012 - Leanna was totally stunned by this and immediately halted in her tracks and began to scream at such a high decibel, Opia could hear her ears...) That’s right, another commercial in the middle of a ******* poem. The proceeding link was a gift to some struggling writer @wattpad.@*******.
Expedia Review:
The Windemere.
Its last syllable from Old English 'mere',
Meaning 'lake' or 'pool'.
A magical name
Reeking, swirling through your mind,
Lavender & English lakes
With steam ferries.
Ne c'est pas?

I arrived at the front desk?
The computers are down,
Having earlier that day
Been hacked into.
No restaurant.
No bar.
Nowhere.
Scaffolding & drop cloths,
Everywhere.
Construction materiel,
Everywhere.
When you finally get your swipe card,
You Notice that the “Buy One, Get One”
Pizza promo, laminated on one side,
Expired about 5 months ago.
The drive to the room
Is wry recognition that
The Windemere Hotel
& Conference Center*
Is actually a ****** motel.
Backhoes & cranes,
Everywhere.
Multiple, out-door spaces
Sectioned off with police
Yellow crime-scene tape.
Everywhere.
Railings on balconies
Appear to be seconds away
From giving way.
Odor, anyone?
You can count on it,
The moment that electronically-challenged keybox
Gives up its flashing green dot ghost.

Most times you get less
Than you pay for.
$47.00 a night?
Please ask,
Next time,
What's the catch?
“WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR STAY?”
Again, Numb-nuts,
You think it’s a poem.
But it’s actually my
Fakokta Expedia Review.
WHAT DID I LIKE?
This one I had to think about,
Coming up, quickly . . .
(An advertisement generated by algorithms for your amusement follows)
. . . ***** Spray for Premature ******* - Web Site - the home page. www2 rochesterhomepage.net/...Premature-*******/CHedfhhlmkmt-i...‎­Aug 2, 2013 - ***** Spray for Premature ******* Spray Helps Men Last 6 ... 54% of the men in the placebo group delayed ******* for more than one . . .
Coming quickly with Dwight David Eisenhower,
The man we liked & called IKE.
When asked if his VP Nixon--
Running for President himself,
In a tight race with JFK—
Had distinguished himself in any way
In his 8 years as his Vice-President?”
IKE replied:
"Give me a minute and
I'm sure I can think of something."

Not a ringing endorsement.
IKE knew something
The rest of us had to wait for 1973,
Reserving a room at the The Watergate,
Close to Foggy Bottom & Georgetown:
THE WATERGATE HOTEL
& CONFERENCE CENTER,
Just like The Windemere,
Another ****** motel.
**** me! What was I thinking?

Not to mention lack of privacy,
Be it acoustic or visual and,
In one case a veritable DEA bust.
Crack ***** in residence next door,
Cranes her neck around the balcony wall,
A would-be nurse, perhaps,
Offering home hospice &
Concern for your raspy,
***-smoking cough.
Her pox face bursting in on
The long anticipated
Marijuana Miller Time.
On the veranda, early evening,
Lighting up your first joint of the day,
Desperately in need
Of some herbal peace of mind.
Ne c'est pas?
Her big crack-***** head
Giraffes like crazy around the wall,
Invading your balcony space.
*******? Who was that?
Let’s lock the doors.
Let's hunker down for the night,
Taking turns keeping watch,
Like a couple of shitless scared
Grunts of the DMZ.
(Urban Dictionary: scared shitless www.urbandictionary.com/define. Ph?term=scared%20shitlessIt's when you scare someone to such an extent, you scare the **** out of them, at times causing them to excrement all over the vicinity . . .)
The Expedia Review goes on:
Anything interesting about the surrounding area?
Oh, yes, as previously mentioned:
Plenty of crack ******
Strolling the boulevard.


Hey, Windemere Hotel,
*** am I doing in Mesa, Arizona,
Two days shy of the summer solstice,
And 119 degrees?
That's another story.
But for now,
Hey Windemere,
Here’s a tip:
Next time it's total facility makeover time,
Shut the **** hotel, please.
Anderson M Jul 2013
Out and about
Amidst the hustle and bustle
Of ultra-modern cities
Is a phenomenon that escapes my mind’s grasp
Penniless famished hoi polloi huddled together almost in unison
Arms outstretched eking out a living from begging
Pitiful downcast eyes that tell stories untold
A sad sight to behold
Begging the question
Haven’t humankind a shred of tenderness?
The beggars of the 21st century live and dwell in wall-less edifices(the streets)....
Jolan Lade  May 2018
Hoi Polloi
Jolan Lade May 2018
Educated people                                          
That think they                                      
Know everything                            
There is a need                          
To know                            
-                                
To them                      
I have                  
A mind      
To blow
I don´t mind, being a little behind

— The End —