i had a dream
i was flying
in the arms
of this grande old kite
and we drifted through canyons
and across flowered fields
over endless pastures
and restless seas

i looked down
somewhere near
the haldimand half-point
and saw friends
and patrons
smiling
while the busy keepers
of oasis
were singing
and loosening their vowels

familiar faces
were everywhere
and it was warm
and serene
they were charting courses
and building dreams
laying praise
untarnished by imposing views
and as much as i tried
i couldn’t express my gratitude

when i woke
i was lying
with an angel
at my back
whose eyes
were wide
and blue
and her words came crystal clear;
kindness will not be sold

and as i turned
to reach her hand
the rain had gathered
and washed away
a stain

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)
The Al shabab on 22 day of September 2013   attacked Kenya again. It has attacked and lynched siege on the Nairobi’s biggest mall known as the West Gate. This is one of the severest after other similar attack in 1998.The people who are averagely assumed to be killed are  one hundred.Al shabab is a regional east African arm of Arabo-islamic global terrorist group known as the Algaeda.But something notable about all the terrorist groups in the world, inclusive of Alshabab, is that they all have an Arabic, communist and Islamic bias with overt expression of anti-American movements.
The Lynching of the Mall in Nairobi has affected all the Kenyan communities. Asian and African, Europeans and Americans. However the survivors of the West Gate mall attack has narrated out that the attackers were discriminately asking for ones religion before they shoot. Thus Muslims were not shot but non Muslims were shot and then held hostage. The military sources on the site shared out that the terrorists were foreigners but they perfectly worked through their plan through co-operation of locals and citizens of a victim countries; Kenya and America.
Immediately after this terror attack in Nairobi, a group of social researchers in Kenya carried out an electronic survey on the social media to find out why the Alshabab has easily recruited the followers and why an African youth can easily accept recruitment in to the membership of terror groups like Boko haram, Al shabab, and Al gaeda.The responses gathered from diverse digital socialites  skews into one  modal direction which  shows that America alone with its ostentatious international relations  will not win the war on global terrorism.
The motivation for easy recruitment into membership of the terror groups was established by the social media survey as diverse factors but most august among them are ; extreme conditions of poverty among the youths in contrast to the rich and wealthy elderly echelons of the most African societies. Also, sharp contrast in the economic conditions between America and Africa where American societies wallow in extreme riches whereas the African societies contemporaneously are stark deep in idyllic poverty perpetually wallowing in the mire of need and economic challenges. Some respondents cited the crooked way through which the state of Israel was formed as well as the atrocious nature of American foreign policy towards the Arab world through which there was perpetration of killing of Muamar Al Gadaffi and regular Military bombardment of Arab countries like Syria and Afghanistan.
Also the current American presidency and the preceding one of George Bush provoke distasteful responses on the social media. Especially in relation to the Prison maintained at quatanamo bay which basically was established as a basic torture facility used by the American government to torture terrorist suscepects from North Africa, Arab emirates and Europe. But the prison at Quatanamo bay is composed of a large number of North African as detainees. A respondent on the social media quoted Pravda, the Russian Newspaper in English version which had a revelation about the Quatanamo prison. The Pravda projected number of North Africans in the Quatamo prison to be currently standing at one hundred and thirty seven. The Newsweek also concurs with this position by narrating in its july 2013 edition that, there are very many prisoners of North African descend in quatanamo prison who began a hunger strike sometimes ago but they are forcefully fed through a tube.

The facebooking ,tweetering and charting thematically show one modal position that American discriminatory foreign policy towards Israel and Persia, American extreme capital amid critical world poverty, poverty in Africa especially among the youth, presence of weapons of mass destruction in Israel to which America is oblivious or nonchalant  ,Russian technological casuistry and Chinese economic dominance combine into a blend of extensive anti-American feelings that  make the world youths not reliable when it comes to the moral duty of desisting from joining the terrorist groups. American hard politics and hard diplomacy will make America not to win war on global terrorism.

multimedia macramé
sloshing propaganda sewage
on the unsuspecting public
***** lice infest ****** hill folk
west Virginia outbreak threatening the world
as we know it
flesh altering nonsense explicitly graphed
charting movement of microbes
on air, land, and/ or sea
global currents the new deliverer of death –
infected immigrants sit smiling
internment camps providing nutrition
never before experienced
as non-natives negotiate freedom
by submitting to vaccinations baths
and the standard delousing powder –
paranoid hand-sanitizer users
glued to the **** tube
spray their shoes with disinfectant
praying to an absent GOD for health
while shoveling GMO corn chips into ever widening
mouth holes
pharmaceutical companies lick lifeless lips
as Congress recognizes their humanity
while rejecting the concerns of the poor
…..no money in it –
outlandish claims of outbreaking Ebola
flood the mainstream outlets
fear: version – infinity
one more plague plan to stimulate new legislation
more law
no touching
even looking at the infirm can be cause for isolation
radiation treatments
courtesy of Fukushima, reactors 1-4 –
new found focus on fracturing the shale
releasing new oil reserves
and old bacteria
dinosaur killers
free-radicals
radically changing the genetic code
humanity altered
once again –

in june I felt the project change
from trying charting all scenarios of your face
to looking to books to blacking out spontaneous lines in found papers
to clearly eventually
be a misneglected omen of your impending collapse.

"I would like to blame this on the weather,"
I said to the sky,
"I would like to stay."


I felt the camera flash stop taking
strobe light moments of our strobe light moments
instead slipped tape recorder in your cereal box
videotaped the tooth brush
ever scraping dead skin while you slept.

I said, "If you wake up I will know nothing."
if you call this a dream, I will shake
and shake.
I said "it is clear now that you are decomposing."
(there's only so much the heart can take.)


stopped thoughts about the bus would hit you
spent time watching the sun through your palm:
little bones will scatter light.
little scars on thumbs.
we are made up only of who puts us back together.
and I could smell the rain.

I said, "It is easier if you stay angry"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."


I put the Starbucks mug on the radiator
ceased to chart your worried looks.
I knew your brow, heavy clouds as you'd undress
but made a scrapbook of frozen dinner clippings
drew a line through where you went that day.

I said, "I want to prove that you meant nothing"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I said to the sky.


and then the rain.

Charting The Changes      
     (Once Again)

How can I leave them?
I have eyes, the body, brain;
These changes subtle and not so… going on,
And I a part.
The ***: it never leaves.
You watch the nuance - age regardless.
Muscle, limbs, all inners shifting;
Dangers one could ne’er imagine
Years before -
And there they are,
Daily dominators from within
And from without,
Pushing, shoving, tugging
Quiet, noisy, brash and smug.
Dangers one would - if one could -
Convert to chance both sound and likely;
At the center of it all:  you. I and we,
The question being, how to cope with,
Deal with it undisturbed; philosophic, unperturbed,
Optimistic, cool, detached,
Present-living, hatching new ideas
From day to day as if it’s play,
The way presenting self on impulse, off-the-cuff
And you obeying  
Soundlessly in laughter.

Charting The Changes (Once Again) 8.7.2016
I Is Always You Is We;
Arlene Corwin

An unknown direction
on a day rising
with renewed energy
renewed vitality
so much potential.

Taking that direction
of mind over matter
with retooled perception
toward revitalized perfection.

Taking that direction
promotes deeper reflection
searching the soul
avoiding the role
of misguided rejection.

Keep the direction
going
keep the mind
knowing
keep the energy
flowing
keep achievement
showing.

~Miguel

To chart the apogee of whimsy is to tie
oneself to the mast as the sirens call
and Babylon Sisters allure and the ale houses
sing
an ode to the failed politicians past
and I drag my broom behind me
imagining it is a sword furring the damp morning loam of Avalon
but it does not, because
I am but a stray
in a jaunty northern town
nothing less
nothing more
nothing lower nothing higher
nothing as the substance of being
nothing as a wet rag
held tight
as I rock myself to sleep
dreaming of galactic empires
and the moorland
where the widows of war
walked and wailed
and if only my lottery numbers
would come up
then I could happily deal with the enigma
of
Nothing.

The sunset sky dazzling with the golden hues,
Taking bow in brilliant sparkle of experience
Is it not a ******, of the story so far, that was today?
Or is it building anticipation of the night yet to come.
Watch the days go, some proud of their accomplishments
Some leaving sighs of disappointments,
Leaving all in awe of its Amaranthine twists and turns
And the fortunate get to see the moon trying to steal the show from setting sun,
Oh she is such a show off, isn’t she, basking in reflected glory
Its magical, the sunset sky, Puzzling, sometimes just like a riddle,
Leaving the nature stunned and amazed
For it has been filling the canvas whole day with colours
And now the sunset threatens to hide them all
And in dark all the colours will be same
A cue for the wise.
Sunset sky has so much to offer,
is she not a fine example of how uncertain a life can be
Often reminding no matter what you planned,
there will be some unexpected returns
For End has its own brain, its own script
Charting its own course
So why just the beginning, every moment of the life should be grand,
meted with equal passion and fervor
She has been so clever; the sunset sky
Leaving Twinkling cryptic messages for the night sky
For even the dark has sparkle and hope if you keep your head up,
A constant reminder that exuberance is an attitude of deep, rich, warm hearts

**I want my sunset sky to be grand,
magical, and full of stories of my life that has been
And its memories to linger on in this world,
in the tomorrow and a few more years to come