Dear Poet Friends, Torin Galleshaw from Charlotte NC, a Member of this Site, had requested me to compose about the Rise of Third *****. Therefore, I have commenced with the causes for its Rise in my Part One posted below. Planning to compose Part Two with ******’s Blitzkrieg campaign of Poland later. It is unfortunate that I am unable to post related Maps & Photos for better appreciation of my Readers! Such options are not available for us here! However, I have managed to post a copy with maps & photos in the E-mail ID of my friend Torin!  Kindly give comments only after reading this researched work of mine, during your spare time.  Thanking you, - Raj, New Delhi.

            STORY OF SECOND WORLD WAR – PART ONE
                            RISE OF THE THIRD *****
                                       By Raj Nandy

                                  INTRODUCTION
In this part I shall mainly deal with the causes leading to the Second World War,
Which had also created favourable conditions for the rise of Third ***** under ******.
The word ‘*****’ derives from old German word ‘rihhi’ meaning ‘realm’;  
But is also used to designate a kingdom or an empire in a broader sense.
Historically, the First ***** was the Medieval Holy Roman Empire which lasted till the end of the 19th Century.
While the Second ***** was the First German Empire from 1871 to 1918, when dynamic Otto Von Bismark had united all of Germany,
Which ended with its defeat in World War One and birth of the Weimar Republic.
The Third ***** refers to the **** German Empire under ******, Which lasted from 1933 till 1945, for twelve traumatic eventful years!
Historians opine that the ending of a war is equally important as
its beginning;
Since the causes for the start of a war is often to be found embedded in its ending!
The First World War came to an end on 28th of June 1919 as we all know.
With the signing of the Treaty at Versailles by the German Foreign Minister Hermann Muller and the ‘Big Four’.  (Britain, France, America, & Italy)
Yet it is rather ironical, that this Peace Treaty of Versailles, considered as President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘brain child’,
Had sowed the seeds of discontent resulting in the outbreak of the Second World War, and Adolf ******’s dramatic rise!

Though several causes are attributed for the outbreak of the Second World War by our Military Historians.
Let me try to summarise those causes which are considered to be more relevant.
Commencing with the harsh Treaty of Versailles, the British and French Policy of Appeasement, followed by Hyperinflation and the Great Depression of 1929, and failure of The League of Nations to maintain peace;  
Are relevant factors which collectively combined resulting in the outbreak of the devastating Second World War, scarring human memories for all time!
But not forgetting ******’s forceful and persuasive eloquence which mesmerised the Germans to rise up as a powerful Nation once again.
Since ****** promised to avenge the humiliation faced by Germany following the Treaty of Versailles,
Which was drawn up with vengeance, and dictated by the victorious Allies!

THE  ARMISTICE  AND TREATY OF VERSAILLES:    
Armistice means a truce for cessation of hostilities, which provides a breathing space for negotiating a lasting peace.
Now the Armistice ceasing the First World War was signed inside the railway carriage of the Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Foch, in the Forest of Compiegne,
On the 11th of November 1919, sixty km north of Paris, between the victorious Allies and vanquished Germany.
But in the meantime naval blockade of Germany had continued, and the German Rhineland was evacuated and partly occupied by the combined Allied troops!
Release of Allied POWs interned civilians followed subsequently; And the Reparations Clause of monetary compensation was strictly imposed on Germany!
Now, following a wide spread German Sailor’s Revolt towards the end of October 1918, Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm-II had abdicated;
And on the 9th of November Friedrich Ebert, as the new Social Democrat President of Germany, authorised his representative to sign the Compiegne Armistice.
We should remember here that this Armistice seeking cessation of hostilities did not stipulate any unconditional surrender;
And the signing of the Armistice by the German Social Democrats, was considered as ‘a stab in the back of the German army’ by majority of the Germans!
These issues get repeatedly mentioned by Adolf ****** in his eloquent speeches subsequently,
To arouse the spirit of German Nationalism, and resurgence of the ‘Master Aryan Race’ of the Germans, - in Germany!

The Versailles Treaty was signed on 28th of June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand which had sparked World War One.
Let me mention few aspects of this Treaty which was detested by the Germans!
Germany lost 13% of its land, 12% of its people, 48% of its iron resources, 15% of its agricultural production, and 10% of its coal, following its implementation!
German army was reduced to 100,000 men, its Navy reduced to 36 ships with no submarines, its Air Force banned, and its union with Austria forbidden.
Now to use a Shakespearean phrase the ‘unkindest cut of all’ came in the shape of Article 231,  the ‘War Guilt Clause’ of the Versailles Treaty,
Which provided the legal basis for the payment of war reparations by Germany.
The reparation amount of 132 billion gold marks (US $33 billion) to cover the civilian damage caused during the war, now had to be paid by Germany!
Thus the humiliation, resentment, and the virtual economic strangulation following the Versailles Treaty,
Was exploited by extremist groups such as ******’s **** Party.
And in the decades to follow, ******’s Nazis would take full control of Germany!

NOTES: Following Versailles Treaty, Alsace-Lorraine captured by Germany in 1870 was returned to France. The SAAR German coalfield region was give to France for 15 yrs. Poland became independent with a corridor to the sea dividing Germany into two. Danzing, a major port in East Prussia, became a free city under the League of Nation. Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, & Czechoslovakia became independent. Industrial area of German Rhineland, forming a buffer zone between Belgium &France,was
demilitarised.

WOODROW WILSON’S  14 - POINT PEACE INITIATIVE  & THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS:
American President Wilson was an idealist and a visionary, who in a speech to the US Congress on 8th Jan 1918,
Introduced a 14 Point Charter as a platform for building global peace, based on the principles of transparency, self-determination, and Democracy.
But for the first time in US history, the Republican-led US Senate rejected this Peace Treaty, and prevented America from joining the newly created League!
The US Senate wanted to retain its sovereignty without external entanglements;
Free from the League of Nation’s political dictates in its foreign commitments!
The Irish immigrants refused to support Wilson's Fourteen Points because Wilson was concerned about stopping WWI, rather than forcing the British to set Ireland free.
Many Jews also refused to back Wilson, since he was paying too much attention to the War, and not enough to the Balfour Declaration of 02 Nov 1917, -
Which promised an Independent Jewish State with a distinct Jewish identity.

The League of Nations had emerged from Wilson’s 14 Points on the 10th Jan 1920, with its HQs at Geneva, Switzerland, but it had no peacekeeping forces those days!
The League had failed to prevent invasion of Chinese Manchuria in 1932 by Japan;
Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935; annexation of Sudetenland and Austria by Germany!
The Axis countries Germany, Italy, and Japan, withdrew from the League subsequently.
Thus the League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 officially!
But President Wilson’s ceaseless efforts for global peace did not go unrecognised,
Since on the 10th of December 1920, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!
While his disbanded League of Nations, as the first global humanitarian organisation,
Continued to survive in spirit with the establishment of United Nations Organisation on the 24th October, 1945.

ECONOMIC CAUSES - FOLLOWED BY THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1929 :
Germany emerged from the First World War with loss of 25,000 square miles of territory;
Loss of seven million inhabitants, and a staggering debt imposed by the Versailles Treaty!
The Wiemar Republic, after abdication of Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm-II  to Holland,
For the first time in German history, established a Democratic Constitution with Friedrich Ebert as its first President.
But The Republic first had to consolidate itself by squashing the Spartacist Revolt of January 1919 led by the extreme Leftists, and inspired by the Russian Bolshevik Communists!
The Freikorps, in March 1920, an Ex-Soldiers Rightist Group, tried to overthrow the Wiemar Republic with support of their Rightist allies and their own veteran troops!
This was soon followed by a Communist attempt to takeover of the Industrial Rhur;
But fortunately, all these uprisings against the Republic were effectively subdued!
But the 33 Billion Dollars of Reparations hung over the Wiemar Republic like the legendary ‘Sword of Damocles’, followed by the Great Depression of 1929;
Coupled with the ‘Policy of Appeasement’ practised by the British and the French;
Became the most important causes for ******’s expansionist ambition and his short- lived meteoric rise to fame!

GERMAN PAPER CURRENCY & HYPERINFLATION:
Gold Mark was the currency used by the German Empire from 1873 to 1914 only.
But to pay for the costs of the ongoing First World War, Germany suspended the gold standard, and decided to fund the war by Borrowings entirely,
Hoping to pay back the loans after Germany achieves Victory.
But having lost the war, and faced with a massive debt imposed by the Allies,
Exchange rate of the Mark against the US Dollar steadily devalued and declined!
Papiermark became the German currency from 04th August 1914 onward, when link between the Mark and gold reserve was abandoned,
In order to pay for the ongoing expenses of the First World War with paper marks, which was constantly being printed!
But later after the war, when the London Ultimatum of May 1921 demanded payment of war reparations in gold or in foreign currency only,
Even more paper marks got printed by the Republic to buy those foreign currency !
By December 1922 hyper-inflationary trends emerged, when the US Dollar became equivalent to 7,400 German Marks, with a 15-fold increase in the cost of living !
By the fall of 1922 when it became impossible for Germany to make further payments,
The French and Belgium armies occupied Germany’s Ruhr Valley area, its prime industrial region!
French and the Belgians hoped to extract payment in kind, but a strike by the workers of the Ruhr area their hopes belied!
The Wiemar Republic printed more paper notes to pay and support the workers of the Ruhr area,
When hyperinflation had peaked at 4,210,500,000,000 German Marks, to a US Dollar!
Paper currency having become worthless, some form of ancient barter system began to be used instead!

STABILISATION OF GERMAN ECONOMY WITH ONSET OF  THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
Following the hyperinflation Chancellor Josef Cuno’s cabinet resigned in August 1923,
When Gustav Stresemann became the new Chancellor of Germany.
Stresemann’s Government had introduced the Rentenmark as a new stable currency,
To end the hyperinflation which had plagued Wiemar Germany.  
Rentenmark was backed by real goods, agricultural land and business,
Since gold was not available in a beleaguered German economy those days!
When One Rentenmark was equivalent to One million, million, old German Mark;
While One US Dollar was equivalent to only 4.2 Rentenmarks.
Though Stresemann’s Government lasted for 100 days only, Stresemann continued to serve as the Foreign Minister in successive Coalition Governments of the Republic,
Till his death in the month of October 1929, but working for the betterment of Germany all the while!
His ‘Policy of Fulfilment’ stabilised German economy with a 200 Million Dollars loan from America under the Dawes Plan in 1924,
Which had also ensured the evacuation of France from the occupied Ruhr area, with their future reparations payments ensured.
Stresemann’s signing of the Locarno Pact in London on 1st Dec 1925 with France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Italy, was considered as his achievement and a feat!
Since it made Germany to enter the League of Nations ensuring stability and peace;
While the Noble Peace Prize was awarded to Stresemann for his efforts in 1926!
Later, the Young Plan of 1929 further reduced German reparations payment by 20%, while extending the time frame for the payments to 59 years!
But following a sudden Wall Street Stock Market Crash in late October of 1929,
The American Banks were forced to recall money from Europe and the Young Plan;.
Which created acute financial distress when unemployment soared to 33.7%  in Germany in 1931, and quickly rose to 40% during the following year!
Lausanne Conference was held in Switzerland in 1932 by Great Britain, Germany, and France, to further reduce the War Debts imposed by the Versailles Treaty.
But in Dec 1932, the US Congress had rejected this Allied War Debt Reduction Plan completely.
However, no further payments were made by Germany due to the Great Depression;
And by 1932, Germany had paid only 1/8 of the total sum required to be paid as per their pending wartime reparations!

NOTES: Rentenmark was issued on 15 October 1923 to stop the hyperinflation in Wiemeer Germany. Reichmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 to 20 June 1948 in West Germany , when it was replaced by the Deutsche Mark; but had continued in East Germany until 23 June when it was replaced by East German Mark.
During the Stresemann Years of Stability from 1924 to 1929, (prior to the onset of the Great Depression), with help of American financial aid, created more housing & production in Germany. Dada & Expressionist Art forms flourished, followed by modern architecture; also the Philosophy of Existentialism of Thomas Mann – influenced the Western culture. Paul Whiteman's Band for the first time brought in American Jazz to Germany, and Jazz signified the liberation of German youth and women folks of the younger generation generally. But the US Stock Market Crash had unfortunately ended this short lived euphoria, and as it soon became a global phenomena!                                


FAILURE OF THE WIEMAR REPUBLIC & THE GREAT DEPRESSION WHICH BENEFITED THE NAZIS:
Last Days of Wiemar Republic:
Ever since Otto Von Bismarck that ‘Man of iron and steel’, united Germany into a single Empire in the year Eighteen Hundred & Seventy One,
For the first time a Constitution for a Parliamentary Democracy was drawn up in August 1919, in the eastern German city of Wiemar.
Wiemar was the intellectual centre of Germany associated with musicians like Franz List, and writers like Goethe and Schiller.
The Wiemar Republic of Germany which had lasted from 1919 till 1933 had seen,
20 different Coalition Governments, with frequent elections and changing loyalties!
Due to a system of proportional representations, and the presence of very many political parties those days,  
No single party could obtain absolute sole majority in the Reichstag Parliament!
The longest Coalition Govt. was under Chancellor Bruning, which had lasted for only 2 years and 61 days!     (From 30 March 1930 to 30 May 1932)
Now, to understand the reasons for the failure to maintain a Democratic form of Government by the Wiemar Republic,
It becomes necessary to monitor its ‘dying gasps’ during its closing years so to speak!
Since faced with the economic depression Chancellor Bruning had worsened the unemployment situation by adopting stringent and unpopular measures!
Thereby having lost popular political support, Bruning with the approval of President Hindenburg, invoked emergency powers under Article 48, to survive his last few months and years!
During the years 1931 and 1932  it is seen, Bruning had used this Emergency Clause 44 and 66 times respectively!
Thus his so-called ‘Presidential form of Govt.’ had undermined Wiemar Democracy!
If Burning was the ‘Republic’s Undertaker’, now remains a debatable issue of History!
But Burning’s vigorous campaign made Hindenburg to get re-elected as the President;
Thereby he had removed the defeated Adolf ****** out of the Presidential race!
Therefore, later when ****** became the Chancellor on 30 Jan 1933, Bruning had very wisely fled from Germany!

Following Bruning’s resignation in May 1932 came Chancellor Papen’s ‘Cabinet of Barons’ consisting of individuals who were not members of the German Reichstag!
While in the election of July 1932 ******’s **** Party won 230 seats, making it the largest party in the Reichstag.
But ****** refused to form a coalition with Papen, because he wanted to become the Chancellor himself !
Now General von Schleicher advised President Hindenburg that the German Army,
Would not accept Papen’s use of Article 48 to remain as the Chancellor of Germany!
Therefore following Papen’s resignation, Schleicher took over on the 04th of December 1932 as the new German Chancellor.
Schleicher tried to restore a democratic form of government to get the Wiemar Republic back on its feet.
But in the ensuing political power struggle Papen wanted to take revenge on Schleicher for his removal from power and defeat.
So Papen persuaded Adolf ****** to become the Chancellor, and retain for himself the post of Vice-Chancellor.
In doing so, Papen mistakenly thought that he would be able to reign in the self-assertive Adolf ******!
Papen finally made President Hindenburg agree to his proposal, and on 30th of Jan 1933,
****** became the New Chancellor, with approval of the President!
A month later a sudden fire in the Reichstag made ****** invoke Article 48, in order to squash the suspected Left Wing Communists;
But while doing so, the Press was muzzled, and many Civil Rights of the German people were abolished, inclusive of their right of assembly and free speech!
****** acted swiftly, and by passing the Enabling Act on 23 March, 1933, armed himself  with dictatorial powers for enacting laws without the approval of the Reichstag whenever necessary!
Thereby ****** threw Democracy to History’s wasteland most unfortunately!
Following the death of Hindenburg on 29 June 1934, ****** combined the powers of the President and the Chancellor, and became known as the FUHRER!
Historians generally agree the Enabling Act of 1933, as the date for establishment of The German Third *****.

THE POLICY OF APPEASEMENT AND GERMAN AGGRESSION:
The horrors of trench warfare with the rattling of machine guns and bursting of poisonous nerve gas shells,
Even after 20 years remained fresh, in the minds of all World War One participants!
Therefore, it was natural for British and French Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier initially,
To grant political and material concessions to an aggressive Germany, for the sake of peace and stability.
Thus the diplomatic stance of Appeasement between 1935 and 1939 followed by the French and the British, was mainly to avoid another dangerous armed conflict!
But the trusting Mr. Chamberlain had underestimated ******, who had served in the German Army as a Corporal, winning the Iron Cross during the last Great War!
****** was not afraid of war, but wanted to avenge the Treaty of Versailles and its punitive dictated peace;
And also establish for the superior German Aryan race a lasting Third *****!
Therefore, having consolidated his power as the Fuhrer along with his trusted **** Party cronies, he withdrew from the League of Nations in October 1933.
Introduced conscription in March 1935 in Germany, and embarked on a mission to rebuild a new modernised German Army for combat on land, air, and sea!
In March 1936, in another open violation of the Versailles Treaty, ****** re-occupied the demilitarised Rhineland, followed by a Treaty of Alliance with Japan and Italy.
The much desired Anschluss (or merger) with Austria, the country of birth of ******,
Saw the German Army in March 1938, triumphantly and peacefully marching into Vienna!
Now with the Munich Conference of 19 September 1938, this Policy of Appeasement is said to have reached its climatic peak!
The Sudetenland area, consisted of 3 million Germans were made
to join Czechoslovakia when the frontiers were drawn in 1918-19,
Much against the wishes of the Germans!
When ****** wanted to annex this Sudetenland area, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, met at Munich to diffuse an explosive situation peacefully.
It was agreed at Munich that once Sudetenland joins Germany, ****** will not invade Czechoslovakia and honour the terms of peace.
But on 15th March 1939, in violation of the Munich Agreement, ******’s army invade and occupied Czechoslovakia, thereby openly flouting the Policy of Appeasement!

NOTES: ******’s desire for ‘LEBENSRAUM’ or ‘increase of living space’ for the Germans, commenced with his ‘Border Wars’, which soon turned into a Global War because of the ‘appeasement policy’ of the Allies. ****** had secured his Eastern Front with a treaty with the Stalin, since fighting on two fronts would have been very difficult for the Germans.

Now when ******’s army invaded Poland on 1st of September 1939, it became ‘the last straw on the camel’s back’ for the Western Allies!
Committed to the Anglo-Polish Defence Pact of 25 August, 1939, both Britain and France declared war on Germany,
Which I propose to narrate in Part Two of my Second World War Story.  
The Policy of Appeasement no doubt gave some time for Britain, to regain its depleted military strength,  but Adolf ****** had viewed it as a sign of weakness!
With Russia and America initially as non-participants, ****** became more confident and arrogant!
Thereby turning his border wars into a global conflagration lasting six long years.
When the use of advanced technology, resulted in greater loss and casualties;  
Which was followed by the holocaust and unprecedented human suffering!
I would like to conclude my present narration with a poem by English soldier-poet Seigfried Sassoon, who participated in the First World War on the Western Front.

DREAMERS  -  by Siegfried Sassoon
Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal ****** with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with ***** and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
…………………………………………………………………………
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
  *ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY

Bride of the desert
the indomitable town
Solomon’s Kingdom

            
Lost in history, I wander through a city that was fortified by King Solomon, raided by Mark Antony and ruled by Queen Zenobia who made it the capital of an empire, only to be captured herself and paraded through Rome in gold chains.

Civilisation upon civilisation are entombed within Tadmur; in a huge plain of carved stone blocks, massive columns arched in rows or standing alone, a Romanesque theatre, senate and baths, dominated by a great temple whose origin dates back four thousand years.

Due to a clever mistranslation from Arabic by the euro-centric traveller who ‘discovered’ Palmyra, the city also has a modern name.

Here for millennia, a tribe of Bedu have camped within the folds of these desert steppes and blackened Tadmur’s ruins with their camp fires, to trade camels or herd goats and sheep. Walking the divide between city, desert and the more fertile steppes, I search for their surviving descendants and find a black woven goat’s hair tent with its edges raised to capture a cooling breeze.

Hamed and his sons, huge and wary of foreigners, welcome me to sit within on  carpets and then graciously serve dates with innumerable small glasses of tea. I indicate ‘enough’ in the traditional manner by rolling my right hand and the empty glass. Hamed continues to voice his concerns about the lack of feed for their sheep and the prices achieved at market. I readily succumb to several small cups of greenish Arabic coffee, before being allowed to take my leave.

For millennia the wealth of this city was based on tariffs levied on goods flowing out of the desert aboard swaying camel caravans. Today, these once proudly fierce tribal Bedu no longer breed, train or ride camels.

The Bedu greatly prize their reputation and the respect of their peers. Their traditions are the foundation of these small tribal communities and may predate Islam;  a life now undermined by borders, nationalism, government settlement plans, conscription, war, television and tourism.
                                         *+     +     +      +      +

Black torn empty shells
swept by Mount Lebanon’s shade
Cannabis Valley

As I recall a haiku of ‘images’ of  my very first journey to Damascus, from war-torn Beirut through the lushness of the Bekaa;

in the here and now
a dark suit and Mercedes
cross the Euphrates

Defence Minister, Rifaat al-Assad is in town with his fifty thousand strong Defence Companies, complete with tanks, planes and helicopters.  A coup d’état is in progress to assure Rifaat’s succession to the Presidency of his older brother Hafiz al-Assad, now recovering from a heart attack.

Last year, Rifaat massacred some forty thousand Syrian citizens when he ordered the shelling of the city of Hama. Nobody in Damascus will be underestimating him.

All political and military power is in the hands of the al-Assads and key generals, who command the military and police. The majority of whom are of the Alawite minority Muslim faith from the rural districts near Latakia in the North. Before their revolution, governments came and went in weeks.

My friend Elias is allied to Rifaat’s cause, by simply doing business with the son. Now he and his family share the risks and dangers of this coup failing and stand to lose a fortune. Monies paid locally in Syrian pounds for goods delivered to government agencies.

Elias’s connection with Rifaat and Latakia, as well as his confident presence, humour and love of life, still allows us easy access to the Generals’ Club. Sadly, there is to be no table and floorshow, but a closed meeting with two senior Generals, where we learn that Hafiz has recovered enough to take charge and is now locked in discussions with his younger brother.

The decision is therefore made for us. We say our goodbyes and drive to Latakia.

On Sunday Elias meets his brothers, then with his family, we visit his parents small holding and enjoy a meal together. A wonderful fresh mezza that includes my favourite, courgettes stuffed with ground lamb and rice, in a yogurt sauce. Syrian food is amazingly healthy and my cuisine of choice.

It is a cloudless Monday morning, as I, Elias, his wife and children drive into the docks to board an old 46 foot motor cruiser. Huge cases are stowed as I make my inspection, then start the twin diesels and switch on the over-the-horizon radar. Our early departure is critical. We cast off and the Mate steers for the harbour entrance below the cliffs that guard it. As the Mediterranean lifts our bow in greeting, the disembodied voice of the Harbour Master tells us to return as we do not have permission to sail.

Ignoring the order, I increase our speed through the short choppy surf. We are sailing under the Greek Cypriot flag and in an hour I hope to be out of territorial waters.  At 14 knots we are a slow target.

Fifteen nautical miles from the coast of Syria, I leave the mate to follow a bearing for Larnaca. Elias has opened a bottle of Black Label. I quaff a glassful.

Later noticing a noisy vibration and diagnosing a bent prop shaft, I shut down the starboard engine. Our speed is now a steady 8 knots, so I decide on a new heading to discern more quickly the shadow of the Cypriot coastline on the radar screen.

Midway, the mate and Elias begin babbling about a small vessel ahead and four separate armoured boxes encircling it. Ugly Israeli high speed gun boats or worse, Lebanese pirates. Should they board us and find stowed riches, we will be killed.

Leaving the Mate to maintain our course, I go on deck to play the ‘European Owner’.  The vessel they have trapped is long and lean with three tall outboard motors but no crew are in sight.  Leaving them astern, our choice of vessel now fully exonerated, I and Elias throw another whisky ‘down the hatch’.

With us holding the correct bearing, I ask Elias to wake me as soon as we near Cyprus. Feeling utterly exhausted I collapse into a bunk.  

I wake unbidden, to find the Mate steering for the harbour entrance. Shouldering him aside, I spin the wheel to bring the vessel about. Shaking, I ask them why there are minarets on the ‘church’ and did they not notice our being observed from the top of the harbour's hillock, below which a fast patrol boat is anchored?  The Mate sprints to the Greek Cypriot flag and is hugging it to his chest; Elias wisely prays.

I command the wheel as we motor directly away from the port of Famagusta and Turkish held Northern Cyprus. We later change bearing and pass tourist beaches, it is night fall before we moor-up in Larnaca.
                                         +     +     +      +      +


Later that same year I am called to a last urgent meeting in Cyprus with Elias. He calmly tells me that he will be arrested when he rejoins his family, who have returned to Syria. Elias asks me to take full control of his Cypriot Businesses, then returns home and ‘disappears’ with his brothers.
                                         +     +     +      +      +


Since sacking the two Arab General Managers when they tried to get control of the bank accounts, it has taken more than six months to locate the prison holding all the brothers. We obtain the release of all except Elias, who has been tortured.  We then ‘purchase’ him the exclusive use of the Prison Governor's quarters and twenty four hour access for Elias’s family, nurses and doctors.
                                         +     +     +      +      +


Over the last two years, I have honoured my promises and expanded trade as far as Pakistan. Elias is still imprisoned.
                                         *+     +     +      +      +

Dropped off in a desert.
Combat uniform tight against me.
Sweat gripping my skin in a desperate plea
For sanity to return, so I may escape.
Gunfire stutters its loud whispers of death against my eardrums.
Explosions drown out screams. My own?
I blink. The dust engulfs my body as I writhe on the ground;
Fetal position my permanent placement.
Longing for the ground to swallow me whole,
To the comfort of death's womb.
Cries of, "Get the hell up! What are you? This is a man's war!"
I get up.
The gun at my side like an old man's artificial hip;
Comfort and support in an unstable land.
I look at the chaos and depravity around me.
This is supposed to be Heaven to me,
Yet the combat boots feel too heavy.

if you can find c. g. jung writing an answer to the biblical Hiob, i can be found writing this... or as the Lad Bible states: be your superficial you... so when she's not her superficial self... you can just play the awkward monotone speaking caveman that you weren't before she played you that superficial card of hers to tone down your interests.

you know why i'm fascinated with schizophrenics?
primarily because they are concerned with
an inorganic medical condition,
there are, absolutely, no reasons to suggests they
are organically prone to premature degeneracy,
they are what the Alzheimer old man calls an angel,
and what the "angel" experiences from time to time...
to cite a non-typical schizoid experience -
a splinter in the mind?
when i wrote my previous poem, i was listening
to the song *the parting glass throughout,
on and on and on... the rhythm took over...
and when the "poem" was finished i retracted myself
into my room and first played auld lang syne
(with lyrics and English translation)...
                           and then... the pure instrumental
of knee-deep-bagpie... bagpipes, sure, horrid,
screeching drowning-lungs of magpie
cackling cut short into a carbonated highland water...
     oh don't worry, what this comes down to
is personal experience, such negations of ease
are not like the black plague, or a.i.d.s.,
they don't come into contact with purely-riddle
human incompetence... it takes more than that...
certain conditions are not viral...
you can't interpreted them as political malevolence
akin to a political movement... primarily because
the numbers don't add up...
                    the complexity of thought is
the complexity of regarding the mind as an abstract
of the brain, given the brain has no accuracies
concerning abstraction when stated against being automated
to a pair of kidneys... i too wish for a La La Land sometimes...
but that's not the reason people allow ***** donations...
     but you know, it really gripped me,
i wrote that poem, listening to the parting glass,
and felt nothing, nothing... because i was so
formulated to write what i wrote...
  i wrote the last bit, walked into my room,
and played the second version of auld lang syne...
the royal scots dragoon guards pure instrumental...
   and you get to weep these cold tears
after an insomniac cold shivers getting warmer with whiskey...
              and whimper and bite your bottom lips...
because you're hardly a woman fainting
and the drama isn't in you...
               and it's actual tears...
people laugh and cry saharan tears, meaning: it never
rains over it...   i see Sahara as the ancient version
of the Himalayan mountain range, suddenly reduced
because god is fickle and well, aren't we all?
           if any of us are alive to read or speak such
encodings... there will be a desert made from
the Himalayas that will be called the Himalaya -
but that's really being optimistic.
       there used to be mountains, mountains in
north Africa, Gandalf! but they crumbled in deserts!
where once a mountain range, subsequently a desert...
where now a desert, once a mountain range.
can i please get a taxi to leave this current
history and Darwinistic revisionism of it as telling
us ape Adam had more psychology about him than
Charles XIV? i want to hear the geological version
of Darwinism! but am i hearing any of it? n'ah ah.
       so yes, upon hearing the scotch dragoon guards
pipe a full whiskey sodden breath into the
         bagpi - i heard the word counter to my scrambled
narrative... king... king?!
                   which is what's bewildering about
a medical term deemed premature dementia...
   it's an organic impossibility...
but given society is an inorganic organism
and all our socio-political mechanisms aren't exactly
organic, there might be some sense in this piquant
dabble in an auditory hallucinogenic experience -
which, evidently, people find frightening,
since they occupy defining their thinking with
hearing so much, and when seeing a homeless man
think so little...
                     logic? a particular arrangement of words
that does not provide kind rubrics for the testimony of
the many...
                    i can hallucinate this auditory "addition"
and competently go on my daily business,
or my nightly business finishing a bottle of scottish amber...
some people cannot...
                 what i see it western society predicating
their poor knowledge of Alzheimer's as if searching
for some genius to explain what happens to the abstract
functions of what the brain represents
                 in terms of how the brain and abstraction
can't be cleanly separated, i.e. to treat the degeneracy
of the brain as succumbed to, but not succumbing to
the elaborated foundations of the "brain"
within the trans-physical functions of the "brain"
within a framework of memory, vocabulary, memory.
people first attribute the brain with too much
           concern for abstraction when in fast the driving
force for abstraction is the now-vogue zeitgeist
"psyche does not exist" -
                            and when the brain degenerates like
a heart or a kidney can... people start to freak
out propping out a Frankenstein revival that brain
cannot in-act upon...
                                 they told us the brain is fat...
          then they tell us only 0%, or fat-free yoghurts are
good... isn't the case for the epidemic of dementia
due to the fact that we're censoring fat?
what feeds the brain? fat! what are we censoring from
our diets? fat! fat free ******* yoghurt!
                             where does the modern epidemic
stem from? censoring fat! you anorexic ******* morons!
  you know why i put extra fat in the way i cook
meals, you know what orthodox cooks tend to
like a sizzle of a lump of lard? brain food...
     and yes, some call it eating a lot of nuts...
well then... fry me a ribs-eye steak on a handful of
cashew nuts you crazy *******!
            this is what drives me crazy concerning
auditory hallucinogenic experiences...
there are no drugs that you could ever sell that people
would buy to experience an auditory hallucination...
primarily because people made thought
   an auditory experience...
                  that's the norm, i'm not talking Walt Disney
here... and people enjoy music because it feeds the heart
in a way averse to images that feed the libido
or dreaming...
    the point being, my "hallucinatory" experience lasted
for less than a second... some ***** on l.s.d. trips
for half a day because he finds modern movies boring
and finally gets to appreciate cubist contortion
mechanisations... i can do more damage with a second's
worth of "auditory" hallucination than that little
hippy can do away with 12 hours, and only end up
writing a haiku thinking he can suddenly conjure up
spirits of Shinto like some Gilgamesh *** Bruce Springsteen;
then he shaves his hair and travels to Mongolia
to learn the index against the lips motorboating
harmonica... and i end up saying: thank you;
cos it wouldn't be twangy without that kind of a tranquiliser
to stabilise excitement beyond encoding sounds.
          i can tell you how ******-up my internal
narrative has become, so i'm defeatist,
here's how it looks like when i get agitated...
               writing on a white flag...
      oh look: wavy! wavy! i'm waving it...
going boats full of nuts and bananas!
             you ever hear the story of a psychiatrist
jumping on a table and barking when a conscription
  cadet tried to fake being mad?
      she did what i just wrote and asked H. Clinton
to reiterate on the campaign trail.
                    inauguration 2017:
   i solemnly swear, that H. Clinton barked like a ruffian
poodle on the campaign trail.
  beside the point though, schizophrenia is an inorganic
manifestation of an actual organic degeneracy -
it's a negation-of-ease for dangerous people...
     people who probably have a music taste outside
the top 40 best selling albums (let alone singles)...
                   and they're quick to pick up on this grey area
concerning premature depression...
                it's trendy these days... people who are melancholic
are people who are like Homer, wrote the Odyssey
went blind from making too much heroism from
      the cannibalism at the gates of Troy and couldn't
handle telling a single lie after having written such an epic...
   or as Virgil convened: Paris didn't escape,
Aeneid did... no one knows what happened to Paris,
       probably choked on a raisin or something:
it's ancient history, if you're not going to talk about it
in a callous manner, then be prepared for careless mannerisms:
pout, **** *** cheek, shelfie!
               what i am seeing is this quote:
a butterfly on the Galapagos Islands... a Tornado in
Colorado... the poetics of quantum physics,
or misplaced potentials of counter-quantifiable
simultaneous counter-interpretations...
    the butterfly effect? under the umbrella corporate
otherwise known, from ancient times: a metaphor.
hey, we started reading into hydrocarbons,
there's no way to talk easy for us...
                           for all my love for one inspiration,
i lost my love for him when he said that not tying your
shoelaces (i.e. spelling) was because he thought it was
indoctrination... you know who i mean: Mr. Chow Chewski...
   spelling? that's like tying your shoelaces!
         question is... who would ingest a hallucinogenic
drug that didn't utilise the multi-coloured world to
an excessive amount to be prescribed, say, an U.V.
phosphorescent spectrum of seeing... when, given all
that... sound occupies this realm of b & w?
               who could create an auditory hallucinogenic?
can you imagine it?
                             most people with a weakened cognitive
membrane would go nuts... as the case has been proven
many a times...
        but given the fact that no such hallucinogenic exists,
or that "auditory" / cognitive hallucinations are
disregarded even though Descartes stressed this
   notion of a substance / thought, and an extension /
       sensual disparities with regards to cohesive uniformity,
i.e. regarding over-stressing a particular sense
      and never reaching a former cohesion...
           can only mean a circumstance later described
by Kant within the framework of the noumenon -
    i.e. perhaps you've seen too much, but heard too little...
perhaps you've tasted too much, but had barely a sniff of
                  more...
        the original thought when exposed to a cohesion
of uniformed senses, experiencing a discohesion of
             a presupposed sensual "uniformity",
returns back into a form of thought, i.e. an extension...
                only because the thing in question is a
presupposition, not a supposition that can be countered
with a proposition, i.e. since we all made mistakes
presupposing, we have become prone to propositions to
suppose otherwise... in terse terms: invent politics.
so what i termed "auditory" and "hallucination"
and conflated them in a prefix of cognitive-, in consolidation
i meant to say that: once all presuppositions (thoughts)
disappear by the miraculous ape that man either is
or wishes himself to still be... and we deem to say:
   reality...                 we only have suppositions (extensions)
               that appear...
                         by the miraculous ape that man never
was and wishes himself to nonetheless be:
  in that consolidatory ref. to the last trinity of Cartesian
thought: substance - in the former the formation
of will... in the latter the complete lack of it -
                              to the simpler scenarios,
we already have knowledge of prisons and asylums...
            because internalising such possible scenarios
never leaves the many to be grafting such possibilities
with enough calm as to persevere for the sole purpose
of understanding, as what point can a noumenon-unit
enter the argument if not from a reflex
                       as this continued narration explains...
none of this was reflected upon...
reflection in such circumstances usually means weaving
a machete at your neighbour...
                                  the noumenon-unit
the ping-pong factor in all of this is a reflex action...
         not a reflective action...
               i am no king no more than i am a pauper...
   now imagine if i tripped for 12 hours on l.s.d.,
having extracted so much, from an "auditory" "hallucination",
that, in the realm of the mind, is neither a minute,
nor a second, nor a nanosecond...
               it's unitary equivalent is simply that of: a word.

civilisation abhors thought that it cannot vocalise,
and therefore monitise - it abhors it! it vilifies such
thinking as a form of mental  illness, or something akin
to such a statement; talk to any psychiatrist
and he'll tell you that psychiatry is, quiete frankly:
a variation of demonology - shadow people -
the "retards" everyone is quickly to defend
but easily strap into death-rollercoster rides
and the famous bon voyage adieu salute!
civilisation stamps it down, as i already said, abhors it,
whenever cancer is involved is a hellraising
fundraiser moment... come the sickness of the mind?
or the abstracted brain: we have parasite,
tapeworm people.
     and all because of our own cause in having created
the skivvy like residuals to brush under the
carpet of what's otherwise glitter:
   people who are without narrative:
                    without the marathon fundraiser public:
a macho personification of how to abuse
state authority but never wishing to do so:
but nonetheless being punished for it.

the central figure? fiction isn't written these days,
take a break, come back later.
        if you can't be honest now: you will never
be honest in a hundred years: forget it!
but you know what i find? sniffer dog that i am:
i find people like *Faustino Barrientos
a.k.a. not Pablo Neruda - and god i'm jealous,
there's this pristine exemplified variant of Adam
and i'm petrified with jealousy at
his 45 years of solitude in Chile -
               i'm mad by it,
why? because the so-called civilised world has
literally cut off all my limbs to embody such
a life: my grandfather and my father lived
under the laws of conscription auto-suggested
by the rubric of social preliminary bulletpoints:
i'm jealous of them too!
              i'm an Auschwitz shaven bearded
"thinker", no good to society that needs rigour
of appearing nice and selling bull's *******:
i wish i was (most of the time),
       i got a chemistry degree and was told to
work in a supermarket... there goes my love for
learning:
                i am, evidently, a pseudo-hermit,
self-imposed isolation but still seeing people:
or as i like to call them: ghosts - in close
proximity; now, if ever anti-social behaviour went
on unpunished, i'd be a gladdened example
of such feralness.
                    oddly enough, atheists are cultured
creatures,
                 but, not oddly enough: they have
nothing enabling them with self-preservation;
the argument goes along the lines of self- (hyphen
opening necessary)... as a prescribed form of
automation... in a variety of guises:
         this hermit from Chile has nothing of this
sort, he simply has a godly competence of
the environment, someone like Christopher Hitchens
can walk into a crowded space and give you
theological nausea -
              because could you find enough whiskey
metabolism while shearing sheep and
milking cows? no! atheism is a placebo of what
is otherwise an individualistic stance of
being an individual within a herd -
and what an almighty cold turkey experience we've
been given after Nietzsche killed god:
we're going cold turkey -
               we're theologically cold turkey -
we are still living in rehab, bad move to do it
so quickly: history on amphetamines sort of speak...
             a dichotomy of priestly attire
and politicians all suited tied and booted as
the grey matter: where are the ******* rainbows?
hence the persistence to relapse into hippy,
while adolescence succumbs to nothing more than
a medical circus frenzy: of nature's own:
                          getting rid of the weakest like
one might throw out an out-of-date yoghurt.
  all good and well with that montage of atheism
being the zeitgeist fashion statement -
    but there is no atheism outside of the civilised world:
there's the purity of the self-        automation:
or adaptability to the environment -
only once congregated there was the imposed:
the non-existence of.
                      because it was trendy to speak like that,
we established a cohabitating necessity as
a species and then tried to fake that necessity by
differentiating with enough intellectual sweat to
distance ourselves with a counter-argument:
i.e. not self-   as in automation because of the ever
changing weather and organic octopus auxiliary attachments
for the worth of grit:
                     but a self-    (unit of automation)
   to fill the world with an almost inaccessible
perpetuation of the narrative - but this civilised self-
                 as variant of automation
toward self-sufficiency and independence is completely
lacking in the civilised world!
     we treat people like ****! waiter! cashiers!
                     bus drivers!
         i endear you to think that in the collective of
what's known as the civilised world: the hermit does not,
exist! there is no self- to speak of,
               try milking a cow or lumbering along with Jack:
it ain't there! we're a bankruptcy in terms of limbs!
        well sure: i write, and immediately i'm
in a mess because i like to study -
     which means poetry or poetry aspiring to
philosophy is inherently useless... so is civilisation!
   tribalism has no need for money: because it
has community: cannibalistic or not... is still has
a collective need to survive - unless of course you
remember the civilised world and all those
experimental fetishes to get you starcast with a moovie.
so this Chilean guy, 40 years a hermit,
     and then this article in the Sunday Times
news review section: driven to distraction -
             and my notes as graffiti after reading it:
we are a second behind goldfish online (8 seconds
with cat videos) - goldfish are 9 seconds into
watching bubbles, and then creative dementia
     doing the plateau incremental snap: re re re.
the god does not exist argument is founded on
a banking system: it's the most viable way to make
an argument that provides wages -
          no other reason for it,
or: as according to the Chilean nomad Faustino
Barrientos, begin with the self- unit
                of self-determination and sustenance:
otherwise don't bother arguing that sort of argument
without undermining the collective Disney index
of the people: who are incompetent at ruling themselves
then they congregate to give birth to a Picasso,
end of!
              so just because i studied the sciences i can't
be persuaded to an ulterior version of humanism:
i swear, Kant said that there was nothing nobler than
to concern yourself with god... or an argument for
such a being... maybe i'm misreading things:
after all... it's not all that fashionable to say such things:
because never was sane sensibility akin to Jane Austen
for ******* despicable as to read Jane Eyre.
              well sure, i have my "furthering" notes,
from the trenches of the devil's sulphuring *******...
         again: that statement "god is dead"?
is effectively going cold turkey... shutting off all
the superstitious metabolism of the past: oh, 20 centuries.
   sure, the Anglo Renaissance came, Elvis too,
       but the repercussions of what we "experienced"
at the height of the latter part of the 20th century?
unreplicable, gone, dust, sniff the actual grey dust
death of ash... it's not coming back: here my pessimism
and valour in the name of comedy - realism
and the very mortal hand of the extinguished flame:
it's gone! done!
                and it ain't, coming back with a backlash of
infuriated rigour to keep afloat: or return to / replenish.
  it's gone!  mind you, Heath could also be
included in this ode that celebrates necessary
obscurity of the Chilean to my jealous fancy as having
perfected survival skills.
             but this cold turkey debacle over the death
of god penetrates former colonial, hence post-colonial
societies: it affects the youth.
                  it suggests a quickened pretense of
diminished responsibility within a framework of
the lack of all things "karmic":
sure, so history is without a continuum to ensure
there's transgression for every transcendence
and we all live in an Utopian scenario of
immovable mountains: maybe that's why we're
no longer writing history but historiography:
and there is a distinction:
the former is actually angling and fishing -
the other is counting the number of skiving salmon
dreaming of wings rather than gills out
of the river.
                     among the other observations?
or apathy without origin in blissful thinking,
statement A.
     can you imagine anything more apprehensively
digested that reaching the conclusion:
a- + -pathos (without pathology)
                                 can be interpreted negatively?
negative thinking prior to reaching the consolidation
that apathy is, well: most people treat that as
an abnormality.
                     (if i ever wrote a self-help book,
i'd write one like this).
              you go past bulimia, past self-harm,
past all the negative bull and reach a state of apathy,
a non-disconcerted attunement toward feeling:
but you have been chiseling with your thought
at all the unpardonable negativism of your
identifiable physiognomy from genealogical nuance:
you seem to want to replicate an ancestry -
your heart will not tell you to **** yourself:
but find enough automaton curriculum in your
thinking: and your own mind will slothfully entice
you with a thinking sidewinder that aims at the
guillotine, or the gallows.
                   and after all that negative thinking,
you reach apathy, or being without a pathology?
and you feel an emptiness?
             don't expect to be Nepalese -
your ancestry forbids it...
                        you didn't reach a Buddhist apathy,
you didn't start from a zenith: but from a nadir,
tattooed with so many pathologies:
to reach apathy you had to transcend them:
       this is the bit were i say, concerning your heart:
it's a bit like a Cartesian cogito ergo sum moment.
talking about going beyond:
ever think that foundation of ontology is grammatically
based, if not biased?
        i limit this question toward grammatical
categorisation of words...
      primarily? the usual questions:
why are we here?
                       how? (well, that's outdated
'cos we have all the answers and that leverages our
greatest dissatisfaction, even in terms of writing
a new version of Don Quixote, which we can't).
                i devalue grammatical categorisation
altogether, i don't believe in it,
            for example why is categorised as
both adverb and conjunction... to me synonyms
don't exist in grammar, why is therefore only
an adverb...
              how? also an adverb... (ad- + -verb
         toward an action) - thus toward the municipality
of professions: but that's not a moral question.
       why is also an int. (interjection) and n. (noun) -
all it takes is a missing h to completely it as a noun
(unless of course the Oxford dictionary is wrong,
and i'm not Shylock Holmes)...
             what i am focusing on is the word
is, which is grammatically categorised as a conjunction,
and so it is, and so that is, and so this is:
       that's a canvas for me: mirror mirror, on the wall:
who will the the fairest of them all once i stop
asking the question with rose petals in mind being
plucked in that fateful lottery?
                         i don't care why, i already have
a good enough estimate as to how...
                          i base my ontology (nature of being)
upon the is...
                        where there was jungle, there too is
another jungle made of concrete -
and i don't trust the Quran: it makes grammar too
inaccessible, too holy even,
             you tell me the naked truth of the grammar,
i'll put on a ******* Hijab and prance to the tune
of le trio joubran's song masar down a street:
the weeping man of Amsterdam, two German chefs
tripping out on mushrooms while watching
American Dad in a darkened hostel room,
   and an Egyptian architectural student i spent
the afternoon with; otherwise? don't bother.
      and it really is great how is can't be an adverb
and merely a conjunction (well, "merely"),
      there is nothing that requires is to be a limitation,
or a necessary morphing into: toward doing / being
something... everything just, is;
and if it wasn't for Shia Islam you'd get **** all Sufi...
maybe a Falafel kebab, but **** all apart from that.
                    of course i'd side with the ****** Iranians
on this matter...
                                i can't live without music,
for fare game to Faustino Barrientos, but i can't live
without music, and Wahabbism doesn't recognise
music:      never was hearing a camel hart or a
merchant burp or a woman ****** seem so appealing,
and worthy to fight for! (italics for the sarcasm).
do you think that if i clap my hands for a year
i'll hear a minute's worth of Wagner?
                                         (snigger): probably not.

.reiteration... em.. you're not internet providers... are you?! the best you'll ever be, is, software *******... you're about as invested in hardware, as the mafia is invigorated by mainstream politics...******* wankers... you what?! huh?! censorship?! who's supplying you with the copper wires?! you?! ha ha ha ha! how about getting leg ***** by a mongrel tongue... and considering your type of companies, as, serious, "mediators"... no hardware... just a software monopoly... ******* **** wasps! you almost want to cannibalize their presence! like... ever taste bone marrow? these "companies"... are teasing a taste of bone marrow! i want to eat something... these, companies, forgot, that, they're, not, service, providers! d'uh! and they're making the dicta?! inch copper **** making all the rules... what rules?! they don't make the rules... they're not hardware enforcers! they block my presence, i subsequently return to over-exemplifying using the scissors, counter the computer! yeah?!

em...
but you're not BT...
British Telecommunications?
the hell is up with these
software nuggets?!
how can google,
facebook,
youtube, ban, someone...
when they pay...
for their hardware provider?
did, said companies,
pay, for the copper wires?!
i'm pretty sure the answer is
no...
    unless you've not been banned
by authentic internet providers,
but, rather,
banned by content creation
mediums?!
       **** 'em!
           **** 'em silly!
         they do not actually
own access to internet
provision, i.e. ACCESS...
they do not own
the armory
of copper wiring....
that connects the dots...
*******!
BT or SKY or ******
pulls the plug,
you're all out!
             you get the
differential "bias" against
the format of software
contra hardware?
no?
            there are,
internet, providers...
there is the hardware of
occupational hardware user basis...
these companies...
censoring...
have a software stature,
without a hardware status...
   want to rephrase the thesaurus
to concern yourself
with legislative phraseology?
      really?
     me? can't be bothered...
do it yourself,
VEGAN dietary requirements
and... whatever.
but you can't deny someone
content provision...
when they're paying for
an internet access...
these software companies
do not have to answer
to governments...
they have to answer
to hardware providers...
   internet access deposits /
access points...
            not governments...
hardware instigators...
    oh, really?
    software censorship?
   if there's no one using
the hardware?!
              good luck...
and a goof ball speeding!

these companies, who are exercising
"depth",
of the parameters of conscription
of legit consent?
   they have this amnesia...
this amnesia...
of...
   not being hardware utilities...
i.e.?
   a comic book...
without the printing press...
   savvy?
             now i'm mowing down
eyed
    claustrophobic eyed -
   horses running,
with shutters on their eyes
for the added advantage
of tunnel vision...
   that Bane scene equivalent...
    with the quote -
  crashing this plane...

"who" are these companies
to dictate,
"correct" internet usage?
they're not internet providers...
to begin with...
   if... a company like SKY...
or BT... or ******...
obstructed internet access
of a person?
  i'd be nodding...
    in a coherent access of
agreement...
    but...
      these websites are not
hardware, they're software...
see the difference?
they're not internet providers...
they're pixel blank bulk anticipating
canvases...

unless there's something
wrong with the original idea,
of an un- investigated
genesis of a pixel blank?!
     can i make this an issue
with your, internet provider?
i don't like you excluding
the content of the content
that is a blank pixel anticipatory
excavation wait...
   sorry...
  
   i don't like you miscarrying my
payment of internet access...
having censored interactive outlet
canvases...
   i pay for one... i pay for all...
   can you please pay
the proper amount of
compensation to the hardware
companies that provide
universal internet access to
the full spectrum of internet users?!

namely?
BT... SKY... ******?
yes?!

Addicted to diction,
With conflicting
Prescriptions
From competing
Physicians,
I'm dying from sickness
In the wealthcare system.
Our nutrition
Is based on
Corn-laced fiction,
Advertisement
Superstitions,
And a pill for every
Devised affliction.
We're born into life
Under welfare
Conscription,
And destined to die
From dereliction.
Make sure to vote
For the best
Infection in the
Next election,
As they raise
A toast
To their own
Reflections.

The Obscenity of Conscript (and PTSD)

He sits at the table nursing his beer,
Scruffy, unwashed, a bit smelly I fear,
When he thinks he's unseen he'll wipe off a tear.
Come closer I'll tell you his story.

A bank "johnny" married, his future a joy,
For a pretty young girl and a fine young boy.
But then you decided his "year" to deploy...
For a war you did not intend winning.

And so, after kissing goodby to his bride,
He stepped onto a bus full of vigour and pride,
To Kapooka was taken - a happy bus ride...
To a war you did not intend winning.

By training, his past wiped off that it might
Be replaced by the will for a jolly good fight
And that he be led by his team to the light...
Of a war you did not intend winning.

Well, he gave his time plus all that he saw,
The killing, the maiming, brute life in the raw,
With the drink that he took to escape from your war,
A war you did not intend winning.

And when it was finished and home he returned,
Two years his life missing, by God how that burned,
Then by erstwhile good friends he found himself spurned,
For fighting your war without winning.

Turned back from its door by the ****** RSL.
He was just looking to talk with some others as well
Who's life, just like his, had been turned into hell
For fighting a war without winning.

And the lovely young bride who'd looked on with such pride
As her husband departed their warm bedside
Has found she can't talk to nor get alongside,
Of the man she thought had been winning.

For he sits at their table hunched over his beer,
'Midst all of those things that he once held dear,
And refuses to tell her what she needs to hear,
Thus loosing what they'd both been winning.

Now she has gone to her mum and her dad,
And erstwhile "good friends" think he's gone to the bad
But you and I know he's just feeling so sad
And never thinks about winning.

He sits at the table nursing his beer,
Scruffy, unwashed, a bit smelly I fear.
When he thinks he's unseen he'll wipe off a tear
And now you know his story.

Black, Swiss cheese hulk on horizon
The James Longstreet
immobile old freighter of the bay

Towed to the ignominy
of its last commission
in the curled arm of The Cape
Tides flex their muscles against it
But The Longstreet is steadfast
in its dark purpose

Standing target for practice

A sortie if planes home in on its bulk
Honing their skills
on this  “fish-in-a-barrel”
Thunderhead-etched pyrotechnics
Booming follows the miles over water

Against The Longstreet’s silhouette enduring
even God fixes sights
firing bolts across its bow
taking aim at our futures

Standing targets for practice

Vietnam? Cape Cod?
No difference to teens
before life’s ocean of conscription

Sand is cold beneath dunes
Beach grass rustles
to the pulsing surf
to the wind’s whispers
just below hearing
as if there’s a secret
that must be kept

We are targets for practice
We are meaningless din

Pulling our sweatshirts and blanket closer
The Supremes sing thinly
from transistor
“Stopped for a moment in the name of love—

Thinking it over”

Leave this haunted house
Leave this haunted heart
Take the light from my eyes
To guide you in the dark

Ease the words from my lips
And carve them into your bones
Interpolate into the blanks,
For these thoughts are useless alone

Carry me to the southern front
Where the crossfire raises hell
And let me lie with you on the ****** beach,
Among the silent shells

They are silent and beautiful,
gorgeous in in the white halo,
cemented in a beautiful terrazzo,
baring the names of fallen soldiers,
the European soldiers that fell in Wars;
second and first and the heinous silent wars,
i hope this  is why they have a proverb; white sepulchre,
only baring the white dead, only chiefs but no dead Indian.

Common wealth graveyards are all over in Africa,
in India , panama , Latin America and europe,
the active fronts in which the allies fought ******,
they are beautifully placed in silently posh areas,
in langata when in Nairobi, in Mbaraki when in Mombasa,
in Matisi  when in Kenya, In Namusungui when in Lodwar,
They bear horizontal silence with white names engraved
on their beautiful face shouting the glory of European empires,
which provoked the evil sense in the heart of the king's horseman
in Kenya, in the city of Nairobi, to steal the graveyard lands,
he made them his urban home with an uppish courtyard,
for him the dead white neighbours are better than in-corruption.

I walk around the commonwealth graveyards,
in the all quarters of erstwhile British empire,
looking for the names of African soldiers ,
who died in thousands fighting for the queen
the royal bloodied woman of England;Elizabeth,
Looking for the sons of Ethiopia who stood with
the second duce Benito son of Mussolini,
fighting for ******,for Shintos in the European war,
i have seen no name of any African,
I have not seen Wandabwa wa masibo,
who was conscripted into the first world war,
Along with his father Biket wa Khayongo,
Biket back after seven years in 1918,
carrying Wandabwa's Belt,
Wandabwa died in the field,
Where was he buried, he is nowhere
Not anywhere among the soldiers in cemeteries,
I have not seen Nasong'o wa Khayongo,
who was conscripted in 1940,
to fight against ******,
he was conscripted on his nuptial evening,
even before he had had the first ***,
with his new wife, he went  away crying,
he never came back, his name is  nowhere in the  graves
the commonwealth graves that bare names of the fallen,
Fallen soldiers, but they all bare white names in the black world.

you come to Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Malagasy,Egypt,
whatever the geographies of Africa, and you keep keen,
you hear someone  is called Mr. Keya, or Madam Keya,
or you come to Bungoma county of Kenya,
you meet a man  that is of the circumcision age group,
Known as Bakikwameti Keya, Bakinyikewi Musolini,
Keya is  subverted sound for Kings african rivals; KAR
the African sound for  KAR is Keya,
in reference to mass conscription of Africans
into the  KAR, to fight ******,
A child born during that time is Keya,
A man circumcised during  the time
is in the age group of Keya,
A simple lesson in regard to our people,
taken away to fight the colonial power
and left to died and rot away in the bush
with a simple courtesy for ceremonial burial,
that come along with the death of soldiers,
who passed away in the battle field.