the eternal battle between light and dark has been a source of inspiration for artists & musicians & writers since time immemorial

light and dark allow us  

to treasure the artist's glittering painting
to reflect on the author's lyrical words
to swim through the musician's vast symphony

to explore deep ravines of intense emotion
to float on gossamer dreams
to be wonderfully alive
to be wonderfully human

Every  late night filled with bliss
is etched in red
like lipstick from a stolen kiss
on the white of this bed.

Every single grey smudge shows
a world of lows written in pencil
but still I see those highs
clearly in my murky memory.

Every scar slowly branded into
burnt skin that eventually healed
are tally marks for the demons I slew
and hint at battles that will not yield.

Every
Memory made
World written
Battle beaten

Stained, Smudged and Scarred
A blank and Boring canvas

The wild unforgiving landscape,
The perilous heat and,
The untamed sun.
A fools conquest the land was.

Dawn comes to the very boundary of the empire,
standing on the uncontrolled border.
A string of forts stretch long and thin,
covering the horizon with their power.

Dawn breaks as the men wash and meditate,
affixing there turban to begin the day.
Sensing a looming threat in the air,
the Sikhs man their posts.

Someone tells a joke to break the tension,
everybody laughs, but the feeling remains.
The lookout shouts about an enormous mass moving on the horizon,
The twenty-one takes their defensive positions.

At least 10 thousand tribesmen,
once there allies but now, in full retaliation,
descending on the forts with only the signalling post,
standing in there way.

The unit is piling up ammunition,
barring the gates to there tiny compound.
The signalman sends a tiny message,
"Can you send help?",
Only with a slight delay, "no".

The men in the unit gathered around their commander,
Ishar Singh, knowing fully that they could make a break for it,
Ishar then tells them calmly about what they are already,
in their hearts, are ready for.

They will stay and,
They will fight.

They will delay the oncoming tribesmen,
as long as possible.
They will buy the forts the time they need,
to call the reinforcements.

I stand on an deserted and desolate field
Where many a man's fate was sealed;
Oh how the iron church bells pealed,
Sounding the dead of Inkerman

Long ago in foggy morning
Her Majesty’s soldiers lay a-snoring
That's when they came without warning,
Scaling the heights of Inkerman

Through the fog, cold and deep
Soldiers by hundreds quietly creep
Still maintaining surprise they keep
As they climb the hills of Inkerman

The battle starts; the cannons roar
With a fire yet unseen in war
Thousands die in the horrible chore
To take the heights of Inkerman

Many times the ridge changed sides
The wounded and dead, they drop like flies
And from the plains you heard their cries
From o’er the heights of Inkerman

Now the heights, with silent air
Carries no signs of the fighting there
But when you walk them, say a prayer
For the men who died on the slopes of Inkerman

We are put in the same battle terrain but our situations are different.

Food, water, clothes, shelter, entertainment and money are the things you got plenty, but I haven't got that many.

You know certain with your resources, how long you will last with this battle we have, but for me everyday it is like "will it be my last?".

if ya down wit dis listen
to this gayrap swallow it
like a fat jaypack it is anti-macho
against crews like humpty-packo

pitch-black baby ain't no rooster
will **** wit our ****-booster
we are too star for your underground
flows are miles-high and they glitter

it is lipstick-**** we're spitting poison
and your kid sound vanishes
look your raps are always "almost"
you'll be killed by our host

like the impaler this guy vlad
your midlife-crisis is cute
eminem is now called ruth
the new rapcolor is purple

In the Spring, when kings go off to war,
when last year's battles are rejoined
and daughters lose their fathers to the egos of man

In the Spring, when dormant vegetation raises its head,
when bulbs reveal the colour within
and pollination can work its propagating wonders

In the Spring when frost gives way to dew
and the air warms in the sun,

- it is in the Spring that I renew my allegiance to my creator God
and look to him, and to his Son, for my path.