the rulers of time must be blindfolded
they invent voidless words, old eager hands
in this time without dimensions
in this space devoid of meaning
they delete their mothers from themselves
the warmth of bodies is imprisoned in anguish
the body invades the mind, and the mind replies,
it invades the body, an impossible conversation
thoughts are transitional landscapes
but thinking might rebell and fragment into a standstill
time filled my mind and stuffed my throat
to tighten the unthinkable pain
on days with thick blood and stagnant winds
no words to fill the void, the unbearable hopelessness
the letters got destroyed by the gastric acid
and so I became... the reflux of pain

Humanity has been so much like a child
With too many rich, useful toys,
Playing with each one that's given,
And discarding it when something
Newer appears in its midst.

We have been dilettantes and amateurs
With some of our greatest notions
For human betterment.
We have been spoilt children:
We have been like tyrannical children;
Impatient and imperious, demanding
Proof when listening is required,
Tearing things down when they don't do
What we want them to do
(How much simpler to let things do only
What they can do)
Being uncreative about what seems dark
And terrifying; preferring
Only what seems easy
And effortless;
Questioning the numbers
Of a philosophy's
Followers rather than examining
The fruitfulness of its ideas;
Wandering down blind alleys of populism
That lead to concentration camps;
Refusing to admit our vast crimes and mistakes
Denying the horrors of the slave trade
Minimising the reality of the gas chambers
Tearing our hair out in futile attempts
At reconciling civilization with genocide,
When civilization (as we have come to accept it)
Never did mean the true universal goodness
Of heart,  but rather meant the self-mythology
Of a people, a race.
No, neither the good in us, nor
Our capacity for evil are exhausted.
Time will show just how young
We are in our abilities,
Of genius for good and evil.
For all these strains, unexamined,
And unredeemed,
Will find their higher fruition
In the unlit centuries to come.

by Ben Okri from Mental Fight An Anthem for the Twenty-First Century

Madam History sways, it swings, it plays,
It climbs so high,
Then downward strays!
Nothing stands still—it all goes on.
On steel so thin, we’ve stepped, the cornice.

At deadlock’s point, the tension grows—
To and fro,
Fro and to!
And all could end in one swift flow…
But the trumpet’s not yet blown!

There’s hope, my friend—it lies in Salvation!
It’s not so simple, dear, you’ll see.
The apocalypse’s ruination?
But not yet built is our redoubt!

Still History sways, it swings, it plays,
The skies won’t fall, they’ll hold their place.
The Beast still growls, it bites, it preys…
And builds its fiery stronghold’s base!

*redoubt – a defensive structure.


     Мадам История

Мадам История качается.
Стремится вверх,
Несётся в низ!
Всё не стоит – всё продолжается.
На тонкий встали мы карниз.

У мёртвой точки напряжение –
Туда-сюда,
Сюда – туда!
И может всё в одно мгновение…
Но не трубит ещё Труба!

Надежда есть – она в спасение!
Не так всё просто, милый друг.
Апокалипсиса крушение?
Но не построен тот редут!

Ещё История качается
И небеса не упадут.
А Зверь рычит и огрызается…
И строит огненный оплот!

There's something bout this place,
America, rolling plains and jagged peaks,
Skies of stars drifting in my gaze.

Europe has history,
But we have soul,
No where's better for me,
Than America's portion of the seas.

Whether or not we're falling apart,
This landscape is beyond mere art,
After all, we all came here to make dreams,
Not for the perfect life,
But one we'll remember when it ends.

Edward Carnegie was once a normal man,
Steel monopolist extraordinaire.
Till a fateful dip in rail stock,
Lead to his discovery of time travel.
Confused, he landed just a few years from the modern day,
Where he was arrested by the Time Police.
"Edward, we'll set you free,
If you defeat public time enemy,
The Alien."
So off went Carnegie to the modern day,
To face off against fellow PTE.
But what was revealed,
Shocked even the Time Police.
His business partner, Henry Frick,
Was the real villain all along.
"Buckle up, we're going back in time!"
Back to the time of steel money,
Frick had almost bested Carnegie.
"The company is mine Edward, stand down!"
Though undenounced to Henry,
His advisory had pumped his veins full,
Of the Blood Of Steel.

a ***** war between language and forgetting

Gulag,  Holocaust, Holodomor, Maafa
Operation Condor,  Shock and Awe
red famine, potato famine
the kurdish, uyghur, rohingya, Isaaq genocide
Bengal, Rwanda, Armenia, Ukraine, Palestine,
Burundi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe
encompassing the geography of cruelty
someone humane did
actually write a book of inhumanity
560000 people killed on every page
1500 people killed at every word

still can't decipher the blood as if it's a hieroglyph
insatiable the history of pain

some are in the mood for war, for triumph
our eyes are swallowed by a verticalless convulsion
the cyclopic mind is doomed to fail
it's impossible to bury this time
in a hacked sky over a fragile earth

For you,
I feel an ancient yearning
Baked into my bones
A cosmic ache-
A prehistoric hunger-
A primitive pining

Yes,
It’s a supernatural connection—
Mine and yours—
A rest-the-vessel,
Let-the-tides-guide,
Sacred sort of love

Because betwixt us,
There is a longing
Only the moon
No — only god, herself  
And all her sapphic sovereignty
Could resist

There is a glowing desire
So fervent within us
That I wish I could reach into your Heavenly Body
And pull out your stars  
And thread them into the nest of my womb

An immortal, galactic romance—
Ours is—
Fit for gallery halls and poetry readings
And woven with all the glittery things  
But it’s Roommates, they’ll call us
Roommates, reads our plaque

Roommates—
Not lovers, nor sweethearts
Not partners, nor darlings
No lust
No lore
The saga of us, enduring no more

Celestial stains and divine shame
Roommates, we’ll remain
So we’ll guard this holy matrimony,
We’ll let our lovers’ anthem die
We know the truth is in the stars
We know who lives a lie

The Black Knight of the Franks,
He feared no thing,
Except for the hand of God.

With his sword and cross,
He rode triumphant,
Through out the Holy Land.

But once he crossed a monk of opposing faith,
But spared his life,
So his story was erased from history.

The truth is,
There's no elite thinker's society,
We're all elite in our own respect.
We evolved from bent over forms,
Working for raw survival.
But as we grew, some of us split away,
Faded from simple survival,
Growing a taste for art.
So were born the sculptors,
The painters, and the poets.
Clever as they were,
The old artists.
They formed a secret society,
For elite thinkers to survive.