“Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
                                                    ­ George Orwell, 1984* (published in 1949)

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of torture since 1949.
Come with me to the Casbah, Babaloo.
We begin in the 1950s with the French in North Africa,
****** baguettes in Algeria,
Couilles frits, anyone?
Electrodes wired to Mustapha’s *****.
And "Bigeard's Shrimps,” as the bodies were called,
Dumped over the Mediterranean from aircraft,
All things considered a je ne sais quoi,
Though Camus and Sartre gave it a whack.

Then the 1960s: the CIA dabbling in mind-control and LSD.
Later, a Phoenix Program,
Very secretive, sympathies with the Cong required,
Various elders selected,
The village disinfected,
**, **, ** and a bowl of Pho.

Apartheid anyone?
Thirty years of South African terror & torture.
Torment in the townships,
Shaka Zulu gold and diamonds,
De Beers in Swaziland swing.

1971: riots at Attica,
Prisoners abused and tortured,
Rockefeller’s overcrowded slammer,
An upstate New York katzenjammer,
Nelson’s finger on the trigger,
39 dead and counting,
But who’s counting?

The CIA, back in the news in 1973,
Torture chambers under Chilean soccer stadiums,
And the Khmer Rouge:
Those Wacky Cambodians with skull racks.  
And let us not forget the British,
With centuries of colonial experience behind them,
Occupy six counties in Northern Ireland.
Finally codify the imperial process,
The Five Techniques:
Sounds like a Motown group,
Satin smooth colored boys,
But more method than music:
(1) Wall-standing,
(2) Hooding,
(3) Subjection to noise,
(4) Sleep deprivation,
(5) No food and drink.

And there’s a bunch of horrible ****,
We still don’t know about the Argentine ***** War,
And other Mai Lai-like,
****-fest massacres in Vietnam.

How about torture since 1984?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Come quickly,
(www.prematureejaculatorsanonymous.com)
To mind,
As do US-sponsored rendition facilities,
Spread throughout the NATO alliance.
And closer to home, it’s never a dull moment in the 5 Boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Manhattan.
Take your pick from Giuliani’s Greatest Hits,
Rudy Kazootie’s campaign of law and order,
Not necessarily in that order.
More awful than lawful,
A bathroom plunger rammed up,
The Haitian voodoo ****** of Abner Louima,
While he be handcuffed at a Brooklyn station house.
Or, the NYPD partying like it was 1999.
When in fact, it was1999,
And a curious death it was for Amadou Diallo,
Would-be American citizen from The Republic of Guinea,
(No connection to Italy or Italians),
Abner & Amadou: a pair of cautionary tales,
Either/or reflecting standard procedure for the Po-Po,
Time and time again from coast to coast.
Either/or: poor Abner, no Haitian Papa Doc.
Poor Amadou, on his way home from night school,
When police squeeze off 41 rounds,
Most of them in his direction,
Hitting him 19 times.
Just the facts, ma’am:
Diallo had reached into his jacket.
A trigger-happy police officer yells “Gun.”
A jungle warfare quartet springs into action:
Shenzi, Banzai, Ed & Zazu,
Four equally trigger-happy colleagues,
Empty their weapons.
No gun was found on Diallo,
Only the wallet he tried to pull out,
Containing his Green Card,
4 U.S. dollar bills;
And a laminated,
Credit card-sized copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
(I just didn’t know when to quit, did I?
The wallet was there with Green Card and the bucks,
But I made up the part about the Bill of Rights,
Trying to add poetry to tragedy, as usual.)

I don’t have to say much about Rodney King (RIP).
You watched it on TV a hundred times,
And a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Or ten thousand or a million, I suppose.
“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney Glen King.

Last but not least there’s Kelly Thomas (RIP),
Another incidence of police insanity,
It was July of 2011 in Fullerton, California.
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man,
Schizophrenic, but unarmed,
Beaten to death at a bus depot,
During an altercation with six Fullerton police officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Poli­­ce-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man­-death.html#ixzz1e­3­4QnHtr

Mervyn Lazarus | Attorney | (www.mervlazarus.com) Police Brutality, Excessive Force and Jail Injury cases | California . . . Albuquerque

Jackie Chiles perfect attorney -YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcEietIoxk) Nov 17, 2010 - 13 min - Uploaded by Kroeger22 All the scenes with Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld."Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both ... www.seinfeld.com

Perhaps the greatest torture of all,
Is that which artists subject us to.
Let us examine the case of Roberto Bolaño:
Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean writer,
Tells a fabulous World War II story,
About a Spaniard--an Andalusian--
Fighting for the Germans against the Russians.
Captured by the Russians,
He is tortured for information.
The Spaniard speaks no Russian,
He knows only four words of German.
The Russian interrogators strap him into a chair,
Attach electrodes to his *****,
Attach pincers to his tongue.
The pain makes his eyes water.
He said--or rather shouts--the word coño.
It is Spanish for ****.
The pincers in his mouth,
Distort the expletive,
Which in his howling voice comes out as KUNST.
The Russian who knows German looks at him in puzzlement.
The Andalusian was yelling KUNST,
Yelling KUNST and crying in pain.
KUNST in German means art,
And that was what the bilingual Russian heard, KUNST.
“This ******* must be an artist or something.”
The torturers remove the pincers,
Along with a little piece of tongue,
And wait, momentarily hypnotized by the revelation:
The word ART had soothed the savage beasts.
So soothed, the savage beasts take a breather,
Waiting for some kind of signal.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian bleeds from the mouth,
Swallows his blood liberally mixed with saliva, and chokes.
The word coño,
Transformed into the word *KUNST,
Had saved his life.
It was dusk when he came out of the building.
Light stabbed at his eyes like midday sun.

So, it’s a fact that I love,
Truly love the simple blunt Anglo-Saxon expletive ****,
****: I pray that while I am being tortured some day,
I have the dignity to scream the word out loud.
And if I am screaming **** at the very end,
When my nervous system finally fails,
When I **** my pants,
When my pulmonic heart and lungs collapse,
Is that so bad?
Is that so wrong?

Do you realize that 1984 came--
Came and went, without any significant cultural hoopla?
The networks ignored it.
As did the cable pundits.
No significant comparative analysis between,
Orwell’s book 1984 and the year 1984,
Was broadcast electronically or publicized in print.
Steve Jobs got it, but as usual no one else did.
Mr. Jobs (RIP) did his best,
To mainstream its profound cultural relevance,
But ultimately failed,
Despite the $1.5 million he paid one of the networks,
To air a one minute nation-wide commercial,
During the 3rd Quarter,
Of Super Bowl XVIII,
January 22, 1984.
Despite Ridley Scott’s astonishing spell-binder,
His 60-second spot for The Macintosh 128K--
Still considered a watershed event,
And an advertising industry masterpiece,
…YouTube it and watch it.  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ji0B98IMo).
See the hammer throwing athlete chick,
See her fling the sledge,
That huge sledgehammer,
Smash into Big Brother’s flat screen face.
Despite Jobs’ global presence,
Despite Steverino’s unfettered microphone access,
Whenever he felt an oraculation coming on,
Despite everything,
He was unable to move the powers that be,
To either hype the book or the prophecy come true.

So, what’s my point? I have two.
First, in April 1984 the estate of George Orwell,
And the television rights holder to the novel 1984,
Considered the edgy Jobs/Scott commercial to be,
A flagrant copyright infringement,
Sending a cease-and-desist letter to Apple Inc.
And the advertising agency that produced the spot: Chiat/Day Inc.
The commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.  
Score: Lawyers 1, Artists 0.

My second point is that in November 2011,
The U.S. government argued before the U. S. Supreme Court,
That it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals,
Without first seeking a warrant.
In response, Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the sane ones),
Questioned what this means for a democratic society.
Referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Justice Breyer asked:
"If you win this case, then there is nothing,
To prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24/7,
The public movement of every citizen of the United States.
So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 . . .”*

My third point,
(Yeah, I know I said two, but *******.)
My third point is that I’m just so ******* angry,
All the time, late and soon like Wordsworth,
(Was anyone more aptly named?)
I am angry about so many different things,
And every day that goes by I relate more and more,
To the thousands of Americans that occupied,
Zuccotti Park and Oakland,
And countless other venues,
Out into the streets.
Across the country.
Around the world.  
I am humbled by their courage and perseverance.
Yet, I am afraid for them.
I am made paranoid by the scope and power,
Of the government,
Of the ruling class that controls it,
And the technology they allow us to embrace,
Technology’s sinister potential,
Now that more and more knowledge and information,
Has been digitized,
Existing only in cyberspace.                                                      ­                                                 
What frightens most is the realization,
That anyone with a word processor,
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.
The scary part is—
Repeating myself for emphasis—
That anyone with a word processor
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.

Does anyone out there give a ****?
Does anyone out there share my nightmare?
Do it to Julia.
Do it to Julia.

Smooth, smooth, fringed by yellow smudged, hard plastic
smooth, left to right then a painterly inconclusive running
out, the stroke all 60” expires into the yellow, then a firm
vertical orange stripe, a bookend, a hot surface elevated
upon a warm yellow bed, exotic, turmeric, heated from
below, as though from another world, a future planet found
in Manga, gum wrappers, belonging to the wedding
wardrobes of older women, and those with impossible
shoes, maybe a scarf, definitely lipstick and small Japanese
cars, decorative paper, a can’t-miss logo, as when I close
my eyes in the act of love, holding your kneeling body to
me I lose myself in a pattern of flashes, the bright play of
light and colour, a sensual play of pigment, blue and red
wavelengths, fuchsine, electric, electric, and the aura of
artists, such latent energy, hidden passion, rich in ******
fragrance, edged with desire.

The path of the brush now right to left yellow exposes a
yellow bookend at the left hand edge, there is a roughness
here in its covering of yellow, as though applied in haste or
in a single gesture with a large brush, it is thick, thick and
rough, but the yellow is almost present, a hint, a reflection,
as in the petals of the Bellis Perennis, you open your mouth
breathing, breathing your lips frame such perfect teeth as
day arrives,

Left to right, the paint thick then thinning to a broken
tailpiece revealing yellow on magenta, again, again, again, again,
how little I yet understand your body, the innerness,
the sheltered regions of your desire, I am afraid to harm this
preciousness, be disrespectful of the tapering valley where
love’s caress and kiss meet, are multi-dimensional, the
rectangle is not charcoal, but deflected, hesitant, to the left
the darkness of chocolate, to the right a greyness, a *****
grey, a dusty dark dog, loamed, a depth then play of
shadow, dark, textural as your maidenhair under the covers
above my right hand as it spreads my fingers across its
darkness into deeper darkness, a flat stone, its left end
washed by the cold tide, olived, clothed in mourning, there
is unpleasantness, some distaste, a little fear, the unknown,
the unknowable.

Daisy petals, opening in the morning light, the clapperboard
house on the Block Island beachside fresh-painted every
spring, immediately weathered, porcelained sea shell
textured, turned, tumbled, a dawn sky after rain,
ceramicised fungi, plain flour, acidic, taut, the moment
when the heart and breath seem to pause as we join each
other’s flesh as though this cannot be cannot really be.

Unrhymable this flower shade hued pigment deep saffron
vibrant, phoned, not quite of the fruit, a different tang,
sharper without sheen, magenta beneath its smoothed
surface up to left and right edge, (but for the yellow
frill beneath), lip covering, silk-scarfed, not autumnal yet, but oh
those Californian poppies, those desert landscapes as the
sun sets,

a single uneven gesture thrown left to right, an island
in silhouette with a rocky foreshore spreads into distance,

a bed of sylvan jade, an oasis, this an aerial view of tree
tops modulating to grassy pasture, a down-stroke western
boundary, an edge of surf on its northern border, perhaps
the brush formerly coloured has left its trace,

the main body of this Australian desert seen from the air,
Sidney Nolan’s bush, aboriginal earth, coloured mud,
unguent, the sense of liquid in your kiss, its warmth, the
very tip and corner of your lips, the brush of hair as you
move your head to my chest, the rubbing of hair on hair,
under your arms this play of sensation through the lips’
touch, then the shore, the sand no sand though, only in the
brochures, daffodilled perhaps, unsmudged, fresh,
vigorously golden, well-watered.

O Krishna, Lord of Hindustan, I sorrowed by the lonely Jumna river bank, where Thy flute-notes thrilled the air and led the lost calves to their homes. O Lotus of Love, musing on the sad absence of Thy delusion-dispelling eyes, I saw Thine invisible Spirit take form, frozen by my devotion's frost.

Thy divine form of sky-blue rays, with feet of eternity, walked on the banks of my mind, planting lasting footprints of realization there. I am one of Thy lost calves which followed Thy flower-footprints on the shoals of time. Listening to the melody of Thy flute of wisdom, I am following the middle path of calm activity, by which Thou hast led many through the portals of the dark past into the light.

Since all of us are of Thy fold, whether moving, sidetracked, or held stationary by the fogs of disbelief, O Divine Christ-na, lead us back to Thy fold of everlasting freedom. O Krishna, Thou reignest on the heart-throne of each knower of Thy love.

From: Whispers from Eternity
A Book of Answered Prayers
1949 Edition

A cabin den
paneled in knotty pine
slick with thick varnish
jellied in mid-ooze
& running down the grooves.
A festive group gathers
around an electric fireplace
talking up old work stories
in mid-December.
My dad sits dead center
for the camera
wearing the face he wore
when in the company of adults
his long sleeves rumpled
and his collar askew
one arm straight up,
a bottle of Blatz in hand
commending
the buzz.

O Buddha, the gold vein of thy sermon of mercy ran through gloom-gorged, rocky hearts, and illumined their darkness.

Thou loftiest soarer of renunciation's skies, beneath thy God-lifted eyes, the kingdom of sense-comfort, the rivers of gross greed, the vast and lust-scorched deserts of desire, the tall trees of temporal ambition, the cactus plants of prickly world-worries—all melt into invisible smallness.

Buddha, the arc-light of thy sympathy sought to melt the hardness of cruel hearts. Once thou didst save a lamb by offering thyself in its stead.

Thy solemn thoughts still silently roam through the ether of minds, searching for ecstasy-tuned hearts. Seated beneath the banyan bodhi tree, thou didst make a solemn tryst with the Spirit:

    "Beneath the banyan bough,
    On the sacred seat I take this vow:
    Let derma, bones, and fleeting flesh dissolve;
    Until the mysteries of life I solve,
    And receive the all-coveted Priceless Lore,
    From this place I shall stir, never, nevermore."

Thou symbol of sympathy, incarnation of mercy, give us thy determination, that we may seek truth as doggedly as thou didst. Bless us, that we may be awakened, like thee, to seek remedy for the sorrow-throbs of others as we seek it for ourselves.

From: Whispers from Eternity
A Book of Answered Prayers
1949 Edition

161 to 180 of 3251 Poets
«78910»Viewsshow detailshide detailsSort by  
Margaret Kaufman

Photo, Brownie Troop, St. Louis, 1949
Deborah Warren

Marginalia
Regan Huff

Occurrence on Washburn Avenue
Anne Marie Macari

From the Plane
Gerald Fleming

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Sebastian Matthews

Barbershop Quartet, East Village Grille
Charles Harper Webb

The Animals are Leaving
Zozan Hawez

Self-Portrait
Jose Angel Araguz

Gloves
Russell Libby (1956–2012)

Applied Geometry
Robert Haight

How Is It That the Snow
Early October Snow
Dan Lechay

Ghost Villanelle
James P. Lenfestey

Daughter
Robert Hedin (b. 1949)

The Old Liberators
My Mother's Hats
John Maloney

After Work
Kaelum Poulson

The Crow
Stuart Kestenbaum

Prayer for the Dead
Emmett Tenorio Melendez

My name came from . . .
Gary Dop

Father, Child, Water
On Swearing
Berwyn Moore

Driving to Camp Lend-A-Hand
«78910»

O Christ—Thou rarest flower of hearts—Thou didst sail on the storm-tossed lake of prejudiced minds. Its evil-scented, gloomy thought-waves lashed Thy lily-tender soul. They crucified Thee with their evil. Yet Thou didst shed the aroma of goodness and forgiveness, and didst help them to be purified by remorse, so helping them to become attractively sweet-scented with Thine all-loving Flower-Soul.

O Thou Great Lover of error-torn brothers—an unseen monument of the mightiest miracle of love was established in each heart when the magic wand of Thy voice uttered: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Thou hast healed the cataract of hatred, and now we have grown to see: "Love thine enemies as thyself, for they are thy brothers—though sick and sleeping."

Thou hast taught us not to increase their delirious kicks of hatred by battering them with the bludgeons of revenge. Thine undying sympathy hath inspired us to heal and wake our brothers, suffering from the delirium of anger, by the soothing salve of our forgiveness.

Thy crucifixion reminds us of the daily crucifixion of our fortitude by trials, of our wisdom by ignorance, of our self-control by the scathing hands of temptation, and of our love by misunderstanding.

Thy test on the cross proved the victory of Thy wisdom over ignorance, of Thy soul over flesh, of Thy happiness over pain, and of Thy love over hatred. So are we heartened to bear our crosses bravely and pleasantly. Teach us to pour out sweetness when crucified by harshness, to bear with calmness the assault of worries, and to give understanding unceasingly to those who unjustly hate us.

O Shepherd of Souls, wandering hearts are of themselves seeking the one fold of divine devotion. We have heard the ever-calling music of Thine infinite kindness. Our one desire is to be at home with Thee, to receive the Cosmic Father with joyous, open eyes of wisdom, and to know that we are all sons of our own One God.

Teach us to conquer the Satan of dividing selfishness, which prevents the gathering of all brother-souls into the one fold of Spirit.

Calling to one another by the watchword: "Love him who loves you, and love all who love you not," let us rally beneath the canopy of the universal sense of Christ-Oneness. Amen.

Whispers from Eternity
A Book of Answered Prayers
1949 Edition

Pressed flowers
Forgotten in the pages
Of the that book
Oh what was it called
But anyway,
That book is sitting
In my father's bookshelf
Somewhere between
A history of the civil war
And an encyclopedia from 1949
It is lost in the depths
Of my mother's bookshelf
There the book with the pressed flowers
Covered in dust and memories
Waits for me to recapture the lost moments
Collecting and absorbing the words
And ideas trapped within the binding
Lost flowers, pressed in time
Lost in the pages of my childhood
Bookmarked, forever.

Caught the vampire's failing smile,
cracked by teeth & venom,
wind-walking among the trees,
talking to the vipers
& the rats & the bats & the
men of the old bonetown.

Mr Mann had the right idea,
burn your books & get the hell outta Dodge.
Do not pass go & do not stop,
do NOT make out in the back of a beat-up old auto
parked next to the hypermarket on Dawn & Vine.

Mr Mann up front,
peering through the cracks in the windscreen,
the cracks in reality.
He can see the vampire's slow smile,
the shadows passing across the face of the TV screen,
& hear the old ghost voices,
the old radio voices, the 1949 voices.

Blood on leather,
black roots rising,
saliva on after-effects & after-echoes,
the apocalypse riders chasing the moon up the old dark valley,
the moon chasing the apocalypse riders right back
down the old dark valley to whatever hell they came from.

The vampires! The vampires!
Children beat hasty retreats,
hide under the boxes back of the laundromat,
not daring to peek
as black boots crunch gravel.

Mr Mann has the right surmise,
get outta the books & into guns,
get into heavy metal & iron drag,
get into lead & something magickal,
long forgotten lore & hoodoo voodoo
from years & years ago.

The vampire's smile turns awful yellow,
fades as the stars wheel & that tired old sun begins its ascent,
fades as the dawn breaks over the desert winds & cacti
& the lovers wake in their motel room in the back of beyond
& fumble for their stakes & knives & garlic *****.

Easy now for Mr Mann in the sun-kissed big blue.
Hunt it down in the tumbledowns & old desert towns.
Kick off the jams, break open the locks.
Hose it down with oil & strike a match.
Burn the reality right off that face
& that face right off reality

Splat on the sand. Grue on the sand. Black on the sand.
Mr Mann walking back to the autombile, back to happiness,
radio playing a little something from 92,
or was it 93, he really can't remember now.

It came upon me in silence,
covering the ground and frosting every earthly lip.
Its mystic flurry attacking
the air and space I kept.
With each striking of the clock
the blanket canvass did grow
seeping history into the landscape
using Its flying ghosts of snow.

Make me Silent, that I may eloquently converse with Thee.

I wandered through forests of incessant searchings, and arrived at the mystery door of Thy presence. On the doors of silence I knocked loudly with my persistent blows of faith, and the doors of space opened. There, on the altar of glorious visions, I beheld Thee, resting.

I stood, with restless eyes, waiting for Thee to speak. I heard not Thy creation-making voice. At last the spell of stillness stole upon me, and in whispers taught me the language of angels. With the lisping voice of new-born freedom, I tried to speak, and the lights of Thy temple assumed sudden brilliancy and wrote letters of light.

In my little chamber of quietness, I am always resting: I never speak but with the voice of my silence. Through my silence, eloquently converse with me.

From: Whispers from Eternity
A Book of Answered Prayers
1949 Edition

I asked crapped-out Denis Johnson, the boozin' writer, dwarven elf,
Can't you spell Denis like everybody else? Denis Johnson, silly elf!
Start spelling Denis with 2 n's, like everybody in the world, or else!

They still weep;
Not as often in those early days
When the telegram delivery boy,
Every bit as foreboding as the Grim Reaper,
Had arrived at their particular doorstep,
But at odd, importune times:
When the light shines just so in his old bedroom,
(Some instances just as he left it,
Other times clean and empty
As if never occupied at all)
The sound of boys playing baseball
In the field on the Klondike Road,
The bells at the Methodist Church
Ringing for another young couple.
Still, the world rolls along
In its own diffident manner:
There are cars, butter, and gasoline now,
Young men who were at Midway and Omaha Beach
Are back on the line at the mill,
Their mothers plan weddings
And buy dresses from Larson’s down in Ridgway.
They may pause briefly if they catch something
In the eye of a friend
Who has no need to buy frocks
Or reserve banquet halls,
And they will say, casting down their eyes a bit
Life goes on, I guess.
Yes, but they still weep

The world is flat
That's what they told me

...and I always take people at their word
Nice people like at The Acme Company
always believing what they say

I am a gullible fool
to trust, to love, to hope
to get ground down that way

I cower
I yelp when kicked

Running, madly
scramble over edge of ice
(New concept of Antarctica)
Missed the sign
for The Acme Map Company
and that dead end
Loaded down with Acme Explosives

Cartoon coyote
Always sees “that painted tunnel”
as possible place to hide
Inexplicably
shows up again--
just a little fried
smoke rising from my scalp
small white flag in hand
says, “HELP”

Scramble over that ledge of melting ice
and crumbling shame
Clinging by my fingertips

You'd think something would finally do me in

Me and "Wile E. Coyote--  Genius"
__

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8eP0ntOJ1U

Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are classic cartoon characters that date back to 1949.  They've been popular ever since.  I think the sound effects, music, and the timing of the animators are elements that make them so good.  Their expressions just **** me.

From the years of 1931 to 1949 I lived as a cat named buddy in the dunbar household in unley in Adelaide
It was a fabulous life, running around the yards and drains expecting people to give me a saucer of cream
My owners names were Patrick dunbar and Georgina dunbar with one son named Jonithan used to pick me up and tickle me on the tummy and stroke me as I purred on the lounge room floor listening to the radio shows and the hit parades,
In this life I used to drink water from a bowl like an animal and my grandfather (pop) used to give me tea from a saucer
In memory of when I was buddy I wasn’t scared as an adult in this life when I went out to play and that is because I was having previous life memories as buddy
And in the 90s I was having hallucinations of Patrick playing with me and jonithan in the form of my friend Patrick in this life
Patrick and jonithan dunbar loved mucking around like two free boys and I sat on both their knees while they were saying to me
Patrick what’s that buddy
Tommy what’s that buddy
Patrick what’s that buddy
Tommy what’s that buddy
Tommy used to say a lot of the time
That he was smart kid yeah mate
Patrick used to put me out at 8-30 every morning and that is when I ate catnip
Jonithan used to follow me around saying
Come on buddy
What’s that buddy
Come on buddy
I used to catch mice to keep them out of the house and yard
It was basically the same roster day in day out, Tommy studied to be a scientist
And I used to sit on the window looking in on him doing experiments and my spirit made him pass for 4 years
In 1949 may 16th when Tommy was in University buddy died and Tommy was devestated and I went on to help the future which I found hard to do but as graham, grant, and Brian I and surviving
R I P buddy 18 years

convincing consumers that “v” is for vineyard
not *****
no quick or easy choices
gin, tonic and a dash of restraint
mom’s advice to quit got Tumblr started

we must get rid of inefficient economic sectors
learning to give one item at a time reviving the soviet tradition
Sharing the siege mentality
cheekily hopscotching across genres

tell me how this ends
prison time was dreadful, but he sure likes the video
pain can make them feel alive
in 1949
he imagined an age of robots
at 94, still charting memory’s depths
imagining a grim past that isn't his own

semi-invisible sources of strength
milewide tornado strikes Oklahoma
2 FBI hostage rescue agents die in training exercise in sea
a genre, old and Irish,is renewed
but wait
didn't yahoo try a deal like this before
How about slow play, drugs and Phrankenwoods

Another starlit Hemetucky night,
Finds me listening to one of my many,
Many Bonnie Raitt CDs.
Metaphorically speaking,
We must lick her ****.
Give her the recognition
She indubitably deserves.
10 GRAMMYs?
Listed as number 50 in
Rolling Stone Magazine's
100 Greatest Singers of All Time;
Number 89 on their list of the
100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time!
Lists? We humans love lists.
The HUAC loved lists also.
And while we’re on the subject of lists,
What list has your name been added to?
A statistical anomaly worthy of further
Investigation by our Big Brother in Bluff, UT,
Those guys tracking anyone goo-goo,
Googling my name, my poetry,
The poetry of Giuseppi Martino Buonaiuto,
My UNpublished poetry, i.e.,
By definition, nothing in print,
Nothing between book covers,
Nothing you can get your hands on.
Merely cyber-effervescence,
An Off World ether,
An ether although vaporous,
A digital fingerprint, nonetheless:
Quickly identifiable,
Easily reducible,
An entirely redacted,
Boiled down, cooked down roux.
A roux you’ll rue? Perhaps.
Not to mention the kanga roo,
ROO as in secret, offshore
Kangaroo courtrooms.

So know, know you’re on a list.
One of numerous Watch Lists
Watched by the Watchers who
Watch people like us.
So, if you’re reading this online,
Don’t say I didn’t frickin warn you.

BONNIE RAITT:
Of particular interest is her brilliant cover of –
Her complete musical reupholstering of--
Del Shannon’s neonatal 60s-era classic:
“Runaway.”
That twang slide-bass intro.
That harmonica squeal hovering above;
Those long, pulsing instrumentals
Punctuating her grit.  Her heart.
Her dark & lonely childhood
That drew her to true roots music.
Like me, born in 1949--
Unlike me: in Burbank, California.
Daughter of Broadway Musical Star
John Raitt: a true Roadie,
If ever there was one
Bonnie sent to private Quaker schools,
Banished to pricey summer camps.
Routine experience for any child of
Successful entertainers on the road,
Again. (Sing it, Willie!)
Bonnie: denied nothing but
Parental time invested.
Consumed by a drive to
Get the man’s attention,
Daddy’s little girl,
Addicted to ******. Fade out:
“I wah-wah-wah-wah wonder.
If you will stay, my run, run, run
My little runaway,
Come back baby,
My runaway.”

Friends, I welcome the Season of Christmas with lesser known facts about Rudolph and the other Reindeers who brings Santa loaded with gifts for the children! I have also posted the lyrics of this popular song here below, –Raj Nandy, New Delhi, 01 Dec 2020.

WELCOMING THE CHRISTMAS SEASON WITH -
     ‘’RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER’’!

A Sad Beginning - With a Popular Melodious Ending:
The original story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer began in 1939,
With a Jewish Chicago copywriter named Robert May.
May  worked in the ad department of Montgomery Ward, a department
store chain,
Which every year purchased and gave away free Christmas coloring books
to children.
In 1939 they decided to create their own brand, and tasked May to
compose about an animal for amusement of children as best as he can.
May did so in August, following the death of his wife due to cancer, with a small daughter Barbara left behind to look after!
Remembering his daughter’s love for deer at the Lincoln Park Zoo, May composed about a little reindeer with a shiny nose.
That year during Christmas Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies which became very popular!
In 1940, May’s brother-in-law Johnny Marks, a song writer, composed the famous lyric to the legendary song as we know today.
Gene Autry sang the lyrics recording as hit No. I on the US Charts the week  of Christmas of 1949 as records say!

Lesson Embedded in the Song:
The other reindeers named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, *****, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen,
All bullied the Rudolph, the youngest of them all who had a bright red shining nose, and left him out of all their reindeer games!
But in the true spirit of Christmas, Santa selected Rudolph to lead and guide his sleigh,
Thereby disapproving all types of Racial Discrimination due to one’s Looks!
Now friends read the Lyrics of this legendary song which has been sung by various famous singers like Dean Martin, Nat King Cole etc,
And they are all available on ‘You Tube’ for free listening!

Lyrics of The Famous Song:
“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and *****
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
"Rudolph, with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in History"
…………………………………………………………………………………………….

You see I was George Washington
The first president of the United States
And after my life of Albert Waldron
A famous Adelaide Melbourne footy star
I became Stanley Roberts
Who was born in 1930
Stanley knew he had a gift
As well as knowing the world puts you through situations so you can
One day know your past life story
Stanley was the son of John and beryl Roberts and the younger brother to Judy
Judy wanted to be a princess
And me, well because of my gift
I was having bad nightmares
And these nightmares meant nothing
Because I had a best friend named bobby
Who seemed to understand my gifted past
But still he wanted to be a normal kid
I couldn’t understand this
Especially when I wrote him a note
Explaining my issues
And 4 days later
I saw him burning something
Which at the time I thought was my
Letter and then in 1937 on my 7 th birthday
I made the baseball team for Manhattan pistols and bobby was trying out for it too
And he wasn’t so lucky
So I decided to concentrate on
Bring a great baseball player
And be the best version of Stanley Roberts
I could be and I was given my grandfathers
Old baseball bat
Now as I was in the psych ward
Both times I had dillusions which I couldn’t explain and then in 1943 when I made high school I was ready to play PRO baseball
And I was very popular and bobby was lonely and a ****** because he bashed his parents and killed them and was sent to juvenile detention till the age of 18 where he was killed on the electric chair and a test later in 1949 Stanley turned 19 and was too worried to persue his career as a baseball player and I auditioned for broadway where in the televised Macy’s thanksgiving day parade was apart of and I did that in 1950 too but in March 1951 a group of pit bulls attacked Stanley outside the Bronx swimming pool when I was meeting my broadway friends for a swim and this was a case which turned into homicide till they realised it was a pack of dogs that killed me
And in 1952 I became Graeme Thorne and I was living in Sydney Australia And my gifted visions didn’t happen this life and I realise now that the visions keep me safe from being kidnapped after my tragic last life and everything was going well as greame he was a choir singer and met the great Arthur summons and in 1960 Graeme Thorne was kidnapped and thrown to the sharks and this was a wake up call and in the 60s was a hard time being a lot of young babies which died after a few months of existence and in 1969 Brian Allan was born and his life started the same way as Greame’s but then Brian went crazy doing stupid things but as a kid he was normal and in the 90s he was normal too well apart from bashing his loving parents and that could have got me in gaol for a long time but after hearing about the troubled times of September 11 2001 I was trying to be nicer to my parents and it lasted untill 2004 when I was getting Stanley’s visions coming back to me in the form of silly dillusions which lead to me killing the family cat, which was a crazy thing for me to do and I was sent to the psych ward where I was thinking I was being kidnapped and the psych ward was to me like a old age home and I felt it was the entry to heaven which scared me so much and I was there for 3 months and I still had silly dillusions which lasted for a while untill I tried to ignore Stanley’s gift and went back to work and I went to batemans bay in 2004 2005 and 2006 as well as playing Santa at vinnies where I felt part of the establishment and then I was becoming very well I went back to Adelaide in 2009 where my previous life Albert Waldron lived and I felt very welcome and I saw the Adelaide christmas parade there and then I went to Merimbula where I partied on New Year’s Eve to the pigs music band and in 2012 I was really hyped up in the establishment I went to Adelaide again and I saw the Christmas parade again and albert’s spirit was on top of me and I was feeling Stanley’s gift and then I went home I got another job at ACTEW and in 2013 I was in the psych ward where I became an artist with delusions but despite the screws not giving a **** about me I was writing poems drawing pictures to my hearts content
And when Christmas came I left the psych ward and I wanted to do something good so I did the cartooning course and joined a theatre group where I expressed myself with the gift of Stanley which was starting to fall into space I told the whole world my problems like sending emails to different addresses around the world and I started reading poems in the poetry slam, my first poem was I get headaches from champagne
And after that I read many more and in 2015 I left but then I became the ornament to a personal trainer and he made me lose Stanley’s gift which when he went to gaol I started to understand that coronavirus was taking people’s fun away and everything was cancelled at the start and I was watching online concerts and Netflix and YouTube and suddenly tonight I was taken on a journey where I was Darren Stephens from bewitched and I saw my best friend bobby and he assured me that he didn’t burn my letter it was a few other things they were burning when I saw them  and I saw my girl friend of 1947 who brought my mind to think that Stanley wasn’t gifted
He was nice and when she died in 1997 bobby said Stanley had no gift but I was sure I had a gift and bobby said, the reason why Stanley died so young was because he thought he was special ya know
Better than everybody and each death was a wake up call saying for me to live in the real world and not think the gift means something, it is just silly dillusions that you can’t control and I felt I was back in the psych ward learning my life stories abs suddenly Jupiter moon blew up with methane and we couldn’t get out suddenly With my plans to work and join singing groups etc my dad gave me methane pills to help me become good next year and get over this coronavirus and the gift of Stanley became an urban legend and suddenly I thought I was born again

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Attributed to Albert Einstein: circa 1949


richard riddle: 12-25-2015

I am peace and purity.

I am the sky,
I am the sun,
I am the moon,
I am the earth.

King Gojong proclaimed my birthday to be March 6, 1883.

I am spring,
I am summer,
I am autumn,
I am the winter.

I died in the year 1910
The winter of Japan.

I was born again on October 15, 1949.

I am the father,
I am the daughter,
I am the son,
I am a lonely mother.

I was torn in half in the year 1950.
So much pain so many tears I have seen.

I am some bad.
I am some good.

I've seen so many miracles and other amazing things.

It's all about balance!

I am beautiful, and I am loved.

Do you know my name?

© 2013 Ronald J Chapman All Rights Reserved.

En su alazán sin freno ni montura
Regresa Octubre, el de la rosa plena,
El de la vara fiel de la azucena
Y un topacio de sol en la cintura.

Regresa Octubre ardiente en la dulzura
De la asombrosa faz de la sirena
Y del tritón nupcial, sobre la arena
Donde quiebra la ola su aventura.

Aquí está Octubre y un ramal de llanto
Contra la boca me divide el canto
En sollozo y poema oscurecido.

En la frontera de mi aurora yerta
Abre este Octubre una dorada puerta
Y me lastima su fulgor erguido.

(The Greater Prairie Chicken: a grouse of open grassland, is known for its mating dance. Males display together in a communal lek, where they raise ear-like feathers above their heads, inflate orange sacs on the sides of their throats, and stutter-step around while making a deep hooting moan.)

So how you gonna keep ‘em
Down on the farm after they’d seen Paree?
After “displaying together” in
Their own private lek--
Communal though it was.
It’s May in Hemetucky.
I just got back from my
Twilight constitutional,
As Truman called it.
Harry—since I was born in 1949—
Tribute for my first Commander-in-Chief.
The moon was misted,
More than half full,
Myself half in the bag,
As they say.

As you know by know,
I live in one of those gated,
Golf-coursed, over-55
Lunatic Asylums,
A communal lek, as they say.
I’m stutter schlepping around the block
In my pajamas remembering that big sign,
So full of promise--ACTIVE SENIORS—
A veritable sexually promiscuous
Welcome Mat.
I made an assumption, you see,
That children of the 60s grown old
Would relish a life of legal **** in a
Gated sanctuary with hours upon hours of
“Let’s Hide the Pepperoni.”

I knew I missed those years,
That era of bra-burning &
Birth Control.
“*******,”
Wonton ******* & *******,
A bowl of Won-Ton carnality:
Wild abandon, mature ladies,
Their ******* in a ***,
At the bottom of their purse,
(Thank you, Joan Osborne)


Joan Osborne - Right Hand Man Lyrics | MetroLyrics
http://www.metrolyrics.com/right-hand-man-lyrics-joan-osborne.htmlLyrics to 'Right Hand Man' by Joan Osborne. Let me use your toothbrush / Have you got a clean shirt? / My ******* in a *** /at the bottom of my purse / I walk. (www.advertise/right-in-the-middle-of-*******-poem.com)

Yet, I languish here
Here in the now,
Having shown my cards too often.
After 10 years here no woman
Takes me seriously,
Given my unserious reputation,
Not to be taken seriously.
Which explains why I spend
So much of my time in Italy
Lately.

Babe Ruth smokes a Raleigh in the doorway,
as i give birth to a broken mirror
if home is where the heart is, i live on the state line
or on my sleeve
he knows that, and as he finishes his cigarette
i ask him if he ever thinks about cancer
"i think of it like i think about 1949,
so far away"

The boy threw up on the way to school,
Regularly,
A matter of course,
Compass-setting.
The stink of decomposing plankton
Would rise into his blowholes,
And make his bright eyes water,
Make the sidewalk swim.
His almost hairless body, half-formed,
Wet cetacean eyes casting about,
Sought protection, not ritual heaves,
Not emesis on neighborhood lawns.

His mother protected him when she could,
Let him swim in her shadow,
Helped him feed, hid him
When she herself was not in danger,
The denouncéd *****, the common ****,
The bright-eyed nurse.

He scraped his way along the sidewalks
Thinking six times nine, four times three,
Thinking bile-tinged thoughts.
He thought of the school cafeteria, steaming,
Waiting, windows fogged,
A place that sometimes had no food for whales.
He thought of home and crashing waves,
The leaping thrashing father,
Up, up into bright air,
Leaping high and falling back into the sea,
Killing what lay below him,
Denouncing the *****.

He wondered how it could be
That at home only she loved him,
Only his mother,
While at school many, many loved him.
Even the ladies in the cafeteria,
Even on the days
When there was no food for whales.

He thought of children, tiered and glowing,
Standing on stair steps reaching
All the way to heaven,
Reaching so high the air was thin and shimmering
Where the oldest stood, singing,
Singing in the school's foyer,
Singing Oh, little town,
Singing with no fear of megaliths
Falling, white-crusted, waves driven asunder,
Gulls sent screaming,
Their wingtips slapping foam.

He thought of his teacher who loved him,
Who loved his gray skin,
His smooth gray skin,
Who gave him stamps and stars.
At night, rising to breathe,
He saw her stars among the stars,
Her stamped cat shapes upon the constellations.
At night, rising to breathe,
He knew he wanted to live in school,
Wanted to breathe the dust of tempera paints
And construction paper forever,
Far from falling fear,
Far from barnacled screams.
He knew he wanted to live, and live, and live,
Without bile, without flukes,
Beyond the horizon, among the stars.