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Raj Arumugam Oct 2010
"What is the Dao,
Lao Tzu?"

Says Lao Tzu:
"That which can be described
that is not the Dao"
Sir Douz Dante Feb 2017
Dao
This is not a poem as you think,
Its more of life as i see,
It wont rhyme as you expect,
But my words i hope will make sense,
I have cultivated in the dao of love.,the heavenly dao,
Mark this day will you,,
I see love crushing my heart,
My strong dao will waver,
She will betray me,
She will hurt me,
But i have forseen,,
I am prepared.
Jackie B Dec 2014
Dao
-Dao-

Beauty in the details. Intheplacementof spaces. In the p.o.i.n.t.s. between words.

With sense and presence, no perception, I live in truth. In a real place, not like my room, or my house, or new york. A real place, you know, like the one in your heart. The place you imagine. A real place.

Blindness veils, thoughts tear away, but when everything else quiets, I’ll get there. A real place.

Where I feel. Everything, in the palm of my hand and the beat of my heart. In the hand of a friend. In a fresh start.

Don’t prepare. Don’t obsess. Just be. Forget the rest.

There’s a sky. I promise.

There are stars and a moon.

There’s order in the world, it’s just called disorder.

Feel you’re heartbeat.

Come with me.

Don’t miss the chance to kiss the sky before you die.

Don’t ever, just get by.

Soar.

It’s all in me. Its all in you. Every molecule atom electron in the world. They move. They change. But they stay. So everything is really the same. Can you ever feel that in your heart? Sometimes I can. When I listen— sometimes I hear.

You,

your smile,

leaves blowing on the trees,

Water trickling down a stream,

Ice floating on the top.

Flowers pushing through the frost of spring,

Bloom and die, die and bloom

Come and go, go and come

Good, bad and beautiful. My heart. The world.

Stop. No-

-Dao-
old willow Feb 2021
Living carefree, unrestrained,
That is my heart dao.
To live so freely, transcend reincarnation,
one must overcome life.
Whom to where my eyes stride,
See trillions upon trillions of mortal heart dao.
The road is endless, so is my heart.
If the heaven wield, then earth pave.
If the world shielded, then my heart pierce.
The ocean is many, the many is one.
The dao is many, the many is one.
The heart is many, many is one,
Greed, Love, Hatred, Jealously,
desires stem from the heart.
The myriad things are dao,
ultimately the many whence one.
Grace Pickard Apr 2015
Enveloped with pine-
Stretched across statelines:
Beauteous blue upon envious emerald
Pooled amongst royal white mountains
Adorned with grey jewels of centuries
Emitting sweet, earthy aroma
She caresses the land.
Mother to lakes hidden by her red fir,
Provider to the fiery yellow cress
Hydrant for all animals alike.
M(ama) Rose keeps a chary eye
on her joint creation:
The provider, the mother,
The revered, grandiose puddle
is threatened by scarcity.
The royal white mountains,
Remain royal- but lack frost,
And thus the water retreats
Shriveling back 13 feet from shoreline
This once sacrosanct lake---
Devastated.


Keep Tahoe Blue?
Keep Tahoe Wet.
Climate change is not a myth. Sacred places are being destroyed and diminished. All of earth is divine. The world needs everybody's help to counter the suffering, don't lose hope and keep action.
Qualyxian Quest Mar 2021
Evil cannot be cast out
I've learned this the hard, hard way

It's built in to life
Truly here to stay

Unde Malum asked Camus
Like him: yo no se

But I do pray for deliverance
When in distress I pray

                Silent Way.
Qualyxian Quest Apr 2021
Evil cannot be cast out
I've learned this the hard, hard way

Built right into life
Surely here to stay

We climbed Yangmingshan
Twilight true Taipei

Guan Yin her mercy twin
Mother Mary in the month of May

                       Silent Way
Tao Dec 2022
The sun dies as the night comes to start my day anew
The glistening tears threaten to fall
Twinkling; thrumming on taut sinew
Grey define my mood
It foams and rolls, it toils and crawls
Again the thunderous sound
Again regretfully it sounds
The stable seas unleashed
A cry carried on the wind
In the deafening crash
           I seem to hear the sound of my
       heart break
Long time no see
i miss the master of the golden house
who has gone down to view the changing tide
or so i'm told perhaps to soothe my pride
for some new message now i must espouse
before the last new flame we have to douse
in the new dawn there is no place to hide
this anger at being taken for a ride
or knowledge that i'm smaller than a mouse
vision is lost the message all unsent
when signal flame no longer seems to  leap
above the hills nor on the mountain peak
can any see just where the last word went
now no one has a single hearth to keep
and in the clamour none would dare to speak
Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
Genesis
****** and his cities,
Peleg the earthquake,

cities of crafts and exchange

waste disposal, chaos control
ordinal first to last sequence
father, physical strong, less curious
mother, fragile smaller, more observant.

Plural spiritual entities, Elohim, watchers,
applications of reason, reporting events.

Balance demonstrated with spinning
and flipping throwing things,
fitting thing piece to piece cunning spun
framing weaving
loose and taut, twanging
whistle, whine howl yells bells song

Eventual progress, time out of mind, slow
and steady,
patient, put down, put up, leaning, pushing
pulling, windwise rushing in, to fill the empty

Mind, imageless, no holds, no solidity,
all is spirit, no atoms even, perhaps, not even,
quarkish pairs of ups or downs that spin
on points in ever after solid state called
Heaven, the firmamental place where none was.

Higg's Field.
Unknown known matter and energy, we know.
We know something power enough to seem matter,
exists,
beyond our individuated mind's grasp.
Okeh.

Spread so as we may imagine, when itself began
with the initial edges, or edge, it would be, inside
any bubble-edge is inside,
they say outside is unimaginable

flat out planed point of anything
pounded thin as any bubble wall,
-blood-brain boundary, shocking discovery

yes, as with point spreads stretched to firm
mental plotted points of possible otherness,

ways one may be seen divided
duty-wise. Needful news.

Drink water from your own cistern,
save rain water for washing hair,
keep the spider in the spout,
to catch most matter washed
from the roof over our minds vidroning view

Googlized minds, in Disneyified Meta Cognosis,

we arrived at our destination,
and they have clouds of cotton candy.

- must be all vain, all is vanity, that's fair.
- Ecclesiastes, my old ****-rod-*****-point
pain on my backside,
such as Moses saw of Him whose name is as the Dao,
the name that may be said is not Ha Shem,
the side that may be seen is not His, you see, the hole,
not the whole,
and once that is filtered through, a certainly tangled web,
where in it seems,
Jews, in cultural roles granted, now, bat und bar mitzvah,
no veiled ****** similarities to the Handmaid's Tale.

No weeping over spilt milk,
never cry wolf.
Never speak of the devil, for … what speak we in,
when worshipping and praising and praying is supplicant
pose, supposed to induce holy awareness of mathematical me.

What might be the odds, set
taking all bets,
in spirit and in truth, as held in the wedom we acknowledge,
you and me, we agree, we become maker of this bubbling state,

we boil the cauldron, wear the caul of the first born-
we take the fat from the caul of the liver, and offer the smell,
to the unspeakably named reality we make believers build
in times of plenty, we make beautiful things together,

we call dreams retellings, but the tellings flow from deeper wells.

We are more ant-ish than sheepish,
we are more horse-ish than wolfish, in the wild.
We are more dog-ish than cat-ish, in civilized spaces.

Nurture native natal ground boundary of any wedom,
go beyond,
in quest of all we failed to grasp, the wind we fit to words,
and hold the gathered sheaves , in fists,
this is it,
why one how come to become. We be. Alwise, always willing

to envision further than we think men by right may see,
the tree the fruit was forbidden from,
bade the birds imbibe, and the elephants and monkey's too,

certainly, imagine, the plan got out of hand, it was
mandatory
in the garden walled off speck of life,
pre concepts weyeken called cells.

E= okay, rebalance all you respond with

who says what C equals, at my scale, in a mind,
in or out of the body, I can not say, significantly
different from saying, I can't say,

see, set, mindtimespace, spacetimemind, point. A.
Daily bread, liquidity.
Raj Arumugam Sep 2010
will the French
please stop stealing words
from Pretty Olde English?
we can’t but fix a secret meeting
and choose a rendezvous
and we discover the French have already
stolen every secret including the word rendezvous!
Oh, the French, when will
they stop this pilfering of English vocabulary?
I buy some trinkets and stuff for my beau
and they tell me my beau has been taken by the French –
and to add insult to injury
(those thieves!)
they’ve stolen all the stuff too!
Oh, there’s no stopping the French.
I can’t even sit to dine and say
“Bon appetit!”
and they steal my words,
and they run off with the dessert…
and would you believe it?
those cunning French,
they even steal the restaurant and its décor!
Oh, the evil French, will they never stop this? -
stealing from fecund English, so simple and innocent…
You see, even the Great Poet John Keats
he starts his poem in English
La Belle Dame sans Merci
and no sooner had he written the title,
the French stole the very words! -
and so ******* was our Romantic John Keats,
he wrote the poem itself
in what he hoped could never be Frenched!
Ah, the French…would you please stealing
words from our Fair Damsel English….


And the Chindians too!
Chindians?
you know,
the Chinese and the Indians together!
(Yes, it’s a new word,
shows how inventive English is.)
Well, the Chinese have done it with
a smile and a kowtow! –
there you go, while you bow or cringe,
the Chinese steal the kowtow;
and before our very own eyes
today even in our modern world
the Chinese steal words like Dao, Zen, taofu,
chi, and feng shui;
and the Indians, not to be beaten,
and perhaps with a vengeance
to deal a fatal blow to the Raj,
they steal words like: nirvana, pundits, yoga,
juggernaut, pepper and curry

And of course
there are many more tribes and nations
in this merry global **** of Gloriana English
and there’s just nothing Britannia can do about it!
Oh, what’s the world coming to
when our Plain Jane English is molested like this;
and so I do my part
the Dark Knight coming to her rescue -
perhaps this earnest appeal in verse
will touch the hearts of the beasts and dragons
and they’ll keep their claws away
from our Fair Helpless Dame English
Debanjana Saha Sep 2017
The essence of festivities all around
And the ray of hope
lit in our eyes
Few more days
And it begins.

Festival will come, once again
New attires, new hopes
shining in bright light.
Mother Goddess arrives,
to heal our mind.

9th and 10th day left
With good wishes all around
When Goddess Durga arrives
Returns back our smiles
And heart fills up with happiness.

With the arrival of Goddess Durga
Take back the past
Take back our past love
Take back everything
Which no longer belongs to us
And make us anew.

Written originally in Bengali-

Pujo pujo gondho
Amader sobar chokhe aalo
Kichu din aaro
Tarpor pujo aarombho.

Pujo aashbe, abar aasbey
Notun kapor, notun aaloker dhaara
Maa elo abar,
Mon k saariye deoyar jonno.

Nobomi r dashmi baki
Preeti o Shubhechha
Maa-r aagomone
Firbe abar haashi
Mon bhore Khushi

Elo Maa Durga
Aager din er kotha
Aager prem
Sob firiye nao
Amader notun kore dao.
The Durga puja essence and a feeling of newness with the bloom of happiness in mind & heart. I wrote the poem in my mother-tongue Bengali and translated in English as well. There are few things which cannot be expressed until spoken in mother-tongue. It's the language which binds us to the heart. Festival always brings happiness, praying that our souls would find some rest when blessed by Goddess Durga.
Wally du Temple Dec 2016
I sailed the fjords between Powell River and
Drury Inlet to beyond the Salish Sea.
The land itself spoke from mountains, water falls, islets
From bird song and bear splashing fishers
From rutting moose and cougars sharp incisors.
The place has a scale that needs no advisers
But in our bodies felt, sensed in our story talking.
The Chinese spoke of sensing place by the four dignities
Of Standing of Reposing of Sitting or of Walking.
Indigenous peoples of the passage added of Paddling by degrees
For the Haida and Salish sang their paddles to taboos
To the rhythm of the drum in their clan crested canoes.
Trunks transformed indwelling people who swam like trees.
First Nations marked this land, made drawings above sacred screes
As they walked together, to gather, share and thank the spirit saplings.
So Dao-pilgrims in the blue sacred mountains of Japan rang their ramblings.
Now the loggers’ chainsaws were silent like men who had sinned.
I motored now for of wind not a trace -
I could see stories from the slopes, hear tales in the wind.
Modern hieroglyphs spoke from clear-cuts both convex and concave.
Slopes of burgundy and orange bark shaves
Atop the beige hills, and in the gullies the silver drying snags
and the brilliant pink of fire **** tags
A tapestry of  times in work.
A museum of lives that lurk.
Once the logging camps floated close to the head of inlets.
Now rusting red donkeys and cables no longer creak,
Nor do standing spar trees sway near feller notched trunks,
Nor do grappler yarders shriek as men bag booms and
Dump bundles in bull pens.
The names bespeak the work.
Bull buckers, rigging slingers, cat skinners, boom men and whistle punks.
…………………………………………………………………….
Ashore to *** with my dog I saw a ball of crushed bones in ****
Later we heard the evocative howl of a wolf
And my pooch and I go along with the song
Conjoining  with the animal call
In a natural world fearsome, sacred and shared.
---------------------------------------------------------­---
Old bunk houses have tumbled, crumbling fish canneries no longer reek.
Vietnam Draft dodgers and Canucks that followed the loggers forever borrowed -
Their hoisting winches, engines, cutlery, fuel, grease and generators.
While white shells rattled down the ebbing sea.
Listing float homes still grumble when hauled on hard.
Somber silhouettes of teetering totems no longer whisper in westerlies
Near undulating kelp beds of Mamalilakula.
Petroglyphs talk in pictures veiled by vines.
History is a tapestry
And land is the loom.
Every rock, headland, and blissful fearsome bay
Has a silence that speaks when I hear it.
Has a roar of death from peaking storms when I see it.
Beings and things can be heard and seen that
Enter and pass through me to evaporate like mist
From a rain dropped forest fist
And are composted into soil.
Where mountains heavily wade into the sea
To resemble yes the tremble and dissemble
Of the continental shelf.
Where still waters of deception
Hide the tsunamis surging stealth.
Inside the veins of Mother Earth the magmas flow
Beneath fjords where crystalised glaziers glow.
Here sailed I, my dog and catboat
Of ‘Bill Garden’ build
The H. Daniel Hayes
In mountain water stilled
In a golden glory of my remaining days.
In Cascadia the images sang and thrilled
Mamalilikula, Kwak’wala, Namu, Klemtu
The Inlets Jervis, Toba, Bute, and Loughborough.
This is a narative prose poem that emerged from the experienced of a sailor's voyage.
JP Goss Aug 2014
1
Faerie, fey, in a windless stride
Along the verdant wood and wild
Beasts, so are, here do abide
Yet this urban life, maxims beguile.
So true, the only beast is man
Though he’s born of claw, the tooth
By birth it’s of the haft
Dagger, gun, and perfidious craft.
Apart, I see only one
Together, sparks to bring, undone
Me, for this, I dare not stand.
Such impropriety, a fellow’s creed
Rich are all in my mother tongue
Speak volumes for their egotism,
And seemingly endless greed,
Divest from it, with righteousness,
With acts they before shun.
Bah! To clean air and streams to follow
Network of the aimless vein
Blood for the vindicated!
Whilst they proceed to their empty smog
And free wills ever truncated
Marching headlong and abreast
To Hell they step in tow.
Never mind those evils done
My cure is in anathema, unchained
The inner man, the wild!
Autonomy, dumb, and pure!
I am the center of starry pull
I’m the individual, in me all is whole
I am the blot, the rebel, and the Wife of Lot!
A mark upon the cosmichead
My material exists, destined to rot
But, this death, it shall be free
Unlatched from this society.
No more shall these orchestras
Be condemned to prune as sighs
Now to high monastic chants
To venerate this life of mine.
Every corner of this brick and mortar
Keep us penned, like cattle adorned
In slacks and ties, agendas several miles high
This Fetish-Messiah, Banality
Makes sweet the cuds of humanity
None of this impurity can exist beneath
The canopy, foundation’s wrought of Ego’s dust
Pretense, a star, of foundry of the Heaven’s cusp.
#2
**** this, i have returned
the scwl of the citi
So litle and worthless
Huge slabs of grey metal
--failed of my conviction
i’m knowing in the sense
of Tao (dao), mute and confused
Tying to remove it
farce and utopia!
This cow is really low
Munching on—now, I know
As the faeries said
“At cross, betuta, moss”
What mean, all nonsense. All!
#3
The city was always upon my soft palms
That chaffed when I struck for a flame
The vanity hung in loose little threads
When my sleeves fell tattered, the same
It was through my teeth, my fellows did breathe
Strangers upon the tongue
I saw in the water the face of them
And heard them in my curses  
A stranger voice said “we” and “them”
Had genesis’d these verses.
It was those about me who birthed the world
As I had done for them
Momentum! Be quick! For fellow man!
As I am
As you are
The other’s cosmic order
I’ve built the structure I can deny
But with undeniable mortar.
I am at peace
Grasping gatherin"
Marble extracted pieces

Dust all over deep  ye
shallow crevices  cry
A white dove's  fly
free of sorrow

I'd love to seal a millionth
tears on your lips kiss my farewell

I am the deep Space
I am the Brahman
I am the fine firmament
You are all best
Such is the truth

I am blood flesh body consciousness
Such is the Truth

I am the firmament
Go down on fantasy
Burn your fleshy
Languish fingers
And see where they land

Into the neverland anythin" is
Laying the sea **** as it were
A forest's tapestry ready
Finally
To recall the roll over
The magic Moss
and the razor sharp
entwined stares are infatuated
entirely, submerged in carnal
Pleasures and driftin" as
Smooth as our palms
explore the desired
Softness
Surfaces
Flowerin" as
Transcient
Shapes of heavenly
waves
wavin"
Shape shifti'n
Shinin' within our legendary
Black holes of perception

Rays fall exposed to the
Light
Acoustic fractures resemble
Ray's glimmerin' under
Undulated  brilliancies

Hey you, painter, a wordsmith of a happy fiddle tunes
All over the the land, ripe harry hills, bush berries and burgundy
Grow infinitesimal promises

Step aside for a while, apparitions of your wildest abstractions
Mean nothin" Come and take my breath away by the hand
And swim me to Swimmers' simmerin'

Endless Time is a ****** illusion
A Reckless hope drivin"
Without a licence

Ricochet
Toughts
Trickle
Riot rascals
And ******* concortions
Emanate radiant embarassed
Spirallin" shy blushes
To hide and die of this word: Anguish

I'd swallow the swell day
I'd let you know your golden and crimson
Violet
Deep Thoughts of Goodness

Precious precious Indigo
Ageless darlin'

Step a bit further
And see it (for) yourself
Eruptions
Coolin" within
The open space spiced
Dee light danger liasons

Ferocious I'm borne
Ferocious I give off
The light

I dye
I diamond you
I die dao the way up to you into the uncountable fervored Future

I burn I burn

I am the Sun
And the stars and the galaxies
I am The earth
I am the forest the mountains
I am the lake
Call me a fake
And mockin" will explode
Around your sweet grinin" face

Do not agree that we only read
Some make bread with sour cream
Some make cookies with a bit of green
Some throw flat stones upon the mild surfaces seen

Mirrorin" their minor inspirations tryin" to put others down
Hey, here is your crown! Bittersweet! Clown!

Clovers
Piment
Flowers
Horns
Thorns
Ageless
Aureolas
Borne

Scented oils linger in a sanguine air
Upon your tangible surrender
I fall and kiss your kiss

Rivers run wild flowering seeds
Rivers carry them to Toward n" a while deeds
Within cosmic symphonies by Oceanic all blueness

Blatant and Blissful
Ponds dormir

This all comes and goes
like ripples    
Upon the jade pond
This comes and voes like a vessel
Transports all beings

All beings engage in their essence
Liberated


While the noble sage
Disillussions own Self:

Subtle and ethereal body

This I am
This I am not










The wise
The names
The forms
The invisible
The intangible
They do Keep on goin'
Manure for the soul body mind.
Manure for the truthful seekers.
Major influence by Deepak Chopra.
Minor influence by the truth which lies in each and every one of us.
Hope you enjoyed the conducted narrative. Take for granted only what you percieve to be (your) Truth. This is poetry! This does and doesn"t speak of love. Tho" it aims to divine blissful revelations.
JS CARIE Jun 2018
Every new canvas or wood I begin, starts with a mental insult, turning into a dark alley street fight. All found objects are used as weapons.
Before my image, color, category, or medium is even applied. I somehow discredit or abuse the medium through extrasensory transference or ***** looks. Or am accused of it. After that, the cloth is unforgiving and taunting. And from there, I can not be placated and must defend myself.
Slights and wounds and offensive disrespects are hurled at me in hopes of defeatism and scarring. And my retaliation is never ready. I slink out into a restless sleep and awkward day, clearing my head, deep thinking and do research for inspiration on fighting a wooden bully. The resurfacing of my retribution comes firing back with thought and truth and defense, until my opponent has heard all it will hear and dares me.
From there I take battle in slinging and taping and throwing off-color remarks at this ***** for what seems like days, until I find the weak spot. And then, just pummel. Continue and repeat with a variety of similar strokes. This is when it gets worn out and I can see progress.
Like a beam of golden light. The pressure to finally usurp and overthrow all that has distracted me, is rolled out like a red carpet until the throne is visible. With violent blacks slung up top and lower, all flavors of blue bashed in the ribcage, muddy brown and ash around the knees and lower. And all over, a melting custard of crimson red drips erratic around this terrorizing yet pleading to just finish off this piece of wood or cloth. Covered in a multitude of cheap shots, unprofessional swatches, gorgeous strokes, and derivatives, we wipe the dust and tears and blood from our eyes and finally my opponent yields, and I am congratulated on another battle well fought.

"You don't always win", the board transfers
"Many have been left undefeated and unfinshed, stay humble you're learning wisdom and patience"

These words ring with echoing sound. On my walk home, my painted and smeared, ripped body and mind contemplative of all lessons and struggles, I long to tell Annie about the war I just had.
Will she listen...?
Sir Douz Dante Jan 2019
Sigh,
How long has it been?
One? Two? Or maybe 300 moons,
The change in me remains unseen,
My strength has been given a boon,
Now i am a soaring dragon,
The heavens cannot restrict me no longer,
I disdain for they are not high enough,
The earth cannot bind me,
I sneer for it is beneath me.

Time has no grasp on my soul,
No control on my mind,
I have shed the shackles of mortality,
I walk in tandem with the heavenly Dao,
For i have grasped its music, every note and stanza.
I prepare to ascend the immortal realms,
I see past all illusions, all deceptions
I see all truths, all lies
I am the Dao.
judy smith Feb 2017
Leading fashion stylists and casting directors have been directed by clients to avoid doing business with Trump Models, a company that promotes itself as “the brainstorm and vision of owner, Donald Trump”, several sources have told the Guardian.

Trump Models refused to comment, but according to its Twitter feed several models had made it on to the catwalk. News of such directives comes during New York fashion week, days after the president used Twitter to condemn the retailer Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivanka’s clothing brand, claiming poor sales.

According to one leading casting director who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, directives to avoid using models represented by Trump Modelsbegan last fall, before the presidential election. They then spread by “word of mouth”, the casting director said.

The effectiveness of any de facto boycott is hard to gauge. Trump Models, founded in 1999, is not considered a big player in the fashion business.

“It’s not a great agency, so it’s not such a big loss,” said the casting director, who was not authorised to speak on behalf of their client.

A French fashion stylist, who also requested anonymity, said she was reluctant to engage with a business that would put money in the pocket of the Trump family. When asked if they would use Trump models during fashion week, she replied simply: “Nooo!”

“People certainly look twice if a Trump model comes for a casting,” said another leading American stylist. “But a boycott wouldn’t necessarily be a big loss to the business.”

A third stylist, a prolific veteran in the industry, said he hoped there was a boycott on the Trump agency but added that “if there was a girl I wanted, I wouldn’t mind if she was represented by Attila the ***”.

On Thursday, the fashion website Refinery 29 reported that hairstylist Tim Aylward had vowed to stop working on jobs that involved “talent” from Trump Models.

Trump Models once represented first lady Melania Trump, and currently represents dozens of models from all over the world. It also runs a division for “legends”, including Paris Hilton and Carol Alt.

The agency, which claims to be at “the forefront of cultivating a wide range of innovative and vibrant talent which personify the trends of the fashion industry”, has faced claims of mismanagement.

Last year, Canadian model Rachel Blais told CNN some managers at the agency had encouraged her to skirt US visa laws. “As a model, one of the things you learn quite quickly is that … you shouldn’t ask too many questions,” Blais said. “If you want to work, you have to do as you’re told. Yet you’re kind of aware that it’s not legal.”

Last year, Canadian model Rachel Blais told CNN some managers at the agency had encouraged her to skirt US visa laws. “As a model, one of the things you learn quite quickly is that … you shouldn’t ask too many questions,” Blais said. “If you want to work, you have to do as you’re told. Yet you’re kind of aware that it’s not legal.”

Blais was also one of four women who described their experience with Trump Models to Mother Jones. The women said they were forced to live in squalor in a crowded apartment in the East Village of New York City.

The women said the apartment contained multiple bunks, for which models paid $1,600 each, and housed up to 11 people at a time. “We’re herded into these small spaces,” one former model said, saying the apartment “was like a sweatshop”.

The then vice presidential candidate Mike Pence told CNN he was “very confident that this business, like the other Trump businesses, has conformed to the laws of this country”.

In court papers filed in 2014, Trump model Alexia Palmer said she was promised full-time work and $75,000 a year. She sued after earning just $3,880 and some modest cash advances for 21 days of work over three years.

“That’s what slavery people do,” Palmer told ABC News in March 2016. “You work and don’t get no money.”

Trump attorney Alan Garten said allegations of being treated like a slave were “completely untrue” and said Palmer had simply not been in demand. The suit was dismissed. Laurence Rosen, a lawyer who represented Trump Models in the case, told the Guardian his firm “is not handling any other lawsuits or claims concerning model representation, nor am I aware that any such lawsuits or claims have been asserted” against Trump Models.

Shannon Coulter, of the Trump boycott movement #grabyourwallet, said Trump Models had not been added to its list of Trump-owned or affiliated businesses because it was not a consumer-facing business.

“What we’re seeing is that the Trump name is becoming truly toxic,” she said. “It seems that people can’t get away from the Trumps fast enough now. I think those casting directors and stylists are making the right call not doing business with them.”

Coulter rejected the suggestion that a boycott of Trump Models might end up hurting the working models it represents, rather than the owners of the business.

“When you chose not to do business with a company,” she said, “you chose to do business with other companies that do have employees, too, so I don’t put stock in that.”

Amid continued questions about Trump’s relationship with his business empire and how it fits with federal ethics regulations, Trump-owned fashion interests have suffered adverse publicity.

On Saturday, retailers Sears and Kmart removed 31 Trump Home items from their online product offerings to focus on more profitable items, a spokesman said. The collection includes furniture, lighting, bedding, mirrors and chandeliers.

Last week, retailer Nordstrom followed Macy’s and Neiman Marcus in dropping Ivanka Trump products. That prompted a furious response from Trump, whotweeted: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom.”

Nordstrom justified its decision, reporting that online sales of Ivanka Trump products fell 26% in January year on year.

Within the fashion industry, there is speculation that while the performance of Ivanka Trump’s line was disappointing, it was not enough to merit being abruptly dropped.

At least part of the reasoning, they speculate, was pressure from other brands and labels carried by Nordstrom.

“We would not base a decision on that. Our decision was based on the performance of her brand which had been steadily declining over the year. We had discussions with Ivanka and her team and shared our decision with Ivanka personally in early January.”

However, Coulter said it was likely Nordstrom had faced pressure from other suppliers. “The Ivanka Trump sales were down but it’s possibly not the whole truth. There are studies that say boycotts work at the brand level, not the sales level, so probably both forces were at play.”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway later urged the public to buy the Ivanka Trump brand – and faced widespread criticism that she had overstepped ethics regulations. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said Conway had been “counseled”.

On Saturday, Trump said on Twitter that the media had “abused” his daughter.

In New York, protests against the Trump presidency have rippled through the fashion industry’s market week. Calvin Klein played David Bowie’s This is Not America and a Mexican immigrant designer for LRS Studio showed underwear that carried the message: “**** your wall”. Public School’s Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne sent out red Trump-esque baseball hats spelling out: “Make America New York.”

Senior industry figures, including Vogue’s Anna Wintour and LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault, have, however, held meetings with the president. Vogue plans to feature Melania Trump on its cover.

Designers including Dior and Ralph Lauren have dressed the first lady. Others, including Marc Jacobs, have said they will not.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com | www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses
Raj Arumugam Feb 2011
You can call me Po-dae
if you’re Korean…
hic! – you got every right to mispronounce it if you aren’t;
and the Japanese might call me – hic! –
Hotei…hic! hic!
And of course those ancient Indians
in their radiant romantic way might call me Laxmi
(but then they’re too reverent, those Indians
and you can’t joke about any these days)
but me – hic! hic! – hey call me Po-dae
and yes, the more erudite of you might know
or the Indians out here would have guessed by association –
HIC! HIC!
yep- I’m the good god of fortune, ancient drunkard!
(That guy who wrote “The Richest Man in Babylon”
he asks you to court the Goddess of Fortune –
Silly ******! He doesn’t know Goddesses don’t drink, does he?
Ah, well modern *** Goddesses might smoke and drink,
and all that)  -
but hey, I’m Po-dae - HIC ! HIC! – fill up that cup and invite me in
and I’ll give  five or six tips to fatten your wallets
better than the ones that American God
George S. Clason throws at you
(Pay Yourself  First, and all that miserly pedestrian living)
But fill my cup, dear – and I’ll show you how to fill your wallet –
HIC! HIC! HIC!
Oh **, **, ** yum – where do you get this stuff…?
These modern drinks really drive me crazy, baby!
Hey, hey, hey –
I’m Po-dae
and for watering me, baby
I’ll tell you the dao of fortune:
I come drunk
and I never move straight
and I walk side and side
Oh baby, I’m Po-dae
your miserly elusive fortune!
HIC! HIC! HIC!
Prrrrrrttttt…..!
Sorry about that, guys –
once in a while I also make wind!
Hic! Hic! Hic!
poem on a painting of Po-dae by Kim-Myong Kuk
Siriyw bilai bipang mwsayw
Gwthang pithaipwr lorhai langw
Rwdapwra rongzayw dalai ranzringw
Langdang hayao dakhwr japobw



Gwsw Birw okhrang gezerzwng dwimu
Sansriyw gwdan khiliyw jiu
Simangpwr thaiyw unduhabna thayw jiu
Akhai-Athing rubaiyw swlera mengru


Onthaiya dudruyw dwisa gathwn
Dinga gwzaow udang fhwisali gwzan
San habw dandise minina swnab gwzan
Dao palw birlangw bahayo gwdan



Bere bamblema birw bibarao
Sikhiri megon sayw nainw hayiao
Bidwipwra khathw zayw dikharao
Pithaini habilaya seolangw thasariao.
Raj Arumugam Oct 2010
today’s theme
dearest love, O unknowing love
is the gentleness that is you;
it is the quiet
like the yin in the Dao
unformed, not fixed and forming
in constant flow;
and gentle and open and soft
and its softness its strength;
and so today I saw that, I felt that in you
in your word, in your gesture
in your walk across the aisle;
and your softness follows me home to my quiet dreams
like the shadows below the trees
Andrew Duggan Jul 2018
Tracts of land
inhabited by people
A flower, a hero
or revolution.
To define a country is easy.
A pulse of a nation
** Chi Minh.
Defeat of the French,
the Americans.
But what about the prisons?

French prisons
American prisons
Vietnamese prisons.
15 years in Con Dao
6 years in the Hanoi Hilton.
Voices that still echo to this day.

And now the pen,
to free the corridors of our minds.
Diaries, letters
kept close
Inside a cold place.

Now they tell the world
that doors are closed.
And freedom is there.

We move on.
A recent trip to Vietnam.
martin challis May 2015
Trust Life
It will bring
You fortune

Comfort
Joy
Discomfort
Pain

All is such, and
All will pass

        -

Beyond the yang
Beyond the yin
The dao

Within the yin
Within the yang
The dao

        -

So it comes
So it goes
To peace

MChallis @ 2015
Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
Protesting, I, rise, e-raising my hand,
in ranked row,
three from the front, in the middle,
a glance,
and nothing more, and another,
Aseneth was her name, and she hated it.
She said.

Many were the flirty glances, unrestrained
wonder
what is different,
is this ink, or scar tissue?

Eight billion essentially identical minds, in use,
being tuned to consume elemental mental
as we form from base material, mother stuff.

We think in single words, letters let us do this,
that which formerly prevented, lets us do this now,

do you read me is not valid protocol on a voxnet.
You know. Five by five, is not valid either, listen.

Does your memed mind hear me now, Brown Cow,
Dao a do nothing dues paid note, this is business,
this is what the messenger in charge,
special agent,
secret agencies allowed, in my mind, baby, listening

constantly, no time,
silent,
only imagining Major Tom.

Waking spacy Sunday Morning, unre-tied to the strand
of faith that wound the core hard ball of pure rubber,
vulcanized, for bounce,

CRACK of the bat, where once, no, each once ever,
the feeling
one side, then the other, being mentally cognoscente,
cognoscenti, either way,
we both know, we both take knowing duty as demanded
of the code
we obey. At the command. We pay proper attention,
not too much of any thing,
take your own measure,
remember, certainty is bad mad solid state, bricked.
In a sermon writing state of mind after reading poets alive when I was young.
Angel Moore May 2013
I am not offended by your words.
Do not be offended when I smile.
Look up.
Let the sun rays burn your face
and fall,
fall
into a peace,
a peace that passes all understanding.
A knowing.
Of greatness.

You'll fade
they all do.
Learning to love.
Love unconditionally,
without attatchment.
Prepare your heart
and make room for the lights
the colors.
The rainbow beams of every soul.
Even the dark.
Light cannot be without shadows.

"Some Warriors look fierce but are mild. Some seem timid but are vicious. Look beyond appearances - position yourself for the advantage. - Deng Ming-Dao
Kenshō Nov 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxI3t67cspw
Listen and recite on tempo with the space between preferably
--------------------------------

Let us sneak past the beholders
And fall through the hedge

Twist and tuck your shoulders
Careful not to slip the ledge

Where that speaking plant rose
'Till all noise is scant

Pass the root that slows
'Nd Keep the leaf that quickens

Follow the vine that goes
Passed the sign of picking

When the lone holt rises
And the deep mire thickens

There are three stones stricken
Standing of similar sizes

There it is the time of all ages
'Nd it doesn't matter what your age is

Where the wind flower is always a toss
And where the rocks are growing on moss

I have had it with signs and maps
At this next crossroad I will try to get lost

Nothing feels familiar and I've lost all name
Here life feels only a process, maybe a game..

I'm feeling wayward
I hope you are feeling the same

Forget all clocks
We will look in each others eyes to tell time

Forget all forms
The great Dao is a mirror and you are a mime

Whistle 'gypsy' to meet a sekret of my kind
Passage to a garden of thistle and thyme

five fold colors from the canopy above
rest warm and low on the mushroom land of love

With draping crowns of brugmansia
and fragile ground of foxglove

tip toe the maze and careful where she lept
for where she landed is where many had wept

the life giving rivers we swim
are the same some were sweptt

or have you ever thought
that where you are now is where once a soul's body was left?

where one is complete
another in this life is bereft

so respekt what beyond that hedge lies
everything may be separate now, but everything is one when it dies

And if I were to shapeshift into a fish
my swirling ocean, i would call my sky

And if that fish had one wish
Would be that the world would never run dry

See your spells of intention and what you imply
dictates what your world is run by

And that is beautiful
no one can deny

But quick! cover with the shade of mind
because beholders of beauty are everywhere
yet some give the evil eye

so I shade with the hedge of night
And gaze with my third of sight

so my body can be hidden
and my soul in soaring flight

Because something in the air in the city doenst feel right
But I see it in every one of your eyes, your own starry night

if you are still weary on the path to unite
this spells scroll recite

in one lord and lady
in darkness and in light
i cast this as tinder for your soul to ignite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxI3t67cspw
Listen and recite on tempo with the space between preferably


i know there are some errors i will correct em later. or not
Rory Herd Sep 2014
To watch the clouds roll on the firmaments plain,
Both within, and without, their expression won't wait

Observe sun-lit rain falling all in silkened threads,
Descending to proclaim 'earths rock be thy dream bed'

There water grew static as a new storm of green
An epoch of floral tempests only the sky had then seen

Inspired perhaps by radiations spectroscopic artistries
They desired to wear waves from 495 to 570

What mad dreams the clouds cried out of such passion to be
Miraculous life, the nuclear fruit bore from star to tree

Matter motioned towards conscious devotion to survive
Unconscious becoming conscious predation of others nuclear awareness' to stay just a while consciously alive

Electronivorous cardiomagnetics emanating fields of matter fine
Introspective auric spheres vibrate to harmonies a'chime

Such hearts all a-hum to dimensions they defined
And so from a singularity there would be a beautiful mind

What flowers that bloom on these electric fields,
The art-forms, machinations that matters personal reality yields

Richest pollen for the mind is the written fantasy
Colourful petals formed by guitar pedals is one beings audio-mis en scene

How many depictions for the eyes there are of Venus' divine bodies
No greater art form than complementing aspect, force, and frequency

Oh First Cloud, sailing horizons where one never sees the limitless sky
For there is naught else to compare, no antithesis or edge to help define

We find there forms for pleasure, pain, ideals, but not answers to the neu(t)rons darkest, heaviest dreams
Flung through a universe without Dao, only gravity and dopamine

Matter would politicise, while surfing a rock in a black sea round just one of many long blazing days

Their surfing worlds, mirrors of radiation coursing through an existential void-walled maze
Saša D Lović Apr 2015
tren razuzdan razuzda sve zauzdano
što se uz vrisak pun sujete
rastajaše od uzdi svojih
poput deteta
kome se seče pupčana vrpca
ili radnika koji viče
burazeru proburazi mi aortu
a konj je plemenita životinja
i pauk koji zalud plete mreže
jer je konj brat vetrov
i pauk uzvikuje
dan i noć tvoje ime lucifere
zar si nem
dok čovek prži jaja
a ona mu se obraća
kao inferiornom biću
želi deset na oko
eh
zalud grca čovek
u procepu znatiželja
rađaće nam telad  telad
takve više nema
miriše joj butine
da to je miris ruže
konji ržu pauci cvile
vlažnih ruku odlaze u rasejanje
vetar drami
put jednostavan
i **** ga pozdravlja
jer njegov brat je konj
duplim dekom mu vida rane
jadan li je put
uzvikuje
kupite moje uši u prodavnici mešovite robe
lomne su iluzije
dok čovek kiti jelek
trepavicama njenim
uzeglom štrudlom napoio je konja
loman i radošću prevejan  mudrac
cmizdreći dao je ime njenoj duši
protkanoj hemoroidima
koji krvare
gore je smeštena smeša
blažen je onaj koji puva
kad procuri šulj
teško ju je doseći
opet se u snu  javlja
on
kibicerski smeće
i maže na krišku hleba
mrtvog mačora
teško ju je doseći kaže
sa uma najvažniju stvar
stvar je ona koja mu dolazi glave

to je vrdalama
ona zauzdava tren
Ryan O'Leary Jun 2019
Where there is no wine
there is no philosophy.

Poetry be the bi-product
of an uncorked truth.

In Vino Veritas, Daoism
your Divinity, Goddess.


For Divine Dao, one of
the HP contributors.
Alyanne Cooper Jun 2014
Wind-whispered lullabies
Caress your apple cheeks.
The soft glow of moonrays
Light up your cow-brown eyes.
Resting on moss-covered branches,
You listen to the symphony of life.

Dew drops dance in the light of night
To the song of the Nightingale-bird.
You watch with rapt attention
Phoebe's bright ascension
In the black-drop of a purple midnight.

Do you hear the song they sing,
My child?
Do you hear the song just for you?
Listen to the voices of a dying tongue
And be lulled into slumber
As I once was.

"Mo bee dao gui ya ya
Ve song tou song tzak tou fa
Tou fa, Le fa buun ng tzak,
Mo tzak ngai ge miu dan fa,
Miu dan fa.
*Ngai liu buun ngai ji zhun moi ga!"
My native tongue is a dying language, but still I hope to show its beauty and finesse to my one-day children.
Bryce May 2019
Standing upon these novel halls
The man, waiting
Seeks temperance and a kindness from God

He says,

"Give to me the gift of your knowledge and I will smite your enemy--rebuild the garden and replace those fruits long lost"

And his request echoes impotent through a voiceless hall

He cries, wails, churns and smashes
his dirtied knuckles on the walls

He yells, buckles, whines and sputters
Choked and lost in miserable,

The flanking rooms locked and dark
With constant voicing, gently call

"Who upon ye has the gall,
to name me Father"

And he is quiet.

------

In Moscow the Siberian fall grips the air
A wandering Dostoyevsky speaks in exhalations to the crack of gunshot in the dawn

A brief tightening of callous rope around his dry poetic throat

And at once his words sought to cull
the exquisite embers of furious retort

And he is silent.

----

The kindness of a failing city-state
Conveyed on the precipice of a bay
Jack teethed his frantic dharmas
And said to Them,

"What terminus of road
Would ever serve my unwinding soul?"

And as his gut trembled a final thought,
His eyes turned skyward, above the clouds

Where it was silent.

----

Dorigen, repenting the patient shores of tranquil sea
Accusing the chalk of its blackened soul
Traces the subtle dance of gulls
As their drowning feathers face these ageless things
whysper'd deep upon the winds

And she is Silent.

---

Basho, with a wanderer's grin
In solumn steps between the grains
Shades the path of unfamiliar road
And every poem steeped within

Where clouds are soft, where crickets sing
Past warbling stream with cadence grim
The Dao, leading ever onward

Says to him,

"Like water, do I rain."

---

Milton, his misted eyes
No light to guide their failed sight
Trace an ancient knowing glance
To Crown, his subtle circumstance

No soul in life
could see the might
Who gave this man his funeral rites

And when his words fall deaf at last
On his forgotten time and wishful past

He will stare deep into an inky void
And see
The stars for what they are:

Light, dispersed between the dark.

---

In the waning tide of Cresent lune
Twilight casts a gentle hue
Below the hill the city glows
The Palatine, gold and new

The ides, with consequence they come
And with them carry the will be done
Augustus' silent retinue of one
Notes a sky of draining sun

For Rome claws at all of Gaia's *******
And from sea to mount and desert dune
Ancient Africa, nascent Gaul
To Rome, will they forever fall

In darkness, the Palatine shadow loomed
Over web of flame-lit avenue

For the roads all led to Rome that night
For one small moment God guessed right

Cesar's legions on the fields of Mars
Clashed swords and drank to their Centurions
As an Era waited to see the dawn
And new blood to baptize the marbled Columns

And in the farms
beyond Rome,
The shepherds walked their sheep to rest
Where families returned to their homes
With stories of the day's parades and jests

And in the time
Between the days
When Rome slept and the crickets mated
The world was cast in velvet night
Lighted solely by constellation

And in that moment
God became
silent.
---
POSSIBLE Nov 2017
It might be the Autumn of the universe

But I’m dead and dying Only got three hours
but I’m worth four William Blakes
JK, this golden tongue just turn't a phrase
I’m variable I might put a pen in it for days
with my skaldic warlike metaphor maybe
pull the powder pink pin to this stink grenade

exploding White-light fragment
truth scattered like a bed unmade

Occupied by a
simple sinful citizen
what a murderous bake
like I pistol whipped the cinnamon
it’s on this nervous earth surface we wake

What if proper prayer & discipline
could cure the break?

Cognitive repetitive
sedative sensitive sediment
Source of my  rep was my life as testament

seems I’m not dominant among
those so ignorant they numb

Instead relations are networked to witness division

tantric like Siva
got three eyes
so when she go to the movies I might do four plays
treat her nice at dinner I o five plates
Then see her later cause when it comes
to acid I might take 6 crates

to the dome, left with Gaping mouth and mind so blown
_
....
^^^^
I got one shot
but I got two clocks
cause time I’m never sure
3 eyes
4 plays
5 plates
6 crates
And 1 Boom Mic

Is this the Autumn of the universe or the Winter? Not for me to say.
I’m just a boy riding a white ox playing flute.  My melody is the great opening, my drums the mirrored Dao.
Don’t deceive yourself ~ Do good to one another in mutual reciprocation.
Raj Arumugam Jul 2012
it is Spring
and we walk here now
on the solitary mountain path;
on the branches that were bare but yesterday
are new leaves, fresh and unfurling;
and a few sprigs scattered about
on the shoulders of the path

the rocks are shaped and weathered;
Nature’s thumbs and fingers
have pressed the earth the way its Dao flows
There is a bird on a bare branch
and another sings its song, hovering in the cool air

And we, we two -
now walking on this path in Spring –
though we strive, and though we aspire
we too are but living beings
Nature will fold and discard, after use
gently or as it wishes
after use
poem based on painting “Walking on Path in Spring” by Ma Yuan (马远 c.1190 - 1279年); image from wikipedia
Adam Schmitt Feb 2022
We're living a Dangerous Life,
tiptoeing on the Edge of a Knife.
What will come and take you in
The End?
Will it come from Behind
Or from Around the Next Bend?

Are We Here,
Really Here
Now?
...
The Everpresent Present

The Eternal,
The Undifferentiated,
dao
...
The Way of the Eagle
The Way of the Sun
The Way of the sweat
of the Toiling One.
The Way of the World,
The Way of The Track,
The Way of the Scorpion who rode
                                                    the Frog's back...

The Ways of Old We've left Behind
                          The Ways of New We must  
Now design...

The Laws of the Jungle
And the Laws of Gods
and Men.
The Laws of Those Whose Land
We're In.
The Laws of Physics and
The Laws of Time.
                   The laws of lawyers and
                                                      of Organized   Crime.

The Uncaused Cause,                                   

...

                 ­                   And                                  The Uneffected Effect.

The Unpolished Flaws,
And the Unfinished Project.

The Unwritten Rules and
The Unspoken Code.
The Unwitting Fools and
The Untraveled Road.

The Final Frontier,
And the Promise it gives...
The Things We Create
and the Life That Outlives...

The Dawn of the Century,
The Dusk of Mankind.
The birth of Something New,

Of a limitless Mind
                                              
                              Or is it really New?
Or was It done before?

And who is
the Ultimate Authority                          
on the Universe's lore?

And is Novelty
all that we aim to adore?
What about the Nothingness that came from
Before?
Did it have some Great Big Colorful Blob to explore?
Did We sunder the Stasis
forevermore?
...
Is there One God,
or an Infinitude?
...
What does it mean
to Truly Be

"The Dude?"

Or
Maybe the Many make up the One,
And from the One All
Things flow?
...
Have these Thoughts been Thought before?
How am I to know?
And
How about We Just Be
Good to Each Other
And
Help Each Other grow?
Just freshly written this morning. It is what it is. Depending on what your definition of is is

— The End —