Our last connection with the mythic.
My mother remembers the day as a girl
she jumped across a little spruce
that now overtops the sandstone house
where still she lives; her face delights
at the thought of her years translated
into wood so tall, into so mighty
a peer of the birds and the wind.

Too, the old farmer still stout of step
treads through the orchard he has outlasted
but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped
apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood
planted to mark my birth flowers each April,
a soundless explosion. We tell its story
time after time: the drizzling day,
the fragile sapling that had to be staked.

At the back of our acre here, my wife and I,
freshly moved in, freshly together,
transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door
gloomily, green gnomes a meter high.
One died, gray as sagebrush next spring.
The other lives on and some day will dominate
this view no longer mine, its great
lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping,
its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep.
Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser,
and remember and marvel to see
our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.

A true story by  Thula Bopela**

I have no idea whether the white man I am writing about is still alive or not. He gave me an understanding of what actually happened to us Africans, and how sinister it was, when we were colonized. His name was Ronald Stanley Peters, Homicide Chief, Matabeleland, in what was at the time Rhodesia. He was the man in charge of the case they had against us, ******. I was one of a group of ANC/ZAPU guerillas that had infiltrated into the Wankie Game Reserve in 1967, and had been in action against elements of the Rhodesian African rifles (RAR), and the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI). We were now in the custody of the British South Africa Police (BSAP), the Rhodesian Police. I was the last to be captured in the group that was going to appear at the Salisbury (Harare) High Court on a charge of ******, 4 counts.
‘I have completed my investigation of this case, Mr. Bopela, and I will be sending the case to the Attorney-General’s Office, Mr. Bosman, who will the take up the prosecution of your case on a date to be decided,’ Ron Peters told me. ‘I will hang all of you, but I must tell you that you are good fighters but you cannot win.’
‘Tell me, Inspector,’ I shot back, ‘are you not contradicting yourself when you say we are good fighters but will not win? Good fighters always win.’
‘Mr. Bopela, even the best fighters on the ground, cannot win if information is sent to their enemy by high-ranking officials of their organizations, even before the fighters begin their operations. Even though we had information that you were on your way, we were not prepared for the fight that you put up,’ the Englishman said quietly. ‘We give due where it is to be given after having met you in battle. That is why I am saying you are good fighters, but will not win.’
Thirteen years later, in 1980, I went to Police Headquarters in Harare and asked where I could find Detective-Inspector Ronald Stanley Peters, retired maybe. President Robert Mugabe had become Prime Minster and had released all of us….common criminal and freedom-fighter. I was told by the white officer behind the counter that Inspector Peters had retired and now lived in Bulawayo. I asked to speak to him on the telephone. The officer dialed his number and explained why he was calling. I was given the phone, and spoke to the Superintendent, the rank he had retired on. We agreed to meet in two days time at his house at Matshe-amhlophe, a very up-market suburb in Bulawayo. I travelled to Bulawayo by train, and took a taxi from town to his home.
I had last seen him at the Salisbury High Court after we had been sentenced to death by Justice L Lewis in 1967. His hair had greyed but he was still the tall policeman I had last seen in 1967. He smiled quietly at me and introduced me to his family, two grown up chaps and a daughter. Lastly came his wife, Doreen, a regal-looking Englishwoman. ‘He is one of the chaps I bagged during my time in the Service. We sent him to the gallows but he is back and wants to see me, Doreen.’ He smiled again and ushered me into his study.
He offered me a drink, a scotch whisky I had not asked for, but enjoyed very much I must say. We spent some time on the small talk about the weather and the current news.
‘So,’ Ron began, ‘they did not hang you are after all, old chap! Congratulations, and may you live many more!’ We toasted and I sat across him in a comfortable sofa. ‘A man does not die before his time, Ron’ I replied rather gloomily, ‘never mind the power the judge has or what the executioner intends to do to one.’
‘I am happy you got a reprieve Thula,’, Ron said, ‘but what was it based on? I am just curious about what might have prompted His Excellency Clifford Du Pont, to grant you a pardon. You were a bunch of unrepentant terrorists.’
‘I do not know Superintendent,’ I replied truthfully. ‘Like I have said, a man does not die before his time.’ He poured me another drink and I became less tense.
‘So, Mr. Bopela, what brings such a lucky fellow all the way from happy Harare to a dull place like our Bulawayo down here?’
‘Superintendent, you said to me after you had finished your investigations that you were going to hang all of us. You were wrong; we did not all hang. You said also that though we were good fighters we would not win. You were wrong again Superintendent; we have won! We are in power now. I told you that good fighters do win.’
The Superintendent put his drink on the side table and stood up. He walked slowly to the window that overlooked his well-manicured garden and stood there facing me.
‘So you think you have won Thula? What have you won, tell me. I need to know.’
‘We have won everything Superintendent, in case you have not noticed. Every thing! We will have a black president, prime minister, black cabinet, black members of Parliament, judges, Chiefs of Police and the Army. Every thing Superintendent. I came all the way to come and ask you to apologize to me for telling me that good fighters do not win. You were wrong Superintendent, were you not?’
He went back to his seat and picked up his glass, and emptied it. He poured himself another shot and put it on the side table and was quiet for a while.
‘So, you think you have won everything Mr. Bopela, huh? I am sorry to spoil your happiness sir, but you have not won anything. You have political power, yes, but that is all. We control the economy of this country, on whose stability depends everybody’s livelihood, including the lives of those who boast that they have political power, you and your victorious friends. Maybe I should tell you something about us white people Mr. Bopela. I think you deserve it too, seeing how you kept this nonsense warm in your head for thirteen hard years in prison. ‘When I get out I am going to find Ron Peters and tell him to apologize for saying we wouldn’t win,’ you promised yourself. Now listen to me carefully my friend, I am going to help you understand us white people a bit better, and the kind of problem you and your friends have to deal with.’
‘When we planted our flag in the place where we built the city of Salisbury, in 1877, we planned for this time. We planned for the time when the African would rise up against us, and perhaps defeat us by sheer numbers and insurrection. When that time came, we decided, the African should not be in a position to rule his newly-found country without taking his cue from us. We should continue to rule, even after political power has been snatched from us, Mr. Bopela.’
‘How did you plan to do that my dear Superintendent,’ I mocked.
‘Very simple, Mr. Bopela, very simple,’ Peters told me.
‘We started by changing the country we took from you to a country that you will find, many centuries later, when you gain political power. It would be totally unlike the country your ancestors lived in; it would be a new country. Let us start with agriculture. We introduced methods of farming that were not known I Africa, where people dug a hole in the ground, covered it up with soil and went to sleep under a tree in the shade. We made agriculture a science. To farm our way, an African needed to understand soil types, the fertilizers that type of soil required, and which crops to plant on what type of soil. We kept this knowledge from the African, how to farm scientifically and on a scale big enough to contribute strongly to the national economy. We did this so that when the African demands and gets his land back, he should not be able to farm it like we do. He would then be obliged to beg us to teach him how. Is that not power, Mr. Bopela?’
‘We industrialized the country, factories, mines, together with agricultural output, became the mainstay of the new economy, but controlled and understood only by us. We kept the knowledge of all this from you people, the skills required to run such a country successfully. It is not because Africans are stupid because they do not know what to do with an industrialized country. We just excluded the African from this knowledge and kept him in the dark. This exercise can be compared to that of a man whose house was taken away from him by a stronger person. The stronger person would then change all the locks so that when the real owner returned, he would not know how to enter his own house.’
We then introduced a financial system – money (currency), banks, the stock market and linked it with other stock markets in the world. We are aware that your country may have valuable minerals, which you may be able to extract….but where would you sell them? We would push their value to next-to-nothing in our stock markets. You may have diamonds or oil in your country Mr. Bopela, but we are in possession of the formulas how they may be refined and made into a product ready for sale on the stock markets, which we control. You cannot eat diamonds and drink oil even if you have these valuable commodities. You have to bring them to our stock markets.’
‘We control technology and communications. You fellows cannot even fly an aeroplane, let alone make one. This is the knowledge we kept from you, deliberately. Now that you have won, as you claim Mr. Bopela, how do you plan to run all these things you were prevented from learning? You will be His Excellency this, and the Honorable this and wear gold chains on your necks as mayors, but you will have no power. Parliament after all is just a talking house; it does not run the economy; we do. We do not need to be in parliament to rule your Zimbabwe. We have the power of knowledge and vital skills, needed to run the economy and create jobs. Without us, your Zimbabwe will collapse. You see now what I mean when I say you have won nothing? I know what I am talking about. We could even sabotage your economy and you would not know what had happened.’
We were both silent for some time, I trying not to show how devastating this information was to me; Ron Peters maybe gloating. It was so true, yet so painful. In South Africa they had not only kept this information from us, they had also destroyed our education, so that when we won, we would still not have the skills we needed because we had been forbidden to become scientists and engineers. I did not feel any anger towards the man sitting opposite me, sipping a whisky. He was right.
‘Even the Africans who had the skills we tried to prevent you from having would be too few to have an impact on our plan. The few who would perhaps have acquired the vital skills would earn very high salaries, and become a black elite grouping, a class apart from fellow suffering Africans,’ Ron Peters persisted. ‘If you understand this Thula, you will probably succeed in making your fellow blacks understand the difference between ‘being in office’ and ‘being in power’. Your leaders will be in office, but not in power. This means that your parliamentary majority will not enable you to run the country….without us, that is.’
I asked Ron to call a taxi for me; I needed to leave. The taxi arrived, not quickly enough for me, who was aching to depart with my sorrow. Ron then delivered the coup de grace:
‘What we are waiting to watch happening, after your attainment of political power, is to see you fighting over it. Africans fight over power, which is why you have seen so many coups d’etat and civil wars in post-independent Africa. We whites consolidate power, which means we share it, to stay strong. We may have different political ideologies and parties, but we do not **** each other over political differences, not since ****** was defeated in 1945. Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe will not stay friends for long. In your free South Africa, you will do the same. There will be so many African political parties opposing the ANC, parties that are too afraid to come into existence during apartheid, that we whites will not need to join in the fray. Inside whichever ruling party will come power, be it ZANU or the ANC, there will be power struggles even inside the parties themselves. You see Mr. Bopela, after the struggle against the white man, a new struggle will arise among yourselves, the struggle for power. Those who hold power in Africa come within grabbing distance of wealth. That is what the new struggle will be about….the struggle for power. Go well Mr. Bopela; I trust our meeting was a fruitful one, as they say in politics.’
I shook hands with the Superintendent and boarded my taxi. I spent that night in Bulawayo at the YMCA, 9th Avenue. I slept deeply; I was mentally exhausted and spiritually devastated. I only had one consolation, a hope, however remote. I hoped that when the ANC came into power in South Africa, we would not do the things Ron Peters had said we would do. We would learn from the experiences of other African countries, maybe Ghana and Nigeria, and avoid coups d’etat and civil wars.
In 2007 at Polokwane, we had full-blown power struggle between those who supported Thabo Mbeki and Zuma’s supporters. Mbeki lost the fight and his admirers broke away to form Cope. The politics of individuals had started in the ANC. The ANC will be going to Maungaung in December to choose new leaders. Again, it is not about which government policy will be best for South Africa; foreign policy, economic, educational, or social policy. It is about Jacob Zuma, Kgalema Motlhante; it is about Fikile Mbalula or Gwede Mantashe. Secret meetings are reported to be happening, to plot the downfall of this politician and the rise of the other one.
Why is it not about which leaders will best implement the Freedom Charter, the pivotal document? Is the contest over who will implement the Charter better? If it was about that, the struggle then would be over who can sort out the poverty, landlessness, unemployment, crime and education for the impoverished black masses. How then do we choose who the best leader would be if we do not even know who will implement which policies, and which policies are better than others? We go to Mangaung to wage a power struggle, period. President Zuma himself has admitted that ‘in the broad church the ANC is,’ there are those who now seek only power, wealth and success as individuals, not the nation. In Zimbabwe the fight between President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai has paralysed the country. The people of Zimbabwe, a highly-educated nation, are starving and work as garden and kitchen help in South Africa.
What the white man told me in Bulawayo in 1980 is happening right in front of my eyes. We have political power and are fighting over it, instead of consolidating it. We have an economy that is owned and controlled by them, and we are fighting over the crumbs falling from the white man’s ‘dining table’. The power struggle that raged among ANC leaders in the Western Cape cost the ANC that province, and the opposition is winning other municipalities where the ANC is squabbling instead of delivering. Is it too much to understand that the more we fight among ourselves the weaker we become, and the stronger the opposition becomes?
Thula Bopela writes in his personal capacity, and the story he has told is true; he experienced alone and thus is ultimately responsible for it.

Why’d you get locked up then lad?
Oh. I’m locked up?
I know you. You won’t escape lad
Escape from where?

(Jackie Wilson at her majesties pleasure 1884, West Denton, Newcastle)

The sweat rolled off Dominic’s nose.

Its ‘movement’

movement

movement

Uniting.

Meditation takes a person out
from themselves
so far out, without any need
for any additional charge, toll, or need, that when you come back,
even if it’s within
the same body,
you feel

and the glow comes back
on-coming traffic smiles, dead less grace
the worst, and 7am

chess
without a game.
a drool.
an intricacy within
mirage.
hope in the sorry soft gas explosions
and death was heavy enough to fly and give
But not in the normal way
one second, and even joy spills
and the cabbies have begun to scream and break down at each other
even though it’s not a full moon
too many people squashed on a tight balcony
drinking us all away
too many hands
not dancing
it all away


Slugs emigrate across concrete when the soil is wet.
When you wonder why they’ve left.
Its pouring
and you think you recognise a name scrawled in the wet trail.

Single, intimate, observations.

And reasons for the evening to be near.
It will be worth it! – I’LL SEE YOU! –
And now we are allowed to be glorious without price.
And now it’s sad as hell.
And the trees know that.
But the squirrels never do.
And now those words don’t matter.
And now we are allowed.
And now we go.

And the laminate floor
has the weight of a cross.
And the thing is,
you know

(It’s all softly bombed)
Not in a horrific
or knowable
way.

But in God’s good loving
loving
loving
******* for ya.

We’re finally rubbed out.

Crucifying.
And uncrucifying.

Eyes are useless here.

Blackness first.
THEN that soft
‘soft’

dripping.

easy blackness.

Meditating, sat middle
the pentagram of a small flat.
blue white board marker, on ‘easy wipe’ wood flooring.

And if I wake, I can wipe all the lines out.

SO, it went the same.
blue colour of cityscape coming-black light flashing always
across the distance from balcony
a beautiful stillness.
Waves first. Sea. The complete sea. Swimming.
ego. Ego swimming. Ego going down. Hello! And ha!
And no more jokes.
And isolation.
And no more months.
But there were gushes.
Gushes of experiences in, and outside, with individual breathes
and the proximity of love, coming closer
like a germinating hand
guiding you down
into the oceans private concert

Not too close to the expensive parts, or the bad parts,
or anywhere too pristine.
Christ, that’d be
a joke. It’d be funny
and then the surgeon would come and operate
on you;
lifting you out whilst you’re asleep

And it would go like this:

Cancer: Hey! What’s going on?!
Get off! I’ve paid my
rent and don’t wet the bed
anymore,

Surgeon: Don’t care.
Come here...
Oh for **** sake you’re making my day long.
I don’t get paid
for this.
Cancer: Oh yes you do handsome.
Surgeon: Oh yeah!

rest on the long side of your bed.
‘What’d you do at the weekend?’
Where’d you go?

...

banter broke down into spider web
substance
before fading completely, as thoughts begin
to disappear and fly down
into heavier states
from outside you saw a man still dressed
in formal office attire
tie hanging undone around a white shirt, shoes kicked off
beside strange markings on a polished floor. From in,
the understandings
are quite different
fly gently, like a loved one retiring from life
as the single light bulb watches from your ceiling
tensing one last second time in hesitation
then blowing you out with a blink.  

looked into the well where life is buried
and reached down
arms lengthened like dusty pieces of ham down a hole
touching the foetus as it crawls back up,
and up through the highway lines of his veins,
like a rabbit hunts wolves,
like the peach reacts to your bite.

We smoked and ate apple pie as the autumn tattooed
We snapped small pieces off
then ate the mites.

And then when the well filled we made our arms lassoes;
that churned the grain,
turning the quietness into storm,
and back to parts of spring.

You hesitate, touching the ape
like a clown who’s just tossed his life into the air, and juggles it,
like dead poems and hot boiling yeast.
you looked further into the well and found the figments of the ‘Narwhal’
the sea creature with a prominent horn
that shoots from its head-

Early sea farers
used to think the horned mammal was a type of
magical being
it birthed the idea of unicorns
you let the water well mix and join
as we drink coffee today, and the night is less silent
than that of star of apples and gloom
each tarantula that scatters in the red stars of sand is welcome;
and the honey man and honey woman flicker,
through numberless bank checks and bills as knocks arrive
knock after knock after knock
into long vibrational hum

All that remains
is the bursting punch
near the bottom
of oceanic well

As it tightens your grip into the follicle hibernating bears
that speak eloquent words whilst we eat;
the deep groan of munching hands
in the well helps our arms
pull up the glowing carcass as it turns back
into us within our hands, it speaks easily and slow, telling each
servant surrounding
the hole that they should:

‘Dance casually, dance inside my red eyes’.

Some take advantage of melody, as a trust that funds satellites of globe,
as if no one ever dreamed or broke the yoke of more pleasurable things;
one of your arms
is like the way that a crab crawls past over my nose and into our future home

another asks that you aren’t so violent in February
and that the month is a counting mouth that multiplies zero
beside the arms reaching for a pyramidic beauty
under the ***** shell; aborting its children like blood in the snow,
without humanistic style, more in tune with time
than the army of water lifting your throat up,
spits- that poke at us with antlers, undeterred, no legged, mating in the sand

After a while, otherness takes over, and will comes.
And emotion is long shattered,
easing out,
playing skin game and dissipating need, where all will and human comes back
it takes a while.

And our gender has nothing to do with just lust
We are the almost completely blind, as the cliché remembers
Gender is
the lack of gender and the freedom of paradigm
whilst hands are upon love,
And more night(s) turn within us.
dream like bright black stars.

Weekends. Week. Work. Corporations dancing like butterflies on fire. Gone.
Gone
Gone
Gorgeous

nothingness
apart from its face and voice
speaking

“Heyy, how’s it going?”
Projection
No
“Yes... Lover,
Yes yes yes!”
“No.”
skull now linked to the lips of a home
“Correct, correct, correct...” The intangible
darkness, over and over

a rushing
and uncontrollable
heaviness of fire.

foxes in back alleys salute
the black sky with a mongrel scream
and all the animals of the world are linked for a split minutiae,
recognising and respecting the breach;

“You’re hurting... mmmmuh-” Dominic tried to say
in the onslaught.

Converging planes that came from the lips of the spirit crowning his mind.

“You’re not Juuu, Juh Juah Juh.”

He tried to say for the next few hours, as the sun spread down
on the city
and felt a deep
empathy for another one
of its children
attempting to free
itself.

“No.”

how right you are...” The spirit said
as Dominic’s head slumped from exertion.

“You see...” The spirit said seeping into his bones
and killing him;
paramedics zip
the bag
over his face.

“You see...” The voice says again
knocking the lights off
and flinging you
by your throat

Each one letting you
go

landscape sick in multiple elements of confused colour,
parts of buildings, art: growing up in the horizon, new structures
made by thoughts, old flowers inside limbs,
smoking.

“What...” The spirit
said.

sigh at the strange place,
without looking around.
blossoms of mind and traffic
circulated
characters
on a schizophrenic island

two flies ****** invisibly
and grow from the unseen smallness of their passion
and become an instant world
in the Red Mountains.

“What’s up?” Dominic say gloomily,
laugh a little.

“You’re meant to be screaming...
And yes...
Yet another ******* month
without hitting
target.” The nightmare says,

No incorporeal speech
no anger
anymore.

She might have been about twenty five,
dressed in a shade of grey
change
that covered her genitalia
and ******* from ankle up to neck

get used to it all.
raise your chin to the sky and try to blink away from the constant lick
of the beast growing
from yourself, or lover, or day

And grow the chimera
throughout numberless
stages
like a beautiful clay
that cant decide

Finally the meer-hawk looked like a Dickensian peasant
with an intricate smile, dressed all in jail rags
stinking of sweat, *****, and time.
And then we change
again

And her black hair scooped down
into the blackening sand
where the grains accepted her slim weight
through out itself

She was tired and fed up of the back-world today
She left her contract looking around upstairs
and accepted the hit
on her targets

A transference of types in the quaking room.
A quick drop of laughter flys
into the lil bear or a lot; and a snap and a lot of hunger
for us all...

The master of the basement was mostly machine.

The front of his face that we run towards
is a centred and hovering engine
at the far end of the shadow
room
and the stench
from its thought.

a farce and enough
to turn you away
from a really good
steak.

no walls

no matter

a car mouth approaches naked.

dead cats know this, as they lay purring still, licking their paws still,
misery knows,forgetting, and the coldness of the street gave birth

to numberless seedy neon lights
flickering away from the wall less walls
once more

and you know, we
all
have a prayer
that comes
out
here was
mine:

might as well let you know
whilst we’re at it
that this one comes
out, in some accent~~
but is how it’s meant to go

“...as if to prae
inside the rain
as if to move
the moon with small hands
ah cross the yard
and lucky sky

I live in that playce me lass
with ya quiet weiyht
upon me own
of ya li’l voice
that taeks it away

Ya-renuf ta bring
al me Gods back
an pin ‘em te tha walls

Enough ta mayke
al’ me angels breathe
heavy
for even an ounce
of ya grace

Ave begged at tha hands
of jesus Christ
for that tayste
of yeh
me sweet bonny lass
an ya the only lass
‘ahve evva met
that mayde us feel
like ah cuhd heal
without bein less

An I’m lookin at ya now
with al me luv
an ah divent need
ney where to ruhn
as am ah freed dog

and in ya charms

An ‘av ney-where left to luk
but I’ll kip alreet the neet pet
cos ya by me side

an in me arms.”

But now it is rather late my friend, and
we all know how long old accents last,
mine, I cherish, I will say it when cursing
and gone
when lit among friends and when
impressing
new jobs, that I shall leave, such is
my
way
and
i may
see you
again.

They had long met o’ Zundays—her true love and she—
   And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;
But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be
Naibor Sweatley—a gaffer oft weak at the knee
From taking o’ sommat more cheerful than tea—
   Who tranted, and moved people’s things.

She cried, “O pray pity me!” Nought would he hear;
   Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed,
She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi’ her.
The pa’son was told, as the season drew near
To throw over pu’pit the names of the peäir
   As fitting one flesh to be made.

The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on;
   The couple stood bridegroom and bride;
The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone
The folks horned out, “God save the King,” and anon
   The two home-along gloomily hied.

The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear
   To be thus of his darling deprived:
He roamed in the dark ath’art field, mound, and mere,
And, a’most without knowing it, found himself near
The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,
   Where the lantern-light showed ’em arrived.

The bride sought her cham’er so calm and so pale
   That a Northern had thought her resigned;
But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,
Like the white cloud o’ smoke, the red battlefield’s vail,
   That look spak’ of havoc behind.

The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain,
   Then reeled to the linhay for more,
When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain—
Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi’ might and wi’ main,
   And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.

Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,
   Through brimble and underwood tears,
Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright
In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi’ fright,
Wi’ on’y her night-rail to screen her from sight,
   His lonesome young Barbree appears.

Her cwold little figure half-naked he views
   Played about by the frolicsome breeze,
Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,
All bare and besprinkled wi’ Fall’s chilly dews,
While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,
   Sheened as stars through a tardle o’ trees.

She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn,
   Her tears, penned by terror afore,
With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,
Till her power to pour ’em seemed wasted and gone
   From the heft o’ misfortune she bore.

“O Tim, my own Tim I must call ‘ee—I will!
   All the world ha’ turned round on me so!
Can you help her who loved ‘ee, though acting so ill?
Can you pity her misery—feel for her still?
When worse than her body so quivering and chill
   Is her heart in its winter o’ woe!

“I think I mid almost ha’ borne it,” she said,
   “Had my griefs one by one come to hand;
But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,
And then, upon top o’ that, driven to wed,
And then, upon top o’ that, burnt out o’ bed,
   Is more than my nater can stand!”

Tim’s soul like a lion ‘ithin en outsprung—
   (Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)—
“Feel for ‘ee, dear Barbree?” he cried;
And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,
Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung
Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung
   By the sleeves that around her he tied.

Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay,
   They lumpered straight into the night;
And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,
At dawn reached Tim’s house, on’y seen on their way
By a naibor or two who were up wi’ the day;
   But they gathered no clue to the sight.

Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there
   For some garment to clothe her fair skin;
But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,
He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,
Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair
   At the caddle she found herself in.

There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did,
   He lent her some clouts of his own,
And she took ’em perforce; and while in ’em she slid,
Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,
Thinking, “O that the picter my duty keeps hid
   To the sight o’ my eyes mid be shown!”

In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay,
   Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;
But most o’ the time in a mortal bad way,
Well knowing that there’d be the divel to pay
If ’twere found that, instead o’ the elements’ prey,
   She was living in lodgings at Tim’s.

“Where’s the tranter?” said men and boys; “where can er be?”
   “Where’s the tranter?” said Barbree alone.
“Where on e’th is the tranter?” said everybod-y:
They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree,
   And all they could find was a bone.

Then the uncle cried, “Lord, pray have mercy on me!”
   And in terror began to repent.
But before ’twas complete, and till sure she was free,
Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key—
Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea—
   Till the news of her hiding got vent.

Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare
Of a skimmington-ride through the naiborhood, ere
   Folk had proof o’ wold Sweatley’s decay.
Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,
Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:
So he took her to church. An’ some laughing lads there
Cried to Tim, “After Sweatley!” She said, “I declare
I stand as a maiden to-day!”

You surely have traded with me
Some intense part of your soul
Your haunting memories impairs my senses
As i constantly drift into the dark past

I can feel your lurking darkness in my soul
Radiating gloomily
Flowing
In the deep red stream that gives me life

I refuse to be
Persephone
I escape brooding moods
And the reflections of souls dead to you
To accept a pomegranate seed or two
From the underworld was a mistake
I will not pay for
And I do not expect anyone to save me

I cry that your world is so dark
you believe the light inside me is deception
the seasons will come around again
and I will not return
your soil is too damp and oppressive
for any healthy sprout to grow
and your richness and grandeur
too gloomily cast

Familiar with the voice of dismal
and disdain,

I will not be restrained
I will not be abducted
I will not be compliant
I will not forget my life in the sun
I will not be isolated
and
I will not be afraid of gathering flowers

The moon hangs, like the main decoration on a very eerie christmas tree, gloomily in the night sky.
Its gentle glow illuminates the world which is otherwise consumed in darkness.
The giant orb, plump like a ripe fruit-
yet glazed over with a chilling moss, inches higher and higher through the starry Milkyway.
When the clock strikes twelve it reaches summit and stops - as if basking in its own awe.
Gently, ever gently the music of the moon wafts through its carressing waves of moonshine - which hug the world below...and in the light of the full moon the fairies seem to dance and glow.
Their tunes and merriment are in celebration of the magic of dreams and fantasy in the air;
But suddenly it's not there anymore, and terror strikes the fairyfolk as they are abandoned in pitch black -
The moon has disappeared.
A candiflossed cloud eclipses the globe and steals the magic from the world.
But soon the moon is free from its disguise and the merriment continues.
Late into the night, when the goddess has long since begun her decent, like a silver'd over balloon, deflating - ever so slowly.
The fairies go back to their flowers and trees, go back to sleep and the world begins to lose its magic again...the soft symphony starts to die, in a slow pianissimo.
And just as she disapears, and sinks into the horizon, just as the dawn approaches, the world is engulfed in a deafening silence - in anticipation.
And as if the interval had gone on for hours, the sky bursts out into a carcophany of trumpets, and orchestra;
a crescendo jubilation as Apollo then edges into existence.
He brings a new kind of magic;
The magic of life.
All this I see, all this I hear when I play my sonata.
I feel the softness of the moon.
I feel the magic as I dance across the keys.
I see the world in a different light, through the music notes sketched into my mind.
And then as the night dies, I experience the rebirth of a new day, through the rise and fall of my melody -  
All in the span of just a few minutes and then its gone, all gone -
And I am left starring, alone at the blank pages.

Waking among the concrete structures
Starting the day running around in earnest
For chores are plenty and time is handful
To begin a new one-hundred-meter-dash
Trying to outdo each other, in an imaginary race
Every stride we take, the concrete takes away our zeal
There is no cushion for the hectic lifestyle
Taking a toll on our mind and body
We seem to have reached somewhere
But end up at the same station, to catch the train
Inadvertently, packing every coach
Few faces we know from our daily commute
Lots of new faces add up to the crowd
We are an individual, but interspersed in the crowd
Waiting to get-off at the daily destination
The concrete pavements and the concrete buildings
Greets us gloomily, although modern architecture
Facades of glass reflecting off the chaos of life outside
Immediately, we are in a grind of the job
Lost in numerous presentations and graphical projections
The pie charts take the sweetness out of our life
Savoring only percentages, with sprinkling of peppery talks
Targets are set and client’s meet are arranged
To strike out a deal and sign-off the nuptials
It’s a marriage of client and service providers
Where brands are hogging the limelight
For us it’s the race to maintain our saneness
As it’s a daily commute through the concrete jungle

Can you blame me for viewing life gloomily sometimes...
As dim as night or even darker...
Whenever I go beyond unreached, I saw strangers within me...
They knows a lot well... They often brought me to the farthest end...
Religion give us hope... But for them there is no hope at all...
For them we are only God's toys...

They knows every fate of human... Death...
That the blade of the father of time was always in our neck...
That every day we became closer to our unhappy ending...
They were so strong...

They began as my sidekick...
When I started counting 1 2 3... Learning ABC's...
I even taught they were a gift... My guardians...
But as time goes by... Their motive was unleashed...
To ruin life... To ate and destroyed mind...

There was a time that i never know me anymore...
They possessed me so much that I can't even control myself...
It's like a beast was unraveled within me...
Their passion was to get into one's head...
To play mind games with it... To turn white to gray...
Beautiful days into rainy... Love to hatred...

My body fell numb suddenly... Here they comes...
They really did exist... My head will be at war yet again...
On what I feared most... My sudden METAMORPHOSIS...



Mysterious Aries

Cloudy coffee on a rainy day
The saxophone’s honeyed voice echoing
Sitting, sighing, waiting for the sun that
Never will shine
Walk through that coffee-house door.
I’m tired of waiting.

There are tears on the other side
Of that glassy wall
Black umbrellas
Gloomily trotting back and forth
To where they need to go
Still, I sit here and wait for the sun
To come out again.

A gentleman traveling through Alabama was interested in Uncle Ned. "So you were once a slave, eh?" said the gentleman.
"Yes, sah," said Uncle Ned.
"How thrilling!" exclaimed the gentleman. "And after the war you got your freedom, eh?"
"No, sah," said Uncle Ned gloomily. "I didn't get mah freedom, sah. After de war I done got married."

Not long ago, if you could call a few years ‘not long’,
when I was still gloomily drawn to that mysterious magnet
known as the mighty Mississippi, I uncovered a nautilus fossil
not far from the Tennessee-Arkansas border, where the land
churns like red butter into the infinity of the Mississippi.
A nautilus hundreds of miles from the closest deep water.
(And only fifteen minutes from Graceland!)
They say most of the Deep South used to belong to the floor
Of some vast Jurassic swamp or sea or river—I forget which…
In the grooves of this shell-rock nature keeps its own history.
No stranger to change as the dust and mud reveal me.

Think how much change
you’ve witnessed in your life already.
Today, tomorrow and yesterday change is a hot-traded commodity, up in the Dow,
down in the Nasdaq, two day super-shipping in the fast lane.
Change customizable, ordered up and hot and ready-to-go,
the hobo on the street asking me for some change;
I told him to change his ways, get a better rate,
exchange those rags for a business suit and some britches.
He just laughed and said: “Huh, are you kiddin me?
In this day and age a man can have twenty lives in a lifetime.
I’m just asking you for a little change…”

It’s been done to death and back a million times this age.
My friends are always telling me I need to change my ways.
That I need to roam and range, that all wise wordsters roam and range.
“Change you can believe in!” But let’s just change the channel.
Onto something else, something new! Everything built for the times,
none of it made to last. See how we age and distance so fast!
Two million years in the making, we’re living proof of the past.
Don’t be a stranger to change; sit back and enjoy it while it lasts.

The boy in the park with pigeon eyes
“What is the rake of human history?” he asks me.
Cruelty and pathetic little bird-like people,
all their seed spent carrying half-ton rocks up
to the tippy-top of the Tower of Babble.
If you possessed a machine of infinite light and speed
would you go back to before change existed?
Could you resist it? Or would the blackness then lead you back to now?
Wondering how—how it all got started.
Change is strange, only the rabbit knows
how deep the rabbit hole will go.

All our lying lives spent flying,
and when we finish no one starts and no one goes.
all of us pondering the unshareable experience.
The world keeps winding on an invisible string
but the weight of the wait in line is unbearable.
A raindrop falls from the sky and hits the shell-rock in my hand
And looking down at the nautilus fossil
I get a chill, for it tells me there are creatures
without words, without hearts, dreams or ears
that have slithered through the dark untouched by change
      for millions and millions of years…

Up here at the top of the world, I stare into the horizon.
a building under construction in plain view.

Next to me,
A homeless man throws an empty bottle at some hard hats.
Screaming nonsense at them like he owns them.

Beside him,
A dog prances around, stopping only to **** on the brown grass.
covering up the **** that was left by some other dog earlier on.

the sun sets.
a film student points and clicks his camera at his model.
The model stares longingly into the horizon

At night,
Rebels, stumble out of the wilderness giggling and coughing.
smelling like skunk and sweat.
Almost stumbleing off the rocks.

I sit alone at the top of the world,
Trying to find my own way to escape.

I stand up and walk to the end of the cliff.
I scream nonsense at the black, but nobody hears me.
I ******* the precipice; but nothing is covered up.
I stare gloomily off into the horizon, but all I see is the building under construction.
I inhale smoke, but I don't feel any different.

I can't escape like the homeless man does,
or the dog, or the film student, or the rebel. they found their ways and Those ways belong to them.

I need to find my own way to escape. My top of the world.

Round and around
And back down
On this rusty Ferris Wheel
Creaking and moaning
Trying to take us this morning
Up and down
But we only go around

The reason I'm here
Has never been clear
All I know is that I know
That I care about you so
No real backbone and a hazy facade
Greet me every time I try to read your sign
Your expect so much but only give a little way
I don't know how you expect me to stay

Staring at me gloomily
Choking your pistol grip
Submerging your hands deep
Loading your gun and pressing the tip
To my extremities
Alway threatening
To ******* to pieces
I can only look up and smile
This night might take a little while

Secluded within my quilted cocoon
A mess of white bed sheets - embrace me tight!
Forlorn, humming gloomily to the tune
Of silence in the solitude of night

Oh, how I love to sleep, to dream of light
And monarch wings and fruitful dahlia blooms
Sweet nectar of utopia’s delight
Where melodies of silken harps do croon

But flightless I must nest within this tomb
My heavy heart a hindrance to free flight
Curled up within this embryotic womb
For release, to God my prayers I do recite

The bitterly sweet seclusion
Sit the soul free of the jabbering drones
of those corners of such mess
The mind's noise may flow
outside the quiet enclosure of these walls
Rejuvenate the self
as no intruders may interrupt
The beating of the heart
conducts the ticking into the night
Yet, until the harmless flow drifts unwillingly off its course
into that realm of overwhelming angst
Suddenly the state of one witched the dark to light its path
of which aimlessly walked alone
But the heart bursts with the pressuring passion
to sync such a setting
with that of a curious walker-by
Gloomily no steps heard from the intimidating outside
All that echoes is the fading notes of yesterday's piano
Oh that reminiscent tune
The plucking harp of a shining, graced spirit
now an irrelevant concocted sound
falling so suddenly short of a masterpiece
That song that enslaves the head
as if calling for an encore, before the conductor even raises his baton  
So the art of the writer's hand is clenched still
by the frigid hold of the past
and guiding the pen's strokes through the only script it believes
The same story pathetically scribbled every night
in ridiculous hopes of a greater ending

Two people are kissing
on the bus, their lips
entwined like one knot
of candyfloss. Nobody
else notices this, or does
but doesn’t care, eyes
peering gloomily out
the windows at the
belly of fog across
empty fields. I wonder
how long these two
have lasted, how long
they have brushed
tongues and laced
fingers with each other.
Barely eighteen, adolescence
prickling their skins
like heat rash, the fear
of young adulthood
a neon light down
a dark alleyway. I wonder
if they will last. I doubt it,
but there is no way of telling.
I ought to say it’s fleeting,
that in half a decade
you might not know
each other, two people
together once in some way
but now not, or with others
who have yet to enter the frame.
But it would be rude
to interrupt. They kiss,
I sit.

The stars shine bright tonight
Above all the city lights
All we see are the barely visible flickers
From way down here

Nevertheless, they are still there
Gloomily hidden behind the urban glare
Burning bright
On a brilliant night
For you I promise, I'll always be there

The ticking of an antique clock,
The smell of unwashed dishes,
A sinewy hand curled around the heart
Small slits of sunlight Peaked through the blind’s half shut eyelids.
Burrowed in the shadows,
She sunk into the old armchair.
Ink scrawled papers littered the room,
Resting gloomily on the coffee stained carpet and dust flecked tables.
The words would not come.
Her notepad ---- a casket for the desiccated shells
Of words that carried no life.

I wrote you a poem
But you didn't undertand.
for each word means something to someone,
and you're just too different to know.
I wrote about the summer
the haze and the roads
when we walked through the sickle scented fields
row by row
when we held hands
and kept on doing so.
and I wrote about the fall
the autmun wind that blows
and the pumpkins and the warmth
within houses
row by row
and I wrote about the winter
when leaves still sparsley hang
from limp trees
that the wind hasn't blown away
left over from the autumn
when snow has yet to fall
but gloomily we wait,
outsise preparing,
outside,
our houses
row by row
sled in hand
waiting for something to either fall
or start to grow
and I would write about the Springtime
but you never lasted very long
because when I described the three others
you just turned and frowned
and told me that I was wrong.

The sun plays hide and seek in the clouds
As the tide kissed then retreated from the dancing sand
The waves gloomily sang
And it felt like everything I've never had
Beckoning me
My God
What a cruel game destiny plays
In the distance
Above the weeping willow
The moon mischievously winks
Hiding secrets

Standing inside my window,
I overlook the sea,
Its wild distant waves,
Are scattered with spray and rime
While rain squalls bluster,
Whip the coastal scrub,
And beat against the window,
Shaking it before me.

This is clarity,
Coldly far-sighted and real.
There is nothing to shield me
From the bleakness outside,
Of cold wind and rain,
But a shaking window pane.

And I am in and out,
Of a related,
Experience of my mind,
An inner clarity,
Of certain feelings,
Where my own inner landscape
Is just as cold and wild,
Where in great moments,
Long and expansive enough
For a lone eagle's flight,
Across a deep vast,
There opens the emptiness
Of an unremitting view
That expands forever,
Across a shadowless plain
Of unfeatured freedom,
Depriving my limbs
Of knowing where to take me,
For with such clarity,
Potency leaves me,
And everything approaches
An equalised tension,
Color dissolving,
In the unforgiving light
Into clear and starker,
Hues of black and white.

At such confronting moments
Of intensified light,
I want sfumato,
Where illusion emerges
And magical stillness
Of poetic dreams,
A satyr seems to appear,
From dark forest shadows,
Or was it a dream?
Just flickering light and shade?

In art's uncertainties,
My soul gains relief,
Softened by chiaroscuro,
From which deep shadow
Imagination rises to
Soften and obscure,
To blur the harsh edges
Of reality,
Removing the objective
Towards much safer realms
Of a personal
World of subjectivity,
Sensation becoming
Perception in which
The natural is surpassed,
Becomes the poetic,
The spiritual,
And so the everyday world
Then becomes enchanted,
Synonymous with
The illusionary world
Of art's poetic forms,
The colours of it,
All its singing harmonies,
All its sublime beauties,
That work together,
To form a poetic whole.

But behind this window pane,
I am bleak and dismal,
Stripped of the comfort
Of heart-warming illusion,
And bleakness clings to me
Like a cold wet shirt,
Exposing my nakedness,
The cruelly torn edges
Of a soul emptied
Of all joy and all beauty,
My soul, that part of me
Of which I was sure,
And was my certain refuge
From all the furrowed brows
Of the harried world
From which I come to this place.

Is this bleak journey my path?
The one that will lead me
Back to my own self?
That beautiful part of me
I somehow lost touch with
So long ago now.
Where can I hope to find it,
Along this stony path,
This lonely drear place?
Yet, am I truly alone?
For did you not promise
You would be with me,
My companion on this path?
That thought has sustained me,
But you are not here!
Was it just your faithless words?

And now, after this longing
For embracing shadows,
To comfort my soul,
The weather has closed right down,
And comes in gloomily,
Limiting visibility,
And now the light is poor,
And a swirling rain-storm
Makes the house shudder,
Lashing the window near me,
And flying off the roof,
In clouds of cold spray.

Thank you, Higher Beings all,
For your keen diligence
In sending to me
These clouds of cold spray and rime.
But, instead of the angst
And uncertainty
Of this cursed clarity,
Another squall of rain
Was not in my mind…

You knew what I had in mind.

if you can't be bothered to learn a second language? i, can't be bothered to relinquish my mother (tongue); that's just how it works; and no, mono-lingualism doesn't give birth to monotheism, given the example of moses, monotheism can only exist in a realm of bilingualism - just like the quantum effect of electrons; which is why islam is so, ******* arrogant, being the child among the father of judaism, and the mother of christianity... it wants to convert, but it doesn't bother to teach you arabic, which is a necessary precursor to practice the religion (apparently). yet i still think that, for monotheism to exist, it can only exist in a bilingual environment; you need to be fractioned, to encompass a whole, a oneness that's mono-, a god standing on one foot joking about having to dance, when instead imitating the jitters of a sparrow hopping, rather than gloomily, proud, and executioner fathomable parade of the crow.

   well, isn't islam a spoilt brat?
                                 isn't it?! is islam not a sploit brat?
                oh right... no dubai, no oil...
               hasn't islam become a sploit brat?
                           isn't it screaming and shouting
                and stomping its feet all around the place?
                to me? islam is a sploit brat...
           with papa judaism and mama christianity
   wondering how to deal with this insolent
          critter; the little ******* needs a good beating
      so he can shut the **** up; and what's with
   the orthodoxy of banning music?
             well... if you're going to ban music...
                           stop singing the ******* adhan!
    do what the catholics do... murmur it!

zamilkł*    (he became silenced)
        zamilkła (she became silenced)

     in english:        with england's                                

in polish:
                           z polską
                                    (with    poland)

­        and how the possessive article changes.

we all have our grievences,
to reclaim what we once had,

         the greeks have istambul...

  the germans have marienburg...
    
                         the poles have l'viv...

we all have our grievances...

  in the 19th century a few people stressed
a nostalgia for ancient greece...

   in the 21st century?
             the greeks are hardly nostalgic
about their ancient pillars...
   they're more into their byzantine heritage...
i guess the name is what's
       nostalgia per se,
           rather than the fact that...
   well... they're no remembered for much...
other than trying to keep islam at bay...
nostalgia in name only (i.e. byzantine) -
   belzebub belzebub... helen?
  hellenic?
                 belzebub byzantine belzebub...

well, perhaps there are a few cantos sung
by byzantine monks...
    and when you hear it?
              god, you can almost hear turkish
being spoken,
         and this is sung by greeks!
let's face it, turks have the same ι (iota)
    as the greeks;
                   the matter? settled in cyprus.

Hello there little fella
Why do you look so awfully glum
Is there a reason behind that tiny little frown
Why are your eyes so glassy and bright
What can be the reason you look so down

Where is that huge smile I used to see on you
Where is that loud laugh which fills up the room
Where is that tiny little hops in your steady walk
Where is that cheeky glint of mischief shining in your eyes

Hey there, hey there little dear fella
Come now come here and let yourself free
Don't sit gloomily there in that dark dusty corner
Let me be the ears to whatever your heart dismays

No. No. That can't be true
You're wrong. It can't be. No. No
You're imagining it. Its never true
You don't know what you're saying. No. No. No

Don't cry now little fella. There, there
There, there. Do wipe those poor tears
Don't let them fall. Don't let them flow
This too shall pass. This too shall go

You will be fine now little fella
You will be ok
You will get through this
You will be walking your way

This hug you are in now, it will always remain
This strength you feel now, it will always be there
This courage you hold now, it will always stay
This love you have now, it will always be yours

Always

She slipped clumsily in a café
Looked all around her
from the corner of her eye
Felt all eyes upon her
Bit her lip
and flushed crimson
most disconcertedly.

He was sacked,
literally fired
Got down in the dumps
Was down and out
and was left feeling
blue so gloomily.


He gave her a blossomed rose
Blood rushed to her cheeks
She blushed a deep red
so very joyously.


She watched her rival from afar
Summed up her envy in reflex
and she turned green jealously.

It looked hale and hearty
Ooh the cherubic chubby cheeks
Baby looked in the pink
as it babbled away innocently.

She heard of a loved one's demise.
That was a shock indeed
She went white as a sheet
as she then wept so woefully.

She saw a teeny-weeny spider on her skirts
Talk of arachnids and phobias, yikes!
She turned a pale yellow in fright
as she screamed so fearfully.

He found his sweetheart
in another man's arms
Doubted his own charms
and his face went purple with rage
almost immediately.

He faced his lifelong enemy
Hate brimmed up in him
as his bitterness found a vent
He shot him a black glare
how very scornfully


Well, well, it might seem that the worst of all the human hues
are the melancholic depressing blues
But I think being green for jealousy
and the black of hate
top the list in deserving poohs.
Mind you these human pigmentation of emotions
are a matter of reflex
for you can't choose
which of the human hues
you'd like to wear, on party day
and which you'd rather not use.

https://youtu.be/VFInp0m0b4Y

Thro’ troubled days that gloomily hang,
Thro’ dreary songs I wearily sing,
May the gods help me be not depress’d;
But set my poor mind at peaceful rest!
Let not my reasoning be a mess!

My stormy mind cannot concentrate.
I may even confuse love with hate.
I feel the ******* world closing in!
My poor nerves are rattled by the din!
Is all the noise without or within?

Real peace is not found in worldly state!
Nor is true joy on a golden plate!

Pardon this heart that
       gloomily bounced,
That it may in this life's long
        night
Restored somehow be to
        household of peace,
Which, in grave or before,
Can give relief to owner's
                pain:
   >It is concerned tears that
           aflame flow,
   >Which render fatal fears
           so nearly real.

                    i.
From when reason first
     stroke the race on Solon's
              tongue,
Strong stood and made its
      roars heard,
To the ears of that trouble-
      gotten Hellenic year,
Whose winter of rage
       brought drought to
            intellect,
Convenience wounds it at
         chance in every age:
   >If 'winning' we see
          when guns roar,
   >Then dark be right, we to
          all beauty blind!

                      ii.