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“One of the effects of living with electronic information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload.”                                                      
                                                                                      Marshall McLuhan
So, let’s review:
Man is a thinking animal.
Stanley Kubrick took us to space to get us to think.
Marshall McLuhan:  “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”
Hemetucky: what was I thinking?
The Rapture for the 1%:   The Language of the World and The Language of Enthusiasm explains why Sir Richard  Branson’s ****** Galactic will only be taking the richest among us to space.
Ian (Limey Futurologist) Pearson:  “Binary is already the dominant language on Planet Earth with today’s machines having more conversations in 24 hours than the whole of humankind since the birth of Eve.”
Larry Flynt:  “**** is the answer to everything.”
Goofy:  “Yeah, I ****** Minnie. I shagged her rotten, baby!”  
Winston Smith:  “Do it to Julia!”
McNugget Buddies:   “Parts is parts.”                                          
Stunod: “Donuts-a -spella backwards issa stunod.” Think about it.
Tony Soprano.  “You ****** stunod, it's a joke.” (Stunod:  in southern dialect Italian means stupid, or a stupid person) http://(www.urbandictionary.com) define.php?term = stunod  / buy stunod mugs & shirts
Marshall McLuhan:    “Jokes are grievances.”
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino:  “Antonio Gramsci thought that Stalin and Bolshevism could save him and Italy from Fascism:  stunod.”
The Cloud:  My acceptance of the Cloud into my life and my changeling cyborg self is by no means a capitulation to the surfing life.
Paulo Coehlo:  “The God you seek; that someone who awaits you is you.”
Howard Beale:  “That’s the God *******.”
God:   “Because you’re on television, stunod!”
The Elders of Zion:  Nu?
Meir Kahane:  “Let us not suffer from a national amnesia that causes us to forget who and what we are. No trait is more justified than revenge in the right time and place. I know that American and Israeli elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state, who would bring on us a slow Auschwitz - not with gas, but with knives and hatchets. Vote for Newt!”

**** Jagger:    “Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out” (40th Anniversary Edition, Rolling Stones)
Keith Richards +Fijian palm tree = Stunod.  
Marshall McLuhan:   “The more the data banks record about each of us, the less we exist.”    
Howard Beale: “If there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is not only full of *******, that man is  stunod.”
The Nam, Part I:   a demented slaughterhouse within a microcosm and grains of beach sand inside micro-Cosmo Kramer’s shorts. When I was in the Kingdom of The Nam I was always under the influence of some drug, mostly my own pure adrenaline when scared shitless--a frequent condition for me—not only my own piquant adrenal juice but other stuff like ****, hash, Thai stick, *****, amphetamines, H-Horse ******, quaaludes, horse tranquilizers and Russian *****. The drugs were always a welcome and needed friend, a respite from the horrors of war in Southeast Asia. To meditate & levitate, to transmigrate & navigate, to negotiate & regurgitate myself, I needed a head start if I was going to SLIDE through what would be called a wormhole today, making a three-dimensional movement between different parallel universes, a conquest of time and space. Cue our favorite narrator:
Rod Serling:  “You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension--a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”
WWII, Part I:  A slider now, I SLIDE to my father’s war—the War in Europe in the years before V.E. Day, May 8, 1945. Suddenly I’m flipped right out of the jungle to Germania, to Deutschland in the winter of 1945. I am a P.O.W. of the Germans, sent out into the economy as slave labor. It’s February in Dresden, Germany, the Baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, the city called lovingly by her (****!) many lovers: “The Florence of the Elbe.” It was a long time ago, during the war and I Survived to Tell the Tale. I am a wet floppy Kilgore Trout; I’ve flopped right out of the Twilight Zone into what appears to be an underground meat locker in Dresden. There are animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling and the building is known as Slaughterhouse Number 5. I am a lucky ******* because even though I don’t know it yet, I’m in the safest place in the entire city. Cue the Bombing of Dresden, a strategic military bombing by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).  In four raids, 1,300 heavy bombers dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on Dresden. The resulting firestorm destroyed 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of the city centre and killed many thousands, according to **** figures-- largely discredited by the victors who not only get the spoils but get to spin the history any which way but loose. Casualty figures were 200,000 and death toll estimates went as high as 500,000. Or maybe just 25,000 total, if you believe the ******* Anglo-American valkyries who unleashed the wrath of Khan’s Smoking Joe’s Barbecue Ribs and Hotlinks. Win a war, get a medal and a seat in Congress, maybe the White House; lose a war, get indicted. You’re going to Nuremberg, pilgrim, or the ******* Hague.
Kurt Vonnegut: “World War II was over and I was standing in the middle of Times Square with a Purple Heart on and a purple hard-on.”
Colonel Kurtz:  “We fight for the land that's under our feet, the gold that's in our hands, women that worship the power in our *****.  I summon fire from the sky. Do you know what it is to be a white man who can summon fire from the sky? ...What it means? You can live and die for these things, not silly ideals that are always betrayed  . . . I swallowed a bug. Who are you, captain?”
Willard:   “Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste. I've been around for a long long year, stolen many man's soul and faith. Stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change. Killed the Tsar and his ministers, Anastasia screamed in vain. I rode a tank, held a gen'rals rank when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank. Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.”  
WWII, Part II:  The bombing of Dresden had to have been some kind of a violation of some International Code or Geneva Convention. But, of course, the bombers, the Victors, ran the Nuremberg show trials. The bombees didn’t get a chance to say much, didn’t want to make a fuss, seeing how generous the Army of Occupation was with their coal, gasoline, clothing and food handouts. But I was there when it was safe to climb out of the meat locker, and immediately got put to work on the après les bombes clean-up. I was there doing the ***** work, a corpse miner, tasked with collecting the fried grasshopper remains of so many unlucky Krauts who were simply burned alive, like heretics at the Inquisition. So it goes.
William Tecumseh Sherman: “War is Hell, Babaloo!”
Colonel Kilgore: “You can either surf, or you can fight!”
Sam Bottoms: “I dropped a tab of acid at the Do-Long Bridge, so I think I’ll surf for awhile: ‘I see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.’ Reading Blake: for years it was the only way I could block out the war, that and losing myself in a bunch of undercover assignments. Yeah, it was William Blake, I-Spy and lots more acid; that how I dealt with PTSD.”
The Nam, Part II, LT DAN:  “Good job, trooper; those ******* drugs got you coming and going, sliding so fast you’ve missed latrine duty 3 times this month. Now go get 5 gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline, mix it together and torch that ******* feces, soldier.”
** Chi Minh:  “This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around.”
***** Friedman:   “The Democrats and Republicans are the same guy admiring himself in the mirror.”

Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak:   “Vote for Pedro.”
Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard:    “Fight Fiercely!”
Marshall McLuhan:    “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”
The Author:   I am a disaffected angry old man, formerly a disaffected angry young man; a Hopi-Italian Jew with Chinese offspring, namely my left-brained son, a mathematical genius but having a tough time dealing with idiots, the many truly stunod people in the world.  Then there’s my Rose, my sweet King Lear-jet daughter, like her half-brother, not yet finished paying for my sins. My offspring are haunted, visited upon daily by their father’s  ghosts, ghosts created, ghosts hovering over me, from wars hot and cold and peace lukewarm and cloudy, like the uranium ground contamination on the mesa, visited upon mothers and infants  and children who seek only a glass of cool water from the spring not to be glow worms in the dark, leukocytes made insane by something in the water. My sins, a father’s sins; things I did to curry favor, to ingratiate and advance myself with the 1%, things I did to get ahead in life, to get what I thought my father and others in the ancestral slipstream had failed to get, twice to the Rabbi for a get (Hebrew: גט‎, plural gittin גיטין), to get the edge my kids need now, the edge I never had, and life reduced to an exercise in ultimate combat, little more than a cage fight, man against man and God against all. The things I did for money and position shame me now. And shame is a large  source of my anger.  I will remain angry. I will hang on to my anger at God and myself and all who have been disappointed in me, by me, especially the cavalcade of short-term caretakers, women used, abused, left behind and forgotten. Why am I me? Sometimes I think that’s the way I’m programmed. But it’s okay, like Gaga: “I'm beautiful in my way 'Cause God makes no mistakes I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way' Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way and will I continue to surf the Cloud: even though God is dead and I don’t believe you, or me, or them.
Basic: remember Basic?

10   A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 20
20   START STEP TWO ANGER KUBLER-ROSS INFINITE LOOP
30   GOTO 10
10   A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 20
20   START STEP TWO ANGER KUBLER-ROSS INFINITE LOOP
30  GOTO 10
10   A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 20
20   START STEP TWO ANGER KUBLER-ROSS INFINITE LOOP
30 A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 30
30  GOTO 10 Ad infinitum
Not any character of the jungle,
At the time power was kept by the single
Lion kind, risked jumping into the lions’ jaws,
Against their rapacity raising paws:
The hares and hyenas they could strangle
And devour; in their minds best were their laws
Providing rights of the mighty
As common and full sovereignty.

The era was worsened by men-hunting,
Whose guns were used the wildlife menacing.
The weak of the forest saw that succumbed
The lions, who were the first shot at, welcomed
The hunters and their faces showed, smiling.
They were deceived when the first seen were harmed
Like the lions by the same haughty
Men set against their sovereignty.

Some lions who survived called the animals
For a meeting, and the men-criminals
Were the main topic of their discussion.
The lions warned, “Will wipe us away those men
If can’t stand together as animals,
Fight them and save lion, hypo, hare and wren…”
Mocked and heckled the assembly
That ne’er had enjoyed sovereignty.

Each one’s motion was that there was no need
Of obeying on the lions, who to feed
Their cubs with their flesh used to take pleasure.
They thought their forest had become seizure
Of the men for lack of unity; freed
It’d be with or ‘thout a lion as major:
They’d trust who would bring unity
And help them enjoy sovereignty.

There came a time and there came protectors
Of the animals to stop the hunters
From destroying on the environment.
They showed in killing there’s no contentment.
So the hunters ceased to be predators,
And the fauna had no more sentiment
Of hating the humanity
That brought them peace and sovereignty.

Some of them were kept in zoo
And the kingship of the lions they did boo.
Cows, rabbits, goats - were domesticated,
And more than ever they were protected.
Such treatment them gave of humans new view:
The protectors or authors of the deed
Looked like who’d brought brutality,
But in their hearts reigned sovereignty.

Later on the lions found that in the strong
Claws dwelt no good power, but can be for long
Which is applied to all comfort giving,
That a king marching in front of trembling
Souls, as if to hell angels would belong,
One day will see his strength brought to nothing,
But where freedom ain’t scarcity
Kings and subjects share sovereignty.

What the beasts failed to know was the keepers
Of the zoo were children of the poachers,
Who’d found unfair deed what their fathers did,
To take good care of them had decided
And did not want to be called game-seekers’
Generation. In the action could read
Great kindness and humanity
The beasts savoring sovereignty.

A former foe may become a good friend,
Who breaks off with the past and turns his hand
Into protector, support provider –
Like Human Rights Activists. No wonder
Where they are from, people’s torn hearts they mend.
A protector has ne’er been intruder
As long as for tranquility
He works and preserves sovereignty.

A sovereign nation is not like a house
With its closed doors, and inside, like a mouse,
A wife is beaten and loses her life
Without neighbours’ intervention as if
Not hearkening the victim, and the louse
Of man not stopping is to save the life.
Is a land where people’s safety
Is denied full of sovereignty?

If at The Hague someone is indicted,
It means not people he has protected,
Nor that he has well governed Liberia,
But ‘cause people’s hearts he has filled with fear
And a lot of trouble he’s invited.
After shedding blood there and here,
The lions who’ve made their claws *****
Should be there washed for sovereignty.

Wherever the lions rage it’s no matter:
Matters the will to keep the world better.
Some Devil’s advocates would call nations
Not in Syria to find indications
Of crimes as if is found a wife-beater
At Holy Land or brothels it opens.
In a place where reigns sanctity
Won’t dwell breakers of sovereignty.


A rot of conception of sovereignty
Reeks when gangrene holds sway o’er a country,
In which Democracy swings at cannons;
Debates are feared that aim ruling with brains;
Wear noose as necklace who would change carry,
And the song “Independence” is hangmen’s.
Where lions and lambs live with loyalty,
There is unshaken sovereignty.
This poem aims to think of what sovereignty is and especially of its true concept.
http://www.amazon.com/author/bonim007
There was an Old Man of the Hague,
Whose ideas were excessively vague;
He built a balloon
To examine the moon,
That deluded Old Man of the Hague.
THE HUNCHBACK OF AFRICA

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)



He lives in a big city
In a big bungalow
With all of his henchmen
And henchwomen
He puts on big sun-glasses
He has bushy beards
On his back a clenched hunch
Protruding menacingly
Like a lethal bombshell
His skin is ***** dark
His face is frog wrinkled
He forgot indigenous tongues
But he is a master of spoken French
Don’t mention the queen’s English
He is a bad news,
He is shrewd and corrupt
With avarice for money
He loves women, women, them women
Hot mistress is his domain
He loves European alcohol
His public office
Is a private personal bar
With all types of wines haute couture;
***** and whisky
John walker and cappuccino
Champagne and cognac
Smirnoff and viceroy
Chang’aa but in a skulk,

He has nothing to do with men
Only his two sons and brother in-laws
His sons bear European names
Aristocratic European names;
Knappert and Otto von Guericke
Mussolini and Harold,
He reads not African literature
On the claim that they are whimsical
But he reads white African writers;
Lessing and Macgoye
Coetzee and Nadine
Ruark and Blixen,
His shelves are woodlots
Of European classics
Classics of Palimpsest nature;
From Hugo to Dumas
Fyodor to Tolstoy
Cervantes to Austen
Maugham to Friedrich schiller
Pushkin to Bernard Shaw,

The hunch back of Africa gets broke mid-month
He goes for bank overdraft
A mistress snatches him to zero anew
He clicks and curses the **** *****,
But he consoles in the prompt flick
Wine can’t be sweet without those wenches
As he drives his white jalopy
A ramschackled beetle shaped Volkswagen,

He has ever nursed a Germany dream
To go to Germany and come back strong
To reason strong like the sons of bundeslander
To come to Germany and pluck out
The **** of a hunch from his back,

He expects nothing from a man
Especially men from other African tribes
Other than bribe and praise
Any form of praise sends him berserk with jubilation
Any form of bribe sends him rambunctious with ego
He loves power with all of his nerves
Including the entirety of his hunch,

He hates one book in his  live
That even he made it a toilet paper
‘The constitution’
He says it has no respect for old people
That it has no respect for freedom fighters
That it has no respect for hunchbacks
That it has not respects for royal sons
That it has no respect for rich people
That it makes the poor people to be rude
To be rude without discipline
He condemned it a toilet paper,
When you come to African privities
Be careful, the paper you use may be a constitution
The hunch back himself must stay in the toilet long enough
To use minimum of fifty pages of the Katiba
When cleaning his ****
He has an ambition to reach all the pages
Bearing the number hundred
On which there is a clause on
International criminal justice,

The hunchback of Africa is full of love
Indeed he is a fountain of love;
Love of his second wife among them all
Love of his tribesmen who are yes-men
Love of his atrocious spies
Love of his sycophants
Love of his fresian cow
Which he imported from the Hague Holland
Love of his ******* son sired to him by a mistress
Love of the psalms of David the king in the bible
Love of his English name ‘josephat’
Love of his kingdom
That made him the hunchback of Africa.

Goodbye!
Thomas Thurman Aug 2010
If anything should happen to The Hague,
if someday they abandon Amsterdam,
philosophers will take these strange and vague
descriptions, and derive each tree and tram
by mathematical necessity:
should nations shake their fists across the seas
with words of war, it follows there must be
a middle ground, a people loving peace.
And is this scrap alone a netherland?
Not so: we spend our nights beneath the sky,
and every country's low for us, who stand
a thousand miles below the lights on high;
if only I could learn to live as such,
and count myself as kindly as the Dutch.
Written, with thanks, for the organisers of GUADEC 2010.
John Landry Nov 2013
"They're selling postcards of the hanging" Bob Dylan


Frolicking in the Hague festooned
as if some monarch's golden jubilee
not a room left empty in all the land
queues for miles to get a ringside seat
at what is billed as The Trial of Man
as W, ****, and Rummy sit chained
to the bionic calves of barstools while
Condo Lisa bears witness atop a piano
ferreted throughout the conurbation
breadlines and circuitous routes
recalling the Nicaraguan case
low on the radar of short-term
the disunited states of disarray
vetoes its own trial's outcome
and it is business as usual
It is not a confused whirr,
nor dumbish  agitprop poetry,
nor ramblings of a jumbuck
in guest for freedom to peddle
the awry science of antisemitism,
it is a poetic license of word-power
for him to  said what must only be said.

to sing cautionary verses and lyrics
against the flow of atomic warheads
from the America ,or whatsoever
on the western and Germany submarines
to the land of Israel, where Netanyau reigns
in terror and racist tyranny con Palestine,
or to versify a caution of this atomic arming
of Israel but not her neighbors like Persia
the cradle of Omar Khayyam the Rubiyatist,
or else to disarm the Arab world, as Israel terribly
arms her sons and daughters with nuclear and  Atomic drones
along with  hatred of the neighbours in mad avarice for land,
is not at all a crime of poetry but Gunter's artistic  morality.

Nobel reward cannot be a seal on your beak,
you Gunter, the brave son of  Bundeslander,
we cannot be lulled to sleepish silence
with blissful feelings of Nobel Laureatry,
cosmetic dignity , nonchalance or standoffishness,
when terror is reigning in the  Middle East
Israelis committing crimes against humanity
****** women, mauling children and shooting civilian Arabs,
that would be heinously wrong , punished even not
in the Hague of Holland but in the hottest place in hell
which John F. Kennedy saw Dante Alighieri creating,
for those who stand aloof , when evil is committed in the world.

Your communion in the Waffen schustafel or the Hitlerite SS,
is not impeachment on your moral history,nor reason for shame,
the poltergeist of Europe in the days of your youth was pure SS ,
in nature ,fibre and DNA,every European dreamed of a colony,
Britain and France cahorted to own Africa as their handkerchief,
****** bench marked to own France in 1943,  a colonial vintage,
******'s ***** was genuine government in Germany,
democratically ratified by the voters in Germany,
Your service to ****** was service to your country,
it was your turn of patriotism and love of fatherland,
like your contemporaries in other parts of the world
who prospered as the FBI,CIA,Mossadist,Kosmosols,
Gendarmes,Kanu youth wingers,or Colonial police
in Britain's Gulag in the name of African Archipelago.

i don't know what they mean,
when they call you Gunter the anti-Semite,
rebuking Israelis  terrible killing  of  Arabs
is not reason not even an emotion enough,
anywhere, whether on earth or in the ethereal,
to call Gunter an  anti-Semite or an  immoral poet.

wasn't colonialism a warped racial conscience,
was it not anti-negroism or anti-africanism,
persistent torture of black slaves in America,
doesn't it call for social phenomenology?
isn't it Anti-blackism or it is only  justifiable slavery?

Let Gunter Grass say what must be said,
let him sing what must be chanted,
Like Lenin and Gogol of Russia
let him do what must be done
let him fear what must be feared,
let him not fear the loss of Nobelite dignity,
Jean Paul Sartre won the Nobel Prize ,
but his clear socialist consciousness
made him decline to pick the cash,
in true service to his ideals,
he still glowed like a bush fire
in the Harmmattan wind
he never waned in glory whatsoever
even in his current realm of abode
among the living dead of the world
he still shines as a  center piece
when time for chance to voice of  reason
is called for, for humanity's sake,
Let Gunter Grass say what must be said.
in defense of Gunter Grass poem on Israeli-Persian relations, which has made Israel to be armed with Nuclear and Atomic warheads.Israel is not sensitive to global peace.
JDH Jun 2017
Some introductory food for thought...

"Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire."
  - Ludwig Von Mises

"Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in the structure, not from their relations with the people they are supposed to serve. The people are not masters of the bureaucracy, but its clients."
  - Alan Keyes


The European Union as the New Eastern Bloc?
The Eastern Trading Bloc of the Soviet system had it's origins in the tail end of the Second World war, where, through the suppression of the whereabouts of Kremlin manipulation, had purported itself as democratic agreement, initially giving itself the appearance of a 'bourgeois democracy' as the Soviets called it. Though, inherently was, and clearly became an imperial establishment of control from the Soviet Bureaucracy. Likewise, the European Union, when originally advertised to the nations of Europe was propped up in a similarly unassuming manner, despite having been previously discussed and having the concepts of such a union already organised further back into 1948 at the Hague Conference. The parallels of such such unions (Eastern/Euro) are that they garnered the consent of the public through their foundation being merely upon an economic transnational policy, and not a political one, and therefor their basic parallels are that of deceit.

The Eastern Bloc formed what was essentially a symbiosis of the state and the economy, something that naturally would be inherent under a Communist regime. However, the European Union, too, follows a similar reciprocal foundation, for it binds the state and economy, removing the separation of powers by Capitalistic enterprise, and instead, Centralises governance in a more oligarchical, corporate and bureaucratic apparatus. Operating through a complex arrangement of multitudinous committees and boards, whose members form a body of non-elected representatives. Essentially the European Union, on the guise of an economic market, has formed a centralised, quasi-private parliament akin to the Soviet style hegemony of the Eastern Bloc, and through soft-intimidation and misinformation, keeps it's members bonded. Lest it be forgotten that the Union is allegedly one of 'free trade', yet, when discourse begins to brew of leaving, as it did in Britain, why are we met with threats of economic disability and ostracization? That shows more the signs of a protection racket; of bureaucratic gangsterism, than it does of a voluntary cooperation of national markets.


The unification of Germany and the amalgamation of the European continent?
In a more predictive sense, the European Union shares similarities in it's unifying policies, as it it does to the unification of the German states circa 1871. Spearheaded during the Bismarckian era of the late nineteenth century, Germany, well within a period of two decades transformed from a collection of trading states, to a fully amalgamated nation under Prussian dominated rule, but by what means did this occur, and in what ways does the unification of Germany share similarities to modern Europe?

Of course, the chief processes of German unification lied in the economy, the political structure and culture, the political structure I have already covered. The establishment of a newly amalgamated economy among the German States was created through the breaking down of trade barriers between the previously independent states, one of which ways in doing so was the introduction of the single German currency (the Mark) along with a centralised banking system that allowed for both monetary control by the state and the removal of currency exchange between regions. Likewise the European Union brought with it the introduction of a common European currency (the Euro) and too, a European Central Bank. The new Germany also extended its unification to the creation of a common German culture that evoked a sense of nationalism, for instance, the establishment of a new national anthem and German military, to be paraded with pride. Too, the standardisation of the school system to create a state of coherent socialisation among the German generations. What we see with the European Union is also the creation of a common European national anthem and a cooperative European military (though a centralised European military is still developing) and through policies such as the Bolonga Process, the education system of Europe as a whole has been standardised to the specific image of the European Union, even a single European emergency number (112) is under proposition.

It is said that history repeats itself, and perhaps what we are living through today is the amalgamation of the European states as transpired nearly 150 years ago within central Europe. And that the non-representative, self appointing parliament of the European Union, resembles almost a kind of bureaucratic Kaiserreich; a kind of Prussian hegemony of the modern day.


- a short essay by JDH
ANTLIKE STRENGTHS
A poem by Tricia Hague-Barrett 1993

An ant carries its large load across the cracks
in the path on its way homeward
Nothing gets in its way
Nothing prevents him from succeeding,

If only I could have seen the end in the beginning
where struggles are frequent but passable,
testing but not breaking my resolve to give in
to the desparate feelings of loneliness, tiredness.

Ant-like, I too have to learn to carry the heavy load,
The Teaching load, the Administrative load,
carry it across potholes, ditches, mountains
and through distant valleys of calmness.

Turbulent tests, stumbling stones,
each there to guide me along the way
Like guardian angels, each one
Heralding the Dawn of a New Day.

Ends.
(C) 1993
Davinalion May 10
On August 8, 2017,  
by the Gregorian calendar,  
the weather in Chicago was awesome, totally chill.  
Dusk was settling in.  
Night was taking over from day.  
A cool breeze carried lake moisture,  
filling everything from edge to edge.  
Trees rustled their leaves like crumpled paper.  
Over the horizon, near a Target store,  
the sun faded, slowly dipping out of sight—  
darkness was creeping in to take its place.  
A black squirrel darted across the lawn by the park entrance.  
A bit deeper in, down in a ravine thick with wild berry bushes,  
a small, timid bunny hid.  
By the dumpster, fenced in with wooden slats,  
a sneaky raccoon was loitering with nothing to do.  
At the intersection, by the traffic light pole,  
someone’s engine screeched and sped off.  
Like I said, it was getting dark everywhere—  
night was rolling in.

Right then, Oliver, the cat,  
leaped onto the wooden fence,  
plopped down, letting his cocky tail dangle,  
twitched his whiskers, and stared at the sky.  
A full moon hung up there.  
Oliver squinted,  
opened his mouth wide,  
and swallowed it whole!

In the woods, not far from the city,  
wolves looked up and froze in shock.  
“How are we supposed to howl at the moon,” they said,  
“if it’s not there where it’s supposed to be?”  
They huddled up,  
sighing and grumbling,  
then wrote a notice  
and pinned it to every pine tree:

-------------------

Whoever brings back the moon  
and teaches that cat a lesson,  
we’ll give you some chickens  
swiped from Old Man Johnson’s farm.  
We’ve done this before, no scam here.  
Look, we’re attaching  
feathers from the chickens we nabbed  
to prove we mean business.  

The Wolves

P.S. Need eggs? Talk to Frankie the ferret.  
He’s always sniffing around Johnson’s farm like he owns the place,  
sneaks into the coop weeknights from 10 p.m. till dawn,  
and comes highly recommended by Rusty the fox!

The chaos that followed was unreal!  
Word of this spread like wildfire across the globe!  
It got so bad you couldn’t step outside—  
every passerby was trying to nab a cat, any cat,  
to trade with the wolves for a couple of stolen chickens.  
Who knows how this madness would’ve ended  
if the U.S. government hadn’t stepped in?  
They sent the cops after Oliver,  
cuffed his paws,  
locked him in a glass cage,  
and shipped him off to The Hague  
to face an international tribunal as a criminal mastermind.

In The Hague, they grilled Oliver for a whole year,  
then finally set a trial date,  
inviting every Tom, ****, and Harry to show up.  
They assigned him a lawyer—Sly Fox.  
Judges in black robes sat smugly at the bench.  
Guards with rifles hauled in Oliver’s cage.  
The prosecutor, defense, and jury took their seats.

The prosecutor spoke first.

Prosecutor:  

Oliver the cat is a clear and present danger to society.  
He’s charged with stealing the moon!  
His entire life led up to this heinous crime.  
I’m sure everyone’s dying to hear his story.

Sly Fox:  

Objection!  
Oliver’s past has nothing to do with this case.

Judge:  

Overruled.

Prosecutor:  

The defendant was born into an average family.  
Nothing hinted he’d turn into a ****.  
At his baptism, they named him Oliver.  
He was a sweet, cuddly kitten, went to school,  
acted like a good little Christian.  
But that didn’t last long—just a few months.  
Soon, girls and their parents started complaining.  
He couldn’t keep his paws to himself!  
The school kicked him out, his mom gave up on him,  
and nobody’s ever seen his dad.  
At night, he turned to petty street crime,  
and by day, he was hustling:  
scavenging city dumpsters for food scraps  
and selling them as “gourmet imports” wherever he could.  
From a young age, he showed a knack for shady leadership!  
Instead of doing his civic duty—catching mice—  
he teamed up with them.  
Under his command, gangs of ten to fifteen mice  
ambushed lone women at bus stops,  
and Oliver made off with their purses.  
Tons of cell phones, makeup, and credit cards passed through his paws.  
When he tried cashing out one of those cards,  
he got caught  
and sent to a reform shelter—basically juvie.  
Think he turned his life around there?  
Fat chance!  
In the shelter, he converted to Islam!  
Nothing wrong with that,  
but he only did it to blend in with the other inmates,  
who were mostly Muslim.  
He gained their trust,  
then started corrupting them—selling them bacon,  
smuggled in by his mouse cronies from the outside!  
Thanks to his cute face and fluffy tail,  
Oliver didn’t stay locked up long.  
A girl named Annie adopted him,  
falling for his meows and purrs.  
At first, he planned to bolt,  
but then figured he could run his scams better  
as a “well-mannered house cat.”  
Without telling his shelter buddies,  
Oliver converted to Judaism—playing the Jewish card to expand his market.  
Soon, he trademarked “NOT-BACON,”  
and his sales skyrocketed.  
When he diversified his dumpster menu  
and started frying bacon (dyed with stolen makeup),  
his business blew up.  
His little gang soon became  
an international crime syndicate!  
Oliver got canadian citizenship  
and started jet-setting like a maniac!  
He made two trips to Mecca,  
snapped a selfie with the Dalai Lama,  
lit a greasy candle at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem,  
and was spotted in the Vatican three times!  
There, he rubbed against a few cardinals’ legs  
and licked the Pope’s hand.  
Soon, Oliver’s business interests turned political.  
He funneled money into every party and movement,  
yowling loudest at both pro- and anti- rallies.  
Among other things, he was seen in Ukraine’s Donbas region,  
fighting in the conflict—  
nobody could pin down which side,  
probably both.  
And last summer, he was vacationing in Miami!  
What a ****!  
In every city he passed through,  
he conned his way into marriages!  
Look at his wives and kids—  
they’re in the front row, crying and begging for help!  
He doesn’t pay a dime in child support, despite his wealth!  
And to top it all off,  
in August 2017,  
with the help of Squirrel Sally as a lookout  
and Raccoon Ricky keeping watch,  
Oliver climbed onto the dumpster fence in his backyard  
and ATE THE MOON!

We still haven’t figured out the bunny’s role in this crime ring.  
Nobody’s seen him.  
Oliver needs to be locked up for good—or worse.

Judge:  

I’ll now give the floor to the defendant’s attorney, Sly Fox.

Sly Fox:  

Oliver should walk free!  
The moon just fell into his mouth when he yawned.  
He’s not a criminal—he’s a victim!  
He nearly choked!  
He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
It happens to everyone.  
Come on, he couldn’t have been where he wasn’t supposed to be.  
There’s nothing to discuss.  
Oh, and by the way—he’s not a cat, he’s a she-cat.  
Those kids? Not his.  
This trial should be thrown out  
because the charges are nonsense.  
Here’s his statement  
demanding a gender change.

We can’t let the global elite  
trample on the rights of those who are different!  
No to injustice!

(The courtroom erupted, chanting:  
“Free Lady Oliver!”)

Judge:  

Please, settle down.

Prosecutor:  

To prove this crime,  
we reached out to the global scientific community.  
Sadly, most bailed:  
Hawking pleaded disability,  
Dawkins said he was too busy,  
Perelman played dumb to dodge us,  
Geim and Novoselov told us to get lost,  
Feynman reminded us he’s been dead for years.  
Only Neil deGrasse Tyson stepped up—  
he said, “Sure, why not?”  
So, I’m thrilled to give him the floor.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  

Ladies and gentlemen, this is…  
a total mess!  

I hate to break it to you—  
trust me, I’m not thrilled about this—  

YOU’RE ALL NUTS!  

I’ve been saying this for years,  
on the internet, on radio, on TV:  

GOD DOESN’T EXIST!  

HE’S NOT REAL!  

It’s scientifically proven.  
Stop kidding yourselves!  

(A court assistant hands Tyson a scrap of paper.)  

—Oh, my bad, looks like I’m here for something else.  
Let’s see… “August eighth…” hmm… “in a ravine…”  
Nah, we can skip that.  
What’s with the bunny, squirrel, and raccoon?  
Oh, here we go:  
“…ate the moon while sitting on a fence.”  
What a tragedy.  
So, what do you want from me?  

Prosecutor:  
We’d like you to tell us what happened to the moon.  

Tyson:  
To who?  

Prosecutor:  
The moon.  

Tyson:  
Ohhh, the moon! Got it.  
It’s gone.  

Sly Fox:  
Is there scientific evidence for this?  

Tyson:  
Weird question. There’s tons.  
Here’s one example:  

On the evening of August 8, 2017,  
the weather was perfect.  
I was chilling on my porch,  
sipping a beer, nice and slow.  
I decided to check out the moon through my refractor telescope.  
The moon was just a few meters from perigee,  
hanging out between Sagittarius and Aquarius,  
all cratered up, covered in regolith.  
Its librations were normal, within the tilt of its orbit.  
Everything was standard, beautiful.  
Then I ran out of beer,  
so I stepped away from the eyepiece,  
went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerating gizmo,  
grabbed another bottle,  
threw on a robe on my way back—  
it was getting dark and chilly, and I was just in my boxers.  
I look through the telescope again—  
and I see whiskers in the sky!  
Where the moon was just a second ago,  
there’s a hole, and I can see the stars it was blocking.  
I logged everything meticulously  
and sent my observations  
to the global astronomical community.  

Sly Fox:  
Did you get a response?  

Tyson:  
Nah.  
But I didn’t ask for one…  

Judge:  
Do you believe the cat ate the moon?  

Tyson:  
Well…  
That’s completely impossible.  
You see…  
The mass difference…  
How do I explain this simply?  
Cat’s tiny. Moon’s huge.  

Prosecutor:  
But you saw WHISKERS!  

Tyson:  
Yup, I did.  
But I can’t give you a scientific explanation for that.  

Prosecutor:  
Your Honor, esteemed jurors!  
Anticipating these difficulties,  
our investigators decided to help science out  
and present undeniable proof of the crime,  
so no one’s left with any doubts.  
Take a look at this X-ray of the cat.  

(Shows X-ray image of Oliver.)  

Look closely at his stomach.  
As you can see, the moon’s sitting comfortably inside.  
And get this—  
there’s still plenty of room in there.  
Oh, and it’s already a third digested.  

Judge (to Tyson):  
What do you make of this?  

Tyson:  
Well, yeah,  
that looks pretty convincing.  
And the cat looks… alive.  
Can I go home now?  

Judge:  
Sure, go ahead.  
Bet there’s still plenty of beer in your fridge—  
I mean, refrigeration unit.  

(Chuckles.)  

Just a joke, sorry.  

(To the courtroom):  
Alright, we’ve heard from the defense and prosecution.  
Now, I’m calling for FINAL ARGUMENTS  
from both sides,  
where there’s no chance for truce or reconciliation!  
I summon Donald Trump!

Donald Trump (striding forward):  

The moon is the property of ALL American people. Sorry!  
No debate needed!  
I promise to bring it back. I’ll handle it.  
If the moon shows up again—and I’ve always liked it—  
I’m not giving it to anybody.  
I’ll eat it myself.  

Half the American delegation  
erupted in wild cheers,  
while the other half stayed quiet,  
shaking their heads in disapproval.  

Trump:  

The moon theft is a national disgrace.  
It happened under the previous administration—  
let their leader explain himself.  
I’m passing the mic to Barack Obama.  

Obama:  

Good afternoon, thanks for having me.  
The moon is the result of humanity’s collective efforts.  
Its disappearance is a horrific crime.  
This is unacceptable.  
We can’t let it slide.  
We must all unite to ensure this never happens again.  
That’s my stance.  

This time, the other half of the American delegation  
burst into thunderous applause.  
Though the half that cheered for Trump  
hissed and stomped in disapproval.  

With that, the arguments wrapped up.  
The judges stepped out to draft their guilty verdict  
but returned quickly—  
it was all crystal clear to them.  

The head judge cleared his throat and began reading the verdict.  

Judge:  

The cat is guilty on all counts. He’s a THIEF!  
The cat is sentenced to death by hanging,  
while strapped to an electric chair  
hooked up to high voltage.  
Given the notorious resilience of cats,  
the following measures must also be strictly enforced:  
A lethal injection—er, shot—into his paw,  
and three soldier-executioners will fire four bullets each  
from Heckler & Koch ****** rifles  
to ensure the cat finally croaks.  
No mercy for this cat! As they say, tough luck!  
Justice doesn’t tolerate mockery.  
Considering other circumstances,  
the cat is also ordered to pay massive compensation  
and undergo gender reassignment surgery.  
He’s owed an apology—  
which he’ll receive while serving a life sentence  
in the courtroom…  
—Uh, no, sorry—  
While serving a life sentence. Period.  
—In the courtroom…  
—Pardon, what a mess.  
I think I mixed up the pages.  
(To his assistant)  
Is this right?  

(Adjusts glasses and continues reading.)  

In the courtroom,  
he must be immediately released—  
so he doesn’t suffer,  
and everyone walks away happy.  

(Looks up at the room.)  

I hope I didn’t skip anything and read it all.  
Since the points of this verdict  
contradict each other,  
they should be carried out in any order.  
The form doesn’t matter—it’s the substance that counts.  
You can’t fool Justice.  
Don’t take us for fools, and we won’t take anyone else for fools.  
The goal is to restore fairness and punish evil.  
I’m confident we’ve punished and restored,  
even if it took tremendous effort.  
Long live the adversarial judicial process!  
The cat, as they say, is toast—because the moon’s no mouse.  

Everyone turned to look at Oliver’s cage—  
but THE CAT WAS GONE.

The guards, armed with rifles and pistols,  
rolled their eyes in confusion, muttering into their radios,  
as if asking someone how this could’ve happened,  
but no answers came.  
Meanwhile, Sly Fox, the lawyer,  
slipped through the crowd of spectators toward the exit  
and hasn’t been seen since.  

From the start, he’d figured  
this case was a lost cause and Oliver had gone too far.  
So, keeping his cool,  
he decided  
to bribe the guards with Bitcoin,  
so they’d act all shocked and bewildered  
while letting Oliver slip out of the courtroom.  

At first, the guards were outraged by the offer.  
“Stealing the moon is a heinous crime!” they said.  
“People are suffering! We’re not letting this cat go, no way!”  
But Sly Fox countered their objections:  
“You won’t get in any trouble for this!”  
And just like that, they agreed.  
And, true enough, they faced no consequences.  

As for Oliver, he bolted out of the courthouse,  
called an Uber, zipped to the airport,  
snuck into the luggage compartment of a plane,  
wormed his way into the cockpit,  
hopped into the pilot’s seat, fired up the engines,  
deployed the ***** and all the fancy gizmos,  
and flew back home to Chicago to his owner, ANNIE!!!

--------------------------------------------

Little Annie, smart and sweet!  
Go to sleep, it’s dark outside.  
Mom’s getting mad, she’s had enough—  
tucking us in’s no fun anymore.  

Hop into bed, make a cozy little nest!  
Look—out the window, past the curtains,  
see the moon floating above the horizon?  
Well, that moon—it’s NOT REAL.  

It’s staring at us, all suspicious-like!  
NASA engineers painted it on  
a plaster ball, coated with shiny paint,  
and launched it into orbit by Ken Harris.  

Every kid from Mississippi to the Yukon knows it.
Every parent, every scientist—
Einstein, Galileo,
Every teacher, every critter in the woods—
bunnies, raccoons, even that smug squirrel,
Every boy and girl, every politician, every judge — all know it.
You and I know it -

that the real moon—
the one that blazed in the night sky,
the one that lit up the world—
well, last August,
right between sunset and sunrise,
in front of everyone and everywhere,
with his big mouth wide open, -

IT WAS GULPED BY OLIVER THE CAT.

There he is, lounging on the chair, licking his chops, the charmer—  
purring and smacking like a pro.  
Be careful with him: give him a finger,  
and he’ll chomp your arm up to the elbow.  
But don’t blame him. He’s just a cat,  
not one to fret over boring morals.  
When something floats right into your jaws,  
it’s hard to say no.  
I’m no different—I grab what I can,  
hold tight to what I snag,  
and I’m not throwing stones at that cat,  
lest they come flying back.  

I’m drifting off with you, not thinking of a thing,  
already half-asleep, unsure of what’s what:  
is it night finally chasing day away,  
or day swapping places with night?  
I’m stumbling through this sleepy haze,  
can’t make sense of it all—  
did Oliver really gobble up the moon,  
or did the moon swallow us all?  
And now, tilting its head just a bit,  
it gazes down, full and satisfied, on the sleeping city.  
Sleep now, my little bug, I love you  
because I’m REAL.  

We’ll snooze, we’ll lounge,  
wake up tomorrow and have some fun,  
play with the stolen sunlight,  
say a prayer, make up with friends,  
then change our minds and bicker,  
rejoice in life—  
because it’s OURS,  
and we’ll shout it loud—IT’S HERE!  
Look, the Creator’s got the whole sky held hostage:  
where’d He swipe all this for our sake?  
So let’s thank Him for the light, the water,  
for our daily bread, for Wi-Fi,  
for what we have and what we don’t,  
for the tiniest sliver  
of what’s left of the moon,  
for the dark of night, for the blue of the sky,  
for the gifts of life, for the losses of death,  
for the pile of temptations and trials.  
Let’s thank Him for it all.  
Amen.  

And for that sly cat, too—  
who we’ll scratch behind the ears, shake a fist at, sigh over,  
and then, finally, go to bed.  

How much more of this nonsense can we take?  
This story’s worn me out.  

School’s tomorrow.  

GOOD NIGHT!
DR. Congo
I saw the villa Joseph Kabila bought in Algarve it is to be a bolt hole
when he has to flee Congo, he has blood on his hands perhaps not
enough for Hague to bother about, like so many African presidents,
he has robbed his country to destitution.
Perhaps this echoing country, with forests is too big to be governed
especially since no money is spent on  new roads; Kinshasa its capital is
run mostly by mixed races, not even they can keep order and people
throw all their ******* in the street.
Joseph Kabila, Joseph's father, tried ordered a thousand wheelbarrows
gave a job to ditto street cleaners who sold their wheelbarrows and
consequently lost their jobs. But these setbacks are not the problem
Congo is too rich in minerals, oil and timber and the big international
businesses have descended upon the land corrupting all in its wake like
a locust plague they have failed to get rid of and they have no interest
in making Congo a nation which, it will be when it is a more modern.  
I looked inside the villa it had cavernous rooms gold and glitter quite
fitting for someone who doesn't know the value of anything but gems
and never mind the culture
Cedric McClester Apr 2015
By: Cedric McClester

Your secret’s out
Now everybody knows
He gave you that rock
Like we first supposed
So model it
Come on and strike a pose
But maybe first
Straighten out your clothes

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed

I sympathize with you
I know that truth hurts
Now you’re about to get
Your just desserts
See that’s what sometimes happens
To you flirts
When showin’ off what’s underneath
Your skirts

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed

You went to the Hague
To testify but lied
The version that you told
By others was denied
And even those who wanna
Be on your side
Know the truth was sumthin
You never applied

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed

It’s too late for the truth
The damage has been done
To your tattered image
Now you don’t have one
But that’s what you deserve
If the truth be told
Cuz justice must be served
And it’s best served cold

You went to the Hague
To testify but lied
The version that you told
By others was denied
And even those who wanna
Be on your side
Know the truth was sumthin
You never applied

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed



(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.
A ***** Stone was inspired by a famous super model/actress, who is known to be difficult.  It's a true story.
KM Ramsey Apr 2017
i'm the monster hiding under my bed
lurking just below the placid
surface of my own personal Loch Ness
and praying that i remain
a legend of the local townspeople
masquerading as those who
call me friend and lover
those perfectly content to take in
my slow crumbling facade
and name it history
roman roads meandering across
my features the ruts of those
early onset wrinkles which
threaten to out me
to scream out my sickness
a diagnosis of malevolence
hiding in my tightly wound double
helices the ladders i climb
as though there were salvation waiting
at the top
though Sisyphus would understand
my plight but more so
comprehend my incessant pursuit
of a false flag promise of
redemption.

but i can't escape the prison of my skin
my identity the crystal lattice of
epidermis holding in
the supernova of destruction and death
the famine after my insatiable need
consumes all nourishment for
i'm too much
too much need
much too much malignancy
spreading like a cancerous mass
consuming and metabolizing all that
is good and innocent.

do not extend to me
your tendrils of sympathy
of compassion
look upon me as the condemned
war criminal on the stand and
the Hague chilled to immobility by
the tales of my horror.

put me to death and think no more
of the fallacy i perpetuated
for decades spent offering
silent pleas for intercession and yet
unable to ever escape my transgressions
which live below the surface
in the deepest parts of me
intricately woven into those essential
parts of myself
a tumor grown into my heart
too close to the life-sustaining
machinery for any to dare extraction.

but i could **** every part of me
and one day i will
as i pay and pay my way to salvation
clad in sack cloth and my feet bare
praying for smoldering coals to
traverse searching for pain
pain to wash me clean
pain to fill the need for punishment
because i've learned that even
punishment which provides no
redemption
gives me the appearance of at least
seeking that which
i know i'll never have.

and after all these years
do i really want it at all?
would i forego any more pain?
could i even believe that i
have been forgiven?
that my slate had truly been
wiped clean?

even if everyone watched me
be washed back to infantile innocence
i would still know
always
my inner stain spread through my
entrails like some perverse
Rorschach test for reading by an
oracle who could proclaim
after my death
that the beast had been slain and
now they welcome the eternal
kingdom of god.

but do not call me martyr.

do not send pilgrims to my grave
do not consign me to Apocrypha
do not dilute
or contaminate the
sacrosanct of some
even if i always believe it was
superstitious *******.

they believe it to be real
to be holy
and myself the human stain should
never be near.

burn my bones and burn them again
grind them to dust and jettison them
to the remotest ends of the earth
where no foot treads
and my disease might not spread.

i flay the skin off my own bones
so no one else must.

do not touch me

leperous disaster
harbinger of the end of all things.

let me starve and rot
the putrid scent of my decay
finally dissolving the mask
and in my death i can't even
lower my face
dead eyes can't look away
but you couldn't know
that's how they've always looked.
letters from the ***** colony
Jon Shierling Oct 2013
I.
These stars, this twilight palaver, out by what used to be a Wal-Mart;
   walking down streets in a fairytale, apart from you,
   putting on a good show, when all I wanted was to hold your hand.

My memories don't progress like pages, but ebb and flow,
  the way the river does, as it winds its way to the delta,
  with rapids around every other bend.

What is and what was and what should have been are written in your eyes,
  grey eyes, eyes that pierce me like lances when I gaze too long;
   my self then, afraid of being naked.

I clothed myself in words, and folly; raised myself up as intelligentsia,
   as protection, which you saw through so easily.
   What it was I wanted protection from, God only knows.

I bend my thoughts to you, my heart and hopes searching for some message,
   some sign, some carrier pigeon from the Hague,
   sent to change everything in one stroke.

II.
Walking in green fields once,
somewhere in high summer
full of the growing things
we turned
and were
here.

Here?
Yes.
Now?
I want to, please, yes.

The grass was so soft, the sun an everlasting lamp,
the world so clear I could almost see through it.

How can I?
Easily.

III.
Needles, so many needles.
I should have been there
Would have been there

But I made my choices
As you did yours
And who I was then
Was not who you needed

They told me you had a death drive
Who they were to fling Jung around like that
In passing remark about you
I will never know

Here let me.
No.
Please.

I wept for you
I still weep for you inside
This burning you have given me
Imagining as it should have been

IV.
I found you on the floor in your kitchen
Alone
Cold
Barely even a ghost

I gathered you in my arms
And put you in the car
And drove

We drove out past the city lights
On into the dying West
Your feet on the dash
And your heart in my hands
Copyright ©Tricia Hague-Barrett 1993

We must  recognize that under duress,
great things are born.
Diamonds form in molten rock.
Gold is tested in the fire.
The sweetest flowers of man’s spirit
have often been watered by tears.  
To struggle gives strength,
to endure breeds greater capacity for endurance.  
We must not run away from the heart-breaks in life;
we must go through them,
however fiery they may be,
and bring with us out of the fire
a stronger character,
a deeper reliance on ourselves
and on the Creator Who,
like a good parent, chastises us
because He loves us,
and realize that the pain is worth  
the prize that can be won.  
This is indeed a power world,
and great forces are at play,
the sun, the wind, the rain,
night and day,
they are big things
powerful things,
making powerful changes in the land,
removing old scars,
bringing new ones.  
Electricity, gravitation,
are strong forces forging the earth
with all its beauty it’s life its growth.  
We human beings
are subjected to strong forces too,
love, hate, passion, fear, sorrow, pain,
each acting on us, spurring us on,
developing those qualities giving us colour,
individuality.
Why should we want to shun and abolish
factors that bring out the best in us?  
That tempers our steel?  
Teaching us to value happiness
as its true worth?  
Can a man who has never been hungry
in all his life know what a piece of bread means,
savour all its sweetness as can a man who has starved?
So, when trouble comes our way,
think about what quality
I may need to develop for this given situation,
never knowing, it may b e a quality needed
without our even knowing.
ENDS
Lawrence Hall Jan 2017
News on the Internet

***, it’s the age of hyperbole!
Legendary icons dropping their jaws!!
Aliens in spaceships watching humans flee
A purple polar bear flapping twelve paws!!!

Blockbuster! Stunning!! Your life will be changed!!!
Putin really is that albino monk!!!!
And did you hear that the Pope is deranged!?!?!?!?!?
He keeps in the Vatican a sacred skunk!!!!!!!

Tectonic plates are shifting; France is gone!
Heart-stopping, eye-popping, cow-flopping news!!
****** called it in on his new smart ‘phone!!!
It’s all the fault of the Catholics and Jews!!!!

Mass graves in Texas, Ireland, and The Hague!
Looky here, see, here’s some pictures an’ stuff!!
Okay, the sources are a little vague
But we want to believe, and that’s enough!!!
Anthony Pierre Aug 2020
"You know how I art ... intimately"
On broken city walls with crotches
these times I stencil is a parody
"its free, its me... with all my blotches"

Why **** my trapped rat in Hague?
You brought back, black this plague
from the West Sea sand to Bristol
made clearer with a ball of crystal

Provocative lives alive in deaf canned colour
yet reality's dead among sidewalk's clutter
if your heart really wants a Banksy's piece
My B +'s homogenized on a Petri dish for release

Who's guessing where my art's headed?
with blotches not a single piece shredded
the real art's kept displayed in the mind
that's why Banksy's blotches are one of a kind
"Vernarthiano and well-wisher name leads me to you in temporary fissure and tolondro, abjuring virginity in my maiden legion delivered in barbarism, and in blood betrothed for those who more in the finesse prolactin emulsion is renewed as a teenager, opening spaces to bring depressions of inheritance, for whom or those who found hieratic parents and children here in the disputed ****** that nests their nature.

Escaping from the beast and the libido of the criminal patron of the dynasty, which continues to flow senile gold through the scattered veins of beasts that hunt spoil, falling in love with the young and their commiseration. I swiftly attracted the henchmen who bleed before the door of the corporal and fateful destiny, opening in Hellenicidal impostor blood of the Holy Land, and in contradiction by Maccabees with immobilized blindfolded eyes, intimating the extreme virginity of a quasi Sibyl maiden, grasped in the tweezers. Of Seleuco, expired in the dark chamber of Wonthelimar, and in ardent desires that sever brains in the darkness of the cavern of Chauvet bilocated in the roadstead of Skalá. Vernarth I have come to you as a double birth, moaning descendants of the helots, phrases that found no excuses that salutely leave compassionate, like Antiochus who exhorted me to go to your solemn Investiture of the Himation. Ad mostem festinamum Eurydice said that she sang to me romantic atolls from the balcony of nowhere, unrequited I was consumed with the love that flowed through the vena cava of the sufferer in Apollo. Ezpatkul looked at the koelum or demiurge sky in his epiphany, summoning your Gerakis to station themselves near Petrobus, entrenching me tightly in the clutches of the Ibic Rings to be referred to your luminary by the seat of Leros.

My parents by the name of Demetrio and Fila brought me to Roshus on the Perian coast of Macedonia, where I was given as a gift at the regent's wedding. I am Stratony of Macedonia, the daughter of Strategy of Syria, my mother. It is I when writing this epistle, which in turn had a prosperous one, but in posterity when my consent was distanced from the same tenor, my mother was solicitously delegated to Seleucus and then to my father Antiochus. Then I shunned Demetrius II, due to his extra union with Phtia, Daughter of Olympia II of Epirus. It was enough that a link in this Seleucid genealogy was lost in the open from a sick dynasty and successions, so that they appear on the henbane embankment, and go back from Lambdas and Epsilons of consanguineous matings, betting principalities and fratricidal blood, cursing themselves in campaigns since the same that is sheltered in mutes and feelings in Judah by Olympian torments, and immortal Gods shrouding fleeting perishable itineraries of life to the tempting mayor of the puppets, and of the mortal reigns without disposition rattling in Samothrace libido, of hundreds superior, and all the enlightened contents of a captive genealogical of semi-gods trying to equalize.


Beloved Vernarthiano on Venus, anxieties made me fly to the sound of the souls of Trouvere, committing crimes in my larnax, for tears that have spread one spring afternoon, which I only saw in contained affections, being able to walk through Roshus with my mother, in the discharge of essences saturated that truncate release in the Epsilon hopper. Subtending lines and diameters towards the ends of the curved arch or broken lines, being able to refer to the circumferential buttress between the sides of the angle of my asthmatic regret…! When I removed my hand from this obituary, I saw that The Hague reigned at its lowest point, which made the ink pinch that made me a princess out of her lines, and characters that were molded in such proactive and literal numbers. Beautiful and charitable is the beautiful donna that is born flowered for nuptials of the angelic white indigo "Deus Meus Captivus", in your purpose I could be Stratonice regent of wandering honoring through the palatial corridors of my mother evading intentional and reasons of victory to our good honor, and of the audited and emphasized names of "Victorious Armies" in their real meaning in our patronymic, after the victory of Ipsos. As Argeadas, the king yielded to the prince, what his subjects receive from replicated dynasties, in retreats and shallow swells of temperament, linking liras between liras of Corinth and patronizing condescension in the dominions of Persia.

Much more than an umpteenth outrage in the bands of tolerance and knowledge, I was able to discount the years to come. Passed through our unconfessed lineage, reaching our sarcophagi in the good news by raising the frame, and lifting my mother in your tragedy by three that are tripled, knowing that they allude to Saint John the Apostle, over the loafers who drool in scabs stepdaughters of party mouths, and monarchical slaps that have united us behind the scenes, and in the interlocking followed by re continued guarantees of worship, pro-Seleuchism or Antiochism vanished in buried Diadoco briefs, adjacent to the ibid in mega nuptials or Olympic descendants, and in the relatives of the Orphism-transgenerational surrogate! Vernarth give me a taste of the well, I require a new territorial ally in your quilts to new heads branded in his autumnal Hegemon.

In the attempt to take out a dagger and put it in the night watchman, I was already amazed at the reading of the fluttering of the Gerakis, who threw the tantrum of other Gerakis with the souls of Trouvere, kidnapping half of my letter that had cut for you Vernarth with chlorinated tears of solid, towards the swallowing of the airones that intimated in bastardized allegories, containing intoxication and unsheathed unison echoes of the bronze settled in the thundering law, making the Gerakis and the Trouveres fall together in some Mycenaean jars of wine. Anger provided beds of each one for manly acts in the Patmian Olympic allegory, denying the reactions of those who become the purveyor of the riches of tragedy, in immaterial environments that discuss not having it if they only run aground in logical narratives of Demosthenes' contented spoiled bozo. Smooth sites wound me with poisonous openings on the campaign pistils and on the Áspis Koilé shields, being worth confusing against the hives of the queen mother and her drone, tolerating and yielding to her heir, with foolish demeanor in caring for him and inheriting him a procreated barbarian reign.

Now we are barbarian slaves and heirs, in unresolved conflicts of parents deprived of a loving life, by progeny that ennoble crusades that stone patrimonial alliances for consanguineous alliances that should never have prospered in the bitter toast of Stratonice worried in her borne sarcophagus, avunculated in true pro lactic godmother of the son of a nascent Zeus. We are all divided as a lineage; there is nowhere to gather more dismembered successors of Macedonian polytheists, after central efforts to reign without a crown. The same of the love that reigns without meaning, imparted from the decadent effort that worsens to resurrect the aristocracy that lies of grubs,  and the sacrosanct helminth in our Alexander the Great, preceding intercessions of the Royal Marriageable Dynasties before your most illustrious, in the new kingdom of the Lord that does not he sees himself enthroned in the black trepidations of our ill-managed partitions, by humors that flow from the couplings and bandages of who is said to be the abbot of a Vernarthian preliminary.

Vernarth, culminated in the auspices of the complete conjecture and its subsequent grievances to request your office, in subsequent claims that induce to draw the irascible thunderbolts of those who only want to make us wake up from their apostasy, alone and insubstantial, covering muddy stores of grace, which establish walled up reigns in all honor and charm of hearing the true voice of the Mashiach, with all its solemn title being able to help all those freed from the Caucasus scene, and in the edicts that nullify memories as human beings of their castrated history.

Before your letter is read, I add Stratonice as my name is, and I am aware of his reading by uttering: “The signal field has been prophesied, it has condensed the Hegemonic energy of Alexander the Great, pointing out that the diseased body of Antiochus; my father…, is supplanted by that of the to happen all the trances and difficulties that are assumed after the hazardous departure in Babylon. Therefore it must carry every corollary prophesied in the death of my grandfather Seleucus in the hands of Ptolemy Ceraunos. Wanting to dress up the irrevocable interference that occurred in Judah by his Diadocos gangs, opting for the effect of his offspring, therefore on his spiritual stretch of residual and static energetic mass, ad libitum that will end when unleashed in his son. By now all will be consumed in the pathogenic body of Antiochus, and of the love for my mother where she was abducted, and possessed by retaliation from Alexander the Great for proven insubordinate ethical demands. "
Epistle of Stratonice
Johnny Noiπ Jan 2019
sky, blue sky blue market and deliver
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Joanna Garrido Dec 2018
In the hand of the Baptist by Raphael himself
The Christ child is reaching and touching your head
the blood of salvation is etched out in red

Chained by Fabritius and haunting The Hague
Trained to do tricks in the Dutch golden age
And gold marks your clipped wings

Hardy wrote of you, of tortures endured
In boxes of darkness you never deserved
And your cry is of freedom, your pure voice to soar

On thistle you feast, and your trills fill the air
Charms of you flocking, my autumn tree bare
Anointed as robins, the golden finch sings.

17.12.18 JG
Robert C Howard Apr 2022
With head stuffed with broken glass,
    The small ball-headed man
with cold beady eyes
     says it’s all lies and fakery.

Then let him plead his case
     In court at the Hague.
Let him explain to the judges
    How **** is help
And ****** is deliverance.

He wants to remove Nazis, he says
    But misses the easiest way –
All he needs is a mirror
    To reveal the true face of evil.

Were he to bring to that mirror
     His own personal final solution,
It would be his best shot
    At  helping the most people,
With the least effort,
     In the shortest amount of time.
kevin Apr 18
the construction of pre mage
special topic aggression
as if it's pertinent we needs
speaks of breaks in water rights
imaginary cautious hague riddles
laughing gold inseems

— The End —