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Lola Jan 2014
Hateful silence
Hymn austere
Dim defiance
Acid tears
Cut through this hateful silence
This kismet dour
A grim alliance
Cut through this air sour:
A struggle for power.
Abrasive
Destructive
Invasive
Corrosive
The ascetic motive
Sever our hateful silence.
Arlo Disarray May 2015
Why am I so hateful?

Because I'm alone.

Why am I alone?


Because I'm so hateful.
Aa Harvey Jul 2019
Faithful or hateful


Faithful or hateful, the choice is yours.
I can only ever be grateful for your company ‘The one I adore’.
You’re so funny; you make me laugh like no other does.
I guess you love me.  Is this what you call love?
I am still asking the questions, never getting satisfaction.
Still searching for clarification, so here I am asking.


Are you faithful or hateful?  The choice is always yours.
You are still ‘The one which I adore’.
You showed me your light
And I was blinded by such a beautiful sight.
Your beauty thrills me;
You make my heart skip a beat.
You make me rise, to my feet,
Just to kneel down before you unworthy.
If only you could, I would ask you to love me.


I don’t know if you’re faithful or hateful.
All I know in my heart is that I will always be grateful,
For once you loved me and I too loved you
And between us two, we had something unnamed
And it could never be tamed,
Because once we were real…
Now we are only in old flames.


(C)2019 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY: A Dreadful Tale about a Dead Anglo Mother, A Dreadful, Avenging Syrian Aunt, A Stolen Baby Sister, and a Hateful, Unfaithful, Defaulting Father.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With people, people who hardly know
Your vices, your intrigue, your lies, and so,
You’ve ruined lives, and now I will show

How demonizing you are, with just your thinking
About your “slemly” self,  just linking [Nice in Arabic]
That self to your own, and not us--no one else
You belong in no company, your old-time thinking.
Adopting my sister, without any inkling
Of what it takes to challenge the motherless
And seeing we ended up, also, being fatherless.

Travesties galore made this woman happy
You won hearts, but you seemed quite daffy.      
Childhood, telling us we’d never be as good
As your Syrian daughters - such a strange brood!
This kind of “teaching” by a Syrian mom was kinda lewd.

She verily and surely became our ISIS
She thought who could ever, ever be like us
She raved for hours so very against us
To that red-headed family so she could easily best us!
Humiliating us at every stop
We really, really got a lot
From her, the decadent Queen of ISIS
No, she’d never, ever be like us!

Twenty years to a guileless young person
Is a forever herstory an eternity…
A lesson, an identity…
Carried on secretly, destroying our Syrian identity.
She stole that connection, filling it with confusion
She with cruel humor would **** our loving illusion
Stopped it in its growth,
Forever unseating that family oath.
To care - without any rejection.
It was She that was The Great Defection.

Mary, Mary how does your hatred grow
Picked on those who had no Syrian power
But you didn’t see yourself becoming lower
To the ends of the earth, heartless black flower.

In her mind she’d be our Mother
But as this poet, I did not know it
Things would be better if we like sheep
Worshipped Mary, into the deep
Quite similar to the rest of her Keep
Then mayhap we’d enjoy their fully undeserved sleep.

Taught my dear baby sister like her to hate
Would I had the power to shut up her pate
Her mouth was evil to the core
I never, never could stand more.
Her hatred entered me, made me sore.

Screaming at us to keep us out
Stupid Daddy joined her in this falling out
She, successful -as any lout.
By God I thot I must be evil
Their strange behavior was not legal.
Would that she’d accept me, that dangerous eagle.
I lost my sense of self and ‘came very sad
Would that I could be like she so glad.
‘Tis fifty years now, and I can’t stop crying.
No one ever heard this “mother” sighing.

Hell, Mary, full of Face
Recognizing only your Syrian race
Did anyone else matter? Just your primitive face?
Everyone one was hurt, except you and your nace
There’ll be no one, ever, that could take your place.
Laughing to destroy our wanted Arab destiny
Which you did, and did, successfully, with your fantasy.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
Like plants, you lined us up all in a row
One good, two bad - you did the choosing
And what did you leave?
Only us, who did the losing.
You didn’t water those two plants.
Treated us two as if we were ants.
Watered sissa so she would grow
Your dreaded deeds no one would know
Judgement is left only to God.
But you and Dad should’ve returned to your sod.
Your behavior to the motherless seems very odd.
My sister and I two tossed peas in a pod.

Deserting us suddenly knowing only this hateful group
There’s nothing to which she wouldn’t stoop
Her sick obsession to hurt the powerless
Speaks of a very worst yes, cruel foulness.

We lived at a convent school very protected
Visiting weekends this aspiring ****,
Two sisters know she made a very strong mark
She was not our blood, we couldn’t take part
Of this constant coldness on her part.

And another Aunt with two daughters, good
They were always with us, always stood
The opposite of this wicked would-be aunt
This family, Americanized and very sane
Never did play the ancient Ottoman game
These Aunts were our world - our windowpane.

Two aunts - endowing us with a Syrian heritage,
One, the bad one, with too much leverage
The good one to teach a cheerful Syrian beverage      
With balance, love, and the length of days
Not like the other, the one who dismays.

We represented that bad woman’s target
What it came from. Could it be her precious Margaret?
No, not at all her peaceful daughter
But the other, gladly joined in on the slaughter
Making serious and even much more, fodder.

We had no tools to breach this hate
I guess that it would have to be our fate.
To live our lives just disenchanted.
Our hearts broke, as if forever lancets.
With Syrians there’d be no more dances

Taking my sweet sis turning her against us
She did truly give strong heed to finally fence us.
What ever could we find for our defenses?

Dad, real Dad, inebriated dad,
Fell in with them: became this negative father
Sought their pity--likening me as a foreign daughter
He was in love with them, weakly turning
But in turn, the two of us, spurning
Back to his Syrian fold back, not farther
Unwittingly, unrepentedly, uncaringly, joining the laughter
Discarding his American daughters to a mental slaughter.

At his picnic - family there - he called us foreigners
Foreigners we were, surely, when with them
They couldn’t ever believe in us,
Dad influenced them, peeved at us.
Made us feel like little fools.
No, we never had the tools
To fight this ignorance - Change these mules?

Punishing, punishing us as wedded women
Accused of all that they gossiped about
What did they say? And this truant dad a lout
Speaking of us in downing tones
I’d feel far better had they broken my bones.

Closing his relationships to his
Two lesser liked non-Arab sisters
Would there would be a better mister
He considered us two a mere sinful blister.

We ran away from this horrible drunk
He hated his daughters and he stunk
And then we suffered the worst of any they would dunk
Uncomfortable at their Arab-speaking home
We stopped visiting long before their moan
We were “no good”  said our Syrian family
Would that we knew that we’d be anti-Family.

They had something to hate and did they do it
We had no idea we were just a joke
Their words, their disgust, far more than a poke.
Their anti-American provincial views
Made little sense - such perverted mews
All we loved, we would really lose.
There was never any right to choose.

That Family didn’t speak, avoided us
At sissa's Syrian wedding. It was all mined
That scene returns to me all of them lined  
Winding its way into my unbidden mind,
They were so, so truly unkind
We always would be to them the “Other”
Yes, us, us, us, without a mother!

We lost three mothers, our real one gone
Also our good step-mother quickly on
Add Mary to that three, glad she is gone
Perhaps Dad guilty of the first two deaths
I shan’t continue - you’d lose your breaths.
  
But Hail that Lady, she would change our world
Sending us suddenly into a whirl.
How to change the young with screaming?
She’d not change but destroy our dreaming
Waking horribly from our Syrian dream
We just didn’t fit their shady crème de la crème.

Everyone was fooled by this greedy witch
She and her daughters I’d deem as *****
What was in them, caused their making?
Taking away, taking, taking, taking.
Good cousins now, have seen an awakening
My work of writing revealed Mary’s faking.

Hail Mary full of Face
Only using her charms to erace
The sisters she wished not to embrace
With threads of lies an unrevealing face
Syrians’ acceptance of her goldarn place  
No one ever will she replace  
In every way she used her mace
A clever poison to keep her place
Successfully, she’d snidely hid her dreams
Wearing a mask to hide her themes.

She’d always hated us through and through
We didn’t know it till she did what she’d do
Her masque did work, from dusk to dawn.
Hatred of us was what she would spawn
She would definitely **** our spirits
Would that I could reveal all her lyrics.

Our Syrian sissa’s wedding put us in place
That even there we could have little space.
No other family events could we be included.
Engagements, baptisms, we would be excluded
Their intentions now were completely nuded.   deluded!

You stole our little baby entering the world
Through our Mom’s Death
You stole my Dad’s affection
He also her straw man, worshiping Mary‘s fiction
Her stand could only be that of affliction.

Hail Mary full of Face
Face that faced nothing exçept winning the Ace
Did no one ever tell you - you were a case?
Using your screams to stuff our mind
And even more shrieking to clog our mind
No other Syrian family could be so unkind.

Always filling us with her delicious food
Only to turn against us, trussing our good mood.
I’d like to regurgitate all that poisonous food
Anything about her became totally lewd.
She bragged of her daughters - were they really that good?
When we were children, told us we’d never be like them
We never wanted to be like those hurting us.
Took our Dad’s affection, he also deserting us
We never but finally saw that they were into hurting us.

She has attacked us screaming, screaming on end
Never an explanation, never to end
She took money, stole sister too, not a lend.
With this cruel treatment, we were not able to fend.
I’ve never heard such venom in any human voice
It seared through both my ears, such an odious noise
Those first twenty years were so very splendid
But later with her actions - all was ended
With her allotted time this is how she would spend it.

Sister, affections stolen, obeying by fear
Couldn’t counter - with a mere
Stand up to this fraud of a Mother Dear.

Our baby sis had became her clay
She would remake her through many a day.
She owes us much, this lying thief
No family tree would know, not even a leaf
She stole and changed our beautiful blood
Returned nothing except a bad bad flood
Of making our names into family mud.

She then gave out inimical messages
The taunting that came from her mealy mouth
From Damascus, that lousy mouse.
Couldn’t discuss, but only scream
What ever, ever, did she mean?
This Family into which father bought.
Their apathetic “reasoning” I was never taught.

Her daughters conscripted to the Mary core
Following her words, her iron ore
Inflated us with much heavy criticism
To fill our sissa with a lack of witticism

Lying, lying she always, always hated us
For twenty years, she consistently slated us
For slaughter, just like little lambs
Motherless, she took our little lamb
She won, didn’t she, in her sham?
Mary & dad really fated us with their sick flim flam!

She’d tackle anyone, anything in her path
And she did, with her oh so dreadful wrath.
What powered this extremely devilish mind?
She had never, ever, been really kind.

Our sodden father turned to her
She was Goddess, he deemed Something
While we were nothing, nothing, NOTHING!
It didn’t happen till twenty years after
From kindliness to hypocrisy
One would not believe.
Our real selves never to retrieve.

A sweet child, sissa, full of love
Knew they were cold and she let us know
After those years, sadly though
Turned into another hateful *****
Forced to be like them, else be ditched.

Dad, dad, the precious Syrian lad
Embraced the family gatherings that they had
Youngest of the Ikmuks - he was mad
Allowed them the desecration of our pad
They could say anything--made it their fad.

He wouldn’t speak to them of their travesty
Worshipped them, and ever drastically
Wanted to be Them, lest he be
On the Outs from the Family Tree
Ousted, married out of the Tribe
Hardly now, when this happened, few are alive.
He refused to tell them we both should be here.
He would never, ever, play it fair.
“Dad, if you go, I’ll never be the same.”
He would never, never take the blame.
Of his paltry stabs at being a human
Go stuff him in a jar with more rotten cumin.

Never defended us, never, never
Always took their part like a mismatched lever.
Usually a Dad with a daughter would stay beside her
But then, he gave Mary a far wider rider.

Gatherings went on, by the family Mare.
All our lives had been spent with them before
But Iron Lady with Iron Ore
Came through later and before.
She would win, so well connected to her vile kin
Change, girl, change, you’re just an Anglo fem.
Don’t, please, don’t pay much attention to them.
Sudden hate - my thoughts now were dashed.
I changed - they took all I had and then they smashed.

They brought us into their sickly Ottoman lives
But all of them acted as if we had the hives
They, centuries‘ habit, it was the mid-1950’s why so bold?
They were too much, too much very, to behold
We were stricken, treated as in days of old
We would never be part of their unhealthy mold  [Mould?]

Regular at Church. What kind of God could she worship?
You know who should have been told? The Syrian Bishop!
The She-Devil not even relishing the Church script
Eternally, she would always, rip, rip, and then grip!
Instead looked to those after Church who would serve her!
She did just this with a total fervor.
No Communion, no worship, but her only feats
To seek and add to gossip in the streets
Afterward. When-Where everyone meets.

Se enjoyed the Devil of Power over those she knew
Verily, she should have been thrown in the loo.
Few new. Only the rejected two.

Mary, Mary full of Mace
You never did achieve much grace
Wish you could have finally
Fallen on your ignorant Face
There’s really not going to be any space
To explain your bad translation of a very good race.
The Syrian families I always know very well
Would never have made this kind of hell.

The Syrian race is good, except for this “mother”
I speak from my place as the dreaded ”Other”
You are and were a terrible, mother
You’re a crude example of this Middle Eastern  race.
Very few of them did see through your face.

In that family I barely gleaned this toxicity
But, never, ever, did I witness much felicity.
They llaughed and laughed about any Other
Played well their acts as if they cared
They knew Syrian-like we would not fare
We, Dad, all sisters three - fell for her snare.

What think you, God, of these poor children
How il-ly this Family thoroughly tilled them
Two non-Arab daughters’ given bad repute
Their shocking beliefs really made us mute
All that came from her demented mind
All that encountered Mary’s “kind”
She destroyed our conception of self
This hypocrisy would make one melt.

She infiltrated us, her daughters, and my Sissa
That we were not as good as she - but she lost her mister
Had Uncle [our blood] lived, this would never have occurred.
But Auntie [not our blood] surely had demurred.
Her hooked-nose criticizing, and simple daughters,
Psychologically--against us-- they joined in on these slaughters.
Kindness for two decades to rent, later they spent
Hell on the motherless, but hiding that intent
Taught her daughters: “Don’t be involved with them”
We really do know some of what she did, or said,
This is the kind of meal that she constantly fed
Her masque nearly hiding her evil bent.
Too bad she wasn’t forced back into her Syrian tent.

Mary, Mary quite contrary, How does your world work?
You won, you won, you ignorant, piece of work
You demanded respect from all of us, treacherous,
She got it, didn’t know it, then she brought down the two of us

Sneaky, low-life, hypocrite witch
We always thought we had a niche
But lost kids like us did never snitch
We wouldn’t, didn’t open up about that *****.

We had a twenty-year comfort zone with her
Deserted at last by her flying fur
Stolen, deserted at last by Dad--that foul mister
Stolen, deserted, lastly by our pretty baby sister.

This left us changed by this She-Devil
Would that there’d be a way to counter her evil
We couldn’t - she was always far too strong
An ISIS for us - this would last too long.

After these years, I could not grow
Was I a real woman? -  I didn’t know!
Being a mother couldn’t show
That this Family created a list of woe.

When Sissa had babies & a mom to help
We did this alone - all this we felt.
Her faulted hatred never did melt.
I didn’t know how to take a stance
Nor could I find out how to advance.
We had to oppose Aunt Mary’s dance.

That Sissa could not bo
This poem represents many years of my life. It is all true.
Carol Rae Bradford, M.Ed., Author, "Mayflower Arab: A Memoir"
Thank you for accepting my poetry. April 16, 2015
T Jones Aug 2014
Not a poem but in protest of flagging truth about racism in Traverse City, Michigan


Traverse City, Michigan: Racism is still alive and well in our area.

We weren't always welcoming
Cross burning's (City of Traverse City, MI)
I'm born and raised in Traverse City, Michigan and still living in the same neighborhood where I grew up. I can remember when blacks were not welcome in most parts of town and the one or two around were military visitors.

We had two known cross burning incidents. One back in the late 80's or early 90's the other was around 1924, ******* groups like Ku Klux **** was behind both cross burning incidents. I found old articles on the earlier one but someone is trying hard to white wash history of Traverse City by hiding evidence of the most resent one. Ones like me who were there remember those dark days like it was yesterday. It don't bode well for tourism or the Cherry Festival if there's a record of racism in our city.

Copy pasting one two different retelling of story reported by our sometimes biased Record Eagle articles regarding the first and and will continue to dig for the other one.

January 31, 2009
KKK was active in early '20s

The 1924 bombings and cross burnings in downtown Traverse City were not the first **** activity in northern Michigan.

The Record-Eagle reported flaming crosses in the Mancelona area on Aug. 1, 1923, a full year before. Six weeks later, Traverse City commissioners refused the **** permission to hold a Sept. 17 open-air meeting at the corner of Front and Cass.

About 300 people showed up anyway and marched to a vacant lot west of Front and Union after the unidentified property owner gave permission, carefully noting that it "did not commit him to any relationship with the organization," the newspaper said.

The Record-Eagle also passed on information from an identified **** source in its Sept. 17 report:

Two, maybe three organizers had worked for weeks in Traverse City. About 150 Traverse City men from "among the leading citizens" had joined. An open-air ritual with the traditional fiery cross burning on a hillside would be held "sometime but not yet" in or near Traverse City, and it would be "merely a part of the **** ceremonies and have no special significance."

People who expected to see hooded men in white robes performing rites at the Sept. 17 rally were bound to be disappointed, the paper said. A new state law banned wearing masks in public. It also would be difficult to tell how many in the audience were KKK members because "every person who has signed the Ku Klux card has pledged to keep his membership an absolute secret."


Traverse City, Michigan wasn't always welcoming to people of color.


Traverse City Record-Eagle

February 1, 2009
Ku Klux **** terrorizes TC in 1924

KKK cross burnings, explosions rock city

By LORAINE ANDERSON
Black History Month has special significance, since it begins fewer than two weeks after the nation's historic inauguration of its first black president, Barack Obama.

But there are parts of that history that Traverse City, like the rest of the nation, would rather forget. The city never had a large black population, but it did not escape a visit from the Ku Klux **** during a frightening night of downtown explosions and cross burnings on Aug. 9, 1924.

Traverse City has never seen anything like that night of terror. Buildings shook. Store windows cracked and shattered. Houses as far away as 16th Street quaked, the Record-Eagle reported.

And though outside agitators were blamed, some local people may have been involved.

It started about 8 p.m. after three explosions went off across the river from the Lyric Theatre, where the State is today.

The crowd at the Lyric all but stampeded toward the door as women and children screamed. Panicked shoppers spilled out of downtown stores. City police phones jangled with alarm.

A large cross burned on the north side of the Boardman River near Cass Street. About 50 smaller burning crosses appeared almost simultaneously at the centers of intersections across the city. Each was crudely nailed together and swathed in oil-soaked rags. Sparks flew when several cars struck them. A city fire truck raced through town to douse flames.

Then, a "touring car" with four men, robed and hooded, though not masked, slowly trolled down Front Street carrying a sign surrounded by red flares blazing three letters: KKK.

Copies of the Ku Klux **** newspaper, "The Fiery Cross," later were found downtown, and police determined that at least two cars were involved in planting and lighting the crosses.

**** leaders called the explosions and flaming crosses a recruiting gimmick, but it was more than that. The 1920s was a reactionary time in the United States. The **** had risen again, starting in 1915, widening its anti-black focus to Jews, Catholics and immigrants, particularly those from southeastern Europe. Its membership was strongest in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

The ****'s most powerful year was 1924, when it reached an all-time high of 5 million members nationwide and virtually controlled the government of Indiana. Its most popular slogan was "100 percent pure American."

The **** had a solid base of support in Michigan. The **** fielded two candidates in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 1924 and a ****-backed candidate was elected mayor of Flint. A write-in **** candidate even made a strong showing in a Detroit mayoral race.

In June 1924, 1,000 men joined the KKK in an Oakland County cross burning attended by about 8,000 people. Traverse City's demonstration took place just two months later. But who was really behind it?

"There is some doubt among the authorities as to whether the offenses were actually committed by local people or men from outside. They believe that local people were associated in the affair," the Record-Eagle reported.

An unidentified spokesman for the local **** denied responsibility, speculating that it was the work of **** enemies or rogue Klansmen. He told the Record-Eagle that the **** repudiated terror tactics and burning of "unwatched crosses."

Two weeks after the bombing, city police obtained felony and misdemeanor arrest warrants accusing Ku Klux **** organizer Basil Carleton of Richmond, Ind., of setting off explosives. Indiana police arrested him on Aug. 29.

Witnesses testified in two trials in December and January that Carleton had purchased 25 pounds of dynamite, fuses and three caps from Hannah & Lay Mercantile Co. about two hours before the explosions. A Park Place Hotel clerk said he saw Carleton hurrying away from the direction of the explosions about 10 minutes later. Two **** members testified that Carleton was not at the scene.

Yet he was never convicted. Juries acquitted him in both cases because the prosecutor could not prove to their satisfaction that he was at the scene of the explosion or that he personally set off the dynamite.

The bomber escaped justice. But the good news was that in Traverse City, no night of terror like that happened again.

It was this event that sparked the cross burning in Traverse City. We had only one black family in our city, when Betty Ponder and her family left Traverse City for the first time due to no one wanting to rent to them, population of blacks in our predominately white city drop to zero.


******* Movement Targets Northern Michigan

by Robert Downes

National Alliance advocates the creation of "two Americas"

Traverse City, Mich., noted primarily for its beaches, tourists and cherry pie values, appears to be erupting as a national battleground of opinion over the ******* movement, with forces on both sides of the issue coming out of the woodwork to vent their outrage over racial issues.
On Thursday, June 5, residents along stretches of Washington and Front streets in town came home to find a slick package of information from the National Alliance hanging from their doorknobs. An outgrowth of the American **** Party, the National Alliance is a ******* group which advocates the creation of "two Americas," one of which would be "White Space only with no Jews or blacks." The Alliance, advocates genocidal practices if need be to achieve its goals, and plans to distribute 1,000 information packets in Northern Michigan.

Protest organized to oppose July "NordicFest"
The incident arose only a day after more than 150 people from throughout Northern Michigan gathered at a "Hate-Free TC" meeting to oppose the NordicFest, a skinhead rock festival sponsored by the Ku Klux ****, to be held at a secret location 20 miles south of town, July 3-6.
The NordicFest is being advertised on the Internet and will feature at least six skinhead bands featured on Stormfront Records and Resistance Records -- both of which are purveyors of neo-**** hate music. It will also reportedly feature speakers from the Ku Klux **** and Aryan Nations.

Thus far, the NordicFest's location has been a closely-kept secret by David Neumann of Bloodbond Enterprizes, the concert organizer and a former director of the Michigan Knights of the Ku Klux ****. Neumann has told local media that 300 tickets have been sold for the concert -- about half the number he expects to sell. Reportedly, concertgoers will be provided with maps to the secret location at a checkpoint.

Bands expected to play at the NordicFest include Intimidation One, Aggravated Assault, Blue Eyed Devils, Max Resist and the Hooligans, and No Alibi.

Local churches offering seminars on the ******* movement and the importance of diversity
GATHERING STORM

Journalists have made inquiries on the NordicFest from as far away as London, New York and Colorado as a result of the Northern Express story circulating on the Internet. A segment for National Public Radio is expected to take the issue nationwide, possibly focusing the world's attention on Traverse City on the eve of the National Cherry Festival -- an event which draws more than half a million visitors, many of them from ethnic minorities.
"We're creating a rainbow ribbon that we hope everyone will wear in rejection of skinheads and the ****," said Rabbi Stacey Fine of Hate-Free TC. "We hope to have hundreds of ribbons during the time the **** is here, available from downtown merchants."

Fine says the group also hopes to march in the National Cherry Royale Parade with a three-by-eight-foot banner covered with thousands of signatures in a show of support for racial and cultural diversity. Thus far, Cherry Festival officials say they have received no applications from Hate-Free T.C., but will consider the request if approached.

Dottie Kye of Hate-Free TC says the group doesn't plan to try stopping the NordicFest despite their opposition ot the concert. "We're ignoring it," Kye says. "We celebrate anyone's right to organize and free speech. But our thing is unity and celebrating diversity." In addition to several church seminars on the ******* movement and the importance of diversity, Hate-Free TC is organizing a three-day "Unity Festival" which will feature dozens of musicians, artists, poets, actors and peace activists at the Traverse City Opera House, July 3-6.

Concert organizers Tim Hall and Tom Emmott say that more than 40 musical acts will send a pro-diversity message to area teens, with performers including Willie Kye, Alright Already, John Greilick, Samantha Moore, the Motor Town Juke Boys, Bentley Filmore, the Sisters Grimm, and Lack of Afro, among many others. A concert with Fishbone is planned for later in the month.

"Even if the NordicFest doesn't happen, something positive is going to come of it because it gets people thinking about the prevention of violence"
THE TEEN CONNECTION

The Unity Fest counter-concert is seen as a vital tool in fighting the influence of the ******* movement on teens in the area. After the initial story broke, the buzz in local high schools was that the NordicFest would be offering free beer to minors. Although that notion is clearly erroneous, a small number of teens in the area still cling to the idea and have also been attracted by the rebellious nature of the skinhead rock scene.
Tim Hall believes that his Unity Fest concert will help turn that tide. The three-day concert will be located in the heart of Traverse City in the old City Opera House, with easy access for the hundreds of teens who hang out downtown, often with little to do. "Our message is going to be one that values racial and cultural diversity," Hall said. "And we've had a great response so far. We had to put a lid on the performers when we reached 40 acts, because everyone wants to play at this event."

The Unity Fest will also coincide with the Annual Reggie Box Memorial Blues Blast, which was created five years ago to bring the heritage of black music to Northern Michigan for the overwhelmingly white Cherry Festival. This year's Blues Blast will feature John Mayall, Marcia Ball and the Bihlman Bros. in a free concert downtown on July 6. The concert will also feature a strong message promoting diversity.

The law enforcement view Traverse City Police Chief Ralph Soffredine says members of the law enforcement community, including the State Police and sheriffs from Grand Traverse and Wexford counties, are taking a wait-and-see approach as to whether the NordicFest will even be held.

"People ask what we would do if the skinheads wanted to march, and it's our position that they have the same rights under the First Amendment as anyone as long as they're obeying the law," Soffredine said. "It's a neutral situation for us. We just want to maintain the peace."

He added that skinheads coming to Traverse City would be treated "no different than if longhairs come into town, or square dancers. We'd certainly observe them and respond if there's trouble."

The chief noted that a similar event occurred in the Buckley area several years ago when several motorcycle gangs gathered for a rally. While the event was monitored by local police agencies, few people in the area knew that it occurred.

"Even if the NordicFest doesn't happen, something positive is going to come of it because it gets people thinking about the prevention of violence, which has become a serious problem in our community and our schools," he concluded. "The unfortunate thing is that it sometimes takes a ******* or a racial issue for people to get active."

"Sheriff Barr implies that people who have the courage to confront them will be put in jail."
ANGER FROM ACTIVISTS

Not everyone is happy with the neutral attitude of law enforcement. Judy Lowenzahn of Traverse City thinks that local police agencies should get tough on the **** concert, which has no legally-required bond or liquor license.
"These hateful groups are using skinhead music to recruit soldiers for their facist movement," Lowenzahn said. "If they are allowed to hold this event, in violation of local, state and federal laws and in violation of common decency, we will be capitve audience to their deranged homophobic, anti-semitic, racist, sexist ideology. Those who protest this message, along with those who are their scapegoats will be targets for hate crimes."

Lowenzahn upbraided Grand Traverse County Sheriff Barr after he made comments in a local paper that "I'd just as soon personally let them have their little event and be on their way." Barr added that if there was a confrontation between the skinheads and protestors, "there's going to be someone in jail."

"Does Sheriff Barr suggest that people of color and others who don't fit the aryan model hide inside their homes for the holiday weekend?" Lowenzhan responded. "Rather than offer a plan to protect the community from the violence that grows whenever white supremecists do outreach, Sheriff Barr implies that people who have the courage to confront them will be put in jail."

Northern Michigan targeted because of the predominantly white population
KLUELESS

Up to now, the vast majority of Northern Michigan residents have been klueless on the **** and the ******* movement. Many, for instance, had no idea that there even was a Ku Klux **** operating in the region until Neumann revealed that there are about 60 members operating mostly as "a fraternal organization" between ******* and the Mackinac Bridge.
Similarly, the existence and agenda of the National Alliance is all-ne
Stephanie Lynn Dec 2014
you ask me what it's like to be black
and i'll tell you it's a warm soulful fulfilling feeling
like a pair of new Chucks on the hot pavement jumping scotch on a busy summer day
eating cool iced pops and not ever being afraid
and smelling the warm carmel cake cooling on the stove
and the togetherness on a Sunday evening in grandmama's home

but you ask me what it's like to be black
in america
and i'll fall silent of conversation
because as you see history repeats itself
i don't understand why there is still need for explanation
in deep adversaries and hateful unappreciation
here we stand to be questioned by an authoritative negation

and ignorant folk,
why do you ask me such things?
why are you people mad?
why is it about race?

and i'll ask you, why does the caged bird sing?
is he not entitled to his song or his wings?

as green as the earth and as blue as the sky
i will only explain to an ear willing to listen
to a being with a sound heart and a firm mind
because as God as my witness we were created as equal

and for that given right we must die?

i will sit back and in turn ask you why;
i bet you couldn't say
and maybe we will all learn the answer some day
so join me in prayer will you?
join me as i pray:

to the children of Chicago
who can't go out to play
to the sons and fathers of
Missouri and Florida and New York
who will never again see the light of day
to the mother's pain that may fade
but won't ever go away
to the hateful people and their hateful words and their hateful ways
God won't You heal their pain?


they're so ******* us, Lord
now we're ******* ourselves
and on our knees we have fallen
needing guidance and help
because it isn't about being privilged
or living for the light we're consumed in

being black in america is no longer about being accepted as black

it's about being accepted as human.
(C) Maxwell 2014
Caroline Murray Jun 2014
I hope you choke on the malevolent words falling from your lips in a spit fire of hate.
Brent Kincaid Nov 2016
We have heard the words they preach
The Gospel carpetbaggers teach
That some of us can make their own rules.
Any white people that don’t are fools.
They redefine the meaning of equality
The gladly withhold my rights from me.
They choose what part of good is good
And happily red-lined my neighborhood.

Don’t wave your seditionist flag at me/
I believe in liberty, equality ad fraternity.
Your rhetoric is a disguise of old John Birch.
If I want to hear your hateful sermon
I prefer to have to go to your church.

They think us blind and cannot see
That they openly abhor equality.
They say one thing in the South
Up north they use another mouth,
And speak with a totally forked tongue
And push half the race down a rung.
They cry like they have all been hurt
But it is they who treat the rest like dirt.

Don’t wave your seditionist flag at me/
I believe in liberty, equality ad fraternity.
Your rhetoric is a disguise of old John Birch.
If I want to hear your hateful sermon
I prefer to have to go to your church.

There is no difference from your chant
And the Inquisition’s deadly cant.
These punishing words out of you
Are ages old, they are not new.
If Jesus were here to hear you start
This ugly talk, it would break his heart.

Don’t wave your seditionist flag at me/
I believe in liberty, equality ad fraternity.
Your rhetoric is a disguise of old John Birch.
If I want to hear your hateful sermon
I prefer to have to go to your church.
So many people seem to insist
On hurting me more than I can take
And the regret that I feel every day
As all I can do is attempt to resist
I try to improve for my own sake
But they always manage to downplay

So here I am just cutting away
Because I have to make myself pay
While all they do and all they say
I know is my fault in it's own way

The burns that scar me deep inside
The hurt that I can no longer hide
Because day in and because day out
Hateful words they always shout

I need to find a way to survive
As it cuts and chips away at my hide
I wish that I could find a ride
To take me where I don't have to abide

People will always have hateful words
Many I wish that I hadn't heard
Maybe then I'd know what to do
To help out me and to help out you
With this hate that I've always known
Then there'd be no scars to be shown

So tell me how am I to resist
The hateful words that always persist
From hateful people who mostly insist
That I don't have the right to exist
Ashleigh Black Apr 2014
She saw how the angry, greyish ocean
crashed upon the shore
with such fury and disgust
and couldn't help but compare it
to the endless nights where
she'd sit and stare at that
hateful, taunting piece of glass
with a reflection as grotesque
as the image of the waves
while they aimed to devour the coastline.
I don't feel pretty today. It happens.
I. The Door

Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

II. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start
From the best firms at such work: instruments
To take the measure of all queer events,
And drugs to move the bowels or the heart.

A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly,
Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;
Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun,
And coloured beads to soothe a savage eye.

In theory they were sound on Expectation,
Had there been situations to be in;
Unluckily they were their situation:

One should not give a poisoner medicine,
A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
A rifle to a melancholic bore.

III. The Crossroads

Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,
Each to his own mistake; one flashes on
To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie,
A village torpor holds the other one,
Some local wrong where it takes time to die:
This empty junction glitters in the sun.

So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell
These places of decision and farewell
To what dishonour all adventure leads,
What parting gift could give that friend protection,
So orientated his vocation needs
The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?

All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear,
But none have ever thought, the legends say,
The time allowed made it impossible;
For even the most pessimistic set
The limit of their errors at a year.
What friends could there be left then to betray,
What joy take longer to atone for; yet
Who could complete without the extra day
The journey that should take no time at all?

IV. The Traveler

No window in his suburb lights that bedroom where
A little fever heard large afternoons at play:
His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not there
Which went on grinding at the back of love all day.

Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found
The castle where his Greater Hallows are interned;
For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round
Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned.

Could he forget a child's ambition to be old
And institutions where it learned to wash and lie,
He'd tell the truth for which he thinks himself too young,

That everywhere on his horizon, all the sky,
Is now, as always, only waiting to be told
To be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

V. The City

In villages from which their childhoods came
Seeking Necessity, they had been taught
Necessity by nature is the same
No matter how or by whom it be sought.

The city, though, assumed no such belief,
But welcomed each as if he came alone,
The nature of Necessity like grief
Exactly corresponding to his own.

And offered them so many, every one
Found some temptation fit to govern him,
And settled down to master the whole craft

Of being nobody; sat in the sun
During the lunch-hour round the fountain rim,
And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.

VI. The First Temptation

Ashamed to be the darling of his grief,
He joined a gang of rowdy stories where
His gift for magic quickly made him chief
Of all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,
The town's asymmetry into a park;
All hours took taxis; any solitude
Became his flattered duchess in the dark.

But, if he wished for anything less grand,
The nights came padding after him like wild
Beasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth had met him and put out her hand,
He clung in panic to his tall belief
And shrank away like an ill-treated child.

VII. The Second Temptation

His library annoyed him with its look
Of calm belief in being really there;
He threw away a rival's boring book,
And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:
"O Uncreated Nothing, set me free,
Now let Thy perfect be identified,
Unending passion of the Night, with Thee."

And his long-suffering flesh, that all the time
Had felt the simple cravings of the stone
And hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spoke
That now at last she would be left alone,
And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

VIII. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
"All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil's Waltz."

All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

IX. The Tower

This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a ****** made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
"Beware of Magic" to the passer-by.

X. The Presumptuous

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was as daring as they thought him,
But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel of a broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory,
And stuck half-way to settle in some cave
With desert lions to domesticity,

Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,
And met the ogre and were turned to stone.

XI. The Average

His peasant parents killed themselves with toil
To let their darling leave a stingy soil
For any of those fine professions which
Encourage shallow breathing, and grow rich.

The pressure of their fond ambition made
Their shy and country-loving child afraid
No sensible career was good enough,
Only a hero could deserve such love.

So here he was without maps or supplies,
A hundred miles from any decent town;
The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes,
The silence roared displeasure:
looking down,
He saw the shadow of an Average Man
Attempting the exceptional, and ran.

XII. Vocation

Incredulous, he stared at the amused
Official writing down his name among
Those whose request to suffer was refused.

The pen ceased scratching: though he came too late
To join the martyrs, there was still a place
Among the tempters for a caustic tongue

To test the resolution of the young
With tales of the small failings of the great,
And shame the eager with ironic praise.

Though mirrors might be hateful for a while,
Women and books would teach his middle age
The fencing wit of an informal style,
To keep the silences at bay and cage
His pacing manias in a worldly smile.

XIII. The Useful

The over-logical fell for the witch
Whose argument converted him to stone,
Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich,
The over-popular went mad alone,
And kisses brutalised the over-male.

As agents their importance quickly ceased;
Yet, in proportion as they seemed to fail,
Their instrumental value was increased
For one predestined to attain their wish.

By standing stones the blind can feel their way,
Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight,
Beggars assist the slow to travel light,
And even madmen manage to convey
Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish.

XIV. The Way

Fresh addenda are published every day
To the encyclopedia of the Way,

Linguistic notes and scientific explanations,
And texts for schools with modernised spelling and illustrations.

Now everyone knows the hero must choose the old horse,
Abstain from liquor and ****** *******,

And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:
Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,

The way through the waste to the chapel in the rock
For a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock,

Forgetting his information comes mostly from married men
Who liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then.

And how reliable can any truth be that is got
By observing oneself and then just inserting a Not?

XV. The Lucky

Suppose he'd listened to the erudite committee,
He would have only found where not to look;
Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,
It would not have unearthed the buried city;
Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,
The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the book.

"It was not I," he cried as, healthy and astounded,
He stepped across a predecessor's skull;
"A nonsense jingle simply came into my head
And left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded;
I won the Queen because my hair was red;
The terrible adventure is a little dull."

Hence Failure's torment: "Was I doomed in any case,
Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace?"

XVI. The Hero

He parried every question that they hurled:
"What did the Emperor tell you?" "Not to push."
"What is the greatest wonder of the world?"
"The bare man Nothing in the Beggar's Bush."

Some muttered: "He is cagey for effect.
A hero owes a duty to his fame.
He looks too like a grocer for respect."
Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.

The only difference that could be seen
From those who'd never risked their lives at all
Was his delight in details and routine:

For he was always glad to mow the grass,
Pour liquids from large bottles into small,
Or look at clouds through bits of coloured glass.

XVII. Adventure

Others had found it prudent to withdraw
Before official pressure was applied,
Embittered robbers outlawed by the Law,
Lepers in terror of the terrified.

But no one else accused these of a crime;
They did not look ill: old friends, overcome,
Stared as they rolled away from talk and time
Like marbles out into the blank and dumb.

The crowd clung all the closer to convention,
Sunshine and horses, for the sane know why
The even numbers should ignore the odd:

The Nameless is what no free people mention;
Successful men know better than to try
To see the face of their Absconded God.

XVIII. The Adventurers

Spinning upon their central thirst like tops,
They went the Negative Way towards the Dry;
By empty caves beneath an empty sky
They emptied out their memories like slops,

Which made a foul marsh as they dried to death,
Where monsters bred who forced them to forget
The lovelies their consent avoided; yet,
Still praising the Absurd with their last breath,

They seeded out into their miracles:
The images of each grotesque temptation
Became some painter's happiest inspiration,

And barren wives and burning virgins came
To drink the pure cold water of their wells,
And wish for beaux and children in their name.

XIX. The Waters

Poet, oracle, and wit
Like unsuccessful anglers by
The ponds of apperception sit,
Baiting with the wrong request
The vectors of their interest,
At nightfall tell the angler's lie.

With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenomena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering.

The waters long to hear our question put
Which would release their longed-for answer, but.

**. The Garden

Within these gates all opening begins:
White shouts and flickers through its green and red,
Where children play at seven earnest sins
And dogs believe their tall conditions dead.

Here adolescence into number breaks
The perfect circle time can draw on stone,
And flesh forgives division as it makes
Another's moment of consent its own.

All journeys die here: wish and weight are lifted:
Where often round some old maid's desolation
Roses have flung their glory like a cloak,

The gaunt and great, the famed for conversation
Blushed in the stare of evening as they spoke
And felt their centre of volition shifted.
The Terry Tree Aug 2014
Hidden grace, no light for revelation
To pass such limits is to become ******
Like the dragon or a serpent monster
Your myth has become fixed in minds on earth

All the forces that disturb you demand
Darkness is your indetermination
Blazed in trails of blackness you command
Symbols of evil and demonic birth

In the Underworld you plot and saunter
Grotesque in cloven hooves or horns you stand
You are our fear the tormentor at hand
Stealing our only hope for self-love worth

You disturb and weaken every nation
Eliminating those who will prosper

You have a tool box filled with shapes galore
A choir of demons at your disposal
You wear the face of animals to prove
That you exist but will not show your face

Temptation is your favorite proposal
As you create ****** carnage and gore
Attacking innocents world wide; global
It is your goal to blacken and erase

It is unclear when you will make a move
Your starless magic uncontrollable
Your angry heart is inconsolable
In every mouth you leave an awful taste

The only thing that satisfies is war
Beelzebub to slaughter good it behooves

Clipping spiritual wings of all beings
Entering into those at their weakest
Supposition of your essence is sly
What you are has no particular shape

You've made a pact to stand against Jesus
Disintegrating all Saints from seeing
Wicked ways are in all ways the cheapest
To ingress means whole-purity escapes

Human life is interwoven freely
Free will allows the mind to go deepest
When we take the path we take the steepest
Secreted in your invisible cape

To return is without guaranteeing
With mastery disposing us to die

I believe that beneath us is a rug
One that you delight in pulling away
Much like this rug our minds become feeble
And we begin to believe everything

Our moral and metaphysical ways
Begin to end as our shoulders will shrug
Entire atmospheres are grey for days
To open up our mouths yet not to sing

What we decide can often be lethal
A personal domain of hellbent maze
As we lose sight our lives become a daze
Of which no hope or light can often bring

Our deception is your favorite drug
When we feel at our worst you are gleeful

The seeker of hidden knowledge must keep
A balance like the Hermit's inner peace
Otherwise the journey will fall victim
To flowing currents of hateful power

Like a wolf in sheep's clothing you have fleece
To hold on to our light is to succeed
Pull back the reigns of life commanding "Cease!"
Do not fall from your enlightened tower

Satan is a trickster sent to sicken
Our ability to wager disease
To believe that he exists is to please
Negative energy to devour

The best part of me is only asleep
Isolation has become addicted

Prince of Darkness, Antichrist, King of Hell
Appearing to the blind slave of instinct
You have no sovereignty be gone from me
I confront thee I am ready and still

Lucifer, Angel of Darkness extinct
You do not know my spirit guides that well
Distraction is what makes you so succinct
I have no desire to go downhill

Your downward spiral was a slide to see
How you manipulate what others think
Mephistopheles, Archfiend of distinct
Measures to tear others down you conceal

I dispel, I kiss forever farewell
Rest quietly in harmony dreaming

A lullaby for you I have written
On my heart as ancient as Egyptians
The Vedas and Sumerian temples
Will embrace you even in rejection

Your actions are despised in omission
I believe your bitter self was bitten
Release your broken spirit condition
Open your eyes and arms to affection

We can all be as one in one vessel
There are good folks and there is suspicion
Prayer of my song, a hymn of permission
Release thy tortured ways to connection

Evil drifts up, Listen, Listen, Listen
As our bodies fill with light and tremble

Shhhhh.......

© tHE tERRY tREE
Poetic Form | Turco Bref Double
Lauren J Dec 2014
What's ugly?
A crooked tooth,
a stray hair,
small zit,
an extra pound?
No, I will tell you what's ugly.
***** looks,
hateful words
and selfish actions.
Look in the mirror.
Makeup will only go so far to hide an ugly heart.
Rodney Mcfarlane Mar 2014
Selfish ******* around me its suffocating
Thats why we cant get no where as a people its aggravating
Im at a point where if i can't trust em **** em
or ill treat them like the trash they are thats on them
im a survivior and ill protect whats mine at all times
doing whats necessary to find a solution even if im blind
to the consequences of my hateful actions
reactions to my evil ways gives me satisfaction
the bashin i do results in my enemies becoming ashes
so the clashing between us leaves me no air asthmatic
(Takes a deep breath)
Thats a load off
Let me unwind and take my shirt off
first off im a real dude with a ******* problem
America put me on top then changed me to the bottom
No fame its ok no change its strange
No play no way  black pride all day
Now as I go
Being Hateful is easy and know where near hard to show
Just living aint living no more.
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock
the furthest outlier of a merry isle
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

your modesty inclines you to take stock
in all those things that we would not revile
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock

impervious to any mortal shock
we hope to land and stay for quite a while
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

our ship is not for any normal dock
we've gone way past the ordinary style
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock

rejects enclosure will break every lock
and has more power still than any bile
where there's no foe except the hateful clock

though you despise and though you still may mock
our sacred purpose you cannot defile
love ties its hopes to what it thinks a rock
where there's no foe except the hateful clock
Arcassin B May 2014
By Arcassin B


Do Take One Look At yourself,
dont be jealous , you need help,
to the skies i use to yell,
i know you can smell the smell of it,
This Feeling,
that i use to feel with you,
You were hoping i was willing,
And i was hoping too,

Come And Feel this feel With me,
Sit and watch the sky burn,
real hateful to my memories,
Baby now its your turn,
This Feeling,
that i use to love with you,
For your heart , i did some healing,
dont judge me too,

This Feeling.
http://arcassin.blogspot.com/2014/01/feel-this-feel.html
Chantelle Iles Aug 2018
My beloved Demon,
When did you become the intimate stranger,
That lay in the bed next to me every night
When we made love or tried to mask the hate it was more divided unity
In our troubled paradise we are alone.
Because my eyes were wide shut to your sincere lies

When did you become that romantic terrorist that left me feeling numb
Your ear splitting whispers of sweet torture left me in proud humility
And the deafening silence as you left
My worst enemy
All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued,
Through Heaven’s wide champain held his way; till Morn,
Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand
Unbarred the gates of light.  There is a cave
Within the mount of God, fast by his throne,
Where light and darkness in perpetual round
Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through Heaven
Grateful vicissitude, like day and night;
Light issues forth, and at the other door
Obsequious darkness enters, till her hour
To veil the Heaven, though darkness there might well
Seem twilight here:  And now went forth the Morn
Such as in highest Heaven arrayed in gold
Empyreal; from before her vanished Night,
Shot through with orient beams; when all the plain
Covered with thick embattled squadrons bright,
Chariots, and flaming arms, and fiery steeds,
Reflecting blaze on blaze, first met his view:
War he perceived, war in procinct; and found
Already known what he for news had thought
To have reported:  Gladly then he mixed
Among those friendly Powers, who him received
With joy and acclamations loud, that one,
That of so many myriads fallen, yet one
Returned not lost.  On to the sacred hill
They led him high applauded, and present
Before the seat supreme; from whence a voice,
From midst a golden cloud, thus mild was heard.
Servant of God. Well done; well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintained
Against revolted multitudes the cause
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms;
And for the testimony of truth hast borne
Universal reproach, far worse to bear
Than violence; for this was all thy care
To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds
Judged thee perverse:  The easier conquest now
Remains thee, aided by this host of friends,
Back on thy foes more glorious to return,
Than scorned thou didst depart; and to subdue
By force, who reason for their law refuse,
Right reason for their law, and for their King
Messiah, who by right of merit reigns.
Go, Michael, of celestial armies prince,
And thou, in military prowess next,
Gabriel, lead forth to battle these my sons
Invincible; lead forth my armed Saints,
By thousands and by millions, ranged for fight,
Equal in number to that Godless crew
Rebellious:  Them with fire and hostile arms
Fearless assault; and, to the brow of Heaven
Pursuing, drive them out from God and bliss,
Into their place of punishment, the gulf
Of Tartarus, which ready opens wide
His fiery Chaos to receive their fall.
So spake the Sovran Voice, and clouds began
To darken all the hill, and smoke to roll
In dusky wreaths, reluctant flames, the sign
Of wrath awaked; nor with less dread the loud
Ethereal trumpet from on high ‘gan blow:
At which command the Powers militant,
That stood for Heaven, in mighty quadrate joined
Of union irresistible, moved on
In silence their bright legions, to the sound
Of instrumental harmony, that breathed
Heroick ardour to adventurous deeds
Under their God-like leaders, in the cause
Of God and his Messiah.  On they move
Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill,
Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides
Their perfect ranks; for high above the ground
Their march was, and the passive air upbore
Their nimble tread; as when the total kind
Of birds, in orderly array on wing,
Came summoned over Eden to receive
Their names of thee; so over many a tract
Of Heaven they marched, and many a province wide,
Tenfold the length of this terrene:  At last,
Far in the horizon to the north appeared
From skirt to skirt a fiery region, stretched
In battailous aspect, and nearer view
Bristled with upright beams innumerable
Of rigid spears, and helmets thronged, and shields
Various, with boastful argument portrayed,
The banded Powers of Satan hasting on
With furious expedition; for they weened
That self-same day, by fight or by surprise,
To win the mount of God, and on his throne
To set the Envier of his state, the proud
Aspirer; but their thoughts proved fond and vain
In the mid way:  Though strange to us it seemed
At first, that Angel should with Angel war,
And in fierce hosting meet, who wont to meet
So oft in festivals of joy and love
Unanimous, as sons of one great Sire,
Hymning the Eternal Father:  But the shout
Of battle now began, and rushing sound
Of onset ended soon each milder thought.
High in the midst, exalted as a God,
The Apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat,
Idol of majesty divine, enclosed
With flaming Cherubim, and golden shields;
Then lighted from his gorgeous throne, for now
“twixt host and host but narrow space was left,
A dreadful interval, and front to front
Presented stood in terrible array
Of hideous length:  Before the cloudy van,
On the rough edge of battle ere it joined,
Satan, with vast and haughty strides advanced,
Came towering, armed in adamant and gold;
Abdiel that sight endured not, where he stood
Among the mightiest, bent on highest deeds,
And thus his own undaunted heart explores.
O Heaven! that such resemblance of the Highest
Should yet remain, where faith and realty
Remain not:  Wherefore should not strength and might
There fail where virtue fails, or weakest prove
Where boldest, though to fight unconquerable?
His puissance, trusting in the Almighty’s aid,
I mean to try, whose reason I have tried
Unsound and false; nor is it aught but just,
That he, who in debate of truth hath won,
Should win in arms, in both disputes alike
Victor; though brutish that contest and foul,
When reason hath to deal with force, yet so
Most reason is that reason overcome.
So pondering, and from his armed peers
Forth stepping opposite, half-way he met
His daring foe, at this prevention more
Incensed, and thus securely him defied.
Proud, art thou met? thy hope was to have reached
The highth of thy aspiring unopposed,
The throne of God unguarded, and his side
Abandoned, at the terrour of thy power
Or potent tongue:  Fool!not to think how vain
Against the Omnipotent to rise in arms;
Who out of smallest things could, without end,
Have raised incessant armies to defeat
Thy folly; or with solitary hand
Reaching beyond all limit, at one blow,
Unaided, could have finished thee, and whelmed
Thy legions under darkness:  But thou seest
All are not of thy train; there be, who faith
Prefer, and piety to God, though then
To thee not visible, when I alone
Seemed in thy world erroneous to dissent
From all:  My sect thou seest;now learn too late
How few sometimes may know, when thousands err.
Whom the grand foe, with scornful eye askance,
Thus answered.  Ill for thee, but in wished hour
Of my revenge, first sought for, thou returnest
From flight, seditious Angel! to receive
Thy merited reward, the first assay
Of this right hand provoked, since first that tongue,
Inspired with contradiction, durst oppose
A third part of the Gods, in synod met
Their deities to assert; who, while they feel
Vigour divine within them, can allow
Omnipotence to none.  But well thou comest
Before thy fellows, ambitious to win
From me some plume, that thy success may show
Destruction to the rest:  This pause between,
(Unanswered lest thou boast) to let thee know,
At first I thought that Liberty and Heaven
To heavenly souls had been all one; but now
I see that most through sloth had rather serve,
Ministring Spirits, trained up in feast and song!
Such hast thou armed, the minstrelsy of Heaven,
Servility with freedom to contend,
As both their deeds compared this day shall prove.
To whom in brief thus Abdiel stern replied.
Apostate! still thou errest, nor end wilt find
Of erring, from the path of truth remote:
Unjustly thou depravest it with the name
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
Or Nature:  God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs.  This is servitude,
To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebelled
Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
Thyself not free, but to thyself enthralled;
Yet lewdly darest our ministring upbraid.
Reign thou in Hell, thy kingdom; let me serve
In Heaven God ever blest, and his divine
Behests obey, worthiest to be obeyed;
Yet chains in Hell, not realms, expect:  Mean while
From me returned, as erst thou saidst, from flight,
This greeting on thy impious crest receive.
So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,
Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield,
Such ruin intercept:  Ten paces huge
He back recoiled; the tenth on bended knee
His massy spear upstaid; as if on earth
Winds under ground, or waters forcing way,
Sidelong had pushed a mountain from his seat,
Half sunk with all his pines.  Amazement seised
The rebel Thrones, but greater rage, to see
Thus foiled their mightiest; ours joy filled, and shout,
Presage of victory, and fierce desire
Of battle:  Whereat Michael bid sound
The Arch-Angel trumpet; through the vast of Heaven
It sounded, and the faithful armies rung
Hosanna to the Highest:  Nor stood at gaze
The adverse legions, nor less hideous joined
The horrid shock.  Now storming fury rose,
And clamour such as heard in Heaven till now
Was never; arms on armour clashing brayed
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots raged; dire was the noise
Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rushed
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage.  All Heaven
Resounded; and had Earth been then, all Earth
Had to her center shook.  What wonder? when
Millions of fierce encountering Angels fought
On either side, the least of whom could wield
These elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions:  How much more of power
Army against army numberless to raise
Dreadful combustion warring, and disturb,
Though not destroy, their happy native seat;
Had not the Eternal King Omnipotent,
From his strong hold of Heaven, high over-ruled
And limited their might; though numbered such
As each divided legion might have seemed
A numerous host; in strength each armed hand
A legion; led in fight, yet leader seemed
Each warriour single as in chief, expert
When to advance, or stand, or turn the sway
Of battle, open when, and when to close
The ridges of grim war:  No thought of flight,
None of retreat, no unbecoming deed
That argued fear; each on himself relied,
As only in his arm the moment lay
Of victory:  Deeds of eternal fame
Were done, but infinite; for wide was spread
That war and various; sometimes on firm ground
A standing fight, then, soaring on main wing,
Tormented all the air; all air seemed then
Conflicting fire.  Long time in even scale
The battle hung; till Satan, who that day
Prodigious power had shown, and met in arms
No equal, ranging through the dire attack
Of fighting Seraphim confused, at length
Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and felled
Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway
Brandished aloft, the horrid edge came down
Wide-wasting; such destruction to withstand
He hasted, and opposed the rocky orb
Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield,
A vast circumference.  At his approach
The great Arch-Angel from his warlike toil
Surceased, and glad, as hoping here to end
Intestine war in Heaven, the arch-foe subdued
Or captive dragged in chains, with hostile frown
And visage all inflamed first thus began.
Author of evil, unknown till thy revolt,
Unnamed in Heaven, now plenteous as thou seest
These acts of hateful strife, hateful to all,
Though heaviest by just measure on thyself,
And thy  adherents:  How hast thou disturbed
Heaven’s blessed peace, and into nature brought
Misery, uncreated till the crime
Of thy rebellion! how hast thou instilled
Thy malice into thousands, once upright
And faithful, now proved false!  But think not here
To trouble holy rest; Heaven casts thee out
From all her confines.  Heaven, the seat of bliss,
Brooks not the works of violence and war.
Hence then, and evil go with thee along,
Thy offspring, to the place of evil, Hell;
Thou and thy wicked crew! there mingle broils,
Ere this avenging sword begin thy doom,
Or some more sudden vengeance, winged from God,
Precipitate thee with augmented pain.
So spake the Prince of Angels; to whom thus
The Adversary.  Nor think thou with wind
Of aery threats to awe whom yet with deeds
Thou canst not.  Hast thou turned the least of these
To flight, or if to fall, but that they rise
Unvanquished, easier to transact with me
That thou shouldst hope, imperious, and with threats
To chase me hence? err not, that so shall end
The strife which thou callest evil, but we style
The strife of glory; which we mean to win,
Or turn this Heaven itself into the Hell
Thou fablest; here however to dwell free,
If not to reign:  Mean while thy utmost force,
And join him named Almighty to thy aid,
I fly not, but have sought thee far and nigh.
They ended parle, and both addressed for fight
Unspeakable; for who, though with the tongue
Of Angels, can relate, or to what things
Liken on earth conspicuous, that may lift
Human imagination to such highth
Of Godlike power? for likest Gods they seemed,
Stood they or moved, in stature, motion, arms,
Fit to decide the empire of great Heaven.
Now waved their fiery swords, and in the air
Made horrid circles; two broad suns their shields
Blazed opposite, while Expectation stood
In horrour:  From each hand with speed retired,
Where erst was thickest fight, the angelick throng,
And left large field, unsafe within the wind
Of such commotion; such as, to set forth
Great things by small, if, nature’s concord broke,
Among the constellations war were sprung,
Two planets, rushing from aspect malign
Of fiercest opposition, in mid sky
Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound.
Together both with next to almighty arm
Up-lifted imminent, one stroke they aimed
That might determine, and not need repeat,
As not of power at once; nor odds appeared
In might or swift prevention:  But the sword
Of Michael from the armoury of God
Was given him tempered so, that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer; nor staid,
But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared
All his right side:  Then Satan first knew pain,
And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him:  But the ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible; and from the ****
A stream of necturous humour issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial Spirits may bleed,
And all his armour stained, ere while so bright.
Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run
By Angels many and strong, who interposed
Defence, while others bore him on their shields
Back to his chariot, where it stood retired
From off the files of war:  There they him laid
Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame,
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbled by such rebuke, so far beneath
His confidence to equal God in power.
Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man
In entrails, heart of head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die;
Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, no more than can the fluid air:
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense; and, as they please,
They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size
Assume, as?***** them best, condense or rare.
Mean while in other parts like deeds deserved
Memorial, where the might of Gabriel fought,
And with fierce ensigns pierced the deep array
Of Moloch, furious king; who him defied,
And at his chariot-wheels to drag him bound
Threatened, nor from the Holy One of Heaven
Refrained his tongue blasphemous; but anon
Down cloven to the waist, with shattered arms
And uncouth pain fled bellowing.  On each wing
Uriel, and Raphael, his vaunting foe,
Though huge, and in a rock of diamond armed,
Vanquished Adramelech, and Asmadai,
Two potent Thrones, that to be less than
july hearne Jun 2017
when Merry Clayton
sings "Southern Man"
i think of all of you
and i think *******

and if i was Neil Young
i would start a band called Hateful Bigot
and Mike Watt would be the bass player
and i would write a song
called "social justice warrior"
(in all lower case)
and dedicate it to all the children that have been ***** by the gay mayor of your tiny house town
and Merry Clayton would sing that song

there is a parade in tiny house town
for everyone who's arrived 50 years too late to the civil rights party
and the  mayor is coming round
to shake your hand

all your tiny houses coming down
all your tiny houses built upon the sand
tiny, tiny houses get smaller and smaller before blowing down

everytime you shake his hand
you have even less to say
about all the children he *****
than the NRA

even less to say than the NRA
everytime the gay mayor rolls down the windows
before he rapes the children in his hot car
everytime he's comes around
to shake your hand
he's got ten dollars in his other hand

tiny, tiny houses blowing down
all your tiny houses built upon the sand
i can't wait til they come down
all your tiny houses coming down
tiny, tiny houses coming down

(nothing to do with the fact
he's a gay democrat
nothing to do with the fact)
ed murray is the gay mayor of seattle. he ***** children and is likely still ****** them. one of them was his foster son. he denies these allegations in the manner of a text book lying child ******. he lied about ever knowing his foster son who he ***** (and who was later then proven to be his foster son). he also had wanted to be a catholic priest but left the seminary (probably got kicked out for child ****).   he was not forced to resign because it is not convenient to ask a gay, democrat mayor to step down, which is why i will always refer to him as the gay mayor who rapes children.  he gets a free pass on ****** children. this poem is dedicated to everyone who turns a blind eye to child **** and excuses it (especially ***** like sally bagshaw), and sadly that includes organizations such as glaad.

ed murray, gay mayor of seattle who rapes children, attended the gay pride parade and shook hands with the parade goers, who were delighted to shake the hand of a child ******. only it's not ****, since he is a gay democrat who gave the children $10 to **** them.

seattle has become unaffordable because of amazon, high levels of taxation (by a city cuntcil who supports a child ****** as mayor and the child ****** mayor himself), a housing shortage (caused by amazon and citizens of china who make money on slave labor and then make inflated all cash offers on the real estate here so the people who actually live here can't afford it).

something tells me this one won't go over well, but that's ok with me, since people who turn a blind eye to child **** are the **** of the earth. my next poem will be about what a **** sally bagshaw is. she loves our gay mayor who has done nothing but lie, flounder around like an idiot, allow amazon and comcast to **** us over, steal money, waste money, increase homelessness and **** children. ed murray also loves sharia law, since it conveniently has no laws against ****** children.

the NRA had better make some sort of public statement of support for philando castile and his family and  should have already done so. that man and his family were not shown any justice and neither were the children that ed murray *****, not to mention the children he is still ******.

we live in ******* times and the ones screaming the loudest are the ones who need to shut the **** up the most.


from ed murray's twitter page:

Ed Murray‏Verified account @MayorEdMurray  May 19

It's finally warming up, which is great - but not for all. Beware of the danger pets and children face in hot cars!
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
August 20th, 2011

Pink and white hothouse lilies
parfume the atmosphere
of our summer retreat,
the shelter upon our island redoubt.

Their scent, a scentry,
posted to guard against
the oranges and reds,
the piano notes of fall,
the ivory whites of winter,
the iconic colors of the
seasons of responsibilities.

Lock the doors.

Preserves of
oranges, peach and lemon,
summer fruits,
preserve my calm!

Mingle well
with the other summer's fruited sweets,
cherries, black berries, caramel,
all, ally thyself with salt air
and do thy fragrant work!

Ferry away, banish,
the wardens of the
workweek jail, like only
summer garden colors
and sun-rays can.    

Still yourself,
be calmed, becalmed,
there is no breeze,
tis but mid-August
and the grill still awaits
your further command.

Long days and humid nights
bid you drink red rosés,
and summer lemoncellos,
chilled to accompany
the sweet summer corn
covered in salty butter.
drink the jus of the
summer sea's bounty,
saltwater berries, seasonal delights.

But you know better.

Stepping outside,
you are tree felled,
senses red alerted
by hints, whiffs
of the odor of change,
a piano refrain.

Acorns in August?

Can't be, won't allow it,
that slight chill, dispatch it,
won't let go yet of
sun tanned lotion notions,  
and legalized
summer laziness.  

Beneath my flip~flops,
acorn shells irritatingly crunch,
uninvited guests,
they are the peas I feel
under the mattress and bed,
contaminating my head,
while I lay  cloaked beneath,
my summer weight comforter.

Too late.

Back to school flyers
litter the driveway and infest
the Sunday papers.
I am defeated,
my senses tingle,
at the sight of these
changeover secretions.  

Sap of the maples is acoming,
the Paul Revere warning
of Redcoated leaves soon to
invade my bay's sandy shores.

Come my friends,
be courageous
and of good faith.

One more time, unto the breach!
One more time, unto the beach!

Tho our armor of golden tan
will of necessity rust red by cold bitters,
the summer of our poetry,
recorded, will forever live.

Even tho summer's demise
draws near, its death most glorious and not in vain,
when we lay spent and slain
after our approaching defeat,
apres the Battle of
Labor Day,
We still have our body,
Our poems, summer crafted,
The cello and the piano
Reminding those few left to listen.
<•>
mid august suicidal
August 12, 2017

to the facts:
suicidal thoughts come as regular as a
teenager pimple

weekends summer sun burns the skin,
the inner gloom,
so that I just make from the
Monday to Friday bookends
of grey cloud doom, barely opened eyes

the acorns peas under the bed's mattress,
my summer-brain pod irritants
are
freshly arrived, fully ensconced,
antibiotic resistant sob's,  
the colored newsprint of hateful
back to school flyers still haunt and clog
the sinking sunking sinking
waste disposal

the newest indignity,
the emails proclaiming
end-of-summer better hurry
drink up those three cases of pink rose wine
down in the chilling basement

not a bad idea in *** actuality

nothing kills like suicide and
nothing kills suicidal thoughts
like a three week drunk
starting now

the truth burden just got harder;
Adagio for Strings, Opus 11,
whispers stay the hand


~~~
‘Twas many moons ago in fled days of yore,
In a distant realm of a golden shore,
When there dwelt a maiden of golden hair,
The last fairest by the name of Lenore.

The sweetness of her mellifluous voice,
Like only Angels of high heaven can make;
The beaminess of her impeccable face,
Reflections of a dawn sun-kissed lake.

Once by a golden noontide, so they say,
Perfectly salubrious was the day,
Fairly enriched by heaven's fairest ray
That Lenore chose to potter by the bay.

She marveled at so wide a limpid sea,
That was a vast luminous blue millpond,
Whispering mellifluous lullabies
Like of Angels upon heaven's compound.

“O sea, thou art lovely like a sweet dream,”
Quoth Lenore, “In thy waters I must swim.”
Hence as quick as a plummeting sunbeam,
In waters jumped the little seraphim.

Frosted in sheer elation she galloped
Upon the crest of so gentle a wave,
But every sea creature lifted its head,
Whilst doleful as marigold by a grave,

And in faint whispers didst bid her adieu,
"Farewell Lenore," till she was out of view,
Away where mortals of yore never knew,
Away where none canst ever have a clue.

In a while, the sun had shone her last ray
And solitary stars were beaming bright
Upon heaven's timelessly stonking bay,
But she still alone In the dead of night.

By luck, on yonder was a galleon
Of a sundeck decked with bright neon,
Her glossy sails as if from diamond hewn,
With words golden blazoned upon her stern:

Come thou little maiden, come thou aboard,
But little did innocent Lenore know,
At the back words in clear ruby-red read:
“To the kingdom of eternal sorrow.”

Not so long faded the night, dawn was nigh,
Heaven's molten gold began oozing by,
Whilst silvery clouds waltzed athwart the sky,
That Lenore's eyes slavered with ecstasy.

But then, there came a dog in the manger,
A hateful wave assailed the galleon
And heavens raged with roaring thunder
That echoed louder than the hungriest lion.

Tossing her where the sea kisses the skies,
Hence now but a speck on the horizons,
And there she galloped by and by downwards
Till wrecked upon shadowy blue islands

That bore words by the shores: “Little maiden,
Welcome thou to the kingdom of Nineva,
Where mortals shalt see thee never again,
For here you'll dwell forever and ever.”

This sent poor Lenore reeling far in mind
That with cinder-like eyes stumbled behind
But her galleon she could hardly find
For it had long vanished into the wind.

But hark! Yonder woods sprang a companion,
A lad whose names were Edgar Alan Poe;
Bestrode upon a snowy fair stallion
Who unto her whispered softly and low:

“If the moon be fair, then thy skin fairer,
If the stars be bright, then thine eyes brighter,
If snow be white, then thy lip’s gems whiter,
If the sun be hot, then thy hair hotter,

Then tell me, what bringeth thou to Nineva,
A realm of eternal sorrow and fear,
Where no mortal hath escaped ever,
But ever doomed in dungeons of despair?”

Despite her visage was lugubrious,
Her worries were all now but fugacious,
That yonder fair floral woods susurrous
Galloped whilst trees sang in tunes mellifluous.

For Edgar’s words of kindness had soothed her
Now doth she beam with ethereal luster
Like of night lanterns upon heavens shore
Scintillating in a wondrous cluster.

Alas! strange and covetous myriad eyes
By yon brier coveted the beauty queen
That as passes a fiend in the night skies
Did spy upon her with eyes all unseen

'Tis then when Edgar was away hunting
Whilst the beauty queen was all alone singing
When those dreamy figures came whispering
Amongst each other whilst wildly smiling.

Bestrode upon many a snowy fair horse,
Their strange faces, as pale as death her self.
Their voices, as if thousand snakes didst hiss,
Betwixt them, there lordly sprang an elf

Who unto her said, "how sweet thou dost sing,
Thy melodious voice would so please our king,
Unto thee, rubies and pearls shalt he bring,
Of banished gold shalt be thy nuptial ring."

"Nay", softly replied the little maiden,
To thy king I canst not walk down the isle,
For in violent love I'm with a swain,
Thy king's treasures outweigh not his smile.

"Wretch", why dost thou abhor our proposal?
For soon thou art to regret having done so,
So cried the elf, "opting for a mortal
Than a mighty king who is immortal"?

"Hark! Fair moon, see that morrow by noontide
Thou art by the edge of yon verdant moor,
For then thou shalt come with us yonder side
Neath the sea, and dwell with us evermore."

At this, a wild wind danced by many a leaf
And so vanished the strange troop of the elf
That she busted with a sigh of relief
Though deep within, her soul kindled with grief.

Not long, news sprinkled into the swain's ear
Who gathered a troop of a thousand men
Each bearing a bow, a hummer and spear,
All ready to guard the beauty queen.

When came morrow, they took little Lenore
And laid her beneath a lone sycamore
That stood by the edge of a lonely moor,
And then all matched towards the shingly shore.

No army led by any hostile king
Towards them could ever come any near.
There job was great that they did chant and sing
Songs of triumph of the fled days of yore.

Alas! To match towards the sycamore,
There pale and cold laid innocent Lenore
With not any single bone of poor her
Broken, but her breath taken evermore.

Mute, forlon, and motionless stood the swain
With bitter tears galloping from his eye,
With his soul 'neath a sepulchre of pain
That from yon day on, the realm he did curse.

For in Nineva, a realm dim and deep,
There not a mean ray of light canst now creep,
And there all creatures night and day dost weep
Till sweet Lenore wakes from eternal sleep.


©Kikodinho Edward Alexandros, Kampala, Uganda. 16th.July.2018.

#tale #adventure #fantasy #Lenore #EdgarAlanPoe #Nineva
"Nineva" is a magical kingdom in "Kikos's Legendarium"...a miscellany of tales of mystery and maccabre like you've never heard of. Tales such as: The Enchanted Gold, The Dwarf Of Nineva, Woods Have Eyes, Jazabel The Witch, The Novelty Tea ***, The Witch's Cauldron, The Lonely Hut, The Nectar Stream, among so many others.
And this tale is as well one of a grand scene in an adventurous movie script im penning.

#Each line in decasyllables
#Lenore is a name of a maiden I borrowed from Edgar Alan Poe's tales of mystery.
A Muslim boy with a clock
Is seen as a terrorist with a glock
Maybe i'm right, maybe i'm wrong
But if he were White, Asian, Hispanic or even Pacific Islander
Nobody would of suspected anything.
When are we going to stop fearing an entire race for only a portion radical and illogical ways of treating others?
I don't tolerate people who behead others if they don't agree with their religion
I don't agree with the repressive governments that control everyone and stone them for minor misdemeanors
There are good men out there fighting this evil that has plagued their homelands
I'm all for ending terrorism of all kinds
But let's stop terrorism of innocents too
Sure, i'm afraid of what the radicals will do to their own people, my people and the rest of the world
But i'll be dammed if i treated somebody from the Middle East like a monster when i don't even know who they are
If it wasn't for a Middle Eastern girl
The Syrians girls wouldn't have an improved education
If it wasn't for a Middle Eastern man fending off the Taliban and risking his entire village to keep Marcus Littrell alive
He would of been KIA a long time ago.
What about the ones who fought and died for America?
Nobody ever mentions them
The media wants me to hate them all, but i laugh and shake my head
Warped minds trying to warp others
I only see the ones who want to do us harm, and the ones who want to live peacefully and away from a life of hell
Brothers and sisters, just a different culture and skin color
I'm sorry if America seems racist or hateful, but i'm proud to be the one who throws those two words in the trash
Because i'm not afraid to speak my mind
And i welcome everyone here
America is everyone's home.
If only the Soviet Union never invaded Afghanistan
If only the people were not scared
To be free like America.
Unity for all,
Religious differences and Cultures alike.
I hope one day a Muslim man or Woman can walk down an American street without being labeled as a terrorist.
I hope one day these repressive governments fall into the hands of democracy
And we start the Age of Unity again.
I went all out on this one. I wanted to speak my views on this and i believe that the Muslim people and Arabian people deserve the same amount of freedom as we have. I feel so bad for that poor boy.
Madeline Feb 2015
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
I am assured by my loving mother as a child
I believe her because the beauty in everything flow’rs and flourishes
when you’re young
The world is yours to take, everyone is yours to meet, everything is yours to do;
and I believe her.

“You are worth more than the marigolds”
My first friend at school proclaims,
and I believe them.
We’ve tackled ***** training and preschool, now onto the playground and phonics!
We run and run together, taking the world like we’ve
whispered once before;
and I believe them.

“You are worth more than the marigolds”
The middle school test scores announce,
and I believe them.
Primary school is in the past and I’m ready for responsibility!
I put on makeup to feel pretty, care about my grades more than the teachers believe and flash my smile to the boys who spit “compliments” at my feet;
and I believe them.

“You are worth more than the marigolds”
but.. I don’t believe them anymore.
I’ve gained just enough confidence to smile at everyone in the halls in case they are having a bad day.
Suddenly my youthful euphoric vision is graffitied with hateful words and violence.
I run and constantly chase the innocence of the world,
being surrounded by darkness.
My self esteem has hit an all time low. Why is the world this way?
My friends and I chase what we used to believe and end up in deep holes;
and I don’t believe them anymore.

“You are worth more than the marigolds”
And it doesn’t matter.
I have lost all hope of finding that beauty.
My heart is an aching mess of “I love you”’s
But all I hear is “you are meaningless”
Slowly these phrases of deep hate sear into my soul
I hear them every day and every night
You are meaningless
You are not worthy
You could not possibly be good enough
Until I wake up one dismal morning to realize that I have been defined by the ones around me.

“You are worth more than the marigolds”
..and enough!
Because even my friends who say I’m worth something turn around and sneer at others like they can’t too be loved.
Because while the world screams “I hate people” I whisper
“but I don’t”.
But that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things
because we’ll find someone who loves us, right?
No.
Our words between just us mean nothing if we spin around and
spit in others’ faces.

And we know we hurt because we’ve been hurt but we don’t stop, none of us stop.

I dream of a world that screams a vulnerable
“I love you”
out into the world instead of a pulsing
“I hate you”
And a world that remembers that we are all worthy of love and not only the kind that makes you blush.

“You are worth more than the marigolds”
The phrase I’ve heard since I was in my mother’s gentle hold
can only mean so much when you think you’re crumpled.
Stashed away until you’re needed
always feeling so defeated
but the truth
not told enough
to our weakened souls
We are all worth more than the marigolds
I am myself May 2014
***
Maybe dad is right
Toxicity
It seems to be my enemy
And on a scale of healthy
I am not sure
Where this would be

You hurt me
But its okay
You're my best friend
The person I care about
More than anyone
That matters right?

I just want
For you
To be happy
And not hateful
Yet you insist
On being a ****
“I cannot but remember such things were,
  And were most dear to me.”
  ‘Macbeth’

  [”That were most precious to me.”
  ‘Macbeth’, act iv, sc. 3.]


When slow Disease, with all her host of Pains,
Chills the warm tide, which flows along the veins;
When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing,
And flies with every changing gale of spring;
Not to the aching frame alone confin’d,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind:
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of woe,
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow,
With Resignation wage relentless strife,
While Hope retires appall’d, and clings to life.
Yet less the pang when, through the tedious hour,
Remembrance sheds around her genial power,
Calls back the vanish’d days to rapture given,
When Love was bliss, and Beauty form’d our heaven;
Or, dear to youth, pourtrays each childish scene,
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been.
As when, through clouds that pour the summer storm,
The orb of day unveils his distant form,
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain
And dimly twinkles o’er the watery plain;
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The Sun of Memory, glowing through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays,
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway,
The past confounding with the present day.

Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought,
Which still recurs, unlook’d for and unsought;
My soul to Fancy’s fond suggestion yields,
And roams romantic o’er her airy fields.
Scenes of my youth, develop’d, crowd to view,
To which I long have bade a last adieu!
Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes;
Friends lost to me, for aye, except in dreams;
Some, who in marble prematurely sleep,
Whose forms I now remember, but to weep;
Some, who yet urge the same scholastic course
Of early science, future fame the source;
Who, still contending in the studious race,
In quick rotation, fill the senior place!
These, with a thousand visions, now unite,
To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight.

IDA! blest spot, where Science holds her reign,
How joyous, once, I join’d thy youthful train!
Bright, in idea, gleams thy lofty spire,
Again, I mingle with thy playful quire;
Our tricks of mischief, every childish game,
Unchang’d by time or distance, seem the same;
Through winding paths, along the glade I trace
The social smile of every welcome face;
My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy or woe,
Each early boyish friend, or youthful foe,
Our feuds dissolv’d, but not my friendship past,—
I bless the former, and forgive the last.
Hours of my youth! when, nurtur’d in my breast,
To Love a stranger, Friendship made me blest,—
Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth,
When every artless ***** throbs with truth;
Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign,
And check each impulse with prudential rein;
When, all we feel, our honest souls disclose,
In love to friends, in open hate to foes;
No varnish’d tales the lips of youth repeat,
No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit;
Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen’d years,
Matured by age, the garb of Prudence wears:
When, now, the Boy is ripen’d into Man,
His careful Sire chalks forth some wary plan;
Instructs his Son from Candour’s path to shrink,
Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to think;
Still to assent, and never to deny—
A patron’s praise can well reward the lie:
And who, when Fortune’s warning voice is heard,
Would lose his opening prospects for a word?
Although, against that word, his heart rebel,
And Truth, indignant, all his ***** swell.

  Away with themes like this! not mine the task,
From flattering friends to tear the hateful mask;
Let keener bards delight in Satire’s sting,
My Fancy soars not on Detraction’s wing:
Once, and but once, she aim’d a deadly blow,
To hurl Defiance on a secret Foe;
But when that foe, from feeling or from shame,
The cause unknown, yet still to me the same,
Warn’d by some friendly hint, perchance, retir’d,
With this submission all her rage expired.
From dreaded pangs that feeble Foe to save,
She hush’d her young resentment, and forgave.
Or, if my Muse a Pedant’s portrait drew,
POMPOSUS’ virtues are but known to few:
I never fear’d the young usurper’s nod,
And he who wields must, sometimes, feel the rod.
If since on Granta’s failings, known to all
Who share the converse of a college hall,
She sometimes trifled in a lighter strain,
’Tis past, and thus she will not sin again:
Soon must her early song for ever cease,
And, all may rail, when I shall rest in peace.

  Here, first remember’d be the joyous band,
Who hail’d me chief, obedient to command;
Who join’d with me, in every boyish sport,
Their first adviser, and their last resort;
Nor shrunk beneath the upstart pedant’s frown,
Or all the sable glories of his gown;
Who, thus, transplanted from his father’s school,
Unfit to govern, ignorant of rule—
Succeeded him, whom all unite to praise,
The dear preceptor of my early days,
PROBUS, the pride of science, and the boast—
To IDA now, alas! for ever lost!
With him, for years, we search’d the classic page,
And fear’d the Master, though we lov’d the Sage:
Retir’d at last, his small yet peaceful seat
From learning’s labour is the blest retreat.
POMPOSUS fills his magisterial chair;
POMPOSUS governs,—but, my Muse, forbear:
Contempt, in silence, be the pedant’s lot,
His name and precepts be alike forgot;
No more his mention shall my verse degrade,—
To him my tribute is already paid.

  High, through those elms with hoary branches crown’d
Fair IDA’S bower adorns the landscape round;
There Science, from her favour’d seat, surveys
The vale where rural Nature claims her praise;
To her awhile resigns her youthful train,
Who move in joy, and dance along the plain;
In scatter’d groups, each favour’d haunt pursue,
Repeat old pastimes, and discover new;
Flush’d with his rays, beneath the noontide Sun,
In rival bands, between the wickets run,
Drive o’er the sward the ball with active force,
Or chase with nimble feet its rapid course.
But these with slower steps direct their way,
Where Brent’s cool waves in limpid currents stray,
While yonder few search out some green retreat,
And arbours shade them from the summer heat:
Others, again, a pert and lively crew,
Some rough and thoughtless stranger plac’d in view,
With frolic quaint their antic jests expose,
And tease the grumbling rustic as he goes;
Nor rest with this, but many a passing fray
Tradition treasures for a future day:
“’Twas here the gather’d swains for vengeance fought,
And here we earn’d the conquest dearly bought:
Here have we fled before superior might,
And here renew’d the wild tumultuous fight.”
While thus our souls with early passions swell,
In lingering tones resounds the distant bell;
Th’ allotted hour of daily sport is o’er,
And Learning beckons from her temple’s door.
No splendid tablets grace her simple hall,
But ruder records fill the dusky wall:
There, deeply carv’d, behold! each Tyro’s name
Secures its owner’s academic fame;
Here mingling view the names of Sire and Son,
The one long grav’d, the other just begun:
These shall survive alike when Son and Sire,
Beneath one common stroke of fate expire;
Perhaps, their last memorial these alone,
Denied, in death, a monumental stone,
Whilst to the gale in mournful cadence wave
The sighing weeds, that hide their nameless grave.
And, here, my name, and many an early friend’s,
Along the wall in lengthen’d line extends.
Though, still, our deeds amuse the youthful race,
Who tread our steps, and fill our former place,
Who young obeyed their lords in silent awe,
Whose nod commanded, and whose voice was law;
And now, in turn, possess the reins of power,
To rule, the little Tyrants of an hour;
Though sometimes, with the Tales of ancient day,
They pass the dreary Winter’s eve away;
“And, thus, our former rulers stemm’d the tide,
And, thus, they dealt the combat, side by side;
Just in this place, the mouldering walls they scaled,
Nor bolts, nor bars, against their strength avail’d;
Here PROBUS came, the rising fray to quell,
And, here, he falter’d forth his last farewell;
And, here, one night abroad they dared to roam,
While bold POMPOSUS bravely staid at home;”
While thus they speak, the hour must soon arrive,
When names of these, like ours, alone survive:
Yet a few years, one general wreck will whelm
The faint remembrance of our fairy realm.

  Dear honest race! though now we meet no more,
One last long look on what we were before—
Our first kind greetings, and our last adieu—
Drew tears from eyes unus’d to weep with you.
Through splendid circles, Fashion’s gaudy world,
Where Folly’s glaring standard waves unfurl’d,
I plung’d to drown in noise my fond regret,
And all I sought or hop’d was to forget:
Vain wish! if, chance, some well-remember’d face,
Some old companion of my early race,
Advanc’d to claim his friend with honest joy,
My eyes, my heart, proclaim’d me still a boy;
The glittering scene, the fluttering groups around,
Were quite forgotten when my friend was found;
The smiles of Beauty, (for, alas! I’ve known
What ’tis to bend before Love’s mighty throne;)
The smiles of Beauty, though those smiles were dear,
Could hardly charm me, when that friend was near:
My thoughts bewilder’d in the fond surprise,
The woods of IDA danc’d before my eyes;
I saw the sprightly wand’rers pour along,
I saw, and join’d again the joyous throng;
Panting, again I trac’d her lofty grove,
And Friendship’s feelings triumph’d over Love.

  Yet, why should I alone with such delight
Retrace the circuit of my former flight?
Is there no cause beyond the common claim,
Endear’d to all in childhood’s very name?
Ah! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,
Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear
To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam,
And seek abroad, the love denied at home.
Those hearts, dear IDA, have I found in thee,
A home, a world, a paradise to me.
Stern Death forbade my orphan youth to share
The tender guidance of a Father’s care;
Can Rank, or e’en a Guardian’s name supply
The love, which glistens in a Father’s eye?
For this, can Wealth, or Title’s sound atone,
Made, by a Parent’s early loss, my own?
What Brother springs a Brother’s love to seek?
What Sister’s gentle kiss has prest my cheek?
For me, how dull the vacant moments rise,
To no fond ***** link’d by kindred ties!
Oft, in the progress of some fleeting dream,
Fraternal smiles, collected round me seem;
While still the visions to my heart are prest,
The voice of Love will murmur in my rest:
I hear—I wake—and in the sound rejoice!
I hear again,—but, ah! no Brother’s voice.
A Hermit, ’midst of crowds, I fain must stray
Alone, though thousand pilgrims fill the way;
While these a thousand kindred wreaths entwine,
I cannot call one single blossom mine:
What then remains? in solitude to groan,
To mix in friendship, or to sigh alone?
Thus, must I cling to some endearing hand,
And none more dear, than IDA’S social band.

  Alonzo! best and dearest of my friends,
Thy name ennobles him, who thus commends:
From this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise;
The praise is his, who now that tribute pays.
Oh! in the promise of thy early youth,
If Hope anticipate the words of Truth!
Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name,
To build his own, upon thy deathless fame:
Friend of my heart, and foremost of the list
Of those with whom I lived supremely blest;
Oft have we drain’d the font of ancient lore,
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still the more;
Yet, when Confinement’s lingering hour was done,
Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one:
Together we impell’d the flying ball,
Together waited in our tutor’s hall;
Together join’d in cricket’s manly toil,
Or shar’d the produce of the river’s spoil;
Or plunging from the green declining shore,
Our pliant limbs the buoyant billows bore:
In every element, unchang’d, the same,
All, all that brothers should be, but the name.

  Nor, yet, are you forgot, my jocund Boy!
DAVUS, the harbinger of childish joy;
For ever foremost in the ranks of fun,
The laughing herald of the harmless pun;
Yet, with a breast of such materials made,
Anxious to please, of pleasing half afraid;
Candid and liberal, with a heart of steel
In Danger’s path, though not untaught to feel.
Still, I remember, in the factious strife,
The rustic’s musket aim’d against my life:
High pois’d in air the massy weapon hung,
A cry of horror burst from every tongue:
Whilst I, in combat with another foe,
Fought on, unconscious of th’ impending blow;
Your arm, brave Boy, arrested his career—
Forward you sprung, insensible to fear;
Disarm’d, and baffled by your conquering hand,
The grovelling Savage roll’d upon the sand:
An act like this, can simple thanks repay?
Or all the labours of a grateful lay?
Oh no! whene’er my breast forgets the deed,
That instant, DAVUS, it deserves to bleed.

  LYCUS! on me thy claims are justly great:
Thy milder virtues could my Muse relate,
To thee, alone, unrivall’d, would belong
The feeble efforts of my lengthen’d song.
Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit,
A Spartan firmness, with Athenian wit:
Though yet, in embryo, these perfections shine,
LYCUS! thy father’s fame will soon be thine.
Where Learning nurtures the superior mind,
What may we hope, from genius thus refin’d;
When Time, at length, matures thy growing years,
How wilt thou tower, above thy fellow peers!
Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free,
With Honour’s soul, united beam in thee.

Shall fair EURYALUS, pass by unsung?
From ancient lineage, not unworthy, sprung:
What, though one sad dissension bade us part,
That name is yet embalm’d within my heart,
Yet, at the mention, does that heart rebound,
And palpitate, responsive to the sound;
Envy dissolved our ties, and not our will:
We once were friends,—I’ll think, we are so still.
A form unmatch’d in Nature’s partial mould,
A heart untainted, we, in thee, behold:
Yet, not the Senate’s thunder thou shall wield,
Nor seek for glory, in the tented field:
To minds of ruder texture, these be given—
Thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven.
Haply, in polish’d courts might be thy seat,
But, that thy tongue could never forge deceit:
The courtier’s supple bow, and sneering smile,
The flow of compliment, the slippery wile,
Would make that breast, with indignation, burn,
And, all the glittering snares, to tempt thee, spurn.
Domestic happiness will stamp thy fate;
Sacred to love, unclouded e’er by hate;
The world admire thee, and thy friends adore;—
Ambition’s slave, alone, would toil for more.

  Now last, but nearest, of the social band,
See honest, open, generous CLEON stand;
With scarce one speck, to cloud the pleasing scene,
No vice degrades that purest soul serene.
On the same day, our studious race begun,
On the same day, our studious race was run;
Thus, side by side, we pass’d our first career,
Thus, side by side, we strove for many a year:
At last, concluded our scholastic life,
We neither conquer’d in the classic strife:
As Speakers, each supports an equal name,
And crowds allow to both a partial fame:
To soothe a youthful Rival’s early pride,
Though Cleon’s candour would the palm divide,
Yet Candour’s self compels me now to own,
Justice awards it to my Friend alone.

  Oh! Friends regretted, Scenes for ever dear,
Remembrance hails you with her warmest tear!
Drooping, she bends o’er pensive Fancy’s urn,
To trace the hours, which never can return;
Yet, with the retrospection loves to dwell,
And soothe the sorrows of her last farewell!
Yet greets the triumph of my boyish mind,
As infant laurels round my head were twin’d;
When PROBUS’ praise repaid my lyric song,
Or plac’d me higher in the studious throng;
Or when my first harangue receiv’d applause,
His sage instruction the primeval cause,
What gratitude, to him, my soul possest,
While hope of dawning honours fill’d my breast!
For all my humble fame, to him alone,
The praise is due, who made that fame my own.
Oh! could I soar above these feeble lays,
These young effusions of my early days,
To him my Muse her noblest strain would give,
The song might perish, but the theme might live.
Yet, why for him the needless verse essay?
His honour’d name requires no vain display:
By every son of grateful IDA blest,
It finds an ech
Cné Jan 2017
Black lives matter
When people quit making the distinction
Think about that
Before going off half cocked
With hateful thought
I live in love without prejudice
Kai May 2019
When we think about the future
we are weighed down
by problems not our own
with a need for solutions
and hopeless debt

Our generation is left with
more loans and less degrees
specialized jobs and old issues
hateful ideas and new love

When we think about the future
we can see a new age
filled with technology
and so many bright dreams
crushed by this flat world

Our generation is left with
heads bowed to a screen
for hateful comments we see
and kids afraid of what
they really want to be
Matloob Bokhari Oct 2014
THE LIGHT OF LIBERTY
Matloob Bokhari


Peace be upon you, O daughter of the Chief of prophets.
Peace be upon you, O daughter of God's friend.
Peace be upon you, O daughter of the lady of Jannah.
Peace be upon you, who inherited bravery, fluency from Ali.
Peace be upon you, who became a symbol of liberty.
Peace be upon you, who is the lady of knowledge, patience.
Peace be upon you, who practiced what she taught.
Peace be upon you, who spoke against despotic institutions.
Peace be upon you, who challenged miseries with a message.
Peace be upon you, who remained entangled in tribulations.
Peace be upon you, who was paraded from place to place.
Peace be upon you, who  completed  mission when  all were dead.
Peace be upon you, who un-masked Godless regime.
Peace be upon you, who sowed seeds of awareness.
Peace be upon you, who delivered sermons on freedom.
Peace be upon you, who rescued the spirit of Islam.
Peace be upon you, who criticized terror in courts.
Peace be upon you, who prayed;" Lord! Accept sacrifice."
Peace be upon you, who in the  sad night remained in   prayers.
Peace be upon you, whose speeches silenced crafty intriguers.
Peace be upon you, whose name will remain eternal in history
Peace be upon you, whose lifestyle inspires   generations.
Peace be upon you, who said "God's curse on tyrants"
Peace be upon you, who forced tyranny to take refuge.
Peace be upon you, who said, "Our memory will never die."
Peace be upon you, who won battle of human rights.
Peace be upon you, who is a sun in history of humanity.

Michele Vizzotti-White: Hazrat Zainab challenged miseries with a message, if only more people had this gift eh there is always tomorrow :She  is a sun in history of humanity, yea def.
God bless the smart, beautiful and brave spirits in the world. ( na na three cheers to Hazrat Zainab :)




Kevin M. Hibshman : You are a light, Matloob!

Isabelle Black Smith: I have read parts of Quran. I need to read more. The Quran is indeed a holy text, filled with much wisdom. Thank you for telling about Hazrat Zainab . It is most interesting. I love the study of
history. The story of where we have been as people is fascinating to me. I do feel that in order for us to be successful in our future and avoid
  repeating the mistakes of our past we must truly have an understanding of where it is that we have been. Such a courageous woman this Hazrat Zainab was to speak out so boldly against tyranny in her time. Truly inspiring! You've given me some more reading to find out more about this remarkable woman, I think. Thank you for the introduction of this lady .  And such a wonderful meditation in your poem. A fitting tribute to this holy and inspiring woman of justice and peace.




Neil Perry:  I'd never heard of Hazrat Zainab  before, but she seemed an interesting person who was against injustice.



Em Meilė : This is a beautiful story plucked from history...and you have paid great honor and homage to our brave predecessor Hazrat Zainab, with your wise and beautiful words.  I stand beside you, Matloob, as we plant the seeds together.




Satyender ParkashAas: Peace be upon you, who prayed, mindful,idealistic,inspiring the human fully. I love this too.


Tina Farnworth : I am an atheist but Hazrat Zainab  sounds like an interesting lady! A strong woman indeed!

Tod McNeal: Beautiful Matloob! Had a guy friend me and begin posting all kind of hateful spew against Muslims on my page. That sort of thing is divisive and not in Unity. There are Muslims who can't stand Christians and Christians who can't stand Muslims. Both are not living in the light of LOVE that both religions place at the highest order of importance. Sadly both Holy books associated with the respective religions have plenty of quotable fodder (and even more sadly actionable fodder) for those whom wish to be divisive and hateful to others. ONE LOVE is not just Christian to Christian or Muslim to Muslim...it is UNITY with all. That is how I feel.


Ann Carruth Donoghue: Very powerful write, bravo x
John Castellenas : I like your thoughts and the purpose of this poem.




Kristine Nicholson: Yes, it is the people with goodness in their hearts who make Spirit shine through the words & institutions of religion! Your Ode to Hazrat  Zainab is glorious! :) Ken


Flora Vasconcelos : Peace be upon the suffering flesh , the suffocated souls , the barbed-wired hearts , the walled eyes , the forbidden breath!





Kriston Scott:I didn't know this lady. It is enlightening. Thank you so much for telling  the story of Hazrat Zainab, Peace be upon her ~   inspiring and beautiful.


Sandra Delussu: Where are those bold people gone dwell?
Leila Valencia Feb 2015
A timber night in a dark way can't stay for long
plowed down, scorched down  - must be torn down
kings of city pipes, dusty concrete heirlooms, read a bible to sleep

Wake in the morning, sun rays shine through dust ridden books
Morals, condoned in heart shaped smoke clouds

Greed's arms will swell rejecting midnights' hiss' "Where will they live?"
'Sirrrrrrrr' 'Homeeee'...... Floating like gas particles, words lost.
A stand alone will die to unknown prosperity
ropes straggle helpless branches
Clenching their last breathes, the weeping skies sit silently

Hateful hateful hunger, feeding the bodies thirst

Our midnight Cowboy song goes: Manufactured green, leaving scorched earth barren, unwritten torch, unseen

For we saw what we wanted to.
Nicole Dec 2017
Blood means nothing
Unless it's staining the streets
Family has no merit
When they don't even See me

You want me to be passive?
And let them spew racist hate?
And all that "gendered" *******?
You can't stop me, too late

**** the systems that oppress us
These prisons are stealing lives
Locking up innocent people
It's a form of modern genocide

We are all human
But our brothers are killed by police
And our sisters killed for their gender identity
But you'd rather look the other way
And defend hateful "free speech"

I am aware of my privilege
And I will not stay silent
You turn your eyes away from police brutality
But try to preach anti-violence

Our country is run by the white and the blue
While the red is the blood of its people
We need to look up at reality
And stop focusing on the steeples

Your hopes and your prayers
Do not end the violence
Instead they teach hate
And oppressive silence
Nathan MacKrith Dec 2018
I will have you know that you are in the mine-ority
If you don’t look at my pic and insta-click “like” on me
I thrive in this weblight, you subsist in ambig-you-ity
Mine is the looking glass of Aphrod-I-te
The un-My-ghty look on my aesthetic perfection and despair

I am the reason there is an earth
All was designed to usher in my triumphant birth
You are just hateful ab-you-sers and mis-you-sers
YOU are YOUVENILE YOULINQUENTS!

I am the oh-so-fleeting truth  
Present in a world obsessed with youth
I am only worth what others see in me

I embody the my-jority
My onscreen attention antics
Are the me-ssential components
Required to build a thriving Me-ocracy.
~
NM  
10/17/14
presented as part of a Dawkins’-meme based poetry collection at the 2019 “Trash Talkin’” literary Conference at the University of Regina, in Regina, SK, Canada
A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

        The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.


The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To Such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
         But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, ‘twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned ***** of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father’s state,
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
         Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe’s island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris’ woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.


COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
wild
beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
glistering.
They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
their hands.


         COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
And the ***** sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rights begin;
‘T is only daylight that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne’er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
That ne’er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat’, and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

                              The Measure.

         Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some ****** sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that’s against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

         LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer’s ****,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts. TTis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be ? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I’ll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen
                 Within thy airy shell
         By slow Meander’s margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
         Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
         That likest thy Narcissus are?
                  O, if thou have
         Hid them in some flowery cave,
                  Tell me but where,
         Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
         So may’st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven’s harmonies!


         COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earthUs mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I’ll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.QHail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell’st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
         LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is addressed to unattending ears.
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
         COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
         LADY. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth.
         COMUS. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
         LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
         COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
         LADY. To seek i’ the valley some cool friendly spring.
         COMUS. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
         LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick return.
         COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
         LADY. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
         COMUS. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
         LADY. No less than if I should my brothers lose.
         COMUS. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?
         LADY. As smooth as ****’s their unrazored lips.
         COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i’ the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you find them.
         LADY.                          Gentle villager,
What readiest way would bring me to that place?
         COMUS. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
         LADY. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot’s art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.
        COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
******, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise,
I can c
sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you've felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway,
get into your street clothes, feed the cats, fetch the
newspaper of horror, place it on the coffee table, kiss your
wife goodbye, and then you are backing the car out into life itself,
like millions of others you enter the arena once more.

you are on the freeway threading through traffic now,
moving both towards something and towards nothing at all as you punch
the radio on and get Mozart, which is something, and you will somehow
get through the slow days and the busy days and the dull
days and the hateful days and the rare days, all both so delightful
and so disappointing because
we are all so alike and so different.

you find the turn-off, drive through the most dangerous
part of town, feel momentarily wonderful as Mozart works
his way into your brain and slides down along your bones and
out through your shoes.

it's been a tough fight worth fighting
as we all drive along
betting on another day.
Rj Mar 2015
Could you be more hateful?
Literally I only have one word
To describe what you are
And it is pure hateful
Screaming until your voice
Starts cracking at the tv
Because you simply disagree
Is a little out at control
And it's just that out if control (ness)
That makes me scared of you
Dat Boi May 2015
Feminism ˈfeməˌnizəm/
noun
the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

People try to change a word into something else
Fantasy, made up, fiction, created....
You get angry when something you hold dear is "messed up"
"Diluted" or "polluted",
But why are you so eager to change the meaning of feminism?
You claim you are for equal rights, but not for feminism
Are you claiming you drink water but not H2O?

You want to make something different
Your own,
You want to make everything about you
You are selfish, are you not?
And your argument is weak, too.
You say "Feminists discriminate, that's why you shouldn't be one."
But do you know the actual definition?
You are that lazy,
To not search two words?
Technology helps you know the definition,
And a lick of time,
But you are too hateful, lazy, and selfish to care.

Join us. You're better here.
*Feminism means equality. Don't get it twisted.
This is my (I think) first feminism poem, but it's not really a poem, just something to help me get what I want out there.
Alone I stand,
Forgotten how to trust,
A title I am brand,
For the knife in my back ******,
In envious lust,

A pack once thought,
Once united as one,
A battle together once fought.
Till our pack shrivelled down to none,

Now alone,
In haunting silence,
No pacts just on my own,
In daunting defiance,

Forgotten,
With all the loyalties won in wars,
My trust wilted and rotten,
Torn by deceits hateful claws,

A Wounded wolf still raw,
A lone wolf forever will I be,
A wounded wolf with scars I wore,
A lone wolf for everyone to see.

— The End —