I

Imam Shamil who grew in mountains’
Region, valued all his life Liberty, spaciousness
Preferring to gold good deeds, after that
He turned the whole Caucasus into Imamat.

The imam joined the mountains’ peoples
Not in vain, he waged war the tsar’s Empire with,
And he said it’s better to die battle giving
Than to be a despised slave being living.

He could not find peace for many years,
And every day he led his Murids,
To battle, all the warriors got to know,
His spirit in battle under Ahulgo.

The imam was praised by the Persian shah,
His deeds carried the good will of Allah!
And if you permit me, reader, we will
Open all Shamil’s exhortation’s will.

Any part here’s a small story true,
Ignorance’s always decay, dust anew.
I am sure it may happen one day that
Wisdom can prove useful to your mind.




II

How many years have passed after that
When Shamil happened to drive subject at?
He wanted to make his children understand,
It isn’t worth speaking with any drunkard.

He said: “Once the Murid was walking
And found a drunkard under the tree lying,
“Get up!”the Murid cried at him, indeed,
“You can’t drink so if you are Shiit!””

That drunkard looked at him by a glass glance
As if he were not working at wall, the man chance.
The Murid asked  him: “How dare you live so?
Allah prohibited us to drink long ago!”

The drunkard answered him: “I mind my own business,
Let a ban be placed on it a hundred timed. Yes!”
That drunkard forgot the truth of the Koran,
The mind stuck in that argument as the mutton.

If only you look at it from  the sides all,
This parable’s sense’ll be single after all,
Discourse is bad with an inadequate
Person, it’s like talking to the wall, indeed.  

III

Everybody knew one language once,
Every  beast got used to association, at last.
And every beast studied language that
The bear used the bull as brother to understand.

Once walked the fox, the wolf and the lion to get
Dinner—to the nearest country  cattle- shed,
In which there was a mutton at that moment
He died in battle from wounds the lion rendered.

But how our heroes  to live now?
And to share their  legal dinner how?
As beasts’ tsar the lion began the food’s sharing,
The wolf took food a bit prudent become having?

Beasts’ brave tsar began to fight with him,
However, the fox was the sliest thing,
And that slyness saved her, after all,
She took the mutton to her own hole.  
  

IV

Once upon a time there lived
Father who most of all his children loved,
Two kind, twin brothers—one and another
One were th’splitting images of their father

The brothers yielded each other in nothing,
They were matched for each other in everything
They were in power to shoot as snipers,
And as Dzigits to ride as no one else/

Suddenly the foe came to their aul as
The conqueror. And Naib took  father’s
Sons with him and any of the brothers
Wanted damask steel to cut heads off shoulders.

But their father had an only sword,
In old times being young and naïve he chopped
His foes by it, and his sons anyway
Had to buy a sword to enter Naib’s array.

The sword bought was shining as emerald—
A master foreign worked at it too hard,
He covered its haft with gold thinnest—
Then that damask steel was very expense!

One brother took that foreign sword with
Him, another one took his father’s
Sword that turned out to be the safest,
Battles years verified safety its.

But the first brother told him: “I’ll bid
Defiance to shaitan himself, indeed!
It is all nothing to me having such
A new sword, I am making of it much!”

But his beloved brother did not agree
With him:”I’m madly glad to hear it but, you see,
By mastership the warrior always wins,
Then the sword plays important role its.”

After battle he came home native with
Father’s sword and grandfather’s shield, arm’s use is
Not in its charms, we need to know it,
The dead brother came back upon his shield.  



V

Once upon a time there lived an old
Man, my teacher, besides, the wiser called
Jamalutdin. When I was ten years,
He gave me a piece of priceless advice:

“Do always respect all people, please, but
At times against something  yourself regard,
Altruism and excessive toil’ ll wear out
Your organism, mind it in no flat!”

At early dawn do your morning exercises
And always sweep the yard by your own house
And then run perkily after the herd,
Health striving for something more is for what?”

And I have been following his example since
Then—I’m not afraid of cholera’s viruses,
Although I’ve been over forty for a long
Time, I’m the strongest of the same age persons among.

VI

God’s not the assistant of all our deeds,
Although we accuse him of our sins,
As our wise men do always tell us:
We all are our fates’ smiths  to the last.

Now and then we envy the rich’s receipts,
To our names when we don’t have copecks,
Now and then we ourselves’re guilty in
Our constant poor life bearing.

Now and then we waste our lives
Gifting our own youth to holidays,
Strong drinks’ drunkenness is always luring us
We are living not setting goals, alas.

VII

Once Basangur walked with me on mountains—
We walked together to Benoi, aul his,
A beautiful wife happened to meet us,
He was crazy about her to the last.

He was fascinated by her eyes’ blackness,
To describe her—there were not enough phrases!
There was not a nicer girl in the whole Caucasus
And then she met cordially her guests.

Ten years passed since then, and there weren’t
Letters from Basangur too of old,
Allah settled everything in his fate—
Gazi- Muhammed took him to his estate.

Basangur was ready for everything—
In the name of Allah he was chopping
His foes and in battle he lost his hand
And an eye of his was once knocked out.

A year after troubles came to the house:
The cannon- ball tore off his foot at once,
Our naib was taken as a prisoner
By crafty foes. Shamil saved him an hour after.

The Murids delivered him home, he had
Only one foot and only one hand,
But he was living laid by one wall
And whispered: “To die’s terrible on the whole!”

“You won’t die!” wife answered him, “the war has
Made you the *******! But remember just:
You are a beloved husband in my fate!
I won’t quit you in trouble, my honey friend!”

But Baisangur said: “You are still nice and young,
For all men you are dream’s chosen one!
I’m burden to you with all my wounds,
Do quit me, and find your own happiness!”

His wife said bending her head: “My honey,
I must say, you are not too courteous to me—
It is inscribed to both of us by fate
To be together until our death’s date!”



VIII

A sufiy who did read a lot of books
To people’s praise and honor did get use
As noticed once an aksakal old:
He  thought he was the brightest in the world.

He gave people pieces of advice,
How to live, to love, to have a very nice
Time, there were not people in the aul at all,
Who he did not happen to advise this all.

But misfortunes came to him at one time in the past:
He run out of water in his well to the last,
But he was proud to ask for help others,
Though it’s impossible to live without water’s wealth.

He lived without water for four days,
To be thirsty is to be without a fire’s
Life being proud of himself he did not ask
For help he gave up the ghost, alas!

IX

An Iranian shah did love to hunt
Allah always with favour did regard
Him. The shah always caught a lot of game
And never empty- hand he home came.

A falcon was presented him once
From the town called proudly Shiraz,
The falcon from Shiraz on the branch was sitting
And even no once having  taken wing.

The Iranian shah was very much surprised
And the master on birds was invited,
He had to reveal the secret of the bird’s
Not being able to fly afterwards.

And that master cut off the brunch off the tree,
And suddenly the falcon soared in its free
Flight, now and then to soar from happiness,
It’s necessary for us to change our lives!


X

In the world there lived so long a wise man,
He kept so many mysteries, information’s mine,
And once I had dinner together with
Him and he did tell me a story of his.

He was young and he wanted to understand
Life and he had a goal to succeed it and
The globe’s being round his being
Ignorant in  his trying its edge reaching.

All his life he walked through woods, mountains
He got through a hundred countries seeing wonders ,
He met his future wife  being on his way,
And he led her to his dream one day.

And he walked so in forty years’ course,
Absolutely grey, he understood the Earth
Had no edge, it’s terrible to live
With a beloved wife by dream deceiptive.

XI

Shamil gave children some paper’s sheets, and
Everybody was ready to write,
The imam said: “Turn over your sheets, please,
And describe your reverse sides’ appearance. ”

The sons saw on each side black smudge’s traces
Be visible in their paper’s sheets’ centres,
And each of them began to describe in prose
How he could, what was like that spot, of course.

In the smudge one saw woods and mountains,
Another one saw wide spaces at once,
The third one gold and stones,
And father said with grief: “I must say, of course,

I absolutely agree with you, children, but
Only your world is so diverse and
You can’t see mountains’ peaks in the spot
Without describing space’s graying world!

You have described only your spot, but it
Is scanty on each of your paper’s sheet
On shallow misfortune concentrating
Then Life and happiness’ll avoid your being.”

XII

One bourgeois loved just wealth, and all his
Life he just laid up coins valuing his
Granary. He could not live calmly a day
Not to increase some more silver, anyway.

But his income was a dishonest thing,
He drove profit from everything
To obtain always super- profit for wealth,
He was ready to sell his own parents.

He came to the temple—to pray to the skies
For everything what haram denies.
But he wished to become more prosperous,
Praying, he dreamt of to own gold countless.

Then opened wide before him  the skies,
And suddenly came into force wonders.
The rich man got petty as he was, a coward
He turned into green moustashe, that is the plant.

XIII

The Dzhigit happened to win the races,
The lucky man won one of the greatest
Prizes. All those stones would be enough
For him to live comfortably his all life.

Suddenly he met a woman on his way
Sobbing she did tell him on that very day:
“You’ve won a prize exactly, I know it,
Will you help me? Mum’s dying now, indeed.”

Believed he her, gave her all his values
And he did not learn of cheat bad piece of news
At once when friends came to meet him he told
The following to all his comrades old:

“Now I feel sorry for nothing, there is
No ill man, of the doctor worrying’s needless,
That’s why I’m so mad from happiness,
Because of having such ever- beloved friends!”

  
XIV

Allah told us to love our mothers,
He may punish all of us for love’s absence.
She does not know any dearer things
Than her beloved children’s stolen glances.

My great- grandmother lived  for a hundred years—
She was wise and was full of happiness.
Once I asked her reading my grammar:
”In what’s your secret, dear, great- mother?”

“My Shamil”, then her answer followed,
“My eyes’ light, there is no secret.”
“But how can you do tell me, please, live,
As young at all not knowing any grief?”

“I’ll never leave my dear people in
Trouble, I live a grudge never nursing,
In my heart I mark always all my good deeds!”
My great- grandmother was such full of kindness.
  

XV

“Here I’ve finished the cycle of parables,
Thank you for hearing out their sense!
Fairy- tales, though, far from true, teach good lads,
Dzigits, let tale a lesson teach them, thus.”

I told of what father, grandfather knew, there
Are no fables created by the Lord, wiser.
The East’s whole wisdom is coming to the same—
The prophet’s all saint thoughts, intentions on them.

And his stories’ thread having accomplished,
The imam Shamil stopped speaking if  did
His doctrine happened to reach all souls—they
Understood exhortation’s wisdom one day.
{2019}

1. Ahulgo’s assault is a military operation conducted by the “Chechen” detached forces of the Separate Caucasus corps of the Caucasus army under the general- lieutenant Grabbe’s command, the aim of which was the imam Shamil’s Headquarters’ blockade and capture, the very Headquarters that were situated in the aul called Ahulgo on the plateau of the same name in Dagestan. The assault happened in July- August in 1839 and it lasted in 80 days’ course.
2. Gazi- Mohammed’s philosophy’s followers seeking for purification from sins by means of sacred war for faith against the Russians were called the Murids. The Murids can be translated as “seeking for the way of saving”. Muridism doesn’t differ from classical Islam in rites and philosophy.
3. Jamaluddin Kazi- Kumuh (1788, or 1792, Kumuh- 1866, Istanbul) is Dagestani spiritual and public agent, scientist, Nashkabad tericat’s sheih, the imam Shamil’s tutor.
4. Baisangur Benoe. Chechnya’s national hero. The imam Shamil’s Naib. By 1846 he had lost his hand and eye in battle, and in 1847 in battle for Gergebil his foot was torn off by the cannon- ball. According to the people’s  legend he could not hold on to the saddle and he was tied to the horse.
5. Gazi- Muhammad (Gazi- Muhammed) is Dagestan’s first imam, a Muslim scientist and theologian, the Montagnards’ Weyrleader in fight against the Russian Empire.

НАСТАВЛЕНИЯ ИМАМА

I

Имам Шамиль, что вырос в крае гор,
Ценил всю жизнь свободу и простор,
Предпочитал дела благие злату
И весь Кавказ он сделал имаматом.

Народы гор имам сплотил не зря,
Ведь вёл войну с Империей царя.
И говорил, что лучше смерть в бою,
Чем быть рабом презренным жизнь свою.

Не находил он много лет покой
И каждый день водил мюридов в бой.
Узнали все бойцовский дух его,
Когда был дан им бой при Ахульго. ¹

Хвалил имама и персидский шах –
Благоволил в делах ему Аллах!
И с твоего, читатель, позволенья
Откроем мы Шамиля наставленья.

Любая часть здесь – маленькая быль.
Всё, кроме знаний – это тлен и пыль!
Уверен я: возможно, так случится,
Что мудрость эта в жизни пригодится!

II

Как много лет уже прошло с тех пор,
Когда Шамиль вёл этот разговор.
Своих детей хотел он вразумить –
Не стоит зря с нетрезвым говорить.

Он говорил: «Мюрид² однажды шёл
И пьяного под деревом нашёл.
«Давай вставай! – вскричал ему мюрид –
Нельзя так пить, уж если ты шиит!»

Стеклянным взглядом пьяный тот смотрел,
Как будто был и вовсе не у дел.
Мюрид ему: «Как смеешь ты так жить?!
Нам запретил Аллах в Коране пить!»

Ответил пьяный: «Мне и дела нет,
Пусть сотню раз наложен был запрет!»
Ведь позабыл тот пьяный про Коран.
Мюрид увяз в том споре как баран.

Со всех позиций, как тут ни взглянуть,
Единой будет притчи этой суть:
С неадекватным дискурс будет плох –
Ведь смысла нет об стену бить горох!»

III

Когда-то знали все один язык,
И каждый зверь к общению привык:
И зверь любой язык тот изучал –
Медведь быка как брата понимал.

Однажды шли лисица, волк и лев –
Добыть обед – в ближайший сельский хлев.
В котором был на тот момент баран.
Он пал в бою тотчас львиных ран.

Но как теперь героям нашим быть
И свой обед законный разделить?
Как царь зверей, делёжку начал лев.
Волк взял кусок, немного обнаглев.

С ним драться стал отважный царь зверей,
Лиса была однако всех хитрей.
И хитрость та её и тут спасла:
Лиса в нору барана отнесла.

IV

Жил-был отец: два сына у него.
Любил он их всегда сильней всего.
Два добрых брата – брата-близнеца
Лицом и телом списаны с отца.

Не уступали брата два ни в чём –
Равны друг другу юноши и во всём!
Они могли как снайперы стрелять
И на конях джигитами скакать.

Нежданно враг пришёл в аул войной.
Наиб берёт сынов отца с собой.
И каждый брат булатный хочет меч –
Срубить врагам голов побольше с плеч.

Но у отца был меч всего один –
Рубил врагов по молодости им.
Пришлось второй меч братьям покупать,
Чтобы войти в наибовскую рать.

Меч покупной блестел как изумруд –
В него вложил заморский мастер труд:
Он рукоять покрыл тончайшим златом –
Был дорогим тот меч тогда булатом!

Взял брат один заморский меч с собой,
И меч отца себе забрал другой.
Отцовский меч надёжнее всего,
Ведь годы битв проверили его!

Но первый брат сказал тогда ему:
«Шайтану вызов брошу самому!
С таким хорошим новеньким мечом
Мне даже он, пожалуй, нипочём!»

Но возразил ему любимый брат:
«Я за тебя всегда безумно рад,
Но воин побеждает мастерством,
А меч свою играет роль потом».

Он после битв пришёл в родимый дом –
С мечом отца и дедовским щитом,
Оружья прок совсем не в красоте –
Погибший брат вернулся на щите.

V

Давно в ауле старец жил один –
Учитель мой, мудрец Джамалутдин.³
Когда мне было где-то десять лет,
Джамалутдин бесценный дал совет:

«Не только всех людей ты уважай,
Но и себя порой оберегай,
Ведь альтруизм и непосильный труд
Твой организм в два счёта перетрут!

Зарядку делай рано на заре
И подметай у дома во дворе.
Беги задорно ты потом за стадом,
Ведь для здоровья большего не надо!»

С тех пор беру с учителя пример –
Мне не страшны все вирусы холер.
Хоть мне давно уже за сорок лет,
Средь сверстников меня сильнее нет!

VI

Не Бог помощник нам во всех делах,
Хотя его виним порой в грехах.
Как говорят нам наши мудрецы,
Своей судьбы мы сами кузнецы!

Завидуем богатым мы порой,
Когда гроша у нас нет за душой.
И в том, что мы бываем небогаты
Порою сами сильно виноваты.

Порой мы жизнь  растрачиваем зря,·        
Всю молодость лишь праздникам даря,
Ведь манит нас напитков крепких хмель,
Мы жизнь живём, совсем не ставя цель!

VII

Раз Байсангур⁴ гулял в горах со мной –
Мы шли вдвоём в его аул Беной.
Встречала нас красавица-жена.
Он от неё был просто без ума.

Пленяла чернота красивых глаз:
Чтоб описать её – не хватит фраз!
На всём Кавказе девы нет милей!
Она радушно встретила гостей.

Прошло с тех пор примерно десять лет.
От Байсангура писем вовсе нет.
Аллах устроил всё в его судьбе –
Гази-Мухаммад5 взял его к себе.

Был Байсангур на всё всегда готов –
Во имя веры он рубил врагов.
Но без руки в бою остался он
И глаз ему проколот был штыком.

А через год пришла беда вновь в дом:
Одна нога оторвана ядром.
Врагом коварным наш наиб пленён,
Но через час Шамилем был спасён.

Мюридами доставлен он домой.
С одной рукой, ногой, но сам живой!
Был у стены положен он поспать
И прошептал: «Как страшно умирать!»

«Ты не умрёшь! – ответила жена –
Тебя калекой сделала война!
Любимый муж, ты всё в моей судьбе!
Я не хочу бросать тебя в беде!»

А Байсангур: «Ещё красива ты –
Для всех мужчин – избранница мечты!
Я – груз тебе с ранением своим.
Бросай меня – счастливой стань с другим!»

Жена сказала, голову склонив:
«Хороший мой, не очень ты учтив –
Нам вместе быть начертано судьбой
И только смерть разлучит нас с тобой!»

VIII

Один суфий, читавший много книг,
К людским хвалам и почестям привык.
Как аксакал один о нём заметил,
Считал себя умнее всех на свете!

Давал советы людям, как им жить:
Как отдыхать, работать и любить.
Людей в ауле не было и нет,
Которым он не дал бы свой совет.

Но как-то раз случилась с ним беда:
В колодце вдруг закончилась вода!
Но он был горд, чтоб помощи просить,
Хоть без воды нельзя на свете жить!

Он без воды прожил четыре дня.
Жить без воды – как в холод без огня!
Гордясь собой, помочь он не просил
И гордый дух от жажды испустил!

IX

Иранский шах охотиться любил –
Ему Аллах всегда благоволил:
Ловил шах много всякой разной дичи –
Не приходил домой он без добычи.

Ему подарен сокол как-то раз
Из города с названием Шираз.
Сидел на ветке сокол из Шираза
И не взлетел за целый год ни разу.

Иранский шах был очень удивлён,
И был по птицам мастер приглашён.
Он должен шаху был раскрыть секрет –
Как так летать у птицы воли нет?

А мастер тот лишь веточку срубил,
Так сокол вдруг немедля воспарил.
Порою, чтоб от счастья воспарить
Нам нужно что-то в жизни изменить!

X

Один мудрец на свете долго жил –
Он много тайн и мудростей хранил.
И как-то раз, когда я с ним обедал,
Старик свою историю поведал:

Он юным был и жизнь хотел постичь –
Поставив цель, желал её достичь.
О том, что кругл шар земной не зная,
Желал дойти он до земного края.

Он шёл всю жизнь чрез горы и леса,
Прошёл сто стран и видел чудеса.
В пути он познакомился с женой –
К своей мечте её повёл с собой!

Так шёл и шёл ещё он сорок лет.
Совсем седой, он понял: края нет.
Не страшно жить обманчивой мечтой,
Когда жена любимая с тобой!

XI

Шамиль дал детям несколько листов –
И каждый был писать уже готов.
Сказал имам: «Листы переверните,
Вид стороны обратной опишите».

Глядят сыны: у каждой стороны
По центру кляксы чёрные видны.
И каждый стал – той прозой, кто как может,
Описывать на что пятно похоже.

Один в пятне увидел лес и горы,
Другой узрел широкие просторы.
Увидел третий злато и каменья,
Отец сказал, однако, с огорченьем:

«Я с вами, дети, полностью согласен,
Но только мир наш столь разнообразен:
Нельзя, увидев в точке пики гор,
Не описав, седеющий простор!

Вы описали только лишь пятно,
Но на листе так мизерно оно!
Зациклившись над мелкою бедою,
Пройдёте жизнь и счастье стороною!»

XII

Один буржуй богатство лишь любил –
Всю жизнь свою монеты он копил.
Не мог ни дня спокойно он прожить
И серебра себе не приумножить!

Но был доход нечестный у него –
Он извлекал богатство из всего.
И чтоб всегда сверхприбыль получать,
Он был готов продать отца и мать.

Он в храм пришёл – молиться небесам,
Ведь делал то, на чём лежал харам.
Но он хотел стать более богатым –
Молясь, мечтал владеть несметным златом.

Над ним тогда разверзлись небеса.
Вдруг начались сплошные чудеса:
Богач мельчал, поскольку сам был трусом,
Растеньем стал – златым зелёным усом!

XIII

Один джигит на скачках победил.
Огромный приз счастливец получил.
Ему хватило всех бы тех камней
Безбедно жить до самых крайних дней.

В пути вдруг встретил женщину джигит.
Ему она, рыдая, говорит:
«Ты выиграл приз – я это точно знаю.
Поможешь мне? Ведь мама умирает…»

Поверил он и ценности отдал.
И про обман не сразу он узнал:
Когда друзья пришли на встречу с ним,
То он сказал товарищам своим:

«Теперь я не жалею ни о чём:
Больного нет – не надо за врачом!
И потому безумно счастлив я,
Что есть со мной любимые друзья!»

XIV

Велел Аллах любить родную мать –
За нелюбовь он может покарать.
Ведь для неё дороже нет на свете,
Чем добрый взгляд, какой даруют дети.

Прабабушка сто лет моя жила –
Она мудра и счастлива была.
Спросил я раз, грамматику читая:
«В чём твой секрет, прабабушка родная?»

«Шамиль ты мой!» – последовал ответ. –
Мой свет очей, секрета вовсе нет!»
– «Но как же ты – почти как молодая
Живёшь сейчас, про горести не зная?»

– «Своих родных не брошу я в беде,
Обиды все пишу я на воде –
Пишу на сердце добрые дела!»
Такая вот прабабушка была!

XV

«Вот и окончен цикл притч моих –
Благодарю, что выслушали их!
Пускай они и ложь, но в них намёк –
Джигитам всем и молодцам урок!

Я рассказал, что знали дед с отцом.
Мудрее притч не создано Творцом.
В них сведены все мудрости Востока,
В них святость дум и помыслов Пророка!»

И завершив своих историй нить,
Имам Шамиль закончил говорить.
Достигло душ детей его ученье –
Они постигли мудрость наставленья!

{16.04.2017}



1. Штурм Ахульго — военная операция, проведённая силами «Чеченского» отряда Отдельного Кавказского корпуса Кавказской армии под командованием генерал-лейтенанта Граббе, целью которой была блокада и захват ставки имама Шамиля в ауле Ахульго, расположенном на одноимённом горном плато в Дагестане, происходившая в июне-августе 1839 года и продлившаяся 80 дней.

2. Последователи учения Гази-Моххамеда, искавшие очищения от грехов путем священной войны за веру против русских, назывались мюридами. «Мюрид» в переводе на русский – "ищущий путь к спасению". Мюридизм не отличался от классического ислама ни в обрядах, ни в учении.

3. Джамалуддин Кази-Кумухский (1788 или 1792, Кумух — 1866, Стамбул) — дагестанский духовный и общественный деятель, учёный, шейх накшбандийского тариката, учитель имама Шамиля.

4. Байсангур Беноевский — национальный герой Чечни. Наиб Имама Шамиля. К 1846 году в боях он потерял одну руку и один глаз, а в 1847 году в боях за Гергебиль ему пушечным ядром оторвало ногу. Согласно народным преданиям, чтобы он мог держаться в седле его привязывали к лошади.

5. Гази-Мухаммад ( Гази-Моххамед) – первый имам Дагестана, мусульманский учёный и богослов, предводитель кавказских горцев в борьбе против Российской империи.

Translator - I. Toporov

FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

imam
40 godina
18 zuba
i
urasli umnjak

imam
sedu bradu
i
ćelavu glavu

imam
vremena
na pretek
i
udobne cipele

imam
sve prste na rukama
tako da
šetajući mogu da
stiskam šipak
u praznim džepovima

.ludo savis... play nice... ludo savis... play nice:

i knew the relationship was over when i encountered her ex-boyfriend sitting in her st. petersburg flat drinking ***** with me, no, wait, it was when she started questionning me using cosmopolitan magazine quiz about perfect girlfriends on our way from st. petersburg to moscow to see metallica, while all i wanted was to listen to bob dylan and appreciate whatever rural russia had to offer... beside that? it took me quiet a time to fiddle through and find the glagolitic alphabet, the slavic alphabet before the learned greek came across "my" people, given the romans never venture that far... good luck finding an african phonetic encoding system, beside the hieroglyphs... i won't bother looking right now... not to insult, though: so much for a large phallus megalomania contra envy... Ⰶ: życie (life) is not the half of the caron ž in the form of: the acute... (ź): ździra (don't ask, seriously, the word implies worse than ***** / szmata)... źródło (source)... eh... the one-armed caron (ž)... ź... i can't explain it any further: you need to speak the lingo to keep the "nuance" alive... southern slavs treat the caron akin to ž = ż... how beautiful... given the english language has no diacritical marker application: can't exactly claim diacritical markers using only the automated hovering decapitated heads above ι & ȷ... i'm not english i'm tired of looking up h'america's *******! i don't need not fancy pants to debrief the people i'm concerned with to mind, not giving a **** about them... thanks for your jeans: subtitle made in canada... beside the whole mao shitshow of: made in china.... back in the 1990s! *******... even in terms of music h'america isn't really relevant.. it just is... and "whatever" this "is" is to be, will remain... but only as an r.e.m. ref. pointer, that requires the physical translation of the lyrics: the one i love... a simple prop: to occupy my mind.... fire! the silesian vampire... because... said so... learning about monsters is what i could only fathom, which included me... but, sorry... the glagolithic script... ⰄⰀⰏ: dam... i.e. i will give... fun fact: r.e.m. didn't sell their: it's the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine) to microsoft for a commercial break.. glagolitic script... where are the africans? oh, right, nowhere when phonetic encoding is turning heads... **** me... even the blind are onto the affair...  i went as far back as the glagolithic script: pre cyrillic, about the same time that the latins incorporated the northern "savages" with applying the chisel to the ᚱ / R... ᚠ / F... copernican "up-side down": why do all tree (beside the pines) resemble a Y shape, a gamma? why did god compensate his existence with opiates?! refresh my memory, though, why am i drawing blanks at african phonetic encoding? **** me, the blind drew something, the deaf too... if you played the guitar, forget about reading braille... you need tender, french, fingertips.... you can't play the guitasr and read braille... mind you... encoding morse overshadows braille... but even the european blindman overcomes the fully ****-naked butter-cup sprinting *** of a black man every day of the week: i'm not here to compensate for a leprechaun's sized *****: mind you... in the hands of a porcelain ***- beauty? everything looks like a hiroshima... i just started to entertain an asian fetish... 4th knuckle mizzing... missing... the most ****** aspect of a female aesthetic? her hand... when *** & the city cited trimming ***** hair (no circumsion, really?), so no asian porcelain hands, no 4th knuckle missing?! i hate what the anglo-speaking world has become, it's this, this, this quasi-Islam.... at least i respect the Quran... but 1984, by the secular prophet of the western world? why do people still calling it: silicon vallyey... it's a ******* curtain, smart-you not seeing the replacement mechanisms of the silicon curtain: now wow... ******, where you're getting-to-go get from? any ideas?! a tehran baza?! ******. 1960s homosexuals fiddling their way past the tunis police, happy? loitering sucker-****** pansie? again... entertain me... where is the african phonetic encoding system... this is my "i.q." avenue masterpiece... i don't care about i.q. but a ******* blind man beat the african at phonetic encoding... personally?

one just simply falls, tired of the right-wing momentum regarding beauty, it's such a bothersome crtique of its generic foundation if beauty..... i hate it, this objective classicism: back to the future take no, 4; *******...

             again, where were the africans sorting
out their invetement in the slave trade...
ONLY WHITE PEOPLE
WERE BAD, CONCERNING BLACK PEOPLE...
Idi Amin... Idi Amin Idi Amin Idi Amin Idi Amin
Idi Amin... Idi Amin Idi Amin Idi Amin Idi Amin ....
******! please!
ever see an african-h'american in africa?
   ******! please!
ever see an african-h'american in africa?
i said: ******! please!
ever see an african-h'american in africa?
i'd love to see an african-h'american
in africa... mouthin-off their stature...

                   african phonetic encoding....

debussy                                       chopin




satie                                              schumannn...

­and?
              there's too much of loon'don....
                   had enough of it, ****'s....
too much ***-kissing,
too much of the h'american swindle...
carelesss buggers; these brits...
******* ****** jolly-tribe
               ****-ups....
  
i drink and relax solving a sudoku -
i'm not doing it to compete -
   just having a conversation with
my neighbor about the difference
between Alzheimer's
and dementia brought back memories
of what i negated for some time...

it's only when someone else tells
you of their elder relative's dementia
you muster the courage to
spot the same symptoms in
your relative...

         my grandfather has dementia...
my early teenage years,
every summer visiting him,
traveling to Krakow,
     going fishing,
riding our bicycles in the afternoon...
he feeding my what books
i should read...
      i still visit,
  spend about a month,
say, keep him company,
   fix up the kitchen...

  but it's such an exhausting disease...
not so much for the sufferer -
this mild form of Alzheimer -
no killer proteins eating away at
the brain cells -
   dementia?
the ontological nadir of old age...
then again, perhaps the zenith...

a closure...
   the long term memory opens,
while the short term memory
closes -
   he still can solve a crossword
puzzle like a mad genius...
but he lapses into what is
the cinema of mortality...
                 he remembers things
like the two SS-men
   posted in my home town,
running up to them
and saying -
herr bitte bon-bon!...
  the raven black of the uniform
and the glaring *******...

    i blocked the fact that it was
dementia, when my grandmother
thought it was wise to scare all
of us, uncle, mother and father
into thinking it could degenerate
into Alzheimer's...
        he still recognizes me!
Alzheimer's sufferers can't
even muster that!

   at best... dementia couples itself up
with melancholia,
  the natural melancholia
akin to the sadness expressed by
Nietzsche: only when the house
has been completed,
but never during the construction...

dementia is just an endless memory
loop...
   when man is allowed to finally
put down the hammer, the sickle...
and retire?
  he's standing on the precipices of mortality...
on a dam about to crack open,
and release a surge of the sea
of memory...
   why wouldn't he take the time
to remember?
  to remember himself?
        
the tedium comes when the same
persons implores others to listen to them...
when memories become less
of the old man's cinema and more
affairs of an oral culture -
our culture has lost the point
of oral transmission -
  hence dementia sufferers have
to evolve -
                  into not talking so much...
not as a mean spirited conviction -
why? i do the same -
   i have about 10 focal memories
that constant revive me -
               and i'm only 32...
          but i don't talk about them...
hell, i won't write them...
   it's my own, private cinema -
but my grandfather comes from
a time before the optical explosion
of television...

         i don't need to hear what he saw -
all i need is to tattoo his mannerisms
and face onto my psyche...

   but dementia, thank god,
is a listening tedium...
                     point being...
a life opens up,
   but any immediacy of life disappears...
hence his persistent ability
to solve crossword puzzles,
enjoy reading the newspaper -
but the significance of remembering
yesterday is missing...
    
he's an old man...
   he has no obligations in terms of
duty in a professional arena of
the metalwork factory...
why wouldn't he attempt to push death
aside and not linger on
the memory of his, magnum opus -
his life sigma oeuvre?

     me?
  some would call this music neo-**** skinhead
****...
   wumpscut, two songs...
   thorns & wreath of barbs,
     bunkertor sieben (reprise)...
but it relaxes me when sitting on a sudoku,
drinking Bacardi cola and lime...
      enjoying the cool August air
after just enough rain
that manages to exfoliates the flowers
with refreshed sensuality...

  sudoku no. 10101...
    after enough numbers pop up,
the tactic is to hone in on one number
in each of the 9 squares and 9 vertical
and 9 linear line...
for sudoku no. 10101 in the Friday's
edition of the times?

   it went something akin to this

[8, 5] - [3] - [1] - [9] - [7] - [2, 6] - [4]

that's the closest schematic
i'll have for you,
   with regards to how the grid is filled.

i drink and relax solving a sudoku -
i'm not doing it to compete -
   just having a conversation with
my neighbor about the difference
between Alzheimer's
and dementia brought back memories
of what i negated for some time...

it's only when someone else tells
you of their elder relative's dementia
you muster the courage to
spot the same symptoms in
your relative...

         my grandfather has dementia...
my early teenage years,
every summer visiting him,
traveling to Krakow,
     going fishing,
riding our bicycles in the afternoon...
he feeding my what books
i should read...
      i still visit,
  spend about a month,
say, keep him company,
   fix up the kitchen...

  but it's such an exhausting disease...
not so much for the sufferer -
this mild form of Alzheimer -
no killer proteins eating away at
the brain cells -
   dementia?
the ontological nadir of old age...
then again, perhaps the zenith...

a closure...
   the long term memory opens,
while the short term memory
closes -
   he still can solve a crossword
puzzle like a mad genius...
but he lapses into what is
the cinema of mortality...
                 he remembers things
like the two SS-men
   posted in my home town,
running up to them
and saying -
herr bitte bon-bon!...
  the raven black of the uniform
and the glaring *******...

    i blocked the fact that it was
dementia, when my grandmother
thought it was wise to scare all
of us, uncle, mother and father
into thinking it could degenerate
into Alzheimer's...
        he still recognizes me!
Alzheimer's sufferers can't
even muster that!

   at best... dementia couples itself up
with melancholia,
  the natural melancholia
akin to the sadness expressed by
Nietzsche: only when the house
has been completed,
but never during the construction...

dementia is just an endless memory
loop...
   when man is allowed to finally
put down the hammer, the sickle...
and retire?
  he's standing on the precipices of mortality...
on a dam about to crack open,
and release a surge of the sea
of memory...
   why wouldn't he take the time
to remember?
  to remember himself?
        
the tedium comes when the same
persons implores others to listen to them...
when memories become less
of the old man's cinema and more
affairs of an oral culture -
our culture has lost the point
of oral transmission -
  hence dementia sufferers have
to evolve -
                  into not talking so much...
not as a mean spirited conviction -
why? i do the same -
   i have about 10 focal memories
that constant revive me -
               and i'm only 32...
          but i don't talk about them...
hell, i won't write them...
   it's my own, private cinema -
but my grandfather comes from
a time before the optical explosion
of television...

         i don't need to hear what he saw -
all i need is to tattoo his mannerisms
and face onto my psyche...

   but dementia, thank god,
is a listening tedium...
                     point being...
a life opens up,
   but any immediacy of life disappears...
hence his persistent ability
to solve crossword puzzles,
enjoy reading the newspaper -
but the significance of remembering
yesterday is missing...
    
he's an old man...
   he has no obligations in terms of
duty in a professional arena of
the metalwork factory...
why wouldn't he attempt to push death
aside and not linger on
the memory of his, magnum opus -
his life sigma oeuvre?

     me?
  some would call this music neo-**** skinhead
****...
   wumpscut, two songs...
   thorns & wreath of barbs,
     bunkertor sieben (reprise)...
but it relaxes me when sitting on a sudoku,
drinking Bacardi cola and lime...
      enjoying the cool August air
after just enough rain
that manages to exfoliates the flowers
with refreshed sensuality...

  sudoku no. 10101...
    after enough numbers pop up,
the tactic is to hone in on one number
in each of the 9 squares and 9 vertical
and 9 linear line...
for sudoku no. 10101 in the Friday's
edition of the times?

   it went something akin to this

[8, 5] - [3] - [1] - [9] - [7] - [2, 6] - [4]

that's the closest schematic
i'll have for you,
   with regards to how the grid is filled.

oh sure sure, the uncircumcised man,
crucified when all the orthodox were
drunk,
                   פור day,
       drunk cruxion?!
                 lovey purin "misgivings";
what's next?

   oh sure sure, the jews would hav e crucified
me on the hill of: tel megiddo
****-heads throwing up their kippahs
into the air in some skewed form
of celebration...
       like bacchus entering
Valhalla asking: where's the mead?
    i've had too much wine...
where'y the whiskey?

   i'll keep repeating...
              talk about jews among the polonaiase?
hush hush: ****, dont want to bring
bad luck... jews in poland are very much akin
to roma gypsies: lucky charms...
but... do you see any ******* leprechauns
around? look at me: i see none...
  let's tell the joke in verse,
not the stadard: a priest a rabbi and an imam
walk into a bar...
****... is that even a joke?! muslims don't drink!
what's the imam having; cranberry juice?!

and englishman a scot and an irish walk
into a bar... the three of them walk
out on stag-duty with inflanted sheep and
speaking cymcru... terrible joke...
as all my jokes were to begin with...

         i am currently navigating,
my uncle's ex girlfriend is sleeping downstairs
on the couch,
blah blah Tuscany... blah blah prosecco...
i'm becoming suspect: she's a gemini,
isn't she? all the geminis i ever met where
extroverted self-absorbed louis XIV types...
they need to, they need to self-absorb themselves
in order to extract the sort of energy
associate with rhetoric,
   and how they constantly digress,
there's always a sub-plot to the plot... nay,
there are always sub-plots...
          great company, i mean...
when a person speaks all the time there are
no awkward moments of silence,
until the said person tells the "eager" listener...
play some music...
she's a warsaw girl, so she's a pretty learned
in the ways of the world,
i'm just an ostrowiec commoner...

    oy vey! oy vey: she'***** 40 and lamenting...
i too complain about my uncle...
she had an abortion with him...
i once talked with my uncle about music
while he surfaced at mrs. roshandler's back garabe...
we ate sri lankan fried chicken wings and
chips and listened to californication
for the very first time...

   abundance of hope in Tuscany...
"apparently"... but if you have ever watched
a woman, borderline on asylum incarceration?
i was looking at one just example...
  it's not a pretty sight...
even when she asked: how's *** and business?
i'm a monk...
          or at least i tend to...
even if she came from a stock of
failed relationships: fine fine...
            now?

i served up decent food,
a malvani and a tikka masala curry...
          naan bread,
     turmeric infused rice,
vanilla cheese cake with strawberries...
she enjoyed it,
i like to please people...
    mind you: ever see a slim chef?
i wouldn't trust a slim chef,
i never have, i never will,
you need some chubby chub chub rounding-offs...
mind you: i much prefer cooking
food than eating it,
but i would never trust a chef associated
with a c.o.d. associated with counting calories...
never have, never will...
two noteworthy proverbs:
1. too many cooks in one kitchen =
no decent meal is being made...
  one cook, one couldron, that's your best bet...
2. never trust a slim, athletic cook...
those ******* can shove their kale
       smoothies....
they can slurp up those smoothies
turning their ***** in straw ******* vortexes!
i'll cook on lard trimmings,

em....
  [9] - [2] - [6] - [3] - [8] - [1] - [4] - [5, 7]?
that's when the sudoku puzzle was filled...
all the nines... all the twos... etc. became filled
in the 9 grids...

well...
     "apart" from: my uncle's girlfriend:
i've been living in englamd
for nearly 30 yeasrs...
i've dated a french girl,
an australian, a russian....
but u've never dated an english
girl: i guess they much prefer
aged pakistani grooming gang
members....
            i guess:
**** gasoline on them,
they're all readied and geared up!

braille contra morse?
if you want to play the guitar?
forget the braille....
you need tender fingertips
to read braille...
morse? nit so much...
here's a comparison...
i see!

    a.:   ⠓⠑   ⠺⠓⠕
                       ⠎⠑⠑⠎
    ⠊⠎       ⠁⠃⠇⠑
                   ⠞⠕
                                     ­   ⠗⠑⠁⠙

b. play the guitar and learn to....
read finger tip braille, ******....

· · · ·  ·         
· − −  · · · ·  − − − 
· · ·  ·  ·  · · · :
                  · ·  · · · 
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ · − · ·  ·  (a / b)
      −  − − − 
                   · − ·  · ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ − · ·  (a)

(he who sees: is able to read)...

           i can attest...
             i would find myself readily reading
morse in braille,
than braille by itself...
                far more easier.

finger-tips... i'd sooner read your morse
as braille, than braille as morse..

Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter

Dear sweet beautiful
I hope you can accept me and my piercing
Accept as deeply flawed
As a human
As some close to being beautiful
My loving female imam
Beautiful imam
You need no passport to my heart
As you welcomed

She's principled. So is he.
Islam is their way of life
so they understand one another.
Committed to it, dedicated to it
is the only way, she and he are free.

She and he are not afraid
to stick their necks out.
Kaepernick, wouldn't you agree?
Though hers is covered
by her own choice
and his is not covered
Both refuse to get broken
Their moral resolve with a noteworthy shout.

Her hijab
takes her places
to public places
without the need to be center stage.  
His solo self
flies through the air with a basketball in hand
on basketball courts
in his homeland
and in other places
on God's world's page.

Anytime, we wearing hijab
walk outside of our home door,
we stand
Yes, we stand
Yes, we stand proudly
not for our country
not for nationalism
not for a puffed chest
not for a pat on the back
Yes, we stand
with inner beauty
doing a grand job
of minimizing our outer beauty
We stand
We stand even when others choose not to
Even when others feel they cannot
think it's too hard
they'd rather fit in
We stand

We stand for You Most Magnificent Allah
We stand for You Most Lovely Allah
We stand for You Most Beautiful Allah
We stand for You Most Brillant Allah
We stand because of You
And we stand forever for You

We stand because of Your Love
We stand because of Your Light
We stand because of Your Fellowship
We stand because of Your Assistance
We stand because of the strength You've given to us
We stand because of Your Smiling Face Upon Us
We stand because of Your All Blue Skies
Yes, we stand

Thank you, dearest Allah
Thank you so much for ordering us to stand
Thank you enormously for showing us how to stand
"Thank you for everything" said Sr. Marzieh Hashimi, you, who in hijab stand everyday
Ya Allah, Dearest Allah, you're the reason we're able to stand
You're the reason we can confidently stand
You're more important than
You're more significant than
any distasteful look
any disbeliever's ill judgement
any person wanting not to see a hijab as not to be reminded visually of his God, wanting to dodge an in-your-face symbol of God
any human wanting to avoid digesting the message of fulfill your responsibility to God, and need to regularly express gratitude to Him
any individual who knows it isn't the piece of cloth that modestly covers he has issue with, it's God he has issue with, it's God he is distant from, it's God he's uncomfortable with, it's God he fears, it's as my unforgettable Muslim, young brother forced out of his homeland, mine, and yours, that of Syria (Every person has two homelands. His own, and Syria. -Andre Parrot) who carrying my bags to assist me said,
Often, it's not the dark we're afraid of, it's the light

Thank you, Imam Asi for making sure we understand
The One Who manufactured our stand

For all ladies who believe in The One
And with whom make The One, Number One
There will be no sitting in public here
There will be no rest for us here
Because rest belongs to the Heavens
Rest is waiting for us to join it, to stop with it
if we've been given not a red light
but a green light
Oh, we want that green light
You and I
Isn't that right, Br. Mahmoud?
You want that green light
More so, because you've tasted that green light
You've tasted that green light
Who said it's a red light that starts a blaze
No, it a green one
Your STAND over 25 years ago
Got you tasting green
Got you tasting peace
Got you tasting harmony
Yes, we want that green light
Yes, ladies in hijab and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
We want that eternal sit
That sit up close and personal with Allah to see HIS platinum gold, shining face
That sit intimately with Allah's beloved Messenger and his beloved
That sit happily with our deserving kin and deserving friends we met on earth and in the heavens
That sit on canopy beds
That sit on the greenest of pastures
That sit on gold and platinum benches
in front of gardens we can't unsee
You said so, Br. Mahmoud
You said so with your ACT OF SIT
and your ACT OF STAND IN PRAYER
during the playing of the national anthem in 1996
And you said so with your words in 2022
So, as is required
We graciously STAND temporarily
for however long temporary is for us
We STAND
AUFSTEHEN, STEHEN I repeat
And we STAND with the man
whose STAND has helped change how we see ourselves
whose STAND asked us to ask ourselves
If we were Br. Mahmoud,
would we have done the same as he did
And whose prayer while standing on the court
Caused an uproar
Forced people to have to look within
and for a quick few seconds ask
Why am I singing but not feeling
Why am I honoring but not respecting
I am a contradiction
This country is a contradiction
This stolen land is a grandiose fake
Why have I abandoned my STAND

But in fear,
But in their desire to be associated with a false deity,
But in their need to feel superior
because of their inner feeling of low self-worth and insignificance,
they stopped reflecting
They stopped thinking
They stopped asking
And instead of facing the music
Instead of facing their inner voice
Instead of facing their God
They again turned to idols
They again turned to false deities
They again turned to their ills  
They turned their very backs on
the super star they had been cheering for
and routing for all along
It was easier for them to cause ruckus
Easier for them to cause pain and grief
More satisfying to scream and yell obscenities
offer death threats
Like the way the unbelievers, the hypocrites
treated our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
More satisfying to speak the unbelievable
You're fired.
Like the Monster, Donald Trump,
if he were the commissioner
would have said
Instead, David Stern said it
to a fellow human
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
a practicing Muslim
a still NBA basketball star
not former as is often written and spoke
like Imam Muhammad al-Asi
still The Imam of The Islamic Center of Washington, DC
you, a married man then
a father with children
You're fired
for your STAND
for GOD
for morals
for principles
against tyranny and oppression
against injustice and hypocrisy
against thievery and slavery
You're fired
for your refusal to STAND
for a country's anthem
for a nation's flag
for disobeying slave (Thank you, Imam Asi for not wanting to even say or speak this word 'slave' as pertaining to a human referring to another human using this word) masters
and obeying The Only Master
You must pay,
they cheered
You must pay,
the NBA said
the then, David Stern said

GOD
The ONE better than
the basketball fans
the NBA
the then, David Stern
tells us that we never pay,
when we STAND
As a Muslim
on the court
when we STAND
As a Muslimah wearing hijab
in public
when we STAND
We don't pay
We gain

Gain is what we obtain
A reward is what we earn
And
For as long as we keep standing
in a jersey
or in a hijab
they'll keep hating
And
For as long as we
in a jersey
or in a hijab
keep standing
we'll keep shining God's light
and
we'll keep scoring

By: Najwa Kareem

Mungkin suamimu tak pandai berkata apalagi merayu dengan romantisme karya sastra...
Tapi mungkin dengan cara itulah Allah menjaga lisannya...
Menjauhkannya dari fitnah dunia yang tak halal baginya...

Mungkin suamimu tak pandai berkata..
Tapi heningnya menahan kita banyak bicara..
Memutus rantai kalimat sanggahan yang lahirkan perkara..
Sehingga keseimbangan suasana lebih terjaga..

Andai saja Allah ciptakan sebaliknya, mungkin rumahmu bagai arena tarung laga
Ah.... itulah mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya

Mungkin istrimu tak berparas mempesona
Apalagi secantik selebritis di warta berita..
Tapi mungkin lisannya selalu berucap kata mutiara yang terpancar dari jiwa yang terjaga...

Andai saja Allah menciptakan sebaliknya
Mungkin hatimu tak tenang saat jauh darinya
Ah..... itulah mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya

Mungkin suamimu bukanlah saudagar kaya yang membawa pulang limpahan laba hasil usaha...
Namun meskipun besarannya begitu sederhana...
Mungkin ia selalu menjaga kehalalan apa yang dibawa..

Mungkin suamimu bukanlah pejabat yang bertahta, yang dihormati dan dipuja bawahannya
Tapi mungkin dibalik kedudukannya yang biasa, ia mampu menjadi imam bagi keluarga

Andai saja Allah menciptakan sebaliknya,
Mungkin belum tentu ia miliki derajat takwa
Ah..... itulah mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya

Mungkin istrimu bukanlah koki istimewa yang masakannya selezat pujasera...
Tapi mungkin ia pandai mendidik buah hatinya, memahat pribadi yang berkarater mulia.

Mungkin istrimu bukanlah koki istimewa,
Yang terkadang masakannya itu-itu saja
Tapi mungkin ia pandai mengatur alokasi harta, sehingga pemberianmu tak terhambur percuma

Andai saja Allah menciptakan sebaliknya
Mungkin kecintaanmu akan terlalu berlebih padanya...
Melebihi cintamu pada Allah sang pemberi karunia..
Ah.... itulah mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya...

Mungkin suamimu tak pandai terlibat merawat anaknya...
Sehingga terlihat kau melakukan semuanya
Tapi mungkin ia sabar membantumu... meringankan pekerjaan rumah tangga..
Sehingga semua terlaksana dengan kerja sama..

Mungkin suamimu tak pandai terlibat merawat anaknya...
Sehingga terlihat minim perannya dalam keluarga...
Tapi mungkin ia sangat keras bekerja
Sehingga nafkah telah cukup terpenuhi lewat dirinya...

Andai saja Allah menciptakan sebaliknya
Mungkin banyak para gadis menanti dipinang menjadi yang kedua
Jika suamimu terlalu sempurna...
Aaa.... itulah mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya...

Mungkin istrimu tak mahir dalam mengurus rumah tangga..
Tak mampu menyulap rumah menjadi rapi tertata...
Tapi mungkin ia begitu cerdas menguasai matematika...
Sehingga anak yang cerdas dalam eksakta terlahir dari rahimnya karena genetika...

Mungkin istrimu tak mahir dalam mengurus rumah tangga..
Menambah sedikit tugasmu dalam membantunya bekerja..
Tapi mungkin ia begitu taat dalam beragama..
Membimbing anak-anak dalam kerangka syariat agama...
Sehingga meringankan kewajibanmu dalam membimbing keluarga

Andai saja Allah menciptakan sebaliknya
Mungkin engkau merasa tugasmu telah tertunai sempurna..
Cukup sekedar menyempurnakan nafkah keluarga
Aaa..... itulah mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya

Percayalah......
Selalu ada kebaikan dalam setiap ketetapan Allah Sang Sutradara
Maka temukanlah sebanyak-banyaknya rahasia dibaliknya..
Agar engkau mengerti mengapa Allah menikahkanmu dengannya...

Jikalau engkau masih sulit menemukan jawabannya...
Gantilah kaca matamu dengan kacamata syukur atas segala karunia...

Adalah hakmu jika engkau berharap Khadijahmu menjadi lebih sempurna...
Asalkan kau siap membimbingnya dengan menjadi Muhammad baginya.

‪#‎RZMuhasabah‬

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Mahatma gnaws at World War hungers
Reincarnated forms of Wild West lungers

Spatially realigning to a kosher and beloved state
Krishna stands ignored, can’t help feeling irate
Walrus tusks dig into the carpenter’s brow
As an eight armed saint is revealed as a cow

Scriptures packed and rolled, exhaled in suspicion
Prophets praised for violence incurred, act of sedition

Imam MUSA, M for man, USA, for America, the great dister
he, a Muslim American leader in a country, Zionist, her sister 
known to be a disgusting, agonizing, maximus blister  

No coincidence, your death and mourning your loss is happening at Thanksgiving  
Sucker punched by America’s lies and propaganda was not your way of living  
Nor when you were exposing the barbaric, perpetual crimes of your native land were you kidding  

A consistent, reliable voice of the Mustadhafeen
You were among them, Islamically preaching, Islamically teaching and influencing many to the deen
You're one of the Mumineen

Isn't that, right? He speaking confidently, speaking truth, he’d ask us during a speech or presentation
A bright smile and a joke here and there to lighten the misery of his peoples' condition, certainly no vacation
far from what humans are rightfully due, far from elation

He focused on what it is that I can do
and encouraged us to join him, walk the talk, for those many with only one shoe
Please lend a hand - Please come together and help out the needy, the oppressed, the suffering, too

Beautifully created, more beautiful on the inside
he brought clarity and unique features to our understanding of America's fake pride
and Zionist Israel's, Saudi Arabia's, and other corrupt nations' injustices, so grossly wide

Not pro American, but pro Islam, pro truth, pro equality, pro peace, pro brotherhood, pro Palestine, pro The Islamic Republic of Iran
Salam, dearest Imam, we should've done more and at least regularly said to you, Shukran
By not letting your legacy die, through actions, more than words, Insha Allah, we'll meet you and make it up in the heaven's dawn

By: Najwa Kareem

Will you break off with me,
my beloved,
morsel for morsel laddu?
My dream doesn’t come to me,
my bed is divided,
my heart – dry,
fire is rankling me.
You’ll regret,
my beloved,
if you taste it –
outside it’s sweet
inside – bitter.
Twice more,
my beloved,
your tear will run fast
if you pass me by scornfully.
In my chest
I wear a diamond of snake,
a lion-hair on my wrist,
a wealth of Brahman
in my head.
Will someone take them, gifted
someone else but my death?

Ah, my beloved,
marry me.

a round syrup sweet made of gram floor

The original:

Ходжата тича само до джамията

Ще отронваш ли с мене,
моя възлюбена,
късче по късче ладду.
Сънят ми не ме спохожда,
леглото ми е делено,
сърцето – сухо,
огън ме гложди.
Ще съжаляваш,
моя възлюбена,
ако го вкусиш –
отвън е сладко,
отвътре – горчиво.
Дваж пъти повече,
моя възлюбена,
сълзи ще лееш
ако отминеш презрително.
Във гърдите си
диамант от змия нося,
косъм от лъв на китката си,
богатство на брахмин
в главата си.
Ще ги вземе ли някой дарени,
освен смъртта ми?

Ах, моя възлюбена,
омъжи се за мене.

_______

кръгъл сиропиран сладкиш от нахутeно брашно.


Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.

3 Maret 1924..
Tak banyak уαηg tahu αρα уαηg telah terjadi ∂ι hari itu | dahsyatnya makar & kemunduran umat telah melupakan peristiwa detik2 hancurnya institusi daulah Khilafah sang pemersatu
Hingga derita mendera bertubi silih berganti menimpa muslim ∂ι segala penjuru | teraniaya,terhina,tercabik,tertindas,tersakiti,terjajah,menangis tersedu
Umat уαηg satu tak lagi menyatu | terpecah tersekat oleh nation state buatan sekutu | bak anak ayam kehilangan induk terancam hidupnya sewaktu-waktu
Begitulah wajah muslim hari ini | ketika tiada lagi institusi уαηg melindungi | problematika terjadi tiada henti
Hari ini | tepat 91 tahun umat Islam hidup tanpa institusi Khilafah | saatnya melawan lupa & bergerak mewujudkannya
Khilafah janji Allah tersampaikan melalui lisan mulia Rasulullah SAW | walau banyak уαηg beranggapan utopis kembali mewujudkannya | yakinlah tiada janji уαηg pernah ingkar kecuali janjiNya
Nabi saw bersabda,
"Akan datang kepada kalian masa kenabian,& atas kehendak Allah masa itu akan datang.Kemudian,Allah akan menghapusnya,jika Ia berkehendak menghapusnya.
Setelah itu,akan datang masa Kekhilafahan ‘ala Minhaaj al-Nubuwwah;& atas kehendak Allah masa itu akan datang.Lalu,Allah menghapusnya jika Ia berkehendak menghapusnya.
Setelah itu,akan datang kepada kalian,masa raja menggigit (raja yang dzalim),& atas kehendak Allah masa itu akan datang.Lalu,Allah menghapusnya,jika Ia berkehendak menghapusnya.
Setelah itu,akan datang masa raja dictator (pemaksa);& atas kehendak Allah masa itu akan datang; lalu Allah akan menghapusnya jika berkehendak menghapusnya.
Kemudian,datanglah masa Khilafah ‘ala Minhaaj al-Nubuwwah (Khilafah yang berjalan di atas kenabian). Setelah itu, beliau diam".
[HR. Imam Ahmad ]
Saudaraku,
Telah tiba saatnya satukan langkah satukan perjuangan,
Menyongsong kembali janji Allah Sang Penggegam Kehidupan,
Tegaknya kembali Daulah Khilafah ∂ι atas jalan kenabian..
Takbir !!
Allahuakbar !
SalamPerjuangan!
‪#‎3RDMARCH1924‬
‪#‎melawanLupa‬

My Beloved Leader
My beloved leader Imam Hussain my heart's solace
I salute to you and to your small group of seventy two
When he decided not to submit the race of lawless
Being the true soldier of Allah he was determined to do
Whatever was the call of the occasion to establish writ
He and his group was debarred from food and water
But being hungry and thirsty they were fit and not upset
And then enemy attacked and sky saw man slaughter
Imam hussain fell down from horseback in the battle
Imam Hussain was severely injured went to prostation
This was the excellent action of martyrdom as example
His act of valor and wonderful elation was the salvation
Great Hussain will be remebered for sacrifice for times
His stand for the cause of Allah will bring all mercy
Yazeed will be cursed for his ***** designs henious crimes
Imam Hussain will be the symbol of virtue ,liberty
Colonel Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright Aug 2020 Love Remains

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world...  Moby ****, Herman Melville


Call me
Ishmael.

I hail
from
the clan
of Adam.

I am the
beloved
child
of Hagar;
unbowed son
of an upright
Ibrahim.

I am
the older
half brother
of Musa,
cousin to
Isa and
father to
Muhammad.

I work
in a bakery
that
overlooks
the roiling
waters of
the Nile.

It’s
owned
by an
Egyptian
General,
managed
by a
platoon
of his
hand picked
lieutenants.

I fire the
ovens,
roll the
dough
and pack
the loaves.

We bake
all day
but it seems
we cannot
quench
the hunger
that grips
our people.

My
brother
Musa
says
I bake
the bread
of tyrants
and serve it
to a people
starving for
freedom.

Musa
likes to say
if we wish
to feast at
the banquet
of liberty
we must
refuse
to eat
the bread
of fear.

In winter
our hunger
blends with
the misery
of living
in frigid
apartments.

My
dilapidated flat
in Darb Al-Ahmar
is one of a
thousand owned
by Cairo’s
most notorious
police chief.

The roofs leak,
the plumbing
is broken,
no heat in winter,
in summer
it’s a sweltering
furnace.

My home
is the
handiwork of a
cold blooded
landlord’s
indifference
to the freezing
rooms they
force us
to live in.

In their eyes,
our sole purpose
in life is to feather
their nest.

They demand
that the rent be paid
on the first of every month
and will make our life miserable
if we’re one day late
or a half a pound short.

Do they
actually
think
that we
live
only
to assure
the
warmth
and comfort
for them
and their
children?

In winter
they freeze
us into
inaction;
while
during the
summer,
swirling
ceiling fans
fail to relieve the
oppressive heat
of fire they
breathe down
our necks.

The batons
of the police
freely swing to
crack a head if
we fail to bow to
their authority
or grease
the extortionists
palms with
tributes to their
*******.

They never
shake down
their friends
that drive
the fancy
silver
Mercedes.

The big guys
roll wherever
they want.  

They
roll over
anything
they
choose.

They take
up parking
spaces in our lives;
leaving less room
for us to park
our tiny scooters.

I’m certain
the name
on their
drivers license
says privilege
and impunity.

Yet
somehow
we
always
get stuck
picking up
the tab
for
their
tolls.

Some slavishly
put coins
in parking meters
for them and get
compensated for it
by being offered
the opportunity
to wash their cars.

I’m glad
that I get
to bake
bread.

I was talking
to my friend
Isa at the
coffee shop,
he said,
“We needn't
live in a constant
state of
want and fear.”

A young man
sitting at
the next table
was a zealous
believer from
The Muslim
Brotherhood.

His name is
Muhammad,
he hands me
The Holy Quran.

My dear
Muslim
brother
exhorts
me to
submit.

He says that is
the way to a
fearless life;
free of any
need,
save
Allah’s
salvation.

My  
Muslim
brother
is firm
in his
belief
that
all
the answers
to
all
my problems
and
all
the answers
to
all
Egypt's problems
were
breathed on to
the pages of
The Holy Quran
with
The Prophet Muhammad’s
-(may peace be upon him)-
own breath;
his tongue
inscribing
the holy pages
in Arabic
squeezed
out by the
loving
embrace
of the
Angel
Gabriel.

Mubarak also boasts that
he too has all the answers to
alleviate the ills that plague us.

He’s
been ruling us
for forty years;
while the
Holy Quran
has been
with us
forever.

Our  
impatience
grows
as we yearn
for these promises
to be filled.

Mubarak swears  
he knows what is best
for the children
of Egypt.

Mubarak insists
that the way to
freedom from
want and fear
is submission to
his perpetual rule.

I get uneasy when
someone suggests
an infallibility.

I accept the
supreme dominion
and divine knowledge
of the Quran and Hadiths
but I’m not too sure
that the Imams,
politicians and
generals who
swore by its
truth really
understand
it themselves.

I am left
to question
if any of them
even see me?  

I am more of a
person then a
Muslim;
and
sometimes
I wonder
if even
Allah
has forgotten
the peril of
Ibrahim’s
children.

I wonder have
I disappeared
from Allah’s
unblinking eye
as well?

Sometimes
I look into
the mirror
to see if
I am real.

I am relieved
to see my image.

I have not
become invisible
to myself.

I am
emboldened
to know
that I am a
real person
of flesh and bones
with a mind
full of conviction
refreshed
with the blood
of a warm beating
heart.

I remind myself
I am a man,
not a faceless
subject
to be ruled.

I am an individual
not just another
submissive being
under the control
of a pious Imam.

I am Ishmael.

I recognize the fire of
life in my own eyes.

I can see the scars
of my decisions,
that my life has
etched upon my face.

I am not invisible.

I am not a casualty
of the twists of history
or the events of fate.

I take
responsibility
for me.

I am not a fish
swimming within
a giant school
trapped in an
ocean current
propelled
to a
predetermined
destination
of a well
laid net.

I am a man.

Let it be known
that I claim
responsibility
for my manhood
and I will
command
respect from
those who now
lord over me.

Like my father
Ibrahim, they
will recognize
me as an
unbowed
upright man.

They will
call me
Ishmael.

As I stand
I will raise my voice.

I will not remain
voiceless.

I am one voice
of many
who like me
have not
been heard.

We were once
grovelling dogs
that have been
transformed
into free range wolves,
set free from its cage,
we now form in packs
howling for justice.

We
will raise
our voice
in concert
so all
may hear.

We
will
make
them
listen.

They will
know who
I am.

Call me Ishmael.

Music Selection:
Muddy Waters
Mannish Boy

Oakland
2/9/12
jbm

Spacious and resplendent,
Summoning people only once,
Words replete with beauty,
The voice of the imam like music to our ears,

Performing Hajj,
People from faraway,
Come to pray,
In the house of God for seeking His light,

Forgiveness and prayer on their tongues,
Regret and guilt shedding from their eyes,
Quarrels and worries aside,
Not caring about colour and creed,

My eyes seek only forgiveness,
And guidance,
For making things right,
O God please forgive me !

Acara dalam rangka memperingati hari lahir (harlah) Ke-65 PW Fatayat NU itu diikuti hampir 38 peserta se-Jatim yang meliputi perwakilan seluruh pimpinan cabang Fatayat NU.

Hasil desain peserta diperagakan model andalan mereka. Tak kalah dengan model profesional, para model Fatayat NU ini juga tampak percaya diri berlenggak-lenggok di atas caltwalk.

Dalam lomba fashion show ini, peserta dari PC Fatayat Bojonegoro meraih juara pertama, sedangkan pemenang kedua diraih oleh peserta dari Nganjuk dan pemenang ketiga dari Fatayat Bangil.

Menurut desainer muslimah yang dinobatkan jadi juri lomba ini, Ana Farhasy, ada beberapa poin dimiliki peserta Bojonegoro sehingga meraih juara.

"Kendati bertemakan busana pesta muslimah, namun desainnya simpel dan elegan. Itu menjadi kelebihan sendiri daripada peserta lain yang banyak menonjolkan aksesoris sehingga tampak berlebihan," katanya.

Selain itu, peserta dari Bojonegoro menampilkan tema gold kayu jati. "Batik yang digunakan asli Bojonegoro," jelas Ana.

Sementara itu, Ketua Fatayat NU Jatim Hikmah Bafaqih mengatakan selain lomba fashion show, kegiatan lain juga digelar dalam rangkaian harlah Fatayat NU itu.

"Ada lomba menulis artikel, lomba menjadi presenter, dan bazar produk unggulan (handycraft) kreasi kader Fatayat di seluruh cabang Fatayat se-Jatim," katanya.

Ia menambahkan, puncak peringatan Harlah Fatayat NU dilaksanakan di kantor PWNU Jatim pada Minggu, 17 Mei 2015. Rencananya, acara puncak dihadiri Menpora Imam Nahrawi, Wagub Jatim Saifullah Yusuf, dan Ketua DPRD Jatim.

"Ketua Umum PP Fatayat NU Hajah Ida Fauziyah tidak bisa hadir karena berbarengan dengan acara prakongres Fatayat di Bandung," katanya.

Mbak Hikmah, sapaan akrabnya, mengemukakan tema yang diambil harlah kali ini adalah "Ikhtiar Fatayat NU menuju Indonesia Berkeadaban".

"Karenanya kita akan terus berusaha untuk melakukan berbagai karya nyata, tentu kita bangun ulang keadaban kita dengan Islam ahlussunnah wal jamaah atau yang kita kenal dengan Islam Nusantara," katanya.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/mermaid-trumpet-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/one-shoulder-formal-dresses

“Say to my friends, when they look upon me, dead,

Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow,

‘Do not believe that this corpse you see is myself,

In the name of God, I tell you, it is not I,

I am a spirit, and this is naught but flesh,

It was my abode and my garment for a time.

I am a treasure, by a talisman kept hid,

Fashioned of dust, which served me as a shrine,

I am a pearl, which has left it’s shell deserted,

I am a bird, and this body was my cage,

Whence I have now flown forth and it is left as a token,

Praise to God, who hath now set me free,

And prepared for me my place in the highest of the Heavens,

Until today I was dead, though alive in your midst.

Now I live in truth, with the grave – clothes discarded.

Today I hold converse with the Saints above,

With no veil between, I see God face to face.

I look upon “Loh-i-Mahfuz” and there in I read,

Whatever was and is, and all that is to be.

Let my house fall in ruins, lay my cage in the ground,

Cast away the talisman, it is a token no more,

Lay aside my cloak, it was but my outer garment.

Place them all in the grave, let them be forgotten,

I have passed on my way and you are left behind,

Your place of abode was no dwelling place for me.

Think not that death is death, nay, it is life,

A life that surpasses all we could dream of here,

While in this world, here we are granted sleep,

Death is but sleep, sleep that shall be prolonged

Be not frightened when death draweth nigh,

It is but the departure for this blessed home,

Think of the mercy and love of your Lord,

Give thanks for His Grace and come without fear.

What I am now, even so shall you be,

For I know that you are even as I am,

The souls of all men come forth from God,

The bodies of all are compounded alike,

Good and evil, alike it was ours.

I give you now a message of good cheer

May God’s peace and joy forever more be yours.”

I get off the Belt Parkway at Rockaway Boulevard and
Jet aloft from Idyllwild.
(I know, now called J.F. ******* K!)
Aboard a TWA 747 to what was then British East Africa,
Then overland by train to Baroness Blixen’s Nairobi farm . . .
You know the one at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
I lease space in Karen’s African dreams,
Caressing her long white giraffe nape,
That exquisite Streep jugular.
I am a ghost in Meryl’s evil petting zoo:
I haunt the hand that feeds me.

Safely back in Denmark, I receive treatment
For my third bout with syphilis at Copenhagen General.
Cured at last, I return to Kenya and Karen.
In my solitude or sleep, I go with her,
One hundred miles north of the Equator,
Arriving at Julia Child’s marijuana herb garden–
Originally Kikuyu Land, of course—
But mine now by imperial design &
California voter referendum.
(Voiceover) "I had a farm in Africa
At the foot of the Ngong Hills."
My farm lies high above the sea at 6,000 feet.
By daybreak I feel oh, oh so high up,
Near to the sun on early mornings.
Evenings so limpid and restful;
Nights oh, so cold.
Mille Grazie a lei, Signore *******!
Andiamo, Sydney, amico mio.
Let it flow like the water that lives in Mombasa.
Let it flow like Kurt Luedtke’s liquid crystal script.
We zoom in. We go close in. Going close up,
On the face of Isak Dinesen’s household
Servant and general factotum. (Full camera ******)
Karen Blixen’s devoted Muslim manservant,
Farah: “God is happy, msabu. He plays with us…”
He plays with me.  And who shall I be today?
How about Tony Manero for starters?
Good choice. Nicely done!
Geezer Manero:  old and bitter now,
Still working at the hardware store,
Twice-divorced, a chain-smoker,
Severely diabetic, a drunk on dialysis 3 times a week.
Bite me, Pop:  I never thought I was John Travolta.
But, hey, I had my shot:  “I coulda been a contenda.”
Once more, by association only,
I am a great artist again, quickly made
Near great by a simple second look.
Why, oh God? I am kvetching again.
I celebrate myself and sing the
L-on-forehead loser’s lament:
Why implant the desire and then
Withhold from me the talent?
“I wrote 30 ******* operas,”
I hear Salieri’s demented cackle.
“I will speak for you, Wolfie Babaloo;
I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.”

Must I wind up in the same
Viennese loony bin with Antonio?
Note to self:  GTF out of Austria post-haste!
I’ve been called on the Emperor’s carpet again,
My head, my decapitated Prufrock noodle,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter.
Are peaches in season?
Do I dare eat one?
I am Amadeus, ******, infantile,
An irresistible iconoclast and clown.
Wolfie:   “I am called on the imperial carpet again.
The Emperor may have no clothes but he’s got a
Shitload of ******* carpets."
Hello Girls: ‘Disco Tampons!
Staying inside, staying inside!
Wolfie: "Why have I chosen a ****** farce for my libretto?
Surely there are more elevated themes . . . NO!
I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes,
People so lofty they **** marble!"
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis.

So, I mix paint in the hardware store by day.
I dance all night, near-great again by locomotion.
Join me in at least one of my verifiable nine lives.
Go with me across the Narrows,
Back to Lenape with the wild red men of Canarsee,
To Vlacke Bos, Boswijk & Nieuw Utrecht,
To Dutch treat Breuckelen, Red Hook & Bensonhurst,
To Bay Ridge and the Sheepshead.
Come with me to Coney Island’s Steeplechase & Luna Park, &
Dreamland (aka Brownsville) East New York, County of Kings.
If I’m lying, I’m dying.
And while we’re on the subject now,
Bwana Finch Hatton (pronounced FINCH HATTON),
Why not turn your focus to the rival for Karen’s heart,
To the guy who nursed her through the syphilis,
That old taciturn ******, Guru Farah?
Righto and Cheerio, Mr. Finch Hatton,
Denys George of that surname—
Why not visualize Imam Farah?
Farah: a Twisted Sister Mary Ignatius,
Explaining it all to your likes-the-dark-meat
Friend and ivory-trading business partner,
Berkeley (pronounced BARK-LEE) Cole.
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

Oh yeah, Tony Manero, the Bee Gees & me,
A marriage made in Brooklyn.
The Gibbs providing the sound track while
I took care of the local action.
I got more *** than a toilet seat, a Don Juan rep &
THE CLAP on more than one occasion.
Probably from a toilet seat.
Even my big brother–the failed priest,
Celibate too long and desperate now–
Even my defrocked, blue-balled brother,
Frankie, cashing in his chips at the Archdiocese,
Taking soave lessons from yours truly,
Taking notes, copying my slick moves with chicks.
It was the usual story with the usual suspects &
The usual character tests. All of which I flunk.
I choose Fitzgerald's “vast, ****** meretricious beauty,”
My jumpstart to the middle class.
I spurn the neighborhood puttana,
Mary Catherine Delvecchio: the community ****
With the proverbial heart of gold &
A backpack full of self-esteem deficits.
I opt out.  I’m hungry and leaping.
I morph again, grab *** the golden girl.
Now I’m Gatsby in a white suit,
Stalking Daisy Buchanan in East Egg,
Daisy: her voice full of money;
My green light flashing on the disco dance floor.
I, a fool for love; she, my faithless uptown girl,
Golden and delicious like the apple,
Capricious like a blue Persian cat.
My “orgiastic future” eluded me then.
It eludes me still. Time to go home again to the place
****-ant Prufrocks ponder their pathetic dying embers.
Time to assume the position:
Gazing out from some trapezoidal patch of green
At the foot of Roebling’s bridge,
Contemplating an alternative reality for myself,
A new life across the East River,
In the city that never sleeps.
I crave. I lust. I am a guinzo Eva Duarte.
I too must be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires:
THE BIG APPLE.
But I am ashamed of my luggage,
Not to mention my baggage.
It’s like that last thing Holden Caulfield said to me,
Just before he crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge,
Crossed over to Manhattan without me,
Leaving me alone again, searching for our kid sister,
Phoebe, the only one on earth we can relate to:
“It’s really hard to be roommates with people
If your suitcases are much better than theirs.”
Ow! That stung; that was a stinger.
I am smithereened by a self-guided drone,
A smart bomb full of snide antigravity,
Transformational and caustic.
My meager allotment of self-esteem
Metastasizes into something base,
Something heavy and vile.
I drop to earth like lead mozzarella.

I am unworthy, unworthy in the maximum mendicant,
Roman Catholic mea culpa sense of the word.
I am now Umberto Eco’s penitenziagite.
I am Salvatore, a demented hunchback
(Played flawlessly as a demented hunchback by Ron Perlman),
Spewing linguistic gibberish in a variety of vernaculars:
“Lord, I am not worthy to live anywhere west of the Gowanus Canal.”
By East River waters I weep bitter tears,
The promise of a promised land denied.
I am a garlic-eating Chuck Yeager,
Auguring in, burnt beyond recognition,
An ethnic trope, a defiant Private Maggio
From here and for eternity,
Forever a swarthy ethnic stereotype
Trying to escape thru a small but significant
Hole in the ozone layer above South Ozone Park,
New York, zip code 11420.
That’s right, Ozone Park.
If you don’t believe me, look it up.
GO ******* GOOGLE IT!

And I just don’t know when to quit.
So why quit there?
Work with me, fratello mio, mon lecteur.
Like you, I took the LSAT so long ago.
Why am I not a distinguished American jurist
Asking the one question that seems to be on
Everyone’s eugenic lips today:
“Aren’t three generations of imbeciles enough?”
I am Charly from Flowers for Algernon,
A slow learner with a push broom, swept up in
Some dust from Leonard Cohen’s cuff.
Lenny: a grey-beard loon himself now, singing
“Hallelujah” for fish & chips in London’s O2 Arena.
“Suzanne takes you down, Babaloo!”
At last, I am Jesus Quintana—
John Turturro stealing the movie as usual--
This time in a hair net and a jumpsuit,
"Made of a comfortable 65% polyester/35%
Cotton poplin, you can even add your own
Ribbon leg trim and monogramming
For just the right look to be one of
The Big Lebowski’s favorite characters.
Mouse-over the thumbnail below to see our actual style
(Color must be purple). Style #: 98P, Price: $55.95. On sale: $50.36.www.myjumpsuit.com."
Fortunately, I am a savvy marketeer:
I understand the artistic potential, the venal
Possibilities of product placement. Go with me
To that undiscovered country.
The humanities uncorrupted till now by
Crass gimcrack television ads. That’s right:
******* commercials smack dab in the
Middle of a ******* poem. Why not?
Great literature has always been about
Selling something, even if only an idea.
Hey, **** me, Herman Melville!
We both know the publication costs of
Moby **** were underwritten by the tattoo artists &
Harpoon manufacturers of New Bedford,
Matched by a small research grant from some
Proto-Greenpeace, Poseidon adventure in some
Great white whale-watching swinging soiree.
Murray the ******* K, pendejo!
At last, I am The Jesus, a pervert & pederast,
According to Walter Sobjak—another post-traumatic
Post Toasty, like me, still out there in the jungle,
Still in love with the smell of ****** in the morning.
My bowling buddy, Walter, comfortably far to the right of
The Dude, and Attila the *** for that matter,
But who gives a **** if Lenin was The Walrus?
(“Shut the **** up, Buscemi!”)
“Once you hang a right at Hubert Humphrey,”
Said the streets of 1968 Chicago,
"It’s all ******* fascism anyway.”
That creep could roll, though, and as we know so well:
“Nobody ***** with The Jesus.”
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

INCOMING!
I just heard from an old girlfriend who is miles away,
Teaching school in Navajo Land.
The Big Rez:  a long day’s interstate katzenjammer,
A Route 66 nightmare by car, but by email,
Just down the block and round the corner.
I had previously closed an email to her with a frivolous
“Say hello to my stinky friend.”
It was a total non-sequitur, an iconic-moronic,
Ace Ventura-mutant line from Scarface,
Which may have meant–in my herbal lunch delirium—
That she should say hi to some mutual acquaintance
We mutually loathe, Or, perhaps an acknowledgement that she–
My surrogate Cameron Diaz–has a new **** buddy,
Of whom I am insanely jealous.
Or maybe it was a simple Seinfeld “about nothing.”
Who knows what goes on in that twisted *****’s head?
She spends the next two hours in a flood of funk,
A deluge of insecurity.
A veritable Katrina ****** of self-consciousness,
Interpreting my inane nonsense in terms of vaginal health.

Hey, you want to ruin a woman’s day?
Tell her, her **** smells.

Sara L Russell  29th August 2016

Time to retire now, ladies,
the drawing room awaits
as the gentlemen go to smoke
and drink brandy
or tell ribald stories
unsuitable for a lady's delicate ears.
Time to work on our embroidery
or retire to bed.
The men shall retire whenever they wish,
and the stars are too many for us to count.
Now we must lie abed
dreaming of Mr. Darcy
or perhaps a future career,
If only one's gender
might permit such a thing.


Time to adjourn now, ladies,
Mrs. Pankhurst has said her piece
and the rozzers are coming
to break up our meeting of like minds.
I heard that she was in prison for a time,
and went on hunger strike!
oh yes, my dear,
I heard they beat her,
force-fed her
then left her to cry alone in her cell.
Only she didn't cry. She never cries.
They say one day we women
will be able to vote!
Yes, of course it could happen.
We deserve it, after all.


Time to adjourn now, people,
it's been a long session
and even ministers need a lunch break.
Mrs. Thatcher no doubt will carry on
making notes for yet another meeting,
I don't think that woman ever sleeps.
Even if she never does,
she has razor-sharp concentration
and a sharper mind.
You don't want to get
on the wrong side of that one.
Funny, years ago,
they never dreamed we'd have
a woman Prime Minister.
Not everyone agrees with her
yet few dare to disagree.


Time to retire now, ladies.
The men have important things
to discuss, too serious for our lowly ears.
Theirs is the sun and the daylight;
ours are the shadows that herald the dusk.
Gather your prayer beads
and lower your gaze.
Do not look into the eyes
of the Imam as you pass by
on the way to your rooms.
Do not let any breeze from the window
displace your veil.
Guard your modesty
at all times;
protect your respectability,
for it is all you have in the world.

.the better part of a Friday night

grim.. times... what better way to pass a drinking session than to translate some Horace... i see no other worthy time-consuming scoop of any events to follow, this:

humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam iungere si velit et varitas
inducere plumas undique conlatis membris, ut turpiter atrum
desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne,
spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?
credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum persimilem,
cuius, velut aegri somnia, vanae fingentur species,
ut nec pes nec caput uni reddatur formae.
scimus, et hanc veniam
petimusque damusque vicissim;
sed non ut placidis coeant inmitia, non ut serpentes
avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.

some first reading... sounds like chasing a chimera...

with a human head on a horses' neck: should a painter
tie the two together on a whim, and other limbs
collected from everywhere: puff up duck feathers into
a pillow or a bed cover - from "nothing"... hey presto!
that a beautiful woman from the torso up with a
fish's black tail below to boot...
on exhibition: would you, friends,
not burst burst out with laughter? believe: Paisans!
similar to this image will be the book:
in which as in an ill man's dream, in delirium,
the head and the feet belong to different
forms
i use this law and i recommend others to use it too,
but not to equate gentleness with a wildness:
with a bird a serpent, a lamb with a tiger...

angels and mermaids... what is no less or... no more:
improbable? perhaps neither...
but in the guise of monotheism... everything is still
somehow sensible...
where there was: half and half...
what angel of monotheism is a half and half
when contending for existence among unicorns...
mermaids or centaurs?
a chimera and a cyclops... **** with a minotaur...
but... such events of monotheistic grandeour are...
supposedly the better respected...
for all the respect i gave unto Knausgård -
because it comes from monotheism:
an angel is to be seen as more than a mermaid...
perhaps... if the angel is of my form...
has the wings... but for its mouth?
a pecker mask... a 50:50 share ratio of...
what a racial "mongrel" would otherwise burden his
shadows with...
a pecker mask akin to those masks
worn at the Venice carnival:
doctor doctor black plague masks...
with a muffed-up speech... as if shouting into
cotton puffed up...
esp. cotton candy...

and this is a sort of friday where i'd much prefer
translating latin... god... where did all these modern
prepositions and conjunctions from from:
into the fore?! there's only one song of worthy summary...
the specials - ghost town.

- Autorank Total 10 ( higher is reduced to 10 ), professional similarity 10 (of 10), concrete vs abstract 2 (of 2), noun/verb/etc order -0.7 (of 1) -

poetry and order... yes...
yes... very much akin to rhymes...
and very formal language...
but this is hardly a "micro-aggression",
on my part...

it's funny that i never paid any attention to this detail...

hoc erat in votis

i was never into brian jonestown massacre, more of a dandy warhols' fan, but then brian jonestown released the album aufheben and pawns of the palette started picking up not only seminal citric acids and kashmir's spices, but sharp grooves of some distant geography, which of course, all in all: to my liking.

there's nothing like listening to the opening
track of the aufheben album (panic
in babylon, instrumental) and reciting a
bit of horace; should i be accused of sounding
pompous, here's horace himself

    hoc erat in votis: modus agri non ita magnus,
    hortus ubi et tecto vicinus iugis aquae fons
    et paulum silvae super his foret. auctius atque
    di melius fecere. bene est. nil amplius oro,
    maia nate, nisi ut propria haec mihi munera faxis.

    it was the aim of my wishes: a snippet of arable land,
    a garden, in the vicinity of my house a source of
    fresh water and a grove upon a ***** of a hilly eminence.
    the gods beyond their intentions bestowed upon me
    the loot of my thus lived fate. i have enough!
    i do not implore for more either in this heart of mine
    or among incense or blood of sacrificed bulls at the altar
    where worship is prescribed unto them, but only give me,
    son of May, the chance to use these bestowals.

(translated from polish, and, as would be expected of me,
involved in translation, adding something of my own,
as you can see, the latin prepositions and conjunctions
are reflective of the number apparent in the english language,
but it's hardly a concern with other words,
awaiting a unanimous - not necessarily an N between
two vowels, or because of H, as is exampled by
a great alphabetical distancing of the vowels,
or simply because of the latin tongue-twisters of
the grapheme æ and œ - awaiting a unanimous
decision of the compound words stalled by the hyphen
form, e.g. light-bulb / lightbulb (underlined as a spelling
mistake) by the oxford dictionary committee...
but let's not get as crazy as german spelling
glue... it would make james joyce pale even by finnegans
wake standards of the 100 letter word... i know... english
is a language spelled like shotgun shrapnel, and german is spelled
like a wedding cake or scottish fudge, thick and bulging;
what was i going to say? i took a step into the heraclitean
river and the river took me elsewhere, the ice cubes
in my whiskey citric barley are melting, and i dream
of venice being the modern atlantis along with the maldives).

elsewhere in a grammar lesson:

people think the pinnacle of poetry is coupling
adjectives with nouns, but of course,
given adjective & verb coupling is commonplace:
and when they say poetic v. practical,
they then say the hidden practicality of poetry
via, e.g. 'nicely said;' but of course!
we need a sombre musicality of the tongue
with so much dead machinery around us!
the elders complain about headphone "zombies,"
marching like urban myth lemmings on zebras
toward death... but have you actually listened
to those mechanical sounds on concrete?
horrid! when was the last time you heard an owl's
call in the dead of night in a forest? me!
about a year ago: three by my count.

- Autorank Total 9.9, professional similarity 10 (of 10), concrete vs abstract 2 (of 2), noun/verb/etc order -0.1 (of 1), cliches -2 (of -3) -

the Cyber Pavlov Experiment

and my favorite "poem" in this ranking system,
which, i guess is an a.i. calculator...
i'm most interested in the professional similarity,
i can understand the concrete vs abstract ranking...
but the noun/verb/etc order?
in poetry? again... this is not a "micro-aggression"...

so, i'm on this page, and i meet my ****** pusher,
sure as hell he's pushing ******,
although it's digital, the site / street corner?
allpoetry.com i get to publish 2 poems,
but can't publish more, i have to comment,
and comment positively,
'allo comrade Stalin! then comment on
2 poems, and get this message:
Congratulations, you've achieved level 2,
and are now an "emerald cat"!
To reach the next level you need:
7 x comments, 1 x enter a contest, 1 x favorites,
1 x edit an item. • What are levels?
i am not playing candy-crush saga!
i'm not! i'm not even kidding you,
what is this ****?!
we've been ****** by paedophiles
anonymous?!
                      please get me off
this ****** grid of the Cyber Pavlov Experiment...
likes and comments and saliva and cookies...
    or premeditated minority reports -
  akin to Orwell's thought crime gestapo -
    god it sounds **** when said: g'eh'sh'tap'oh.
                    or how to use the internet
akin to deciphering and censoring established
media outlets...
                              obviously social media
can't replicate socialism, it's a media outlet,
                  but it can for sure ******* with
all the little capitalistic mind games that lead
to nothing but the Pavlov experiment -
            and that was with dogs...
try that with a ******* Gorilla and i'll watch you
cradle prosthetic limbs while
he rips your original limbs off like he's playing
                a harp:
            then you can rhyme: twinkle twinkle little thumb,
    how i wished you were attached to my hand to my arm
to my torso...
                        that's the same story
we had recently concerning a Mr. Kumbuka...
  who escaped enclosure, and proved the a.d.h.d.
        complex correlation with exposure to
sugar... ****** drank 5 litres of concentrated blackcurrant
squash replying: i'm mad at the keepers for keeping
me on a diet! i do king kong and you do the frenzied
blonde maiden.
              it's still a concern for me that they herded the poets
into an area worthy of zoological inspection,
                meaning that they base their worth on
    deplorable points system: like they're immigrants
waiting for visas to Canada -
                          comment, like, blag and blabber your
way into that new country, known to all of us present
              as Si S / Silicon State... by my count that's
the 51st, or the secular version of the Vatican.

- Autorank Total 2.3, professional similarity 1 (of 10), concrete vs abstract 2 (of 2), noun/verb/etc order -0.7 (of 1) -

but now... i'll just post the most "pop" poem from
here-on-in there... for that hard-on autorank...

clues as precursor:
- Strong words: army, audience, beef, box, brick, canvas, cubes, eating, fan, fares, football, lines, match, minced, outside, people, poem, poets, river, scrabble, scroll, short, slab, song, steak, striking, stripes, tartar, tomatoes, wave, writing  
-Weak words: albeit, always, answer, any, bad, be, become, bothered, circa, coherency, could, critic, deliberate, effect, eh, elsewhere, enough, escape, event, form, gather, get, had, happen, hardly, impact, intent, international, invent, long, merely, mind, modest, national, never, nice, nothing, perhaps, personally, presume, question, rarely, reason, recluse, repeating, repetition, somehow, sometimes, started, subconscious, subsequently, succumb, tender, thinking, translation, treat, understand, version, very, want, was, well, what, will, worth, would
- Cliches: to be a, i want

****... too early for an autorank...
so here's a pre-scriptum i wrote for...
what i wanted to feed the autoranking system...

this poem has circa 11 thousand views, "elsewhere"...
and i just... would like... to see the score for it...
the very and repeating: twist on the rotten tomatoes' score
"leverage" between audience and "critic" scores...
i gather that the autorank on this canvas is not...
somehow "deliberate"... i presume i have this slab
of minced beef... and when i put it through...
i'll get... a nice cubism version of a ripe steak: medium rare...

then again: i was always a fan of rare...
mind you... it's never raw, it's not tartar cubes...
it's rare... like the person eating... a rarified recluse example:
like a recluse of a rarified worth of all examples given...
this noun/verb/etc. "coherency" score...
perhaps this a.i. scrutiny hasn't bothered to answer
to no asked question... people can still "un-scramble"
or... un-scrabble bad grammar and understand it...
nothing ever has to be: brick on brick like a long
winding river...
it sometimes can arrive at us...
"lost in translation"... some people speak some
languages with no ill-intent...
they just can't escape the pedagogy rubrics of
subconscious grammar layer upon layer upon layer...
is this... a reason to subsequently rhyme?
personally? i treat rhyme as a phenomenon...
a phenomenon that has to happen rarely...
and when it does: it has to be a striking "pose"...
but enough of the pre-scriptum...
i want to see how this poem fares in the autorank filter...
albeit, this given: this pre-scriptum will have had
an impact on the score...

line repetition, eh? the lines are too long or too short?
what was that poem... when you could somehow
invent: "thinking outside the box" of any form,
or when tender poets started to succumb to the cascade
effect of writing - to merely fill-up scroll speed and space?
it's hardly an event like the mexican wave at
a football match... or how...
the white stripes' song: seven nation army
has become the international... well... that's modest...
the national (english) football clubs' anthem...
when a goal is scored... or whatever you like, otherwise...

or cliches... really?!
how about... oh... i remember this one most fondly...
visual poetry...
fallen... by... jörg piringer...
and unlike any modern painting...
this one really does require a description,
as cited on poetryfoundation.com:

/jörg piringer works in many forms, including visual, digital, and sound poetry, as well as music. In "fallen," piringer combines a visual sensibility with computer programming skills to tumble text from the English translation of The Communist Manifesto into a pile at the bottom of the page. The result is a mass of letters stripped of their original meaning and representing the failure of an idea./ Geof Huth

and no, by no kind reprint...
perhaps modern painting is what it is...
because... there's an alternative, like fallen?
if you can "paint" with words in adverts...
and paint i imply: stress the psychological impact
of coca-cola written in circa: formal scripts -
(why no italics? you can't... just can't,
write a colon and in italics after...
the colon represents emphasis,
as does the italics... tautology or something -esque)
derived from 17th century handwriting...
or... say... volkswagen... written in blackletter &
lombardic scripts... esp. circa 1935...
while all the propaganda posters were on
display...

given all of this? well... do i have to somehow:
bemoan how terrible modern art is?
cubism is not cricitißed - but dada is -
or let's call it... the most bloated
menu of culture citationand)
Barnett Newman painted this masterpiece,
‘Onement VI’, in 1953.
it sold for close to US$44 million...

i can't say such painting is "good" or "bad"...
after a while you just have to call a spoon a spoon...
a knife a knife, a table a table...
onement vi? blue canvas with a straight line
down the middle; form? rectangular...
and that's when thinking can take place...
i gather than modern art is trying to depict:
primodial man acquiring geometry...
after all... only recently i cound the difference
between the western man and slavs...
how the afro-european now lives in germany
and the west... including italy...
and how the indo-european lives east of germany
in some parts of scandinavia and greece...
a totally new discovery...

but... but... i can compensate for modern art...
with what is visual poetry...
if jorgen schmoorgen can do an abstract of a communist
manifesto... here's my take on...
John Constable... because... frankly...
i have yet to properly deal with this particular piece
of writing - as it's fresh... to subsequently aspire
for... a j. m. w. turner... not yet... not yet...
as ascribed to Juba...

the poem itself is... good grief...
always the same with me...
i go to kenya and i'd want to **** all the ivory
beauties...
a mother is in hospital and all the nurses
are black and i'm like...
what a clean and sterile environment this
is... unlike my today which began
finding an acne dot on my little richard...
(i get the joke... spotty ****)...
having to defrost a fridge freezer in
the shed because:
'z przybytku głowa nie boli'
oh yes it does...
not when what someone deems to be
"enough" do you have to count the trivial...
unnecessary things...
which is not a shame regarding my ***
winning a pulitzer price for... never mind...
i claim lack of sun...
black privelege... impeccable skin...
and... ivory beauties...
n'est ce pas?
alternative i have found an outlet to...
it's become brutally boring...
*******...
i found it... in... japanese gravure...
i had to... esp. when 1970s italian *****
classic died... and everyone is doing
this act older than beer and the giza
pyramids... phellatio and you're like:
so when did the ice-cream dream go away...
the peeling the banana...
and all this ******* gagging begin like
there's everyone with their third tonsils
removed... where mouth is no different
from *** or **** to be RAMMED!
lucky for me i still have my third tonsil...
which means i can drink cold beer in winter
and not get a soar throat...
- lucky for me i still have my *******...
god... if i didn't... i don't think i'd have
the "moral compass" to "get away with it"...
unless i was a woman with a web-cam...
in which: it almost becomes akin to reading
a book... it's like: it's there for the sole use of
pleasuring yourself or... as i like to call it on
throne of thrones (the toilet)...
first you do the no. 1, then the no. 2...
then you start doing the no. 3 to see...
whether you've done no. 2 completely...
it sometimes happens that having an *******
dilates the **** to the point where:
there's a shady **** loitering in the "back"
somewhere... which would explain ****-erotica...
in reverse to the act of ****-erotica of being
penetrated... i.e. in this scenario...
finishing doing a no. 2...
after that? downhill a quick side-step for
a no. 4 in the shower - baptism...
but... yeah... the men that shame men with
regards to *******?
they must be circumcised men...
shaming other circumcised men...
i think to think how a circumcised man
could shame an uncircumcised man for this act...
that's like... circumcised women...
shaming uncircumised women...
for jerking off with a web-cam...
uncircumcised women and...
explosive libido... whatever the stereotypes
are... circumcised men...
uncircumcised men...
there has to be a: a priest a rabbi and an imam
walk into a bar joke around here somewhere...
i'm trying to find it...
but i have found that: circumcised men
shame other circumcised men over *******...
while the uncircumcised men are like...
if only i were a woman and had a webcam...
if society had a niche consumer base for that...
"sort of thing"...
i'd be making money from one
genocide of a fraction of myself ever so often...
i.e. it's killing when the ***** is owned
by a woman (sensible... sensible...
i don't mean the former chinese 1 child
state policy of: statistics at all costs...
even at 8 months old)...
but if that's the case...
then a session of hanky-panky...
sterile... washing under the ******* etc.,
i'm practically doing erotica-genocide
slim film no. 3890... ever since it started aged
8... when i discovered Onan...
way before the white nation army came out
from the hades of the *******...
how the ******* of ***** has nothing
to do with the ******...
the muscles and nerves are wired so to the brain...
that i'm pretty sure a castrato feels
the same...
**** chicken shaming...
it must be circumcised men against
circumcised men: ******* missing olympics...
no wonder... you peel a ******* potato...
you have to throw it in some water
to prevent it from darkening...
that's of course: prior to cooking...
so you have to find the ****** cushion
brigade from time to time...
a "sword" without a "sheath"...
rust or egomania or: motivational talk talks...
because Kant was never going to be my:
bachelor of the year for the 215th time in a row...
kierkegaard famously didn't marry...
erectile "dysfunction":
not a real problem in my own company
or in the company of prostitutes...
but a serious ******* problem among
the "free women" of western europe...
it's like one of those vague "superpowers"...
women speak of turn-ons and turn-offs...
yeah: i too have my limp switch too...
somehow... this "thing" is not automated...
it's not like spam-mail... it doesn't always:
"rise to the occassion"...
the mood swings of my *****...
i'm starting to think that perhaps neurology will
explain more about my brain
than my suma summarum will ever tell me
about this excess of the 21st digit (which
of course includes the 10 precursor toes)...

as i haven't read marquis de sade in a long while...
and i'm not touching any modern erotica,
and ******* bores me
and how japenese gravure is the next best
all-spice of brain fever...
and how: if this little harlot went to sudan
for her nitty-picking a tartan lover,
or if she decided for rwanda...
i have to guess the fiction and fantasy...
for me, at least... has to rely on...
a bull in a porcelain shop...
or as the kama sutra says:
a rabbit **** is hardly going to ****
an elephant ****... lengths and depths...
all round!
which makes you wonder...
genghis khan must have been...
or has to be... the ***** envy shitlord
of a whole lot of people with the surname
Khan in pakistan.

Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Would you please not be consistent?
Would you please not be so loud?
Would you please not be so disturbing?
You're irritating us
Don't bring Godly attention our way
Don't remind us of our responsibility
Stand up
Sit down again if you're going to put your hands up and pray
while OUR GOD is playing
OUR GOD is playing, Mahmoud, don't you hear HER?
Aren't you a slave like us?
You're more of a slave than us
You're paid better than us
You're paid big money
like the rest of your proball player colleagues
You're making us feel uneasy
We feel jittering
We're uncomfortable right now
Now, we're upset
STOP.
STOP right now
or Get out. Go.
GO.
We want you to leave
We don't like you anymore
LEAVE
Hang up your jersey
and toss away your basketball
Do whatever you want with them
Sale them, Give them to charity, Put them on display in a museum or at an exhibit somewhere
We don't want to see them anymore
We don't want to see you anymore
We don't like that you make us feel like cowards
We don't like that you remind us that we haven't any reason to have pride
in our nation
in a stolen land
WHAT?!
You're making us think
We didn't come to watch a NBA basketball game to think
We didn't come to leave a NBA basketball game thinking
WHAT?!

Don't you know anything about America separating church and state?
You're American, right?
Though your name is different
If you were an immigrant
you might have had to learn this
to take a test to get your citizenship

Yes, yes, I know
that a basketball court is not a state
and that you don't believe in the church
And you've said
that the making of a prayer's never confined to any particular institution or place of worship
You said
At the doctor's office,
I pray
In the car before I pull off,
I pray
In the restaurant before I eat and after I eat,
I pray
At the start of a game,
I pray

All this unnecessary buzz
All this unnecessary hype
around me refusing to pledge allegiance to the American flag
and instead pledge allegiance to God
and pray during the anthem
Even more than 25 years later, a 1/2 of a century later,
we're talking about it
But this time
I get to speak my story
to whoever is interested
I get to speak to the world
through a number of ways
so that the truth can be heard

As for the NBA
compensate me in a way that can never repay me for what you did
for what I've gone through and others
for all of the suffering
compensate me as justly as possible
compensate me appropriately
Do what you would want to be done to you
in a fellow human's shoes
if you were in my Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf basketball player's shoes

It's your choice
Either way
My light has shined
GOD has told us that
Joslyn Rose Lyons
said this, too
and with her production
"STAND"  
a documentary film
about me and my truth,
it will continue to shine

Anything done for GOD will always be zoomed in on
Will always be talked about
Will always STAND out
Because with as many Hitlers as there are
As many Netanyahus as there are
As many corrupt Saudi Kings as there are
No matter how few,
there'll always be
Mahmouds
There'll always be
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazzs or Malcolm Xs
and
Imam Khomeinis
There'll always be
Imam Asis

You see
Mahmoud's See
"Once you see something,
you can't unsee it"
is POWER
Mahmoud's See
is INFLUENCE
Mahmoud's See
is like that of the SEA
with a beautiful, eye-catching tide
that keeps coming back
and keeps making waves
and keeps giving us reason to notice

Mahmoud
You said what you did and what Kaepernick did
By the way  
I bought 10 copies of your autobiography (audio CD)
"In The Blink Of An Eye"
produced by Kaepernick Publishing
allowed you both to speak your conscience
to do what is right
to speak against injustice
but it doesn't translate into POWER
because as you said
in so many words,
there are still many injustices
happening in America and around the world
and crimes against humanity still taking place

What you, Kaepernick,  
and the other professional athletes to whom this applies did
doesn't translate into power
because there aren't enough like you  
taking a STAND
asserting their human rights
speaking truth to power
More are emergently needed
Insha Allah, as those who take a STAND
become the norm and
they become a sizeable number,
POWER will be the result

Nonetheless,
your STAND beckons more to STAND
It's a rare match to start a flame
  
Injustice will always have its See
And justice will always be seen
even if and when it's seems to be at a distance
even when it appears out of reach

Like Mahmoud,
myself, and others,
we are forever changed by
an NBA star's See,
a human who chose to STAND's See
With it,
there is no turning back

By: Najwa Kareem

why is everyone so ******* sensitive these days? Brine Kaiser? die Norden Kaiser? well, Tsar and Fuhrer taught them well... the Brits want to smoke the Poles out in providing a narrative... the empire is gone... gone gone gone... i'm just curious... why is everyone so sensitive these days? personally? i obstruct any point of monotheistic orthodoxy with the Malachi heresy of the concept of reincarnation... Christianity doesn't and Islam doesn't really bother me... Harry Enfield said enough to counter: said as much; if ever you were looking for the perfect cloning mechanics, i'd look at Christianity and Islam... god... using these words in any rational discussion can make anyone and everyone seem so ****** barbaric.

you already heard of the Hebraic version
of democracy *ecce **** - in Christ, and thus said:
in the outer-Roman conquerors or Yiddish
and Holocaust -
the twisted Hindu doctrine -
thus the crowd bellowed -
and thus, the crowd, received -
to what waking hour are
we to be woken to in fear?
as this fear, perpetrates to be
heard and resound in profoundness?
or hath no Jew a clue
as to weave an answer?
                       except that concerning
Palestine?! then so be said: as
it would be done -
                         or keeping
to a polytheistic doctrine
at its centre Malachi's reincarnation mantra -
then too spat on,
rejected,               admonished -
             then by equal cure: also
done unto by equating measure;
for i have no cherry to cherish
in the suburbs of Jerusalem,
as i have no figs to break Ramadan with
to suit a Muslim -
            both to me both are deservedly walled in -
and inclined to take each other's lives -
                 and should be entombed
in their jealousy of heated dispute -
both are worth the wall,
with one wall the Jews built to encode
an exclusion of Arabs, then i, with a second,
exclude the Jew with Arab,
and a second wall, beginning with
the Ottoman and ending with the Saudi -
there: each rat to eat his own...
and learn monotheism as if he were learning
cannibalism;
anyone with other lessons reside here: and the future
of that region is spared in retaining the present...
leave 'em to it, like rat eating rat in
a tomb of awaited death...
                  leave them, to it:
just so i can hear the peasant eat the rabbis
of quickened-tongues when they start dressing-up
    to a spectacle: authority of dress from imam
and rabbi... authority of dressing up,
never, never, the learning curvatures of what
expansion: in the beginning was the word: reason -
   or the one who didn't dress-up
              in fancy dress, but made eloquent
his reasons, and the impersonal god -
                       the pepper in the arses of the crowd:
as said: ants in my pants and i was about to say: termites:
'cos i was woody Allen and a full-bloodied ****...
        come north, come north,
they came north... what attacked the Romans
they thought wouldn't attack them; oh gee... it did.
brick them up together, them along with the Palestinians,
i want the Saudi reaction... they're rich enough
to give me one; if they don't? i'll ask the Bangladeshi
slaves who built the Dubai tower about how one fares
in the desert.

Have you seen a tree weep,
Not tears from it drop,
But, real blood.
Since 1200 years ago on the day of Ashura,
The day of martyrdom of Imam Hussain at Kerbala,
Mourns a big old fir tree,
In the Zarabad village,near the Ghazwin city in Iran.
Hussain was brutally martyred,
His head slain and hung on a spear!
Paraded  through the streets of Kufa,
So he could save Islam.
This fir tree, in the morning of Ashura performs a miracle,
It sheds tears of blood,
Which trickle down from its branches and leaves.
It's not paint or water colour,
For the drops smell of blood.
If a tree can mourn Hussain,
How can we be left out,
On that day tens of thousand gather around the tree to mourn Hussain,
Many critically ill come for sole purpose to be cured by the holy blood.
With Hussain's death truth prevailed,
Islam prevailed.

In a far land known as Pakistan,
in the little town of Prym
Impiety was criminal,
And blasphemy a sin

A Christian woman stood accused
Of impious words and deed-
Did her words insult the Prophet?
Or did her neighbors hate her creed?

Tried and condemned for Blasphemy
in the little town of Prym,
The Christian woman waited,
for the stoning to begin.

The townspeople all gathered round,
pious Moslems one and all.
They chose their weapons from the ground
and awaited Imam’s call.

When suddenly the sky grew dark
The Sun obscured from view
A Nickel Iron stone from space
One, without sin, just threw.

In the place where Prym once stood
is a crater deep and wide.
There is no more impiety.
and no more fratricide.

Take to heart the lesson
Let hatred be unknown
Or next time He who is without sin
may cast a larger stone.

Life has gone too fast
It made me a big tortoise
Now
I am a tourist attraction point
But still I believe
That
All will be OK.
Qwan imam

BY: Cedric McClester

While the internet entices
Those making sacrifices
For Boco Haram or ISIS
Whose platforms are divisive
Here’s what my advice is
Stop cutting heads in slices
While rolling out the dices
Which makes you not the nicest
Saying it’s all in Islam’s name
When you practice to defame
Every prophet who ever came
You’re only poppin’ game
Cos’ their message was real plain
It’s really not hard to understand
Men can’t do what only God can

There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****
He’s the only Khalifah
That I know there is
You can’t build a Khalifate
Solely based on hate
So let me restate
(well here it is)
There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****

You have to be mad
Or Michael Jackson bad
To declare world-wide jihad
I find it a tad rad
And it really is quite sad
But you’re making Shaytan glad
He’s got you living at his pad
So never mind Riyadh
Of course Asad’s got your back
Inside of Syria and in Iraq
You’ve made a devil’s pact
I know this for a fact
So as you plan your next attack
What will be your third act
And whose head next you gonna wack

There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****
He’s the only Khalifah
That I know there is
You can’t build a Khalifate
Solely based on hate
So let me restate
(well here it is)
There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****

Just like Teena said
I’m talking square biz
There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****
So you need to tell me now
What the **** gives
With you deciding who dies
Or who the hell lives

Allahu Akbar it’s the final test
As another jihadi with a suicide vest
Blows himself and others up
Like you might have guessed
Hoping for the paradise
That his leaders stressed
His picture will be shrouded
Nevertheless
See he never gave it more
Than just a casual look
So he’s hasn’t read the words
Inside his Holy Book
Which explains why he’s a pawn
Instead of a rook
And an internet suggestion was all it took

There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****
He’s the only Khalifah
That I know there is
You can’t build a Khalifate
Solely based on hate
So let me restate
(well here it is)
There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****

The ******* Taliban
In Peshawar Pakistan
Had the upper hand
And carried out their plan
To ****** like the ****
Although it’s clearly banned
By several ayats in the Qu’ran
They don’t seem to understand
They’re no fans of education
But how do you build a nation
If your sole vocation
Is suicide and assassination
Now the whole world’s losing patience
With the latest allegations
Wondering what’s their motivations

There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****
He’s the only Khalifah
That I know there is
You can’t build a Khalifate
Solely based on hate
So let me restate
(well here it is)
There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****

They say that Islam is
The religion of peace
Before they blow themselves up
And the madness doesn’t cease
Like someone just released
A heard of savage beasts
And I’m not just talkin’ ‘bout
In the Middle East
Over in Australia a self-made Imam
Showed us just how much
He didn’t give a ****
By taking hostages at gunpoint
Without a demand
After having had
A thirteen hour news span

There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****
He’s the only Khalifah
That I know there is
You can’t build a Khalifate
Only based on hate
So let me restate
(well here it is)
There’s only one Khalifah
And his name is ****

While the internet entices
Those making sacrifices
For Boco Haram or ISIS
Whose platforms are divisive
Here’s what my advice is
Stop cutting heads in slices
While rolling out the dices
Which makes you not the nicest
Saying it’s all in Islam’s name
When you practice to defame
Every prophet who ever came
You’re only poppin’ game
Cos’ their message was real plain
It’s really not hard to understand
Men can’t do what only God can




(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.

Dad,
Can it be that you are gone now,
Five years' comings and goings,
Five solar journeys now, around the sun?

I can still see your shape,
Thin and worn,
Overalls, too big,
Cap pulled down,
Pliers hanging at your side,
Lace-up boots, worn,
And your face, lined,
Eyes still twinkling, though
Weary after a day's work,
Fixing,
Farming,
Fencing,
Feeding.

In my mind, you're
Going off to the barn,
To hay the cows,
Like an old imam
Heading mechanically
To daily prayers,
Moved by routines
Impossible to ignore.

The man and the work,
So embedded in the other...
No more thought of leaving -
Though as a younger man,
You spoke of some day retiring -
There was no way, and no desire,
Farming was your one remaining fire.

So, five years are gone,
And yet, everything still
Standing on the farm
Bears resemblances of you.

The peeling buildings, sagging still,
The gravel paths you tended,
The panels your hands welded,
The barns and sheds you built
Still stand, and bear the evidence
Of Arthur Bouchard's hands.