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Staff Sgt. Joseph D'Augustine
a proud Jersey son
whom Thou hast blessed
laid in St. Luke’s ground
for his heavenly rest
April 4, 2012

1.

in a far off province of
God forsaken Helmand,
our dear son Joey
met his untimely end

an explosive crack
a most terrible sound
felled a beloved Jersey son
to the cold cruel ground

working the live wires
of a well placed IED
a deathly burst killed him
it was awful to see  

Staff Sgt. Joseph D’Augustine
in solemn duty fell
fellow brothers in arms
will forever reverently tell

of courage and character
of a dear fallen friend
and how the valiant warrior
met with death at his end

for he was always faithful
to his beloved corps
comrades couldn't ask
a valiant marine for more


2.

details of his death
are not the real story
selflessness and bravery
are but part of his glory

is it brash to
question why he fell?
in a useless bitter war
an embroiled senseless hell

a generation mustered
to fight in the war on terror
serving four tours of duty
in a lost decade of errors

two tours in Afghanistan and Iraq
could a nation ask a man for more?
for he was always faithful to the call
upholding pledges he hath sworn

3.

the burden of war
to a  few confined
it rarely crosses
an American’s mind

incessant war machine
drones on apace
the horror of conflict
so cleverly displaced

with afternoon baseball
and super bowl parties
big disco paychecks
and other selfish priorities

pay hollow tribute
to dear weary troops
when valor is mentioned
we gather in groups

we’ll raise the flag
sing stirring anthems
than its back to the party
pay it no more attention

self styled patriots
wave handfuls of flags
but ask them to contribute
the zeal soon lags

its left to the few
to shoulder burdens of many
fairness is lost
its a democratic calamity

four tours in a decade
an inhumane task
burdens require sharing
its only fair to ask

Joey was always faithful
to the task at hand
willing to step forward
to serve his homeland


4.

in the wake of 9/11
a nation deeply shaken
young patriots stirred
liberty’s call not forsaken

a call to serve answered
to quell the rise of terror
a clear clarion alarm
marks the nature of the era

Joey boldly came forward
to train and learn
the art of warriors
his bright patriotism burned

deployed to Afghanistan
to capture Osama
routing the Taliban
without much problem

but a pacified Afghan
not enough for Bush
he invaded Iraq
another military push

we rolled into Baghdad
adorned with victors garlands
Saddam’s statue toppled
our troops were honored

deposing a dictators
soon turned to occupation
a ****** mission transformed
to build the Iraqi and Afghan nations

once honored liberators
now a conquering force
bestriding broken nations
on a civil war course

military industrialists
stood to profit most
sweet protracted conflict
record earnings to boast

lives bartered for lucre
a region held hostage
the conflict deepened
hostilities hardened

America dipped into
a great recession
the war machine
bled money and
kept on ticking

scooping up contracts
rewarding investors
the dividends of war
heaven sent treasure

continuation of hostilities
preys on a nation's youth
as casualties mount
ill portents forsoothed

a fraction of citizens
bare heartaches of war
gulping measures of despair
to guard a nations door

a nation always faithful
to the holy pursuit of profit
a highest citizens calling
put money into your pocket


5.

our beloved Jersey son
gave a full measure of devotion
in dress blues they shipped him
back across the ocean

on the Dover tarmac
they received his remains
for a last ride northward
to his hometown terrain

repatriated body
bereft of soul saluted
solemn escort knelt
hearts trembled, tears muted

a hearse for a gallant man
flanked by state troop cruisers
to escort the funeral train
assure an honored movement

one last trip up
old thunder road
the storied highway
Joey often trod

the last detail legged up 17
reverent firefighters saluted  
from overpasses
to honor  the woeful scene

as the motorcade passed
the Garden State Malls
frenzied consumers
failed to notice at all

busy window shoppers
didn't to turn an eye
as Joey rolled home
to the sweet by and by

vets interred at the
Old Paramus Church
gently stirred in their graves
reasons for war they search

Channel 12 Chopper
circled its eye in the sky
televised the sad parade
captured many teary eyes

the early spring blooms
colorful petals displayed
maples and forsythias
a royal carpet laid

spring remains always faithful
as the new season turns
offer sunshine and glory
as our sinking hearts burn

6.

motorcycle escort
northbound lane clear
rolling homeward
Waldwick was near

leaves exploding
green shoots budding
****** white maple blooms
natures accolades stunning

the oaks yet bare
just waking from slumber
winters death passing
a sad day put asunder

the motorcade passed
Joey’s home on Prospect Ave
few  envision lifes endings
this woefully sad

red chevy pickup idles
in hoop crowned driveway
never to drain jumpers again
departed children can’t play

the eye in the sky
framed neighbors in mourning
welcoming back a fallen hero
unsettled emotions dawning

neighbors waved Old Glory
from painted stoops and curbs
unsure how this tragedy
visits this blessed suburb

green grass of home
always flush with spirit
tears welled in the eyes
most difficult to bear it

last cruise of the town
sad neighbors stand witness
paying final due respects
and ponder from a distance

what purpose is served
by this man’s passing?
the dead cannot speak
rationale is for the living

the terrible herse
death circles our town
moves through our day
hope of spring drowned

murderer of sunshine
killer of young flowers
budding trees breaking
our hearts an ashen pallor

we remember the beauty
of Joey’s stout face
as it looked on your finest day
exuding pure honor and grace

old vets gather
donning caps and pins
boasting semper fi jackets
jutting tear dripping chins

shaking hands, giving hugs
bearing tattered banners
the hearse ambles onward
we head home in solemn manner

good folks are always faithful
where beloved ones grew
the death of our children
we sadly cannot undo


7.

the bells of St. Lukes
called out from the sky
platoons of limping vets
marched in with pride

pomp and circumstance
requisite dress blues
family, friends, townsfolk
overflowed the pews

doleful bells resound
tolling a mournful reckon
the cost of war mounts
a family’s loss beckons

the casualties of war
falls upon a nation's youth
a seasons page not  turned
a flowing wound not soothed

the wistful cornet calling
floats on the fluted air
the bereaved ***** gently sounds
a congregations somber despair

an unsettling dirge
the parish grows uneasy
nationalist bravado wanes
in the forlorn sanctuary

both church and flag
draped in colors of war
mock stain glass windows
communicants adore

is it a betrayal of the flag
to offer enemies
psalms of reconciliation?
where does true loyalty lay
with God or a warring nation?

afterall this is a sanctuary
where peace and harmony reigns
are we not called to beat swords
into ploughshares as the highest
calling of our Lord?

we are always faithful
to the pathways to war
when the practice of peace
is what we should adore

8.

coughing and whispers
incessant low murmur
a baby cries out
we sit and remember

the crucifers process
in solemnity to greet
subtle ***** notes salute
a coffin draped in Old Glory sheets

the beloved child welcomed
to his eternal repose
priests splash holy water
within the sacred dome

an amazing grace revealed
lifted by marine pallbearers
dearly departed body presented
gently placed at the altar

a grief struck sister
lovingly eulogizes
recalls tonka trucks,
GI Joe’s and cool transformers

a punch in the nose
an approaching wedding
beckoning Eastertide
vacation plans left begging

my second grade class sent
Christmas cookies and cards
to dear Joey and warrior friends
he said it warmed stark winter hearts

he was raised in this church
taught trust and reconciliation
the comfort of the Lords peace
may it surely go with him

for he was always faithful
to sisters, family and faith
his resurrection service
imbues sacredness
to this space

9.

sharp in dress blues
Eddie T USMC Gunny
big 50 caliber smile
offers his eulogy

Bada Bing Jersey Humvee
we called him Joey Calzones
good mood, loved sausages
he tickled the funny bone

always willing to sacrifice
loved the Patriots Tom Brady
a women dominated household
gave him a way with the ladies

his calling explosive ordinances
he said he was livin the dream
March 6th last time we met
knocking frost off cold ones
man whatta scream

a gallant marine,
beloved brother,
a sure friend
he was always faithful
I’m deeply wounded
by his untimely end


10.

the gospel read
the homily offered
Ecclesiastes wisdom
a time for everything
proffered

God never turns
an eye from the beloved
though seasons change
we are not forsaken
never unloved

as loss arrives
surely grief grows
turn away not
wisdom knows

in resignation
love lay dead
diligent intention
banishes dread

our rekindled hope
we rend and sow
our beloved Joey
knew this was so

our favorite son’s
example taught us
now rises on eagle’s wings
to claim his divine justice

Jesus faithfully tramped
the path to an awful death
Joey too fought the good fight
a warrior now gratefully at rest

The Lord holds him close
to the ***** of sure love
a cantors beatific voice incants
Joey’s spirit that forever enchants

The Lord is always faithful
to the bereaved and  beloved
no one ever forsaken
all unconditionally loved

11.

the Holy Eucharistic cup
affirms everlasting giving
tasted to nourish evermore
a libation for the living

singing the Beatitudes
praising peace makers
mercy filled voice and song  
pallbearers lift Joey’s coffin

off to seek his final peace
an earthly occupation ended
he’ll suffer worldly hate no more
down the aisle his coffin wended

the family closely followed
a mother haltingly sobbing
faithful marines came forth
to steady her wobbling

there is no sudden waking
from this terrible dream
the pungent incense rose
to the chapels sacred beams

the stained glass murals depict
the passion of Jesus’s story
illuming a consuming sorrow
in all its grace filled glory

the ***** of death slinks on again
we search for consolation
the recompense of honor blest
leaves a hollow heart wanting
no answers offered to quell the dark
of these terrible life’s moments
only the desperate need to hold onto
beleaguered treasure that sustains us

for we are always faithful
to the things we know
always faithful to the
things we refuse to let go

12.

the color guard and funeral detail
assembled in front of St. Luke’s
the cemetery right next door
the procession a short troop

the living will stumble through
the darkness of separation
seeking elusive answers
of poignant uncertainty;
all gave some, Joey gave all
nothing more required for his
journey through eternity

Joey will always be with us
his stories forever retold
as long as the machinery of
great nations engage
the gears of wasteful war

Joey’s spirit lives
in a peoples desire
for freedom, only if
our hope of peace
is greater than the
need for conflict

Joey’s lifes work
is sure to bear fruit
if those remaining
fight the good fight
by taking up the
task to protect and
expand the values
of liberty we
hold most dear

like our good
friend Jesus
Joey wears a crown
bejeweled with
a ring of thorns
hoisted on a
terrible cross
the sweet
incense of you
meets our nose
we inhale your
earthly presence
beholding beautifully
adorned crucifix,
a reminder of
unjust persecution
and a perfect
resurrection
yet this wretched
coffin remains

pledging allegiance
we rationalize our
stories, articulating
our small parts
in  heroic sagas,
reciting myths of
ourselves, recording
the grim history of
a young marine
surrounded by
a smart color guard,
feasting on todays
eucharist, this
days sweet taste
of  the daily bread
of human sorrow

The priest finishes
his graveside
commendation
of Joey D

Taps conclude
a wind rises
crows take flight
winging over
a stand of budding
Sugar Maples
exploding in white
blooms, reveling
in the glorious
sunshine of this
magnificent day

St. Luke’s stairway to
God Country and Home
smiling portrait of you
forever young

we surround your grave
to bless the earth
you've returned home
to your place of birth

our flowing pride
and salty tears bless
the anointed ground
that you loved best

a proud Jersey son
whom Thou hast blest
laid in St. Luke’s ground
for his heavenly rest

for he was always faithful
to the blessed land
forever at peace
in the soils sure hands

Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question

Oakland
11/10/13
jbm
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
daj, do wynagrodzenia: reszty.
daj: to niby: siebie;
a... dam... dam...
ale pierw: powiem:             to!
(ich) nicht werden
                  geben (ihr) das nacht!
first... i'll punch myself
hard enough to give myself
a plum-eye: ******* pacifists...
and then?
    then i'll strap a trouser belt
to protect my knuckles...
and then... then...
                    then: we'll "talk":
who might find a translator
ready...
   god...
i'm gagging for a
knuckle exchange...
        almost... itching!
like i might await
a shaving... from a Turkish
barber... in Essex...
of all Danish palaces;
and why would i want to allow
consort with these women?
considering the fact that
the russian ones believe in trans-national
grievance taxation:
of someone... who hasn't...
actually died...
              you know what?
*******...
suffer...
       watch me wipe my ***
with a satanic smile
ennobled
by a coulrophobia...
excesses of vogue
                      atypical models...
how is it... that...
coulrophobia doesn't translate
in reverse?
  and what's up
with the black privilege of
jass music, akin to white mozart...
as...  
  sure as ****, the drum would be
the first, and only thing,
prior to the people learning
the ******* clarinet!

oh drop me your ****** ***
holocaust dead bomb
on a polish ***...
     i triple, quadruple dare you!
you *******... ivory coast
   centipede!
               i'm *******...
as watts: wild-eyed...
       unstrap me from this
"unreality" of conversation...
then undo the internet banking...
and the rest of it...

             not adam watts!
    glitter & doom....
who?      tom waits...
oh **** me... blue valentine?
if that's not a **** with me
album... what is?
                 live circus?
        
do i look like a ******* ****-
(see the hyphen?
it's a prefix... the english are
lazy sometimes: couldn't,
i.e. could not,
remnants of shakespearean
english...

       i'll always cite macbeth...

  time, thou anticipat'st my dread
exploits: the flighty purpose never
is o'eertook, unless the deed go with it.
from this moment, the very firstlings
of my heart shall be
  the very firstlings of my heart.
   and even now, to crown my thoughts
with acts, be it thought and done.


it's hardly a racial slur, ergo...
why so ******* sensitive akin to a french
footballer or a ballerina?
   ****- (hyphen! hyphen!) ergo a prefix...
as already mention:
no, no...
   it's not: no iraqi ever called me a pa-ki
      (pákí)... yeah...
and you never called an afghanistani an
afghan, ever, no?
   pure camaraderie in that part of
the world... all the way... yeah yeah... yeah...
-stani (suffix) is sometimes missing
because... the english like to shorten words...
e.g. why is daniel: dan,
why is matthew: matt?
  why is muhammad: mo (farrah)?
                                    ******* pansies...
police your circumcised penises fiddling
english teenager girl, first,
come after my vocab. justifications: after;
savvy?

or a gypsy?
   by now...
     i'm looking like any
traveler...
and the world...
       forever resembled
a world,
  in the confines of
      a claustrophobia...

but... if there's a bigger concern for
a world...
  and a freedom...
i want a bare knuckle fight...
a black eye...
namely...
you bring  BOXING GLOVE...
and i'll bring...
     a LEATHER BELT...
wrapped around my knuckles,
and the wrist...
    like i might care to give
a second attempt to smile...

ah... the men... who care
about minding, if not in the least,
keeping women...
      bye bye, bye bye...
       and i've allowed myself
to know my grandfather...
as i did the slap in the face...
and...
the key question:
in the unfathomability of counting
the 32 / 4 ratio...
alas... one fist... one smile...

and countless... dentistry encounters...
because?
   because the rest?
the cultural artifacts of a today?
  lost to h'americana...
            as i might have wished...
for my prior genes
to make an autobiography
in **** germany...
  
   what?
  
      well... obviously: the oops.

no, for the crescendo...
you know...
           i'm getting this funny vibe...
gott ist tot... it's not really spectacular...
nietzsche really believed in eternity,
to the point where he pointed:
what does science offer, only old age...
what does religion provide? eternity...
oh nietzsche was big on eternity...
   gott ist tot is as unspectular as:
is it: how to do you pronounce x,
or is it: how do you pronunciate y?
debate:
              everyone says around here
the former... since no one wants to be a *****...
pro-nun-ci-ate (pro-nun-cíate)...
   might as well replenish the vocab. bank
and replace the word with:
how do you elocute z? / recite)....

gott ist tot / gott ist tod...
    "same ****, different cover"...
you know why i believe in god?
    not the christian reference points...
salvation blah blah, saviour and hide & seek blah blah...
n'ah... where would i derive all my vocab.
hunger if not from him?
   some men derive their vocab. from
women or gambling...
            i am not in the position of their
luxury... so god it is...

            primarily though?
               god is metaphysics...
             ergo? his judgement is not clouded
by metaphysical questioning...
it's impossible to receive a metaphysical
answer from a metaphysical question
when engaging with a metaphysical
ontological paraphrase of one's own search
for meaning in this mortal frame...

oh sure sure, my belief in god is as juvenille
as anyone else's belief in humanity's
clarity when it comes to jurisprudence
and its application...
    i've experience "jurisprudence" once...
drive-by phone theft...
me and three fwends...
   i catch the number plate...
i tell one of my fwends to note it down,
police station, report, culprit found,
a sit in at a barkingside police station
looking at mug images,
spot the ****** (it was dark when the mugging
took place, photographic memory, **** happens)...
a court session, australia is playing england
at the ashes (****, i missed it)...
in court the defence lawyer shows me
another picture of the culprit...
back then photogrpahs had dates
attached to them...
the photograph? over 4 years old...
i tell him: but this photograph is 4 years old!
how can i identify if this is the same
person: i, myself, will probably
don a beard in four years time!
      a simple slip-up...
        now that i have a beard:
it's so much more fun than growing your
hair long... i hated the nickname
chewbacca back in high school when i was
growing mine for a french braid...
i walk out of the court,
come to terms with the detective...
and i see the same hunger in him as i see in me...
will justice be served?
highly unlikely... since the victim
didn't recognize the *** in the mug-shots...
justice was probably not served...

   and this is how god plays into all of this,
hell or heaven, blah blah...
man created the figure of domina Iustitia
as blind... god created death to be blind...
justice was never supposed to be blind,
death was: the unfortunate deaths
of teenagers in car accidents,
among all the other freak accidents...

clouded with so many metaphysical questions
i don't appreciate man's ability to adhere
to jurisprudence without being
subjectively contaminated...
i have more belief in an "imaginary"
god than belief that strains me to belief
in man's sense of justice...
          the nuremberg trials are a rare exception...
but only when the culprits are
unabashed and fathomable by a collective
sense of pride... a blidness...
i believe in god, because i'd love to experience
the judgement of a post scriptum of
metaphysics...
  personally? i have been wronged...
heavily...
            i will not name names....
i know when and how i was wronged,
and by whom...
                2007... Canterbury...
      i won't name names: i'm not a rat...
man is too clouded with metaphysical questions
to begin with, god isn't,
he's a metaphysical ontology "bias"...
which is why, he is primarily a jurisprudent
answer...
   i'd love to experience divine jurisprudence,
hell or heaven are not of my concern...
and i don't imply divine jurisprudence
associated with the polytheistic take of
jurisprudence via a solipsistic mechanism
of a minor god and the person in question
without the hurt party...
in monotheism the god is solipsism personified...
these days: also the personna non grata...
so no... gott ist nicht tot...
            he's a personna non grata...
i just don't appreciate the human *******
of law, law governance...
   come on, in england you can receive
an a.s.b.o.s. for your cockerel being too loud
in the morning, your dog barking...
           would you trust man with
jurisprudence?
  a woman was cleared of the ******
of her husband
       when she hammered his head into a pancake:
over an abusive relationship...
police, weren't, "there"?!
sure sure... the hammer will do...
i believe in god without a sense of reward...
i just don't think man is capable of
passing justifiable laws...
no man could ever pass the eternal laws,
gravity... 100°C for the boiling of water...
i need a being  who has groundwork
in eternal laws, in unshakeable laws...
the ten commandments aren't:
you shall not...
   more... maybe, you shouldn't...
they are the most pristine jurisprudent
laws available... the: maybe you shouldn't,
eh, chappy?

       i just don't like playing the thesaurus game
on the more tight-knit game
of "passing" the wink-wink of Solomon's
judgement...
please, **** me please,
i'll eat 20 raw herrings in a cream sauce,
slurp 30 oysters,
eat 40 strawberries on a hangpverl
eat out about 50 harem virgins
like a castrato if you ask me, nicely,
**** camel cockey:
lucly i landed on a black gold slurp
with plenty of bangladeshi slaves:
******* of riyadh...
     what did muhammed tell you?
you camel jockeys / sand *******
have clearly forgotten...
******* arabs: short attention span...
you need to remind
the retards...
the dajjal would come from the east...
a palace of gardens...
well obviously the prophet wasn't
thinking about genghis khan...
            
  hmm barbarians...
vikings, arabs: yet so inclined to like poetics...
funny, that...
the civilized peoples banished
the poets...
            the ruling class and their cushioned
people: sacrosanct sycophants...
wankers, basically.

    the hajr? muhammad spoke of the dajjal
coming from the east,
and the east being a city of gardens...
where isn't riyadh and where is mecca?
isn't riyadh east of mecca?
was the dajjal to come from the outside
of islam, or from wtihin?
      last time i checked...
sh'ite islam isn't friendly to sunni islam...
if islam was the one true religion...
would have a shcism have occurred?
i don't think so...
   a persian would never bow before
an arab... that much os true...

oh i believe in god...
given how man practices jurisprudence...
is it some sort of, a, thesaurus game
i wasn't told about?
to me the human quest for jusctice is
a thesaurus game...
man is incapable to pass but one,
eternal, law...
he's great at nuanced laws...
laws allocated to sports...
i mean, **** me, cricket?
the best vocab. you'll ever pick up...

even god isn't as pertinent
in making the sort of music associated
with the limited alpha-to-beta
of A, B, C, D, E, F, and G...
wow! seven... seven?!
how many heads does the beast
of revelation have? oh... 7!

i'll stop tolerating islam, and start respecting it,
when it, acknowledges its presence
as a character study in the book of revelations...
then i'll just move on,
having made my point...

until that time comes...
    it's 600 years shy of becoming what
degenerate christianity has become,
oh and it's ripe...
it's gagging to implode!
600 years and wait for it to become
the next secular vasal conglomorate...

the warning muhammad gave
about "the best from the east"
was in point of question:
   a reference ti gneghis khan...
more like ibn saud:
  thst fat diabetic one eyed ogre...
and the legacy of decadence he left
behind...

saudi men with slavuc girlfriends,
buying up pink cushions and *******
chihuahuas...
**** after ****...
  you know the three slavic proverbs?
1. better a sparrow in your
hand, than a dove on your rooftop?
explanation?
better the small joys at-hand,
than impossible possibilities out of reach....
2. a drunk can spot east,
past mecca, whenever honing
the safety of his own bed... even at night...
not much of a proverb...
3. i don't care to rememeber...

once toleration comes into play,
i will, respect... just a waiting game...
i'm pretty sure no iranian will
bow down to a sunni camel jockey...
i like proud *******,
it implies: there are absolutes,
un-moveable goal posts...

                      if you are ever to bind yourself
in supporting a "side" outside a sports' dynamic,
always the outsider...
always the outsider... in this case?
the ****'ite islam brigade...
       the persians...
the sunnis can shove it...
   *****, bones, whatever....

                   ****'ite islam i can
fathom, even respect,
sunni islam i just tolerate...
  as much as iran takes claims for the
big satan in ref. to h'america...
well... if h'america supports the infantile
saudi arabia, who's to blame them?

you know that polonaise joke about
about the pacifism of jews in
2nd world world war poland?
the joke ran along the words:
weren't the jews shooting the nazis
using crooked elbows (rifles)?
they always seemed to miss them,
taunted into walking into gas chambers,
the ******* hobbits...

          what? some bolshevik Brooklynian
jewish rada is to spare me
                 the pay-up diffrential
telling me, i was wrong?

  as i said before: the nazis lamented
when the warsaw uprising happened...
no, st. paul's doesn't stand proud
because, because...
   even with the blitz...
                 the luftwaffe were told:
you drop a bomb on st. paul's: firing squad...
and when notre-dame de paris -
last time i checked...
   the nazis didn't luftwaffe the **** out
of paris... did they?!

                  the nazis weren't mongols;
no people so well versed in chanel in terms
of their military being so well
   suited & booted could ever make such a
                              architectural sacrilege...

what?! people under the silicon curtain
are gagging, begging even: for nazis!
can i be the first?!
i just want to please the hungry!
if not punk then moving swiftly into ska...
am i the first?
   siliziumvorhang...
well, **** me... from under the eisenvorhang...
what's with these neo-communist pseudos?

and the hebrew god?
a jealous god... so a god with the knowledge
of the existence of other gods...
why wouldn't a jealous god have
no knowledge of other ("imagianry") gods?
to be jealous of only one's own existence?!

3 / 1: that's the ratio....
that's the only ratio... 3 times i experienced
love at first sight:

when i fell in love at first sight...
malina, samantha, janina,
priya....

equal measure: isabella of grenoble...

in reverse:
magda, promis, ilona, kot (i forget her name,
7 years old, first kiss, you can be forgiven
to forget, she had two twin sisters
and she was the senior,
her fasther drove a distribution truck,
milk, i think)...

****, i actually mismanaged
that ratio...

i believe in "a" god...
since i find too much of human jurisprudence
to be riddle with the thesaurus...
i don't think man can pass
law, he can "suppose so"...
but he will never pass the sort of law,
made forbidden,
or absolutely allowed....
i don't believe in a god akin
to the sort of a pontous pilate god
where i'll always find myself
outside of punk evolving into ska...

         mind you...
i'd hate to be trapped within
the confines of an atheistic exclusion zone
of intellect,
      to be trapped in nothing is one
thing, but to be trapped inside
the confines of an atheist's "nothing"
is quiet another....
i don't like being a hamster inside
a cognitive wheel of another...
   god is the jurisprudence spirit,
man the metaphysical spirit...
and i would very much like to stand
in the light of divine law being passed
to finally feel my shadow...

kult: brooklyńska rada żydów...
  not familiar?
  i forgot punk a long time ago...
esp. when californians came up with their
version, ergo? ska...

i'm currently taping a film
about the silesian vampire...
how strange, that the prussians came
back into the ***** of the polonaise...

growing a beard is so much fun!
fiddle after fiddle: and no violin!
atheists bore me
as much as the theistic hags
who's only ambition are
the thrill associated with Sunday
h'america and cinema...
               i can imagine only one
heaven...
where i am blind and given
               a large library of music.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2017
almost every time i use up some sort of liberty
i end up regretting having it in the first place,
because i can't explain the original need to use it,
even though i know where it originates from;
this examples stems from the rotherham horror,
the libido post-circumcision and the arguments
that ensue about how it's worthwhile to plunder...
and then there's that asian dub foundation
song with the lyrics: no iraqi ever called me a ****...
i did suggest once, that english can be both
nasal in the north american sense, and a real glutton
in the original sense of the british isles,
we don't, or rather: do not deal with certain aesthetics
to a universal rule-of-thumb other nations
utilise when using the otherwise universal φoνoς:
sound encoding, alphabet... if that makes sense;
this alphabet is fertile ground to make piquant
distinctions, and now it's becoming very hard to
avoid thesaurus complications intended...
   when the line between language as object
and language as subject becomes marred, precisely
at the point it happens, does it become truly interesting.
so back onto the offensive given the lyric:
no iraqi ever called me a ****... reverse,
i'm sure and give it full approval to make the point:
and i'm sure no pakistani ever called an iraqi
and iraqistani.

so unto the metamorphosis in the etymological substance
(akin to commerce) -
         the german word, brechta...
              it probably means something else in the host
language that acquired this "tapeworm"...
     as a loan word, brechta in slavic terms means:
he's laughing, that's the content, in context of
                    something who wakes up with a nicotine
hangover, and his laughing ripping off
yesterday's phlegm from the specified body-part, laughing
and coughing at the same time... or at least that's
what the word looks like to me...

                no pakistani ever called an iraqi an iraqistani:
what sort of linguistic hygiene are we performing?
i can equate the two, but i explain the one apparently
offensive shortcut to the ridiculousness that it can be invoked
in an offensive way... and that's what i call a moral
hangover... and the next i either do... or don't (do not).

    i had a more serious point to uncover,
   as you do, wondering that the sign-language of
the icons really represent...
         i said to myself: but the sign language palm of
jesus against that of gautama (buddha)...
   one folds the ring finger and the pinky...
       the other folds the ******* and touches
it up with a thumb...
                    talk about trying to translate that to a deaf
person... because that's what it has become...
     and given the context of the *******
and the biographic detail of gautama:
**** marriage? he is the index, and he abided for
the principle of starting a religion and virgins (devotees)
instead of keeping his wife (ring finger) and his son
(the pinky finger)... jesus?
     well there,s joseph the index finger and there's
mary the ******* (i.e. **** everything, **** it),
jesus as the thumb, and the devotion of
          not needing to marry (*******)
   and given the thumb is the shortest finger
                    the pinky also bows, and even though
the second shortest finger, gets ****** over by
the thumb, in a parasitic way...
    
me? well, with me being such a clever monkey i did
something else... but all of this is given
with a copernicus hindsight...
   lying in bed, i closed my eyes and outstretched
my hand so it was straight, *******,
   then i lifted my foot and stretched it respectively...
i put the hand against the foot...
  what did i make out?      definitely an L shape
of the foot.... then i used the index finger of my other
arm and managed to squeeze it through the one
hand touching the one foot...
                  something was missing....
                    the curvature!
                    i noticed this yesterday, walking
6.6 miles with 5 cans of beer...
                                 excess walking and this
pain on my foot, as if my foot was intended to be
completely flat... i could feel an osteophyte beginning to
grow (osteophyte? a bone spur / growth / ostroga kostna)...
if this was said back in the day before it was known:
doesn't matter, this explanation is a shortcut...
                 i "proved" the earth is a sphere
           by the simple fact that: for the hand to really
embrace the foot, i had to press down my hand onto
the "vacuum" of the L shaped bone structure...
     so i had to curve my hand into the foot...
           Γ(                                 left foot : right hand.
otherwise known as a gamma-bracket pose;
so yes, natural curvature.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
.before i come to the food topics, here's a pet peeve... language... how the pakistanis might / might not be offended by the laziness of the english, shortening their denotation to a prefix: ****-... and i'm like... is that really offensive? with the -stani suffix missing? o.k. o.k., iraq: iraqi... iran: iranian... pakistani: ****- / pakistani... so what about afghanistan? afghan, or afghanistani?! i'm pretty sure it's afghan... a person is afghani and not afghanistani... so what's wrong with ****-? it must be an english-****'stani thing from the 1960s or something... ******* as sensitive as french footballers... this has to be hard-pressed... this instance... because i hardly think it's a racial slur to stick to the prefix and not include the suffix, given the example from afghanistan - just like the "problem" of calling a jew a ***-, borrowed prefix from... yiddish! now for the food:

a. would you trust a skinny chef? i know i wouldn't trust a chef who's also a healthy-eating gym bro maniac, i bet he would never cook with lard or pork trimmings, with that calorie calculator lodged up his head that represents an ******* is not much to go with when taste is prime... 6ft1 253.5pounds, that's where i stand... i would never trust a health-freak to cook for me, let alone all the proofs rattling anorexic examples...

    b. "***** take your shoes off and get into the kitchen!" what a ****** joke, chauvanism rampant... mind you... who the hell said that women belong in the kitchen? they don't... i don't want a woman in the kitchen... i've had two dinners cooked by my fwends' mothers when still in my early teens... 1. over-cooked pasta... my fwends father would pretend to eat the dinner, before driving me home while stopping off at a sikh diner and took to the take-away (cooked by men), another example beside the over-cooked pasta? under-cooked spring potatoes - after all... the men on ships and submarines that kept the other men firing did all the cooking... men can cook... or at least: that's the least they should do... think: organic chemistry experiments...

eating a raw herring
in piquant mayonnaise
of reminiscence of a
granny-smith and pickled
cucumber tickle...
slurping it up into
a workout of the oesophagus
might remind many
of oral ***: but after all...
it's only a raw herring being eaten.

p.s. well perhaps gulping down
a raw oyster does feel familiar
to performing oral *** on a woman...
but since you're not really
chewing the oyster,
or licking it... but gulping it whole...
i can only compared performing
oral *** on a ***** to
                eating a raw herring.

            and why all of this talk of food?
well... what's on the menu for tomorrow?
a bangers & mash stew,
    old recipe from the days of the british
empire... mind you: why did they
call sausages bangers back then?
well, during the war, they put a lot of
water into the sausages...
and when water mixes with warm oil?
bang! bang!

                 'i was five and he was six,
   we rode on horses made of sticks,
he wore black and i wore white,
   he would always win the fight...
   bang! bang!
  he shot me down!
  bang! bang!
                 i hit the ground...
bang! bang!
   that awful sound...
bang! bang!
   my baby... shot me down!'
              (audio bullys ft. nancy s.) -

so obviously i had to take a walk
and buy the key ingredient...
   i.p.a.:
        and when they were stationed
in the raj, and the troops were receiving
provisions...
  the standard beer wouldn't last the trip,
going off...
     and dark port was too sweet...
so indian pale ale was invented:
   more potent alcohol content and brewed
based more on hops than barley or wheat...
bitter: but my god, what a strand of beer,
like your typical irish stout...
   which is why i never figured out
  the bud to be the king of beers...
   fermentation of rice? sure... it's crisp...
but also the sort of toddler **** you'd expect
from rice fermentation:
no body, no *****, no blood,
no palette...
      easy stew:
   sausages,
      onions, garlic, celery, carrots,
                  leeks...
     a bottle of i.p.a.,
   some to degrease the pan the sausages
and veg were fried on, the rest for the jacuzzi...
some water, bay leaf, salt to taste,
   tomato purée and 2tbsp
  of muscovado sugar to bite through
   the extra hops... mash on the side...
                  and an array of veg on the side too...

i still don't know where the idea
that women belong in the kitchen came from:
perhaps when the men were coal-miners,
and when the kitchen wasn't filled
with all the current day appliances
of convenience...
   when women worked as hard in the kitchen
as the men who worked in the coal-mine...
perhaps then, in the early part of the 20th
century... when spaghetti dough was hand-made
at home...
then a woman could take pride in her
house-keeping...
   now? now i guess: the same sort of melancholic
voice bound to nancy sinatra singing...
because once upon a time it was hard
work, running the house...
                       and then "suddenly"
everything became simple...
a man could walk into a coal-mine,
come back home and...
              make himself a decent meal...
  looking at what the english woman buy
in the supermarket?
      couch potato maidens...
       ready meal after yet another ready meal...
things have become so easy
that easy isn't enough...

      let me tell you a culinary ***** of a story...
the scurge of making homemade
ravioli! believe me... once a year is enough...
sure, it tastes great...
                  but once a year is enough.
cable news video brilliantly captures
the blood washing Parisian gutters
glittering in City of Lights sparkle

images of carnage coagulate in my mind
clotting my heart with searing resent

in desperate need for release
from the abject scorn
that boils within my veins

I flip the channel to
watch a Predator marathon
but light entertainment
fails to satiate my restive soul

I turn down the volume
and click back to News

My iPod is audio ready
to soothe the savage beast
with some righteous death metal
I blast my earbuds,
Culture of Death's new CD
prepares me for real action
  
ever at the ready
digital recreation
has me *******
my controller
mustering up my
Call of Duty
comrades

I am a recognized
high score battlefield hero
taking out godless apostates
in the global war on terrorism

I'm usually eager to
baptize Iraqi jihadis in a
Holy Ghosting
bloodbath
but tonight
Black Ops kills
fails to thrill
my controller and I
stand down

opening the gun case
I cradle my Bushmaster
the smooth barrel and rugged stock
feels so right in my hand

it pleasures me to know
I am one of the good guys with a gun
I relish the fear and respect
I garner during open carry
troops to McDonalds
the hairs on the back of my neck
sometimes titillatingly rise

one day I hope to
take out an active shooter
at a movie or the supermarket
that would be way cool

I place my Bushmaster
back into the cabinet
and carefully rearrange
one of my Glocks

yet even with this
considerable armory
I still feel insecure
it may be time
for a trip to Walmart
to secure another Glock
*** more ammo

my heart recovers a bit when
I think about tomorrows recon trip
to my tree stand in the Jersey Highlands

Bear season starts soon
for the past few weeks
I've baited the area with
Dunkin Donuts and bacon grease
I've detected lots of bear ****
can't wait to drop one of those suckers
I visualize one in my gun sights
should be easy pickens

my CD ends with
some real raucous ****
removing my earbuds
I turn up the volume
on the News

footage from last summer's
Black Lives Matter demonstration
runs in continuous loop
members of the
New Black Panther Party
are yelling into the camera
a woman in a black burka
her eyes squinting angrily at me
from underneath her cover
sends shivers up my spine

when we take our country back
they will be served some
Second Amendment justice

News flashes Ted Cruz
condemning Muslim
refugee resettlement,
in a Christian Nation
only Christians should be
allowed in...

News breaks back to footage
from the concert venue
highlighting the
blood stained mosh pit

News flashes ISIS Jihadis
riding in Humvee's
routing the fleeing
Iraqi army once again

News highlights a smiling Putin
firing off Caspian Sea cruise missiles
into the bleeding Levant
examples of decisive leadership,
if only Obama could grow a pair

News flashes to a Rose Garden Obama
bragging about killing Jihad Johnny

the drone strikes and
active bombing campaigns in:
Syria
Iraq
Libya
Somalia
Nigeria
Mali
Yemen
Sinai
Afghanistan
Kenya
Congo
and other unspecified locations
are working says the Muslim Prez

By the looks of Paris
any real American Patriot
would think not

we need to send a message
a quick strike fix
some major shock and awe
to placate a nations troubled soul

if that offends any Christian
turn the other cheek
wimp, so be it

I say go
Old Timey Testament on their ***
let our vengeance is mine God
**** them all
**** them all
**** them all

Culture of Death:
Cystic Dysentery

Barry McGuire:
Eve of Destruction

The Doors:
The End


jbm
11/17/15
Newark
lots of hate going round since the murderous tragedy in Paris....
let cooler heads prevail.....
be still and know that I am God....
RW Dennen Aug 2014
Smashing boots on doors,
splinters fall like rain.
Smashing boots on doors,
children feel the pain.
Smashing boots on doors,
granny's years of age.
Smashing boots on doors,
Mom and Dad in rage.
Smashing boots on doors,
panic sets the stage.
Smashing boots on doors,
Iraqi freedom fades.
Smashing boots on doors,
like thunder in a storm.
Smashing boots on doors,
an innocent family torn.
Smashing boots on doors,
a brand new hatred born.

RW Dennen  (c)  11/24/09
As I say war is not a natural state of man. In the year 2004
the insurgents were spilling over Iran into Iraq around border towns. This was one of the low points for our forces,
we were losing soldiers fast. I know that our troops or at least most were forced to do this. Because tracing an enemy
was most impossible and most acted in defence. This act must have traumatized a lot of our troops. Because by nature
most are good kids. They're kids to me because I'm 74.
(Not to be condocending) Thank you, go with peace.
Nigel Morgan Apr 2013
As he walked through the maze of streets from the tube station he wondered just how long it had been since he had last visited this tall red-bricked house. For so many years it had been for him a pied à terre. Those years when the care of infant children dominated his days, when coming up to London for 48 hours seemed such a relief, an escape from the daily round that small people demand. Since his first visits twenty years ago the area bristled with new enterprise. An abandoned Victorian hospital had been turned into expensive apartments; small enterprising businesses had taken over what had been residential property of the pre-war years. Looking up he was conscious of imaginative conversions of roof and loft spaces. What had seemed a wide-ranging community of ages and incomes appeared to have disappeared. Only the Middle Eastern corner shops and restaurants gave back to the area something of its former character: a place where people worked and lived.

It was a tall thin house on four floors. Two rooms at most of each floor, but of a good-size. The ground floor was her London workshop, but as always the blinds were down. In fact, he realised, he’d never been invited into her working space. Over the years she’d come to the door a few times, but like many artists and craftspeople he knew, she fiercely guarded her working space. The door to her studio was never left open as he passed through the hallway to climb the three flights of stairs to her husband’s domain. There was never a chance of the barest peek inside.

Today, she was in New York, and from outside the front door he could hear her husband descend from his fourth floor eyrie. The door was flung open and they greeted each other with the fervour of a long absence of friends. It had been a long time, really too long. Their lives had changed inexplicably. One, living almost permanently in that Italian marvel of waterways and sea-reflected light, the other, still in the drab West Yorkshire city from where their first acquaintance had begun from an email correspondence.

They had far too much to say to one another - on a hundred subjects. Of course the current project dominated, but as coffee (and a bowl of figs and mandarin oranges) was arranged, and they had moved almost immediately he arrived in the attic studio to the minimalist kitchen two floors below, questions were thrown out about partners and children, his activities, and sadly, his recent illness (the stairs had seemed much steeper than he remembered and he was a little breathless when he reached the top). As a guest he answered with a brevity that surprised him. Usually he found such questions needed roundabout answers to feel satisfactory - but he was learning to answer more directly, and being brief, suddenly thought of her and her always-direct questions. She wanted to know something, get something straight, so she asked  - straight - with no ‘going about things’ first. He wanted to get on with the business at hand, the business that preoccupied him, almost to the exclusion of everything else, for the last two days.

When they were settled in what was J’s working space ten years ago now he was immediately conscious that although the custom-made furniture had remained the Yamaha MIDI grand piano and the rack of samplers were elsewhere, along with most of the scores and books. The vast collection of CDs was still there, and so too the pictures and photographs. But there was one painting that was new to this attic room, a Cézanne. He was taken aback for a moment because it looked so like the real thing he’d seen in a museum just weeks before. He thought of the film Notting Hill when William Thacker questions the provenance of the Chagall ‘violin-playing goat’. The size of this Cézanne seemed accurate and it was placed in a similar rather ornate frame to what he knew had framed the museum original. It was placed on right-hand wall as he had entered the room, but some way from the pair of windows that ran almost the length of this studio. The view across the rooftops took in the Tower of London, a mile or so distant. If he turned the office chair in which he was sitting just slightly he could see it easily whilst still paying attention to J. The painting’s play of colours and composition compelled him to stare, as if he had never seen the painting before. But he had, and he remembered that his first sight of it had marked his memory.

He had been alone. He had arrived at the gallery just 15 minutes before it was due to close for the day.  He’d been told about this wonderful must-see octagonal room where around the walls you could view a particularly fine and comprehensive collection of Impressionist paintings. All the great artists were represented. One of Van Gogh’s many Olive Trees, two studies of domestic interiors by Vuillard, some dancing Degas, two magnificent Gaugins, a Seurat field of flowers, a Singer-Sergeant portrait, two Monets - one of a pair of haystacks in a blaze of high-summer light. He had been able to stay in that room just 10 minutes before he was politely asked to leave by an overweight attendant, but afterwards it was as if he knew the contents intimately. But of all these treasures it was Les Grands Arbres by Cézanne that had captured his imagination. He was to find it later and inevitably on the Internet and had it printed and pinned to his notice board. He consulted his own book of Cézanne’s letters and discovered it was a late work and one of several of the same scene. This version, it was said, was unfinished. He disagreed. Those unpainted patches he’d interpreted as pools of dappled light, and no expert was going to convince him otherwise! And here it was again. In an attic studio J. only frequented occasionally when necessity brought him to London.

When the coffee and fruit had been consumed it was time to eat more substantially, for he knew they would work late into the night, despite a whole day tomorrow to be given over to their discussions. J. was full of nervous energy and during the walk to a nearby Iraqi restaurant didn’t waver in his flow of conversation about the project. It was as though he knew he must eat, but no longer had the patience to take the kind of necessary break having a meal offered. His guest, his old friend, his now-being-consulted expert and former associate, was beginning to reel from the overload of ‘difficulties’ that were being put before him. In fact, he was already close to suggesting that it would be in J’s interest if, when they returned to the attic studio, they agreed to draw up an agenda for tomorrow so there could be some semblance of order to their discussions. He found himself wishing for her presence at the meal, her calm lovely smile he knew would charm J. out of his focused self and lighten the rush and tension that infused their current dialogue. But she was elsewhere, at home with her children and her own and many preoccupations, though it was easy to imagine how much, at least for a little while, she might enjoy meeting someone new, someone she’d heard much about, someone really rather exotic and (it must be said) commanding and handsome. He would probably charm her as much as he knew she would charm J.

J. was all and more beyond his guest’s thought-description. He had an intensity and a confidence that came from being in company with intense, confident and, it had to be said, very wealthy individuals. His origins, his beginnings his guest and old friend could only guess at, because they’d never discussed it. The time was probably past for such questions. But his guest had his own ideas, he surmised from a chanced remark that his roots were not amongst the affluent. He had been a free-jazz musician from Poland who’d made waves in the German jazz scene and married the daughter of an arts journalist who happened to be the wife of the CEO of a seriously significant media empire. This happy association enabled him to get off the road and devote himself to educating himself as a composer of avant-garde art music - which he desired and which he had achieved. His guest remembered J’s passion for the music of Luigi Nono (curiously, a former resident of the city in which J. now lived) and Helmut Lachenmann, then hardly known in the UK. J. was already composing, and with an infinite slowness and care that his guest marvelled at. He was painstakingly creating intricate and timbrally experimental string quartets as well as devising music for theatre and experimental film. But over the past fifteen years J. had become increasingly more obsessed with devising software from which his musical ideas might emanate. And it had been to his guest that, all that time ago, J. had turned to find a generous guide into this world of algorithms and complex mathematics, a composer himself who had already been seduced by the promise of new musical fields of possibility that desktop computer technology offered.

In so many ways, when it came to the hard edge of devising solutions to the digital generation of music, J. was now leagues ahead of his former tutor, whose skills in this area were once in the ascendant but had declined in inverse proportion to J’s, as he wished to spend more time composing and less time investigating the means through which he might compose. So the guest was acting now as a kind of Devil’s Advocate, able to ask those awkward disarming questions creative people don’t wish to hear too loudly and too often.

And so it turned out during the next few hours as J. got out some expensive cigars and brandy, which his guest, inhabiting a different body seemingly, now declined in favour of bottled water and dry biscuits. His guest, who had been up since 5.0am, finally suggested that, if he was to be any use on the morrow, bed was necessary. But when he got in amongst the Egyptian cotton sheets and the goose down duvet, sleep was impossible. He tried thinking of her, their last walk together by the sea, breakfast à deux before he left, other things that seemed beautiful and tender by turn . . . But it was no good. He wouldn’t sleep.

The house could have been as silent as the excellent double-glazing allowed. Only the windows of the attic studio next door to his bedroom were open to the night, to clear the room of the smoke of several cigars. He was conscious of that continuous flow of traffic and machine noise that he knew would only subside for a brief hour or so around 4.0am. So he went into the studio and pulled up a chair in front of the painting by Cézanne, in front of this painting of a woodland scene. There were two intertwining arboreal forms, trees of course, but their trunks and branches appeared to suggest the kind of cubist shapes he recognized from Braque. These two forms pulled the viewer towards a single slim and more distant tree backlit by sunlight of a late afternoon. There was a suggestion, in the further distance, of the shapes of the hills and mountains that had so preoccupied the artist. But in the foreground, there on the floor of this woodland glade, were all the colours of autumn set against the still greens of summer. It seemed wholly wrong, yet wholly right. It was as comforting and restful a painting as he could ever remember viewing. Even if he shut his eyes he could wander about the picture in sheer delight. And now he focused on the play of brush strokes of this painting in oils, the way the edge and border of one colour touched against another. Surprisingly, imagined sounds of this woodland scene entered his reverie - a late afternoon in a late summer not yet autumn. He was Olivier Messiaen en vacances with his perpetual notebook recording the magical birdsong in this luminous place. Here, even in this reproduction, lay the joy of entering into a painting. Jeanette Winterson’s plea to look at length at paintings, and then look again passed through his thoughts. How right that seemed. How very difficult to achieve. But that night he sat comfortably in J’s attic and let Cézanne deliver the artist’s promise of a world beyond nature, a world that is not about constant change and tension, but rests in a stillness all its own.
They say farmer’s son will learn to take care of seedlings;
smith’s son will learn how to forge and beat the iron;
baker’s son will learn how best to bake
to conquer best the market…

They say some birdies grow up knitting nests;
***’s foals grow up carrying loads;
cubs grow up learning how to roar most

to scare most the jungle…
The blood brothers2 were brought up
like sibling cubs of the lion
as if Mesopotamia was forest.


On birth day3 they learnt to blow lives out of bodies as candles;
a witness will tell how a citizen was received
by Mukhabarat4 waiters
one of such days,
and describe conviviality at Saddam’s
where the evil has born the arch evil5,
and where they learnt the art of making people yell!

At bees biting babies6 Uday was taught to find rejoice;
at parents wearing Adam’s garment7
in front of children
his father’s great power was worth of praise! 8
and he burnt to rule like father or more!



Would the Maker of the Heaven and Earth hold the fit
at the fate of Nahle Sabet9, the cake thrown to swine?
Would Mucius’s10 soul hold the fit
at the fate of Saad Abd al-Razzek Nihaya11
whose medals and stars were made spots
fit to throw to bin after the half of his life
hurled down from the sky?
Would the pearl Ilham Ali al-Azani12 be thrown like dirt to bin,
father’s fear of Allah tried,
and shot like a sneaking thief,
and the abu sarhan 13 stay without a prize,
and cause more devastations in the garden of Allah?

1. The lion and his cubs: Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and his two sons Uday Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and Qusay Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. - 2. The blood brothers: The criminal brothers. Though crimes committed by Uday, the first born of Saddam Hussein, have been the most reported by media, his young brother was not less cruel. In April 26, 1998 he ordered Colonel Hassan al-Amri to ****** on a grand scale at Abu Ghraib, Iraq’s largest prison, and more than 1,500 prisoners were all massacred the next day. – 3. On birthday: Reports say that Saddam’s sons received pistols as presents on their birthday! – 4. Mukhabarat: Saddam’s secret police. – 5. Where the evil has born the arch evil: such is the description of Saddam’s house. He taught criminality to his sons, and his first born became crueller than father. Uday told Latif Yahia, his body double, whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured. – 6. Bees biting babies: This is one of the tortures applied: naked children in a room with a bee hive, being stung hundreds of times, and their parents were forced to watch behind glasses! -7. Parents wearing Adam’s garment: men forced to **** their wives in front of their horrified young children! - 8. His father’s great power was worth of praise: First you note the irony. Uday told Latif Yahia, “Just wait until I become president. I’ll be crueller than my father ever was…” - 9. Nahle Sabet: A pretty architectural student. The girl resisted and rejected Uday publically; he threw her naked to his pack of wild dogs which ripped her to pieces while he watched, drinking champagne and laughing! Here is the testimony by Latif Yahia: «It was the look he was sporting on a crisp, dry winter day in 1987 when he drove around the campus of the University of Baghdad looking for action (for women to ****). He caught sight of Nahle Sabet, a pretty architecture student from a respected middle-class Christian family he’d noticed when he occasionally attended classes. He cruised past her slowly now, honking, trying to get her attention. She refused to even look in his direction. Two days later Sabet was a few blocks from her family’s home in a Baghdad suburb when a Mercedes sedan screeched to a halt on the sidewalk in front of her. Two men in dark suits got out and identified themselves as secret police. They told her she was wanted at headquarters for questioning and led her into the car. Headquarters turned out to be a farm Uday owned several miles from Baghdad. The frightened girl was hustled into a drawing room, where Uday sat at an antique desk. “You’re very lucky,” he said. “I’ve chosen you as my new girlfriend.” “You’re insane,” Sabet stammered. “I want to go home!” “Strip her,” Uday ordered his guards. The burly men pounced on her and ripped at her clothes until she was cowering naked on the floor. Uday towered over her, unrolling his favourite wire cable. “First I will beat you. Then, if you’re good, I’ll allow you to please myself and my men.” It took Uday and his men almost three months to break Sabet’s spirit. Then Uday was tired of her. Her face was ruined; her body was a mass of bruises. He had the guards take her out to the kennels where he kept his attack dogs. He’d told the keepers several days before to stop feeding them. Nahle Sabet was then smeared with honey and tossed into the kennels, where all evidence of the crime disappeared.» – 10. Mucius, (Gaius Mucius Scaevola): God of bravery and heroism in Ancient Roma. – 11. Saad Abd al-Razzek Nihaya: An Iraqi army officer decorated for bravery in the Iran-Iraq War but that didn’t help him or his new wife. Uday saw the couple walking together, took the girl to a hotel suite. She pleaded with him not to defile her - she had only been married yesterday. Uday beat her until she was ****** then ***** her. Then they heard a long, piercing scream, then silence. The girl had jumped from the seventh floor. Her husband cursed Uday, and he was soon sentenced to death for ‘insulting the president.’ – 12. Ilham Ali al-Azani: Uday always slept with the winner of the Miss Iraq contest. But when attractive student Ilham Ali Al-azami won she turned him down. Uday abducted Miss Iraq to his palace. He ***** her over and over again and then as ‘punishment for her defiance’ allowed all his bodyguards to **** her for an entire week. Then Uday circulated a rumour that the girl was a **** and let her go. The girl’s father, a devote Muslim, was so ashamed that he killed his own daughter. When the aging father appeared at Uday’s palace Uday had the old man shot.- 13. Abu sarhan: Uday seemed proud of his reputation and called himself abu sarhan, Arabic for "wolf".

Excerpt of Gallows Bird in Heaven, http://www.amazon.fr/Gallows-Bird-in-Heaven-ebook/dp/B005JKMW66

Source of the note: www.meritummedia.com, visited 2013/05/19
Excerpt of Gallows Bird in Heaven, http://www.amazon.fr/Gallows-Bird-in-Heaven-ebook/dp/B005JKMW66
WEB: The Mahmudiyah killings were the gang-**** and killing of 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi by United States Army soldiers on March 12, 2006, and the ****** of her family, in a house to the southwest of Yusufiyah, a village to the west of the town of Al-Mahmudiyah, Iraq. Charged with the crimes were five U.S. Army soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment consisting of (I) SGT Paul E. Cortez, (II) SPC James P. Barker, (III) PFC Jesse V. Spielman, (IV) PFC Brian L. Howard, and (V) PFC Steven D. Green, whom the U.S. Army discharged before becoming aware of the crime. Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi was ***** and murdered after her family consisting of her 34-year-old mother Fakhriyah Taha Muhsin, 45-year-old father Qasim Hamza Raheem, and six-year-old sister Hadeel Qasim Hamza were killed. Spielman and Green have been convicted and three others have pleaded guilty.**

World news
US soldier sentenced to 100 years for Iraq **** and ******
The Iraqi identity cards of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her mother, Fakhriya Taha al-Janabi (l) and her father Qasim Hamza al-Janabi
The Iraqi identity cards of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her mother, Fakhriya Taha al-Janabi (l) and her father Qasim Hamza al-Janabi. Photograph: Reuters

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Michael Howard in Baghdad
Friday 23 February 2007 04.15 EST First published on Friday 23 February 2007 04.15 EST
A US soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison yesterday for one of the worst known cases involving US troops in Iraq - the gang **** and ****** of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her father, mother and sister.
The horrific slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and her family happened in Mahmoudiya, around 20 miles south of Baghdad, on March 12 last year.

In spite of the apparently long prison sentence, Sergeant Paul Cortez, 24, can expect to be released on parole in about ten years under a plea bargain deal. He pleaded guilty and agreed to testify in the cases of others alleged to have been involved.

He was given a dishonourable discharge from the army.

Cortez, who broke down in tears earlier this week as he described his role in the **** and murders, is the second soldier to plead guilty. He told the military court at Fort Campbell of the day he had gone with others to the girl's home and ***** her.

The killing was originally reported to be the work of insurgents, but the role of the soldiers emerged in June.

In November, one of the soldiers, specialist James Barker, 24, was sentenced to 90 years in a military prison.

Another, specialist Steven Green, 21, who had been discharged from service with a "personality disorder" before his superiors knew about the crime, is accused of being the ringleader and will face a civilian court because he is no longer in the army.

Two others, private Jesse Spielman, 22, and Bryan Howard, 19, face courts martial in relation to the incident, though neither is accused of participating in the ****.

All five were members of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border.

Cortez, who is from Barstow, California, pleaded not guilty to separate charges of premeditated ******. He was found not guilty on these charges on Wednesday after prosecutors failed to convince a judge that he knew of what they said was Green's intent to ****** the whole family.

Cortez told the court about how the crime was thought up: "While we were playing cards Barker and Green started talking about having *** with an Iraqi female. Barker and Green had already known ... " he said, before breaking down in tears.

He continued after a minute: "Barker and Green had already known what house they wanted to go to ... knew only one male was in the house, and knew it would be an easy target."

At the home, Cortez said he and others took Janabi's father, mother and younger sister into a bedroom and kept her in the living room.

He then described Barker held her down while he undressed her and proceeded to **** her. 'After I was done, myself and Barker switched spots, he said.

He claimed that Green shot and killed the girl's parents and younger sister. "During the time me and Barker were ****** Abeer, I heard five or six gunshots that came from the bedroom. After Barker was done, Green came out of the bedroom and said that he had killed them all, that all of them were dead."

Cortez said he acted as a lookout while Green then ***** the girl.

He claimed Green then shot Janabi several times in the head, and the soldiers poured petrol over her body and set it alight to try to hide the evidence of their crime. Cortez burned his own clothes and Spielman allegedly threw the AK-47 used to **** the family in a canal. Specialist Christopher Till, testified that Cortez told him about the killings in June. "He seemed very remorseful," Till said.

In another development, Iraq's security forces were yesterday facing fresh allegations of brutal ****** assault after four soldiers were accused of ****** a 50-year-old Sunni Turkomen woman and attempting to **** her two daughters in the north-western city of Tal Afar earlier this month.

It is the second allegation of ****** assault against Iraqi forces to surface this week. On Monday, a 20-year-old Sunni woman alleged that she was ***** by three policemen after being detained during a search of her house in Baghdad.
Dr Sam Burton Sep 2014
Whales have no wings to fly
But they have eyes to cry

Whales are so big but kind
They're not easy to find

Whales are definitely so nice
**** them not to eat with rice.


Today is Saturday, Sept. 28, the 269th day of 2014 with 94 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.


In 1825, in England, George Stephenson operated the first locomotive to pull a passenger train.



A thought for the day:



No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City. -- Michael Bloomberg.



QUOTES FOR THE DAY:




He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections.

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

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!



Samuel Adams



In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.




Doris Lessing




“The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.”



Henry David Thoreau



"Everything you can imagine is real."



Pablo Picasso



“Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion.”



Margaret Cho




POETRY




TO THE THAWING WIND



Robert Frost





Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o'er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.


About this poem
"To the Thawing Wind" was first published in Frost's collection "A Boy's Will" (Holt, 1915).

About Robert Frost
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. He was the recipient of four Pulitzer Prizes during his lifetime and read at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. Frost died in Boston on Jan. 29, 1963.

*
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.



This poem is in the public domain.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate





A TIP FOR WOMEN




Choosing Eyeliner



Make sure the color of your eyeliner complements your eyes. Dark brown eyes benefit from plum shades. If you have lighter eyes, try navy and charcoal. Brown eyeliner works well no matter what color your eyes are!




JOKES



WHALES



A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.

The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.

The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.

Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.

The little girl: said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah".

The teacher: asked, " What if Jonah went to hell?"

The little girl: replied, "Then you ask him".





JURY SELECTION

The tiresome jury selection process continued, each side hotly contesting and dismissing potential jurors. Don O'Brian was called for his question session.

"Property holder?"

"Yes, I am, Your Honor."

"Married or single?"

"Married for twenty years, Your Honor."

"Formed or expressed an opinion?"

"Not in twenty years, Your Honor."





Questionable Predictions



Nostradamus recently turned 500. Here are some other predictions from lesser lights:

- Law will be simplified (over the next century). Lawyers will have diminished, and their fees will have been vastly curtailed. --Junius Henri Browne 1893

- By 1960, work will be limited to three hours a day. --John Langdon-Davies

- Hurrah, Boys, we've caught them napping. We'll finish them up and go home to our station. --George A. Custer, 1876, prior to the Battle of Little Big Horn

- Get rid of the pointed-ears guy. --NBC executive, regarding Mr. Spock of STAR TREK, 1966

- Telephones (will) bring peace on earth, eliminate Southern accents, and save the farm by making farmers less lonely. --printed in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Century-old Pronouncements, 1995





Stupid True Headlines



- Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

- Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

- Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted

- Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case

- Survivor of Siamese Twins Joins Parents

- Farmer Bill Dies in House

- Iraqi Head Seeks Arms

- Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?

- Stud Tires Out

- Prostitutes Appeal to Pope

- Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

- Soviet ****** Lands Short of Goal Again

- British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands

- Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

- Eye Drops off Shelf

- Teacher Strikes Idle Kids

- Include your Children When Baking Cookies

- Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim

- Shot Off Woman's Leg Helps Nicklaus to 66

- Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Axe

- Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told

- Miners Refuse to Work after Death

- Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

- Stolen Painting Found by Tree

- Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies

- Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter

- Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years



- Never Withhold ****** Infection from Loved One

- Drunken Drivers Paid $1000 in '84

- War Dims Hope for Peace

- If Strike isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While

- Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

- Enfields Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

- Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge

- Deer **** 17,000

- Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

- Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge

- New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

- Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

- Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

- Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy

- Arson Suspect is Held in Massachusetts Fire

- British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply

- Ban On Soliciting Dead in Trotwood

- Lansing Residents Can Drop Off Trees

- Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

- New Vaccine May Contain Rabies

- Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing

- Deaf College Opens Doors to Hearing

- Air Head Fired

- Steals Clock, Faces Time

- Prosecutor Releases Probe into Undersheriff

- Old School Pillars are Replaced by Alumni

- Bank Drive-in Window Blocked by Board

- Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

- Some Pieces of Rock Hudson Sold at Auction

- *** Education Delayed, Teachers Request Training





HAVE A FABULOUS SUNDAY!
Anwer Ghani Jun 2018
Our Masgouf
The fish has wings, and she feels our pain as a sister. Yes, we are the fish’s brothers and any halo occurs in the clear night is a birthday of this brotherhood. Come here, and see the first cookbook; it had appeared with the seeds of this earth. It had slept in an ancient Sumerian tablet, which was shining as a morning sun. In the heart of (800) recipes in that Iraqi mud, you can see the smoke of our Masgouf and you may smell its exciting flavor. You may know that Masgouf had resided as a moon in our dreams, and we delightedly disappear in its perfume as the butterflies. Our Masgouf, as well as, the face of our river, is pure, but smoky, and I will be so happy if you can see its chants which dance as a fairy at its small bank. Because of this warmhearted brightness, you may like to sit under our smiley tent and musing our truthful Masgouf.



The Dolma’s Master
The small girls in our gardens knew nothing about the flowers or their breathtaking colors, but they are so efficient in making of magic Dolma. In the morning they meet a green dove, and listen to her chants. They are soft and pure exactly as our Dolma’s smiles. She teaches our girls the art of Dolma and the secret of grape’s leaves with a smooth voice and gentle hands. This Dolma’s master is so soft and deep, and she can color the girls’ hearts with the wedding dresses. My mother was a good Dolma’s student, so she had learned its chants expertly and  wore her wedding dress early.

The Kebab Glory
The Iraqis can’t live without war or Kebab and can’t smell the morning breeze without their deep voices. I am an Iraqi man, and my soul was kneaded with Kebab’s Sumac. My dreams had immersed in the Kebab’s perfume and straggled in the desert of sad Sumac. Kebab, which we inherited from our Babylonian, can’t be transfigured without a soft lap, and any saying disagrees this is a hard illusion, but essentially you need the Iraqi sad smile to find the Kebab’s sublime glory.
james nordlund Oct 2018
Since our political system has been laid bare, after RumputiN was installed
in the Blackhouse, it's beautiful complex of lack of complexity, in a word,
conspiracy of conspiracies, has moved me and "...we(e),..." to have as a few
of my favorite things be far more reaching questions, out of necessity. Like,
without acknowledging, and demanding others do the same, that it's been
purposely engineered to be a criminal injustice system instead, how can one
even have a real conversation that would lead to potential for real change
of it taking place in reality, if you don't know who you were, where you've
been, how on God's green Earth can you expect to know who..., where you are
and what's going on, necessary to start thinking about changing anything,
even yourself, as well as directing who you will be and where you will
be going, etc.?  Swine slaughtering lower-middle-class to poor men en masse,
mostly of color, instead of just doing the usual liquidation of their ases
and assets, are just serial murderers masquerading as cops, and what goes
around comes around, no?  If you're not taking bullets you're making them.  
Also, people are fed up with felonious RumputiN and his rootin' tootin'
organized crime family spree from the Blackhouse, which should be prosecuted
using the RICO Statute instead of just being elaborately covered up by Mueller
for he's not using it and he's handing out immunities like soldiers candy to
Iraqi kids, duh.  I would add some salient pointless points, beyond the 'empty
boat' of Zen, and 'useless tree' of the Tao, we can understand the burden
placed on our shoulders by our ancestry not exercising their responsibilities
as they should have, and thereby it's Siamese twin sisters, their freedoms,
Withered like unused muscles as well, as a panultimate challenge, saving
humanity, literally. Also, understanding Jung's "80 % of all actions, thoughts,
feelings we have, that we acknowledge, or don't, perceive or don't, are
compensatory towards our pasts", necessitates an integral understanding of
Satre's existentialism' meaning of angst, as experience integral to life, not
opposed to it, but, rather, central to it, and a nexus of it.  This is more
than an embracing of gestalt's, Perls', moment, now. Moving away from sophist
perspective, we also experience the meaning of life is struggle, which comes
through all our meaningful work, succinctly. Further, what is life beyond that
foci is also, the where, when, who, how, and sometimes why too (but never Y2K)
of life; beyond our masks and ego fulfilling stories, schtick, lines, etc..
Do we struggle, not just as lifelong students, with the impossible, not just
the improbable.  Yet, it's actually more layered than that in a much larger
dimensional paradigm than 4 dimensions.  Yes, the effects of our causes in any
action usually have effects that undo our causes as we act them out, intend,
present them, etc..  Yet, those more superficial, linear, first conclusion
layers are not less effective, per se, as the complexity of Karma, Dharma are
beyond our normal comprehension. What is the root of thought, feeling, the root
of feeling, being, the root of being, the extent to which we struggle with what
it is, no?  For, as the following twig of poetree gleans: Soul//
As my breath
is the one, prana,/
And the life's pulse, pala,/
Reaching angelic source, sura,/

So is this mind, manas, a
/  Flowering unfoldment,
/ Unendingly touching
/ The eye
that would it see,/  
Unbeckoning unto thee./
As well, this Bodhi, a temple,/

Of the four and fifth, nur,/  
So entered by atma, a ray of thy sun,/  
Thus being
winged, and
/  As such with wind,/
Flying only in dharma's dance,/
Is returning
to, Brahma, you./  For, there yet, by thy grace, go I./  
We are not who we think
we are, we are, rather, the extent to which we struggle to evolve to be some-
things, spirit, soul, Bodhi, etc., on the path of study that could and should
be one, you, me, forever asked and never answered.  Yet, even if we lived as
prayer, our light only adding to the well of light, our every step in grace,
leaving no footprints that followed none, echoing in all ways, always,
sometimes, like pulling teeth, "...we(e),...", must stalk our words from our
insides 'til we wrangle them, like cats, to the tip of our tongues, no?  For,
"Words weren't meant for cowards..." and we must "be brave...", Happy Rhodes.
We can't allow ourselves the luxury of taking our supposedly 'golden silence'
all the way to the bank, as your average bear does.  These are the end times,
we successfully struggle, to abolish global defacto-slavery by the non-renew-
able energies' corporate structure's machine and it's convolution, against
the global oligarchy's premeditated mass-****** of 7.5 billion people, or
humanity's extinct.  Gandhi, "(supposed) science is the root of all opression"
and, "...we(e),..." must be the change we want in the world".  Is not life
relation, are we not responsible for one another, are not all threads in
the fabric of life needed, as is the evoliutionary ones' mendings, for we
can't allow it to be torn asunder?  If not here, then where, if not now, when,
not you, who? Viva la evolucion.  Indivisible, illimitable you, GOTV.
Please copy, share as you will. this GOTV twig of poetree   :)   reality
Faleeha Hassan Apr 2016
Shortly before my father died, he whispered to me longingly: “Daughter, treasure this, because it authenticates your heritage to our kinsfolk!”  When I accepted this object, I discovered it was a stone with inscriptions I did not understand and delicate, mysterious lines.  He continued, “It is a keepsake from our great-great grandfather and can ultimately be traced back to Bilal, the Holy Prophet’s first muezzin, and his father, who was the king of Ethiopia.”  I accepted this small heirloom, which I carried everywhere with me in my handbag.  The person who shared my life under the title of “husband,” however, threw it down the drain at our house, thinking—as he told me—that it was a fetish.  From then till now I have endured successive exiles.  So I wrote this poem to explain the secret of my skin color—given that I am a native of al-Najaf, Iraq—spiritually, mournfully, and poetically!

My father said: “You were born quite unexpectedly,
Remote from Aksum, like a beauty spot for al-Najaf—‘the ******’s Cheek.’
Your one obsession has been writing, but
The sea will run dry before you arrive at the meaning of meaning.”
He affirmed: “During a pressing famine,
I devoted myself to watching over every breath you took.  
I would ****** my hand through the film of hope
To caress your spirit with bread.
You would burp, and
I would delightedly endure my hunger and fall asleep.
I could only find the strength to fib to your face and say I was happy.
I would feel devastated when you fidgeted,
Because you would always head toward me,
And I felt helpless.”
Aksum!  They say you’re far away!
“No, it’s closer to you than your exile.”
“And now?”
“Don’t talk about ‘now’ while we’re living it.”
“The future depresses me.  How can I proceed?”
How can the ear be deaf to the wailing from the streets?
Aksum, you have colored my skin.  Al-Najaf has freshened my spirit.
She knows and does the opposite.
She knows that I inter only dirt above me, and
That I deny everything except spelling out words:
M: Mother, who went walking down the alley of no return.
F: Father, who hastened after her.
B: Brother, who never earned that title.
S: Sister who buttoned her breast to a loving tear, no matter how fake.
………………….There’s no one I care about!
The trees tremble some times, and we don’t ask why.
My life surrounds me the way prison walls surround suspects;
I am the victim of a building erected by a frightened man.
With its talons time scratches its tales on me,
And I transform them into a silent song
Or, occasionally, a psalm of sobs.
Father, do you believe that--the roots have been torn asunder?
Fantasies began to carry me from al-Najaf to Afyon
And from Afyon to nonexistence,
Yellow teeth stretching all the way.
“History’s not anything you’ve made,”
One American neighbor tells another.
He’s surprised to see me.
“Who are you?” he asks when he doesn’t believe his eyes.
Would he understand the truth of my origin if I told him I was born in al-Najaf
Or that Aksum has veiled my face?
I have walked and walked and walked.
I’m exhausted, Father.
Is your child mine?
Show yourself and return me to the purity of your *****.
Allow me to occupy the seventh vertebra of fantasy!
Don’t eject me into a time I don’t fit.
I need you.
I ask you:
Has my Lord forbidden me to be happy?
Am I forbidden to preserve
What I have left
And sit some warm evening
Averting my ear from a voice that doesn’t interest me?
Answer me, Father!
Or change the face of our garden
So it changes . . . .to what they believe!
Translated by William Hutchins
http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/arabic/black-iraqi-woman
Faleeha Hassan May 2016
A Babylonian once told me:
When my name bores me,
I throw it in the river
And return renewed!
* * * * *
Basra existed
Even before al-Sayyab* viewed its streets
Bathed in poetry
As verdant as
A poet’s heart when her
Prince pauses trustfully to sing
While sublime maidens dance--
Brown like mud in the orchards
Soft like mud in the orchards
Scented with henna like mud in the orchards—
And a poem punctuates each of their pirouettes as
They walk straight to the river.
I’ve discovered no place in the city broader than Five Mile.
He declared:
I used to visit there night and day,
When sun and moon were locked in intimate embrace.
Then they quarreled.
The Gulf’s water was sweet,
Each ship would unload its cargo,
And crew members enjoyed a bite of an apple
And some honey.
The women were radiant;
So men’s necks swiveled each time ladies’ shadows
Moved beneath the palms’ fronds.
These women needed no adornment;
Translated by William Hutchins
……………………………………………………………..
Basra, also written Basrah  is the capital of Basra Governorate, located on the Shatt al-Arab river in southern Iraq between Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of 1.5 million of 2012.
Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is handled at the port of Umm Qasr.
The city is part of the historic location of Sumer, the home of Sinbad the Sailor, and a proposed location of the Garden of Eden. It played an important role in early Islamic history and was built in 636 AD or 14 AH. It is Iraq's second largest and most populous city after Baghdad.
Basra is consistently one of the hottest cities on the planet, with summer temperatures regularly exceeding 50 °C (122 °F)
Badr Shakir al Sayyab (December 24, 1926 – 1964) was an Iraqi and Arab poet. Born in Jekor, a town south of Basra in Iraq, he was the eldest child of a date grower and shepherd.
He graduated from the Higher teachers training college of Baghdad in 1948
Badr Shakir was dismissed from his teaching post for being a member of the Iraqi Communist Party.
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab was one of the greatest poets in Arabic literature, whose experiments helped to change the course of modern Arabic
poetry. At the end of the 1940s he launched, with Nazik al-Mala'ika,and shortly followed by ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī and Shathel Taqa, the free verse movement and gave it credibility with the many fine poems he published in the fifties.
These included the famous "Rain Song," which was instrumental in drawing attention to the use of myth in poetry. He revolutionized all the elements of the poem and wrote highly involved political and social poetry, along with many personal poems.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
you really want to attack feminism? now's the time... disown the heritage of male circumcision (m.g.m.) - if you're really peeved off with feminism... stop circumcising... then watch the show.

a girl writes something like this:

My mind wanders too far for me to catch up
The world seems so foggy
I can’t find my thoughts                   -

well, no wonder psychiatry invented
secondary fiction -
dissected the individual into ego (brain)
heart (superego) and **** (id) -
or first person, second person and third person
narratives - she writes *my mind

but then writes a ukulele song -
between possession and dispossession the sigma
is riddled - one deems ownership but
is unsure what it owns on the pH (patent hyperbola-scale) -
the world ain't ******* foggy -
it's foggy because at one time to own the mind,
at another you don't, at one time you
own your thoughts, at another you turn into a robot -
thinking = a conscious affair to obstruct eating a
desert when fulfilled - as Heidegger put it (mildly):
we're still not thinking - the one antibiotic that
treats even the SS man's horrid actions:
um d'uh... i wasn't taught to think, therefore
i can plead the insanity parole - mm d'uh... you can't!
the biggest excuse in jurisprudence is lack
of thinking - people excuse their actions by
excusing their lack of thinking - apparently you
can commit genocide and be pardoned by
excusing your inability to think -
you can **** people, torture them, but be pardoned
on the grounds that you were without
the other essential synonymous with soul... thought...
you can walk free and pardoned when you
prove to people you never learned how to think
outside the schooling realm of up-kept Pythagoras
and 1 + 1 = 2 or a + b + j + e + c + t + i + o + n = abjection -
what a waste of time democratic law is -
never mind humans invoking theocratic jurisprudence
through angelic gossip (that won't help either)
of missing phallus - flap flap - flap flap -
go on, nose dive from the twin towers - pigeon **** for
words in the Koran's worth -
forget proving the soul, or god, do what Heidegger did
by saying: i doubt thought exists -
i'd like to define it, a soul is easier to define, something
not prone to destruction - proof of thought is harder,
too multi-tasked - existential Pandora -
it's hard to imagine people actually thinking when
given automatic tasks - no wonder they sometimes
slip on god's great banana skin - unlike animals
who only have an automaton of eating greenery implanted
in them - whether mammalian elephant tusk or
raw canine chew - their automation is reduced to
constantly need to eat - we have more luxuries -
a naturalist's ***-life is a monologue on the Savannah -
keen on dung-beetles, not so keen on oyster-******* -
i can just **** and laugh given i have my excess skin...
you need a sparring partner - because wanking
without ******* gave birth to Onan - why didn't Freud
spot the Onan Complex? oh wait... in the image
of the Gods... all the Gods have *******...
some dumb Iraqi shepherd cut the details off...
and so came the dominance of woman with what
became the ******* excess metaphorical with her excess...
and so the two factions clashed in Egypt;
oh i believe it... i believe it as in to not ridicule it...
too many serious people... terrorists... orthodox clingers-on...
why not believe it in order to spare yourself
the senseless gymnastics of wordplay governed by ridicule?
there's no harm in believing it... when you
don't have to practice the religiosity behind it with
the dress-code included
; mind i wear a t-shirt while
you wear the tux? we're going to the same opera,
and it's pretty dark in the theatre... ah... of course you
won't mind!
Barton D Smock Oct 2013
I bury the carnival fish.  my neighbor pretends he is casting while my son ***** on the opening of a plastic bag.  I take the bag and blow into it then pop it on my palm.  my neighbor’s heart is safe but he tries to grab it anyway.  the vietnam war is a pop-up book of the vietnam war.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
i actually like the way slavoj žižek understands fascism, given the fourth movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony... as it stands: i really had to take pleasure in my suffering... i once called it: an exquisite pain... it's not that acknowledging pain is difficult, what's difficult is taking pleasure in it... on a whim... nothing as flamboyant as baron sacher-masoch's take on it, transcending toward the ****** thesis... i am the grey matter, the everyday comparison to a factotum sort of analogue of what pain constitutes... and i'm actually free from depressive apathy... i am sometimes prone to laugh like i might be experiencing what the Fore women experienced... the kuru "disease", otherwise known as the creutzfeldt-jakob "disease"... yes... mm... uncontrollable laugher... akin to St. Vitus' dance... sydenham's chorea.. it's hard to see why there should be any cure to the experience... given that the experience is so liberating and has no materialistic mono-mania of a well tended to economy... cannibalism really has a great array of noun-arsenal... a bit like the poetry of Christianity it's akin to... to really believe this *******: you have to take it to the extremes and make every word: utterly isolated, and in a sentence utterly meaningless... it's like a swarm of wasps honing in on a body of a bear that mistook its ash-phlegm nest for a beehive feast... sometimes it happens... but sure as all else concerning: why not take pleasure in an anti-cross crucifixion, i.e. a sick-bed? sure, it's less theatre and many less marble statues worthy of a church... but, if according to žižek / rzirzek / really? ź ż vs. ž... a fascists takes pleasure from suffering... i must be in this club, since i do, the pain in my brain with its sizzling quiz of blood emeshed in synapses has moved to my *******... ******* ahoy! i sit in a chair, and when drink (esp. when drinking): they are goosebump prone, titilating me... amusing me... all the pain concerning my brain has moved into a pleasure reaction bound to the testicles... i couldn't have foreseen this waterfall if i didn't explore the word fascist beyond the communal horror of spotting an orthodox practitioner in either street or cyber-space...

e.g. the fore of papua new guinea
(ghee-knee... later the debated about
quinoa... apparently it's not qui-
       or french agree, we-noah...
  but something else... oh, it's related to a quiz
asking me whether i could possibly be a 5% liberal
elitist... well, if you were reading
the sunday times magazine: it would ask you
that... i did cut it apart as qui- -noa...
  but apparently it's pronounced:
kin-wah...                 once again my point:
you don't use highly concentrated phonetic
units, i.e. diacritical marks...
you're bound to leisure in this linguistic hell
of constantly "correcting" people....
just saying... what's the matter, toad stole
your burp?)

   and i really wanted to write a neat poem...
poems like this emerge,
you go to a shop, by the cheapest whiskey
two cans of beer and a bottle of cola...
it's early February... the cars parked
have the eerie circumstance of jack o'fogfrost
breathing onto the windows...
    your fingers itch from the cold...
you start to really see a skeleton walking
rather than something resembling protein
fat and carbohydrate...
    thankful for winter: to naturally imagine
a skeleton walk in the cold
   smoking a cigarette and drinking the beer
while the whiskey cools in your rucksack...
all you end up needing is
   a square mile, and outer English suburbia...
and a look into that forest you once frequented
walking as if with gauged eyes into
the custard darkness...
   then sitting on a stump, taking all the clothing
items from your torso and listening in
as something neared, cracked a branch
and you uttered into the forest:
  no animal would dare come so near...
      
... (man has to drink, take a break...
         sneaky ******* get to see
a work in progress... lucky them...
           too much of a sober me)...
hey! i'm warming the stove, it's not going to
shoot out firecrackers made from words
into a
     hoghmony celebration.... oh look...
another googlewhack!
      http://tinyurl.com/z8xeqpsn
(billionth of another! this is how i play the "lottery")
ah freckle feckle ****... scoot for new years...
hogmaney...  hogmoney...
  hagmanny...
                 ­  ****! Hogmanay!
    what was i "saying"?
                            
ah wait... i know... i know...
i was watching this film goat (2016)....
with james francko doing cameo but mainly producing...
if anything could put you off going to
university, well, notably an american university
it's this film... now i drink, i really do, heavily...
but what went on in that film was nothing short
of happens when people lack any respect for liquor...
i could watch the roman empire in a zoo...
what i witnessed in this film was:
well... can't see a point of caging a lion,
but i can see all the reason for caging man...
but the problem arises with:
you can take children to a zoo...
          you couldn't even want a child
to experience this sort of Iraqi **** made in
America...
                       i drink, i really do...
i slurped on a prostitutes ****** when drunk...
hell... i even wrote this...
          and i am really starting to believe
that going to university was the worst mistake of my life...
i left it, educated as a chemist,
without a clear move toward a career as a chemist...
    would i care to learn the use of language
to university level? i.e. get an english degree?
      not if i were a middle-class woman
   who's daddy was a doctor or a dentist...
                            people from my background,
double that up with a father who works in construction
and me being of immigrant stock (when will i get
to say expat?) -
  it was the biggest mistake of my life...
you see... other immigrants start to get jealous...
     they say you have to die: for raising for head
above the water...
         a bit like they kicked the hell out of
Jamie Redknapp's career in football...
now he's a pundit... but not a football player...
they smacked him about...
good thing my grandfather was a Silesian miner
for some time... i decided to dig trenches...
yes, metaphor: write poems...
   because i still can't see what nature ordained me
to possess... and why these little hitlers decided wasn't
fair for their "sense of worth"... oh i can name them...
one of them, a childhood sweatheart of a friend,
egyptian / persian, used to call me during
weekdays and sing to me over the phone...
   apparently he could ******* 20 times a day...
i tried 4 times in one day... nothing came out...
      the other was an add on to being in school from
the age of 16 to 18... a paddy-sikh...
   loved barrington levy and driving a car while
******... loved the whole gansta gimmick...
a complete *******...
                           and to think i was fooled into their
little of jealousy... this will make absolutely no sense
to you... given we (a) never spoke outside the realm
of my tornado... and (b) had a coffee?
               well... let's just say: one stupid move on
my behalf while intoxicated on marijuana
aged 21 taught me all i needed to know...
  from the age of 21 through to the age i am now:
some could consider me a monk...
                 or that infamous word: cenobite -
oh i'm just obsessing about how i want to
put my top 3 picks into classic.fm's hall of fame,
and write 3. christopher young's something to think about,
2. christopher young's something to think about...
1. christopher young's something to think about...
as i realised the past two days...
  collecting a personal library of classical music
makes no sense... unless it's Händel... (æ, i.e. :)...
and classical music only makes sense
with a d.j., and yes: a radio...
            there's no point being poncy about classical
music when you collect it...
        unless it might be something by Hans Zimmer
or any other movie soundtrack...
      and you can just sit back, listen to the radio,
and the classics just come and come...
i spent today lying in bed, because classic.fm
was playing from about 6am to about 1pm...
  and then i extended it to 3pm because
of aled jones and the voice so necessary as
that of alexander armstrong... in between?
                     bill turnbull... a news anchor
if i'm not mistaken... couldn't handle it...
  no, not the voice: the choice of music...
but even such people are absolutely necessary...
and would anyone care to remember
the ****** megastore on oxford street?
  the classical music department?
does anyone remember is being sealed off by
   glass like an aquarium from all the other music
genre departments in the store?
   a bit like walking into a lunatic asylum:
everything had to be cork-lined waiting for a Proustian
novel... first you had to appreciate
and build up a palette for silence... before
some concerto could be "ate" like refined sushi...
    radio and classical music does work,
i might have made a mistake collective obscure tastes,
i.e. proto-folk examples in Polish and compositions
of German industrial music...
   i might have done that... yeah, so true with the jazz...
but you have to have a Houdini weak-spot...
so in bed... rummaging through the radio and
television listings and reviews...
   after doing a bit of a crossword (which i can't
for the love of god) and a 6 x 6 su doku...
        now that's definitely sunday activity...
looking through the radio and tv listings...
   esp. noting the day's programme of bbc radio 4...
well, it's not that i'm a convert, with a house
in south-west london...
                i just heard that england is famous
for its eccentrics... i wanted to experience
    the most eccentric practice on these isles...
      tending to a garden would have made sense...
if it wasn't February...
   so reading the listings and reviews was the next
best thing...
    what with confusing Aled Jones with Alex Jones...
that famous britpop bassist turned cheese-maker.

then how do you begin taking fatal
mortal steps, simply motivated by biological
dynamics? i could have ended that
servitude to the waterfall, or should
i correct myself: required it to continue...
      but then interludes in the case of opera
leave me peasant-like, most ignoble...
      there's the 15 minutes were no fame is mentioned,
and no one forces art to become advert...
   since we're talking of the thin-red-line,
i can't but help myself reading more book reviews
in English, than actual books in Polish...
because i care for the cognitive labourers,
i really do... i think they are needed
to bypass actual books, meaning they do all
the work... or should i say arbeiten?
well.. enough critics about, you get to
dissociate yourself from the actual origin...
     a bit like waving your hand at god
and embracing the "awe" inspiring profusion
of the human tongue becoming over-bearing...
not even bearing grudges...
  but no gratitudes either...
                it just is what you care to make of
germans the sole originators of
   the proto "bayeux" tapestry given a.i. -
but then you treat the germans as they
are currently given the sway,
and you awake a humanity in them:
a humanity only germans know how
to acknowledge: a collectivisation -
germans know no concept of individualism
akin to the late-removed isle Saxons...
i.e. the English... the English are always
blitzkrieg specific about the individual,
the fact that so many individuals get a chance to vote
leasves me with blisters of what i can best
estimate as noted to being conscience...
          the germans are best appropriate to
express the volk... the english are like stuffed
animals worshiping the name Byron... Milton...
Blake... Newton...
         and let's leave them there, because if they
finally manage a homogeny of an ethnic
accord to give a momentum unto it via their lack
cohesion... i am assured a passage to
the houses of parliament to laugh,
as a test of my carve to veto, rather than vote.
mainland europe calls them: the islanders!
you can't help but see a care to blow up
the tunnel la mange... the channel tunnel...
because if a 2nd ****** arose...
the tanks would flod that serene countryside...
     i come across foxes all the time...
once i picked a dead fox near the bus station
in romford using two bin bags from the nearby skip...
and walked with it home, weighed it,
just under 10 kilograms... i weighted myself first,
then with the dead fox enclosed in the bin bags...
then i walked with the fox and threw it into
a meadow... i was thinking along the lines:
at least the sanitation officer will have a day off..
  obviously i was tattooed with the idea that
i was some sort of shaman, given two people witnessed
me picking up the corpse...

900 gull herrings eating their own...
      chimanzees also take to a nibble...
        banana slug females are fond of eating
"******", when the mating gets heavy...
not ever, as ever, but with Darwinism had i ever
managed to see a woman like a mantis...
  sorry... looking at the ***-hole of nature like that
will eventually leave you paralysed and
not even awe-struck but fear-woken...
             because it really can't be so much a desire
to look at it as if it was necessarily needing
incorporation, but was necessarily incorporated
nonetheless...
         the ogasawara incident... 1945...
       yoshio had a fine fine palette...
                          cannibalism was never suggested
as equivalent of a war crime...
  and one said: human thighs tasted like chicken,
another said: a bit like raw tuna...
          judeo-christian food prohibitions...
    well... once the prohibitions come along with
the poetry... left can mean right...
and right will evidently mean left...
                 during the yuan dynasty...
         pedohpiles were more or less reductive in
their transgressions... they ate more: than they ******.
two freedoms then, china prone to omnivore status
and hindustan prone to vegetarianism...
               both examples lead to a success rate of
a billion examples...
                       it's only these pest-like infections of
mono-this omni-that are keen to always give their
i love yous as politico dictates...
  maxims even... so very fond they are: of their maxims...
they even infected their youth in the 21st century
stating that: no one is akin to us,
if not in his youth, having been ***** by abou10
10 favourite maxims... most kept, hardly any employed...
1261 edict: when children were asked to stop
plucking out their eyeballs...
   horror films are therefore, equivalent to soft-core
******... history is thrice over the real horror movie...
    but given our faculty of memory is so
(putting it mildly) "biased"... i think we're over-sensitive
in giving imagination the scenes from both
horror and Disney... we've already gave the former
and the latter we have just sold...
           but hey! a placentta fry-up like a setting sun,
illuminates with more choice of hue than
noon and the "dehydrated" shadow (yes,
i know, a better word would be suited, but i have
no time to ascribe it to a tailor-fitting, a neat and tidy
resonance... treat dehydrated as a dwarf shadow,
mingle that with photon and phonetic -
that light illuminates, and traps things into bites,
like H or He denote hydrogen and helium
respectively... and qui- and -noa denote
necessary argument of what sound goes where,
rightly)...

evidently i did take the quiestionnaire about
whether i am a liberal elite...
it had to be done... why would i otherwise read a sunday
newspaper?
            end result? 0-50 (norm), 51-100 (aspiring),
    101-150 (not quiet there), >150 (elitist snob)...
(ref. the 5%, charles murray, coming apart,
   the bell curve... superzips)
q1: what is the top prize in the thunderball and when
is it drawn?
   a1: i play the googlewhack lottery.
      alt. a1: 0 (alright), 5 (days rights), 10 (what is thunderball?)
             talk of chav tax...
q2: how many people in your vicinity voted for
    Brexit?
    a2: i just had an opinion... voting is cheap
when you can't express a ballot veto.
   alt. a2: 0 (all of them), 5 (one or two)... 10 (aghast at the question)
              a bit ******* obvious, no point explaining....
q3: what is your favourite dish on th
Traveler May 2013
THAT FIRST GULF WAR ON T.V.
In blissful ignorance I cheered
Along with the rest of the American idiots
Bomb those **** Iraqi's
Oh you can't mess with the USA....
Then it happens, the media focused in on a truckload of orphaned Iraqi children
They were just innocent little kids
You could see the trauma reflected in their shell-shocked eyes
I cried with self-loathing, empathy, Stop, what are we doing...
I just wanted to hug those children and make them all better
This was the turning point in my world view.
A torture to an Iraqi schoolboy
Unsure of his way to his dwelling,
Fatigued, out of breath, shattered,
The desert wind blowing so unkind
Down the narrow roads as a voice
For help a mournful call
Reminding us how lonely he is,
Father missing, Mother *****
And the Iraqi girl friend dead,
Troupes watch in silence from roof
Date palms line up the shore in grief
Leaning towards the dead sky,
Silently with prayers
While the dawn wind blows.
While the dusk light fades.
     while the dark night falls.

-Williamsji Maveli (Williams George)

www.williamsgeorge.com
Dad’s passing spans 18 months beginning with lung cancer surgeon removes left lung  for 6 weeks he receives radiation treatments Dad gains strength everyone gives thumbs up within several months doctors discover cancer spread to tumor in brain head shaved tumor removed skull resembles stitched baseball Dad lapses into twilight state body shrinks everyone knows his life is ending doctors and family wait for cancer to attack vital ***** only matter of time in january 1991 iraqi scud missiles launch at israel Odysseus in lobby of movie theater when he hears news calls Mom from telephone booth she asks if he is ok nothing could prepare him for horror he feels witnessing Dad slowly die Mom Penelope Odysseus quite vulnerable during this time dependent on trained intensive-care nurse to watch over Dad at home administer drugs monitor condition nurse able-bodied to guide or carry Dad to bathroom assist in his goings cleaning him Mom hires several nurses who each borrow money from her and Penelope Sean each nurse never repays loan and steals jewelry from Mom other belongings from house once a week Odysseus takes Dad out to lunch accompanied by nurse Odysseus places cap with bulls insignia on Dad’s bald stitched-up head Dad nods gives high-five Odysseus talks about feats michael jordan and entire team perform Dad avid fan Odysseus drives Dad nurse in toyota to favorite lunch spots Dad has no appetite no words but manages frail smile in august 1991 Odysseus has first one-man show at prestigious gallery run by Keith ******* Keith published Odysseus in college literary magazine decade earlier 17 large color field scapes hang on two long walls Dad too ill to attend opening never sees show in film documentary shot at gallery by Sean Odysseus explains “the work is about opening up possibilities clean slates for new worlds rawest moment of narrative very beginning of story all we are presented with is stage i’m scared of story right now suspicious of story don’t even want to deal with story once story starts then everything gets messed up all these things happen at this point in story it’s just this exciting stage full of possibilities full of potential the very beginning and you don’t know what is presented yet” near end of Dad’s struggle in late summer Odysseus asks Mom and Penelope to allow him to visit father alone in hospital they reluctantly consent Dad lying semiconscious in bed Odysseus holds back tears looks at withered father Dad breathes inconsistent occasional fluttering eyelids Odysseus begins to talk aloud about their lives together wonders if Dad reached his goals? does he feel fulfilled with life? is he prepared for death? Dad is 71 years old does he feel cheated of time? did Odysseus disgrace Dad or make him proud? Odysseus feels guilt suspects he may have embarrassed even shamed Dad wonders if Dad deep in his heart believes Odysseus is sad disappointment? he forces words out of his mouth “Dad can you hear me? Dad i love you Dad forgive me please for not becoming what you wanted me to be Dad” phone rings suddenly who could be calling at solemn moment? Odysseus lets it ring but ringing will not stop unwillingly he answers “hello?” “Odysseus don’t do it! Don’t hurt Dad!” it is Penelope calling worried he might commit some murderous act Odysseus and Penelope snap at each other for moment he hangs up thinks what a tragic breach of trust realizes no one not Penelope Mom Chris anyone in family honestly trusts him he wonders if Dad overheard angered remarks with Penelope what a sad way to die hearing your own children quarreling Dad dies august 31 1991 same date cousin Chris’s son Maynard celebrates 3rd birthday Mom’s brother Karl comes from california to help family discovers Dad took out undisclosed $15,000. loan to offset lack of earnings Dad typically overextended himself Karl pitches in to compensate for borrowed money after Dad dies Schwartzpilgrim house falls apart Mom weeps for many months they were married more than 50 years Odysseus feels sorry for Mom all alone in big house she invites family for dinner but it is never same Odysseus’s inheritance is old toyota with 80 thousand miles Dad said he wanted to buy Odysseus new volvo Odysseus is grateful for car which allows him to drive Farina to lake in dream Dad is sitting in back seat bandages wrap around his head same way doctors dressed him after brain tumor surgery Odysseus driving toyota looking for parking space there are none to be found they drive around block several times Dad suggests “try driving around the block one more time maybe parking space will open up” Odysseus answers “no i think we need to go few blocks further” Dad says “Odysseus you’re in drivers’ seat now but try my way one last time” they drive around block find parking space right in front of house Odysseus wakes up confused asks aloud “Dad is dead right?” it is not easy losing a father forgiving forgetting
The overall cost in human lives of American actions in the Philippines was horrific. One scholar has concluded concerning the American occupation that "In the fifteen years that followed the defeat of the Spanish in Manila Bay in 1898, more Filipinos were killed by U.S. forces than by the Spanish in 300 years of colonization. 1.5 million died out of a total population of 6 million."**

World news
US soldier sentenced to 100 years for Iraq **** and ******
The Iraqi identity cards of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her mother, Fakhriya Taha al-Janabi (l) and her father Qasim Hamza al-Janabi
The Iraqi identity cards of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her mother, Fakhriya Taha al-Janabi (l) and her father Qasim Hamza al-Janabi. Photograph: Reuters
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Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Michael Howard in Baghdad
Friday 23 February 2007 04.15 EST First published on Friday 23 February 2007 04.15 EST
A US soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison yesterday for one of the worst known cases involving US troops in Iraq - the gang **** and ****** of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her father, mother and sister.
The horrific slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and her family happened in Mahmoudiya, around 20 miles south of Baghdad, on March 12 last year.

In spite of the apparently long prison sentence, Sergeant Paul Cortez, 24, can expect to be released on parole in about ten years under a plea bargain deal. He pleaded guilty and agreed to testify in the cases of others alleged to have been involved.

He was given a dishonourable discharge from the army.

Cortez, who broke down in tears earlier this week as he described his role in the **** and murders, is the second soldier to plead guilty. He told the military court at Fort Campbell of the day he had gone with others to the girl's home and ***** her.

The killing was originally reported to be the work of insurgents, but the role of the soldiers emerged in June.

In November, one of the soldiers, specialist James Barker, 24, was sentenced to 90 years in a military prison.

Another, specialist Steven Green, 21, who had been discharged from service with a "personality disorder" before his superiors knew about the crime, is accused of being the ringleader and will face a civilian court because he is no longer in the army.

Two others, private Jesse Spielman, 22, and Bryan Howard, 19, face courts martial in relation to the incident, though neither is accused of participating in the ****.

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All five were members of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border.

Cortez, who is from Barstow, California, pleaded not guilty to separate charges of premeditated ******. He was found not guilty on these charges on Wednesday after prosecutors failed to convince a judge that he knew of what they said was Green's intent to ****** the whole family.

Cortez told the court about how the crime was thought up: "While we were playing cards Barker and Green started talking about having *** with an Iraqi female. Barker and Green had already known ... " he said, before breaking down in tears.

He continued after a minute: "Barker and Green had already known what house they wanted to go to ... knew only one male was in the house, and knew it would be an easy target."

At the home, Cortez said he and others took Janabi's father, mother and younger sister into a bedroom and kept her in the living room.

He then described Barker held her down while he undressed her and proceeded to **** her. 'After I was done, myself and Barker switched spots, he said.

He claimed that Green shot and killed the girl's parents and younger sister. "During the time me and Barker were ****** Abeer, I heard five or six gunshots that came from the bedroom. After Barker was done, Green came out of the bedroom and said that he had killed them all, that all of them were dead."

Cortez said he acted as a lookout while Green then ***** the girl.

He claimed Green then shot Janabi several times in the head, and the soldiers poured petrol over her body and set it alight to try to hide the evidence of their crime. Cortez burned his own clothes and Spielman allegedly threw the AK-47 used to **** the family in a canal. Specialist Christopher Till, testified that Cortez told him about the killings in June. "He seemed very remorseful," Till said.

In another development, Iraq's security forces were yesterday facing fresh allegations of brutal ****** assault after four soldiers were accused of ****** a 50-year-old Sunni Turkomen woman and attempting to **** her two daughters in the north-western city of Tal Afar earlier this month.

It is the second allegation of ****** assault against Iraqi forces to surface this week. On Monday, a 20-year-old Sunni woman alleged that she was ***** by three policemen after being detained during a search of her house in Baghdad.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
i don't have a conspiracy theory... i just have an encyclopaedia of adverts... western intelligence is squandered on pub quizzes and trivia knowledge shows... spies are like magicians, although a spy's audience is a bunch of journalists high on tarantula venom, quote: (uh... what's going on?) take any stoner to speak that bracket.*

when my parents were eight, they were still
blossoming in a natural environment,
using the inherited tongue like a hammer:
here's the nail, here's a plank of wood,
now hammer that thought of yours in.
aged eight i was thrown into the deep end,
having to learn a new language, as somehow
unlearn my mother's tongue, i didn't budge,
i kept it scheming, rather than subconscious,
i didn't repress it... thrown into the deep end
i didn't become like most migrants
"assimilated", i.e. losing heritage... i kept it
(just in case)... now the chameleon of me
is about... suit & tie... then tracksuit bottoms...
no little russian kakashka (little ****)
would dare **** me, all the information i have
is useless... it's too personal...
i was supposed to be the rebound guy...
she sort of faked using anti-contraceptives...
i ended up a boomerang after seeing all
the possibilities of education...
that's the thing with the west and education,
it, just, doesn't, work... because all the menial
jobs have been exported, the west is sort
of puzzle-box tied in terms of hands able,
with hands actually disabled...
this excess outpouring of poetry is one sign,
the obvious one, excess poetry as deviation
from a chronology of illiteracy and books left
in the shadows and dust and crematoriums...
you tend to write poetry when you're either
illiterate or haven't read much that's on offer...
read the least number of books, then you get
to write poetry, simple as Victoria sponge or
bechamel sauce for a lasagne, motto being:
just keep stirring that flour into the frying butter,
just keep stirring, then slowly keep adding
onion bay leaf nutmeg infused milk slowly...
just keep on stirring...
western society likes bureaucracy, by way of
exporting the ideal that's democracy,
but it's so ******* n'ah! keep slang as an expression
of encrypted onomatopoeia, keep slang
as disguised nouns in onomatopoeias...
russians love poetry, hence they tend to send poets
into the gulag... in western society they
take poets to be raw meat and send a dozen flies in
to **** sperms into it, to clarify:
pornographic actors get paid, poets don't...
O masters of this glorious sphere, what will
this Eden Project prove? a third eye that's Voyeurism
en masse? when the blow-over fringe was running
for president i just said (no, no hindsight):
i wouldn't laugh... imagine a female pope!
women are not supposed to wear the Kippah...
western society in crisis; today i was watching the
film Cleopatra (1963) and there was so much dialogue!
take a movie from 2015 or 2016 and the dialogue
you get is: TNT BOOM BOOM BOOM!
CGI that's a fake of pixels being arable for the original
intention... the great decline... it only too one hit...
one ******* hit... and it ended up being a K.O.
you'd think they'd be able to take more... but Islam
became a Mike Tyson... *******... take one more hit!
what you're seeing now is what's called
the paradox of treating democracy as Utopia,
democracy isn't Utopia (Churchill said)...
but this is the unravelling, treat democracy as
the sole expression of utopia and then watch when
something alien hits it... one smack and you're out...
treating democracy as utopian politics is false,
too many self interests and too much bureaucracy;
or i can example my father for you...
two Lithuanian labourers employed by a company
****** up his drill... they weren't electrocuted
(the drill was wet), because if they were
the effect of electrocution would be like that of
an electron cloud the glue of keeping the proton
and neutron nucleus intact, the thing electrocuting
would be like a crocodile's jaw snap, you wouldn't
be able to let go... instead they became Lithuanian
vandals... smashed the thing... and what about
being self-employed and having his wages cut
once in a while? self-employment is the norm in western
societies... because the boss of BHS took a big fat
pay-cheque for a yacht with Kate Moss on it
while employee pensions went down the drain or
into Hawking's theory of black holes colliding...
zero hour contracts to match up the statistics...
western powers are mad to export their ideals...
i wouldn't trust them with a water-pistol,
and you know why? they'd just want an Iraqi to
wear Nike trainers and eat a Big Mac.
Homunculus Oct 2015
Learn to recognize lies, while they stand at
Their podiums, and proselytize,
Like so many Sunday preachers,
You can see it in their eyes, and
Their shifty ****** features, though
Their words seem sincere,
Their subtle cues, serve as
Teachers of their inner intent, so
Don't forget your diligence, and
Let them **** your dissent, with
Empty promises and rhetoric, to
Fill your head with lies about,
How war is for the betterment, of
Nations abroad, the sentiment
Is laughable, the premise is a fraud.
Cause when it all boils down, and
When push comes to shove,
Democracy has grass roots, it's
Not imposed from above, and
At the end of the day, money is
The factor prime, it's the secret
Justifier for this terroristic crime,
First, they bombed Iraqi cities,
In a trial of "Shock and Awe"
That killed even more civilians,
Than what 9/11 saw, and
Once the cities were demolished,
Halliburton then rebuilt them, and
Reaped enormous profits,
To the tune of 40 billion, and
Among other things, in this
"Just" war's spoils, were
The underground oceans,
Flowing full of crude oil, and
We all fund these atrocities,
These lies, these hypocrisies, well
If you decide this ain't the type,
Of thing that you can stand for,
Write "exempt" on line 7, of your W-4
Aside from the W-4 approach, you can also refuse a token amount of any monetary sum on tax form 1040, be it $5 as a symbolic gesture, or a larger amount equivalent to the share of income tax that funds defense/military . Note that if you actually do this, the IRS will try to retaliate. Don't let them intimidate you, people are rarely arrested for low profile tax offenses. There is an establishment called the "War Resisters League" that has been active in the States for over half a century. Their website is an excellent resource for strategies and  guidelines for those whose consciences will no longer allow them to be complicit with this sort of behavior. Please consider this, and spread the message far and wide. If enough people did this on a given year, it would make a powerful statement.
Fegger Nov 2010
Is this the place where garland grows,
Among the olive branches low?
Splattered, cindered, clay abode,
Am I so alien?
Encircled those, in khaki drab;
Paying homage to the bags;
Which hold remains of brave, young lads;
Will I feel again?

Surrounded, chains of un-lit lights,
Which only shine in day, not nights;
Illumination betrays the plights,
Should we become aglow.
A tree of polypropylene,
Adorns the tower, so serene;
A branch of steel hid in-between,
That only gunner knows.

The air of diesel, not of Myrrh,
As pre-fab dwellings start to stir,
Indifferent as they observe,
Fading of the Star.
A failed attempt at lone ‘SandMan’
Adorned with boots, bayonet in hand,
Iraqi winds displace his stand,
Re-formed in Kandahar.

T’was yesterday, on Christmas Eve;
A day ahead of promised leave,
When Paul, Eric, Mark and Steve,
Took leisurely patrol.
In Tikrit, where he was born,
Some sixty years before this ‘Storm’,
They’d set-out on this early morn.
Assessing evening’s toll.

Among the buildings, scattered ruins;
Charred men, like shadows, on the dunes;
From temples soar cremated plumes;
One hour had gone by.
In the distance, beyond the spire,
Come ‘reports’ of skirmish fire,
Incessant screaming of the dire;
Then screams dissolve to cries.

Approach, inside a city square,
Where once a fountain teemed, right there,
Smoldering flesh, low burning hair;
A family splayed together.
Rank and putrid pieces strewn,
Mother’s face, shrapnel-hewn;
Attending Allah far too soon--
All their hands were tethered.

Domestic dogs, now on their own,
Fight for human flesh and bone;
Such holy image sets the tone,
As chorus strikes ‘Jihad’.
Eric stumbles, exploded knee,
Bearing witness to comrades, three,
Souls reclaimed near instantly;
Christmas in Baghdad.

Is this the place where garland grows;
Among the olive branches low?
How I miss New England snow,
This Christmas in Baghdad.
Copyright, Fegger 2010
Anwer Ghani Dec 2018
OUR MASGOUF

The fishes have high wings, but they can feel our deep pain like sisters. Yes, we are the fishes’  brothers and any halo you may see in the dark night is a birthday of this brotherhood. Come here and see the seeds of this earth in an ancient Sumerian tablet, which its recipes were shining as the sun. In that Iraqi mud, you can see the smoke of our Masgouf and you may smell its exciting flavor. It is residing in our dreams like the moon, and we delightedly disappear in its perfume with the butterflies. The face of our Masgouf is pure, and I will be so happy if you can see its chants dancing as fairies at their small riverbanks.



THE MAGIC DOLMA

The small girls in our gardens knew nothing about the flowers or their breathtaking colors, but they are so efficient in making of magic Dolma. In the morning they meet a green dove, and listen to her chants. They are soft and pure exactly as our Dolma’s smiles. She teaches our girls the art of Dolma and the secret of grape’s leaves with a smooth voice and gentle hands. This Dolma’s master is so soft and deep, and she can color the girls’ hearts with the wedding dresses.

THE KEBAB GLORY

The Iraqis can’t live without war or Kebab, and can’t smell the morning breeze without their deep voices. Our souls were kneaded with the sad Kebab’s Sumac and the tears of war. Our dreams had immersed in the Kebab’s perfume and straggled in the desert of sad Sumac. Yes, you need the Iraqi sad smiles to find the Kebab’s sublime glory.
SUMERIAN RECIPES, A mosaicked poem by the mosaicist poet Anwer Ghani, Iraq 2018.
Steve Page Nov 2018
[After Flanders Fields, by Major John McCrae, 1915]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields,
the beaches of France,
Palestine groves,
Malaya's tropics,
Korean mountains,
Egypt's deserts,
Cyprus' beaches,
Borneo's forests,
Aden's marshes,
Falkland's heaths,
Balkan's tundra,
Afganistan bush,
Iraqi highlands,
[Keep list open....]
The lines before 'the beaches of France' are all McCrae's.
And so it goes on. https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/what-we-remember/recent-conflicts/
Bryan J Powers Nov 2010
Another day seems to pass by in the desert as it has for hundreds if not thousand of years,
Except the crunch of gravel and sand as a 2 ton frag 4 tuned up humvee races down another street in Iraq,
no surprise to see this in Iraq since the US led invasion in 2003,
same **** different day, otherwise known to soldiers as SSDD syndrome,
only this day would forever change lives,
the flash was white hot and the melting metal was proof enough of the sheer explosivness of the improvised explosive device,
the blast enough to let Iraqis living miles away look up to see the smoke,
they never heard the screaming though,
but the soldiers did as they raced to what was left of the humvee,
three dead upon impact,
a fourth lay screaming on the ground with what was left of the rest of his legs still in the passenger seat,
medics on  the ground did good and saved the poor soul,
his screams would fill the Iraqi night for for hours,
a short chopper ride to Baghdad Hospital,
they docs put his feet on ice, quite literally,
more than ten hours of surgery and the legs were sewn back on, but this soldiers fight was over,
a flight on the first plane to Ramstein Air Base Germany,
but the doctors cant do anything for this man,
he needs propers medical care,
send him home to Fort Bragg,
Womack Army Hospital,
doctors are optimistic as they tell this hero he will live but his days in the Army are over,
the tears are unexplainable as he pleads with the doctors to **** him
he doesnt want to live,
he may never walk again, he is a freak, his fiancee wants nothing to do with a *******,
over a week the soldier tries everything he can,
pulling out IVs,
injecting his blood stream with air filled needles,
his screams keep the other patients awake during the cold nights,
his crying during the day a constant reminder of the hell that only those who have lived it can ever know,
a week passes by, at least one suicide attempt a day,
then the soldiers fiancee arrives,
the crying becomes unstoppable as he pleads for her to leave him, not to look at his crippled body, that he wishes to die,'
why? she asks,
the question stops his tears,
why? she repeats,
because I am a ******* I may never walk again,
so? she asks, calling in the doctor,
the doctor arrives to find the soldier in tears and the meanest scowl ever seen on a woman,
doctor she asks, so he may never walk correct?
thats correct the doctor replies,
can he still have ***? she asks,
the doctor is stumped by the question and stumbles as he replies, well....yea its only his legs not his *****,
the fiancee looks at her soldier,
well then why the hell are you crying? as long as we can still have *** I am not leaving you!
the soldier sobs uncontrolably as his future wife holds him dearly,
the smiles on the other patients outwardly happy for the both of them,
then dinner arrives, the fiancee freaks out,
throwing the food across the room and storming from the hospital,
the soldier believing she had finally realized he was a *******, sobs once more,
the patients, doctors and nurses stumped,
another suicide attempt made,
thrity minutes pass,
the fiancee arrives, carrying a Dominos pizaa,
she holds him closely as she says he cant eat hospital food anymore,
he needs to eat right so that he can walk again,
and so comes a miracle through pain.

NO **** people this is a true story i witnessed myself in the Womack Army Hosptial roughly early 2006. It was a beautiful sight to see, and any man would consider himself blessed to be with what I can only describe as a miracle and the truest woman alive. That soldier deserved nothing less, oh, and he did walk again.
Dorothy A Nov 2009
Soldier Boy in Iraq,
sleeping with your gun
nestled by your side,
pimples on your face,
a foreign place
to rest your head,
and your bed
is as harsh and unforgiving
as the desert sands.

You fear maybe the next bullet
may be for you,
nothing new
in your mind.
You've seen your kind
fall before.

Iraqi faces,
some grateful,
some hateful,
give you odd and curious glances.
Women and girls in veils,
tales of woe,
tales of fear.
Men and boys draw near,
captivated by the Yanks
who dare to be here.

Soldier boy in Iraq,
say your prayers.
Draw close to God,
and He will draw near
to you.
Your mom is looking forward
to your letter
and you think it's better
to waste no time
and write it now.
Anwer Ghani Sep 2019
Have you heard about Sumac? Yes, it is purple, but it is stinging because the beautiful southern nights kissed its lips. The fish love Sumac because the Euphrates carried it on its back for many years. Sumac is so Iraqi so its spirit is kneaded with war stories. Did you know that Sumac and despite its sadness, it indulges in the fragrance of celebration, just like our streets.It is the son of the desert and like our daughters; the daughters of the desert always dream of days without smoke. We inherited Sumac from our Babylonian ancestors who made it with smoky tears, so you need an Iraqi smile to see the splendor of its glory.
Walid Abdallah Jul 2018
As long as we are ruled by madness, hounds
will devour fetuses still in their wombs,
mines will sprout in wheat fields, and even
the crossed light of morning will be eye-fire.

We’ll see the young hanged, wronged
at the dawn prayer. It’s an age witness
to a snarling pig fouling mosques.

When madness rules, there are white flowers
on the ruined branches, emptiness
in a child’s eyes, no kindness, no faith, no
dignity held sacred. All fates futureless,

everything present worthless. As long as madness
rules, the children of Baghdad can only guess
why they wander hunger’s thorns,

why they share the bread of death, why off
in the distance, American Indians
hover in the cold, why greed shouts them down,
every race crawling ghost-hearted.

Through blood-colored streets, between humiliation
and disbelief, crippled shadows creep,
and the madness-hounds howl in our minds.

We are on our way to death.



The children of Baghdad scream in the streets
as Hulagu’s army pounds the city’s doors
like an epidemic; his grandchildren roar
over the bodies of our young.

The wings of wild birds are blood rivers,
black claws claw eyes—all this cracks the silence.

The Tigris River remembers those days, so look
behind the curtain of history—how many
aggressors have passed through the centuries
of our land, and still we resist?

Hulagu will die, and the Iraqi children
will dance in front of Degla. We are not
to be hanged from all corners of Baghdad.

*


A river can be a weapon against injustice on the earth.
A palm can be a weapon against injustice.
A garden can be a weapon.

Among the water, in the silence
of tunnels, though we hate death,
for God and right we will set fire forever
to your refusal that Islam is holy.

Baghdad, ***** by tyranny, your children
are raising flags. Where are the Arabs
and the white swords, wild horses, glorious families?

Some of them were condemned, some
fled shameful, some stripped and gave away
their clothes, and some are lined up in the devil’s hall
to get their share of the spoils.

And people ask about a great nation’s ruins,
but nothing remains of that shining empire
that spans from the ocean to the gulf.



Every calamity has its cause.

They sold the horses and traded in
the knights in the market of rhetoric:
Down with history! Long live hot air!

Death comes to the children of Baghdad
in the smallest toys, in the parks, in restaurants,
in the dust. Walls collapse on the procession of history,
shame upon civilization, shame from a thousand borders.

From the unknown, a missile charges,
“Where are the weapons of mass destruction?”

Will daylight come again after the ****** smile
has been erased, after planes block the sunrays,
and our dreams spurt suicidal blood?

By what law do you demolish our homes,
and flood fire upon a thousand minarets?

In Baghdad, days pass, from hunger to hunger,
thirst to thirst, under the gaze of the master
of the mansion, the thousand-masked face.
Will there never be an end to this nonsense?

The curtain rises: we are the beginning.

To starve people—is this honor?
“To prey upon supplicants”—that’s the glorious slogan of victory?
To chase children from one house to another—the joy of tyranny.

These days, people have the right to humiliation, submission,
death in every atom, and the chronic question,
“Where are the weapons of mass destruction?”



The children of Baghdad are playing in schools:
a ball here, a ball there, a child here, a child there,
a pen here, a pen there, a mine here, a death there.
Among the fragments, the cactus.

There were children here yesterday,
fluttering like pigeons in open spaces.
One of these days, dawn might lighten the universe,
but for now the sun of justice is far below the horizon.



Despite sacrifice, there is a dark gluttony:
some are faithful, and some are sellouts.

Oh nation of Mohammad, my heart longs for Al Hussein.
Oh Baghdad, land of Caliph Rasheed,
oh castle of history, and once-glorious age,
the two moments between night and day are death and feast.



Among the martyrs’ fragments,
the throne of the universe, shaken by a young voice.
The dark night leaves when a new day flows.

Oh land of Al Rasheed, don’t lose hope, every tyranny ends:
a child adores Baghdad, holds a white notebook and flowers,
paper and poetry, some piasters from the last feast.

*
*

Behind his eyes, a tear that won’t break
but flows like light deep in his heart: the picture
of his father who left one day and never returned.
The child embraces ashes, and stays a long time.

A thread of blood runs through his mouth;
his voice and shed blood are one.
His features washed out; all of this world is separation.

The child whispers, I long for Baghdad’s day.
Who said oil is worth more than blood?

Don’t ache, Baghdad, don’t surrender.
Although there is dissent in this blind time,
there is, in the far horizon, a wave of visions.

Although the dream is distant, it rises. Rise,
and spread my bones in the Tigris River,
so daylight will one day rise over my funeral procession.

God is greater than the madness of death.
Who said oil is worth more than blood?
Translated from Arabic by Fogle and I.

— The End —