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by
Alexander K Opicho

(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)

When I grow up I will seek permission
From my parents, my mother before my father
To travel to Russia the European land of dystopia
that has never known democracy in any tincture
I will beckon the tsar of Russia to open for me
Their classical cipher that Bogy visoky tsa dalyko
I will ask the daughters of Russia to oblivionize my dark skin
***** skin and make love to me the real pre-democratic love
Love that calls for ambers that will claw the fire of revolution,
I will ask my love from the land of Siberia to show me cradle of Rand
The European manger on which Ayn Rand was born during the Leninist census
I will exhume her umbilical cord plus the placenta to link me up
To her dystopian mind that germinated the vice
For shrugging the atlas for we the living ones,
In a full dint of my ***** libido I will ask her
With my African temerarious manner I will bother her
To show me the bronze statues of Alexander Pushkin
I hear it is at ******* of the city of Moscow; Petersburg
I will talk to my brother Pushkin, my fellow African born in Ethiopia
In the family of Godunov only taken to Europe in a slave raid
Ask the Frenchman Henri Troyat who stood with his ***** erected
As he watched an Ethiopian father fertilizing an Ethiopian mother
And child who was born was Dystopian Alexander Pushkin,
I will carry his remains; the bones, the skull and the skeleton in oily
Sisal threads made bag on my broad African shoulders back to Africa
I will re-bury him in the city of Omurate in southern Ethiopia at the buttocks
Of the fish venting beautiful summer waters of Lake Turkana,
I will ask Alexander Pushkin when in a sag on my back to sing for me
His famous poems in praise of thighs of women;

(I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul
The former love has never gone away,
But let it not recall to you my dole;
I wish not sadden you in any way.

I loved you silently, without hope, fully,
In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain;
I loved you so tenderly and truly,
As let you else be loved by any man.
I loved you because of your smooth thighs
They put my heart on fire like amber in gasoline)

I will leave the bronze statue of Alexander Pushkin in Moscow
For Lenin to look at, he will assign Mayakovski to guard it
Day and night as he sings for it the cacotopian
Poems of a slap in the face of public taste;

(I know the power of words, I know words' tocsin.
They're not the kind applauded by the boxes.
From words like these coffins burst from the earth
and on their own four oaken legs stride forth.
It happens they reject you, unpublished, unprinted.
But saddle-girths tightening words gallop ahead.
See how the centuries ring and trains crawl
to lick poetry's calloused hands.
I know the power of words. Seeming trifles that fall
like petals beneath the heel-taps of dance.
But man with his soul, his lips, his bones.)

I will come along to African city of Omurate
With the pedagogue of the thespic poet
The teacher of the poets, the teacher who taught
Alexander Sergeyvich Pushkin; I know his name
The name is Nikolai Vasileyvitch Gogol
I will caution him to carry only two books
From which he will teach the re-Africanized Pushkin
The first book is the Cloak and second book will be
The voluminous dead souls that have two sharp children of Russian dystopia;
The cactopia of Nosdrezv in his sadistic cult of betrayal
And utopia of Chichikov in his paranoid ownership of dead souls
Of the Russian peasants, muzhiks and serfs,
I will caution him not to carry the government inspector incognito
We don’t want the inspector general in the African city of Omurate
He will leave it behind for Lenin to read because he needs to know
What is to be done.
I don’t like the extreme badness of owning the dead souls
Let me run away to the city of Paris, where romance and poetry
Are utopian commanders of the dystopian orchestra
In which Victor Marie Hugo is haunted by
The ghost of Jean Val Jean; Le Miserable,
I will implore Hugo to take me to the Corsican Island
And chant for me one **** song of the French revolution;


       (  take heed of this small child of earth;
He is great; he hath in him God most high.
Children before their fleshly birth
Are lights alive in the blue sky.
  
In our light bitter world of wrong
They come; God gives us them awhile.
His speech is in their stammering tongue,
And his forgiveness in their smile.
  
Their sweet light rests upon our eyes.
Alas! their right to joy is plain.
If they are hungry Paradise
Weeps, and, if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.
  
The want that saps their sinless flower
Speaks judgment on sin's ministers.
Man holds an angel in his power.
Ah! deep in Heaven what thunder stirs,
  
When God seeks out these tender things
Whom in the shadow where we sleep
He sends us clothed about with wings,
And finds them ragged babes that we)

 From the Corsican I won’t go back to Paris
Because Napoleon Bonaparte and the proletariat
Has already taken over the municipal of Paris
I will dodge this city and maneuver my ways
Through Alsace and Lorraine
The Miginko islands of Europe
And cross the boundaries in to bundeslander
Into Germany, I will go to Berlin and beg the Gestapo
The State police not to shoot me as I climb the Berlin wall
I will balance dramatically on the top of Berlin wall
Like Eshu the Nigerian god of fate
With East Germany on my right; Die ossie
And West Germany on my left; Die wessie
Then like Jesus balancing and walking
On the waters of Lake Galilee
I will balance on Berlin wall
And call one of my faithful followers from Germany
The strong hearted Friedrich von Schiller
To climb the Berlin wall with me
So that we can sing his dystopic Cassandra as a duet
We shall sing and balance on the wall of Berlin
Schiller’s beauteous song of Cassandra;

(Mirth the halls of Troy was filling,
Ere its lofty ramparts fell;
From the golden lute so thrilling
Hymns of joy were heard to swell.
From the sad and tearful slaughter
All had laid their arms aside,
For Pelides Priam's daughter
Claimed then as his own fair bride.

Laurel branches with them bearing,
Troop on troop in bright array
To the temples were repairing,
Owning Thymbrius' sovereign sway.
Through the streets, with frantic measure,
Danced the bacchanal mad round,
And, amid the radiant pleasure,
Only one sad breast was found.

Joyless in the midst of gladness,
None to heed her, none to love,
Roamed Cassandra, plunged in sadness,
To Apollo's laurel grove.
To its dark and deep recesses
Swift the sorrowing priestess hied,
And from off her flowing tresses
Tore the sacred band, and cried:

"All around with joy is beaming,
Ev'ry heart is happy now,
And my sire is fondly dreaming,
Wreathed with flowers my sister's brow
I alone am doomed to wailing,
That sweet vision flies from me;
In my mind, these walls assailing,
Fierce destruction I can see."

"Though a torch I see all-glowing,
Yet 'tis not in *****'s hand;
Smoke across the skies is blowing,
Yet 'tis from no votive brand.
Yonder see I feasts entrancing,
But in my prophetic soul,
Hear I now the God advancing,
Who will steep in tears the bowl!"

"And they blame my lamentation,
And they laugh my grief to scorn;
To the haunts of desolation
I must bear my woes forlorn.
All who happy are, now shun me,
And my tears with laughter see;
Heavy lies thy hand upon me,
Cruel Pythian deity!"

"Thy divine decrees foretelling,
Wherefore hast thou thrown me here,
Where the ever-blind are dwelling,
With a mind, alas, too clear?
Wherefore hast thou power thus given,
What must needs occur to know?
Wrought must be the will of Heaven--
Onward come the hour of woe!"

"When impending fate strikes terror,
Why remove the covering?
Life we have alone in error,
Knowledge with it death must bring.
Take away this prescience tearful,
Take this sight of woe from me;
Of thy truths, alas! how fearful
'Tis the mouthpiece frail to be!"

"Veil my mind once more in slumbers
Let me heedlessly rejoice;
Never have I sung glad numbers
Since I've been thy chosen voice.
Knowledge of the future giving,
Thou hast stolen the present day,
Stolen the moment's joyous living,--
Take thy false gift, then, away!"

"Ne'er with bridal train around me,
Have I wreathed my radiant brow,
Since to serve thy fane I bound me--
Bound me with a solemn vow.
Evermore in grief I languish--
All my youth in tears was spent;
And with thoughts of bitter anguish
My too-feeling heart is rent."

"Joyously my friends are playing,
All around are blest and glad,
In the paths of pleasure straying,--
My poor heart alone is sad.
Spring in vain unfolds each treasure,
Filling all the earth with bliss;
Who in life can e'er take pleasure,
When is seen its dark abyss?"

"With her heart in vision burning,
Truly blest is Polyxene,
As a bride to clasp him yearning.
Him, the noblest, best Hellene!
And her breast with rapture swelling,
All its bliss can scarcely know;
E'en the Gods in heavenly dwelling
Envying not, when dreaming so."

"He to whom my heart is plighted
Stood before my ravished eye,
And his look, by passion lighted,
Toward me turned imploringly.
With the loved one, oh, how gladly
Homeward would I take my flight
But a Stygian shadow sadly
Steps between us every night."

"Cruel Proserpine is sending
All her spectres pale to me;
Ever on my steps attending
Those dread shadowy forms I see.
Though I seek, in mirth and laughter
Refuge from that ghastly train,
Still I see them hastening after,--
Ne'er shall I know joy again."

"And I see the death-steel glancing,
And the eye of ****** glare;
On, with hasty strides advancing,
Terror haunts me everywhere.
Vain I seek alleviation;--
Knowing, seeing, suffering all,
I must wait the consummation,
In a foreign land must fall."

While her solemn words are ringing,
Hark! a dull and wailing tone
From the temple's gate upspringing,--
Dead lies Thetis' mighty son!
Eris shakes her snake-locks hated,
Swiftly flies each deity,
And o'er Ilion's walls ill-fated
Thunder-clouds loom heavily!)

When the Gestapoes get impatient
We shall not climb down to walk on earth
Because by this time  of utopia
Thespis and Muse the gods of poetry
Would have given us the wings to fly
To fly high over England, I and schiller
We shall not land any where in London
Nor perch to any of the English tree
Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Thales
We shall not land there in these lands
The waters of river Thames we shall not drink
We shall fly higher over England
The queen of England we shall not commune
For she is my lender; has lend me the language
English language in which I am chanting
My dystopic songs, poor me! What a cacotopia!
If she takes her language away from
I will remain poetically dead
In the Universe of art and culture
I will form a huge palimpsest of African poetry
Friedrich son of schiller please understand me
Let us not land in England lest I loose
My borrowed tools of worker back to the owner,
But instead let us fly higher in to the azure
The zenith of the sky where the eagles never dare
And call the English bard
through  our high shrilled eagle’s contralto
William Shakespeare to come up
In the English sky; to our treat of poetic blitzkrieg
Please dear schiller we shall tell the bard of London
To come up with his three Luftwaffe
These will be; the deer he stole from the rich farmer
Once when he was a lad in the rural house of john the father,
Second in order is the Hamlet the price of Denmark
Thirdly is  his beautiful song of the **** of lucrece,
We shall ask the bard to return back the deer to the owner
Three of ourselves shall enjoy together dystopia in Hamlet
And ask Shakespeare to sing for us his song
In which he saw a man **** Lucrece; the **** of Lucrece;

( From the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
  And girdle with embracing flames the waist
  Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chaste unhapp'ly set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
  Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
  With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
  That kings might be espoused to more fame,
  But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendour of the sun!
An expir'd date, cancell'd ere well begun:
  Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
  Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator;
What needeth then apologies be made,
To set forth that which is so singular?
Or why is Collatine the publisher
  Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
  From thievish ears, because it is his own?

Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereignty
Suggested this proud issue of a king;
For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:
Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,
Braving compare, disdainfully did sting
  His high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt
  That golden hap which their superiors want)

  
I and Schiller we shall be the audience
When Shakespeare will echo
The enemies of beauty as
It is weakly protected in the arms of Othello.

I and Schiller we don’t know places in Greece
But Shakespeare’s mother comes from Greece
And Shakespeare’s wife comes from Athens
Shakespeare thus knows Greece like Pericles,
We shall not land anywhere on the way
But straight we shall be let
By Shakespeare to Greece
Into the inner chamber of calypso
Lest the Cyclopes eat us whole meal
We want to redeem Homer from the
Love detention camp of calypso
Where he has dallied nine years in the wilderness
Wilderness of love without reaching home
I will ask Homer to introduce me
To Muse, Clio and Thespis
The three spiritualities of poetry
That gave Homer powers to graft the epics
Of Iliad and Odyssey centerpieces of Greece dystopia
I will ask Homer to chant and sing for us the epical
Songs of love, Grecian cradle of utopia
Where Cyclopes thrive on heavyweight cacotopia
Please dear Homer kindly sing for us;
(Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we
feasted our fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and
it came on dark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of
morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I bade my men on board and
loose the hawsers. Then they took their places and smote the grey
sea with their oars; so we sailed on with sorrow in our hearts, but
glad to have escaped death though we had lost our comrades)
                                  
From Greece to Africa the short route  is via India
The sub continent of India where humanity
Flocks like the oceans of women and men
The land in which Romesh Tulsi
Grafted Ramayana and Mahabharata
The handbook of slavery and caste prejudice
The land in which Gujarat Indian tongue
In the cheeks of Rabidranathe Tagore
Was awarded a Poetical honour
By Alfred Nobel minus any Nemesis
From the land of Scandinavia,
I will implore Tagore to sing for me
The poem which made Nobel to give him a prize
I will ask Tagore to sing in English
The cacotopia and utopia that made India
An oversized dystopia that man has ever seen,
Tagore sing please Tagore sing for me your beggarly heat;

(When the heart is hard and parched up,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from
beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,
break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,
thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder)



The heart of beggar must be
A hard heart for it to glorify in the art of begging,

I don’t like begging
This is knot my heart suffered
From my childhood experience
I saw my mother
By
Alexander K Opicho

(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)


Spiritual scholars of Christian Science have a concept that there is
power in the name. They at most identify the name Jesus and the name
of God, Jehovah to be the most powerful names in the spiritual realm.
But in the world of literature and intellectual movement, art,
science, politics and creativity, the name Alexander is mysteriously
powerful. Averagely, bearers of the name Alexander achieve some unique
level of literary or intellectual glory, discover something novel or
make some breakaway political victories.

Among the ancient and present-day Russians, most bearers of the name
Alexander were imbued with some uniqueness of intellect, leadership or
literary mighty. Beginning with the recent times of Russia, the first
mysterious Alexander is the 1700 political reformist and effective
leader, Tsar Alexander and his beautiful wife, tsarina Alexandrina.
The couple transformed Russian society from pathetic peasantry to a
middle class society. It is Tsar Alexander’s leadership that lain a
foundation for Russian socialist revolution. Different scholars of
Russian history remember the reign of Tsar Alexander with a strong

bliss. This is what made the Lenin family to name their son Alexander
an elder brother to Vladimir Ilyanovsk Ilyich Lenin. This was done as
parental projection through careful   choice of a mentor for their
young son. Alexander Lenin was named after this formidable ruler; Tsar
Alexander. Alexander Lenin was a might scholar. An Intellectual and
political reformist. He was a source of inspiration to his young
brother Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who became the Russian president after
his brother Alexander, had died through political assassination.
However, researches into distinctive prowess of these two brothers
reveal that Alexander Lenin was more gifted intellectually than
Vladimir Lenin.

Alexander Pushkin, another Russian personality with intellectual,
cultural, theatrical and   literary consenguences. He was a
contemporary of Alexander pope. He is the main intellectual influence
behind Nikolai Vasileyvich Gogol and very many other Russian writers.
He is to Russians what Shakespeare is to English speakers or victor
Hugo is to French speakers, Friedriech schiller and Frantz Kafka is to
Germany readers or Miguel de Cervantes to the Spaniards. Among English
readers, Shakespeare’s drama of king Lear is a beacon of English
political theatre, while Hugo’s Les miscerables is an apex of French
social and political literature, but Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, a
theatrical political satire, technically towers above the peers. For
your point of information my dear reader; there has been a
commonaplace false convention among English literature scholars that,
William Shakespeare in conjunction with Robert Greene wrote and
published highest number of books, more than anyone else. The factual
truth is otherwise. No, they only published 90 works, but Pushkin
published 700 works.
Equally glorious is Alexander Vasileyvich sholenstsyn,the, the, the
author of I will be on phone by five, Cancer Ward, Gulag Archipelago’
and the First Cycle. He is a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Alfred Nobel and Maxim Gorky. Literary and artistic
excellence of Alexander Sholenstsyn,the, the anti-communist Russian
novelist was and is still displayed through his mirroring of a corrupt
Russian communist politics, made him a debate case among the then
committee members for Nobel prize and American literature prize, but
when the Kremlin learned of this they, detained Alexander sholenenstyn
at Siberia for 18 years this is where he wrote his Gulag Archipelago.
Which he wrote as sequel five years later to the previous novel the
Cancer Ward whose main theme is despair among cancer patients in the
Russian hospitals. This was simply a satirical way of expressing agony
of despair among the then political prisoners at Siberia concentration
camps .In its reaction to this communist front to capitalist
literature through the glasnost machinery, the Washington government
ordered chalice Chaplin an American pro-communist writer to be out of
America within 45 minutes.
Alexander’s; Payne, Pato, Petrovsky, and Pires are intellectual
torchbearers of the world and Russian literary civilization. Not to
forget, Alexander Popov, a poet and Russian master brewer, whose
liquor brand ‘Popov’ is the worldwide king of bar shelves?
In 1945 the Russians had very brutish two types of guns, designed to
shoot at long range with very little chances of missing the target.
These guns are; AK 47 and the Molotov gun. They were designed to
defeat the German **** and later on to be used in international
guerrilla movement. The first gun AK 47 was designed by Alexander
klashilinikov and the second by Alexander Molotov. These are the two
Alexander’s that made milestones in history of world military
technology.
The name Alexander was one of the titles or the epithet used to be
given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is taken to mean the one
who comes to save warriors. In Homer’s epical work; the Iliad, the
most dominant character Paris who often saved the other warriors was
also known also as Alexander. This name’s linkage to popularity was
spread throughout the Greek world by the military maneuvers and
conquests of King Alexander III. Alexander III is commonly known as
Alexander the Great .  Evidently; the biblical book of Daniel had a
prophecy. It was about fall of empires down to advent of Jesus as a
final ruler. The prophecy venerated Roman Empire above all else. As
well the, prophecy magnified military brilliance, intellect and
leadership skills of the Greek, Alexander the great, the conqueror of
Roman Empire. Alexander the great was highly inspired by the secret
talks he often held with his mother. All bible readers and historians
have reasons to believe that Alexander of Greece was powerful,
intellectually might, strong in judgment and a political mystery and
enigma that remain classic to date.
In his book Glimpses of History, jewarlal Nehru discusses the Guru
Nanak as an Indian religious sect, Business Empire, clan, caste, and
an intellectual movement of admirable standard that shares a parrell
only with the Aga Khans. Their   founder is known, as Skander Nanak
.The name skander is an Indian version for Alexander. Thus, Alexander
Nanak is the founder of Guru Nanak business empire and sub Indian
spiritual community. Alexander Nanak was an intellectual, recited
Ramayana and Mahabharata off head; he was both a secular and religious
scholar as well as a corporate strategist.
The American market and industrial civilsations has very many
wonderful Alexander’s in its history. The earliest known Alexander in
American is Hamilton, the poet, writer, politician and political
reformist. Hamilton strongly worked for establishment of American
constitution. Contemporaries of Hamilton are; Alexander graham bell
and Alexander flemming.bell is the American scientist who discovered a
modern electrical bell, while Fleming, A Nobel Prize Laureate
discovered that fungus on stale bread can make penicillin to be used
in curing malaria. Other American Alexander’s are; wan, Ludwig,
Macqueen, Calder and ovechikin.
Italian front to mysterious greatness in the name Alexander
spectacularly emanates from science of electricity which has a
measuring unit for electrical volume known as voltage. The name of
this unit is a word coined from the Italian name Volta. He was an
Italian scientist by the name Alesandro Volta. Alesandro is an Italian
version for Alexander. Therefore it is Alexander Volta an Italian
scientist who discovered volume of electrical energy as it moves along
the cable. Thus in Italian culture the name Alexander is also a
mystery.
Readers of European genre and classics agree that it is still
enjoyfull to read the Three Musketeers and the Poor Christ of
Montecristo for three or even more times. They are inspiring, with a
depth of intellectual character, and classic in lessons to all
generations. These two classics were written by Alexander Dumas, a
French literary genious.he lived the same time as Hugo and
Dostoyevsk.when Hugo was writing the Hunch-back of Notredame Dumas was
writing the Three Musketeers. These two books were the source of
inspiration for Dostoyevsky to write Brothers Karamazov. Another
notable European- *** -American Alexander is  Alexander pope, whose
adage ‘short knowledge is dangerous,’ has remained a classic and ever
quoted across a time span of two centuries. Alexander pope penned this
line in the mid of 1800 in his poem better drink from the pyrene
spring.

In the last century colleges, Universities and high schools in Kenya
and throughout Africa, taught Alexander la Guma and Alexander Haley as
set- book writers for political science, literature and drama courses.
Alexander la Guma is a South African, ant–apartheid crusader and a
writer of strange literary ability. His commonly read books are A walk
in the Night, Time of the Butcher Bird and In the Fog of the Season’s
End. While Alexander Haley is an African in the American Diaspora. An
intellectual heavy- weight, a politician, civil a rights activist and
a writer of no precedent, whose book The Roots is a literary
blockbuster to white American artists. Both la Guma and Haley are
African Alexander’s only that white bigotry in their respective
countries of America and South Africa made them to be called Alex’s.
The Kenyan only firm for actuaries is Alexander Forbes consultants.
Alexander Forbes was an English-American mathematician. The lesson
about Forbes is that mystery within the name Alexander makes it to be
the brand of corporate actuarial practice in Africa and the entire
world.
Something hypothetical and funny about this name Alexander is that its
dictionary definition is; homemade brandy in Russia, just the way the
east African names; Wamalwa, Wanjoi and Kimaiyo are used among the
Bukusu, Agikuyu and Kalenjin communities of Kenya respectively. More
hypothetical is the lesson that the short form of Alexander is Alex;
it is not as spiritually consequential in any manner as its full
version Alexander. The name Alex is just plain without any powers and
spiritual connotation on the personality and character of the bearer.
The name Alexander works intellectual miracles when used in full even
in its variants and diminutives as pronounced in other languages that
are neither English nor Greece. Presumably the - ander section of the
name (Alex)ander is the one with life consequences on the history of
the bearer. Also, it is not clear whether they are persons called
Alexander who are born bright and gifted or it is the name Alexander
that conjures power of intellect and creativity on them.
In comparative historical scenarios this name Alexander has been the
name of many rulers, including kings of Macedon, kings of Scotland,
emperors of Russia and popes, the list is infinite. Indeed, it is bare
that when you poke into facts from antiques of politics, religion and
human diversity, there is rich evidence that there is substantial
positive spirituality between human success and social nomenclature in
the name of Alexander. Some cases in archaic point are available in a
listological exposition of early rulers on Wikipedia. Some names on
Wikipedia in relation to the phenomenon of Alexanderity are: General
Alexander; more often known as Paris of Troy as recounted by Homer in
his Iliad. Then ensues a plethora; Alexander of Corinth who was the
10th king of Corinth , Alexander I of Macedon, Alexander II of
Macedon, Alexander III of Macedonia alias  Alexander the Great. There
is still in the list in relation to Macedonia, Alexander IV  and
Alexander V. More facts of the antiques have   Alexander of Pherae who
was the despotic ruler of Pherae between 369 and 358 before the Common
Era. The land of Epirus had Alexander I the king of Epirus about 342
before the Common Era and Alexander II  the king of Epirus 272 before
the Common Era. A series of other Alexander’s in the antiques is
composed of ; Alexander the  viceroy of Antigonus Gonatas and also the
ruler of a **** state based on Corinth in 250 before the common era,
then Alexander Balas, ruler of the Seleucid kingdom of Syria between
150 and 146 before the common era . Next in the list is  Alexander
Zabinas the ruler of part of the Seleucid kingdom of Syria based in
Antioch between 128 and 123  before the common era ,  then Alexander
Jannaeus king of Judea, 103 to 76  before the common era  and last but
not least  Alexander of Judaea  son of Aristobulus  II the  king of
Judaea .  The list of Alexander’s in relation to the antiquated  Roman
empire are; Alexander Severus, Julius Alexander who lived during the
second  century as the Emesene nobleman, Then next is Domitius
Alexander the Roman usurper who declared himself emperor in 308. Next
comes Alexander the emperor of Byzantine. Political antiques of
Scotland have Alexander I , Alexander II and Alexander III of Scotland
. The list cannot be exhausted but it is only a testimony that there
are a lot of Alexander’s in the antiques of the world.
Religious leadership also enjoys vastness of Alexander’s. This is so
among the Christians and non Christians, Catholics and Protestants and
even among the charismatic and non-charismatic. These historical
experiences start with Alexander kipsang Muge the Kenyan Anglican
Bishop who died in a mysterious accident during the Kenyan political
dark days of Moi. But when it comes to  The antiques  catholic
pontifical history, there is still a plethora of them as evinced on
Wikipedia ; Pope Alexander I , Alexander of Apamea also the  bishop of
Apamea, Pope Alexander II ,Pope Alexander III, Pope Alexander IV, Pope
Alexander V, Pope Alexander VI, Pope Alexander VII, Pope Alexander
VIII, Alexander of Constantinople the bishop of Constantinople , St.
Alexander of Alexandria also the  Coptic Pope and Patriarch of
Alexandria between  then Pope Alexander II of Alexandria the  Coptic
Pope  and lastly Alexander of Lincoln the bishop of Lincoln and
finally  Alexander of Jerusalem.
However, the fact of logic is inherent in the premise that there is
power in the name .An interesting experience I have had is that; when
Eugene Nelson Mandela ochieng was kidnapped in Nairobi sometimes ago,
a friend told me that there is power in the name. The name Mandela on
a Nairobi born Luo boy attracts strong fortune and history making
eventualities towards the boy, though fate of the world interferes,
the boy Eugene Mandela ochieng is bound to be great, not because he
was kidnapped but because he has an assuring name Nelson Mandela. With
extension both in Africa and without ,May God the almighty add all
young Alexander’s to the traditional list of other great and
formidable  Alexander’s that came before. Amen.

References;
Jewarlal Nehru; Glimpses of History


Alexander K Opicho is a social researcher with Sanctuary Researchers
ltd in Eldoret, Kenya he is also a lecturer in Research Methods in
governance and Leadership.
Àŧùl Mar 2013
It is said in Mahabharata that Krishna,
Who was an incarnation of Vishnu,
Was the Charioteer of Arjun,
The most expert archer.

And Arjun was among the Pandavas,
Pandavas're the legendary winners,
Of the epic Mahabharata War,
That killed uncountable men.

We observe several such incarnations,
In the Kalyuga's modern era as well,
Guiding those who seek guidance,
Showing path to those who need.

I was before joining Hello Poetry,
So lost - so confused - so troubled,
My thoughts so jammed my brain,
But now I find myself calm - so cool.

Here on Hello Poetry,
We have our own Charioteer,
Guiding our own poetry Chariot,
He is an expert, his name is York, Eliot.
Solely dedicated to Eliot York
© Atul Kaushal
In response to a sardonic essay written in the recent Saturday Nation by Proffessor Ekara Kabaji, wryly  disregarding the position of Kwani in the global literary movement within and without Kenya , I beg to be permitted a leeway  to observe that any literature, orature, music,drama,cyborature,prisnorature,wallorature,streetorature , sculptor  or painting can effortlessly thrive and off course it has been thriving without professors of  literature, but the reverse is not possible as a proffessor of literature cannot be when literature is not there. Facts in support of this position are bare and readily available in the history of world literature, why they may not be seen is perhaps the blurring effects from tor like protuberant irrelevance of professors of literature in a given literary civilization.
A starting point is that literature exists as a people’s subculture, it can be written or not written like the case of orature which survive as an educative and aesthetic value stored in the collective memory of the given people. The people to be pillars of this collectivity of the memory are not differentiated by academic ranking for superlativity of any reason, but they are simply a people of that place, that community, that time, that heritage, that era and that collective experience. Writing it down is an option, but novels and other written matter is not a sine qua non for existence of literature in such situations. This is not a bolekaja of literature as Proffessor Ekara Kabaji would readily put, but it is a stretch towards realism that it is only people’s condition that creates literature. Poverty, slavery, colonialism, ***, marriage, circumcision, migration, or any other conditions experienced as collective experience of the people is stored or even stowed away in the collective memory of the people as their literature. Literature does not come from idealistic imagination of an educated person.
Historical experience of written literature informs us that the good novels, prose, drama and poetry were written before human society had people known as professors of literature. I want you my dear reader and You-Tube audience to reflect on the Cantos of Dante Alighieri in Italy, novels of Geoffrey Chaucer in England, Herman Melville and his Moby **** in Americas, poetry of Omar khwarisim in Persia, Homeric epics of Odyssey in Greece and the Makonde sculptures of Africa and finally link your reflections to Romesh Tulsi who grafted the Indian epic poetry of Ramayana and Mahabharata. At least you must realize that in those days literature was good, full of charm, very aesthetic and superbly entertaining. This leads to a re-justification that, weapon of theory is not useful in literature. University taught theories of literature have helped not in the growth of literature as compared to the role played by folk culture.
Keen observation will lead you dear reader, down to revelations that; professors of literature squarely depend on the thespic work of the people who are not substantially educated to make a living. Let me share with you the story about Dr. Tom Odhiambo who went to University of Witwasterand in South Africa for post graduate studies in literature only to do his Doctoral research on books of David G Maillu. Maillu is a Kenyan writer, he did not finish his second year of secondary school education but he has been successfully writing poetry and prose for the past three decades. His successful romantic work is After 4.30, probably sarcasm against Kenyan office capitalism, while his eclectic, philosophical and scholarly work is the Broken Drum. Maillu has many other works on his name. But the point is that Dr. Odhiambo now teaches at University of Nairobi in the capacity of senior lecturer in Literature. What makes him to put food on the table is the effort of un-educated person in the name of David Maillu. Dr.Odhiambo himself has not written any book we can mention him for, apart from regular literary journalism he is often involved in on the platforms of the Literary discourse in the Kenyan Saturday Nation which are in turn regular Harangues and ripostes among literature teachers at the University of Nairobi, the likes of Dr Siundu, Proffessor wanjala Chris and Evans Mwangi just but to mention by not being oblivious to professors; Indangasi and Shitanda.
No study has yet been done to establish the role of university professors on growth of African literature. One is overdue. Results may be positive role on negative role, myself I contemplate negative role. Especially when I reflect on how the African literati reacted on the publication of Amos Tutuola’s book The Palm Wine Drinkard. The reactions were more disparaging than appreciative. Taban Lo Liyong reacted to this book by calling Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus as well as taking a self styled intellectual responsibility in form of writing a more  schooled version of this book; Taking Wisdom up the Palm Tree. Nigerians of Igbo (Tutuola being a Yoruba) nation cowed from being associated with the book as it had shamefully broken English, broken grammar etc. Wole Soyinka had a blemished stand, but it is only Achebe who came out forthrightly to appreciate the book in its efforts to Africanize English for the purpose of African literature. Courtesy of Igbo wisdom. But in a nutshell, what had happened is that Amos Tutuola had taken a plunge to contribute towards written literature in Africa.
One more contemplated result from the research about professors and African literature can be that apart from their role of criticism, professors write very boring books. A ready point of reference is deliberate and reasonless obscurantism taken Wole Soyinka in all of his books, Soyinka’s books are difficult to understand, sombre, without humour and not capable to entertain an average reader. In fact Wole Soyinka has been writing for himself but not for the people. No common man can quote Soyinka the way Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is quoted. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart when he had not began his graduate studies. However, he did not escape the obvious mistake of professors to become obscure in the Anthills of the Savanna, the book he wrote when he had become a proffessor. This is on a sharp contrast to entertaining effectiveness, simplicity and thematic diversity of Captain Elechi Amadi, Amadi who studied chemistry but not literature. He does not have a second degree, but his books from the Concubine, The great Ponds, and Sunset in the Biafra and Isibiru are as spellbinding as their counterparts in Russia.
Kenyan scenario has Ngugi wa Thiongio, he displayed eminence in his first two books; Weep not Child and The River Between. These ones he wrote when he was not yet educated, as he was still an undergraduate student at Makerere University. But later on Ngugi became a victim of prosaic socialism, an ideology that warped his literary imagination only to put him in a paradoxical situation as an African communist who works in America as an English teacher at Irvine University. His other outcrops are misuse of Mau Mau as a literary springboard and campaigning for use of Kikuyu dialect of the Gema languages to become literary Lingua Franca in Kenya. Such efforts of Ngugi are only a disservice to Kenyan literature in particular and African literature collectively. Ngugi having been a student of Caribbean literature has failed to borrow from global literary behaviour of Vitian S. Naipaul.  Ngugi’s position also contrasts sharply with Meja Mwangi whose urban folksy literature swollen with diversity in themes has remained spellbinding entertainers.
The world’s literary thirsty has never failed to get palatable quenching from the works of Harriet Bechetor Stowe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, Alice Munro, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, John Steinbeck, Garcia Guarbriel Marguez,Salman Rushdie, Lenrie Peters, Cyprian Ekwenzi, Nikolai Gogol,I mean the list is as long as the road from Kaduna to Cape town. Contribution of these writers to global literature has been and is still critical. Literature could not be without them. Surprisingly, most of them are not trained in literature; they don’t have a diploma or a degree in literature, but some have won literature Nobel Prize and other prizes. Alfred Nobel himself the author of a classical novella, The Nemesis, does not have University education in literature. What else can we say apart from acceding to the truth that literature can blossom without professors, the Vis-à-vis an obvious and stark impossibility.
I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.
Know throughout as

Mohan the enchanter.

or even Gopala or Govinda

Jagganatha is known as



Shri Krishna appeared in Gokul

Many legends have been told

with skin as Jambul as a jamun

And flute music like the song of a bulbul



Legends and stories carry on

through rasleela, they are known

through Krishna Lila, they are showcased

but all throughout the king is born



His radiance appearance of

Jambul skin and a peacock feather

or even crown in Tribhanga and his flute

with sweets notes of love



As a warrior in the battle of Kurukshetra

Throughout the Mahabharata, he is known

here he shared with Arjuna

what is known as the Bhagavad Geeta



Hare Krishna Hare Krishna,

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare



With this, I offer my salutations to you

Oh Lord Krishna,

Please accept my humble

request to thee
Alexander  K  Opicho
Eldoret,Kenya;aopicho@yaho.com


he was borne by a woman
the one Mary from the Jewish royal blood line
he was conceived and carried in the womb for nine months
shamefully conceived in the immoral razzmatazz before marriage
conceived out side the wedlock in a fornicatory  stretch
which the Jewish casuistry has circumlocuted around
only to call immaculate conception; what a puzzle ?
Joseph the cuckold from a poor wood working Jewry
was pinned down by spiritual powers that be
through ****** angelicality of the airy Gabriel
to accept pregnant Mary with her pregnancy
for she was royal only doing him a favour
to extend her olive leave of marriage
for the Jewish royal don't marry paupers
lest they commit the sin of miscegenation
catholically annoted the sinful misselliance,

he was born and grew up in full testimony of calls of nature;
pissiful micturation,open defecation, breathing,
and yawning in response  to pangs of hunger
physically deformed in the left leg
as his slender and tall body walked with  a  pronounced limb
crossing the deserts and sand tunes of Palestine
as he went to India in the University of Taxixashila
to read the epical poems of Ramayana and Mahabharata
as well as the sayings of Buddha Gautama
that had been extant for six centuries before Christ was born,
it is by reading Gautama that he got the blessed poems
of humility and mental powerfulness whose famous line
is blessed are  they who are poor for them shall inherit the earth.

He walked back on his deformed leg in a pronounced limb
to Nazareth a colony of Rome and buried himself in the deep read
reading the Mosaic thespic work of Job in the fictitious land of Uz
and the psalteric poems of the Machiavellian King
often known as David of Jesse who owned all the Jewish womenfolk of his time,
he read the poems of David with heart and head in his Jewish vernacular
this is where he got the poem of agony on the Roman cross
Which he sang; o lord o lord why have you forsaken me ?

he read the Greeks and their diverse stuff in his youth hood anxiety
untill  he clocked twenty-six then his father Joseph the carpenter
succumbed to death caused by typhus others say due to stress of poverty
this is when Mary the widowed was declared a woman of the devil
in the full  observation of the Jewish Bombazine
for her was no option but to stay in the bush for three years
Then the family buck stopped at Christ's s table
in his full capacity as the elder son
in the family of Joseph the late and Mary the widow,
the buck which he goofed to manage
then  his two brothers James and John
chose to scavenge for the means of family survival
through which they became chariot drivers
for the local bourgeoisie Joseph of Aramathea
they left the most young of them Yude son of Joseph
to keep and pamper their bereaved home
which he did but in the  full flare of  his temper
as why Jesus the elder brother roamed around in gadabout bliss
when the home was to be managed by him whatsoever
As the evening came James and John came back home
they found Yude lonely and sombre in the pangs of hunger
they hurriedly set on the table some food for him
the food they had carried from their employer
Joseph of Aramathea; what a fortune so scanty ?
From the blues Jesus surfaced with nothing in his hands
his eyes sunken the salient features of a hungry lazy man
he tried to get a share from the portion of Yude
But whoopsy ! Yude removed the plate and Jesus goofed the psaw !
Yude slapped Jesus with the cyclopic Mighty
as he warned him not to roam around lazily
only to roost  a hungry stomach at  home in the evening
Jesus staggered in a dint of ire and he cursed
to go to Jerusalem for ever not to come back
to which Yude retorted in a riposte;
'You carry way your laziness to Jerusalem
and you will never come back
for the lazy people will never survive in Jerusalem'

Jesus went away after the food based squabble with his brother
he met the twelve friends that he called disciples and one girl friend
Mary his mother's namesake otherwise known as Magdalene
with whom Jesus fell in love with all compassion of a man
in confirmation of the African pearl that ;even the wise and the king
also bend under the pressure of love,
Jesus had no silver nor coins to lavish Magdalene with
in the usual stampede of love among the young ones
But his magics were his  sole resource , he exorcised her free
the seven deadly demons and confirmed to her his protege
of resurrection of which he did free of charge to rise Lazarus
from the grave, Lazarus the brother of Mary Magdalene
as a magnanimous persuasion for  love
Àŧùl Jan 2016
****** thought it was a concept novel.
But wrong he was.
India knew Blitzkrieg long before ******.

In ancient dramas like Mahabharata,
And of course the older Ramayana,
The epics are replete with incidents,
Or rather determining acts of battle,
That determined the course of time,
Armies attacked the relaxing armies,
Changed the outcome of war.

So was the ancient Indian ideology.
My HP Poem #998
©Atul Kaushal
Àŧùl May 2013
Starting from the newest, these are my first fifty followers on Hello Poetry.

1. Hailey L May 5
2. Elizabeth Squires May 4
3. Tim Knight May 3
4. Morgan Hanchulak May 3
5. Vi Snicket May 2
6. Jessica Applegate Apr 30
7. Himanshu Koshe Apr 30
8. Mike Winegar Apr 29
9. Joey Lapiana Apr 29
10. Christopher Munro Apr 29
11. Raffi Kaftajian Apr 26
12. Shari Forman Apr 25
13. Jessica Who Apr 24
14. RedWritingHood Apr 22
15. Adreishka Moonlight Apr 21
16. Rocky G Apr 19
17. Sarina Apr 18
18. John Moffatt Apr 17
19. Izisfat Apr 9
20. Leila Apr 8
21. Marian Apr 5
22. Star Toucher64 Mar 30
23. Michelle Mar 26
24. Kristo Frost Mar 25
25. Ra Mar 20
26. Jacqueline Melissa Woolums Mar 15
27. ennyo Mar 11
28. Ellen Menzies Mar 9
29. Jodi Casavant Mar 8
30. Jillyan Adams Feb 20
31. Hailey Scomet Feb 2
32. Pete Taken Alive Jan 17
33. Md HUDA Jan 6
34. Joshua Ohmer Jan 1
35. Quinn Puwang Dec 30, 2012
36. Rissa Ann Dec 10, 2012
37. Hilda Dec 9, 2012
38. Rena Julleitta Dec 7, 2012
39. Emily Rose Williams Dec 7, 2012
40. Abdosh A Dec 5, 2012
41. Naveena Vijayan Dec 4, 2012
42. Kristian Alexander George Dec 1, 2012
43. Oliver Delgaram-Nejad Dec 1, 2012
44. Chessnie Lea Nov 27, 2012
45. Ugochukwu-Charles Onyewuchi Nov 25, 2012
46. Timothy Nov 24, 2012
47. Who Am I Nov 24, 2012
48. Matthew P Hill Nov 23, 2012
49. Tomas Nov 21, 2012

I gained inspirations for my poems from all my followers, those who I follow and especially my lovely little one who brought me here to Hello Poetry first, to a safe haven of like-minded people with a poetic niche each.
Thank you all.

First of all I thank you Eliot York for creating this wonderful poetry blog.

(-: And how can I ever thank you enough for introducing me to this wonderful website, just like Krishna guides Arjun in grand Mahabharata epic. You are my Krishna and I am your Arjun. :-)
(-: You share the place with Eliot York and the family of Timothy sir for inspiring my poems & helping me define my poetic style. As you are a kid for me, your heart is a crystal to me from where I can see the world more clearly in a different way. :-)
Thanks to all,
Thanks Timothy sir for you inspire me to develop my own style of poetry,
Thanks for the introduction to Hello Poetry.
This is not exactly a poem,
Thanks note it is.
My HP Poem #219
E B joined me at Hello Poetry on this day itself.
©Atul Kaushal
Anshula Nema Jan 2017
Remember? Do you?
The verses of the Mahabharata,
Where Draupati begged to let her go,
Where being a wife of the Pandavas made her no different from the unmarried women.

Remember? Do you?
When inside 1 in 10 houses,
A little girl complains to her mum,  
It hurts me in there Maa.

Remember? Do you?
The night,
When a girl lay all naked and battered on the road,
When a friend of her's was as helpless as the lost kid at the course.

Remember? do you?
The nights when people marched with candles in their hands,
The days when we witnessed protests.
Days after days,
Months after months,
Years after years,
Didn't you,
All of you, tried to build us?

The ones who were too small to understand,
The ones who were capable enough to understand,
And the ones who understood what all this actually meant.
From the cheap comments passed
To the guidelines to dress-up,

You filled our heads,
With the thoughts which were never meant to be there.
From all those sad old lines to the new generation trends,
You made us cautious yet scared.
While there were dreams to be accomplished,
And words that were unsaid,
Your efforts to build us,
Made us question our own existence.

With every tantrum and argument we throw,
We have something for you to know, you know,

Caging us won't do us any good,
While letting us live without the not so needed guidelines will do.
Set us free and cage the ones who needs so,
For the day you would realise,
Is merely a *hypothetical concept
you would know.
Mr X May 2014
"Peaceful Kings are always destroyed.
Only discontent can lead to happiness."*



~Extract from the Mahabharata
Grandpa is a Nasi
Papa a Jew
And me - Palestinian
Grandma, Gandari
Since Long
And Mom Never Had
Veto Power, ever.  

When the Portico is yesterday’s Europe
And the Living Room is today’s Asia
The Kitchen is all-time Africa,
It’s quite natural for
The Bedroom to be Antarctica.
          = = = = = =

Gandhari is a character in the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. Gandhari voluntarily blindfolded herself throughout her married life. Her husband Dhritarashtra was born blind, and on meeting him and realizing this, she decided to share the pain of her blind husband.
JP Nov 2015
Enemy is a beautiful concept. You never say he is an enemy,
but you always refer, he is MY ENEMY coz he is a part
of your EGO, coz when he dies, you never be the same person
as before. We spend most of time thinking about our enemies.
That's why its easy to miss your friend but not your enemy
on the road.

If you observe, you treat even beggar as your enemy,
you never see a beggar an eye to eye coz if you, then
he will become you friend and his problem become your problem. Generally, people with whom you grow... brother/cousins/neighbor,
they are the one, who carry a small jealous about you and
your growth. coz they know your capacity and often compare you
and your growth,  and they are the one always compete with you.

In Mahabharata,  Arjuna refuse to fight against his own cousins
Kauravas, The reason, he knows very well he can
defeat Kauravas and retrieve his kingdom. But what FUN you
have, once, all your are enemies are dead, there is no fun in ruling
the kingdom. We need enemies to move our life, we need people
around us to feel jealous, that's why we buy a big house,
costly interiors, a luxury Cars,.. etc  less for us and more for
our Circle. We want every one to feel small when they
enter our house.

The Box office hit movie are successful not because of the Hero
but coz of villain, the most cruel the villain,  then, he help the
movie more interesting and also to the success of the film.
In Short,  Its your enemy determine your success. The more enemy
you have, the more drive you have towards your success.
Alin Feb 2016
i am good is a place
of peace and bliss
i am good is a place where
cells replace to their primordial
and i am good
is no more wonder
than when he says
i am good
when i learn
it’s as easy as
to swap
the not good
to its antonym
like within a time
as long as
a slip of the tongue
and i am good
once again
because of what he says
because of what i am


yes
we are good but
are you also good??


good is a place
not at the turn of an age / any age
in reality there is no age
there has never been a yuga
after Mahabharata

if you don’t want to
you don’t stay
in what has never been
in what will never end

there is no count for
one thing to end and for
another thing to start
no silly things like that!

there is no place
for a savior one
to show up

these are all residues
of a delusional mind
an anthropogenic
pollutant is expectation
that only awaits
and awaits
for a tomorrow
to resolve
a past! ?!?

which tomorrow?
which past?
no silly things like that
and
may you be
depressed by that!

always
a you
who values thisrthat
always
a you
who cannot be
whereas it
is one step
and not ahead
to here and now
to i
and no

no one can tell you
it is your path
it is your step

cause
we already are
and we have always been
here
enlightened in Satya
and we have always been
love

and
now
inspired by someone who says ‘i am good’
a goodness that brings goodness :)
Ryan P Kinney Jan 2020
The first Holy Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Lennart Lundh, Barbara Marie Minney, and Gabriella Ercolani

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

“This is the original Church of the world's scraps.
The body of the body of the body.
Burning in the sun.
‘Me and my son were born in the sun,’ They say.
He is willing to do it.”
The Man says, in a soothing voice.

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out; filling the space like gas expanding into a cylinder.

Background chatter already fills the room with low whispers before the performance-service,
“I am happy to hear that you are safe”.
“I am not sure that you are”
“You will be missed.”

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

Mama Evil steps forward to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The Word is critiqued, modified, disputed, and changes between its members at each meeting. At any time for no reason, people can interrupt The Man to deny, confirm, suggest, or challenge his statements. The group then decides on the next bit of gospel to be made up on the spot or if what has already been said is still the current phase of perspective. There is no central thought or plan, just a plan for thoughts. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. We are just people. And he, is just a Man. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason.’”
“As the recovering Catholic Kevin Smith wrote, ‘It’s not important which faith you are, just that you have faith.’”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”

The Man explains,
“The whole point of The Word is to make up new ones. To defy God’s Word by creating ourselves.”
“Do you see the animal’s asking questions? Wondering who they are. They simply know that they are.
There are no fish in Purgatory. Only us.
The Garden of Eden is colonized by serpents
There was no place for the demons to go, but further in.”

A Hindu Yoga instructor rights himself from walking on his hands and decides to take the first initiative, “Puff the Magic Dragon says, ‘Jesus loves me, but I need to talk to a human.’”
A furry cosplayer responds, "I need to talk to a human."

A Wiccan Princess retorts, "Nature is not as inventive as she thinks she is; Neither is God"

The Man answers,
“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word (because we question).”

“Heavy is the crown that wears the head,” says the child prince.

The Drag King quotes, “Psalms (chap.):13
You will tread on the lion and the cobra.
You will trample on the great lion and the serpent.”

"...And God teaches the cricket how to play his music," says the bookish-looking woman sitting in the corner, trailing off as she adjusts her literal Coke bottle frames.

A gym rat, wearing a holey muscle shirt, extends arm to point as he says,
“Humans begin as *******.”

“Humans are also stardust.
Which means we are golden,” replies the scientist

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” says the derelict businessman hobo hero,
“God made mud in his own image and we are the leftover **** that rose out of it.
And if all life is really God’s sacred mud, then every **** storm is God’s Wrath.”

The Man quotes T.S. Eliot,
“What are the roots that clutch. What branches grow out of this stony *******. Son of man, you cannot say or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images.”

"The grapes of wrath transmuted into the harvest of imagination,” illustrates the painter

The automaton states, “**** the earth, to make a certain sense of it all.”

The Man attempts to regain control,
“Some future digger after truth,
alien or human, kneeling with
trowel and brush at this grave,
will note in clear, careful script
the wonder that a people would
be so deliberate with the smallest
of their gods' creatures,
and so careless of themselves.”

A soccer Mom asks,
“They say I shouldn’t be so tired.
They say I should get a job.
They say I should get off this couch.
They say I shouldn’t be a blob.”

“It takes but one step to enter the grave,” says The Man.
“So much can be lost in crossing that threshold. How did your grandparents, born in separate countries, meet? Did your mother kiss your father first, or vice versa? These are questions we don't think to pose, but without the asking or other evidence, Death will redact the list of begettings. Are you prepared for that void in memory? Or have you made notes for your children to leave theirs?”

"My Dad keeps their honeymoon receipts in the family Bible,” says the Unknown.
“After Mom moved on, he would take the Bible off the shelf every evening after supper.  He would first stare at it for what seemed forever while pouring himself a huge tumbler of bourbon and lighting a huge cigar that smelled like month old underwear.  Eventually, he would open the gold clasp and raise the deeply cracked leather cover of the Bible and first look at the family history written inside the front cover in the delicate and intricate handwriting of Mom, before pulling out the well worn honeymoon receipts, which he would shuffle through like a deck of cards before spreading them out on the worn and scratched kitchen table like a kind of dead man’s hand.  Sometimes, he would weep quietly.  Other times, he would pound his fists violently on the table shaking the cans of beans and potatoes on the shelves above.  That is when I knew it was time to make myself scarce.  He never ever opened the Bible any further than the front cover, which made me wonder about the nature of the book itself.  I always pondered the same questions over and over.”  
“Is Bible a filthy word? Is it the animal? The Man, The Woman? Should we burn the book?”
“Is the Word filthy?”, asks The Man, “What are the filthy words? What are the power of Words mired in ****? Who do these words define? Who are you?”

Mama Evil commands a presence,
“****? ****? ****? *****? Broad? *****? Are these the words you use to define me? When that which defines me is the holy chalice, life's catalyst, mia figa, my ****: stand us all on our heads and we all look the same. Regardless of our skin color, or the shape of the bones in our face or the skin around our eyes or the texture of our hair, those folds of flesh, that tunnel to the precipice of the universe, that little happy happy joy joy button, these are what we all have in common and what the whole world simultaneously wants and reviles. It has that much power. A lexical reclamation is taking place. One that will lift up the collective feminine spirit instead of dragging it down to the depths of all pejoratives. ****! The taking back of all pejoratives is an essential part of the reclamation of the collective self-esteem of woman kind! She is a Hindu Goddess! She is the Roman Goddess who is the protector or newborn infants. She is cunctipotent. She is all powerful and creates and destroys the world with her blood sugar **** magic. She is the princess and savior of the Mahabharata, renowned for her hospitality, who willingly receives any traveler who requests food and lodging. She is that benevolent. Durvasas bestows upon her a powerful mantra as payment for that hospitality and with it, Princess Kunti has the power to call on any God in heaven to lie with her and she will bear a son then by the next day. When her husband is rendered sterile as punishment for shooting the Stag King as he mated with his queen, Princess Kunti bears three heirs for the kingdom. She saves the kingdom. She saves the day. She is **** magic at its finest hour and she dwells in all of us who have ever been slandered. So go on, you ignorant *******. Call me a ****. Only you in your infinite small stupidity are skint the knowledge that you have just called me a princess and a savior.”

A comic nerd asks, “What of Power? What is power?”

Mama Evil holds up a single flame, spewing from a cheap blue lighter in her hand. She asks, “What is the power of The Word.” Is it in the book? Or in the air.”

She answers, “The power to choose. Do I set the world on fire, or put out
the flames?”

The room goes dark as she abruptly steals The Man’s usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”
Vraj thakkar Sep 2020
Those tears in my eyes, reminding me how to cry,
I've been faking all this time, mirror had a smile wry,
On this cold night when I see it all through my eyes,
I see all the phases of time, all the truth and the lies,

My eyes were closed but I could see through the mind,
Maybe I had to feel the pain god felt when he looked upon his child,
I could talk to the trees , I could change the winds and stop the waves,
But I couldn't change fate , I couldn't stop people from being slaves,

I see my grandfather dying , I know he doesn't want to live,
Wish I could hug him, I fear seeing him leave,
I see the motion of karma faster than the speed of light,
Humanity itself invited its end so now pays for the fight,

I could see the war of mahabharata and the conspiracy of caesar,
Hear the heart of criminal quivering in fear and that of a yogi chanting in leisure,
I could hear the cries of mother while giving birth,
Watch the child in the womb and its journey to the hearth.

And the next moment I opened my eyes to a storm in an ocean,
Darkness all around but could see a ship swaying, probably broken,
The dreadful ocean and cold winds, I felt my body losing the sync,
A milestone read the ocean was my mind and it was hope that was to sink.

Saw a huge wave advancing towards me, I felt it was my death,
I dared to smile and prayed happiness for my parents till the last breath,
I wished I could apologize to all the people I hurt, before this call,
I was searching for explanations and theories but now I knew it all.

Could distinctly see the wave engulf my ship of hope,
Never let the hope die, fight with all might, there's nowhere to elope,
Remembering all the mistakes I made, I knew I was going to have an ugly end,
Wasn't scared of dying, was just amazed how he had everything planned.
Across the realm of gray matter
slowly percolating within tissue
composed of neuronal, glial
and endothelial cells, and although
there must be biological rules
that determine the numbers
of cells of each subtype
and the volumes (or masses)
occupied by them,
little is known about such rules,
if they indeed exist

nevertheless, ah haint goot
no trade secret, boot verily
attest adventitious, bounteous, and
capacious divine intervention
(analogous to invisible
Charge of the Light Brigade)
timely saving amazing grace
engorges, engirdles, and engenders mine
body, mind and spirit,
which psychic triage
accruing, germinating,

and manifesting coming
forth, and appearing
at the most opportune
pluperfect tinder kindling
jawboning indeed, and
instagramming optimal instant –
sparing irreparable cerebral damage,
yet inflicting temporary
temporal lobe trauma
not surprising giving
brain big bang, sans

tickly totally tubular raise
zing trumpeting – analogous
to Portuguese man-of-war
sea render tyranny
(Sic semper tyrannis)
over fifty plus shades sways
undulating cerebral cortex
doth lightly secretly
with naturally secreted
unguent liberal mindedly braise,
which explanation might meet

with skepticism, but crazy as such
"FAKE" holy transcendent
heavenly extra corporeal
modus operandi may seem,
an inexplicable force
powerfully Herculean sensation
grips me noggin leavening
mental scratch pad in a daze
of blinding poetic inspiration doth    
like quaffing goblet
of gin n tonic faze

this phenomena plays
a particularly puzzling role
on account difficult to phrase
in light of my being an atheist,
which non deistic, theistic,
nor Vedic precept stays
metaphorically locked, linkedin, and
leveraged in place,
despite non religious confession
augmentation, attribution,
and association showers inspiration,

where eyes fixedly glaze
as literary creativity attaining
high psychological grades
dramatically engages fantastically
with cosmic force appearing
as nebulous haze
seems antithetical to premise
couched, fixated, and interleaved
anchor rightly, viz
secular humanism inlays
votary visa versa entrees

shutterfly, snapchat twitter
comport comfortably situated
in  the catbird seat
as upon royal chaise
lounge steeped within
monastic hermetically ascetic ways
akin to daffodils got to puff the
magic dragon GoDaddy seed achieve
visibly absent pride and
prejudice where aggrieve
ving unseen, as careening

human bits believe
where forebears of Adam, and
the ants sandy dunes cleave
species pollination, yet devoid of
neither sense nor
sensibility that deceive
themselves philanthropic buttressed
by religious ethos, dogmas
credo, et cetera since Eve
to and fro, hither and yon
across the globe heave

infusing self importance
viz zit heady species
**** sapiens sans belief bold
lee granting superiority
to hundreds of generations
lapsed goo gilled descendants
of contemporary Primates cold,
and calculating dictatorial demagogues
(no matter dishabille disheveled) doled
out self importance
gussied up as kingpins,

whose braggadocio extolled
blood lust, depravity and egregious
on flip side of Manichaeism origami fold
touting faux grandeur measly
humans inherent self supremacy,
which mettle valuably wrought
more precious than gold
whereby might versus right
fostered iron gripped hold
trumping supreme cosmic
deity (if such exists,

per those, who ascribe existence
to divine creator),
where mankind didst
get special mold
where fictitious codified battlements
evinced luminary salient traits
if millennial forbears hypothetically polled
vis a vis virtue vindicates
vice viz lyrical tomes
such legendary mythological narratives as:
Aeneid, Don Juan,

Paradise Lost, The Divine Comedy,
Mahabharata, Beowulf,
Metamorphoses, The Odyssey,
Epic of Gilgamesh,
and The Iliad
displayed thunderous outrages
rectified violently rocked and rolled
where assignment throughout galaxy -
studded with malevolent
mailer daemons all told
informed terrestrial behavior,

decrees and formalities amidst wold
wide webbed skein tenuous
as gossamer wings
shutterfly at the speed of sound
albeit ergot size
solemn spores bumping,
commingling and jostling beings
whose demotic, erratic,
and frenetic vernacular
bumped uglies against
sacred talismanic wild things

while secular notions cursed
as intractably intolerable swings
per paradigms that disallowed rubric,
where autocratic stings
lashed out at pagan rites, which
when viewed from
surface where Earthlings
dwelt appeared as unpredictable
skittering dots with nary flings
perceived, but simply

near microscopic simians
crowning themselves as Kings
of Leon admonishing those
madding crowd source rings
of bright waters -
offering entertainment
to the invisible forces
within galactic realm
as mere antics of goslings.
Eshwara Prasad Jun 2020
All the characters of the epic

Mahabharata are inside my head,

including

Dhushyasan!

— The End —