Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
RAJ NANDY Sep 2018
Dear Poet Friends, Torin Galleshaw from Charlotte NC, a Member of this Site, had requested me to compose about the Rise of Third *****. Therefore, I have commenced with the causes for its Rise in my Part One posted below. Planning to compose Part Two with ******’s Blitzkrieg campaign of Poland later. It is unfortunate that I am unable to post related Maps & Photos for better appreciation of my Readers! Such options are not available for us here! However, I have managed to post a copy with maps & photos in the E-mail ID of my friend Torin!  Kindly give comments only after reading this researched work of mine, during your spare time.  Thanking you, - Raj, New Delhi.

            STORY OF SECOND WORLD WAR – PART ONE
                            RISE OF THE THIRD *****
                                       By Raj Nandy

                                  INTRODUCTION
In this part I shall mainly deal with the causes leading to the Second World War,
Which had also created favourable conditions for the rise of Third ***** under ******.
The word ‘*****’ derives from old German word ‘rihhi’ meaning ‘realm’;  
But is also used to designate a kingdom or an empire in a broader sense.
Historically, the First ***** was the Medieval Holy Roman Empire which lasted till the end of the 19th Century.
While the Second ***** was the First German Empire from 1871 to 1918, when dynamic Otto Von Bismark had united all of Germany,
Which ended with its defeat in World War One and birth of the Weimar Republic.
The Third ***** refers to the **** German Empire under ******, Which lasted from 1933 till 1945, for twelve traumatic eventful years!
Historians opine that the ending of a war is equally important as
its beginning;
Since the causes for the start of a war is often to be found embedded in its ending!
The First World War came to an end on 28th of June 1919 as we all know.
With the signing of the Treaty at Versailles by the German Foreign Minister Hermann Muller and the ‘Big Four’.  (Britain, France, America, & Italy)
Yet it is rather ironical, that this Peace Treaty of Versailles, considered as President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘brain child’,
Had sowed the seeds of discontent resulting in the outbreak of the Second World War, and Adolf ******’s dramatic rise!

Though several causes are attributed for the outbreak of the Second World War by our Military Historians.
Let me try to summarise those causes which are considered to be more relevant.
Commencing with the harsh Treaty of Versailles, the British and French Policy of Appeasement, followed by Hyperinflation and the Great Depression of 1929, and failure of The League of Nations to maintain peace;  
Are relevant factors which collectively combined resulting in the outbreak of the devastating Second World War, scarring human memories for all time!
But not forgetting ******’s forceful and persuasive eloquence which mesmerised the Germans to rise up as a powerful Nation once again.
Since ****** promised to avenge the humiliation faced by Germany following the Treaty of Versailles,
Which was drawn up with vengeance, and dictated by the victorious Allies!

THE  ARMISTICE  AND TREATY OF VERSAILLES:    
Armistice means a truce for cessation of hostilities, which provides a breathing space for negotiating a lasting peace.
Now the Armistice ceasing the First World War was signed inside the railway carriage of the Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Foch, in the Forest of Compiegne,
On the 11th of November 1919, sixty km north of Paris, between the victorious Allies and vanquished Germany.
But in the meantime naval blockade of Germany had continued, and the German Rhineland was evacuated and partly occupied by the combined Allied troops!
Release of Allied POWs interned civilians followed subsequently; And the Reparations Clause of monetary compensation was strictly imposed on Germany!
Now, following a wide spread German Sailor’s Revolt towards the end of October 1918, Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm-II had abdicated;
And on the 9th of November Friedrich Ebert, as the new Social Democrat President of Germany, authorised his representative to sign the Compiegne Armistice.
We should remember here that this Armistice seeking cessation of hostilities did not stipulate any unconditional surrender;
And the signing of the Armistice by the German Social Democrats, was considered as ‘a stab in the back of the German army’ by majority of the Germans!
These issues get repeatedly mentioned by Adolf ****** in his eloquent speeches subsequently,
To arouse the spirit of German Nationalism, and resurgence of the ‘Master Aryan Race’ of the Germans, - in Germany!

The Versailles Treaty was signed on 28th of June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand which had sparked World War One.
Let me mention few aspects of this Treaty which was detested by the Germans!
Germany lost 13% of its land, 12% of its people, 48% of its iron resources, 15% of its agricultural production, and 10% of its coal, following its implementation!
German army was reduced to 100,000 men, its Navy reduced to 36 ships with no submarines, its Air Force banned, and its union with Austria forbidden.
Now to use a Shakespearean phrase the ‘unkindest cut of all’ came in the shape of Article 231,  the ‘War Guilt Clause’ of the Versailles Treaty,
Which provided the legal basis for the payment of war reparations by Germany.
The reparation amount of 132 billion gold marks (US $33 billion) to cover the civilian damage caused during the war, now had to be paid by Germany!
Thus the humiliation, resentment, and the virtual economic strangulation following the Versailles Treaty,
Was exploited by extremist groups such as ******’s **** Party.
And in the decades to follow, ******’s Nazis would take full control of Germany!

NOTES: Following Versailles Treaty, Alsace-Lorraine captured by Germany in 1870 was returned to France. The SAAR German coalfield region was give to France for 15 yrs. Poland became independent with a corridor to the sea dividing Germany into two. Danzing, a major port in East Prussia, became a free city under the League of Nation. Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, & Czechoslovakia became independent. Industrial area of German Rhineland, forming a buffer zone between Belgium &France,was
demilitarised.

WOODROW WILSON’S  14 - POINT PEACE INITIATIVE  & THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS:
American President Wilson was an idealist and a visionary, who in a speech to the US Congress on 8th Jan 1918,
Introduced a 14 Point Charter as a platform for building global peace, based on the principles of transparency, self-determination, and Democracy.
But for the first time in US history, the Republican-led US Senate rejected this Peace Treaty, and prevented America from joining the newly created League!
The US Senate wanted to retain its sovereignty without external entanglements;
Free from the League of Nation’s political dictates in its foreign commitments!
The Irish immigrants refused to support Wilson's Fourteen Points because Wilson was concerned about stopping WWI, rather than forcing the British to set Ireland free.
Many Jews also refused to back Wilson, since he was paying too much attention to the War, and not enough to the Balfour Declaration of 02 Nov 1917, -
Which promised an Independent Jewish State with a distinct Jewish identity.

The League of Nations had emerged from Wilson’s 14 Points on the 10th Jan 1920, with its HQs at Geneva, Switzerland, but it had no peacekeeping forces those days!
The League had failed to prevent invasion of Chinese Manchuria in 1932 by Japan;
Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935; annexation of Sudetenland and Austria by Germany!
The Axis countries Germany, Italy, and Japan, withdrew from the League subsequently.
Thus the League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 officially!
But President Wilson’s ceaseless efforts for global peace did not go unrecognised,
Since on the 10th of December 1920, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!
While his disbanded League of Nations, as the first global humanitarian organisation,
Continued to survive in spirit with the establishment of United Nations Organisation on the 24th October, 1945.

ECONOMIC CAUSES - FOLLOWED BY THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1929 :
Germany emerged from the First World War with loss of 25,000 square miles of territory;
Loss of seven million inhabitants, and a staggering debt imposed by the Versailles Treaty!
The Wiemar Republic, after abdication of Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm-II  to Holland,
For the first time in German history, established a Democratic Constitution with Friedrich Ebert as its first President.
But The Republic first had to consolidate itself by squashing the Spartacist Revolt of January 1919 led by the extreme Leftists, and inspired by the Russian Bolshevik Communists!
The Freikorps, in March 1920, an Ex-Soldiers Rightist Group, tried to overthrow the Wiemar Republic with support of their Rightist allies and their own veteran troops!
This was soon followed by a Communist attempt to takeover of the Industrial Rhur;
But fortunately, all these uprisings against the Republic were effectively subdued!
But the 33 Billion Dollars of Reparations hung over the Wiemar Republic like the legendary ‘Sword of Damocles’, followed by the Great Depression of 1929;
Coupled with the ‘Policy of Appeasement’ practised by the British and the French;
Became the most important causes for ******’s expansionist ambition and his short- lived meteoric rise to fame!

GERMAN PAPER CURRENCY & HYPERINFLATION:
Gold Mark was the currency used by the German Empire from 1873 to 1914 only.
But to pay for the costs of the ongoing First World War, Germany suspended the gold standard, and decided to fund the war by Borrowings entirely,
Hoping to pay back the loans after Germany achieves Victory.
But having lost the war, and faced with a massive debt imposed by the Allies,
Exchange rate of the Mark against the US Dollar steadily devalued and declined!
Papiermark became the German currency from 04th August 1914 onward, when link between the Mark and gold reserve was abandoned,
In order to pay for the ongoing expenses of the First World War with paper marks, which was constantly being printed!
But later after the war, when the London Ultimatum of May 1921 demanded payment of war reparations in gold or in foreign currency only,
Even more paper marks got printed by the Republic to buy those foreign currency !
By December 1922 hyper-inflationary trends emerged, when the US Dollar became equivalent to 7,400 German Marks, with a 15-fold increase in the cost of living !
By the fall of 1922 when it became impossible for Germany to make further payments,
The French and Belgium armies occupied Germany’s Ruhr Valley area, its prime industrial region!
French and the Belgians hoped to extract payment in kind, but a strike by the workers of the Ruhr area their hopes belied!
The Wiemar Republic printed more paper notes to pay and support the workers of the Ruhr area,
When hyperinflation had peaked at 4,210,500,000,000 German Marks, to a US Dollar!
Paper currency having become worthless, some form of ancient barter system began to be used instead!

STABILISATION OF GERMAN ECONOMY WITH ONSET OF  THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
Following the hyperinflation Chancellor Josef Cuno’s cabinet resigned in August 1923,
When Gustav Stresemann became the new Chancellor of Germany.
Stresemann’s Government had introduced the Rentenmark as a new stable currency,
To end the hyperinflation which had plagued Wiemar Germany.  
Rentenmark was backed by real goods, agricultural land and business,
Since gold was not available in a beleaguered German economy those days!
When One Rentenmark was equivalent to One million, million, old German Mark;
While One US Dollar was equivalent to only 4.2 Rentenmarks.
Though Stresemann’s Government lasted for 100 days only, Stresemann continued to serve as the Foreign Minister in successive Coalition Governments of the Republic,
Till his death in the month of October 1929, but working for the betterment of Germany all the while!
His ‘Policy of Fulfilment’ stabilised German economy with a 200 Million Dollars loan from America under the Dawes Plan in 1924,
Which had also ensured the evacuation of France from the occupied Ruhr area, with their future reparations payments ensured.
Stresemann’s signing of the Locarno Pact in London on 1st Dec 1925 with France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Italy, was considered as his achievement and a feat!
Since it made Germany to enter the League of Nations ensuring stability and peace;
While the Noble Peace Prize was awarded to Stresemann for his efforts in 1926!
Later, the Young Plan of 1929 further reduced German reparations payment by 20%, while extending the time frame for the payments to 59 years!
But following a sudden Wall Street Stock Market Crash in late October of 1929,
The American Banks were forced to recall money from Europe and the Young Plan;.
Which created acute financial distress when unemployment soared to 33.7%  in Germany in 1931, and quickly rose to 40% during the following year!
Lausanne Conference was held in Switzerland in 1932 by Great Britain, Germany, and France, to further reduce the War Debts imposed by the Versailles Treaty.
But in Dec 1932, the US Congress had rejected this Allied War Debt Reduction Plan completely.
However, no further payments were made by Germany due to the Great Depression;
And by 1932, Germany had paid only 1/8 of the total sum required to be paid as per their pending wartime reparations!

NOTES: Rentenmark was issued on 15 October 1923 to stop the hyperinflation in Wiemeer Germany. Reichmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 to 20 June 1948 in West Germany , when it was replaced by the Deutsche Mark; but had continued in East Germany until 23 June when it was replaced by East German Mark.
During the Stresemann Years of Stability from 1924 to 1929, (prior to the onset of the Great Depression), with help of American financial aid, created more housing & production in Germany. Dada & Expressionist Art forms flourished, followed by modern architecture; also the Philosophy of Existentialism of Thomas Mann – influenced the Western culture. Paul Whiteman's Band for the first time brought in American Jazz to Germany, and Jazz signified the liberation of German youth and women folks of the younger generation generally. But the US Stock Market Crash had unfortunately ended this short lived euphoria, and as it soon became a global phenomena!                                


FAILURE OF THE WIEMAR REPUBLIC & THE GREAT DEPRESSION WHICH BENEFITED THE NAZIS:
Last Days of Wiemar Republic:
Ever since Otto Von Bismarck that ‘Man of iron and steel’, united Germany into a single Empire in the year Eighteen Hundred & Seventy One,
For the first time a Constitution for a Parliamentary Democracy was drawn up in August 1919, in the eastern German city of Wiemar.
Wiemar was the intellectual centre of Germany associated with musicians like Franz List, and writers like Goethe and Schiller.
The Wiemar Republic of Germany which had lasted from 1919 till 1933 had seen,
20 different Coalition Governments, with frequent elections and changing loyalties!
Due to a system of proportional representations, and the presence of very many political parties those days,  
No single party could obtain absolute sole majority in the Reichstag Parliament!
The longest Coalition Govt. was under Chancellor Bruning, which had lasted for only 2 years and 61 days!     (From 30 March 1930 to 30 May 1932)
Now, to understand the reasons for the failure to maintain a Democratic form of Government by the Wiemar Republic,
It becomes necessary to monitor its ‘dying gasps’ during its closing years so to speak!
Since faced with the economic depression Chancellor Bruning had worsened the unemployment situation by adopting stringent and unpopular measures!
Thereby having lost popular political support, Bruning with the approval of President Hindenburg, invoked emergency powers under Article 48, to survive his last few months and years!
During the years 1931 and 1932  it is seen, Bruning had used this Emergency Clause 44 and 66 times respectively!
Thus his so-called ‘Presidential form of Govt.’ had undermined Wiemar Democracy!
If Burning was the ‘Republic’s Undertaker’, now remains a debatable issue of History!
But Burning’s vigorous campaign made Hindenburg to get re-elected as the President;
Thereby he had removed the defeated Adolf ****** out of the Presidential race!
Therefore, later when ****** became the Chancellor on 30 Jan 1933, Bruning had very wisely fled from Germany!

Following Bruning’s resignation in May 1932 came Chancellor Papen’s ‘Cabinet of Barons’ consisting of individuals who were not members of the German Reichstag!
While in the election of July 1932 ******’s **** Party won 230 seats, making it the largest party in the Reichstag.
But ****** refused to form a coalition with Papen, because he wanted to become the Chancellor himself !
Now General von Schleicher advised President Hindenburg that the German Army,
Would not accept Papen’s use of Article 48 to remain as the Chancellor of Germany!
Therefore following Papen’s resignation, Schleicher took over on the 04th of December 1932 as the new German Chancellor.
Schleicher tried to restore a democratic form of government to get the Wiemar Republic back on its feet.
But in the ensuing political power struggle Papen wanted to take revenge on Schleicher for his removal from power and defeat.
So Papen persuaded Adolf ****** to become the Chancellor, and retain for himself the post of Vice-Chancellor.
In doing so, Papen mistakenly thought that he would be able to reign in the self-assertive Adolf ******!
Papen finally made President Hindenburg agree to his proposal, and on 30th of Jan 1933,
****** became the New Chancellor, with approval of the President!
A month later a sudden fire in the Reichstag made ****** invoke Article 48, in order to squash the suspected Left Wing Communists;
But while doing so, the Press was muzzled, and many Civil Rights of the German people were abolished, inclusive of their right of assembly and free speech!
****** acted swiftly, and by passing the Enabling Act on 23 March, 1933, armed himself  with dictatorial powers for enacting laws without the approval of the Reichstag whenever necessary!
Thereby ****** threw Democracy to History’s wasteland most unfortunately!
Following the death of Hindenburg on 29 June 1934, ****** combined the powers of the President and the Chancellor, and became known as the FUHRER!
Historians generally agree the Enabling Act of 1933, as the date for establishment of The German Third *****.

THE POLICY OF APPEASEMENT AND GERMAN AGGRESSION:
The horrors of trench warfare with the rattling of machine guns and bursting of poisonous nerve gas shells,
Even after 20 years remained fresh, in the minds of all World War One participants!
Therefore, it was natural for British and French Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier initially,
To grant political and material concessions to an aggressive Germany, for the sake of peace and stability.
Thus the diplomatic stance of Appeasement between 1935 and 1939 followed by the French and the British, was mainly to avoid another dangerous armed conflict!
But the trusting Mr. Chamberlain had underestimated ******, who had served in the German Army as a Corporal, winning the Iron Cross during the last Great War!
****** was not afraid of war, but wanted to avenge the Treaty of Versailles and its punitive dictated peace;
And also establish for the superior German Aryan race a lasting Third *****!
Therefore, having consolidated his power as the Fuhrer along with his trusted **** Party cronies, he withdrew from the League of Nations in October 1933.
Introduced conscription in March 1935 in Germany, and embarked on a mission to rebuild a new modernised German Army for combat on land, air, and sea!
In March 1936, in another open violation of the Versailles Treaty, ****** re-occupied the demilitarised Rhineland, followed by a Treaty of Alliance with Japan and Italy.
The much desired Anschluss (or merger) with Austria, the country of birth of ******,
Saw the German Army in March 1938, triumphantly and peacefully marching into Vienna!
Now with the Munich Conference of 19 September 1938, this Policy of Appeasement is said to have reached its climatic peak!
The Sudetenland area, consisted of 3 million Germans were made
to join Czechoslovakia when the frontiers were drawn in 1918-19,
Much against the wishes of the Germans!
When ****** wanted to annex this Sudetenland area, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, met at Munich to diffuse an explosive situation peacefully.
It was agreed at Munich that once Sudetenland joins Germany, ****** will not invade Czechoslovakia and honour the terms of peace.
But on 15th March 1939, in violation of the Munich Agreement, ******’s army invade and occupied Czechoslovakia, thereby openly flouting the Policy of Appeasement!

NOTES: ******’s desire for ‘LEBENSRAUM’ or ‘increase of living space’ for the Germans, commenced with his ‘Border Wars’, which soon turned into a Global War because of the ‘appeasement policy’ of the Allies. ****** had secured his Eastern Front with a treaty with the Stalin, since fighting on two fronts would have been very difficult for the Germans.

Now when ******’s army invaded Poland on 1st of September 1939, it became ‘the last straw on the camel’s back’ for the Western Allies!
Committed to the Anglo-Polish Defence Pact of 25 August, 1939, both Britain and France declared war on Germany,
Which I propose to narrate in Part Two of my Second World War Story.  
The Policy of Appeasement no doubt gave some time for Britain, to regain its depleted military strength,  but Adolf ****** had viewed it as a sign of weakness!
With Russia and America initially as non-participants, ****** became more confident and arrogant!
Thereby turning his border wars into a global conflagration lasting six long years.
When the use of advanced technology, resulted in greater loss and casualties;  
Which was followed by the holocaust and unprecedented human suffering!
I would like to conclude my present narration with a poem by English soldier-poet Seigfried Sassoon, who participated in the First World War on the Western Front.

DREAMERS  -  by Siegfried Sassoon
Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal ****** with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with ***** and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
…………………………………………………………………………
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
  *ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY
I. The Door

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

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

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

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

II. The Preparations

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

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

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

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

III. The Crossroads

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

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

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

IV. The Traveler

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

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

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

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

V. The City

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

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

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

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

VI. The First Temptation

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

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

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

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

VII. The Second Temptation

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

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

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

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

VIII. The Third Temptation

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

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

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

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

IX. The Tower

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

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

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

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

X. The Presumptuous

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

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

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

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

XI. The Average

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

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

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

XII. Vocation

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

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

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

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

XIII. The Useful

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

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

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

XIV. The Way

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XV. The Lucky

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

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

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

XVI. The Hero

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

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

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

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

XVII. Adventure

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

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

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

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

XVIII. The Adventurers

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

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

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

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

XIX. The Waters

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

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

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

**. The Garden

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

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

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

The gaunt and great, the famed for conversation
Blushed in the stare of evening as they spoke
And felt their centre of volition shifted.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
ŋ (Ingłaz - or Ingwaz: głaz:
                                a boulder, in- stone)
         the softening of
                                              n and j
    that makes up ŋ        -
as the modern coupling
of d and j
                                 in ð            -
ᚹᚨ                (va)        
                 ­             ᚹᚨ
          (looking down: and blessings)
                ᚹᚠ   (looking up: and curses);
                ᚹᚨᚱᛞᚢᛝᚨ (vardu'nja's) ᛞᚨᚷᚱ (dagr)
   ᚢ (ν)                       -                 v
                                                          5
   ­                              ç             as said former
crude... later... refined...
                          but what a shorter
time-frame from monkey-hunchback
            to ***** man...
                                              how the eyes
can concentrate on an abstract
       of evolution that encoding sounds
has in its fame the blessing guidance
to be embodied by a single individual...  
               ðerne (d'yearn'eh)
                             e.g.
                                      ŋørn
                     ­            (                 night,
                 n'jœrn                        ).
overaffe Jun 2013
ok

the minute it takes..

to trace the call,

to ducktape the suspects ******* face,

is the same minute a family home explodes in a cross section cutscene like 24.

more prisoners escape,

******, pretty, but they're spies.

suckers got forks stuck in their eyes.

the trucker died, his hat now a subtle disguise.

soft talk and the novice gaurd complied.

I told the brass this whole ******* place needed modernised.

shot gun cabinets unlatched,

the last batch of canteen fat contained celephaned grendades.

outside it rains and mud slides thick as the chase vehicles flip onto their sides.

the helicopter follows a costumed imposter through the shadows of a suburban night.

people thrown out the way on the street like extras in a detective series.

"Freeze: get on your ******* knees"

"Ive got nothing to lose, ive got the the ******* hostage and im offering a trade off

don't ******* shoot,

or ill put a hole in this ***** bigger than you can fix pig, twitching at the trigger,listen quick

take a step back or ill do it, push me ******* cop".

blood on the concrete runs thin as it navigates and mixes with no forgiveness or mission.

track back until the dead are insect sized, centred in the wide shot of the city, wait a beat then credits rise.
LOBOLA
Let me drift you away from the idea that lobola is buying your wife. No! It isn't. As black families, we believe that parents raise kids and once the kids have grown and are independent they get to now take care of their parents. Now! We know that once you get married, that might change because now you will be having your own family to take care of. We know that as men, that never really changes...you still get to take care of your parents and a family of your own hence there is no lobola for men. Now as women, we acknowledge that you are going to get married and go live by your in-laws or some place else and traditionally it is believed that you are never to come back home since you have been "taken". Understandably so because you are now part of a certain family and have broken the cord from yours. Fast forward to lobola therefore as a man who is taking away a woman from a family which she was taking care of, you ought to leave them with something so that they may continue living or surviving since you are taking away their "bread winner". Back in the days lobola was paid by cows, because with livestock you are rich and can survive for many years. The idea of lobola started being an issue and misunderstanding when it converted to hard cash. Which shouldn't have because it is still the same concept...with a certain amount of money you should be able to take care of your family and survive. How lobola got misinterpreted as buying your wife is not well understood however it could be presumed that it is because of the attributes that contributes to the price tagging. Your behaviour, achievements, ability to reproduce etc are what contributes to the billing. Which honestly shouldn't be an issue because parents know that with the achievements that you have you were going to take care of them well...very well. With the manners that you have...you will respect your husband and be obedient towards him. You will bear kids for your husband and gave a big family. Everyone is happy. All in all to able to understand the concept of lobola you have to understand culture and tradition but you are going to say "times have changed" and you are now modernised.
#Lobola #black #Culture
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
it's twenty past four,
i have spent the past hour watching
the Vierschanzentournee -
like someone in England might
have stayed up, watching
the n.f.l. or a boxing match...
i bought johnny walker black
at the airport and i sat there
watching history.
                        can there be a modernised
version of ecce ****?
             apart from dietery requirements
and angst against Wagner
and all that pompous rattle
invoked in the original by Herr N.?
i guess there can be...
    there i was, on my hiatus,
going to bed almost every single night
trying to sleep-palm a chess set
or a keyboard, but both seemed out
of reach...
                   this, again, a forceful
resignation toward the past day,
              it will never be perfect,
the first approach will always be
rusty, it has been three weeks
since i last entered this spiderweb,
of snappy convo and even snappier
overload of democratic practises;
and before me: endless sleepless
nights, and countless miniature
fürhers... and thus this fact:
  which i thought was worth avoiding...
but then i did buy a used laptop for
550zł, (given the exchange rate,
that's roughly £100... the downside?
everything is in paul-leash (no,
that's not an americanism of drawl
and draw and slobber and Houdini's
last trick) - hence i might actually
sport a cravat, moccasins and a
velvet dinner jacket...
                                   and when
Rodin employed his minions to
    chisel away at chapters from Dante,
Dumas (have you ever seen his
omni coprus?) like some pseudo-Pope
employed heavy-drinking monks
to write out his stories for salon bored
ladies until their hands were
playing shadow-arthritis games
         that children would applaud:
rabbit! rabbit! poor monks, exhausted
from having scribbled and
chicken scratched chicken blood into
papyrus wanted nothing more than
to grow their nails so they couldn't
hold a quill... no matter! Dumas would
say... we'll sharpen your nails,
vol. 25 of the comte bourbon &
the flamingo dance, and Rambo XVI
were both written by the unfortunate
monks...
              once again: there's
autobiography... and there's an autobiography...
  to write an autobiography
so that no biography is worth writing...
perhaps if i used paragraphs:
i could be considered: "serious".
      then there's that thought:
thought as origin of biographics -
           nothing to be preserved in
it having happened, returning from
Stansted in a taxi:
  only a thought:
   philosophy cannot claim anything
to be counter-intuitive in its foundation,
to me that conjures up an analogue:
the guillotine is the counter-intuitive
foundation of the french revolution...
Ivan the terrible threw dogs off the Kremlin
wall, and gauged out the eyes of the St. Basil's
architect... and since then
children in Poland loved to play:
throw a bunch of marbles into a little hole...
evidently ancient Egypt resounded
in capricious cappuccino Milan...
or: Míllánò! nurse! nurse! the syllable-scalpel!
herr doctor, is that defined by diacritical
marks? yes sister.
                  **** in boots to suit you toppling
too...  and may i add:
             how ever did i digress from
the mundane reality of: second-hand laptop,
Windows in Polish... every single word
in english: red tape, underlined...
if i have dyslexia, it'll show like a crow's
feather on a dove -
and when it does, you can start calling
me Chief Apache Pixie Jack...
or how you have black and white as
polar, the rainbow... and then
nights in grey satin by the bothersome blues.
this will be defined by lacklustre
and hopping along... then, vaguely:
a romance?
                        it was supposed to
be a hiatus... hiatus...
         3 weeks of what became defined by
anything but such hopes...
   some people span a literary career of
20 years... take 3 years to write a book...
         it takes me 3 years to keep
a single thought...
          can you really repress biographic
accounts these days?
                                 well... if written
par with the times, i guess it's as much
fun as questioning whether
     the following two are very much akin:
1 + 2 + 3 = 5 - 10 + 20 x 2 = 30
is the same sort of arithmetic as when
you do the "math"of writing out
a word like onomatopoeia...
the hanging vowels of babylon...
          if anything, then this -
             as it also could be: on the scrapheap
of memory, a dazzling iron-clad
      heftiness of pulverising vector -
a Gucci demanding a pulpit and an
avocado on toast... champagne and
squid... or as the Michelin criteria were
revealed: rubber tire and squid di Calabria...
tell the two apart... you'll get a republic
passport... who would have thought
that rubber tires were the benchmark,
the ph 7 of foody palettes across the
azure blob, with some ashen and fern
bits in between.
   but this is me, testing new equipment...
having spent 3 weeks on two kinds
of detox... alcoholic... oh the whiskey...
and the ski jumping gavrons...
   plush? sparrels in a rolling dozen
of figurative barrels - and more sensibly?
kestrels, petted by stiff, castrated
   hippos of the sky, akin to astronomy
naming blobs: pi-7773-quatro-offshoot-of
Juno...
                 or a boo boo 747...
about as gracious as a **** launched
off a trebuchet at the dome of the rock...
gimmicky the sliding down...
hot wedge like swallowing a sword...
                3 weeks on this vegetarian
diet... detox alcohol detox 21st century
phonebook...
    rusty first imprints from the waiting game...
but my my...
               wasn't it fun...
                  Jan Kazimierz Waza
(the finicky cardinal)
                                       as presented by
Horatio... no no: John Ignatius Kraszewski...
   (Copernicus was apparently Prussia)...
which means Ignacy was Bella Belyy Kraшevsky...
      which makes me wonder:
why is the violin the pauper's? instrument
or the instrument of hoped-for empathy?
any one would tell you:
as also the accordion player on a tree...
well... roof here, roof there:
try doing ballerina's tip toe on a gothic
spiral tip of a cathedral...
and yes, the gargoyles... sing-along:
silent night...
                       holy night...
again: this was supposed to be a hiatus...
dogmatic statements... and....
    apodictic statements...
                      in truth, most people are
size 0 with their diet of words....
      where that turkey of a tongue to
fatten 'im up? well... ask the shepherds
of Damashek when Saladin will come
to rattle the blacksmith to wield a sword.
a thousand maidens faint...
   (if this was a cabaret voltaire play,
it would happen...
    and the two will never win:
one has a crop of hair on the scalp,
but spider-legs of a beard on the chin...
the other has precious silverware on
the scalp... and 21st Amazonian nomads
peeping out from between his
beard)... well...
not bad for a break from hiatus...
the whiskey is good,
                    the breadth has already been
tested...
   oh yes, the dreaded notes...
   this was supposed to be a:
a 3 week break, bam! a whole session
of writing it out in one go,
beginning with: the first question
i was asked as the Western Warsaw coach station:
do Kijova? i.e. to Kiev?
       oh sure, plenty of Ukranian merchants
down the western side of Warsaw...
   a Ukranian family of only women
sitting eating 3 while chickens among other
things: polskie chlopachki nie placzy...
and if you're lucky! you might even spot
a Mongolian!
                    it was never going to be an easy
transition...
i left Poland when it was -18°C...
                   sunny... bitter...
   walking on snow was like either
hearing a meow purr every time the foot impressed
itself on the snow, or i was wearing latex...
                 and to come into this abysmall
+7°C "winter" that England is?
   gothica... rain in winter... only in England...
and yes, if i were born here
i would be making awckward jokes about
the rain... but i wasn't.... i inherited it
from some unforseen discourse about
     Saint Gorbachev and how bloodless it all
became... prized piglets of Kazakh:
   dollar baby koo chi go go west and buys
usés a Lambro-jini... plight of the Sinking Belgian:
and all he did was sail to Congo on a waffle...
   pity the man! pity the man!
    i have no romance with England...
the grey skies and the constant rain
are like toenails to my heart... they're just there...
but you just see me walk in that pine
forest... in my natural element...
                              -18°C...
why did only German poets philosophise?
   and why did only Shakespeare make
poetry indistinguishable from philosophy and
why did the French turn to pastries
                                rather than the dry
and cough infused pages of bookworm time-donning
yella spaniel sepia waggle waggle
                  Sorbone          
   & Pavlov... pretty girls and pretty boys in
the Erasmus programme... to Rome!
to Antwerp! to Brioche! ... to a brioche...
                      Bruges!
                                               Kiev aflame...
Cracow a mind-game...
            Prague merely an INXS postcard from
the early 1990s...
                    Berlin a wall...
   Munich a litre of gods' **** and company of a dog:
of a dog's intuitive measure of man's
competence with regards to a desire for gods...
                   Lvov... thankfully Lvov
will never be the Istambul of Byzantines' nostalgia...
   so too Vilno...
                                                well...
that's for starters.
You see way back in the nineties I was a hooligan from way back, but I didn't really like my father despite him being so nice to me, I said to mum that I don't understand what bugs me in dad, but I still fought or teased him, because he couldn't be my kidnapper in his previous life because all my childhood lives that were kidnapped while my dad was my dad, you see dad might've been a foe from when I played footy as Albert Waldron, yeah that might be right because I might have been a bit scared of talking about that thinking dad was an atheist or a non church going Christian who believed in heaven and hell like my mother
I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to dad about what I see in him
Because he was my dad, I know he was nice to me, but at that stage I hated his authority that he brought up, and as an adult I fought back, I was visioning war veteran or maybe he was a footy star when I played footy as Albert, you see I treated dad more like a football mate than a dad like I said how are you going cobbler and dad said mmmmmm a little boy mmmmm
He never said that exactly but in fact he was wondering why I was fighting him by saying come here briany why are you fighting us and I ran off saying oohhhh you are just a football mate but mum and dad were worried about me, and despite me still acting like a spoilt little brat, they said give him medication to calm his anxiety
Down, because my problem was anxiety and mum and dad got in my way, and I was drinking to get rid of my previous life thoughts but I became the person I never wanted to be, sometimes I told dad I was a hooligan and he said a hoodlum which was his name for a hooligan but really I was just thinking that isn't me to think things like that and before my dad's mother passed away, I yelled at my parents because they gave me a ****** room while they got a good room and dad really annoyed me, you see I might have been seeing this football player I fought with as Albert Waldron
You see dad was finding it hard to get through to me but I was thinking football foe, I have no idea why I teased dad, he tried to joke with me and all I see in him is that footy watching man
And despite him not watching the footy with me, I still saw them in him, ya know a cool kid to pat and Lyle even if I wanted to be with them because I was the footy fan of the family because I was Albert Waldron back in the late 1800s and early 1900s and I might have remembered dad from the crowd or an opposing player or even member of the pub I drank in and I was hearing voices in the pubs as I mucked around with the footy players as they called dad a great big old fogie
And I was him but I still was scared because I was still thinking of people being nice to me, ya know treating me like a little cool kid to the drinkers
But I had to grow up because I am not Albert Waldron anymore
I was in my mobile home and I was visioning people going about their duties like running and jumping having fun and fighting tying each other up
And I visioned dad getting really worried but I saw the football supporter coming down to rib me about Norwood losing but it was modernised by the raiders and the swans who weren't very good back then and one guy in the pub yelled at me for drinking from the jug and I said
Mate, I am just having a beer
You see there was a different atmosphere at the pub with dad
Yeah, I know it was father and son but when scott showed up
I was hearing voices from back
When I was Albert Waldron in my previous life
Scott was a fellow player and dad was this man cheering
I thought dad was teasing me
But really I was hearing his previous life as the old
Man in the Norwood football club, you see dad was in the middle of my voices and dad told me I was on my way to having an heart attack from smoking and drinking but I gave up drinking and smoking to try and stop the fighting but I fought dad for the last before September 11 2001 and that is where the voices stopped
But that wasn't true, that was where dad got sick of me and that was where I was determined to be Santa Claus but dad and mum was worried because of my past as a kid chaser from when I was st Nicholas of AntarcticIa and Blackbeard the pirate but mum and dad were worried about that we were fighting about that and I was visioning that old man at Norwood pub of dad's previous life and I was santa for 10 years and now my mind is saying dad is your dad but whether he was that old man in Norwood pub or Betty Campbell now, he was still my dad
nico papayiannis Mar 2016
Someone's misery
wrapped up in someone's international policy
Sanctions to prove a point, to enforce power
another political pact helps another culture cower
We are modernised, we are westernized
A lot of the world though seems unsatisfied
Terrorism the new currency on the playing field of negotiations
Suffering increases and yet bankers commit suicide with stock market fluctuations
Keep it short, to the point, and hopefully inoffensive
This world has made me sceptical and apprehensive
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
to live the most ordinary life and internalise
  supra-human potential,  this is what is intended in terms
  of acquiring striving - to turn the tetragrammaton from
  a noun into a verb - given the four parts,
  we can excuse the rat maze of thought adding to 6
  as a sense pseudo... it takes a loss of one sense
  to identify and study the Tetra...
  for me it was not feeling a woman touch my skin
  for intimate suggestions -
  but it takes a loss of one sense
  to read into the tetragrammaton -
  and this isn't some linguistic lesson -
  you can have all the shrapnel you want,
  utilising grammatical categorisation
  to obstruct narratives into reaching for ideas
  rather than nouns - for me the tetragrammaton
  experience convinced me it was more a verb
  than a noun - a way to do things - rather than
  a way to be kept caged in an enclosure of nouns,
  you said the tetragrammaton like you said pineapple,
  nothing gratifying in that... 4 x 10 -
  when modernised -

and i still have the postcard, opening reads
dear Matt, (if any1 is reading this the ur just sad).
it is almost 1 a.m..... my greatest fear (one of them)
is to pass a 'once upon a time good friend' on
the road and have 1 of those superficial conversations
u know?? take care - A. x x
-
dated 2007, addressee Matt E.
                                        11/2 new arthur's place
                                        edinburgh
         ­                               EH8 9TH...

you probably will... we either age to be superficial
or superstitious - it's a nice combo -
i still keep this postcard in hermann heße's steppenwolf,
i write this, methodological with my drinking
and typing away - i can walk into town and hear
the words: 'that's the devil',
i spotted your mother at the market a few months back,
she looked happy, well, simplified happiness:
contentment - i felt no inclination to talk,
just a fancied breeze of ****** recognition -
i'll thank you more for the handwriting than what you
wanted to say, handwriting suggested i could read
how you would read my body in Braille -
but of course the content matters -
i never replied, unless my memory is faking it,
but given the cognitive prompt on the canvas of memory,
i think meaning i doubt i replied to that postcard -
what i am certain of are those M.S.N. conversations after
homework - the time i wanted to take you to cinema
and you freaked out... i put so much effort
into reading Stendhal as a teenager i exchanged Linkin
Park's debut for the book at a tongue-tie in Trafalgar Sq.,
to no avail... i think i idealised women too much,
i left them without any practicality - left them impractical -
a bit like those prior-feminists left them to mind the house
sending them off to the front-line and football -
idealism makes choice'd isolation units impractical -
the ******* peddle-stool hierarchy -
my thinking made women impractical, which is a shame
to experience the rosy buds of the mundane everyday -
i wish i didn't make such ideals from women, blame my
childish mind at developing ******* by the comparison
of Don Juan - and what a perfect joke that is -
a working format: to idealise women leading to an idealisation
of life - well, whatever, i'm junk now - this ain't a
depressive adjective - what, from 70 odd kilograms to
over a hundred and ten? **** a mongoose -
i'm hellbent on simply writing, money or not money -
and if my human integrity is finally breached
and i have no passion left in me... i'll do a Zeno of Citium...
and hold my breath.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2018
are you sure that we're supposed
to be buried in earth,
earth the closest we resemble
as ash...
             are you sure?
just wondering, because i've
just stopped looking through
my grandfather's rea ding glasses...
and what i saw through them...
was akin to having your eyes
open, underwater...
perhaps this whole one-size-fits-all
coffin packaging is great
to cut corners and run the treadmill...
hell, floating murk
of cremation on the Ganges...
if the druids were to be stirred...
the eyes of man,
  ought to be buried in the sea
or lake or river...
    the other body parts?!
dunno...
            because that would rob
me of the authenticity
of where I'd like my eyes to be buried...
or rather dropped into...
apart from the eyes and the brain...
i guess the druids would prefer
the modernised version of events,
given the progess of science...
    donor flesh...
               even the heart doesn't
exactly fit a burial worthy of
the earth... you could in earnest
bury a heart of a wild animal,
when performing a burial rite...
      but there's something
comical about the inverted necrophilia,
a higher tier of hue...
there is a dead man,
but a part of him is still living,
in another...
    hence my sour taste in,
peace be upon him, Christopher Hitchens'
atheism, banking on genes,
and an eternity solely via genes...
genes are but atoms...
      i see...
                 a heart of my calibre
beating for 10 more years in
a foreign body...
                and all this...
with the exausted poetic eucharist
of Christianity...
and before the techno-tenticle
explores...
         a complete inversion
of necrophilia...
         a subtleness of life...
         and the endless possibilities therein...
at least by cremation:
nothing is sacred, all is elemental...
not this, from dust you came,
but unto wax you shall return...
    Madame Tussauds *** doll
precursors, and a stag night joke
about ******* a helium sheep...
with all due respect,
peace be upon him,
there are more avenues to eternity,
than in the immediate sense,
atomist, procreation and the passing on
of genes...
           unless you are of course
a modern day Portuguese ****
with the no. 7 roy-al white...
less about prostitutes tier C,
   certainly not tier B (strippers and
the sugg'ah daddy teasers)...
    no, we're talking Gattaca ******...
tier A... surrogates.

— The End —