Bride of the desert
the indomitable town
Solomon’s Kingdom

            
Lost in history, I wander through a city that was fortified by King Solomon, raided by Mark Antony and ruled by Queen Zenobia who made it the capital of an empire, only to be captured herself and paraded through Rome in gold chains.

Civilisation upon civilisation are entombed within Tadmur; in a huge plain of carved stone blocks, massive columns arched in rows or standing alone, a Romanesque theatre, senate and baths, dominated by a great temple whose origin dates back four thousand years.

Due to a clever mistranslation from Arabic by the euro-centric traveller who ‘discovered’ Palmyra, the city also has a modern name.

Here for millennia, a tribe of Bedu have camped within the folds of these desert steppes and blackened Tadmur’s ruins with their camp fires, to trade camels or herd goats and sheep. Walking the divide between city, desert and the more fertile steppes, I search for their surviving descendants and find a black woven goat’s hair tent with its edges raised to capture a cooling breeze.

Hamed and his sons, huge and wary of foreigners, welcome me to sit within on  carpets and then graciously serve dates with innumerable small glasses of tea. I indicate ‘enough’ in the traditional manner by rolling my right hand and the empty glass. Hamed continues to voice his concerns about the lack of feed for their sheep and the prices achieved at market. I readily succumb to several small cups of greenish Arabic coffee, before being allowed to take my leave.

For millennia the wealth of this city was based on tariffs levied on goods flowing out of the desert aboard swaying camel caravans. Today, these once proudly fierce tribal Bedu no longer breed, train or ride camels.

The Bedu greatly prize their reputation and the respect of their peers. Their traditions are the foundation of these small tribal communities and may predate Islam;  a life now undermined by borders, nationalism, government settlement plans, conscription, war, television and tourism.
                                         *+     +     +      +      +

Black torn empty shells
swept by Mount Lebanon’s shade
Cannabis Valley

As I recall a haiku of ‘images’ of  my very first journey to Damascus, from war-torn Beirut through the lushness of the Bekaa;

in the here and now
a dark suit and Mercedes
cross the Euphrates

Defence Minister, Rifaat al-Assad is in town with his fifty thousand strong Defence Companies, complete with tanks, planes and helicopters.  A coup d’état is in progress to assure Rifaat’s succession to the Presidency of his older brother Hafiz al-Assad, now recovering from a heart attack.

Last year, Rifaat massacred some forty thousand Syrian citizens when he ordered the shelling of the city of Hama. Nobody in Damascus will be underestimating him.

All political and military power is in the hands of the al-Assads and key generals, who command the military and police. The majority of whom are of the Alawite minority Muslim faith from the rural districts near Latakia in the North. Before their revolution, governments came and went in weeks.

My friend Elias is allied to Rifaat’s cause, by simply doing business with the son. Now he and his family share the risks and dangers of this coup failing and stand to lose a fortune. Monies paid locally in Syrian pounds for goods delivered to government agencies.

Elias’s connection with Rifaat and Latakia, as well as his confident presence, humour and love of life, still allows us easy access to the Generals’ Club. Sadly, there is to be no table and floorshow, but a closed meeting with two senior Generals, where we learn that Hafiz has recovered enough to take charge and is now locked in discussions with his younger brother.

The decision is therefore made for us. We say our goodbyes and drive to Latakia.

On Sunday Elias meets his brothers, then with his family, we visit his parents small holding and enjoy a meal together. A wonderful fresh mezza that includes my favourite, courgettes stuffed with ground lamb and rice, in a yogurt sauce. Syrian food is amazingly healthy and my cuisine of choice.

It is a cloudless Monday morning, as I, Elias, his wife and children drive into the docks to board an old 46 foot motor cruiser. Huge cases are stowed as I make my inspection, then start the twin diesels and switch on the over-the-horizon radar. Our early departure is critical. We cast off and the Mate steers for the harbour entrance below the cliffs that guard it. As the Mediterranean lifts our bow in greeting, the disembodied voice of the Harbour Master tells us to return as we do not have permission to sail.

Ignoring the order, I increase our speed through the short choppy surf. We are sailing under the Greek Cypriot flag and in an hour I hope to be out of territorial waters.  At 14 knots we are a slow target.

Fifteen nautical miles from the coast of Syria, I leave the mate to follow a bearing for Larnaca. Elias has opened a bottle of Black Label. I quaff a glassful.

Later noticing a noisy vibration and diagnosing a bent prop shaft, I shut down the starboard engine. Our speed is now a steady 8 knots, so I decide on a new heading to discern more quickly the shadow of the Cypriot coastline on the radar screen.

Midway, the mate and Elias begin babbling about a small vessel ahead and four separate armoured boxes encircling it. Ugly Israeli high speed gun boats or worse, Lebanese pirates. Should they board us and find stowed riches, we will be killed.

Leaving the Mate to maintain our course, I go on deck to play the ‘European Owner’.  The vessel they have trapped is long and lean with three tall outboard motors but no crew are in sight.  Leaving them astern, our choice of vessel now fully exonerated, I and Elias throw another whisky ‘down the hatch’.

With us holding the correct bearing, I ask Elias to wake me as soon as we near Cyprus. Feeling utterly exhausted I collapse into a bunk.  

I wake unbidden, to find the Mate steering for the harbour entrance. Shouldering him aside, I spin the wheel to bring the vessel about. Shaking, I ask them why there are minarets on the ‘church’ and did they not notice our being observed from the top of the harbour's hillock, below which a fast patrol boat is anchored?  The Mate sprints to the Greek Cypriot flag and is hugging it to his chest; Elias wisely prays.

I command the wheel as we motor directly away from the port of Famagusta and Turkish held Northern Cyprus. We later change bearing and pass tourist beaches, it is night fall before we moor-up in Larnaca.
                                         +     +     +      +      +


Later that same year I am called to a last urgent meeting in Cyprus with Elias. He calmly tells me that he will be arrested when he rejoins his family, who have returned to Syria. Elias asks me to take full control of his Cypriot Businesses, then returns home and ‘disappears’ with his brothers.
                                         +     +     +      +      +


Since sacking the two Arab General Managers when they tried to get control of the bank accounts, it has taken more than six months to locate the prison holding all the brothers. We obtain the release of all except Elias, who has been tortured.  We then ‘purchase’ him the exclusive use of the Prison Governor's quarters and twenty four hour access for Elias’s family, nurses and doctors.
                                         +     +     +      +      +


Over the last two years, I have honoured my promises and expanded trade as far as Pakistan. Elias is still imprisoned.
                                         *+     +     +      +      +

Rolling power:
      Churning waves
      Grinding shells,
      Prolific evidence of life & death
      Rising from salt depths,
Epic revelations from below.

Evidence of end games:
     Shells, drilled, scarred, scored
     By beaks of tendrilled monsters;
     Occupants devoured,
****** through ravaged carapaces.

Fecund progeny:
    Tiny messages, these shells...
    Evidencing life,
    Echoing death,
Generations grinding down and down.

My tanned bare feet,
    Track tide-lined shells,
     Seek forensic evidence and beauty,
     Follow ribbons of shells
Cast empty from the pounding sea.

16 Million
16 million babies each year are engineered by teen mothers
But lets look a little smaller
273,105
Girls who annually contrive babies to life in the United States
But lets divide that number down further
35,249
Adolescent girls whose lives become defined by a child in the state of California alone
But once more lets focus in even smaller
1.
One Athena Young.
Standing slightly over 5 feet tall, with chocolate kissed skin shelling her strong build and a wide white smile full of joyous laughter that covers convincingly that which you would only know if you asked her: that she is a teen mother whose heart and soul has sufficiently suffered.

Perhaps from birth she didn’t stand a chance
Pushed out of the womb to a path of dissonance between success and endurance
A low class family whose glance rests not on her best advance but on their personal pleasure
So on they prance leaving her alone at night to fend for her own life.
And as she navigates this path she is stopped in a trance of seemingly endless romance
That swept her up into a dance that waltzed whimsically one night to her bedroom where she let this boy advance into her pants.
And that once seemingly endless romance crash lands as he implants into her the blow that log jams her path of success and sling shots her to side of endurance.
Fraught and distraught because she was never taught how to not by the people who brought her into the world
Or maybe to spite the strife they have placed in her life because as words from her sorrowed soul said “its when you don’t care about disappointing someone that bad things happen”…
And happen they did as we bid goodbye to the boy who didn’t try to be a father to his joy and pride or a husband to a bride
But instead strode out of sight with a gun at his side to a land that didn’t care whether he lived or he died because he refused to stay true to the girl tangled in his tango.
Left her glued to a growing womb
A single struggling parent, seclusion and confusion in raising a brilliant baby girl in this wicked world she had not yet navigated herself.
And grades started to drop as her life was dragged and dropped to 4 different spots within 3 sun cycle slots.
She said if only they had known that chaos that was going on at home
And the baby that was growing then they could have shown her grace and love…
But they would soon know and throw her out with doubt that she could complete courses while her veins coursed with blood to flood nutrients to nourish her new fetus.
Alone.
No comfortable home.
A lack of understanding left her with no friends to call her own.
No potential for preferential favor on this jagged darkening path too well known.
Abandoned
When suddenly a light landed and handed her a second chance to better advance
To move past her heart-break romance
Her families abstinence,
Her friends distance,
Her schools disinterest.
What was this glorious light?
The alternative high school Mark Twain,
Provided shelter in the acid rain of isolation and pain,
Tamed the sinister storm that reigned and splayed her life into disarray.
For Shanti, a beautifully big-eyed bubbly baby,
Twain gave certain shelter and care from an elder so health could bury deep and fester while her mother, her positive protector, could center on gaining a degree that in theory will better their cumulative future.

But perhaps the hill to highlight is the hunk of hamlet handed to her.
A gallant group of life-giving girls, warrior women who baked and bore and breathed life into children.
Allowing her alienating anomie to be history by fulfilling her need for meaningful community. People who can share relating stories of baby daddy drama, family problems, baby progress. They understood and gave value to a valiant victor whose violent world had previously brought her bitter.
There was room to be a mother,
And room to be just another teenager
A people that taught her to lead her daughter to grow up with honor of her soul’s armor so the similar story would not cycler any further.
And her giving advice to her fellow friends raising soon to be men to avoid the vice she strides against, to teach their boys “to not leave the girl”, striving and fighting to brighten the bleak world that they are no longer merely surviving but thriving in with the aid of the high school who looks past the “normal” and “socially acceptable” and to the broken and vulnerable.
Now she sits.
Waiting.
Anticipating.
The degree her hands will soon hold.
The college campus her calloused feet will soon conquer.
Seeing her dreams of being a military general driving down the street towards reality
Thanks to the inspiring community.

So 1.
One Athena Young.
One out of 16 million moms
Whose once overcast life has forever been spun to the ever-brightening sun
By a school that showed her love and
By friendships that fought to rise above.

For nine days the artillery barrage
rained down on us
that June of summer in the Somme
machine gunners like me waited
in our concrete bunkers deep in the earth

When the shelling stopped
we rushed to the surface
and began our job of mowing down
the slow walking British Infantry
stoically advancing as if in another war
in another time where they might choose
to die bravely and with honour
a hero fighting for his life
his king and country

But here he dies unknown
by the chance turning of my gun
in his direction at that one moment
and the random number of bullets
left to fire.



© M.L.Emmett

Not in the way I
Look through these eyes
which water but instead
Of sadness entranced upset
Near to death love
making where though and
Design laugh at their own
Gluttony and ill usage and
away from me i say no not here and
away from itself i hear nothing for you
are here within me but away
Comet and the see to hear blues with
Everything to give but nothing to lose
And the far off sights are much too bright
And inside you hear yourself crying
Not to mtters or mold your soul
With what your parents said to you
Ordered you to be bold and
The aftermath of your own tightened slack
Makes you wonder if growing up was an actual
Choice in the matter of the batter which is
The family foundation were games are played
For keeps and children weep as they keep
Toiling on as adults just for bigger and better things
Come into the waves of a brain malfunctioning
No face for ye' faith meand nodding to the higher
Ones whose noses are broken and the lips cracked
The spinning brain of hurts doughnuts and Americana
Rip offs selling the flag by the millions to turn a profit
For the moronic billionaires who think no one is watching.
Watching with their hats turned sideways and trying to
Escape old age and grey hair and sagging ball sacks and
Poor english and worser bread, stale with their mother's
Ghost hovering on the shoulder of their pouting diamond
Drenched wife as if madness grew a larger pair **** within the
Hilarity of connection of concoction of happiness and
Satisfaction and a longing to burn the entire ******* down
Just to rebuild it the way you see and you do see it and the way
You feel it used to be and perhaps, maybe, could be and where
Experimentation is now a center fold for the dock workers and the
Laborers of the world to spit and ******* and cry over in their
Twisted and rusty beds for inside their pea brains and melted
Mouths filled with colgate and beer, they slobber over the excess
And humiliation and celluoid dreams of **** and *** and spreads
That would make any grandmother of 37 weep and Mozart meander
On the veranda, contemplating smooth jazz and the way he would like
Not to be buried with the hat trick hockey nick who swore he saw
You fall in love before and that sobriety was the touch of the Christian
Way of life and ye' far out and tormented young ones meant nothing
By what they said at the rally and they do believe in the good of the
White government and we are headed toward a technological maelstrom
Of the golden age of the HUMAN RACE but alas I hope I decipher I pray to
No God but whoever has the ears and eyes and arm fat to listen with their
Splintered consciousness and their painted red toenails and girlfriends who
Whisper they have always loved another and how TRUE UNTRUTH IS and
How vindictive we rant on and read on and hope and believe that the end
Is the end but it is only the end for you and their will be new blood and new eyes
And new minds and we will grow old but the rivers water will be recycled, as we
Will be recycled into the dust and the mud and the rubble to further build the streets
As the street makers and the bread winners will smile as they think they are the
First ones to think up such a crafty, inventive invention but hierarchies are on the horizon
And I remember I was born with a name that I never grew to know or fall in love with
Or defend or keep close to my heart for the heart is weary hunter and it ventures on
With or without the body.
Note to self.
Recall the last rite before you begin on to the next one.
History has spilt its blood and its fair share of orange juice, try not to remember the numbers but remember the amount of burned chairs.
Note to self, returned.
The heaters on and the soul is not dancing but jiving like icing on a three year olds birthday cake.
Submission time to the chief, submission time
To those other guys, whose faces I've never smelt, but who are there waiting and whining that the times are no longer a changing.
Keep up the smiles, keep out the frowns.
Negativity is the attribute of the terrorist. Don't be a terrorist.
All fine men and women have once in their life been truly scared.
One ten till the train leaves.


Good night major split hairs.

On the second of the fort
Nights beckoned a call dim
Lit by ill fated mechanisms that
Were men and women and
Children and the forgotten dream of
What was meant long ago and was is
Meant now but not followed through.

With heaven comes hell and hell fire and
Clouds of white with shelling from
Wars not of this world or the next or
The one's thereafter and lingering history,
With its bells and trinkets and tombstones,
That have been weathered but are still not gone.

Memory not mourning, pictures in a frame lit
From the inside out and drinks were there
When we were not meant to be there like a
Kiss on a flower you picked at an age where
Life was not known and death was even
Farther away for it existed not in the eyes of yours
But in everyone else around you, except for the
Other children of course but oh' of course.

If your trying to get the part of the stuff
That makes you recall the upstairs of the
Idiocies of the room romance that restricts but
Contains life and halters life and stifles life with
That one must recall a past life where tears
Mean nothing when you produce them too often.

Can of the hypocritical malice of mis-informed family
Foundations and we break into the minds of the way
It should be and the way it shouldn't be and yet here
When we gaze out across the wide spread of the world
And its many ways it spells out with a God's own language
The morning of the ear who listens and speaks when not spoken
To breaking every single rule of the word and smiling
Throughout the whole ****** thing.

Canons of repetition where life winces and the wife begins to wheeze
And fall, her dress is now clear and her eyes just don't seem to be
Where we are now I believe that money is the root of this soon to be dead
Tree and streets are now empty as the moon casts its silver glaze and
The breeze is now naked with her bra on the floor cast in straw while
The wizards write their spells and comb their hair and draw out plans
For the next great fall but watch the fireworks and the way they hail and
Crawl throughout the entire bawl and Ol' Ezra P. mass amounts of rage
To bring to the stage but here ye' O great one this place is for us all.

Here in the house of the not that is shared but all is seen here
Where the wind blows to no east and no west and no south and
No other way that you believe to get headed to the world of
The no names and experience makes you wise and yet old
And remembered for the drinks you paid for but especially for
The ones you forgot to pay for but that is what friends are for.

Omnivores in latitudes that matter not to the public eye but
To the ear of the Lord that is not everyone's savior but
Chosen just for the right eye so within that decree of mastery
We entrance the light and shovel up the leaves leaving the last
Way of things to be the first way of things when the lights
Are quickly turned off and on and off and on again and again;
Stars are naked until the sun rises in your hometown and the radio
Turns on.

And the background music chimes with a willingness of a cockroach but
Holds the beauty of a **** statue found in the under toe of a lost
Beach in a lost land forgotten in time but embraced by eternity and
Though does not dwindle its numerous names or its many ways
Of being for the hour does shackle us all but here in high array of
None other then eight times the way through the cobbled up in the
Attic of the fiercest neanderthal dictator with ideas holding truths upon
Truths that in the end mean nothing  for advancement is not determined
But continued upon as long as we forget the past and look to the future hymn
Of the childless winged' beasts that were once forgotten but now embraced
Angels.

Not of this world but of the entirety of the reality of banality
Breathing back and forth inhaling and exhaling releasing the
Mind of the mares of the wandering rewinds of infinite space
And inside the eyes of the highest levee which has broken but
Has not yet spilt holding back its power for the remainder of the
Year and catacombs upon catacombs of forgotten text of never
Forgotten men recalling their former lives and their former passions
And the hastiness of their possession of the word and the avoidance
Of the death touch the death mark the black spot upon us all.

Dog on a hill cloud high in the sky nut on the ground no not a sound
Frost on your fingertips toe of the boot covered a steel dull mud
Suds from a water rushing miles away nodding branches of a dead tree
Wind through the high grass birds in the sky that fly but not chirp
Sun in the sky rice fields burn brown crickets rub their thighs together
Not here but in the corn stocks and pig stocks brown in the reverse order
Platters of pinch salt and pepper underneath the floor boards creek for
Creak and dollar for dollar we make the rounds and we do not frown.

And the meet of the neat make their rapid conversations in dual order
Where they tell themselves this but I hear that and you make what you want
Unless you ain't got the stuff but if your lucky and if your smart you'll
Grab the oven and bake that **** but in case you don't see the sunset and
Your buried without your toes look for your voice because that's the only
Way you'll get to know the stars in the sky or the dirt on the ground for
The fun is growing but the lurkers are smirking for they got the pennies and
They got the nickels and these streets are breaking so you gotta' start thinking
Of a way to get outta' this place and FAST or else you'll be staring down the
Barrel of a 33 to ONE typing and writing and peeping around the corner of
Your dear old ***** that hasn't found in a home in years but don't look too
Down because one day that ONE will come around either by taxi or by train
Or by some kind of war and if you've got the gut and the money and the honey to
Keep her tight and alright and flying that lovers kite then your bound to keep
Yourself from the giggles and nearer to the harmony of the way things ought to
Be but may not really be but perhaps can be if you will it around and swill it with
Your will making sure your lies and that white or ain't that black or ain't that real
Or you ain't lying at all but stay truer to the truth with the water resolution of the
Insipid insecurity of the first love you thought you knew but now see that it was
The one three or four later and how right I am in knowing nothing and knowing
Everything and letting the mind skip and play and register new friends in the new
Cities and the new alleys and the smiles that break across the ice like a crack of of a
Whip and counting the days ones gone blowing through the high valley and the low
Trenches of war I do not wish to go to but may be forced too because this man believes
Just what he says.

Attrition

It's a cold, raining day in February. My name is Henri Arbour. The year is 1916, and I wake to find myself drowning in my trench along Western France. I escape my damp dwellings with a soaked, freezing coat and a pack of cigarettes. I pray they were on a high enough shelf that they're dry enough to escape my tremors. Counting on my luck, they weren't. But you could look at my luck either way; I was lucky enough to not catch a bullet yet during my year in Hell, but luck would probably have me catch trench foot. To me, that would be worse than getting shot to death. But today, luck was more or less on my side, as I found but one smoke that would light. Lucky me. Beliveau, my only friend left of the group of old pals that accompanied me to this horrid swamp of mud, blood, and decay, soon came to greet me with his dead expression. He was the only person who wanted to be here less than me, ******* was he scared. Whenever some'd go over the top, he'd be in the corner ******* himself. Can't  blame him. The roar of those machine guns goes quite appropriately well the harrowing slaughter they cause. Jesus, listen to me, that must've been the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard, and yet, I can't help but laugh a little. A bit psychotic, huh? But that's what this ******* war'll do to ya, make ya cynical as Hell. With all this digression, I missed what Beliveau had just said. Funny how the mind tends to wander more out here. “What?”, I asked, slightly uninterested. “I said a new shipment of rations just came in.” Instantly a glow came to my face. Heh, so deprived that I get this excited at the mere thought of not having to **** some disgusting rodent just to get some food in my stomach tonight. Pretty sad, huh? I wouldn't know, not anymore. I was especially happy because the last shipment that was supposed to come a month ago had been fire bombed on the way. Tonight, we'll rejoice on this small personal victory. If only we could drink away our sorrows as well, but that'll be another day. One when this ****** strife is just a distant memory that we're all trying to suppress...

- - -

It's now late March. I've been slowly losing sanity this past month, partially due to sleep deprivation, partially due to the things I've seen, the two being closely related. All month long our trench has been getting bombed, just shell upon never-ending shelling that just seems to go on and on through the never. Two weeks ago, I saved Beliveau, but at a mental cost. I noticed him talking with some other guys and saw him laugh. I called him over and asked how he seemed so relaxed. “I really don't know, I just-”, before he could finish there came a burst of light from where the others were standing. The blast hit us pretty bad. The images, though, those were visions of pure Hell on earth. What I saw in that seemingly insignificant instance in time, I can't-I-I won't ever-. For all this time my body had been raw, but now my mind was following in suit. My body is slowly becoming a shell, housing dark, black emptiness.

- - -

It's mid April now and sleep has become a distant dream. The shelling stopped, but my mind has been becoming consistently unhinged. I can't stop thinking about the incident from a month and a half ago. It's now quite evident that I'm quickly losing control of my psyche. I can't escape these images no matter how hard I try and I'm losing my grip on reality. I can't even remember my own name. What was it? Henri Ar-Ar, or was it- no, no, I have no idea now. Exhaustion is taking over full force now. I can't tell if I'm just falling asleep or dying, can't tell the difference anymore, but all I know is that it's comforting. If I just close my eyes maybe I'll wake up in the morning, or maybe I'll let go and just slip away. In the morning I woke to a loud bang and then nothing. My eyes were to blurry to see anything and scent seemed to be my only sense still in able use. It was hotter than usual, which caused everything to have an even worse rotting smell. Suddenly my hearing returned. I began to hear voices in German. A soldier started to poke me with the **** of his gun to see if I was still alive. In a panic, I grabbed my rifle and began stabbing wildly with my bayonet, still unable to see quite clearly. I was still alive, so I-”H-Henri...” Oh God, b-but, no! It had all been a dream. When I opened my eyes, I saw blood dripping down the barrel of my gun, and as I panned up, I realized what I'd just done. Beliveau was dead.

- - -

It's been three days. Beliveau was still dead. Last night my comrades decided to exile me over just shooting me in my twisted head, on account of being a traitor. It was worse than death, cause now I'd live with the guilt for the short five minutes left in my life. It was something I never imagined happening when I came into this war, but was quickly turning into a horrifying nightmare. In the morning, they sent me packing into No Man's Land with just a revolver and six rounds. I leave now, lost to this dying world around me. “Beliveau... I'm sorry. Sorry all of our friends died, sorry you witnessed so much before-before... sorry.” This ******* war has taken everything from me. My body's battered, my name is gone, my mind is obliterated, and I'm in oblivion. I can't-I can't-I, “ping”, gone. “Ahh!...”, Heavy Breathing. I wake to the sound of a train running over tracks. I'm unrelieved. It's mid April, 1916. My name is Henri Arbour. My personal Hell begins.

We'll be well cabbaged
before we're spring greened,
snowed on, blowed on,
Christmas glowed on.

Out of our walnut shells we'll come,
cycling for pleasure, recycling
for good measure, joining
the cycling chains of life.

SHELLING PEAS

a smile
struggles around in his beard
then gets lost again

the doctor spoke like a stone
dropped into a pool
talking in bigggger & biggggger circles

Death politely
knocks at his door
as if it were Beethoven's 5th

"Are you always as
dramatic as this. . ?"
Death just smirks

he felt like
an answer being
chased by a question

he remembers his wife
shelling peas into her lap
a glimpse of white knickers

at last he
found what he was
looking for...his death

he steps into
the blue that
a window offers

the clock
embarrassed by
its own ticking

306 British & Commonwealth soldiers were shot at dawn for desertion in WW1.
Inspired by this fact and by BBC1's drama The Village*

I

Good-hearted soldier marched away to war,
Sad-eyed mother and father watched him leave
To help a noble cause worth fighting for;
Or so the government had us believe.

Bereavements swiftly followed. He returned
For time on leave, a changed, embittered soul;
Troubled by death where distant fires burned
As month on month the shelling took its toll.

Mentor and loving brother, man of peace,
Such was this force of nature we once knew;
Now weighed down with all war's catastrpohes
So guilty to be of the living few.

Oh bitter hindsight, cruel hand of fate,
That says what we must do when it's too late!


II

I saw him walking back along the path
That headed to the seaport, bound for France;
So full of care, lost in the aftermath
Of ****** conflict, as if in a trance.

Then suddenly he stumbled to his knees
And crawled, down on his belly, cautiously
As though bullets were coming through the trees
As though to shelter from the enemy.

He raked the grass with darting, trembling hands,
His staring eyes were wide with urgency
His legs would not obey his brain's commands
His lips whispered a plea for clemency

I saw my love, he didn't see me there
Longing to save his broken soul with prayer.


III

Never was a more terrifying sight
Than naked terror, screaming from his eyes;
I still recall him staring, every night;
It haunts my dreams from dusk into sunrise.

I wanted to embrace him, stroke his hair,
To whisper words of solace from the Lord;
But sometimes prayer hangs on the empty air,
Sometimes we cannot rescue the adored.

Later I visited his lonely room
To find him on his bed, facing the wall.
He turned to meet my gaze, eyes full of gloom
As if no soul resided there at all.

I made him pray with me, for love Divine;
Heedless of God, he pressed his lips to mine.


IV

I blush, I burn with shame, when I recall
I gave in to his kisses willingly;
He wanted heaven's solace not at all
But took his earthly comfort all from me.

So long I'd waited, through his years away,
Wishing to win his love through some kind deed
Now in his trembling grasp, too lost to pray,
I lay entranced by passion's burning greed.

When it was over, I looked at his face
He seemed to see some bright epiphany
Perhaps at last he knew our Saviour's grace
At last his breath came slowly; evenly.

He murmured something as I rose to go
I knew I loved him, but never said so.


V

I never said I loved him. With the dawn,
His doomsday clock was ticking down his hours.
I never said I loved him, I was torn;
For what love sanctifies, wartime deflowers.

Hindsight has pierced my heart with bitter thorns,
Trampled my dreams, stolen all future joy;
For in that worst of cataclysmic dawns,
I never said I love you to that boy.

I never even said a last farewell
Though warm kisses still echoed on my skin;
My silence tortures me, I am in hell
I burn in silent wars I cannot win.

The Redcaps came and took away my Joe.
I loved him; and now he will never know.

I

I see the boys of summer in their ruin
Lay the gold tithings barren,
Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils;
There in their heat the winter floods
Of frozen loves they fetch their girls,
And drown the cargoed apples in their tides.

These boys of light are curdlers in their folly,
Sour the boiling honey;
The jacks of frost they finger in the hives;
There in the sun the frigid threads
Of doubt and dark they feed their nerves;
The signal moon is zero in their voids.

I see the summer children in their mothers
Split up the brawned womb's weathers,
Divide the night and day with fairy thumbs;
There in the deep with quartered shades
Of sun and moon they paint their dams
As sunlight paints the shelling of their heads.

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing
Stature by seedy shifting,
Or lame the air with leaping from its hearts;
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice.

II

But seasons must be challenged or they totter
Into a chiming quarter
Where, punctual as death, we ring the stars;
There, in his night, the black-tongued bells
The sleepy man of winter pulls,
Nor blows back moon-and-midnight as she blows.

We are the dark derniers let us summon
Death from a summer woman,
A muscling life from lovers in their cramp
From the fair dead who flush the sea
The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp
And from the planted womb the man of straw.

We summer boys in this four-winded spinning,
Green of the seaweeds' iron
Hold up the noisy sea and drop her birds,
Pick the world's ball of wave and froth
To choke the deserts with her tides,
And comb the county gardens for a wreath.

In spring we cross our foreheads with the holly,
Heigh ** the blood and berry,
And nail the merry squires to the trees;
Here love's damp muscle dries and dies
Here break a kiss in no love's quarry,
O see the poles of promise in the boys.

III

I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
Man in his maggots barren.
And boys are full and foreign to the pouch.
I am the man your father was.
We are the sons of flint and pitch.
O see the poles are kissing as they cross.

SHELLING PEAS

a smile
struggles around in his beard
then gets lost again

the doctor spoke like a stone
dropped into a pool
talking in bigggger & biggggger circles

Death politely
knocks at his door
as if it were Beethoven's 5th

"Are you always as
dramatic as this. . ?"
Death just smirks

he felt like
an answer being
chased by a question

he remembers his wife
shelling peas into her lap
a glimpse of white knickers

at last he
found what he was
looking for...his death

he steps into
the blue that
a window offers

the clock
embarrassed by
its own ticking

I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers.
But they are troops who fade, not flowers,
For poets' tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling:
Losses, who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.


                                   II
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on armies' decimation.


                                   III
Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small-drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.


                                   IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.


                                   V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men's placidity from his.


                                   VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever mourns in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears

i have
locked myself
into a cocoon.
a shell, a
crescent moon.
wind
is battering
against the
walls, shelling
seeds into husks.
the day feels
long and this
song will
have to wait
until the sun
comes. till it
enters the
cracks
in wood
and skin and
allows me
to imagine
again how it feels
to be human.

British telecom has elevated expenses to its line local rental and call up rates to the third quantity of a year. At any given time when home budget is inside their tightest, BT are making the choice to improve charges, making the normal cell phone monthly bill get out of ?Eighty three in order to ?17 per year.

BT's traditional residential phone contact expenditure is getting larger 9 % to 7.Half-dozen pence a moment, up coming from Several.4p just one last year. A supplier's series local rental costs are furthermore rising through 30p every thirty days, to ?A few.90. Prospects nonetheless shelling out their costs by means of income will likely shell out 60p monthly more, with additional rates regarding services for example phone patiently waiting proceeding by ?.60 to 70 monthly to ?. BT in addition have clipped their evening hours off-peak intervals rear sixty minutes, to 7pm.

The modern get in touch with price tag improvements should come straight into affect on 04 Twenty eighth. It's supposed to affect the 4 million BT buyers that aren't about all-inclusive simply call plans. However, the more expensive line leasing charges may have an impact on most BT buyers no matter what which usually company they can be using.

Robert Wilson, cellular in addition to high speed office manager during moneysupermarket.com, said: "We have seen plenty of selling price mobility within the land line current market just lately and also sadly to get shoppers the majority of the goes happen to be to boost the expense of obtaining and employing your house telephone line.In

Pure Marketing improved it is selling prices simply by 6 % last year, plus Sky's set to lift it has the charges throughout 06 eventhough it has not yet mentioned how much. TalkTalk in addition plans to raise call prices by means of 06 % plus series procurment by simply A couple of per cent.

"Other companies will inevitably stick to BT, once we observed using repetitive copycat value rises really,In . claimed Wilson. "This most recent selling price increase will do minor to ease the rising prices that Britain industry is going through."

Households can confront further expenses caused by the availability associated with high speed broadband in order to countryside spots. "It's true that the phone system companies are pressurized to get the roll-out regarding broadband to countryside regions," stated Paul Doku, engineering qualified from uSwitch. "It appears to be however that telephone instead of broadband prospects might be paying off the cost."

Family clients are going to have to get steps into their individual fingers to maintain expenditures lower. Buyers will surely have to research the best expense plan to match their demands, quite possibly moving to an arrangement that provides free of charge morning in addition to end of the week calling, reely 'anytime' necessitates those at your home every day. Series lease prices could be saved by simply changing out from the big solutions with a more compact company such as Primus that offers line leasing for under ?.Seventy nine 30 days.


http://www.passwordmanagers.net/resources/How-to-Cleverly-Use-the-NSIS-as-a-ZIP-Password-*******-54.html ZI­P Password *******

shooting ducks at a fairground attraction
cracking nuts at a Christmas reunion

I am losing it, all is confusion as the morning light shines in my eyes

It's a colourful paint can.

Under ten million or more twinkling thinking of stars being born
being torn
being worn like a sleeve on my heart
keeping lovers apart

at some point somewhere deep inside where the itch of a memory resides and a wider horizon give a different opinion to the one you expounded
you had to scratch it
so it bleeds and
it's horse ****
you
should have left it for the roses
now your nose is in it

the stars twinkle thinking we're dull and I feel the pull of them
the night is so full of them

in all of the wishing in the well where the wishes of happiness dwell

there are more wishes

more than a million or more.

I watch them winking at me as they wander the celestial sea
each coming to its conclusion

One day
unencumbered by self doubt or confusion
I shall twinkle too.

Bosnia, March, 1994, from an NPR interview with a 15-year-old Muslim girl.  Serbian forces were shelling the area we occupied. We tried to persuade her it would be safer to lie on the ground, as we were doing. She was indifferent and seemed to ignore us. She stood and talked freely amidst the  noise. She told us she liked country music and that school was getting boring and in the same casual tone asked us, ‘How long are people going to watch us die?’



She said she liked country music

Exploding sky, color of death
Exploding bodies
Men, children, women
Terror pounding ears like the heart beats
of a four legged veal marsala waiting to die
Putrid flesh, burning houses, torched spirits
15-year-old girl
Steel eyes melting under the heat of genocide
Imploding mind, split into a thousand screams
Only war
By whatever means
Deafening anguish
Running, deafening heart in throat, running
She said she liked country music
24, 41, 32
15 years old
This one here
82, 12, 7 years old

Said she liked...
Tie her wrists
Neighbor, aunt, niece
Liked count---try music
Tighter
Grandmother, sister
Spread her legs
And that school was getting boring
Spread her legs
Daughter, mother, wife
And that school was getting...
Tears running down the blood
           running down the legs
           running down the
Savage streets filled with broken Coke bottles
Wider, shove it, shove it
Coke bottles
shove it
Spread them wider
Shove it
Shove it ….  in
15-year-old girl
13, 7
Faster, faster
Knife in hand on throat in blood
All the way,   IN
Who cares
Fear disguised as hatred
Turning ***** into bullets
Piercing flesh

Piercing humanity
Just a female, just a body, just a toy
Was getting boring
No life, no more, no more
Then she turned to us and said how long...
Exploding wombs, death
Eyeballs peeling off in horror
How long...
She said...
Blood, legs, open, ******, open
She said...
Point of knife, ****** in
****** in center
Center of humanity
How long will...
******, who cares?
Piece of meat
Feed our revenge
Feed our war machines
Feed our weakness for power
Shove it in

The NY Times today stated that the UN council on human rights abuse has agreed that systematic **** is possibly being used by Serb forces as a tool for genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and that as such, may be viewed as a violation of international law.  A warning will be issued to the...
A warning will be issued to the...
A warning...

She said how long...
After two years

Brutal rapes
After two years
20,000 30,000
Systematic rapes possibly being used
50,000
Before, who cares
International law
Only now they decide to act  
Genocide, So what
How long will...
That systematic ****...
***** like lead bullets
Is possibly being...
Harder
****** the ******* thing all the way in
Then she said...
Wider
And then she...
Wider, Wider *****
And then she...
Get another, she’s dead, get another
And then...
Get another ******* *****
And then she said...
******* *****
She said
******* *****

She turned to us and said......
  
How  long are people going to watch us die?

He, miles from home is tired and alone, his body worn and ravaged by cancer. This treatment, though over but a moment too late, he arrives at the station as the last bus home rolls out of sight.

The next not till morning, his body fatiguing, his weary head needs a resting place. But like the story of old, he’s turned away; to this disfigured soul seems there’s no more room at the inn this night.

A border house owner, on her front porch she finds him, begging for a place to rest his soul. “I don’t need a bed, I’ll just sit here instead. With a face like mine marred," he said, "I know I create quite a fright."

But with compassion compelling, she finds herself telling him, “Sir, be of good cheer, please stay with me here. I’ll give you a bed for your weary head; yes, here you’ll be safe until morning light.”  

Said he, “Don’t know where to begin, but my condition of skin, gives others chagrin. Please, don’t think me rude, but I won’t need any food; just a small safe corner I would prefer, for in the morn I’ll be travelin’ home."

Later that evening, they talk for a spell. Her respect for him growing, as to his tell she sits listening; finds herself knowing that deep in this heart runs a pure river flowing, a body so frail, his heart has outgrown.

Home, is a daughter, with five hungry mouths; her husband disabled, unable to walk. He their provider with a fisherman’s rod, his own condition an afterthought. No word of complaint, only thankful instead, making her grateful to have heard his tome.  

Sure as promised, next morning she finds him, sheets neatly folded there on his bed.  As he is leaving she hears him asking,”Ma’am, may I return to this room?  While others reject me, you’re willing to accept me; last night left me grateful I wasn’t alone.”  

And return he did, with accompaniment of fish and oysters shelled fresh as his gift.  As his kindness she pondered she couldn’t but wonder at the hour of his awakening, for with shelling and travel, it left precious little for sleep.

Months they passed by and his visits continued and even when absent his thanks persisted, by parcel his gift from the sea would arrive, wrapped in spinach or kale, then packaged and mailed, each one showing his gratitude deep.

“Did you board that man with awful appearance?” a neighbor’s voice broke through her daydreams one day. Truth rose up inside, she had nothing to hide as she answered. “Any losses I suffered are smaller than gains, for lessons like these don’t come cheap.”

“See… these Mums that today bloom in my garden were once merely seeds, easily forgotten. But planted and watered they grew, in an old dented pail most would've discarded. But once strong and grown tall, I gently transplanted them allowing their beauty to beam.”

And here she reflected on thoughts that were tumbling, she found herself grateful for this enlightening: a lesson here offered, one others had missed, this remarkable teacher others dismissed; one teacher uncommon gave her life lessons, these three...

*1. Don’t judge a book by its cover, or silence the teacher before the lesson begins. 2. Let gratitude flow as an unending response. 3. Our Father often places His best seed, in an old dented pail where it grows in test; then gently is lifted to bloom in His garden, its legacy gleaming for all here to see.

A shadow cast over days past,
like a mast spread for a wind blast
hailing from the wintery north.
Don't think it done until the day's won.
The mistake was made,
the spider web spun over a grenade
that landed on our shores.
They attacked our backyard,
yet we don't act scarred,
we brush it off despite
their continued shelling,
like we can refuse what they're selling.
Telemarketers don't send tapes yelling
that we're all gonna go to hell.
Only enemies that know
we have already fell.

Meet me under the 'Clock Tower'.......’you said’ cold....
The missing sun hibernated, could not melt your denial
Your promise smudged, felt its docile absence
And I knew....gathered in moss, under the stone of lies.

Mistrust hung itself, swung above the entrance....rivalling
My happy cove.  It creaked to a heartbeat....b-bump, b-bump
Shelling out memories like peas. I recalled the very first time
I captured your eyes, the hesitation we felt......to blink and turn away

A thief stole and robbed the essence of you ......no stone
Unturned...I absorbed the waiting, dragged my heavy soles
Where is your foot print? Your imprint prescribed for my wellbeing
Two to be taken each day....preparing the cradles that rock my feet

Absurd, now I look back, that your word of promise...pretended
You named her "Constance", or was that the 'She woman'
I glimpsed you attached to last week.  When huddled
Together under your 'love' umbrella, soaked in one another

where's the rain-man? where's the rain-man? where's the rain-man (comparison)? oh wait, in the interpretation of art by feminism: successful artist... house, wife, children... no... chauvinism's interpretation: desolation, desolation, car-boot sale for the rich at sotheby's - or nietzsche the inspiring thought in benito mussolini's mouth.

after edging to provide legal guidance
for the turkish shop by exposing the
legal balance worth a public bench
enclosed in the turk's caravan,
i became known as mathias del rado
(turkçe parçaladı), deltore, de amore (amoré)
bull's charging eye amore... olé! amoré!
que sera, sera... c'est la vie... well,
i do enjoy drinking and pretending to have
my shadow partner in ping-pong
always win... but why would i need to
feed a common consensus of drinking /
****** who masturbated prior having
the scalpel into the soft kangaroo hand-replica
when society eagerly sells and taxes the stimulant?
they criminalise the escapees of reality
ranging from classification A, B to C...
alcoholics aren't even categorised as D... we're
the troupe labelled Z... yet we're the most
economic addicts, we don't deal with shady
warlord economy, just dull political economy...
the two disparage when one shoots you
in the head and the other talks about an opinion
being free from dialectics... an opinion
free from dialectics (akin to shelling,
bullets whizzing past) is what entrenched
the germans and the english in belgium.
loved the film Ida (2013) though, an oscar contender,
not really black narcissus (but that's not the point),
english language movies can't ever capture
the purest existentialism of loneliness,
the way Ida was shot, black & white...
the poverty of the landscape, the Hopper like
moments after serious moments, honing
on the stasis of the the world and movement of
beings... the way one went back to the nunnery
with the truth of being spared by her family's
killer who purposively dug the grave and gave
back the remains of his butchery...
her aunt's suicide that was almost a secondary
comedy of the everyday shattered vase
in dialogue: i'm sorry, i broke the vase,
but did anything happen to you? no...
then there's nothing broken! the way she did her
final routine the last time,
shagged drunk, woke up and forgot it wasn't
her father, took a bath, turned on music,
got dressed in a jacket, but nothing beneath the waist,
and just jumped out of the window...
the music continued playing, the camera froze
on the scene as an infinite number of things
could have happened... then the nun Ida
embodied her nun, took to wearing heels,
a dress, showing her hair, drinking *****
spiralling in a window-curtain, smoking,
embodying her last remnant connection to a past
of jewry, imaging whether she could live out
the temptations suggested by her aunt...
she ****** the saxophone player and while
in bed she asked with dogmatic undertones
of useful regime instilled in her from early on:
and then? and then?
'a dog, children... and after that life's problems,'
he answered her.
she woke early and donned her nun outfit
and with a sense of courage retreated into
the convent. i mean, a great film...
but then mr. turner came up:
painting used to be so expensive,
all the necessary chemists to give aquamarine pigments,
poetry used to be expensive too,
write a poem, send a 100 men into a godforsaken war...
now technology has enabled painting
to be cheap, so cheap that graffiti tagging with spray
does the trick on a concrete grey slab of canvas...
and so poetry has become cheap too,
emotions have cheapened, people do not really
have ennobling emotions that might quake
100 men to go to war... perhaps 10 down the pub,
but war? not really... but it still leaves me detached,
admiring vintage cars from the 20th century on the driveways,
the way the familial cars dwarf trade cars (white mini van, e.g.),
for example the *mercury 1956 montclair 4-door hardtop,
or the ford zephyr zodiac mark ii "lowline" saloon,
back in the day when people didn't make their life
compact, when girls modelling where the day
of modern day pornstars rather than shaped like coat-hangers,
and when people didn't make their life compact
and holiday resorts from mexico to kenya to australia
also compact in terms of their generics of cloning.

Summer is

bikes and rollerblades
and go-carts and skateboards,
kites and frisbees
and ***** and gloves,

rainbows and suncatchers
and white fluffy clouds,
blue skies and green fields
and sunshine and flowers,

bare feet and sandy toes
and waves on the shore,
tan lines and sunburns
and goofy tourists,

yellow and orange
and summer rain,
butterflies and gardens
and fresh vegetables,

smiles and funny faces
and silly conversations,
smirks and giggles
and big belly laughs,

playing outside until the streetlights come on
and picking flowers for the dinner table,
building sandcastles just to knock them down
and shelling so many peas your finger go numb,
staring at a sky so blue it hurts your eyes
and running barefoot through the cool grass
and laughing so hard you can't even breathe.

Summer is.

Encroaching satellites
High voltage saturation and shade
And an obtuse synopsis of cognitive psychology

Condensing your threshold
Searching for hand outs
Ripping the railings out of the walls
In the stairwells in the doctor's office on the way to your colonoscopy  

Laying on the futon with and your therapist writing down everything you say
"Go on"
"Mhm"
"I see"
"How does that make you feel?"

Skid-marked underwear
Delving, dumpster diving for food
In the lonesome twilight
In the rippling rainstorm

People shelling out gripes
Squinting, doing a double take at you
Followed by a wavering tumult
They're gonna have you capped
That is, unless you purchase this love seat

       -Tommy Johnson

A leaf, a leaf, how queer to think
That trees discard their precious leaves.
While people fear their thinning hair,
A tree’s lifeblood glides through the air.

A child awaits the coming fall,
“The leaves, mommy, they’ve lost them all.
I’m bald and bare, these trees are me.”
In silent death, she grins with glee.

A leaf, a leaf, how queer to think
These trees release frond in a blink.
A mindless shelling to the wind,
The Trees of Winter, **** and trimmed.

That child finds herself a friend;
In naked bark, she can pretend
A tree can shelter her from rain
That showers down in forms of pain.

A leaf, a leaf, how queer to think
These children’s minds form paper links
Like leaves that twirl through steady breeze.
A little girl with brown eyes sees

A future where tree branches sway
In Barren Land, an air’s melee
With wooden fingers shaking hard.
A tree so scared to break in shards.

A child’s dream is soon realized
To be her life; unauthorized.
“These trees, mommy, they shake like me.
Why must strong leaves from these Trees leave?

                Why does my hair fall from my head?
                Did God make me so sick I shed?”

Blades may cut me,
the bullet shrapnel bludgeon me,
it's but the apocalypse bomb shelling
that's going to **** me,
a godly hell of nuclear bluster.
It's the kiss of Death,
a *** of demon and savior,
I’m no son of man,
but this boy's doomed to die
under the batter of Armageddon.
It's not postmortem till blood's but vapor 
and atoms are melting,
I'm tolling the Ferryman
not till it's Hell on Earth
and my birthday candles are eradicated
in nuclear holocaust and human DNA dust.

To the Master, glory!
To the Buckler, glory!
To the Sovereign, glory!
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

The hell shelling like atomic bomb  
But lose not sight of the rainbow
Off the curve of hell is the heaven
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

The night’ll not endure
No matter the hell fiend
Heaven‘ll outpace its space
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

To the Almighty God, glory
To the Miracle Connoisseur, glory
To the Alpha and Omega, glory
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

The sun coming to delete the night
Conquer the brute dark by faith
And see the stars in blooming petals
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

The moon is coming this ogre night
This ambushing danger‘ll break
To the sunrise of glory
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

Turn not your back
On the forward march to glory
Shoot hope infinite to the dim horizon
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

To the King, glory!
To the Love, glory!
To the Glory, glory!
Oh, how grateful to be alive!

Meditations Over the George Washington Bridge
For Tyler Clementi

1.
I could hear the faintest of notes crying in the wind,
As if your fingers were still nimbly holding the bow,
Striking chords on your violin,
As my car rolled over the George Washington Bridge.
I think about how beautiful this is,
This feeling of suspension, how life is held
So taut on these wires, how simple it is to find
Weightlessness over all this water. My mind questions,

Did you second guess yourself? Did you know you
Were worthy of being held, cradled in more
Than just cool air and metal grates and wetness.
But I guess some higher being knew you better,
Than anyone did or could. Knew how those fingers could string
Harps and violins and heart strings, and you,
You were more than all of this, this wasteland
Where desires and kisses are taken for mockery,
And your love can be twisted against you
To make you feel light enough to float away into sleep.

2.
You flew that night. I could tell. Spread your arms like wings
Like a firebird descending into waves, looking to extinguish
Itself, and to take the world with it, to burn out the innate
Inhumanity of human beings. What they found floating
On those waves was a mere carcass, the shelling of your being,
You shed the unholiness of your skin off to alight yourself,
And blaze us with our ignorance.

They were too blind to see you flew that night, let yourself
Unravel into the sky, ripping through the darkness like a seraph,
Like some holy being, some light meant for a higher calling,
But I know what you did, I could see the shadow of you in the night
Gracefully floating. You, you are a testament to language spoken
And silenced, to the words stuck on tongues prying themselves
Through gritted teeth, you birthed meaning to the need for some sort of justice.

3.
You served your time well,
You messenger,
You,
You young,
Holy creature of God,
And I wonder as I pass over
Your take off spot,

How long you will string
Your notes over us
And how you would have fit
Into the Philharmonic
And looked walking up
For your degree

And how long your memory
Will haunt me
And how long your memory
Will stay a lesson learned
For us all.

Dmitri Shostakovich woke up feeling sad
In his home town of Leningrad;
The naughty Nazis were shelling his lovely Russian city -
So, for consolation, he ****** ******* his wife's left *****.

Is that God or Desperation
     That gets us through the night?
Are the faces in the ceiling real,
     or figments of the light?
Do we fill our minds with banal thoughts,
     to help us on our way.
Do we mark the time thats slipped and gone?
     To live in fear of that final day.

An argument is meaningless
     to the one who lives in faith.
Though all of us are faithful,
     and in that faith so few will sway.
Yet still the act of lashing out,
     seems to have it’s own relief.
Is that God or Desperation
     when we question those beliefs.

Is that God or Desperation
     that keeps us shelling money out?
In the quest to find some meaning
     are some willing to sell out?
Is the “truth” that some are preaching,
     worth the solace that it gives?
Even if that comfort irritates,
     and causes other men to ****.

Is there truly any way to live,
     when the fact is we all die.
Or is the truth what makes the soul,
     feel vibrant and alive.
If we embrace our own mortality,
     is it then that we really shine?
Is it God or Desperation,
     that leads to a novel life.

Hi Syria,

How are you feeling today?
I've heard so much about you
How strong you are
Enduring six years of illness
And counting
Of how high spirited you've remained
Watching children play in the
Midst of turmoil;
Indiscriminate shelling
Heard of the many chemical baths
You've been subjected to
Assad believing you have
Cancerous cells
Needing to be exterminated
Not realizing HE is
The cancer and you;
You the victim
How I wish I could help you heal
From your trauma

Yet I heard an injection
Was given you today
With the hope
The chemical baths can end
Because it is killing you
Slowly rotting
Destroying your body
Taking away your beauty
The side effect of corruption
How beautiful you once were
How long will it take you to heal?
I wish for peace of mind
And a healthy future for you
Syria

From JM 4/7/17

always in the fog, the klaxon sounded,
announcing another round of shelling

Tuck was terrified, for he
thought this was a hound
from hell, and it was

telling London to head
to the underworld--dank cellars
or shelters built for survival,
or mass burial

depending on where Gerry's
bombs decided to land

the lasses knew well the drill:
grab their favorite doll and say a
prayer,
             going
                        down
                                   the
                                         stairs

Mum would grab Tuck--his shivering body
not soothed by her warm embrace

for when the hounds stopped their menacing moan
deeper doomed demons would begin their call;
the beast sensed this, and he had no god
to beg for salvation

he could only feel the rumbling of the ground
and not close his ears to the sound, which riveted
stakes through his bones

I played and was betrayed for a pittance
Stayed in the parade out of persistence
Gave up all charades of any resistance
This is how I earned my own existence

By selling myself by shelling my soul
One inch of survival a day for no self determination
One loaf of bread to let them make me hollow
One stream of **** to shovel from this hovel

I prayed for redemption stayed in this place
Strayed from my potential to maintain my space
Let them flay me alive till my empathy was displaced
And I became a clone of their perfect human race

Just a shadow self of everyone else with no voice
And no real face

at standard cruising altitude
sipping my digestive
after a quite decent hot lunch
on the flight from Vienna to Athens

I gaze through the scratched
double plexiglass bulleye
shielding me from the outside world
and try to pierce the blinding haze
of a lazy spring afternoon
hiding from me

   the people shot by snipers
   the shelling of suburbs
   the burning houses
   the crowded hospitals
   of Sarajevo, Gorazde, Mostar, Zadar ...

suspended in diffuse light
all I can see is
   the silhouette of an occasional
       snow-capped mountain range

there is no sign
of human suffering

*May 1992

SHELLING PEAS

a smile
struggles around in his beard
then gets lost again

the doctor spoke like a stone
dropped into a pool
talking in bigggger & biggggger circles

Death politely
knocks at his door
as if it were Beethoven's 5th

"Are you always as
dramatic as this. . ?"
Death just smirks

he felt like
an answer being
chased by a question

he remembers his wife
shelling peas into her lap
a glimpse of white knickers

at last he
found what he was
looking for...his death

he steps into
the blue that
a window offers

the clock
embarrassed by
its own ticking

we dont know his name
we dont know his family
the only thing we know
another child in Syria is in heaven now
another mother somewhere is sleeping with tears
another father somewhere is with broken heart
Unknown child was killed today due to Assad thugs
random shelling on Damascus suburb
Al fatihah... Rest in peace.

Outraged by indifference,
On the streets, neighbors once friendly Now stand in opposing lines. Propaganda posters cover the walls, Spreading fear and dividing minds. Ukraine or Russia, Isreal or Palestine. Capitalism or communism the greediness and division funding all wars

In countries once united and with the hope of, now torn apart.  Hopes and dreams dashed, shattered like glass.  The future once bright, now a dark unknown.  How can we navigate our way into a peaceful world

Blue and yellow flags, now stained with blood. A nation once united, now torn asunder.  The echoes of shelling, ringing in their ears.  The land of golden wheat, now a barren wasteland.

So the streets are filled with chaos and fear,  And the violence rages on without cease. Bombs and bullets tear through the night,  and civilians cower in their homes, bereft of peace. The loss of life and suffering is great, And the scars of war run deep and true. The conflict rages on without end,  And hope seems hard to hold onto.

A home, once a dream of safety. Now a battlefield, a place of terror. The faces of loved ones, now distant memories. hearts, once full of hope. Now shattered and broken.

Amidst the chaos and despair, we search for a light. The occurring wars, the reasons to unite, for a glimmer of hope is a reason to go on.  So they cling onto the small moments of joy,  like the laughter of a child, or a flower in bloom. In the darkest of times, they try to find strength in the small things.

Though the scars of war may run deep, the world can still heal. We can still choose love, choose forgiveness.  We can choose to build a better tomorrow, Where peace reigns and hope abounds.  May we never forget the lessons of war, and may we always strive for a brighter future.

May we learn to forgive those who have wronged us,  and work to heal the divisions in our society.  May we reach out to those in need,  and work to create a more just and equitable world.  May we never lose sight of the beauty of life, as we hold fast to the belief that a better tomorrow is for us