PLANET NAIROBI (When the sun goes down)
Nur…
They were on the verge of losing this battle… it was only a matter of time, and he knew that. Through the window, he saw them advance, with a fierce swiftness that would have put anyone opposed to them at unease. Trembling uncontrollably, he reached for his weapon and held it firmly, ready to martyr himself for his family’s honour and legacy if need be. For they were not, and never would be known as a family of cowards, they were royalty... and he would rather go down fighting than cowering, that was the bottom line. But he knew that his sword, as well forged as it was, would be no match for Rath and his five hundred man strong battalion. So, biting his lower lip he waited for the pounding footsteps to reach the top of the stairs where he stood, the one solitary guardian to the throne. Martyrdom was his destiny.
“Let he that stands between Rath and the throne fall like the city walls!” Rath’s dominant voice bellowed as it got closer, too close for comfort.
He braced himself.
Suddenly, the doors burst open. And Nur... Prince Nur, finally got to come face to face with the scourge that had terrorised the lands of the sea for so long. A man of whom he had heard about from stories as a child growing up. A man that had haunted his dreams for as long as he could remember. Nur realised that he had always been afraid of Rath, long before this moment, how was he supposed to fight this man when he was clearly at a disadvantage? For it was common knowledge that to go into battle afraid, was to go into battle prepared to lose.
Rath was a gigantic figure, and exuded the air of one who was accustomed to crushing his opponents and hadn’t experienced defeat in a while... if not ever. This man stood at almost eight feet tall, with rock hard muscles that seemed to pile on top of more muscle, threatening to tear through his dark skin. His long locks of unkempt hair fell over a face that could only be described as menacing. He had a permanent scowl that was complimented by his black, soulless eyes. And as they stared each other down, Nur couldn’t ignore the presence of sheer evil he saw in those eyes, a shiver of dread ran down his spine. He raised his blade.
“A child?” Rath barked, “A petulant child? Is that what this Kingdom’s defences have come down to? An infant?” He waved a dismissive hand at Nur.
“A prince!” Nur responded defiantly, raising his blade even higher and more confidently. This man may have been the epitome of terror, but Nur would be ****** if he was going to be talked down to in this manner, this was his palace.
“A prince huh? Prince Nur I presume? Your father was a brave man, I respected him. Even if I met his acquaintance only for a couple of minutes, before I slaughtered him. But I do respect a king that fights alongside his men, as opposed to other cowards I’ve had the pleasure of killing that had barricaded themselves in their chambers and let others fight their battles for them. King Thur was a rare breed... but a dead one all the same.” He laughed remorselessly as he said this. “And soon you will get to join your warrior father foolish one.”
Nur lost all sense of fear. Infuriated, his nostrils flared as he swung the blade with all the ferocity he could muster, slicing deep into Rath’s right forearm. Time slowed to syrup as he saw his adversary’s blood stain the sword, but realising that it wasn’t a fatal strike, he turned around swiftly, switching his stance just in time to see Rath’s massive blade come down on his head. Then there was a deathly silence.
The afterlife was nothing like he had pictured. It smelt of... he couldn’t quite place that peculiar smell. It wasn’t pleasant, but neither was it unpleasant, just unfamiliar. Then he turned around and saw her. He deduced that she was probably the source of the smell. He noticed that smoke came out of her nostrils and mouth every few seconds after lifting a sticklike object to her lips. Nur mused at how wrong the high priest in their kingdom had been when he spoke about the place in the sun... the afterlife. It wasn’t anything like he had described.
But wait a minute! He realised that the sun was still above him, in the sky. He could see it. He could feel it on his skin. So WHERE WAS HE? He felt dizzy, unable to comprehend. Only a minute ago he was in the royal palace, facing certain death. And now he was... he didn’t know where he was, or even what he was. Was he dead? Transcended? Was this just his soul? If so, then how come he still had his senses? All these questions raced through his mind at the same time. He turned toward the lady, who seemed unaware of his presence. She was tall and very light skinned compared to him and her hair was tied in ponytail at the back of her head. He couldn’t make sense of her attire though, she seemed to wear a lot of clothing, garment over garment that covered her arms and legs. She was also extremely beautiful and had a slim womanly body most warriors would **** for, he noted, and felt himself flush. He tried to see what she was squinting so intently at and concluded that she was just staring into space as she drew, he realised now, on the tiny stick and blew out more smoke. That was when he noticed how high up they were, this palace stood almost five times as high as theirs. It was overwhelming to say the least.  He got up and walked over to her, deciding to leave his blade behind so as not to come off as a threat.
“Greetings?” He said politely. She jumped as if she had just seen a ghost, dropping the stick she was holding. He had clearly startled her, so he took a step back lifting his hands in the air to signify that he meant her no harm. She breathed rapidly and began to speak just as rapidly in a foreign tongue. Nur couldn’t understand what she was saying, but the hostility in her tone and her demeanour was hard to miss. He took another step back, ready to defend himself from an attack if need be. He had heard tales of an island with warrior women who could match, and beat, even the strongest male adversary in combat. He decided to tread cautiously.


Nasim...
Nasim Naikuni was beyond peeved. Who was this ******?  He had scared her half to death and almost made her fall off the roof, not to mention burn her favourite grey, three thousand shilling trouser suite when she dropped the cigarette. And what annoyed her even more was that he didn’t seem to register how ******* she was. He just stood there with a blank expression on his face, like a schoolboy waiting for his mistake to be explained to him. Nasim couldn’t stand slow people, they got under her skin. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, which was taxing to say the least, seeing as she had been smoking just seconds ago.
“Are you slow?” She shouted, tapping at her temple repeatedly. “What makes you think you can sneak up on me like that you fool? You almost killed me. Do you realise that?” Then she stopped and studied him, out of breath. She noticed that he seemed unable to understand English and so she switched to Swahili, “Nini mbaya na wewe?” What’s wrong with you? Still there was no response.
She gave him a once over. He dressed strangely. His large, golden brown pants that fluttered in the wind seemed to have been made from an expensive material, though it was like no material she’d laid eyes on before. It bordered somewhere between silk and suede. His shirt was also made of a similar material, but leather brown in colour, matching his leather boots that were laced and reached just under the knee. He stood an inch or two shorter than she did, but she guessed that was probably because she was in heels. He had long hair that seemed to fall halfway down his back in one long braid. He looked almost exotic as he tried to communicate, but she couldn’t place the language or his ethnicity, for his skin-tone was chocolate brown but his hair looked almost like an Asian’s, dark and straight. He spoke in a tongue she had never heard before. There was also something really classy about this boy, whom she guessed to be around eighteen years of age or so. It was like looking at a darker, more pampered version of Sinbad the sailor.
Nasim relaxed a little and decided to give the fellow a chance to introduce himself, in whatever way he intended to do so. He seemed to pick up on this and started explaining something to her, making a couple of gestures, and at some point she thought she saw him mimic a fight, and then  point to the sky. Nasim still didn’t know what he was talking about, but felt a semblance of communication begin to take form. He directed her attention to another part of the roof, probably where he had approached her from. And she saw the blade! With catlike agility she swung her purse at him, the blow caught him square on the jaw with a thud! The bottle of perfume she religiously carried around in it serving a different purpose on this day. He hadn’t seen it coming and so had no chance of stopping it. He staggered backwards as she made a run for it toward the staircase but felt a hand grab her ankle causing her to tumble onto the hot cement floor. At that moment her heart sank, for she knew that she was done for.


Nur...
Nur was perplexed, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve the assault. The lady had seemed to be calming down, but all of a sudden she had lunged at him with a weapon he had first assumed to be a bag. Though, she didn’t strike with the strength that a warrior would have, and also had made an attempt to flee. This told him two things. One, she wasn’t accustomed to combat... and two, she had attacked more out of fear than strife. Which meant that she posed no immediate threat to him. Also, she was the only person he had met so far and his only hope of figuring out where he was. He couldn’t afford to lose her, not just yet, so he decided to try something he was ashamed he hadn’t thought of sooner. Nur spoke into her head.
‘I mean you no harm.’  He said, and waited. No response. He tried again, concentrating harder this time. ‘Can you hear me? I mean you no harm’
‘LET ME GOOO!’  Her thoughts screamed.
He could understand her, they had made a connection. Progress...

One year later. Nasim...
“Good afternoon people? You’re hangin’ out with me Nasim Naikuni on your favourite show Voices, where you can throw any question you have regarding life... and living it, at me and the voices in my head will answer them for you... yeah, you heard right, the voices in my head. I’ll be takin’ your calls for the next hour. Let’s begin shall we?” Nasim spoke into the microphone just before a voice-over added...
“NASIM NAIKUNI, THE ONLY RADIO PRESENTER THAT’S LITERALLY GONE BONKERS!” And then was followed by some rock music. ‘So what?... I’m still a rock star... ’ Pink’s lyrics belted out as Nasim removed her headphones to take a breather before she talked to her first caller. A breather... and also to have a bit of a chat with the voice in her head. She walked out of the studio into a corridor where she was out of sight, and concentrated, her eyes crinkling from the effort.
‘Hey, are you there?’
‘Uh huh.’ The prince replied.
‘Okay, we’re on in roughly three minutes. Make me look good babes’
‘Don’t I always?’
‘True dat. What are you doing?’
‘Breakfast.’
‘It’s one in the afternoon... ’
‘This is not my planet, therefore I’m not obliged to follow its rules. I can have a one o’clock breakfast if I want to.’
‘Brunch.’
‘What?’
‘Brunch, what your having would be brunch. Breakfast... aaand lunch?’
‘You see? You get all high and mighty on me about this and you even have a name for it? If it is so wrong to have breakfast at this time, then why would your people give the meal a name? I’m just saying.’ Nur said mockingly.
‘I give up’ She replied with a sigh.
‘Nas... Nas?’
Silence.
She walked back into the studio.
“Caller... you’re on air. Shoot.” Nasim said softly, leaning into the microphone.
“Hey Nasim, lovely job you’re doing by the way.”
“Why thank you dear, but I don’t deserve all the credit you know?”
“Yeah I know... you and the voices in your head... ha-ha! Anyway my name is George, and I’m kinda’ in a predicament at the moment. You see, I have a wife and a family... two kids, but I kinda’ got into this relationship outta’... obligation as opposed to real love...”
“Obligation?”
“Yes. I met my wife five years ago in uni’ and we dated. But looking back, I only got into the relationship because I felt I’d led her on and she loved me soo much, I just couldn’t disappoint her. So I got stuck in a phony relationship, at least on my part. Next thing I know, we are pregnant and... It’s been we ever since.”
“So you want to what? Get out of your marriage?”
“I want to be with the person I truly love...”
“Hooo... **! Scoreboard! Now we have lift off. And how long have you known this person that you truly love George?” She said this with a tinge of amusement in her voice.
“Six years... and we’ve been going out for the past two.” He sounded ashamed.
‘He sounds ashamed.’ She heard Nur say observationally.
‘No kidding.’ She retorted.
(In the past year or so, Nasim and Nur had come to an understanding somewhat. After she had struck him with her purse and the little scuffle they’d had on the rooftop, and after convincing herself that she wasn’t going crazy... or that the cigarette she had been smoking wasn’t laced with marijuana or some other hallucinogen, she finally gave in and listened to the voice speaking to her in her thoughts.
‘Please, just give me a chance to explain. I need your help lady!’ He sounded desperate.
She felt sorry for him, but still suspected she could be going nuts.
He continued. ‘I don’t know where I am. My father is dead and I don’t know where I am or how I arrived here, and you’re the only one that can help me right now...’
Nasim, touched now, replied. “How am I supposed to do that? And how are you doing this telepathy thing? Are you really doing this?” She shook her head violently, like a wet dog trying to dry itself, “I’m very confused right now.”
He looked even more confused. ‘Talk to me in my head, I think it is the only way we can communicate with each other.’
She didn’t know how to.
‘It’s simple, concentrate.’ He said reassuringly.
She tried. Still nothing.
‘I could hear you a moment ago, I don’t understand. Let’s try this slowly, repeat after me... Nur.’ He told her.
She heard him, and was thinking what?
He repeated, ‘Nur.’
She tried thinking the word he’d asked her to repeat as hard as she could but he didn’t seem to be getting anything. She decided that the cigarette must have been laced with something. Here she was, on the roof top of her work building trying to master telepathy, with a stranger who just happened to own a sword. This had to be a dream, a nightmare.
‘I must be high.’
‘Yes! Yes! You’re high!’ She heard the excited reply.
‘What?’
‘You did it!’ Nur said happily, ‘you figured it out. And yes, I was also meaning to ask you about how high we are.’
She had done it. Nasim could hear him and answer back, she felt oddly proud of this accomplishment. Then she asked puzzled. ‘High? You get high?’
‘I am high.’ Came the naive reply.
‘Oh...’
‘Why are we so high up? The palaces on our island are half the size of yours, are you that many in your palace that you need to build it so tall?’
Then she understood. And laughed... ‘Who are you? And how did you get here?’
‘My name is Nur... Prince Nur... how I got here? That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ He was being honest.
And thus begun an adventurous relationship between the two. Nasim took him to her apartment that day, passing curious and disapproving looks all the way. The most difficult part being trying to explain to her boss why she was coming from the roof in the company of someone who dressed like a ******, as he put it. She made up something. And he gave her one of those I’ll accept your story just because... looks. Nasim found that hilarious. But she was glad she had asked Nur to leave the sword behind to be recovered later. That would have been a tad difficult to explain. They got to her apartment block and were met by more disapproving looks from a group of nosey old women, the type that love to mind everyone else’s business but their own, as they walked to the lift. And when they got into apartment F6 on the second floor, she introduced Nu

(This poem is on the earthquake that people in Sikkim,India had faced on 18 September 2011. I was one among them too! P.S- on this very that is my brother's birthday! So i remember it more profoundly....just read on to find out more. Certain words mean the following out here-
MG MARG- MAHATMA GANDHI MARG.{Marg means street.}
LAL BAZAAR-refers to a marketing place in the capital of Sikkim,i.e,Gangtok)
MAAL ROADING-Maal road is generally found in most of the hill stations in India. But in my college, Maal Road has a different and funny meaning.)
DISCO COMMITTEE-refers to the DISCIPLINARY Committee in our college,which takes stringent actions against the guilty.)

18 was the date-
When a bunch of girls had decided
to travel through the city.
But I was the one who wasn't prepared,
As it was raining pretty heavy.
The girls planned to eat,roam and shop about,
through the MG MARG and LAL BAZAAR!
Fortunately for me due to some unavoidable circumstances
the plan got dropped....
And all I could see was girls making unbearable pouts!!

In the evening,
when people go out MAAL ROADING,
I went to the shop with a company
for buying a recharge card as done daily!
Though I bought it,
I somehow forgot to scratch it, I rather kept it inside my bag.

Strolling down the campus
We sat on the football field
Watching the players kicking the ball in glee
With their boots,shorts and tee!
At exactly 6:10 pm, there was a great turbulence,
which caused a whole lot of purturbence!
Yes, that was the 6.9 that shook us!
People running to and fro to save their lives,
some shirtless,some barefooted and some in towels!

With buildings shaking and cracking
there was nothing
but utter horror and shouting!
People seemed like Refugees,
With no phone networks to contact friends,relatives and families!
We were told to sleep with our room doors open.
But how could we when there were still tremors coming?
SHAKE! and people would be out on the streets!

Such a day it was, when Mother Nature had terrorised us!
Still the authorities couldn't help themselves from separating boys and girls!!
If they happen to meet each other,
They would have to face the DISCO COMMITTEE all together!

Huh!! When will you get rid off this mentality?
So that we can live joyous and peacefully!!!

~ Losing Innocence ~
Why do we risk it all for love?
No matter how exquisite,
Passionate, wonderful it is,
We lose;
Always.
Whether we part for differences or in death,
We lose;
Always.
No matter how much we try to hold on,
Change ourselves or our other,
Govern and protect the relationship,
We lose;
Always.

Thus, why do we do it?
We do it for the moments that will reside with us,
Always.
For the craze and lust.
The fury,
The fervor,
The obsession, infatuation, excitement.
For the zeal, enthusiasm, passion.
We do it for us;
To penetrate over into,
Our partner.

Me and You,
We wanted it all.
None of the pain,
Just the good stuff.
Well, we had it.
The good, the lovely.
What a surprise!
But then,
As Always,
We lost.

We lost ourselves,
Our way.
The rhythm and balance
We perfected.
How did we not see it coming?
Stumbling on to a new realm.
One in which we operate alone.
The composition wrecked.
We smashed into that brick wall.
Afraid to leave,
Co-dependent.
I knew you wanted out.
Maybe a break?
You opposed it.
We could not come back from it.
I could feel the coming loss.
But not in the way I expected.

A trip!
To get us back.
The excitement could mend us.
It did for 72 hours.
Then the ultimate force of depature
Came upon.
In a small elegant English hotel,
You died in my arms
On a Saturday morning in London.
Thirty five hundred miles away from home.

The initial shock blasted my mind and body.
The detonation of torment pierced my soul.
Unadulterated suffering terrorised.
I lost my equilibrium and steadiness.
Embarking in an unknown world,
Where the dwellers seethe with agony.
A spot was saved for me there,
Where fumes suffocate.
A Hell on Earth
Where Innocence is Lost.

"SNOGGO And The Giant Sea Beast" (Another Egregious SNOGGO Adventure)

written by
Edna Sweetlove
on behalf of
the one and only
SNOGGO*


  The shore lay peaceful in the warmth of the sun, a seemingly idyllic picture. The beach was completely empty even though it was high summer. The whole town was void of visitors: usually at this time of the year it was crawling with tourists: fat white slobs ready to absorb maximum sunshine and sunburn before going back to the city with their ugly kids, back to their humdrum and drab lives of sedentary drudge. But not today, today they were nowhere to be ******* seen.

  Glum shopkeepers stared glumly out at the glum, empty streets, knowing they faced ruin unless the terror which had engulfed their town and which would bring calamity to their traditional summer occupation of fleecing the tourists could be sorted out. And only I, the wonderfully brave and intrepid SNOGGO, could save the town.  They knew it and I knew it. It was an established fact. Q.E.D.

  As I drove my specially designed truck down the main street to the seafront, people cheered, calling out 'God bless you, dearest, gallant SNOGGO' as I went by.  I was so ******* proud that everyone knew who the great SNOGGO was. I cautiously inched onto the sands as people watched from behind their curtains, hoping against hope that I would be able to save them from looming disaster. I motored down to the water's edge and carefully turned the vehicle round so that its rear pointed out to sea.  The tarpaulin on the back of the specially constructed SNOGGOMOBILE flapped in the wind. What was under the tarpaulin?

  I dragged a steamer trunk from under the tarpaulin, opened it and hauled out the stinking carcase of Geoffrey, my neighbour's Rottweiler who had inexplicably gone missing last week.  Or it may have been Gerald, Geoffrey's twin brother.  Next I hauled Gerald's corpse out of the trunk (or it may have been Geoffrey's, the two mutts were identical and repellent in death, just as they had been identical and repellent in life).  The pong was something awful.  Nearly gagging with the rancid and stomach-churning stench, I dragged the two dead dogs down to the shoreline and, grabbing each by its hind legs, hurled them out to sea as far as my mighty strength would permit.  About five yards, as it happened.

  I returned to the SNOGGOMOBILE and drew back the tarpaulin to reveal what lay underneath; my secret weapon, whose secret only I knew. I made my preparations carefully but rapidly; I knew I had no more than five or six minutes’ leeway. And sure enough, after precisely five and a half minutes, I heard the sound I was expecting and I saw the sight I was expecting.

  The mighty fin of the dreadful fish cut through the water with a dreadful whoosh.  And Geoffrey disappeared beneath the waves (or it might have been Gerald, who cares).  The other dog would be next: such a mighty shark as the one enjoying dog tartare in the bay would not be sated by a single Rotweiler.

  I climbed onto the back of the SNOGGOMOBILE, and leaped gracefully into the seat behind my secret weapon.  I aimed quickly at the focal point of the blood-stained thrashing waters, pressed the red button (marked "Fire" for ease of reference) and WHAM!, what a Hell of a big bang, and off went my thermo-nuclear torpedo, whizzing down the beach and SPLASH! into the water, then WALLOP! as it hit the shark amidships and BOOM! as it went off, blowing the shark into ******* smithereens.  Myriad bits of shark (mixed with bits of Geoffrey and Gerald) rained down on the beach; how fortunate that I had thought to put up my extra-size golf-umbrella (complete with colourful SNOGGO logo) to deal with this eventuality and no lumps hit me.

  The enormous shark (wittily nicknamed “that ******* great ******* shark” by the locals) which had terrorised the entire coast for some time, gobbling up paddling kiddies whole, chewing off the limbs of dozens of swimmers, and generally being a major pain the ****, was no more. It was mincemeat. The whole promenade was alive with cheering townsfolk, as I smiled in happiness and pride at my wonderful achievement. They started singing my favourite song: “We love SNOGGO, SNOGGO the brave” which brought ******* tears to my eyes.

  Now SNOGGO's reward beckoned: ten thousand lovely wallet-warmers (plus expenses) plus a night of unbridled lust with the mayor's buxom wife Shirley and his sister Deidre too, as previously arranged. Yes, SNOGGO the famous shark killer (and ******* fan) had killed yet another predator of the deep stone ******* dead.

THE END
~~~~~~~~

He’d never forgotten the heap of ****
That sat beside the mine,
It blocked the sun from his morning walk
With its shadow, so sublime,
It grew to hover above his home
From the time that he was three,
Its overpowering vastness grew
Not slow, but steadily.

And every time that the wind would blow
Its dust would fill the air,
Would saturate every cranny, even
Darken his mother’s hair,
The coal dust strangled their garden bed
So not a thing would grow,
And filled up his father’s lungs with dust
Each time that he went below.

The more that they mined the deeper coal
The higher it grew, the heap,
It spread away from the poppethead
Was covering up the street,
They tried to manage the monster but
It grew out of control,
With every truckload of **** they dumped
From where they mined the coal.

At night it loomed like a giant bat
With its shadow on the ground,
Gleaming black in the moon’s pale beam
It terrorised the town,
‘I don’t like walking at night out there,’
You’d hear the women say,
‘That heap is covering Satan’s lair
We need to get away.’

But nobody ever got away,
At least, not with their soul,
They’d sold their souls to the devil, and
Were tied to the monster, coal,
The men came home with their faces black
And their hands all scarred and torn,
For coal mining is the sort of job
You are cursed with, when you’re born.

And he was taken to work the mine
When he’d barely turned just six,
His father said, ‘Well, I think it’s time,
You can leave behind your tricks,’
They showed him how he could work the fan
To fill the mine with air,
And there he worked twelve hours a day
While he learned the word ‘Despair’.

His father died when a prop collapsed
And they had to leave him there,
Under a hundred tons of coal
But the owners didn’t care,
They simply began another drive
To make up the owner’s loss,
Whether the miners lived or died
Their lives were seen as dross.

So Andrew, that was the orphan’s name
Went down between the shifts,
He took some fuel and matches down
He’d long been planning this,
He managed to start a coal seam fire
That roared by the morning sun,
And smoke poured out of that poppethead,
While they raged, ‘What has he done?’

But Andrew never emerged again
To pay for the thing he’d done,
He’d told his sister to write a note,
‘I did it for everyone!’
His bones lie charred where his father fell,
Under a hundred ton,
They couldn’t put out the coal seam fire,
The father lies with the son.

David Lewis Paget

Words will be written.
Thoughts will be told,
Information put forward.
Dreams bought and sold.

Tales of Inspiration.
Gutter-trash news.
Chaotic Information.
Informants ruse.

Politicians false pledge
Juggling board
Politics on the edge.
Should they fall on their sword?

Do they never blunder?
This Pie-crust elite
Information to wonder
While they're dragging their feet.

Our earth, our nation
With over fished ocean.
De-forestation.
No sun without lotion.

Extinction of the wild
The draining of fuel
No food for a child
The greed of the cruel.

This world where we live,
Earthquake and Tsunami
Have we nothing to give,
terrorised from the sea.

Maybe acid filled rain
don't forget Global-Warming
Is this world that we drain
perhaps giving a Warning.

It's nothing more than a word to some
It can bring back memories thought to be lost
A simple home
A small dog..
But safety to me lies within a person.
Entwined in their eyes and embedded in their being
When most people think safety, they think of something normal.
But for me,
Safety is him.
Gone with my fears and my regrets
Gone with my nightmares that terrorised me for months on end.
Safety is him and the tought of one day finally being in his arms
Even for a moment...

As a little child you used dread going up there on your own... to bed
Climbing those stairs all alone, all the time getting further away from the light down in the hall
With every step it was like your fear would increase tenfold
You could hear your little heart beating, pounding away inside
Beyond the bright hall light's promise of safety
Beyond there... lay danger... the darkness
The Darkness at the top of the stairs.

For you knew they were waiting there for you
Hidden a little way back in the shadows, on the landing
Evil elves and goblins, cruel giants, trolls, wicked witches and fairies... the Wolfman
They held nets ready to catch you in
And sacks slung over their backs, to bundle you into
Ready to steal you away from your family,
Like the Ice Queen on her sleigh
Ready to spirit you away to some Ice Palace faraway
To a world all frozen, turned to cold
A great prize was a human child.

Even when you'd got to bed, you'd hide your little head under the covers
Listening fearfully for their murmurs
You knew like in Dr. Who the Daleks they were coming
They were just in your wardrobe waiting,
And underneath your bed, silver Cybermen too
With their cold expressionless inhuman metallic faces
You'd lie there shivering, your little heart turned sideways in fear
You were just a little child drowning, drowning in a sea, a sea of monsters.

                            II

Looking back on it now, looking back
The Darkness, it was innocent, completely innocent
It held no danger, no fear and no monsters either
It was only the world that had coloured it so
Painted them on the screen of your imagination
All those scary TV shows, those dark fairytales and religious stories  
Yea, it was only the world that painted it so
A world so ignorant of the inner life of a little child...a little boy
A world obsessed, a world in love with... with Monsters.

But why then...why did you beg to be let stay up late with them, to watch those scary shows
Knowing you'd later have to face that lonely walk of fear up to your bed upstairs
Probably accompanied by some new monster, some new terror gleaned from that night's show
To add to your burgeoning collection
Why? Why this fascination with scaring yourself, with hurting, damaging yourself ?
Why did you want that for yourself ?
You wanted to be like them, didn't you, the grown ups, the older ones,
This is what they did and this is what you thought you had to do as well
You looked up to them, these were the people you loved, that you aspired to be like one day
So you had to do what they did too,
You wanted into their world and to do this you had to like the things they liked too.

And so, your innocence as a child was overthrown, denied
It was something to be ashamed of,
Something to be reviled and ridiculed and hated
It was pilloried in the marketplace
And all the monsters instead, they were installed.

                       III

I remember as a little child when watching TV if you thought something scary was coming up
You'd rise and say "I don't think I want to see this bit"
And you'd go and hide behind the chair, occasionally peeping out, waiting for the 'bad bit' to be over so you could return.
I remember too when very little, the first time I seen a Halloween mask, a witch's mask my brother put on
How I cried in terror, I was terrified every time he put it on
I thought he'd been suddenly transformed, that some dark kind of magic had been performed
That he'd changed into a witch, that reality had become distorted into something grotesque and ugly and evil
How scared I was.

Just imagine that.. imagine a being so little, so fragile, so sensitive...so pure of heart
That the slightest aberration, the slightest thought could hurt it
(Could this be where we went wrong...the lonely god).

Way up on his pulpit, a ranting preacher raves
About devils and demons and dark things everywhere
"It's the truth, it's the truth", he shouts, " it's in the book, it's in the book!!! "
Before him his poor congregation lies, all numbed and terrorised,
And no god whatsoever, no god at all to be seen
Only maybe a God of Terror, another monster.

                         IV

So, will you not come back then, back to the Old House
And amid all the dust and the cobwebs, find me again... still there,  all alone
Will you not dare lift this veil, this veil of shame
And look again upon my face
That which the world so greatly despises
This terrible terrible innocence
Do you not remember me, once, once upon a time
Am I not fair of face...not lovely... a thing beautiful to behold.

Is there not one who would do battle for me, champion me
Like St. George and his dragon
Shield me from the fiery onslaughts of this world
Is there not one who would come
Is there not one.

what got in me?
in every thousand of seconds I walk
My eyes follow the back
taken by the moments
Everything seems good
My eyes keep in lamentation
judging which one is better

kind and bouncing very innocent
am sure eyes subscribed to the behinds
they really terrorised my mind
A better half I have
I seem though looking for another
The search I have never found
Because I don't know what it is!

How much longer do you think I can withstand
the pain of being torn apart from the
inside out? The claws ripping into my
heart, piercing my soul, making this into
a nightmare; tear-stained wishes pouring as
love floods off my tongue, easy yet broken;
my mind running circles until the thoughts
make me dizzy and I fall; paralysed,
hypnotised, terrorised. How much longer
do you think I can cope with this hole in
my heart, the hole that can only be filled
by you? Let's count.

The cold clammy fingers of night
creak slowly across the floorboards
as I stare at the flickering fireplace
my heart begins to up pace to race

The flooding feelings that all is not safe
brings panic to my terrorised mind in haste
I feel hands on my shoulders
yet I cannot look around
for I am frozen in fear
as I know death is here

He plays with my hair
twilling it round his bony fingers
then leans down to whisper in icy breath
did you really think you could escape me
did you really, he sniggers
say goodbye to the light

Say hello to forever night

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

Truth be told
I'm terrorised with fear,
Because I'm not about to get a father,
I know I'll get a nightmare.
I don't want to enter the place, again,
Where I wish I could go back to my dreams,
To try to make it all better,
Because the reality will be painfully in front of me
And I'll never be able to make it disappear.

Undervalued, as she had been her entire short life
She fell into her small simple cot, exhausted
It was eleven twenty-five and so cold that night
And four that morning since she’d left it in dread.

Given up by her frightened parents at only seven
She was just as other girls in her village
Carried away by the merciless men
Who’d terrorised the area to ****** and pillage.

A ****** no longer at just eight and a half
A mother before she was thirteen
She’d had absolutely no schooling
She didn’t even know the word obscene.

The one single thing that she did understand
Was the pain of being beaten all the time
If she wasn’t fast enough at bringing their food
She was thrashed like it was a crime.

And now here she was…exhausted
She was only eighteen, but so old
And the only thing she ever got from her Lord
Was her death that night from the cold.

A six year old motherless child all alone
She’ll be safe until she turns eight
And then just like her dead mother
She’ll be cast to the men and a terrible fate.

©Joe Wilson – Some lives are always violent…2015

There are nations around the globe where this is still a common occurrence, even in so-called civilised countries. It is the 21st century, we should be able to stop this horrendous monstrosity.

It's said that the longer you try to keep something away, the deeper it's impression has on you. I fell even harder this time. I wasn't sure if this was love or guilt, it kept me at bay - it felt the same.

The first day i ever loved her, must have been or perhaps should have been the day i cherish the most; instead, it became the day that trips me over and shoves me deep into a pit of sorrow and guilt. I can't seem to get out of it. I hurt the only love of my life.

Call me depressed, maniac or just a socially awkward ****, it doesn't matter, the day i made her cry all over again, caused her pain - I became all of it.

Not only did I deprive her of all the happiness and laughter she deserved, but I also filled her with doubt, distress and hatred. I birthed Pain which cripled me with anxiety and hopelessness. As a parent it should have been my duty to look after her, but my anguished soul abandoned her. I didn't dare think about how it must have terrorised her, yet when I look at her, seeking mercy, I see her pretty face, scarred by my pathetic self: laughing, hiding too much behind that pretty smile.

If only I could make her happy. If only I could look after her without fragmenting her soul even more.

Now that you’re here
I have dreamt my cure
Before you came
I tried everything
Holes in my skull
And scalpels
Hooks
And probes
Ossified
And terrorised
Minimised
Each time I tried
The fire
The cup
The blood and the Knife
But the loss
Of innate heat
Is the basic condition of life

Before you came
I considered the seasons
Took note of the winds
But extreme cures
Are what's needed
For extreme ills
Now that Im yours
Now you are mine
Now that you’re here
I have dreamt my cure

You hold in your hands
So small and so white
The end
To this history of medicine
The key to release
Me from this ******
And lifelong plight
The event of my body
The broth of my brain
Your eyes and your beauty
Your beautiful mind
And your beautiful shame
This merging of elements
These tears in the rain
My Fire, my Earth and my Water
My Air
Now that you’re here
Now that you are here

One last sting I have in me
before the last leaf leaves the tree,
one last kiss you have in you,
before routine runs you through.
In the summer at full strength
I terrorised the giants as they drank,
in the spring when you began,
you skipped and danced and ran.
The cold gets to us all ;
ask
the October wasp
and love in frost.

I'm sat on my ranch, shotgun in hand
Swinging on the bench
I know they're coming tonight
The intruders and their dreadful stench
They've terrorised my family
And made me a paranoid man
Well now I'm making a stand
Cause now I know I can
The air starts getting colder
And the shadows slowly appear
They are very far away at present
But soon they will be near
I hear the snarl of the biggest one
The little ones start to growl
Tonight their in for a shock
I'm not going to throw in the towel
With a stern and angry voice
I shout to them loud and clear
'You'll never hurt us again'
Gone is all my fear
Now they are in my sights
And I lift my shotgun to aim
Slowly then bang bang
I put an end to their game
The yelping hurts my ears
And the moans carry in the air
But the big still keeps coming
With a wild and dangerous stare
Again I take my aim
Bang and I watch it drop
I go back indoors
Finally I've made it stop
Early the next morning
I set out to burn each one
But its me who gets the shock
As their bodies have all now gone

Terrorised
From dream to dream
The lines
Blurred
By familiar faces
Darkness with teeth
Horror
Liquified
My body
Drenched
My mind
Runs
My feet
Follow
Can’t run
Or hide
What’s at
The core
The scream is heard
Before I make it

When the trees had fallen
By the hands of men,
No one was was there to mourn.
When the naked patches of hill
Covered the blue mountains
And tall towered trees powerlessly fell,
No one stopped to mourn.
Upon the terrorised trees
Hovered the mother mist.
She snuggled them tight and whispered:
“Do not look, my children.
Nothing will happen.
Tomorrow, everything is going to be okay.”
Her divine wrath wreathed up to the ash sky
And afar-
Afar it went.

You see I am a hooligan from way back
I got in the way of people
I fought people
Slapped them ******* the back
It really wasn’t me to do that
But I look at it as being
The hooligan from way back
I used to drink lots of beer
And chucking the empties
On top of the Catholic school roof
And I had fun doing that but I needed to be reformed
You see I am the hooligan from way back
I was playing with the kids
Sometimes it was inappropriate
But it was easy to do
Some cried some let me play with them and it didn’t worry me
Because I was the hooligan from way back
You see I used to pretend I was visiting a mate in emu ridge but instead I was watching the front door till somebody came out
I didn’t know what I was doing
I was just the hooligan from way back
I hear people call me a **** when I be an adult because
With me, well I was the hooligan from way back
I was q normal average teenager who had problems
And I terrorised the streets of my city
You see I was the hooligan from way back
You see I was feeling threatened by my father and I say why
Because I was the hooligan from way back
You see I hated being teased
I hated the itchy feeling I got
When the other kids teased me
But I was the hooligan from way back and I must say
I was the hooligan from way back leaving the big angry man
On his own
I mean I love life
And I love the planet
It is nice and comfortable
Yes I am cool
I read and say I am a cold kid mate
But I am the hooligan from way back saying to everyone
Time to party time to swing
Yeah yeah yeah
Being a hooligan is fun for all
Feeling all scruffy and messy
Not worrying about the clean cut nerds who are the teasers
Of myself, the hooligan from way back, cool as cool can be
I squeeze my way through drainpipes and it fucken-well was a tight squeeze but I did it and some nerdy old family person toasted me with a beer
You see I am the hooligan from way back
Nothing bothers me
Being the hooligan from way back makes me say
*** is evil and so is family stuff
So sit in my room saying
I am the hooligan from way back and I can’t change my actions
I am the hooligan from way back yeah I feel cool, calm and collected

Time being one moment of linear
to a poet
stitching together other loose ends
who refuse to be domesticated
like love.
Love that goes in search of the *****
- to give a kiss
Just as St Francis of Assisi, did.
And the legend of him holding out his hands
-for birds to come nest.
And taming the wolf who terrorised a small village.
Yes this loose end of love.

Jonathan Foreman, Daily Mail (London), August 18, 2013
The 16-year-old girl’s once-beautiful face was grotesque.
She had been disfigured beyond all recognition in the 18 months she had been held captive by the Comanche Indians.
Now, she was being offered back to the Texan authorities by Indian chiefs as part of a peace negotiation.
To gasps of horror from the watching crowds, the Indians presented her at the Council House in the ranching town of San Antonio in 1840, the year Queen Victoria married Prince Albert.
‘Her head, arms and face were full of bruises and sores,’ wrote one witness, Mary Maverick. ‘And her nose was actually burnt off to the bone. Both nostrils were wide open and denuded of flesh.’
Once handed over, Matilda Lockhart broke down as she described the horrors she had endured—the ****, the relentless ****** humiliation and the way Comanche squaws had tortured her with fire. It wasn’t just her nose, her thin body was hideously scarred all over with burns.
When she mentioned she thought there were 15 other white captives at the Indians’ camp, all of them being subjected to a similar fate, the Texan lawmakers and officials said they were detaining the Comanche chiefs while they rescued the others.
It was a decision that prompted one of the most brutal slaughters in the history of the Wild West—and showed just how bloodthirsty the Comanche could be in revenge.
S C Gwynne, author of Empire Of The Summer Moon about the rise and fall of the Comanche, says simply: ‘No tribe in the history of the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had ever caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.’
He refers to the ‘demonic immorality’ of Comanche attacks on white settlers, the way in which torture, killings and gang-rapes were routine. ‘The logic of Comanche raids was straightforward,’ he explains.
‘All the men were killed, and any men who were captured alive were tortured; the captive women were gang *****. Babies were invariably killed.’
Not that you would know this from the new Lone Ranger movie, starring Johnny Depp as the Indian Tonto.
For reasons best know to themselves, the film-makers have changed Tonto’s tribe to Comanche—in the original TV version, he was a member of the comparatively peace-loving Potowatomi tribe.
And yet he and his fellow native Americans are presented in the film as saintly victims of a Old West where it is the white settlers—the men who built America—who represent nothing but exploitation, brutality, environmental destruction and genocide.
Depp has said he wanted to play Tonto in order to portray Native Americans in a more sympathetic light. But the Comanche never showed sympathy themselves.
When that Indian delegation to San Antonio realised they were to be detained, they tried to fight their way out with bows and arrows and knives—killing any Texan they could get at. In turn, Texan soldiers opened fire, slaughtering 35 Comanche, injuring many more and taking 29 prisoner.
But the Comanche tribe’s furious response knew no bounds. When the Texans suggested they swap the Comanche prisoners for their captives, the Indians tortured every one of those captives to death instead.
‘One by one, the children and young women were pegged out naked beside the camp fire,’ according to a contemporary account. ‘They were skinned, sliced, and horribly mutilated, and finally burned alive by vengeful women determined to wring the last shriek and convulsion from their agonised bodies. Matilda Lockhart’s six-year-old sister was among these unfortunates who died screaming under the high plains moon.’
Not only were the Comanche specialists in torture, they were also the most ferocious and successful warriors—indeed, they become known as ‘Lords of the Plains’.
They were as imperialist and genocidal as the white settlers who eventually vanquished them.
When they first migrated to the great plains of the American South in the late 18th century from the Rocky Mountains, not only did they achieve dominance over the tribes there, they almost exterminated the Apaches, among the greatest horse warriors in the world.
The key to the Comanche’s brutal success was that they adapted to the horse even more skilfully than the Apaches.
There were no horses at all in the Americas until the Spanish conquerors brought them. And the Comanche were a small, relatively primitive tribe roaming the area that is now Wyoming and Montana, until around 1700, when a migration southwards introduced them to escaped Spanish mustangs from Mexico.
The first Indians to take up the horse, they had an aptitude for horsemanship akin to that of Genghis Khan’s Mongols. Combined with their remarkable ferocity, this enabled them to dominate more territory than any other Indian tribe: what the Spanish called Comancheria spread over at least 250,000 miles.
They terrorised Mexico and brought the expansion of Spanish colonisation of America to a halt. They stole horses to ride and cattle to sell, often in return for firearms.
Other livestock they slaughtered along with babies and the elderly (older women were usually ***** before being killed), leaving what one Mexican called ‘a thousand deserts’. When their warriors were killed they felt honour-bound to exact a revenge that involved torture and death.
Settlers in Texas were utterly terrified of the Comanche, who would travel almost a thousand miles to slaughter a single white family.
The historian T R Fehrenbach, author of Comanche: The History Of A People, tells of a raid on an early settler family called the Parkers, who with other families had set up a stockade known as Fort Parker. In 1836, 100 mounted Comanche warriors appeared outside the fort’s walls, one of them waving a white flag to trick the Parkers.
‘Benjamin Parker went outside the gate to parley with the Comanche,’ he says. ‘The people inside the fort saw the riders suddenly surround him and drive their lances into him. Then with loud whoops, mounted warriors dashed for the gate. Silas Parker was cut down before he could bar their entry; horsemen poured inside the walls.’
Survivors described the slaughter: ‘The two Frosts, father and son, died in front of the women; Elder John Parker, his wife ‘Granny’ and others tried to flee. The warriors scattered and rode them down.
‘John Parker was pinned to the ground, he was scalped and his genitals ripped off. Then he was killed. Granny Parker was stripped and fixed to the earth with a lance driven through her flesh. Several warriors ***** her while she screamed.
‘Silas Parker’s wife Lucy fled through the gate with her four small children. But the Comanche overtook them near the river. They threw her and the four children over their horses to take them as captives.’
So intimidating was Comanche cruelty, almost all raids by Indians were blamed on them. Texans, Mexicans and other Indians living in the region all developed a particular dread of the full moon—still known as a ‘Comanche Moon’ in Texas—because that was when the Comanche came for cattle, horses and captives.
They were infamous for their inventive tortures, and women were usually in charge of the torture process.
The Comanche roasted captive American and Mexican soldiers to death over open fires. Others were castrated and scalped while alive. The most agonising Comanche tortures included burying captives up to the chin and cutting off their eyelids so their eyes were seared by the burning sun before they starved to death.
Contemporary accounts also describe them staking out male captives spread-eagled and naked over a red-ant bed. Sometimes this was done after excising the victim’s private parts, putting them in his mouth and then sewing his lips together.
One band sewed up captives in untanned leather and left them out in the sun. The green rawhide would slowly shrink and squeeze the prisoner to death.
T R Fehrenbach quotes a Spanish account that has Comanche torturing Tonkawa Indian captives by burning their hands and feet until the nerves in them were destroyed, then amputating these extremities and starting the fire treatment again on the fresh wounds. Scalped alive, the Tonkawas had their tongues torn out to stop the screaming.
The Comanche always fought to the death, because they expected to be treated like their captives. Babies were almost invariably killed in raids, though it should be said that soldiers and settlers were likely to ****** Comanche women and children if they came upon them.
Comanche boys—including captives—were raised to be warriors and had to endure ****** rites of passage. Women often fought alongside the men.
It’s possible the viciousness of the Comanche was in part a by-product of their violent encounters with notoriously cruel Spanish colonists and then with Mexican bandits and soldiers.
But a more persuasive theory is that the Comanche’s lack of central leadership prompted much of their cruelty. The Comanche bands were loose associations of warrior-raiders, like a confederation of small street gangs.
In every society, teenage and twenty-something youths are the most violent, and even if they had wanted to, Comanche tribal chiefs had no way of stopping their young men from raiding.
But the Comanche found their match with the Texas Rangers. Brilliantly portrayed in the Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove books, the Rangers began to be recruited in 1823, specifically to fight the Comanche and their allies. They were a tough guerilla force, as merciless as their Comanche opponents.
They also respected them. As one of McMurtry’s Ranger characters wryly tells a man who claims to have seen a thousand-strong band of Comanche: ‘If there’d ever been a thousand Comanche in a band they’d have taken Washington DC.”
The Texas Rangers often fared badly against their enemy until they learned how to fight like them, and until they were given the new Colt revolver.
During the Civil War, when the Rangers left to fight for the Confederacy, the Comanche rolled back the American frontier and white settlements by 100 miles.
Even after the Rangers came back and the U.S. Army joined the campaigns against Comanche raiders, Texas lost an average of 200 settlers a year until the Red River War of 1874, where the full might of the Army—and the destruction of great buffalo herds on which they depended—ended Commanche depredations.
Interestingly the Comanche, though hostile to all competing tribes and people they came across, had no sense of race. They supplemented their numbers with young American or Mexican captives, who could become full-fledged members of the tribe if they had warrior potential and could survive initiation rites.
Weaker captives might be sold to Mexican traders as slaves, but more often were slaughtered. But despite the cruelty, some of the young captives who were subsequently ransomed found themselves unable to adapt to settled ‘civilised life and ran away to rejoin their brothers.
One of the great chiefs, Quanah, was the son of the white captive Cynthia Ann Parker. His father was killed in a raid by Texas Rangers that resulted in her being rescued from the tribe. She never adjusted to life back in civilisation and starved herself to death.
Quanah surrendered to the Army in 1874. He adapted well to life in a reservation, and indeed the Comanche, rather amazingly, become one of the most economically successful and best assimilated tribes.
As a result, the main Comanche reservation was closed in 1901, and Comanche soldiers served in the U.S. Army with distinction in the World Wars. Even today they are among the most prosperous native Americans, with a reputation for education.
By casting the cruelest, most aggressive tribe of Indians as mere saps and victims of oppression, Johnny Depp’s Lone Ranger perpetuates the patronising and ignorant cartoon of the ‘noble savage’.
Not only is it a travesty of the truth, it does no favours to the Indians Depp is so keen to support.

Terrorised by
the creative act
I
abstract.

It was the kiss on my cheek
you held
just a fraction too long,
and the way you wrapped me
in your arms
that made me hate
your forced embrace.

When you whispered
‘sweet dreams. I love you’
they were both lies:
my nights were not sweet
terrorised bitter
by you.