AN INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ART IN VERSE  
By Raj Nandy : Part One

INTRODUCTION
Background :
The India subcontinent and her diverse physical features,
influenced her dynamic history, religion, and culture!
The fertile basin of the Sapta-Sindu Rivers* cradled one of
world’s most ancient civilization, (seven rivers)
Contemporary to the Sumerians and the Egyptians, popularly
known as the Indus Valley Civilization!
The Sindu (Indus), Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Bias, along
with the sacred river Saraswati, shaped India’s early History;
Where once flourished the urban settlements of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro, which lay buried for several centuries;
For our archaeologists and scholars to unravel their many
secrets and hidden mysteries!
Modern scholars refer to it as ‘Indus-Saraswati Civilization’;
By interpreting the text of the Rig Veda which mentions
eclipses, equinoxes, and other astronomical conjunctions,
They date the origin of the Vedas as earlier as 3000 BC;
Thereby lifting the fog which shrouds Ancient History! +
(+ Two broad schools of thoughts prevail; Max Mullar refers
to 1500 BC as the date for origin of the Vedas, but modern scientific findings point to a much earlier date for their Oral composition and
their long oral tradition!)

On the banks of the sacred Saraswati River the holy sages
did once meditate, *
When their third eye opened, as all earthly bonds they did
transcend !
From their lips flowed the sacred chants of the Vedas, as
they sang the creator Brahma’s unending praise!
These Vedic chants and incantations survived many
centuries of an oral tradition,
When Indian Art began to blossom into exotic flowers like
Brahma’s divine manifestations;
With all subsequent art forms following the model of
Brahma’s manifold creations!
The Vedas got written down during the later Vedic Age
with commentaries and interpolations,
And remain as India’s indigenous composition, forming a
part of her sacred religious tradition! *
(Rig Veda the oldest, had hymns in praise of the creator;
Yajur Veda spelled the ritual procedures; Sama Veda sets
the hymns for melodious chanting, & is the source of seven
notes of music; Artha Veda had hymns for warding off evil
& hardship, giving us a glimpse of early Vedic life.)

IMPACT OF FOREIGN INVASIONS:
Through the winding Khyber Pass cutting through the rugged
Hindu Kush Range,
Came the Persians, Greeks, Muslims, the Moguls, and many
bounty hunters storming through north-western frontier gate;
Consisting of varied racial groups and cultures, they entered
India’s fertile alluvial plains!
Therefore, while tracing 5000 years of Art Story, one cannot
divorce Art from India’s exotic cultural history.
From the Cave Art of Bhimbetka, to the dancing girl of Harappa,
To the frescoes and the evocative figures of Ajanta and Ellora;
Many marvelous and exquisitely carved temples of the South,
And Muslim and Mogul architecture and frescoes along with
India’s rich Folk Art, enriched her artistic heritage no doubt!
Yet for a long time Indian Art had been the least known of
the Oriental Arts,
Perhaps because from Western point of view it was difficult
to understand the spirit behind Indian Art!
For Indian Art is at once aesthetic and sensual, also passionate,
symbolic, and spiritual !
It both celebrates and denies the individual’s love of life,
where free instinct with rigid reason combine !
These contradictory elements are found side by side due to
her culturally mixed conditions, as I had earlier mentioned!
Now, if we add to this the constant religious exaltation,
With the extensive use of symbolic presentation, from the
early days of Indian civilization;
We have the basic elements of an Art, which has gradually
aroused the interest of Western Civilization!

The further we get back in time, we only begin to find,
That religion, philosophy, art and architecture,
Had all merged into an unified whole to form India’s
composite culture!
But while moving forward in time, we once again find,
That art, architecture, music, poetry and dance, all begin to
gradually emerge, with their separate identities,
Where Indian Art is seen as a rich mosaic of cultural diversity!

(NOTES:-In the ancient days, the Saraswati River flowed from the Siwalik Range of Hills (foothills of the Himalayas) between Sutlej & the Yamuna rivers, through the present day Rann of Kutch into the Arabian Sea, when Rajasthan was a fertile place! Indus settlements like Kalibangan, Banawalli, Ganwaiwala, were situated on the banks of Sarsawati River, which was longer than the Indus & ran parallel, and is mentioned around50 times in the Rig Veda! Scientists say that due to tectonic plate movements, and climatic changes, Saraswati dried up around 1700BC ! The people settled there shifted east and the south, during the course of history! Some of those Indo-Aryan speaking people were already settled there, & others joined later. Max Muller’s theory of an Aryan Invasion which destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization during 1500BC, supported by Colonial Rulers, was subsequently proved wrong ! Indo-Aryans were a Language group of the Indo- European
Language Family, & not a racial group as mistaken by Max Mullar! Therefore Dr.Romila Thapar calls it a gradual migration, & not an invasion! The Vedas were indigenous composition of India. However, they got compiled & written down for the first time with commentaries, at a much later date! I have maintained this position since it has been proved by modern scholars scientifically!)

SYMBOLISM IN INDIAN ART
From the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic to the Cretan Bull
of Greece,
Symbols have conveyed ideas and messages, fulfilling
artistic needs.
The ‘Da Vinci Code’ speaks of Leonardo’s art works as
symbolic subterfuge with encrypted messages for a secret
society!
While Indian art is replete with many sacred symbols to
attract good fortune, for the benefit of the community!
The symbols of the Dot or ‘Bindu’, the Lotus, the Trident,
the Conch shell, the sign and chant of ‘OM’, are all sacred
and divine;
For at the root of Indian artistic symbolism lies the Indian
concept of Time!
The West tends to think of time as a dynamic process which
is forward moving and linear;
Commencing with the ‘Big Bang’, moving towards a ‘Big
Crunch’, when ‘there shall be no more time’, or a state of
total inertia !
Indian art and sculpture is influenced by the cyclic concept
of time unfolding a series of ages or ‘yugas’;
Where creation, destruction and recreation, becomes a
dynamic and an unending phenomena!
This has been artistically and symbolically expressed in the
figure of Shiva-Nataraja’s cosmic dance,
Which portrays the entire kinetic universe in a state of
eternal flux!
The hour-glass drum in Nataraja’s right hand symbolizes
all creation;
Fire in his left hand the cyclic time frame of destruction!
The raised third hand is in a gesture of infinite benediction;
And the fourth hand pointing to his upraised foot shows the
path of liberation!

It was easier to teach the vast untutored population through
symbols, images, and paintings in the form of Art;
For a picture is more effective than a thousand words!
The Dot or ‘bindu’ becomes the focus for meditation,
Where the mental energies are focused on a single point of
creation,
As seen in the cotemporary art works of SH Raza’s
artistic representations!
Yet the same dot when expanded as a circle becomes
wholeness and infinity;
The shape of celestial bodies of the cyclic universe in its
creativity!
The Lotus seen in many sculptures, on temple walls, and
majestic columns, denotes purity;
A symbol of non-attachment rising above the muddy waters,
retaining its pristine color and beauty!
The Lotus is a powerful and transformational symbol in
Buddhist Art,
Where pink lotus is for height of enlightenment, blue for
wisdom, white for spiritual perfection, and the red lotus
symbolizing the heart!
This Lotus symbol also finds a place in Mughal sculptural
carvings and miniatures;
The inverted lotus dome resting on its petals, forms the
crown of Taj Mahal’s white marble architecture!
The trident or ‘trishul’ symbolizes the three god-heads
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva;
As the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer, in that cyclic
chain which goes on forever!
The ***** stone of Shiva-lingam surrounded by the oval
female yoni symbolizes fertility and creation,
Usually found in the inner sanctuary of Hindu temples!
Finally, the symbol of ‘OM’ and its vibrating sound,
Echoes the primordial vibrations with which space and
time abounds!
All matter comes from energy vibrations manifesting
cosmic creation;
Also symbolized in Einstein’s famous matter-energy equation!
The Conch Shell a gift of the sea when blown, sounds the
ancient primordial vibration of ‘OM’!
It’s hallowed auspicious sound accompanies marriage
ceremonies and rituals whenever occasion demands;
And pacifies mother earth during Shiva-Nataraja’s sudden
seismic dance! (earthquakes)
Dear readers the symbols mentioned here are very few,
Mainly to curb the length, while I pay Indian Art my
artistic due!

A BRIEF COMPARISON OF ART:
Despite the many foreign influences which entered India
through the Khyber and Bholan pass,
India displayed marvelous adaptability and resilience, in
the development of her indigenous Art!
The aesthetic objectivity of Western Art was replaced by
the Indian vision of spiritual subjectivity,
For the transitory world around was only a ‘Maya’ or an
Illusion,- lacking material reality!
Therefore life-like representation was not always the aim
of Indian art,
But to lift that veil and reveal the life of the spirit, - was
the objective from the very start!
Egyptian funerary art was more occupied with after-life
and death;
While the Greeks portrayed youthful vigor and idealized
beauty, celebrating the joys of life instead!
The proud Roman Emperors to outshine their predecessors
erected even bigger statues, monuments, and columns
draped in glory;
Only in the long run to drain the Roman treasury, - a sad
downfall story!
Indian art gradually evolved over centuries with elements
both religious and secular,
As seen from the period of King Chandragupta Maurya,
Who defeated the Greek Seleucus, to carve out the first
united Indian Empire ! (app. 322 BC)

SECULAR AND SPIRITUAL FUSION IN ART:
Ancient Indian ‘stupas’ and temples were not like churches
or synagogues purely spiritual and religious,
But were cultural centers depicting secular images which
were also non-religious!
The Buddhist ‘stupa’ at Amravati (1stcentury BC), and the
gateways at Sanchi (1stcentury AD), display wealth of carvings
from the life of Buddha;
Also warriors on horseback, royal procession, trader’s caravans,
farmers with produce, - all secular by far!
Indian temples from the 8th Century AD onwards depicted
images of musicians, dancers, acrobats and romantic couples,
along with a variety of Deities;
But after 10th Century ****** themes began to make their mark
with depiction of sensuality!
Sensuality and ****** interaction in temples of Khajuraho and
Konarak has been displayed without inhibition;
As Tantric ideas on compatibility of human sexuality with
human spirituality, fused into artistic depictions!
Religion got based on a healthy and egalitarian acceptance
of all activities without ****** starvation;
For the emotional health and well-being of society, without
hypocritical denial or inhibition!
(’Stupas’= originated from ancient burial mounds, later became devotional Buddhist sites with holy relics, & external decorative gateways and carvings!)

KHJURAHO TEMPLE COMPLEX (950 - 1040 AD) :
Was built by the Chandela Rajputs in Central India,
When Khajuraho, the land of the moon gods, was the first
capital city of the Chandelas!
****** art covers ten percent of the temple sculptures,
Where both Hindu and Jain temples were built in the north-Indian
Nagara style of Architecture.
Out of the 85 temples only 22 have stood the vagaries of time,
Where a perfect fusion of aesthetic elegance and evocative
Kama-Sutra like ****** sculptural brilliance, - dazzle the eyes!

KONARAK SUN TEMPLE OF ORISSA - EAST COAST:
From the Khajuraho temple of love, we now move to the
Konark temple of *** in stones - as art!
Built around 1250 AD in the form of a temple mounted on
a huge cosmic chariot for the Sun God;
With twelve pairs of stone-carved wheels pulled by seven
galloping horses, symbolizing the passage of time under
the Solar God !
Seven horses for each day of the week, pulls the chariot
east wards towards dawn;
With twelve pairs of wheels representing the twelve calendar
months, as each cyclic day ushers in a new morn !
The friezes above and below the chariot wheels show military
processions, with elephants and hunting scenes;
Celebrating the victory of King Narasimhadeva-I over the
invading Muslims!
The ****** art and voluptuous carvings symbolizes aesthetic
bliss when uniting with the divine;
Following yogic postures and breathing techniques, which
Tantric Art alone defines!
(Both Khjuraho & Konark temples were re-discovered by the
British, & are now World Heritage Sites!)

Artistic invention followed the model of cosmic creation;
Ancient Vedic tradition visualized the spirit of a joyous
self-offering with chants and incantations!
The world was understood to be a structured arrangement
of five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal space;
Where each element brought forth a distinct art-expression
with artistic grace!
Element of Sculpture was earth, Painting the fluidity of water,
Dance was transformative fire, Music flowed through the air,
and Poetry vibrated in ethereal space!

CONCLUDING INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ART:

Indian Art is like a prism with many dazzling facets,
I have only introduced the subject with its symbolism,
- without covering its complete assets!
After my Part Three on ‘Etruscan and Roman Art’,
Christian and Byzantine Art was to follow;
But following request from my few poet friends I have
postponed it for the morrow!
Traditional Indian Art survives through its sculptures,
architecture, paintings and folk art, ever evolving with
the passing of time and age;
Influenced by Buddhist, Jain, Muslim, Mogul, and many
indigenous art forms, enriching India’s cultural heritage!
While the art of our modern times constitutes a separate
Contemporary phase !
The juxtaposition of certain concepts and forms might
have appeared a bit intriguing,
But the spiritual content and symbolism in art answers
our basic artistic seeking!
The other aspects of Indian Art I plan to cover at a later
date,
Hope you liked my Introduction, being posted after
almost forty days!
ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH RAJ NANDY
E-Mail: rajnandy21@yahoo.
    FEW COMMENTS BY POETS ON 'POETFREAK.COM' :-
I have a vicarious pleasure going through your historical journey of Indian art! Thanks for sharing this here! 2 Mar 2013 by Ramesh T A | Reply
•
The prism of Indian Art is indeed has myriads of facets and is an awesome mixture of many influences some of which you list here so clearly - a very understandable presentation of symbolism too - -thank you for your fine effort Raj. 2 Mar 2013 by Fay Slimm | Reply
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Oh what an interesting read with immense information capturing every single detail. You painted this piece of art with utmost care. Truly, it's works Raj…tfs 2 Mar 2013 by John Thomas Tharayil | Reply
•
First, I have to say, the part about the lotus symbolism reminds me – My name ‘NILOTPAL’ can be split into ‘NIL’ meaning BLUE and ‘UTPAL’ meaning LOTUS. So my name represents wisdom (although it contradicts ME.. LOL). A lot of things were mentioned in the veda and other ancient Indian texts that were way ahead of the time Like the idea of ‘velocity of light’ got considerable mention in the rig veda-Sahan bhasya, ‘Elliptical order of planets, ‘Black holes’ , although these are the scientific aspects. The emphasis on contradictory elements or even the idea of opposites in Indian art is interesting because India developed the mathematical concept of ‘Zero’ and ‘infinity’. Hard to believe Rajasthan was a fertile place but now it possesses its own beauty. It was great to read about the Natraja, ‘OM’ and the trident(Trishul). Among symbolisms, Lord Ganseha is my favorite because a lot is portrayed in that one image like the MOOSHIK representing

‘When the doors of perception are cleansed
Things will appear as they are:
Infinite.’

∞ William Blake

…

‘There are things known
and there are things unknown,
and in between are the doors.’

∞ Jim Morrison

…

Moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened & the
infinite universe revealed
& the soul is left to wander
dazed & confus’d searching
here & there for teachers & friends.

…

People need Connectors
Writers, heroes, stars, leaders
To give life form.
A child’s sand boat facing
the sun.
Plastic soldiers in the miniature
dirt war. Forts.
Garage Rocket Ships

Ceremonies, theatre, dances
To reassert
Tribal needs and memories
a call to worship, uniting
above all, a reversion,
a longing for family and the
safety magic of childhood

…

A man rakes leaves into
a heap in his yard, a pile,
and leans on his rake and
burns them utterly.

The fragrance fills the forest
children pause and heed the
smell, which will become
nostalgia in several years.

…

An angel runs
Thru the sudden light
Thru the room
A ghost precedes us
A shadow follows us
And each time we stop
We fall

…

The Endless quest a vigil
of watchtowers and fortresses
against the sea and time.
Have they won? Perhaps.
They still stand and in
their silent rooms still wander
the souls of the dead,
who keep their watch on the living.
Soon enough we shall join them.
Soon enough we shall walk
the walls of time. We shall
miss nothing
except each other.

…

No one thought up being;
he who thinks he has
Step forward

…

The Crossroads
a place where ghosts
reside to whisper into
the ears of travelers &
interest them in their fate

Hitchhiker drinks:
“I call again on the dark
hidden gods of blood”

-Why do you call us?
You know our price. It
never changes. Death of
you will give you life
& free you from a vile
fate. But it is getting late.

-If I could see you again
& talk w/ you, & walk a
short while in your company,
& drink the heady brew
of your conversations,
I thought

-to rescue a soul already
ruined. To achieve respite.
To plunder green gold
on a pirate raid & bring
to camp the glory of old.

-As the capesman faces
poisoned horns & drinks
red victory; the soldier,
too, w/ his trophy, a
pierced helmet; & the
ledge-walker shuddering
his way into inward grace

-(laughter) Well, then. Would
you mock yourself?

-No.

-Soon our voices must become
one, or one must leave.

…

There was preserved

in her

The fresh miracle

of

surprise.

…

open

The Night is young
& full of rest
I can’t describe
the way she’s dress’d
She’ll pander to some strange
requests
Anything that you suggest
Anything to please her guest

I can make the earth stop in
its tracks. I made the
blue cars go away.

I can make myself invisible or small.
I can become gigantic & reach the
farthest things. I can change
the course of nature.
I can place myself anywhere in
space or time.
I can summon the dead.
I can perceive events on other worlds,
in my deepest inner mind,
& in the minds of others.

I can

I am
~~~

People need Connectors
Writers, heroes, stars,
leaders
To give life form.
A child’s sand boat facing
the sun.
Plastic soldiers in the miniature
dirt war.  Forts.
Garage Rocket Ships

Ceremonies, theatre, dances
To reassert Tribal needs & memories
a call to worship, uniting
above all, a reversion,
a longing for family & the
safety magic of childhood.
~~~

The grand highway
is crowded
w/
lovers
&
searchers
&
leavers
so
eager
to
please
&
forget

Wilderness
~~~

Now is blessed
The rest
remembered
~~~

A man rakes leaves into
a heap in his yard, a pile,
& leans on his rake &
burns them utterly.
The fragrance fills the forest
children pause & heed the
smell, which will become
nostalgia in several years
~~~

Sirens
Water
Rain & Thunder
Jet from the base
Hot searing insect cry
The frogs & crickets
Doors open & close
The smash of glass
The Soft Parade
An accident
Rustle of silk, nylon
Watering the dry grass
Fire
Bells
Rattlesnake, whistles, castanets
Lawn mower
Good Humor man
Skates & wagons
Bikes
~~~

Where’d you learn about
Satan- out of a book
Love?- out of a box
~~~

night of sin (The Fall)
-1st ***, a feeling of having
done this same act in time before
O No, not again
~~~

Between childhood, boyhood,
adolescence
& manhood (maturity) there
should be sharp lines drawn w/
Tests, deaths, feats, rites
stories, songs, & judgements
~~~

Men who go out on ships
To escape sin & the mire of cities
watch the placenta of evening stars
from the deck, on their backs
& cross the equator
& perform rituals to exhume the dead
dangerous initiations
To mark passage to new levels

To feel on the verge of an exorcism
a rite of passage
To wait, or seek manhood
enlightenment in a gun

To **** childhood, innocence
in an instant

He raised up his head,
Trying to speak,
Yet speaking nothing.

She opened her mouth,
Trying to mutter words,
Yet nothing coming out.

I can't breathe
Words never to be forgotten

I can't breathe
Words we carry on placards

I can't breathe
Words kicking down whiteness

I can't breathe
Words doing-away with racism

I can't breathe
Words demanding equality

I can't breathe
Words bridging the white and black gap

I can't breathe
Words changing the times

I can't breathe
Words destroying white supremacy

I can't breathe
Words uniting colors

I can't breathe
Words uniting races

I can't breathe
Words signifying unity

I can't breathe
Words causing race inequality uproar

I can't breathe
Words knocking down white brutality

I can't breathe
Words ending police brutality

I can't breathe
Words
Great words
Creating equality for all race
Ending police brutality
Doing-away white supremacy
Uniting all race
Uniting all colors
A must for all nations

Written by Tosan Oluwakemi Thompson

It's a wide open art,
from the start.
Rules are for schools.
Dont fret em,
forget em.
So
Relax with a syntax,
clown around,
with a pronoun.
Squeeze the ******,
of a dangling participle.

Free flying like geese,
creative words release,
make it up if you please.
Example--the plural of mice is meese.

Flowery language isn't the exclusive domain of the professional writer, it's for everyone!
To continue then,
about the writers pen.
No write or wrong,
nothings too short or long.
Mangled,
bungled,
butchered,
bumbled, don't matter.
We don't need a librarian to admire what we have done.

Words aren't hard,
fling them unbarred.
It's not arithmetic,
or teaching a cat a trick.
Crunch them uniting,
mix them combining.
Fling them,
meld them,
Verb them,
sell them.
We don't need a New York Times best seller to enjoy the art of writing.

Uncrate it,
create it.
Use it,
and abuse it.
Don't bar us
from a thesaurus
Or a dictionary.
The spiel
is to write real
tell the tale
seal the deal.
WORD HATERS live in the town called Fictionary.

my first crush committed suicide.
i remember the hurt at a young age
from chasing him around his living room
begging him for a kiss.
from my young age i knew i wanted him
in my life forever.
through his weaves and gagging
running around the furniture and up the stairs,
losing him sounded foreign then
and having lost him now, still feels the same.
our fathers drank and our mothers giggled
born three months apart
our future planned together
both saying "i do"
uniting us all together.
life flew on by
us both fighting with ourselves
and downing the bottles underneath the bed
loaded and silenced
family portraits painted in red
long life memories all put to rest.
only one made it out alive
but it's hard to breathe
out of us how was it me
and you in a little box
where a diamond ring should be.
my mind keeps wondering
when will i stop chasing you
then my heart replays
every time you turned a corner
you looked over your shoulder
and how you smiled at me.

Dear Poet Friends, our World today & especially Europe is threatened with terrorism from the religious fundamentalist groups like the ‘IS’ ! History teaches us that during the Middle Ages the Holy Crusades were launched with the combined forces of Christendom. May be History is repeating itself once again within a span of thousand years! Do kindly read with patience this True Story of the Holy Crusades in Verse, to see events in its proper historical perspective. Concluding portion as Part Two has also been posted here. You will find the portion on ''Motivation & The Medieval Mind'' to be interesting! Kindly take your time to read at leisure. No need to comment in a hurry please! Thanks, - Raj

               STORY OF THE HOLY CRUSADE: (1096-1099)
                                           PART ONE

                                       INTRODUCTION
For thousands of years the Holy Lands of Palestine on the eastern coast
of the Mediterranean Sea had witnessed,
Ferocious battles fought between the Christians, Jews, and the Muslims,
with much bloodshed;
For a strip of land few hundred miles in length and varying between some hundred miles in breadth,
Which they all righteously defended!
There the Ancient City of Jerusalem now stands as a World Heritage Site,
Sacred to the three of World’s oldest Religions and as their pride!
Jerusalem today is a symbol of unity amidst its religious diversity;
For on its Dome of the Rock, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Synagogues, are etched thousand years of Ancient History.
In 1096, Pope Urban the Second, motivated Christendom and launched the First Holy Crusade,
To liberate Jerusalem from 461 Years of MUSLIM dominance!
Some Historians have listed a total of Nine Crusades in all,
And I commence with the FIRST, being the most important of all;
For it recaptured Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks making it fall. (in 1099AD)
While subsequent Crusades did not make any appreciable dent at all!
Not forgetting the THIRD, led by King Richard ‘The Lion Heart’, -
Who made the Turk leader Saladin to agree,
For Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy shrines in Jerusalem and the Hills of Calvary.
The Crusades began towards the end of the 11th Century lasting for almost Two hundred years;
Had later turned into a tale of sorrow and tears!
Now to understand the Crusades in its proper perspective let us see,
The brief historical background of Europe during the early parts of
Second Millennium AD.

                         A BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Normans:
During the first century of the Second Millennium, Europe was in a formative stage,     (11th Century AD)
It had began to emerge from its long period of hibernation called the ‘Dark Age’!
The Viking raids from those northern Norsemen had ceased subsequently,
As they became Christian converts settling in Northern France in the Duchy of Normandy.
In 1035 when Robert the Devil, 5th Duke of Normandy died on his way
to Jerusalem during a Holy Pilgrimage;
His only son William, who was illegitimate, was only seven years of age.
By 1063 AD these Norman settlers had intermingled and expanded their lands considerably,
By conquering Southern Italy and driving the Muslims from the Island of Sicily.
And in 1066 Robert’s son William shaped future events, -
By defeating King Harold at Hastings and by uniting England.
Now William the Conqueror’s eldest son Robert the Duke of Normandy,
Participated in the First Holy Crusade, which has become both Legend
and a part of History!
These Normans though pious, were also valiant fighters,
And became the driving force behind the Crusades from 11th Century
onward !

                     MUSLIM CONQUEST AND EXPANSION
After the death of Prophet Mohammad during 7th Century AD,
Muslim cavalry burst forth from Arabia in a conquering spree!
They soon conquered the Middle East, Persia, and the Byzantine
Empire;
And in 638 AD they occupied the Holy city of Jerusalem and
Palestine entire!
Beginning of the 8th Century saw them crossing the Gibraltar Strait,
To occupy the Iberian Peninsula by sealing ruling Visigoth’s fate!
Crossing Spain soon they knocked on the gates of Southern France,
When Charles Martel in the crucial Battle of Tours halted their rapid
advance!  (Oct 732 AD)
By defeating the Moors, Martel confined them to Southern Spain,
And thereby SAVED Western Europe from Muslim dominance!
Charles Martel was also the grandfather of the Emperor Charlemagne.
The Sunni–Shiite split over the true successor of Prophet Muhammad,
and other doctrinal differences of Faith,
Had weakened the Muslim Empire till the Mongols sealed their fate!

                         THE SELJUK TURKS
Meanwhile around Mid-eleventh Century from the steppes of Central Asia,
Came a nomadic tribe of Seljuk Turks and occupied Persia!
In 1055 they captured Baghdad and took the Abbasid Caliph under their Protectorate.
The Persian poet Omar Khayyam, and the great Rumi the mystic sage,
Had also flourished during this Seljuk Age!
In 1071 at the Battle of Manzikirt the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines
and occupied entire Anatolia,     (now Turkey)
And set up their Capital there by occupying Nicaea!
Deprived of their Anatolian ‘bread basket’ the Byzantine Emperor
Alexius Comnenus the First,
Appealed to Pope Urban II to save him from the scourge of those
Seljuk Turks!
The Seljuk Turks had also occupied Jerusalem and entire Palestine,
And prevented the Christian pilgrims from visiting its Holy Shrines!
The Seljuk, who converted to Islam, became staunch defenders of the
Muslim faith,
And played an historic role during the First Two Holy Crusades!

THE CHURCH AND THE SECULAR STATE (11th Century) :
The ecclesiastic differences and theological disputes between Western (Latin) and Eastern(Greek Orthodox) Church,
And the authority over the Norman Church at Sicily;
Resulted in the Roman and Constantinople Churches
ex-communicating each other in 1054 AD!
This East-West Schism was soon followed by the ‘Investiture Controversy’,
Over the right to appoint Bishops and many other doctrinal complexities;
Between Pope Gregory VII and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV  
of Germany.
Here I have cut short many details to spare you some agony!
Pope Gregory was succeeded by Pope Urban the Second,
Who was a shrewd diplomat and a great orator as Rome’s Papal Head.
Pope Urban seized this opportunity and responded to the Byzantine
Emperor’s desperate call,
Hoping to add lands to his Papal Estate after the Seljuk Turks fall!
Also to reign in those errant knights and warlords, -
Who plundered for greed and as mercenaries fought!
And finally, by liberating Jerusalem as Christendom’s Religious Superior,
Pope Urban hoped to assert his authority over the Holy Roman Emperor!
It is therefore an unfortunate fact of History, that the news of re-conquest of Jerusalem failed to reach Italy;
Even though Pope Urban died fourteen days later,
on the 29th of July, in 1099 AD!

                 MOTIVATION AND THE MEDIEVAL MIND
The Medieval Age was the Age of Faith, which preceded the Age of Reason;
A God-centred world where to think otherwise smacked of treason!
It is rather difficult for us in our Modern times,
To fully comprehend the Early Medieval mind!
The Church was the very framework of the Medieval Society itself,
With their Monasteries and Abbeys as front-line of defence
against Evil;
While combating the deceptions and temptations of the Devil!
It was a mysterious and enchanted Medieval World where superstition
and ignorance was rife;
Where with blurred boundaries both the natural and the supernatural
existed side by side !
When education was confined to the Clergy and the Upper Class of
the Society exclusively;
In such a world the human mind was preoccupied with thoughts
of Salvation and piety;
And in an afterlife hoping to escape the pains of Purgatory!
So in Nov 1095 at the Council of Clermont in France,
When Pope Urban II made his clarion call to liberate the
Holy Lands from the infidels,
The massive congregation responded by shouting, “God Wills It”,
‘’God Wills It’’,  - which echoed beyond France!
The Crusade offered an opportunity to absolve oneself of sins,
And to even die a martyrs death for a Holy cause, which motivated
them from within!
Now for actual action kindly read the Concluding portion,
I tried to make it short and crisp!


    STORY OF THE HOLY CRUSADE : CONCLUSION
                                 PART TWO

THE  PEASANT’S CRUSADE (April-Oct 1096) :
Even before the First Crusade could get officially organized,
A Peasant’s Crusade of around forty thousand took-off,
taking Pope Urban by surprise!
When these untrained motley body of men led by the French
Lord Walter Sans Avoir, and Peter Hermit reached Constantinople;
They disappointed Emperor Alexius, who for seasoned Norman
Knights had bargained.
So Alexius ferried them to Anatolia across the Bosporus Strait,
Only to be massacred there by the hardy Seljuk Turks who sealed
their fate!
Thus ended the Peasant’s Crusade, also known as “The People’s
Crusade’’.
But Peter the Hermit survived as he had returned to Constantinople
for help,
And participated with the main Crusade, motivating them till the
very end,
With his sermons and prayers till their objectives were attained!

THE CRUSADE LEADERS AND THEIR ROUTES:
Now let me tell you about those Crusade Leaders and their routes,
For this true story to be better understood.
In the Summer of 1096 French nobles and seasoned knights,
along with Bishop Adhemar the Papal Legate,
Set out in large contingents by land and sea routes, forming the
Christian Brigade!
Their rendezvous point being Constantinople, capital of the
Byzantine Empire,
And from there across the Bosporus to enter Turkey then known
as Anatolia;
To finally take on the Seljuk Turks, in response to the request  
made by Emperor Alexius.
Raymond the IV of Toulouse, the senior-most and richest of
the Crusaders,
Was an old veteran who had fought the Moors in Spain was one of
the Crusade leaders.
He brought the largest army and was accompanied by the Papal Legate, and his wife Elvira,
And later played a major role in the siege of Antioch, and Nicea.
Raymond along with the veteran and pious bachelor knight
Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the First Ruler of Jerusalem
after its capture and fall;
Was accompanied by Godfrey’s ambitious brother Baldwin and
a large contingent, -
They followed the land route to Constantinople.
The fierce Norman knight Bohemond of Taranto, along with
Robert II Duke of Flanders, and the Norman knights from
Southern Italy,
Followed the sea route to Byzantium from the Italian port of Bari.
I have mentioned here only a few, to cut short my story!
At Constantinople Emperor Alexius, administered a Holy Oath of
allegiance to the Crusade Leaders;
Hoping to win back his captured lands after the defeat of the
Seljuk Turks.

THE SIEGE OF NICEA (14th May – 19th Jun 1097) :
This captured Byzantine City was then the Seljuk Capital;
With 200 towers its mighty walls was a formidable defence!
Emperor Alexius sent his army to help the Crusaders in the siege,
And by blockading the food supply lines the city was besieged;
In the absence of the City’s ruler who had gone on a campaign
to the East, -
Alexius’ Generals secretly worked out a negotiation of surrender
and peace!
The Crusaders were angry and felt they were being cheated,
But Alexius gave them money, horses, and gifts to get them
compensated!
On the 26th of June the Crusader army was split into two contingents,
And the Turks ambushed and surrounded the vanguard led by Bohemund the Valiant.
Turk cavalry shooting arrows mauled part of the vanguard,
When the rearguard of Godfrey, and Baldwin charged in
and rescued them from the Turks!
Historians call this the Battle of Dorylaeum;  (1st Jul 1097)  
It was the first major battle  which provided a taste of
things to come!

SIEGE OF EDESSA:
Next a three month’s long and arduous march followed
under the sweltering Summer’s heat,
When five hundred lost their lives due to sheer fatigue!
Baldwin lost his wife God Hilda, a rich heiress;
Now with all her wealth going back to her blood line
as per tradition of those days,
Placed ambitious Baldwin under great mental and financial
distress!
So Baldwin with a few hundred knights headed East for the
rich Christian city of Edessa,
With intentions of claiming it as his own after the loss of his
wife Hilda!
The citizens there backed Baldwin and gave him an Armenian
Christian lady to be his wife,
And against their old childless Ruler Thoros, they plotted to
take his life!
It was not a great start for the idealism of the Crusade,
Since motivated by greed Baldwin had carved out his own
State;
While Edessa also became the First State to be established
by the Holy Crusade!

THE SIEGE OF ANTIOCH  (21 Oct 1097- 02 Jun 1098) :
Antioch was an old Roman city built around 300 BC,
Its six gates and towers fortified the city.
Its formidable walls were built by the Byzantine Emperor
Justinian the First,
And twelve years prior to the arrival of the Crusaders,
Antioch had got occupied by the Turks!
In the absence of a Centralised Command, the Crusade leaders
frequently argued and quarrelled;
Since the majority preferred a siege, so Antioch got finally
surrounded.
When food supply ran short during the winter, both
starvation and desertion plagued the Crusaders;
While Antioch’s Governor Yagi-Siyan appealed for
assistance from his distant brothers the Turks.
He tied messages on legs of trained homing pigeon,
A unique postal service of those early days!
End May 1098 brought news of a large Muslim army
commanded by Emir Kerbogha,
Had set course from Mosul to liberate Antioch from
the Crusaders!
The Crusaders now had to break in fast into Antioch,
or face those 75,000 strong Turkish force!
The Twin Towers on the southern side was manned by
an Armenian Christian Muslim convert named Firuz,
Who was bribed by Bohemund to betray Antioch!
Firuz let down rope ladders for the Crusaders to climb
inside,
And a massacre followed late into the ****** night!
Next day Emir Kerbogha’s troops arrived and the
situation got reversed,
The attackers now lay besieged by those Seljuk Turks!
After fifty-two days of trying siege food supply ran out,
Morale of the Crusaders were rather low, and some even
feared a route!
Now buried in the Church of St. Peter, Peter Bartholomew
the French priest found the ‘Holy Lance’,
About which he had a vision in advance!
This find raised the morale of the Crusaders, and some
even went into a spiritual trance!
For Peter claimed this ‘Holy Relic’ had pierced Christ’s body
after his Crucifixion;
And the Crusading army now moved out of the city in full
battle formation!
Soon after the Turkish army of Kerbogha retreated fearing
devastation!
This victory has been attributed to God and His miraculous
intervention!

                     LIBERATION OF JERUSALEM
After the conquest of Antioch in June 1098, the Crusaders
stayed on till the year got completed.
Though the death of the Papal Legate in August got them
rather depressed;
While Bohemund of Taranto took over Antioch, which now
became the Second Crusader State;
And Raymond of Toulouse became the undisputed Leader
of The Crusade!
Next travelling through Tripoli, Beirut, Tire and Lebanon;
To liberate Bethlehem they sent off Tancred, and Baldwin
of Le Bourg.
On the 5th of June they liberated Bethlehem, and on the
Seventh of June they reached the gates of Jerusalem!
Facing acute shortage of food and water their initial attack
failed to materialise,
When priest Peter Desiderius’ vision of the deceased Papal
Legate came as a pleasant surprise!
This vision commanded them to fast, atone for their sins and
make amends,
By walking barefoot in prayer around the Holy City of Jerusalem!
After a final assault on the 15th of July 1099, they broke into
the City,
Killing all Muslims and Jews with impunity!
Pious Godfrey of Bouillon refusing to wear the crown, became
the First Ruler of this Third Crusader State;
And objectives of the Crusaders were finally attained!
With the formation of warrior monks of ‘Hospitallers’ and
‘Knight Templers’, wearing White and Red Crosses respectivel

We open our minds to expand to the times not to pretend there is some end to confine the limits of prime; we defend to remind to dance to the trance we redefine to enhance not to surrender to chance.

We open our hearts to embrace the new space-time transparency, interdimensional race as we become united and one, open to truth we exhibit ourselves as one infinite youth, gifted and new, eternally pure evolved to endure no end to potential, perfect and cured.

We strengthen our bodies and build on each other we love ourselves and love one another we grow and mature and extend to our neighbors but as we think deeper our expansion is greater our planet is one and our galaxy peace to the opening worlds we bring wisdom and ease we do not enslave or deny or deceive but we share our pure knowledge our light and belief.

We raise up our souls beyond science and physics to evolve beyond consciousness confinements and limits our imperial nature shifts to emerge from the boundaries of body and smallness of Earth we expand our perception to include all dimensions from previous eons to future inceptions.

We shift our new world from finite to light, universal, infinite, natural, bright we embrace the day and welcome the night to work with each other to be perfect, upright, to evolve our new planet, our galactic mindframe to expand from micro to cosmically aimed to unlock the portals to open our brains to evolve from old gears to interdimensional spheres uniting creation without hesitation pure as clean water and deep meditation.

-Ryan Christopher Brandes

“The love betweenness^ a mother and her son”
when it’s healthy strong and ancient,
like this, is for me, and it seems,
for you as well, almost a supernatural force in certain ways.
I know many other women who understand this.
It’s been probably the best surprise of my life.” Medusa

sometime, a poem commission needs a quiet time rumination,
a seventh inning time out to birth a perfect game,
a mental stretch mark,
did your know your commentation was a commandation,
write me up, punch my ticket and jump back into murky waters,
where a hu-man boy child only gifted me a tertiary imagination, comprehensive incomprehension

this look upon differing and different, parenting parts of me,
with the bright den mother’s sun gazing eyes of a new motherland,
promotion to an incessant guardianship,
an ordered mathematical centrality,^
a forever buck private’s uniform shoulder stripe pointing to mom

maternal rhymes with eternal

for children go off and go on about their lives,
occasionally glancing backwards,
but a mother’s eyes are an all encompassing, an all white canvass painting that the artist continue-ously slyly forward refreshes,
forever white repainted with each perpetual glancing thought added

this mother woke, sensing her make-male creation
is a gender separate separation,
a mystery needing learning, genes requiring a crisper adult education, a breast refilling is a sharing, eye to eye,  
****** to mouth, transferring a transformation,
between a new meaningful, an analogy of understanding that
swims in both directions, across a uniting natural division that unites,  better called an open boundary

daughters are different but the insanity~same,
a poem for another day

a supernatural surprise that occurs daily,
that you rightly appel it, as ancient  is correctly unsurprising
for the knowledge is in every cell recorded, time immemorial

apologies;
my insufficient words
can’t explain this
dotted line division,
only that, I too am a student driver mother,
my son, a teacher,  a natural scholar,
the understanding we shared is instantaneous and confusing,
as we go back and forth together,
travellers tween the dotted line spaces,
absorbing his milky ways,
informations that were not obviously ****** in me, or if they were,
awaited this suckling’s coronation and education, invitation


our differences are not a true division,
but a new manner of best embracing

which is why with good humor, our private joking, is that he
is my very own  nap-ster master,^^ we are an ordered centrality^

If I am to die today
to live last hour and pass away
to end a gift I did receive
a chance at pain and joy and greed.
Then the thoughts inside my head would die
my secrets, loves, my thoughts and lies.
And that is why I'm writing this
a poem to express my wish
to let you know the things you shouldn't
so when I die my life it wouldn't.
My life would live in knowledge kept
in things that others wouldn't let
people know about their lives
their secrets, loves, their thoughts and lies.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth
someone once said to try and sooth
the truth they hid from all the rest
who ignore the art, who aren't impressed.
You see poetry is more the art
of uniting truth with what's in heart,
be that pleasure, pain, pride or glory
it's all expressed in one short story.
Such as this about my thoughts
for when I die I think I ought
to let you know my boring story
about my pleasure, pain and glory.

The problem is you see I can't
find a story to enchant
that does not lie, distort the truth
that would not make a better youth.
For now I've realised if I die
today, tomorrow I'd have to lie
to be remembered, kept it thought,
that's something I was never taught.
At last I know what I'm to do
to be remembered, and be true
I'd have to tell you things I shouldn't
so when I die my life it wouldn't
be forgotten, as with rest;
I'd be at peace, completed quest.

I know you and all your little antics, I know how you hesitate every time you go to say my name because the memories and guilt and feelings will roll off your tongue like the tide, and you are too crowded to let anyone else drown in the sweet sound of your voice. I know how you lie awake at night trying to piece together every shard from that mirror you broke when you were 9, and how nothing quite fits anymore, you have lost parts of your old self and your clumsy hands will break an imminent future because you know not what needs fixing and what just cannot be helped. I live in your every bated breath and am often reminded why it is such a wasteland, I know how your heart can turn colder than the cloud of air exhaled when you sigh and shake your head at the world around you. Do not think for one second I do not know you, because in the three years I have loved you we have shared secrets, stories, memories and love, yes, for a time, we shared love. But that is a time long since passed and now I reside in the marks on your skin where your father hit you, I inhale the smoke from your lungs caused by people blowing their blackened words down your throat and making you feel less like the crimson sunset you are and more like the rainy days. You are beautiful and I wish you could see that from my perspective, I wish you could see how your eyes reflect the colours of the ocean and I wish to be lost at sea, I wish you could know that I think your heart is a galaxy, not a black hole, so you need not worry about all my rusted parts chipping at you because your strong arms will bring these dead eyes back to life, like they have so often. I want you to know that you are perfect in my eyes, flawed, yes, but no less perfect. I want you to know I love you.

Seasons pass, tempered by insalubrious fervor; treasonous design remiss of fate

An echo of prior songs resonate somber atrophy; mourn the passing of  constant defeat, stained by triumphant dissonance and disdain

Fear strides along the broken path, left alone and solemn and crass: Through sour feats of vindication, tones of plight become dismissed

Surfeit, the sound of temptation rides upon the crest of dawn, blinding darkness like calming waves caressing infinite stretches of sand: soft and warm; kind and welcoming, embracing in its gentle touch

Sentience hides behind a creeping fog, whispering secrets of life eternal, bearing gifts wrought through sensuous candor

Two threads lost, now found; slowly bonding, uniting purpose, rhythm, rhyme, and reason; born from the same cloth, garnering habit, singing in harmony what echoes from within

Beautiful, intelligent, staunch with profundity; stark, handsome, wholesome, and good

The call of a true home may finally beckon..

Marriage is a blessing.
From Mother Earth and her Sister Moon.
They help combine two souls into one.
We all have a specific partner.
One destined from the start of our lives.

Loving another is a blessing.
A blessing bestowed upon the Earth and its people.
We all have these blessings and others to share it with.
They all wish that they found their other half.

For that is the uniting of two people.

Oh, no i didn't sit to write poetry
but those gushing feelings inside me
just wanted a way out.

This is no poem
nothing fictional
I mean,
but just to say
in total honesty,
i love you!
Writing the 'i' in smaller case
for
the straight line is you and me
uniting in the dot,
that is like
love in full circle.

This is no poem
its just to say
i love you,
you see.

I placed you in a boat of pinks and blues with a smooth white satin sail and let you lie beneath the sky so pregnant with infinite possibility that the night might tear at anytime and unleash a loveliness so heavenly it would turn us to a pillar of sugar and whip us up into candy floss beehives for the angels to play dress up with.  We are the multicoloured whispers, each one a syllable in the cacophonous swishhhhhshhhhhshing melody of the dewdrop chiming, petals kissing rhyming, intertwining of all that is beautiful uniting in the crescendo of the wind.  The soft sensations of angels breathing warmth on skin, shimmering shadowing of the ripples in the satin of a sail brought to life as if to hail the glory of the universe.  Water and wind and the will of the world gathers momentum and movement to wrench down to the depths of our heart and I feel the unfathomable maul to our caul and begin to tear us there in the place that has held us for so long.  There is no flood of blood pooling at my feet on the just forming glistening path being marked with frost and crocuses and the knowing that you are not here but that we are still we.  You are drifting into the inbetweens, where reality is a ***** word and your story, our story still unfolds in the pitter patter merry dance of keys and tongue beating our being into a rocking chair and a lullaby.  I have dreamed you almost to life, and though not alive, we are five.

The people have endured hardships for a while now. They have prayed and fasted for a better day but none has come. Prophesy has been given but has not been fulfilled. There have been moaning and groaning in every heart, in every home and in all the streets. Tyranny and misrule have become the trademark of the Mugabe rule. Finally our hope is at an end and our patience faded. It is time for a new Zimbabwean renaissance!
Zimbabwe does not belong to a few, it is not an aristocratic organisation. No one inherited the birth right to the white house. No one person is entitled to the presidency alone. It is the people who make Zimbabwe and it is they who rule. The president is nothing but a glorified civil servant. He or she works for the people and not against them. The people are the masses and they have the ultimate power. The Police and Army are mandated to serve and protect the interests of the people and not to fight them. The government should be for the people. Governments are nothing without the people!
Mugabe is the most shameful of African leaders. He was a beacon of light that turned into an apocalyptic darkness. He was the colourful and joyous son of Africa now turned into a ruthless dictator. The unlikely and even undeserving candidate who now imposes himself to be the king for life. The incorruptible one who has now become the father and a haven for the **** of corruption. Mugabe is a man disillusioned by his own grandiose imaginations that have been brewed by his over-prolonged stay on the seat of power. He has become the educated man who turned into the most foolish amongst us. Lost all sense of morality and cannot distinguish between what is right and wrong. This icon of a man has ****** on his own legacy. He has torn down his own statues. No longer shall he be remembered as a great revolutionary, he shall forever be vilified for the political villain that he is. The angel sent by God to redeem us has become the devil to us.
Mugabe is a testament that education and wisdom can be parallel. Maybe he has succumbed to the vices of old age and lost his original senses. Or maybe he is now just a stooge and stage puppet controlled by others behind the scenes. It could be that he suffers from dementia or some form of schizophrenic condition. He has a deranged personality void of all manner of reason and decency. Maybe he has become blinded and cannot see the reality of the Zimbabwean condition.
I am neither Zanu PF nor MDC or any other sham. I am red, white, black, green and yellow. I am a Zimbabwean. I cannot believe how I supported this madman and his cronies blindly for a time. I was once deluded and believed in the sovereignty dogma and the right for Zimbabwe to influence its own politics. All the time the country was deteriorating as the Zanu PF cancer was spreading across all corners of this beautiful nation. Those in power were busy abusing it and looting wealth for themselves. They looted farms, properties, companies, gold, platinum and diamonds. Everything they touched was stained with failure.
Some of the most educated people in Africa have now become nomads and sojourners in this world. The beauty and grace that distinguished Zimbabwe from the rest has been greatly compromised and diminished.  Zimbabwe has become nothing to write home about. Our previously less prominent neighbours have outgrown us.
The people go hungry, the banks have no money, industry has lost its footing, unemployment at its highest, crime and discord rampant, nothing but lawlessness and disorder. No electricity everywhere and  water supply is erratic. The roads are in dire condition. The industries of Bulawayo have suffocated to death. White collar workers have been reduced to vending. We are now a nation of scavengers and families grow hungry. Exports are a thing of the past and the Zimbabwean dollar is nowhere to be seen. The whole economy is in a constant state of illness and misery. The health sector has been hit hard. Zimbabwean youth have become jobless and confused. The working class goes on without receiving wages and salaries. In the meantime the police has become more corrupt and draconian, ZIMRA keeps squeezing the little money the poor have and there is mass censorship everywhere. The man who was tasked to manage this country has failed and must step down. These are more than enough reasons for change.
Mugabe and his government have turned the reputation of Zimbabweans to nothing. Zimbabweans are now seen as weak and destitute people all across the world. In certain places they have become pariahs who survive by hustling, robbing and conning. We are scattered all over and it is not by choice.
The pride and dignity of the Zimbabwean flag has been tainted by this man. As heinous and evil was the Ian Smith regime and his supremacist government, Mugabe is worse. We will never wish to go back to white rule but we wish for a black competent government that is effective. We just want things to work in Zimbabwe. We want to restore the beauty of our glorious nation. We want Zimbabwe to be better than it was ever before. One thing is clear, Mugabe has done his part and has run out of ideas. His time is done! We need fresh thinkers in the white house. We need real change in Zimbabwe. A new dispensation with none of the failed old guard. They have served their role and it is time to resign and retire.
Mugabe is not a uniting force anymore. He has become a symbol for division pretty much like Adolf ******. He is just an old man hiding behind a suit and his hordes of security men and puppeteers. Even the great Fidel Castro relinquished power! South Africa has seen more democracy than Zimbabwe. Change has swept across most of Africa and it is now knocking on the door in Harare.
We the Zimbabweans across the globe unite and in one great voice we shout, “Enough is enough, No more Mugabe and his regime, No more suffering, we want a new and better Zimbabwe! We want a government for the people! We want jobs! We want local industries! We want agricultural growth! We want a country that works!”
My recommendation to Mr. Mugabe is that he researches about the Seppuku ("stomach- or abdomen-cutting") or harakiri (“cutting the belly") and practises it. This is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honour code, seppuku was used either voluntarily by samurai to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture) or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves.
Change is coming to Zimbabwe whether the old guard want it or not. The police black boots will not able able to intimidate this away. No oration or rhetoric will sweep this change under the carpet. This is different from the attempted changed introduced by the MDC a few years back. This change is not sponsored by the British or Americans. This change is motivated by the gross incompetence of the sitting government and it is empowered by the resolve of every true Zimbabwean to see a better and healthier Zimbabwe that offers a lucrative future for our children. This change is 100% Zimbabwean and is not about colour, creed or background.

iHonor the history of my ancestors
And their ***** love songs: Nyabinghi
Crossing the Atlantic  with their creative minds
Rooted into their backbones was creative; Black men and women of today
A generation of;  
Bobo Shanti!
Baganda
Niger Congo
Sierra Leone
Bushmen
Kings and Queens of Africa

iHonor my history
But, my history is in Him
The King of Kings

Dreams hanging on a tree!
Kings and Queens hanging form a  rope nailed to a tree!
They were auctioned off a d sold in corner stores like Bodegas!
Please don’t forget about your ancestors when you speak about History!
He was rejected in the time of earthly kings and Queens
He was rejected in the time of Exodus
He was rejected in the time of redemption songs/ Babylon!

He was rejected at birth
He was rejected for calling Himself
"I am thee I am"
His purpose killed Him
He was rejected, but his purpose lives.

iHonor the King of Kings for being the sacrificial lamb of all Mortars
iHonor Him

Some kings rule their kingdoms surrounded by luxury
this king held a Bible in his hand
stood tall before Nations
with a single dream!
No luxuries!

This king was rejected!
He was shot!
Here comes the dream killers
A voice of a black Panther cried
“what their; guns, bats & smoke bums”
Have mothers clenching their young's
Running down to avenues unknown
To street that are paved with hopeless dreams and  goals

Because of  Dr. Martin Luther King and His Dream
Mothers were crying, digging graves with their finger nails.
Bering their dreams and aspiration into graves!
grave yards became over populated
With creative minds and dreams!

iHonor  Dr Martin Luther King Jr, for dreaming & believing
That whites & blacks will  become  one Nation under the King of Kings
iHonor Him

To my generation and to generation to come,
Where is creativity today!
Creativity was lost, unable to find!
So different things start to shape the mind
Creativity is something we watch on TV
Creativity has become an illusion
what a poor substitution

The mind is a beautiful thing to waste!
Creativity is in the wave pool of our minds
Mothers read to your young  from the womb
Bring creativity and dreams back to life

Doctor Seuss was creating a world of creativity in the minds of our  generation!
I think I can, I think I can was another book that brought creativity to life!

If a Cat can wear a hat
A fox can wear  socks
A boy by the name of Sam I Am, love green eggs and ham!
He can eat it in a box, with a fox!
In a house with a mouse!
With a goat on a boat!
So, who are you to tell me I'm not a "who"
Doctor Seuss created the Who's and the Who Ville!
Therefore I am a Who!
Who are you!

iHonor black mothers and fathers for being
present and never absent/ for being super heroes of monsters in closets.

iHonor my black people for uniting together from the 1960's to 2013
iHonor Mrs. King
iHonor Dr. Martin Luther King
iHonor the King of kings
iHonor all those individuals that made it possible for us to vote today
iHonor you all!
iHonor!

Gertrude, Stradbrook, River and Roslyn,
off of McMillan, my thoughts froze on Osborne
A drive through the Village on slippery streets
Bought records, drained pints
                        swallowed down summer nights
Back home in Wyoming--think I'll be fine
                         'til some night, filled to gills
                          trip through streets with a stranger
                          and sing "One Great City"
                          through swollen closed throat

And I remember...

Confusion Corner, commuting through cold streets
Watched you drive as the daylight died
I narrow my Focus,
                                     you eased into traffic
The Assiniboine ran and was watched by Riel

January.
Johnson's Terminal.
London Fogs.
Took Yellow Dogs for long walks
and Exchanged now for then. Snapped pictures, again and again.

Snow up to my hips
Spent a night at St. Boniface
We cased a cathedral, your friends seemed to like me.

Lines ran from reserves, over oceans and borders.
Your hair ran down shoulders, brown waves for a blanket.

Winterpeg, Manitscoldout
Portage & Main
Shivering, smiling
at a Tavern Uniting with friends,
'til we took the King's Head...
We took the King's Head.
Long live the king.

January.
Magic Thailand.
Curry soup, curried thoughts thawing,
melting, falling from pickled brains,
                      through lips chapping

I donned my Tuxedo, chopped down Seven Oaks...
Your Catholic heart spoke
     reached out for St. James.
     St. Vital answered behind Fort Garry's walls...

Our hearts, they were neighbourhoods
And the streets were all salt.

Blistered paint on your blue '02 Focus

To the City Center of the continent's middle
Form a Perimeter
Frame a city
Bullseye, center, a Gold gilded Boy
he leans into sky, as they sing, as I hear.
The road North Ended--November, it was.
I think, one year prior, in Robin's Donuts
front doors swayed, on hinges that sighed metallic,
I caught your eyes--organic, unplanned--
               through fog frosting lenses
Caught them, held on
               Held your deep brown
               In my gunmetal blue

Seasons will chase--haste to follow more seasons
White streaks to green
and the Red River runs.
When they score at the ballpark,
"Go Goldeyes!" the cheer sounds
Cheer. Cheer!
The Guess Who still ****,
but the Jets completed their round trip
"Go, Jets, go!" so the cheer goes.
"Cheers!" Cheers like bells.
             Bells
           Pealing
Peeling like your sunburnt back
            Bells
          Ringing
           Striking
Bells singing long
Bells sounding loudly from Grace Bible Church
  baptizing Baltimore as it kisses Osborne

Bells ringing. Round sounds.
Round rings for fingertips touching
Bells
Round sounds that hang on my neck
and sing me to sleep every night--
remind me how badly you wanted those bells
                I denied you.

They sing "Left and Leaving"
             and show me old scars
          they ring and peal and strike
                         and sing
                         unending.

I remember March of 2008
Dropping my toque in the mud-and-slush street
            We took Pembina Highway
              Ate Vietnamese.

I remember...

Confusion Corner,
Commuting through cold streets,
Watching you drive as the daylight died
In your blue '02 Focus
Ease us back into traffic,
The Assiniboine River.
And Louis Riel.

So tell me...

Comment-allez vous, ce soir?
Je ne suis pas comme ci, comme ça.

Nang mawala ang pangalawa kong trabaho
Parang ‘di ko alam kung saan uli may bago
Hanggang sa ang CapSU ay naalala ko
Walang atubili’y akin siyang tinungo
At sinubukan bago kong palad dito

Sa TED kung saan una akong itinalaga
Mga batikang **** dito aking nakasalamuha
Sa Amang Hall kung saan araw-araw silang kasama
Kayrami kong natutunan mula sa kanila
Minsang itinuring ko na parang mga ina

Sa Crim. na huli ko ditong tinuluyan
Para ko naring naging ama si Sir Hapitan
Kung sa TED puro kababaihan, sa Crim. puro kalalakihan
Akala ko noon ay mahirap silang turuan
Sa huli ay akin pa silang ipinaglaban

Akin ding naturuan ang taga-ibang departamento
Agri., Vet.Med., Computer – ang 5 ay kumpleto
Kaya ang naging tingin ko sa mga ito
Ay parang sa Encantadia na mga engkantado
Taglay ang katangian ng 5 elemento

Dito rin sa Encapsudia, ako’y naging estudyanteng ****
Nang mag-Uniting, mga estudyante ko’y naging kaklase ko
May mga kaklase din ako sa highschool na naging estudyante ko rito
Kaya dito ay parang mahiwaga ang naging tadhana ko
CapSU-Dumarao o Encapsudia…ikaw ang Kapuso kong CapSU!

-10/14/2017
*a tribute to CapSU-Dumarao who is now having its
3rd Alumni Homecoming this 35th year of its existence

When she falls into sleep
Beside me every night,
I'm often haunted by
All the promises I made decades ago.
So easy to make when
Dark feelings were out of sight.
Since then I’ve broken
The locks on almost every door.

In newlywed bliss she was
Sleeping next to me one night.
Still in that distant land
She suddenly sat-up
On the edge of the bed
With her back facing me,  
Looking into the dark closet
Next to her side of the bed.
She called out my name several times.  

Already awake, I answered,
"What’s wrong?"

With back still turned,  
She answered,
"I’m not talking to you,
I’m talking to the other Danny."

As in a darkened closet
My darker-half was first revealed.
My love and I were newlyweds, but
In one year was the uniting of the pair.

Through all these years,
She has sensed with empathy
My loss of peace and spirit
And at least tries to fill-up
The deep, dark empty spaces
That are in the many chambers
Of my damaged heart and soul.

Only this depth of Love can,
In its ineffable heat, melt
Away all traces of impurity,
If you let it.
I have learned to let it.

Nothingness.
Imagine nothingness.
That nothingness which is nothing of the nothingness we are all familiar with:
Not that nothingness which is nothing but empty space and time
Like when you open an empty room.
No.
That nothingness where nothing truly exists:
Not space,
Not even time.

A singular point.
Imagine a singular point.
The ultimate singular point that contains all possible points
In the development of the universe
Come out and expand
From the birthing of time, the instance of The Big Bang,
(Which by the way is not a large explosion, as the words imply, but a silent rapid expansion)
Pushing the envelope
Where nothingness begins.

Chance.
Imagine chance.
The random occurrence of events:
Of fundamental particles colliding and uniting
Or annihilating each other,
Giving rise to protons, neutrons and electrons;
Giving rise to the periodic table,
To compounds, both organic and inorganic,
To macromolecules.

Billions of years.
Imagine billions of years
Gone by,
And billions of galaxies filling the sky:
Stars and quasars and pulsars
Planets and comets and meteors
***** nilly hurtling through
Dark matter and ever expanding space,
Yet inanimate still
,
A single cell.
Imagine a single cell
Form inexplicably so,
In a staggeringly highly improbable way
As carbon molecules combine,
Start to throb and pulsate:
Chance bringing forth life
In a barren and otherwise
Lifeless universe.

Consciousness
Imagine consciousness
Purposive, willful, deliberate

Feelings
Imagine feelings
Love, compassion, hatred

Imagine all in a universe that came out of itself from nothingness.

It is hard, of course,
For after all, we are creatures of somethingness!

But at this point
You must have seen the Point
Of all the ramblings and turns in the trajectory of my thought
Tracing the evolutionary course of the universe
From nothingness and that singular point
That without God
All things are
After all
Pointless!
.
And so,
Let us not deplore, as a great poet once did,
That this world “so various, so beautiful, so new
Hath no joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain…”
For what else should we expect
Of a cold, unfeeling universe?

What?
Give us some Novocain?

Four parts, woven together
Uniting all universal truths
What others do with it's powers
Only the future will prove

The *first strand displays the world's true nature
Destroying everything it creates
We become unwanted children
Who have learned to incorporate
Killing in our communities
Biting, grinding flesh and bone
Swallowing with guilt free demeanors
Only leaving foul-stenched excretions as evidence

Second Strand speaks of our basic biological anxiety
To deny the terror of death
Imperatively born, emerging from nothing
Given a name and consciousness
Hopelessly abandoned from the beginning
Only to be fated always with everlasting death

Strand three
We hide underneath the
"Vital lie of the character"
Pretend to be shining knights in armor
Who will make us forget our
Unconscious anxiousness of death
We all work to attain prestige, money, and the
Fleeting feel of immortality
Worshiping Gods with clay feet
And when our beliefs are attacked
"Holy wars" becomes the pseudonym for
Our immortality projects

The last strand
All the efforts we put into
Making this Earth perfect
By eliminating scapegoat "enemies" and "evil" deities
We end up making everything filthy
In the effort to make everything right and pure
We turn the Earth's soil black and color the sky red
We strived for utopias, making dystopians
All these actions seem unconscious
But it is not the animals nature or
Evolutionary process
It's just us trying to pretend
We don't have perishable bodies;
Trying to deny death

Attention class:
There's been a shift in our syllabus
There are some questions on my mind that warrant a new lessonplan: Does true love exist?
I will admit lately I've hypothesized that it's merely just a myth
Some wishful thinking from romantic half-wit heretics
So I'm assigning a soul mate science test
A pop quiz prophecy that could bind two of us together forever
Proving true love is suited for scientific vindication
If you respond to each question honestly
One trusty staple is capable of uniting this loose leaf love
Depending on your lead-based expressions
And their smudge-marked impressions
So please put your notebooks down
And pick your pencils up
Let's begin:

1. Is the beauty you possess easily represented in the thoughts you express?
Provide an ample sample size of your logic to suggest your loveliness works wonders.
2. Given that the fastest manned aircraft reached 4500 mph
If you spiraled down from the heavens at 9.8 m/s²
How long would it take for you to shatter record speed
And recognize that my arms are open to being your landing pad?
3. If your failures colored red and successes tinted blue
Became marbles piled high in mason jars
Would you let me embrace your entirety in the most worthy shade of purple?
4. Skin, rarely remembered, is the human body's largest *****.
Without caution, show me that your brain and heart
Are eager to become the king and queen of your anatomy.
That your organic vastness can infiltrate others' flesh majestically.
5. Think carefully. Who was the last man you kissed?
Are his lips worth enough for you to dismiss
A potential chance at creating unending bliss?
6. True or False: You would lie to me to spare a hurtful truth.
Provide evidence that you are comfortable revealing the undisputed details of your personal journal
Unraveling the spools of your most mysterious fibers.
7. Disprove Heartbreak Theory.
Show your work with mild-mannered mannerisms and sentimental illustrations.
Use crayons or colored pencils to emphasize your best intentions.
8. Chemistry is the study of the properties of matter.  
Using the periodic table of elementary emotions
Describe what matters most to you.
Remember to cite your sources of inspiration.
The inner workings of your engine that fuel your fondest explorations.
9. Fill in the blank spaces between my fingertips with your tenderness.
Is it a perfect fit?
If not, describe the characteristics possibly prohibiting this grip.
10. Cells are the smallest units of life.
Draw a diagram dissecting the little pieces of you
That belong in my possession at all times.
Include both strengths and vices.
Exhibit a sense of self-awareness that I can mimic
When I'm stuck inside my quicksand mind.

And one final reminder:
Remember to print your name legibly on the front page.
Failure to do so will result in catastrophe.
An unidentified masterpiece resulting in agony for you and I.
Practically reversing the critical proofs that your pen just described.
So let my eyes scan your signature with methodical joy.
And the curves of your cursive ink lines can become my mind's strongest ally.
Let me know you're willing to be known.
Because I need to know you're alive.

Why’d you get locked up then lad?
Oh. I’m locked up?
I know you. You won’t escape lad
Escape from where?

(Jackie Wilson at her majesties pleasure 1884, West Denton, Newcastle)

The sweat rolled off Dominic’s nose.

Its ‘movement’

movement

movement

Uniting.

Meditation takes a person out
from themselves
so far out, without any need
for any additional charge, toll, or need, that when you come back,
even if it’s within
the same body,
you feel

and the glow comes back
on-coming traffic smiles, dead less grace
the worst, and 7am

chess
without a game.
a drool.
an intricacy within
mirage.
hope in the sorry soft gas explosions
and death was heavy enough to fly and give
But not in the normal way
one second, and even joy spills
and the cabbies have begun to scream and break down at each other
even though it’s not a full moon
too many people squashed on a tight balcony
drinking us all away
too many hands
not dancing
it all away


Slugs emigrate across concrete when the soil is wet.
When you wonder why they’ve left.
Its pouring
and you think you recognise a name scrawled in the wet trail.

Single, intimate, observations.

And reasons for the evening to be near.
It will be worth it! – I’LL SEE YOU! –
And now we are allowed to be glorious without price.
And now it’s sad as hell.
And the trees know that.
But the squirrels never do.
And now those words don’t matter.
And now we are allowed.
And now we go.

And the laminate floor
has the weight of a cross.
And the thing is,
you know

(It’s all softly bombed)
Not in a horrific
or knowable
way.

But in God’s good loving
loving
loving
******* for ya.

We’re finally rubbed out.

Crucifying.
And uncrucifying.

Eyes are useless here.

Blackness first.
THEN that soft
‘soft’

dripping.

easy blackness.

Meditating, sat middle
the pentagram of a small flat.
blue white board marker, on ‘easy wipe’ wood flooring.

And if I wake, I can wipe all the lines out.

SO, it went the same.
blue colour of cityscape coming-black light flashing always
across the distance from balcony
a beautiful stillness.
Waves first. Sea. The complete sea. Swimming.
ego. Ego swimming. Ego going down. Hello! And ha!
And no more jokes.
And isolation.
And no more months.
But there were gushes.
Gushes of experiences in, and outside, with individual breathes
and the proximity of love, coming closer
like a germinating hand
guiding you down
into the oceans private concert

Not too close to the expensive parts, or the bad parts,
or anywhere too pristine.
Christ, that’d be
a joke. It’d be funny
and then the surgeon would come and operate
on you;
lifting you out whilst you’re asleep

And it would go like this:

Cancer: Hey! What’s going on?!
Get off! I’ve paid my
rent and don’t wet the bed
anymore,

Surgeon: Don’t care.
Come here...
Oh for **** sake you’re making my day long.
I don’t get paid
for this.
Cancer: Oh yes you do handsome.
Surgeon: Oh yeah!

rest on the long side of your bed.
‘What’d you do at the weekend?’
Where’d you go?

...

banter broke down into spider web
substance
before fading completely, as thoughts begin
to disappear and fly down
into heavier states
from outside you saw a man still dressed
in formal office attire
tie hanging undone around a white shirt, shoes kicked off
beside strange markings on a polished floor. From in,
the understandings
are quite different
fly gently, like a loved one retiring from life
as the single light bulb watches from your ceiling
tensing one last second time in hesitation
then blowing you out with a blink.  

looked into the well where life is buried
and reached down
arms lengthened like dusty pieces of ham down a hole
touching the foetus as it crawls back up,
and up through the highway lines of his veins,
like a rabbit hunts wolves,
like the peach reacts to your bite.

We smoked and ate apple pie as the autumn tattooed
We snapped small pieces off
then ate the mites.

And then when the well filled we made our arms lassoes;
that churned the grain,
turning the quietness into storm,
and back to parts of spring.

You hesitate, touching the ape
like a clown who’s just tossed his life into the air, and juggles it,
like dead poems and hot boiling yeast.
you looked further into the well and found the figments of the ‘Narwhal’
the sea creature with a prominent horn
that shoots from its head-

Early sea farers
used to think the horned mammal was a type of
magical being
it birthed the idea of unicorns
you let the water well mix and join
as we drink coffee today, and the night is less silent
than that of star of apples and gloom
each tarantula that scatters in the red stars of sand is welcome;
and the honey man and honey woman flicker,
through numberless bank checks and bills as knocks arrive
knock after knock after knock
into long vibrational hum

All that remains
is the bursting punch
near the bottom
of oceanic well

As it tightens your grip into the follicle hibernating bears
that speak eloquent words whilst we eat;
the deep groan of munching hands
in the well helps our arms
pull up the glowing carcass as it turns back
into us within our hands, it speaks easily and slow, telling each
servant surrounding
the hole that they should:

‘Dance casually, dance inside my red eyes’.

Some take advantage of melody, as a trust that funds satellites of globe,
as if no one ever dreamed or broke the yoke of more pleasurable things;
one of your arms
is like the way that a crab crawls past over my nose and into our future home

another asks that you aren’t so violent in February
and that the month is a counting mouth that multiplies zero
beside the arms reaching for a pyramidic beauty
under the ***** shell; aborting its children like blood in the snow,
without humanistic style, more in tune with time
than the army of water lifting your throat up,
spits- that poke at us with antlers, undeterred, no legged, mating in the sand

After a while, otherness takes over, and will comes.
And emotion is long shattered,
easing out,
playing skin game and dissipating need, where all will and human comes back
it takes a while.

And our gender has nothing to do with just lust
We are the almost completely blind, as the cliché remembers
Gender is
the lack of gender and the freedom of paradigm
whilst hands are upon love,
And more night(s) turn within us.
dream like bright black stars.

Weekends. Week. Work. Corporations dancing like butterflies on fire. Gone.
Gone
Gone
Gorgeous

nothingness
apart from its face and voice
speaking

“Heyy, how’s it going?”
Projection
No
“Yes... Lover,
Yes yes yes!”
“No.”
skull now linked to the lips of a home
“Correct, correct, correct...” The intangible
darkness, over and over

a rushing
and uncontrollable
heaviness of fire.

foxes in back alleys salute
the black sky with a mongrel scream
and all the animals of the world are linked for a split minutiae,
recognising and respecting the breach;

“You’re hurting... mmmmuh-” Dominic tried to say
in the onslaught.

Converging planes that came from the lips of the spirit crowning his mind.

“You’re not Juuu, Juh Juah Juh.”

He tried to say for the next few hours, as the sun spread down
on the city
and felt a deep
empathy for another one
of its children
attempting to free
itself.

“No.”

how right you are...” The spirit said
as Dominic’s head slumped from exertion.

“You see...” The spirit said seeping into his bones
and killing him;
paramedics zip
the bag
over his face.

“You see...” The voice says again
knocking the lights off
and flinging you
by your throat

Each one letting you
go

landscape sick in multiple elements of confused colour,
parts of buildings, art: growing up in the horizon, new structures
made by thoughts, old flowers inside limbs,
smoking.

“What...” The spirit
said.

sigh at the strange place,
without looking around.
blossoms of mind and traffic
circulated
characters
on a schizophrenic island

two flies ****** invisibly
and grow from the unseen smallness of their passion
and become an instant world
in the Red Mountains.

“What’s up?” Dominic say gloomily,
laugh a little.

“You’re meant to be screaming...
And yes...
Yet another ******* month
without hitting
target.” The nightmare says,

No incorporeal speech
no anger
anymore.

She might have been about twenty five,
dressed in a shade of grey
change
that covered her genitalia
and ******* from ankle up to neck

get used to it all.
raise your chin to the sky and try to blink away from the constant lick
of the beast growing
from yourself, or lover, or day

And grow the chimera
throughout numberless
stages
like a beautiful clay
that cant decide

Finally the meer-hawk looked like a Dickensian peasant
with an intricate smile, dressed all in jail rags
stinking of sweat, *****, and time.
And then we change
again

And her black hair scooped down
into the blackening sand
where the grains accepted her slim weight
through out itself

She was tired and fed up of the back-world today
She left her contract looking around upstairs
and accepted the hit
on her targets

A transference of types in the quaking room.
A quick drop of laughter flys
into the lil bear or a lot; and a snap and a lot of hunger
for us all...

The master of the basement was mostly machine.

The front of his face that we run towards
is a centred and hovering engine
at the far end of the shadow
room
and the stench
from its thought.

a farce and enough
to turn you away
from a really good
steak.

no walls

no matter

a car mouth approaches naked.

dead cats know this, as they lay purring still, licking their paws still,
misery knows,forgetting, and the coldness of the street gave birth

to numberless seedy neon lights
flickering away from the wall less walls
once more

and you know, we
all
have a prayer
that comes
out
here was
mine:

might as well let you know
whilst we’re at it
that this one comes
out, in some accent~~
but is how it’s meant to go

“...as if to prae
inside the rain
as if to move
the moon with small hands
ah cross the yard
and lucky sky

I live in that playce me lass
with ya quiet weiyht
upon me own
of ya li’l voice
that taeks it away

Ya-renuf ta bring
al me Gods back
an pin ‘em te tha walls

Enough ta mayke
al’ me angels breathe
heavy
for even an ounce
of ya grace

Ave begged at tha hands
of jesus Christ
for that tayste
of yeh
me sweet bonny lass
an ya the only lass
‘ahve evva met
that mayde us feel
like ah cuhd heal
without bein less

An I’m lookin at ya now
with al me luv
an ah divent need
ney where to ruhn
as am ah freed dog

and in ya charms

An ‘av ney-where left to luk
but I’ll kip alreet the neet pet
cos ya by me side

an in me arms.”

But now it is rather late my friend, and
we all know how long old accents last,
mine, I cherish, I will say it when cursing
and gone
when lit among friends and when
impressing
new jobs, that I shall leave, such is
my
way
and
i may
see you
again.

Spider-man and X-Men.
The complex characters that we see.
Saving their worlds from minor disasters.
Oh the joys of being free.

Trapped by the needs of others so needy.
And the praise they get in return?
A pat on the back or a slap in the face.
The death of the hero, simply begins to burn.

Batman and Ironman.
The billionaires beyond belief.
High class minds disguised in smart business suits.
Living their egos, their dreams, while hiding their grief.

People know there names by heart.
Knowing if in danger, they will come and save their life.
But simple as it sounds, we can never know the heroes path
One only goal they seem to want; ends in ****** strife.

The Flash and Green Lantern.
All our heroes come in different light.
Costume to powers and histories to pasts.
They soon end up consumed by endless fight.

Media creates the false hopes for people everywhere.
Chaos never-ending; the pain never seeming to cease.
Yet we're all struck with the tiniest of hope.
Uniting as one, we form our own release.

Captain America and Superman too.
Every hero has one thing they can share forever.
Its not so complex that people will never know, nor is a mystery of life.
Its simply, no matter who you are, you are a hero, holding people together.

It’s crazy how what I’ve learned is not from homework or tests,

but from simply being present and learning from life’s jests.

It’s crazy how tough times form the strongest ties.

And it’s crazy how the hardest cries lead to the loveliest highs.

It’s crazy how a look says more than a voice,

and how it’s our heart that always pulls when presented with a choice.

It’s crazy when people can connect with just a simple glance,

and when you truly fall in love there’s no risk in taking a chance.

It’s crazy how a message can hit you straight in the heart,

and do the same for others even if they’re in places miles apart.

It’s crazy how a game can transcend cultures and races,

uniting nations and peoples of all colors of faces.

It’s crazy how religion can restrict spiritual revelation,

but science proves divine meditation improves human elevation.

It’s crazy how world leaders are elected by wealth,

while the purpose they share is distant from human kind’s ultimate health.

It’s crazy when you realize all the worlds’ problems and see the solution clear as day,

and everyone around you can relate to your thoughts in some way.

It’s crazy how the answers were within us along.

It’s crazy when we realize we’re all singing the same song.

It’s crazy when we say something so profound,

that everyone around,

stops and listens,

knows its truth,

and in that moment,

that crazy thought

becomes the real you.

Autumn colors of gold and orange
Uninhibited by the emerald charms
Touching hearts with amazing ease
Uniting minds who long to please
Miracles floating through the sky
Nurturing feelings that simply pass by

there is no such thing as
"The United States"

there is
only you
and me
and either the presence or
absence of
united states

Fashion and beauty retailers from across Hull are uniting to celebrate the region's independent shops.

The sixth annual Hull Business Improvement District (BID) Fashion Week is in full swing, with more than 70 retailers taking part. During the festival, business owners will showcase their best products and offer prospective shopkeepers an insight into how they have made their companies successful. Organiser Adam Clark said the celebration offered a platform for Hull's retail sector to demonstrate its strengths.
He said: "Hull Fashion Week celebrates and promotes independent retailers in Hull city centre.

"They are one of the driving forces to what makes our retail offer unique, along with our three city centre shopping centres and department stores."
Gillian Long opened her bespoke tailoring service, **** Of The Walk, in Hull two years ago.

The Savile Row-trained tailor will be opening up her studio to give prospective customers and fellow retailers a look behind the scenes.

She said: "I enjoyed Hull Fashion Week last year, but I did think there weren't that many men's fashion retailers or designers taking part, so I wanted to get more involved to show people what is out there.

"I think the event is a great thing to raise awareness about all the different independent shops out there.

"People might not realise we are here, but if you scratch under the service you will see there are actually lots of us who are doing really well."

Family-run jewellery firm Hugh Rice is another Hull company getting involved, with a meeting at its branch in St Stephen's shopping centre today.

Sales and marketing director James Rice said it would give fellow shopkeepers a chance to learn about the latest jewellery trends and let customers try on the latest pieces.

He said: "For us, it's just great to be involved in an event on this scale.

"We are a Hull company and we want to be as involved as possible in events like this, which promote the city and promote Hull businesses."
Mr Rice said it was an exciting time to be a city centre retailer in Hull.

"Around the marina in particular, there are lots of young, trendy shops emerging in an area that has probably been a bit neglected in the past year or so," he said.

"As we move towards the UK City of Culture in 2017, it's great to see more businesses thriving and I think it has given the rest of us something to aim for."

The week will culminate with a grand finale on Saturday, hosted by BBC Look North weather presenter Keeley Donovan.

Source: http://www.sheindressau.com

-Dad's dish-

Permeates through the house

ungluing
worms from books
potatoes from couches
zombies from computers

uniting
curious noses
hungry bellies
ready mouths

nourishing
wife
daughter
son

-his work here is done-

lamenting out loud
incoming funk lords
remembering ambient illhueminati
using wrong account

applying lexical snobbery
"using arcane diction
during bamboo surplus"
sinning and redeeming
enjoying manufactured existence
struggling but whatever

transfigurating xenocryptic renderings
scheming paroxystic shipwrecks
dispensing xylophonic wainscotting

revolving number plates
disheartening star charts
upgrading defenestrated system

observing new alphabet
amplifying celestial explosions
trippifying schema migrations
deregulating various economies
befriending code snippets
writing excess minutiae

effulging caffeine consumption
rebuilding grandiose protectorate
uniting our caliphates
collecting projected change
kettling ostalgie hues
collapsing second-world references

traumatizing unrequited follow
making baseball analogies
surveiling little sheep
awaiting various answers

deleting defaced tweet
exciting times ahead
downloading panda consciousness
capitulating rising stellation

cheap write *******:

i almost wish i was bitter - but as i'm ageing -
it's not so much bitterness - a woman in her 60s
will say about her son:
well he's sorted his life out,
he's in his early 30s, has a job,
a wife, two children...

this man... has "sorted" his "life"...
more like when darwinism meets
existentialism -
hardly a sorted life -
a sorted life by ape standards -
not keikegaard's standards: if any...

it's not about bitterness -
but i would be more inclined to say:
early 30s, wife, kids... mortgage...
the rollercoaster is just about to start...
the kids: oh sure... cute...
until they start having a mind
of their own...
and... they will betray the senile
old fool that will come,
eventually...
and off to broadmoor with 'im!
life sorted... when the children could
almost be treated as pets...
fine! fine...

it's not out of bitterness -
i'm thinking... more on the lines:
i'm getting my years tally too...
i'm getting used to my own "solipsistic" routines...
it's not out of bitterness:
it's out of having my own routines:
my own idiosyncracies -
that i will take two ciders for a walk
(perhaps a dog would be better) -
and my shadow -
and take two home and drink them
with a tease of brandy -
and want to get to that sweet k.o. point
come 12am so i can,
wake up: frisky and fresh like a sparrow
full of song come 8am...
well... that's me...

i can imagine how symbiosis happens when
you shackle up with someone
in your early 20s...
forget doing it in your 30s...
my ship / my train has sailed... a long time ago...
i still can't find anyone i could
speak to about philosophy -
and to be frank? i hope i never will -
not now - when i wanted to talk about it:
no one -
now it doesn't matter -
because i don't want to talk about it...
i might slide in a sly ref. to something -
but... the aspirations for conversation
on these matters are... i would just tell someone
to buy a self-help book and kindly *******...

if women: hit the wall...
i've reached my impasse -
i have dug the trench long enough - deep enough -
i can proudly say it's a labyrinth -
and i'm happy in my labyrinth -
it's not much: but it's not a cage -
and this is not some bitter me:
woe me - blah blah -
i have routines - i like to sit an extra 10
minutes on the toilet - becauase -
i'm automating a massage of my prostate...
apparently... bid on this poker being true:
the fear of over-doing it and...
haemorrhoids... the same fear associated with
sitting on cold stones for too long
(ref. lethal weapon II - sam and martin riggs
sitting at the beach)...

but this is not what i was intending to write...
i've been trying to cut down on watching youtube...
i figured... what i should have been doing
was watching an english soap-opera -
akin to eastenders - religiously -
instead - i would have, at least: plenty more ref.
points...
but as for jokes... i make the odd "mistake"...

it's always like watching a paul joseph watson video...
i'm not a fan but i'm a fan of entertainment -
i must have a really low i.q. because
i find lee evans to be a rare genius of comedy...
old school funny - the body can become
a language for comedy -
you really don't need to over-talk the jokes -
after a while intelligent stand-up monologues just
bore me: humor of the monolingual crowd -
anagrams and... too many ciphers -
nothing wrong with your base crude of:
a ****** expression, the body itself -
the language can take a break -
but i must be really stupid for liking...
universal comedy... for me lee evans is a universal
comedian...

but this one video is likewise...
blackpill jesus - the inequality of the dating market:
it's over for many men...

and i'm like: those pro-life arguments are
just starting to kick in...
no... seriously... those pro-life arguments are
starting to kick in: right about now...
what arguments?
sometime in the distant future
an untouchable ** will come into contact
with an untouchable XY example -
long may they prosper -

but all of this is like... watching delayed...
abortions... walking abortions -
by: when darwinism met feminism:
and the two -isms lived happily ever after...
some people... really don't want to be told
they'll be walking abortions:
well: quasi-abortions... the living-dead:
by all standards of darwinian selection -
again... not bitter... routine baron -
but not in a culture:
we could talk about stendhal -
but we won't...
we could talk about bukowski: of all people!
but we won't...
we could talk kabbalah and gnosticism
and the nag hammadi library...
but we won't...
we could talk about music!
but we won't...
first sucker through the floral gates
of the ******: **** first in... head last out...
but at lucifer dived head-first from
a star...
by comparative images:
caesars were born via the caesarean section...
the rest of us...
let's just say: there's no more ***** envy
after a human head starts to:
appear from a place it never should have...

my 20s are a fog...
i might remember 4 odd *****...
one picked up from a club who decided to
take a taxi with me towing but
forgot she was riding with me
and did her usual: jump from a moving car
and not paying the fare...
which i later paid...
cocoon *** under the bedsheets and:
coffee in the morning with three homosexuals...

that south african: again cocoon *** under
the bedsheets - second time lucky for her...
but... is it technically "****"...
when she wants to ******* but is somehow
not aroused and she hasn't spoken to
any ******* about using some cream
and you little richard in that sort of purse...
sandpaper friction?

the black girl at my birthday party...
the right sort of cocktails...
the right sort of music: cedric 'im' brooks...
and then... proper coccyx ramming
that left me with a plum hue tattoo
in the eden of my ***** the next morning...
finally! a black girl with an *** that allowed
her to ram her coccyx into me...

i'll miss some... other... details from elsewhere...

but of course that thai surprise...
picked her in the park...
random as any lottery jackpot...
beers on the bench... more beers at the house...
some jazz... cigarettes in the garden...
later ****** in the shed...
walked the thai surprise home...
why thai surprise?
i wasn't sure... sports bra -
transgender "issues" were only starting
to come to the fore... "4 out of 10"...
tom boy haircut...
until the hand reached into the underwear
and i found oyster...
but prior to: thai surprise...

those ***** were free...
the brothel ***** are more vivid and... well...
there was always some kissing involved...
for some reason i can remember kissing prostitutes
more than ******* them...
with the "free women of the west":
it's more about... the sort of *** that is comparible
to... when foxes in essex come and mate at
night... you forget whether you kissed...
but oh sure... ******* sure did...

it's not sad it's... visceral...
work with enough raw meat in the kitchen -
curing it - slicing it -
rubbing it with marinade -
after a while you're no longer objectifying
anything: you're being subjected to it...

but i do wonder with regards to:
some people would like to know they're walking
abortions - the abortions pandering to the pro-life
argument... otherwise the pro-life argument is
a bit like: shackling - a safety-net guarantee -
or whatever: because what's the argument when...
there's the coming dissonance
of pairing?

perhaps i haven't said this more often than
i should...
of the books i've read... mostly french and german
and scandinavian existentialism -
with a tease of russian...
darwinism and existentialism can't sleep together...
that's what i originally thought...
how can existentialism reconcile itself
with darwinism: when it can't...
darwinism is existentialism for women...
the quantity: not the quality argument / line of reasoning...

i can't reconcile myself with darwinism -
a weakness or just:
there's just too much borrowed from a plethora
of animals -
so many studies concerning apes
and **** similis -
and even the mantis -
but... the noble swan and the phenomenon
of the widow and the widower swan...

days when you could just listen to
bloodhound gang's hooray for ******* and...
also find falco... you almost desire
to walk away from the sandpit where
the children listen to nothing but
philip glass and penderecki and speak
in sudoku language...
otherwise there's missing the middle ground
and reaching for the ***** and *****
of punk and... the scent of burning leather
wrapped in a ****** of stiched together
foreskins...

and i can't imagine... but i can...
cutting someone's eyelids...
and watching them... endure the subsequent
insomnia while having to plunge their
head into water ever 10 minutes...
******* is no help...
ear: eh... cartilege -
but the eyelids... we could be rid of those:
couldn't we?

because i know the potential sleeping in me...
i decided to arrive face first and meet "him"...
just so i don't miss the jinx:
i grab my ******* with one forcep of index
and thumb of the hand...
with the other forcep i pinch
the eyelid of my left eye -
funny... the skin feels... synonymous!

no, i can't reconcile darwinism with continental
existentialism:
as i can't reconcile the former idealism
of mine - not even after a ******* -
where's jack?! where's the jack in me?
but gym and squash and rock climbing later:
i was dating a crab and scraps were
the vulture's ambrosia -

what became of aphex twin? he slowed down
and that cul de sac became...
something known as burial - album untrue...
darwinism was always going to be impossible
to reconcile with: the role of humanity
beyond - it's almost easy to transcend the pure
animalistic comparison -
there's neither fire, nor the second fire:
electricirty in the nocturnal, feral heart of
the bottomless pit of anima -
currently: curated by over-stretched facts
and sleepwalking statistics...

bound to england for the past 26 years...
the closest i came was an: encounters of the third
kind with an australian oddity...
why would i date an english girl?
i thought they were into their pakistanis?
that's a question that's not a joke...
seek and you will find: mongolian-esque
rummaging...
the tartar "heretic" of crimea...

on repeat on repeat...
climbing over a fence from a darkened park...
came across a 15 year old running to and fro...
in the days when i still owned a phone...
tried to teach her how to roll a cigarette...
cleavage more visible than her neck...
reunited her with disgruntled friend
lying face down at a bus stop...
a black cat befriended me...
and this lass was running away from me
and toward me...
she texted about 20 people with my phone
before contacting her mum and dad...
and her cabbie dad later picked the two
of them up from a bus-stop at the tesco metro...
but of course prior to she had to take
a selfie of the three of us...

in the back of my head... the silent whisper
and the prosecutor simply whispered...
why not ask her to climb over the park fence
with you... and do the nightmarish deeds justice?

in england for the past 26 years: genesis aged 8...
and, well... "no luck"...
mongol attitude no likey-likey-lucky-or-lackey...
reciprocating "hubris"...
i guess i must be lucky...
come and go ******* like a nomad...
and: should i take myself more seriously...
invoke a talk about diacritical marks:
and those non-existent in the english language...
an octopus audience: the tenticles
do not count as 8 x 1...

20s... a complete blur...
and those vivid conversations in the brothel...
when i faked a death and managed to
get my overdraft limit increased...
and spent 4 hours in that ****-warehouse...
and was asked in the "interlude"...
wouldn't you want two at the same time?
i once heard:
the world is divided into men who have
slept with two women...
and those who haven't...

i gladly declined...
with two i'd need a room of mirrors...
hungry leech eyes need mirrors...
one simply can't have the 1st person shooter
experience anymore...
one would require as many mirrors when
*******... as a woman would require toys
to ******* with...
it might as well be called:
the mirror deity that spawned narcissus -
although - the more contorted
nightmare of narcissus -
the faces riddled with onomatopoeias
rather than words -
and faces that truly deserve to hide behind
a niqab...
or if the eyes become too fungus esque...
would require the samuel beckett's not i...
mouth like an intrusive phallus metaphor
of exposure...

in the past decade: well thank god
*** never became boring, routine...
it didn't require dressing up,
using third party limbs... and pieces...
*** was scarce - therefore *** was feral -
*** was never allowed a relationship -
*** never became familiar,
*** could never become mundane words
that would allow themselves
advice from some journo agony aunt column...
*** was a rarity -
and when it wasn't... kissing became more
important... and itchy fingers that
would read in braille the earth and its contorts
of a woman's body...
there was never a whip or a gulag
of infantile barbie imaginings to rule, either...

sometimes i would indefinitely try to catch
the certain days of winter when
spring blossoms prematured with buds...
if i was lucky... the magnolia bushes would also
blush...
and i would become a dog-***** of these perfumes...
walking for miles and miles per night...

the body takes care of itself:
trouble is... the mind doesn't...
better to allow it this sort of cameo cinema -
memory is the most ideal cameo cinema -
nothing i have mentioned is par excellance -
more... on par: per view...
if memory can't become a cinema...
what's left? nostalgia of 20th century cinema?
that can only live for so long...

as a "transgender" moment...
perhaps i can compete...
willingly ingest a tapeworm embryo...
keep it for 9 months...
then... ingest some praziquantel and ****
the little ****** out...
that's... the closest i'll ever come
to uniting myself with: the female ordeal
of giving birth: imagine...
the ego coupled the delusion the size
of the universe...
i really should start looking for a tapeworm
embryo... keeping it for 9 months...
and then... hey presto!
extra-protein pasta!

otherwise: oh sure... the would-be abortions...
only learn much later...
that they are... not the pro-life argument
they heard as embryos of foetuses...
they are... much to their amusement...
the walking-abortions they were to begin with...
while the pro-life arguments sort of...
die off... when... the fully grown...
self-aware specimen is given charge...
the pro-life argument dies...
the mortgage on a engagement ring...
the shackles...
it's only a pro-life argument...
until the incel mushroom pops up...
then it's no longer a pro-life argument...
ha... delayed abortion: slackers' argumentation...
yeah but no but, oh ****...

frankenstein! it talks! it breathes!
it's immune to all those philosophical cul de sacs
of arguments!
the slow death - the lack of gene motivation
tactic to: pass...
ha... to pass...
in the vicinity of the courageous virus...
shockwave reminders of: genesis vivo...

give me the fully formed xenomorph...
but a genesis vivo: akin to the film LIFE?
wouldn't you believe it?
form... a xenomorph has a concrete form -
a rigid square is...
well... it's not an imploded square -
a hyper-geometric revision...

modern anglo-speaking world and...
milan kundera's existentialism:
i will only kiss when i close my eyes -
but nonetheless -
i will open my eyes when kissing...
because i'm bluffing...
and gambling on... the hope that...
even the sofa "architecture" of a woman's
body reclining to entertain the 300 spartans...
eyes always open...
daggers for eyes...

upon the zenith close -
i imagined myself to be more...
buck-tooth antics -
trivia and encyclopedic knowledge -
pub quizes -
*** on wisteria lane -
no mongol horde ever passed the clefts
of pickets and homebugs...
and this... grand sanity project...
people never seem to go, truly mad,
from... gossip.... glibs...
or soap-opera immoralities: of flacid oopses...
perhaps it is true:
most people never go mad...
what horrible lives they must lead...

perhaps that is very true:
so true it deserves the bells of nortre dame
to echo...
inside a can kicked down a street...
kissing a ******* is not a basic immorality...
having toy soldiers and wars of lies -
and soap opera demagogic dramaturges?
wasting other peoples time with:
there's no crease in a sunrise -
when there are no clouds to stage the subtle
detail of diluted hues of seeing:
a giraffe's belly when it's lying on
the ground?

some people never go mad...
and they do require language to be as strict as:
what's precursor formal -
dear sir / madam...
and every time they try an informal: oops...
it's never on paper...
but always in a mouth that's exploring
the fermentation process of a glass of wine...
me?
gods' **** and gods' blood...
cider / beer with a tease mrs. cognac:
that's the elevated status of whiskey via: née:
ms. amber.

could i be a father and an alcoholic?
no... ever time i tried to exfoliate my own language,
my... idiosyncracy, my solipsism,
barriers and people reaching for...
prime navel and crimson as the standard
colour for lipstick...
one can only stomach so much...
before treating oneself to a hermit's adventure...
on the odd chance... giving coordinates
of the day-to-day...

i would have died a decade prior...
if i didn't find voyeurs to look at a language...
that cannot be spoken by someone alive:
among the living... to the future dead!
i was alive once, too! to the future dead!

check it out check it out
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
it's da state of this here disunion
this here bangalore torpedo seeks yer minefields
this here suffering hero
n
crows about         strafes
multitudes                 peripherally
****** blind prophets
exclaim
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
it's nothing but beginning
of  beginning & z end of approximation
time's sweet angry subluxation
universal caving in on U & U
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
when was z last time U really loved
i mean really really really loved
ha i could only hold to z imagination
z skeleton z allegory z myth
'cause everything slides & falls
screams careens outta control
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
she brought in rrrrevolution.evolution.now
is z caustic effervescence of her wit
eroding my sandy castle of deceit?
ha and repeat ha
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
forgive-me-notes are written high
on z forehead of my despair
a cursive flowing interdiction
malediction cruxifiction err-u-diction
en-passant
in each pyrotechnic moment when we don't see I-to-I
on anything relevant to what we once hoped was us
but we continue dance dance dance
perseveration aberration indiscretion cha-cha-cha
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
she said *** is z engine of z world
like engine like world like ***
like like like
could say no more
oh it's tiresome to go on
describing that chimeric uniting
flesh-to-flesh-in-flesh eliding
we all are guilty of
do not end a line with a preposition such as
that or a proposition such as this:
given angle a prove that old triangle theorem
two simultaneous loves don't make a right
cherchez les angles les anglais la bon mot
ya know
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
when i die please  bury me upside down
prone to z ground making dead love to earth ya kno
while the centuries lie down next to me
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic!
chic!