labi siffre - into the light

Crush the flower. God will make another.

moving forward through the forest
over hills
of the enemy's dead
they came upon a female child
one of their number
without pausing struck her
there and then the child died
no tears were shed

moving forward through the forest
passed the girl's observant corpse
they came upon a village tranquil
killed the men
killed the boys
raped the women
killed the women
raped the girls
killed the girls
raped some babies just for fun
girl babies only (these are real men
not maricones) then
babies, girls and boys, were swung
by their legs
for tree trunks and walls
to meat their heads

their killers burned the village to the ground
they killed the pigs
they killed the dogs
they killed the chickens
that evening they prayed
and for several days ate well
knowing their souls were saved
___

Sowing the seeds of the flowers God makes

marching to the city
passing faces blurred with hope,
triumph, fear; but hearing only
voices of encouragement
and good cheer

their stride confident, their minds
as all, unfathomable
their leaders, already suited,
negotiating trade agreements
media friendly, affable

soon, having re-arranged the kitchen
cutlery, the books in the library
and the bricks in the walls,
these men will return to peace time life
the winners receiving
the usual rewards
___

Sir John Mortimer 1924 - 2009

English Barrister / Author / National Treasure

"Liberty is allowing people to do things you disapprove of."

" . . . I'd love to be a sex object. My own ambition is to be loved only for my body."

". . . writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.

"When you get to my age, life seems little more than one long march to and from the lavatory."

"Old age entails a good deal of sitting and staring into space. This is by no means an uncreative occupation."
___
Quotations Source

Obituary
___

Odetta 1930-2008

And so farewell Odetta Holmes
another rousing voice of freedom
kind to me you were, invited me
to your
uptown New York home
took my song to China
for women everywhere

introduced me
to Mr & Mrs Belafonte in their mid-town
apartment on the occasion of Mrs Belafonte's
birthday where, wandering from the party,
as I usually do, I found the library
and the poem, "If We Must Die"
by Claude McKay

then Roscoe Lee Browne wandered in
and read, "If We Must Die", just for me,
the way it should be read
with calm, clear, defiant dignity

and now you're dead
having seen more than I have seen
knowing more than I will know
a magic woman I will remember
for the message you wore
golden on your breast
"I am"
___

Paul Newman 1925-2008

I appreciated Paul Newman as an actor from the first movie of his I saw (either The Long Hot Summer or The Left Handed Gun).

I appreciated him as a human being from some time in the early ‘60s when I saw him and his wife Joanne Woodward being interviewed. They were the coolest, most intelligent, no bullshit married couple the planet has ever known. If she thought he was OK ... he was OK. My condolences to her.

I used Newman (and hope he would not have minded) to help make my point against racism (in that instance anti-Semitism) in my first book Nigger in the poem Positive Images.

I was not surprised but I was warmed and encouraged in the struggle and my respect for Newman grew when, in an interview (radio I think) I caught just the last sentence of this typically no nonsense Paul Newman view:

“I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being ... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.”

And so farewell Paul Newman
husband, racing driver, maker
of salad dressing, actor; no less
fallible than the rest of us
(I, who didn’t know you, can
only guess) but I reckon
you to be
one of the very
very best

^{(Photo:Rose M. Prouser  CNN via AFP/Getty Images)
___}

local sights of interest

there are tables
there are chairs
plastic and metal ware
men sit at some of the tables

others stand still or sway
one, unable, has fallen away
there is a window
and a door

and a body, dead, on the floor
through the window you can see
the shrubbery
and the lime trees beyond

the gate is a lane
its condition poor
and a phone box
and a road sign
to little moor
___

The Olympic Spirit of Repression

BEIJING — Today, as part of a government crackdown to silence dissidents before Beijing plays host to the Olympic Games, a Chinese court sentenced Hu Jia, an outspoken human rights advocate, to three and a half years in prison after ruling that his critical essays and comments about Communist Party rule amounted to inciting subversion.
Full story HERE

His name is HU JIA

Remember him while you watch the games.
___

G'bye Abby & thanks

"I believe that a writer worth his salt at all has an obligation not only to entertain but to comment on the world in which he lives, not only to comment, but maybe have a shot at reshaping the world."
... Abby Mann screenwriter, director and producer.1927-2008
___

the forgotten

i take remembrance sunday seriously
i respect its emphasis on the memory
of our fighting dead betrayed serially
by forces hidden from them. saddened

my search informs me that in the wars
and violent conflicts for various causes
in the twenty-first and twentieth centuries
by far the most deaths from warfare were

civilian

and so i say there should be a day
of remembrance to honour the millions
children women men civilians all. lost.
their lives erased by our enduring need

Auteur Obit

and so farewell and thank you Ingmar Bergman
you wrote and directed my favourite movie

"The Seventh Seal"

and inspired both Woody Allen and me
(though my movies are much shorter)

Free Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman

Sign the Petition

A court in the port city of Alexandria has sentenced a young Egyptian blogger to four years' jail for contempt of religion, insulting the president and spreading false information.

Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, 22, is the first Egyptian blogger to stand trial for views expressed on the internet. The case against him was based on a complaint from al-Azhar University, where he studied law until he was expelled last year because of his critical writings about religion.

Complete BBC article

Iraq Obit December 2006

and so farewell Saddam Hussein
a horrible man (among so many)
who as president Bush numero dos

grudgingly admitted had nothing to do
with 9/11 and was in many ways our
constructed creature having at least

one feature in common with George Dubya
and British prime minister Tony Blair and that’s
the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqi

civilians which as secretary of defense Donald
Rumsfeld let slip is, “in effect, the definition
of terrorism” though, as you know, we’re not

supposed to show that kind of info to our citizens
nor even admit it to ourselves but life is murky
muddy swirling oily grey brown sickly and smells

of rotting meat in spite of those posies we keep pressed
to our desensitized noses (democracy, God, God’s will,
Jesus, Mohammed and that “we’re doing the best we can
for our children” guff)

in spite of this complexity of murder in pursuit of noble ends
(a policy continuously undermined by the results) somehow
we have to persist like vultures in soaring beautifully
while trying much, much harder to land like doves

Entertainment Obit December 2006

and so farewell Charlie Drake - comedian
and straight actor - from the early partnership
of Mick and Montmorency you made me laugh

from my child to adult hood you were
a good part so i hope for your sake
you found contentment and not

(like so many funny people)
heartache

Zeit Macht Faul

A change has come about. We’ve decided
to shout less and shoot more; a policy

growing in popularity, though not yet
reaching the glorious heights
of global wars of yore

Aung San Suu Kyi

As of today Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained for a total of 10 years and 330 days.

Aung San Suu Kyi is now serving her third term of house arrest.

She was arrested on 30 May, 2003 after the regime's militia attacked her convoy and killed up to 100 of her supporters.

Free  her immediately.

Free the other 1400 Burmese political prisoners immediately.

Free Aung San Suu Kyi  immediately.

_{Asian Tribune}

Higher and Higher

I don’t give a damn for honour, truth or peace ‘n i don’t miss ‘em; neither do i try to revive ‘em. If those conceits were of any use they’d be with us now, alive and well, but they’re dead and dust and the people who killed ‘em are issuing media statements and eating well (thank you very much) and have the respect of billions on the squawk-show credo circuit.

What need is there to fake sincerity when the fools have been taught, so well, to believe sincerity means you’re on the side of kindness and compassion? Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Darma were sincere. Mengele and Vlad The Impaler were sincere. Don’t you get it? The blown to bits, burned alive, smothered lifeless under rubble, starved, tortured and abused to death innocents - they certainly got it.

So align the bulldozers, gear in, pedal down and push those hectares of corpses, push ‘em, push ‘em. Push the jiggling limbs and torsos into two multicultural, faded-rainbow-coloured, non-denominational heaps.

And when the cadaver heaps have gathered into two vast ranges of cadaver hills, push ‘em, push ‘em higher and higher till we face two mountains, touching the sky. Then, we’ll send The Dirty Job Boys in to plant a flag pole, half a mile high, one to each summit. They’ll attach the respective flags, each one the size of four football pitches, to the metal halyards thick as your arm, and haul them up with giant winding machines to the solemn cacophony of thousands of massed bands playing national anthems in arbitrary rotation.

Silent, we’ll stand at the base of those mountains and we’ll raise our faces and BLOW. In our billions we’ll BLOW hot air from our billons of mouths. Our lungs fully bursting we’ll BLOW till those flags unfurl and wave in the storm of our deeply held sincere beliefs.

And on one flag, The Dirty Job Boys using thousands of litres of natural pigments will have written, “Killed by the Bad Guys”. And on the other flag they’ll have written, “Killed by the Good Guys”. And the flag on the highest corpse mountain will be clearly outlined against the blue life sky. And even then, in our billions, we won’t open our eyes.

salute

there is a brave man in the world tonight
his name  is Haroun Yashayaei

[Iran Jews express Holocaust shock]
___