| Author |
Message |
    
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 917
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 1:02 pm: | 
|
A small man in late middle age made his way between two houses through a yard partially strewn with garbage.
He reached the sidewalk and continued along it. The sidewalk also had garbage in places, but was generally thinner and flatter in this regard then the yard had been, though sometimes the garbage covered large areas.
The man had a cane with him, that he held in his right hand. The cane was much too long to lean on, and he held it out well in front of him and tried to somehow use it to pull himself forward by putting the point of it on the sidewalk and pulling down. He was hindered in this by the length of the cane and its thinness, and its excessive flexibility, which gave it a wobbly feel.
When he walked, he moved forward with an odd motion, with one leg taking a short step and the other more of a bound, sometimes a tremendous bound. Sometimes he seemed to have more trouble and went forward on all fours, still using the cane to try to pull himself forward.
Once, he stopped and actually got the cane beside him and pushed down hard enough that his whole body slowly rose into the air. He stayed there for a while, one hand on the cane and his body in the air at an upward angle, then he slowly straightened his body out until his feet were pointed straight up. The cane flexed and wobbled and snapped back and flexed again, and you would think that it would break under the weight, but it didn't. Eventually, he lowered himself to the ground and went on as before.
After a time, some kids in the neighborhood saw him, teenagers, and they made fun of him and were going to make trouble for him.
He proposed instead that they have a contest.
He showed them the garbage in a nearby yard. There were many onions, whole and uncut, looking like they had just come from the store. There were thick hamburger patties, still pink but cooked just enough to change color slightly. There was lettuce cut into thick slabs, and open hamburger buns. There were even some thin slices of tomato. Some of the items even had a little ketchup on them. There was more than enough food for everyone.
The man proposed that they have a race to see who could prepare a meal the fastest. The meal would be large enough to serve everyone there. Two fires would be started on the sidewalk to cook the meat. The first side to get the food fully prepared and ready to eat would win.
The side with the teenagers quickly began working. The man looked through some of the food that he had gathered and placed on a picnic table near the sidewalk. A girl had been assigned to help him, to make the contest more fair. She seemed to be slightly familiar with him, evidently from seeing him on his walks in the past, but she mainly just sat and watched him. There were perhaps three or four people in the other team.
The man discarded some of the slabs of lettuce, because they showed some signs of wilting at the edges. In truth, though, much of the remaining ones did not look very different from those that had been discarded. This disturbed the man, because he did not want to serve the others food that was not good quality.
Abruptly he got up, and, leaving his cane behind, raced home at incredible speed, getting there in an instant, before the kids even knew that he was gone. One of them looked up and somehow saw him there, despite the distance involved, and made an exclamation, surprised that he could have gotten there that fast, or that anyone could.
At home, the man gathered a thick package of raw hamburger, a head or two of lettuce, and some tomatoes. He also selected some sharp knives to cut things with, and grabbed some ketchup and a bag or two of chips and some cans of soft drink. He then rushed back and quickly prepared the meal.
Afterwards, everyone was sitting around a table, happily eating. One of the girls came forward, though, and stood in front of the man and accused him of cheating, of getting food that was already prepared. Considering the situation, it was a dangerous accusation to make.
The man looked up from his hamburger and stared into space, not looking at the girl or at anyone. He did not reply directly to her, but instead said, philosophically, "Death goes where it will, and when one reaches the place where he had been going, he never knows whether death will find him there. Most times, though, it does not. Anyway, in any case, no one expects death, but death will eventually come."
And the people continued eating, then, happy with the food.
And in the future, when the man was out on his walks, his journeys, and happened to see the kids, they called out to each other and greeted each other like old friends, which now, of course, they were.
-a story from a dream I had last night. |
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 955
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 12:49 pm: |
|
There's something called "The Never-Ending Story" that a person named Jennifer runs. It's a story about the adventures of Dr. Morgenes. In the story, a brief introduction is given and then people are invited to add their own brief continuations to the story. Originally, it started out at her write101.com site, but a few months ago it was moved to a blog she started, and then given its own blog.
The blog version seems to be at least partially restarted, without carrying on the original story line at the point where it last left off, although she mentions briefly some of the earlier story in her explanations of it. Part of the earlier story is still available, though the blog seems to begin at the end of the nevendstory.htm page and not nevendstory2.htm, and ignores all the posts that were added at a different website (now seemingly abandoned; see below).
I've managed to put in a few contributions from time to time, part of them at the old location (now lost) and part of them at the new location.
The current story location is here:
http://write101-never-ending-story.blogspot.com/
The original story locations (which still exist):
http://www.write101.com/nevendstory.htm
http://www.write101.com/nevendstory2.htm
There was also another location, an outside website that was really a guestbook, that nevendstory2.htm originally linked to instead of the blog. This other location held 100 posts that continued the story. More posts actually existed, but they were lost because only 100 posts were allowed, and after that earlier ones disappeared.
This other location is apparently entirely gone, now. Trying to access it directly produced a long delay without much happening. (I have all but the earliest posts saved, though.) |
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 995
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 02, 2006 - 8:09 am: |
|
A time has passed,
With no one else,
And so I continue talking,
To myself.
And so I leave this thought,
Upon this day,
Lest this thread,
Should go away. |
scissorhands
Member
Username: tigerseye
Post Number: 79
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Friday, March 03, 2006 - 9:49 am: |
|
Leafing through the magazine, a bridle brank had triggered the avalanche. Chloe froze, almost wet herself, ran to the washroom where she now couldn't pee. He had called his version of the brank the scold cap. She'd worn it in the cold dark room, she now found herself in, again.
Henry had been an uncle, the family friend who'd lost a daughter. He'd arrived when she was 4 or 5; when her teenaged brother had begun experimenting with drugs and sibling torture. Distracted, separated or divorced, Chloe's parents were grateful when Henry took her on vacations and took an interest in her.
Inexplicably, Henry disappeared when she was 11; he would send her postcards faithfully for another 13 years.
Chloe reeled and steadied her forehead against the cold tile. She remembered the country house. The frightened angry embarrassment of playing nude hostess to well-dressed adults. They'd brushed it off as nothing, laughing and consoling, or to the scold cap stool. Henry hadn't hurt her. He'd jealously guarded her hymen like a solicitous shrew, while magnanimously boasting of 'training'.
Traveling in Africa after 3.5 years of only postcards from Henry, Chloe's companions got sick on the eggs. 48 hours passed before the bedridden realized Chloe was missing. A few more weeks went by before she turned up again.
Everyone was frantic when Henry calmly arrived. The police had become helplessly disinterested. Everyone greeted Henry and his connections with relief. He'd attained them serving as an officer in the schutzstaffel, in addition to his genteel authority and sophisticated style. Henry assured Chloe her freedom was his penury and Chloe couldn't help it she loved him gratefully.
Love built on lies or other plans, in either case some version of reality prevailed and Chloe hid in a small town serving lunches. After a short time, a strikingly handsome new 'teacher' in town asked her out.
She never made the connection between the assault that night and the next 3 years of disjointed high living, other than misguided defiance. Never made a connection between Henry's training and being sold in Africa. Preposterous that nazi's love astrology and her induced birth resulted with much scorpio in Venus rising.
Fate trumped them all. Chloe became no use for anyone but God, and God was in for a fight. The theft of Choe, she'd hated herself when it was Henry she detested. Success is measured in obstacles overcome and not conquests and treasures.
Chloe shuddered, threw water on her face, stepped outside. 19 years since a post-card; 19 years receiving them in all. Chloe assumes her 'friend' is dead, along with the witches bridle, he left buried in her head. |
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 1037
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 6:13 pm: |
|
I post this post,
Upon this place,
I leave it here,
With all due haste.
And if you'd post,
Instead of me,
Perhaps a better
Post you'd see. |
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 1064
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 6:16 am: |
|
Another post
Put in the air,
And for a time
It lingers there.
A reminder of
What still could be,
For you could make
A post like me. |
mothership
Intermediate Member
Username: bob_higgins
Post Number: 101
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 6:56 am: |
|
What binds us to this longing
This sense of our belonging
What lies deep
Within the folds of time?
Memories of shared living
Birth and death and giving
Round in circles, spirals
Debts repaid in kind.
Paralysed in anger
Trapped as if in Amber
Caught up and snagged upon
The tree of life
Redeemed in autumn’s shedding
Time in long forgetting
Re-join the loop, begin again
As husband, child or wife. |
mothership
Intermediate Member
Username: bob_higgins
Post Number: 102
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 7:10 am: |
|
The Fallen
Gently trodden steps
Along the road
Of broken glass in rain
Leave no tracks to find
The fallen one
Voices echo loud
In alley ways
Battered, tortured
Wounds of pain
Seeking refuge in
Dark doorways
But judgment stands
As sentry
Black cloak shadows
Night’s fallen one.
All seeing eye of camera
Turns away
In shame |
Rogue
New member
Username: rogue
Post Number: 21
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 3:30 pm: |
|
I found myself in a room, a room full of stars
And I grew so big that I filled up that room
I became not only the stars within but the room itself
Then, a door appeared
An impossibly small door for one so large
I opened it and went through
And I found myself in a room, a room full of stars
But here I was no bigger than a tiny grain of sand
"It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or by day, the things which I have seen I can now see no more." -w. wordsworth
|
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 1140
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 3:56 pm: |
|
Too late the post,
And like most,
This thread will disappear.
So do your part,
Straight from the heart,
And place your post right here. |
mothership
Intermediate Member
Username: bob_higgins
Post Number: 137
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 6:16 am: |
|
Gypsy Heart
Whenever the need shall take us
And wherever we
Feel we must roam
We are always near to the ones
We hold dear
And all roads
Lead to our home
Whatever they say to hurt us
And whichever the path
That we choose
They never will break
These bonds of our hearts
My love you never will lose.
Forever this way for us now dear
Together are bound
Through all time
Eternally linked by the heavens
Your gypsy heart beating
With mine. |
mothership
Intermediate Member
Username: bob_higgins
Post Number: 138
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 6:18 am: |
|
She wont feel the pain
wont taste the bile
When bitterness is coated
With a sugary smile
Can’t stand the tears
From blue Egyptian eyes
Truth that you hide
Underneath the covers
With those blanketed lies
And you never feel hurt
Never feel the cold
In your old turn-coat
Keep her feeling happy
Don’t take away her hope
Secrets hidden
In the drawer with
The old pound note. |
mothership
Intermediate Member
Username: bob_higgins
Post Number: 139
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 6:23 am: |
|
Just to keep the thread going you understand............
If you could
Bring me a dream where I can be me
A place where I belong
I dreamt me a dream of loneliness
That lasted all night long.
Show me a life where I was loved
A time when I was saved
I’m living this life of emptiness
Just waiting for my grave.
Sing me a loud song of happiness
To make my spirit soar
Drown out this tune of misery
That keeps me on the floor
Write me a book with a happy end
A future that is bright
Erase all the words of darkness
And turn them into light. |
John^
Member
Username: john
Post Number: 98
Registered: 5-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 2:09 am: |
|
Awh mother ship what beautiful words you make. I have no poem or prose to add but I have always thought this song spiritual and comforting and for the traveler minded. And there are many beautiful lonely souls here. And if we can, we play host to these gentle loving kind spirits. And we have an insight to what’s to come and are truly blessed and not so alone after all.
for all travelers |
mothership
New member
Username: bob_higgins
Post Number: 43
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 9:37 am: |
|
Thank you John {blushing} I am just going to read your link now. Jan |
opal
Intermediate Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 177
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 12, 2006 - 6:29 pm: |
|
I saw a hybrid the other week on a bus; sometimes I tell myself that.
It was a new bus, the kind with hydraulics that hiss when they stop. I paid the fare, grateful for air conditioning, and lurched to an empty seat I'd spotted.
The seat-rails that housed my disinterested audience saved me from landing on my new neighbour and flung me instead into the seat beside him. He didn't budge. He didn't have to shift because he was tiny; not even a twitch at the arrival of the clod.
Shock suddenly informed me as to why the seat had been empty, his neck was pencil thin. Much too small - for that length. I thought some disease had emaciated the structure; although the skin didn't look loose, just somehow thin or translucent.
None of the passengers seemed to notice, nobody glancing or staring. I recovered my start and glanced ahead nonchalantly. A skinny man, whose head protrudes unnaturally from straight and narrow shoulders.
I didn't really get a feel for him one way or the other. I sensed he was more quiet than absent. He stared out the window impervious to anyone or anything - something, I assumed, must be difficult for someone in his position.
I mustered my nerve and turned as if to share in the window. He had a sharp triangular chin, a kafkaesque peak of a boldly heart shaped head. A large hat covered his brow to his eyes and shaded some of his face.
He kept his head cocked towards the window. The question of how - on that neck, made me draw my breath. He didn't flinch at my intrusion, or shift the fragile hand beneath his chin. His skin had no markings, nothing to visibly suggest he was sick. Just his odd frame, fragile neck and triangular chin.
An orange ray of sun came through the window and caught an un-shaded part of his face. An iridescence of purples, greens, blues and greys danced from his eye. A play of light more subtle than crystalline, more beautiful when wise. His mouth was nondescript and thin. His nose as thin as the thin of him and he had dancing light eyes.
My stop arrived with my rudeness interrupted. Reluctant to leave but satisfied with not intruding farther, especially with the other riders taking no notice of him, I departed. What might I have asked him. Some things too strange or too daily to see. Healthy hybrid or ailing human - a miracle he must be.
_____
A true story.
(Message edited by albi on August 12, 2006) |
opal
Intermediate Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 178
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 12, 2006 - 11:18 pm: |
|
That's true, but I didn't see his eyes. He was leaning forward and sideways and I would have had to lean in to peer at the man.
It was just the image that seemed to fit there to tell the story the right way. I was touched by him either way. |
slw
Advanced Member
Username: slw
Post Number: 436
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, August 12, 2006 - 11:24 pm: |
|
opal, Good story! I don't know how you kept your seat! My husband and I saw a man like that one time driving down the freeway, pencil thin! Too thin to be real.
Aliens, hybrids, or whatever they are, seem to use public transportation alot. I've thought it could be to familiarize themselves with humans but sometimes they get it wrong. |
opal
Intermediate Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 194
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 - 1:26 pm: |
|
Funny, the idea that aliens and hybrids use public transit just sat right with me.
When I read it - it cinched in my gut and said - Oh yes, perfect sense.
lol |
dirkwright
Senior Member
Username: dirkwright
Post Number: 650
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 - 8:07 pm: |
|
My beloved Goddess,
How holy thou art,
You complete me,
You make me whole,
Without you, I would be nothing.
My beloved Goddess,
How wonderous thou art,
You inspire me,
You make me dance,
Without you, I could not move.
My beloved Goddess,
How joyous thou art,
You heal me,
You make me laugh,
Without you, I could not think.
My beloved Goddess,
How delightful thou art,
You are me,
You make me a God,
Without you, nothing would exist. |
slw
Advanced Member
Username: slw
Post Number: 438
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 - 11:20 pm: |
|
dirkwright, The above is a lovely poem. Did you mean to post it under the OBE thread? |
Summer
Intermediate Member
Username: summer
Post Number: 116
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 2:26 am: |
|
Opal, I enjoyed reading your story about the bus ride with the hybrid. It reminded me of a visit my adult daughter had to a doctor one day. She went to her appointment with an Allergist. She said the office was empty. There wasn't even a receptionist. The doctor came out and brought her back to an exam room. She said he was so strange. He was very short, had white blond hair with pasty white skin. He spoke really different and she said it was so weird. This is my "blond" child that I have seen the grays around her since she was newborn. She's very conservative and doesn't believe the ET stuff. She gets upset if I try to talk to her about it. She grew up going to the Johnson Space Center and loves anything to do with space. She's extremely bright. It makes me wonder who he was. |
dirkwright
Senior Member
Username: dirkwright
Post Number: 652
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 7:53 am: |
|
A Goddess and her God,
Their bodies asleep in bed,
Back-to-back and close,
Sharing sheet and pillow,
Tucked in tight,
Sleeping in Peace.
A Goddess and her God,
Their minds in telepathic union,
Conversing in silence,
Sharing all knowledge,
All night long,
Talking in Love.
A Goddess and her God,
Their souls in joyous embrace,
Singing an ancient song,
Creating an infinite wisdom,
An eternal intimacy,
Perfection in Harmony.
(Message edited by dirkwright on August 15, 2006)
(Message edited by dirkwright on August 15, 2006)
(Message edited by dirkwright on August 15, 2006) |
opal
Advanced Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 201
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 1:59 pm: |
|
I believe it Summer, some things are best hidden in plain sight. Dirkwright I like your poems.
Two years are entirely missing, the rest is a pastiche of moments. The great green vinyl chair where my mouth braced in metal and latex went limp from gas. Hovering somewhere in that ivory room. All the 'doctor' visits: airports and planes for hours, to be viewed by small armies of white coats. Grim priests in their robes, knowing who had disturbed their pews and sepulchers. A ringleader for peers with firecrackers, cigarettes and water-guns. Straying for hours in parks and fields.
Two years missing. A disinterested but passionately biased observer in a private collage of vignettes. A Timeless mix of fantasy and forgotten events. A collusion of fact and fiction. No tidy progression of milestones culminating nicely into now.
All coincidental - Disneyworld, Vermont, Maine. Colored fork lightening over the Mediterranean; children selling heroin in Morocco. Did I fly in the biplane that missing two years, when I gave trout a christian burial and the men scoffed at the utility of girls. Dusty train rides to Malaga; moonies and queens in Torremolinos.
I have two welts over my right hip. They itch like newly healed scars and scare the rest of my body with the seriousness of their appearance. Not a superficial scratch but one that clutches my whole side with the threat of vertigo.
One night asleep, I went to another dimension where I refused to leave. That night I was given a uniform, the first encouragement. Weeks later, a medal. Time passed and one morning I saw three figures by my bed. They were draped in opulent purple robes. They placed a ring on my finger, slowly dissipating as I woke.
Somewhat startled at the mirror world's choice of finger, I called my channeling friend. - 'A ring is social power, or significant of gifts.' She reassured me, I'd hesitated at the solemnity of the ring. The eerie deja vu feel of inevitable.
Months passed and I woke terrified. Veins like ice-water, I thought of my dream. We had met in a new wood room. In a house built into a hill over cultivated land filled with remote beauty. He was cold and stern. War was in the air and he showed me the darkness it cast in the blue sky. He pointed to a village north-east and showed me the vast maze of ancient catacombs underneath it. He travels dimension there and he warned me of some of its other uses. It had been his ring.
Now he comes and goes in my dreams, sometimes forcing me on some instruction. Last night, I hid with some Berbers. They wanted to keep me and bound me with rings from head to toe. Purple robe came and I went with him reprimanded; scolding me with threats of the catacombs.
He showed me narrow, sharply inclined Spanish streets with large painted metal drums on either side of them. I was to run it like a bull/barrel race without the animals. It was fun and I woke too soon, with two welts over one hip, like I'd careened into a barrel and the ridges marked me. A psycho-somatic collusion of fact and fiction culminating into now.
(Message edited by albi on August 15, 2006) |
dirkwright
Senior Member
Username: dirkwright
Post Number: 658
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 3:49 pm: |
|
Thanks opal. I appreciate it. |
opal
Advanced Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 205
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 2:01 am: |
|
No problem, does a body good to see poetry wrought.
lol
Here's a zinger -
Kitty spent a year waking up in cold sweats. A dream could be outlandish and surreal and retain an element of truth, true enough to keep her awake. Dreams recur and Kitty had them.
There's an Emperor. He believes he's a God-King. Fierce, smart and charismatic, his eyes look like black magnets when they weigh the power of life and death over everyone. He's feared and adored.
He has a palace room where he entertains his court with an annual banquet of virgins. It's a costumed affair. Stage center, his table at the head. Distasteful to our standards. Some people have prepared their daughters for years for a coveted room in the palace. Many of them swoon as soon as he touches them. He has a room behind his table, where his picks wait their turn. Some families are betrayed and heart-broken when their daughter is re-sold
Others are less fortunate, orphaned, fancied or like 'kitty', sold to the 'demi-god'. There are dancers and music, a banquet, it goes on for hours. 10 or 20 are brought in at once. The audience din quells for their arrival. The belts are removed by the eunuchs and the bells ring off the high stone ceiling of the room. The audience cheers. The virgins always wear veils, even the odd boy.
They've all been plucked clean and hairless, except for whats left on their heads. Most are between 13 and 17 and are arrayed in gold and silver, painted with mehndi and drugged like their long flowing gauze. Willing or not, they all approach him with applause. Noone knows the number of his harem; who he keeps, sells or lets go. The annual banquet is the time to consolidate alliance and gain favour with the Emperor God-King.
They approach alone, where he proudly parades them to oohs and aahs. Another secret of lovemaking expressed in pantomine on each one. The crowd breathlessly waits to see who he chooses and who he discards. Those chosen are re-belted and sent to wait. The discards divided up among the Emperor's favorites.
Kitty is called and she almost faints when he leans in as if to taste her, boasting girls are ready by both fear and anticipation and he can tell the difference. The audience cheers. She's re-belted and sent to the back room. The other world more a dream than a memory, too numb to be afraid.
Heartless commerce? Better than the price of a pig - many girls sold for that every day, justify the Emperor's followers. What is our planet, but the daily auction block for slaves.
(Message edited by albi on August 16, 2006) |
opal
Advanced Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 235
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006 - 1:03 am: |
|
Time was irrelevant when he bought her out. She didn't make the connection between the wait and being spared, too shell-shocked to make many connections. Wasn't much left of what clung to him in gratitude in the back of the car traveling to the airplane. Only the familiar recognition of his clothes, his smell; it reminded her the other world was real.
She barely heard any of it. He spoke on and on with such gravity - the danger, the cost, his risks. She didn't notice his repeated mention of the cost. Didn't notice his intermittent confirmation that her virginity was intact. Didn't notice his salacious interest in the details. Didn't notice the emotional blackmail - as he slowly wove a web around her soul, congratulating himself and tenderly caressing her wasted frame. She didn't notice until later.
He took her beach-front on the Mediterranean. He was suave, attentive and all-knowing. She had tried to penetrate her own virginity before the beating and it now seemed imperative to get rid of it. She thought that she loved him that night. Sometimes she still believes he bought her out for love of her. He always bailed her out of jams, like waking up in the wrong city.
It had all been a set-up; aided by some childhood conditioning. Safer to assume it that way. Her body had betrayed her both times. First, at the auction, she was a slave to someone else's needs; then with her handler, she was a slave to her own. Easier to believe lies. He always said most people were slaves to their lies and delusions.
(Message edited by albi on August 19, 2006) |
opal
Advanced Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 254
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 12:47 pm: |
|
Squinting to read the date, newsprint swam in her trembling hands. He'd put her in a chair by the pool. It was hot and he hadn't dressed her. Lilac hung thick and heavy in the air, a claustrophobic blanket.
His friend's mansion was built on African diamonds, that's all he told her. She tried to remember the day before her stay in his friend's wine-cellar. Their kitchen standing counter came to mind. She saw the pale coal-colored marble slab with blood on one corner. He only demanded his coffee in the morning, ready at the standing counter.
'Was it 3 weeks or 4', she tried to piece together how long she'd been in the wine-cellar. Peering at the date her eyes watered. She shivered in the heat and he ran with a blanket.
He'd examined her like a doctor. Or was it a doctor. Pulsed, poked and prodded; samples taken. Blindfold on for the first half-conscious sponge-bath. After he took it off, she only saw him. He came with the things that made her beg him to stay. He promised to let her out again.
That morning, she had been sick of coffee. Manolo's jacket was thrown on the floor by the couch. She was half asleep, straps askew and skirt wrinkled. He was quiet while his face slowly bloomed red with rage. He stripped her and dragged her to the kitchen. 'Stand at attention', he roared at her shoving her up against the pale cool counter. She tried to become invisible, then she was.
Grief washed over her in spasmodic shudders; confident that if only they'd had a small two-seated table everything would have been different. Wraith-like beside the opulent pool. |
dirkwright
Senior Member
Username: dirkwright
Post Number: 790
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 01, 2006 - 10:31 am: |
|
You and I, Found
Drifting in a sea of dreams,
Each in a little boat,
Wandering with the tide,
We slept.
I stare at the blue sky,
An infinite azure and clouds,
And I wonder, I hope,
Am I alone?
I lie in the boat's bottom,
Drifting and wondering,
For eons, thinking, learning,
But for what reason?
I pray one night to the stars,
To the stars I emote,
I want to know,
Can you feel me?
I let emotion overcome me,
The love it flows from me,
To the vast unknown,
Can you feel me?
A bump I feel on my boat,
A little shy tap,
Startled, I sit up,
Another boat is there.
I sit up and look,
A woman in the other boat,
A woman serene,
Are you she?
I rub my eyes and wonder,
At the woman in the other boat,
So beautiful and serene,
I think you are she.
I gaze into her brown eyes,
Those eyes of deep mystery,
I feel compelled, overwhelmed,
I see myself staring back.
My jaw drops open,
How can this be,
A woman in a boat,
And she is me. |
dirkwright
Senior Member
Username: dirkwright
Post Number: 796
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 6:36 am: |
|
Sailing
A Goddess and her God,
A skipper and her crew,
Racing a Flying Scot sloop,
On the Chesapeake Bay.
A Goddess at the helm,
A radiant jewel in command,
Gaze fixed on course and tack,
Giving orders with grace and style.
A God as her crew,
A servant to her command,
Working halyard and sheet,
Obedient and trusting in love.
Together they sailed as One,
A ballet of movement on the water,
A team filled with love and trust,
Forever sailing the Chesapeake Bay. |
opal
Senior Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 559
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 11:15 am: |
|
One night, Chloris saw Zephyrus coming out of a Mac's Milk.
His distorted face enraged;
Hood up, lip curled in a snarl.
Clutching a bag to his chest,
He bored angrily into her eyes.
Chloris looked down, it came naturally.
~
There in the morning
Zephyrus' hooded messenger
Stock-still on the ground
Half in the bushes
His face in the leaves
Not a sound.
(Message edited by albi on September 02, 2006) |
opal
Senior Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 655
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 3:32 pm: |
|
It wasn't like normal consciousness, it was like a suspension - like a watcher stretched between polarity. Panic welled, or the distant memory of panic, and attached itself like an accessory to the patina of images and meanings that swirled through watcher's eye. Swirled impotent and unattainable; a myriad of consequence for all past and future choice. There was the notion of movement, though she couldn't move at all.
Another face super-imposed itself and something was explained but she couldn't hear it. The roar of her own realizations taking shape as terror. No body with which to be afraid. A terrible drone set in, as though her spirit were being pressed upon - not painful or even uncomfortable, all-encompassing. The drone was all of her. 'It's not a canker', was her last thought before unconsciousness.
Her long blonde hair tumbled over her back, she shivered with the liquid sensuality of it. The body was aroused beyond reason or thought. Yearning, yearning, yearning - was all she felt. One touch and it was complete ecstasy.
People looked funny next day. Feeling stretched across an age; not really a part of this one. Some of them just looked like 'meat', appearing as a cold and impersonal calculation on the next meal or rut. Worse than animals; more capable. Other's more pleasant, while her brain addles her with strange thoughts. 'Just shut-up' she thinks; calling her names she hadn't spelt yet.
So raw, opened up like the first time here.
Hard to go outside.
Hard to think for the voices.
Pick your time wanderer.
She thought she wouldn't make it a week. Could have gone either way; that's always a choice. |
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 904
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 21, 2006 - 4:10 pm: |
|
Time for more. |
opal
Senior Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 1024
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 2:39 pm: |
|
You better make your face up,
In your favorite disguise,
With your button-down lips,
And your roller blind eyes.
With your empty smile,
And your hungry heart,
Feel the bile rising,
From your guilty past.
With your nerves in tatters,
As the cockleshell shatters,
And the hammers batter,
Down your door,
You better run.
You better run all day,
And run all night.
And keep your dirty feelings deep inside.
And if you're taking your girlfriend out tonight,
You better park the car well out of sight.
cause if they catch you in the back seat,
Trying to pick her locks,
They're gonna send you back to mother,
In a cardboard box.
You better run!
- Pink Floyd |
opal
Senior Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 1025
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 7:00 pm: |
|
Bodies don't lie and it was the overwhelming physical immediacy of the feelings that terrified her. As though she'd slipped through a portal in the matrix and was condemned to relive a million years of history alone. It had really all started the morning of the ring. She had been right to have an uneasy feeling about it. They hadn't even asked, just slipped it on her finger with great solemnity. It was her birthday and she decided to be elated about it; not knowing where it came from. The feeling hadn't lasted long, coalescing into lasting doubts of a suspected burden.
The figures in the dream had been distinctive and they began to appear at night with more regularity. She didn't mind, only they were much too serious. They weren't always the same people, they were always the same tribe. Elegant though big, they wore garments from another time and place; medieval flowing robes and tunics. They travelled in our world - that morning there had been four or five gathered around the bed, when they slipped the ring on her finger.
One man in particular seemed to be the leader and he had built a house for her that he would visit her in. It was a rustic wooden house, beautiful in its simplicity; somehow combining high ceilings with a cozy feel. Nestled into the side of a verdant green mountain. There he would sit at the table he had given her and converse morosely about difficult dangers ahead. She just wanted to go out and play; he advised she stay in the house.
He permitted her inner child to go play and told her to stay in the house. One day the child came back all excited about something she'd found. Ignoring the warning, she followed the kid into the catacombs. Before the child could show her what she had found they came upon a horrible demon. A huge contorted face carved into a living rock wall, threatening to consume them both - body and soul. She scooped the kid into her arms and awoke terrified.
Dreams took on new importance. She realized they'd changed the shape of a room. Or weren't bothering to update how she saw things. There were other rooms, she just knew. She was naked. The aching made her remember. They had stood around watching and she could hear their comments; so bizarre, it had increased the strangeness of the memory. Surreal fantasy filled with barbs at nursed and denied insecurities.
How does a single event that never happened cause so much damage. The strange bump, as though a tear had gotten frozen in the transport. Little psychic danders taking root with every mental invasion of imagery and sound. Just take all those years of experience and throw them up into unhinged irrelevant meanings, as though the time stream itself had been ripped. A pet bound by a ring. A viral memes, a stream of hurt. Alien psycho-therapy, bio-chemical short-circuits. |
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 1605
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 8:02 pm: |
|
I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am taffy stuck and tongue tied
Stutter shook and uptight
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am fine
I am covered in skin
No one gets to come in
Pull me out from inside
I am folded and unfolded and unfolding
I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am fine
Qua da di
|
opal
Senior Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 1027
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 8:07 pm: |
|
I love that one. |
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 1606
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 8:11 pm: |
|
words by Adam F Duritz but my flag song
Qua da di
|
opal
Senior Member
Username: albi
Post Number: 1093
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 5:56 am: |
|
That day was cold with the pervasive, wind-swept, dusty snow of deep winter. The building had a fading coat of the institutional green that lent its sinister pretense to so many classrooms and hospital beds in the 60's and 70's. There was a narrow wood staircase that ran the length of the two stories, connecting them. A squat pale rectangular brick building, non-descript. One of hundreds that lined the working class neighbourhood; two-stories with exterior stair-cases. It was at the end of a street a little larger and more solid than the rest. The view from the road revealed the hilly part of lower-town, just beyond the old wall - that drive was made many times.
Part of her was slowly walking up and down, up and down the stairs. 10 steps, 9 steps, 8 steps, all the way to the basement or up into the clouds. This arm is frozen and floats in the air and this arm is on fire and suddenly not there.
Osiris felt it when he was in 14 pieces, the farther they took the pieces away from each other the more it hurt. If the old grind up their bones and drink it, they feel that too. They made Prometheus a demi-god just so he could suffer it.
'Most of them just disappear after a while, little brides of Christ racing for the portals.' He'll be waiting - he made a vow. At the old long covered bridge made with dimly fitted planks of greying ancient wood. Where the 'tube-doll' children all sitting still as statue, glow like picture tubes.
'Most will migrate like animals', he droned in an off-hand way.
I'm not listening to anymore Sinister Forces. |
Hale
Advanced Member
Username: hale
Post Number: 431
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - 1:00 am: |
|
In the changing seasons I have been thinking about seeds and regeneration, and what might lie beneath their drive to recreate themselves. Well, it is a little more than just that as it catches us in its net of amazement and yearning. Hence, "The Yearning." The seed of this writing came from some spontaeneous thoughts about the need to keep seeds on hand for harder times, then a sync with some prophecies amongst the Indians, and then having a magazine staring at me from across the store that had as its centerfold seeds and the words "sex" written on the page. I felt like life was trying to tell me something. I have held off a while in posting this just because it is so personal, but what the hell.
______________________________________________
The fields are wet from rain, after the corn has been harvested. Trees turn slowly from green to yellow, then gold. The air cools, and the mind thinks back on days when life was brimming over and the air was thick with the smell of pollen. The same corn, nothing now but stubble, stood gold and green then with tassles swaying in the breeze, releasing their sweet nutty smell. To some it was just a delightful thing that marks the passage of seasons, a fragrance like any flower.
For me, it is more than that. It speaks of life seeking its own, desire to make itself over; a new generation. A yearning, a leaning toward the wind in the hopes that nature will take care of nature, and carry its life giving sweetness on the air to waiting seeds, waiting for that breath of life, that germ of passion that makes the flowers grow, and life turn ‘round one more time in the endless cycles this world is so well known for.
Seeds and plants and pollen, all lean into passion in ways we can scarcely imagine. For this is the glue that keeps life going. For them, it must be pleasurable, a passionate act of giving, of release, and immersion into a mystery far older than our own known seasons, our own individual lives and experiences. This is the gravity that pulls them, moves them to continue.
How can it be any other?
Why then would life seek to replace itself through an act as perfunctory as dropping an apple from a tree? No, the drop of the apple is not perfunctory, or a second thought, but part of a yearning to become, a part of merging with some larger dance. If trees can't feel this, then why continue? Why go on? Perhaps in measures we can only guess or imagine, there is some divine spark of wantonness, of passion and pleasure bound within their shells of being. How can it be any other? In being this, they feel no shame.
I know that seeds seek and yearn and hope and dream; dreams perhaps that are so different I could never scarcely imagine or see them for what they are. And yet, it seems inescapable that these creatures, ancient as all of life here, yearn for the touch of pollen upon their seed pods and enclosures, waiting patiently for the bee to carry their spawn beyond them into other regions where others await the touch of the life giving sparks that enliven and awaken a new generation
So even we do these same things, even we make this dance of longing and yearning, so old and ancient that its root can escape us as we are caught up as if in some whirlwind, some deeper dance both of passion and letting go as we give ourselves to life’s great mystery, to its passionate embrace, and longing that brings us to this place, this wonder filled state where our minds and bodies and hearts are excited beyond the normal trebling that life so often gives or provides.
To touch my eye with your eye, to touch smile to smile, or hand to hand, we join in this ancient dance, this passionate longing for life seeking to complete itself, and in so doing, complete ourselves. Round and round we turn, like stars upon an endless wheel that rolls and ducks and sways in the lost night of time. We are carried one by the other, some by our imaginings, some by the real, but always by the same glue that keeps life turning turning back and forward at once, calling to the roots of what it was to the heavens of what it will become.
So as our hands embrace, our smiles merge, as face becomes face, and eye becomes eye; as flesh becomes flesh, we excite in this dance, this subtle movement first tentative, then more certain as we are gathered by the compass of its certainty, of its need to move as it moves, which is ever forward into endless days and tomorrow's.
We came here as boundless beings who knew neither limit nor touch, and followed down into narrow pathways into minds of earthlings, like spirits on a cosmic voyage, we entered the world of limit and pain and loneliness, only to be called back through forces that were brought to bear in this world, moving us through realms of limit and bounding to that greater reminder that this is a dance of mystery, passion, and love. In this love we touch the infinite, wrapped in that which pulls and grabs at us like hawk talons grasping talons in a spiral dance of yearning, moving us one step beyond this one, seeking the divine, touching upon the infinite.
10/13/06 7:30-7:34 pm
"No Guru, no method, no teacher, Just you and I and nature"- Van Morrison
|
Mama Shine
Advanced Member
Username: mama_shine
Post Number: 214
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - 4:18 pm: |
|
Hale Thank you for sharing these thoughts--I'm going to put them in my pipe and smoke them--real interesting.
My thing is "seed thoughts" I like to plant them in folks--have for ages--if they don't take root--so be it. Yes, I think Sumari (was what Jane Roberts used). Thanks for reminding me. Glad you liked my brother's Haiku.
Like a bolt out of the blue,
Fate steps in and sees you through.....
|
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 2221
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 7:45 pm: |
|
Almost Prose
Don't the sky look funny
Don't it look kinda chewed-on like
Don't you feel like running
Don't you feel like running from the
dawn's early light.
Quite ugly one morning
We all said goodnight
It came without warning
Just a flash of light
Don't you feel kinda funny
Don't you feel kind of funny inside
When you feel like laughing
And everybody tells you - you ought
to be crying
Quite ugly one morning
we all said goodnight
It came without warning
But it was quite alright
Qua da di
|
Joshua
Advanced Member
Username: soilride
Post Number: 262
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, November 12, 2006 - 7:30 pm: |
|
What do I feel like tonight?
a dream came to me the night before last
a woman who was taken by me and my betrayal of her
and a civil War in which children fought
I remember maps, compasses, islands and fortifications
all preparations
and woke up groggily to decide to do nothing but saturate my
morning reading the intimate diary entries of Sylvia Plath to long ago music (and sometimes OK GO)
and an old man came to me
out of the shadows - a strong old man, strong in spirit
finally the mouthpiece I've been looking for
A mouthpiece and a mouthguard
Tonight I feel incredibly
but contently...
full
I am ready, or shall I say, I am readying myself for the journey and the war
to become a little god of a history of another world
"Of all the valuable capital the world possesses, the most valuable and most decisive is people."
- J.V. STALIN
|
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 2452
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, November 18, 2006 - 3:33 pm: |
|
For Joshua..
From the album White Mansions:
PAUL KENNERLEY
Sung by The Drifter(w.jennings)&Polly(J.Colter)
The Union mare A Confederate Grey
Two horses were trotting,they pranced and
they ran
Each one was commanded by a cavalry man
Two horses stood grazing where their dead
riders lay
A Union mare and A Confederate grey
They nuzzeled each other as they teased
and had fun
They bathed in the warm rays of the old
Suthern sun
No more sensless orders for them to obey
So they acted like lovers,this mare & this
grey
Instrumental..
Now these are such sad times that were all
living in
For killing your brother is the mightiest
sin
How happy we'd be if we acted the way
Of the union mare and the confederate grey
Instrumental..
Two horses were trotting,they pranced
and they ran
Each one was commanded by a cavalry man
Two horses stood grazing where their
dead riders lay
a Union mare a Confederate grey
(Message edited by buddie on November 18, 2006)
Qua da di
|
Stephen in AZ
Senior Member
Username: stephenm
Post Number: 1014
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 07, 2006 - 8:57 pm: |
|
I put this post
Upon this place
So that this thread
Stays in the race
So that it lives
Another day
And so more posts
Might find their way
Perhaps a post
From you will come
Posts are needed
As a race is run
Some threads win
And some must go
Let this thread stay
Let the words flow
As time moves on
Let this thread rise
And be a delight
To everyone's eyes
Let posters post
And viewers watch
And be inspired
And ideas hatch
So that this thread
Should never die
And in old age
Be forever spry
I put this post
Upon this place
Let your post come
Come join the race |
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 2755
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Friday, December 08, 2006 - 1:44 pm: |
|
Have you ever held in doubt
What this life is all about
Have you questioned all these things
Do you really wanna know
Or are you a little scared
What should I hold onto
and what should I do
How do I know if anythings true
I'm somewhere in between Canaan and Egypt
A place called the wilderness
Qua da di
|
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 2860
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 1:21 pm: |
|
Die Gedanken Sind Frei,Wer kann sie erraten?
My thoughts are free,Who can guess them?
My thoughts freely flower
My thoughts give me power
No scholar can map them
No hunter can trap them
No man can deny them
Die Gedanken Sind Frie....
I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure
My conscience decrees
This right I must treasure
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator
No man can deny
Die Gedanken Sind Frei....
And if tyrants take me
And throw me in prison
My thoughts will burst free
Like blossoms in season
Foundations will crumble
The structure will tumble
And free men will cry
Die Gedanken Sind Frei....
Neither trouble or pain
Will ever touch me again
No good comes of fretting
My hopes in forgetting
Within myself still
I can think as I will
So I laugh, do not cry
Die Gedanken Sind Frei....
Traditional....
Qua da di
|
Ninanna
New member
Username: numen
Post Number: 1
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, December 15, 2006 - 12:24 pm: |
|
There are strange creatures in the world and they dream of us, as we do of them. We look horrible and strange to them, covered in hair, bulging in odd places, emitting sour odors, faces stretched in grimaces of terror or masks of forced condescension approximating self-congratulatory affects of graciousness.
They travel on wind and winds of time, between dream and waking. Small and large, they people the forests, knots of trees, the dusty desert regions, the unmapped ocean floors and beyond the sky, beyond the atmosphere. They travel into the endless night and mystery of the star regions.
All shapes and sizes, some can change at will. Not subject to the states and councils constructed to build human meaning into human hungers, both here and in the spirit realm. No large, white-bearded man will command them into heaven or hell. They laugh or hiss human judgements back into the brimstone licking at the edges of human sounds.
Money means nothing to them, nor does youth - beauty they love. Pretension at friendship doesn't interest them. If you are serving the All That Is, you serve with them.
Feral as the tsunami or earthquake and more unpredictable, they don't want to be caged in; placed behind bars or windows, into aquariums or jail cells of meanings. Animals are sad in cages, they won't join them: not in the displays made to house King Kong, not in the zoo's built for the endangered ones.
They're waiting unimpressed, uncompelled to encourage the frenzied and giddy self-destruction. Sometimes they pick a favorite. A faerie child or Rumpelstiltskin compromise to dream with and carry off to another realm, never understanding the grief of those left behind in this one. Quite convinced - it's a righteous claim.
Sometimes they spare someone. Or let them keep a favorite changeling. Then they bang on walls and whip window shutters at night or howl mournful dirges through branches stripped of leaves. So distraught to leave one alone in this world, or peeved at the unwelcome state of adoption for what truly is their own home, they steal moments of reunion by midnight's dreams and dawn's forgotten glory. |
buddie
Senior Member
Username: buddie
Post Number: 2929
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, December 16, 2006 - 3:13 pm: |
|
I was trying to remember where I saw
Ninanna before you came to WCT thread
That piece should be part of a book..
I'm really wanting it to continue
Qua da di
|
Jera uruz
Intermediate Member
Username: numen
Post Number: 189
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006 - 10:53 pm: |
|
You'll be one of the first to see it. Five minutes a day....
This is chunky and didactic but I just want to say it.
There is a plaque at Bergen Belsen that lays all the blame of the holocaust at the feet of the German nazis. In light of MOTK's remark -"All are responsible", I've compiled the following note.
The psychological consequence of living under pathocratic rule for centuries on end, rule that is justified by violence with fleeting regard to social justice, is a cyclical flowering of brutal social eruption. An eruption of violence so pathological that it's history needs to be examined to be understood.
Jews are well aware of the centuries old practice of progroms enacting by every European monarch and authority looking for a scapegoat on which to vent the rage of the populus. As a result of their religious dictates to use only fresh running streams, black plague was attributed to their of poisoning the wells. Whenever authority was helpless to address a wrong or responsible for it, the Jews made a good scapegoat for the frustration and rage of the citzenry. The Jewish diaspora lived under constant persecution in the West and the holocaust was an extension of that tradition.
Every Machiavellian politico knows that a good scapegoat is key to achieving support from a citizen base, especially when they are concerned with diverting issues. Napoleon chose the aristocracy. Hitler knew a good scapegoat when he saw one. He gave the people what they wanted. That's not to say that everyone supported Hitler's actions, but the response of Western governments to the refugees pouring out of Germany at the time seems to suggest they did. Not one would open their borders; they sent them all back to be killed. Shanghai was one of the only ports open to Jewish refugees at the time. Hitler himself was shocked and pleasantly surprised with the lazy acquiescence with which the Western nations condoned his progrom.
It probably contributed a great deal to his madness and nazi 'animal kingdom' certitudes that heaped so much contempt on humanity. Hitler the vegetarian liked to disparage Goering's appetite for hunting and meat - "Pigs eat pigs", he once said, so convinced of his own discerning social refinements. The nazi's loved justifying their actions with Darwin's theory of evolution. Today we often see natural selection cited as the reason for 1 billion people using 86% of all the goods on the market, leaving 14% for the remaining 5 billion. Hitler was shot up in the morning by his doctor to wake up, shot up all day to keep going and shot up at night to go to sleep. The man was obviously pathological. The world is content to lay full responsibility for these atrocities at his feet. Yet the world sat idly by and encouraged the massacre by doing nothing. What drugs or madness gripped the German people and the Western nations that condoned his pathology. The racist, fascist doctrines of nazi Germany have not been eradicated, they have evolved.
Today we see a great deal of current nefarious social behaviour still pinned on the nazis. Without regard to the place in which it fits into social and economic expectations, it's fruitless to lay blame without taking any responsibility for the contribution they have made in maintaining the disparity in the distribution of goods. They've done the job the people expected of them, then and now. The pursuit of power, in the name of perpetuating a military and economic advantage. Our history has never surpassed that of warring tribes fighting over resources and now the game is global. The very mention of socialism elicits a knee-jerk sneer from many a 'good' North American who will then go on to crow about the generosity of their charity. While the foreign aid our governments send overseas is more often than not directed toward bolstering social systems and military dictatorships that insure poverty will worsen for the many and wealth will increase for the few. Norway is consistently voted best for human quality of living and they are a socialist government with a free market. Yet, socialism is still regarded by many in North America as a form of communism. The nazis have fostered North America's rise of corporate fascism in the name of freedom. Sharing is a dirty word.
The night of Kristallnacht, was not enacted or condoned only by brownshirts, it was made possible by historical anti-semitic precedents. Just as the 'God's cleaned up the slums' response to the dead and dying of New Orleans has it's social history in the scapegoating of the poor. Many German's didn't see the camps, they could pretend it wasn't real. The response to Katrina revealed many people take a homicidal pleasure in watching the eradication of the poor; muted and cowed outrage from the rest. There has been no accountability for the crimes of negligence and outright malfeasance committed there. Reminiscent of the scapegoating policies of earlier campaigns, the conservatives won a provincial election by blaming the poor for government debt. Social programs were eradicated, single mothers were told to go 'work the strip with the other pigs'. (75% of men don't pay child support.) All managed by a spin doctor who also supported Ollie North's bid for government office. The province was further in debt when they left. Many citizens of wealthy nations never see the devastation wreaked as a result of disparity in the distribution of goods, they pretend it's not happening or that it's natural selection. Every Westerner has 5 slaves, they will never meet and do not feel responsible for. Every man, woman and child for themselves. New Orleans was our Kristallnacht.
Greater balance in the economic arena would not result in equal misery for all unless one measures happiness by the acquisition of material wealth. If we are really interested in spiritual ascension and the pursuit of mind over matter then the first place to start is with the pleasure of altruism. Not charity as it is characterized by cruelty and frailty, but a true vision of the nurturing of man's soul. So far the only thing in human history to give in abundance to both rich and poor is the earth.
There is a picture at Bergen Belsen of smiling SS officers, those same smiling faces are on all the citizens of the wealthy nations who support or remain willfully unaware of the economic platforms that starve and degrade entire continents into extinction. Water is now more expensive than gas, but because people here are not yet thirsty, they continue to buy it up supporting an industry that literally forces people to die of thirst. Plastic bottles choke landfills and leech into groundwater. Creating a vicious tightening circle of greed for the trillion dollar a year industry. Under Nafta and Gatt, water is a human need, not a right - if there's no money for it, a person will die for want of it. Even if it falls from the sky. Smiling people drinking fashionable water.
The camps should remain as reminders not only of how evil some SS men were, but of the evil of which all of humanity is capable. Victor Frankel in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning" about his experience as a prisoner in Auschwitz, points out that the brutal conditions of the camp turned both inmates and guards into monsters and much more rarely - both inmates and guards into people willing to risk their own lives to go against the rules and be kind under the most barbarous and dehumanizing conditions. Germany ended in devastation. Was it the result of thought creating matter for them. They imagined they were creating a superior society but in fact produced genocide and terror.
So who is responsible? All are responsible.
Holocaust
We all died there.
Driven to the edge of town
lined up against open pits
buried alive,
when short a bullet -
Never wasted on infants.
Driven into sooty camps
worked to death
sons and wives
slaughtered first.
He saw the Virgin.
She took his soul
led his body through the water
under the gate
over the fields
through the night-black water.
Bullets went through him,
no blood.
Just the vision -
She left with him.
He couldn't stay anymore.
He went home
with his first born.
We all died.
Left to wander through rubble
burnt out buildings
pock-marked fields
filled with parts and limbs.
He built a new life
with a new wife -
new children.
All dead.
Dread of the night
revolve the same return.
Nothing left to give but
Killing for the right
to not be killed again.
Santa is God and Foozball is the devil.
|
|