60,3913  N, 5,3221 E, Bergen, 22.05.17

The Germans wear you down spiritually. They look through you with eyes of ice. It hurts when you see your friends turn their back on you. When you see the girl you loved, kissed in the canteen by a *****.  Your heart burns. What has he got that I haven’t? Apart from the muscle that pads out his boiler suit. No-one wants an intelligent man. I sit here sipping coffee in a fishing village café in Bergen. The coffee is hot and my heart aches. Soon we will be making our way up through the fjords to Geiranger. The beautiful fjords that embrace you. There is not so much to bear witness to here. The Gravlax is poor and overrated. Everything is shut. The dreary rain comes down on * A colleague drove me all the way to Hardanger Bridge. The bridge that connects Oslo and Bergen is truly breath-taking. I have seen the Milau Bridge in the South of France, the Somerset Bridge, Clifton Suspension Bridge. However, this is really the highlight of Bergen; unless you are drunk.
17.00 - we leave for G.
62,1008 N, 72059, E, Geiranger, 23.05.17

I wrote to Nan last night. I asked for her guidance. I want everything to be okay with Aline. 05.00 hours I got up to see the Geiranger fjords. They were breathtaking; we passed the Rock God in the cliff face. Or rather; he let us pass. Norway is really a paradise. I think how people only think with their bellies. Helen the nurse abandons us half way up the waterfall. I turn back. The Germans have an acute interest only in themselves. One wonders where love lies. I have found Ole’s café – at the base camp of the waterfall. It is here I feel at home. At this coffee shop I must remember everything properly. I must also forget Helen and how angry she makes me feel.  Mr. Edin said: “It’s the system that makes them so. Everyone is born the same.”

62,0861, N, 6,8687 E, Hellesylt, 23.05.17

I hate my life. I hate my inability to fall in love with anyone and anyone to fall in love with me. These days I can’t stand to look at the face that I see in the mirror. Parts of me crumble away to dust. I feel more and more bitterness, in port, towards couples that have found love – to the point of absurdity. Ice-skating; I drift slowly around the rink. It is the only real time I feel complete when I am alone. I see a couple kissing and happy in love. I feel anger and a bitterness burning up within me.  Why can’t I find someone that loves me simply? Why do I have to do all this **** – the garbage of personal relationships. Hellesylt is truly beautiful. At least I feel at one with nature; even if I don’t fit in anywhere else.

59,4136 N, 5,2680, E, Haugesund, 24.05.17

The war against fat, like finding love, is ongoing. I always feel I am the loser. I am a loser. I am sat in a coffee shop overlooking the red and yellow houses. I try and chat up the waitress;  a beautiful Norwegian blonde. I try and embody the image of a sailor. It works to some extent, but actually only reflects back on myself as a person. The aching has grown less. The coffee helps to balm the dissatisfaction I feel with life; as does the view across the river. There is an English couple opposite. How can you complain with that view out across the river? Twenty-five degrees, surely we must be able to leave our pain behind? I feel myself become more and more alive; back to life. The wounds are healing again. The pain passes.

5,89700 N, 57331, E, Stavanger, 25.05.17
We are going to sit and hammer this out. This book, this journal, bears witness to life. That is its meaning.  Why is it so hard to find love and to be loved? I am only an anatomical structure – corruptible, breakable flesh. Stavanger is quite simply a boring town. You can walk from one end to the other in thirty minutes. There is a church; a freedom monument and slated, wooden houses. Yuliana the Belarusian pushes her body onto mine, beneath the Northern Lights like a teddy bear; she hugs me again and again, never letting me go. I kiss her delicately on the ear. She giggles. I can still hear her voice now and the smell of her sweet perfume. Oh, how I burn inside. How many thoughts and feelings wheel in an instant. How capricious this heart is. I must drink another coffee.

59,9139 N, 10,7522,E, Oslo, 26.05.17
I am on the hunt for a Durian fruit in Oslo. My hunt for Hardanger Beer with the appropriate label also continues. We dock right in the centre of Oslo. The sun warms me. Trust me to fall in love with the only lesbian on board. In Oslo’s most popular café, Kaffebereint,  I think how I get myself into such situations. Maybe it’s because I love long nails on a woman. She has forgotten her scarf. I should really do more sit up and visit the gym. My feet are too busy wandering. Sauna Night takes place onboard – a reward for all those who helped out at the party below the mooring deck. I serve punch and party the night away. For a while I forget the disappointment of people and the strangeness of my body. Oslo is beautifully serene. I walk in the footsteps of Ibsen. I try and make my writing smaller and smaller so that it is almost like Chinese ideograms. I close the gap. I try to be neater; to be better. I walk along the boulevards of coffee shops, wondering how I can be better.
53,35 N, 8,35 E, Bremerhaven, 28.05.17
I am back home (in home port) from the Nordic Voyage. I need to rest up in Hamburg before embarking on the next adventure to the Northern Cape. 21.06.17 at 1700 hours – Bergen. What else is there to report on as we approach the quaint fishing port of Bremerhaven? Home. Only that my ex-girlfriend from Algiers has given birth to a baby girl; she wrote to me. Two years old. Name: Eline. Letters are wonderful. The waves lap gently at the boat. If you ever thinking about writing a letter, you should; we haven’t spoken for two years and she writes to me, out of the blue, because of a Christmas card she picked up in Dar Es Salaam. That is life; life on a boat; life at sea; life on the breadline. A sailor’s life is a funny thing; full of unpredictability.  Even as an enthusiastic merchant sailor I can see the draw of this life. – as tough as I am, what else is there to say? Only that another adventure waits me in Hamburg –

The rest of this transcript, as subsequent potential voyages is lost.

Won boxing matches with Lewis , Lasky, Corn Griffin, Swiderski,
Then many more titles with Griffiths, Farr, Stillman, and Levandowski,

Jackson, Caggiano, Darnell and Dobson
Something he could tell his grandson

His greatest match of all was the title he earned against Max Baer
The fight was the ultimate win at Gardens of Madison Square

A very passionate man for his wife and children he went to great lengths
To keep his family together during the depression, even in times of brink

Served honorably in WWII as a 1st Lieutenant
Owned a surplus supplier of marine equipment

Helped to construct the bridge Verrazano
It was the proud city’s beautiful Picasso

Gone is Jim Braddock, a movie about him, CINDERELLA MAN to be sure he’s not forgotten
His Granddaughter Rosemarie Dewitt  played his neighbor Sara Wilson, who was downtrodden

Copyright 2014
All Rights Reserved
Biopoem

Easter Monday (2015)


The silence
It was the silence
As we entered the gates of hell.
Then…
The bird song,
It was the bird song
That chorused our way
To the well
Of tears at the wall
Of many tongues
That speak to the silence still,
Of the voices that cried
For the people who died
The void only time will fill.

The sun
It was the sun
Shining on the wooden cross.
And…
The sky
It was the sky
So blue, and flecked with the floss
Of clouds so white
So pure in light
That the wall of the well of tears
Transfigured the sin
We heap on Him
Whose loss for many
Is the only way
To feel the void time fills.

The woodpecker drummed a beat
On the trunks
Of the trees so parallel still.
A whisper of wind
That rebounds the sound
Of innumerable roll calls
Of the thousands who now
Lie deep in the cradles of mounds
Stone faced, inscribed Toten
With the number interred within
Verboten… now
But why not then?
In that world of men
And women, when humanity’s meaning
Was turned on end.
And a godless creed
That shadowed the world with grief
Which now for many,
Is beyond belief.

The stillness
It was the stillness
That gave silence the space to breathe,
To remember the times, the godless times
That now are so hard to believe.
But silence and stillness envelope the House
A silent place to be
To hear the past that shows the present
The prayers for a future that sees
What could be,
What can be
But will we
Learn, the history from then to now
To forge that future for future’s sake
And answer the question…
How?

David Applin
… late afternoon and evening of Easter Monday 6th April 2015 following a visit to Bergen-Belsen earlier in the day, completed 7th-9th April.

15th April 2015 … 70 years after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the British Army.

David Applin (Copyright 2015)

Quincy Valero
Everybody’s best friend
Jet black hair
Shiny brown eyes
A boyish smirk
Standing six foot something
Coming out of catholic school agnostic
Attending state college

Every word that came out of his mouth was a riot
A funny story of a bad situation he was in that he can laugh at now
An awkward moment with a girl he tried to get in bed
God awful train rides with a clueless conductor

Quincy Valero
A wanna-be Casanova
The irish-italian self-proclaimed “Don Juan of Dumont”
Roaring down the suburb streets in his bright yellow mustang
From Bergen county to Trenton
Edgewater to Ewing
Bumping R&B; from the 90's

A main girl
A side chick
And a few back pocket broads
Leading them on
To where?
I’m not even sure he knows

Quincy Valero
My best friend since I’ve been here in Purgatory
My lifelong cellmate
My hetero life mate
My brother of second thought
Our token white boy

He’s had his ups
Wild ragers until day break
A four way with me and two girls in my four door sedan
He’s had is downs
Falsely charged with domestic abuse
Community service, endless court room hearings, suspensions and a whole bunch of nonsense

Quincy Valero
The quintessential example of the modern day male
Stays up all night
Sleeps all day
Opportunistic
Egotistical
Miserly
*****
And hungry

Always aching to put in his two cents
And leaving everyone in a howl of laughter
An Adderall popping
Seasoned drinker
A professional *** smoker, coached by yours truly
Fast talking baritone voice
With a half serious tone

Yes, Quincy Valero
The tight plain white t-shirt wearing
Chino sporting
Nostalgic, slightly racist, sexist, anti-semitic
Bust usually honest, friendly and apologetic
Good hearted dude we all love to hate
And hate to love

Bed-headed
Pajama bottom ***
Talking about his Svedka regrets
And we laugh and laugh and the stupidest things
Then remember events that seem so long ago
And then make plans for tomorrow
Yeah, one of my best friends
My oldest friend
That’s Mr. Quincy Valero

in our
besieged republic

snipers are
popping up
everywhere

taking ***
shots

ending lives
with a well placed
head shot

active shooters
star in
world premier
events

jokers
rise like
dark knights
casting large
looming shadows
on real 3D cinemax
multiplexed screens

sprinkling overpriced
buckets of popcorn
with generous
dollops of blood

others
head back to
school
still ******
about missing
recess and
excessive
sentences
to detention
halls where
bullies tortured
scrawny inmates
with wedgies
and painful
***** twisters

they’ve
come back
to even the score

leaving
bullet hole
pockmarks on
Sharpie smudged  
smart boards
declaring endless
summer vacations
for classrooms
of children
who don’t
give wedgies
and only dream
of soft *****

these
urban guerillas
are now working
to liberate airports
from the tyranny
of TSA agents
fulfilling
PATRIOT ACT
duties for
10 bucks
an hour

and
last night
the latest
active shooter
showed up at
the Garden
State Plaza,
-my hometown
mall of america-
mumbling about his
Grand Theft Auto
score, strung out
and crashing
from an unfilled
pharma addiction
script

he grew
up as a
Highwayman
in Teaneck

a former
classmate
working
at Nordstroms
said he was
a really good kid

he was,
one of the good ones,
he could have shot
some people
but the only
person he
shot in the head
was himself

legions of
police officers
surrounding the mall
stood down
grateful for overtime
milling about
in the flashing
red strobes
inhaling the heady
blue fumes
rising to commend
Bergen County
Blue Laws and
next Sunday’s
time and a half
active shooter
training day

Jimi Hendrix:
Machine Gun

Oakland
11/5/13
jbm

(Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas.
I was a plaything, a rat's neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff.
Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon.
Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky,
A night harbor, blue dusk mountain shoulders against a night sky,
And a circle of lights blinking: Ninety thousand people here.
  Among the Wednesday night thousands in goloshes and coats slickered for rain,
  I learned how hungry I was for streets and people.
  
I would rather be water than anything else.
I saw a drive of salt fog and mist in the North Atlantic and an iceberg dusky as a cloud in the gray of morning.
And I saw the dream pools of fjords in Norway ... and the scarf of dancing water on the rocks and over the edges of mountain shelves.
Bury me in a mountain graveyard in Norway.
Three tongues of water sing around it with snow from the mountains.
  
Bury me in the North Atlantic.
A fog there from Iceland will be a murmur in gray over me and a long deep wind sob always.
  
Bury me in an Illinois cornfield.
The blizzards loosen their pipe ***** voluntaries in winter stubble and the spring rains and the fall rains bring letters from the sea.

The year was nineteen forty six, the memories still raw,
Europe’s Jews were still encamped as they had been before.
True, they now had food to eat and decent clothes to wear,
But in that Displaced Persons camp, little else to spare.

When Lilly told her fiancé about her dream one night;
her standing beneath the chuppah in a flowing gown of white,
Ludwig promised Lilly that her vision would come true,
but in a displaced person’s camp that might be hard to do.

A former Luftwaffe pilot proved an angel in disguise;
Ludwig traded, for his parachute, some coffee and supplies.
Miriam, the seamstress, swore to do her best
to fashion the silk parachute into a wedding dress.

Some miles from Bergen Belsen lies the little town of Celle
Its desecrated synagogue would serve the couple well.
They made an Aron Kodesh from a kitchen cabinet
A Rabbi, flown from England, would officiate their fete.


Lilly’s gown was beautiful, the bride felt like a Queen
Within the battered synagogue, her wedding matched her dream.
Miriam’s creation would be worn by many more;
Girls from camp made brides in white that year after the war.

The Gown’s in a museum now, the bride now old and gray.
She lives nearby in Brooklyn in a house down by the bay.
Her lovely great granddaughter, her loving heart’s delight,
now has the dream of being wed in a gown of flowing white.

three of four funerals
gun collection, gun
long narrow boxes in the trunk of my first car

Dad’s dad, Bergen-Belsen, babbling
Dad’s mom, floorboards
Mom’s dad, collectibles
Mom’s mom, alcoholic

obituaries, guns, boxes, garages
adults, guns, St. Peter, Joni

Dad’s dad, lessons, dreams
Dad’s mom, cabbage recipe
Mom’s dad, extra hugs
Mom’s mom, low blows

memories, value, months
A pawn shop good rate
moral boundaries:
kids on the street, no parents

I speak of fear, sheer limbic,
Reptilian fear, and there’s the rub:
Obliterate thought and all that’s left is fear,
And fear’s known associates & cronies:
Hunger, Thirst, *** & everything else
Triggering our amygdale nether brains,
Each synapse a single primal scream,
Rich Reichian fodder and sacrificial yawp,
Whitman’s bleating syllable, straight bedrock,
Down low on the Hierarchy of Human Needs.
Abraham Maslow: another shrewd Jew from
Brooklyn, New York. Atta boy Abe:
Adrenaline pure and simple,
An instinct for survival.
I suppose my only regret in life,
Was that I was not old enough to be
A victim of the Holocaust.
I mean nothing facetious or disrespectful by this.
(Like Jesus, I was born a Jew.)
All I mean is that a stint at Auschwitz or
Bergen-Belsen, might have done wonders for me,
Saving me much time, given the number of books
I’ve read on the subject, just trying to get my heart &
Mind around the throat of evil.
My story is truth, not science fiction.
Yet, I confess to having some difficulty
Discerning the difference lately.
Perhaps this is why my mind wanders.
That’s probably what I love best about Stanley Kubrick—
Another insightful New York Jew.
His vision of space, namely the shrewd perception,
That after 5,000 years of recorded human history,
It was going to be difficult.
It would be a challenging enterprise,
Noodging the human race to choose,
A more cerebral path;
A state of mind & brilliant grace,
Embrace a kinder, fearless self and future.
Kubrick understood he must first take us to Odulvai,
Our primal anthropological killing fields,
Then he could transport us to outer space.
Only then, could we evolve,
Adapt to cooperation and tolerance,
Shift our future focus,
Our natural and spiritual resources,
Our potential.
Collaboration not competition.
2001: A Space Odyssey: released
A year before the Apollo program
Put a man on the moon, five years
Before the space station Skylab.
Kubrick’s gift to mankind was a clear new perspective:
Man in space looking back at a very small holistic Earth,
And an infant self, both diminished,
Made insignificant in a vast cosmic context.
Other forces were at work, of course,
Lying in wait as always, global forces
Co-opting the vision, drowning it in an old
Unabashedly mercantile reality.
That Darwinian old world order,
Again, reducing human existence
To an economic absurdity.
Globalism: the scariest Bond villain yet.

***** Jersey
You are unworthy
From the infamous Jersey shore
To the depths of Bergen county
You hound me

Thank god sandy got rid of that cesspool by the way

Anyone ever hear of Lodi?
No?, ok...     Moving on,

New Jersey, the ideal place for parents who have small children

Once they are teenagers
They will rip their parents apart for condemning them to a suburban hellhole

For sentencing them to an infernal purgatory, where if you have no car, you are stuck at home, and unless you walk to a bus stop and take the bus somewhere else, you have no job

So you find your best friend...

Marijuana

And then you start selling it and you now have a job

Drug dealer.

Find a pill counter who works at Walgreens pharmacy and you have now
expanded your market

Oh ***** Jerz, for grey-ish skies
For sewage waves of stain,
for unemployed and worker slaves,
all for minimum wage.

How alike--both born in Bergen County
among mansions and stone-lined yards,
but my childhood had been framed with lace,
yours a light bulb broken before tasting electricity.

My mother called me your “moral compass.”
My sister said I kept you from disappearing--
as if you were born from leftover ashes
smearing the stone hearth black

as the nights we’d lie awake and you’d
asked me what color to repaint your bedroom
and how to talk to that boy from your class.
You insisted I spend every night at your house.

Sometimes, we’d race our fourwheelers wild,
I always lost, far behind you--and further still
when you found that skin-and-bone crowd with
*****-stained clothes, their teeth and eyes

yellow as their cigarette-tarred fingertips
and when they stumbled near, I smelled
breath foul as the stench of a mouse
dead in my car’s engine--slowly burning out.

~
Bring your whirlwinds with you;
in the snow angel summer
bring Margot the sun.

In the hour of red glare
a rush to pick slowberries
before getting caught up in the silk.

Prisms, mirrors, lenses!
strategies for combatting visibility:
keep your eyes closed,
face away from the window.

The myriad threads of people in hiding,
they eat their own web each day,
and yet something always shines
in the heart's secret annex.

Men and women are
separated from each other,
the girls are on a train
to the Bergen-Belsen,
"white founts falling
in the courts of the sun."

Margot now cries quietly;
so silently she weeps over
sunshine and hate.
~

Shut your bloodshot eyes
Release your tight fists
Take a deep breathe
And come to your senses

No not sight
Not hearing either
Neither taste nor touch
But something more

A gut feeling
Instincts
Emotions
Instinct

Listen to your heart
And your unconscious mind
Thoughts can betray you
Or can they aid you

There it is again the question
The quandary that’s reoccurring within me
Do I go on emotion or thought?
Feeling or thinking

If I close the door the room shall implode
But I want the door shut
Maybe threes a way
Can’t talk it out

The volume turns up
The blood boils and my nerves percolate
Howling obscenities then hyperventilate
Striding in a cloud of lust searching for an outlet to release my demons

The walls shake
The sound bouncing off of them
Tears fall to the floor
Bonds are broken

The table does 360 in the air
Who had done that I have no idea
I am grabbed
No way

Fighting and grappling slamming against the walls
Pulling screaming
Punching

Pushed into the door
Push through the TV
Runs to the phone
To alert the police

Cast out
Forced to leave
Out in the streets
Presenting to the neighborhood our dysfunctionality

A heated punch to the car
A bone broken
A bridge burned
I walk away

I sit on the curb
To catch my breath
To calm down
3 cops pull up

Hot and ready to bust some heads
Firing questions
Ulterior motives are obvious
I can see their 2nd face

They come as friends and open ears
The tale is told
And their friendly aura disintegrates
And they treat me as a criminal

Putting me down
Talking down
Looking down
I spit at them

No respect
Talk to me as if I was a human
An equal
Not some animal

Come back to earth
You say the same thing
You think I’m on mars
But you’re all the way on Neptune
And I’m right here on a curb in a suburb
Of the county of Bergen

Or were both lost
Deep in the Milky Way
Neither is right
Let’s agree to disagree

My hands busted
My family’s torn
My girls crying
I fall

This is where going on emotion got me
There was no thought
And if there was it was evil
And spiteful

I begin to think
Using logic
Reasoning with all that occurred
I’m caught between the two

Can’t have one without the other
In all decisions
Over thinking
Over emotional

Balance
Balance is key

After “lo fatal”

When I read you first I was living in Bergen.
Pretending at translation
and going up scree, clutching at conifers
in a painted flaxen sun.

I'd imagined you’d given up on being Modernista
to settle for a quaint shack—
for the hardness of the carved fjord.

Now if you were to arrive in the wild
where I have kept this place
strangely similar by the pine, blue herons,
               Mount Ozzard over the dandelions,

how would you come walking down the road?

Would deer pause to smell your tracks
or the cedar cutter look up as he heard you pass,

or these coal-black snags
which guard the lot’s entrance
          and haven't swayed in so long
groan?

Dichoso el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo.
Happy is the tree, you said. Scarcely sentient.

Ruben Dario: what is the tree
which rushes through this poem?

De spelonken van jouw bestaan zijn meer dan alleen diep, mijn lief. Ondoorgrondbaar, niet vindbaar, met zoveel omwegen wegleidend van her hart.
Soms vraag ik me af hoeveel tijd je aan het graven hebt besteed.

Soms ga ik het gevecht aan, neem ik een schep mee naar je toe. Dan delf ik in je bestaan, delf ik naar je hart. Maar dan verleid jij tot een herberekende route of uitweg. Af en toe spring ik in het diepe en vind ik een robijn, maar ook die zal niet lang van mij zijn.

Je hebt gezorgd voor een hele hoop spelonken, vergetelheidsrivieren, bergen en dalen en grotten bovendien.
Meestal wil ik ze doorgronden, maar soms?
Soms hou ook ik het voor gezien.

Sterne sonder Zahl aus der Nacht aller Zeiten
in einem klaren Ozean bewegt ihr euch
wenn ich euch mit menschlichem Zeitempfinden betrachte
seid ihr im Rhythmus der Jahreszeiten ewig
doch wenn ich in längeren zeitlichen Dimensionen an euch
denke so weiss ich euch sterblich.
Die entfernte Stadt löscht ihre Lichter
in der dichten Nacht erscheint ihr mal zögernd,
mal überzeugt über den Bergen wohlgesinnt.
In eurer Herrlichkeit findet mein Herz seine Ruh.

STELLE

Stelle, innumeri dalla notte dei tempi
in un liquido oceano vi muovete
se con il mio tempo umano vi guardo
al ritmo delle stagioni eterne siete
ma se con altri e più lunghi tempi a voi
penso come cose mortali vi so.
Spegne la città lontana le sue luci
nella densa notte incerte qui e là sicure
sopra i monti benevole apparite.
Nella vostra gloria riposa l’animo mio.

Cultured from the same petri dish of indifference that provided the
Comfortable Wall
Of willful ignorance for Bergen-Belsen’s neighbors,
The nation tunes in to another weekend of football and half-truths.
I lead the charge.

Static crackling ecstatically; manic pop
Transistor hissing and spitting; sideboard atop
                                      First when there’s nothing…
                                      But a slow glowing dream…

Pirouette such as whirling dervish makes
Adolescent prancer twirls; leg warmer fakes
                                      All alone I have cried…
                                      Silent tears full of pride…

Breathless incantation; future forged in dance
Performance fascination; leap upon the chance
                                      What a feeling...
                                      Bein’s believing…

Neon flashes bedeck wrists and bonce
Peers laughter flash like fire; a ponce
                                      Take your passion…
                                      And make it happen…

The music shields, deflects. Antacid; taunts abate
Rhyhmic dreamer energized; blind to all the hate
                                      Pictures come alive…
                                      You can dance right through your life…



As Bergen-Belsen ghost yet still aware
Lost dreamer segues silently on fetid air
                                       Bruised and battered, I couldn’t tell what I felt…
                                       I am unrecognizable to myself…

Shuffling as garish Geisha; white but not with paint
Breathless as fifties bombshell; heaving sick and feint
                                      At night I could hear the blood in my veins…
                                      It was black and whispering as the rain…

With steel partner; straight firm and slim of hip
Rigid in rigor’d waltz; moving labouredly with drip
                                      I walked the avenue, ‘til my legs felt like stone…
                                      I heard the voices of friends, vanished and gone…

Faithless rusting engine combusts toxic blood
Failing sack of sinew lies where dancer stood
                                      Night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake…
                                      I can feel myself fading away…

Monotone white noise; assuring beep
Dancer dreams in endless sleep
                                     There was a time when men were kind…
                                     There was a time when love was blind…

©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness – 2018 – All rights reserved)

Acknowledgements:

1. Flashdance… what a Feeling (1983 – Giorgio Moroder, Keith Forsey & Irene Cara)
2. The Streets of Philadelphia (1993 – Bruce Springsteen)
3. I Dreamed a Dream (Les Miserables – Claude Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer & Alain Boubil)

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Bergen-Belsen,
Buchenwald, Chelmno, Dachau, Dora-Mittebau,
Flossenburg, Gross-Rosen, Janowska, Kaiserwald,
Majdanek, Mauthausen, Natzweller-Struthof,
Neuengamme, Oranienburg, Plaszow, Ravensbruck,
Sachenhausen, Sobibor, Terezin, Treblinka, Westerbork.

There were more than 15,000 of these death camps
spread over ****-occupied Europe. In addition to Jews,
other groups murdered were homosexuals, the physically
and mentally infirm, political and religious dissidents,
Gypsies, communists, socialists, Afro-Germans, Soviet
POWS, intelligentsia, beggars, alchoholics, prostitutes,
freemasons, and trade unionists.

It is estimated that between 15,000,000 to 20,000,000
human beings were murdered by Nazis during the
Holocaust. ****** assumed power in 1933, **** Trump
in 2017.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Buyers of Jewish water parks,                              beautiful desert sand,
mosaics and desert deserts are not suitable for mouth and white gums.
Many people have mastered
the skill that Gracey Lockes praised God for praising,
recognizing the smell of cinnamon,
a man who had long thought of the mirror.
Marx was buried in the Gold Mountains,
today Sandy Sandy heard. Does the real drink,
Almii rain, affect the color of the movement?
Ringer engine writes in writing
that it understands the brightness
of a strong nitrogen product and a giant giants.
*** is a chemical chemistry team, Caesar     a,
desert, open, kissing and pink,                                without rain to send rain,
stroke, nitrogen Max.       Almighty glory,
earthly weapon, smell, smell, smell,
iron most for you, iron. Marriage is illegal
if a mirror is made for a long time.                  A 100-year-old man disagrees
with Paitai, in the mountains and poorer states,
using the new Aisapi or GM box.
Marcus Zuckerrohr is a good sign for experts.
In the middle of the night's work,
the Arabian businessman Sabel Sarumulam
celebrates lunch and sand.                                               What is a real drink?
The stroke is nitrogen arsenic-arsenic
to control nitrogen,  the strong odor of the Alkheim Rainshow
Effect Train.          Jewish drinking water,
beautiful aloe vera desert, desert, mosaic
and tooth customers are not suitable for mouth and green gum.
Many believe that the art of the Almighty God,
Graecia Lockes, recognizes the sweet scent of the aroma
and the long mirror: an idiot acting stupid.
From a poor, rich country,             this is a good sign
that Box SGP OM Mark is buried in Goldys Bergen.
They hear the Jewish sand today. Does the real drink,
Almii rain, affect the color of the movement?
Ringer Engine writes the strongest nitrogen product
and the creator of oxygen gin for writing.
Gender is Jewish Jewish chemical factory, Casare,
Desert, and hearing Pinkie kisses and kisses
and falls from the rain. Almighty, glory,                                 earthly weapon,
smell, smell, smell, iron most for you, iron.
Marriage is illegal if a mirror is made for a long time.
A 100-year-old man washed a bad Paitai image
and was buried on a hill,       Aisi or a new GM owner.
Marcus Zucker,              Rohr is a good sign for experts.
At midnight, Jabel Arabia, produced by Sabel Sarumul,
celebrates south on the sandy Hebrew coast.
What a true drink,                 a burning oxygen balance
that understands the wonders
of nitrogen products with the effects of trains on alchemy exhibits,
                               the strong aroma of creators, a god-fearing fact

Onder de oppervlakte
borrelt de opper zwakte
van de verborgen
bergen van zwart
en wit. Je ziet dat verbergen pas
wanneer je zelf onder de grenzen
zit.

Ennio Morricone
Collaboration with Sergio Leone
Whips And Whistles
New sound to background
Sphagetti Westerns backbone
Never left Rome
Music his home
400 plus films scored
Distinct sound endured
Many Auteurs frequently collaborated
Fan favorite for decades
Won Oscar for The Hateful Eight
One of two to
To get the honor
Lifetime Oscar
For Composer extraordinaire
All roads lead to Rome
All notes lead to Morricone

Lalo Schifrin
Argentinian Pianist
Cult following with memorable Scores
Jazz themed band and Grammys Galore
Television Series & Movie themes
Added value with his Name
Superstars  first choice
Studios rejoice
A list Star to Act
Lalo to compose the Soundtrack
Fans across the world
Saw movies for his score

Henri Mancini won 4 Oscar's
Immortal theme for Pink Panther
Baby Elephant Walk
For Howard Hawks
Romeo and juliet love theme
Number one on the Billboard scheme
Partnership with Directors
  Everlasting music created
Deserving Hall of Famer
Years later for many
Still the favorite composer

Elmer Bernstein
Creme de la creme
Only composer
Nominated for oscar
Every decade since the 1950s
Won for Thorough Modern Millie
Versatility the key
Budget did not  affect
Genre did neither
The Magnificent seven & The Great Escape
Tunes stand testimony
For creativity and longevity

Dave Grusin patnership with
Sydney Pollack cruising
Director Composer  combination
Last of the Finest
Grammy s lost count
Oscar made the count
Composed the music for
Columbia TRISTAR logo
Outstanding musical score
Grusin music totally pure

Roy Budd Composer
Who learnt by ear
Could play by Three
At birth a Prodigy
Soldier Blue with Candice Bergen
Gave him the due recognition
Best Pianist Award
5 years consecutive
Soundtrack for films
Each one Superlative
Score for Get Carter
In our memories forever
Brain hemorrhage
Took him away  at an early age

Jerry Goldsmith debuted
in live television
Rambo and Star Trek
Franchise to name a few
His compositions always new
Composers like him
A very few
The Omen finally
got him his due
Paramount & Universal pictures
The music accompanying
The logos of the Studios
Jerry doing his wizardry
With the audio
Grammy and Oscar nominations
To be counted
Four more pairs of hands
Need to be included

Marvin Hamlisch winner
Of three Oscars
All in the same year
The Sting and The Way We were
Nobody does it better
Only one after Richard Rogers
To win The Grammy Tony Emmy Oscar and the Pulitzer

Bill Conti score for Rocky
One of the most Remembered in movie history
Replaced John Barry
In For your eyes only
Scored for the Oscar
Ceremony
19 times a record
envy of many
Won Oscar and Emmy
No Dynasty or Cagney & Lacey
without Conti

John Barry score for Sean Connery as James Bond
The super spy
A permanent legacy
Created by the supremacy
Of his musical ability
5 time oscar winner
From North Yorkshire
Illness threatened career Came back better then ever
Sold out concerts
Arena sized halls
Glory again after a fall
Oscar for The Lion in Winter
His personal favorite Goldfinger

Maurice Jarre  Composer and Conductor
Won 3 Oscars
All collaborations
with David Lean
Big Budget Films
His speciality
The Themes popularity
Showcased his versatility
His music told the story
Close your eyes and
You will know the reality
Appealing to every taste
Was Jarre's forte

David Shire
Winner of the Oscar
For Norma Rae
Composer & Songwriter
Streisands Pianist
Scored for Television & Movies
Conversation and Pelham
Musical confirmation
That his compositions
Will bear the
Test of time

Michel Legrand
son of a Composer
Winner of 3 Oscars
Conductor for many of
The French New Wave directors
Founder of the French Musical
Windmills of your mind
Forever etched in our minds
Over 200 films in a career
Prolific in nature
Select from his repertoire
Of music
Fill the air with Legrand magic

Michael Small son of an actor
Became a composer
Parallax View & Night Moves
Provides you with the mood
Alan Pakula & Arthur Penn
Directors for whom notes he penned
Sidney Lumet Bob Rafelson & John Schleisinger
Legends in their own right
Small' talent shined bright
Prostate cancer
Took away this Great Music Director

Charles Bernstein used Music & Sound effects
To maximum effect
Oscar Winning Documentary
Which had no oral commentary
To tell the story
Scored for horror genre
A cult in the sub culture
Burt Reynolds in White Lightning first chance to
Score for a feature
Charles Bronson in Mr Majestyk
Made these films click

John Williams pianist for
Goldsmith Bernstein & Mancini
Second only to Walt Disney
In Oscar Nominations
52 and counting
Winner greatest Soundtrack
Of all time
Star Wars earned him that name &  fame
Widely regarded as most successful  Musician
Positivity is the key
Particular theme  for different characters
Greatest ever

I blew through that little coast town so fast I never realized you didn't love me.

I wasn't the other girl for once, not that I knew of at least. I was just a blip in your timeline, somewhere lantern-lit and overripe. Wooden stairs and open ceilings and terracotta tile and *** and coke; I was Eden beneath banana leaves.

After proper manager
distributed the latest bulletin
to all the residents at Highland Manor,
plus wrinkled her nose at noxious odor
(explained at length below)
purportedly emanating from unit B44,
we (myself and the missus)
felt in our lovely bones,
an imminent inspection in the offing,
certain as Santa Ana winds blow
strong, dry, and warm
from inland desert regions
towards coastal Southern California
and northern Baja California.

The other day myself and the spouse
went to ACME
in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
and bought a truckload of broccoli,
one or more bags
started to thaw within the car
courtesy the greenhouse effect,
when bag toted inside
said package started emitting
a peculiar rank malodorous stink
as if some animal up and died,
which smell permeated the hallway
right outside the apartment door.
New restrictions put in place here
at Highland Manor Apartments
basically reflect harsh repressive measures
witnessed within and across
the manifold governments
evincing, kick/jump starting,
sporting twenty first civilizations attempt
at liberty and justice for all
violently crushed by steel booted thugs
effectively, immediately, and euphemistically
snuffing out flickering flames of freedom
by dint of force
ousting uber progressive lyft of democracies
exemplifying, justifying, stultifying a general
webbed wide world trend
toward illustration, imposition and inquisition
of nasty, short and brutish trolls
enforcing the diktat tatter ship
that might equals right
warrants a coup d'état to be fomented
even if yours truly
must step up to the plate
analogously hitting a homerun
for the boys in the hood
comprising home team,
and claim mine fifteen minutes of fame
without incurring the wrath of Kong
rather welcoming and resurrecting
personifications of SuperMan
such as that Incredible Hulk
of green day energy potential,
whose paw size mitts
can easily sweep away
the surge of totalitarianism
of Republican dominance
responsible for perpetrating
political devastation and divisiveness
courtesy Project 2025
compliment stock in trademark
second Trump dynasty
during what historians
hashtagged as global reign of terror
signalling the vestigial
end of democracy,
especially within countries
where such figurative trial balloons launched,
ushering doomsday scenario,
particularly as atomic warheads
decimated great swaths of humanity
rendering planet earth
mostly uninhabitable, inimitable, and dubitable,
not only for **** sapiens,
but countless other species.