INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

DEDICATION

Mountains fall before this grief,
A mighty river stops its flow,
But prison doors stay firmly bolted
Shutting off the convict burrows
And an anguish close to death.
Fresh winds softly blow for someone,
Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,
We are everywhere the same, listening
To the scrape and turn of hateful keys
And the heavy tread of marching soldiers.
Waking early, as if for early mass,
Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,
We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,
Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:
But hope still sings forever in the distance.
The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,
Followed by a total isolation,
As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,
Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,
But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.
Where are you, my unwilling friends,
Captives of my two satanic years?
What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?
What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?
I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.
[March 1940]

INTRODUCTION
[PRELUDE]

It happened like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release,
That Leningrad hung around its prisons
Like a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.
Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sang
Short songs of farewell
To the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,
As they, in regiments, walked along -
Stars of death stood over us
As innocent Russia squirmed
Under the blood-spattered boots and tyres
Of the black marias.

I

You were taken away at dawn. I followed you
As one does when a corpse is being removed.
Children were crying in the darkened house.
A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God. . .
The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-cold
sweat
On your brow - I will never forget this; I will gather

To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy (1)
Inconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.
[1935. Autumn. Moscow]

II

Silent flows the river Don
A yellow moon looks quietly on
Swanking about, with cap askew
It sees through the window a shadow of you
Gravely ill, all alone
The moon sees a woman lying at home
Her son is in jail, her husband is dead
Say a prayer for her instead.

III

It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.
Not like this. Everything that has happened,
Cover it with a black cloth,
Then let the torches be removed. . .
Night.

IV

Giggling, poking fun, everyone's darling,
The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo (2)
If only you could have foreseen
What life would do with you -
That you would stand, parcel in hand,
Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth in
line,
Burning the new year's ice
With your hot tears.
Back and forth the prison poplar sways
With not a sound - how many innocent
Blameless lives are being taken away. . .
[1938]

V

For seventeen months I have been screaming,
Calling you home.
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.
There are now only dusty flowers,
The chinking of the thurible,
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere
And, staring me in the face
And threatening me with swift annihilation,
An enormous star.
[1939]

VI

Weeks fly lightly by. Even so,
I cannot understand what has arisen,
How, my son, into your prison
White nights stare so brilliantly.
Now once more they burn,
Eyes that focus like a hawk,
And, upon your cross, the talk
Is again of death.
[1939. Spring]

VII
THE VERDICT

The word landed with a stony thud
Onto my still-beating breast.
Nevermind, I was prepared,
I will manage with the rest.

I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again. . .

But how. The hot summer rustles
Like a carnival outside my window;
I have long had this premonition
Of a bright day and a deserted house.
[22 June 1939. Summer. Fontannyi Dom (4)]

VIII
TO DEATH

You will come anyway - so why not now?
I wait for you; things have become too hard.
I have turned out the lights and opened the door
For you, so simple and so wonderful.
Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst in
Like a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on me
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.
Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,
Or, with a simple tale prepared by you
(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me
glimpse
The house administrator's terrified white face.
I don't care anymore. The river Yenisey
Swirls on. The Pole star blazes.
The blue sparks of those much-loved eyes
Close over and cover the final horror.
[19 August 1939. Fontannyi Dom]

IX

Madness with its wings
Has covered half my soul
It feeds me fiery wine
And lures me into the abyss.

That's when I understood
While listening to my alien delirium
That I must hand the victory
To it.

However much I nag
However much I beg
It will not let me take
One single thing away:

Not my son's frightening eyes -
A suffering set in stone,
Or prison visiting hours
Or days that end in storms

Nor the sweet coolness of a hand
The anxious shade of lime trees
Nor the light distant sound
Of final comforting words.
[14 May 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

X
CRUCIFIXION

Weep not for me, mother.
I am alive in my grave.

1.
A choir of angels glorified the greatest hour,
The heavens melted into flames.
To his father he said, 'Why hast thou forsaken me!'
But to his mother, 'Weep not for me. . .'
[1940. Fontannyi Dom]

2.
Magdalena smote herself and wept,
The favourite disciple turned to stone,
But there, where the mother stood silent,
Not one person dared to look.
[1943. Tashkent]

EPILOGUE

1.
I have learned how faces fall,
How terror can escape from lowered eyes,
How suffering can etch cruel pages
Of cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.
I know how dark or ash-blond strands of hair
Can suddenly turn white. I've learned to recognise
The fading smiles upon submissive lips,
The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.
That's why I pray not for myself
But all of you who stood there with me
Through fiercest cold and scorching July heat
Under a towering, completely blind red wall.

2.
The hour has come to remember the dead.
I see you, I hear you, I feel you:
The one who resisted the long drag to the open window;
The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiar
soil beneath her feet;
The one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,

'I arrive here as if I've come home!'
I'd like to name you all by name, but the list
Has been removed and there is nowhere else to look.
So,
I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humble
words
I overheard you use. Everywhere, forever and always,
I will never forget one single thing. Even in new
grief.
Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouth
Through which one hundred million people scream;
That's how I wish them to remember me when I am dead
On the eve of my remembrance day.
If someone someday in this country
Decides to raise a memorial to me,
I give my consent to this festivity
But only on this condition - do not build it
By the sea where I was born,
I have severed my last ties with the sea;
Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stump
Where an inconsolable shadow looks for me;
Build it here where I stood for three hundred hours
And no-one slid open the bolt.
Listen, even in blissful death I fear
That I will forget the Black Marias,
Forget how hatefully the door slammed and an old woman
Howled like a wounded beast.
Let the thawing ice flow like tears
From my immovable bronze eyelids
And let the prison dove coo in the distance
While ships sail quietly along the river.
[March 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

FOOTNOTES

1 An elite guard which rose up in rebellion
   against Peter the Great in 1698. Most were either
   executed or exiled.
2 The imperial summer residence outside St
   Petersburg where Ahmatova spent her early years.
3 A prison complex in central Leningrad near the
   Finland Station, called The Crosses because of the
   shape of two of the buildings.
4 The Leningrad house in which Ahmatova lived.


First published Sasha Soldatow Mayakovsky in Bondi
BlackWattle Press 1993 Sydney.

While my sad Muse the darkest Covert Sought,
To give a loose to Melancholy Thought;
Opprest, and sighing with the Heavy Weight
Of an Unhappy dear Lov'd Monarch's Fate;
A lone retreat, on Thames's Brink she found,
With Murmering Osiers fring'd, and bending Willows Crown'd,
Thro' the thick Shade cou'd dart no Chearful Ray,
Nature dwelt here as in disdain of Day:
Content, and Pleas'd with Nobler Solitude,
No Wood-Gods, Fawns, nor Loves did here Intrude,

Nor Nests for wanton Birds, the Glade allows;
Scarce the soft Winds were heard amongst the Boughs.
While thus She lay resolv'd to tune no more
Her fruitless Songs on Brittains Faithless Shore,
All on a suddain thro' the Woods there Rung,
Loud Sounds of Joy that Jo Peans Sung.
Maria! Blest Maria! was the Theam,
Great Brittains happy Genius, and her Queen.

The River Nimphs their Crystal Courts forsake,
Curl their Blew Locks, and Shelly Trumpets take:

And the surprising News along the Shore,
In raptur'd Songs the wondring Virgins bore;
Whilst Mourning Eccho now forgot her Sighs,
And sung the new taught Anthem to the Skyes.
All things in Nature, a New Face put on,
Thames with Harmonious Purlings glides along,
And tells her Ravisht Banks, she lately bore
A Prize more great than all her hidden Store,
Or all the Sun it self e're saw before.

The brooding Spring, her Fragrant Bloom sent out,

Scattering her early Perfumes round about;
No longer waits the Lasie teeming Hours,
But e're her time produc'd her Oderous Flowers;
Maria's Eyes Anticipate the May,
And Life inspir'd beyond the God of Day.
The Muses all upon this Theam Divine,
Tun'd their best Lays, the Muses all, but mine,
Sullen with Stubborn Loyalty she lay,
And saw the World its eager Homage pay,
While Heav'n and Earth on the new Scene lookt gay.

But Oh! What Human Fortitude can be
Sufficient to Resist a Deity?
Even our Allegiance here, too feebly pleads,
The Change in so Divine a Form perswades;
Maria with the Sun has equal Force,
No Opposition stops her Glorious Course,
Her pointed Beams thro' all a passage find,
And fix their Rays Triumphant in the Mind.
And now I wish'd among the Crouds to Adore,
And constant wishing did increase my Power;

From every thought a New-born Reason came
Which fortifyed by bright Maria's Fame,
Inspir'd My Genious with new Life and Flame,
And thou, Great Lord, of all my Vows, permit
My Muse who never fail'd Obedience yet,
To pay her Tribute at Marias Feet,
Maria so Divine a part of You,
Let me be Just -- but Just with Honour too.

Resolv'd, She join'd her Chorus with the Throng,
And to the listning Groves Marias Vertues Sung;

Maria all Inchanting, Gay, and Young,
All Hail Illustrious Daughter of a King,
Shining without, and Glorious all within,
VVhose Eyes beyond your scantier Power give Laws,
Command the VVord, and justifie the Cause;
Nor to secure your Empire needs more Arms
Than your resistless, and all Conquering Charms;
Minerva Thus alone, Old Troy Sustain'd,
Whilst her Blest Image with three Gods remain'd;
But Oh! your Form and Manner to relate,

The Envying Fair as soon may Imitate,
'Tis all Engaging Sweet, 'tis all Surprising Great;
A thousand Beauties Triumph in your Air,
Like those of soft Young Loves your Smiles appear,
And to th'Ungarded Hearts, as dangerous are:
All Natures Charms are open'd in your Face,
You Look, you Talk, with more than Human Grace;

All that is Wit, all that is Eloquence.
The Births of finest Thought and Noblest Sense,
Easie and Natural from your Language break,

And 'tis Eternal Musick when you speak;
Thro' all no formal Nicety is seen,
But Free and Generous your Majestick Meen,
In every Motion, every Part a Queen;
All that is Great and Lovely in the ***,
Heav'n did in this One Glorious Wonder fix,
Apellis thus to dress the Queen of Love,
Rob'd the whole Race, a Goddess to improve.
Yet if with Sighs we View that Lovely Face,
And all the Lines of your great Father's Trace,

Your Vertues should forgive, while we adore
That Face that Awes, and Charms our Hearts the more;
But if the Monarch in your Looks we find,
Behold him yet more glorious in your Mind;
'Tis there His God-like Attributes we see.
A Gratious Sweetness, Affability,
A Tender Mercy and True Piety;
And Vertues even sufficient to Attone
For all the Ills the Ungrateful VVorld has done,
Where several Factions, several Intrests sway,
And that is still it'h Right who gains the Day;
How e're they differ, this they all must grant,
Your Form and Mind, no One Perfection want,
Without all Angel, and within all Saint.

The Murmering World till now divided lay,
Vainly debating whom they shou'd Obey,
Till You Great Cesar's Off-spring blest our Isle,
The differing Multitudes to Reconcile;
Thus Stiff-neckt Israel in defiance stood,
Till they beheld the Prophet of their God;

Who from the Mount with dazling brightness came,
And Eyes all shining with Celestial Flame;
Whose Awful Looks, dispel'd each Rebel Thought,
And to a Just Compliance, the wilde Nations brought.

by
Alexander  K  Opicho
Eldoret,Kenya
([email protected])

Ladbrokes, the online betting firm has once again nominated Ngugi wa Thiong'o as a candidate for Nobel prize in literature 2014.The firm arrives at the probable nominee through a highly polished probabilist mechanism.It also nominated Ngugi as the probable candidate for literature Nobel prize, but the final was Alice Munro the Canadian short story writress.The eventuality of Ngugi winning the literature Nobel prize is a long a waited event in Africa , especially among Kenyans.
However, Ngugi is not the only nominee , he is among others and even to make it worse he is not the top scoring nominee. He has tied with four  others at the score of 50/1 points.These  are; Umberto Eco who wrote the famous book In the Name of the Rose, Nuruddin Farah a Kenya *** Somalian veteran poet and prose writer   and   then Darcia Maraini.
There are eleven writers of global stature who are currently scoring above Ngugi wa Thiong'o.They are operating at the level of 50/1 scores. These include ;Margaret Atwoo d, Salman Rushdie, Cees Nooteboom, Don DeLillo, Amos Oz, Javier Marias, Cormac McCarthy , Bob Dylan, Peter Handke, William Trevor and Les Murray . The missing writer in this category of global writers is Yan Martel the author of Life of Mr. Pi , whose also on the list of the favourite writers of president Barrack Obama.His book Life of Mr. Pi once shared  a prize and equivalent acclaim with Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Legs. So, why Martel was not nominated remains the usual intrigues of Nobel nomination process.
Haruki Murakami ,Assia Djebar,Svetlana Aleksijevitj , Peter Nadas, Joyce Carol Oates , Adonis ,Milan Kundera , Philip Roth , Mircea Cartarescu, Ko Un , Jon Fosse  and Thomas Pynchon  are currently scoring below Ngugi.They are operating between 10/1 and 26/1 scores.However among them Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates and Phillip Roth were very story contenders and hence competeters for the same prize with Ngugi during last year.But Joyce Carol Oates is a weaker contender this year given than he recently wrote an offensive and tortuous poem against the eminent American  poet Robert Frost .  Oates drew from the book Lovely, Dark and  Deep  which   paints the  Frost  as an arrogant, sexist pig who gave up on his mentally ill children. The story has outraged Frost’s fans, biographers, and  his survivors.
Inspite of all these there is no literary value that can make Ngugi wa Thiong'o to deserve a Nobel prize reward for  Literature. Apart from his first  two books weep not child and the river between that had concrete literary position, his later works are pamphlets of communism , that keep of regurgitating communism as initially written by Karl Marx and France Fanon.His second last book Globalectics is written as annual lectures in respect of Rene Wellek, the books is a practical duplication of Paulo Freire , and Spivak Gavatri.His contemporaries at the University of Nairobi accusing him of tribalism when it came to supervising post graduate students. he was soft on his fellow Kiguyu's and discriminative agains Luo and Luhyia students.He lifestyle as communist ideologue is also self defeating as teaches in america at Irvine University , very busy amassing wealths just like any other capitalist.He campaign for vernacular writing is egually not water tight on the bench of praxis, as he himself teaches special English in America but not kiguyu language.
Another stunning revelation from the Swedish academy is nomiantion of Vladimir Putin the Russian president for Nobel peace prize alongside fifty something  organizations as competitors.the nominations is based on his role he played in the Nuclear disarmament of Syria.The Ukraine question has not been yet raised.But logic of these goes like historical imbroglio that puzzled the world in relation to the role of ****** in relation communism against the then gathering storm for the second world war.

This is a prose tale about the great superhero, SNOGGO
(as told in the first person by SNOGGO to his amanuensis, Edna)

*'You can't have "Jew",' I said.
'Why not? It's a perfectly good word. Are you anti-semitic or something?'
'Jew has a capital J,' I said.
'Not necessarily. I've used it before.'
'Not with me you haven't. There's the dictionary. Look it up.'

Jumbo grudgingly picked up the Shorter Oxford and looked up "Jew". He sniffed loudly, slammed the dictionary shut and removed the tiles from the board. His replacement word was a sodding disaster.

'That's twenty-four points you've cost me with your nit-picking, you *******,' he said through gritted yellow teeth, his flabby body shaking with rage. 'The J was on a triple letter score.'

I sneered derisively and laughed long and loud, making Jumbo froth at his ugly fat nostrils with anger.

'Watch this and weep, Jumbo,' I said, playing out all seven of my tiles onto the board to create a stunning word: UNZIPPED. 'The Z's on a double letter score and it's all on a triple word score, so that's 90, plus 50 for playing all my tiles, 140 in total and the end of the game,' I declared in triumph. Jumbo was caught with 14 in his hand (remember: he still had the J) and thus I, the great SNOGGO, became Greenwich Scrabble Champion for the 25th year running. Not only that: but 25 consecutive defeats in the final for Jumbo.

Jumbo roared in frustration as he saw his hopes of taking the coveted 24ct gold "Queen Anne" cup away from me, SNOGGO, dashed to the ground yet again. And, by centuries old tradition, 25 consecutive victories meant the priceless cup was now mine to keep for ever. Jumbo's scream of uncontrollable, incandescent rage could have been heard as far away as the Vanbrugh Hill Municipal Waste Disposal Centre.

'******* you for all ******* eternity,' he bellowed unsportingly as he waddled out of the cheering hall. In so doing he flouted the gentlemen's convention of always staying to take part in the closing ceremony. He missed seeing me, the great SNOGGO, receive the shining gold cup from the gnarled hands of the Lady Mayoress, the Hon. Mrs Snotte-Wragge, who whispered in my ear 'Fancy a quick **** later, back at the mayoral parlour, SNOGGO dear?' For the fifth year in a row I told her to go and get stuffed as I didn't go for ugly old bats with arses on them like a double-decker bus.

Later that evening, as I sat in the splendid Georgian surroundings of Snoggo Manor, cradling the gold cup and admiring the row of 25 Championship certificates on the walls of my elegant dining room, finishing off my second bottle of Bollinger Grand Cru '89 and stuffing my 18th oyster down my happy throat, I heard a knock on the door. Who could that possibly be at nearly midnight?

It was Jumbo, my fat defeated foe. He looked downcast. 'SNOGGO,' he said, 'I've come to offer my apologies for my inappropriate behaviour earlier. You deserved to win, you are the finest scrabbler in all of Greenwich. I have come to offer you the hand of friendship and to invite you to my humble home for a midnight snack to celebrate your stirring victory.'

'Jumbo,' I replied, 'that's uncommon civil of you, old man. And your timing is excellent, as I've just finished my apéritif and was on the verge of kicking Mrs SNOGGO, my new 17-year old Thai mail order wife, out of her hammock to make my supper. So what's on the menu, squire?'

'Well,' said Jumbo, 'I was thinking of pâte de foie gras - naturally made by Mrs Jumbo using our own force-fed geese, with a bottle of Château d'Yquem '78 to start with. Then perhaps a kilo of blood-red filet mignon avec pommes frites, washed down with a rather good magnum of Brouilly '99. Then there's Mrs Jumbo's famed cheeseboard with a tumbler full of vintage port, followed by a dozen crêpes suzettes, a few petits cafés, a monster Armagnac and a giant Havana each.'

I considered the proposed menu carefully before replying. 'Sounds quite good to me, Jumbo,' I declared, glancing over his shoulder at the Bentley waiting outside. I could just see the peaked chauffeur's cap of the diminutive Mrs Jumbo peering myopically over the leather-covered steering wheel.

And so, having told Mrs Snoggo to tidy up a bit whilst I was out, I went off to dinner with Jumbo. In all our 25 years of Scrabble rivalry I had never once set foot into his house, so I was eager to check out what sort of lifestyle he enjoyed. Once inside Jumbo Villa, I cast my eyes over the luxurious furnishings with an expert eye, evaluating their immense worth and rarity with incredible perspicacity and knowledge.

'Not a bad pad you've got here, Jumbo,' I conceded. 'Not in the same class as Snoggo Manor, of course, but still ****** impressive.' He was visibly flattered by my compliment.

'A glass of sherry while we wait for Mrs Jumbo to serve us?' queried Jumbo jovially. I sniffed at the huge portion of delicious amber nectar appreciatively. 'Lustau Amoroso Bodega Marquès de Mierda '42?' I guessed instinctively. Jumbo nodded. '******* spot on, SNOGGO,' he admitted in stunned amazement.

I took an enormous gulp and felt the alcohol hit me like a slam in the abdomen from Cassius Clay's butcher and more vicious brother. The room spun and I closed my eyes in resigned delight.

When I came to I found myself hanging unclothed in chains on the wall of a dank cellar. My head was pounding and I felt distinctly below par. I looked over my shoulder and beheld Jumbo standing there with a sjambok in his hand. He was stark ******* naked, naked as the day he was born, and I have never seen anything so repulsive in all my life (with the sole exception of that incredible day when, as a child, I caught my paternal grandparents bonking on the Persian rug in the Great Hall at Snoggo Manor on Christmas Eve). Jumbo’s huge pendulous ******* sagged over his bloated fat belly, which itself hung so low his genitals were mercifully hidden from my view. He was a ******* monstrosity.

The tiny Mrs Jumbo stood to the rear of the cellar, also naked, pallid and with her public hair died a shocking pink. She was a skinny freak, a vision of *** Hell. I noticed the tattoo on her belly. It showed a depiction of the crucifixion which I felt was in dubious taste, especially with Jesus sporting an enormous *******.

What I, the wonderful SNOGGO, suffered in the next few hours was truly indescribable, so I will only summarise it. After a seemingly endless whipping from Jumbo (assisted by Mrs Jumbo, but her puny lash strokes were almost pleasurable), accompanied by their combined frenzied cries of demented hatred and loathing, I was forced to suffer the supreme humiliation. Jumbo mounted a set of fine Regency library steps, positioned his Hellish lumpen body behind me and unceremoniously inserted his tiny ***** into my outraged ****. Oh the shame! Oh the shame!

‘O Jesus Christ help me!’ I yelled in rain and pain. And suddenly a voice spoke unto me. 'O great SNOGGO,' it intoned, 'thou needst not suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune so needlessly. Only have faith in me, the great loving Jesus, and I shall give thee strength to deal with thy ******* awful tribulations.'

It was a miracle! SNOGGO could and would be saved! Quickly I mumbled a couple of Ave Marias remembered from my youth as a leading mutual masturbator in the chapel choir, and I silently promised a quick twenty thousand quid to the local faggotty priest ******* fund, and my chains fell to the floor with a blast of heavenly thunder. Halle-*******-luliah!

'Right, Jumbo you fat ****,' I snapped, 'you have ******* had it.'

And with one mighty blow of my right arm I smashed him against the wall. His huge hideous body crumpled as he slid to the floor, blood oozing from his fat gob. I gave him a ****** good kicking in the face and in the heart region and shortly he went to meet his maker, with a sickening grunt and expulsion of *****.

Then I turned to the horrified naked ugly skinny tattooed Mrs Jumbo and said: 'OK, *******, where's my ******* supper?'

She shrugged and headed upstairs to prepare the meal I had been promised by Jumbo earlier, as I was seriously hungry by this stage. Little did she know I would be obliged to put her out of her misery later. Or if she were lucky, I might offer her a position as unpaid toilet cleanser chez moi.

Yes, it was yet another stunning victory for the fabulous SNOGGO, thanks to timely divine intervention for which I am very much obliged.

And don't forget my luscious 17-year old Thai mail bride would be waiting to give me a really good ******* once I got back to Snoggo Manor. Either that or I would give her a good belting and send her back to her grotty poverty-stricken village with a demand for a full refund, chop chop.

Saint John the Apostle says: “Hellenika and Tsambika, they will be the lily, the saffron, the rose and the violet, but also new, like the calendula and the chamomile, making of all a crown headband, to ad put the world of the Duoverse in everything its radius, for the star that illuminates par excellence as a white planet without thorns, which is the perfect one among the perfect ones, anti herbicide of language and incarnation, as in the Empyrean medieval zeal and in the highest of heavens. It is also the site of the physical presence of God, where the angels and the souls welcomed in Paradise reside, between Thistles and Roses towards the nourishing plane of the conventual voice and the tonic of the Milky Way; galactogens, ******* third grade milk to curdle in children who have not been a Messiah yet. Paths of thorns will guide the visitors of this gallery of flowers and plants, through the Panagia Monacal, for the holy homily with the Lilies and their lower valleys, where no more Lilies can evade their chains of the Liliorum genome and in their valleys of galactogenic virtue. As Mother Rosa and son Lirio, being the mother of all and of that one, behold ... your son, "I myself in the path of the three Marias. Over there in the desolate andurrial, an aquiline carries me imprisoned on my heels, as a bond of a son who makes my footsteps, the columbine sole of my saving feet.

At 320 meters of altitude, the Still Life appeared, concealed behind the Vas Auric, here everyone approached the auric circle of Morality that made them authors of the proximity of the Universe falling on Greece and Herbalism that fell with all its historical structure in the forest where many more species such as Caltrop, Laurel, Olive, Linen, Granada appeared, in a simple and flat devotional with nuances with pro delegating status; the same Hexagonal Birthright, to make the cinnabar fistulas, which was elemented by the different colors associated with the Grail tutorials, which were seen indigos on top of some Rhododendrons. If it is eschatological, it is in mystical nets of the Empyrean, further away in a form that is said to be called a form of gonism, between Cardinals and their dead Lilies. As the first among the last, the bulbous and clayey Tulip orb and basilica symbolism, peacemaker and philosophical Eritrean, for spiritual searches, which eager effusions of the Empyrean, reached the Messiah on his Pollino on the way to Bethany.

Around the Monastery, they could all be seen arriving to the beat of the cymbals and aulos, among the lyres that prowled, tickling the inquiry to rest their fingers, or perhaps by some augur Trojan villain in those of "Daedalus".  The latter being, here a tulip, with flames of a true seeker trying to sacrifice subsistence daring over the risk of the flame of saving death.

Daedalus says: “After the incident with Perdix, I Daedalus was expelled from Athens. I then went to Crete, and in the kingdom of Minos I was placed in the service of the monarch. One of his tasks was the creation of Talos, an animated bronze giant who defended the island from invasions. By order of Minos, I built the labyrinth to enclose the monster. The labyrinth was a building with countless corridors and winding streets opening one to another, which seemed to have no beginning or end. Minos locked me up with my son Icarus, whose mother was Naucrate, a slave from Minos, in the same building. The reason for the confinement was the collaboration of Daedalus in the escape of Theseus from the labyrinth. I have to lament for the rapture of Perdix, now turned into Partridge, who now carries in his clutches the creation of the Universe-Duoverse, turned into his own, and me in envy, harassing me with the endings of my endings and not initiating nor ending. That is why I appear here coming from Crete, to wrap myself around the garden and its mystery, closing all the madrigals and trees, like a world that has created me. In its splendor, seeing the humility, fragrant of violets grafted into lavenders, with my soul now, of a somewhat  syncretism Hebrew-Hellenic and Mythological-sub Mythological, like a nobleman who walks free and without chains ..., passing through the Parthenon to put garlands, in dresses that are adorned with linen, but of evangelical lineage here in Kímolo. From here in the humility of heaven I will go with Kanti and Etrestles to unite on the prominent hills of the Hexagonal Birthright.

Something forgotten for twenty years: though my fathers
and mothers came from Cordova and Vitepsk and Caernarvon,
and though I am a citizen of the United States and less a
stranger here than anywhere else, perhaps,
I am Essex-born:
Cranbrook Wash called me into its dark tunnel,
the little streams of Valentines heard my resolves,
Roding held my head above water when I thought it was
drowning me; in Hainault only a haze of thin trees
stood between the red doubledecker buses and the boar-hunt,
the spirit of merciful Phillipa glimmered there.
Pergo Park knew me, and Clavering, and Havering-atte-Bower,
Stanford Rivers lost me in osier beds, Stapleford Abbots
sent me safe home on the dark road after Simeon-quiet evensong,
Wanstead drew me over and over into its basic poetry,
in its serpentine lake I saw bass-viols among the golden dead leaves,
through its trees the ghost of a great house. In
Ilford High Road I saw the multitudes passing pale under the
light of flaring sundown, seven kings
in somber starry robes gathered at Seven Kings
the place of law
where my birth and marriage are recorded
and the death of my father. Woodford Wells
where an old house was called The Naked Beauty (a white
statue forlorn in its garden)
saw the meeting and parting of two sisters,
(forgotten? and further away
the hill before Thaxted? where peace befell us? not once
but many times?).
All the Ivans dreaming of their villages
all the Marias dreaming of their walled cities,
picking up fragments of New World slowly,
not knowing how to put them together nor how to join
image with image, now I know how it was with you, an old map
made long before I was born shows ancient
rights of way where I walked when I was ten burning with desire
for the world's great splendors, a child who traced voyages
indelibly all over the atlas
, who now in a far country
remembers the first river, the first
field, bricks and lumber dumped in it ready for building,
that new smell, and remembers
the walls of the garden, the first light.

No Pictures Taken
I see the pictures sent to me on my Facebook page of places
I have not seen yet in countries I have been to as a ******
who join the sea out of poverty at home and offered
an education no importance and factory pipes spewing smoke
smelling of sardines and cod liver oil
I recall Costa Rica a small town in a bay the jungle appeared
near and lush ready to hide the town should be human activities
stop. And the cockerel crewed as I got up from Maria's trafficked
bed running down a winding road to the docks and on my ship to
the routine work with sleep -walkers who like me and only saw
the beauty of the land in glimpses of dreams a Paradise lost.
Saddening, there were never any lazy days to walk around and
to take pictures we were not tourists.
Part Two:
Alone in a beautiful park and felt like the eternal wandering Jew
hoping to be accepted by the locals. There was never any time to
know anyone;  guiltily I found my way back to the bars, the music,
the Marias willing vulvas' oily route; ***& coke sleep in a woman’s
arms inhale her scent another Paradise lost before the **** crewed.  
I look at the pictures of contentment, actors on a stage of life playing
happy to play the tragic roles they need a bit more experience.

This is not poetry. They are my words handcuffed and carried away in black Marias by men who play gods with guns. And wearing the official uniforms given to them by those who rule, in order  to protect the people. Yet, they choose not to protect the people. Instead, they extort money from them and have them locked up on ******* up charges, written on statements of air.

This is not poetry. It is the rage of wasted years. Of youths, considered useless by a system which murders their visions. And buries them in a graveyard of lost dreams. A system which leaves the youths to wander in the wilderness of uncertainty, unsure of tomorrow. Because for many of them, tomorrow might never come.

This is not poetry. It is the cry of the molested and the *****. The detained, and the sold. And the forgotten faces of  those killed in regional genocides,  without names and buried in anonymous tombs. Those whose names might never ring a tune. Because they are poor. And the poor are the first to be forgotten in conflicts. Because they have no money and no fame attached to their names.

This is not poetry. It is a memorial. For those murdered at the Gates of Blood. For those who came before us. And  those who would come this way again. It is a memorial for all of us. For the living as well as the fallen. It is a collection of all our rage, hopes and fears. It is a memorial of what we are and what we choose not to be.

These are not pretty words. They are the truth. Unadulterated by years of fermented lies and deceit. These are the words whispered in married couples bedrooms. And shouted in bars by men who drown their troubles in bottles of drink. These are the words raised up in protests by those who refuse to be intimidated by bullets. And whose voices cannot be silenced.

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                        What Could be More American than
                    Masked Secret Police in Unmarked Cars?

Perhaps the suggestion has already been made:
ICE’s Black Marias could lead the parade

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                     An Appeal to Our Ancestors

When this is over

                    …slumped in their seats fidgeting nervously, they no
                    longer resembled the arrogant leaders of old. They
                    seemed to be a drab assortment of mediocrities. It
                    seemed difficult to grasp that such men, when last you
                    had seen them, had wielded such monstrous power, that
                    such as they could conquer a great nation…

                         -Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****

When this is over

Teach us democracy, the dignity of work
Help us restore the sacred arts we banned
The books we burned, the images we forbade
The poetry we purged, the plays we feared to stage

When this is over

Free us from militias in our streets
The Black Marias, the concentration camps
The Reichskirche imposed by our government
The censorship to which we weakly submit

When this is over

Free us from our fears, share with us your strength
That we will never empower tyrants again

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                            ­     Our Lubyanka

Metropolitan Detention Center
All those fuzzy harmless syllables
Grey concrete walls but no clock at the top
Windowless facings along city sidewalks

Our federal marias are white, not black
Because we are not Communists, oh, no
People go in; they don’t always come out
They say that from the basement you can see Florence

You might be transferred there, but mind the steps
Smile at the cameras that have been switched off