Posts tagged inspirational poem

Poem and Quotes

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
-Shakespeare
“Romeo and Juliet”

Is a poet still a poet even if that person wears a bandanna, sagging pants and shoots expletives like bullets? Who determines the recipients of the title muse? When you think of poets, do you envision laureates like Robert Pinsky, Reed Whittemore, or Gwendolyn Brooks? How about Mos Def, Talib Kweli, or Tupac Shakur a.k.a 2Pac?

It’s about time that this generation acknowledges the ground breaking work of great M.C.’s, lyricists, or rappers like Shakur. The poems and quotes by 2Pac have enlightened a generation of youth. The gift he had to evoke passion, his sense of timing, and relevance to today’s world can not be denied.

Forward thinking college’s like the University of North Carolina, UCLA and Syracuse have registered that literature is a living, breathing, ever changing beast. Studying, Lil’ Kim to get a perspective on male chauvinism is feeding the minds of today’s youth and challenging preconceived notions of what poetry is. Classes that study the poems and quotes by 2Pac are learning translate the urban tongue into the “King’s English”. And they gain a deeper understanding of urban life.

What can we learn from the poems and quotes by 2Pac?

“First ship ‘em dope & let ‘em deal the brothers.
Give ‘em guns step back watch ‘em kill each other.
It’s time to fight back that’s what Huey said.
2 shots in the dark now Huey’s dead.”

“Learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant strangers, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
How can the Devil take a brother if he’s close to me?

I’d love to go back to when we played as kids, but things changed, and that’s the way it is.”

This is the rawest way of expressing the plight of so many communities facing this harsh reality.
Tupac is able to resuscitate empathy and compassion in those who would otherwise not care. It is easy to see that his desires and dreams are not that different from any other man’s.

I have read many poems and quotes by 2Pac. This quote from when he was alive sums up his views on how he wanted to be pictured, “”I feel like role models today are not meant to be put on a pedestal. But more like angels with broken wings”.

This by no means glorifies the violence, bigotry, misogynism, & pornographic, lyrics that are prevalent in today’s music. It is there because it is a reflection of life. And not all of it is deep and moving. Sometimes the mood is lifted and it is time to party.

2Pac and Dr. Dre collaborated on the club banger “California Love” to demonstrate that hip hop is not all about guns, drugs, racism and violence. Although, at a time when relations between east coast rappers and west coast rappers were deteriorating rapidly, some say that the anthem was a akin to giving the east coast the middle finger. Such is the politics of hip hop. One man’s expression of pride in his hood is another man’s diss.

The east/west coast feud reminded me of another great conflict in literary history. The Montague’s and Capulets would certainly understand the enmity between the two coast. Because they understood the power that words have. Our past power might sound differently but it does not lack the ability to raise your consciousness, tug at your emotions, and challenge your views.

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An Ant Named Fly

n Ant Named Fly

Once upon a time, in a forest far away

Lived a family of ants who cherished every day.

And on one special day in a land beneath the sky

Was born a special ant and his family named him … Fly

*

As Fly grew up he realized that his name was rather rare

Compared to ants with normal names, but he didn’t really care

Until one day while walking through the forest by a log

He came upon an animal who introduced himself as Frog

*

Frog looked at Fly suspiciously and with a deep voice said

“Tell me what your name is ant for I have not been fed.”

“My name is Fly,” said Fly to Frog, “And you can plainly see …

That I’m a little nervous of the way you look at me.”

*

Said Frog to Fly “Don’t worry, son, it’s flies I eat for game,

But if you don’t mind my asking … again what was your name?”

The little ant looked at the frog and tried to hide his fear

“My name is … Fly,” he told the frog, “And now I’m leaving here.

*

The frog bellowed out a laugh and Fly walked sadly away

He didn’t much like the way that frog had treated him this day

On his way home he thought of things and wished his parents had

Chosen not to call him Fly and make him feel this bad.

*

Once around the thickets and then a bending tree

Fly came across a perching bird who called herself Phoebe

“A flycatching bird I am,” said Phoebe to the ant

“And now tell me what your name is bug or be gone if you can’t”

*

“My name is Fly and I’m an ant,” said the insect to the bird.

“And if you think you’ll laugh at that, I’d like to say a word.

I met a frog and he laughed at me and I think that was bad,

But if you laugh at what I’m called, I think that I’d be sad.”

*

Without a second passing by, the bird begin to giggle.

Poor Fly’s antennae on his head began to twitch and wiggle

“I just don’t understand what the matter is with my name,”

Said Fly to the bird as he walked away sadly in his shame.

*

On his way home he thought of things and wished his parents had

Chosen not to call him Fly and make him feel this bad.

But through a bush and past four friends who were gladly sipping cider,

Fly came upon a giant web and a large approaching spider.

*

“Who’s there, who’s there” cried Spider as he clicked his legs towards Fly

“It’s me; an ant and I want no trouble, I’m simply passing by!”

The spider neared and gazed his eyes upon the weary ant

And said “Tell me what your name is … bug, or be gone if you can’t.”

*

“I don’t much wish to say my name, if you don’t mind too bad,

It seems that others that find out just laugh and I feel sad.”

“That’s nonsense,” said the spider in a voice so deep and scary.

“After all I am a spider and my family calls me Harry.”

*

Fly caught himself before a smile broke out upon his face.

He didn’t want to do the same that others had in his place.

But no matter how Fly tried, Harry had seen his smirk,

And he nodded to the ant to show his proof had really worked.

*

“Now tell me what your name is boy,” said Harry to the ant.

“I want to really, Harry … but I just simply really can’t.

I understand your name is odd, and mine is too no doubt,

but your laughing at my name I can really do without.”

*

“I really do not understand why you behave this way,”

Said Harry to the ant and then he crossed his web that day.

As Fly watched Harry walk across his web along the way

He said, “My name is Fly the ant so what have you to say.”

*

Harry stopped and ignored a fly that had tangled in his web,

He turned and looked at Fly the ant and smiled a smirk and said,

“Dear boy, you’re right! That truly is a very funny name

Who ever heard of an ant named Fly, why that’s just quite insane.”

*

And then a great rumble came from deep down inside of the spider

He guffawed out and chased away the ants beside the cider.

Fly sadly hung his head and he slowly walked away.

He didn’t much like the way that Harry had treated him this day.

*

On his way home he thought of things and wished his parents had

Chosen not to call him Fly and make him feel this bad.

Then finally in the distance he could see his ant hill home

He was so done with exploring this day; he no longer cared to roam.

*

He walked inside the ant hole and passed his mom and pop

His pop took notice of his poking and asked for Fly to stop.

“What’s wrong with you my little ant and why the droopy face?”

Poor Fly sat down and pouted right beside the fireplace

*

“I’ve met three animals today and when they asked me what I’m called

They all began to laugh at me and that made me want to bawl.

It made me walk and think of things and try to wonder why

My parents would have named an ant something silly like a fly.”

*

“Tis’ true the name is a wee bit off,” said Pop ant to his boy.

“But be assured there’s good reason for your name to give you joy.”

“Twas when your mother walked along with her weary legs across

A rapid flowing stream of water near a nested patch of moss,”

*

“You had not been born yet, but were already growing in her belly.”

“You moved around inside her and made her six legs feel like jelly.”

“She stumbled, staggered, and as she tried to jump on a passing leaf,”

“She fell into the raging water and I was helplessly in grief.”

*

“But suddenly from up above and downward from the sky,

Swooped a truly heroic insect who introduced himself as Fly.”

‘I’ll save your wife,’ called out the fly to me on the nearby shore,

He plucked her from the river safely and we were grateful forever more.”

*

“Dear friends we did become and promised Fly when you were hatched

“We’d honor his heroic effort and make your names both match.”

Fly sat and pondered this a moment and looked at Pop and said.

“Considering the circumstances and all the things racing in my head,”

*

“And after meeting all the creatures and seeing what they eat,

I think I’ve come to a conclusion that I think you’ll find quite neat.

So now I understand your reasoning, and I’ll promise not to rant,

I’m sure glad I’m an ant named Fly, and not a fly named Ant.”

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White With Haste

Dead leaves of days gone by—now fly:

White with haste, ghouls fly high;
Amongst old aisles, where footsteps once fell

Now tombs and tales and lurking madmen hail:
Here is where H.P. Lovecraft once walked,

And talked—and wrote gloomy tales…!
It is he, who howls now like a ghoul,

In the nights—white with haste; he
Who no longer can see the light!

His wings now are wings of dread,

His breathe is naught, cold with death!…

At twilight in the hoary haunted woods,

You can hear a whisper now and then
Some gleaming teeth that could be his:

Piercing eyes, waxed with death…!

Dead leaves of days gone by—still fly,

Ruffled with footsteps that once fell,
Here is where madness was dispelled…

Where Lovecraft walked and talked:

To his second self!…

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Five Easy Steps to Reading a Famous Poem

Famous poems are everywhere. They appear in places no one could expect – slogans on television, common sayings and phrases, and the titles of just about every artistic film or endeavor at the local video store. Because famous poems are so transcendent, we rarely if ever notice they are there and even less often realize who wrote them. Why not ensure the proper steps are taken when reading a famous poem then to better appreciate the author, the poem, and the time spent reading it.

Step #1 – Selecting a Famous Poem

Easy as pie, right? It might immediately seem so but finding and selecting a specific famous poem or poet to study can be a bit time consuming. Do you really want to read something that does not interest you? You wouldn’t simply buy a book off of a shelf because the woman at the desk told you it was famous. You would want to know what the book is about. The same is true for poetry.

Most of the famous poems in history are available for free online and can be searched for by topic. If you are interested in a war story, Homer’s Iliad has been enthralling readers for millennia while Shakespeare’s sonnets are beautiful love poems. There are numerous resources for finding that ideal poem.

Step #2 – Who Wrote the Famous Poem

Who is the author of your famous poem? The list of potential names is nearly endless. Here are a few of the biggest and brightest stars of the poetry universe to get you started:

Homer

William Shakespeare

Edgar Allen Poe

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Percy Bysshe Shelley

John Keats

William Wordsworth

The list goes on seemingly forever if you let it. The best way to find an incredible, famous poet is to visit the local bookstore or library and ask for recommendations.

Step #3 – Reading the Poem

Read it carefully and slowly. Simply skimming through a famous poem doesn’t do it justice and will only leave you wondering, why is this so famous? You could read a magazine if you simply wanted text to skim over quickly. Poetry is meant to be absorbed and to absorb it you must read it slowly and methodically.

Step #4 – Contextualizing Famous Poems

When was the famous poem written? What was happening in the world? What major events were coloring the life of its author? These are the questions you should ask when reading a famous poem. Every poem has a story behind it and knowing that story can make the entire experience that much more engaging.

Step #5 – Finding More Poetry

Once you find a famous poem that you enjoy, that strikes the perfect cord, you will want to find more of the same. Luckily, many of the poets listed above have enormous bodies of work. Most local bookstores feature large anthologies of work from most of them as well as combined anthologies with famous poems organized by subject or publication date. If you want to find more poetry, there are dozens of resources to do so.

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The Nefilim: Angelic Warlords

Prologue:

This was meant to be the sequel to the book: “Angelic Renegades & Rephaim Giants.” The Rephaim Giants, whom were the offspring, or hybrid of the Watchers, which was done for the most part in poetic form and represents a short novel; the author he could present the best impression that way, that being, more on the emotional, symbolic scale his images, impressions of them.

This sequel is done was done in both poetic prose form; now put into poetic prose for the first time, and a vast amount is being left out [two sections]. The story represents a vision the author had. There were angelic beings given the task by God to watch over earth, did just that for a while, then two-hundred of them took it upon themselves to go down to earth and co-habituate with the human female gender, in so doing they chose a most dreadful fate, to be buried alive in the pit of the abyss, within the bowls of the earth.

Their off spring [children] was the giants of the Old Testament, Genesis Chapter 6, and also presented in the Pseudepigrapha, in the book of Enoch, written about 200 BC. No one is sure when the time period of this first started, but these giants of old were called the Rephaim Giants. Eventually they would meet their fate, by killing off one another in wars. Then came the flood, and your guess is as good as mine, what happened to them.

In my first book I took a visionary journey, within the story called: “Meeting of the Watchers.” Now you may be saying, where these Nefilim angelic warlords come into play; and especially how does one link them to the other.

Well, as you most likely know, God works things out in accordance to his laws, which I put into place a long time ago. That is to say, one of my visions, which I wrote about in the book: “The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon,” is about these Nefilim angelic beings also. The Nefilim angels were before and at present the Watchers, although being from the same stock. But I didn’t go on a journey like I did with Serr’el, to meet the Watchers in this quest of sorts. I simple went on a journey in which I got caught up in, and maybe was not suppose to, in their space craft, and out of wanting to know, stayed within this vision, not letting go, and some times, things just work out surprisingly for you. And this is what I’m about to share with you.

I was kind of like looking through a porthole. And I wasn’t taken back in time like I was with the Watchers, some 13,000-years. I was in the present, and so where they; or so it seemed. Again, there are no birthrights here. For the Watchers may even have slid over to the Nefilim quest, before they were sent to the abyss, and could be living today on some far off planet waiting to visit us: for Armageddon, or perhaps they will start it. This is what my vision was about, the Nefilim. Even though the Shinning Ones are involved, and what are they doing up there, was my quest, to find out. These were no aliens my friends. These are powerful angelic forces, although the Shinning Ones seem to have some kind of angelic-humanistic link. Meaning, the Watchers and the Nefilim are from the same sphere (I think); and may go on journeys together, but they do not think alike completely: similar to the space program between Russia and the United States, it could be: in a far fetched way. Whatever may be, we all share the same God, like it or not. We just all think we got our hands in His pockets, thus, no room for the others.

This story or combination of facts, vision, dream, some travel involved (Easter Island), over time: 1980s, and 90s and the new century: put me on a space ship, in l984. Although it took me close to twenty years to put it into in story form, it is ripe for the picking right now: in 2002 it was written, and in January 2006, it is revised, or reedited, more on the latter than the first: for there was really not a thing to revise but the style in presenting it to you. There were twelve-beings; six were angelic, the other six of an unknown species [I call the Shinning Ones]. But I do have hypotheses to this historical-visionary fictional story. Having said that let me take you into their world, and my image, visualization, or call it dream-vision;

It was l984:

The Nefilim: Angelic Warlords

[And the Shinning Ones]

Poetic Prose

The Space Ship

[A Dream Vision]

I noticed a spaceship high in the sphere observing earth —it couldn’t see me, I thought, but perhaps it could. Activities— a white dote, that’s all it was, for the moment; I wondered what they looked like, inside that space craft (from where I was standing, watching, observing on flat dirt), underneath their helm; “…what do they look like?” I questioned my mind, or perhaps it questioned me, as if I was what they were thinking.

There were twelve-beings inside this space craft: call it second sight, if you like: likened to a large arena… it was inside; caught in our atmosphere like a mouse-trap, or akin to a fly to a spider’s web. It was, round and spacious, half of these creatures were wearing white suites, the other half, lit the space they walked, as if—if they were on fire, likened to a glow from the moon, I call them: the Shinning ones.

The ones in the white suites, their heads were shaped like dogs in coffin, plastic coffin goon, but tall and strong looking. Slowly they walked as if death had no rights; I suppose I should admit they got my attention, these space suites and all, and the Shinning Ones, but I wanted to be among them.

Yes, oh yes, it had its own reality, different than mine, I could tell, as I transposed my mind to their mind, as if I was lead on top of their heads, they didn’t know I was there, in their space, in their spacecraft, half spirit, half alive, still standing on earth’s ground, still looking at them, now amongst them, in some kind of shadow bubble.

I now was there, there I say, there: standing like a soldier, in the throne room of a spaceship; a ship that never was, or at least, it seemed it was never. A dream, makings of a dream, but real it seamed, as if I was a step beyond, fiction, and in reality, one in another dimension. —It was less than real, but better for my mind to believe that, so my subconscious said.

“Wake up! Wake Up!! “I told myself yet I couldn’t almost, but couldn’t, wouldn’t, dare not—what for, my mind wanted to go on a longer journey. This, my friend, was not, not a dream!! The—Angelic force had on white dog-shaped space suites. I repeat, White….

“Awe,” I cried, “There are Baboons inside them suites. “ How foolish can one be, so I said to me? I told myself, “Baboons.” I stood still, as if they could see me, but they couldn’t of course, I was, like they were to earthlings, invisible.

As I looked about the ship, around and around, I noticed these beings were very tall; I also notices holes, big round windows, that looked like portholes, that peered here and there, everywhere, and especially now, especially down onto, upon earth. The white plastic coated monsters walked slowly, in dolce, cigarette machine: flat unemotional stride; from a distance, the Shinning Ones looked like robots, somewhat pre occupied.

What was their quest, I asked—me, but nobody heard, not even my inquisitive subconscious, for it didn’t’ question me beyond looking: yet, I felt they were the ancestors of stones, perchance those old stones, perhaps those on standing stones on Easter Island that look out and up, high into the sky, out into the frozenness of a past-time, ready to become beings again. Otherwise, what were these statues waiting for? So I asked myself. Yes, oh yes, maybe these people, these: whatever you want to call them, a lost tribe in forbidden time; now coming back to still, what it lost (perhaps)?

Another…landmark in time like Atlantis, so this was, I told myself: there I go again, more foolishness, thinking out loud with no one to disagree with me: like having a dead horse by your side and kicking it to let you know you’re alive, and who can disagree with you? Not the dead. Enough said, they didn’t seem too busy, these ancient creatures, up till now anyhow, they all seemed to be in a state of: no time wasted on idle chatter, but no hurry; so it seemed, so it was yet, there awareness of what each other wanted, and the system of the space craft, was all in tack. An angelic thing, or intuition, I gather.

Maybe a demon thing, maybe nothing, nothing at all, maybe I can get out of this dream, and not have to write a damn thing, but here I am nonetheless, writing it. I think they feel me, sense me; like one senses love, death. Like one has a third eye, but no one knows where it’s hidden; this was really happening. Not like I was taken back in time. Only taken up to a…whatever this is…space ship of sorts, in a buddle of some sort, “I’m watching you,” and they’re watching Earth.

I heard one say: “Israel, the Great Circle.” Another says, Avalon, “The New Jerusalem.” I am not sure if I was saying hearing it right so many echoes in this invisible chamber—a bubble of silence at times, and having to read their minds, or absorb their defusing talk: which I call: Cadaverous Talk, the Devils walk… —heaven knows it’s draining. But now I was in their ship, a bubble in a ship, trying to see where I belonged, where all this was leading. Where is my map? I am talking to myself again, and no one to talk to but the membrane of the bubble I’m in.

“Serr’el, where are you?” it’s my angelic friend, protector of sorts. He was at the hospital when I had my heart attack, the stroke, back in ‘92. He was there, also in Vietnam, when the plane went down, in ‘70. Oh, yes, he was always around. By my side when I met the Watchers in a book I wrote some time ago, back in a dream quest, about l982; and again he was there when I was on Easter Island, awhile back, when the spiritual forces in the stones tried to nerve me out of their ruins. But where is he now, right this moment.

The second group of six, I call them “The Shinning Ones,” they shine like flames from the Sun… I’ve learned their history… it goes back to earth…75,000 BC.

(Thoughts) If I had no form, I would put on those plastic suites, just a thought, loose talk; suites, I knew they were not the Watches, the Ancient Angelic Renegades; nor the Rephaim Giants, the Watcher’s children perhaps, of Enoch’s time, when Noah was still young, in his prime. They had all been killed, buried alive, in the abyss of the pit, these ancient ones of a lost time.

Some went home to the Golan Heights, where they still live, others children of Og, the giants of Malta, or perhaps the ancestors of the demons of the Tor. Who were these? Observatory beings I kept saying, guessing trying to decipher in this bubble of sorts.

(More thoughts) Were we plants to them? Or rocks to look at? Certainly not human beings, as I see it, no, oh no: we, I, were, is: just things: circles in evaluation, wishful thinking.

(Observations) As I looked around their spaceship, I came to the conclusion, they were checking out different geological locations on earth. Landmarks, old and new, Israel from the heavens, Egypt from the Sea, Washington they flew by, over like a breeze; and China they could see people reading a world event; something that just happened, perhaps was going to happen. They searched and searched, as if they were mortal enemies of the earth, the skies, old and new living things; envious of earth’s atmosphere.

Searching the Ship

As I searched the ship, its hauls, rooms nearby, I never seemed to leave the observation area, not sure why; I whispered, asked myself: ‘…am I walking in circles?’ They were looking through devices. The ship standing still at times; and at times faster than the eye it flew like a raging eagle.

(Old Thoughts): I had heard of the return of such beings that had visited earth. Coming back several times (13,500 BC; 4500 BC; 1073 BC, and now, AD l984, as I’m writing this: I see); (Thoughts): and I’m sure they are up there now, AD 2002. I have not seemed them in almost twenty years, or a little less, it was in ‘82. I wonder way (?) Now revising my poetic prose (this story): in January of 2006: some say these wee the Shinning Ones, all twelve; I say both, the Nefilim, and the other. I say, they came, and they left, and will come back again.

Number One

(More thoughts) One of the beings seemed to be the leader, I call him simply ‘Number One,” (likened to a First Sergeant in the Army I suppose)) in lack of a better name)). He stood there thinking, as if he was working out a plan; trying to tie things together. His mind was busy. His arms huge, like a donkey’s tail, a monkey’s limbs, something like that; nevertheless, he didn’t move slowly, he was swift: oh yes, even with the white shell of plastic armor on, flexible indeed, likened to the Lone Ranger, or Zorro or some hidden superhero, I wanted to see inside his mask, his shell, to see his face again—for curiosity’s sake; it perturbed, akin to a dogs beak. It troubled me, troubled me so: how on earth would he eat: meat, or me, if he could; so again, deep within my thoughts, I asked myself this: how could it be: but I suppose not everybody eats like me: does the devil? I knew now, but I didn’t know then. He had a black—area around his chin, like that of whales, he was proud with sin. But again I asked myself and answered: does the dead eat? Or the ghosts, or the devil, or God Himself; nor do any of these need sleep. Thus, the question was answered for me, by me: or was my friend around, feeding my mind?

I told myself I would not leave this ship until I found out, why: what I should say was happening. Unless this vision ended before I could. And it may. At this point to me, they were merely a white object spinning like a dot in the sky, and I hitched a ride; at the moment, no more than this.

(Observations): as looked about more, I saw planets on the spacecraft’s monitors; and as time went by, we past a few in the heavens I could see through the window ports. How long was I on this ship I asked myself?
What dimension was I in, at 76,000,000 mph, in 3.125? I witnessed Mars, a comet fly by; a space shuttle of sorts, how fast did the gages read, 489,600 Kilometers, and that doubled.

Notes from the author’s journal: Some of this story was written while on my way to Lima, Peru, and Santiago, Chile, 2002. But the concept of the Nefilim came about while doing research on some of my other books, into the Rephaim Giants, and Angelic Renegades, also called the Watchers; a some fragments of dreams pertaining to them, and visions I had in l984. In, 2002, I stumble over an old article in a magazine I read, then had did some more research into the mystery of these ancient angelic beings; on my second trip to Chile, I went to Easter Island. Thus putting all of this together, and creating this story. And now in 1/2006, revising it to fit its time; unlike my book: “Angelic Renegades and Rephaim Giants,” this story has never been published: but again the visions and notes go back to 1983-l984. Perhaps it could be a small sequel. You are only getting one third of the story, the other two thirds are in prose, completely. And are other fragments of the same nature as the first which is not necessary to the fullness of this story, yet it is not complete; that being, part two and three. What they were looking for I think is in part three. In part two I remain on a ship, and see some things very strange if not unsettling to me; infants being hybrid in incubators, and mothers in glass rooms with them. Perhaps the first part was to show me the ship general make up, calm me down. And the second was to show me what they were doing on board, and the third hovered over Mexico City, as it did others places, but they wanted something, a skull to be specific [Teotihuacán]. If I find time, I will try to do the other two parts, if I find people want to read it, find out about it. If not, it is fine where it rests.

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Amin’s Barbarity

Amin’s Barbarity

[Genocidal Slaughter in Uganda/1970s]

Weep because I know all things: how

To eat the flesh of my dead;

To feed my foe, to the Nile crocodiles

(and watch their bodies flow over Owen Falls).

Corpses, corpse, vultures and wild animals:

Big Daddy they called me: I even plotted

A coup against my king:

Amongst many other things.

I became a madman they say

(hammering my people like iron bars,

car axles; pools of blood on all my walls)

Those countries would like to have crushed me.

The Whites and Asians hated me—; and I,

Yes I dismembered my wife and killed her lover you see—

Thereafter, I stitched her limbs back on, but opposite.

(And showed them to my many kids.)) Said: a bad mother she was.))

No, her breasts would never rest on his bed again.

I had many lovers, wives, and children

In Exile (Saudi Arabia) they came and bid me well.

I lived in the lap of luxury, until I died,

And now I’m here in Hell!

O’ beast of Uganda, I am; I am

No mans friend—Oh, God

Oh God, Must I endure

Your ardent Echoes

…Again, again

And Again

?

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In the Fighting Fields of Bagdad and Kabul

Outside, and within the cities

Of Bagdad, and Kabul,

The sands blow wild,

Between the country’s roads

The hawks and the scavengers,

Here, they bravely sweep, fly low

Seldom heard amongst the arms below.

In these fighting fields

Of Bagdad and Kabul

So many dead, long days ago;

They lived, felt twilight, saw home

Were loved, gave love, and now they sprawl

In the low and wild sandy fields

Where the hawks and scavengers never bow.

Pick up this battle with the foe,

To you, who sent us here long time ago…!

We bring to you the torch, hold it high,

Do not break belief, for here we die.

If so, we shall not sleep, in these fields below

Where the hawk and scavenger, fly low.

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Alexander’s Feast

Saint Cecilia, a Roman virgin and martyr (230A.D.) is traditionally the patron saint of music and the inventor of the organ. Dryden’s poem Alexander’s Feast is written in celebration of St Cecilia’s Day on 22 November 1697.

The poem opens with Alexander the Great, son of Philip, King of Macedon, seated along with Thais, the young and lovely Athenian courtesan, enjoying the banquet in the Persian city Persepolis in celebration of his victory over the Persian King Darius III in 331B.C. We are introduced to the court musician Timotheus with his lyre and then told that Alexander was in fact the son of Jove, King of the gods, and Olympia. Thus, “the sovereign of the world” begot the conqueror of the world.

Timotheus sings in praise of Bacchus and the scene is filled with drunken revelry. Since drinking is the sweet pleasure of the soldier, Alexander grows in vain and fights all his battles again in his mind. Seeing the madness in Alexander’s eyes Timotheus changes his song into one designed to create a mood of pity. He sings of the fall of Darius, the Persian King, who was great and good, but was deserted by his own followers and his slain body left exposed to bare earth. The joy of victory evaporates from Alexander, and he sighs and starts shedding tears. Pity prepares the mind for love, and love is the subject of Timotheus’ next song. Alexander gazes at the fair lady Thais and sighs. Finally, oppressed with wine and love the “vanquished hero” sinks upon Thais’ breast.

Timotheus now shifts the music to a louder strain and rouses a sleeping Alexander to action. “Revenge,” cries Timotheus. The ghosts of the Greek soldiers slain in the battle cry out for revenge. The music fires Alexander with a great zeal to destroy. Thais leads Alexander to burn Persepolis. In this she is like Helen, whose passion for the Trojan prince Paris resulted in the Greeks burning Troy.

At last came St Cecilia, inventor of the organ. Inspired by God, she enlarges the bounds of music by adding length to musical notes. Cecilia is superior to Timotheus, Dryden declares. Old Timotheus should yield the prize to her, or at least divide the crown.

“He raised a mortal to the skies
She drew an angel down.”

Timotheus raised Alexander to the skies creating in the King’s mind the delusion of divine status. But Cecilia’s music brought an angel down from heaven.

In Alexander’s Feast music is shown to have a mighty range of influence. Timotheus draws his master Alexander to varying moods: pride, bacchanalian revelry, martial zeal, pity, love, and religious devotion. The rhythms and sounds in the refrains of each stanza echo the hero’s changing emotions.

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