Ross wanted to visit Europe with me... He though it will be more worthwhile and pleasurable with me...because I have been there and because I have many friends their... He wanted to see Europe and meet my friends too...
Today I woke I to the sad situation in Brussels where bombs exploded and human beings killed a maimed other human beings...
and Ross was on my mind...
He wanted to see Europe and celebrate life... But Organized Religion... this time Islamic-Jihadists...spew their hated and Organized Religion becomes organized violence...
Ross wanted to see Europe... celebrate culture and civilization... He was a happy man from Montreal... and he liked good things... In holy week we attended Saint John Passion concert together and talked of good things and raised our glasses for world peace...
He wanted to visit Europe and travel beyond...but it never happen... and the Islamic-Jihadists will sill kill and maim...
***
Yesterday, March 21 was World Poetry Day...French priest and poet said: "Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes." When people were still dressing for Sunday and celebrating a "restful day..." This day, that is yesterday, the world recognizes the moving spirit of poetry and its perpetually transformative, and indeed metamorphosing effect of poetry on culture and on civilization...
In the math department I had a poet-math teacher...
I asked him many times to open to the students and initiate a poetry club... He was shy and did not want the responsibility...
Ross entreated him... but he was shy and neglected him...
Today I remembered him too... and I hope he is writing still...
Writing is good and purifies the thinking process... writing explores new crevices deep inside you...
So,
Write a poem today... Hand it to the wind... Let it whirl around... wonder with the wind... Let it be filled with love... Let it shower peace among people...
Just write a poem... and kiss it goodbye... Let it hop on flowers... Let it hug trees... and embrace people with lasting peace...
Just write a poem... One line or two and maybe three... let it go free with the breeze... and let it rain peace...
It is the Holy Week... so just write a poem... and let it promise PEACE...
***
Oscar Wilde and Pablo Neruda and Langston Hughes...
Pablo Neruda
Oh yes I knew him, I spent years with him,
with his golden and stony substance,
he was a man who was tired -
in Paraguay he left his father and mother,
his sons, his nephews,
his latest in-laws,
his house, his chickens,
and some half-opened books.
They called him to the door.
When he opened it, the police took him,
and they beat him up so much
that he spat blood in France, in Denmark,
in Spain, in Italy, moving about,
and so he died and I stopped seeing his face,
stopped hearing his profound silence ;
then once, on a night of storms,
with snow spreading
a smooth cloak on the mountains,
on horseback, there, far off,
I looked and there was my friend -
his face was formed in stone,
his profile defied the wild weather,
in his nose the wind was muffling
the moaning of the persecuted.
There the exile came to ground.
Changed into stone, he lives in his own country.
Pablo Neruda
Let America Be America Again
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
It was World Poetry Day yesterday, and I was celebrating when the reality struck in Belgium and it cut my celebration short... Organized Religion, this time Islamic Jihadists, in the service of hate and violence...without borders...
Hate and violence has been integral part of Islam... and I wish Muslim governments like Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Iran and Indonesia and ALL the rest will loudly condemn the violence...
Hate and violence has been part and parcel of organized religion and I hope the faithful will condemn the violence perpetrated in their name... Hate and violence have never brought peace and never have corrected the mistakes of the past...
Violence only begets violence and blood begets blood... I know that an eye for an eye... will only make TWO people blind... and never cure anything...
This mother with her child is the victim of Turkish-Islamic manipulations and European greed... So the agreement says...
All "irregular migrants" crossing from Turkey into Greece from 20 March will be sent back. Each arrival will be individually assessed by the Greek authorities...
and, For each Syrian returned to Turkey, a Syrian migrant will be resettled in the EU. Priority will be given to those who have not tried to illegally enter the EU and the number is capped at 72,000
Also European Union will lift visa restrictions from Turkey... Give Turkey financial aid and expedite negotiations for Turkish EU membership...Governments
So Turkey plays politics with the Syrian migrants and manipulates the European governments and harvests the benefits...
***
A Sad Contradiction... a soldier in the flowers...
What a sad combination... An agent of death in the blooming spring...
Yet maybe Easter will bring PEACE...
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