The Death of Saddam

Perhaps he deserved to die
But do we have leave to take life

To the follower of a Biblical God
Is to be Thou Shall not Kill
Or the vengeful Eye for an Eye

Iraq’s infant democracy
Not a model of honour and trust
Its first steps tainted by a criminal act

Yes, perhaps he deserved to die
But Evil vs. Evil
Will itself lament Judgment-Day’s trial

Is it not public an execution
Broadcast on video display
Enlightment wallows in the darkest age

To rejoice in macabre events
Is evidence of humanity’s utter descent
Not by love in hatred we thrive

Death by firing squad a last wish not granted
Compassion witheld is everyone’s gallows
Perhaps he deserved it
but our sins will also be counted

©2006-M. Della-Marina

CARD XIII. DEATH.

From P.D. Ouspensky:
The Symbolism of the Tarot



Fatigued by the flashing of the Wheel of Life, I sank to earth and shut my eyes. But it seemed to me that the Wheel kept turning before me and that the four creatures continued sitting in the clouds and reading their books.

Suddenly, on opening my eyes, I saw a gigantic rider on a white horse, dressed in black armour, with a black helmet and black plume. A skeleton's face looked out from under the helmet. One bony hand held a large, black, slowly-waving banner, and the other held a black bridle ornamented with skulls and bones.

And, wherever the white horse passed, night and death followed; flowers withered, leaves drooped, the earth covered itself with a white shroud; grave­yards appeared; towers, castles and cities were destroyed.

Kings in the full splendour of their fame and their power; beautiful women loved and loving; high priests invested by power from God; innocent children - when they saw the white horse all fell on their knees before him, stretched out their hands in terror and despair, and fell down to rise no more.

Afar, behind two towers, the sun sank.
A deadly cold enveloped me. The heavy hoofs of the horse seemed to step on my breast, and I felt the world sink into an abyss.

But all at once something familiar, but faintly seen and heard, seemed to come from the measured step of the horse. A moment more and I heard in his steps the movement of the Wheel of Life!

An illumination entered me, and, looking at the receding rider and the descending sun, I understood that the Path of Life consists of the steps of the horse of Death.

The sun sinks at one point and rises at another. Each moment of its motion is a descent at one point and an ascent at another. I understood that it rises while sinking and sinks while rising, and that life, in coming to birth, dies, and in dying, comes to birth
.
"Yes," said the voice. The sun does not think of its going down and coming up. What does it know of earth, of the going and coming observed by men? It goes its own way, over its own orbit, round an unknown Centre. Life, death, rising and falling - do you not know that all these things are thoughts and dreams and fears of the Fool"?

To the Hereafter and Back

O Death, in the glory of each day’s sun-rise I yearn re-live that fifth-dimension encounter with you. After a fall from my frisky horse put me into a seven-day coma, I found myself out of my body floating as light as air, brushing the roof of a strange room. I looked down to see my own body lying still upon a hospital bed. -- Look at that -- I said to myself, -- why are doctors and nurses fretting anxiously beside that insignificant carcass of my body? Why, are they creating so much fuss over a body that has no more meaning for me than an old discarded dress?

Was it you O Death, that wonderful sensation of freedom? Of lightness of being? I had no fear. Everything appeared normal, natural. I heard what the doctors and nurses were saying, but I also perceived their thoughts, I saw the room I was floating in, while simultaneously I saw the hospital gardens. Not only did I smell rose bushes and pine trees, I became the scent.

O Death, was it with you I dashed through a crystal tunnel as if propelled by a reckless wind? Was it you, the glorious light I penetrated? The love I embraced? Was it you the sensation of being at the source of life? Then as light, you penetrated me, and I melted into you, we dissolved into each other, into love, into indescribable happiness.

O Death, how long did you hold me in your arms? Why did you let me go? Did you not know the enormous pain, the anguish caused me by the sudden knowledge I could not remain in your eternal embrace? You never explained why I had to return to terrestrial life. Was I not deserving to be there with you???

I was alone walking on a mountain trail, snow was falling. In the blinding whiteness I became aware of a dreadful headache. Who was the old man I met sitting on the edge of the snow-covered cliff? I told him of my headache, he smiled suggesting I rub my pain with freshly fallen snow. I shut my eyes and did as I was told. The pain suddenly was gone.

When I reopened my eyes, I could not see the old man, the mountain or the snow, I was awake in a hospital room, glad my father was there to greet me. I had come back from a voyage to the beyond, but was I happy to be back? O Death where light and darkness merge, we’ll meet again, I know…

Retelling of the extra-terrestial experience of Grazia Cini, signora from Firenze, Italy

Speak to us of Death

from THE PROPHET: Kahlil Gibran

Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of Death,
And He said:

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Death on my Journey

Death on my Journey

I speak of Death as if talking about a friend, yes, a devoted friend who walks beside me, sometimes behind me or up ahead, leading the way, yeah. You think I am weird. Ok, I spend a lot of time alone, yet I am not lonely because Death keeps me company.

Don’t take me wrong, if I address Death as She. Sometimes she’s female, sometimes he’s male, and often has no gender at all. Death is whole soul. Methinks I’ll speak to it. To enquire if it’s true he only exists as a light divine…

I will ask him for a dance: “Yeah, dance with me. Right here, right now, on these white-tiled floors surrounded by white painted walls… Lie beside me at nightfall when black satin sheets harbour dreams of soaring eagles, teach my spirit to ride zephyrs over mountains covered by eternal snow fields …”

Death is not my Enemy

We die even at Christmas time, Death takes no holyday, knows no borders, has no nationality, no gender. It has no God with whom it can make distinctions based on religion. No one is omitted in the face of favoritism.

Death takes its due among kings or paupers, rich or poor, priest or layman, child or old man, nor saints or sinners are exempt.

Yeah, Death constantly collects without exception, dispassionately. Not only human beings, but birds, fish, ants, spiders, lions or toads, shrubs, flowers, even in the forest takes its toll. Ice melts, seas dry up, mountains become sand. All equal. All must die.

Perhaps it matters when, how or where. We know WHERE is everywhere: in a hospital, on the battlefield, in the home, in a car or crashing airplane, in a fire, hurricane or earthquake.

For the most part, in keeping with traditional attitudes human beings regard Death as Enemy, therefore WHEN and HOW must be denied and remain in mystery.

I don’t believe in man-made Gods, I don’t believe what priests and politicians say. Though I believe life can be prolonged for some or something, I know from Death I shall not escape. Nor would I want to.

Death is not my enemy; Death is the mother in whose womb I will be transported to new dimensions. Death is the renewal, the liberator, the constant friend, the companion who will not abandon me when this aging mortal flesh no longer can sustain my youthful, spirited eternal self.

Nothing is my Name

I wake up with an apprehensive feeling after a night’s sleep haunted by uneasy dreaming. Always swimming against the tide, puffing against the wind, I should be stepping among the Christmas-shopping crowd, proud of my short-shorn hair when fashion calls for long… Shamelessly filling time solving crosswords puzzles when I should be focusing on some personal blogging nonsense …

Yes I procrastinate, I would leave behind the insecurities generated by the demands of western-style society: balance my bank account, fill out my income tax returns, wear the latest fashion clothes, drive a newer car, revere, regard and copy those who stand on papier-mache pedestals higher than my own.

Ok, go… go… I want to be… be… something Not made of flesh, something without ego… without intelligence… I want to be the real me, the nothing insignificant me, one grain of sand in the desert of the universe… without birthdate, without name, status, sex, religion…

Pontifical Gaffe?

2006, the year of the faux pas, the wrong move, the flawed message, week judgment.

There was Zidane’s head-butt at the last world-cup-soccer-game, Israel – Lebanon battering ram’s reaction to each other’s challenge, Ms Condoleeza Rice “New Middle East” speech, Mel Gibson intoxicated tirade, and now Pope Benedict XVI’s quoting 14th century Manuel II: “Show me Just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

How should we interpret Jesus Christ’s message of love and peace in 11th, 12th 13th 14th and subsequent centuries of Christian Church campaigns for control of the Holy Land and to gain more followers? Were Crusades not by the sword? What about the wicked activities the Vatican employed to compel South American indigenous people into Christian conversion? Should we forget the sadistic horror, the terror of torture, the persecution, the fear, the burning at the stake, the unjust, excessive sufferance of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, prescribed and approved by the Church unHoly Inquisitors?

More evil than that cannot not be imagined… Those Christian Church abominations were not promoted by the -- benevolent nature of God -- but were the mandate of a politically organized religion of which His Holiness is the present supreme leader. The important lesson here is that today’s and future popes will need to remember that even though they appear clad in costly medieval regalia and live in sumptuous palaces, they are as human beings, neither infallible nor holy, as the Church they represent would have us believe.

Buddhist thought: Being vigilant of the three doors of karma is to remove the conditions for three poisons to grow, the three doors are - Speech, Action and Thought.

My Middle East Questions

The events taking place in the world today unfold like a sick soap opera, supposedly Earthlings are intelligent beings -- a doubtful assumption – a presumptuous opinion – perhaps, but, if we are intelligent, we are neither good nor wise.

Who is running this show? Are we captured under the spell of a major brainwashing hoax? We seem controlled by some obsessive biblical power, but it’s not godly goodness, it’s a horror show.

Take as example the present Middle East quagmire:

How much is the world willing to pay for the survival of Israel? Why is the world held responsible for its continued existence? How long is this situation going to last?

Sometimes I think enough is enough…

Why is it always -- What Israel wants…???? Who are the Israelis? Is their claim to the land of Palestine legitimate in 21st century terms? Are the immigrant-Jews that have flooded onto that speck of land, the rightful descendants of the “Chosen People?” How is the Jewish “right to the Promised Land” justified to those whose conviction are outside the biblical sphere of belief and influence?

Was the Iraq War and removal of Saddam Hussein demanded by Israel? Was it for Israel that USA forces occupied Iraq and Afghanistan? Is Islamic terrorism rooted into Israel’s presence in the Middle East? If Israel has to be, can it only be by ceaseless military grind?

It’s hard to accept that we cannot have a few years of peace because of Israel and related problems in the Middle East.

When are we going to wake up from these continuing Semitic nightmares? What is the meaning of the expression -- Anti Semitism? Are they not Semites, the ancient Hebrews, the Akkadians, the Phoenicians, and the modern Arabs? Are modern Jews, Semites?

What would Judaism be today if Christianity and Islam had not followed?

In whose name millennia of war, occupation, murder and destruction? For whose profit centuries of hatred and distrust? Why can’t Israel be for Judaism what the Vatican is for Christianity or Mecca for Islam?

But here, deviating from biblical ranting and raving, my questions still remain:

Why is "diplomacy" dilly-dallying with the willpower to curb the present Hezbollah – Israel Conflict? Who wants war? Who are the suppliers of such obscene and massive numbers of weapons?
Can we stop the producers and production of military equipment? Are weapon manufactures those responsible for starting wars to unload their colossal arsenals?

Does Israel really believe that continuing military rampages can neutralize Hezbollah or its inevitable successors? Are devastating attacks on Lebanon and the obstruction of humanitarian aid not brutal and criminal acts?

Does a real Peace Plan really exist? I don't think so, whoever runs this Show does not want peace...

I am sorry to say that I do not trust Israel any more than I would trust any other self-serving organization. Israel is alway too ready to put in action the might of its military powers... and I do not mean the number of soldiers or generals or experts it has, but the billion-dollar war-machinery it stockpiles...

Winston's Churchill's view

Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years, have taken effective steps towards irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell – a handful of philosophic people - in the wasted sun-scorched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan continue to flow unbridled and unharassed into the sea.

Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965

Mel Gibson's in Vino Veritas

For Mel Gibson, saying the Jews are responsible for the woes of the world was a gaffe even the excuse of alcoholic influence will not erase. To quote Omar Kayyam's Rubayat:

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all thy tears wash out a world of it.

But isn’t the western world a free speech society? Are we back been burned at the stake for the heresy of saying what we think?

Weapons of Mass Madness

Before television and the internet we lived with some degree of innocent oblivion, but no longer can we escape from that on-stage-reality, humanity, the world, is, as always at the mercy of criminals and fools.

Seen at their best or worse in the morning or late night news, our nations’s leaders are no statesmen or philosopher-kings, that’s for sure…

Deceitful, self-serving, long-lived Australia’s John Howard justifies inflation and a squeezing interest-rate-rise, on a temporary shortage of bananas.

Mumbling Bush on Air-Force One, cannot rely on a self-respecting-sentence; the expertise of crafty speech writers must be his lunch or breakfast… No comment for frigid Dr. Rice, or a Bush-supporting Blair .

Squashy-spoken Kofi Annan, coyly says one thing and then agrees to do the other, he is so evident a puppet, the manipulating puppeteers are palpable through his weak veneer.

Those are only a few of the fools.

World-power-hungry megalomaniacs are the criminals; they maneuver, control and exploit world events, cashing in on massive profits through manufacturing, supplying and distributing warfare apparatus. We, taxpayers pay for wars they make…

To expect, in-conflict nations, to stop bellicose hostilities while simultaneously supplying weapons, is like asking smokers to stop smoking while providing them with cigarette packets, notwithstanding the warning label that “cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health”.

The real terrorists are the superpowers, those comfortably hiding in gilded towers, colossal fortresses of corporations and financial institution, while state-of –the-art- bombs and missiles rain on innocents and fragile environments. Is this what we pay taxes for?

We taxpayers, world citizens, urgently need to recognize our leaders’ greed and lack of wisdom, must demand, dismantle, and ban all iniquitous military-industrial composites. For the producer, the manufacturers, the architects of weapons, are the evil, not the weapons, nor the many who are bullied into using them.

We can and must find peaceful ways to boost our economies, to keep share markets afloat without the debouchery of war. But to stop wars, we first must cease to manufacture weapons, as to stop cigarette smoking is to stop the production of tobacco.

We must bury hatchets, cleanse ourselves of spilled oil and blood, cleanse the sea shores of tomorrow; without nefarious weapons we WILL find diplomatic ways, disputes can be squabbles, NOT wars.

Avalanche in the Middle East

No matter what the issue is, it always becomes an avalanche in the Middle East, as the present Lebanon-Israel conflict. It was the abduction of two Israeli soldiers the spark that lit the fires, the whole world held its breath at the showdown: “Return the soldiers or else…” asked Israel, “Only as a prisoner exchange,” Hezbollah replied.

Both sides deny negotiations, the basis for the on going clash becomes Israel’s “right to exist” and an "opportunity" to disarm Hezbollah, murder of the innocent, destruction and horrible devastation in the name of democracy. But who in Middle East makes war to achieve piece? Only fools and criminals…

So it was with Iraq. Great suspense while the USA gathered support to start a war: to save the world from Saddam Hussain's weapons of mass destruction, to liberate the region of a ruthless dictator, to create instant democracy…? or was to secure oil reserves and to complete the 1991 unfinished business…?

And all that carpet bombing in Afghanistan, what was that about? To get Osama Bin Laden? To get the Taliban? To unite the country’s war lords under one USA delegated flag and call it democracy? And still the poppies grow…

The Old World Order

And so 15 years later there is no talk of New World Order, it died at its inception. Now the task to clean up the New-Middle-East-Mess is more uncertain, more complex. And ALL SOLUTIONS only temporary anyway, for no amount of “democracy in the region” can obliterate the hatred and distrust caused by centuries of quarrels, recent violent disputes and devastating military activities.

Israel’s 1948 birth and its aftermath was achieved by a series of deceptions and for such, it will always be threatened by those seeking to avenge themselves, their forefathers, their dead, their dispossessed and traumatized. Israel’s wants recognition, security and a universal ‘right to exist’. A right that will not be achieved by military force, coercion and bullying, that it feels threatened and surrounded by hostile neighbourhoods, it’s true, but then it did not place itself there to behave like Father Christmas either…

The New Middle East

What does Ms. Secretary of State Rice imply by the New Middle East?

She descends on Rome from her private plane, a smiling Nubian Goddess clad in white robes, the no-cease-fire envoy of the USA. She announces that she has no desire to return in a few weeks or months to the same old thing, with a frozen gaze she delivers Washington’s warning for those who will not like the New Middle East: “We will prevail, and they will not”

Ok…
But who writes her lines? Does that not sounds suspiciously like G W Bush the 1st 1991 post Gulf-War “New World Order?”

Israel in the Middle

The existence of Israel in the Middle East is a supreme example of history repeating itself. In its Biblical Era its presence fermented violent emotions and the rise of endless confrontations with the original inhabitants of the land and with its neighbours, In the 21st century nothing much has changed except that God seems to be silent and less involved. Perhaps he abdicated in favour of the USA.

Oh Israel...

Israel, your reaction agaist Lebanon resembles Zidane’s headbutt at the World Cup. As conflicts continue in the Middle East I view you with increasing distrust and diminishing respect.

Ever since Theodor Herzl’s conception of “the Jewish State”(1986) you were maneuvered into existence, deliberately choosing to place yourself between the fire and the frying pan of the Arab world where with over 4000 years of historical hostilities your “Right to Exist” will forever be disputed.

Doubtfully will a universal “Right to Exist” be secured by military force. Persistent belligerence, aggressiveness, colonial dominance, moral and physical dispossession of existing tenants has, and will backfire.

Hizbollah, may be neutralized for awhile but not forever. It, Hamas or other “terrorist organizations” will rise in opposition… a never ending cycle never ending in peaceful co-existence. Like in the old days, fighting Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Philistines…

Take a break, this is the 21st century! With poverty, famine, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, disease, crime and all the other woes of humanity, with the exception of merchants of weapons who needs wanton damage, destruction and disruption when and where we all crave for a bit of peaceful sunshine?

An Atheist's View

What went wrong? Maybe there was never anything right with the human race, certainly the biblical claim that a god named Jehovah created mankind in his own image makes Jehovah a lot less than perfect, even if the rotten disposition of Adam and Eve’s descendants was caused by the incitement to disobedience by a serpent named Satan.

If Jehovah is THE - supreme – SUPREMEST CREATOR -- the FIRST CAUSE - - the eternal before and after – the always has been, always will be THE ONE and ONLY maker, nothing therefore exists, existed, can exist or will exist without this primary matrix, resulting in that this one indivisible force or essence, being all and everything, both positive and negative, also manifest itself as good AND evil --- as observable in the human race -- a touch of good and a hell of a lot of evil…

The Search For God

The concept of the divine has been my obsession, yet I never believed in Gods. Growing up a Roman Catholic I was amused but not devout. In church I did not pray, just looked at the paintings in the ceiling. Spiritual was the odour of burning incense, holy the light that filtered through stained-glass windows, I abhorred confession and was embarrassed by communion.

Biblical stories I could not separate from myths or fairy tales, Jove and Jehova held equal status, clad in her white gown and blue mantle the Madonna could have been Cinderella… both Christ and Sisyphus were chastised for helping out the other fellow.

Because I did not feel, I neither feared nor loved the biblical boss. One day I walked for God with pebbles in my shoes, I experienced physical pain but nothing more… so I sat on the pebble ground under a chestnut tree, rays of sunshine flickered through the leaves, in the distance floated fluffy clouds … I flashed on a bloody Roman arena, early Christians and African lions facing each other... right there and then I knew religion was not for me, I just didn’t have it…

Off the Road

Yes, I have been out, away, gone... Hitchiking 0n the road to nowhere. Searching, seeking but not finding, barely looking where I was going, anyway I could'nt see... or hear, and cannot tell where I have been because I don't know where or what it was. It was dark, I know that... Dark and foggy... black and white...

Suddenly she came out of the mist... Mrs. Hoffman gave me a lift and disappeared... I am back, but am I really here?

Earthquake

©2006 – Dallas Mariner

How long is an earthquake? Is it ten – twenty - sixty seconds? When the earth beneath your feet is dancing the dance of death, how long are ten – twenty – sixty seconds?

Is each second a thousand seconds, does time stand still, can you hear the infernal roar, or is it in a flash of icy silence that earth’s quaking viscera twists your brittling back bone?

At that unforeseen, unpredicted, unsuspected moment, when the fiendish fury strikes, are you eating – sleeping – making love? Meditating? Praying to the Lord?

Earth shakes, howls, pauses, ---- its over---- you think ---------- And then before you know it, the fury strikes again, tripled the second time around.

Walls came crushing down, trapped, wounded, breathing dust beneath the rubble you wait, in hope, in fear, ---- you hear distant shouts--- screams

And the agony of a loved-one dying beside your feet.

Da Vinci ... more...

©2006-Dallas Mariner

What's the fuss, what’s the fuss, The Da Vinci Code revival, Take the myths away and what’s left is what? Jesus’ father was an astronaut?

A heavenly baby from an earthly-virgin-channel comes, And from the planet Kripton we have Superman.

And so what’s new and where do we go from here, The Olympian Gods of old, fathered many a birth, Take His Royal Rascal, King Zeus, Transmuted into an angelic swan, Leda he seduced.

From the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, rises a willing Jesus, Eager to fulfill in death, the prophesy - his mission - Messiah!

Trinitarian son of Heaven, one third God, One third Holy Spirit, and what’s left is human.

With such attributes endowed, what’s the problem? To make His way to France and simultaneously ascend to heaven?

Knowing death in any case, is only a temporary state, Rebirth, Resurrection, Reincarnation, Or waking from Joseph of Arimathea’s anesthetic potion.

And so what’s the fuss? Father begets a son, and son begets his own, generations follow in the eccentric bloodline for kings and queens to claim their Right divine.

It would seem it all evolved as planned, except Some maintain the real Messiah is still to come, Others deem Jesus will come again. More each day believe celestial astronauts are here, disguised, but well,

Either way they should not tarry to make their presence known. And be they neither kings nor gods, Greedy and ignorant, rulers and religion made one living hell of this earthly paradise!

Let there be females among these interplanetary diplomats, No meek virgins please, But philosophical amazons to matrix our future earth-kin!



,

Buddha's Diamond Sutra

Of the transitory nature of existence, think this fleeting world as nothing more than a star at dawn, a bubble in the stream, a flash of lightening in a summer’s cloud, the mere flicker of a lamp, a phantom and a dream.

The Sting

One year ago or ten, twenty or thirty years ago, who cares… but it was a day in May when Chuck died, and every year in May I think of Chuck recalling the six months I spent as a guest in Casa Camicina, his beautiful house in Puerto Vallarta.

We were climbing in single file up over rocks and boulders towards the waterfall, we could not have been very far from it because we heard the splashing and gurgling sound of water and from time to time the strange call of exotic birds, otherwise the forest was silent. That was precisely what we were looking for, an afternoon of peace and quiet, a skinny-dip in the solitary waterfall, away from the playa, the crowded tourist beach, the beach-vendors with their colorful array of serapes and sombreros, the endless game of gin-rummy we played and the double Margarita Cocktails that filled the many Happy-Hours…

We kept pace though the trail we were following gradually narrowed and then disappeared, swallowed by the increasing density of foliage. I was following Darryle who walked five or six meters behind Tio Mateo and Celestina… Even when bush-walking Darryle was a gentleman, extending his hand, clearing the path, pushing branches out the way to make my passage easier. Hidden in the thick tangle of leaves and branches was a wasp hive whose inhabitants, clearly vexed by our noisy intrusion, buzzed out of the hive in frenzied fury. Five or six real and a hundred phantom wasps suddenly assaulted my hair and neck, the metallic clacking of their wings next to my ears pierced my brain and as quick as the strike of a match, uncontrollable panic possessed me. I did not want to run from the wasps, I desperately wanted the wasps to get away from me. I recall my arms lashing above my head in frantic attempts to get the insects to leave my physical territory, and they did. But only after inflicting revenge for our ill mannered invasion. In three different locations of my head and neck they left their sting, and as a party balloon deflates when punctured, I felt my energy flow out of my body, I became urgently aware of simultaneously being on the edge of an abyss and wanting to faint, with the fainting feeling a bliding light exploded in my head as if someone had turned on flood lights before my lid-less eyes. “Excuse me” I said to myself, “lie down here on these boulders because you are going to be sick”… Only I wasn’t sick, nor was I afraid, though I was floating on rocks as fluffy as clouds I was aware of goose-bumps on my skin, of wasps’ stings on my head and neck… and of an endless echo in my head, the song I heard that morning while walking past Playa Los Muertos: “…Y volver, volver, volver… a tus brazos otra vez… estare a tu donde estes… Quiero volver… volver… volver…”

“Adelita, Adelita, can you hear me?” Adelita hablame, Adelita dime algo… Adelita…”

The scent of lemons reached my nostrils. I focused my eyes, pink clouds were traveling across the sky, Celestina face... yes, she was looking down at me, cradling my head on her lap and rubbing lemon on the lumps that had grown where the wasps had left their sting. Chuck was there too, strange… he was not supposed to be there, he was not with us when we started out on the climb to the waterfall. Chuck was a doctor, had someone summoned him?

“…Y volver, volver, volver… a tul brazos otra vez… Quiero volver… volver…”

How bizarre, now I am still alive, often wishing to die, and Chuck is dead. Died in May, a few months later. I suspected it was not an accident. Well… it had been an accident, but a deliberate one. Chuck had a long standing death-wish, a big one. I knew it because Chuck knew mine. He told me once or twice: “All you ever need to concern yourself with is sex and death”. He never said love. I though he should have said love, and told him so, but he replied he meant to say sex, not love. And maybe he could have said suicide instead of death…

The Voyeur on the Yacht

©2006 – Captain Rose

... I happened to glance through the window of the cabin, and what should I see but a lot of bare legs on the embankment. I quickly whipped off my bifocals and brought my best binoculars to my eyes. It was a deeply tanned woman of about 40 years of age, she was squatting as about to urinate. Her skirt was hitched up, as was a silky black petticoat, but still had on her knickers, on the outside of her thigh I could see a nasty bruise. Her knickers were white, and in front I wasn't sure if it was grime or dark hair showing through.
Someone in the park shouted: "O,!"
Probably nothing to do with her, but she reacted as if she'd been stung by a bee, dropping her skirt and reaching the concrete path in about three strides. She must have been absolutely dying for a pee because no sooner where her feet on the path that she had her skirt hitched up to her waist again, - her slender tanned legs, her lacy, white knickers, her dark patch, all revealed, and the bruise, - I almost forgot the bruise! Then I noticed sunlight glinting on a cascade of pee from her crotch, - almost a rainbow, as she stiffed-legged it along the path for all the world like a wild creature on a stampede. After a while she dropped her skirts, shook her
hands by her sides, looked over her shoulder, and disappeared among the trees and bushes towards the iron gates.
You'd be surprised the things that go on in the park in broad daylight!

Eclipse Of The Sun

Slihouette of a bird
on a branch
during the eclipse of the sun
in Islamabad, Pakistan

Italy's Vinatage Wines

If Silvio Berlusconi and Romano Prodi were wines and not politicians, the first would be Champagne-like Franciacorta and the second the more down to earth Lambrusco. This according to a poll taken by Italian websites Wine News and Vinitaly, Italy's leading wine trade fair.

The websites recently posted the question "which wines are most like the two politicians" and received more than 2,000 replies. According to 57% of the answers, Berlusconi is like Franciacorta because he is "sparkling, exuberant, effervescent and distinctive" also comes from the Lombardy region where "Little France" is located. However some of Berlusconi's detractors observed he is like Franciacorta, because the sparkling wine is trying to be something it is not: Champagne.

Lambrusco was the obvious choice for Prodi,because they both come from Italy's Emilia Romagna region, the red sparkling Lambrusco is often served with the regional cold cut Mortadella, a derogatory nickname given to Prodi. The wine was also chosen because it is a simple and popular wine which everyone likes because it does not pretend to be anything more than what it is.

However, a fair percentage of poll replies were somewhat irreverent toward both politicians, comparing them to corked wine, cheap wine in paper cartons and wine vinegar.

Happy Easter

Is it spring time in the Northern Hemisphere? Are there new buds and tender leaves on trees? Warmer breezes coming from the sea? Downunder everything is up-side down or the other way around, no chirping chicks, nor smell of primroses in the fields... same old palm trees and winter nearly here...

To all I wish "heaps" of Springtime love.

Bikinis in Bali

"If a country such as Indonesia wants to ban kissing in public and bikinis on the beach, maybe this is a country where Australians shouldn't be". The spoken words I heard as I cruised local TV channels for early morning news.

As I laboured to make the perfect cup of Earl Grey, I wondered why Australians need to use "cultural blackmail" for a bit of fun in the sun and a dip in the sea.

Australia's coastline is longer than 25,000km, add more than 7,000 beaches, pick among spectacular secluded bays framed by rocky crags and colored sands, or choose Manly Beach in Sydney, on Surfers Paradise's Main Beach the party never stops.

On the Queensland Sunshine Coast, those who feel incarcerated by a bikini strip, can stroll naked along the sea-shore of a nudist beach. Rarely is kissing seen on Australian public venues or along the streets.

A western brand of liberal conventions in Indonesia may provoke reprisal, not a joke but a spatter of perversion, to extort the forfeiting of local mores from a hard-up neighbour, inviting trade of long established modesty is immoral, dangling the much-needed but scornful tourist dollar...

Perhaps the key is language, some people "travel" to far away places eager to discover, to appreciate, to see, feel, touch, smell, taste, learn how others breethe, many more are "holiday-makers"... Drinking, drugging, kissing, disrobing on a foreign beach...

Unleashed

I can't control this venomous mood, Roland's male-chauvinistic arrogance makes me angry, it sparks in me a feuding attitude.

The way he treats Rosita, akin to a worthless slave forced into obedience school. If she makes an independent move, he suffocates her by tightening the emotional noose. What is he trying to prove?

I can't deter my own vexation, his constant brain-washing methods are offensive, his expert juggle back in time when peasant-minded-men ruled supreme, and women had no rights.

She is his vassal, a pawn, a puppet, the slave who four millennium ago carried granite blocks to build the pyramid of Cheops.

When he wants something he's rarely nice, and when he has had his want, he will dismiss her as if she were at his paid command. What gives him the right?

To ensure his undisputed rule, he his never satisfied; ten, twenty, a hundred times each day, when not whingeing from his sofa-throne, he spews instructions in royal-highness tones:

" Feed the dog, answer the telephone, did you write that cheque; the garden is dry, pick up the mail, take the rubbish out; make me a cup of tea, what food is there to eat?" And when the food arrives, do you think he is pleased?"

She washes, irons, sweeps and never wavers, while his only chore is to unfold the daily newspaper; though he does not cook he dictates how food is placed on the refrigerator shelves, and must oversee how much carpet-cleanser she will need to clean the rug beneath his feet...

Why does she agree?

That is what I see... Perhaps for Rosita and her chosen Master there is a role-reversal beteeen the sheets...

© 2006 Dallas Mariner

Canti

She will belong to no one, says my woman. Will be mine only, notwithstanding Jove's temptations, she promises, but what a woman tells her lover can be written in the wind, or rapid running water.
Catullo

I love and I hate! Perhaps you ask: How can that be? I don't know, but that's the way it is. And it torments me
Catullo

A Dash of Angostura

If we were to ask: How do you like your Scotch? We would get a variety of answers, such as: straight up, neat, on the rocks, with soda, even double with a pretty lass... I prefer mine with water and a dash of Angostura. But if I were asked: How do you like your poetry? I would have to admit my ignorance and look up the meaning of poetry in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Which I did!

The results were: Concrete poetry, Georgian poetry, Gnomic poetry, Heroic poetry, Pattern poetry, as well as Skaldic, Topographical, Jazz (my favorite), Pure, Physical, even a "Fleshy School of Poetry" associated with Dante Gabriele Rossetti, and so named by Scottish writer R.W. Buchanan.

And I thought poetry was made of: Images, Discourse, Fixed or Free Rhythm, Stressed/Unstressed syllables etc; of metrical distinction, is Pulitzer Prize winner W. D. Snodgrass's example of the first two lines of his poem "April Inventory":

The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.
In one whole year I haven't learned
A blessed thing they pay you for.

Ok, I got through my lesson of: line breaks, enjambments, end stops, figures of speech, similes and metaphors, I understood that the "word music" of "direct rhyme" should not be forced, the rhyming word needs not be there because it rhymes, but because it is the best for the poem's sense as well as sound, as in the example of the above four lines of W.D. Snodgrass's "April Inventory".
The subtle echo of sounds, created by the "Indirect rhyme" is also known as half rhyme or slant rhyme. "Formal structure" poetry includes sonnets, sestinas, and villanelles...

But, admitting total lack of literary discipline, in the informal delivery of my conclusion I will make a note that as I like my Scotch with water and a dash of Angostura, so I like (mine or yours) poetry, straight from the head or heart with a dash of passion.

Saddam Hussein - the goldsmith -

Among newspaper and magazine scraps packed in an inconspicuous shoe box purchased at the Sunday flea market, I found this unexpected article, which, in my humble view, depicted the multi-leveled characteristics of Saddam Hussein; of interest was also the comment on the liberal, often shadowy, trade laws (not only Swiss) that govern the marketing of prestigious collectables. I deduced the article came from an - Art News -magazine or newspaper, published in the UK at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

Goldsmith's work

by Saddam Hussein for sale

"He finds it relaxing to use his hands"

Geneva. A large circular tray and a coffee-pot worked in solid gold by Saddam Hussein have surfaced in the Swiss market. It has been a surprise to discover that the Presidential palace resounded with the toc-toc of the metalworker's hammer and punch, as hobbies of this nature are not usually considered dignified in Middle Eastern countries, but an exiled Iraqi who was close to him, says Saddam Hussein found it relaxing to work up the elaborate embossing and punch-work that decorates such pieces, familiar to anyone who has visited the bazaars of that part of the world,

As is traditional, the pieces are decorated with pious invocations in praise of the owner, in this case, also the maker. The tray reads: "Glory to myself Saddam Hussein, the exalted sultan, the master that curbs the neck of nations, sultan of the sultans of the Arabs, and the non-Arabs, he that is supported by heaven... the exalted one, the most just, the most liberal, the most knowledgeable, the most glorious etc. etc. The long spouted coffee-pot is inscribed: "To Saddam Hussein, felicity and integrity. May I live as long as the dove coos".

Questions arise as the true ownership of these objects, which, whether one finds them attractive or repulsive from the point of view of their aesthetic qualities and associations, are worth at least their bullion value. ( 128 ozs ).

Have they been looted during the post Gulf War unrest in Iraq... or sent out by the dictator himself? Due to the extremely liberal Swiss laws regarding trade in object of uncertain origin or ownership, ( characterized by one curator at the department of Greek and Roman Antiquities of the British Museum, as belonging to the 'See no evil; hear no evil' school of thinking on cultural property), there will almost certainly be no inconvenient legal come-back for any buyer at the sale, scheduled to take place at the Hotel des Bergues on 1 April. Interest in the pieces is apparently growing: "After all", said one dealer, "the fact that Napoleon was defeated has not stopped a solid market of souvenirs of him, and there are people who collect Hitler's watercolours".

Dear God

Knowledge of you lodged in my earliest memories, your omnipresence asserted at dawn as the Matin, at nightfall as a bed time prayer, through the day via images of your only legitimate son Jesus bleeding and nailed to a cross on the kindergarten walls.

Present in most conversations you were, indeed you are: "Oh... my God, God almighty, Thanks to God... God bless or bless you God... Vaias con Dios for the love of God..." Present before and after meals, when church bells tolled or pealed, in glory or blasphemy you were, indeed you are, always here.

No need to tell you I was a curious child, You being omniscient and all, knowing what makes every clock tick, every flower bloom, how atoms split, why tidal flows are regulated by the moon. No need to jog your memory that in spite of you remaining, indeed retaining your Sacred Invisibility, I contemplated meeting you.

Many town folk were forced to worship you, fearing hell, fire and brimstone Your vengeful nature would strike with when breaching sacred Laws, laws that you, wise but contentious Commander in Chief Who Art in Heaven, imposed on us down here on Earth, yet the good and the bad folk alike , put their trust in your humble Savior-Son Jesus and his Virgin Mother Mary.

Yes God the Father, we feared you, indeed we do, because though molded in Your very own matrix, we are "imperfect seconds" in this cluttered Homo-Sapiens's factory, we break your rules, we confess, we pray... Break the rules... Repent, confess, repeat and pray... The devil makes us do it...

I was not afraid of You, as You know, my mommy was unmarried when she birthed me, I grew up preoccupied by the sound of crickets in grassy fields and too busy watching fireflies to be concerned with the meaning of paternity, I was not plagued by a daddy I never had, nor by You, omniparous Omnipotence.

I was not concerned with Thee, being so small among so many VIP's You would not have noticed me, You, abiding somewhere up in heaven and I but a tiny dot down here on earth's last station, furthermore you being incessantly engaged by those experienced in securing your high-ranking consideration.

People like the Pope in Rome, the USA President, the Monsignor, priests, nuns, monks, even the solitary little old lady who everyday upon entering Your house took her place among the empty pews and flipped rosary beads. I always postponed my prayers in favor of skipping rope and read Topolino comic book until I fell asleep...