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Don't take advice from your enemy.

Sicilian proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Through the eyes of a Field Coronet (Epic)

Introduction

In the kaki coloured tent in Umbilo he writes
his life’s story while women, children and babies are dying,
slowly but surely are obliterated, he see how his nation is suffering
while the events are notched into his mind.

Lying even heavier on him is the treason
of some other Afrikaners who for own gain
have delivered him, to imprisonment in this place of hatred
and thoughts go through him to write a book.

Prologue

The Afrikaner nation sprouted
from Dutchmen,
who fought decades without defeat
against the super power Spain

mixed with French Huguenots
who left their homes and belongings,
with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Associate this then with the fact

that these people fought formidable
for seven generations
against every onslaught that they got
from savages en wild animals

becoming marksmen, riding
and taming wild horses
with one bullet per day
to hunt a wild antelope,

who migrated right across the country
over hills in mass protest
and then you have
the most formidable adversary
and then let them fight

in a natural wilderness
where the hunter,
the sniper and horseman excels
and any enemy is at a lost.

Let them then also be patriotic
into their souls,
believe in and read
out of the word of God

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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Feeling Out Of Sorts?

Feeling out of sorts these days?
Want to know what you can do?
Need help? Here are 50 ways,
Maybe you'll benefit from a few

ROTMS

SYMPTOMS OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

1. Changing sleep patterns: restlessness, hot feet, waking up two or three times a night. Feeling tired after you wake up and sleepy off and on during the day.
There is something called the Triad Sleep Pattern that occurs for many: you sleep for about 2-3 hours, wake up, go back to sleep for another couple of hours, wake again, and go back to sleep again. For others, the sleep requirements have changed. You can get by on less sleep.
Lately I have been experiencing huge waves of energy running into my body from the crown. It feels good, but it keeps me awake for a long time, then subsides.

Advice: Get used to it. Make peace with it and don't worry about getting enough sleep (which often causes more insomnia) . You will be able to make it through the day if you hold thoughts of getting just what you need. You can also request your Higher Power to give you a break now and then and give you a good, deep night's sleep.

If you can't go back to sleep right away, use the waking moments to meditate, read poetry, write in your journal or look at the moon. Your body will adjust to the new pattern.

2. Activity at the crown of the head: Tingling, itching, prickly, crawling sensations along the scalp and/or down the spine. A sense of energy vibrating on top of the head, as if energy is erupting from the head in a shower. Also the sensation of energy pouring in through the crown, described as 'sprinkles'.

This may also be experienced as pressure on the crown, as if someone is pushing his/her finger into the center of your head. As I mentioned in #1, I have been experiencing huge downloads of energy through the crown.
In the past, I have felt more generalized pressure, as if my head is in a gentle vise. One man related that his hair stood on end and his body was covered with goosebumps.

Advice: This is nothing to be alarmed about. What you are experiencing is an opening of the crown chakra. The sensations mean that you are opening up to receive divine energy.

3. Sudden waves of emotion. Crying at the dropp of a hat. Feeling suddenly angry or sad with little provocation. Or inexplicably depressed. Then very happy. Emotional roller coaster. There is often a pressure or sense of emotions congested in the heart chakra (the middle of the chest) . This is not to be confused with the heart, which is located to the left of the heart chakra.

Advice: Accept your feelings as they come up and let them go. Go directly to your heart chakra and feel the emotion. Expand it outward to your all your fields and breathe deeply from the belly all the way up to your upper chest. Just feel the feeling and let it evaporate on its own. Don't direct the emotions at anyone.

You are cleaning out your past. If you want some help with this, say out loud that you intend to release all these old issues and ask your Higher Power to help you. You can also ask Grace Elohim to help you release with ease and gentleness. Be grateful that your body is releasing the see motions and not holding onto them inside where they can do harm.

One source suggests that depression is linked to letting go of relationships to people, work, etc. that no longer match us and our frequencies. When we feel guilty about letting go of these relationships, depression helps us medicate that pain.

4. Old 'stuff' seems to be coming up, as described above, and the people with whom you need to work it out (or their clones) appear in your life. Completion issues.

Or perhaps you need to work through issues of self-worth, abundance, creativity, addictions, etc. The resources or people you need to help you move through these issues start to appear.

Advice: Same as #3. Additionally, don't get too involved in analyzing these issues. Examining them too much will simply cycle you back through them over and over again at deeper and deeper levels. Get professional help if you need to and walk through it.

Do not try to avoid them or disassociate yourself from them. Embrace whatever comes up and thank it for helping you move ahead. Thank your Higher Power for giving you the opportunity to release these issues. Remember, you don't want these issues to stay stuck in your body.

5. Changes in weight. The weight gain in the US population is phenomenal. Other people may be losing weight.

[...] Read more

poem by Ray Lucero
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Good Advice Is Free

Looking up and down the street,
Before one goes across...
May save one's life without the strife.
And prevent paying a cost.

This advice is free.
This advice is free.
No matter what it is one thinks,
Agony is mean.
Nah, nah, nah-nah.

Before you pout and give me looks,
About something I say.
Open up your ears a moment,
Don't push me away.

This advice is free.
This advice is free.
No matter what you think of me...
I'm not your enemy.
Nah, nah, nah-nah.

Why do people get offended,
By a truth that's told.
But lies they seem to cling onto,
And then sell their own souls.
To leave them feeling...so low!

This advice is free.
No fee paid.
This advice is free.
No matter what expense is paid,
Good advice is free.
Nah, nah, nah-nah.
Nah, nah, nah-nah.

Why do people get offended,
By a truth that's told.
But lies they seem to cling onto,
And then sell their own souls.
To leave them feeling....so low!

This advice is free.
No fee paid.
This advice is free.
No matter what expense is paid,
Good advice is free.
Nah, nah, nah-nah.
Nah, nah, nah-nah.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Tired Eyes

Well he shot four men in a cocaine deal
And he left them lyin in an open field
Full of old cars with bullet holes in the mirrors.
He tried to do his best but he could not.
Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes,
Open up the tired eyes.
Well, it wasnt supposed to go down that way.
But they burned his brother, you know,
And they left him lying in the driveway.
They let him down with nothin.
He tried to do his best but he could not.
Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes,
Open up the tired eyes.
Well tell me more, tell me more, tell me more
I mean was he a heavy doper or was he just a loser?
He was a friend of yours.
What do you mean, he had bullet holes in his mirrors?
He tried to do his best but he could not.
Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes,
Open up the tired eyes.
Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes,
Open up the tired eyes.

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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Heart-shaped Box

She eyes me like a pisces when I am weak
Ive been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
Ive been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn back (alt: ... when you turn black)
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! wait! (alt: hate! haight!)
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Your advice
Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself on angels hair and babys breath
Broken hymen of your highness Im left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Your advice
She eyes me like a pisces when I am weak
Ive been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
Ive been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn back (alt: ... when you turn black)
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! wait!
Ive got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Your advice (x3)

song performed by Nirvana
Added by Lucian Velea
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Be My Enemy

Well the dawn is howling
And the mainframe shakes
Feel like Ive been sleeping in a
Cellar full of snakes
My wings have been clipped
My shoes have been stuck with glue
Well if youll be my enemy
Ill be your enemy too
Now Ive got goons on my landing
Thieves on my trail
Nazis on my telephone
Willing me to fail
They were all sent by someone
(obviously/well I know it was) you!
Well if youll be my enemy
Ill be your enemy too
Ive a bucketful of babylon
I got a handful of lead
Im gonna put them in a gun man
Point it at your head
Because you stole all my friends
And you gave me the buffalo blues
Well if youll be my enemy
Ill be my enemy too
Now from the slime on your tongue
To the nails on your toes
From the scales on your skin
To the stains on your clothes
Youre gonna have to make me do something
That I do not want to do
But if youll be my enemy
Ill be your enemy too
My hands are tied
Im nailed to the floor
Feel like Im knocking on the
Unknown door
Theres a gun at my back
A blade at my throat
I keep finding hate mail
In the pockets of my coat
Well Ive been trying to grow
I been cooling my heels
Ive have been working the treadmill
Ive been working in the fields
And I cant get to sleep
I cant catch my breath
I cant stop talking and i
Look like death
But I will put right this disgrace
I will rearrange you

[...] Read more

song performed by Waterboys
Added by Lucian Velea
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Psychological Warfare

This above all remember: they will be very brave men,
And you will be facing them. You must not despise them.

I am, as you know, like all true professional soldiers,
A profoundly religious man: the true soldier has to be.
And I therefore believe the war will be over by Easter Monday.
But I must in fairness state that a number of my brother-officers,
No less religious than I, believe it will hold out till Whitsun.
Others, more on the agnostic side (and I do not contemn them)
Fancy the thing will drag on till August Bank Holiday.

Be that as it may, some time in the very near future,
We are to expect Invasion ... and invasion not from the sea.
Vast numbers of troops will be dropped, probably from above,
Superbly equipped, determined and capable; and this above all,
Remember: they will be very brave men, and chosen as such.

You must not, of course, think I am praising them.
But what I have said is basically fundamental
To all I am about to reveal: the more so, since
Those of you that have not seen service overseas—
Which is the case with all of you, as it happens—this is the first time
You will have confronted them. My remarks are aimed
At preparing you for that.

Everyone, by the way, may smoke,
And be as relaxed as you can, like myself.
I shall wander among you as I talk and note your reactions.
Do not be nervous at this: this is a thing, after all,
We are all in together.

I want you to note in your notebooks, under ten separate headings,
The ten points I have to make, remembering always
That any single one of them may save your life. Is everyone ready?
Very well then.

The term, Psychological Warfare
Comes from the ancient Greek: psycho means character
And logical, of course, you all know. We did not have it
In the last conflict, the fourteen-eighteen affair,
Though I myself was through it from start to finish. (That is point one.)
I was, in fact, captured—or rather, I was taken prisoner—
In the Passchendaele show (a name you will all have heard of)
And in our captivity we had a close opportunity
(We were all pretty decently treated. I myself
Was a brigadier at the time: that is point two)
An opportunity I fancy I was the only one to appreciate
Of observing the psychiatry of our enemy
(The word in those days was always psychology,
A less exact description now largely abandoned). And though the subject

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Reed
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Tom Zart's 52 Best Of The Rest America At War Poems

SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF WORLD WAR III

The White House
Washington
Tom Zart's Poems

March 16,2007
Ms. Lillian Cauldwell
President and Chief Executive Officer
Passionate Internet Voices Radio
Ann Arbor Michigan

Dear Lillian:
Number 41 passed on the CDs from Tom Zart. Thank you for thinking of me. I am thankful for your efforts to honor our brave military personnel and their families. America owes these courageous men and women a debt of gratitude, and I am honored to be the commander in chief of the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world.
Best Wishes.

Sincerely,

George W. Bush

SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF WORLD WAR III

Our sons and daughters serve in harm's way
To defend our way of life.
Some are students, some grandparents
Many a husband or wife.

They face great odds without complaint
Gambling life and limb for little pay.
So far away from all they love
Fight our soldiers for whom we pray.

The plotters and planners of America's doom
Pledge to murder and maim all they can.
From early childhood they are taught
To kill is to become a man.

They exploit their young as weapons of choice
Teaching in heaven, virgins will await.
Destroying lives along with their own
To learn of their falsehoods too late.

The fearful cry we must submit
And find a way to soothe them.
Where defenders worry if we stand down
The future for America is grim.

[...] Read more

poem by Tom Zart
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Hudibras: Part 1 - Canto III

THE ARGUMENT

The scatter'd rout return and rally,
Surround the place; the Knight does sally,
And is made pris'ner: Then they seize
Th' inchanted fort by storm; release
Crowdero, and put the Squire in's place;
I should have first said Hudibras.

Ah me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!
What plaguy mischiefs and mishaps
Do dog him still with after-claps!
For though dame Fortune seem to smile
And leer upon him for a while,
She'll after shew him, in the nick
Of all his glories, a dog-trick.
This any man may sing or say,
I' th' ditty call'd, What if a Day?
For HUDIBRAS, who thought h' had won
The field, as certain as a gun;
And having routed the whole troop,
With victory was cock a-hoop;
Thinking h' had done enough to purchase
Thanksgiving-day among the Churches,
Wherein his mettle, and brave worth,
Might be explain'd by Holder-forth,
And register'd, by fame eternal,
In deathless pages of diurnal;
Found in few minutes, to his cost,
He did but count without his host;
And that a turn-stile is more certain
Than, in events of war, dame Fortune.

For now the late faint-hearted rout,
O'erthrown, and scatter'd round about,
Chas'd by the horror of their fear
From bloody fray of Knight and Bear,
(All but the dogs, who, in pursuit
Of the Knight's victory, stood to't,
And most ignobly fought to get
The honour of his blood and sweat,)
Seeing the coast was free and clear
O' th' conquer'd and the conqueror,
Took heart again, and fac'd about,
As if they meant to stand it out:
For by this time the routed Bear,
Attack'd by th' enemy i' th' rear,
Finding their number grew too great
For him to make a safe retreat,

[...] Read more

poem by Samuel Butler
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Good Advice

Open the window I need some air
So many people and theres such disorder here
Familiar faces found out lies
Turn to the street now I watch the passers by
I wonder what they recognize
And what theyd recommend to fill my days
Possessions start to wear me down
I need some good advice some good advice to wear me down
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Instead they harbor secret thoughts
They break through windows that have twice been locked
I have to walk to wear me out
I need some good advice some good advice to wear me down
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
I throw my arms and pray to leave
I gotta head for love like is inside me
My lips press tight so not to drown
I need some good advice some good advice to wear me down
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Im nervous can you help me
Give me some good advice to help me along
If I know its true
Give me some good advice to help me along
If I know its true
Give me some good advice to help me along
If I know its true
Im nervous
Give me some good advice to wear me down

song performed by Texas
Added by Lucian Velea
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Living With The Enemy

I gave you all that you wanted
and still you come back for more
You say that you're brokenhearted
but then you walk out the door
Maybe it is time for us to say goodbye
Where are the tears you never cried?
Hey baby what you got on your mind
are you looking for some sympathy?
I can tell you if it's a truth or a lie
'Cos it's just like living,
living with the enemy
You got me going in circles,
I'm slowly loosing my head
What did I do to deserve this,
you make me wish I was dead
Tell me I'm wrong and I'll be on my way
See you around another day
Hey baby what you doin' tonite?
Are you giving me the perfect dream
I'm so tired and I don't wanna fight
'Cos it's just like living,
living with the enemy, enemy
Living with the enemy, living with the enemy, enemy
Living with the enemy,enemy
Living with the enemy, living with the enemy, enemy

song performed by Ozzy Osbourne
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale

I. Outnumbered by armour (A reply to William Shakespeare)

Outnumbered by armour
and by men we met the enemy,
FAPLA and Cubans under Russian leadership
and the men accompanying me
was very worried
and wished for the whole
of the seventh armoured division
to have been deployed.

I said to the men
in the armoured car with me
that if we must die here in vain,
the fewer men it be
but if we grasp the victory
the world will know
that we are brave and honourable men
capable of destroying whatever faces us.

Weary I told them that our ancestors
faced a outnumbering enemy
against Dingaan and won effectively
as they were in the hand of God
and so were we.

Colonel Deon Ferreira send us straight in,
from Rundu
(heading north-west after crossing the border)
to intercept the 47th enemy FAPLA / Cuban (armoured) brigade.

At the same time UNITA were repulsing
the16th FAPLA (infantry) brigade
north of the Lomba River
that was trying to take Cunjamba.

We were hitting hard directly from the south,
surprising the 47th enemy (armoured) Brigade,
virtually destroying it
at the junction
of the Lomba and Cuzizi Rivers

fighting with armoured cars
against tanks
hitting fast and then driving away at speed,
like on commando our ancestors did
during the Anglo Boer war
fighting day and night
till the field, the air was filled with gore

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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Sound Advice

(words & music by baum - giant)
Some folks tell you what to do
They think they know more than you
They insist that theyre givin sound advice
But as sure as youre livin
It aint sound, it aint nice
It just doesnt sound like sound advice
Some folks like to be the boss
They get up on their high horse
Oh they say that youre gettin, sound advice
There one thing Im bettin
It aint wise, it aint nice
You wont like the sound of their advice
Sound advice were given
Just as sure as your as youre livin
If your smart youll think twice
When they start to sound off with advice
Sound advice were given
Just as sure as your as youre livin
If your smart youll think twice
When they start to sound off with advice
Dont listen to their sound advice

song performed by Elvis Presley
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Original - Time, My Worst Enemy

Time, My Worst Enemy
Keeping me away from you
Time, My Worst Enemy
Moving slowly when we’re apart

Time, My Worst Enemy
Fleeting when you are near
Time, My Worst Enemy
Battling with it daily

Time, My Worst Enemy
Stealing moments from the clock
Time, My Worst Enemy
Until you are in my arms again

Time, My Worst Enemy
Rapidly chasing us down
Time, My Worst Enemy
He will not take you this time

Time, My Worst Enemy
You are in my arms to stay
Time, My Worst Enemy
Has Lost!

poem by Don Haney
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A Enemy / A Friend.

a enemy will always snitch,
a friend likes you wether your poor or rich,
a enemy won't help you in a fight,
a friend is there wether you're wrong or right,
a enemy hurts you day and night,
a friend is like family you're always tight,
a enemy wont catch you if you fall,
a friend is someone you can always call,
a enemy doesn't care if you stay alive,
a friend doesn't let you drink and drive,
a enemy doesn't care if you feel sad,
a friend is there thru good and bad,
a enemy is not a friend hes fake,
a friend will give but not take,
a enemy will try to hit up your girl,
a friend will help you confront the world,
a enemy borrows money and doesn't pay you back,
a friend will always have your back,
a enemy to hurt you will always find a way,
but a friend will always be there until your last day.

01/23/2009
Copyright ©2009 Jose Murguia

poem by Jose Murguia
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Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto III

THE ARGUMENT

The Knight and squire's prodigious Flight
To quit th' inchanted Bow'r by Night.
He plods to turn his amorous Suit
T' a Plea in Law, and prosecute
Repairs to Counsel, to advise
'Bout managing the Enterprise;
But first resolves to try by Letter,
And one more fair Address, to get her.

WHO wou'd believe what strange bugbears
Mankind creates itself of fears
That spring like fern, that insect weed,
Equivocally, without seed;
And have no possible foundation,
But merely in th' imagination;
And yet can do more dreadful feats
Than hags, with all their imps and teats
Make more bewitch and haunt themselves
Than all their nurseries of elves?
For fear does things so like a witch,
'Tis hard t' unriddle which is which:
Sets up Communities of senses,
To chop and change intelligences;
As Rosicrucian virtuosos
Can see with ears, and hear with noses;
And when they neither see nor hear,
Have more than both supply'd by fear
That makes 'em in the dark see visions,
And hag themselves with apparitions;
And when their eyes discover least,
Discern the subtlest objects best
Do things not contrary, alone,
To th' course of nature, but its own;
The courage of the bravest daunt,
And turn poltroons as valiant:
For men as resolute appear
With too much as too little fear
And when they're out of hopes of flying,
Will run away from death by dying;
Or turn again to stand it out,
And those they fled, like lions, rout.

This HUDIBRAS had prov'd too true,
Who, by the furies left perdue,
And haunted with detachments, sent
From Marshal Legion's regiment,
Was by a fiend, as counterfeit,
Reliev'd and rescu'd with a cheat;

[...] Read more

poem by Samuel Butler
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Cassinga

Just like spring when the blue sky is full of falling leaves,
there are three hundred and seventy parachutes that decent,
on a ominous day
with enemy AA-guns reporting
and the enemy are more
than a thousand and a half in number.

The barrels of the enemy AA-guns are lowered,
to break us
and the enemy tries to sow havoc
and to decimate us.

Enemy snipers are shooting from trees
and from everywhere
there are shots being fired,
that munches pieces from us

From behind ruins
we fire almost endlessly
at trenches where some enemy soldiers hide
and launch mortar bombs
all over the place,
while bullets are coming down like rain.

We return heavy fire
to the enemy at the AA-guns,
while other soldiers replace them
which keeps the battle hanging in balance

Shot after shot are being fired
and the smell of death
is strong in the air
and there’s nowhere
for the enemy to escape to.

The last resistance disappears
and there’s apparent peace
and dead enemies everywhere
and some of the bats,
get into pumas
and the rest of us wait
with nowhere to go.

The border is too far to walk
and there’s nothing to drive away with,
when Cuban tanks and armoured cars
find us there.
.
With RPG-7 iron fists
four tanks are destroyed

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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The Cassinga jump

Fear and tension was written over the faces
of paratroopers next to,
in front and at the back of me
when the red light
began to flash in the Hercules
and we went to action stations
still skimming barely over the tops
of taller trees at about two hundred feet
and most of us had two weeks earlier
been home at our civilian jobs.

One paratrooper vomited
right over me in yellow stinking
half fermented food
and the retching smell
made me nauseas as well
while the aircraft pitched steeply
with its last-minute manoeuvres
coming to jumping height
of eight hundred feet.

Mushroom clouds left by exploding bombs
billowed up from Cassinga
and in trenches I saw
people shooting upwards at us
and suddenly bombers dived
through our formation.

The sticks in front of me jumped
and air rushed into my face
at the open door
while the pit of my stomach went numb
and I stepped into space
falling, falling and seeing
a rocket-propelled grenade exploding
near the aircraft above me
and it veering away.

While the opening parachute jerked me up
I heard the deep roar
of a anti-aircraft gun
shooting from below
and it was clear that we
had jumped later
than we were supposed to
or the dropping zone
was too small to take
a full stick
of thirty-two paratroopers at a time.

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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Epistle to an Orphan after William Mackworth Praed A Letter of Advice

They tell me you're promised a mother,
to cuddle, to cosset, to care.
Take care for she may try to smother,
to cover her inner despair.
The experts agree that another
could just as well clinch the affair, -
and beware that you never discover
the father who's no longer there.

(Parody William Mackworth PRAED - A Letter 31 October 1990)

A Letter to PH from a Disappointed Writer

Dear PH, I leave you this letter
after writing from ten until nine
for a site I'd delight to know better,
for a smile that my heart can't decline.
Yet one finds after wearily pacing,
for replies in the cold, for some sign,
that that heart which with hope had been racing
to darkest despair must incline.

Dear PH from twelve to eleven
each night I would knock at your door
in hope that an angel from heaven
could show me the light, - but no more
will I screed in my need if no answer
effective can echo joy's store -
I can't act as a puppet-stringed dancer,
not even for one I adore!

Dear PH the time have I waited
day in and day out by grief torn,
all write up down written, ill-fated
as my consonants vowed my vowels scorn.
The wonder my dunderhead brought you
tonight may steal thunder at morn,
but the blossoms whose beauty besought you
fade as fast as last season's drenched corn.

As on Thursday applauseless, defeated,
so on Friday all clauseless I'm spurned,
is the cycle of love thus completed,
is this all the thanks that I've earned?
It is hard for a fool to be taken -
its a sign that one's soft in the head, -
but the reason that slept must awaken,
and the spirit, restored, won't be lead!

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poem by Jonathan Robin
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L'Ennemi (The Enemy)

Ma jeunesse ne fut qu'un ténébreux orage,
Traversé çà et là par de brillants soleils;
Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage,
Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils.

Voilà que j'ai touché l'automne des idées,
Et qu'il faut employer la pelle et les râteaux
Pour rassembler à neuf les terres inondées,
Où l'eau creuse des trous grands comme des tombeaux.

Et qui sait si les fleurs nouvelles que je rêve
Trouveront dans ce sol lavé comme une grève
Le mystique aliment qui ferait leur vigueur?

— Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie,
Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous ronge le coeur
Du sang que nous perdons croît et se fortifie!

The Enemy

My youth has been nothing but a tenebrous storm,
Pierced now and then by rays of brilliant sunshine;
Thunder and rain have wrought so much havoc
That very few ripe fruits remain in my garden.

I have already reached the autumn of the mind,
And I must set to work with the spade and the rake
To gather back the inundated soil
In which the rain digs holes as big as graves.

And who knows whether the new flowers I dream of
Will find in this earth washed bare like the strand,
The mystic aliment that would give them vigor?

Alas! Alas! Time eats away our lives,
And the hidden Enemy who gnaws at our hearts
Grows by drawing strength from the blood we lose!

— Translated by William Aggeler

The Enemy

My youth was but a tempest, dark and savage,
Through which, at times, a dazzling sun would shoot
The thunder and the rain have made such ravage
My garden is nigh bare of rosy fruit.

Now I have reached the Autumn of my thought,

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poem by Charles Baudelaire
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