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Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.

Orhan Pamuk in The Museum of Innocence
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We are moving to places where our hands still touch

What you did was make this yard of cement
Some hard posts and high fences and barbwires
You call it safety; you call it clean to see
There will be no shrubs, no trees, just this
Big house and empty rooms, a garage full
Of cars, some phones and TV walls

We move to other places then since we disagree
We leave this place of cement and fences and walls
We move to the hills where we still have our trees
Our long winding rivers, the rocks and grass
The winds and skies, we move to places where
The birds are not caged, where they sing the sweetest songs
Where we and the rest of us are free
Where on mountaintops and cliffs and drifting clouds
Our hands still touch & shake the Hands of God.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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There are Places (From, To Oscar Act III)

There are places so far away
Where the ocean has its spell
And dark doesn't leave the day
When the night says its farewell
There are times of lasting things
Further out in unknown nowhere
Where a different world sings
Remote from all the reality here

Something no one listens too
For the dreams are very brief
Wishful themes and quite new
That so soon must split and leave
Every heart is what you'll know
Nothing else to reach there out
Wandering waves in tides flow
Reaching to those shores about

There are pleases in the sea
Further on and tenebrific now
Where we all would want to be
But never can reach to somehow
For in reality we must hearken
Holding on to what we're seeing
If there's some somewhat darken
We are not suppose to believing

There are places so far away
Where the oceans has its spell
And dark doesn't leave the day
When the night says its farewell
There are times of lasting things
Further out in unknown nowhere
Where a different world sings
Remote from all the reality here

(Inspired by a whale that came up the Thames)

poem by Peter S. Quinn
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In many ways, it is very real, because I sat there for 9 days, and it was constantly happening, and that was the 9 days of making the film. But you can't say that it's 100% true, because there are places where I've been intrusive and interfered.

quote by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Added by Lucian Velea
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Who Knows Where Time Goes

Time is something we don't understand,
It's gone with a hello and a shake of the hand.
Never enough time for those you hold dear
But always, time for sadness and tears.
Time, you can't se it at all
For it passes so quickly --- while you lean on a wall.
Who knows where time goes/
No time for the dreams you have for yourself
Nor time for reading all the books the shelf.
Not enough time to go drifting along
For one has to work eight hours long.
Who knows where time goes?
No time to laugh --- and just be alone,
No time at all for friend or foe.
Time is running out --- people all say,
Who knows where time goes --- each and every day!

poem by Dorothy Fern Fowler
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Separation

If I walk a thousand miles
and have no place to go
my adventure will be worrisome
and all the things I know
will make me want to hesitate
before taking another stride.
For all the places I leave behind
are places where I cried.

But I needed the walk to show me
that escape was not the way.
All I did was travel right along
and at the end of the day
those miles I walked were numbing
and gave me nothing new.
So I walked a thousand more miles
and came back home to you.

My feet were sore. My heart was sore
but then I saw your face.
And all those miles that I walked
never could replace
the familiarity, the same old scene
and how being with you feels.
Time and space can't fix all wounds
but the walking somehow heals.

poem by Edwina Reizer
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Letting Go

If i fall will there be a net
If i let go will i forget
What if i jumped would i die
If you saw me again would you cry
Or if i called
Would you lie
Lying awake but am i really awake
How can i be awake when your here
Cause i wake and feel your presence
For it must be a dream cause your over there
Where is over there
I dont know
Where is over there
Do you even know
I feel your heart beating here with mine
But your mind is dreaming of another time
It is strange that i feel your heart
Cause we are so far apart
Maybe is not your heart i feel
Just me imagining what is real
Days are longer this time of year
I can feel the warmth in the air
SO if i fall will there be a net
I am letting go cause i want to forget

poem by GJC boyle
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To me you are

To me you are the woman
that walks up and down
at the traffic light
and smiles almost shy,
when I look up
and still give a view
of her breasts

To me you are
the hunger and pain,
that I hear in the voices
of children in back streets
where they loose all courage.

To me you are
the crippled gum sniffing children,
that swing walk
with eyes without hope.

To me you are the vagrant,
that struggles along shuffling
and worries about the next
sleeping place and food
and smile without teeth
when he gets a few coins.

To me you are the beggar
who stands unobserved
at a busy traffic light,
while cars are streaming past
where nobody knows or comprehends
his despair.

To me you are the drug dealers
who hangs out in clubs
and look whom they can still catch,
with their contaminating
deadly poison.

To me you are the street thug,
that brakes car windows with bricks
and steal the valuables of people
and sell it at only a Rand or two.

To me you are the criminal
that steals cars in the streets
and are happy
with the despair,
that he is dealing out unscrupulous.

In reality you are the big city
that gives and takes,
where people live like termites
past each other
and rowed in,
as if others do not exist

To rather stay far away from it all
and to get rest and peace there
at times wants to take predominance,
but I love you
like a husband does his wife.

In you is where
some people still build dreams
and wish and live
and have an own place.

In you I see children
giving bread to birds
and people,
giving money to car guards.

In you are places
where people are making a living
and really help each other
and still I believe,
that in places in you
there are more good than evil.

poem by Gert Strydom
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It’s the second day that I visit

It’s the second day that I visit
on the farm near Reivelo,
just past Vryburg.

They farm with cattle, goats,
a few sheep, muscovy ducks, turkeys
and chicken.

The scrambler bumps up and down
right through the field
and go past rocks and bushes,
while we drive along the rough field
and the hot wind
cut across my face
and there are places
where it cannot go.

It’s time to transform
young bulls to oxen,
to brand cattle
and to cut their horns
and I get a black stallion
to ride into the field.

My cousin rides in front
with a brown Arabian mare
and there are bushes
and flat slabs of rock
and small hillocks that we past
to try and round up young cattle
to the corral.

It’s nice to be a cattle herder
for a time
and to use legs and heels
and reigns,
to round up cattle in the field.

Every thing goes well until
I chase a young black bull
just to the entrance of the fold,
where it stops stubbornly
and doesn’t want to move
a feet further.

I jump out of the saddle,
fasten the reigns
to a small branch
and rush to the obstinate bull.

It stands and snorting
and stamp its feet
and when it sees me,
it rushes confused
at the horse.

That faithful horse stands firm
while the bulls horns swishes
onto the reigns
and the horse
stops that bull in its tracts,
that a piece of the bridle
breaks right off.

Then I am at the bull
and pull the reigns
out of its horns
and it walks meek
into the corral,
while in astonishment
I stand and look at that animal.

With a knee-strap
and pliers in the nose
we draw the bull to the ground
and when we shear it,
it moans like a heifer
and there’s a burning smell
that goes up from the branding iron
and I see the horns
dropp at my feet
and it’s another beast
when it stand on its feet.

poem by Gert Strydom
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Report To Crazy Horse

All the Sioux were defeated. Our clan
got poor, but a few got richer.
They fought two wars. I did not
take part. No one remembers your vision
or even your real name. Now
the children go to town and like
loud music. I married a Christian.

Crazy Horse, it is not fair
to hide a new vision from you.
In our schools we are learning
to take aim when we talk, and we have
found out our enemies. They shift when
words do; they even change and hide
in every person. A teacher here says
hurt or scorned people are places
where real enemies hide. He says
we should not hurt or scorn anyone,
but help them. And I will tell you
in a brave way, the way Crazy Horse
talked: that teacher is right.

I will tell you a strange thing:
at the rodeo, close to the grandstand,
I saw a farm lady scared by a blown
piece of paper; and at that place
horses and policemen were no longer
frightening, but suffering faces were,
and the hunched-over backs of the old.

Crazy Horse, tell me if I am right:
these are the things we thought we were
doing something about.

In your life you saw many strange things,
and I will tell you another: now I salute
the white man's flag. But when I salute
I hold my hand alertly on the heartbeat
and remember all of us and how we depend
on a steady pulse together. There are those
who salute because they fear other flags
or mean to use ours to chase them:
I must not allow my part of saluting
to mean this. All of our promises,
our generous sayings to each other, our
honorable intentions—those I affirm
when I salute. At these times it is like
shutting my eyes and joining a religious
colony at prayer in the gray dawn
in the deep aisles of a church.

Now I have told you about new times.
Yes, I know others will report
different things. They have been caught
by weak ways. I tell you straight
the way it is now, and it is our way,
the way we were trying to find.

The chokecherries along our valley
still bear a bright fruit. There is good
pottery clay north of here. I remember
our old places. When I pass the Musselshell
I run my hand along those old grooves in the rock.

poem by William Stafford
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Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.

quote by Robert G. Ingersoll
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Even schools for Negroes, then, are places where they must be convinced of their inferiority.

quote by Carter G. Woodson
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The places that are most likely to grow trees for carbon sequestration are places where trees aren't growing now.

quote by Robert Jackson
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Real people are places to me as much as persons: I want to see them, as I want to see the places I am fond of, in all weathers and at all times of the year.

quote by Leonard Alfred George Strong
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It Is Time To Come Into Senses

O! Friend these gallant eyes,
These pretty limbs of body,
This splendid structure,
On which the world is astonished.
Are ordained to be decomposed.

Here pain of love is shocking
No I but the whole world declares it so
O! Friend this love is nondescript
It always deprives one of crown and throne
On all sides around it rules.

O! Friend do not cherish frivolous hopes
No one gets flowers here but thorns
Do not run behind the shadows,
O! My friend.
It is time to come into senses.

By Fakhira Batool Translated By Muhammad Shanazar

poem by Muhammad Shanazar
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A Fine Film Of Sadness

A Fine Film of Melancholy

On the morning track gossamers blocked my path, on them hung morning dew,
like glittering pearls of insane perfection; and in the zephyr I heard a faint peel.
Tears not cried, yet full of sadness, fell to hard, stony ground. Picked up a rock,
man’s first missile, threw it, for no reason, into the bushes. There are places
where vegetation is sparse, life hard, they still execute people for transgression,
say adultery, by stoning. We, who have made pornography into a mainstream
thing, “looking at pictures of other people having sex) are shocked by this. But
we kill a murder suspect, who can’t afford a good lawyer, by lethal injection.
The gossamers, sheer and delicate will be rebuilt I will have to break as few as
possible tomorrow. Melancholy, I can’t do anything about un-cried tears; they
will dry as the day rolls on and the evening breeze will give us peace of mind

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Australiana

Aborigines and kangaroos
boomerangs and didjeridoos.
Leafy gum tree branch and koala bear
black stump in the middle of nowhere.
Jolly swagman camped by a billabong
in 'Waltzing Matilda' a favorite song.
The wild brumbies roaming free in the outback
a scruffy hobo living alone in a country shack.
Aboriginal myths called their dreamtime
the native Australians regard as sublime.
Ring-tailed possum and wombat
Aussie bloke wearing accubra hat.
Alice Springs and Ayers Rock
outback stations and livestock.
Ned Kelly bushranger and his law brushes
the Eureka stockade during the gold rushes.
Laughing kookaburra and old man emu
platypus swimming in underwater view.
Banjo Patterson’s poem ‘The Man from Snowy River’
who went riding down mountain side without a quiver.
Surfers paradise and the Great Barrier reef
sixties rock ‘n roll legend: Johnny O’Keefe.
Anzac marches and the land of the Southern cross
old Cobb & Co. stagecoach used to travel across.
Glorious summer sunshine and winter rains
severe country drought and the desert plains.
Eucalyptus scent and Tea-tree oil
good health remedies from the soil.
Fresh water yabbies and the witchety grub
all make good tucker in the bush or scrub.
Crocodiles in the Kakadu national park
Burrumundi and the great white shark.
Sydney harbor bridge and the Opera House
Daintree rain forest and the kangaroo mouse.
Sheep wool farming and old shearing sheds
Melbourne Cup horse race for thoroughbreds.
Riverboat cruising up and down the Murray
passing border country towns not in a hurry.
Cradle mountain and the Tasmanian Devil
saying ‘fair dinkum’ means it’s on the level.
AFL rules football and big crowds at the MCG
playing one day cricket there is exciting to see.
The Fitzroy Gardens and Captain Cook’s cottage
are there for all to see as symbols of our heritage.
The Twelve Apostles standing along a rugged stretch of coast
a Ninety-Mile beach is something about which we can also boast.
The Glass House mountains are a sight to see and even to climb
by those who consider themselves fit enough and in their prime.
The great Australian Bight and the road on the Nullarbor plain
is a great feat to drive across and be able to come back again.
The local native wild dog known by name as the dingo
has nothing to do with a game people play called bingo.
There’s also a game called two-up that some people play
by which they gamble most of their weeks wages away.
Luna Park in St.Kilda and the annual Royal Melbourne Show
are places where you can take the kids to have fun people know.
There’s the local pub where you can go and have a drink with your mates
and is what many do all day long having a few too many in all the States.
This great southern land of Australia has so much to see and to offer
it would be a bloody shame if one didn’t give a damn or was a scoffer.

poem by George Krokos
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Those Graves In Rome

There are places where the eye can starve,
But not here. Here, for example, is
The Piazza Navona, & here is his narrow room
Overlooking the Steps & the crowds of sunbathing
Tourists. And here is the Protestant Cemetery
Where Keats & Joseph Severn join hands
Forever under a little shawl of grass
And where Keats's name isn't even on
His gravestone, because it is on Severn's,
And Joseph Severn's infant son is buried
Two modest, grassy steps behind them both.
But you'd have to know the story--how bedridden
Keats wanted the inscription to be
Simple, & unbearable: "Here lies one
Whose name is writ in water." On a warm day,
I stood here with my two oldest friends.
I thought, then, that the three of us would be
Indissoluble at the end, & also that
We would all die, of course. And not die.
And maybe we should have joined hands at that
Moment. We didn't. All we did was follow
A lame man in a rumpled suit who climbed
A slight incline of graves blurring into
The passing marble of other graves to visit
The vacant home of whatever is not left
Of Shelley & Trelawney. That walk uphill must
Be hard if you can't walk. At the top, the man
Wheezed for breath; sweat beaded his face,
And his wife wore a look of concern so
Habitual it seemed more like the way
Our bodies, someday, will have to wear stone.
Later that night, the three of us strolled,
Our arms around each other, through the Via
Del Corso & toward the Piazza di Espagna
As each street grew quieter until
Finally we heard nothing at the end
Except the occasional scrape of our own steps,
And so said good-bye. Among such friends,
Who never allowed anything, still alive,
To die, I'd almost forgotten that what
Most people leave behind them disappears.
Three days later, staying alone in a cheap
Hotel in Naples, I noticed a child's smeared
Fingerprint on a bannister. It
Had been indifferently preserved beneath
A patina of varnish applied, I guessed, after
The last war. It seemed I could almost hear
His shout, years later, on that street. But this
Is speculation, & no doubt the simplest fact
Could shame me. Perhaps the child was from
Calabria, & went back to it with
A mother who failed to find work, & perhaps
The child died there, twenty years ago,
Of malaria. It was so common then--
The children crying to the doctors for quinine.
And to the tourists, who looked like doctors, for quinine.
It was so common you did not expect an aria,
And not much on a gravestone, either--although
His name is on it, & weathered stone still wears
His name--not the way a girl might wear
The too large, faded blue workshirt of
A lover as she walks thoughtfully through
The Via Fratelli to buy bread, shrimp,
And wine for the evening meal with candles &
The laughter of her friends, & later the sweet
Enkindling of desire; but something else, something
Cut simply in stone by hand & meant to last
Because of the way a name, any name,
Is empty. And not empty. And almost enough.

Anonymous submission.

poem by Larry Levis
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Endless

Drowning in an endless sea...

Torments of bruising pain...

Gnawing and gnashing upon the heart-

Grinding bitterly in much heated disdain;

Suffocating in too much knowledge...

With coping mechanisms all but spent--

Heart beat 'tis mal-propelled...

Wondering where time went;

Coiled into insomnias nightmare...

Rewound in endless replay...

Oh-the agonies of an aged life...

The harsh realities of today;

Same time tomorrow...!

Same time this day...!

Tortured in circles of ugliness...

Blue skies now turned grey;

Nothing to change a worried life...

Nothing to ease all of the pain--

Drowning in an endless sea...

Dying over and over again;

The Golden Rule
June 18,2010

poem by Theodora Onken
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That Stage Of Denial....

i do not wish to write about pain,
an artist has to clean the mess and write instead
about

happiness, but it is not here and what is here instead
insistent and forceful is

pain, but i refuse to give in to its demands to inflict
pain to my words,

i smile,
i offer silence,
i like to hear the falling of the pin
on that carpeted
floor,

i hear it,
i walk away, i dabble in all that the trees are singing
on a rainy day,

i do not wish to write about your pain,
i do not feel it somehow,

i feel mine, but what is the use of recognizing the one that hurts you
and destroys you

for when, until when,
i choose now,

i shall write about a landscape of green grass, where trees are tall and huge, where plains travel infinitely into space

where seas are calm where fish sleeps comfortably on the seaweeds
and corals,

where butterflies flutter like shreds of paper from a building high,

on this stage of denial
i shall dance my mambo.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Where do I fit into it all?

I have seen
brave men passing me.
Men who were composed
when death came agonising by
and stuck to the training
taught before

I have seen men believing
that victory belongs
to those that really dare
and snatching immortality
from the claws of death
against an outnumbering foe.

Still the meaning of it all
isn’t clear to me
and what battles and wars won
really bought?

I have seen good men
giving up their lives here
and sick of the impact of crime,
loosing hope for a future,
going away to stay
in another country.

I have seen wild men
making a life
out of whatever
destiny bestowed on them
and living it up
before the years
of old age could come.

I have seen grave men
calculating the cost
of investing in a desperate society
and deciding that all is lost
and withdrawing their investments
to make other opportunities
their goal.

I have seen great men
building up their lives
and starting new careers
from the ruins
of bankruptcy and unemployment
and against unfair laws
and black economic empowerment,
prospering from the lessons learnt
from life.

The question remains with me:
where do I fit
into it all?

poem by Gert Strydom
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