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In my district back in Texas, significant because we have a big solar panel production plant in Keller, Texas, we have a wind turbine plant in Gainesville, Texas, up in Cook Country.

quote by Michael Burgess
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Veterinary Camps

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Five Visions Of Captain Cook

I
COOK was a captain of the Admiralty
When sea-captains had the evil eye,
Or should have, what with beating krakens off
And casting nativities of ships;
Cook was a captain of the powder-days
When captains, you might have said, if you had been
Fixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side,
Or gaping at them up companionways,
Were more like warlocks than a humble man—
And men were humble then who gazed at them,
Poor horn-eyed sailors, bullied by devils' fists
Of wind or water, or the want of both,
Childlike and trusting, filled with eager trust—
Cook was a captain of the sailing days
When sea-captains were kings like this,
Not cold executives of company-rules
Cracking their boilers for a dividend
Or bidding their engineers go wink
At bells and telegraphs, so plates would hold
Another pound. Those captains drove their ships
By their own blood, no laws of schoolbook steam,
Till yards were sprung, and masts went overboard—
Daemons in periwigs, doling magic out,
Who read fair alphabets in stars
Where humbler men found but a mess of sparks,
Who steered their crews by mysteries
And strange, half-dreadful sortilege with books,
Used medicines that only gods could know
The sense of, but sailors drank
In simple faith. That was the captain
Cook was when he came to the Coral Sea
And chose a passage into the dark.
How many mariners had made that choice
Paused on the brink of mystery! 'Choose now!'
The winds roared, blowing home, blowing home,
Over the Coral Sea. 'Choose now!' the trades
Cried once to Tasman, throwing him for choice
Their teeth or shoulders, and the Dutchman chose
The wind's way, turning north. 'Choose, Bougainville!'
The wind cried once, and Bougainville had heard
The voice of God, calling him prudently
Out of a dead lee shore, and chose the north.
The wind's way. So, too, Cook made choice,
Over the brink, into the devil's mouth,
With four months' food, and sailors wild with dreams
Of English beer, the smoking barns of home.
So Cook made choice, so Cook sailed westabout,
So men write poems in Australia.
II

[...] Read more

poem by Kenneth Slessor
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Soccer Under 20

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Whose Country Is This?

Whose country is this?
It is a land full of snakes;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of many waters;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of thieves! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of oil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of earthquakes!
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of lovers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of volcanoes!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful flowers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hansome men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of roses;
Whose country is this?
it is a land ruled only by men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land without rainfall;
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by a woman;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of corruption!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pirates! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by law;
Whose country is this?
It is a land controlled by rebels!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ice;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of singers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of troubles;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of war! !

[...] Read more

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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My Chinee Cook

They who say the bush is dull are not so very far astray,
For this eucalyptic cloisterdom is anything but gay;
But its uneventful dulness I contentedly could brook,
If I only could get back my lost, lamented Chinee cook.

We had tried them without number—cooks, to wit—my wife and I;
One a week, then three a fortnight, as my wife can testify;
But at last we got the right one; I may say 'twas by a fluke,
For he dropped in miscellaneous-like, that handy Chinee cook,

He found the kitchen empty, laid his swag down, and commenced;
My wife, surprised, found nothing to say anything against;
But she asked him for how much a year the work he undertook—
“Me workee for me ration,” said that noble Chinee cook.

Then right off from next to nothing such a dinner he prepared,
That the Governor I'm certain less luxuriously fared;
And he waited, too, in spotless white, with such respectful look,
And bowed his head when grace was said, that pious Chinee cook.

He did the work of man and maid—made beds and swept out rooms;
Nor cooled he in his zeal, as is the manner of new brooms:
Oh, he shed celestial brightness on the most sequestered nook,
For his mop and pail were everywhere—my cleanly Chinee cook.

We got fat upon his cooking; we were happy in those days,
For he tickled up our palates in a thousand pleasant ways.
Oh his dinners! Oh his dinners! they were fit for any duke!
Oh delectable Mongolian! Oh celestial Chinee cook!

There was nothing in creation that he didn't put to use,
And the less he got to cook with, all the more he could produce,
All nature was his kitchen range, likewise his cook'ry book—
Neither Soyer nor Meg Dod could teach that knowing Chinee cook.

And day by day upon my wife and me the mystery grew,
How his virtues were so many and his earnings were so few;
And we laid our heads together to find out by hook or crook,
The secret of the cheapness of that priceless Chinee cook.
And still the sense of mystery grew on us day by day,
Till it came to be a trouble, and we wished him well away;
But we could not find a fault in one so far above rebuke—
Ah, we didn't know the value of that valuable cook.

But one day when I was out he brought my wife a lot of things,
Turquoise earrings, opal bracelets, ruby brooches, diamond rings,

And he ran their various prices o'er as glibly as a book,
And dirt cheap, too, were the jewels of that jewel of a cook.

[...] Read more

poem by James Brunton Stephens
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Using Boot Camp

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Big Night

Oh, it's gonna be a big night
We're gonna have a good time
It's gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big night

1,2,3, all my boys and girls
We gonna party like it's the end of the world
Let's get it started, started, started, whoa, oh

Waitin' on weekends it's Friday night
We gonna get dressed up
For the time of our lives
Let's get it started, started, started

'Cause I've been feelin' down, down, down
I need a pick me up, round, round, round
I wanna spin it up loud, loud, loud
DJ take me away

Oh
It's gonna be a big night
We're gonna have a good time
It's gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big night

Oh
It's gonna be a big night
We gonna have a good time
It's gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big night

It's been a long week
Been workin' overtime
I need a heartbeat
To get this party right

I'm on another level
Turn up the bass and treble
Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up

'Cause I've been feelin' down, down, down
I need a pick me up, round, round, round
I wanna spin it up loud, loud, loud
DJ take me away

Oh
It's gonna be a big night
We gonna have a good time
It's gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big night

Oh
It's gonna be a big night
We gonna have a good time

[...] Read more

poem by Jojo Jonna
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Uninformed Masses Believed Earth Was Flat

once uninformed masses
believed the earth was flat
during medieval dark ages

yet esteemed ancient Greeks
knew earth was really a sphere
calculated degree of horizons

now sol is a singular star believe masses
yet over 80% of all solar systems
according to NASA have multiple suns

bright stellar fires of smaller suns
some not much bigger than Jupiter
most common suns brown dwarfs

12 to 80 times Jupiter’s size brown dwarfs
found floating freely in interstellar space
also proliferate as binary star companions

is our Sol our sun really a singular solar system?
remember over 80% are binary solar systems
is it possible earth’s sun is a binary solar system?

accepted theory our Sun formed as a singular star
with a uniform proto-planetary disk yet evidence
from outer solar system is far more complicated

the Sun formed as part of a wide binary system?
the smaller partner of which is a sub-brown dwarf?
the early solar system two spinning gaseous clumps?

nursery matter orbits two proto-planetary disks
orbit around each other at 200 Astronomical Units
distance together from beginning of our earth’s

solar system now locked into a 3600 year binary orbit

the larger Sol 'classical’ proto-planetary disk
forms the Sun the second forms a sub-brown
dwarf plus independent proto-planetary disk

this scenario explains anomalies
of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt
and an inexplicable gap of objects

beyond 50AU it provides
a very sensible mechanism
a brown dwarf could form

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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University Of Central Florida Volleyball

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Looking For A Goose To Cook

When you find that you've been saddled for a ride...
Move your hoofs.
When you find that you've been saddled for a ride...
Someone's got you hooked!

When you find that you've been saddled for a ride...
Move your hoofs.
When you find that you've been saddled for a ride...
Someone's got you hooked!

I know,
When I'm hooked.
I can't,
Move my hoofs.
And I don't want to be,
Saddled down...
By a lover,
Looking for a goose to cook.

I know,
When I'm hooked.
I can't,
Move my hoofs.
And I don't want to be,
Saddled down...
By a lover,
Looking for a goose to cook.

When you find that you've been saddled for a ride...
Move your hoofs.
When you find that you've been saddled for a ride...
Someone's got you hooked!

I know,
When I'm hooked.
I can't,
Move my hoofs.
And I don't want to be,
Saddled down...
By a lover...
Looking for a goose to cook.

Many looking at a saddled goose to cook.
And I don't want to be a saddled goose to cook.
Many looking at a saddled goose to cook.
And I don't want to be a saddled goose to cook.

I know,
When I'm hooked.
I can't,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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What do we plant when we plant a tree?

What do we get when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship which will cross the sea;
We plant the pencils to scribble our notes,
We plant the ballots to cast our votes;
We plant the paper in which we read,
The news that o'er wooden poles we speed,
We plant the piles to erect our docks;
We plant the rayon for shirts and socks.

What do we plant when we plant a tree?
We plant the houses for you and me;
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,
We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,
The beams and siding, all the parts that be;
We plant the house when we plant the tree,
We plant the barrel, the box, the crate;
In which to ship all sorts of freight.

What do we plant when we plant a tree?
A thousand things that we daily see,
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,
We plant the staff for our country's flag;
We plant the shade from the hot sun free,
We plant all these when we plant the tree.

poem by Henry Abbey
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Big Time

Suc cess
Im on my way, Im making it
Ive giot to make it show, yeah
So much larger than life
Im going to watch it growing
The place where I come from is a small town
They think so small
They use small words
-but not me
Im smarter than that
I worked it out
Ive been stretching my mouth
To let those big words come right out
Ive had enough, Im getting out
To the city, the big big city
Ill be a big noise with all the big boys
Theres so much stuff I will own
And I will pray to a big god
As I kneel in the big church
Big time
Im on my way-Im making it
Big time big time
Ive got to make it show yeah
Big time big time
So much larger than life
Big time
Im going to watch it growing
Big time
My parties all have big names
And I greet them with the widest smile
Tell them how my life is one big adventure^
And always theyre amazed
When I show them round my house, to my bed
I had it made like a mountain range
With a snow-white pillow for my big fat head
And my heaven will be a big heaven
And I will walk through the front door
Big time
Im on my way-Im making it
Big time big time
Ive got to make it show-yeah
Big time big time
So much larger than life
Im going to watch it growing
Big time big time
My car is getting bigger
Big time
My house is getting bigger
Big time
My eyes are getting bigger

[...] Read more

song performed by Peter Gabriel
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The Yellow Rose Of Texas

Oh the yellow rose of Texas is the only girl I love
Her eyes are even bluer than Texas skies above
Her heart's as big as Texas and wherever I may go
I'll remember her forever because I love her so
There are so many roses that bloom along the way
But my heart's in Amarillo and that's where it will stay
With the yellow rose of Texas so I'd better get there fast
'Cause I know I was her first love and I want to be her last
Oh the yellow rose of Texas is the only girl I love
Her eyes are even bluer than Texas skies above
Her heart's as big as Texas and wherever I may go
I'll remember her forever because I love her so
The eyes of Texas are upon you all the live long day
The eyes of Texas are upon you, you cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn
The eyes of Texas are upon you 'till Gabriel blows his horn
The eyes of Texas are upon you all the live long day
The eyes of Texas are upon you, you cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn
The eyes of Texas are upon you 'till Gabriel blows his horn
The eyes of Texas are upon you all the live long day
The eyes of Texas are upon you, you cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn
The eyes of Texas are upon you 'till Gabriel blows his horn

song performed by Elvis Presley
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The Yellow Rose Of Texas / The Eyes Of Texas

(words & music by wise - starr / lance - sinclair)
Oh the yellow rose of texas is the only girl I love
Her eyes are even bluer than texas skies above
Her hearts as big as texas and wherever I may go
Ill remember her forever because I love her so
There are so many roses that bloom along the way
But my hearts in amarillo and thats where it will stay
With the yellow rose of texas so Id better get there fast
cause I know I was her first love and I want to be her last
Oh the yellow rose of texas is the only girl I love
Her eyes are even bluer than texas skies above
Her hearts as big as texas and wherever I may go
Ill remember her forever because I love her so
The eyes of texas are upon you all the live long day
The eyes of texas are upon you, you cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn
The eyes of texas are upon you till gabriel blows his horn
The eyes of texas are upon you all the live long day
The eyes of texas are upon you, you cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn
The eyes of texas are upon you till gabriel blows his horn
The eyes of texas are upon you all the live long day
The eyes of texas are upon you, you cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn
The eyes of texas are upon you till gabriel blows his horn

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Walked Last Night In A District I Lived In For Almost Twenty Years

I WALKED LAST NIGHT IN A DISTRICT I LIVED IN FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS

I walked last night in a district I lived in for almost twenty years
I came back after being away for a time
To visit an old and ailing friend
The streets were empty and lonely as they often were then-
I thought for the first time I understood how lonely the district itself is-
‘A lonely district’
I wondered how I managed to live there all those years
And how anyone still manages to live there-
I looked up at the sky and wrote in my mind a small poem of a kind I wrote many of in my years there
I remembered teachers and friends who had lived there
No longer of this district or any district on earth
I wondered how life goes and how from so many years so much life has been lived without having any place in my memory
I felt as empty inside as the district without
I did not have to wait long for the bus
And relieved inside it I put my heart to home
So many years had been lived there
I remembered taking my small children to the playground there
Now they thank G-d have children of their own
Oh the years go by and the life we have lived in them largely dies
Forever to be unknown again-
I put my heart and mind in a different direction
And began to do what I always do – not think of the district again
Life is this mystery and question we live through and never wholly possess even as we are experiencing it
How long before all will be gone for me
Including the district I live in now?

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Allegany Camp

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Keep 'Em Big

Keep 'em big...
Baby.
Keep 'em big.

Keep 'em big...
Baby.

Keep,
'Em Big...
Baby.

Keep 'em big.
Your dreams,
Keep 'em big...
Baby,
Keep 'em big....baby.
And,
Maybe they'll come 'true',
'Cause...

If you
Keep 'em big,
Baby.
Keep 'em big,
Baby.
Keep 'em big,
Baby.
Keep 'em big...baby!
'Cause...

You know what you need.
And,
You know what it takes..
To,
Really really please...
You!

Keep 'em big...
Baby.
Keep 'em big,

Keep 'em big,
Baby.

Keep,
'Em big...
Baby.
'Cause...

You know what you need.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Chabi of the Okavango

Chabi Maenga bought me a chicken. It took two, three hours to cook in the big black pot and was still tough as our leather boots. A goodbye gift to me, upon my leaving the district, leaving the passenger seat by his side.

Chabi had met me in Gaborone with a newly-issued 1978 model Toyota, a boxy thing that bounced crazily on the dirt tracks but was considered state of the art at the time. We drove north until the paved road ran out, then north east across the remote reaches of the Northern Kalahari to my new duty station in Maun. We slept half-way at Serowe, at the 'we are working together' cooperative hotel, under thatch. On the second day we skirted two of the four long walls enclosing the richest diamond mine in the world and tracked the elongated fence that separated buffalo, endemic with foot-and-mouth disease, from cattle. We swung north once more as we reached the side of the 'vanishing lake', Ngami, that in some years confirmed its presence on the standard maps, and in others was simply no-where to be found. All depended on the rains in distant Angola.

Chabi and I shared that front cabin, on and off, for nearly three years. 'Call me Chabi.. like Chubby Checker' was how he introduced himself. He was early 50s, salt and pepper in his tight thin curls, and I was 24... supposedly the boss, the one who signed the requisition slips and the log book for each and every trip. But Chabi was very much in charge.

The first thing he taught me was the Tswana language. After three months by his side I was almost fluent - a status I had not remotely reached in my two years to that point in the capital city. I spoke with his northern dialect: 'f's pronounced as 'h's, 'tl's with a silent 'l'. This marked me as a man of the Okavango, the Ngami, for the rest of my days among the Tswana people. Later my wife of the southern Tswana, and her family, would tease me constantly about this northern country-bumpkin accent. But what did I care? It sounded good to me and I was proud enough simply to be rattling away in SeTwana, however rustic it might sound, and to know more or less what others were rattling. In reciprocation, I helped Chabi with his English, when he was in the mood for it.

The second thing he taught was how to shoot guinea-fowl. He did this mainly by intimidation. Since he was putting in all the hours of driving - not only did I have no licence, but he was the designated official (although I did break the central transport rules more than once when his arthritis was playing up) - and it was me who had better take care of the supper. He would slow the truck to a crawl and I would open the window as we came across a gaggle of birds on the left hand side, gesture for me to pick up his shotgun and cue me... 'ema.... ema.... jaaanu! '. And if I aimed for the centre of the crowd, and kept the gun fairly straight, we would be sure to get a couple of birds for the pot. These we would take to the local primary school and have any available hungry teachers take care of the cooking and share in the meal. This required some concentration to avoid biting down on buckshot.

But the best times we had were on the road to Shakawe. He was delighted, first of all, when I nicknamed the village at the end of the Delta, at the remote northern border, as 'Shake-a-way'. He found this unnecessarily hilarious and I backed it up with a cassette recording of the South African multi-racial band Juluka's song, 'Shake My Way'. In fact we played very little but the first few Juluka albums on my portable cassette player during those trips.

We loaded up the back of the truck with the necessary items: my metal trunk, bought from the Mazezuru (the impoverished itinerant white-clothed Jehova's Witnesses expelled from Rhodesia-Zimbabwe - as it was at the time of my purchase, temporarily - who lived by tinsmithery, also beating out conical tin tops for rondavels) , and filled with a few changes of clothes, a couple of books and plenty of 'tinned stuff', cheap imported meals such as chicken biriyani. On top of the trunk went Chabi's battered suitcase. And then the two most essential items, side by side: a barrel of drinking water, a barrel of fuel. And a prayer that the last of these should not leak or spill over anything else, along those bumpy roads.

If it was winter, it was plain sailing. The dirt roads were dry and firm and we could make it to Shakawe in a day. We would circumnavigate most of the villages along the way:

.... Sehitwa, within sight of the vanishing lake if it had not vanished, Sehitwa where an Irishman started a little fishing industry singlehanded, selling frozen bream fillets all the way down to Johannesburg, supplying my monthly 'Fishko' party... until the Lake dried up...

... Nokaneng, meaning 'by the river', but it was a river that had long disappeared with the gradual drying of the swamps that fed it;

... Tsau, a camp for road building, which had created about 20 kilometres of Norwegian-funded tarmacadam in about five years, supposedly an experiment in desert blacktop that in fact linked nothing to nothing;

.... Gomare, the district's secondary centre, with its massive 'community' school, of which I was a board member, where the board had spent years painstakingly rounding up a few cattle and bags of sorghum to finance the first classroom. These efforts had been completely bypassed by the arrival of the World Bank with nearly a million dollars, more of which appeared to be spent on highly artistic walkways than on the new classrooms;

... Etsha, a new village settled by several thousand long-term refugees from the Angolan civil war who turned out to be impressive growers of grain, unique basket designers and weavers and secret brewers of palm beer (to search for which, Chabi would occasionally take us by alternative backroads) , by a handful of Danish medical students, and by one Welshman with scores of cats who marketed the baskets to tourists and the national museum;

... Sepopa... oh, what to say about Sepopa, a village like any small and remote African village;

... and then finally, Shakawe, a busy trading post hard up by the Angolan border, with a local culture, chiefdom and opposition political party all its own.

The trip was easy between dawn and dusk, in the cold dry season. In the summertime, however, a different question entirely. With the road camp at Tsau concentrating on its lonely piece of blacktop in the middle of nowhere, the rains and the traffic - such as they were, and they were always sufficient for this at least - churned up the rest of the district roads unmercifully. There were patches of known notoriety where we were almost sure to get stuck, and no way, due to thick bush linings along the track, to avoid them. Chabi, fortunately, was a past master at laying wooden planks under the wheels and using the 4-wheel drive to get us out...eventually. The journey took two days. The floors of classrooms in Gomare, Etsha or Sepopa became our beds.

The journey took us along the outer rim of the river channels that flanked the vast inland swamp called Okavango. And it was at Shakawe that the settled population enjoyed a true and vivid view of the river, there at the ingress, the inflow which fed the intricate waterways of the swamp, the high-banked and spectacular panhandle. Shakawe perched above those fast-flowing, pure, clear waters, which over the years had slowly diminished in flow for reasons no-one seemed to fully understand. It was often the place where we started our weeklong series of Kgotla meetings, village assemblies chaired by the Chief, and addressed by the young English district officer on the subject of the latest local government plans for the area, speaking a nervous mixture of Setswana and English (Chabi or a local agricultural officer providing translation) . This was normally followed by several hours of grandstand speeches by the assembled males, rising one by one from their wood-and-leather chairs to comment on what they thought I had proposed. The meeting - perfect for total-immersion SeTswana training for the young DO - were finished off, sometimes, by an invitation from the Chief to the women, sitting on the outer margins of the throng, often with babies, to speak their minds at last.

Through many such assemblies, the oddity of my presence was remarked upon only once, by a slightly intoxicated monnamogolo (respected old man) , who approached the table at which the Chief and I sat, and called out loudly, I never thought I would see the little lady (being Queen Elizabeth, or her representative) at this Kgotla once again!

Once at Shakawe, there were three options for continuing our journey. To work our way back down the side of the Okavango, holding meetings in two villages each day, taking about a week to return to the district office and our homes in Maun. Or to head off west to visit the few remote villages - Shai-Shai, Nau-Nau, Kangwa - founded by Herero cattleowners, their wives clad in massive layers of German-inspired skirts, and their San (Bushman) herders, near the Namibian border, across which lay a land still heavily occupied by the apartheid army. Or, the most magical and exciting option of all, to drive onto the little ferry ('pontoon') and cross to the remote eastern bank of the panhandle, and drive down to the three villages that lay there, on roads that barely deserved the name. Only one trading store with the most basic items could be found in that territory, and no supplies of fuel at all. Once a month, a Baptist dentist arrived in his light plane to preach to the people, distribute Bibles, and then, only then, extract teeth. If you were stranded, and spoke politely, he might stand you a lift back home.

Snakes became caught under our wheels sometimes. Ostriches would run alongside, trying to outpace us, then following the trail in front of us. And once an elephant suddenly stepped onto the trail from its hiding place behind a tree. Chabi brought us to a massive sudden halt, and we waited, waited silently.. until the creature went on its way.

In three years, he had only one accident, and that was on the tarmac on the way back from the trip to the capital. It was dark, approaching Francistown.. and a cow had gone to sleep on one side of the road. It was a minor collision, but the government censured him anyway, after much argumentation.

When we camped in the villages at night his radio took over from my cassette player. First the Botswana news. Then the solemn reading out of those who had passed away. Followed by church music. Just right to lull us both to sleep.

Perhaps the last thing Chabi tried to teach me concerned the wizards of the forest. When, during the long hours of travelling, he would start to talk as in an obsessive trance about the 'baloi', the spirits, he would gradually enter the world of 'deep Setswana', and his meanings became lost to me. The guttural sounds of the language would become a backdropp to the noise of the engine. My lack of ability to follow him into the tales of the wizards always seemed a disappointment to him, but he never gave up completely.

Mainly, while on the road together, he and I talked like father and son, cooked and ate together, and often slept alongside each other. When back in town, however, we did not socialize. We became formal in our work environment, 'district officer' and 'driver'. Chabi never came to hear me entertain the office crowd from the District Council with my guitar on Friday nights at Le Bistro cafe on the banks of the Thamalakane river. He never invited me to meet his family or to see his home. Which is what make it all the more surprising when he turned up at my place, during my last days in Maun, with that hardy three-year-old chicken. The first thing he did was invite me to wring its neck. And not for the first time with him, I ducked this challenge.

Zimbabwe was already free and its freedom would continue for a while. The wars of Angola raged on, fueled from distant lands, while the occupation of Namibia intensified. My place at Chabi's side was taken by a young Motswana graduate, and doubtless later by another. And then, as if by a miracle, generated by the pressure of resistance in the heart of South Africa, the dark clouds began to lift across the region, and the peace that lay at the heart of Botswana began to spread to all its troubled neighbours.

[...] Read more

poem by Frank Bana
Added by Poetry Lover
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Deep In The Heart Of Texas

The stars at night are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas
The prairie sky is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas
The sage in bloom is like perfume
Deep in the heart of Texas
Reminds me of the one that I love
Deep in the heart of Texas
The coyotes wail along the trail
Deep in the heart of Texas
The rabbits rush around the brush
Deep in the heart of Texas
The cowboys cry, "Ki yippee yi!"
Deep in the heart of Texas
The dogies bawl and bawl and bawl
Deep in the heart of Texas
The stars at night are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas
The prairie sky is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas
Deep in the heart of Texas
Deep in the heart of Texas
Deep in the heart of Texas
Deep in the heart of Texas

song performed by Nickel Creek
Added by Lucian Velea
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Cook Of The House

Ground rice, sugar, vinegar, seco salt, macaroni too,
Cook of the house,
Im the cook of the house.
No matter where I serve my guests,
They seem to like the kitchen best cause Im the cook of the house,
Cook of the house.
The salads in the bowl,
The rice is on the stove.
Green beans in the colander and where the res is heaven only knows.
Cinnamon, garlic, salt, pepper, corn-bread, curry powder, coffee too,
Cook of the house,
Im the cook of the house.
No, matter where I serve my guests,
They seem to like the kitchen best.
cause Im the cook of the house,
Cook of the house.
Where the rest is heaven only knows.
Matter where I serve my guests,
They seem to like the kitchen best cause Im the cook of the house.
Cook of the house,
Cook of the house,
Im the cook of the house.

song performed by Paul McCartney
Added by Lucian Velea
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