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When Arab apologists wring their hands over an Israeli military incursion, they never mention what the Israelis are reacting to, or else diminish and distort it.

quote by Jack Schwartz
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Future Watch Burma To Syria Conflicts Rising

been watching
the future today...

from past lens astray

Burma as expected
has developed
ethnic problems

with sudden absence
of strict communist
dictatorship firm leash

Burmese are no longer
all brother communists
controlled by the state

past civic grievances
rise from postmortem
state of frozen stasis

past horrors play
on revenge rabid minds
need exercising?

past spectre struggles
post World War II conflicts
leave skeletons in closets

frozen nightmares divisions
war atrocities split Yugoslavia
post familiar communist thaw

emotively haunted people
seem to need to grim settle
past trauma before each

can move on embrace
future possibilities opportunities
in free market societies

when no longer linked
in brotherhood communist
cast iron citizenships

emotively many people
seem to need to settle
the past before they can

move on

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Syrian Civil War Blood Shed Radical

Syria
has no
decades

long economic
prosperity stability
to fall back on?

instability
in Syria
impacts

on Jordan
Iraq Turkey
Lebanon?

Syria
has heated
up Syrian

Israeli border tensions
since October in an attempt
at unification against

a common
traditional enemy?
but far too

much Syrian
civil war blood
has been shed

now contemporary
President of Turkey
Arab praise rising

on hate
Israeli rhetoric
agenda?

shares an old Israeli
misfortune Syrian shells
cross Turkish borders

and Israeli borders
cheer up worried Turkey
you have it easy?

hundreds of Palestinian
missiles kill not your citizens

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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I Would Go Up To Jerusalem

It is Friday morning
the Holy Day in Islam
I would enter into the
ancient city of Jerusalem

Oh Holy City to Judaism Christianity
Islam all three worshipping the one God
all three recognizing the same almighty God
as creator of heaven and earth and all life

I would enter into the
ancient city of Jerusalem
yet every road leading up is blocked
every street closed off by Israeli police

they do this to protect me
they do this to keep my blood
from staining their innocent hands
they do this to keep me safe from harm

like locusts Palestinian children
descend upon the ancient city
like the plagues upon Pharaohs’ Egypt
dark angel of hate sown into their hearts

their parents have fostered
fed them message of hate
their parents have taught
them to be slingers of stones

road after road we try
back road we enter now
God willing finally we may
enter into this his Holy City

the last few Israeli police
are shedding their plastic armour
the last few of hundreds
stone guards protecting innocent flesh

this will not be shown
on your home television
throw a stone in Jerusalem
echo is heard felt world wide

your television is full of Israeli

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Throw Your Hands Up

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,90 aaliyahs in the house so check,check it out
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,90 aaliyahs in the house so check,check it out
The time has finally come to save my beats with the funky hip hop swing
(the funky swing I might add) oh check it
No holding back now is the time, to get busy
So take me to the bridge
I work hard for mine, spending all my time
To give you what you need
So if you down with this funky flavor thorw your hands up
And if you got fever for aaliyah throw your hands up
And if you down with blackground thorw your hands up
And if it got soul let me see your hands up
If you got bass in your jeeps thorw your hands up
If your not down with the crack thorw your hands up
And if you think your hyper enough to swing it thorw your hands up
And if your down with the second chapter thorw your hands up
Straight from the streets is where Im coming from (sraight out the streets)
With the touch of jazz in me, check it
Take in no shorts when it comes down to shows
I got to reck it, so take me to the bridge
I work hard for mine spending all my time
To give what you need
Where you at, where you at
So if your down with the pa let me see your hands up
And if your head is bobin to the track throw your hands up
And if you got loot in your pocket throw your hands up
And if you not foul let me see your hands up
And if your protected and you know it throw your hands up
And if r kellys record is sharp let me see your hands up
And if your body swing to the track throw your hands up
And if you want some more of the flover throw your hands up
Uh,uh,uh yeah,yeah
Aaliyah bust a free style
This is for the jeeps
Strictly for the jeeps
This is for the jeeps
(repeat)
So if your down with the funky flover thorw your hands up
And if you got the fever for aaliyah throw your hands up
And if you down with blackground throw your hands up
And if you got bass in your jeeps throw your hands up
If your not down with the crack throw your hands up
And if you think your hyper enough to swing it throw your hands up
And if your down with the second chapter throw your hands up
So if your down with the pa let me see your hands up
And if your head is bobin to the track throw your hands up
And if you got loot in your pocket throw your hands up
And if you not foul let me see your hands up
And if your protected and you know it throw your hands up
And if r kellys record is sharp let me see your hands up

[...] Read more

song performed by Aaliyah
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Junle Law And Refusal To Forgive

When Israelis captured Eichmann and
decided they would put him up for trial
many people thought their conduct vile,
claiming Israel's acts were grossly out of hand.
The Washington Post said this was 'jungle law, '
while William Buckley called on Israel to
forgive its enemies. Arendt, a Jew,
called Hausner 'a Galician who knew
no languages.' No Jews would turn their cheek
towards the enemies not just outside,
but those within, and chose to override
complaints of those who said, 'We must be meek.'
Few understood the shift in paradigm
initiated by the judges, Jews
who were not merely plaintiffs who accuse,
but people justly punishing a crime.

This poem was written fifty years after execution of Adolf Eichmann, at around midnight on 5/31/62.

Franklin Foer, reviewing Deborah Lipstadt's The Eichmann Trial in the NYT,4/8/11 ('Why the Eichmann Trial Really Mattered') wrote:

To write about the trial of Adolf Eichmann is to put its most notorious court reporter, Hannah Arendt, in the dock. In the nearly 50 years since its publication, her account of those proceedings, 'Eichmann in Jerusalem, ' has come to overshadow its subject. The book, it is true, commands attention. It is a breathtaking admixture of genres (history, philosophy, journalism) and contains strong, often unconventional, moral judgments (especially her contempt for the Jewish leaders who cooperated with their murderers) . It aims to render grand historical conclusions but remains unintentionally and inescapably personal.

'The Eichmann Trial, ' by Deborah E. Lipstadt, can't entirely avoid Arendt, but it does manage to keep her largely offstage until the very end. Lipstadt has done a great service by untethering the trial from Arendt's polarizing presence, recovering the event as a gripping legal drama, as well as a hinge moment in Israel's history and in the world's delayed awakening to the magnitude of the Holocaust.
Aside from Eichmann's trial, in 1961, the Holocaust has been the subject of at least two other memorable legal battles. The first, of course, was the Nuremberg tribunals — proceedings that occurred amid the ruins of war and concentrated on the crimes of the Nazis, giving little voice to the still dazed survivors of the genocide. The second featured none other than Lipstadt herself. In 2000, she found herself the defendant in a British libel suit unsuccessfully brought by the writer David Irving, who protested her characterization of him as a Holocaust denier. This experience has made her a sensitive guide to the awkward complexities of squeezing the crimes of the Holocaust into the constricting confines of the courthouse.

The book begins with the daughter of an Argentine man dating the son of a German refugee. The Argentine man was himself German-born and half Jewish. Many fathers expect the worst from the boys their daughters bring home — but the man's suspicions about this one's family grew thanks to the boy's obvious anti-Semitism and his evasive answers to basic biographical questions. The man began to assume the worst and outlined his fears in a letter to a German prosecutor who happened to be Jewish. The prosecutor enlisted the man and his daughter in a stealth operation, and in the course of her snooping, the possibility arose that she was stalking Adolf Eichmann. When her father reported this astonishing finding to the prosecutor, he forwarded the tip to the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
The Mossad wasn't initially enthusiastic. But once it grasped the importance of its target, it unleashed a risky kidnapping scheme, what Lipstadt describes as the prototype of the brash, clever operations that are the foundation of the Mossad's mythic reputation. The Israelis drugged Eichmann and dressed him as an El Al crewman to get him past the Argentine authorities.

Much of Western opinion, Lipstadt reminds us, was not pleased. Argentina demanded Eichmann's repatriation, and the American establishment agreed. The Washington Post editorial page condemned Israel's 'jungle law'; The Christian Science Monitor equated Israel's claims to those of the Nazis. William F. Buckley Jr. said the kidnapping was symptomatic of the Jewish 'refusal to forgive.' Even the American Jewish Committee asked the Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to cede the prosecution to Germany or an international tribunal. But these challenges only made Ben-Gurion a more vociferous champion of the trial.

A principal villain of Arendt's book is Gideon Hausner, who had recently been installed as attorney general and who assigned himself the first chair in the prosecution. He was a strange choice for the job. There was little in his background as a commercial lawyer that suggested he had the courtroom skills to battle a cunning defendant, which Eichmann turned out to be. Indeed, Arendt accused Hausner of being more of a demagogic politician than a rule-abiding barrister. She disparaged his emotionalism and his aggressive effort to pin every crime of Nazi Germany on Eichmann. In one of her less-than-¬attractive letters from the trial, Arendt accused Hausner of having a 'ghetto mentality' and of being a 'typical Galician Jew,... one of those people who don't know any language.'…

It is always bracing to recall the world in which the Eichmann trial was held — where the slaughter was largely unacknowledged (and even unknown) . That's why Ben-Gurion and Hausner were spectacularly right to exploit the Eichmann prosecution for pedagogical purposes. They forced the Nazi genocide onto the front pages of the world's newspapers. Nearly 20 years after the fact, the Holocaust finally began to find a place in the public consciousness that reflected the size of the atrocity. (Indeed, the trial was largely responsible for making 'Holocaust' the universal term for the genocide.) Critics of the trial insinuated that the Israelis were somehow transgressing the bounds of fairness and justice by pressing these larger points. But Ben-Gurion and Hausner served precisely these goals by giving a voice to Eichmann's victims.

6/1/12 #10380

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Met Pet Goat While Twin Towers Burn

"9/11 justified
invasion Afghanistan?
really Taliban

zero hijackers
zero links
to al-Qaeda?

at the time
hijackers were Arab?
not Afghani?

President George W. Bush
failed nation America
ordered total no shot down"

9: 03 a.m. Bush no action partakes
in a meaningless primary publicity
photo-op ignoring responsibility

continental US is already under attack

at Emma E. Booker Elementary
School in Sarasota, Florida
Mr President beat around the Bush

is reading 'Met Pet Goat'
to school children
for five critical minutes

after he had been told
second World Trade
Center tower had been hit

that America was under attack

wait rewind "What's the time? "

approximately 8: 48 a.m.
morning September 11 2001
first pictures of burning

World Trade Center

are broadcast on live television
reporters news anchors viewers
have had no advance warning

"What has happened in lower Manhattan?

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

[...] Read more

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Diminishing Defenses

Let's remove the platitudes.
And rid the phony subtleties,
To dropp to be who we are...
To let that be seen,
Moving forward to do more progressive things.

You offend. I offend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Let's remove the platitudes,
I defend. You defend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.

Let's remove the platitudes.
You offend. I offend.
Let us diminish the fences.
And let's do it to prove,
It done,
To do.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.

You offend. I offend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Let's remove the platitudes,
I defend. You defend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.

Let us remove those platitudes
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.

Let us remove those platitudes
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.

Let us remove those platitudes.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Let us remove those platitudes.
Let us remove those platitudes.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.
Diminishing defenses.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Did She Mention My Name

Its so nice to meet an old friend and pass the time of day
And talk about the home town a million miles away
Is the ice still on the river, are the old folks still the same
And by the way, did she mention my name
Did she mention my name just in passing
And when the morning came, do you remember if she dropped a name or two
Is the home team still on fire, do they still win all the games
And by the way, did she mention my name
Is the landlord still a loser, do his signs hang in the hall
Are the young girls still as pretty in the city in the fall
Does the laughter on their faces still put the sun to shame
And by the way, did she mention my name
Did she mention my name just in passing
And when the talk ran high, did the look in her eye seem far away
Is the old roof still leaking when the late snow turns to rain
And by the way, did she mention my name
Did she mention my name just in passing
And looking at the rain, do you remember if she dropped a name or two
Wont you say hello from someone, theyll be no need to explain
And by the way, did she mention my name

song performed by Gordon Lightfoot
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The Hasteners

The last walls of shame fell,
And we rejoiced…
And we danced…
And we were blessed with the signing of the peace of the cowards…
Nothing terrifies us any more.
And nothing shames us.
For the veins of pride have dried within us.

Fell…
-For the fiftieth time-our virginity…
Without being shaken…or crying…
Or being terrified with the sight of blood…
We entered the age of haste…
And stood in lines, like sheep before the guillotine
We ran…and panted..
And raced to kiss the boots of the murderers..

For fifty years they starved our children
And at the end of the fast, they threw to us…
An onion..

Grenada fell
-For the fiftieth time-
From the Arabs' hands.
History fell from the Arabs' hands.
The pillars of the spirit fell…and the branches of the tribe…
All the songs of heroism fell…
Seville fell…
Antioch fell…
`Ammoriah fell.
Hittin fell without a fight.
Mary fell in the hands of the militias
And there is no man to rescue the heavenly symbol
And there is no manliness…

The last of our favorites fell
In the hands of the Romans, then what are we defending?
Not a single concubine remains in our palace…
Who makes coffee… and sex…
Then what are we defending??

No more remains in our hands…
A single Andulus that we possess.
They stole the doors,
And the walls,

[...] Read more

poem by Nizar Qabbani
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I Dreamed.... (Hands)

i dreamed last night...
and all i could see were hands.
sometimes hard and calloused,
sometimes soft and feminine.
skilled hands, laborer's hands,
loving hands, nurturing hands....
fingers digging in the dirt,
fingers holding a pen.
fingers playing a piano,
fingers unbuttoning blouses.

hands extended, hands gripping the rope,
hands holding the shovel,
hands covered with resin.
hands folded in prayer,
hands balled into fists.
hands stuffed in empty pockets.
hands that define both history,
and destiny!

hands scarred and bruised,
hands covered with age spots.
hands that speak many languages.
hands that know mistakes, and failures.
hands that built fires,
hands that put fires out!
hands that wiped away tears,
that picked up trash,
and revealed souls....

whose hands?
my hands, your hands?
god's hands?
does it really matter?
hands engaged and involved,
in the very act of living!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Book Fifth-Books

WHEN Contemplation, like the night-calm felt
Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep
Into the soul its tranquillising power,
Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man,
Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes
That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,
Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine
Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved
Through length of time, by patient exercise
Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is
That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto,
In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked
Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven
As her prime teacher, intercourse with man
Established by the sovereign Intellect,
Who through that bodily image hath diffused,
As might appear to the eye of fleeting time,
A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought,
For commerce of thy nature with herself,
Things that aspire to unconquerable life;
And yet we feel--we cannot choose but feel--
That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart
It gives, to think that our immortal being
No more shall need such garments; and yet man,
As long as he shall be the child of earth,
Might almost 'weep to have' what he may lose,
Nor be himself extinguished, but survive,
Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate.
A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,--
Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes
Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch
Her pleasant habitations, and dry up
Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare,
Yet would the living Presence still subsist
Victorious, and composure would ensue,
And kindlings like the morning--presage sure
Of day returning and of life revived.
But all the meditations of mankind,
Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth
By reason built, or passion, which itself
Is highest reason in a soul sublime;
The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,
Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,
Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes;
Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind
Some element to stamp her image on
In nature somewhat nearer to her own?
Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad
Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?

[...] Read more

poem by William Wordsworth
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The Prelude. (book V )

WHEN Contemplation, like the night-calm felt
Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep
Into the soul its tranquillising power,
Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man,
Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes
That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,
Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine
Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved
Through length of time, by patient exercise
Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is
That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto,
In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked
Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven
As her prime teacher, intercourse with man
Established by the sovereign Intellect,
Who through that bodily image hath diffused,
As might appear to the eye of fleeting time,
A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought,
For commerce of thy nature with herself,
Things that aspire to unconquerable life;
And yet we feel--we cannot choose but feel--
That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart
It gives, to think that our immortal being
No more shall need such garments; and yet man,
As long as he shall be the child of earth,
Might almost "weep to have" what he may lose,
Nor be himself extinguished, but survive,
Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate.
A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,--
Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes
Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch
Her pleasant habitations, and dry up
Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare,
Yet would the living Presence still subsist
Victorious, and composure would ensue,
And kindlings like the morning--presage sure
Of day returning and of life revived.
But all the meditations of mankind,
Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth
By reason built, or passion, which itself
Is highest reason in a soul sublime;
The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,
Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,
Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes;
Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind
Some element to stamp her image on
In nature somewhat nearer to her own?
Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad
Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?

[...] Read more

poem by William Wordsworth
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Johnny Goes To War

At the age of eighteen
just after writing his final matriculation exam,
Johnny is called up to do military service
and when the pickup on the farm
have two flat tyres
and Johnny cannot get to the station in time,

he is fetched by three broad shouldered
military policemen who initially
want to arrest him
and shove him into a waiting military pickup van.

In the army he receives food
that gives him stomach flue
and for the first week
is almost stuck to the loo
and the mash potatoes
coming from a packet as powder,
runs into everything and has no salt in it

while the Colonel, the officers
and non-commissioned officers
have a feast in their mess,
having roasted beef and chicken
and eat as if they are truly blessed

and his hair is cut just above the scull,
he’s forced into an overall,
feels and looks like a criminal
while the instructors, the officers
and commanders wear normal uniforms

and he is chased up and down,
has to run to some trees
three kilometres far and back,
to bring a leave
and every time it’s not the right one

and the passing black citizens
at the railway tracks and on the road
shake their heads
and think that white men are nuts.

Day and night the instructor
slanders and curses at him,
he is put on duty
to guard armoured cars and trucks,
forced to run with poles and truck tyres
and to be just like his fellow military men,
even his girlfriend’s love letters,

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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Bob Dylans 115th Dream

I was riding on the mayflower
When I thought I spied some land
I yelled for captain arab
I have yuh understand
Who came running to the deck
Said, boys, forget the whale
Look on over yonder
Cut the engines
Change the sail
Haul on the bowline
We sang that melody
Like all tough sailors do
When they are far away at sea
I think Ill call it america
I said as we hit land
I took a deep breath
I fell down, I could not stand
Captain arab he started
Writing up some deeds
He said, lets set up a fort
And start buying the place with beads
Just then this cop comes down the street
Crazy as a loon
He throw us all in jail
For carryin harpoons
Ah me I busted out
Dont even ask me how
I went to get some help
I walked by a guernsey cow
Who directed me down
To the bowery slums
Where people carried signs around
Saying, ban the bums
I jumped right into line
Sayin, I hope that Im not late
When I realized I hadnt eaten
For five days straight
I went into a restaurant
Lookin for the cook
I told them I was the editor
Of a famous etiquette book
The waitress he was handsome
He wore a powder blue cape
I ordered some suzette, I said
Could you please make that crepe
Just then the whole kitchen exploded
From boilin fat
Food was flying everywhere
And I left without my hat
Now, I didnt mean to be nosy

[...] Read more

song performed by Bob Dylan
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These Hands

Given by God -are these hands!
One can do many things -with these hands
With love one can help a strangers' hands-
Allay and comfort the elders' gnarled hands
Clean sweep and mop with these hands
Decorate and embellish with these hands
Cook and serve food to all with these hands
Clasp a loved one with these hands
Applaud one with pleasure with these hands
Dig the soil and form a garden with these hands
Hold a book to read with these hands
Write and post a card with these hands
Type a poem to cheer someone with these hands
Draw a picture and sew clothes with these hands
Paint a beautiful scene to amuse with these hands
Play a game of volley ball or cricket with these hands
Swim the waters and row a boat with these hands
Pick the harvests and fruits with these hands
Feed the animals and birds with these hands
Seek the warmth of dear ones with these hands
Feel the soft petals of a flower with these hands
Fold the palms to pray with these hands
Given by God - are these hands!

poem by Chandra Thiagarajan
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Reformed Apologists

Socially accepted name soiling,
Of those reformed apologists.
Wishing to have their public role calling,
Yesterday found appalling.
But today have discovered themselves,
The ones full of 'it'.

Retracking from en-acting,
Pointing blame with accusations.
Only makes those misdeeds to face,
Unable to erase.
From the minds of those attacked,
By assumptions and not facts!

Socially accepted name soiling,
Of those reformed apologists.
Wishing to have their public role calling,
Yesterday found appalling...
But today have discovered themselves,
The ones full of 'it'.

Leaving good relationships blemished.
And reputations diminished.
Isolates with a finish,
Those feelings of friendship forever left embittered.
With a forgiveness erased,
To never again be considered.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Dont Mention My Heartache

Written by c. wilmore & c. jackson
Hoo, hoo, mm
Dont mention my heartache
I just hide it away
Dont want to remember what brings me pain
Who does it hurt if Im masquerading
When anybody asks me you know Ill say, yeah
That I love him, he loves me
Were so good together
Ill pretend hes home again
Though hes gone forever
Dont mention my heartache
cause I dont want nobody to know, no, no, no
Just keep it a secret that he let me go
cause I dont want nobody to know
That I go through the motions (motions)
Put a smile on my face, yes, I do
I heard that the weather is changing today, yeah, yeah
And I dont talk about my business to noone
If anybody asks me you know what Ill say, yeah
That I love him; he loves me, were so good together
Ill pretend hes home again, though hes gone forever
Dont mention my heartache
cause I dont want nobody to know, oh, no
Just keep it a secret that he let me go
cause I dont want nobody to know--
Oh, oh, oh, oh, hoo--
That the heartache that Im feeling makes me lonely, oh---
Dont mention my heartache
cause I dont want nobody to know, no, no
Just keep it a secret that he let me go
And I dont want nobody to know, nobody
(cant talk about it)
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
(dont want to think about it)
And I dont want nobody, I got a heartache
I dont want nobody, I dont want nobody, I got a heartache
(dont mention my heartache)
I got a heartache, he let me go
Its a sweet face, yes, it is
Dont want nobody, cant stand nobody
(dont mention my heartache)
And I got to keep it a secret
(Im minding my business)
cause my man, cause my man
Aint my man no more
Keeping it a secret (dont mention my heartache)
Keeping it a secret, oh, all to myself, he let me go...

song performed by Natalie Cole
Added by Lucian Velea
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Freedom's Plow

When a man starts out with nothing,
When a man starts out with his hands
Empty, but clean,
When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.

The eyes see there materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.
The mind seeks a way to overcome these obstacles.
The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,
To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.
Then the hand seeks other hands to help,
A community of hands to help-
Thus the dream becomes not one man’s dream alone,
But a community dream.
Not my dream alone, but our dream.
Not my world alone,
But your world and my world,
Belonging to all the hands who build.

A long time ago, but not too long ago,
Ships came from across the sea
Bringing the Pilgrims and prayer-makers,
Adventurers and booty seekers,
Free men and indentured servants,
Slave men and slave masters, all new-
To a new world, America!

With billowing sails the galleons came
Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.
In little bands together,
Heart reaching out to heart,
Hand reaching out to hand,
They began to build our land.
Some were free hands
Seeking a greater freedom,
Some were indentured hands
Hoping to find their freedom,
Some were slave hands
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,

[...] Read more

poem by Langston Hughes
Added by Poetry Lover
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Meanwhile, In Another Part Of The War

On the street of the concrete refugee tenements
That have collapsed into the smoking holes
The Israeli rockets blew open at dawn’s early light,
The sundered limbs and torsos of a Jenin family
Lie with the shards and dust of their household,
Three generations, shredded like paper dolls.

There are no heads to be found. They never had heads.
If they had heads, the Israeli spokesman assures
The State Department, the U.N., the Believers,
The CNN camera, with his shy smile, in
His Noo Yock twang, they wouldn’t have been
Where the terrorists were.

“Of the three-month-old infant,
Crushed in its cradle, and the eighty-year-old
Shepherd who retired twenty years ago when Israelis
From Russia drove off his flock at gunpoint,
And his son’s wife, and the schoolboy, all buried
In the holes the rockets made, which ones
Were the terrorists?” A voice off-camera asks.

But the spokesman shrugs and smiles
Shyly. The cameras and the microphones
Are already turned off.

There were survivors. One, some say
The mother of two victims, has volunteered
To take the bus to Jerusalem.

poem by James Phillip McAuley
Added by Poetry Lover
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