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I never blamed Pinochet, or my torturers, or external circumstances.

quote by Fernando Flores
Added by Lucian Velea
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Ears Are Closed

There is one basic problem that sits between them.
They all have been conditioned to believe,
Each one of them were born to lead.

And no one perceives a listening should be done.
Where the foundation,
Of true leadership begins for anyone.

That is why what's going on can not be fixed.
Those involve desire to captain their own ship.
And ears are clearly plugged to be closed

While those of flapping lips persist...
The resolving of their started problems,
Should lay on someone's shoulders.
But not on theirs to take the risk.

'You should be blamed for this! '

No.
You should be blamed for this!

'No.
You should be blamed for this! '

No.
You should be blamed for this!

*EVERYONE SING:

You should be blamed for this,
No.
You should be blamed for this,
No.
You should be,
You should be...
You should be blamed for this!

You should be blamed for this,
No.
You should be blamed for this,
No.
You should be,
You should be...
You should be blamed for this!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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The concept of the birth

What is birth? Why is it? Who causes it?
The birth is the fusion of matter and force
That came into being by accident
And since then evolves like planets revolve.

As the wind blows and the water flows
In accordance with the external force
The living things grow and reproduce
In accordance with the external force.

The fire is to burn; the life is to burn.
The burning is growth, which both of them do.
Both must feed the matter to live and grow.
Both must get the fevour of wind to burn

The conversion of matter into life
Is the action of the internal force.
The conversion of life into matter
Is the action of the external force.

The external force is the Supreme
And the internal is the soul, you may say.
They are not separate nor opposite.
The soul is the outcome of the Supreme.

The life is like water in rivers.
The body is like banks in rivers.
The water extends the river course
The banks regulate the river force.

The air fans the flame and put it out.
The God flames the life and put it out.
What happens to the flame when it is shut
That happens to the life when put to death.

The living kingdom is just like a tree
The growth of each bud is the growth of the shoot.
It grows aided by the external force
And dies thwarted by the same force.
09.01.2008

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Conept of the Birth

What is birth? Why is it? Who causes it?
The birth is the fusion of matter and force
That came into being by accident
And since then evolves like planets revolve.

As the wind blows and the water flows
In accordance with the external force
The living things grow and reproduce
In accordance with the external force.

The fire is to burn; the life is to burn.
The burning is growth, which both of them do.
Both must feed the matter to live and grow.
Both must get the fevour of wind to burn

The conversion of matter into life
Is the action of the internal force.
The conversion of life into matter
Is the action of the external force.

The external force is the Supreme
And the internal is the soul, you may say.
They are not separate nor opposite.
The soul is the outcome of the Supreme.

The life is like water in rivers.
The body is like banks in rivers.
The water extends the river course
The banks regulate the river force.

The air fans the flame and put it out.
The God flames the life and put it out.
What happens to the flame when it is shut
That happens to the life when put to death.

The living kingdom is just like a tree
The growth of each bud is the growth of the shoot.
It grows aided by the external force
And dies thwarted by the same force.

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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(Choices Poem) Circumstances Unending

If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay

To let the one you love go for the better
Or the happiness of poverty in suffering
Like a mother choosing for a child
you must make the decision out of true love.
Forever the greater good.
The eagle looks upon us all with his eyes.
Only if I could see it that way.

If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay

When you do such a thing their is no going back
Chasing after something you threw away.
All in a attempt to be the better man.
The homeless playing a game of kick the can.
Nobody ever wins.
It is to pass time as it will always do.

If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay

Regret and bitter
Feelings that will never sit well with you
Your determined to overcome, and it not be prolonged
She is gone.
Forever a bad choice.
That you wouldn't want to change.

If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death

[...] Read more

poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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They Dance Alone

Why are there women here dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here
Their faces fixed like stone?
I can't see what it is that they dispise
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone
It's the only form of protest they're allowed
I've seen their silent faces scream so loud
If they were to speak these words they'd go missing too
Another woman on a torture table what else can they do
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone
One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance
One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance
Ellas danzan con los desaparecidos
Ellas danzan con los muertos
Ellas danzan con amores invisibles
Ellas danzan con silenciosa angustia
Danzan con sus pardres
Danzan con sus hijos
Danzan con sus esposos
Ellas danzan solas
Danzan solas
Hey Mr. Pinochet
You've sown a bitter crop
It's foreign money that supports you
One day the money's going to stop
No wages for your torturers
No budget for your guns
Can you think of your own mother
Dancin' with her invisible son

[...] Read more

song performed by Sting
Added by Lucian Velea
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Nobody Gives

Sung by the tramp
I cant understand why everybodys quarreling,
Nobody gives in case they lose face,
And everybodys guilty and everybodys innocent,
And the fact of it is nobody gives any more.
Its the same throughout all history,
Nobody gives unless they receive,
And nobody trusts or is willing to believe
And nobody gives or is willing to concede.
Back in nineteen hundred and twenty-five
There were thousands of people struggling to survive.
There was hunger, unemployment and poverty,
Then in 1926 they decided to be free
So they all went on strike and
The workers told the unions, who blamed it on the government,
The politicians blamed it on the strikers and the militants,
Everybodys guilty and everybodys innocent,
But the fact of it is nobody gives any more.
Back in nineteen hundred and thirty-nine
There were scores of german military waiting in a line,
And the fatherland wanted what the world wouldnt give,
And then hitler decided he could take what was his,
So they all went to war and said
Kill all the left-wing intellectuals,
Annihilate the jews and wipe out their race,
Eliminate the weak because theyre ineffectual,
And the fact of it is nobody gives any more.
Im only sitting here watching it all go on
And listening to both sides.
Yeah, why cant we talk it out,
Why cant we sort it out,
Well work it out if we try.
Why cant we sit down and work out a compromise,
Why not negotiate and try to be civilised?
Ill tell you why, because nobody gives a damn.
Nobody listens and no one will understand.
Yet Im wondering, sitting here wondering,
And listening to both sides.
Why cant we work it out?
Why cant we sort it out?
Well work it out if we try.
Why cant we sit down and work out a compromise,
Why not negotiate and try to be civilised?
Ill tell you why, because nobody gives a damn.
Nobody listens and no one will understand.
Yet, Im wondering, sitting here wondering,
Yet Im wondering, sitting here wondering
Listening to both sides.
Nobody gives, nobody gives, nobody gives.
The workers told the unions who blamed it on the government,

[...] Read more

song performed by Kinks
Added by Lucian Velea
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Beguiled By Circumstances

I am feeling beguiled by circumstances
well out of my control
tossed around like a rag doll
or a ship in rough seas.
I know the discomfort of loneliness
with only a game of solitaire to play
and each hand
drifting into the next
in an effort
to comfort my soul.
I feel lost in a blizzard
that numbs you to the bones
with winds taking my breath
away from me.
I feel isolated at times
no one there to hear my words
in desperations calling
gripped with fear
of falling into an unknown.
Friends are far away
well out of fingers touch
and I feel like a drowning man
within a sea of thoughts
with nothing to grasp hold of
within the fragments of my memory.
I am feeling beguiled by circumstances
well out of my control.
Is it a phase I am going through
or just a monumental shift
by some unseen device?
I know not what will save me
from a fate I am heading for.
I just have to coast along
on the winds of change in me,
and along the hills of despair
where the winds are taking me.
I am lost in a mire
oppressed at every turn
looking out at anything
and everything
wondering which way to go.
Beguiled by circumstances
well out of control.
Inside voices are calling
their words subdued
and muted
by some unseen force.
Where am I going?
Nothing answers me.
Alone I stand in silence

[...] Read more

poem by David Harris
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Few Came to Socialize with the Baker

~There's an 'old' player on the field.
One who has yet been revealed,
As appealing with significance.
But...
Significant this player is.
Significant to 'that' which lives.
Under the current circumstances.
And the benefit to 'whom'...
Those significant looming circumstances,
Come to grow and groom.~

The easiest thing to do...
For those in positions of leadership,
Appointed and likeable too.
Was...
Not to create opposition,
For those elated who appreciated...
A charading done in masquerade.

When favorite cakes are baked to taste...
Those waiting in anticipation,
Can be counted on to celebrate.
But...
When that oven is finally turned off,
And the aroma of baked cakes fade away.
People once patient,
Begin to show a disrespect.
With a desire to twist the leader's neck.
And a stirring of the masses begin to rise!
When the incompetence of the leader...
Catches all by surprise.

What now becomes prioritized,
Is what has happened to the funds?
And why no one accepts responsibility...
For paying bills that has not been done!

~Has the baker taken ill? ~

No one had ever questioned,
The credibility of those 'appointed' to lead.
Or an ability to think.on feet...
To keep a sinking process,
Now believed and seen as getting deep.

Those looks of impressions,
Seem to be consciously addressed.
Those dressed impeccably with images given...
Are lost to define leadership qualities felt to express.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Concept of the Death

What is death? Why is it? Who causes it?
Living things are animated objects.
The dead are so when unanimated.
Cessation of animation is death.

Who terminates the animation:
The soul or the body? Neither of them.
The soul leaves not that the body decays.
The body decays not that the soul leaves.

Neither the body nor the soul promotes
The death nor do they desert each other.
They together succumb to the pressure
Exerted by the force present outside

Death happens when the matters break down
By accidents of the external force,
Or when they weaken from the external stress
Or when they are eaten by the predators.

The flame is to burn till the matter lasts,
The life is to run till the body lasts.
The flame is to die with no more matter.
The life is to cease with no more addition.

Degraded and disintegrated
By saprophytes at different stages,
The dead matters turn basic elements
And settle as inorganic matters.

The elements add to the growth of plants,
Plants to the growth of the herbivorous
And the herbivorous to the carnivorous
With the participation of the life force.

The drive of the life force is to survive
Against the pressure of the external force
The life force builds up the matter in growth
And when it could not, it dies with the matter

The plants and animals form a network
Trough which runs the life force, which is the soul,
Whose drive is to feed, grow and procreate.

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Role of Soul and Body

The soul and body are integrated
Who governs one’s ego, desire and traits?
Are genes the seat of the soul or body?
Who commits sins and perform virtues?
Who experiences the joy and sorrow?

It is not the soul alone that does them.
It is not the body alone that does them.
Soul and body together manifest
Like the flame and candle together burn.

The struggle of the internal force with
The external force is what we call life.
Our prayers and sacrifices have no sway.
Both are independent and unconcerned.

To sum up, there is only single soul
That runs through the entire living kingdom.
It never dies nor is born with deaths and births.
Its growth is bound by the external force.

The internal force is in continuation
To the external force, which is the God
They have their own agenda to perform.
Your prayers are irrelevant to them.

No soul exists or is reborn after death.
Sins and virtues are not to carry over.
Birth and death are internal occurrence.
To live is the motto of the living things..
15.01.2008

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The role of soul and body.

The soul and body are integrated
Who governs one’s ego, desire and traits?
Are genes the seat of the soul or body?
Who commits sins and perform virtues?
Who experiences the joy and sorrow?

It is not the soul alone that does them.
It is not the body alone that does them.
Soul and body together manifest
Like the flame and candle together burn.

The struggle of the internal force with
The external force is what we call life.
Our prayers and sacrifices have no sway.
Forces are independent and unconcerned.

To sum up, there is only single soul
That runs through the entire living kingdom.
It never dies nor is born with deaths and births.
Its growth is bound by the external force.

The internal force is in continuation
To the external force, which is God
They have their own agenda to perform.
Your prayers are irrelevant to them.

No soul exists or is reborn after death.
Sins and virtues are not to carry over.
Birth and death are internal occurrence.
To live is the motto of the living things..
15.01.2008

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Interpretation of Nature and

I.

MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.


II.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

IV.

Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.

V.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.

VI.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

VII.

The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.

VIII.

Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.

IX.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

X.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

XI.

As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

XII.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

XIII.

[...] Read more

poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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The Columbiad: Book II

The Argument

Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters. Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation; that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change, and will take its physical character from the body and from external objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America. View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito, cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in establishing that empire.

High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,
And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,
Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,
And raised new wonders to the Patriarch's view.

He saw at once, as far as eye could rove,
Like scattering herds, the swarthy people move
In tribes innumerable; all the waste,
Wide as their walks, a varying shadow cast.
As airy shapes, beneath the moon's pale eye,
People the clouds that sail the midnight sky,
Dance thro the grove and flit along the glade,
And cast their grisly phantoms on the shade;
So move the hordes, in thickets half conceal'd,
Or vagrant stalking thro the fenceless field,
Here tribes untamed, who scorn to fix their home,
O'er shadowy streams and trackless deserts roam;
While others there in settled hamlets rest,
And corn-clad vales a happier state attest.

The painted chiefs, in guise terrific drest,
Rise fierce to war, and beat their savage breast;
Dark round their steps collecting warriors pour,
Some fell revenge begins the hideous roar;
From hill to hill the startling war-song flies,
And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise,
Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood,
Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood;
Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay,
Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey,
Their captives torture, butcher and devour,
Drink the warm blood and paint their cheeks with gore.

Awhile he paused, with dubious thoughts opprest,
And thus to Hesper's ear his doubts addrest:
Say, to what class of nature's sons belong
The countless tribes of this untutor'd throng?
Where human frames and brutal souls combine,
No force can tame them, and no arts refine.
Can these be fashion'd on the social plan,
Or boast a lineage with the race of man?
When first we found them in yon hapless isle,
They seem'd to know and seem'd to fear no guile;
A timorous herd, like harmless roes, they ran,

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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I Blamed Them Once

I blamed him once,
My father who brought me here
Without the strength
To take me there
I blamed them once
My brothers who developed wings
And flew so high, leaving me behind.
I blamed them once
People of the world, who once or twice
Made me feel like I'm not wanted.
But I do not blame them anymore,
I have to make wings of my own and fly.
So let them go,
I will travel gently, carefully
And one day I too will arrive.

poem by Efe Benjamin
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A Man

I am a man as a man I've been told
Bacon is brought to the house in this mold
Born of your bellies I yearn for the cord
Years I have groveled repentance ignored

And I have been blamed
And I have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended

I am man who has grown from a son
Been crucified by enraged women
I am son who was raised by such men
I'm often reminded of the fools I'm among

And I have been shamed
And I have relented
I'm working my way toward our union mended
And I have been shamed
And I have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended

we don't fare well with endless reprimands
we don't do well with a life served as a sentence
this won't work well if you're hell bent on your offence
I am a man who understands your resistance

I am a man who still does what he can
to dispel our archaic reputation
I am a man who has heard all he can
cuz I don't fare well with endless punishment

Cuz I have been blamed and I have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended
And we have been blamed and we have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended

song performed by Alanis Morissette from Under Rug Swept
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Truce Between the Sexes

For a long time unhappy
with my man,
I blamed men,
blamed marriage, blamed
the whole bleeding world,
Because I could not lie in bed with him
without lying to him
or else to myself,
& lying to myself
became increasingly hard
as my poems
struck rock.

My life & my poems lived apart;
I had to marry them,
& marrying them
meant divorcing him,
divorcing the lie.

Now I lie in bed
with my poems on the sheets
& a man I love
sleeping or reading
at my side.

Because I love him,
I do not think of him
as 'Men,'
but as my friend.
Hate generalizes;
love is particular.

He is not Men, man, male-
all those maddening m's
muttering like machine-gun spittle,
but only a person like me,
dreaming, vulnerable, scared,
his dreams
opening into rooms
where the chairs
are wishes you can sit on
& the rugs are wonderful
with oriental birds.

The first month we lived together
I was mad with joy,
thinking that a person with a penis
could dream, tell jokes, even cry.
Now I found it usual,
& when other women sputter

[...] Read more

poem by Erica Jong
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Full Moon Day Third Lunar Month

One candle is a light unto itself.
One hundred candles
illuminate a room.
In a room,
one candle is
a light unto itself.

Uposatha day at Wat Katum,
seven old ladies and one old man
taking eight precepts
for a day
to keep the Niraya fires at bay.
'I undertake
to observe the precept
to refrain from
killing living beings.
'I undertake
to observe the precept
to refrain from
taking things not given.
'I undertake………'

An old monk gives a sermon:
'A silent sandoth arahant is blamed.
Articulate Sariputta is blamed.
Economical speech of Ananda is blamed.
Even silent Buddhas cannot escape censure.
Criticising others
burns the mind,
wards off wholesome
states of mind.'

A new and lofty concrete sala hall
is being built to house a replica
of a famous Buddha image.
In this, they say, Luang Po Sothorn
floated, in a miracle,
along the river Bang Pakhong
to Chachoengsao
after the sacking of Ayudhaya
a city of a million souls.

Eleven o'clock,
a bell sounds.
Seven monks follow their abbot
to walk a hot and dusty concrete road
past a rabble of dogs with mange,
to Jai Hieng's house.
Sabbe sankhara dukkha
On the anniversary

[...] Read more

poem by Brian Taylor
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In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

quote by Mark Twain
Added by Lucian Velea
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People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

quote by George Bernard Shaw
Added by Lucian Velea
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