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Close scrutiny will show that most ""crisis situations"" are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.

quote by Maxwell Maltz
Added by Lucian Velea
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Show Me Love

(spoken) Hello
This was an accident
Not the kind where sorrow sounds
Never even noticed
We're suddenly crumbling
Tell me how you've never felt
Delicate or innocent
Do you still have doubts that
Us having faith makes any sense
Tell me nothing ever counts
Lashing out or breaking down
Still somebody loses 'cause
There's no way to turn around
Staring at your photograph
Everything now in the past
Never felt so lonely
I wish that you could show me love
Shov me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
'Til you open that door
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
'Til I'm up off the floor
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
'Til it's inside my pores
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
Show me love
'Til I'm screaming for more
Random acts of mindlessness
Commonplace occurences
Chances and surprises
Another state of consciousness
Tell me nothing ever counts
Lashing out or breaking down
Still somebody loses 'cause
There's no way to turn around
Tell me how you've never felt

[...] Read more

song performed by Tatu
Added by Lucian Velea
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Stay

Please stay with me now
Dont you let me go
Ill make it somehow
I got to let you know
That Ill make it
Somehow, some way
Though I wait on the day
What Im doings got to pay
Someway, somehow
My baby, when he cries
Its cause somethings on his mind
This world is full of lies
You and me are one of a kind
The good lord will stand behind every step
We are blind to fate, thats life, thats life
Stay, stay, stay, stay (wont you please)
Stay, stay, stay, stay
It fits, but you cant make it work
Where theres pain, theres got to be hurt
And the green grass grows from the dirt
Yeah, thats a fact of life alright
The good lord stands behind every step
We are blind to fate, thats life, thats life
Stay, oh wont you please
Stay, stay (wont you)
Stay, stay, stay, stay
Stay, stay, stay, stay
Stay, stay (right here)
Stay, stay (dont you go, no no)
Stay, stay (oh no no)
Stay, stay (stay baby baby please stay)
Stay, stay (right here, right here, right here)
Stay, stay (I want you to stay right here)
Stay, stay (we can stay here, together, together yeah)
Stay, stay (dont listen to what people say)
Stay, stay (stay, stay, listen now yeah)
Stay, stay (stay, yeah yeah now)

song performed by Erykah Badu
Added by Lucian Velea
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Un-believable Situations

Un-believable situations,
Leave a lump in a throat.
And those,
Un-believable situations...
Can leave a weight on shoulders,
Whether one is young on older.
No matter who's brave or bold.

Stricken with heat or fever,
No matter who's brave or bold.
Those un-believable situations,
Can warm a heart...
Or turn it cold.

Few are prepared for what they can not see.
When surprised by situations.
Many choke up and can not breathe,
When confronted by situations...
Shocking and unbelieved.

Stricken with heat or fever,
No matter who's brave or bold.
Those un-believable situations,
Can warm a heart...
Or turn it cold.

Those un-believable situations,
Always stun the ones who disbelieve.
Those un-believable situations,
Come to bring some to their knees.

Those un-believable situations,
Always stun the ones who disbelieve.
Those un-believable situations,
Come to bring some to their knees.

Those un-believable situations,
Always stun the ones who disbelieve.
Those un-believable situations,
Come to bring some to their knees.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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Another Tricky Day

You cant always get it
You cant always get it
When you really want it
When you really want it
You cant always get it at all
You cant always get it at all
Just because theres space
Just because theres space
In your life its a waste
In your life its a waste
To spend your time why dont you wait for the call
To spend your time why dont you wait for the call
(just gotta get used to it)
(just gotta get used to it)
We all get it in the end
We all get it in the end
(just gotta get used to it)
(just gotta get used to it)
We go down and we come up again
We go down and we come up again
(just gotta get used to it)
(just gotta get used to it)
You irritate me my friend
You irritate me my friend
(this is no social crisis)
(this is no social crisis)
This is you having fun
This is you having fun
(no crisis)
(no crisis)
Getting burned by the sun
Getting burned by the sun
(this is true)
(this is true)
This is no social crisis
This is no social crisis
Just another tricky day for you
Just another tricky day for you
You can always get higher
You can always get higher
Just because you aspire
Just because you aspire
You could expire even knowing.
You could expire even knowing.
Dont push the hands
Dont push the hands
Just hang on to the band
Just hang on to the band
You can dance while your knowledge is growing
You can dance while your knowledge is growing

[...] Read more

song performed by Who
Added by Lucian Velea
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Death Of The Middle Class

Oligarchs and Banksters tighten financial screws
In a bold attempt to kill the global Middle Class
Heads of State unable/unwilling to halt this ruse
The “Great Depression of 1929” we soon surpass

ROTMS

By Andrew Gavin Marshall - Global Research

We now stand at the edge of the global financial abyss of a ‘Great Global Debt Depression, ’ where nations, mired in extreme debt, are beginning to implement ‘fiscal austerity’ measures to reduce their deficits, which will ultimately result in systematic global social genocide, as the middle classes vanish and the social foundations upon which our nations rest are swept away. How did we get here? Who brought us here? Where is this road leading? These are questions I will briefly attempt to answer.

At the heart of the global political economy is the central banking system. Central banks are responsible for printing a nation’s currency and setting interest rates, thus determining the value of the currency. This should no doubt be the prerogative of a national government, however, central banks are of a particularly deceptive nature, in which while being imbued with governmental authority, they are in fact privately owned by the world’s major global banks, and are thus profit-seeking institutions. How do central banks make a profit? The answer is simple: how do all banks make a profit? Interest on debt. Loans are made, interest rates are set, and profits are made. It is a system of debt, imperial economics at its finest.

In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System, with the Board located in Washington, appointed by the President, but where true power rested in the 12 regional banks, most notably among them, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The regional Fed banks were private banks, owned in shares by the major banks in each region, which elected the board members to represent them, and who would then share power with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

In the early 1920s, the Council on Foreign Relations was formed in the United States as the premier foreign policy think tank, dominated by powerful banking interests. In 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was created to manage German reparations payments, but it also had another role, which was much less known, but much more significant. It was to act as a “coordinator of the operations of central banks around the world.” Essentially, it is the central bank for the world’s central banks, whose operations are kept ‘strictly confidential.’ As historian Carroll Quigley wrote:

'The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.'

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was formed as a secretive global think tank, comprising intellectual, financial, corporate, political, military and media elites from Western Europe and North America, with prominent bankers such as David Rockefeller, as well as European royalty, such as the Dutch royal family, who are the largest shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell, whose CEO attends every meeting. This group of roughly 130 elites meets every year in secret to discuss and debate global affairs, and to set general goals and undertake broad agendas at various meetings. The group was initially formed to promote European integration. The 1956 meeting discussed European integration and a common currency. In fact, the current Chairman of the Bilderberg Group told European media last year that the euro was debated at the Bilderberg Group.

In 1973, David Rockefeller, Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Steering Committee of the Blderberg Group, formed the Trilateral Commission with CFR academic Zbigniew Brzezinski. That same year, the oil price shocks created a wealth of oil money, which was discussed at that years Bilderberg meeting 5 months prior to the oil shocks, and the money was funneled through western banks, which loaned it to ‘third world’ nations desperately in need of loans to finance industrialization.

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two dozen members of the Trilateral Commission into his cabinet, including himself, and of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was his National Security Adviser. In 1979, Carter appointed David Rockefeller’s former aide and friend, Paul Volcker, who had held various positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Treasury Department, and who also happened to be a member of the Trilateral Commission, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. When another oil shock took place in 1979, Volcker decided to raise interest rates from 2% in the late 70s, to 18% in the early 80s. The effect this had was that the countries of the developing world suddenly had to pay enormous interest on their loans, and in 1982, Mexico announced it could no longer afford to pay its interest, and it defaulted on its debt, which set off the 1980s debt crisis – collapsing nations in debt across Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia.

It was the IMF and the World Bank came to the ‘assistance’ of the Third World with their ‘structural adjustment programs’, which forced countries seeking assistance to privatize all state owned industries and resources, devalue their currencies, liberalize their economies, dismantle health, education and social services; ultimately resulting in the re-colonization of the ‘Third World’ as Western corporations and banks bought all their assets and resources, and ultimately created the conditions of social genocide, with the spread of mass poverty, and the emergence of corrupt national elites who were subservient to the interests of Western elites. The people in these nations would protest, riot and rebel, and the states would clamp down with the police and military.

In the West, corporations and banks saw rapid, record-breaking profits. This was the era in which the term ‘globalization’ emerged. While profits soared, wages for people in the West did not. Thus, to consume in an economy in which prices were rising, people had to go into debt. This is why this era marked the rise of credit cards fueling consumption, and the middle class became a class based entirely on debt.

In the 1990s, the ‘new world order’ was born, with America ruling the global economy, free trade agreements began integrating regional and global markets for the benefit of global banks and corporations, and speculation dominated the economy.

The global economic crisis arose as a result of decades of global imperialism – known recently as ‘globalization’ – and the reckless growth of– speculation, derivatives and an explosion of debt. As the economic crisis spread, nations of the world, particularly the United States, bailed out the major banks (which should have been made to fail and crumble under their own corruption and greed) , and now the West has essentially privatized profits for the banks, and socialized the risk. In other words, the nations bought the debt from the banks, and now the people have to pay for it. The people, however, are immersed in their own personal debt to such degrees that today, the average Canadian is $39,000 in debt, and students are graduating into a jobless market with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt that they will never repay. Hence, we are now faced with a global debt crisis.

To manage the economic crisis, the G20 was established as the major international forum for cooperation among the 20 major economies of the world, including the major developing – or emerging – economies, such as India, Brazil, South Africa and China. At the onset of the financial crisis, China and Russia’s central banks began calling for the establishment of a global currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This proposal was backed by the UN and the IMF. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese and Russian central banks cooperate with the Western central banks through the Bank for International Settlements – which the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently said was the principle forum for “governance of central bank cooperation” and that the G20 is “the prime group for global economic governance.” In 2009, the IMF stated that the BIS “is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements.” The President of the European Union, appointed to the position after attending a Bilderberg meeting, declared 2009 as the “first year of global governance.” The 2009 Bilderberg meeting reported on the desire to create a global treasury, or global central bank, to manage the world economy. In 2009, prior to the Bilderberg meeting in fact, the G20 set in motion plans to make the IMF a global central bank of sorts, issuing and even printing its own currency – called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) – which is valued against a basket of currencies. In May of 2010, the IMF Managing Director stated that “crisis is an opportunity, ” and while Special Drawing Rights are a step in the right direction, ultimately what is needed is “a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features.” Thus, we see the emergence of a process towards the formation of a global central bank and a global currency, totally unaccountable to any nation or people, and totally controlled by global banking interests.

In 2010, Greece was plunged into a debt crisis, a crisis which is now spreading across Europe, to the U.K. and eventually to Japan and the United States. If we look at Greece, we see the nature of the global debt crisis. The debt is owed to major European and American banks. To pay the interest on the debt, Greece had to get a loan from the European Central Bank and the IMF, which forced the country to impose ‘fiscal austerity’ measures as a condition for the loans, pressuring Greece to commit social genocide. Meanwhile, the major banks of America and Europe speculate against the Greek debt, further plunging the country into economic and social crisis. The loan is granted, to pay the interest, yet simply has the effect of adding to the overall debt, as a new loan is new debt. Thus, Greece is caught in the same debt trap that re-colonized the Third World.

At the recent G20 meeting in Toronto, the major nations of the world agreed to impose fiscal austerity – or in other words, commit social genocide – within their nations, in a veritable global structural adjustment program. So now we will see the beginnings of the Great Global Debt Depression, in which major western and global nations cut social spending, create mass unemployment by dismantling health, education, and social services. Further, state infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, railways, prisons, hospitals, electric transmission lines and water – will be privatized, so that global corporations and banks will own the entirely of national assets. Simultaneously, of course, taxes will be raised dramatically to levels never before seen. The BIS said that interest rates should rise at the same time, meaning that interest payments on debt will dramatically increase at both the national and individual level, forcing governments to turn to the IMF for loans – likely in the form of its new global reserve currency – to simply pay the interest, and will thus be absorbing more debt. Simultaneously, of course, the middle class will in effect have its debts called in, and since the middle class exists only as an illusion, the illusion will vanish.

Already, towns, cities, and states across America are resorting to drastic actions to reduce their debts, such as closing fire stations, scaling back trash collection, turning off street lights, ending bus services and public transportation, cutting back on library hours or closing them altogether, school districts cutting down the school day, week or year. Simultaneously, this is occurring with a dramatic increase in the rate of privatizations or “public-private partnerships” in which even libraries are being privatized.

No wonder then, that this month, the Managing Director of the IMF warned that America and Europe, in the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, face an “explosion of social unrest.” Just yesterday, Europe experienced a wave of mass protests and social unrest in opposition to ‘austerity measures’, with a general strike in Spain involving millions of people, and a march on the EU headquarters in Brussels of nearly 100,000 people. As social unrest spreads, governments will likely react – as we saw in the case of the G20 in Toronto – with oppressive police state measures. Here, we see the true relevance of the emergence of ‘Homeland Security States’, designed not to protect people from terrorists, but to protect the powerful from the people.

So while things have never seemed quite so bleak, there is a dim and growing beacon of hope, in what Zbigniew Brzezinski has termed as the greatest threat to elite interests everywhere – the ‘global political awakening’. The global political awakening is representative of the fact that for the first time in all of human history, mankind is politically awakened and stirring, activated and aware, and that generally – as Zbigniew Brzezinski explains – generally is aware of global inequalities, exploitation, and disrespect. This awakening is largely the result of the information revolution – thus revealing the contradictory nature of the globalization project – as while it globalizes power and oppression, so too does it globalize awareness and opposition. This awakening is the greatest threat to entrenched elite interests everywhere. The awakening, while having taken root in the global south – already long subjected to exploitation and devastation – is now stirring in the west, and will grow as the economy crumbles. As the middle classes realize their consumption was an illusion of wealth, they will seek answers and demand true change, not the Wall Street packaged ‘brand-name’ change of Obama Inc., but true, inspired, and empowering change.

In 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech in which he spoke out against the Vietnam War and the American empire, and he stated that, “It seems as if we are on the wrong side of a world revolution.” So now it seems to me that the time has come for that to change.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) .

poem by Ray Lucero
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Ya Tvoya Ne Pervaya

hello...
hello...
do you see wind?
so what?
just look at the window.
so what?
it was sun yesterday
so what?
why are you always saying the same thing?
i am-answering machine.
Just to calm down,
silence is gold,
radio insomnia,
station parting.
who will get who,
coins will show?
who will be left to who,
by nerves, pills?
behind the windows at night
(she) will yell and break,
this doesn't count, this doesn't count.
(she is) faithful, not faithful,
i am not your first,
you are my sudden.
(you)show, show, show, show,
show, show me love.
(you) show, show, show, show
why, why am i with you.
(you)show, show, show,show
show, show me love.
(you)show, show, show, show
why, why am i with you.
i guess (someone) will refuse,
easier not to meet (not to introduce ourselves to each other)
who of us will refuse,
just to calm down.
girls like girls,
and then- sleepwalkers.
Numbers and narrows,
Chocolate bars, wrappings.
(she)will hide, cry,
will, say, scare.
this doesn't count
i am not your first
you are my sudden.
(you)show, show, show, show,
show, show me love.
(you)show, show, show, show,
why, why am i with you.
(you)show, show, show, show,

[...] Read more

song performed by Tatu
Added by Lucian Velea
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Woes And Wonders

Show me a city full of happiness,
Then i will show you the effect of their weakness.
Show me a man who is full of himself,
Then i will show you why he's a fool to himself.
Show me your success today,
And i will show you your mistakes of yesterday.
Show me a community not far from the mountain,
Then i will show you why their security is certain.
Show me a holy man,
Then i will show you why he's called a human.
Show me a man who is not afraid of death,
Then i will show him the theory of birth.
Show me an ocean of misery,
Then i will show you how to swim in victory.
Tell me the meaning of ' STOP ',
Then i will show you the way to the top.
Show me your best friend,
Then i will show you where your dreams will end.

Show me a good and caring heart,
And i will show you why it hasn't been torn apart.
Show me your hall of pain,
Then i will show you all what u've gain.
Show me an exceptional reader,
Then i will show you a great leader.
Show me a way to financial prosperity,
Then i will show you a way to heavenly security.
Show me a great man of all time,
Then i will show you his footprint on the sand of time.
Show me a problem you can't solve,
Then i will show you why you haven't use the solution called love.
Show me a world full of fantasy,
Then i will show you the pain behind a life full of ecstasy.
Show me a kingdom built with wrath,
Then i will show you how much it is worth.
Show me a man with a problem free life,
Then i will show you why he hasn't gotten a wife.
Show me all of earth's pleasure,
Then i will show you why heaven is the place to be beyond all measure

poem by Stanley Oguh
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Stay '81

Verse:
Am I just dreaming or did you walk through my door?
Do you still feel the same way that you did before?
Did you come to bring me sorrow?
Like all those wasted days
Let's not think about tomorrow
You can stay
Am I just dreaming or did you say you have to go?
If you can't stay forever, I don't wanna know
There's no need to talk about it
The way things used to be
I'm not living here without you
(Chorus:)
Won't you stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
Won't you stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
(repeat)
No, no, can't let go
No, no, can't let go
No, no, can't let go
Am I just dreaming?
(verse)
You could stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
Won't you stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
(repeat)
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
(repeat and fade

song performed by Madonna
Added by Lucian Velea
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Don't Get Close

Somebody give me some light
And I punch it into the heart
Somebody show me the end
And I try to push to start
Not trying to figure out
A better way, a better answer
But I keep finding all the problems
I've been looking after
You can't wander through the world
With nothing but a smile
I'll take your tongue for words
And use it to instill denial
Don't get close!
You don't know me and you'll never know
Chivalry!
Will get you somewhere
Rivalry!
Will take you there
Don't get close!
You don't know me and you'll never know
Chivalry!
Will get you somewhere
Rivalry!
Will take you there
Maybe I should look away
Before I ruin this
Maybe I should pick the time
Before I pick the place
Love into war the things that emulate then penalize
But I don't want to go until you want to finalize
Don't get close!
You don't know me and you'll never know!
Chivalry!
Will get you somewhere
Rivalry!
Will take you there
Don't get close!
You don't know me and you'll never know
Chivalry!
Will get you somewhere
Rivalry!
You abstained the part
My vision's all but shot
I have the best confession
Always go for all the lessons
Equations anti-news
Stay out and be a deuce
I didn't want to be
The undeniable so loose so free
Don't get close!

[...] Read more

song performed by Slipknot
Added by Lucian Velea
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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You Watched It Close Under Microscope

You watched it close under microscope.
Closer than anything you watched most
You watched it close under microscope.
Closer than anything you watched most
And now you don't believe,
What you see.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close...
And still you don't believe,
What's there to see.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close...
And still you don't believe,
What's there to see.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close...
And...
Not to believe.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
And still you don't believe.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
And there to plainly see.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
And still you don't believe.
What's there to see.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.
And there to plainly see.
But you can't believe it masked.

You watched it close under microscope.
You watched it close under microscope.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, 1666

1
In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.

2
Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.

3
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumaean balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4
The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.

5
Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

6
What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

7
Behold two nations, then, engaged so far
That each seven years the fit must shake each land:
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.

8
See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain:
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.

9
Such deep designs of empire does he lay

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poem by John Dryden
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Midlife Crisis

Shorthand for trying
to put the clock back and to be
as in your twenties and to flee
all thoughts of dying,
midlife crisis
puts into new perspective work,
enabling you to be a jerk,
not Dionysus.

Richard A. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Cornell University, writes about the midlife crisis in the Science Times of ther NY, January 15,2008 (“Crisis? Maybe He’s a Narcissistic Jerk”) :
With the possible exception of “the dog ate my homework, ” there is no handier excuse for human misbehavior than the midlife crisis. Popularly viewed as a unique developmental birthright of the human species, it supposedly strikes when most of us have finally figured ourselves out — only to discover that we have lost our youth and mortality is on the horizon. No doubt about it, life in the middle ages can be challenging. (Full disclosure: I’m 51.) What with the first signs of physical decline and the questions and doubts about one’s personal and professional accomplishments, it is a wonder that most of us survive. Not everyone is so lucky; some find themselves seized by a seemingly irresistible impulse to do something dramatic, even foolish. Everything, it appears, is fair game for a midlife crisis: one’s job, spouse, lover — you name it. I recently heard about a severe case from a patient whose husband of nearly 30 years abruptly told her that he “felt stalled and not self-actualized” and began his search for self-knowledge in the arms of another woman. It was not that her husband no longer loved her, she said he told her; he just did not find the relationship exciting anymore. “Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, ” she said, then added derisively, “Whatever that is.” Outraged and curious, she followed him one afternoon and was shocked to discover that her husband’s girlfriend was essentially a younger clone of herself, right down to her haircut and her taste in clothes. It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to see that her husband wanted to turn back the clock and start over. But this hardly deserves the dignity of a label like “midlife crisis.” It sounds more like a search for novelty and thrill than for self-knowledge. In fact, the more I learned about her husband, it became clear that he had always been a self-centered guy who fretted about his lost vigor and was acutely sensitive to disappointment. This was a garden-variety case of a middle-aged narcissist grappling with the biggest insult he had ever faced: getting older. But you have to admit that “I’m having a midlife crisis” sounds a lot better than “I’m a narcissistic jerk having a meltdown.”

© 2008 Gershon Hepner 1/15/08

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Break Free! - Have a Ball!

Time to break free, one's cup of tea may not be to all taste,
past history's stale news, let be, haste, challenge chased, no waste!
Song bird of time migrates, sublime rewarding melody,
wide wings unfurl, from spiral twirl, soar to true rhapsody.

Time to escape, dropp nightshade drape, spring sprightly sings fresh air,
shed strings, red tape of every shape, fresh future fair prepare.
Shift key, click mouse, write waltz like Strauss, carouse in harmony,
drown frowns, don't grouse laze louse round house, spurn tale_spin gravity.

Discard hard times, from prose to rhymes switch life that pain shrugs off,
see light, delight quite free from fright, breathe out and fight rough cough!
Ignore moods poor, pain reign's downpour, sore thumb, fools dumb who bore,
far more expect, hope's scope elect, reject despond's dark core!

Time to rebound, life’s boat aground goodbye waves tidal waves,
from hurts that hound heart thought strung, bound, a clear approach now braves
life’s slings and arrows, narrow minds, discovers empathy,
that brings marshmallows, wide wings hallows, sheds self-sympathy.

From sleepy head, depressed in bed, leap up, cheered frame of mind,
misfortune's sped away, ahead, lies joy; leave lies behind.
Dread, pain vain bled, is shed instead success unbolts faults’ door,
so have a ball, reverse free fall, displace dark doubts with SURE!

Don't hedge your bets, glad sad regrets turns topsy-turvy soon,
don't sit on fence in self defence, self-confidence is boon.
Let inner fire inspire desire, suspicions set at rest,
all you require, adore, admire, won't cloy, - enjoy with zest.

From vain complain move on again, see sea’s brimfull of fish,
go take your pick as lips you lick so wickedly delish.
Look sharp! Don't carp, distress or mess up opportunities
chance offers all, go have a ball, refreshed prioritease!

If once distraught in heart or thought, trust must fuss dust displace,
move on to more - unseen before - let better bad replace.
From inner trial advance and smile, past tears, fears fast forgot,
prick cloudy pall, go have a ball and call each shot!

Hope's heart's at ease when spirit frees harp's soul from sharks, sharp spears,
DO as YOU please and by degrees all darkness disappears,
bread butters fly, sun spo[r]ts in sky, relearn to laugh a lot,
keep on the ball, leap each grey wall – bold, spurning blow cold, hot!

Link one to one, new tale begun, soon shadow shades dissolve,
don’t stumble, run! don’t cry, have fun! hands on luck’s clock revolve.
mosquito bite quite fly-by-night seems past controversy
compared to light solutions bright that crush adversity.

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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M'Fingal - Canto IV

Now Night came down, and rose full soon
That patroness of rogues, the Moon;
Beneath whose kind protecting ray,
Wolves, brute and human, prowl for prey.
The honest world all snored in chorus,
While owls and ghosts and thieves and Tories,
Whom erst the mid-day sun had awed,
Crept from their lurking holes abroad.

On cautious hinges, slow and stiller,
Wide oped the great M'Fingal's cellar,
Where safe from prying eyes, in cluster,
The Tory Pandemonium muster.
Their chiefs all sitting round descried are,
On kegs of ale and seats of cider;
When first M'Fingal, dimly seen,
Rose solemn from the turnip-bin.
Nor yet his form had wholly lost
Th' original brightness it could boast,
Nor less appear'd than Justice Quorum,
In feather'd majesty before 'em.
Adown his tar-streak'd visage, clear
Fell glistening fast th' indignant tear,
And thus his voice, in mournful wise,
Pursued the prologue of his sighs.

"Brethren and friends, the glorious band
Of loyalty in rebel land!
It was not thus you've seen me sitting,
Return'd in triumph from town-meeting;
When blust'ring Whigs were put to stand,
And votes obey'd my guiding hand,
And new commissions pleased my eyes;
Blest days, but ah, no more to rise!
Alas, against my better light,
And optics sure of second-sight,
My stubborn soul, in error strong,
Had faith in Hutchinson too long.
See what brave trophies still we bring
From all our battles for the king;
And yet these plagues, now past before us,
Are but our entering wedge of sorrows!

"I see, in glooms tempestuous, stand
The cloud impending o'er the land;
That cloud, which still beyond their hopes
Serves all our orators with tropes;

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poem by John Trumbull
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Always Leaving Crisis

Life it seems is a crisis from the day that I was born
I came out flogging and crying on that long ago "who am I" morn!
I clung so tight to my Mama, but soon she sent me away
I heard the school bell ringing! A crisis for me that day!
The years, I recall, flew swiftly, where do I go from here?
A crisis, my graduation. Commencement day brings fear!
I don't understand where I'm going, another crisis for sure
I must find my way and purpose, the way to live and endure!
I'm always leaving, leaving, always searching to find
Where am I going? I wonder? I leave my childhood behind!
I leave all my teen years behind me. The past is the past is the past
One crisis after another, and all of them come so fast!
Then there was the crisis that really made me smile
A real big one for you as well, you walked me down the aisle!
I left my Mama and Daddy to spend a lifetime with you
Now comes a double crisis! We're leaving, oh what can we do!
I'm not sure when we are going, all I know it is true
I'm leaving this world behind me, and my dear, you are leaving, too!
Life has been a challenge, it seems we are always leaving!
Doors that close, doors that open, a pattern that's ever weaving!
Now at the end of our journey, we'll leave it all and find
The great and the small must leave it all, this is the way it's designed!
We'll trust our great Creator who has seen us through our strife
He'll never leave or forsake us! He will give us Eternal Life!

poem by Thelma Evelyn Jones
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Rubaiyat Of A Robin - After Edward Fitzgerald - Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam

Jest plays with rubaiyat and, four by four,
unseals for your amusement more and more
verses together thread in rosary
unreeled to bloom till tomb will curtains draw.

Repealed are value judgement and perspective
revealed through standpoint purely introspective,
darkside concealed of moon’s yin-yang shines clear
when we’re in orbit, - option more effective.

Rolled form performs rôle midwife to perception,
sprung tongue in cheek, tweaks sense of imperfection
or willingness to leach between the lines,
impeach entrenched ideas of self-[s]election.

This prose arose as stream deprived of section,
where ‘dip at will’ will still sustain inspection,
the current’s sense, at odds with current views
ignores round holes, square pegs, top-down direction.

Here there’s no fear of critics’ peer rejection,
contention treated with due circumspection
intention is to mention for retention
an overview or clue to extrospection.

Life’s curtains are a veil through which few see,
as many haste taste-waste eternity,
mixed up, ignore life fixes finite sum
to/through infinite opportunity.

Can “Truth” exist? all ask, who seek its core,
we, modest, etch our words to sketch the score,
diverse the verses which converge to link
reflections mirrored many times before.

Vast content, style, a while, united are,
aim at soul stimulation, nothing bar,
to pleasure, treasure, or discard at will
as minds outreach to other minds on par.

Meditating, we shed light on what
tomorrow’s tot may factor into ‘bot’ -
the poet’s lot, forgot, to help all think
ahead of time, enhance life for a lot

Some seek Nirvana, Faith speaks more than “how”.
Others reject Salvation’s wraith, - w[h]ine “now”.
Verifying facts? Inventing dreams?
Each furrow-burrows with a different plough.

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poem by Jonathan Robin
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Close To You

Ah, ladies and gentlemen, I dont know if you realize it,
But tonight youre in for a special treat. no, no, no, not that, not that!
You only get that treat on full moons. besides, I know theres a lot of young people here,
And I would want anybody to...
Last time it happened, grown men where weeping. policemen where turning in their badges.
Oh, I get, I get, everyone was intimidated tonight by all the security precautions, oh.
Well, just remember their motto is protect and serve?
I wanna get
Close to you baby like black on white,
Close to you baby like the coldest of ice,
Close to you baby like a siamese twin,
Close to you baby like Im feeling all right.
I wanna get
Close to you baby,
Well, close to you baby,
Close to you baby,
I dont know what to say or do.
I wanna get
Close to you baby like the sight of your eye?
Close to you baby like the heat is to fire,
Close to you baby close as I can get,
Close to you baby like water is wet.
I wanna get
Close to you baby.
I said close to you baby.
Close to you baby.
Dont know what to say or do.
I wanna get
Close to you till Im feeling all right,
Close to you gonna love you all night,
Close to you in new york city,
I love you so much, woman, you know its a pity.
I wanna get
Close to you baby.
I said close to you baby.
Close to you baby.
Dont know what to say or do.
Well
I wanna closer and closer babe
Closer and closer babe
Closer and closer babe
Closer and closer babe
I wanna close to you babe
That I dont know what to say or do.
Well, closer and closer babe
Closer and closer babe
Closer and closer babe
Closer and closer babe
I wanna close to you babe
Oh babe! we love you!

[...] Read more

song performed by Doors
Added by Lucian Velea
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Vida's Game Of Chess

TRANSLATED

ARMIES of box that sportively engage
And mimic real battles in their rage,
Pleased I recount; how, smit with glory's charms,
Two mighty Monarchs met in adverse arms,
Sable and white; assist me to explore,
Ye Serian Nymphs, what ne'er was sung before.
No path appears: yet resolute I stray
Where youth undaunted bids me force my way.
O'er rocks and cliffs while I the task pursue,
Guide me, ye Nymphs, with your unerring clue.
For you the rise of this diversion know,
You first were pleased in Italy to show
This studious sport; from Scacchis was its name,
The pleasing record of your Sister's fame.

When Jove through Ethiopia's parch'd extent
To grace the nuptials of old Ocean went,
Each god was there; and mirth and joy around
To shores remote diffused their happy sound.
Then when their hunger and their thirst no more
Claim'd their attention, and the feast was o'er;
Ocean with pastime to divert the thought,
Commands a painted table to be brought.
Sixty-four spaces fill the chequer'd square;
Eight in each rank eight equal limits share.
Alike their form, but different are their dyes,
They fade alternate, and alternate rise,
White after black; such various stains as those
The shelving backs of tortoises disclose.
Then to the gods that mute and wondering sate,
You see (says he) the field prepared for fate.
Here will the little armies please your sight,
With adverse colours hurrying to the fight:
On which so oft, with silent sweet surprise,
The Nymphs and Nereids used to feast their eyes,
And all the neighbours of the hoary deep,
When calm the sea, and winds were lull'd asleep
But see, the mimic heroes tread the board;
He said, and straightway from an urn he pour'd
The sculptured box, that neatly seem'd to ape
The graceful figure of a human shape:--
Equal the strength and number of each foe,
Sixteen appear'd like jet, sixteen like snow.
As their shape varies various is the name,
Different their posts, nor is their strength the same.
There might you see two Kings with equal pride
Gird on their arms, their Consorts by their side;
Here the Foot-warriors glowing after fame,

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poem by Oliver Goldsmith
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