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My administration is the only thing between you [CEO's] and the pitchforks.

quote by Barack Obama
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We Can Create A Modern International Community

And I wonder when Congress will allow public nationwide schools...
in the United States to set aside time for children again to pray?
To pray for, or quietly reflect on behalf of, their once great Nation!

To pray for their nation during this proclaimed danger time...
of struggle against the forces of evil dark international terrorism!
But in the White House lurks a dark soul of 100% fetus murder!

Barack against murder international terrorism with Pro-Abortion Record!
Like Pharaoh in the time of the birth of Moses, like King Harold at the birth of Jesus, killing innocent children based on state law is ok in America today!

Why? How can this be? On 9th of March 2008 Barack proclaimed “We were once were, we are no longer a Christian nation, at least not just....”
No Ten Commandments, No God’s law displayed in government buildings!

15th April 2009 Barack proclaimed “We can create a modern international community that is respectful that is secure that is prosperous....
(in an aside to himself) and like Baal Worshippers we will support propagate

State Policies funding killing innocent children against the will of the majority of Americans and I Barack will use tax payer dollars to kill innocent unborn! We will fill White House high office with Pro Abortion all! Yes We Can!

Darth Vader will create a universal New World Order!

And in the on going baby killing sweepstakes infant killer Obama selects: -

Pro-Abortion Sen. Joe Biden as Obama’s vice-presidential running mate. Pro-Abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s White House Chief of Staff.
Pro-Abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

Former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of Obama’s Department of Justice Review Team. Next appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel.

Betta check Obama’s rap sheet Pro-Abortion Record, for the rest of his all star elite baby killing machine selections.

'President Barack Obama's Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) - The following is a compilation of bill signings, speeches, appointments and other actions that President Barack Obama has engaged in that have promoted abortion before and during his presidency. While Obama has promised to reduce abortions and some of his supporters believe that will happen, this long list proves his only agenda is promoting more abortions.

During the presidential election, Obama selected pro-abortion Sen. Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate.

Post-Election / Pre-Inauguration
November 5,2008 - Obama selects pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has a 0% pro-life voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 19,2008 - Obama picks pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Daschle has a long pro-abortion voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 20,2008 - Obama chooses former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of his Department of Justice Review Team. Later, he finalizes her appointment as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Obama administration.

November 24,2008 - Obama appoints Ellen Moran, the former director of the pro-abortion group Emily's List as his White House communications director. Emily's List only supports candidates who favored taxpayer funded abortions and opposed a partial-birth abortion ban.

November 24,2008 - Obama puts former Emily's List board member Melody Barnes in place as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.

November 30,2008 - Obama named pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton has an unblemished pro-abortion voting record and has supported making unlimited abortions an international right.

December 10,2008 - Obama selects pro-abortion former Clinton administration official Jeanne Lambrew to become the deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Planned Parenthood is 'excited' about the selection.

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Soboba

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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My Army, O, My Army!

My Army, O, my army! The time I dreamed of comes!
I want to see your colours; I want to hear your drums!
I heard them in my boyhood when all men’s hearts seemed cold;
I heard them as a Young Man—and I am growing old!
My army, O, my army! The signs are manifold!
My army, O, my army! My army and my Queen!
I used to sing your battle-songs when I was seventeen!
They came to me from ages, they came from far and near;
They came to me from Paris, they came to me from Here!—
They came when I was marching with the Army of the Rear.

My Queen’s dark eyes were flashing (oh, she was younger then!);
My Queen’s Red Cap was redder than the reddest blood of men!
My Queen marched like an Amazon, with anger manifest—
Her dark hair darkly matted from a knifegash in her breast
(For blood will flow where milk will not—her sisters knew the rest).

My legions ne’er were listed, they had no need to be;
My army ne’er was trained in arms—’twas trained in misery!
It took long years to mould it, but war could never drown
The shuffling of my army’s feet in the hunger-haunted town—
A little child was murdered, and so Tyranny went down.

My army kept no order, my army kept no time;
My army dug no trenches, yet died in dust and slime;
Its troops were fiercely ignorant, as to the manner born;
Its clothes were rags and tatters, or patches worn and torn—
Ah, me! It wore a uniform that I have often worn!

The faces of my army were ghastly as the dead;
My army’s cause was Hunger, my army’s cry was “Bread!”
It called on God and Mary and Christ of Nazareth;
It cried to kings and courtesans that fainted at its breath—
Its women beat their poor, flat breasts where babes had starved to death.

My army! My army—I hear the sound of drums
Above the roar of battles—and, lo! my army comes!
Nor creed of man may stay it—nor war, nor nation’s law—
The pikes go through the firing-lines as pitchforks go through straw—
Like pitchforks through the litter, while empires stand in awe.

poem by Henry Lawson
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I became CEO at the beginning of the hit on old economy stocks. When something like that occurs in your first six months as a CEO of a more traditional branded firm, it makes for a fast learning curve.

quote by Andrea Jung
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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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Transocean Ltd Vision Gulf Of Mexico Does Not Count

Transocean Ltd. CEO Steve Newman scores on Gulf oil
the company noted 'the tragic loss of life' when BP PLC
exploded their Transocean's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in
the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 2010 killing 11 workers

causing the largest offshore oil spill in American history
Newman brushed the incident off proclaiming company
'exemplary' safety record which “met or exceeded certain
internal safety targets concerning frequency and severity

of its accidents, according to the filing with the Securities
and Exchange Commission on Friday.” Newman loves
putting out fire with gasoline getting big bonuses shafting
ocean environment with explosion policy profit not safety

is mean and a commission appointed by President Barack
Obama agreed stated explosion was caused by a series of
time money-saving decisions deliberately made by policy
Transocean, BP and oil services company Halliburton Inc.

These companies “created an unacceptable amount of risk.”
Newman environment can burn hang conservation ideology
reflected in blue lighter fluid burning of protective red tape
was polished off in the company regulatory filing bonuses

“appropriate as a way to recognize its executives' efforts in
'significantly improving the company's safety record' and
implementing a new internal planning system” (called burn
baby burn record 200 million gallons spilled oil stupidity)

Transocean Ltd further boasting 'exemplary' safety record
executives efforts 'significantly improving the company's
safety record' proudly continued stated “Those efforts have
'enabled the company to maintain its financial flexibility

during a challenging period, ('the tragic loss of life') while,
at the same time, positioning the company for sustained
growth in the future.' Achieved without handicap safety
first life saving policy limiting losing profit unforgivable

Transocean Ltd. CEO Steve Newman soaks up a calculated
by The Associated Press $5.8 million compensation package
after spilling 200 million gallons of oops accident crime oil
into beautiful Gulf of Mexico because nature does not count

Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Source article ‘Transocean gives safety bonuses despite deaths’ by Jordan Robertson, AP Business Writer.

poem by Terence George Craddock
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But I believe that the DPKO at this time was very much involved with American administration and was acting, taking on consideration the demand or the recommendation of the American administration. American administration was very powerful.

quote by Boutros Boutros Ghali
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Is this administration, the Clinton administration, an administration that needed defending?

quote by Judy Woodruff
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On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with Administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I 'step aside' as CEO of GM, and so I have.

quote by Rick Wagoner
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John Barleycorn

There were three men, came out of the west,
Their fortunes for to try
And these three men made a solemn vow:
John barleycorn must die!
Well, theyve ploughed, theyve sown, theve harrowed him in.
Threw clouds upon his head.
Till these three men were satisfied.
John barleycorn was dead.
Theyve let him lie for a long long time,
Till the rains from heaven did fall.
And little sir john sprang up his head
And so amazed them all.
They let him fly till the midsummers day,
Till he looked both pale and wan, oh,
Then little sir john has grown a long long beard
And so became a man.
They have hired men with the scythes so sharp.
To cut him off at the knee,
They rolled and they tied him around the waist,
Serving him most him barbarously.
They hired men with the sharp pitchforks
To prick him to the heart.
And the loader he has served him worse than that,
For hes bound him to the cart.
Well, theyve wheeled him round and round the field,
Till they came onto a barn.
And there they made their solemn oath,
Concerning a barleycorn.
They hired men with the crab tree sticks
To split him skin from bone, yeah,
But the miller he has served him worst and bad
For he ground him between two stones.
Well theres beer all in the barrel
And brandy in the glass,
But little old sir john with his nut-brown bowl
Proved the strongest man at last.
John barleycorn, throw him up, throw him up!
Now the huntsman, he cant hunt the fox,
Nor loudly blow his horn
And the tinker he cant mend his pots
Without john barleycorn,
John barleycorn, john barleycorn,
Barleycorn, barleycorn
John barleycorn, john barleycorn.

song performed by Jethro Tull
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March

The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath;
The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below.
Spring -- that corn-fed, husky milkmaid --
Is busy at her chores with never a letup.

The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia --
See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?)
Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming,
And the tines of pitchforks simply glow with health.

These days -- these days, and these nights also!
With eavesdrop thrumming its tattoos at noon,
With icicles (cachectic!) hanging on to gables,
And with the chattering of rills that never sleep!

All doors are flung open -- in stable and in cowbarn;
Pigeons peck at oats fallen in the snow;
And the culprit of all this and its life-begetter--
The pile of manure -- is pungent with ozone.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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A Prodigal

The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare--
even to the sow that always ate her young--
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind the two-by-fours),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.

But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern--like the sun, going away--
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make up his mind to go home.

poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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Some Distant Day

stillness wrapped in stillness,
memory ingrained in time.
an ancient holy book written
on a leaf, that falls freely,
turns bright with passion,
and crumbles into death!

who are we?
and what remains?
more than the inflection of voice?
less than scriptures etched in stone?
a star? a caterpillar? a gust of wind?
does the soul retain identity?
the spirit have a familiar face?
does the name change...
from Henry to pebble,
from William to speck of dust?

angel's wings, i think not!
neither pitchforks, nor hideous horns!
does the stone i read this poem to...
hear me? know what i've said?
recognize and feel comfort?
or is it all worms and time
and black and white photographs?
or a dropp of rain that feels
like a lover come back?

or are we just nails
rusted on the bridge of time?
do you know? do you care?
will your lips quiver
on some distant day...
trying to remember how
to speak my name?

poem by Eric Cockrell
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The Huskers

IT was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain
Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;
The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay
With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow flowers of May.
Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red,
At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped;
Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued,
On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.
And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night,
He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light;
Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill;
And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.
And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky,
Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why;
And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks,
Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks.
From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks;
But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks.
No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell,
And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell.
The summer grains were harvested; the stubblefields lay dry,
Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale green waves of rye;
But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood,
Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn crop stood.
Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks that, dry and sere,
Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear;
Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold,
And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold.
There wrought the busy harvesters; and many a creaking wain
Bore slowly to the long barn-floor is load of husk and grain;
Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last,
And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in brightness passed.
And lo! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond,
Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire beyond,
Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone,
And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!
As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away,
And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay;
From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name,
Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry huskers came.
Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow,
Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below;
The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before,
And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er.
Half hidden, in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart,
Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart;
While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade,
At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played.
Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair,
Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair,

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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Drought and Doctrine

Come, take the tenner, doctor . . . yes, I know the bill says “five,”
But it ain't as if you'd merely kep' our little 'un alive;
Man, you saved the mother's reason when you saved that babby's life,
An' it's thanks to you I ha'n't a ravin' idiot for a wife.

Let me tell you all the story, an' if then you think it strange
That I'd like to fee ye extry—why, I'll take the bloomin' change.
If yer bill had said a hundred . . . I'm a poor man, doc, an' yet
I'd 'a' slaved till I had squared it; ay, an' still been in yer debt.

Well, you see the wife's got notions on a heap o' things that ain't
To be handled by a man as don't pretend to be a saint;
So I minds “the cultivation,” smokes my pipe, an' makes no stir,
An' religion an' such p'ints I lays entirely on to her.

Now, she's got it fixed within her that, if children die afore
They've been sprinkled by the parson, they've no show for evermore;
An' though they're spared the pitchforks, an' the brim-stun', an' the smoke,
They ain't allowed to mix up there with other little folk.

So when our last began to pine, an' lost his pretty smile,
An' not a parson to be had within a hunder mile—
(For though there is a chapel down at Bluegrass Creek, you know,
The clargy's there on dooty only thrice a year or so)—

Well, when our yet unchristen'd mite grew limp an' thin an' pale,
It would 'a' cut you to the heart to hear the mother wail
About her “unregenerate babe,” an' how, if it should go,
'Twould have no chance with them as had their registers to show.

Then awful quiet she grew, an' hadn't spoken for a week,
When in came brother Bill one day with news from Bluegrass Creek.
“I seen,” says he, “a notice on the chapel railin' tied;
They'll have service there this evenin'—can the youngster stand the ride?

“For we can't have parson here, if it be true, as I've heard say,
There's a dyin' man as wants him more'n twenty mile away;
So —He hadn't time to finish ere the child was out of bed
With a shawl about its body an' a hood upon its head.
“Saddle up,” the missus said. I did her biddin' like a bird.
Perhaps I thought it foolish, but I never said a word;
For though I have a vote in what the kids eat, drink, or wear,
Their sperritual requirements are entirely her affair.

We started on our two hours' ride beneath a burnin' sun,
With Aunt Sal and Bill for sureties to renounce the Evil One;

An' a bottle in Sal's basket that was labelled “Fine Old Tom”
Held the water that regeneration was to follow from.

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poem by James Brunton Stephens
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The Shadow of God

To Mohács
in the marshlands, still in the pouring rain,
August 29th, 1526, where those summoned
and hastily gathered died in thousands
in the space of a moment the chronicler
scribbles, in the safety of distance,
cruel panthers in a moment to hell's pit.
That day the guns chained wheel to wheel,
smoke and the cries of men and horses,
the knights shot from their saddles, armour
dragging them into the mire, the hooves
stamping them in, the infantry butchered,
in the space of a moment the swift
routine of retreat, slaughter and rout,
the space of a moment. No prisoners,
the wails of the wounded, the dying, becks
brimmed with blood, and the young king
thrown from his horse, drowned in his breastplate.
Thereafter Suleyman recalls he sat on the field
in the pouring rain on his glittering throne
to the long applause of his army: I am
Sultan Suleyman Han, son of Sultan Selim Han,
son of Sultan Bayezid Han. The shadow of God.
And they butcher the captives, dig the pits,
to bury their own brave dead, horses and men,
30 thousand whose last rainy day was this,
and the other dead lie in the rain, or scatter
their bones in the wetlands and the reedgrass.
Whatever birds pecked out their eyes
their names are no matter nor the stream
they drowned in nor the name of the planet
whose soft brown body they shovelled in after.
Thereafter the land burns and the churches,
thereafter women and slaves and silver.
And thereafter, pronounces the historian,
his quill's tip brushing his cheek, his point
squeaking over the page, the lamp's glint
on his inkhorn: the long Turkish night,
the tomb of the nation, dug in the rain.

In the space of a moment, in the centuries
moments pile into, leaf over leaf,
season by season as the winters pass
and the wars roll over and the borders shift
it is ploughland, old bones surfacing
at the hoe's edge and the plough's iron,
scapulae and vertebrae rising in a flat
wide fenced country laid open to the wind,
prowled by the tractors of the collectives
and the same wandering birds, black earth

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poem by Ken Smith
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Moon Fishing

When the moon was full they came to the water.
some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
some with sieves and ladles,
and one with a silver cup.

And they fished til a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
to catch the moon you must let your women
spread their hair on the water --
even the wily moon will leap to that bobbing
net of shimmering threads,
gasp and flop till its silver scales
lie black and still at your feet."

And they fished with the hair of their women
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
do you think the moon is caught lightly,
with glitter and silk threads?
You must cut out your hearts and bait your hooks
with those dark animals;
what matter you lose your hearts to reel in your dream?"

And they fished with their tight, hot hearts
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
what good is the moon to a heartless man?
Put back your hearts and get on your knees
and drink as you never have,
until your throats are coated with silver
and your voices ring like bells."

And they fished with their lips and tongues
until the water was gone
and the moon had slipped away
in the soft, bottomless mud.

poem by Lisel Mueller
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Revolt

Beware, defection of the populace.
In the murmurs pitchforks square,
Assault the masters thieves
Hang your freedom.

They sold the lands, where the angels stand,
With their crawling hands and bloody stained faces,
Sorrow lives invent their lies for powers and might.
Squeezing freedom of lights, in tunnels of blind sight.

The patience have lost her calm, revolt up rise.
We are the lords, of our worlds, enslaved of comfort and laze.
By the masters' games, on a board of paper and fire.
Of low desire.

Worth like blindfolded eyes on a vessel springboard edge.
Bath of sharks awaiting to jump.
Rip that bandages off from your faces.
Everything awake, desires of freedom penetrate.

Hang those men, which love have forgotten.
Evaporate, poor's people's faces.
Secret societies and rings of fingers, manipulate invented whores.

Of misleading imagines of reinsurance words.
And take everything that you work for.
My soul improvises,
now escape revolt at the stake.

They will fight you with lambs of war, disguised wolfs.
Crush you with sludge, on your ancestors' lands.
Savour your fear, ferocious beast of human being.
They just kill your child, like an annoying fly.
Blackmail you of bombs and mortars life's

On every uphill there is always a descent,
Exterminate the fat cats, with their fish bones & milk cup.
Incited revolt, I want your hunger of freedom be filled of peace and serenity.
There is not peace, without a fight, like death without life.

Minotaur's maze, there is not escape, not string of directions,
Confront the monsters, slay his horns of sins & deceptions.
On your life of aggression.
Defend your pride don t let them trick you with promises of lies.
The future belongs to the people not to a few.

poem by Luca Menin
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Harps And Pitchforks

Came the clarion call – oh come, all officials, come
collect diaries and bags to prepare for next year,
obediently we trooped downstairs to receive a
mousepad flashing in orange fluorescence

Took an extra one for Madame Pompadour - missing
in action again; Hanlie took one for June who refused
to leave her chair, too enamoured of her computer
to move at all, this morning June lamented:

Vanity, vanity, all vanity; Hanlie checked Ecclesiastes
for grasshopper similes in four languages: Afrikaans,
English, German and French - June said she would
read the Apocrypha during December

I said I love Muslim stories about Jesus as a real little
cowboy when He was small – said to have shrivelled
his teacher’s arm – Hermien objected, claiming ‘The
little boy Jesus was as sweet as an angel! ’

Hermien has three sons herself, how can she believe it?
Humming happily I returned to my desk, started to edit
recalcitrant documents thinking; soon I shall be in the
veld - golden grass and the glorious sun

In an ineffable African sky – why should I worry whether
Hermien has seen the Apocrypha at all - the picture of the
little Jesus will forever hold sway in my heart - and since
the Church Fathers rejected reincarnation

I accept reincarnation as fact, rejoicing about life ever-
lasting - beyond harps and pitchforks…

poem by Margaret Alice Second
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Milkweed and Monarch

The rain comes flapping through the yard
like a tablecloth that she hand-embroidered.
My mother has left it on the line.
It is sodden with rain.
The mushroom shed is windowless, wide,
its high-stacked wooden trays
hosed down with formaldehyde.
And my father has opened the gates of Troy
to that first load of horse manure.
Barley straw. Gypsum. Dried blood. Ammonia.
Wagon after wagon
blusters in, a self-renewing gold-black dragon
we push to the back of the mind.
We have taken our pitchforks to the wind.

All brought back to me that September evening
fifteen years on. The pair of us
tripping through Barnett's fair demesne
like girls in long dresses
after a hail-storm.
We might have been thinking of the fire-bomb
that sent Malone House sky-high
and its priceless collection of linen
sky-high.
We might have wept with Elizabeth McCrum.
We were thinking only of psilocybin.
You sang of the maid you met on the dewy grass-
And she stooped so low gave me to know
it was mushrooms she was gathering O.

He'll be wearing that same old donkey-jacket
and the sawn-off waders.
He carries a knife, two punnets, a bucket.
He reaches far into his own shadow.
We'll have taken him unawares
and stand behind him, slightly to one side.
He is one of those ancient warriors
before the rising tide.
He'll glance back from under his peaked cap
without breaking rhythm:
his coaxing a mushroom-a flat or a cup-
the nick against his right thumb;
the bucket then, the punnet left or right,
and so on and so forth till kingdom come.

We followed the overgrown tow-path by the Lagan.
The sunset would deepen through cinnamon
to aubergine,
the wood-pigeon's concerto for oboe and strings,
allegro, blowing your mind.

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poem by Paul Muldoon
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