Pope John Paul is dead!

This poem celebrates one of the biggest frauds of the last century (in a long line from St. Peter of Alzheimer [No, I don’t know him], through Bacons' Innocent X, to the slimey RATzinger).

Some thoughts while waiting for the white smoke to creep upwards over the roof of the Sistine Chapel:

.

.

Pope John Paul is dead! So what!!

And his succsessor:

A Black Pope,

An American Pope,

A Black, American Pope,

A Pedofile Pope,

A Black, American Pedofile Pope,

A Pinochet Pope,

A Videla, a Lucas Garcia, a Ferdinand and Imelda Pope,

A Muslim Pope,

A Homosexual Pope,

A Homosexual, Muslim Pope,

A Woman Pope (another one),

An Unborn Child Pope,

A Peoples Pope,

A Pope to eradicate hunger,

A Hungry Pope,

An Angry Pope,

A Voice for the voiceless Pope,

A Voiceless Pope,

A Deaf, Dum and Blind Pope,

A strawberry flavoured condom Pope,

A Soap on the rope Pope,

A soap opera Pope (well at least a two part mini-series on CBS network )

A Monster, Raving Looney Pope,

Or just a.......

So what Pope!!

http://www.ba.no/meninger/innlegg/article1532985.ece?service=print

These cruel men with their silly hats

This next one contradicts the general impression of friendly, peaceful indigenous people: Most people have the impression of the Maya Indians in Chiapas being totally supportive of the Zapatista movement. Not so. The majority of the indigenous population is controlled by a mafia like local elite steeped in perverted ancient traditions and utilised by the national ruling class (most notably the PRI) to deliver the support of their traditional communities when needed. This elite maintains its control by utilising indigenous traditions and violence. It has caused the exodus of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who have fallen out with the traditional leaders and threatened their political and economic power. Alas, rather than joining the Zapatista movement the vast majority of these people end up with evangelical sects whose roots and politics emanate from the USA. One such place, San Juan Chamula, in the Chiapan highlands is the stronghold of these perverted traditional practices:

San Juan Chamula
These cruel men with their silly hats,
This multicoloured ethnic mafia,
Maintaining their power with ancient traditions.

500 years of successful resistance,
Resistance to threats to their all encompassing control.

Intolerance and cruel retribution,
In the name of maintaining social peace,
And cultural heritage.

But can one call culture,
That, that imprisons a people in poverty and ignorance?
Cultural analfabetism!
Cultural disease!
Cultural malnutrition!
Yes, the culture of the empty stomach!!

This is the dictatorship of tradition,
Passing on its scourge through generations,
Traditional oppression!
Traditional expulsion!
Traditional violence!
The tradition of the machete and the burning torch!!

The tradition of el pueblo tzotzil bravo y valiente de Chamula?!

Ya Basta! No?

The coalition of death

George W. Bush lands on the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare victory in Iraq.

The coalition of death
The B52’s, rise in clumsy grace from the misty plains of southern England,
Pregnant with death,
Six hours away from giving birth to their bastard children.

Fathered by the loins of the powers that be,
These motherless children rain down upon the innocent,
Spreading their destruction, death, suffering.

Children torn from the rubble,
Tiny crushed and broken limbs,
Faces distorted with pain.

Pulverized skin and bone,
The smell of burning flesh intoxicates,
The impatience of vultures and maggots.

And the powers that be, Fathers to be,
In their White Houses and Streets of Down,
Await the announcement of the birth.

Lights pierce the evening sky,
The mothers of death return with vacant wombs,
And the fathers stand proud and applaud their newborn sons.

They say the pen is more powerful than the gun

They say the pen is more powerful than the gun. I'm not so sure, but here's an attempt...

Bang! Bang!!

When I was growing up in a working class suburb of London, things like reading were considered a waste of time, and writing was for sissies. Poetry god forbid was just for poofs. Luckily I managed to get out of all that.

I discovered that reading and writing were not just the privilege of the ruling classes but were also important tools for gaining and transferring knowledge and awareness for the working classes. There were a lot of questions being asked at the time that I was growing up in the late sixties and early seventies: Capitalist exploitation, Imperialism, Racism, Vietnam. Alas we never came up with the answers as the self same questions are still being asked today with small variations on the theme like: Neoliberalism, Neo-colonialism, Iraq.

A lot of people who write poems don't like to explain their contents. They feel that the reader should have the task of putting into them their own personal meanings. But these observations have an inseparable connection with the events and experiences that evoked them. So I will endeavour to give an explanation of the poems as I go along to give them a context that may help to share with you a little of the joy, anger and frustration of over a half century of observing our tormented planet earth.

Literature wise it's pure amateur

We can start with some Latin American themes, the first goes way back to the beginning of the eighties in El Salvador. The time of the death squadrons and massacres. With the return of the Rapid reaction battalion “Atlacatl”, from training in the USA, the oppression in El Salvador became systematic and genocidal.

One of the worst massacres occurred in El Mozote in Morazan, over a thousand people where massacred there and in the surrounding area.

It’s only a few short lines written sitting in the ruins of the church where the children were herded in and butchered. I hope it can convey some of the fear and despair of the time.

EL MOZOTE ¡ NUNCA MAS ! (never again)

The soldiers came,

Many of them,

The brave Atlacatl,

Rapid Reaction Battalion.

Reacting rapidly,

To a Smile,

To a timid, fearful stare,

To a falling tear.

This is the other end of History... El Salvador today.

It's about the results of 16 years of neoliberal development and the breakdown of social fabric!

Pozo Macabro (Macabre well-Makaber brønn)

IN SUCHITOTO

Sitting in a rocking chair on a colonial porch,

Eating coconut icecream,

And letting my thoughts run free.

The soft tones of a sad salvadoran folk song come drifting gently over from the neighbours radio, Interrupted by the occasional thud of an overripe mango,

Dislodged by the same afternoon breeze that cools my naked torso,

And evaporates the perspiration on my forehead.

Is this Paradise?

IN SAN MIGUEL

A youth of sixteen is standing trial for seventeen sadistic murders,

After the pleasure of watching his victims suffer,

He threw their mutilated bodies into the neighbourhood well,

"El Pozo Macabro" It was christened by the terrified locals.

IN SANTA TECLA

Two sisters returning from a party with their boyfriends are abducted,

Driven to a deserted roadside,

And made to undress at gunpoint.

After violating them both,

"El Maquina", Laughing,

Shoots the one sister twice through the head,

As she kneels and pleads for her life.

Her sister, Running naked from the horror,

Is cut down by two more shots from the pitiless "Maquina".

Is this Hell?

No! This is the land of the "Saviour",

El Salvador.

Cuscatlan,

"Land of precious things",

At the close of the millennium.

After five hundred years of resistance,

Fifty years of dictatorship,

And twelve years of bloody civil war,

Peace came to El Salvador.

But with 56 000 violent murders since the ink dried on the peace accords,

It is a peace that few cherish.

The silence of my thoughts is interrupted by another thud.

One more overripe mango?

Or the lifeless body of some tortured, anonymous youth,

Announcing its arrival at the bottom of some "Pozo Macabro"?

17. mai

Fools in Fools Hats!

The 17th of May is the Norwegian national day (my adopted country).
It celebrates the day in 1814 when ordinary norwegians liberated themselves from being exploited by a Danish (later Swedish) bourgeoisie and passed to being exploited by a homegrown Norwegian bourgeoisie.

It beats me why that should be someting to celebrate!

Oh well, this poem takes a jab at the many forms of nationalism we have been through this last century, and explains in its own way why nationalism is such a diseased and corrupt tool for manipulating people and leading them away from their real liberation.

17. mai
An orgy of nationalism,
Decorated in childlike innocence,
A sugar coated cyanide pill,
Slowly poisoning a nation.

A blue six pointed star,
Hanging limp in the burning midday sun,
Over the graves of Hebron.

A vicious smile,
A chequered red and white shield,
Flapping noiselessly,
Spotlessly clean witness, casting its shadow,
Over the killing fields,
Of ethnic cleansing.

The three coloured flag of a dying empire,
Reflected in the turbulent waters of the South Atlantic,
Watching silently,
The bloated bodies bobbing up and down.

Nationalism,
Our twentieth century disease,
In Nagorno Karabakh,
In the Sudentenland,
Running wild through the streets of Magdeburg.

In the Hindu Kush and Cordillera del Condor,
Frozen fingers rest nervously on the trigger,
Ready in a moment,
To paint their bloody nationalism in the virgin snow.

And then there was the obedient Lynndie,
West Virginia mountain patriotism,
Pointing maliciously
At the hooded Mustafa

And here, on this seventeenth of May,
Along the glistening cobbled streets of Bergen,
A sea of flags,
Clenched in the tiny hands of innocent children,
Sugar coated nationalism,
Slowly poisoning a nation.

When flags become more than just pretty colours they should be unceremoniously burned!