The Old Lady and the Imps (a short story)

The Old Lady and the Imps
(or, ‘Festival of Death’)






“Away”! Cried the lofty one, to Marlene LLosa, he was the angel of death, and he came with several demonic imps.
“Those without souls are mine,” he stipulated.
A wild mournful expression passed her lips. Her husband, Edilberto was dying in bed, he should, according to the doctors, been dead hours ago, he looked at her, and her at him, and she sank down to her knees by the bed, hands over her eyes.
“Those without souls are mine,” murmured Death, in its black robe, and the imps cried, “Feed us were hungry,” and she did.
“I expected,” said Marlene, looking at her husband, and a peripheral view of the Black Angel of Death, “I expected an angel of hope and joy, not this you, who brings only sorrow, and your array of little demonic beings.”
He did not answer her back; he just looked at her with a blank expression.
“Edilberto!” cried the angel of death yelled, “The dead is thine!” He did not dispute this, he simply remained quiet and in suspense, thereafter.
“What does that mean,” asked Marlene, looking at her husband, directing the question to him, but he didn’t answer her.
Strange she thought, perhaps this is all fantasy, an illusion, betwixt, the near to dead face of her husband, appeared indifferent, near depression, anxiety, forlorn, but resigned to his fate.
“So you were waiting for a creature of hope, were you?” said the angel of death, adding (as the little imps danced around in circles laughing, keep death entertained), “Will, you be silent to your wife on your death bed?” the Dark Angel elaborated to Edilberto. He did not respond again.
“I shall call; bid the dead to speak on your behalf, why hope is gone, as soon will be joy?” Said the Dark Angel.
“Leave us,” said Marlene, “go!”
“And what shall be thy token between you two?” asked the Dark Angel.
“I will keep a lock of his hair, until I die, to remember him by, that we shall meet again,” and right then and there she cut a lock off, and put it in her palm, closed her hand making a fist, with her other hand, she held his. And then the angel of death laughed, as did his companions, even Edilberto, seemed to show a light impression of humor on his face, as if the ceremony she just did was silly, hopeless.
Said Marlene, with quivering lips, “You too, you both laugh, you’ve been a good husband, and I’ve been a good wife for fifty-years, and you laugh with the angel of death.”
She then stood up, walked to the door, hearing some noise in the hallway, and there were several demonic beings there, waiting, imps and fiends and devils and demigods from hell.
“What are you all waiting here for?” she asked kindly.
“For him,” a voice said, “to pass away, to die, oh yes, to die, and die quickly, so we can take him to ‘The Festival of Death! And have merriment”’
A taint of insanity appeared to shape her husband’s face, he sat up, on his bed, quiet, and utterly free from expression—just a stare. He looked about, harmless, unaffected by the demonic beings all about.
“Soon,” he said, “I will be a corpse. There are two kinds of beings born on this planet Marlene, the pre Adamic, without souls, and those born under the shadow of Adam, with souls. Between these two, there are no friendships, nor kindred spirits, in one sense it is pretense, he can imagine God in His glory, but that is all he cannot feel him, it is like having a blank piece of paper. He is born indifferent. We have fooled the public for nearly 8000-years. I was born under the shadow of affliction, without a soul. I married you, and I will never know why, for you have a soul.
“The Great Funeral, is the same as the Great Flood, it killed next to all soulless ancestors, and as years went on, so did the Festival of Death, celebrating that event in that God did not kill all of us. This is why those folks in the hallway are waiting; it is their turn to attend one. There is no negotiating in this disdainful situation, it is as it is.”
“Should I hold a funeral for you?” she cried, still holding the lock of hair in her hands, and again on her knees, holding his hand.
She raised her eyes, “But you even went to Church with me?”
Before he could answer that statement-question, Agaliarept, the Henchman from hell appeared in the room (untimely as it was, and intrusive, Agaliarept was always associated with the dead, but normally he arrived after the death had taken place, and tagged along to enjoy the festival. All were hushed upon his arrival.
“The Festival has started; he should be dead by now, what is the problem? Why does he live?” asked Agaliarept.
“Perhaps,” said the angel of death, because his wife has a soul, and she is so close to him, and will not move.”
Slowly, feeble and heavily he fell back under his covers on the bed, her hand in his, the lock of hair in her other hand.
“She’ll get tired soon,” said Agaliarept with a sneer, “and when she does, he will die, and you two (he looked at a imp, and a guard from hell named Gwen) grab his inners, pull him like a rag-doll out of this room, and be done with it.”

To Agaliarept, this was not a satisfactory situation, and he could not take ownership of the spirit of this man neither—at best it was a momentary dilemma, so he felt, fixable, but time consuming: thus, he dare not grab onto this man when it was so close to the soul of a Godly woman, and there she sat, and there he lay, and there they both died, hand in hand, and both buried, hand in hand, in the same tomb, by each other, hands unmoved, as the moonbeams shine over their grave, and a guard from the angel of death sat with his Imp friend for company, waiting for them to be separated, deep down in their quiet tomb.

2-17-2009

San Francisco Hotel Sweeper (1968, a short story)

San Francisco Hotel Sweeper


Those mornings I’d walk the streets of San Francisco, somewhat unsure of what I’d find, looking for work, and then as the morning progressed into day, and near noon, it would turn about with producing a cool warm summer air, a fresh breeze. I’d walk by this certain hotel, it looked to be at one time, a grand hotel of sorts, now a bit warn, and more on the dim side of its life, up and own, and around its frame you could see its age, its name was evidently well known, still at a certain highbrow level, it was a landmark, of sorts and sweeping the sidewalk each morning, appeared a certain bum like character, in shabby overalls, unshaven, thin looking, not too tall, half his teeth in his head were missing, his fingers a slight bent, a kind natured person, just sweeping away, as if he had no cares in the world, as jolly as could be, as if he had a secret and only he knew it, as if the Golden Fleece itself, I stopped and talked to him a number of times, he said he had been doing that job, sweeping, and cleaning out the furnace, and putting in light fixtures in the basement, and so forth, going on fourteen-years. I couldn’t believe it. And he said, and said it humble, and gratefully, and with pride,
“I get to sleep down by the furnace, it’s warm there, I like it there, and it’s private.”
And he smiled with a funny kind of grin, as if he had swallowed a gold fish, I mean, he was happy with his simple life, and simple it was, and I thought at the time, how kind it was for the hotel to put this poor soul in a bed and give him a roof over his head and a warm spot to warm his feet, and not charge him a dime, and as a result, only expect him to do an hours worth of work, if that.

I saw him off and on, as I previously mentioned, nodded my head off and on when I saw him, and passed him by. He’d step clear of me, and face the street, like an old soldier, standing at attention, as if I was an officer, a General. Always smiling, never displeased, a merry old soul I always figured. Matter of fact, I enjoyed walking down the street, and a few times, if it was morning, and I was down in that area, I’d purposely walk by the hotel, hoping he’d be out, and I could say hello, and more often than not he was. A few times he was going in, or just coming out of the side door of the hotel, but no matter what, if he got a glimpse of me, he’d smile, wave.
‘What makes a man like that,’ I thought at the time. Most people don’t smile, and surely not to strangers. But he wasn’t like most people, he was different. A bum I used to say to myself, he’s just an old bum, no more, and I thought I was being kind to even talk to him, and I was perhaps more bum than he, I had no job, I was twenty-years old, a Midwestern boy, far from home. Yet I told myself, don’t make any judgments, he perhaps had a hard life. He was, or so it appeared that he was in his late sixties, or early seventies, if I remember right, that’s what I thought, didn’t know at that particular moment, told myself he was, back in 1968.

As I was about to say, I walked by him, and he would be waiting, standing aside as if he was my chauffeur. I liked him. Anyhow I’d kept walking looking for work, knocking on doors, listening to the sounds of the street; the tires going by, I like such sounds, the sounds of birds, the horns of cars, and so forth. Then one day, a few months down the road, I picked up a newspaper, and found out he had died. Just up and died, he was sixty-six years old that was a ripe old age I guess, back then. But what startled me, what really fascinated me above all was not that, although it was sad he had died, and perhaps not of a real old, old age—I even took a closer look at the paper, saw his face, affirmed it was the same person—it read and reread it, it said,
“(so and so)…leaves $250,000-dollars to the hotel in his will.”
‘If that don’t beat all,’ I told myself.
I tell you, you just do not know a thing about other people. Perhaps my first lesson in absolute misjudging, and I never called a bum a bum again: don’t judge the person because he looks the way he looks.
I was now proud to have known him, I wonder way, perchance could it be the money he left to the hotel. The hotel was most gratified, and seemed sincere that the old fellow passed on. And by the looks of the hotel, it needs every penny of it to update it. As I write this out, forty years have passed, and $250,000-dollars then, would possibly be equal to four times that amount, figuring it doubles every ten years. Something like that, thus, it would be like receiving a million dollars today, for renovation purposes, if not more.


Originally written in the summer months of 2008, and reedited and modified, in the winter months, of 2009.

The Mother of an Urn (a Short Story on Death)

The Mother of an Urn




When his mother (Teresa Gunderson) died he was fifty-five years old, and her ashes were put into a wooden urn, with a cross on it, and a butterfly, she liked butterflies that’s why he specifically picked it out.
His brother, Mick Gunderson, thought they’d have a wake, of sorts, small just for the family, and Mick did all the coordinating, and calling up relatives (to include allowing his brother’s wife Delia, to attend in his place if she wished and bring the urn), and so forth, while Lee (the younger brother), insured everything was paid for, and collected what little money his mother left from her bank account, and insurance policies and so forth, enough for the urn, and wake, with a few dollars left over, but not much.
Well, when the time came for the wake, everyone showed up but Lee, for whatever reasons they were, he did not give to the family members, to include his brother.
The urn was set between two vases of flowers, and on a platform, with a podium for those who wanted to give an elegy, and Mick Gunderson gave his elegy, and his older daughter Sharma, the oldest of the nieces, gave her sentiments, as Teresa Gunderson’s brother Wally, and her several sisters sat in chairs just below the platform, asking where, and why Lee had not shown up (his wife informing him of the light conversations concerning his nonappearance, after her return home from the wake). The elder niece Sharma, noticed this also, and brought it up to her father’s attention. And the wake continued unabated.
As time went by, family members asked—if the the younger brother Lee, whom had the urn in his home, wanted to throw the ashes of his mother into the river, and be done with it, as his mother had said to do, but more in jest, than seriousness.
“No,” said Lee, adding: he couldn’t.
“Let me do it then,” said one of the family members, “I see you have it right in the middle of your living room, like a shrine.”
Later on, Sharma said to her father,
“What’s the sense of my uncle having those dead ashes of grandma in the house anyway?”
Whereupon a month later the older brother, Mick told his younger brother Lee, what his daughter had said, Lee took a slight offense to it but left it alone, knowing they knew little about anything in life other than what their immediate environment provided for them, in their conservative city of the Midwest.
After a long while, a year or so, another family member brought the subject up again, this time it was the daughter of Sherrill, the younger niece to Lee, and sister to Sharma, her seventeen year old daughter Carmella, mentioned to her grandfather, about her great uncle, saying,
“Why does my great uncle, keep ashes of a dead person in the house, how sick that is?”
The Grandfather, Mick Gunderson, told his younger brother of his granddaughter’s remark, perhaps a rhetorical question.
“She doesn’t know much does she,” the younger brother said, adding, “if she had done any living, or traveling, she’d understand other cultures, that there are different ways of life, of thinking, she would understand this is not so uncommon, among the other two-hundred countries that surround the United States of America, and therefore, it wouldn’t seem so unusual, or odd, or sick, they keep them in many countries in their houses, such as in Asia, and East Europe in particular—I’ve seen them myself, matter of fact, they keep the bones of the relatives out in the open, on shelves, in Cambodia, in a person’s backyard. Perhaps she thinks she’s too above everybody else, or she lives in box, all tightly bound that says: USA only.”
The older brother didn’t say a word, what could he say, he, himself was confused on the issue, and did little traveling outside of the United States, nor got involved with other countries, or cultures to weigh his brother’s statement, and Lee didn’t give him the reason why he did what he did, feeling it was his business, and no one else’s, and didn’t think it was such a big deal, or worthy of a long explanation, especially coming the mouths of arrogance.

Another year had passed by, then Lee decided to move, was about to move to South America, from Minnesota, his wife being Latin American, she had now lived in the United States going on six-years. During the process of selling his furniture, the issue of his mother’s urn came up again, during a visit,
“Why?” said Carmella, then added, “Look mom, my great uncle still has my Great Grandmother’s ashes,” and gave a horrifying look on her face, as she looked upon them.
Lee paid her little attention, and walked away as soon as she ended her sentence, and made her face to show her mother her disgust, and he went back to take care of business. She had said it in the sly, and didn’t realize he overheard her.

Soon after, Lee moved to South America and of course, brought his mother’s urn with the ashes in it, with him, right onto the airplane, and right on his lap.
A year after that, Lee’s brother Mick, brought up the issue over the phone, saying,
“You still got mom’s ashes?”
“For god’s sake,” Lee emphatically said, “it’s none of your business, you never wanted them in the first place, and I asked you.”
The older brother thought on this, like his two daughters thought, as they talked this issue over (a while back, prior to this phone call), for they had said, “What kind of man will not go to his mother’s wake, but keep her ashes as if they were sacred?”
One voice among the four had said this to all the rest.
The older niece, Sharma had said, “I bet grandma would like to rise from her grave and damn him!”
But then the brother had calmed down, told his two daughters, and granddaughter, “Its best left alone, we don’t know the whole of it.”
It was during this time, that Mick called Lee up, as I had just mentioned, and during that conversation, asked him kindly,
“Why is it brother you keep her ashes and never went to her wake, I ask you out of love, not scorn or judgment, and because the subject has come up in my family surroundings.”
“Because,” he said, “it’s my mother, its really nobody else’s business, but perhaps it is yours somewhat. You see, she was so dear to me, and she is so much dearer now to me, and I could not think of her being gone, thrown into a river, or left idle in a cemetery, where all those who said they loved her would never visit her, only left for the birds to flyover, and dogs to run by—perhaps urinate on her grave stone, flowers to grow around her and nobody to put them on her grave. Grandpa died 19-years ago, have you ever visited him (the brother said ‘no’), see what I mean. Now she will be with me and in a way, she never left. Had I gone to the wake I would have been sadder, this way, I will never be quite that sad. I know people talk against me, and say all sorts of unjust things, but I can say now I always had a mother.”
“That’s true,” his brother said.
And for the nieces they still continued to say, “What kind of uncle do we have?”

1-15-2009 (on the Roof, Lima, Peru)

To-Morrow is Saturday (a short Spoof: Ref: Hemingway)

To-Morrow is Saturday

(Hotel Ambos Mundos, Havana, Ernest Hemingway's
first residence in Cuba (1932-1939) where most of
For Whom the Bell Tolls was written)


Two Bellboys are guessing what Ernest Hemingway is writing in his hotel room at the Hotel Ambos Mundos, Havana, it is summer of, they are in the bar, drinking down some beer, they’re a little tispy.


1st Bellboy—You know what novel he’s working on now?
2nd Bellboy—No, how would I know.
1st Bellboy—I bet you do know, you’re in his room all the time, you should.
Cuban Bartender—Here you boys go, you’ll like it (He pours two large glasses full of beer, filled to the brim of each of the glasses, and places a pitcher of beer alongside the two glasses). That’s a nice cold pitcher too, on the house.
1st Bellboy—Manual’s kind to us employees, always giving us a little extra, on the house, be sorry to see him go, too bad that writer isn’t like that! Rather moody if you ask me.
2nd Bellboy—It’s best you don’t mention his name too loud, news gets around fast, plus I got a head ache.
1st Bellboy—You’ve drank that beer down too fast, its too hot to be doing that, gulp it slower.
2nd Bellboy—It cools my insides down.
1st Bellboy—You’ve been in the sun too long.
2nd Bellboy—Say, Manuel, tell my friend here what Ernest Hemingway is working on in his room, what book now?
Cuban Bartender—Maybe he’s rewriting that book “Sun don’t Rise” now how do I know, you ask silly questions.
(The 1st Bellboy fills his glass back up with beer from the pitcher).
2nd Bellboy—Hay Manuel, what else did you put into the beer glass?—it looks like coffee grounds?
Cuban Bartender—Just drink it and shut up, it’s just some cigarette ashes fell into your glass, your cigarette ashes, to be truthful, you’re just too cock-eyed to notice, it’ll make you walk upside down.
(All three start to laugh)
1st Bellboy—Take a guess at what he’s writing…
Bartender –-You talking to me?
1st Bellboy—I’m looking at you, so I must be talking to you.
Bartender—You were really out of it last night, but so was he, you know, the writer, he told you what he was writing, because you asked him, it sounded like, “Bell and “Toll”, whatever, that means.
(The two bellboys look at one another; both take a drink of their beers, the 1st Bellboy looks confused, the other one impressed.)
1st Bellboy—Holy Hemingway, what do you say, to that.
(He raises his eyebrows, looks at his pal, and then the bartender.)
2nd Bellboy—The big man talked to you, haw, and you didn’t tell me!”
1st Bellboy—Oh, I can’t remember, we both must have been drunk.
2nd Bellboy—Maybe he’ll come out of his tomb tonight and drink with us peasants.
1st Bellboy—He don’t like Cubans, he only likes writing about us, that’s his game.
2nd Bellboy—Show me a guy that doesn’t have a game in motion.
1st Bellboy—I got it, “For Whom the Toad Bellows,” that’s his new book, ask Manual, he’ll tell yaw.
Cuban Bartender—I tell you both once and for all, I don’t know, but I guess it’s something like that, “Bell a Toll,” something like that in the title or maybe “The Bell Toll” not sure what toll means though.
2nd Bellboy—I think when he gets drunk he likes to brag his work up a little…or maybe a lot!
1st Bellboy—I like the book “Women that can’t find Men” that one was pretty good.
Bartender—You got the name wrong, it’s “Men Don’t need Women.”
2nd Bellboy—I don’t think he’d write something like that, and who cares what he’s writing anyhow, my head hurts.
Bartender—I’m one who really don’t care, just change the subject.
1st Bellboy—I was surprised he even talked to me last night.
Bartender— Don’t be too surprised, he was even talking to the dog, the floor and some ghosts, new ones from Madrid.
2nd Bellboy—Maybe I’ll be lucky tonight and he’ll come down out of that room of his and talk to me.
1st Bellboy—What became of his women?
2nd Bellboy—They faded out when he got married. Actually some of them got tired of his moods; he got married didn’t he?
Bartender—The men stick around him all right, it’s just the women get tired of his mouth, and ways.
1st Bellboy—You’ll get into trouble talking that way.
Bartender—Boys it’s getting late, got to close up here soon, so drink up, and well finish this discussion tomorrow.
2nd Bellboy—Why do we keep coming here, this beer just makes me pee, my head hurt, go to sleep wakeup and pee some more…and
1st Bellboy—and nothing, now look over there, the fat one leaning over and talking to the dog, I think that’s…
Bartender—I think you both had one too many that’s an old woman with a white beard. Goodnight now!
(Manual looks a little worried at the gentleman who is walking over to him, he doesn’t have a beard, nor is he fat, he’s just hairy on the forearms, drunk as a skunk, and asks):
“Which way’s the door, I’m going to La Bodeguita del Medio!”


2—11—2009 (written under the sun, on top of my roof in Lima, Peru)

Siluk Horror writer: Bram Stoaker Award (2009)

Siluk: Bram Stoker Award

Announcing the Horror Stories and books by
Dr. Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D.

Under consideration for the Bram Stoker Award

For best short fiction collection, 2009

See his horror books: the Tiamat trilogy, series, plus several short story horror books, “Death on Demand” (to include the renowned story, “The Rape Angelina of Glastonbury, AD 119” read by many of his 150,000-monthly readers) (and: “The Seventy Born Son”); “Dracula’s Ghost,” has eight trying stories, and “The Tale of the Jumping Serpents of Bosnia, another Colleton of eldritch short fiction (to include the growing interest in “Night Ride to Huancayo” a horrific supernatural tale). Also, the psychological thriller, “The Mumbler,” and “Manticore, Day of the Beast” And his book on visions “The Last Trumpet…” and “Angelic Renegades…” he is the unknown crown horror writer of the decade. Also see “After Eve” [a book of historic adventure].

His books can be seen on Amazon.com; B&N.com; abe.com and all the other internet big and small book dealers.

For those interested in the readings of Mr. Siluk’s books, he invites you to email the following:


stokerjury@horror.org stokerjury@horror.org
admin@horror.org

See Reviews by Benjamin Szumskyj on Dennis L. Siluk (and visit his many websites http:// dennissiluk.tripod.com


BENJAMIN SZUMSKYJ is a qualified teacher (Bachelor of Arts in Education / Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences, minor in English) at a private high school. He also has a diploma as a librarian technician/assistant and a graduate diploma in Christian Studies. Szumskyj also acted as convener on the horror panel of the 2005 Aurealis Awards. In addition to being a member of the Australian Horror Writers Association, he is also a member of the (American) Horror Writers Association. His blog can be found at SSWFT, which is updated irregularly.



"In the Pits of Hell, a Seed of Faith Grows" - a review of The Macabre Poems: and Other Selected Poems (Volume III) by Dennis L. Siluk for Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse (Volume 1 # 1: September 2005).


"Interview with Dennis L. Siluk," for Lost Sanctum #2 (Wild Cat Books, 2006).


“He Is What He Writes: The Weird Tales of Dennis L. Siluk" for Dissections: The Journal of Contemporary Horror #2

(http://www.simegen.com/writers/dissections/February%202008/dissections_page_06.html>, 2008).

The Days (Tribute to Juan parra del Riego)

I

All year, knowing you’re dead,
I’ve sat in two hard-pillowed chairs,
Looking out the windows, being sad
With human melancholy, trying to restart
Those days in which you lived your poetry—
(in translating, editing, and selecting your best),
Days when your youth like mine, felt the sun
Carried ambition, from earth to sky,
Ominous days, with inspiration to share;
I live them now, but feel yours in death.

II

Today, is like any day, I suppose
As you once knew, expected death,
As I do now. The sky is overcast,
(I hear the shuddering rain, the splash
As cars drive by, their engines alive)—
And in the dash, like a river off-course, now
This is my moment when air
Being most full of life and images,
Appears lifeless, no motion, now:
Land, river and sky, we merge, the
Splash is gone. And so is my sadness.
Everything is drowned out of me, but you
(so I can write this poetic tribute).
My memories emerge (with them), I’ve found
The days you lived, the key to your poetry;
The secret closet you hid as a poet.

III

I think of all you did, when you lived
(That is, all you wrote, and might have wrote
And done before death undid you…despair)
There was much promise in your youthful
Years--your wild reserve, the color of autumn leaves
In your Face, inspiring the wind, and woods
And the bare silence in the hummingbirds.

None had such promise then, not even
Cesar Vallejo, or Borges, not even Yeats,
Or Keats, Georg Trakl, or Pablo Neruda.
Your rhythm and rhyme, scapegrace charm,
Pattern and structure of sound, verse and meter,
Accentual-syllabic line, all gave motion
As if glazed in rain, falling hard to soft…with
Disarming grace, yes, oh yes, you were bold,
As Homer, building a wooden horse
To Deceive and then destroy Troy!
In the Age of Symbolism and Modernism.

It was, was it not, in your luckless blood?
That failure came only because all passion
Was taken away in mid-course? By Death!
You shrank to nothingness, but still you
Wrote your poetry, an hour before your death!
You lived beyond the gloomy boredom of regret.
You did not deject any love, the beat of your heart,
Was for Blanca Luz Brum, no cold fortune…

Your slow death, shaped your stare upon life
There was blood within that sightless stare,
But it made you one, made you look and wrote
Your poetry in stone, at the end, alone…

IV

Your poetry has outlived you, and that sightless stare.
Your poetry Parra, has outlive that boat you rowed—
So long ago, in Montevideo and it will
Out live the painting that hung in your room
Where you sat by a table— the ultimate last hours
Before your death (with Blanca Luz and an amigo)…

I see the grief upon her youthful face, drunk
With loss, seeking some oblivious place, to hid in
Desolation, despondency, mouth open as if in horror,
Eyes staring, for the haunted hour is near, harrowing
Face, full of disgrace…for being helpless!
She holds hard onto her chair, legs half crossed,
Breathing slowly, she knows soon, what she must endure.

V

Blanca and Juan’s amigo, stood by him the hour
Of his humiliation, yet he did not turn upon them
In the last hours of the night—they in a sad self-
Loathing, Juan, concealing nothing,
He heard Blanch cry, “I am lost. But you are worse!”
Perhaps the dying do not own to their dominance.
But this night, the lights were lowered,
It was the later hour,
And then the lights went out,

then the dissipation of the night passed…

Everybody worn-out, utter destitution
And the two now knew, the world deprived!

VI

Knowing, and having heard, read the bare fact
Of your death, the word lingers in my head--
Death in that haughty room,
Shut tight, from sky and cloud,
Only silent thoughts, cast from
Moment to moment, to illume later on
With those loved ones by your side
...

The hours you and I have now known,
Even though you’ve been dead over eighty-years,
Neither denounces my poem, tribute for you,
Nor pardons, my words, if they offend…
Like you, I have seen the moon’s light, glide
Upon, and over the sea’s tide, and the waves
Lost on the sandy shore, as they recede never
To succumb to them even when the dark has come;
I hope I am strong as you (when my death comes),
Although I cannot promise what I cannot give…

and now to your Surpassed fame, O’dark!
you have turned into light!


Written 12-24-2008 (Morning); Huancayo, Peru, No: 2533

Voyage of the Confucius Priest (Short Story, Revised)

Voyage
Of the Confucius Priest
(A Short History of the Augusto Peñaloza family)



The Voyage

An hour after dark, when the seven young men, no older than 19-years of age (including the young Confucius, temple priest, Yang, whom was broad at the shoulders, narrow eyes, perhaps five-foot eight inches all, one-hundred and forty-pounds, short dark hair, deep dark colored eyes, flat at the stomach, and short neck, rounded chin, straight nose, his skin more bronze than fair to pale) squatting down, each carrying a light blanket, Yang with a lit lantern in addition. (It was Saturday night. They just said their prayers in the temple, heard the foot-steps of the night watchman go by, and watched him from the temple window climb up the ladder, as he checked the rooftops of the houses, then they didn’t see him anymore, thus, the other six poured themselves some rice wine, drank it down hurriedly, to settle their nerves, Yang, pulled out a coin from his pocket, the wooden floor below his feet made a cracking sound as he moved them, interrupted the other six young men, “Three minutes,” a voice said, “and the guard will take his ten-minute break,” a break he was allowed to use for eating, “we’ll go then,” continued the voice.
As a result, all seven were compelled to wait, as they silently, disclaimed China’s ownership of them, then up some stairs they went, to a trap door that led out onto the roof of the temple, climbed along its edge, descended beyond the fortress walls, squatting against the wall and with no sound save the steady movement of feet, they made their way to the Yangtze River. There inside the boat called a ‘Junk’, they sailed, and ten hours later—suddenly—the first appearance since the seven had vanished, the captain of the boat, threw water on the stinking seven, to clean them, several buckets of cold November water. The owner of the boat just looked at them, like he had never seen them before, it was more than that, and it was like he never wanted to remember them once they were gone.
They had no money to speak of (especially for passage), and so payment would be, to allow the owner to sell them into slavery.
From the belly of the Junk below, the men themselves could not hear or listen to what was happening on the upper level, the only other level of the vessel, hence, everything remained unchanged within the bowels of the Junk, dirtier than a fox’s hole, and as dark, though not as demanding and punishing as their previous lives would have seen. The cheap imitation of freedom, bagged up in the jackets of the appointed men in charge of the providence, the fortress, the temple, life could be no worse as a slave.
Squatting on the ship’s floor, beneath the galley above (this was 1869, Yang now 19-years old, an odd year, all the young men had been defeated and forgotten, what would be the difference—so they felt—to belong to the lowest bidder in Argentina, Buenos Aires (by way of Ushuaia), where the next ship would take them, merely a like candidate for freedom someday, which was all that they hoped for, a chance, outside of a dotting country of dictators, away from fences they could not go behind, and bridges they could not cross, and flanks they were forbidden to go near, they were just fading leaves on tress—to be incriminated at any time by the wealthy, empowered, given warnings: with no head to their pleas and cries.)

There they were, just squatting (thinking about their servitude to be, the voyage, what they had gone through, the escape itself came back to their minds, the bequeath of freedom, Yang gave to them, handed down to them, something they’d all forget in a moment time for a long, very long time, but for some it would resurface), not doing nothing, not a thing but thinking, nobody bothering them, until the ship stopped, and they boarded the second ship, and then, there they were near a month at sea, and another benediction: whereupon they were awoken from their sleep, from the straw thick floor, used as their living quarters, where they ate, and drank out of water buckets, had one blanket each, and had one lantern between them, it was Sunday morning—and all their dreaming and all their thinking faded.


To the Bequeathed
(Remember while on the Ship, and about to disembark)

Before the night watchmen had finished with his evening meal, Yang and his followers, comrades were gone, yet quick as they left that morning, so affected the whole temple site, as well as the nearby village, most knew by mid-afternoon, all knew by sundown—every inlet and penniless village, the region knew the young priest, the king-priest to be, disappeared, was out of sight.
The officials had only to wait (so they thought), and he’d return, hence, to bide until that delivery moment, so they claimed. He had been running away mainly because of being unveiled as a heretic, that what he preached was not the true side of religion that his building was full of sacrilegious figures, and therefore he feared for his life.

It was asked among his followers, “What did he see, as he stood gazing so many nights out his temple windows…?”
It was said he saw the future, the near future, that a vision appeared to him, of soldiers coming breaking down the temple, the idols, ripping down the tapestry, he saw a new China on the rise, and he knew he would have to escape, lest he be tortured and killed (so he re-dreamed as he sat on the floor of the vessel, dreamed on his trip down the Yangtze River, toward Shanghai, to board another ship, that would take them out of China, into the waters of the Pacific).
Looking out that temple window, he heard a voice; it even seemed to smile as it wept: “Do not put your trust into man, but let him trust you, he is inconsistent, as the waves you will be on soon, a fugitive of God, he remains, this is the course of most men, the cling to wealth, squeeze out the life sap of the seeker—be him poet, priest, or philosopher—the sap of the soul, like a juicy plant, and they leave it rot once its life substance is gone.
“The good rulers do not war against nor punish his country men, as if they were the common enemy, who punishes for lack of opportunity: he, the bad ruler is responsible and thus, sets the trap for his people.”

(So many things he thought in those hours and days at sea.) It was in those days in China, he saw tourists flock into its country from India and Europe, Buddhist Monks arrived in great numbers, and had its share of Missionaries preaching Zoroastrianism, Christianity, yet, Yang remained as an Confucian. And along with his followers, Li, Ming, Ho, and the others, gazed out the windows of the temple, gazed at the Great White Star (Venus), and in the evenings, under candle light, read the books of Confucius.
And he wrote on the temple wall before he left, “How many times must China die and reborn before she finds order and peace, for now all she offers is chaos and balances herself with dictatorships.”




Counting the Cost
Argentina and the Farm


(In 1870, Yang was sold the Peñaloza Family, Buenos Aires, whereupon he inherited their name, and was given a first name, according to Latin American soundings, now called Manuel Peñaloza--the year being 1870. Because of trouble and strife, and the Peñaloza family, being in politics, and the son being killed for his beliefs, the head of the household of the Peñaloza family, being superstitious, and feeling Manuel gave them bad luck, he was set free, in 1888: thereafter marrying Nieves, in 1889)


The two folks, Yang (now Manuel Peñaloza) and his wife Nieves, could hardly support themselves, working on a farm outside of the city, likely not getting much more than their board and lodging, the family that was trying to live on the farm were also poor folks, thus, a childless couple, one of middle age, two of misfortune, drawn together as if by some mutual last resort, here they lived in a one room cabin, more like a kind of shed, clinging onto life, on a farm with a straggling one-hundred acres of corn, incredible to say the least, with its heart-breaking labor, this he come to acknowledge this life would not reward his sweat he was giving, but merely eat away at his flesh, a man who at one time was called the young king-priest, of the temple, a hero to his followers who for so long, walked in solitary and alone, yet he still shed a magnificent giant shadow.

But here they lived nonetheless, for near two years, splitting firewood, hoeing the hard and tilted ground, planting the corn resting on Sunday afternoons, in his clean but faded trousers; and to that they gave thanks for the strong heart they were give by God. This was the time he learned about Christianity, having checked the doctrine out, read the gospels, memorized the ten-commandments, he had learned during his bondage, the Spanish language, perhaps better than the average college bound Argentinean. And consequently, watched the people preach the word of God, and then violate them, then he was gone, it was 1891.


Killing Man’s Meat


(Manuel’s wife, gave birth to a male child in 1891, naming him Fidel) (The boy growing several inches shorter than his father, and growing a thin goatee at a young age. He took up carpentry, and in 1915, they all moved to Lima, Peru whereupon he married Juana, in 1919 (whom he met in Huancayo, Peru, where he bought lands and would stay for a lengthily period before moving back to Lima).


And so it was, Manuel and his wife, took their grown boy, Fidel, in the year, 1915, to Lima, Peru, had said a prayer for them the night before, and told Nieves: this was the last journey, now being, sixty-five years of age, for each journey was unto itself a battle.
“What,” his wife said, once in Lima, he had mumbled something to himself,
“It took me sixty-five years to get to where I might find freedom, I still have my Confucius roots, and now Christianity, it will be Christmas soon, we walked a long way, time to stop and find a job,” but what he didn’t say and wanted to say, perhaps was: I really know nothing but how to preach, although he had done several other things along his life’s journey, he’d ended up doing no trade, and there wasn’t any money except just what he needed to feed his family, to save ones meat from rotting, he went after ideals, and found words, and only a single coin in his pocket at the end of it, but he fed the family. When he was young he thought different, his aim was different, but not long after the voyage that all changed, now in Lima, a long journey he had learned only what was right and wrong, what was sin, the very things he knew before he left China, the very things he taught his son, the very things he went over and over and over, how man kills his own meat.

(In 1921, Augusto Peñaloza was born to Fidel, and in 1923, had a daughter, Christina. Fidel died in 1971. In 1957, Augusto’s wife, Maria, gave birth to Minerva and Rosa (Maria died in 2001); in 1959; Minerva, giving birth to Ximena, in 1993, and in 2007, the family found out, they were partly ChineseJ)






Notes: Taken from actual events. Names and dates are as close to the truth as the author can fix; some parts historical fiction; written from notes taken over a conversation between author and Augusto Peñaloza, 10-4-2008, at the café ‘Mia Mamma,’ in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru. Copyright©2008, by Dennis L. Siluk

The Voyage, and Proceeding History, written, 10-4-2008; The Escape, The Vision, the Interlude, written 10-6-2008; Farming, Farming II, and Christ, Killing Man’s Meet, written, the morning of October 8, 2008.

Slow Moving Moon over Vietnam (a poem)

Slow Moving Moon over Vietnam
(in the hills of Cam Ranh Bay)
(in May of’71)

The ocean roars,
as the rain poured
over Vietnam
(in this war)—;
and here, here I sit
in the middle of it
in a hooch
as a barracks,
singing songs
drinking beer
wine and vodka
all night long,
and
screwing
women…!
pretty as a peas,
it’s how it is
most of the time here
in Vietnam….

When, when, when
is this war
ever going to end
and blow its top?

Too many dark
marble-eyed rats,
scorpions, bull-mosquitoes,
lizards like ants.

Half the soldiers
here
are on dope,
under the slow
moving moon:
some have gone
to rehab, in Japan,
others are kept
in solitary, high metal
boxes, like sardines;
the other half
are under the strain of booze;
all are under a haze
from the rain,
and some are going crazy
from killing.
And I’m somewhere
between all this
trigger happy,
and I won’t miss!

Rockets inbound
coming from across
the bay
(it’s night time):
the Viet Cong
have been waiting
all day…
they’ve been
waiting, hiding
readying to kill,
in the surrounding hills,
here,
in Cam Ranh Bay
Vietnam.

Written in Vietnam, May 1971,
Revised and rewritten, 2-11-2008


Note: While in Vietnam in the month of May, 1971, we had waited for the Viet Cong to come out of the hills surrounding Cam Ranh bay, but they didn't they went to the other side and started to rocket the three ammo dumps we had, not sure why, it was where they got their ammo also, by dressing up to look like South Vietnam Soldiers, and often coming into the dumps and collecting tons of munitions, and us American soldiers not being the wiser who we were giving them to. Foolish as it was, it didn't stop, even after they bombed the Air Force dump one evening, killing one man in a horrid fired that shook all of Cam Ranh Bay. #2247

War and Peace (a poem)

War and Peace (a poem)

Suck into man is war
hammered into man is peace
and both are disturbed equally
consciously
clumsily.

Educators,
politicians,
generals,
from laziness or habit
or even natural cursedness,
give defense for the dead,
and the uncorrelated systems
they vaguely know, yet support,
uninterested in the comfort
of others, only
in the (or their) masterwork,
and their exulted positions.
Nor are they interested in
the systems—per se,
that produced this cumbrous
and inefficient
way of unrewarded hopes
passions, laundry bills,
erotic experiences
to the young soldier,
and to the people of a nation
and thrust the young soldiers
(who fight for principle or flamboyant
experiences), thus,
into harms way they are sent,
considered freedom fighters.

They think we are above the Odssey,
Or the Chancon de Roland, but
we are still in the Middle Ages,
still back at Troy
trying to get out of its flames;
only literature has changed
(but not in words or deeds,
rather in scarcity).

The soldiers only ask
to be remembered;
the war now considered
along with the views
of the war makers
“…are they sill valid?”
and most often,
“…had they been
very intelligent,”
in the first place?”
“Miscalculations!”
someone screams.
Another voice says:
“Comparative to what
war?”

A nation tranquilized,
family’s low-brow now!
It’s all in American tastes,
is it not…
((or the nation at war) (but
America seems always
to be at war, does it not?))
but more derivative.

I found the greater
darkness
in the children
considered the hope
of a country;
literate, and forthcoming,
fortnightly
premature,
once they have
killed a cat,
the scarcity
of killing is dead,
so summons the
hasty soldier
onto war.

Onto war I say,
and ready to invest
his life into his country,
disparate to be of value.
Who wrote these
satiric verses
for him to remember?
Someone blatant,
for organic
stupidity;
it is all too
ambiguous for the
young mind to
digest
or defuse
if he tries
his mind becomes
fragmentary,
unorganized,
for the educators,
the generals and
the politicians
have given him
various
volumes, in each age
to look at
(read, study—
throughout his life,
even his parents
gave him toy guns
at the age of ten),
now his brain is diluted,
and modified:
war is tattooed
inside of him,
his cerebellum.

So what do we do
(if anything)?
perhaps give him
forty versions of
the Chaucerian
for a anecdote?
I do not mean
to get you sidetracked,
comparing philosophy,
(I am not)
with grandiose figures;
nor comparing personal habits.
Let us by all means—though
glance at philology
—for in
all languages,
as most historians
or psychologists, or
war college professors,
will tell you
there are certain
attributes, each
country of war
preys on
(yes, we are guilty
of having the animal
hunter in us, and thus
we plunder
and victimize,
oppress).

And yes, yes indeed,
war is permitted
as a subject of study,
and its study is so
designed as to
draw the mind of the
soldier, or warrior
(to be),
away from leading
freely,
into the insanity,
to follow—blindly:
even in America.

#2154 1-15-2008


Notes: The Song of Rolan: La Chanson de Roland about (French) 1140 – 1170 AD, a historical incident, battle, and tragedy, the trapped soldiers were slaughtered to a man; among them was. Although it was written in 1140 AD, it was foretold around 830 AD, being the about a battle that took place in 778 AD. This song, or poem, lives on of course, and now and especially in its day, it gave man a warlike example for them to follow, and aroused the fighters that were to be...

Geoffrey Chaucer, whom is quoted in my poem, is of course the one and only who wrote the Canterbury Tales, we have what is called “The Knight’s Tale,” and again to make my point in long term conditioning, we see the representing rebellion, or so I feel. If you wish, we can perhaps try to draw a comparison with the famous and heroes of mine at time in my life, Theses, a warrior of course. In both cases we can draw a line near dramatic conflict. My point being, our literature is full of war and peace, and who does want to be look upon as a hero, especial the kid down the block that has a hard time trying to make it through school, whose parents hardly can hold a job, thus they go to war, and become all they can become.

Images: Riding the Merry-go-round

Images

Riding the Marry-go-round

She turns the pages of the newspaper like a slap on a child’s wrist (not really seeing or reading, just looking, looking), leaves the outdoor restaurant; the deepest thing in her is Memories, which can, and will find their way out, once triggered—the day is long who knows. We build highways where people and she and folk’s like she seem never to get off of…she’s on one now. “God told me you’re after my heart…” the radio says, she hears it, but doesn’t blink an eye, she’s driving, thinking, trying to focus, listening, images and sounds flood her cerebellum. She hesitates, not sure which way to go, says, “I’m lost,” aloud, to herself, then sees something familiar, takes what she calls a short cut. She’s at home now, in her home, wants to see the sun; it is reflecting off some seams (seeping through and around a corner somewhere), if she moves the piano a tinge, she’ll see the whole thing; unconsciously, so it seems, she softly bends the curtains back, ‘…thin they are…’ (her mind reverberates), ‘…knifelike…’, through the glass she tries to focus… her garden is green, very green she notices—almost trance like. The sun shifts, she lost the light, twice she hesitated (a moment ago)—she’s confused, the sun, the piano, the green garden, all important things to her—were important things to her, at one moment (a moment ago); and in her life they were all in place at one particular moment (the warmth of the sun, the touch and feel of the curtains, the sight of the piano, and its potential, the breathing of the garden, its green reflections), each and every one, in their place (she had lost her focus on the highway, and at the café—each time producing a new outcome, each time only for a moment, a breath, but lost it nonetheless), had she moved the piano, any one of those things (perhaps all) would have produced a different outcome likewise, but she didn’t move, nor move the piano, and by not moving she changed everything. And so the moral of this poetic prose might be concluded as, moving or not moving produces an outcome, which one do you want? On the other hand, you’ll never know if you don’t move. #2128 1-7-2008

Taking Your Inventory before Death

Commentary on:
Taking Your Inventory before Death


Note: We talk of death often in poetry, as well as love, I would think we have overdone these two issues after 7000-years, but it seems to be an ongoing interest among the masses, as well as individual; perhaps because these two areas are so mysterious. We think power, money and success can give us love before we die. And so we beat ourselves up to accomplish this, only to find out these are wishes and desires based on psychological needs, they are not the product of happiness. And by the time we figure this out, we are too old to do a thing about it. I often remember a scene in the bible: one of the holy men, standing along side four or five other men, talking at one of the gates of Jerusalem, and they are talking of simple everyday things. Perhaps the weather gets involved, or a neighbor in trouble. Something similar to that, or maybe they just talking about God, and how they used to be as kids running up and down the streets of the city; in any case, I thing of this, and when I’m riding or driving, or walking in cities and towns and villages throughout the world, and so forth and so on, I see this scene in reality. It is a great scene, and God had it put into the Bible for a reason. These folks are aging, talking about what they did; they are unconsciously preparing themselves, taking their inventory you could say, for another day. (1-6-2008)

Reminiscences of the Tiamat's Son: Parts II and III "Atop the Tempest"

Reminiscences
Of the Tiamat’s First Born
((From a Journal of the Demonic) (Part II))

Atop the Tempest



Amduscias

There was a windstorm in the air on the night I escaped the Great Forest of Yort, into the deserted land of what now is called Syria, a tempest of a storm gas coming, and I was heading into its lurking middle. I was alone; perhaps I was foolish, thinking the love of adventure mixed with the unknown, and my grotesque looks, would save me from strange horrors to be, yet this was not a heroic poem in literature, this was muscular domination in a ghastly exploration I was attempting, and fitness was predominate in survival, it was what was needed in facing this new world. And this was my first test.
I was no longer in an eldritch panic, the nightmare of the Mantocore and the wild dogs was over; death was no longer creeping up and own my spine, setting in place, in patches—chills. My mother was surely not going to search for me; she had her worshipers in Yort, the great city of Asia Miner that is what was important to her. The truths of the matter was, was that I had to bear the truth, bear it alone, or face the world to be in fear and become mad in the process.
“Now that I am telling my story, writing it down in this journal, lest the threatening of gloom make me crazy, thus, it seems to quiet my nerves somewhat, I shall bear this tempest as I have in all previous manners, with spectral and desolated primeval, sinister—and perhaps a little twisted fear, hidden fear, for fear can swell the skull to gigantic proportions, and the tempest to be, in front of me is no more than a shadow on the chimney.”

This is how I described it, but in much more detail and with many horrors, but I somehow lost the official account, so I shall tell it from memory again. After a moment I detached from my fear, the atmosphere was in a stir and oddly facing me like a tempest with a heap of gushing wind, and blinding sand, a few minutes more and the dispersal of the insides of these winds, terrible winds, would suffocate me, it, or they, would have to face. At this moment, rocks flew by me, hit me, and bruised me.
So on this spring afternoon, a distant rumble came, the silent night I had come out of was trampled, it reached me, the sand blasts were like beams of electric torches, shocking my body, feeble I became, and the wind shifted me about like a pile of camel dung; yet I did not hesitate, I ran for a resolution, I ran blindly into the wind, into its center core, I heard the death demon, call me from it, the one my mother said is vaporous and has pestilence, but what did I care, I was of his kind, but with flesh. Hence, I was next to him now (he gave his name as: Amduscias), next to him in the center of the storm I stood; subtly, he sat on a seat, as the tempest circled all around us.
As the stormed muffled thunder, and got louder, I could not make out any details of what he was trying to tell me. Next he stood up, we now stood side by side, and out of the sky he pulled a rope ladder. I thought, this might be our potential escape, but where to? I did not think, judging him at this moment was to my advantage, he somehow was protecting me or so it seemed at the time, as the approaching winds were folding into the core, in a minute I would be part of this storm, or somehow take this window of opportunity, he was offering me, if indeed he was offering anything. It is probing how intently I watched his every move, and him holding that rope ladder.
Never before had the face of evil, even though I am evil, but a face more evil than myself, so poignantly had browbeaten me, to the point I was happy to see it. But I had learned you do not trust demons, they lie, and it is part of their nature to do so. And they do not have mercy per se; again it is part of their natural world, and history.
The windstorm was a world of its own, and I had not ever experienced or even had my imagination created such a phantasmal chaos in my mind. And now I faced it, it was coming, and somehow I expected the demon to assist me.
And now a devastating shockwave came, that opened the earth, like the womb of a woman having birth pains. I became hopelessly insane for the moment, and my head felt as if it was flying into oblivion. And I found myself falling, as the storm went over me, yes, I was falling to the darkest crypts of the earth, for it had splintered open, and the demon was flying above me like a bat, laughing with the rope in his hands. I got the feeling he was simply a joker of sorts; no longer could I take him serious.
The frightful outcome was to me to be isolation in the bowls of the earth, with a rope ladder the demon would throw my way, simply as a spoof to his amusement; and so as I fell, here he was, the death-demon, lurking behind me. His eyes had the same odd quality the Mantocore had, eyes that stared at me and gave out cloudy and gray reflections, death reflections. And as I neared the bottom, I knew I’d vanish from earth, a flood of cataclysm came into my cerebellum, the demon above me was laughing, terrible words coming out of his crazed mouth, and I wondered when I’d fall completely, land, but I didn’t land, I just kept falling, and the demon vanished back to the surface, as the earth started to close—voiceless I became, the rope-ladder, perhaps was a symbol of no escape.




The Spider Gorilla
Part III




Unconscious I was, but for how long I didn’t know. Fungous and vegetation was all about me. Stone walls and tentacles like giant spiders were walking about me in the dark. Heaven be thanked I was still alive, or was I? It was a question that was not clear in my mind.
I remember the nameless sounds that secretly lurked about me, haunted me to this day. Why cannot the doors of the earth open up again for me, to free me, I asked myself? With no reply of course; what I saw in the dark of this unspeakable chamber, within the earth, were a delirious gorilla like spiders, with matted fur coats, mammalian degenerated, frightful, and cannibalistic. They were snarling at me, excited to have found me I suppose.
I had not died, but was consumed by the earth. I was like a rat caught in a well, or a closed walled chamber, horrible it was, I had incendiary outrage, and as one of the giant spiders attacked me with its saber like teeth, I ripped at it with my iron hands, pounded on its head like a slug hammer, it immediately became distracted, maimed and worthless.
This was the ugliest character in appearance I had found yet on or within the earth, it went squealing like a rat back into a hole in the upper part of the earth, servant to whom I do not know, but it was whispering to something or someone, perhaps its mate.

Night never comes, it always is, in this graveyard type chamber, such as I was in, and the stenches were horrible. Full dark each day, but my eyes adjusted. As I have said, I remained in a state of fear, it seamed vermin and old ghosts, demons were not on my side, nor were I particularly fond of them, but under these circumstances, which I hopped was not to be my final tragedy, I found to the upper part of the wall, a stoned removed, the spider I think moved it when it stepped into its abode, perhaps during the earthquake it loosened up. At first I dismissed this as insignificant, but as I looked deeper into it, I dug upward, and the earth fell on top of me, and I saw an opening that gave light, terrific vision, I abruptly awoke to life again. A hissing came into my throat, I would be free.

1-2-2008

2008-- a Black Sunday in the Making

The Battle of Time: and a
Happy New Year to You!

(2008—a Black Sunday in the Making)


(1-1-2008)

Part One

I see we have started 2008 off as normal, battling against time to survive in a drowning world; we haven’t learned a thing from time and history. In Africa we see: “At least 15 people have been burned to death in a church in western Kenya, after seeking refuge from the mounting violence over last week's elections.” And in the Middle East we see: “The United Nations has taken control of the peacekeeping mission for Darfur in Sudan after months of negotiations but it remains seriously under strength ….After four years' violence that has left 200,000 dead and forced nearly two-and-a-half million people to flee their homes, you might have thought things could not get any worse in Darfur. Yet they have.” While over in Sudan we have: “A US diplomat was wounded and his Sudanese driver killed in a shooting incident in the capital of Sudan, Khartoum…”
In South Korea, the government pardons one of the biggest crime bosses of one of the biggest crimes in dollars, twenty billion, and who pays for the loss, the tax payers. And the little man remains in jail; we are talking about Daewoo Boss. Does crime pay, perhaps in South Korea today, and who supports this government? Yes, the tax payers of the United States.

To be quite honest, I’m bored with writing down the news for one day, and I just started, and it does not really interest me or get better, and perhaps I got about ten percent of today’s headliners. What I am really trying to say is this: we are headed for a Black Sunday.
We are on a downward spiral, and I can’t see the end of the tunnel. Peru is loosing its glaciers faster than they can build highways. They will lose 20% of their glacier snow this year, and in five years if they have any glaciers left, I’ll be surprised. The world is in a black bole, and mankind is being twisted about like a blind rat, and the only thing he can say is: “Happy New Year”.

Thirty people were killed a few hours ago, in a bomb that went off in Baghdad; Nabil Hussein Jassim, was killed by a car bombing in central Baghdad on Friday, I bet he thought he’d be celebrating New Years today.

And so we all battle for a little more time to live, breath the air around us, see our lived ones, a few more days or hours, it all matters I suppose. A US diplomat in Sudan is killed in a shooting in the capital, Khartoum, another mishap a few hours agbvo, and he will not be with loved ones today.