December, 2013
Waves of Time
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 30, 2013
Waves of Time
Time passes too
leaving you with
giving you some
choices to make
things to fate
messages are broken
words not spoken
feeling awoken
future turns
a wheel of meaning
clouds of doubt
waves of been
of being
of to be
of has been
of have
of will be
of could be
from the volume “Roll The Dice”
Glen Alexander
Searcher
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 30, 2013
Searcher
To seek
But to never find
To wish
To lose your mind
To dream
Of losing time
A way out
Is sometimes
To let it go
You’ll find
A resolution
Of some kind
The day is long but
Darkness is a friend of mine
Did you turn that
Water to wine
All alone
Middle of the daily grind
Searching for
Someone to be mine
from the volume “Been, Being…Gone”
Glen Alexander
Whispers Of Your Heart
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 28, 2013
Whispers Of Your Heart
There is a quiet in my life only your whisper brings
I listen in the silence to the music your heart sings
I rest upon your loving thoughts, enjoying peace of mind
Inside that peaceful tenderness only with you I’d find
There are no hidden feelings, everything is very clear
We ride the truth together, there’s no hurry or no fear
Just living in the moment for whatever it may give
No thoughts of any other thing – the moment’s where we live
You have another life – another true reality
We both accept that’s how it is – it is the same for me
But when I need that quiet space to let my feelings roam
The whispers of your loving heart are there to take me home
from Wanda’s page
Wanda Kiel-Rapana
The Blues
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 24, 2013
The Blues
Much of what is said here
must be said twice,
a reminder that no one
takes an immediate interest in the pain of others.
Nobody will listen, it would seem,
if you simply admit
your baby left you early this morning
she didn’t even stop to say good-bye.
But if you sing it again
with the help of the band
which will now lift you to a higher,
more ardent, and beseeching key,
people will not only listen,
they will shift to the sympathetic
edges of their chairs,
moved to such acute anticipation
by that chord and the delay that follows,
they will not be able to sleep
unless you release with one finger
a scream from the throat of your guitar
and turn your head back to the microphone
to let them know
you’re a hard-hearted man
but that woman’s sure going to make you cry.
Billy Collins
Into my arms
POSTED IN classic poetry December 24, 2013
Into my armsI don’t believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my armsAnd I don’t believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
To each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my armsAnd I believe in Love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candles burning
And make her journey bright and pure
That she will keep returning
Always and evermore
Nick Cave
The Red Cross Scam
POSTED IN essays December 23, 2013
The Red Cross Scam
The International Red Cross is an Elite-controlled front organization whose true purpose is the complete opposite from its stated purpose.
The moment a ‘natural’ disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, the Haitian earthquake or the Japanese Tsunami occurs; the Red Cross floods the airwaves with ads seeking donations. With music full of pathos playing in the background, the announcer tells us that the Red Cross is ‘always there in time of need’ and now that the poor victims are suffering terribly, ‘won’t you please open your heart and wallet?’
These people have totally mastered the science of extracting money from the unthinking masses. For example, the dust from the World Trade Centre demolition had not even settled (literally) before the Red Cross were appealing to us all to give blood and money to help the families of the victims of the ‘terrorist’ attack. Thousands of people gave blood and even more gave millions of dollars to the Red Cross. Perhaps, it would have been pertinent to ask ‘blood for whom’? Everyone was dead (there were few injuries, relatively speaking) so why was the Red Cross asking for blood donations day and night for a week or longer?
The answer is reflective of the true purpose of the Red Cross. Sad to say the Red Cross is a disaster ‘racket.’ which is in the business of making money from people’s misery, especially with totally engineered disasters such as 9/11. They sell the blood on, of course, but they apparently also use the blood for other things to which the public is generally not privy and one could legitimately ask where does all the money go and to whom?
For the most part, they keep it for themselves as do the vast majority of major, household-name charities. The families of the victims of 9/11 had to badger, harass and threaten the Red Cross in an attempt to obtain $11 million that they would not release to the families, as long as one year after the event – and that is just what we were told in the media, so my guess is that the actual figure was much, much higher than this.
LEGACY OF CORRUPTION
In fact the Red Cross has a long, long sordid history of stealing cash donations intended for disaster relief. Following the disastrous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross donated only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and kept the rest.
Similarly, following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 many donations were also withheld. Even as far back as the Korean War, the Red Cross was plundering soldiers’ relief packages, the famous ‘Red Cross Parcels’ from home.
The Red Cross is very adept at stealing money and looting mail and has been exposed in this respect many times but it has been allowed to escape sanctions, punishment or exposure because the organization is so closely allied with and indeed is inextricably linked with the Elite establishment. It is without doubt an organization run by Elite insiders whose purpose is to gather intelligence and steal from the poor, underprivileged and needy to further line the pockets of the rich.
Several minor charities that were involved with the 2004 Tsunami relief project expressed outrage in public to say that large charities like Red Cross and Oxfam were engaged in secret negotiations that resulted in a large amount of the public-donated money being withheld from those most affected by the disaster. See Red Cross Hasn’t Spent $200 million Raised for S. Asian Tsunami
The message here should be clear to all. Under no circumstances donate money to major charitable organizations unless you would like your money to go to benefit the Elite’s expansion of their empires and the fast-developing police state in your own backyards. Find smaller independent charitable organizations that you know to be reliable and make your donations to them.
– See more at: http://henrymakow.com/2013/10/The-Red-Cross-Scam%20.html#sthash.TcxJBjgI.dpuf
LEGACY OF CORRUPTION
In fact the Red Cross has a long, long sordid history of stealing cash donations intended for disaster relief. Following the disastrous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross donated only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and kept the rest.
Similarly, following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 many donations were also withheld. Even as far back as the Korean War, the Red Cross was plundering soldiers’ relief packages, the famous ‘Red Cross Parcels’ from home.
The Red Cross is very adept at stealing money and looting mail and has been exposed in this respect many times but it has been allowed to escape sanctions, punishment or exposure because the organization is so closely allied with and indeed is inextricably linked with the Elite establishment. It is without doubt an organization run by Elite insiders whose purpose is to gather intelligence and steal from the poor, underprivileged and needy to further line the pockets of the rich.
(John Hamer is a British geo-political researcher. This is an excerpt from John Hamer’s book “The Falsification of History: Our Distorted Reality”.)
LEGACY OF CORRUPTION
In fact the Red Cross has a long, long sordid history of stealing cash donations intended for disaster relief. Following the disastrous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross donated only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and kept the rest.
Similarly, following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 many donations were also withheld. Even as far back as the Korean War, the Red Cross was plundering soldiers’ relief packages, the famous ‘Red Cross Parcels’ from home.
The Red Cross is very adept at stealing money and looting mail and has been exposed in this respect many times but it has been allowed to escape sanctions, punishment or exposure because the organization is so closely allied with and indeed is inextricably linked with the Elite establishment. It is without doubt an organization run by Elite insiders whose purpose is to gather intelligence and steal from the poor, underprivileged and needy to further line the pockets of the rich.
Several minor charities that were involved with the 2004 Tsunami relief project expressed outrage in public to say that large charities like Red Cross and Oxfam were engaged in secret negotiations that resulted in a large amount of the public-donated money being withheld from those most affected by the disaster. See Red Cross Hasn’t Spent $200 million Raised for S. Asian Tsunami
The message here should be clear to all. Under no circumstances donate money to major charitable organizations unless you would like your money to go to benefit the Elite’s expansion of their empires and the fast-developing police state in your own backyards. Find smaller independent charitable organizations that you know to be reliable and make your donations to them.
– See more at: http://henrymakow.com/2013/10/The-Red-Cross-Scam%20.html#sthash.TcxJBjgI.dpuf
LEGACY OF CORRUPTION
In fact the Red Cross has a long, long sordid history of stealing cash donations intended for disaster relief. Following the disastrous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross donated only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and kept the rest.
Similarly, following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 many donations were also withheld. Even as far back as the Korean War, the Red Cross was plundering soldiers’ relief packages, the famous ‘Red Cross Parcels’ from home.
The Red Cross is very adept at stealing money and looting mail and has been exposed in this respect many times but it has been allowed to escape sanctions, punishment or exposure because the organization is so closely allied with and indeed is inextricably linked with the Elite establishment. It is without doubt an organization run by Elite insiders whose purpose is to gather intelligence and steal from the poor, underprivileged and needy to further line the pockets of the rich.
Several minor charities that were involved with the 2004 Tsunami relief project expressed outrage in public to say that large charities like Red Cross and Oxfam were engaged in secret negotiations that resulted in a large amount of the public-donated money being withheld from those most affected by the disaster. See Red Cross Hasn’t Spent $200 million Raised for S. Asian Tsunami
The message here should be clear to all. Under no circumstances donate money to major charitable organizations unless you would like your money to go to benefit the Elite’s expansion of their empires and the fast-developing police state in your own backyards. Find smaller independent charitable organizations that you know to be reliable and make your donations to them.
– See more at: http://henrymakow.com/2013/10/The-Red-Cross-Scam%20.html#sthash.TcxJBjgI.dpuf
In fact the Red Cross has a long, long sordid history of stealing cash donations intended for disaster relief. Following the disastrous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross donated only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and kept the rest.
Similarly, following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 many donations were also withheld. Even as far back as the Korean War, the Red Cross was plundering soldiers’ relief packages, the famous ‘Red Cross Parcels’ from home.
The Red Cross is very adept at stealing money and looting mail and has been exposed in this respect many times but it has been allowed to escape sanctions, punishment or exposure because the organization is so closely allied with and indeed is inextricably linked with the Elite establishment. It is without doubt an organization run by Elite insiders whose purpose is to gather intelligence and steal from the poor, underprivileged and needy to further line the pockets of the rich.
– See more at: http://henrymakow.com/2013/10/The-Red-Cross-Scam%20.html#sthash.TcxJBjgI.dpuf
by John Hamer
Rolling in money, ruining lives – the truth about so-called Mother Teresa
POSTED IN essays December 23, 2013
Rolling in money, ruining lives – the truth about so-called Mother Teresa.
11/04/2013
Mother Teresa’s House of Illusions
How She Harmed Her Helpers As Well As Those They ‘Helped’
by Susan ShieldsThe following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 18, Number 1
“Some years after I became a Catholic, I joined Mother Teresa’s
congregation, the Missionaries of Charity. I was one of her sisters for
nine and a half years, living in the Bronx, Rome, and San Francisco,
until I became disillusioned and left in May 1989. As I re-entered the
world, I slowly began to unravel the tangle of lies in which I had
lived. I wondered how I could have believed them for so long.Three of Mother Teresa’s teachings that are fundamental to her
religious congregation are all the more dangerous because they are
believed so sincerely by her sisters. Most basic is the belief that as
long as a sister obeys she is doing God’s will. Another is the belief
that the sisters have leverage over God by choosing to suffer. Their
suffering makes God very happy. He then dispenses more graces to
humanity. The third is the belief that any attachment to human beings,
even the poor being served, supposedly interferes with the love of God and
must be vigilantly avoided or immediately uprooted.The efforts to prevent any attachments cause continual chaos and confusion,
movement and change in the congregation. Mother Teresa did not invent these
beliefs – they were prevalent in religious congregations before Vatican
II – but she did everything in her power (which was great) to enforce
them.Once a sister has accepted these fallacies she will do almost
anything. She can allow her health to be destroyed, neglect those she
vowed to serve, and switch off her feelings and independent thought.
She can turn a blind eye to suffering, inform on her fellow sisters,
tell lies with ease, and ignore public laws and regulations.Women from many nations joined Mother Teresa in the expectation that
they would help the poor and come closer to God themselves. When I
left, there were more than 3,000 sisters in approximately 400 houses
scattered throughout the world. Many of these sisters who trusted
Mother Teresa to guide them have become broken people.In the face of overwhelming evidence, some of them have finally admitted that their
trust has been betrayed, that God could not possibly be giving the
orders they hear. It is difficult for them to decide to leave – their
self-confidence has been destroyed, and they have no education beyond
what they brought with them when they joined. I was one of the lucky
ones who mustered enough courage to walk away.It is in the hope that others may see the fallacy of this purported
way to holiness that I tell a little of what I know. Although there are
relatively few tempted to join Mother Teresa’s congregation of sisters,
there are many who generously have supported her work because they do
not realize how her twisted premises strangle efforts to alleviate
misery. Unaware that most of the donations sit unused in her bank
accounts, they too are deceived into thinking they are helping the poor.As a Missionary of Charity, I was assigned to record donations and
write the thank-you letters. The money arrived at a frantic rate. The
mail carrier often delivered the letters in sacks. We wrote receipts
for checks of $50,000 and more on a regular basis. Sometimes a donor
would call up and ask if we had received his check, expecting us to
remember it readily because it was so large. How could we say that we
could not recall it because we had received so many that were even
larger?When Mother spoke publicly, she never asked for money, but she did
encourage people to make sacrifices for the poor, to “give until it
hurts.” Many people did – and they gave it to her. We received touching
letters from people, sometimes apparently poor themselves, who were
making sacrifices to send us a little money for the starving people in
Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh, or the poor children in India.
Most of the money sat in our bank accounts.The flood of donations was considered to be a sign of God’s approval
of Mother Teresa’s congregation. We were told by our superiors that we
received more gifts than other religious congregations because God was
pleased with Mother, and because the Missionaries of Charity were the
sisters who were faithful to the true spirit of religious life.Most of the sisters had no idea how much money the congregation was
amassing. After all, we were taught not to collect anything. One summer
the sisters living on the outskirts of Rome were given more crates of
tomatoes than they could distribute. None of their neighbors wanted
them because the crop had been so prolific that year. The sisters
decided to can the tomatoes rather than let them spoil, but when Mother
found out what they had done she was very displeased. Storing things
showed lack of trust in Divine Providence.The donations rolled in and were deposited in the bank, but they had
no effect on our ascetic lives and very little effect on the lives of
the poor we were trying to help. We lived a simple life, bare of all
superfluities. We had three sets of clothes, which we mended until the
material was too rotten to patch anymore. We washed our own clothes by
hand. The never-ending piles of sheets and towels from our night
shelter for the homeless we washed by hand, too. Our bathing was
accomplished with only one bucket of water. Dental and medical checkups
were seen as an unnecessary luxury.Mother was very concerned that we preserve our spirit of poverty.
Spending money would destroy that poverty. She seemed obsessed with
using only the simplest of means for our work. Was this in the best
interests of the people we were trying to help, or were we in fact
using them as a tool to advance our own “sanctity?” In Haiti, to keep
the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became
blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the
volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused.We begged for food and supplies from local merchants as though we
had no resources. On one of the rare occasions when we ran out of
donated bread, we went begging at the local store. When our request was
turned down, our superior decreed that the soup kitchen could do
without bread for the day.It was not only merchants who were offered a chance to be generous.
Airlines were requested to fly sisters and air cargo free of charge.
Hospitals and doctors were expected to absorb the costs of medical
treatment for the sisters or to draw on funds designated for the
religious. Workmen were encouraged to labor without payment or at
reduced rates. We relied heavily on volunteers who worked long hours in
our soup kitchens, shelters, and day camps.A hard-working farmer devoted many of his waking hours to collecting
and delivering food for our soup kitchens and shelters. “If I didn’t
come, what would you eat?” he asked.
Our Constitution forbade us to beg for more than we needed, but,
when it came to begging, the millions of dollars accumulating in the
bank were treated as if they did not exist.For years I had to write thousands of letters to donors, telling
them that their entire gift would be used to bring God’s loving
compassion to the poorest of the poor. I was able to keep my
complaining conscience in check because we had been taught that the
Holy Spirit was guiding Mother. To doubt her was a sign that we were
lacking in trust and, even worse, guilty of the sin of pride. I shelved
my objections and hoped that one day I would understand why Mother
wanted to gather so much money, when she herself had taught us that
even storing tomato sauce showed lack of trust in Divine Providence.”For nearly a decade, Susan Shields was a Missionaries of Charity
sister. She played a key role in Mother Teresa’s organization until she
resigned.Pat Franklin adds: The money which poured in is money which could have gone to some of the really great charities which actually do help so many in India and round the world – and which give poor people the gospel as well! She did not, and as her own death drew near, she reportedly did not know if she was going to heaven or not. ‘Mother’ Teresa – I’m glad she wasn’t MY mother!
by Susan Shields
The Real Mandela – The American Vision
POSTED IN essays December 22, 2013
The Real Mandela – The American vision
“There is nothing sacred or inherently superior about non-violent methods of struggle.”
Nelson Mandela
With the media gushing about the greatness of Nelson Mandela now on the day after his death, a counterpoint with the rest of the story is badly needed. Below are a few video interviews of South African missionary Peter Hammond, who tells the real truth about Mandela.
Portrayed as a liberator by the media, Mandela was a Marxist and convicted terrorist. Hammond relates of Mandela:
He admitted in open court—pleaded “guilty”—and remember, he was trained as a lawyer—he pleaded “guilty” to 156 acts of public violence and terrorism. He was the head of the revolutionary terrorist wing of the ANC [African National Congress] “Umkhonto we Sizwe.” And he was behind so many different operations: from the plotting of bombs in the railway station (which killed women and children, which crippled people), bombs in shopping centers, attacks on farmers, . . . so many acts of violence.
He goes on to say that modern portrayals make Mandela out to be a saint, but never mention why he was in prison to begin with. It was for good and just reason. “Not even the Amnesty International would take his case, because they said he wasn’t a political prisoner. He had had a fair trial and a reasonable sentence. He had his day in court. He was not a political prisoner. He was in jail for acts of violence.”
He relates that the crimes for which Mandela was given life imprisonment in South Africa, he would have received the death penalty in the U.S. or Britain at the time. It was the political climate that later got him released, and leftist revisionism that has whitewashed his early life of violence. If anything, Mandela’s legacy is an argument in favor of the death penalty. When such criminals are not disposed of, there is always a chance future political powers may be corrupt enough to release them—perhaps even into positions of power.
In light of the truth about Mandela, Hammond can say, “I’m astounded that so many in the west idolize Nelson Mandela and lift him up as a messianic figure, because they obviously don’t know what he teaches, what he believes, or what he does, or his support for some of the most radical Marxist dictatorships on the planet.”
This includes many Christians: “A lot of Christians out there idolize Nelson Mandela just because they’ve only been given false, misleading, and incomplete information.”
When Mandela fell ill a year ago, the media began to prepare for the very hagiography which it is now publishing about the fallen terrorist. Barack Obama seized the opportunity to tour South Africa, speaking on human rights everywhere he went, invoking the name of Mandela at every stop and praising his work.
A liberal NPR commentator could not contain himself this morning. He lamented the fact that during Obama’s visit to the country, Mandela was too ill for a photo-op: “The first black president of the United States standing beside the first black president of South Africa would’ve made for a powerful moment.”
Or he might have said: “One crypto-communist friend of terrorists standing beside a known communist and convicted terrorist would’ve made for a revealing moment.”
In the wake of the Boston bombings, Obama stated that the acts would be investigated as acts of terrorism, because, “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror.”
“Any time. . . .”
Yet this morning, when addressing the death of Mandela only a few months later, the same president said, “We’ve lost one of the most influential, courageous, and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth.”
There is indeed a disconnect in the public discourse.
And yes, even, many Christians will be confused and cornered. Many will find themselves trapped by the perceived dilemma created by the whitewashed narrative of Mandela. If opponents openly criticize him, they risk being publicly associated a friends of apartheid and racism (just as supporters of states’ rights in the U.S. today get associated unduly with slavery and racism). Give Mandela a pass, however, and you give a pass to his Marxist ideology and terrorism. It sounds a lot like many other lesser-of-two-evils decisions presented to us.
The videos which follow come from a missionary who judges matters differently. He upholds the truth in the public square, no matter what people say against him or try to do to him.
Mandela has passed on to stand before his maker. We will now see if God judges according to the lesser of evils.
If you’d like to learn more about Mandela’s communism, just read the book he himself wrote, and which was part of the loads of evidence used against him in his trial: How to Be a Good Communist.
Published on December 6th 2013 by Dr. Joel McDurmon
Astral bard
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 22, 2013
Astral bard
Fair seer
intuit beauty
as night absorbs the moon and stars
as thorns know the rose
time streams along age-worn bedrock
underscored by muse.
Hush! Listen!
Life sings a solar windsong
Lips open to paint new visions
Ink sweeps silks in fantasy strokes
her poems plucked from the ether
to reanimate,
as nectar for soul
fragrant
as rose wine
from PoetryZoo Abigael
Gael Bage
Christmas Sparrow
POSTED IN contemporary poetry December 21, 2013
Christmas Sparrow
The first thing I heard this morning
was a soft, insistent rustle,
the rapid flapping of wings
against glass as it turned out,
a small bird rioting
in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of transparency into the spacious light.
A noise in the throat of the cat
hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap in a basement door,
and later released from the soft clench of teeth.
Up on a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a small towel and carried it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.
But outside, it burst
from my uncupped hands into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
and disappearing over a tall row of hemlocks.
Still, for the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms whenever I thought
about the hours the bird must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie here tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.
Billy Collins
