Fast Forward

one thing then another

one story then another conversation
always interrupted by another conversation

I want the words to barely glaze the page
gone the moment of their utterance

as we are

I want

in back of this a story a man with his face with his name
exile emigrant refugee displaced person outsider offcomerdon stranger suspect
the terms interchangeable politically undesireable
a story of a man who leaves his country

and the woman he loves

and the story of why

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poem by Ken Smith
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Galaxies Are Lampooning

Blossomed human acumen
Brokered what? A broken Earth!
Caveman became a craving man
To Creator’s regret

Tied tight rights around mien
Carved out lines between man and man
Made canons and framed bastions
Yet felt not safe; built deadly weapons! !

Running away galaxies lampoon
“Free cruisers we are in the endless Empyrean!
No fetters to stop free fly in our infinite vistas
And no bounds to our celestial caravan!
No need to take passports and visas
And no rules of emigration”

“With love-Ambrosia God made us all
We sip it all along; sparkle and sprawl
Basking ever, in its eternal elation!

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poem by Sathya Narayana
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Animal Rights (Migration To U.S)

Iris, Mona, Orla, Harry, Pinky and Charmy are going to emigrate,
to a far, far country United States,
leaving behind them a lot of sad stories,
to live in new homes happily,
Mona was abandoned in a hospital.
iris was injured in her hand.
With stick and brick, Charmy was severely beaten.
On the streets, Orlan, Harry and Pinky were abandoned.
They all were rescued by Animal Rescue Team Taiwan,
and helped find new owner in L.A, Calif, across vast ocean.
They need to turn a new leaf of life,
because the previous owners abused animal rights.
ARTT has carried out 188 oversea adoption,
since its foundation.
It has placed 765 dogs and cats in new homes in U.S,
because a kind, warm heart the new owners possess.

If you are a lover of dog,
you can visit www.savedogs.org.

poem by U Win Kyi
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The Kansas Emigrants

THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.
WE cross the prairie as of old
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!
We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine!
We're flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow;
The blessing of our Mother-land
Is on us as we go.
We go to plant her common schools,
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.
Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God

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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Craving A Taste Of Kiwi

last night I lonesome had
irresistible urge to eat kiwi
craving a taste of kai kiwi
the earth is giver of all life

from the soil comes food
native foods New Zealand
that same food is cooked
in oven beneath the earth

but expatriate here will find
no hangi traditional feast
nor any food of home forest
stream sea or gardens kiwi

years since eaten white bait
fresh silver jewels of Buller
River in my far home town
kumara tasty potato sweet

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poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Failed Revolution

The Failed Revolution

In my childhood’s town there was one neon light on top of a five storey building:
“Jesus Saves.” I asked mother what Jesus saved.”Souls, ” she said without looking
up, she was reading the communist manifesto, dreamed of the day when workers
would take over factories and throw into prison the obese capitalists. She tried to
emigrate, to the Soviet Union, but was turned down, she had no skills other than
putting sardines into a tin. Mother made rice pudding that day and I was allowed
to scrap the brown sticky residue in the pot. A famous rich capitalist is in jail,
in Siberia, It is nice place he has internet, sits in his shirt sleeves sends emails to
friends protesting his innocence. Accused of stealing oil from his own company,
I wonder how this is possible. No, not the revolution mother was dreaming about.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Wasted Youthful Years!

When I was your waist high,
I saw you looking at the sky,
Told me that your love would fly,
To come back to make you shy,
Behind the door, where you would hide,
From the eyes of roving lads of village,
A woman displaced from the loved ones,
Planted in the land of forefather's hostile ground,
How many days I witnessed your hope,
While you reared the brood that your love gave,
I never saw you cried for your lonely status,
While the guys, who kept the end of the noose,
Some few thousand miles away, struggled,
To send the papers of money to feed and prosper,
Wives of emigrant workers and bosses,
May forget the needs of nature's nagging,
Taking only seven days in a week fasting,
Though a few have gone mentally disturbed,
Though a weak few have been tricked and spoiled,
The rest stand as the pillars to shoulder the culture,

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poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
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Variations At Home And Abroad

It takes a lot of a person's life
To be French, or English, or American
Or Italian. And to be at any age. To live at any certain time.
The Polish-born resident of Manhattan is not merely a representative of
general humanity
And neither is this Sicilian fisherman stringing his bait
Or to be any gender, born where or when
Betty holding a big plate
Karen crossing her post-World War Two legs
And smiling across the table
These three Italian boys age about twenty gesturing and talking
And laughing after they get off the train
Seem fifty percent Italian and the rest percent just plain
Human race.
O mystery of growing up! O history of going to school!
O lovers O enchantments!

The subject is not over because the photograph is over.
The photographer sits down. Murnau makes the movie.
Everything is a little bit off, but has a nationality.

[...] Read more

poem by Kenneth Koch
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Migrants and the Breeze

Upon the shore by Goree Island,
The Green Cape's western coast
Senghor's spirit of poetry
Perfumes the evening smoke

The night vibrates to duelling drums
Youthful fingers point to the north
To trace a path for emigrants
By bearings that the slaveboats took

The breeze is a playful character
Dancing a funana with the trees
Teasing, arousing the rushing waves
That grasp for home on the narrow shore

Great masks guard the coastline from invaders
Insisting on history that Africa owns
The Wolof spirit exceeds the present
Beachwalkers hold the future close.

[...] Read more

poem by Frank Bana
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0299 Customs and Excise

The postman who never looks me in the face
(was it something the garlic said?)
has just delivered a parcel
heavy with history

and I’m left holding it and wondering
what I’m holding

In 1972 Marina Vlady, the film actress
who had found favour with the
appropriate authorities
was handed a suitcase at Moscow’s
Sheremetevo Airport by the poet
Yeveny Yevtushenko; it contained
in its 15 kilograms of manuscript,
the lifeblood of 245 Russian poets

It took until 1993 for this to be published;
my –(how can I dare to call it my) –
Russian-red-covered,1078-page copy

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Mares Of The Camargue

[From the Mireio of Mistral]

A hundred mares, all white! their manes
Like mace-reed of the marshy plains
Thick-tufted, wavy, free o' the shears:
And when the fiery squadron rears
Bursting at speed, each mane appears
Even as the white scarf of a fay
Floating upon their necks along the heavens away.

O race of humankind, take shame!
For never yet a hand could tame,
Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue
The mares of the Camargue. I have known,
By treason snared, some captives shown;
Expatriate from their native Rhone,
Led off, their saline pastures far from view:

And on a day, with prompt rebound,
They have flung their riders to the ground,

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poem by George Meredith
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Notes from a frustrated soul's diary

'Jivaeri' (Jiva-eri) .Precious jewel or treasure.
'It's a beautiful, traditional Greek Island folk song of unknown authorship.I grew up listening to this song and it always had a special place in my heart.So I recorded this version with the hope of exposing it to a wider audience around the World.This song is about a Mother lamenting the loss of her child due to emigration.(In Greece many families send their children to foreign lands with the hope of a better life.) In retrospect, the mother regrets having sent her child away and the pain she feels has caused her to now humbly and quietly walk on this Earth.'
-Yanni

I love her short & sweet attitude
The month of February!
As she has only twenty eight days
Unless a leap year.
If other months are like that
What a great comfort?
How sad this perishable garment of body with rickety ribs,
An innocent feather weight wrestler
Who walks three hundred and sixty five days continuously?

* To Yanni for his CD 'Ethnicity'

poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Irene

She seems such a nice lady the beautiful Irene
Her hair as dark as raven's wing her countenance serene
She came out from South Africa with her husband and family
And in Australia for her kids she says more opportunity.

Some of her children miss South Africa still homesick so she say
But Australia they may grow to love at least she hopes one day
She emigrated for their sake she hopes they understand
Still young people have been known to yearn for years for their Homeland.

She talks about South Africa her Homeland far away
But she's not sorry that she left and here she plans to stay
When the Springboks played in the World cup final she watched that on T.V.
And with her family she rejoiced at their great victory.

She has a Grecian background but the moment that she speak
You know she is South African she doesn't sound like a Greek,
She came out to Australia just for her children's sake
And I thought that quite brave of her such a sacrifice to make.

[...] Read more

poem by Francis Duggan
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Night On The Prairies

NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I
never realized before.

Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.

How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same
content.

I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day
exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless
around me myriads of other globes. 10

Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will
measure myself by them;

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poem by Walt Whitman
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Why Poetry Matters

The English teacher spoke at length
To stimulate the class,
Still hoping they'd recall a tenth
Before the day must pass!
He mentioned poets long since dead,
Yet with a sense of awe.
The students had a sense of dread...
They'd heard it all before.
He mentioned Shakepeare and they groaned
At all those thees and thous.
He mentioned Milton and they moaned
For he was for highbrows.
He mentioned Mister Milligan
And read some funny verse...
But when the teacher thought he'd won,
It made the matter worse.

He told them straight, 'It's poetry
That teaches us anew...
It's magic and it's mystery

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poem by Denis Martindale
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Moonshine

Amidst the hills clandestine stills
are still producing liquid gold.
Utilising ancient skills
passed down from forebears; known of old.

Forded from their homelands unjustly
deprived of all they had by laws
Enforced by English kings decree
The clansmen had no other course.

But emigrate and seek freedom
in distant lands across the sea
Where they hoped to find a welcome.
It seems they did and readily

Resumed the way of life they knew
cherished traditions from the past
They proved they were willing to
adapt to change as the years passed

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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Im Down

(clarke / sylvester / hicks)
Shook my head out of dreams
Realitys calling
The early birds been up all morning
But Ive got no notion of moving from where I am
Though my legs wont move
I feel disabled
Im on a shelf an article labeled
Waiting for someone to fetch me from lost and found
Im down no one to hear me calling
Im down no one to see me falling
Im down
Had my ways
With days of sunshine
Life came easy it all fell in line
But then again I didnt realise
When youre used to one thing
Its hard to accept another
Like the woman who brought you up
Well she aint your mother

[...] Read more

song performed by Hollies
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Divorce of the Moon

The day arrived
And the engineers came.
They turned on the new lamps.
These cutting- edge outdoor lanterns
Glared with enormously powerful lights,
Flooding the whole blue planet
With shining effulgence.

The lights were very radiant.
They shone
With such brilliant incandescence
That the night completely disappeared
From the Earth.

The Moon became very pale then
And felt she was not needed anymore.
Betrayed and heavy hearted
She decided to abandon the Earth.

And so in the small hours of a Friday

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poem by Paul Hartal
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To Con Kelleher Of Aubane

One of the founder members of the Aubane Gaelic Football Team
And for them to win a Duhallow Championship had always been his dream
And though Aubane never won Duhallow and their Football Club no more
I still can visualize Con Kelleher cheering when their forwards broke to score.

I still see him on the side line and he urging Aubane on
As the Aubane men struggled bravely just to win this one for Con
And though his great dream died with him for dreams seldom come true
May he rest in peace Con Kelleher Aubane's truest of the true.

Along with Johnny Big Jack and Jimmy Mickey and Jimmy Buckley too
And Dan Twomey, Jackie Lane and Sonny Buckley some of the fellows who
Gave to Aubane a Gaelic Football Club in sixty four or five
Though such small clubs in rural Ireland quite unlikely to survive.

Con Kelleher's son Denis resurrected Aubane but it was a flickering flame
For they only lasted one or two years and they never won a game,
The curse of emigration of Aubane had taken toll
And the place without young people a place with an ageing soul.

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poem by Francis Duggan
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The Black Bordered Letter

An’ SO ’e’s dead in London,
An’ answered to the call,
An’ trotted through the Long Street,
With ’earse an’ plumes an’ all?
We was village boys an’ brothers—
We was warm as we could be,
In the milk-walk an’ the fried fish,
Up in London, ’im an’ me.
We was warm,
We was warm,
As we ’ad always been;
We never ’ad a dry word
Till she come between.

I lived round Windsor Terrace,
An’ ’im across the wye,
An’ when I sailed a emigrant
We never said good-bye!
He wos better than a brother—
Wot you Bushmen call a mate.

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poem by Henry Lawson
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