Conflict Poetry Quotes

In this story I am the poet You're the poetry.

Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.

Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters.

The same hot lightning that burns your blood with passion–– cools your fears with peace.

We ache with the yearning that turns half into whole and offer no excuses for the beauty of our souls.

Bless the poets, the workers for justice, the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache, the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh meaning—We will all make it through, despite politics and wars, despite failures and misunderstandings. There is only love.

Nostalgia locates desire in the past where it suffers no active conflict and can be yearned toward pleasantly.

Well it’s good to have a car like that, once in a while somebody’ll say, ‘why don’t you come over for dinner?’ and I can just say, ‘Car won’t make it.’ I don’t have to tell them that time is scarcer than young pussy around here, and I don’t mean time to write POETRY. I mean time to lay in bed, alone, and stare up at the ceiling and not think at all, not at all, not at all…

In an age of bombs guzzling blood, skylarks merge peace with thought and action.

I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)

oh. she heard it too-no waters coursing, canyon empty, sun soundless- and the beast your life nowhere hiding (p. 103)

...gripping the rim of the sink you claw your way to stand and cling there, quaking with will, on heron legs, and still the hot muck pours out of you. (p. 27)

مِن كوّة زنزانتي الصُّغرى أبصرُ أشجاراً تَبسمُ لي وسطوحاً يملأها أهلي ونوافذَ تبكي وتصلي من أجلي من كُوّةِ زنزانتي الصغرى أبصرُ زنزانَتَكَ الكُبرى

I sit on the precipice of my creative sensibilities staring over and out into a wide expanse of sparkling madness and sometimes envy those who simply fall into it and let everything else go. I suppose that’s what writing poetry is for.

American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare

Silence Never Silence never healed the lonely. Silence never comforted the broken hearted. Silence never saved a life. Silence never won an argument with kindness. Silence never healed the poor. Silence never learned compassion. Silence never saw the pain in another. Silence never asked for forgiveness. Silence never felt remorse. Silence never felt empathy. Silence never grew up. Silence never listened to promptings. Silence never resolved a problem. Silence never had closure. Silence never had a conscience. Silence never developed integrity. Silence never knew manners. Silence never learned respect. Silence never matured. Silence never understood that the bible and its stories was God’s way of saying, “Stop being silent and start healing one another.” Silence never realized that Christ was an activist for communication.

Your tears are muscles, hinged on wings lunar and solar. Your touch: life and death. (from poem Angel of Mercy)

Let's not shame our eyes for seeing. Instead, thank them for their bravery.

He has forgotten how to hope. This hell of the present is his Kingdom at last. All problems recover their sharp edge. Abstract evidence retreats before the poetry of forms and colors. Spiritual conflicts become embodied and return to the abject and magnificent shelter of man’s heart. None of them is settled. But all are transfigured.

That is what is marvelous about school, she realized: when you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless. You ace a math test: you will one day work for NASA. The choir director asks you to sing a solo at the holiday concert: you are the next Mariah Carey. You score a goal, you win a poetry contest, you act in a play. And you are everything at once: actor, astronomer, gymnast, star. But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird. Cello lessons conflict with soccer practice. There aren't enough spots on the debating team. Calculus remains elusive. Until the day you realize that you cannot think of a single thing you are wonderful at.

How much epic poetry does the world really need? Every conflict joined, every war fought, every city besieged, every town sacked, every village destroyed. Every impossible journey, every shipwreck, every homecoming: these stories have all been told, and countless times. Can he really believe he has something new to say? And does he think he might need me to help him keep track of all his characters, or to fill those empty moments where the metre doesn’t fit the tale?

Don't forget: hold somebody's hand through the dark.

Equally, the surrealists consider words as witnesses of life acting in a direct way in human affairs. To use words properly it was necessary to treat them with respect, for they were the intermediaries between oneself and the rest of creation. To abuse them was immediately to set oneself adrift from true being. Words need to be coaxed to reveal a little of their true nature, so as to close the breach that exists between the writer and the universe. The world is not something alien against which man is in conflict. Rather man and cosmos exist in reciprocal motion. We are not cast adrift in an alien or meaningless environment. The universe is intimate with us and, as Breton insisted, it is a cryptogram to be deciphered.

blue-gold sky, fresh cloud, emerald-black mountain, trees on rocky ledges, on the summit, the tiny pin of a telephone tower-all brilliantly clear, in shadow and out. and on and through everything everywhere the sun shines without reservation (p. 97)

Do not feed the monsters. Some are wandering thought forms, looking for a place to set up house. Some are sent to you deliberately. They come from arrows of gossip, jealousy or envy--and inadvertently from thoughtlessness. They feed on your attention, and feast on your fear.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes. Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go. Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short. Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

Layton once said that “a poet is deeply conflicted and it is in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. It doesn’t set the world in order, it doesn’t really change anything. It is just a kind of harbor, it’s the place of reconciliation, the kiss of peace.

Kindness is my weapon of choice. My second is a Semmian dagger." ―a weapon from "The Harrowbethian Saga’

What shall I do with all this heartache?

To call genocide as self-defense, may be textbook diplomacy. Killing innocents to keep control, is an act of terrorist hypocrisy.

I never understand other peoples' desires or hopes, until they coincide with my own, then we clash.

I never realized how literally we battle demons. Often alone. It is a relentless skirmish with vicious wraith-monsters devouring us from within. We Fight. And resist for a time. Ultimately, desperation forces a cry for help. But where oh where are the valiant knights? When did they die off?

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump. The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions. The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away. He hears the death song of his approaching prey: I will always love you, sunrise. I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes. There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.

Sonnet of Palestine I don't want to wage a war, All I want is to raise a family. I don’t want your empty pity, All I seek is a little humanity. To call genocide as self-defense, May be textbook diplomacy. Killing innocents to keep control, Is an act of terrorist hypocrisy. Brokers may bring ceasefire, But they can never give us liberty. All they do is arrange assemblies, While we suffer through the century. So I say to you o people in luxury, Look at us and you'll know your fallacy.

The conflict hasn't gotten worst but the contest has really changed.............

His mind It says survival of the fittest but His soul Revival of the idiots So good riddance, dancing

The door to the mind should only open from the heart. An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

I will see you again, is one of the names for blue-- A color beyond the human sky of mind-- One third up the ladder of blue is where we sit for grief--

You see, none of these conflicts are about things that people only sort of like. It is always about love. You may think me blasphemous to use the Passion of the Christ as an example of drama, but not so: this is the one true story, the greatest story ever told, the tale of tales even as Christ is the King of Kings, and all truly inspired fairy tales and fiction have to contain some echo or reflection of the One True Tale, or else it is no tale of any power at all, merely a pastime. The most powerful and potent tales, even when they are told awkwardly and without grace or poetry or craft, are stories of paradise lost and paradise regained; sacrifice, selfless love, forgiveness and salvation; stories of a man who learns better.

For you can hardly fight anyone for very long without employing his weapons and using his methods; and to fight a man with ideas means adapting your ideas to his mind. Conflict is contact.

Conflicting stories continue to circulate concerning the death of the President. A second White House announcement has now called attention to the President's schedule for the day, pointing out that no mention is made there of dying. Also released was the President's schedule for tomorrow, wherein there also appears to be no plan on the part of the President or his advisers for him to die. "I think it would be best," said the White House Bilge Secretary, "in the light of these schcedules, to wait for a statement, one way or another, from the President himself.

It is these uncontrollable circumstances that pop up like weeds in the human soul. The effects of inner conflict are comparable to the childhood dizziness of a spinning game. It's only when you step out of the game for a moment, you are able to gain control and clarity.

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop. Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control. Open the door, then close it behind you. Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean. Give it back with gratitude.

Straw" I still keep the last straw I picked from the harvested wheat field near my home before the war forced me out… I have the straw framed and take it with me everywhere I go… And when asked about it, I tell people: It is the straw that broke my back… [Published on April 7, 2023 on CounterPunch.org]

So, in the still-lingering shadow of 1861–65, let us suspend disbelief for a while and look more attentively at Europe’s Great War. To a large extent, American perceptions of 1914–18 have been influenced by debates in Britain—readily accessible via the “common language.” There 1914–18 has become a literary war, a human tragedy detached from its moorings in historical events, entrenched in the mud of Flanders and Picardy, illuminated only by a few antiwar poets such as Wilfred Owen—perhaps the most studied writer in the English school curriculum after William Shakespeare. “My subject is War and the pity of War,” Owen declared. “The Poetry is in the pity.” Yet by reducing the conflict to personal tragedies, however moving, the British have lost the big picture: history has been distilled into poetry.6

Noviolence 2.0 (The Sonnet) Nonviolence is not absence of violence, Nonviolence is control over violence. Justice doesn't mean absence of injustice, Justice means absence of indifference. Liberty doesn’t mean total lack of limits, Liberty means to practice self-regulation. Free speech doesn't mean reckless speech, Free speech means speaking for ascension. Order does not mean absence of chaos, Order means presence of accountability. Peace does not mean absence of conflicts, Real peace comes from elimination of bigotry. No more nonchalant nonviolence, it's a coward's way! Awake, arise ‘n humanize, or in tomb the world will lay.

The mind is full of monstrous, hybrid, unmanageable emotions. That the age of the earth is 3,000,000,000 years; that human life lasts but a second; that the capacity of the human mind is nevertheless boundless; that life is infinitely beautiful yet repulsive; that one's fellow creatures are adorable but disgusting; that science and religion have between them destroyed belief; that all bonds of union seem broken, yet some control must exist—it is in this atmosphere of doubt and conflict that writers have now to create, and the fine fabric of a lyric is no more fitted to contain this point of view than a rose leaf to envelop the rugged immensity of a rock.

Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr.

Why he took Anna into analysis instead of sending her to Lou Andreas-Salomé or some other analyst is difficult to say. Some have said Freud would have compromised his authority if she had been on one of his students’ couches speaking of Freud not as the founder of psychoanalysis but as a father. They say, “Who could he have sent her to?” But the argument does not hold up well, as Freud sent his son Oliver into analysis with Franz Alexander in 1921. So why not Anna? When Anna’s analysis commenced in 1918, she also began writing poetry—that is, she was sublimating her conflicts and transforming her enthusiastic, self-absorbed daydreams into a literary art through which she could see herself from another perspective and also share her feelings with others

This is not psychiatry,” Olivia says. “It is not therapy. It is poetry, my dear. The talent was there before awful things happened to you, it came with the original equipment just as your brother’s did, but talent is a dead engine. It runs on every unresolved experience—every unresolved trauma, if you like—in your life. Every conflict. Every mystery. Every deep part of your character you find not just unlikeable but loathsome.” One hand goes up and makes a fist. Barbara can tell it hurts Olivia to do that, but she does it anyway, closing her fingers tight, nails digging into the thin skin of her palm. “Keep it,” she says. “Keep it as long as you can. It’s your treasure. You will use it up and then you will have to rely on the memory of the ecstasy you once felt, but while you have it, keep it. Use it.

Schools, gymnasiums, arithmetic, geometry, history, rhetoric, physics, biology, anatomy, hygiene, therapy, cosmetics, poetry, music, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, theology, agnosticism, skepticism, stoicism, epicureanism, ethics, politics, idealism, philanthropy, cynicism, tyranny, plutocracy, democracy: these are all Greek words for cultural forms seldom originated, but in many cases first matured for good or evil by the abounding energy of the Greeks. All the problems that disturb us today—the cutting down of forests and the erosion of the soil; the emancipation of woman and the limitation of the family; the conservatism of the established, and the experimentalism of the unplaced, in morals, music, and government; the corruptions of politics and the perversions of conduct; the conflict of religion and science, and the weakening of the supernatural supports of morality; the war of the classes, the nations, and the continents; the revolutions of the poor against the economically powerful rich, and of the rich against the politically powerful poor; the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, between individualism and communism, between the East and the West—all these agitated, as if for our instruction, the brilliant and turbulent life of ancient Hellas. There is nothing in Greek civilization that does not illuminate our own. We shall try to see the life of Greece both in the mutual interplay of its cultural elements, and in the immense five-act drama of its rise and fall. We shall begin with Crete and its lately resurrected civilization, because apparently from Crete, as well as from Asia, came that prehistoric culture of Mycenae

Public interference with poetry rests on the popular delusion that an immediate commerce exists between historical truth and poetic truth; that the historical universe is potentially the poetic universe. The historical universe is, however, only a temporary aggregate of ideas. These ideas may direct the structure of the literary universe, which produces the philosophical journalism of a period; the structure of the poetic universe is directed by a person in single-handed conflict with the time-community. Science, the present-day aggregate of tribal ideas, puts on the creative mind a social compulsion to accept these ideas; and criticism acts, as usual, as the nattered instrument of conversion. Official literature is born of a critical rather than of a literary sense; it is the social institution which the [professionalized] poet is hired to serve.

Her thin face was given a touch of shrewdness and decision by the straight line of her nose, the fine long carving of her chin. Beneath the sallow minutely pitted skin in her cheeks, and about her mouth, several frayed nerve-centres twitched from moment to moment, jarring the skin slightly without contorting or destroying the passionate calm beauty that fed her inexhaustibly from within. This face was the constant field of conflict, nearly always calm, but always reflecting the incessant struggle and victory of the enormous energy that inhabited her, over the thousand jangling devils of depletion and weariness that tried to pull her apart. There was always written upon her the epic poetry of beauty and repose out of struggle—he never ceased to feel that she had her hand around the reins of her heart, that gathered into her grasp were all the straining wires and sinews of disunion which would scatter and unjoint her members, once she let go. Literally, physically, he felt that, the great tide of valiance once flowed out of her, she would immediately go to pieces.

The Unknown Soldier A tale to tell in bloody rhyme, A story to last ’til the dawn of end’s time. Of a loving boy who left dear home, To bear his countries burdens; her honor to sow. –A common boy, I say, who left kith and kin, To battle der Kaiser and all that was therein. The Arsenal of Democracy was his kind, –To make the world safe–was their call and chime. Trained he thus in the far army camps, Drilled he often in the march and stamp. Laughed he did with new found friends, Lived they together for the noble end. Greyish mottled images clipp’ed and hack´ed– Black and white broke drum Ʀ…ɧ..λ..t…ʮ..m..ȿ —marching armies off to ’ttack. Images scratched, chopped, theatrical exaggerate, Confetti parades, shouts of high praise To where hell would sup and partake with all bon hope as the transport do them take Faded icons board the ship– To steel them away collaged together –joined in spirit and hip. Timeworn humanity of once what was To broker peace in eagles and doves. Mortal clay in the earth but to grapple and smite As warbirds ironed soar in heaven’s light. All called all forward to divinities’ kept date, Heroes all–all aces and fates. Paris–Used to sing and play at some cards, A common Joe everybody knew from own heart. He could have been called ‘the kid’ by the ‘old man,’ But a common private now taking orders to stand. Receiving letters from his shy sweet one, Read them over and over until they faded to none. Trained like hell with his Commander-in-Arms, –To avoid the dangers of a most bloody harm. Aye, this boy was mortal, true enough said, He could be one of thousands alive but now surely dead. How he sang and cried and ate the gruel of rations, And grumbled as soldiers do at war’s great contagions. Out–out to the battle this young did go, To become a man; the world to show. (An ocean away his mother cried so– To return her boy safe as far as the heavens go). Lay he down in trenched hole, With balls bursting overhead upon the knoll. Listened hardnfast to the “Sarge” bearing the news, —“We’re going over soon—” was all he knew. The whistle blew; up and over they went, Charging the Hun, his life to be spent (“Avoid the gas boys that’ll blister yer arse!!”). Running through wires razored and deadened trees, Fell he into a gouge to find in shelter of need (They say he bayoneted one just as he–, face to face in War’s Dance of trialed humanity). A nameless sonnuvabitch shell then did untimely RiiiiiiiP the field asunder in burrrstzʑ–and he tripped. And on the field of battle’s blood did he die, Faceless in a puddle as blurrs of ghosting men shrieked as they were fleeing by–. Perished he alone in the no man’s land, Surrounded by an army of his brother’s teeming bands . . . And a world away a mother sighed, Listened to the rain and lay down and cried. . . . Today lays the grave somber and white, Guarded decades long in both the dark and the light. Silent sentinels watch o’er and with him do walk, Speak they neither; their duty talks. Lone, stark sentries perform the unsmiling task, –Guarding this one dead–at the nation’s bequest. Cared over day and night in both rain or sun, Present changing of the guard and their duty is done (The changing of the guard ’tis poetry motioned A Nation defining itself–telling of rifles twirl-clicking under the intensest of devotions). This poem–of The Unknown, taken thus, Is rend eternal by Divinity’s Iron Trust. How he, a common soldier, gained the estate Of bearing his countries glory unto his unknown fate. Here rests in honored glory a warrior known but to God, Now rests he in peace from the conflict path he trod. He is our friend, our family, brother, our mother’s son –belongs he to us all, For he has stood in our place–heeding God’s final call.

Leaders don't hide from conflicts Leaders are birthed in conflicts Changing the mindset of others Simply because he exists -A portion of the poem 'Leadership

WHY I WRITE POETRY It gives rhyme to reason, It is as elusive as a dream, Like the changes of the season, Poetry isn’t always what it seems. Like spring is to summer, And winter is to fall, It can be a beautiful sunrise, Or an ugly brawl. Why I write poetry, It can be a way to vent, An escape from reality, When nothing makes sense. Upheaval and neutrality, A soldier going into war, Conflicting moralities, Poetry defines what they are. Why I write poetry, Is to right a wrong, For racial equality, Not for some, but for all. One voice, one people, Joined by grace, Poetry is the rhyme and reason, Defining the human race.

Scrapbooks allowed readers to take complete artistic control and create their own bricolage, combining text and image. In the United States they often took the form of highly idiosyncratic anthologies of poetry clipped from newspapers, back when every local newspaper published local poets.36 As a hobby, scrapbooking really took off during the Civil War, when Northerners and Southerners alike assembled their own histories of the conflict, reflecting their respective biases. Confederates naturally liked to clip reports of happy slaves proclaiming their loyalty to their masters.37 They didn’t realize that some former slaves were starting their own scrapbooks.

The stunning corpus of poetry produced during the war likewise paints a very different picture of how the conflict was viewed at the time. And so too do the number of courts martial that took place during the war, which hardly suggest a unanimity of resolve: more

The white western patriarchal ordering of things requires that we believe there is an inherent conflict between what we feel and what we think - between poetry and theory. We are easier to control when one part of our selves is split from another, fragmented, off balance.

My Russia My Responsibility (The Sonnet) Moya Rossiya, moya lyubov, I am sorry, That the world has turned its back on us. But can you really blame them when, We accepted a terrorist as a leader of ours! Awake, arise, my brave comrades, Drink deep from the valor of Volga. I say, enough with apathy, for it is high time, To sanitize our land against all domestic virus. We let a terrorist loose on our neighbors, And all that bloodshed is on our hands. Even now if we don't mend our horrific error, One savage will turn our world into a wasteland. Mnogo te obicham, for you are still my home. To humanize our home is the duty of none but our own.

Let me love you! Let us tend to our life like a flower, Tender, beautiful, without any conflict, Let us fill our senses with this flower, And put an end to every emotional conflict, Let our feelings be like the sunflower, Always thinking of and staring at the Sun, Let us radiate with the beauty of the sunflower, And allow our love to be our everlasting Sun, Let my every feeling rush towards you, Like the waves rushing to the shore, Then let me sink into you, And no more shall I ever seek any other shore, Let me be the song of the Summer joys, The song of happy brooks, the tender fluttering of flowers, Let me lend you all these Summer joys, And in you create my gardens of love and beautiful flowers, Let me share all my secrets with you, Like the wind that shares hers with trees, flowers and everything, Let me feel every part of you, And like the wind, cover you, your shadows and everything, Let me be the Moon that shines every night, Mild, faint, subtle, light; yet bright enough, To let me see you everywhere even in the darkness of the night, And in the day under the Sun too, because seeing you forever is not enough, Let me be that every reason that makes you happy, Then glide gently across the territory of your mind and heart, Let me be this feeling that always makes you feel happy, And then my love Irma, l shall let my feelings be a part of your heart.

You're gone now, and I'm still in this predicament called living, Charlie. I imagine things don't change much when you cross the line. You're still you. And I'm still here at the other end of this long, long wave, listening.

By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.

You must speak in the language of justice.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.

Flower in love The flower to the butterfly, Where do you always come from? Why do you always fly? And where do your wings get these colourful patterns from? She flew away without any reply, For she had a known flower to kiss, And his yesterday’s queries to reply, And then offer him a passionate kiss, There, poised on the flower that she knew, She spread her wings over its petals, It was a feeling that the flower knew, As the butterfly’s colours kissed its petals, Under the cover of her wings, They romanced in the light of love, And what a wonder it became to see a flower kissed by open butterfly wings, The symbol of two conflict free beings in total love, Beauty pressed over beauty, and covered in love, As the sunlight enveloped them in the shimmer of the pure light, The flower fell in love and the butterfly experienced love, And then it flew in the direction of the light, And I watched her flapping her wings hurriedly, As she shed her dust of colourful beauty over the flower in love, She became a part of this pure light almost hurriedly, And now it is the permanent delight for the light kissed flower, who too finally experienced love!

Out of the inevitable conflict of images - inevitable, because of the creative, recreative, destructive, and contradictory nature of the motivating centre, the womb of war - I try to make that momentary peace which is a poem. I do not want a poem of mine to be, nor can it be, a circular piece of experience placed neatly outside the living stream of time from which it came; a poem of mine is, or should be, a watertight section of the stream that is flowing all ways; all warring images within it should be reconciled for that small stop of time.

This is not psychiatry,” Olivia says. “It is not therapy. It is poetry, my dear. The talent was there before awful things happened to you, it came with the original equipment just as your brother’s did, but talent is a dead engine. It runs on every unresolved experience—every unresolved trauma, if you like—in your life. Every conflict. Every mystery. Every deep part of your character you find not just unlikeable but loathsome.

To a highly literate and mechanized culture the movie appeared as a world of triumphant illusions and dreams that money could buy. It was at this moment of the movie that cubism occurred, and it has been described by E. H. Gombrich (Art and Illusion) as “the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture — that of a man-made construction, a colored canvas.” For cubism substitutes all facets of an object simultaneously for the “point of view” or facet of perspective illusion. Instead of the specialized illusion of the third dimension on canvas, cubism sets up an interplay of planes and contradiction or dramatic conflict of patterns, lights, textures that “drives home the message” by involvement. This is held by many to be an exercise in painting, not in illusion. In other words, cubism, by giving the inside and outside, the top, bottom, back, and front and the rest, in two dimensions, drops the illusion of perspective in favor of instant sensory awareness of the whole. Cubism, by seizing on instant total awareness, suddenly announced that the medium is the message. Is it not evident that the moment that the sequence yields to the simultaneous, one is in the world of the structure and of configuration? Is that not what has happened in physics as in painting, poetry, and in communication? Specialized segments of attention have shifted to total field, and we can now say, “The medium is the message” quite naturally.

Conflict occurs when two pasts step on the toes of the present.

Poetry vs. Interpretation [10w] The creation of poetry often conflicts with its creative interpretation.

Of course, the simpler, more straightforward definitions with which I began this article are still often the easiest rules to isolate the epic fantasy novel from the rest of the herd. In this, as in much of the realm of speculative fiction, Tolkien’s books set the standard and throw a long, long shadow over the entire field (no pun intended!!). Authors who have come after him have to negotiate that legacy, even as they chose different ways to break from his model—-by complicating the moral clarity of their stories’ conflicts, or by letting more speaking roles go to women, to give a couple examples. It is well to remember, though, that important as Tolkien continues to be in defining the genre, he himself was well-acquainted with the traditions of epic poetry and his own books did not spring out of nothing but instead owe a lot to poems like Beowulf. Ultimately, when we try to settle the question of what counts as epic fantasy, we shouldn’t ask how long the book is, or whether or not it describes heroes joined in massive battles, but rather, in the spirit of the epic tradition, how significant is the change it marks on its world? How big is the scope of its conflict, and how significant the power of its eventual resolution? - Chloe Smith “What Makes 'Epic Fantasy' epic?

Conflict is much the same, injustice and inequality is nothing new to our generation only the contest has changed because not only that everyone has opinion but they also have an opportunity to voice it and that is a bit dangerous.

Armed strife and violent conflict between and among people are as old as human experience itself, older perhaps than singing, and certainly predating the writing of verse. Awareness of wars near and far, inner and outer, must always be a subtext of the examined life, even of the most private and interior sensibility, and can be a source of empowerment, despair, and anxiety for those wielding pens instead of swords.

Writing is my soul food, sometimes I eat alone, sometimes I share the bread.

In this moment when we face horizons and conflicts wider than ever before, we want our resources, the ways of strength. We look again to the human wish, its faiths, the means by which the imagination leads us to surpass ourselves. If there is a feeling that something has been lost, it may be because much has not yet been used, much is still to be found and begun. Everywhere we are told that our human resources are all to be used, that our civilization itself means the uses of everything it has — the inventions, the histories, every scrap of fact. But there is one kind of knowledge — infinitely precious, time-resistant more than monuments, here to be passed between the generations in any way it may be: never to be used. And that is poetry.

I've forgotten how to breathe with my lungs I've forgotten speech I'm scared for my language Leave the rest and just bring back my language!

This is not psychiatry,” Olivia says. “It is not therapy. It is poetry, my dear. The talent was there before awful things happened to you, it came with the original equipment just as your brother’s did, but talent is a dead engine. It runs on every unresolved experience—every unresolved trauma, if you like—in your life. Every conflict. Every mystery. Every deep part of your character you find not just unlikeable but loathsome.” One

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr. Indigenous History and Nonfiction Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, by Paul Chaat Smith Decolonizing Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woodworth Being Dakota, by Amos E. Oneroad and Alanson B. Skinner Boarding School Blues, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc Masters of Empire, by Michael A. McDonnell Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda J. Child They Called It Prairie Light, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima To Be a Water Protector, by Winona LaDuke Minneapolis: An Urban Biography, by Tom Weber

Praise crazy. Praise sad. Praise the path on which we're led. Praise the roads on earth and water. Praise the eater and the eaten. Praise beginnings; praise the end. Praise the song and praise the singer. Praise the rain; it brings more rain. Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Some things on this earth are unspeakable: Genealogy of the broken— A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre, Or the smell of coffee and no one there—

In the United terminal in Chicago at five on a Friday afternoon The sky is breaking with rain and wind and all the flights Are delayed forever. We will never get to where we are going And there’s no way back to where we’ve been.

Time and how are the mysterious elements of any life.

Black squirrel on a slag of stone--carry me home.

Painting of love This afternoon I saw a painting hanging on the wall, It was of a maiden in the prime of her beauty, The background was painted in rainbow colours, one and all, I had every reason to admire the artists sagacity, Her form looked perfect worthy of every appreciation, Her eyes interacted with mine, Her lips had a strong and intense red sensation, And from her arose feelings divine, Although she was just a portrait, A still painting hanging on the even more still wall, She was a feeling that moved through eyes into the heart without any freight, And in me, just like other mesmerised onlookers, she did feelings of “life in love” install, Maybe I only felt so, maybe I wanted to feel so, Because her eyes, her form, her everything reminded me of someone, And I imagined her in this painting on the wall, and I allowed my mind to believe so, As long as she did not remind me of anyone, or everyone, but just her, my special someone, So I sat there looking at the painting on the wall, I admired the salient aspects of her colourful beauty, And now I too was still, still like the painting and still like the dead wall, Now, not the painting, but the stillness it exuded had become my new propensity, Like a flower that is beautiful in the presence of the beauty that holds itself within it so still, A state where all conflicts are exhumed and everything that represents profanity dies, That is when this painting my heart does with million joys fill, And recreates her colourful visions within me, and now my life just on them relies, So, I often visit the painting on the wall, still hanging there, And maybe it will be so always, Until one day I find it everywhere, Because I wish to love her in a million ways!

Painting of love This afternoon I saw a painting hanging on the wall, It was of a maiden in the prime of her beauty, The background was painted in rainbow colours, one and all, I had every reason to admire the artists sagacity, Her form looked perfect worthy of every appreciation, Her eyes interacted with mine, Her lips had a strong and intense red sensation, And from her arose feelings divine, Although it was just a portrait, A still painting hanging on the still wall, She was a feeling that moved through eyes into the heart without any freight, And in me, just like other mesmerised onlookers, she did feelings of life and love install, Maybe I only felt so, maybe I wanted to feel so, Because her eyes, her form, her everything reminded me of someone, And I imagined her in this painting on the wall, and I allowed my mind to believe so, As long as she did not remind me of anyone, or everyone, but just her, my special someone, So I sat there looking at the painting on the wall, I admired the salient aspects of her colourful beauty, And now I too was still, still like the painting and still like the dead wall, Now, not the painting, but the stillness it exuded had become my new propensity, Like a flower that is beautiful in the presence of the beauty that holds itself within it so still, A state where all conflicts are exhumed and everything that represents profanity dies, That is when this painting with million joys my heart fills in the life’s unforgiving mill, And recreates her colourful visions within me, and now my life just on them relies, So, I often visit the painting on the wall, still hanging there, And maybe it will be so always, Until one day I find it everywhere, Because I wish to love her in a million ways, in the narrow lanes, on the byways and all the highways!

He spent the last four years of his life there engaged in practice of Zazen (meditation), painting, and joining tea ceremonies and poetry gatherings with the domain’s elite. Many of Musashi’s famous ink paintings were created during this period of intense personal reflection. By this time, Japan had become politically stable and war was now a distant memory. Musashi, being among the last generations who had personally experienced conflict, sensed that samurai were losing their sense of identity. He resolved to make a pilgrimage to Reigandō Cave43 in 1643 and started writing Gorin-no-sho there, hoping to preserve for posterity his Way, and what he believed to be the very essence of warriorship. A year later he fell ill, and the domain elders encouraged him to return to Kumamoto to be cared for. He continued working on his treatise for five or six months. On the twelfth day of the fifth month of 1645, he passed the not quite finished manuscript to his student Magonojō. He gave away all his worldly possessions, and then wrote Dokkōdō, a brief list of twenty-one precepts that summed up his principles shaped over a lifetime of austere training. He died on the nineteenth day of the fifth month of 1645. It is said that he had taken ill with “dysphagia,” which suggests perhaps that he had terminal stomach cancer. Some say he died of lung cancer. In Bukōden, it is recorded that Musashi was laid in his coffin dressed in full armor and with all his weapons. It evokes a powerful image of a man who had dedicated his whole life to understanding the mind of combat and strategy. As testament once again to the conspiracy theories surrounding Musashi’s life, I am reminded of a bizarre book titled Was Musashi Murdered and Other Questions of Japanese History by Fudo Yamato (Zensho Communications, 1987). In it the author postulates that Musashi’s death was actually assassination through poisoning. The author argues that Musashi and many of his contemporaries such as the priest Takuan, Hosokawa Tadaoki (Tadatoshi’s father) who was suspected of “Christian sympathies,” and even Yagyū Munenori were all viewed with suspicion by the shogunate. He goes so far as to hypothesize that the phrase found at the end of Musashi’s Combat Strategy in 35 Articles “Should there be any entries you are unsure of, please allow me to explain in person…” was actually interpreted by the government as a call for those with anti-shogunate sentiments to gather in order to hatch a seditious plot (p. 20). This is why, Fudo Yamato argues, Musashi and these other notable men of his age all died mysteriously at around the same time.

It is not without good reason that the literary tradition of pastoral poetry can look back on an almost uninterrupted history of over two thousand years since its beginnings in Hellenism. With the exception of the early Middle Ages, when urban and court culture was extinguished, there have been variants of this poetry in every century. Apart from the thematic material of the novel of chivalry, there is probably no other subject-matter 15 that has occupied the literature of Western Europe for so long and maintained itself against the assaults of rationalism with such tenacity. This long and uninterrupted reign shows that ‘sentimental’ poetry, in Schiller’s sense of the word, plays an incomparably greater part in the history of literature than ‘naïve’ poetry. Even the idylls of Theocritus himself owe their existence not, as might be imagined, to genuine roots in nature and a direct relationship to the life of the common people, but to a reflective feeling for nature and a romantic conception of the common folk, that is, to sentiments which have their origin in a yearning for the remote, the strange and the exotic. The peasant and the shepherd are not enthusiastic about their surroundings or about their daily work. And interest in the life of the simple folk is, as we know, to be sought neither in spatial nor social proximity to the peasantry; it does not arise in the folk itself but in the higher classes, and not in the country but in the big towns and at the courts, in the midst of bustling life and an over-civilized, surfeited society. Even when Theocritus was writing his idylls, the pastoral theme and situation were certainly no longer a novelty; it will already have occurred in the poetry of the primitive pastoral peoples, but doubtless without the note of sentimentality and complacency, and probably also without attempting to describe the outward conditions of the shepherd’s life realistically. Pastoral scenes, although without the lyrical touch of the Idylls, were to be found before Theocritus, at any rate, in the mime. They are a matter of course in the satyr plays, and rural scenes are not unknown even to tragedy. But pastoral scenes and pictures of country life are not enough to produce bucolic poetry; the preconditions for this are, above all, the latent conflict of town and country and the feeling of discomfort with civilization.

Poets, we are labourers. We move words, dusts. Carve out a little bit of sound. Shift it back and forth. Turn the hourglass. Poetry is the result of a conflicting impulse to connect and hide.

Poetry is raw, real, and pure; it is the spirit under the chaos and the very real dragons battled within. The demons and angels and the voices are often heard and necessary to field the conflicts of understanding, the dance of relationships, the revolving translucent doors leading to infinity; the prose is endless.

The white western patriarchal ordering of things requires that we believe there is an inherent conflict between what we feel and what we think - between poetry and theory. We are easier to control when one part of ourselves is split from another, fragmented, off balance.

The first hint of what is to come occurs near the end of Luther’s obscurity. In September 1517 the dutiful Johann Rhau-Grunenberg publishes a one-page broadsheet by Luther with a boring title: A Disputation against Scholastic Theology. In his broadsheet, Luther ironically lists concise propositions to be argued over—a central practice of scholasticism—in order to criticize scholasticism itself, sort of like a poet writing a poem to criticize poetry.

One has to find the integrity and develop moral responsibility to build Mother Nature back to its roots.

Chapter Six: Mistress of Red From underneath from hellish bowels, She lives the torment she shrieks and howls. A damned flame of volcanic intent, Seeks a city where her hatred may vent. Underneath the bow of vaulted earth, This spirit breaks from infernoed perch. Circles the span of inward woe, From beneath the caverns does she go. She seeks the city she may destroy, To lie in ruins for her ploy. From lofty plume of sordid ash, She delights to see her cuts and gash. Vulcania Draconis, spirit of bitter ’ire, Rings the earth with her dredful fires. Horrendous demon from Vulcan’s forge, Lays waste to the earth, her inhabitants engorged. Mighty Pompeii knew her ways, Scoffed at her threats and would not pay. In vindiction’s rage hissed she their doom, Cast them alive within their tombs. And Krakatoa and Mycenae, They would not yield, she laid them waste. An extortioness, royal supreme, To conquer or destroy, her consummate dream. How this evil one sets her pace, Rings sweet earth in her death’s nec-lace. Far from below she blasts her smoke, To cover their eyes until they choke. At her command cities fall and swell, Earthquake, tidal wave, gives masses to hell. This spirit from the blackest pit, Broods deep on those she kiss. She comes to seek those to enslave, To fuel her bowels, her booty in trade. The pride and ruination of nations and men, Seeks souls and bodies to ambition her ends. Now this licking creature of red-hot glow, Sends her heat to make fumerals. Damns the many and damns the one, As empires burn when her rage is done. A vengeful spirit, Draconis is, Smiles so pleasant as victims drop in. Opens her shotted eyes in mirth, To hear the screams of their heated death lurch. This diabolic holds much potent sway, Seeks for victims as ground gives way. She holds the riddle to the land, And holds it she must for her time is at hand. Had learned she now that Kari had come, That timeless conflict again begun. “Never did I see one I could not coerce, But now a convolcation of power, a tour de force.” Suppressed regret ruminated throughout, Yet shreds of fear left no doubt. “I will finish what was started here in mmy land, Beyond records treatise once we did stand. Past all memories, hmm, even so, Before myth began and Rome’s trumpets blowed. I will shatter her like earthenware because I mmust, She tasks mme this creature, mmy hate it is just. Wounded mme she did, her preysence calls, If nothing else, ha I will hurt her if I faullt.” On Vulcania Draconis, Kari's Diabolical Enemy Cold Steel Eternity Vol. ii

Compared with the Celt, the Northman is heavy, reserved, a child of earth, yet seemingly but half awakened. He cannot say what he feels save by vague indication, in a long, roundabout fashion. He is deeply attached to the country that surrounds him, its meadows and rivers fill him with a latent tenderness; but his home sense has not emancipated itself into love. The feeling for nature rings in muffled tones through his speech and through his myths, but he does not burst into song of the loveliness of the world. Of his relations with women he feels no need to speak, save when there is something of a practical nature to be stated; only when it becomes tragic does the subject enter into his poetry. In other words, his feelings are never revealed until they have brought about an event; and they tell us nothing of themselves save by the weight and bitterness they give to the conflicts that arise. Uneventfulness does not throw him back upon his inner resources, and never opens up a flood of musings or lyricism – it merely dulls him. The Celt meets life with open arms; ready for every impression, he is loth to let anything fall dead before him. The Teuton is not lacking in passionate feeling, but he cannot, he will not help himself so lavishly to life.

The primitive character of the new atheism shows itself in the notion that religions are erroneous hypotheses. The Genesis story is not an early theory of the origin of species. In the fourth century AD, the founding theologian of western Christianity, St. Augustine, devoted fifteen years to composing a treatise on The Literal Meaning of Genesis, never completed, in which he argued that the biblical text need not be understood literally if it goes against what we know to be true from other sources. Before Augustine, and more radically, the first-century Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria presented Genesis as an allegory or myth–an interweaving of symbolic imagery with imagined events that contained a body of meaning that could not easily be expressed in other ways. The story of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge is a mythical imagining of the ambiguous impact of knowledge on human freedom. Rather than being inherently liberating, knowledge can be used for purposes of enslavement. That is what is meant when, having eaten the forbidden apple after the serpent promises them they will become like gods, Adam and Eve find themselves expelled from the Garden of Eden and condemned to a life of unceasing labour. Unlike scientific theories, myths cannot be true or false. But myths can be more or less truthful to human experience. The Genesis myth is a more truthful rendition of enduring human conflicts than anything in Greek philosophy, which is founded on the myth that knowledge and goodness are inseparably connected. From the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley…to twenty-first century exponents of creationism, apologists for theism have tried to develop theories that explain the origins of the universe and humankind better than prevailing scientific accounts. In doing so they are conceding to science an unwarranted authority over other ways of thinking. Religion is no more a primitive type of of science than is art or poetry. Scientific inquiry answers a demand for explanation. The practice of religion expresses a need for meaning, which would remain unsatisfied even if everything could be explained.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries- -Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds. This is about getting to know each other

There is a theory which has not yet been accurately formulated or given a name, but which is very widely accepted and is brought forward whenever it is necessary to justify some action which conflicts with the sense of decency of the average human being. It might be called, until some better name is found, the Theory of Catastrophic Gradualism. According to this theory, nothing is ever achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice, but on the other hand no considerable change for the better is to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval. History necessarily proceeds by calamities, but each succeeding age will be as bad, or nearly as bad, as the last. One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret police forces and so forth, because these are the price that has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand “human nature” will always see to it that progress is slow or even imperceptible. If you object to dictatorship you are a reactionary, but if you expect dictatorship to produce good results you are a sentimentalist.

2020 Quarantine Killings by Playon Patrick And they ask: how do black boys write about their city? How do we know street if we don't know un-cracked sidewalk? They ask: how do these black boys know anything about their city? How the buildings are sitting on corners where brothers' bodies are still learning how to rot. There are small crosses placed in the grass where families cannot afford to bury their loved ones Reminds my brothers and I that we are early graves before we are anything else. We call those corners playgrounds, We call those corners the killing fields. We call our bodies bullets even if we were never aimed in the right direction We called the remnants of our mother's family the Diaspora tree. We make a catalog of prayers out of broken hands We pray for our family tree to make its way back home to this soil. We use our hands to dig the graves we cannot afford. We are farmers - our broken black bodies - We have never know city, never known comfort, Never known safe street in any city. We use our feet to walk streets paved by sunlight, And asked our shadows if they meant to choose this skin. We make a catalyst of bodies our dinner menu And we eat with our eyes closed. We are fed lies so easily it tastes like medicine. Always conflicted between being black and being people. I wish God could have given us a choice. For years we have been told that there is something we need to scrub off this body As if this dirt could go away Working in the field make you realize how easily black can cook in the sun. How easily we turn on each other for a little slice of the pie. We don't know this city - how it was built with our grandmother's arthritic hands. how we wouldn't have gotten a house or a bed when it was first built When it was first settled - when it was first taken from the Indians When our God believed in the same beginning. We don't know home. We don't know how generations of our people could use these legs Could run miles on end into the night Our faces bedazzled with the remnants of the stars We will forever search for our forefathers' footsteps We don't know home - we know run We know this land has never been ours We know how to fold ourselves into nothing We know our sweat and tears tenderize this soil Somehow we make fertilizer for the soil We know how to make these hands be useful We are the farmers of every revolution No country was built without the piling up of dead bodies This country just happens to be where our dead were dragged and hung up. America: the land of the free and home of the brave We fought and died for that slogan right beside our white brothers Doesn't that make us worth something? Tonight a riot is the language of the unheard

I will not speak of the woman, round and heavy, like me, who will give birth to a child she’ll be ashamed to name.