Shephard Boy

Shepherd boy;
sickel grabed young boy;
kill no sheep.

Shepherd gurl;
put your apron again;
love him deep.

Shepherd dad;
send not your son far;
Loose you may.

Shepherd Mum;
Put your light in him;
he kills sheep.

My Silence

This cuboid room has harboured me for a long time, and it is beyond assumption that I do not seek refuge anywhere else except here, most of my days go without any mortal company, hence its just me and my bovine walls. Similar to my terms of circumstances, are the walls behind one of the doors, leading to the other room. The other rooms of the house have been deprived of conversation for a very long time, the cause being lack of visiters, and by now I contemplate, they must have forgotten their dialect altogether. There's another door which leads to the verandah: my teacher. The verandah opens up in sudden limitless fury to the skies, the bold superlative unostentatious skies, throwing all variations of expresions through climatic and weather changes. I love the skies for they never cease to speak, their voice can be heard all across the ages. And they hold my imagination particularly because they do not confabulate, their wisdom is himalyan, and their wisper, the sound of a thousand saints, of unquarelous eternity. Each cloud has the capability to answer a new question in the most inarticulate and most expressive manner.

On one such thought provoking, lurid day, as I was gearing my thoughts for another battery of questions; there was a gentle knock on the door. Much to my excitement I jumped and opened the door, only to find empty air standing there, and the walls turned to me in the laziest manner contemplatable, and I would not be surprised if they would have cursed me then for making them turn; but the fact of the matter remains that there was no one at the door. I turned and banged the door behind me, and gave up on any clandestine who or wht? no giving way to the dellima of imagination. case closed! Seconds later there was another knock, this time though a timid one, even gentler, quite an unsure knock. It was now that i realised that it did not come from the door inside, but from the door leading to the veranda. Are you surprised? I was! but I was only surprised and not afraid so out of sheer inquisitiveness i opened the door - only to find empty space and fatigued skies. R u Surprised? I wasent! Being a hot summer day, the sun, itself drenched in sweat was gradualy being quenched of its ever-so glorious flaming powers; tired of buring all through the day, it planned to extinguish and retire. The clouds werent much shady and seemed to have made excess love and lay distant on the sky bed, too tired to look at each other. There still lay a question seducing an answer which lay hidden in some unknown force too minute for reality and too obscure for imagination. There being no angel outside all that lay to uncover from anonimity needed a certain amount of observation. Who Kocked The DOOR?

Scanning the marble floor and then one corner and then the other, I saw only dry leaves and some dried bonsaies here and there in small mud vessels, ants playing chain games and parading to an undisclosed destination. In one corner, by the shade of the wall sat a pegion, looking stoned with the maculate arid heat. It sat unmoved looking at me, with as curious eyes as my own, big and bold. Lying in the shade like an admiral hiding frm his comrades in the house of his mistress. Could it have been the visitor?

I apologise but I am not much of a nature person, though to be honest I have no grudges or misunderstandings with it, its just that I live in a metropolitan city, and nature has long evacuated this land. I have never been ignorent of its immense and imaculate powers, but the fact lies that it has been ignorent of me, it devoured this city of its favour long ago when men learned to be greedy and started worshiping the lust for materialistic and monetary belongings. I though, have felt the beauty of it through books and films and through hightened imaginations, I have read the poetry of flowers and trees and breezes and much liked the feel of those imaginary gifts on my skin : but I am not entiteled to witness it in person with naked eyes as I live here.

When one has such deprived powers of understanding of nature, all gaps of comunication between beast and birds are broadened. The pegion looked with silent eyes, corners filled with expectation. I did not have any knowledge of comunicating with such organisms and thus was left to my instinct. Motioning it to wait with my hand (as if it understood, but still!), went inside to fetch some water, assuming that to be the centre of inquiry. Moments later returning, placed it in front of the pegion, fearing to scare it away returned to the door with slow haste. Mr.Pegion took a couple of beak dances into the pot and returned me with the same look he had been carrying. Was I wrong in my contemplation of its need? I wonder. Out of the infinite ways of communication, I choose to speak to erase all bonds of physical distinctness.

"My apologies with you my friend but I fail to recognise your need and my unruled mind can not reconstruct any structure of want of yours from my being, I rather request you to plainly inquire and if it shall be in my capabilities I shall diliver without hesitation", trying to sound formal. Returned by the same look but a little more weiry.

"Dont you have friends, I have very rarely seen any of you alone like this?". This did stir some chord in his orchestra, for he moved closer. I went on with my verbal dysentry, for when a man has not had company for long and does not fall into the category of a loner, erupts like mount zeus upon recieving one. I asked him questions which could have had only verbal answers, but to my surprise, a companion with silence as his gift, presents more tolerable and less pitiable answers then those with them. Amazement comes very often to people who seek it, in their unconscience; I did not recognise the hour as i went on with my monotone and recieved languid silence for answers. Soon enough the sun was perched at the lowest point and was almost deprived of all its flames and looked like a vermilon mark on a beautiful forehead, and under it lay two wicked concrete eyes. I had quitened for some time now and the pegion walked up a little further by the end of almost an hour and a half and took off. Look at the courtious bird, it waited for my silence, look at this divine creature, it waited so not to insult a beast.

Much like myself I returned to my room, fell on my bed and meditated upon the incident and started writing about something that had been on my mind. The monotony of the day overtook me again and soon everything say in the lap of earth's shadow. The daily chores takeup quite a lot of one's time and so my dinner and deeds happened pricicely before I was about to sleep. I think my sleep is more punctual then anyother phenomena, it is so ruthlessly punctual that most times it arrives before its prescribed hour. The day was gone and dreams followed.

Apparently, the coming of this bird became a habitual thing. And every evening it would come by itself to make short or long conversation. Every evening it brought its silent answers and I confess now that I have had the most beautiful conversations with this soft feathered bird. We talked, how?; Any attempt to question the nature or dialect of the first person answer would end up in pure mind boggleing techniques, but that is nature, the simplest things about it are the toughest to understand. Why do we have to question so much. Can not one animal have a respectable and sanguine conversation, with another animal; Ok, bird!

Mr.Pegion or Perrora as I named it(I wonder if we social animals ever refrain from naming anything, I have named my aya fishface, because she has a face like a pyrana, and now the whole neighbourhood says she is fishy), had a wife and a family, his wife was taking care of newly delivered eggs and Perrora thought that the eggs looked very cute. His love for his family was quite heart touching. He flew all around the city and looked for food so his flock could feed and that is how he earned a big name amongst them and lived of his own. His vertual dislike for his fellowbirds was because of their narrow nature and lack of learning. His flock which I presumed like most other flocks were only interested in eating and nothing else, hense wisdom was not a part of their understanding and parrora always stood out. He also informed me about the various methods of weather focast, which unfailingly have helped me to this date. But I shall deny to share that information for it was quite out of secrecy that he thaught me all that.

What he learned from me would in short be put as nothing, but he kept coming. His repetitive visits ofcourse brought some form of conversation in my life and so he was quite welcome. But he amazed me with the fact that he always came alone, never once with neone, upon my insisting to bring his wife, he hoarded the request aside, for fear of too many people coming to have my food, which I said was not a problem. But he never did. Perrora was a far better person if I may call him so, then most two legged beasts I have seen. He sang with the wind and flew amongst the stars, yet he held his head firm on the ground. A great companion as he was. But something was not right. He was not happy. He was running from something, something that I could not contemplate. He was afraid of something. His wife and his children, were there but they were not there. neither were mine. They left me long ago. Left me to myself and my walls and my skies and everything in the wide world but them. Perrora was afraid of this feeling. I am not sure but he was.

True to his word, he never brought a single friend along with him. But one fine evening he came and knocked. It was very different this time. He came with the wind, swaying like death itslf and knocked upon my door. I am not sure if all of it was a dream but I could hear him talk and he made me promise him that whatever mistakes I made, I would not make them again. He made me prominse him that I would love my family in my next life and I did! I did; I swore and tears ran down my cheeks and I missed my baby's voice in the house, and in a flash I knew that the walls wernt bored they just missed the child they had supported. I had not only given up on my family, I had taken away a lot from this house aswell. I was the factor, and all along I had made only one friend, only one, near my end, before falling to the ground because of heart failure, I realised, just one friend in all my life, Mr. Perrora; MY SILENCE!!!

Poor Old Chair

A half backed chair presents itself in sheepish expression, inviting the boy to sit on him. But before he chooses to sit on it, he has to put a pillow to prevent his back from hurting, for the chair has grown old and frail, and his bones are pointed. The boy wakes up in utter disgust from the floor. Wakes up to another day, another stupid day closer to the end. He follows the floor towards the chair, puts a red towel on its back, and adjusts his bottox on the seat. The chair gives away a low creak, may be in greating. He's a good chair, very educated, very courtious, very gentlemanly. If he would have been born in the 18th century, he might have been assosiated in society with the best gentlemen, but unfortunately he belongs to our time. He cant even complain, or question it. Who does he ask or blame? Its not as if he was asked before being sent to this world. We are all created in some hot furnace and then moulded in another and then sent off to be sold to some low rated shop, to satisfy someone elses comforts and desires or greed or lust,for whichever the need be; in this case for the boy to sit. So he never complains, because he knows its only futile and painful. He has read many a books sitting by the table and he has aquired a sky full of wisdom. But look at him, he cant even share it with our boy, because by the time he starts to creak, the creak already ends. Oh poor old chair, i wish i could help you, but i apologise, we are all in one way or the other the same. we all become half backed by the time we have finished reading as much as you have. and then we realise that its apparently useless, because no one will understand. oh poor old chair, this is not our home, this is just a voyage, we shall reach home soon; all alike. The end of the journey, joins us all in a bond and we become; colorless; and formless; and needless. So we become harmonious, out of compultion. But until the journey we are to distinguish and be distinguished, accepted and discarded, bought and sold, molded and destroyed. This is us! just commodities to satisfy needs, the real one alive is money. He can be happy and do what he wishes, we just serve him, for better or worse. And return to scrap before, as i mentioned returning to nothingness. But why am i telling you this? you already know the process and the result. But poor old chair what of the boy? the sweet boy! the boy you supported for so long. Dont shake my friend, dont! i suggest you let him be.

The Blue Eyed Boy

She gently weeps on her pillow
Beside the sleeping eyes of her boy
Afraid to awake her reflection hollow
To walk away from her dreaming toy
In sweet melancholy her tears follow
Consequences of her frequent high
Her diseased body swims towards the gallow
Everyday she hide her tears with a vacant lie
The noose tightens as evermore she swallow
Bachus's gift in the drifting nigh'
She dreams of remaining life; shallow
Singing her last lullaby
Her last sip end lifes wallow
Tender soul lift and fly
No loving touch awake tomorrow
The radient eyes of the blue eyed boy
No one shall weep for his sorrow
After knowledge strike the tree of joy
Then he will weep in his lonely pillow
In bottles, his sorrow he'll cry
Drink his way past each morrow
Pray Hades end his morose life
Each new day will bring fresh horro'
While memories will casualy crusify
Until the night one such tomorrow
Hades shall hear his quivering sigh
One such sip shall then follow
He leave this poem with words goodbye
To lay together on a soft dry pillow
Under hade's, singing tree of joy
Wine and death bring together
The pink eyed girl; the blue eyed boy.

dust

I was riding a bike-sometime back-much like anyone else-and I went blind (momentarily!!). Where are we going? We are going towards dust. There have been parades of writing about all subjects but all we know about dust is that we return to it! What does one mean by that? Well!! It means that we are born from dust and we return to it after death, this of course is true only for our physical existence if at all it is true. But let’s think about it the other way, if that is what is left of us apart from the immaculate soul which wanders until reincarnation, then can you not contemplate how important dust is. What went in that moment in my eyes could be one of your forefathers or even mine? Don’t you believe me? If you believe one part of the supposition then you will have to believe the other part as well.

I love fantasy; I have always kept my own world where I have dreamt of wierdity, pain, pleasure, heroism, almost everything capable to be copulated inside a young soft womb in the skull. And over the years I have learned hard to makes sense out of the most horrendous and nonsensical of things, what am I doing? I am just playing with thoughts. And here right now I will share with u a history of a moment.

I can feel my blood running faster, may be rushing out of my mouth as well. But all this is irrelevant, I just want you to read with care, because to you these words might seem farce, fictitious and imaginary, but they are no more fantastic then you and I, yes! that is the truth of the matter if this dust is unreal then so are we or our thoughts, then how relative are things, they are not relative they are one, just two sides of the same coin, two perceptions out of so many. DUST lies under our feet, no matter how clean, it will crawl on your body, it will make your eyes itch. It is in these moments that ignorance of imagination makes us curse the itch, makes us think of nothing better then to take a bloody bath. But! What are you washing from your body? Is it dust? Or is it history? Which has crawled to you?

As I said-I was riding a bike-it stung my eyes-I felt an itch-I closed my eyes-tried to steer by the side-got stung by an imagination-filtered into a dream-saw a flutter-and the moment has already outstretched the term "momentary". In that lapse of time I was catapulted into an obscurity, towered by a land which can be called land. A region which stretches the term outstretched to abnormal limits. Bliss is here! There is a grand door with heavenly walls and raking winds. Creaking and breaking, the door opens, at the speed: the fastest rolling, slow speed recording camera (extra slow motion), and people march. I don’t know where I am or what I am, but I wonder if I am anything more then a particle of dust.

They came out and out and out and out and out. Heaven unleashed! There is no end to it, i thought the population of the world today was too much but believe me what I am seeing is definitely not the world today and by far from anything less then a hundred times more symmetrically crowded. I hear a scream and feel a gulf under me and hooooooooo!!!!! I am flying. The wind is taking me somewhere: history does have an absurd manner of portraying itself. I am weightless and do I use the word hell!! There are more of them coming from the other side...more and I mean moooore!

Wait!........ aaah!!........ I am inside now by some phenomenon known as wind tunneling i have been sucked inside the kingdom. Tell me readers! Have u seen beauty? Isn’t it something that is most potent when we are struck by love? What does beauty signify? Peace? Tranquility? Righteousness? Yes I think these and many more of the words that swirl in the tamed universe around them. Beauty is something that pierces the eyes and makes way to the heart without a single wound or scratch or the tenderest ligament tear. I think that is beauty. When you are surprised out of your senses, when elation lifts you and elevates you to a newer spectrum of thoughts where there is harmony between you and your soul. Where the heart pounces and is ready to jump out but not for the purpose of giving you an attack but to make one realize that beauty can not be seen only with the eyes and so the heart jumps out and inside again many a times till it is satisfied with the sight.

What I see is far more placid then anything I witnessed out of this moment. Tall lush green trees with red flowers, red flowers with green stems, green stems that also populate the fruits of wisdom, the fruits plucked by small children and the trees are happy to be of some use to the naughty games, the children playing in innocence and ignorance, ignorance keeping all engulfed in peace, peace in the eyes of the young girl standing by the water, the water touching her feet, the young girl not sure of the sweet distant voices, the voices rushing through plenty houses, houses so beautiful that each seems to have been built in an eternity, eternity rising now and calling all to its bosom, the voice rushes though the houses with hell fire ordinance, the clouds cleared by the ordinance, the clouds cleared from a centre far from where I am, I am here and the voice echoes through the ground and shakes it, the shake produces a gentle sweeping wind, the wind carries me high again, high i go and back towards the door, the heat of the voice makes the wind warm and it sweeps from under me and the cool air tries to reach the ground, the cool air thus makes a drift cycle, in this cycle i am swimming and reach the door, where the soft gentle voice has taken to its true pitch, the pitch symbolizes the roar of a billion lions, the lions are at war!

Weapons flying, catching arms legs heads, the story of their detachment will be written in some book that will become an epic and later mythology and cause a new religion. How great is this table where this game of blood and tears is enjoyed and played with such devotion, where one door separates such wonders. On one side lies heaven and on another earth. What cajoles such, such irony? The men in this war were once the children plucking fruits, they have been wedded to responsibility of society and made numb and responsibility has heightened there thoughts to reproach. These lions will die here and news will fly like dust from under the immaculate door or over it, through the skies and tear tears out of the girl with peaceful eyes; sow and water the seeds of revenge in the girl and she will trample the water in sudden fury, and the boys will nip all fruits from the trees and sow dismay to the trees and here forth will be the beginning of the end. But there is no end to this beginning except the end of contemplation of dreams and memories.

I am wandering until the clouds cease to breathe and I fall form the sky and a boy, young, with a mighty sword in hand is striking his foe with a wrist of anger and looks up and the girl falls, is it a mirror? I saw my face and I entered his eyes. I go flying front wards...one bounce...two bounce...three bounce. A speck of dust-caused a moment of silence in the movement of anger-and the wrist missed its turn: in war the gift of opportunity is never left unattended. The boy was sliced and the blood from his throat spat out and as he bumped some of it went flying and sprayed drops of it in eyes and i see red...

...I am red, red all over my face, like the flower in the garden with a green shirt. There is discomfort: the voice is the same but the land has changed. The smell has changed and brings to mind a lugubrious distaste. I am light and numb, but I feel a pain, i can see a blurred environment, now my eyes are clear, now again it is blurred, the war has ended! Was it just waiting for my demise, why didn’t I know? I could have altered fate and its chapters, but i think they were written well before this day. I hear chasing at a distance as my ear is touched to the warm dusty ground, and i feel the red dust sticking to my cheeks, i feel the color of it, it is red. I seem to be flying on shoulders of a couple of people, i think they are taking me to my palace, but there are no palaces! My eyes clear again and i see my bike crushed...

They say when you die your entire life flashes in front of you...so much for living a life of fantasy in this already fantastic and grave world. I am not a martyr prince of some mighty age, but a victim of a conspiracy between a particle of dust and a break-less-bus. What the dust showed me was my life, my history, and what I endured for its unwelcome admission in my eyes was my fate and a callous present. In this age we die in wars of machines in another we would have died in wars of lust senseless serpentine emotions of brotherhood. How does it matter? I am no more and the young girl is all tears and the stream at her feet was not from a distant mountain.

From dust I rose
With dust I lived
By dust I died
To dust I returned!!!

I Thought I thought Of Everything

Dreams!! dreams!!! it is quite an act tht everyone has a right to and everyone makes use of everyone posses the talent to make use of. Qualifying for the best used rescourse of the world i think. "EVERY ONE DREAMS". If u look at it there has to be more then 100 billion dreams floating in our world swarming, chasing (Some fast, some slow, some strong, some not), crashing into each other, and all of a distinct manner in which they were prespired, from many lumps that still mortal and so many yet to come and so many that came. can u imagine how many thoughts have been let out into this swollen universe, i doubt if one day the atmosphere will explode because it will not be able to hold dreams on to the expansion just like one day the world will have no space for it will be over crowded, and wht happens then? Since we might exist and then inevitably cease to exist bt our dreams do not die they live, they do not age, they conquer : imortality. wander through the ages until one day they find another such cloud wid a similar dream (most probably a brother or sister or someone belong to the same family of dreams but definately not in-laws, then they cant sit on one cloud!!) and then join hands peacefully and chat and when they get tired of chatting, they fall down as rain.

Multiludes have thought about it, spoken about it, written about it, slept over it, lived for it, died for it, sung for it, composed for it, fought over it, had lunches and dinners over it, and they have remained a basic momento of every mortal. They have subsisted in our sub-coscience, sub- unconsciense, unconsciense, conscience, here, there, now, forever, everywhere, like this, like that. But every now and then they evolve : like any and every thing that exists either living or non-living or supernatural. The only thing is they do not age, they grow but not old. They are wht is left of us after us : "A Dream!!". We were a dream and we shall return to a dream once and for all, but tht does has no relevense here(We will talk about that somewhere else).

Can u excogitate a cloud with dreams talking amongst themselves, floating, flying way up high and way too low, through us sometimes and at other times watching over us, laughing at us, crying for us, sympathysing! It is here when some of them are floating through us that we can match its frequency (to be talking in scientific terms) and that we begin to understand its understanding. It is here that we infuse with the knowledge of wisdom and our past and of everything else.

What i would like to state is, in all these dreams and everything that is concerned with it, there is a sublime tranquility, a normality beyond reckoning, yet we blind fish, are so obscured by this reality that we forge a different or rather lethal perspective of such an extravagant tissue of understanding and swell with so much ego and pride, that even these languid dreams fabricate into much sordid deeds. "Deeds - an act comitted by a person acording to his understanding of right". But then one man's right is not another man's right aswell, we do not assume when it comes to deeds, it is not ficticious, it is real, as real as me and you. Everything done is done for a dream, assumably not a nightmare, jst a simple dream. And here we stand today with our own dreams, individual as any other, living inside us, feeding us with courage and the lust to walk on, and grab. But no dream is as blind as us, no it is not, and i will say again, it is not!! Dreams dnt show us ways, they show us goals, they show us clouds that they had sat on, and in our greed to fly and hover like that cloud, most of us devour other's of there dreams. Why this sullen phantom of us? why not a crawling snake that can teach itself yoga and imagine to fly and be evrywhere at the same moment and enjoy more then we can; by slaughter instead of love.

We! us! all of us belong to that part of the food chain where we dont feed on the flesh of our own species, and look around you. I think i do not need to write what i want to say because you can not only see the truth around but also feel what i am trying to write. We are dead from the moment we are born, one way or the other. Yet we kill and malfunction more of killing (let us not call it dream, let us call it a malfunction. i would not want to degrade the word dream by using it here). Even more, we have scared everything off, we are scared of ourselves, of everyone walking around you, everything is scared around you and runs away when we aproach. The animals have disapeared, some are hiding, the rest, dead. Every now and then when a person stands against these deeds with an invariably cosmic dream, he is assasinated! And now is the moment when everyone is caling for peace, look how cannibalistic we have become that we are fighting for peace. It is like killing your own father who loved you all his life and taught you to do the right with non-violence. Such beauty! we are ready to kill and cause disharmony for peace.

Do you know why so many of them are floating and dont come down unless ofcourse in rain, when again they fly back, because we scare them off as well. We have scared away our sacred possesion : dream. I remember my fellow friends calling out for answers, they lack imagination, they lack dreams coz they cant touch them anymore all of them are too high. let us enjoy this present. We are so advanced that we have killed our own dreams.It is so neat, so fine, i wonder if we will be able to call them back again. The most that will happen is when most of us realise what has happened they will build a great monument or if they can catch hold of any, keep them in a zoo for empty skulls to come and be amazed and imagine how it would feel to have them inside one's self. But that is one of the myriad possibilities.

And my dear derams they will keep floating if nothing happens. they will keep wandering gayly around everywhere and nowhere. Be whatever they can be and i am here bt absent for i dnt have a dream, the price i have paid for being born in the 22nd century. Welcome to the age of fanatics and brutality .I am hungry and through my window i can see a beautiful yellow cloud with a pitious expresion and my neighbour's father, walking in the grass, and i see in his pocket; a big fat wallet!!! TIME FOR FOOD!!!

Crazy

What i am is wht i speak...or so u think.
What i meditate is wht...I AM.
And if i speak tht
They say, "He is Crazy!!"

Dead And White

There he goes again
Up the ladder, down the drain
Behind bars and shackeled chain
He was hung coz a white man ordained
"Tell them i killed...because i was right"

-"Son!! any last wishes for the night"

"Dont let the dawn break upon my body,
i shall forever live in the dead of the night"

-"Hang this man! he gives society a fright"

-"Free him from his physical self"

-"We have decided now let god help"
He walked out and cried
His body hung next to him
But he was not in sight

"Amen",said the parishner
Choked and dropped dead like a winner
In a second became a mute stunner

-"Why did we hang the man and set him free!!"

-"Why did not we cleanse his soul and let him be"

All cried and cursed the white man's ordinance
Drooped dead like falling geese and filthy tenants
5 minutes and they all cried
But none in sight
A fresh dew felt in the room
Thier moist tears were not just a few

-"Let us hang him again"

-"We will fight for democracy in this dead man's domain"

-"Let us base baseless laws"

-"Create a society before night falls"

The man rose and walked and hugged
Requested them not to be bugged
"You are free from one land,
Your mind is free but your soul still stands,
Let not your other world effect your existence,
Cleanse your soul and free from sinning,
We are dead yet we meet again,
Please dont rage wars in this domain,
Let us live through our death,
Hold hands and imagine a deep breath,
Look down and see
Is that the wrold you wanted to be?
Sick and hatefull like rotten flesh,
Please realise you are beyond death's bed,
Rise above the hatefulness,
here lies the fairy beauty in obscured existence"

They held his arm
And took him again
Up the ladder, down the drain
Behind nothingness and unbearable brains
He was hung coz a dead white ordained

"Believe me i killed you because i was right"

-"Son any last wishes for the night?"

"Let me fall and this rope break my neck,
See the miracle i create,
Witness the beauty no mortal can contemplate"

-"Hang him he dosent deserve to be dead!!"

And the man was born
a lovely child
from a loving womb
on the sacred doctors bed
throughout his life
his skin he was again to shed
but bless him!!
for his murders were far away
building democracy
amongst lively, peaceful, uncertain death!!