A Moment of Silence

#20

Stop stalking Farzana... Find something else to do!

#17 by FarzanaVersey

Author Versey:

Since you have on purpose chosen to make an appearance here to throw in your “critique” of this piece of garbage in an apparently transparent, feeble, and totally futile attempt to legitimize this “poet”, I consider it my sacred duty, as a conscientious chowk community member (yes, there ARE creatures like that in this jungle), to bring to your attention that your attempts to rehabilitate this discredited entity appear utterly pathetic and totally moronic to me!

It’s clear to all SANE individuals on this web-site (a definition which may or may not include “out of ordinary” individuals such as yourself) that this piece of “poetry” is little more than a half-hearted slapping together of newspaper headlines (a technique which I’m sure you are intimately familiar with), tear-jerker Harlequin romance novel titles (which can probably still melt low-level intellects (and I’m not naming any names here (I like to stay alive, you see)) by deluging them with “soft” words, and other stuff specifically targeted to take advantage of the limited attention span of our vast multitude of innocent chowkies!

This “poet” is a repeat criminal – he has a track record of trying to commit the same crime earlier, when he conned (confused?) even the likes of seasoned veterans such as Dr. LokRaj into confusing man-goo with mango! He also has a history of carrying out delusional conversations with his numerous alter-egos. He needs psychiatric counseling administered by a professional shrink, not the services of a second- or third-rate poetry critic!

Everything about this “poet” is crooked! If you don’t believe me, go check his picture on his interactor’s page. Let’s leave aside for a moment the possibility that it may not REALLY be his picture, the fact that he wears a goatee (indicating that he may or may not be a member of the clan of closet “beards”), the fact that he doesn’t even know how to SPELL “chowkies” accurately, and a few other details – just look at his unnatural posture! The way he sits should make it plain – anyone, even you, can see it – that he is CROOKED! Just look at his left arm – how UNNATURALLY it goes around his back (and what SANE individual would smoke a cigarette in this age of enlightenment, I ask you!) I am not sure, but he even seems to have a third leg which he blatantly exposes high up to the thigh – how shameless an individual one must be to accomplish THAT feat!

I’m at a certain disadvantage in elaborating further on the merits of this strange creature of thousand words that this “poet” has vomited – since I’m not a poet, merely a janitor! But I’m extremely sensitive to situations which need an immediate and thorough clean-up. The clincher evidence, of course, is that in my professional capacity as a janitor, I can assure you that a refrigerator can NEVER be frozen (unless you move it inside another, larger freezer)! If, in spite of all this evidence, you still see some legitimacy in his work, then there could even be a slight possibility that you may be blind!

Sincerely,
BeeJay.

#18

You know I rarely agree with you but on this count, I got go with you :)

Poems are about expressions, about hints and allegations, about subtle emotions and about deep thinking. And what do we see here…Sara jahan ka dard humary jigr main hai aur who bhi badtehzeebi say!

here we go again !

.......... first, if this is a poem then i am a peter pan ........... second, who cares ?....... we have bigger problems - like what to have for dinner tonight or whether to wear briefs or boxers ...................

......but seriously, did anyone read this .... this ..... whatyoumayallit ?......... it seems that every time nature calls and someone has an urge they think it is okay to defecate all over chowk ....... who is going to clean up this mess ?

........... but i did get the message - the ummah has been wronged and it is justified in blowing up things that they do not understand and cannot hope to build themselves ......... is that it?....... now can we get back to working on the dinner menu ?

Re: # 18

Dear readers, I will digress, and since I do have a captive audience, besides Hamid is gagging for it...well if you all insist I must:

At long last my numero uno fan Hamid M has graced us with his appearance....you have been sorely missed by your cheer-leader bimbettes....you are now a Corollary (look it up in the dictionary Hamid good boy now...) to anything I write. So this one is dedicated specially for you.

There will be many more coming up. So belly and chin up for the roller-coaster ride Hamid boyyy...

With his infinite pearls of wisdom Hamid wisecracks ``if this is a poem then i am a peter pan``

Hamid you are treading on very thin ice. By claiming to be ``Peter Pan`` you are sounding more and more like your arch-hero Michael Jackson. Im sure that the similitude and intimate affinity between yourself and Wacko Jacko runs deeper than ``moon-walking`` ! Perhaps certain less benign habits you would like to share with the general public ?

Hamid M then quizically ponders, in a Hamlet sort of manniere ``whether to wear briefs or boxers?``

The fact that Hamid knows how to wear either is utter misguidance. Hamid things are done incrementally. Once mummy ceases your nappy training session only then you can go on to wear briefs or boxers. Oh sorry I forgot they have to perform a very rare nip and tuck upon thee Hamid jeeeee....ahhh good luck in surgery.....

Hamid feeling desolate peers toward the limitless-blue sky and asks ``who is going to clean up this mess`` ?

This is where Benevolent Beejay with his bacteria-addled mop intervenes and self-crusadingly mops up ...but he soon becomes cognizant that what he has mopped is actually his own excrement....gollly gosh more mopping up is needed by a more adept janitor. Time to hang your keys now Mr Janitor! Good boy.....

Hamid then fuels his batteries and like a regal Easter bunny jumps up and enlighteningly quotes ``the ummah has been wronged and it is justified in blowing up things that they do not understand and cannot hope to build themselves is that it?.......As usual our eager infant is running before he can crawl and has not even read the prologue. Surprise. Surprise !!!

Hamid summarises ``now can we get back to working on the dinner menu`` ?

Hamid (M)anure the menu for tonight is what our resident janitor has mopped up. Would you like to sample a tad bit ?

A la carte menu to be continued....................................

Signed

``Machiavelli`s child``

Woody Allen, a Westerner: ``As a filmmaker, I`m not interested in 9/11, it`s too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other....Political quesitons, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral -- not important. History is the same thing over and over again.`` (Pagesix.com)

Ozer:

An individual voice has every right to be rendered, that is the reason why I thought your prologue could either be seen as defensive or a pre-emptive self-chastisement before a `crime`. And speaking out IS a crime. Don`t you know you are supposed to live in a balanced world, where every word must be weighed against another? You cannot speak about only one side -- what about the other, they will ask you. What about the atrocities in your own backyard? Talk about those. Leave the West alone...

This is when your silence should come in handy. Instead, you say, ``Inevitably this poem will be misinterpreted by the unseeing naked masses and Machiavelli’s children.``

This is too vast a spectrum...or if irony befits, then the unseeing naked masses are helpless products of Machiavellis.Their ears too are ``clogged with wax``, but for different reasons.

If ``This NEVER intended to be a 9/11 poem``, you have to go that extra mile...and you have tried. There are lines that reach out to be ``piled`` but not ``slipped off our tongues``.

I hope you are not one of those who will stay snug only in the ``anguish and affliction``. I am aware that poetry is an intensely personal expression, but the long sentences could have been pared down, if only to give it a rhythm.

Cliches are often truisms, but not terribly poetic...Why did you have to use the newspaper-like ``US intransigence and Osama`s arrogance not two sides of the same coin`` when it was to be followed with, ``Both are hunters with hungry intent``? Why kill your own lines?

Also, the use of some words in Caps appeared self-conscious- the flow should be its own emphasis.

``But tonight, we will keep on screaming``...and will you hear those screams when your ears are clogged with wax?

``But leave the poets.
Whose innocuously magnetic poetry will remain
On the frozen refrigerator of our consciousness ...``

Are you sure?! Pray, why? If innocuous poetry can be magnetic and refrigerators can be frozen, then I`ll be damed to leave the poets.

You will understand that I am only ``slaying``, only ``singing``, but not for ``the dead``...but for those who strive to be alive.

khwaja sera...
i can see kulsumbeig and husnaangelique here...waiting for thunder, spiritualgypsey,sarahhashwani,moazzammudasar and last but not the least hamidm...;)

Paki sala Paki rahega, he can feel pain for Agentinians and Chileans but nothing about the monumental scale murder, rape and pillage they commited in Bangladesh. Or closer home the entire destruction of a nation and a people in the name of ``strategic depth``.

this bugger knows about Zapatistas in Chiapas or Iraqi`s in Falluja but mention Kaluchak, Hazara`s or kunduz, he will have to reach for google.

Assuming that Ameican`s own concervative estimates of 120,000+ Iraqis deaths since Americans ``freed`` them on March 20, 2003, are correct; and the number of months US has been in Iraq is 30. Which means that with an average 4000 Iraqi deaths per month, Americans are potentially causing a 9/11 every month in Iraq.

poem please....

Re: # 11

Urstruly note that at least 5,000 civilians have been slaughtered ``during`` the invasion of Iraq alone. As more evidence is collated, month by month this figure tilts toward 10,000.
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of US intelligentsia painstakingly gathered this evidence which testifies, as you rightly point out, that a 9/11 occurs every month. But where are the sound bites now? Abu Ghraib is yet another feather in Uncle Sam`s tyrannical foreign policy cap.

How about an `appropriate` amount of silence for Hindus killed over the ages across the world by Islamic and Christian fundamentalists?

Re: # 10

AV KRISHNA

You hit the nail on the metaphorical head. Foolhardy would be the souls who dismiss the fact that violence is waged against Hindus and Sikhs who are gruellingly massacred in Jammu & Kashmir and elsewhere. 700,000 Kashmiri Pandits in refugee camps without evenhandedness, unfortunately any type of ehtnic, class, religion and caste-based grandstanding inflates the ego away from truism and justice. Underneath this shady veneer lies political ambition and ill-fated nationalism.

Society needs more Arundhati Roy`s, martyrs en route to greater things. Planned shows of consciousness by political heavyweights never cuts the mustard. And lip-service gesturing is the satire we breath-

Day in. Day out.

All ethnicities, classes, castes and religions have a part to play in these toxic acts of violence. Gujarat is a case in point. I remember that India Today reported that A group of outsiders from the far-right extremist leaning Deobandi Tableeghi Muslim sect sieged the mosques in Godhra and deliberately inflamed passions and inflated theological egos. 500 cows were slaughtered illegally in Bharuch in February. Many plots are conveniently foiled by the media. This is the essence of my poem.

The question AV krishna is why are these apparent facts, such as the Godhra massacre and other anti-Sikh anti-Hindu anti-Muslim anti-Buddhist communal conflagrations not debated in the media ?

Ozer

An evocative, powerful and thought-provoking poem. A clearly well-researched piece....it seems you are quite interested by Latin America. I guess space was a constraint for you. You overlooked one important part of the globe: South East Asia. Your poem could have made a brief mention highlighting the plight of the people in South East Asia, like the dictatorial military junta in Burma, what Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge did in Campbodia, Indonesia`s treatment of East Timor, Thaksin`s regime in Thailand and Lee Kwan Yu`s heavy-handedness in Singapore.

Nonetheless this poem is one of the best I have read thus far.......here you are truly at your best. Dont be phased by all these cyber-junkies who don`t cut you any slack. A lot of whom love to rumour-monger about you. You are a talented poet....keep on writing. Keep up the spirit.

and i also think it`s offensive to put a time to silence, `moment of silence` vs. `lifetime of silence`

what are you trying to say? four thousand innocent people killed for nothing on a tuesday morning just deserve a moment because they are non-muslim?

this whole `moment of silence,` `month of silence,` `lifetime of silence`
you go against your claim that every human life is precious by attributing specific lengths of `silences`

ozer,

you failed to include moments of silence for the shias killed by sunnis in pakistan, female infanticide in india, and honor killings in pakistan, and i don`t know if you mention the thousands of people killed by saddam, maybe you did, the whole `poetry` thing was a bit too much.

although i can understand your anguish and sentiments, kulsumbeig does have a point about political myopia

Re: # 7

Scout

Honor killings in Pakistan are shameful while patriarchs are fleeing, assassins are brandishing their venom through age-old Hudood Ordinances introduced during Zia`s epoch. Police constables and law enforcers with greased palms turn deaf dumb and blind to the nauseating reality. Masi Mai is merely one instructive case in point.

As for female infanticide in India, the Atharva Veda postulates: ``The birth of a girl, grant elsewhere; here, grant a boy`` The repugnancy and travesty of female infanticide is rooted in the Vedic period. Moments of gender discrimination are evidenced in the writings of Manu. The prevalent and prostituted philosophy in most societies, of Eastern or Western persuasion, is that the female is under the custody of males

From womb to tomb.

In patrilineal-ravaged societies like South Asia archaic traditions from time immemorial coupled with a staggering demand for dowry exacerbates the perpetuation of infanticide.

The malevolent attitude vis-a-vis women is especially rampant in Tamil Nadu and Bihar. In Rajasthan, mostly amongst the Rajputs who enjoy a majority there, daughters of life are seen as a

Burden of nature.