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Poets
Jun 1, 2017 14:02:27 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 1, 2017 14:02:27 GMT
No, seriously, The pics came out OK so I can tell you a bit which you probably know.
Zamzama, is a massive, heavyweight gun, an 80 pounder, 14 feet, 4½ inches in length, with a bore aperture of 9½ inches, cast in Lahore in copper and brass by Shah Nazir at the orders of Shah Wali Khan, the wazir of Ahmad Shah Durrani. In English literature, it has been immortalized by Rudyard Kipling as Kim's gun. It has been said that whoever holds the gun holds the Punjab and it has changed sides many times.The gun was first used in the third battle of Panipat in 1761. Its last battle was in 1818 after which it was stored in various places finally coming to rest in Lahore.
It is hard to take in the size of it, I tried to get a person in the pics to give some sense of scale.It is the sort of big that when you first see it you go "WHOA!!"
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Poets
Jun 1, 2017 14:06:51 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 1, 2017 14:06:51 GMT
Any more requests before I forget how to post pics again?
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Poets
Jun 1, 2017 15:44:33 GMT
Post by onlyMark on Jun 1, 2017 15:44:33 GMT
Topless?
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Poets
Jun 1, 2017 23:32:21 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 1, 2017 23:32:21 GMT
In your worst nightmares.
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 0:43:45 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jun 4, 2017 0:43:45 GMT
Bixa, I am fond of the Beat Poets...Lawrence Furlenwotsit (Furlinghetti)... Here's a nice bit of coincidence: one of my sisters just posted this on facebook. Timely, no? Happy 98th Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who decades ago wrote: “Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them. Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced, and whose bigots haunt the airwaves. Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture. Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own. Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed. Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away. My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.” ― Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 3:54:11 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 4, 2017 3:54:11 GMT
I was of the Beat generation more than the hippy. We would hang out in a couple of shop cellars in the city. Listen to people poetry-reading to the accompaniment of a dude playing a tall double bass. Only black coffee was available...but there were those who added Brandivino to it.
We girls wore black stockings and everyone wore the black roll-neck tops. I saw a photo of Ferlinghetti wearing rope sandals so I bought some cotton twist rope and hand sewed a pair. Everyone wanted a pair...ditto the navy and white striped top sailors top I just about lived in.
My cat I named Japhy Ryder, not knowing at the time the influence the real Gary Snyder was to have on me later.
Oh, we were young and it was in interesting times.
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 5:38:04 GMT
Post by bjd on Jun 4, 2017 5:38:04 GMT
Despite my not being a poetry fan in general, I must say Ferlinghetti's poem does more to express the current state of the USA than any editorial. And prescient too!
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 6:35:23 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 4, 2017 6:35:23 GMT
from "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. about 1995
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull ...
· From Selected Poems 1947-1995 by Allen Ginsberg (Penguin,
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 7:33:30 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 4, 2017 7:33:30 GMT
deep. Full of brain food. I do like a poem that makes me think questa. Bixa...thank you, Ferlinghetti manages to observe, interpret and chastise the world in a way that gives voice to how many of us feel. Does that make sense? I'll shut up
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 7:46:16 GMT
Post by mossie on Jun 4, 2017 7:46:16 GMT
I am so not into poetry, but Ferlinghetti speaks for many.
Questa, I can just picture you in your roll neck sweater, short skirt, and black stockings with a flash of virginal white thigh.
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 10:21:00 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 4, 2017 10:21:00 GMT
Don't forget...we were growing up in the Cold War era and there was a feeling of nothing could be done. Cuban crisis had a friend of mine go into shock when an electrical transformer blew up as she cycled past it. She thought it was a bomb from the Reds. Then the secret Indochinese war burst open and we found we had something to do...Protest. The times were rapidly changin'.
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 10:23:52 GMT
Post by questa on Jun 4, 2017 10:23:52 GMT
Alas Mossie, I never wore a mini...too difficult to get in and out of an MGB.
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Poets
Jun 4, 2017 13:04:40 GMT
Post by mossie on Jun 4, 2017 13:04:40 GMT
But minis were designed for that era. Spoilsport.
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Poets
Jan 29, 2018 13:02:12 GMT
Post by onlyMark on Jan 29, 2018 13:02:12 GMT
Questa, I can just picture you in your roll neck sweater, short skirt, and black stockings with a flash of virginal white thigh. I'm glad you managed to type the last eleven letters.
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Poets
Jan 30, 2018 10:30:14 GMT
Post by questa on Jan 30, 2018 10:30:14 GMT
I posted this poem a few weeks ago and am surprised that no-one except Mick has acknowledged it at all. I have moved it to this thread as the "Poem of the day" thread seemed to be on life support. Reading the 3 threads about poetry shows how some people had bad school experiences having to dissect and analyze what the writer intended to be seen as a whole. If it means anything, this is written in sonnet form because I like a discipline to work with. You do not have to judge it or comment on the poem. not even good or bad. Maybe tell me if you liked it or not. It was written about 1974. The Rainbow Serpent is the Creator/God of the world for the indigenous Australians.
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I’ve wandered in this Rainbow Serpent land And marvelled at the colours. Blues and gold Adorn the coast, then greens and browns unfold Shimmering plains, as long-dry seas expand. Then heat haze country, where the earth is black, Or clay pans, sparkling salt on shades of rust, Where lizards shine like gems in smoky dust As willy-willies drift along the track.
But colours – none for splendour match “the Heart”, Where dying suns on sandy dunes have bled. Blue-purple mountains crown primeval art Of ghost-white gums and crimson river bed Where opalescent birds from saltbush start And brooding over all – the Rock, blood red
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Poets
Jan 30, 2018 13:28:25 GMT
Post by mickthecactus on Jan 30, 2018 13:28:25 GMT
The more I read it the better it gets.
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Poets
Jan 30, 2018 16:44:35 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 30, 2018 16:44:35 GMT
Beautiful, Questa -- so evocative.
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Poets
Jan 30, 2018 18:29:42 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 18:29:42 GMT
Evocative indeed. The metaphors and imagery, how you framed and highlighted colors makes it almost visual as well Questa. Something I strive to do when I write but I am not always successful with.
(As an aside I want to ask, do you find that your urges to write have anything specific to them, time of day, a one time thought that overcomes you and stays with you until you feel it's something you have to develop into more, thus creating a poem. I ask this because my writing has certain characteristics that are fairly consistent.)
Thanks for moving this and expressing what you did. Many times posts of all manner and topic do get lost and/or overlooked.
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