Last poem of Koshur Qalam challenge January 2022 and a brief note on Captain America: Civil War

 Sunny Day in Winter Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم January 31st last poem of the poetry challenge poem by Dr Koshy AV

Perhaps winter has started

or it is ending

but spring comes even in piercing winter

to those who know how to hope

Perhaps

there is cold in the air

covid in the lair

but summer is found flaming the ice

sometimes, on skating rinks

Perhaps it is misty

among the trees

and the dew lies thick

on the grass

so walking barefooted is not wise

but the sun peeps out foggily

from among the leaves

high above

promising

today too will be

a sunny day -

yes, a sunny day -

(even) in (the midst of) winter.

Watched Captain America: Civil War

Damn good film but not much in it to write about - except I liked the point that was made about friendship and working with an individual or individuals being more important to Cap than even the Avengers which helps him stick with Bucky (The Winter Soldier). Though even I can't make out if it is right or wrong which is the good part about it. The difficult to judge part.

A Movie Review of "Logan," by Dr. Koshy A.V. (Wolverine meets his end, and I get to know of it only five years later!)

 "Don't Be What They Made You. Laura."

I watched "Logan", (2017) which is a movie from the Marvel stable of movies that concludes the story of Wolverine and the X-Men. This is part of my ongoing attempt to watch all Marvel and DC movies and related paraphernalia which is, of course, quite impossible. But I got to keep on moving. This one was really interesting as it shows the death of Wolverine, Professor X, and Caliban, signaling the end of the X men era, in a sense, as in it the last and most famous of the X men, Wolverine and their founder both die.

This movie was different because it was difficult to classify. Its structure is not mythic/mythological but postmodern, open-ended, with multiple exits, and entry points, leaving it difficult to decipher increasingly what it means to be right or wrong, good or evil, moral or immoral, wise or foolish in such a world. Apart from a lot of gaps that are usual, and the satisfactory end to the plot in which none of the children are harmed and in Greek tragedy style as well as Christian style the hero has to sacrifice himself to save the future mutants, is offset by the grimness of the tale, where the odds are too heavily stacked more and more on the side of the evil ones, reflecting present-day reality rather than any peek into the past. The only relief at the end is things on the ground are not yet as bad as things in the movie, as far as one knows.

The passive-aggressive child character Laura who does not talk for more than half the movie was really a strong pull for me. I don't know if people have a problem with her for being what she is but to be honest she reminded me a lot of kids on the spectrum whom the world considers mutants. In that sense, the whole movie could be about them, which is probably my own angle to it. How they are made, not created, and then someone's purpose is thrust on them, and they rebel and are then considered fit for nothing or only to be got rid of, unless they can be harnessed for the purpose of their creators, which keeps them alive but also on the a 'threat' out in the open in public and 'wanted' category. They escape to a valley across the border which is metaphoric, as the only valley I can think of where mutants can escape to is heaven. The quote that Laura uses from the famous Western at the end which she first sees with Prof. Charles is memorable. It is from Shane, the movie.

"A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can't break the mold. There's no living with the killing. There's no going back. Right or wrong, it's a brand. A brand that sticks. Now you run on home to your mother... you tell her everything's alright. There are no more guns in the valley."

Caliban saying "Beware the light" before blowing himself and some of the/his enemies up to atone for leading them to Logan, the Prof and Laura is also memorable.

But most precious of all is the hope across the border, in the valley, they may finally get to lead normal peaceful lives like all children with the help of whoever arranged their trip.

"If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way…."

The ending song by Johnny Cash was also electrifying to listen to after such a fantastic, realistic gritty movie.

Watched X-Men. However, it seems the first movie in the series is X-Men: First-Class. Have now watched about seven of the entire set. Including five of the spin-offs. Logan The Wolverine (not sure which one, have to revisit.) Apocalypse New Mutants X-Men Dead Pool Dead Pool 2 The world is divided into humans and mutants, natural or man-made. The humans fear the mutants and vice versa. We come to look at the mutants from their side, and they are not so different, after all, except for their powers. Some are evil, some good, and all have more than fifty shades of grey in them, but most gradually become part of groups that are for humans or against with various positions in between while many are forced to be only hired assassins for the sake of their bread and butter and nothing more. Trying to make a connection between X men and self, the latter mainly in America and Europe, and if from our countries either outright bad or objects for bringing in the comedy or laughs, is rather difficult. I think my only reason to watch it is as as a child I liked the comics and because I want to get as far away from India in my mind as possible. Escape and fantasy binge-watching of movies. However, the larger political picture does not escape me which is that the movies stand for the battle in America and the world between the political right and the others, with the mutants representing the others and the political right is represented by the humans, as well as spiritual diversity, a kind of neo-pan Christianity that is inclusive and understated rather than exclusive and divisive, and racist, if at all, only by default. However, economically, it has nothing to offer, being solidly capitalist, and its futurism is elitist, two points on which it loses out without probably realizing it. In a world ruled by technology that costs money, there is really no hope for reducing either the gap between the haves and have nots or making the less abled or those not abled in any way come up in life in these movies.

2 more poems

 Baby doll Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry challenge January 30th poem by Dr Koshy

AV

Baby dolls

grow up.

Some even grow wings

and fly away

but it's not too late

to confess

that's ok

as life goes forward

and not back

and "on the wings of a snow-white dove

God sent his pure sweet love

a smile from above"

for you, out of love.

January 29th Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم Poetry challenge No Prompt poem by Dr Koshy AV

If the prompt is

"no prompt"

do you write a poem

on "no prompt"

or write no poem

as it is a day

with "no prompt"?

I've done both

here, and now.

Walk in rain

 Walk in rain Koshur Qalam Poetry prompt challenge January 28th poem by Dr Koshy AV

I walk in sun

I walk in the cool of the evening

with my son

every day

It's paradise enow

No Eve, or Adam

No tree of the knowledge of good and evil

No tree of life the fruit of which will give me immortal life

No snake, just

some lazy dogs that can turn cantankerous

on the way

We walk

for a brief while

Time stops

with no beginning or end

There's only the way there and back

I pray

for no rain

We don't want to walk in rain

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Translation by me of a poem by Aparna Nair

To be a woman is

to be a rainbow

without rain and sunshine

to be without existence

To be a woman is

to be a dream,

in others' nights

to make flowers bloom

To be a woman is

to be a clutch of soil;

to be, for those who bite and grab

something to buy and sell

To be a woman is

to be a wet warmth;

a space gifted by roots

from which shoots can sprout

To be a woman is

to not be able to be oneself

Being an atheist makes some kind of sense

Being an antitheist makes some kind of sense

Being a satanist makes some kind of sense

Being a monist makes some kind of sense

Being a theist makes some kind of sense

Being a deist makes some kind of sense

Being a monotheist makes some kind of sense

Being a panentheist makes some kind of sense

What does not make as much sense is trinitarianism and polytheism/pantheism, unless seen through a very limited perspective.

What makes no sense at all is religions not seeing there is no proof for any of these things of faith that make some kind of sense, and the same with the irreligious that there is no proof that any of these positions may be wrong.

Shakespeare was a great writer. He wrote this sentence, "O reason/judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts."

This is true of today's world. Reason is now found only in the company of animals, birds, plants, and trees. I am post- human and anti-human but not in favour of AI or robotics or genetic engineering or space travel or nanotechnology and citius, altius, fortius tech ideas like gene splicing, half man and half machine, cloning, eugenics, cryo-gen(et)ics, simulated earth, augmented reality, and all such rubbish. There are, here too, post-humanisms and anti-humanisms, and I am post-human and anti-human in the sense that the age of the anthropocene is over, I realise that man with his innate ideas of humanism and the humane is now a phase that has passed and we live in a world of rapid disintegration, where the centre cannot hold, of subcultures which will soon descend further to where no one will matter to anyone else except one to oneself and all networking will only be for the sake of survival. It follows that after the death of God/s, declared by Nietzsche, the next natural outcome is this. "Man is Dead". Humanity has died, human beings are dead, humanism and humanness are dead, whether men or women, and no one realizes it anymore than they realized the import of Nietzsche's statement and what has come to pass is not the Overman/Ubermensch, but a "tawdry cheapness" that will outlast our days. There is hope now only in waiting for the wheel of time and history to turn (eternal recurrence) and in the still centre, if there is any wheel and/or any still centre.

Today's meditation

“Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness.” — Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader (1929-68)

Napoleon Bonarparte

I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but on what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.” — Napoleon Bonaparte (French General, Politician and Emperor (1804-14). 1769-1821)

Albert Einstein

I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful¨. “No man can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.” — Albert Einstein – Scientist and Mathematician

Louis Farrakhan

No prophet before Jesus cast out demons, that I can remember, do you remember any of the old prophets casting out demons? Jesus was deep, There was something about the power of his word that demons came out. – Louis Farrakhan, Sr. – Leader of religious group Nation of Islam

Charles Dickens

“I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the Christian religion as it came from Christ Himself, and the impossibility of going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it.” — Charles Dickens, British writer, 1812-1870

Dale Carnegie

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use? – Dale Carnegie – American writer and lecturer

Vincent van Gogh

“It is a very good thing that you read the Bible… The Bible is Christ, for the Old Testament leads up to this culminating point… Christ alone… has affirmed as a principal certainty, eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity, and the raison d’être of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist… made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made… living men, immortals.” — Vincent van Gogh

Calvin Coolidge

“The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” — Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States

Jesus Christ is to me the outstanding personality of all time, all history, both as Son of God and as Son of Man. Everything he ever said or did has value for us today and that is something you can say of no other man, dead or alive. There is no easy middle ground to stroll upon. You either accept Jesus or reject him.” — Sholem Asch, Jewish author (1880-1957)

Socrates died like a philosopher; Jesus Christ died like a God.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no other man has been so devoutly loved.” — John Knox

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” - Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 6:12: Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Scars Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم January 25th Poetry Challenge prompt Poem by Dr. Koshy AV

Scars

These scars are self-inflicted,

not stigmata

Signs of dissipation

and errata

A fog always spoils

my aura

Jesus, when will I be free/healed

of self-caused trauma?

Aborted Dreams Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم Poetry Challenge Prompt poem by Dr. Koshy AV January Twenty sixth

Republic Day Special.

The birds that sing, unseen, in trees

titter, chatter, call, and matter

have no dreams

or if they do

abort none

Their music rings true

Dreams are wings

on which we fly

Seeds that sprout

green leaves and staves that reach high

I have a dream

and it is for today

I'm a dreamer, still

but not the only one

Not a dream to tell

But come true, it will

I dream today of

my country

that one day it will be

a place

where the only dreams that die

aborted, are the ones that lie

I dream of wars, that they will end

I dream of cares, that they all will mend

And of a world in which the only aborted dreams

Are those bred by humans with an evil bent

Today's salvaged posts

 a bird is talking

i do not know the language of birds

the bird is sweet to hear

and see

my child, my son, my little bird

you are so small

the silken thread of love

ties you to me

while i am here

but it is so fragile

and thin

like gossamer

may its strength be like diamond ropes

Anton Corbijn –Control. A film review

This is his first directorial venture. The movie is in black and white.

The story goes like this. A young boy called Curtis who likes poetry impresses his friend’s girl by quoting Wordsworth and stealing her from his friend behind his back. He does drugs in the form of pill popping and likes David Bowie and Sex Pistols. He marries said girlfriend of friend who becomes his. He writes powerful poetry and goes on to become the singer and lyricist for a “tight” post-punk band called Joy Division. Picked up by a new label and a good manager they seem set for success, when Ian, the lead singer, whose wife is pregnant by now, finds life suddenly putting him on a slide. He holds a job at an employment agency. One day he finds a job for a differently-abled kid. Another day he suddenly comes face to face with epilepsy in the form of a girl who collapses in his office. His love for his wife notwithstanding, he soon begins to cool off in his ardor to her, realizing that they are different; she is solidly middle class and he the aesthetic bohemian. He spends sleepless nights, writing dark lyrics or out on gigs with the band. One day he collapses while going to a show, and is diagnosed with epilepsy. There is no cure. Meds, and sleepiness that come, as a result, ensure that soon he has to choose between his daily job and rock. He opts for his first love. One day while Joy Division begins to gather a cult following because of songs like Warsaw and She’s Lost Control -inspired by his wife’s inability to coax him into bed in the film - a journalist called Annik lands up from Belgium to interview them. Her looks and exotic name attract Ian and they fall in love with each other. She is drawn to his magnetic and charismatic Morrison-like voice and brooding presence on stage as well as the inscrutable personality that she thinks he is. The darkness of his depression lightens slightly when she is there. Soon his conscience and heart begin a fight with each other, in which he gets no help from anybody around him, at the end of which he commits suicide. His lyrics get progressively darker and more brilliant meanwhile, as he writes of his life, and his performances become more intense but they break him to the point where, along with his increasingly frequent episodes of epilepsy and first failed attempt at suicide, even going on stage becomes torture. He dies at the young age of 23.

I had heard of Joy Division before but not heard them. I feel this movie is the perfect introduction to the work of this young ‘genius’ and band because it is a restrained work. Anton Corbijn seems to know his Bergman and fine performances by the main actor and actress, sensitive editing and good camerawork all help to make this movie a classic in the rock music films genre. While not surprised at the awards it got and the fact that it is based on the memoirs of Ian’s wife and first-hand experiences of the director as a photographer with the band, what really struck me was the maturity with which Corbijn handles the life in question – by not connecting it with rock’s common myths of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll , for one thing, except subtly and in passing, but instead showing the inspiration for Ian’s poetry and getting us to empathize with him and his wife equally, something rarely tried in my experience before. In fact, it is Annik who comes out weaker, maybe because of where the script comes from. It is the ordinariness of Ian, the working man, who is caught in the sudden tragedy of epilepsy that takes him out of himself into being someone other than who he is and lures him to his doom that haunts us ultimately. That and the brilliantly shadowy live halls and bedroom scenes, not to mention the photomontage of portraiture of the characters that recurs constantly through the movie and the brief live band vignettes, the quotes, and the shots in the recording studio. The movie scores in not romanticizing and glamorizing the tragedy of Ian's life and showcases his curious 'butterfly' style of dancing that might have been influenced by his epilepsy. I remembered Dostoevsky briefly while watching it.

The movie was made in 2007. It got awards. If Corbijn makes another movie I, for one, will watch. Not to talk of my having begun to read Joy Division’s (Ian Curtis’s) lyrics and listen to their music. Corbijn is famous for his music videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD2SfQJOK08

I want to keep writing about sex and violence and other unsavoury matters openly because it is the lack of openness that leads to fascism, rape etc. These are brought about by suppression and repression in expression, communication, dialogue and conversation in public spaces that are safe, unlike such held in private - and as a society if we do not learn how to discuss these things sanely and reasonably openly art cannot work as therapy for our libidos.

He waxed eloquent on the virtues of emergent varieties of Indian feminism. I asked him if he had heard of Pallikudam. He had not. I asked him if he had heard of Mukti Mission. He had not. I asked him if the place Bharananganam being named rang any bell in him. No, he said. Asked him if he had heard of a Krupabai Sathianadhan. No, he said. Have you heard of Amy Carmichael and Ida Scudder? Rokkeya Begum? No. Who had he heard of then? Kamala Das, he told me proudly. She is one of them who epitomises what I mean. Kamala Surayya, I corrected him gently. I don't get your point, what you are trying to tell me, he said, a bit testily. I tried to explain in as clear, as simple, as brief a way as possible. "There's more things under heaven and on/in earth" than those that are written in your version of emerging Indian versions of feminist history, dear friend, I said, paraphrasing and twisting Shakespeare to explain. Don't know if he got it at all, but I had to leave it at that/there.

Memories Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry prompt challenge 24 January poem written by Dr Koshy AV

The white puppy playing around me

dancing, its tail wagging

The spiderlings

hatching

from a thousand eggs

The flames licking at the edges

of poems

burnt

to ashes

The water not hot enough

The lime too much

Both made sweet by love

Haunted by profane loves

lips and breasts unslaked, tasted, ditched

Memories

of ghosts and geishas

in the pell-mell of order that is rust

Blow off the dust, they live,

some even gleam.

"https://sabrangindia.in/content-authors/dr-v-koshy?fbclid=IwAR1KkTXeXRfSLHlHr2RZS-zGcayTPLhfr4qBoCxB3E521QWLJrPEFwLhIso"

Histories

Your heroes are not mine

and mine are unknown to you

My places to visit itinerary is different

as is my bucket list

I am the subaltern minority that speaks

Objects I hold special are not

ones you ever laid eyes on

and communities I value

are ones you never heard of

I am subterranean,

underground

It was always aliens, strangers, pilgrim history

so labelled by the majority

But unlike you did with 'them,' the Dalits

my history remains with me, not obliterated

as does my culture

I know how to listen, speak, read and write

and how to keep it all alive

down the aeons, if need be

Fahrenheit 451 won't get at it

or white ants.

My updated bio - Christian missionary, arsonist, anarchist, nihilist, destroyer, theatre of the absurd, public enemy no.1, sinner/saint, incorrigible, out and out rocker

Night and other posts

 Night Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry challenge January 23 poem by Dr Koshy AV

It's a "long day's journey into night"

Then a "journey to the end of night"

The sun and moon have a conversation

in the sky

One handing over its torch to the other

early morn

Night has to yield to day

To a sun so bright

The moon still a silver beauty in the blue sky

One day, sexual lust, lateness, and laziness

slowness, lack of focus and concentration

self-destructiveness, and procrastination

delay and all that hinders

will pass away/give way to the light

"There shall be no more night!"

Today's meditation

I may or may not agree with all the things the people here say but like to note how all of them agree on one point which is that Jesus helped them in some way or the other and God, and the Bible, and in some, a few cases, Christians, the church and Christianity.

Mahatma Gandhi on Jesus: “A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”

George Foreman (boxer): “Sometimes God gives instructions that go against conventional wisdom, such as treating people kindly when they’re hateful. Who really wants to do that? Instructions like that may not always make sense, so that’s why I need to trust and obey the One (Jesus) who inspired them.”

Alice Walker (author of Color Purple): “Somewhere in the Bible it say Jesus hair was like lamb’s wool, I say. Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he’d have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention. The last thing niggers want to think about they God is that his hair kinky.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author) : “The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith.”

Denzel Washington (actor): “Inside every one of us we have something tugging at us, telling us to believe in something…(the Bible) is the answer to that”

Johnny Cash (singer): “When God forgave me, I figured I’d better do it too.”

Pope Francis: “Truth, according to the Christian faith, is God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, truth is a relationship”

Theodore Roosevelt (US President) : “(My) great joy and glory that, in occupying an exalted position in the nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of The Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope and Savior of the world.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (atheist/rationalist/writer) : “Get rid of the miracles and the whole world will fall at the feet of Jesus Christ.”

Mother Teresa : “I believe in person to person. Every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at that moment.”

John Lennon (musician): “Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

Sylvester Stallone (Rambo/Rocky) : “You need to have the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and what the Church is: The Church is the gym of the soul “

Bono (U2/singer) : “When you align yourself with God’s purpose as described in the Scriptures, something special happens to your life.”

Elvis Presley: “I’m not the King. Jesus Christ is the King. I’m just an entertainer”

Fidel Castro : “To betray the poor is to betray Christ.“

C. S. Lewis “We must show our Christian colors if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.”

Justin Bieber (singer) : “Do you feel you have exhausted all options? Do you feel helpless? Do you feel like you are never good enough? What if I told you that there’s a God that’s willing to meet you WHEREVER you’re at! What if I told you he could take away your pain, shame, guilt, and fears. #JESUS”

Played badminton in the morning with my friend. This reminds me of how Indians call it shuttlecock or shuttle badminton or simply shuttle. Indian English! Rich! Also, how we/they say 'bat-minten' which sounds more fitting, than, say, calling it 'bad-mint-on' lol.

Psalms 30:5: For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.