Pain,
Unbelievable pain.
Impossible to quantify,
Because it is pain unlike any other.
Hips adjusting,
Semi-dislocating,
In order to accommodate.
Breath ragged,
Unfocused, instinctive,
Providing percussion
For the next push.
And then with the last breath
Accomplishment!
The miracle of childbirth.
And the greatest miracle?
This tiny life that is placed on your chest,
And which your arms
Immediately embrace.
And an overwhelming love,
A flood of joy,
And the wonder,
That this amazing person
Is partly you.

You have to ask what logic applied,

To make Jonestown commit mass suicide?

The community, founded by one Jim Jones,

Was a ramshackle place of broken homes,

Of medical problems,  of disrepair,

Of mass food shortage, profound despair.

It was founded on a utopian dream,

But ended up with actions this extreme.

Leo Ryan* tried to visit in ’78,

But ended up dead at the airport gate.

As a result Jones called together the people he led,

And just hours later, 909 were dead…

300 were children, from cyanide,

A shot to the temple is how Jim Jones died.

*A congressman shot by Jones’ Red Brigade.

This incident in Guyana ranks among the largest mass suicides in history, though most likely it involved forced suicide and/or murder, and was the single greatest loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the air strikes on the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York of September 11, 2001.

Hiroo Onoda waged a guerrilla campaign,
That lasted 30 years.
I think, quite frankly he was insane,
Or else paranoid about his fears.
He thought Japan was still at war,
When the war was already won,
But old Onoda was sure about what he was fighting for,
And he considered the battle just begun.
Casualties reduced his unit to four,
And he was begged repeatedly to desist,
They told him to do so till ’74,
But he thought the allies were forcing him to persist.
He continued until there was just him alone,
And his superior officer was found,
To tell him that he was one deluded drone,
And to run the idiot to ground.

The Reconstruction Era in the USA,
Began with a wish to see fairer play,
That from 1863, after emancipation,
Lincoln and Johnson longed for transformation.
So they experimented by giving land to former slaves,
But in the Southern States that was bound to cause waves,
The Radicals, angry, tried to impeach,
But by one vote in the Senate, the law was put out of their reach.
Ulysses S Grant was not above using the military,
To support reconstruction and suppress insurgency,
He favoured a free labour economy,
With African-American equality.
Rutherford Hayes tried to protect Reconstruction legislation,
But Sourhern Democrats claimed widespread corruption throughout the nation.
Reconstruction was more a failure than a success,
But it had its achievements nevertheless.
It had many features of considerable note,
Like giving the black man the right to vote.

Yesterday, my darling Anita wrote a piece on tacos filled with blackened fish…which inspired me to write this poem…

I really do love a good taco..
It is the very best kind of snacko!
Shredded chicken, spiced mince,
Guacamole is prince,
And this is a meal crackerjacko!

A taco’s a really great dish,
My love likes to use blackened fish,
Or stuff it with chilli,
And a bit of Caerphilly,
And you have a meal quite delish!

This little berry flavours my favourite gin,

With 9 other botanicals all chucked in,

As far as I’m concerned, that’s win win,

So crack open a bottle, let the fun begin!

Some great poets came out of World War I,
But in terms of movies, not much has been done.
They should have done loads of them on Verdun,
A battle the French apparently tactically won!

This assault started in February 1916,
With many a skirmish in between,
Before ending in December with losses obscene,
By which time the whole thing was a well-oiled machine.

Falkenheyn believed that Verdun’s sixty forts,
Were essential to French morale – that’s what he thought,
And the French would fight till the last resort,
And without any visible English support.

Falkenhayn wanted to “bleed France white”,
And 2.5 million gun shells proved he had might,
But he was mistaken, he did not get it right,
For Petain and the French were up for the fight.

In July the English began the war on the Somme,
So the French would get some respite since the war had begun,
And then rally and retrench and get the war won,
There were 700,000 dead by the time this battle was done

Grigol Dvali, one of my Google+ buddies, on the Thinkers commmunity, alerted me to this extraordinary man. So thank you Grigol.

Simo Hayha was a sniper supreme

He shot in conditions very extreme,

It was often minus 40 degrees,

He was dressed in white, he moved on skis,

He killed 505 Russian men,

That is 5 a day, and then

The daylight only lasted hours

But he was set on destroying Russian manpower.

The Russians, amazed at his vicious attack,

Found a sniper to shoot him back,

They shot away half of Simo’s jaw,

But he survived and saw the end of this war,

He rose really fast up through the ranks,

Because his nation wanted to give him thanks.

Have you ever heard of the Winter War?
Who it was fought by and what it was for?
It was fought between Finnish and Soviet troops,
Over land that Russia wished to recoup.
They wanted it to provide a serious buffer,
So that Leningrad would not fall or suffer.
The Russians had one hundred times more tanks,
Thirty times more aircraft, for which they gave thanks,
And three times more men than the Finnish side,
But they had white uniforms in which they could hide!
They also fought this long battle on skis,
In temperatures of -30 degrees!
And although they lost, they did not lose much,
They still had their dignity, courage and such.
The Winter War, 1939 – 1940,
A little known chapter in history.

Fe del Mundo, an extraordinary broad*,
Was the first female to get a Harvard Medical Degree award,
She was valedictorian in Manila in 1933,
And the president offered to pay a scholarship overseas,
She joined Harvard Medical School in 1936,
Ten years before women belonged to its mortar and bricks’
Del Mundo only got in due to an oversight,
But the head of paediatrics wanted her so put up a fight,
She had to be moved out of an all male dorm,
So her admission was way beyond the norm.
She mastered in Chicago then returned to the Phillippines,
And became one of the Red Cross’s figurines,
She set up a hospice and worked with kids,
Her fame preceded her, whatever she did.
To fund a kid’s hospital, she sold her home,
And virtually everything else that she owned,
She handed over the ownership of it to her board of trustees,
And continued research into infectious disease.
She gave up the hospital in 1957,
But continued to work there 24/7,
She took up residence on the second floor,
So she could continue to always be a part and do more,
She did hospital visits at 99,
From the wheelchair which she had to use at the time,
She finally died of a heart attack, an angel from heaven,
Just before she reached 100 in 2011,

*slang British term for woman