Kevin Bales ... How to combat modern slavery ...

If you have some spare time, kindly please view this video from a TED Conference. Perhaps you may be amongst those who help to end modern slavery. Be apart of the change (even as minuscule as an atom) that you want to see in the world.

For Haiti (Poem) ... By Jafar Alam ...

Dear Thursday,
How we gonna do this?
A broken truth results in a broken heart

Dear Self,
The world goes on with and without you
Within and without you

Words are words
And actions are actions

You
Are magic made

Dear Haiti,
It's about that water
I'm all about bringing you this water
Hold tight babe, we gotchu

I speak of YOU as ME
Of I as US

When did we remove ourselves from each other?

If I shine, we all gon shine

The revolution starts with love

Dear Love,
Hold me like a revolution

And who says you can't be a revolution all unto yourself?

Dear World,
Wake the hell up

It serves us nothing to argue with each other
About why tragic events occur

What matters
Is what we do to respond to these matters

Lets vibe for a minute, shall we?

Things serve their own purpose
It's not our job to argue purpose

It's our job to live
To live abundantly and with humility for each other
Yes?

Maybe this is a sign
A sign that we are too isolated from each other
Maybe ...
Maybe they were all signs

The test of our character is what we'll do
Once we've seen the cheekbones of suffering
After we've seen the sweat of its brow

Remove the debris and rubble so you can be free
And when you get free, reach back and help someone else

The pendulum of the mind alternates

It's much easier to keep track of the truth

No right mind
Would wrong you

Turn the page
And write a new chapter

I squint to read what is written
On the faces of these ungrateful days

Deep in your heart is a mind

Our life
As it nears us
Is an inescapable reflection of how we look at it

Tomorrow holds
Tomorrow holds all
Tomorrow holds all that is possible

Haitians
They have stories

They have stories
But no one that will listen

They have secrets

They have secrets
But no companion to keep it

Show me a scar
And I will kiss its face

And just cause they're breathing,
Don't mean they're living

Freedom ‘aint for free

Let's die to the past every moment

The confusion
Confuses me

Every tongue will have to confess

The conversations getting lonesome

The depth of certain thoughts, untouched by words

An ocean of formless feelings

I understood the word of the wind and the trees

A child
Is crying on the street
Her tears could be my own

Walking on blood stained soil
Their smiles collapsed

And don't speak to me of LOVE
If you don't know BROKEN

And don't pretend to care about something
Just cause everyone else seems to be about it at the moment

You thought it was a joke?

HELL to the NO

The earth is talking back
And she's letting us know the deal

We stand side by side
But we don't even see the same thing

Some days, ask questions
Some days answer

Let inspiration be your drug of choice

Lost in a storm of broken dreams

People ugly from ignorance
And broken from being poor

The earth, rich and pure
Clinging to bodies

We are losing love every hour

People have a right
As human beings
To live

That is our birth right
Not our privilege

And some are in the business of making money

But we
We are in the business of making magic
That's what we do

A little child asks me:
"Where does love come from, and where does it go when it's gone?"

I said:
"Child, you have beautiful words that make my heart cry out for you"

Greed makes
Breast filled revolutions go shirtless

I was hoping they'd bring me flowers
From the last grave they buried their minds


My grandma, she told me:
"In the heart of men, there is a boy weeping for love"

I believe in miracles

In Haiti
The sun shines on darkness

The caged wall sings

They're fixing sidewalks
But hardly any feet to walk on them

Little Haitian boy, eating a mud pie with your sister
If no one told you they loved you today
I love you
I love to love you
Know that you are brilliantly beautiful
You are my melody

I am an offering
Make of me what you will

And know that change requires death
But also produces life

Change is constant
And
God is change

And in case there is a heartbroken individual that comes across my words
There is a new risen consciousness born from the rubble of pain

Rest a while
My child
There will be angels in the morning

And somewhere in Haiti, there is a severe wound miraculously healing
Somewhere in Haiti, a child is dreaming of a family, of a full stomach, of a hug
Somewhere in Haiti, there is a woman breastfeeding an orphan
And somewhere a grandfather is singing a prayer to calm his people before rest
And somewhere there is a child still surviving under the rubble, being saved

There are angels everywhere

And we have not stopped praying

And I want to want to
Pray for cold hearts to be warmed
For the impossible to make believers out of non believers
To pray for a miracle

Write your name on every pain
Sadness hunts murdered dreams

Love …
Love is a friend left in exile

O faces of beauty
Give your features some meaning

You sit under night’s lantern
Sad for your sadness

The streets are empty
Like death

And what do I know
About the pain of death?

I don't even know
About the pain of birth

And I swear by The Living God
That we are losing the race against time

And where did they magically find
These American soldiers in Haiti?

I'm just saying, that
If they treated American citizens like refugees
In New Orleans
Then how do you think they'll treat Haitians?

I guess they sent soldiers to save face and to
Politely control a nation through its suffering

And it's not really the soldiers
It's the people that sent them
Soldiers are meant to carry out orders
No matter how good

America's greed, doesn't just end at oil
It never even began there
It was always about land and power

And all you have to do is consider any great leader
That doesn't support the agenda of American colonization
And you'll understand the depth of this system

Soldiers are bred to kill or be killed
They're not bred to empathize and heal
And they felt good, because they sent soldiers to Haiti?

You don't send soldiers to a country to heal people
Weakened by hunger and deprivation

And don't call it a conspiracy theory
Just because you're too afraid of the world you live in

Some things are just real

Some things
are just REAL

Speak to the force within you
That which is trying to escape and set free
Let it fly

Let us have a
World-driven vision

You already know what it is

We are greatness bound
It was written

A victim offers me a cup of her salty tears

I used to know these three chicks:
Shoulda, Coulda and Woulda
And boyyy did they love to waste time

In my head
I hear their screams sound like multiple stabs in my ear

Her people are prisoners
Their words taken away

They are cell mates and soul mates

But in the silence

Who
Will speak for them?

Dear Thursday
Dear Self
Dear Haiti
Dear Love
Dear World

Thanks for listening

PEACE ©




(Almond Eyes Hears The Dove's Cries, pg.279)

Arundhati Roy ...

At a time when opportunism is everything

When hope seems lost

When everything boils down to a cynical business deal

We must find the courage to dream

To reclaim romance

The romance of believing in justice

In freedom and

In dignity

For everybody

Howard Zinn ...

Historically, the most terrible things

War, Genocide, and Slavery have resulted

Not from disobedience

But from obedience

Use your voice and your freedom to demand freedom

For the voiceless in Palestine

Speak until justice wakes

This organization mentioned me on their website ...
Thought it was interesting ...

http://www.bobbysandstrust.com/archives/1689

Thirst For Change

Live this life like a traveller

Bangladesh ...

The market in the town of Sarankhola was wrecked by the cyclone

BANGLADESH

PALESTINE

Inspired by the genius of Banksy and the perpetual, revolutionary words of Bobby Sands.

"They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. We refuse to lie here in dishonor! We are not criminals, but Irishmen! This is the crime of which we stand accused. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal...Our revenge will be the laughter of our children."
- Bobby Sands

We refuse to lie here in dishonor! We are not terrorists, but Palestinians. This is the crime of which we stand accused. Our crime remains that we were born Palestinian.

The artwork is by graphic designer, Basmah Felemban!
http://www.basmah.co.nr/

Ben Gurion was sadly mistaken, for he underestimated the indomitable will of the Palestinian people when he arrogantly asserted that “the young will forget”, because despite heartache, pain, and suffering, we will never relinquish a dream so imbedded in our hearts and minds. Yes, the old may die, but the young will never forget, and our ultimate revenge will be the laughter of our future generations to come, those who will carry on this dream and fight. You see, this dream will live on in the hearts of generation after generation; it is a fire burning inside our hearts that cannot be extinguished. What we say today will be our life-long commitment.

"Our revenge will be the laughter of our children."
-Bobby Sands

This intifada is defined by:

1) VERBAL ROCKS,[vur-buhl rok]: 1.noun [root, Civil Unrest] an expression launched from the cognitive abilities of a revolutionary against the institutionalized language of an oppressor. 2. verb [root, Activism]: to Verbal Rock is to celebrate the diverse attributes of language and expression, and to highlight its unique strengths and creativity as a means of resistance to oppressive entities in a celebratory manner
See Also: Oppressors of Your Mind.
See Also: Slingshot of the Mind.

2) SLINGSHOTS OF THE MIND, [sleng-shot of the mynd] noun [root, unconventional education]: the strongest weapon known to man is this; that which launches factual and intelligent knowledge and targets the inconsistencies of the various Goliaths of society.
See Also: David and Goliath

Liberate your mind and shake off the system that oppresses it.

RUMI ...

Walk patiently through this troubled world

And you will find great treasure

Even though your house may be small

Look within it

Almond Eyes Hears The Dove's Cries ... By Jafar Alam ...

Almond Eye's Hears The Dove's Cries is officially on sale now !!!

Available for purchase on Sony, Kindle and Xlibris

(https://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=75053)

Best ad I've seen in a while ...

The one you are looking for is the one who is doing the looking ...

Redemption Song ...

RUMI ...

Love is the order of the universe and we are its atoms
It is the ocean and we are its drops

Through love the heavens are brilliant
Without love even suns and moons are eclipsed

Today is beautiful. The sun is out the air is warm. I have an Oreo cookie and a cozy room to sit and type inside of. Today is a good day. I can hear the birds outside talking back to the clouds ...

Red Dawn ...

"I can't remember what it was to be warm. It seems a thousand years since I was a small boy in the sun. How did I come to this high, desolate place where there is nothing but loneliness? So much is lost. I want to look into your eyes and forget. It all seems so far away: a warm house where my shadow never falls; your long, black hair in my hands. There is no more revolution, only you to come back."


-Colonel Ernesto Bella

RUMI ...

As a lovesick nightingale,

you flew among the owls

Then came the scent of the rose garden
and you flew off to meet the Rose