Don’t go easy with the crowd,
Charity is an empty gesture;
Humanity is a risible caricature,
For they will rip your heart off.
False smiles, vain expectations;
The abused that weeps alone
Asks the heart what it knows.
Shout and shout it aloud!
The pain makes you bleed
The shame eats you alive;
Don’t go easy with the crowd.
Shout and shout it aloud!
The uneasy head with a crown,
But his crown is not ours.
The throne breeds caterpillars:
The court becomes rotten.
Still we depend on Fortune,
Carrying men’s burden
Till death comes as Physician.
Author’s Note: I read today’s Reuters article about an old African-American barber in the northwestern suburb of Detroit who said that Impeachment is not really a ready remedy to ease everyday man’s daily struggle with life. What concerns him more than this national headline is how he survives with a paltry daily income in harsh reality. I think it pretty much sums up a general opinion on the political pandemonium. Such stoically cool outlook on the political scene has been constant of ages, regardless of race and culture. Surely, Aristotle said that if you are not interested in politics, you must be either a beast or a divine being. But did he in fact include the ordinary folk? It has always been the common people whom the powers-that-be use as their henchmen for political hegemony. The current impeachment news only tangibly matters to the politicians and their ilk. Apart from the universal news about the epidemic Coronavirus, the article lingers in my mind with the vista of the hardworking old barber doing his daily duties to make his living in his small barber shop.
It’s the stars that make you Ethereal Wanderer
Making you of Air that breathes Independence,
Fire that lights a Spark of Curiosities
Dew that wells Spring of Senses
and Spirit with Beautiful Diamond Eyes
riding on the Radiant Meteors evermore.
Author’s Note: This is my tribute to all whose stars are met in the Aquarius, the Beautiful Drifters. Let’s celebrate!
Though it may be a gossamer of allure,
Beauty tames the roars of the brute
and works a magic spell in nature,
bewitching the savage with witchcraft.
Author’s Note: They say beauty is only skin-deep, but I don’t believe it. Power is to a man is what beauty is to a woman. So much so that Oscar Wilde said, “The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else, if she is plain.” William Shakespeare then quipped in: “She is beautiful; and therefore to be wooed.” Beauty purchases indemnity for wrongdoings. You see Beauty Does Matter. If you disagree with a grinding teeth or a grimacing face, think about a root of racism. It’s all based on how one looks. Capeesh?
Whistle, and he’ll come to you
From a wild haze of desert maze
Blowing smokes, looking aglow
On his steed with the blue gaze
Into the windows of your heart
Sealed against pillage of the cabinet
Full of secrets locked tight and fast.
For Blondie is The Good doing it.
Watch, and he’ll stand behind you
In a soldier’s hide with a golden watch
Grinning with the blue lamps that glow
Like the phantasmal light of a ghostly torch
Penetrating the bastion of your spirit
Guarded in the deep forest of your mind
Against a carnage of the spirit with a feat.
For Angel Eyes is the Bad doing it.
Wait, and he’ll show you
In a gringo’s hide with a squint eye
Calling you, “My friend!”, following you
Wherever you go, even to a valley
Laced with tombs of the drifters and solders
Where the dollars are paid for the tribute
To the litany of woes and more woes.
For Tuco is the Ugly doing it.
Author’s Note: This is based on my viewing of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” directed by the great Sergio Leone. The film often referred to as the masterpiece of Spaghetti Western, is in fact far superior to any other western movies made by Americans in terms of storyline, plots, settings, and cinematography.
For example, in this film, all of the characters are morally ambiguous and ethically challenging, which makes them realistic and relatable. Besides, compared to the perfected appearance of typical “American” characters, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly are all scruffy-looking and unhygienic even, and yet they all look quite stylish in their naturally rugged ambiance and masculine outlooks, especially well manifested by the iconic piercing gaze of Clint Eastwood as the Good and the amazingly chiseled face of Lee Van Clef as the Bad. What’s more, even though director Leone had never been to the States before making the film, he was excellent in portraying the Wild American West during the Civil War by filming it entirely in Spain.
The music by Ennio Morricone also plays an integral part in this film, creating timbres for each of the characters, so that whenever the character appears on the screen, the unique thematic music is played, indicating the moods of the characters without having them narrated in words. Hence I wanted to write about the impression of this unforgettable film that’s engraved in my Hall of Fames.
That which they called Providence,
A divine scheme of God’s purposes,
Was the handiwork of Fair Fortune,
The ancient idea of lucky chances
Of adventures and misadventures,
Knocking the door of a poor man’s hut
With a pouch of lucky stars regardless
Of what the world saw for his worth,
Pacifying his ills of grief and grievances.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The doctrine of providence that a man’s life was an intricate handiwork of God’s mysterious purposes was a tenet of Protestantism which, as a counter-cultural way of resisting medieval Catholicism, advocated zealous work ethics in an effort to combine a practical faith with an active self-reliance and independence. That riches and authority came of men’s industry and diligence, of their labor and travails, not of miracles as a result of mechanical recitations of prayers and devotions to saints was the canonical principle of the reformed church. However, the folks who were not well-off, not-too-rich, poor, and very poor never subscribed to the doctrine of providence. They still clang to the concept of luck because it accounted for any misfortune befalling them regardless of merits and efforts when others wayward seemed to prosper. By believing in luck or chance that reformists condemned, he who in travails did not have to jeopardize his self-esteem as something of a mental analgesic against the strains of his contemporary life, lest he should fall by the wayside, and thus could reconcile himself to the environment he lived. Hence this belief in luck survived the seismic protestant reformation and still thrives on in our time.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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