GAUDI’S BARCELONA
Barcelona with
Gaudi’s buildings twisting unfinished carved into the sky
And cars,
Cars,
Cars, cars
Restless streams of cars
Around and around Plaza De Catalonia
And thunderous
Badly made European motorcycles zooming zipping up your arms
So much for America’s big metal machines
That swims around and around your navel
Down your back vibrating like chewing tin foil with freshly minted teeth
People, people, people walking in and out of cheap coin slotted peepshows
Out of my ears mouth and ******* like rushing ants chaotically running
Up past the unique sidewalk cafes of Las Ramblas
To get to the Hard Rock Café,
In case they miss the 20 ounce American Hamburger
With an extra side of fries with that
And walking across
The Miro inspired sky
And buses and motorcycles and people weaving in and out
Around each other
Never really touching
Some stop to watch the boy in the horizontal stripped Edwardian bathing suit
Skateboarding agile across the sidewalks
And in and out through traffic
I know I never told you about the boy and how he died
Alone in an opium den with a needle in his arm
That story would have troubled you
Just remember
The sweet smell of the flower sellers on Sunday morning
The overpopulated marketplace and the stink of fresh fish aging on the ice
To where I bought that bottle of Absinthe and Sangre de Toro
Europe’s new roads and highways keep moving the air into trembling heavens Accomplishing with a pen what Franco couldn’t do with an army
The ground swirling and falling through the planet
The Basque mountains keep rumbling with all the angry threats for independence and the sky-swallowing waves rushing
Women topless on motorcycles
Reminding me that marriage can be so-oo-oo sexy
With it’s flash floods of sperm making babies
Zooooaring, zooooming energy
Trying
To buy one of those cutesy hot beautiful trendy tapas
Straight out of the oven in confusion of aggressive Spaniards
Debating old themes of revolution under an onslaught
Of American Tourists in search of McDonalds
They’re so wonderful and - and
You can't get your hands on a proper pizza because
The Italians lost to Real Madrid
4- Nil sparking up a riot outside the stadium
I've lived in New York, seen the Yankees lose
But New York is tame compared to these Picasso inspired firery Spaniards
Hopped up on fine black hashish
And smooth tequila drinks served in cold liter bottles on the beach
Tourists try uprooting them from the earth throwing them into the skyyyyyyyyy the skyyyy the
skyyyyy
the skyyyyy
I love the Spanish sky,
Can I tell you?
When I first saw it, and the segregated prostitutes
I wanted to piss screaming words all over that ever present azure sky,
I wanted to be naked with pink flesh blanketed in that sky
I want to grab Barcelonan sky with both my hands to copulate
And forget that nightly phone call..
Just to say goodnight…. Goodbye
To make me realize in those warm Barcelona nights
The earth will
Surround me
Always
In the coming eternity of nothing. . .
My visions of that Moorish city massively swirling
Around my claustrophobic room
Music deliriously sings from across earthquake centuries
From the apartment across the alley of my hotel room
And I,
A swarming Poet
Open my mouth to hurricanes of mournful color
To face music like a restless Flood
In the rivers of the wandering streets of the Spanish University Quarter
North of China Town just a few blocks from those same streets
That Hemingway and I once stood
To marvel at the smells of habanera and other spices masking peasant cooking
My monsooning words swirling in my neon brain
The only TV channel I can get in English is porn or CNN
Yet, I reach out to that Picasso sky and begin talking to myself
I hear erratic violas and violins painting all my drifting misery. . .
And shoots a highway across to the Amazon rainforest
The moon falls up into a round-about dream
And another
Highway swerves out and crashes through the
North American continent
The George Washington Bridge
Leaps to the Dominicans in Harlem
Dancing salsa
And New York City - Brazil = Spain and Picasso into a big boiling pot
The Poet jumps out hands you the naked body of a screaming poem
Then you
Turn a squirming oozing poem to the erupting sexual music
The women of every hue and race imaginable are all smiling
Like Rosetti nudes I read about in Gardner’s
I get drunk and fall into a burning beautiful hell of millions of
Beer bottles
As Matisse is painting the world naked over the walls on buildings in every city on the planet...
A MODERN DESIGN FOR MODERN LIVING:IN MODERN AMERICA
In modern times
Of colossal righteous anger
When
We are forced to choose between
Right and wrong
And what is almost right but also almost wrong
We pride ourselves on
Our false sense of Freedom
Which only amounts to the choices that they’ve made
That they told us so
We think we’ve made them too
Through all this arbitrary
Raison d'être regarding liberty
Or defining of our freedom
I must say
Still
Only exists within our reconditioned minds
Programmed to believe we are not fault
As long as CNN provides our modern heroes
Has Reason... again come of age….
Like after the Sun King stripped France of all her gold?
Where is Voltaire or Robespierre leading us to the barricades?
How can we be satisfied with
Things the way they are
With all the lies that surrounds us
And so much much much more
Remains inside the dark embrace
And lies straight into us as we beg for more
As we beg for more
So we can feed it to our children
Before we send them to Iraq
Our voracious thirst for power has made
Idols out of mortals
Turned all our gods into clay
Teenage soldiers into plastic heroes
Our children into slaves
While because of
All damned desires
Their future hopes betrayed
Who will suffer under law
As The State decides our
Children’s education
Unless,
We pay the price?
Unless they pay the price
In the long run
Who will suffer the laws that will keep us all from Dancing?
Who will suffer the mind of an idiot from Texas who was never really elected?
Who will suffer to hear the words of a self imposed impotent demi-god?
Who will suffer the ugly designs for the whole modern world?
They could never ever truly understand
But hey,
At least my stock went up a 1/4 %
Events at Holy Cross Catholic School North Belfast: Two Sides of Human Nature
06/19/01
RUC line up to protect
A group of Catholic school children
Holy Cross Girls' Primary School on the Ardoyne Road, North Belfast
Attacked by
Protestant stone throwers
Described as "vicious"
06/20/01
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
In Ardoyne
Forced to close
When Protestants from Glenbryn
Blockaded the entrance of the School
RUC officers advised children not to enter the school
06/21/01
Another blockade of the road to
Catholic Holy Cross Girls' Primary School
RUC advised children not to attempt to enter the school
60 of the school's 230 bravest pupils entered
Sinn Féin said,
"It's like America Alabama in the 1960s"
06/22/01
Another blockade to the
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
RUC prevented children from entering
The front gate
The pupils entered
Through grounds of another school
06/29/01
Protestant blockade of the
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School continued
RUC officers prevented children from attempting to enter through the front gate
09/03/01
Catholic schoolgirls faced protests from Protestants as they attempted to enter Holy Cross Girls' Primary School
RUC and British soldiers cleared protestors
Attempting to blockade the school
Crash barriers erected to
Allow children to get to school
Protestants jeered
Shouted sectarian abuse as
Children, As young as four escorted by Catholic parents to school
As children entered the gate Protestants threw bottles stones
One woman
A Catholic hit in the face with a bottle
Most of the pupils
As young as 4
Wore proudly the brand-new red uniforms –
And Fashionable Fear’s wet tears, from Holy Cross Primary School
A fleet of Catholic-run
Black taxis ferried them past lines
Of police
With helmets and shields
While many Protestants
Shouted curses and insults
The Ulster Defense Association attacked
Catholic homes in Ardoyne told the owners
They had to move
UDA said the British government
Should build a new school for the Catholics
In their own area
In their
Own Area
Their Own Area
"Why was this school ever allowed to be built here in the first place? Protestant children should be allowed to use it instead.”
Northern Ireland's police vowed to protect Catholic children
Regardless of what entrance choose they use to enter school
Red Hand Defenders warning
Parents and children should stay
Away from the school on Ardoyne Road
During,
The evening widespread disturbances
As youths attack security force patrols and the RUC
09/04/01
50 children
Together with their parents and Bono,
Attempted to enter
The Holy Cross Girls' Primary School
By the main, hand in hand
To
The entrance
On the Ardoyne Road in North Belfast
Protestant protestors blocked access
Shouted abuse
Threw stones at children
Forced to turn back from their school
From the right to be educated
Even under the eyes
Of a heavy security force presence
Early morning secure a route to
The front door of the school
RUC officer injured when a blast-bomb
Thrown from Glenbryn Parade to school grounds
09/05/01
Protestants threw blast bombs
Towards Catholic children attempting
To enter Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
Panic a device exploded
Four RUC officers injured by the blast
A woman collapsed from shock
Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility
In the evening
Protestant residents
Catholic parents
Held separate meetings
To discuss the dispute
And violence
09/06/01
Protestants held
Another protest
On the Ardoyne Road in North Belfast
As Catholic children
Made their way to
Holy Cross Girls' Primary Catholic School
Used air horns
Blew whistles
Banged metal bin lids
As the children passed
The 'Right to Education' group
Warned of death threats made By Red Hand Defenders
They would be killed
If they were seen taking Catholic children to school
Three men arrested
As a blast bomb was thrown at
Police lines
While Catholic children passed on their way to school
Two police officers suffer
Shrapnel wounds
Others treated
For minor injuries
As Violence
Erupted
A police dog was hurt in the attack
Children
Some as young as four
Burst into fearful tears
Parents and teachers rushed them into school
Through the screaming Protestant enclave
Secretary of State of Northern Ireland
Cut short his vacation because of the violence In North Belfast
09/07/01
Protestants held a deathlike silent
Protest turning their backs one at a time
As Catholic children
Passed along the road
Past a security cordon
To get to Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
09/08/01
Catholic Newington Avenue primary school in North Belfast burned due to an arson attack
09/10/01 Monday
Protestants resumed their protest at
Holy Cross Catholic primary school
Students began their second week of term
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
The scene of Angry
And abusive demonstrations
As Catholic parents returned from the school
Protest turned noisy more abusive
Protesters used
Air horns
Blew whistles
Banged metal bin lids
As Catholic parents made
Their way back the Ardoyne Road
Protestant protesters shouted "Fenian scum"
09/11/01
7:30 am Belfast time
Protestants demanded a "peace wall" be
Erected at Ardoyne Road to protect them from Catholic republican reprisals
9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
Hijacked jetliners hit the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington.
A fourth hijacked plane crashes in Pennsylvania.
Trading on Wall Street is stopped.
The Federal Aviation Administration halts all operations at the nation's
airports for the first time.
U.S. military is placed on high alert.
President Bush addresses the nation
Hundreds of New York City firemen and policemen sent to rescue WTC workers are lost when the Twin Towers collapse.
09/12/01
Protest at the
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
Before going into the school
The children and parents hold a prayer service
And a minute's silence for the
Victims of the terrorist attacks in
The United States on 11 September 2001
09/13/01
The protest at the Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School followed the pattern of hate
09/14/01
Protestant protesters at the
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
Will call off their protest
For one day only
As a mark of respect
For what happened in America 9/11/01
09/18/01
The protest at the Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School continues
The Protestant protest was silent
As Catholic children and parents
Entered the school
Protesters jeered
Shouted abuse
Waved flags, held up banners,
And whistled
As parents returned from school
12:00 AM Belfast time
Belfast United Mosque burned to the ground
No fire services or police responded until 1:35 am
For the first time:
United in one action
IRA and Ulster Defense Association take responsibility
09/19/01
Protestants threaten to step up protest
Outside Holy Cross Girl’s Catholic primary school
After eight Protestant men were arrested
09/20/01
Protestant protest at
The Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School continue
Protesters revert tactic of noise as children passed
The British High Court
Banned six men from taking part in the protests at Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
Belfast Magistrates ordered the men to stay away from the Holy Cross School
09/26/01
Protesters at the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School
Threw fireworks at children returning Home
From school during the afternoon
The Red Hand Defenders renewed its threat against parents taking their children to school
09/28/01
A concrete block was thrown at a school bus
In North Belfast
Seven children were injured
The bus was taking children to school
It was attacked at Skegoniel Avenue
10/09/01
The protest continued outside the
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School
Fr. Aidan Troy said “he was considering taking legal action to try to end the protest:
"The weeks of suffering for these small girls were never justified. ...This is no longer a legitimate protest; it is a form of child abuse."
The cost of this protest reported As having reached £1 million.
10/10/01
The Protestant protest at the
Holy Cross Girls' Catholic Primary School Resumes
Protesters held a noisy protest
Threw balloons, filled with urine, at the children
Ulster Unionist Party, Social Democratic Labour Party said
“There was no excuse for the on-going protest at the school”
"Child abuse is being inflicted by protesters”, Northern Ireland Human Rights chief commissioner
Many of protesters have begun to hide their identity
And some were wearing masks of characters in horror movies
10/11/01
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland calls
For an end to Protestant protest at the
Holy Cross Catholic school
10/14/01
Fr. Aidan Troy of the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School, called on Protesters to immediately end daily protest
At the school
Fr. Troy speaking from his homily during
Sunday mass
“The only other country where girls are prevented from having an education is Afghanistan”
10/15/01
Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, said:
"The treatment of these children is inhumane and their right to effective education is being affected."
10/17/01
Loyalist paramilitaries exploded a bomb
Close to where children were returning from the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School
The bomb had been placed at a house on Alliance Avenue
It exploded at 3.10PM
Causing extensive damage
School children in "shock"
Children had just completed the afternoon
From Holy Cross
When the explosion occurred
10/25/01
In contrast to angry scenes earlier this week, the morning's protest passed without incident, demonstrators remaining eerily silent, most with their backs turned
The same day, the anniversary of the Shankill bombing -Red Hand Defenders issued a threat against parents participating in the school run
10/26/01
A British Army soldier seriously injured when
Protestant paramilitaries threw a pipe-bomb at soldiers at 9.00pm
The RUC claimed the soldiers had been lured
To an ambush
Ulster Defense Association was responsible Several RUC officers were also injured
Protestant Loyalists had tried to block the road and prevent parents and children from gaining access to the school
11/05/01
Loyalist protesters at the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School reached an "understanding"
With the Police Service of Northern Ireland
As a result of which the police were not wearing full riot gear when protest took place
A representative of Catholic parents on the Right to Education Group said: "The police should have sat down with both sides to talk about this"
11/07/01
The mother of a child
Attending the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School began legal proceedings in the High Court against Secretary of State of Northern Ireland, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland
The mother said that the police had not given adequate protection to her daughter and had failed to identify, arrest, or prosecute protesters, who broke the law in full public view
Archbishop Tutu, from South Africa
Met parents and children at Holy Cross School
Bishop Tutu also met those involved in protest
11/09/01
Protesters called off their blockade at the
Holy Child Girls Primary School for one day
Some students of the school-
sat for their "11-plus" transfer examination. Mary McAleese, President of the Republic Called for a complete end to protest
Catholic parents and children today took an alternative route to school after Protestants called off their protest
Instead of walking up the Ardoyne Road, Pupils sitting their 11-plus exam went in By a back entrance
The move provoked dismay among the
Protestant Glenbryn Estate
Who had called a one-day suspension
To the 10-week picket Because of the crucial test
Residents' spokesman said:
"Walking up the Crumlin Road is them saying we will not accept your charity. It's childish."
11/12/01
There was a change in the policing tactics Instead of
gathering together all the Catholic parents and children and escorting them as a group
The Police Service of Northern Ireland Specified a time period in which parents
Could walk to the school
Approximately 400 police officers
One in eight of the total in Belfast
Were present to ensure the children were able to get to school
The day's operation cost over £100,000
Catholic parents complained
The new police tactics left them more exposed to protesters
Police arrested a nationalist who was taking a video of Loyalist protesters
11/15/01
The Holy Cross school run once again passed off
peacefully Catholic parents walked their children
To class in small groups
A heavy security presence ensured protesters in the Ardoyne district remained quiet
The stand-off in its 11th week, has cost more than 3 million pounds
11/19/01
The Catholic father of a girl attending the Holy Cross School
Begun a hunger-strike
The man said he felt so frustrated by the protest at the school
He was refusing food in an attempt to end the blockade
11/23/01
The Protestant residents of the Glenbryn area announced the protest at the Holy Cross School would be "suspended".
Approximately 500 people attended the rally in the centre of Belfast in support of the pupils of Holy Cross School.
.
11/26/01
There was no Loyalist protest outside the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School. Catholic children and their parents were able to make their way to the school with a very much reduced security force presence
01/09/02
"we could be back to square one again".
To ensure the safety of the pupils, they were taken away from the school by bus rather than run the gauntlet of hatred
Sinn Fein said
Protestant loyalists were deliberately trying to raise sectarian tensions by verbally and physically abusing parents and children at Holy Cross
Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland Education Minister,
"I am profoundly disappointed at today's developments and I would urge local political and community representatives to engage in an honest dialogue to prevent further escalation and to resolve this situation."
Meanwhile, a schoolboy was being treated in hospital after the school bus on which he was being taken home was attacked as it passed through North Belfast.
The youngster, from the Boy's Model School in Belfast, suffered injuries when the bus was attacked at a roundabout in the Ardoyne
01/10/02
Violence spread in North Belfast today
17 vehicles were attacked in a school car park
They were damaged by four men who smashed windscreens and doors in the grounds of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School
Shocked parents claimed their children were in hysterics and had to be taken home.
Petrol and acid bombs as well as bricks, bottles and fireworks were thrown.
The Holy Cross school was closed today as staff held talks to decide when classes should re-open, but the attack at the neighboring school confirmed fears that the disturbances will
Spread
Meanwhile Protestant loyalists attacked cars at the Catholic Lady of Mercy Secondary School in the Protestant Ballysillam
North Belfast.
Sinn Fein North Belfast Assembly member said
The attack on the secondary school was an obvious attempt by loyalists to escalate the violence.
"We need to calm the situation down and try to draw back from this. I assume that loyalists have done it and I do think that in the middle of all this and throughout last year sections of loyalism are intent on attacking Catholics."
"People need reassurance whatever happened yesterday that we are not into a blockade situation. That question needs to be answered for people both in the Protestant and Catholic communities,"
01/11/02
Tensions eased in North Belfast as the children of the Holy Cross Primary School returned to class without any protests by loyalists.
A number of other schools, Protestant and Catholic, in north Belfast which were forced to close early because of the disturbances also re-opened on time today.
Right to Education Group, welcomed the absence of a protest and said this could do much to help restore order on the streets
01/12/02
A Catholic postal worker was shot dead as he arrived for work at a sorting office on the northern outskirts of Belfast
The murder was claimed by the Red Hand Defenders
An anonymous telephone caller, purporting to represent Red Hand Defenders, warned of action.
Representatives of one teachers' union also warned of possible strike action unless the trouble which forced the closure of the
Holy Cross School ended
Classes were also halted at a number of other schools in the area because of fears for the pupils' safety.
01/14/02
Martin McGuinness, the Northern Ireland Education Minister, demanded the immediate lifting of the loyalist death threats against staff at Catholic schools in Belfast.
The minister, who had talks with unions and management from the education sector, said that schools and all those associated with them must be regarded as sacred.
At the Catholic Holy Cross primary school a notice of another world in times past was pasted to the front door greeting parents collecting their daughters today
"Ardoyne is one of the few places in the city where sanity reigns, and where Protestant and Catholic live in mutual trust and confidence", it said.
It was a quote taken from Belfast, An Illustrated History, as reported by the Irish News on 19.07 1935
Teachers across North Belfast were living in fear but they went to school as normal despite the threat by the Red Hand Defenders that teachers and all staff working in Catholic schools were "legitimate" targets" from today.
An armored police Land Rover stood guard in the playground beside the front gates.
Engineers finished installing CCTV camera's around the perimeter of the 600 pupil school as the day progressed.
01/13/02
Protestant Loyalists carried out arson attacks on St Bride's Primary School in south Belfast and on St Patrick's High School in Lisburn.
Both schools suffered substantial damage.
01/14/02
Nearly 750 "commandos" took up position around
Catholic schools in north Belfast. The move came in response to attacks on the schools, to the RHD/UDA/UFF threat against staff at Catholic schools, and to the murder of Daniel McColgan.
01/16/02
Face-to-face talks were held in north Belfast between Holy Cross parents and Glenbryn residents in a bid to find a way forward after serious rioting the previous week. The parents said that the fact that the two sides were meeting face-to-face was a positive move.
The Department of Health announced a pay out of £100,000 to develop trauma-counseling services in north Belfast's interface areas.
01/28/02
A trip to the west of Ireland will play an important part in the "healing process" for the girls of Belfast's Holy Cross Primary School who suffered at the hands of protesters.
The Catholic youngsters have been invited to County Galway at the expense of a hotelier who has promised to show them the better side of human nature
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