To the up-and-coming...

"To know the soul of another, one must know the soul that resides within. To come to know that soul, one must seek to know God, and in so doing come to know the soul-source of humanity itself."

There once was...

There once was a quaggle of bearstrich (a peculiar creature, it bore a striking resemblance to a bear, with a bear's head, and four bear claws, but the body and tail feathers of an Osterich).

Like the Osterich, the creature ran on its back two legs, which were quite spindly for a bear, but all it had to support were these two massive (think "Popeye") bear arms and an unusual, large and stinky, bear's head.

This quaggle (about a half-a-quag more than a meeka and three-and-a-half times less than a terugala) of bearstrichs would spend the entire day standing on these two, spindly hind legs of a bear and drink manhattans in the blazing heat of the Death Valley sun (for they lived here to avoid the interruption of men).

They would drink and discuss politics.

Like Englishmen, they did this, all-the-while, in the heat of the sun.

Bearstrichs loved the sun.

And manhattans.

It was most peculiar, for they never became intoxicated.

Their speech never slurred.

All day, they would drink and tarry, drink and tarry, drink, and tarry.

They tarry about the situation in Miler's Bluff, (for everyone knows those sofu (a Bearstrich expletive) Miler's are a bunch of corrupt ninny-poos), or about some sort of nothing that was usually going on in Pigpoodle holler.

The pigpoodles HATED bearstrichs, and the bearstrichs didn't care much for the pigpoodles either.

It all went back to the great war that transpired one half terugayar before the great migration to the Easterlunds.

A couple of the

Sparkplug Soul

Ok, so "Motorhead" does not really have a song entitled "Sparkplug Soul"; they should have. It fits them.

If they did, I think it would go something like this;

"I wish I had a sparkplug soul,
to go along with my rocker-armed mind.

I wish I had a sparkplug soul,
to lay down some tread on some weary bones.

With a sparkplug soul,
I'd fire every piston.

I'd slam them into my rocker-armed mind.

Electric blast feeling the gaseous sqeeze
in my spark-chamber brain.

With my sparkplug soul,
synapse they fire,
and my crankshaft legs,
they fly, baby, they fly.

Oh how I loves my sparkplug soul.

Sizzle spark.

Sizzle spark.

Sizzle spark.

Ram it home, baby.

Fire me up another spark.

My sparkplug soul.

Drunken Reverie on the loss of a true, blue, friend

My hat is off, to you, my pal.

Long days, and drunken nights...together we spent!

What a ride it was, this "l'enfant terribleee".

She was a great, old gal, a grand dame, in deed!

And what a grand ol' flag above her did once waive (and now, no men, together, can save).

But now, she is daid...and all that we have before us, and before us is mourn, mourn, mourn.

For the life of a gal, who was once...so grand ! God love her soul.

God, love her soul !

A Grande Dame was she (Vespuci will vouch). A Grande Dame, a grand gal, and the

love

of the South.

Young scouts they did pledge, an honor so deep.

But now, she is gone, all piled up in a heap.

Oh now, she is gone, and what have we left? A memory of her, and a life, now bereft.

But here's the grand deal (and a grand deal 'tis indeed)...

A man once commented to me, as I sat in the East, that "our thang" was on wane, that "she", like her, was dying, slow death.

And to him I did reply from my seat way on high "if she lives in one heart, she lives without 'part' ".

And so it must go; "virtus junxit mors, non separabit" !

Grand dreams, grand schemes (and even grandier idears) - they too, they will live, if only they live in one heart (that beats true. That, beats true).

And so I must go, and so I must do, as those who before me, brave bastards knew too.

True dinkem, true dinkem, true dinkem 'til dee.

So drink 'til you drop, mon frere and mon ace!

Together we live, if (in secret) our hearts - they do keep pace, keep pace, keep pace - until end of long race...

And onward, and upward, together we will trudge, and an eagle one day, us both, she will judge.

From this pit we will fly, and rise from crevace, and above lousey fray, cherub raptors we will boss.

And order she will come, to a chaos that is high, and at talon-swords that we weild, she-devils they will die!

We will rip, we will tear, ripping flesh until bone - she will bear.

Uncovering truth from she-devil's dark, dank, deep lair.

And forsooth, God will reign, and we upon knee, upon knee we shall bear - a burden so light, hard burden, but no care.

Click, click, click

http://mbshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/click-click-click/

One from our sister site

http://mbshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/and-only-god-prevails/

Twightlight Fell on Forest Hill

An old man enslaved. Chained, to his will. He champed the cigar, and considered the till.

He chewed that old stogy, and his mind melded in a falling, twilight sky.

An unbelievable shade of blue it was; and it is true, there can be no doubt, absolute. He'd never seen nothin' like it, in all his years beneath them mountains he always held, so dear and close to his still beating (thank God), heart.

It was such a pale blue. It mimicked his eyes, and a tear almost came, but then came to subside.

Fireflies flickered against this pale, beaten sky, and his lantern, it shimmered, in rhythm to an oncoming, dark sky.

He knew there'd be stars, later that night, and they too would flicker, and rule the dark sky. They surely would live longer than these seasonal flies, but somehow they were kin, and their existence...in line?

But in that moment between, when it's neither darkness or light, the old man took repose, and considered his plight.

He was abandoning, in sort, but grasping in another. While his life had been through changes, he'd never quite given up - even through changes there was not a quitting, but only a shifting; like a chain on a sprocket to a tearing, new high.

This change was no doubt of monumental import; but somehow he took refuge in knowing the sort.

On Forest Hill he did love, he built and he toiled. He had his own place, and he sewed fertile soil.

One thing was for certain in his dubious mind; here he would live, and here he would die.

This circle of life, what a grand scheme it is...it yields perfect habit, of that, there can be no pretense.

So the old man did puff another deep drag, and ponder his existence in this fairytale wag.

What a beautiful life it is, against this deep, blue-green hue; another day just shy of heaven on this forested hill, this shelter from life's cruel skew, with an explosively simple, and monumentally incredulous, serene, sweet view!

He gasped one last evening gasp as his soul's eyes did peer, upon the heart of the Lord in a splendor he so deeply revered.

And with that, he turned in, awaiting the fray, for the changes that come in yet another, new day.

The Chattering Tale

This is the tale of a cutty-sark sail,
of a winch's lip
and a Dragon's tail.

Of Dragon Beast' foal
running down Dragon Beast' spine
with sprocketed chain
chattering metered time.

Humming in unison
they soar, head to tail
the beast clad in iron,
they run as on rail.

"And what is there mission,"
quips curious, young lad
"for they run and they run,
turn 'round back up, it's sad!"

Answered, old man:
"The mighty Mother, Dragon Beast,
she calls out her lads,
she sends them a' scurry
for the dreams that she'd had...

From points farther East,
her breath doth return
as mist from the sea,
cooling belly fires that burn.

And her children have riders,
like Wraiths, they hold on
through the spine's knotty curves,
Man, maiden and sons.

Young girls they line up,
for rides on the beasts,
their hair like the pony,
leather clad for the feast.

Mortal food's not their object,
on this ride through curved hell.
To be seen by the subjects
those Demons 'neath scales.

'Tis a long ride down'
cries bloggers from sides,
"and over edge you will tumble
for the Demon's dark prize".

But onward and onward they travel
they travel, they do
their purpose, you ask?
like their piston's, redeux.

They clamor and clank
they hum, and they purr
but kitty's not timid
wire rifled, her fur.

"But where will they end up,"
questioned young son
"since their mission like piston
see-saws backwards and yon?"

"Ah, their's is no mission,
on that you can bet
to ride Dragon's tail
is all they have left."

"But what of the wraiths
holding on to their backs?"

"Ah, they will keep going
long as God sets their tracks".

And the winds blew the fog
from far out at sea
the sails like chains chatter
a Pirate's ship carries "she".

The winch, she is coming,
like a whore on a breeze
she comes to take mountain,
Dragon's lair at it's knee.

And what will be left of stout spine
and it's brood?

The foals, they will gallop
and wraiths run for good.

And Dragon, she'll stay
and lick at her wounds,
until another day
engineer's and their children
and eggs hatch new brood.

And so they will run
and race through those curves
Until winch and ship come take them
and send souls beyond Earth.

-Sir S.E. Visum, esq.
on being brought back to life

Agape

No one loves God as Jesus.
And for Christ, none could love Him as God.
From the wilderness we cry "Jesu, Jesu, Jesu",
and from home, only, "My Dearest Dear Lord".
But alas, we must all and always merely, pitifully and meagerly try, try, try.

For grace, it is, good enough?

For the Dashing Racontour of Haberdashery

The Spinning Song

It's stuck in my head, really.

Has been, all my life.

A catchy ditty, it's about spinning.

Not auguring, or falling out of the sky in a tail-spin; not political either - it's plain, old-fashioned spinning, on a spinning wheel.

No, not like the song from the 60's (let the spinnin' wheel spin) - yarn (and not "talking a yarn" either, actual, bona fide yarn (of the kind used to make afghans, and funky capes that old women and hippies wear).

It's actually a song, composition, really. Played on the piano. It's a catchy tune.

But, isn't that the way of spin. Spin is contagious...it sticks with you.

It binds, and it magically takes small fibers and through some mystical quirk of nature it forms them into this structure that does not unravel but yet clings in a manner that can not be fully explained (or at least, not to satisfaction - why does it not simply unwind?).

How is it that this song, this piece, this composition is so like the yarn it tries, through cadence and tonality, through rhythm and vibe, to mimic?

Da, da, da, da, da, da...da DA.

Over and over and bloody over, clickety-clack, just like that damned wheel...spinning, pumping with their feet, spinning, spinning, spinning.

It's mind numbing, really.

Like the political quacks and hacks...always spinning.

I have to ask, though; with the yarn, it binds and makes something useful. Something we can wear, or keep our bodies warm in the Winter (if we are old women or hippies - although I did once see a bikini made from afghan - quite fetching until it got wet at which point it looked as though she had cocker spaniel puppies attached to all her nasty bits. Wet and nasty cocker spaniel pups. Oooo, I just keep getting a deeper state of funkiness).

What then is accomplished by the political variety of spin? Is there a double-helix array formed from the spin that binds into this form that covers our bodies not unlike the array that forms the skin that contains and manifests our bones, our brains, and even, to extent, our souls?

I think it more like the airplane, beginning its descent in a tailspin, and then like the auger binding itself into the muck of the earth. Rather than forming something of the earth, it digs into its mire.

Ironic that political spin would be of that sense of the word, you know, twisting into the dirt seeking its origin in the depths of the planet - in the hell from which it was formed rather than providing anything of noble use to man.

Oh well; I do have to get my heart right. It is, after all, an election year and it is, frankly, time to talk turkey.

Clickety, clickety....clack.

Cool Breeze

A cool wind blew through town today.

It was odd for the breeze to be cool this time of year.

Oh granted, I suppose, it could still be considered early Spring (if not late, early), but still, peculiar.

Whiley wondered, what would be the outcome of it all?

With the townsfolk in such uproar, maybe this cool snap would cool the hot heads as well.

They are pretty perked up over this one. Goes deep too...down in the roots.

They're worked up over who they are...over where they come from, and more, where the outsiders are from. There can be no doubt, the town was changin', and not necessarily for the better.

Lot's of outsiders blowin' in, like the cool breeze.

The breeze is temporary, but these outsiders, seems like they're gonna stay.

Whiley wasn't sure he wanted to go back to town. Mamma brought him some chicory coffee, and they sat on the front porch swing, watching the humming birds on the tiger lily's and commentin' on the blue birds and purple martins.

Looked like a good year for them. Nothing ever changes with them.

Happy birds, they were.

A Chat with Ribeaux

Ribeaux: Hello. Can you hear me? Is anyone here? Anyone at all?
Kraekun: Yes, Ribeaux, I am here. It is I, Kraekun!
Ribeaux: Hello, Kraekun.
Kraekun: Hello.
Ribeaux: Tell me, have you the time?
Kraekun: The time for what? For me, there is always time.
Ribeaux: For a chat, or a verse, or a well-turned phrase.
Kraekun: Ah...I may need the time, for all that.
Ribeaux: Well, you see, my time, it seems so...limited. I hurry here and scurry there, always after some new pursuit...always, always, always it seems, perpetually "on time", and yet, always in a hurry and never for the things I want.
Kraekun: Well, what is it that you seek? Money, fame? Perhaps a new set of threads?
Ribeaux: No, not in the least. I want for nothing. However, wouldn't it be nice to simply take a very long shower...I mean, truly long. Stay in there for days. Wouldn't that be nice?
Kraekun: Well, I would think one would become rather "crinkled" in that, wouldn't you?
Ribeaux: Oh, I should think rather shriveled...but, would it not be so very cool if you were not. Wrinkled that is.
Kraekun: Well, I suppose. Tell me, this isolation and protracted cleansing, what effect do you suppose it would have on your countenance? Do you suppose it would flatter your soul?
Ribeaux: Well, if we use the physical as example, I suppose the heated water will ultimately have a drying effect on the body...sort of robbing it of its natural emollients. I wonder if it would do the same to the mind and conscience?
Kraekun: Well, if one had a conscience, then I suppose it just might have *some* effect...I wonder what form a dry soul would take?
Ribeaux: With that much cleansing, I would think it would be most "squeeky" - very clean, I suppose.
Kraekun: Yes, but three days! God forbid. The skin might all slough off...then where would you be? A walking set of musculature. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be proud!
Ribeaux: Oh, I don't know about that.
Kraekun: What ever do you mean?
Ribeaux: Well, in my case, he might be a bit embarrassed.
Kraekun: Oh?
Ribeaux: Well, let's just say that my soul is a bit "healthy".
Kraekun: Ah. Well, there is much to be said for the glutenous soul! Why, think of all the great men who were "portly", deep down. Why I'd venture to say that most men are of a portly sort, when you peel back the flesh and peer into the soul. What man doesn't wish to feast!
Ribeaux: Yes, but feast on what?
Kraekun: Well, in matters of the soul, I would think righteousness.
Ribeaux: Ah, and there is the rub.
Kraekun: Hmmm?
Ribeaux: Well, you see, isn't it really definitional?
Kraekun: Righteousness?
Ribeaux: Well, what is right, really.
Kraekun: I don't follow you?
Ribeaux: Well, given a choice between two circumstances...which is the "right" choice?
Kraekun: Well, that depends on the circumstances, don't you think?
Ribeaux: Not really. I mean, regardless of circumstance, one choice will be right, and therefore righteous, and the other...not.
Kraekun: I suppose...
Ribeaux: No supposition...it is black and white...right is right.
Kraekun: Well, let's break it down with an example.
Ribeaux: Absolutely. You have two guys.
Kraekun: Yes, in a chat room.
Ribeaux: OK. Let's say they are discussing...oh I don't know...sports!
Kraekun: Sounds reasonable.
Ribeaux: Baseball.
Kraekun: You bet!
Ribeaux: Hardy harr. Well, let's just say that one proposes that the ball was safe at home.
Kraekun: And the other, of course, disagrees.
Ribeaux: Precisely. Now one is right, and the other, wrong. Which is it.
Kraekun: The one who sides with the ump.
Ribeaux: No, no, no. It was a judgment call. Too close, and yet too far for most. Some said the umpire needed glasses, while the opposing team was all for his 20-20 vision.
Kraekun: But the ump is sanctified. He is a professional...accustomed to making judgment calls. It is what he does for a living, for God sakes. It's what he does.
Ribeaux: But there can only be one right and one wrong. So who is it.
Kraekun: The umpire. He's living it. He dies by it. He'll be fired if he makes too many wrong calls.
Ribeaux: So, you see, he can make a wrong call.
Kraekun: He's only human.
Ribeaux: And yet, ain't we all?
Kraekun: Well, there is Clapton.
Ribeaux: He's a ruddy guitarist. What does he know about baseball.
Kraekun: I bet he could sing a song about it.
Ribeaux: The fact is, somebody has to be right, and somebody wrong. Blues singers are all wrong.
Kraekun: Oh, now. Why'd you have to go and pick on blues singers. They are soulful, you know.
Ribeaux: So full of what?
Kraekun: They are full of soul.
Ribeaux: So was my Grandma's catfish pie, but I got news for ya...no one ever wanted to eat it twice.
Kraekun: Indigestion?
Ribeaux: Right down to to your very soul.
Kraekun: Well, you'll have that.
Ribeaux: Yeah, her pie was just wrong. Kinda like that nursery rhyme...four and twenty blackbirds...who ever heard of that?
Kraekun: Yeah, blackbird pie can't be very good...I've never had catfish pie, but now I think about it, it doesn't sound too appetizing.
Ribeaux: Damn full of bones. Tasted like the bottom of the lake.
Kraekun: Yikes. You know that ain't good.
Ribeaux: Nope. It was just wrong.
Kraekun: Sounds it.
Ribeaux: Well, listen, I gotta go. Try and ponder on that right and righteous thing, would ya? You might try applying it tomorrow.
Kraekun: Might make me sick. Like your Grandmother's pie. If I were to act righteous, people might think I was up to something.
Ribeaux: Something fishy.
Kraekun: Yeah. I'll try and live it and not "act" it. Goodnight Ribeaux.
Ribeaux: Sounds like a plan. Good night Kraekun.

A short, short

A short, short

He was born on the fifth of December. He died on the twelfth of November, Eighty years later.

In his life, he experienced love, joy, trouble, pain, sadness and happiness.

He traveled, some. He stuck around, some.

He lived, he laughed, he saw and he danced.

He lived a life that was truly worth living, and he died a death that was truly worth remembering.

He was passing a liquor store that day, when a man exited, gun to the chin of a comely, young lass shouting profanities (in front of the children, no less).

With a gun in his vest, he reached inside and felt the curvature of the trigger, like he’d done so many times before.

He pulled it while it was still in his vest pocket. He shot the man cold, but as he was dying, and before he hit the ground, he fired a shot into his breast.

He died on the twelfth of November, in the hospital where he was born, eighty years ago.

A nurse there told me, his last words were “I had a good life. A good, good life”.

Deep down there is a small, little smile that reminds me to be thankful that I am living that same, good, good life.

Reposted on Sterquilinium by permission of MB Shepherd

-(SEV)

A Pseudonym for Kingdom, Come

In the place, that is not named,
in the hall, that no one finds;
there is a scribe who sits,
and ponders, upon time.

There is a name he seeks,
a name, he can not find.
Time it heals all scars,
and memory, it too may fade.

This scribe, he doth scratch,
a pate that is so sullen;
for want of years, and light,
he doth in age lose sight.

But memory somehow serves,
to render, incomplete
a soul without begrudging,
a soul, imperfectly complete!

And so it doth go,
upon the book of ages,
that One there is above,
who lives beyond the sages.

And in that mortal book,
there one solemn name.
And in that name...sanctification
of a love beyond one's nation.

And so, within this life,
I will continue, albeit same
to seek that mortal memory
of the Love, that is...His Name.

The Vagabond, Entulloch's Soulful Prayer

With no fixed domain to bear, his closest ally was a singlar place in the universe nestled between a massive, grey-white wing and an engorged breastplate with musculature that was of iron, yet with an inviting comfort of down, and an inner, radiating warmth.

The blood of God coursed in that breast, the energy of the universe, the power of all things combined (and then some).

It was his only refuge, nestled there like a babe. It was his only place of comfort.

He feared the great being. He knew (for he had a taste still left in his mouth, even after millenia), he knew of that wrath, that God-forsaken wrath.

It was terrible. God, awe-filled. God, awful.

It was the eye of a raptor, the eye of a shark (yet the shark might show fear - but not the raptor). There was no passion in the wrathful eye; while he knew that love was there, it was love subdued; love, restrained. Necessary, oblique and disdained.

He knew that eye, that facet. He feared it, but more, he feared that in himself that could illicit such an eye as that. He feared his sins, his weakness, his proclivity to illicit such a seeming, heartless stare.

And so, he soared.

"Heavenly Father,
rest me now,
for I know the dangers
of Thy embrace.

It is not of You, Father, that I fear,
but of myself in that warm place.
For what I might do,
Heavenly soul, for what I might do.

To earn that mantle,
to become that one,
for which Saviour pleads,
'forgive him, for he know not'.
This is my tremble, this my fear.

I must learn to rest this quake,
to quash this tremble, Oh Adonai,
and become AS you, the rock,
and soar in Thy way with confidence
that I will not falter, like remnant on The Wind.

Give me necessary strenth,
my liege,
make me so wise,
that I might soar with You,
call you friend, and tremble not!"

It was his constant prayer, as he wandered the Universe of God's will, of God's plan, and of God's design.

It was his way to rush through the cold spaces of icey breath's bluster there within God's domain (for even on cold wind, He doth move). To wander the universe at once seeking that nestled wing and finding it there, in all the recesses of a black and distant space.

Even in that chasmic nothingness, this believer sees that wing, feels that warmth and understands that presence. For even in that nothingness, His wing and His wind that lifts it, prevail.

He is there for those, like Entolluch, who will open the breast-buried eye, rend the fabric of darkness, utter the soul-filling prayer




...and see.

Beebo's Time Out

Together they trekked through through the miles of mire on a trail that snaked through a terrain one could describe only as a jungle-canyon.

It wound through the hills like an intricate weave of an intricate string on an intricate bead; the path it followed would turn switch-back here and knot around in and on itself through endless permutation.

Would there be a destination for the lonely two?

He had not had Beebo long when they took this trek. He'd heard of this place before, how treacherous it could be. The serpent would be out twisting in these hills as well, as the weather had been fairly dry, and God knows they like to seek moisture and shade.

Didn't bother Beebo much. With nose to the ground, he plowed through that trail as if his nose were a blade; the plowshare digging and turning on an ivey path.

Levin was getting a little concerned. The wind was picking up and it made the upper canopy to sway and caused what seemed a whisper from above as tree on tree, limb on limb and leaf on leaf would brush and whoosh as a deified wind animated them like tall giants towering, protecting and tip on tip scratching at each other.

It was like a battle of light touch, but an incessant campaign.

At once a gust would rip through the canopy and space itself would open from above. The sky, so little seen in these woods, would wink at him.

Yeah, Levin was concerned. Concerned that that damned Beebo would continue snorting the ground until that beast that his nostril percieves becomes one with which they would both tangle, like the vine tangles in the tree, once encountered completely entwined in a fight in its domain.

At once, Beebo froze. His tail was so stiffened that hairs on the tip shook like the branches in the wind.

His back was as straight as the cleave in a fractured boulder, yet his resolve as strong as the force that split it.

Levin felt a chill in his spine.

Today...today they would encounter the beast.

Levin's Dog, part one

Scrawngy.

Matted, tufted...twisted-into-knot on twisted-knot; hair that grew like wire, barbed - heavy in places and sparse in others.

His step was like a coiled...or rather, uncoiled roll of barbed wire.

When he was a kid, he'd work on his daddy's farm helpin' to mend the fences (Matthew Levin, Beebo's Master, that is). Thick, heavy leather gloves, as thick as old Beebo's black and tarry hide - they were the only protection.

That wire, when a calf would knock it undone, pulling it from the fragile and rusted staples in weathered old wood, damn would that stuff uncoil fast.

God help ya if ya was workin' it when it unfurled.

Damn. Cut into ya like briar, shore nuff.

Old Beebo was the same. Son-of-a-bitch would jump till his last day, just like there was dynamite in his feet.

Good, old Beebo.

What a dog he was, in his youth.

Hell, he's lost half his teeth, and he's still better'n any Democrat I know. Course, none of them have any anyway. Crawl on their bellies like a worthless lap dog and lick your ass to death. Varmints gotta love that.

Old Beebo were'nt no lap dog...no sir. Probably wasn't no Democrat neither, if'n he could vote.

Damn good old dog, Beebo. Damned good old dog.

Be ashamed to put him down. Damned shame.

Refrain, oh ye Profane

Ode to the Profane,
may ye live in peace.
Through Cerberus disdain
he chases you, your pain
and no refuge found in any crease.






Ode to the Profane,
may your days be always numbered.
Like that killing brother Cain,
for you, there, a trouble that is lain.
In whithered hour, your dream-color, only umbre.

Ode to that Profane,
life for you to only agonize.
In your life, only pain,
the devil in your eye, pure disdain,
and all those about you only patronize.

Ode to you, Profane.
Tis a life not worth living,
birth for you ney again,
(for that first, from womb, was never sane)
and now your life's blood is only for the giving.

Ode to you, Profane,
your books you may write,
and the necks, they may crane,
but on the minds only strain,
and yours is a legacy of the trite.

Ode to you, Profane.
While great bastions from ye are pummelled.
But in the melee of that great train,
your thoughts, they sum in a certain refrain
of the fact of a life that is never humbled.

Ode to you, Opie Taylor
for yours is the heart of a Louveteau.
While your idol is Kaaba,
The cowan's heart in you, Jablichas
pitied soul pours forth like blood from wounded doe.

Quoth the Wraith: I have seen destruction, and I am him

Sweat saves blood.
Erwin Rommel


But, can sweat stop a bullet?
-Visum


All war is deception.
Sun Tzu


So is global warming, but just look at the hullabaloo it has caused. More than one war has been fought by the deceived.
-Visum


The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Sun Tzu


Sounds like the collectivist motto that the supreme art of working is to create something without doing anything; of course, it has gone far to create a bunch of porky couch potatoes; you might call them the "fog of boar".
-Visum


Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
Plato


I see dead people...and they are fighting over potato chips and who owns the remote control for the idiot box.
-Visum


A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.
Herbert V. Prochnow


Yes, but can a microbe on a meteorite assist that nation in cultivating civility in the rest of the world? I'd say that like the socialist, all the microbe can do is promulgate and infect and ultimately lead to the downfall of civility.
-Visum


I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.
Ulysses S. Grant


A piece of Georgia, a piece of Bamie, and a piece of Tennessee.
-Visum


What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
Robert E. Lee


Alternately we can take a passive approach...just sit on our haunches and let the barbarians (and other assorted enemas) burn a path from New York to San Diego, rather than simply a paltry 50-mile swath through the Southland. Cruel, yes. Necessary? Depends entirely on how much you actually care about things like joy, happiness, your personal God and whether you consider Columbia, Atlanta and Savannah "fair faces" in this "beautiful world".
-Visum


To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
George Orwell


I wonder if he saw what was wrought on Columbia by the blue-blood, socialist hoard?
-Visum


War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.
Albert Pike


And to the victor belongs the catastrophes that are the spoils of the achieved "peace".
-Visum


Men do not fail; they give up trying.
Elihu Root


And worse, they fail to try again...danged ol' under-achieving socialists.
-Visum


We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.
Jeane Kirkpatrick


And when what they want is not tangible, such as the soul of the infidel...what then, tit for tat? Soul, for eternal soul? Eye, for spite-filled eye? War exists as long as the devil believes one singular soul is left that can be turned from righteousness. And what is righteousness? That eternal attempt to gain a peace that only exists in total on the "other side"; a place where evil has no home. It is an attempt won only by fighting vehemently to bring some semblance of that peace to a world seemingly run by a soul-consuming devil and existing here just shy and short of heaven's bright shore.

There are a few brave souls left who will fight like hell for an impure and clouded reflection of heaven's peace right here on earth. To they alone belong the victory that is heaven's ever-lasting peace."
-Visum


We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill


Uh, best of luck to all you socialists out there. Happy hunting!
-Visum