'CONTEMPORARY LITERARY HORIZON' NO 1 (27)/JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2012

Photo: Caroline Gill and prof. Donald Riggs (Philadelphia, United States, January 2012)
FROM THE SUMMARY

MULTICULTURAL DIALOGUES
Carline Gill – Donald Riggs (UK - USA)
CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL HORIZONS
Catherine Rakose (Grenoble, France), Ou va le monde?
Arturo Hernandez Fuentes (Monterrey, Mexico), Quizas
Rosetta Savelli (Forli, Italy), L’Identita dei Rosolinesi
Lidia Borghi (Genova, Italy), Manifestanti globali (Indignados)
Raymond Walden (Paderborn, Germany), Basisdemokratie besitzt keine Basis
Alfred Vassallo (London, UK), My Activities
Carole St-Aubin (Canada), Pontiac - Based Asociation
PERSIAN HORIZONS
Nazi Gholi (Teheran, Iran), Chelehh Night Tradition
BENGALI HORIZONS
Trishita Banerjee (Kolkata, India), Pedong – a Trip to Paradise

A NEW EXISTENTIALIST GENERATION
Oziella Inocêncio (Campina Grande, Brazil), A Festa da freira morta
Bianca C. Dan (Deva, Romania), Superplin

MULTICULTURAL POETIC HORIZONS
SPANISH POETRY
Juana Castillo Escobar (Madrid)
Isa Guerra (Canarias)
Rosario Valcarcel (Canarias)
Felix Martin Arencibia (Canarias)
David Duran Romera (Gerona)
PORTUGUESE POETRY
Ana Rita Ramos
GREEK POETRY
Demetra Christodoulou (Athens)
Haris Psarras (Athens-Edinburgh)
MEXICAN POETRY
Marina Centeno (Progreso Yucatan)
Victor Ruiz Martinez (Puebla)
ARGENTINIAN POETRY
Beatriz Chiabrera de Marchisone (Santa Fe)
INDIAN POETRY
Jeena Mary Chacko (Kerala)
ARABIC POETRY
Chokri Omri (Tunisia)
Rafeek El Fehem (Tunisia)
El Habib Louai (Marocco)
BRAZILIAN POETRY
Thereza Christina Rocque da Motta (São Paulo)
Vogaluz Miranda (São Paulo)
Casciano Lopes (São Paulo)
Juareiz Correya (Recife)
Roberto Esteves de Fonseca (Rio de Janeiro)
ROMANIAN POETRY
Theodor Damian (Bucureşti-New York)
FINNISH POETRY
Rita Dahl (Helsinki)
A CANADIAN POETICAL DEPARTURE
Allen Qing Yuan (China-Canada)

MULTICULTURAL NARRATIVE HORIZONS
Abiola Olatunde (Nigeria), Blood Contract
Rodolfo Chavez (Italy), La Gracia de ser tu amigo
Marcelo Barbosa Alcaraz (Brazil), Nasce o blog
Daniel Dragomirescu, El Diablo y el Hombre de Dios/
O Diabo e o homem de Deus/The Devil and the Man of God
AN IRRISH NARRATIVE DEPARTURE
Molly Bloom (Irlanda), (Por nao teres)

CLH-ALL THE WORLD IN A JOURNAL!
COMING SOON!

Poetry and Spirituality /POESIA Y ESPIRITUALIDAD: CHOKRI OMRI (TUNISIA)

EYES FOR EARTH AND EDEN
From this sweet Earth we have come
and launched our journey of the living.
We had and could have no time for stopping
and we will go on without thinking,

without knowing until we will truly arrive
at knowing, at thinking, at weeping
and at smiling.

This Earth is ours and our Land is rich.
Tell me please how we are deprived.
No one is born to be made for dying
if we just live life without human mapping.
How can we be too selfish and agonistic

if we love and give without wrapping?

Our eyes shall never be closed
to the Tower of Light and will
forever seek out the Truth
and be guided by every flower.

OJOS PARA TIERRA Y EDEN
De esta dulce Tierra hemos nacido
y hemos empezado el viaje de los vivos.
No hemos tenido y no podemos tener tiempo para detenernos
y seguiremos sin pensar,

sin conocer hasta que llegamos de verdad
al conocimiento, al pensamiento, al llanto,
y a la sonrisa.

Esta tierra es nuestra y nuestro Pais es rico.
Dime, por favor, que nos falta.
Nadie nace para ser destinado a morir
si vivieramos la vida sin mapas humanos.
Como ser demasiado egoistas y agnosticos.

si amamos y ofrecemos sin condiciones?

Nuestros ojos nunca cerraran
hacia la Torre de la Luz y para siempre buscaran la Verdad
y seran guiados de cada flor.


OCHI PENTRU PĂMÂNT ŞI EDEN

Din acest dulce Pământ am venit
şi ne-am început călătoria celor vii.
Nu am avut şi nu putem avea timp să ne oprim
şi vom continua fără să gândim,

fără să cunoaştem până ce ajungem cu adevărat
la cunoaştere, la gândire, la plâns
şi la zâmbet.

Acest Pământ este al nostru şi tărâmul nostru este bogat.
Spune-mi, te rog, ce ne lipseşte.
Nimeni nu se naşte ca să fie făcut să moară
de am trăi viaţa fără hărţi umane.
Cum să fim prea egoişti şi agnostici

dacă iubim şi dăm fără înveliş?

Ochii noştri nu se vor închide niciodată
către Turnul Luminii şi pe vecie vor căuta Adevărul
şi vor fi călăuziţi de fiecare floare.

Versiune românească: Mircea Filimon
(New York, Statele Unite)
Versiune spaniolă: Daniel Dragomirescu

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/SOBRE EL AUTOR

Chokri Omri (born 1985) is a poet, writer and teacher of English from Tunisia. His literary creation recommends him as a valuable and original voice of contemporary Arabic literature and spirituality. Since 2011, Chokri Omri is a honorary contributor in Tunisia of our multicultural journal.
Chokri Omri (n. 1985) es un poeta, escritor y profesor de ingles desde Tunisia. Su creacion literaria lo recomienda como una voz original y de valor de la literatura y de la espiritualidad arabe contemporanea. Desde 2011, Chokri Omri es un colaborador honorifico en Tunisia de nuestra revista multicultural.

Chokri Omri (n. 1985) este un poet, prozator şi profesor de engleză din Tunisia. Creaţia sa literară îl recomandă drept o voce originală şi de valoare a literaturii şi spiritualităţii arabe contemporane. Din 2011, Chokri Omri este colaborator onorific în Tunisia al revistei noastre multiculturale.

Daniel Dragomirescu

Blossoming Almond Tree

van Gogh Vincent (1853 - 1890)

Poems and Articles

http://circalit.com/chokriamri/projects/poems-and-articles/?readScreen=true

THE SECOND ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY LITERARY HORIZON

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/

INDEX CHM 1- 6/2011

A
Aldea, Marius Ştefan (România) – 4, 5
Alvarez Menendez, Maria (Spania) - 5
Amano, Keiko (Japonia) – 4, 6
Arencibia, Felix Martin (Spania) - 6
Arroyo Silva, Antonio (Spania-Canare) – 3, 6
B
Barreira, Teca (Spania) - 6
Basile, Ignazio Salvatore (Italia-Sardinia) – 4, 6
Benitez, Luis (Argentina) – 4, 6
Berbel (Spania) - 6
Bernal Suarez, Daniel (Spania) - 6
Beynon, Byron (Marea Britanie) – 2
Bibolotti, Elena (Italia) - 5
Borghi, Lidia (Italia) – 4, 5, 6
Botella, Harmonie (Spania) - 4
Bravo, Carmen (Spania) - 2
Buhosu, Oana (România) – 1, 3
Burton, Portia (Marea Britanie) - 4
Bustamante Morales, Ana Rosa (Chile) - 3
C
Caloretti Castillo, Mirian Jesus (Peru) - 3
Campiz, Marilyn (Statele Unite) - 1
Cantuniari, Mihai (România) - 4
Casas Bulnes, Rocio (Chile) - 3
Castillo Escobar, Juana (Spania) – 1, 5
Catalano, Giovanni (Italia) – 4
Centeno, Marina (Mexic) – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Chavez Mercado, Rodolfo de Jesus (Italia-Vatican) – 2, 4, 5, 6
Constantinescu-Schlesak, Magdalena (România-Germania) - 6
Cortes, Pilar (Spania) - 5
Cossavella, Alejandro (Argentina) – 2
Covarrubias, Marcelino (Mexic-Spania) – 5, 6
D
Damian, Theodor (Statele Unite) - 3
Delgado, Samir (Spania) - 6
Delgado Duque, Teresa (Spania) - 6
Diemmi, Silvia (Italia) - 5
Dragomirescu, Daniel (România) – 1, 3, 4, 5, 6
Duggal, Eesha (India) – 3
Duran Romera, David (Spania) - 6
E
Espinosa Herrera, Rocio (Spania) - 6
F
Faraday, Mira (Statele Unite) – 1, 2, 4, 6
Foldes, Mike (Statele Unite) - 4
Fuentes, Arturo Hernandez (Mexic) – 2, 5
G
Garcia Brito, Aquiles (Spania) - 6
Ghelbere, Cristina (România) - 4
Gill, Caroline (Marea Britanie) – 2, 5
Giusseppe, Richard (Chile) - 2
Gendrano, Victor P. (Statele Unite) - 2
Gomes, Subrata Augustine (Australia) – 2, 5
Guerra, Isa (Spania) – 6
Guragain, Khem (Nepal-Canada) - 6
H
Hart, Peter (Marea Britanie) – 1, 2, 3, 4
Hawker, Nancy (Canada-Oman) - 3
I
Imbrenda, Mariangela (Italia) – 5, 6
Inocencio, Oziella (Brazilia) – 5, 6
Isanos, Elisabeta (România) – 2, 3
J
Jose, Matias (Carlos Camoes) (Portugalia) - 1
K
Khan, Masud (Bangladesh-Canada) – 1, 2
Kudera, Alexander (Statele Unite) – 3, 4, 5
L
Landsman, Peggy (Statele Unite) – 1
Lazu, Ion (România) – 1, 4
Leadbeater, Neil (Marea Britanie) – 3, 4
Lhullier, Luciana (Brazilia) – 1, 3
M
Machado da Cunha, Abel (Portugalia) - 6
Martin Pedros, Pedro Javier (Spania) - 2
Martins, Antonio (Portugalia) – 4, 6
Martinez Barquero, Isabel (Spania) - 6
Martinez Chacon, Elcira (Venezuela) - 4
Maslov, Vasili (Rusia) - 6
Mateo Otto, Eugenio (Spania) - 6
McCarra Fitzpatrick, Mary Ann (Statele Unite) – 1, 2,
Medina Carillo, Santiago (Spania) – 2, 3
Mellor, Jane (Statele Unite) – 3, 4, 6
Mercier, Mathieu (Franţa) – 1,
Mimano, Catherine (Kenya) – 1, 2, 5
Miranda, Vogaluz (Brazilia) - 6
Miron, Alina-Olimpia (România) - 6
Montoya Rendon, Ana Lucia (Columbia) - 2
Montoly, Daniel (Statele Unite - Rep. Dominicană) – 4, 5, 6
Morales Milohnic, Andres (Chile) – 1, 2, 3
Morata Cortado, Victor (Spania) - 1
Murgeanu, Ion (România) - 1
N
Nasello, Patricia (Argentina) – 3, 4
Nasr, Nancy Graciela (Argentina) – 4, 6
Novelli, Aldo Luis (Argentina-Patagonia) – 1, 5
Nunez Gonzalez, Nedda (Argentina) – 4, 5, 6
O
Odgers Toloza, Ingrid (Chile) – 3, 5, 6
Olatunde, Abiola (Nigeria) – 1, 3
Olivares, Noel (Spania) - 6
Omri, Chokri (Tunisia) – 4
P
Parsons, Mick (Statele Unite) - 2
Patrone, Virginia (Spania) – 2, 4
Prepeliţă, Mihai (România) - 3
Pricop, Ion Gheorghe (România) – 1
R
Rakose, Catherine (Franţa) – 1,
Ramirez, Beatriz Giovanna (Spania-Columbia) – 4, 6
Rashbaum, Burt (Statele Unite) - 4
Riggs, Donald (Statele Unite) – 1, 2, 3, 4,
Rodriguez Castillo, Lourdes (Spania) - 3
Rodriguez, Russo (Spania) - 6
Rodriguez Tucci, Fabbiana (Spania) – 5, 6
Rossell Ibern, Anna (Spania) – 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
S. Ş
Salesky, Gonzalo (Argentina) – 1, 2
Sallkild, Jean (Marea Britanie) – 2
Sanguinetti, Eduardo (Argentina-Uruguay) - 4
Savelli, Rosetta (Italia) – 3, 4, 5, 6
Schmidt, Alejandro (Argentina) - 4
Shvedchilov, Adolf P. (Rusia – Statele Unite) – 1, 2, 3,
St-Aubin, Carole (Canada) – 1, 3, 5
Stoicovici, Aleksandăr (România) – 4, 6
Sutherland, Paul (Marea Britanie-Canada) - 2
Sweeney, Isac (Statele Unite) – 1
T,Ţ
Tischer, John (Mexic-Statele Unite) - 4
Troncoso Baeza, Carmen (Chile) – 2, 3
V
Valcarcel, Rosario (Spania) - 6
Valls, Fernando - 5
Vanelslander, Lena (Italia-Belgia) – 1, 2, 4
Vassallo, Alfred (Malta-Marea Britanie) - 6
Velazco, Alina (Mexic) – 3, 4
Vilela, Rita (Portugalia) – 1, 2
Vinci, Michele (Canada) - 4
Y
Yuan, Changming (China-Canada) - 5
W
Walden, Raymond (Germania) – 1, 2, 5, 6
Williamson, Ernest III (Statele Unite) - 5

ALL THE WORLD IN AN ANTHOLOGY
TODO O MUNDO EM UMA ANTOLOGIA
TOUT LE MONDE DANS UNE ANTHOLOGIE
TODO EL MUNDO EN UNA ANTOLOGIA
TOT MAPAMONDUL ÎNTR-O ANTOLOGIE

The Anthology is published at Pim Editions House in Yassy (Romania).

'anyone lived in a pretty how town' by E. E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
... he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

http://www.eecummingsart.com/artwork/?eec=1196

Ode To Harmony and Serenity

From an inception lofty, high and above,

We were sent all, not a single one excepted, low.

We were not on earth, we knew not how to love,

Harmony and serenity, where are you? When to sow?

Harmony and serenity, where are you? Where to sow?

Down is the show, the law, the structure and load.

Down is the coward, the knave, the brigand, and the bad.

Down to earth, downtodate, slfish, all of them and no less;

The way is descending, descending. Where then to go?

We want ours to be ascending, ascending as a lark's.

Harmony and serenity, where are you? Where are you?

Our eyes are searching for you, filled with tears;

Our hearts are devoid of warmth, fraught with layers.

Roses, where are they? Flowers, making prayers;

But when winter comes, when winter comes, no fears.

Harmony and serenity, where are you? Where are you?

Harmony and serenity, we are reaping the harvest;

Is it ripe? Rich? Is it fine? Fruitful? This harvest?

From now on, nothing would ever be the same. Rise.

From now on, everything is truthful. Not a body of lies.

Harmony and serenity, where are you? Where are you?

"And if the past is passed, why moralize upon it?"

No one returned, no one ascended. Where is Jesus?

The Giants are gone. But justice, has it been done?

No need to weep. No need to sigh deep. Bright is the sun?

Harmony and serenity, where are you? Where are you?

From now on, nothing would ever be the same. Rise.

Nowhere are you to be found Harmony and serenity.

Unless you are not within, you are then pity?

Being your slave, no other way but to pray and rise.

Chokri Omri

Photo 'Let-me-fly-let-me-breathe'byXanetia

Communication Between Cultures

Contemporary Literary Horizon Magazine

FROM CREATIVE LOCALISM TO MULTICULTURALISM

The Contemporary & Literary Horizon magazine was founded by an editorial staff coordinated by Mihai Cantuniari (manager) and Daniel Dragomirescu (editor-in-chief) in May 2008. At first, the Contemporary & Literary Horizon aimed to be a sequel of Adevărul literar din Vaslui (Vaslui Literary Truth magazine), which was issued between 16th January 2006 and 1st September 2007. It also aimed to fill a necessary gap as a magazine for the members of the Romanian Writers’ Union in Vaslui County, without excluding the contributions from writers all over the country and even Romanian authors settled abroad. At its debut, the editorial staff also included fiction writer and poet Ion Gheorghe Pricop, an expert on Eminescu, Th. Codreanu, poet Simion Bogdănescu, fiction writer Nicolae Ariton, poets Marian Constandache and Ancelin Roseti, all of them members of the Romanian Writers’ Union. For objective reasons, the new magazine was registered by the National Library as a magazine of a local Christian foundation for children and youth, led by journalist Mihaela Manu.
Symbolically, the front cover of the first issue of the magazine had a document-photo of Vaslui-born poet Ion Iancu Lefter and the chairman of the Writers’ Union of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia on the stage of the ‘October’ Palace in Chişinău on 15th January 1990. During that event which was paying homage to M. Eminescu, Ion Iancu Lefter asked the people of Bessarabia to abandon the communist system and prepare for reunification. They could not hasten the preparations for unification – however, on 1st March 1990 poet Ion Iancu Lefter was involved in a deadly car accident on a zebra crossing in the centre of Vaslui. Setting the new magazine under the symbolic auspices of a poet for whom national cultural heritage included all valuable contributions, coming equally from the centre and from the outskirts, meant somehow placing it in the field which linked tradition, modernity and post-modernity, on a position of aesthetic reconciliation and efficient cultural dialogue.
In its two-year existence the magazine has known two significant moments.
Between May 2008 and March 2009 (from issue no. 1/2008 to issue no. 2 (7)/2009), the Contemporary and Literary magazine published poetry, fiction, book reviews and short studies of literary history, essays, interviews, memoirs and various other contributions of the local field, according to criteria such as theme and value; it also tried to avoid particular demands and provincial dilettantism. The new magazine was acknowledged in the cultural press in Bucharest, Iaşi and other cities. In an editorial note in 2008, by a happy slip, România Literară (Literary Romania) magazine was saluting the launch of the Literary Horizon as a ‘contemporary spiritual and cultural magazine’ – a formula which seemed more proper than the one we had initially given (‘European spiritual and cultural magazine’) and which we were to assimilate later on. Old and novel poetries by Ion Iancu Lefter, Ion Enache, Ioan Al. Angheluş were published; the magazine also promoted the works of recently launched authors, such as Mihai Apostu, Leonard Ciureanu, Ancelin Roseti, Dorin Cozan. All at once, fiction writings by Ion Gheorghe Pricop (Facerea / Genesis, excerpt from a working novel), Iorgu Gălăţeanu, (Şerpuind printre şrapnele şi printre viciile semenilor / Looping through Shrapnel Shells and through the Vices of Our Neighbours, excerpt from a novel), Nicolae Ariton (Apostolii / Apostles short story) etc. were also published. Contributions from the field of literary criticism and history by authors Teodor Pracsiu (Poet şi symbol / Poet and Symbol, an essay about Grigore Vieru), Ioan Baban (literary medallions from the work Dicţionar cultural şi literar vasluian / Vaslui Cultural and Literary Dictionary, which was a work in progress at that time), Theodor Codreanu (the novel essay Culpa lui Eliade / Eliade’s Fault), Ion Gheorghe Pricop (Scriitorul în ring / The Writer in the Ring) etc. were published as well. In parallel, contributions from writers outside the local area could also be found in the magazine pages: Gh. Neagu, (Alexandra, short story), Aurel Brumă (the satirical essay Adevărul / The Truth), Florin Bălănescu (the essay De ce-am plecat din Huşiul meu / Why I Left My Huşi) and others. An excerpt from the novel Îngerul tău narator / Your Narrator Angel (sent for publication to Polirom Publishing House) of critic and Italianist Geo Vasile, was published in no. 1/2009. From the Eastern and Western Diaspora the following authors’ poems or essays were published: Theodor Damian (editor-in-chief of the Mild Light/ Lumină lină magazine in New York), Lucian Hetco (editor of the AGERO magazine in Germany) and, from Chişinău, Ion Anton and Traian Vasilcău (both with poems), Mihai Cimpoi (with a critical essay) and Ion Proca, author of a biography of director Emil Loteanu. We have even ventured in the field of literary archaeology as during some issues, we published excerpts from a historical drama (Zori de libertate / Freedom Dawn), written at the end of the obsessive decade by Nicolae Munteanu, an author whom posterity did not remember, who was working for the Ministry of Education in 1944, and who was subsequently disposed of and condemned to prison by the communist regime. The manuscript was discovered by accident in the attic of a building in Iaşi by one of the author’s nephews, who gave it to us as a curiosity of literary history.
The second significant moment in our activity began with issue no. 3 (8)/April 2009, without it having been anticipated or planned, but as a result of the positive evolution of the magazine. From that moment on, the Literary Horizon became an independent, bilingual and multicultural magazine, an opposite of the so-called ‘creative localism’ which some cultural promoters had theorized and supported, but with which the magazine had never fully identified. If we were to borrow a fashionable phrase, we could say that the leap from creative localism to multiculturalism was a challenge to which the Literary Horizon magazine found an adequate answer. Just partially bilingual at first (issues no. 3 – 7/2009), the magazine became fully bilingual starting with issue no. 8 (13) / Sept.-Oct. 2009. The editorial staff was subject to some changes, and an honorary editorial college was established with Ana Blandiana, Gabriel Dimisianu, Dan Mănucă, Lidia Vianu and Gheorghe Glodeanu as members. A team of external collaborators was also established. At first, it included poet and fiction writer Peggy Landsman from the United States and poet Caroline Gill from Great Britain, who had – and still have – a consistent and sustained contribution to the development of the magazine. From the beginning the magazine benefited from a partnership agreement with the Master for the Translation of the Contemporary Literary Text, University of Bucharest, coordinated by Prof. Lidia Vianu. Thus an editorial section of translations, coordinated by Alina-Olimpia Miron who took on the responsibility of general editorial secretary as well, was also established.
During this period, the magazine published works by Gabriel Dimisianu (diary pages), Ana Blandiana (Recviem pentru ţăranul roman / Requiem for the Romanian Peasant), Gh. Glodeanu (Despre Mircea Eliade şi corespondenţa sa / On Mircea Eliade and his Letters), Dan Mănucă (Comendiu Sebastian) etc. Issue no. 3/2009 featured the preview publishing of the work entitled Cele şapte peceţi ale sărutului franţuzesc / The Seven Seals of the French Kiss – an excerpt from the Apocalipsa după Vaslui (Apocalypse after Vaslui), Dorin Cozan’s poem – novel, published by Humanitas Publishing House and which was successfully launched at the Bucharest International Book Festival in November 2009. Starting with no. 9 (14)/ November-December 2009, the really valuable creation of young poet Marius Ştefan Aldea from Timişoara – a beautiful promise of the current Romanian lyrical movement – was also published and promoted. The magazine also featured lyrics by Elisabeta Isanos, a classic-inspired poet and fiction writer and by neo-modernist Tatiana Rădulescu; Mihai Cantuniari offered an excerpt (In the Army) from the second volume of the memoirs novel Bărbatul cu cele trei morţi ale sale / Man and His Three Deaths in order to be published. A poetry anthology entitled Childhood / Copilărie by Ana Blandiana was published in issue no. 5 (10) / June 2009, and the English version was elaborated by Alina-Olimpia Miron. Among the foreign authors, the magazine published anthologies of representative works by Peggy Landsman from the United States (After the News / După ştiri, issue no. 3/2009, translated by Anton Scutaru), Katherine Gallagher from Great Britain (Desperado, issue no. 4/2009, translated by Sînziana Mihalache, Ioana Teodorescu and Alina-Olimpia Miron), Paul Sutherland from Great Britain (Shadow of Earth / Umbra pământului, issue no. 7/August 2009, translated by Roxana Drăguşin-Mîndrican) etc. Prof. Lidia Vianu offered for publication an interesting study (Desperado Riding a Poem / Poemul ca mod de a trăi) dedicated to the poetical work of Katherine Gallagher, a venerable London poet.
The magazine’s blog was launched in July 2009 (with content and DTP limitations imposed by freely-hosted blogs); at the end of October the launch of a new blog under the title Contemporary Horizon was deemed as necessary. This led to an increase in the ratings of the internet-based magazine and also facilitated the establishment of some useful relations of collaboration with English and Spanish writers in the European Union and from all over the world. Among them there were Belgian poet, sociologist and historian Lena Vanelslander, Maria Dolores Garcia Pastor (Spanish novelist), Marian Ramentol Serratosa (poet, editor-in-chief of the La Nausea magazine) and Anna Rossell Ibern (a Germanist from the Autonomous University in Barcelona, interested in Herta Muller’s novels), essayist Peter Hart from Cambridge and poets Byron Beynon, Mark Murphy, Wayne Visser, Chris Kinsey, Pascale Petit from Great Britain, artist and medieval art specialist Galina Nikolova from Veliko Tîrnovo, (Bulgaria), poet Allan Stevo from Slovakia (published with Jingling of Keys / Sunetul cheilor, a lyrical-narrative about the Velvet Revolution), fiction writer Catherine Rakose from Grenoble and fractalist artist Dominique Cibil from Nancy, (France), author Raymond Walden from Germany (published in issue no. 1/2010 with Cosmonomic Freedom, a philosophical manifesto written for our magazine), poets Rita Dahl from Finland and Elo Viiding from in Estonia (with the satirical Mother’s Day / Ziua mamei). From the United States, the magazine has published poems and essays by Michael Essig (May Peace Be With You, My Brothers!, a lyrical-narrative triptych written at our request, inspired by the Vietnam war in which the author took a direct part as a soldier), poems by Victor P. Gendrano, Patty Godinez, Ernest Williamson III, Burt Rashbaum, Donald Riggs (a talented writer of sonnets), civic and satirical fiction by Peggy Landsman (Cold War, Mister McCormack) and Alexander Kudera (Over Fifty Billion Kafkas / Peste cincizeci de milioane de Kafka). Under the auspices of the Welsh Dialogues / Dialogurilor galeze, Caroline Gill has done a series of interviews with British contemporary poets (Peter Thabit Jones, Chris Kinsey, and Byron Beynon) for the BBC and for the Contemporary & Literary Horizon, and the series will go on. Caroline Gill’s cultural devotion is exemplary, as is this English poet and cultural promoter’s interest for Romanian poetry and for the Romanian language. The magazine has published an anthology of the works of Australian poet Mark William Jackson, an author with a sarcastic vision regarding post-industrial society. Some elaborate and well-documented contributions were offered to the magazine by the University reader Khem Guragain from Nepal (Afro-American Tradition and the Aesthetic Perspectives of Toni Morrison), writer and journalist Nazia Mallick from New Delhi (the essay Women’s Condition in Islam, as well as a study on the novel Slaughter Five by Kurt Vonnegut) and, last but not least, the essays written by young Vinisha Nambiar from Bombay, India, regarding present mentalities in contemporary Indian society (Brave Heart / Inimă neînfricată) and by Venkata Ramanan (A Human-faced Communism). Upon our request, Ronaldo Pulito, a Cuban artist who has been living in exile in New York since the 1980s, has written an interesting article (The Cuban Diaspora and Democracy). We cannot pass over the contributions of Nigerian poet and writer Abiola Olatunde, who – having understood that multiculturalism does not annul the interest for local cultures – has offered us some interesting essays, such as Oronshen, Venus from Owo and Theatre in Nigeria. The Contemporary & Literary Horizon magazine has also received countless offers of collaboration (poetry, fiction and essays) from South America. These were signed by Marina Centeno (Yucatan, Mexico), Miguel Angel de Boer (Argentina), Marcela Meirelles (Uruguay), Iane Rubens de Mello, Elen Braga Gruber, Eugenia Cutinho from Brazil, etc. The Writers’ Society of Chile has been manifesting a particular interest in the magazine and people from Argentina have recently addressed us a request to support renowned writer Miguel Oscar Menassa’s nomination for the Nobel Prize. The limited writing space prevents us from mentioning all the contributions from which the magazine has benefited up to this day and we would like to apologise to the Romanian and foreign authors whose names we could not include in this presentation; we would like to promise them that their names will be mentioned on the occasion of a complete bibliography of the magazine during its first two years of existence.
The magazine is currently managed by an editorial staff made up of twelve copy editors and eleven translators – therefore having the support of over twenty external collaborators from various countries of the world, some of whom have been remarkably constant, serious and competent. Some of them are not only authors of literature, but also professors. We would like to mention a few: Donald Riggs, Professor at Drexel University, Philadelphia; Khem Guragain, Lecturer of English language and literature at the Tribhuvan University in Katmandu, Nepal; Peter Thabit Jones, poet and professor at Swansea University, Great Britain; Anna Rossell Ibern, professor at the Autonomous University in Barcelona; Wayne Visser, professor at Cambridge University.
The horizons of a favourable development during the following period remain wide open for the Contemporary & Literary magazine.

7th April 2010
Translator: Elena Gheorghe
Proofreader: Rodica Ionaş

'Of Tintern Abbey I Thought' by El Habib Louai

Alone as I were deep in thoughts as dreams
The sweet fresh breeze caressed my face
Swiftly hugged my wide uncovered chest
While I walked down that half-empty street
With an old inherited suitcase of books full
And I wondered how faraway I wandered

On Tintern Abbey I smilingly pondered
Is it as cloudy here as it was thither?
When Wordsworth met his dear sister
I let the thought fly leisurely by, and by
In bubbles back to the pure calm Wye
Taken unnoticed by a caressing breeze

I raised my eyes up to the sky letting them
Embrace the free voyaging grey clouds
Clouds pregnant with seeds of pure water
A curing balsam to the aching mother earth
I let them, my eyes, journey to the mountains
My dim eyes, I let them survey as a soft wing

Suddenly a cold rain drop kissed me and I
Sighed with joy, wishing it was you, if only
It was you, you, the dear Moorish Penelope
Who is somewhere not here, but within me
Inside me, by me, haunting my fragile ribs
Still, it is still here as in old Andalucía days

I wanted anew to be a forsaken shepherd
But I may not find any soul in wait for me
Since I came to lose all those dear ones
Let me drift alone aimlessly to a wide sea
That receives me with a motherly bosom
Once I am lost, hurt, or simply deserted

There alone happy I’ll sit as a shepherd
On the empty banks of a secluded sea
Watching my goats grazing near the sea
I’ll journey through piquant melodies of
Such sweet lasting music composed by
Rimbaud, Verlaine or the warm Lamartine

Shall I call once again as a hermit?
Come all of ye, all of ye, those afar,
Near, asleep, awake or in between,
To join another lonely forsaken soul
By a lake or seashore so welcoming
It will include you in its virgin eternity.

Elhabib Louai

*Elhabib Louai received his B.A in English literature and linguistics from the university of Ibn Zohr,Morocco in 2007. He is teaching English in a junior high school in Agadir. He started a master's degree in comparative studies this year.A number of his poems were published in some online magazines such Indigo Rising and Camel Saloon.

NICOS -CAROL'S THEME-....موسيقى يونانية قمة في الروعة

Creative Writing

Knowing Allah_ Al-Wahhab _ The All-Giver

Knowing Allah_ Al-Wahhab _ The All-Giver

The Dominance of Light over Dark (Gary Randall)

قصة سيدنا محمد عليه الصلاة والسلام

When tomorrow starts without me

When tomorrow starts without me,
And I'm not there to see;
If the sun should rise and find your eyes
All filled with tears for me;
I wish so much you wouldn't cry
The way you did today,
While thinking of the many things,
We didn't get to say.

I know how much you love me,
As much as I love you,
And each time that you think of me,
I know you'll miss me too;
But when tomorrow starts without me,
Please try to understand,
That an angel came and called my name,
And took me by the hand,
And said my place was ready,
In heaven far above,
And that I'd have to leave behind
All those I dearly love.

But as I turned to walk away,
A tear fell from my eye,
For all my life, I'd always thought,
I didn't want to die.
I had so much to live for,
So much yet to do,
It seemed almost impossible,
That I was leaving you.

I thought of all the yesterdays,
The good ones and the bad,
I thought of all the love we shared,
And alll the fun we had.

If I could relive yesterday,
Just even for a while,
I'd say good-bye and kiss you
And maybe see you smile.
But then I fully realised,
That this could never be,
For emptiness and memories,
Would take the place of me.

And when I thought of worldly things,
I might miss come tomorrow,
I thought of you, and when I did,
My heart was filled with sorrow.

But when I walked through heaven's gates,
I felt so much at home.
When God looked down and smiled at me,
From His great golden throne,
He said "This is eternity,
And all I've promised you.
Today for life on earth is past,
But here it starts anew.
I promise no tomorrow,
But today will always last,
And since each day's the same way
There's no longing for the past.

But you have been so faithful,
So trusting and so true.
Thought there were times you did some things,
You knew you shouldn't do.
But you have been forgiven
And now at last you're free.
So won't you take my hand
And share my life with me?"

So when tomorrow starts without me,
Don't think we're far apart,
For every time you think of me,
I'm right here, in your heart.

Unconditional Love

A treasure to be cherised,
A gift from God above;
Is the beauty of a friendship,
Touched by unconditional love.

A love that asks no questions,
Believes in all the best;
Never doubting, ever trusting,
Withstanding any test.

A love that weathers any storm,
And yet that love still stands;
Through the very darkest hour,
It still reaches out a hand.

There in that hand the sweetest gift,
That you can give a friend;
A heart that cares, a love that shares,
That will be there till the end.

A treasure to be cherised,
A gift from God above;
Is waht I shaare with you my friend,
An unconditional love.

Written by Allison Chambers Coxsey

Why should you differentiate instruction?

LOVE AND DETACHMENT

All spiritualities highlight the ambivalence and ambiguity of love; its different natures and its two faces. Love is an initiatory school in which we learn to make progress, to rise above ourselves and then to free ourselves, but it can also be a prison in which we are bound by more and more chains. We go under, get lost and eventually become totally dependent. The universal teachings of spiritualities, philosophies and all religions are in agreement about this, and proffer the same truths: in love, the individual rediscovers what he or she went there to look for, because love is a mirror as well as a revelation. Because he is under the sway of his emotions and his need to possess, his love will always turn against him and cause him the sufferings of dissatisfaction and a chained heart. Imbued with spirituality and mastery, his love will take him out of the self and enable him to attain fulfilment and self-giving.

Love is therefore like education. It involves “going with” and learning to detach ourselves with an ever-greater awareness of the ambivalence of things and of the need for balance, which is always so difficult to achieve and so fragile. Knowing oneself, loving oneself sufficiently, learning to love better, to give, to give oneself and to forgive are lifelong learning processes that are never complete, never finished, always to be renewed. Loving without becoming attached and loving without becoming an object of attachment are probably both attitudes that require human beings to develop an acute discernment and to arm themselves with deep qualities of being and courage. Loving life and watching it fade away, loving ourselves without any illusions about ourselves, loving one’s loves in the knowledge that times will take them away, loving without idolatry, and loving with an awareness of the relativity of all things. That is the profound meaning of the loving compassion that must, in the Buddhist tradition, set us free. In the monotheist religions, the oneness of God has the same deep meaning. We must free ourselves from our illusions, from the false worship of our desires and idols of one’s inner self if we wish to accede to a love-lucidity as we seek a proximity that can perceive the extent of distance in the absolute. That is the mystical experience that al-Jilâni (11-12th centuries) and Rûmi (13th century) tries to convey, as do all spiritual and mystical experiences. Gibran’s Prophet sums up how the love of the Whole and/or God leads us to abandon the self when he says ‘When you love, you should not say “God is in my heart”, but rather “I am in the heart of God”.’

To love without being dependent. Nothing could be more difficult, and doing so requires a long apprenticeship that is both demanding and sometimes painful. The goal is to love without any illusions. That is all the more difficult in that we sometimes have the impression that love means being deluded. How can we graduate from the illusion of love to the lucidity of love? How can we detach ourselves from the very thing to which we are, by definition, attached? Gibran’s Prophet also says: ‘Love possess not, nor would it be possessed ’, but what becomes of those who are possessed, of the women and men who are ‘blinded by love’ and who are in chains? How can we reach out of ourselves to merge into the heart of the Whole or the Light of the One? Love is indeed a promise of good, beauty and well-being, but that promise has always come with so many tears, so much suffering, and so much pain. To live is to suffer; to live is to love … to love is to suffer. And if we wish to live, must we therefore come to love our suffering until we die?

The love that transcends love is a love that liberates. It brings both fullness and a sense of contingency. We therefore have to teach our consciousness and our hearts to love in the absolute of the moment and in full awareness of time, to be there and to know that we will pass away. To love whilst learning to go away: the finest love never forgets separation, and still less does it forget death. Love and death are the most human of all couples: the deepest human love tries to have no illusions about the inevitability of death. That fragility is its strength. The power of humility lies hidden on the edge of that awareness –in love –of death.

To go back to the beginning. The sacred texts, the ancient traditions and all philosophies of all ages tell us to look at and learn from Nature, its beauty and its cycles, and to the ephemeral and eternity. We know that we love, naturally, but they still teach us to love better, to love consciously and spiritually, and to learn to apprehend meaning in detachment. And we have to choose between the reserve of Kant and Nietzsche’s impetuosity, between the way of Buddha and that of Dionysus, between the love of God and the love of Desire. Between an idea of freedom and the management of needs, between independence and dependence, and between detachment and bondage. One does not choose to love but one can choose how to love. Nature is the mirror before which we must raise our faces, gaze into proximity and distance, in the knowledge that, whilst we are now fully present, the earth will give the same fullness to others as it sanctifies our absence. The mirror of time and the infinite spaces reflect it, the liberated self understands it, and the One repeats it: to love is to be there, in proximity to the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to offer, give and forgive. To love is to reconcile the sedentary presence with nomadic migration, the roots of the tree with the strength of the winds. To love is to receive and to learn to let beings go. To love is to give and to learn to go. And vice versa

Professor Tariq Ramadan
www.tariqramadan.com/LOVE-AND-DETACHMENT,10874.html

من كنت أنا وكيف أصبحت

لا تنظري إلي
لا تتفحصي ملامح حزني
ولا ترتجي أن أبتسم َ
أو أن أقتربَ منك بلطف
وحدهُ الله يعلم
من كنت أنا
وكيف أصبحت




أنا المسافر الأبعد
وسيد الماضي الذي لاينام



مهلا , ما شأنك من أنا
ومن أكون
لاتنظري إلي
فأنني جنون الجنون


دعيني أصطحبك لجولة بين حياتى وذكرياتي
واجعلك تقفين على اطلال أوراقي ومحطاتي
تأملي هزائمي وتأملي بطولاتي
أنا متحف ٌ مغلق ٌ بالشمع الأحمر
فاقفزي من فوق أسواري
وأرفعي ستائري
ودعي الضوء من نافذتي يتسلل
واغرقي بين سطوري وحروفي
وان كان لديك قلم ٌ فدعيه يتوسل


استشهدي بين بحاري
فربما أسمع ندائك
وربما أتأخر


ياسيدتي
أتركي أحاسيسي
وأهجري السطور والأوزان
وتأملي معاني ما أقول
ولا تصفقي لسجع الكلمات
فإنني أولد وأحتضر بقلمي
وألمي هو من يسرقني في الليل
ويرتلني في النهار
ولكني علمت بأنهم سيخطفونك
من بين عناويني
فاستودعتك لخالق الأرض والسماوات



مازالت عيناكي مجهولتان الهوية
مقامرتان تبحثان عن مغامرة جريئة
وأنا من منحت أسرى النساء أوراق الحريه
وعتقت رقاب الحروف الأبجديه
وشربت قهوتي
بين حبال المشنقه
ودعوت الشرق الى وليمة الموت
فوق مائدة عظامي في قاع المقبرة
فتأرجحي على عنوان ورقتي
واغتسلي بين سطوري
وتعثري في المحبره



لطالما تحدثت عن القلوب التي خلقت من ورق
لطالما مسحت الدموع التي تسيل بلون الحبر الازرق
ولطالما رضيت بشفتين من نبيذ وطرقت أبواب الخطر
وصرخت هل من مزيد
ولكنك أيقظتيني بنبرة أرق
فثقي أنني لن أحبك يوماَ
فبأصبعي خاتم سليمان
وفي أوراقي حورية الجان
ولكنني سأدمنك حد الغرق



لاتقفِى على شاطئي
فإن عفاريت بحري تستيقظ
وأنا كنت أبحث فيك عن وطن
ولكنك جعلتي مردة البحر تثور
من تحت عباءة الكفن
وأصبحت ملائكة السماء من ذنوبنا تستغفر
واسودت الارض في وجوهنا فكيف نستنكر


لا سبيل للخلاص منك
ولست أنا بريئا منك
فعودي للوراء
فأنا لست مخلوقا من نور
ولن تجدي لدي
إسم الله الأعظم


أعترف بأنني طيلة حياتي
كنت ألقي اللوم على القدر
وأشير إليه بكل هزائمي
أعترف أنني كنت اورط معه
المسافة والزمن
وجيمع ماعلى سطح الأرض من بشر
أعترف أنني ألقيت بتاريخ جرائمي في عمق البحر
وأسفكت دماء الورق
واتهمت القلم
ولكنني أيقنت اخيرا بأنني المتهم




نعم ياسيدتي انا المتهم
وزرائي مخلوقين من حروف
ودولتي طائشة
يطيش منها الجنون
حتى في الشوارع الفارغه تفيض جنون

ورائي الحشم والخدم
وصورتي تسكن في برواز القلم
وجنودي عشاق اللا مالوف
وصمتي عبقري نصوص
وأقنعتي لاعدد لها
يسرقها اللصوص
وتبقى ألوف


اعترف انني اعاني انفصاما في الشخصية
ورقتي استنسخت في قلمي ألف هوية
وذنوبي سحر من الأبجديه
فلا تلوميني ان هاج بحري
والتهم شطآنك بكل همجيه



انا ملاذ ارواح تائهة
وانا حقيبة مفقودة في بحر مهجور
لاتوجد به باخره
وأنا من سرقت من الجن نسائهم
وانا من تتقاتل في اوراقه
الشياطين مع الملائكه
فكيف لاتريدين اني ابتسم
اذا ما رأيتك بين امواجي خائفه



لاتجبريني على ان اطلق سراح صمتي
فإنني سجنت كلماتي وراء الشمس
وخبات جنوني في عطارد
وحين استيقظ بداخلي المارد
استسلمت لهذياني


ومازلت أبحر بين فصول السنة
وأجذف بين خريف الاحتضار
أبدا لم يكن طبعي الانتظار
فاحضري كفنك فما زال بين اناملي قلم جبار




ليس بوسعي ان أقف امام البحر وألقي بماضي والذكريات
فانا البحر في عمقه
وانا غموض الصمت يخنقني بين نحيب الجمرات
يخنقني صمتي حين اوشك على الاعتراف
لاتوجد انثى تطفئ نيران بحري حين يحترق
ولايطفئ الماء سوى الماء
فدعيني أحترق كما أشاء

دعيني أصل إلى قمة الغليان
دعيني أتبخر بين السحب
واغرق الأرض بالأمطار
دعيني احترق فأن البحار حين تحترق
لاتتحول إلى رماد


دعي موجي يعلو
دعيه يعلو الى ان يسقط
ثم حاولي العوم
فمن يدري
كيف يكون العوم في بحر
يسكن بين عيني أنسان



تناقضي أتعبني
أنكسر أمام مرآتي
واحضر بكامل أناقتي على الورق

أرتدي جنوني
وأضع فووق رأسي
قبعة الاختباء


ويظهر رغم اختفائي غروري
ويصرخ غبائي في وجوه الأذكياء

وأنا أنقسم في كل الفصول
وأتعثر على الأرض
وأغرق في البحر
وأتبعثر في الريح
وأحترق بين الورق
وأرتب حقائبي حين يصرخ الشتاء



عشت أعواماً
لا أستنشق الا عطرا واحدا
ولاأشاهد في كل وجوه النساء
الا وجها واحدا
لتلك الأنثى التي هزمتني
بكل كبرياء


فما عدت اعلم
هل ستكون محطتي الأخيرة
على جنازة من ورق
أم بين دموع النساء



أنا سيد الإبتسامات الصفراء
وأنا الحزين هنا
والمستاء
وقلمي عربيد حبر
وحروفي عاهرة ٌ ترقص بين سطور ورقتي في كل مساء
فاعذري كلماتي اللا مرتبة
ولاتقصي أثر عناويني المبجله
واعذري قلمي اذا ما أساء


حين كنت طفلا
كانت دموعي فوق كل وسادة ومرتبة
وها أنا الآن بلا دموع
فلا تفتشي داخلي عن البراعم والغصون
ولاتبحثي عن خيول المعركة
فلن تجدي الشهداء بين السطور
ولن تجدي دماء ً على أرض
ولا عظاما ً في مقبرة



لايوجد أثر للإنهار ولا للسيول
فلقد هجرني البكاء
واعتلى الصدأ السيوف
نامي داخلي إن أردتي ولا تخافي
فان العفاريت لم تعد ترضى بالفراغ المهجور
حلقي بين أحلامك السبعه
وأنا أعدك ان لايوقظك شخير الحروف



أنا لست شاعرا ً
ولست كاتبا ً ولا مجنون
ولكن الإنسان إذا ماصرخت ضلوعه
أصبح هذيانه شعر رسول


أنا لست الصادق الأمين
ولم تتوحم والدتي على الانبياء والمرسلين
ولم أحضر معركة اليرموك
لا و لا حطين
ولم يهبط علي جبريل
ولكني بقلم واحد
قطعت الشك من اليقين
و وضعت حدا ً للغلو في الدين
وأنا غزوت قبائل العرب
لأنصب في شبه الجزيرة
خيام المجانين

ملك الاحزآن الباكى

Shakespeare’s sonnet number 116

I shall first start out with reading Shakespeare’s sonnet number 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken,
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

To embark upon knowledge by means of ignorance is to do the wrong deed for
the right reason. Let no one make and take and take again the very
preposterous discovery and then tell me all of a sudden that this sonnet is
great. For I know beforehand and, as a matter of fact, my concern is not to
testify to the greatness of this sonnet but rather to what sort of message
William Shakespeare feels like delivering to us on the cess of it. My aim, I
insist, is two-fold; Together with putting Shiller’s dictum into question by way
of criticism levelled against his ambivalent philosophical stance, I will show
how the theme of love has been treated from the renaissance period. The
renaissance period, in fact, did not have to wait for England so as to be
incepted. It started rather in Italy and Spain and it became henceforth a
widespread phenomenon thanks both to its flexible operational processes and
the accessibility and clarity of its ideas having to do with revival and at the
same time diremption of the past. I will start with this second tenant of my aim
and leave the first one to the second part so as to save my essay from
inaccurracy and barren formalism.

The renaissance era makes explicit the fact that Love stands out as an
indispensable feature of man’s desire not so much to exist but more
importantly to better exist. To exist without looking towards a better prospect
of life is simply to exist, though hesitatingly, like subalterns. To better exist
without looking backward is simply to live, though forcibly, like no one else.
What possible sense is to be obtained out of the first line and the first half of
the second in this sonnet? No obstacles, the speaker seems to say, should be
allowed to stand out against the marriage of true minds. True minds are
according to me evocative of those people whose better parts (their minds) are
personified and whose ultimate objective of life is unity and not division or
separation. John Donne, the supposedly metaphysical poet, is of some proper
help to us in this respect. He somewhere in his poems pointed out to the fact
that without love, we can have no way but falsehood to be true. But here
again, we must protest and say that the sonnet under consideration is referring
to true minds. We know that love is the output of our hearts.
True people, to justify the first idea mentioned above, do not fall or degenerate
into making the mistake of allowing conflictual relationships to be established
between their minds and hearts. If our hearts, to be more precise, are devoid of
love, then our minds are not likely going to become true nor will they really be
able to produce let alone to contribute to human knowledge.

People, at least those who know they have got minds, which scarcely happens
in these bleak times, will admit no impediments to the marriage of their minds.
But minds, after all, do not unify as Gary lane would have it. Minds see
differences not unities, they divide. There is then something of paramount
importance to be present for the marriage of true minds. Not all minds are true
and this is why there must exist a paradigm to see which minds are true and
which minds are not. To say the like but differently, people should set their
minds on things that are fundamental and vital for unity and peaceful
coexistence. If they cherish some love for one another, they will never find
themselves obliged to be indecent or accept to be divided. This is how it goes,
nobody wants to be cruel with people but sometimes they are and not the
circumstances they do need to be taken forcibly for the principal cause of his or
her behaviour at their expence. Let us but take for the sake of clarification and
illustration the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who albeit feeling
so intensely for the unity of people when he wrote “The social contract” ended
up living in solitude with an almost chattered character. He refused to see
people or to even read what they wrote. “The reveries of a solitary stroller”, the
last book he wrote though, we regret to say, it remained unfinished due to his
tragic death, is expressive of this a great deal. He, after having purported to
establish some proper order upon society through the social contract, quickly
found himself lost and in an incomprehensible chaos at the end of his life.
‘Tiré je ne sais comment de l’ordre des choses, je me suis vu précipité dans un chaos
incompréhensible ou’ je n’aperçois rien du tout; et plus je pense à ma situation présente et
moins je puis comprendre ou’ je suis’.

Then, later in ‘The reveries of a solitary stroller’, he has got also at his disposal
this to say about the harm people did to him he the one who never wanted to
cause anyone any harm.

‘Avec le dédain qu’il m’ont inspiré leur commerce me serait insipide et même à charge, et je
suis cent fois plus heureux dans ma solitude que je ne pourrait l’etre en vivant avec eux . Ils
ont arraché de mon coeur toutes les douceurs de la société…et quoi qu’ils fassent, mes
contemporains ne seront jamais rien pour moi.

Friedrish Holderlin, Nietsczche’s but also Heidegger’s favourite poet or as the
latter likes to call him the ‘poet of poets’, never found one single reason for not
confessing his ultimate disenchantement towards those who treated him
unreasonably at the very time of his mental breakdown. There is no asking of
the question why he went insane for more than twenty years. He opted for
solitude so as to forget but then realized that people could not even remember
what he was trying to forget. He said: “Now I only understand man when I am
far away from him and living in solitude”. Mais qui sait aujourd’hui ce que
c’est que la solitude?

But then, Nietszche. What did he say when he finished up being sick of every
one and his sister and his mother were not to make the exception? He knew
that something must necessarily be at stake which he could not find out. So, he
opted obligingly for silence and kneeled down to a maxim of the past he the
one who hated maximes and proverbs in the deep recesses of his heart.
‘Ma philosophie me conseille de me taire et de ne pas pousser plus loin les questions; surtout
que, dans certains cas, comme l’indique le proverbe, on ne reste philosophe qu’en gardant le
silence.’

The marriage of true minds then, to rivert back to the sonnet, will become
possible only when impediments, say obstacles, are kept away from its course.
It must not be forgotten that here the word “marriage” is extremely important
in that it is overloaded with sense and meaning because it refers to willed
commitment and constancy. But in order for this to have a longevity and
persistence there must be something upon which we can hinge and even call
upon to keep this motive activated. It must be pointed out that marriage is
never admired for its own sake. It is admired for the promise it is supposed to
hail for the sake of unity. Were it not for the fact that, so to speak, it aims at
stabilizing and ordering people’s lives and that it paves the very way for them
to live together peacefully and harmoniously, marriage would, more often than
not, find people themselves as impediments.

For want of a wider intelligibility with regard to our intention to work out a
closer appreciation of the sonnet, let it be made clear right from the onset that
no matter how far we seem to be from being able to come to terms with the
exacting message of the sonnet if we undertake and level one hasty reading of
it, we can, nevertheless, manage to say that it represnts what Friedrish
Holderlin calls “an extended metaphor” not so much of what cannot be said
directly but rather of that which whose aim is to reflect upon the nature of love
and establish a clear rapport between it and the reality it seeks to uplift and
improve.

‘La parole germinative’ of this sonnet is perhaps this one which prompted
Shakespeare to express it in six lines and a half:

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O, no! It is an ever- fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken,
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

It is not here any business of ours to maintain that the form a Shakesperian
sonnet will take is one of three quatrins and a closing couplet. We are rather
and more importantly of the very insatiable desire to concern our selves with
the part of it that keeps the content of the sonnet brighter than therest do. Au
lieu de faire une vague allusion à la forme, il faut se demander quelle est sa
fonction comme sédimentation du contenu. Here, I assume, the substance is
found in these six lines and a half. I would not care so much if the remaining
parts of the sonnet were to get wiped off and disappear. Shakespeare himself,
were he to be told this, would pull himself together and help me in doing this.
Love is not love which changes with the time. If ever it changes, then let us be
in the apodectic certainty that it is anything but love. Love does not encourage
the remover of love to remove the object of love. It may encourage him to
remove obstacles like people for example but not to remove the very object of
love because otherwise it is lost and then we go back to the point we started
from which holds the view of Shakespeare that love should not change with the
time. Love is an ever-fixed mark. Love is the star to every wandering bark.
It is worth pointing out at this stage of our reading the distinction Shakespeare
wanted to make and did in fact about a fixed mark and the star which, to our
minds, they represent the two most important elements of the metaphoric
bearing they must have on love. Love is first a fixed mark.
Shakespeare wanted it to be indefinite when using the indefinite article ‘a’ in
order perhaps to mock people on earth who are changing all the time and then
keep on claiming that they are definite.

Shakespeare could have said for example that love is the fixed mark. The
reason behind his avoidance of that is perhaps this one: He does not want love
to be associated with anything because when using the definite article ‘the’ he
would necessarily find himself under the obligation of associating love with an
earthly claim. Then, by the same token, he held that love is the star feeling
thereby some sort of relief in escaping earthly objects and rising so high to the
skies which he does not know and yet insisted on using the definite article ‘the’
in order to mock people time and again by showing how he places his faith in
what is transcendental and how he assigns the definite to the indefinite and the
indefinite to the definite. This sonnet is not great yet.

Chokri Omri

Annales de Philosophie et des Sciences humaines (USEK)

Annales de Philosophie et des Sciences humaines (USEK)

Rolling down well-ridden roads

It's Bicycle rolling down well-ridden roads
And Wind coming, asking to fight.

The rider crouched down, with not half a frown,
Requesting the wind to abate.
“I'm too oft due east,” shot Wind, shunning peace,
“This year you'll be trapped and made late.”

The ducks flapping east soon flapped without cease;
Wind's gusts spun them 'round with a breeze.
The waves grew white teeth in ditches beneath,
And cans cartwheeled west just to tease.

As days carried on, the cyclist was worn,
But Bicycle would not relent.
Wind slammed to and fro, and Bike had to slow,
Some days down to thirty per cent.

“You do what you please, but hard or with ease
I'll best the flat provinces soon.
You can't stop me long,” said Bike, growing strong,
“(Though Brandon might be a lagoon.)”

I don't know if Bike defeated Wind's might
Or Wind forced him into a pond.
But when cries of “hell!” meet gusts near Qu'Apelle
I'll wager the battle's still on.

'Moments of Love and Fear' by Chokri Omri

Not down the wind

"The sacred texts, the ancient traditions and all philosophies of all ages tell us to look at and learn from Nature, its beauty and its cycles, and to the ephemeral and eternity. We know that we love, naturally, but they still teach us to love better, to love consciously and spiritually, and to learn to apprehend meaning in detachment. And we have to choose between the reserve of Kant and Nietzsche’s impetuosity, between the way of Buddha and that of Dionysus, between the love of God and the love of Desire. Between an idea of freedom and the management of needs, between independence and dependence, and between detachment and bondage. One does not choose to love but one can choose how to love."
Tariq Ramadan, LOVE AND DETACHMENT,(http://www.tariqramadan.com/LOVE-AND-DETACHMENT,10874.html)

It was not long ago that this was cropping up in my mind. But in truth,I did not want it to be or at best to end this way. It is not the kind of thing, I wish to make clear, I would accept in this life that is mine. I tried many a time to take it at once for an indecent idea because it is, indeed, one and by no means a decent one: To wait for others to offer you that which, had you worked upon it yourself, you would have made it come into being without their help. This is not so difficult a task to move through towards the light instead of remaining in the dark waiting and nobody around appears to care. It is just, I must say, within the limits of the possible to have your mind made up to it without any impalpability. But then, let me say it no more. I take responsibility for all of this and you take none. I have something to say to you while you have none. It has never before come to my notice that I know so little of you. I have wanted to come closer to you, to be with you, to see you,and then to stop listening to what others say about me and you. Take all the time you need but never ask me what difference there can be between wanting and obtaining. It is my conviction that of all those upon whom the sun shines,only those who help themselves will yearn for being helped. In the meantime,were anyone to take the liberty of asking me who would come to their help, I would perhaps say it is not any concern of mine. They are helping themselves.Do you not at all understand? They are helping themselves. God help them, please, and they are really helping themselves. They are not to be left wanting.They are looking for a way out of this extremely painful universe where things come and go and people never know. Have I said it to you? No. Then, have I wanted to say it to you? No. But then, have I gleaned it out of nothing just tosay it to you? No.I think I will let you know. There came few tears to my eyes when I saw that the reason behind this all is past finding out. It is my dignity that prevents me from knowing why. But at the same time, it is that which guides me into saying this to you: Never come back to me. I am not waiting for the unknown to be known. I am not waiting anymore. My way is still long; I am going to be the man who never trifles with time. I will say after Friederich Hölderlin:

“Let us live, oh you who are with me in sorrow, with me in faith
and heart and loyalty struggling for better times!
For such we are and if ever in the coming years they knew
of us two when the spirit matters again
They would say: lovers in those days, alone, they created
Their secret world that only God knew. For who
Cares only for things that will die, the earth will have them,
but Near the light, into the clarities come
Those keeping faith with the heart’s love and Holy Spirit who were
Hopeful, patient, still, and got the better of fate.”

They got the better of fate. It is not so beyond human understanding. They have never found themselves in a way in which they take advantage of others.There is this presence in their lives of what one calls faith. Faith in everything that bodes and portends with life, faith in human nature as far as it can really go, faith in all that is holy and divine the paucity of which generates as much pain and contrition as such that might be grasped in those who lost accordingly faith in themselves. There is no possible reason for them to do otherwise because they have succeeded in making radical distinctions between what is essential and what is trivial. Of course, to say la moindre des choses,there is yet another significant aspect that must be attributed to their lives. By this, I mean hard work. Faith and hard work when compacted will undoubtedly have their effect and meaning. Hard work, arduousness but also industry; these are things we should not cast out into oblivion if ever real life isto us a worthy endeavour. We all need to struggle for better times. Let us help ourselves for the sake of ourselves and hence for the sake of God.

“Love is often presented as the opposite of fear but true love is not opposite anything. True love is far more powerful than any negative emotions, as it is the environment in which all things arise. Negative emotions are like sharks swimming in the ocean of love. All things beautiful and fearful, ugly and kind, powerful and small, come into existence, do their thing, and disappear within the context of this great ocean. At the same time, they are made of the very love in which they swim and can never be separated. We are made of this love and live our whole lives at one with it, whether we know it or not.”

Courage still resides in our hearts. Courage and temperance are fundamental human attributes that must be at any cost foisted upon us. Agathy is never absent. It is never lost for fear. We are agathious from creation to the general doom. We only do not seem to be aware of that because of the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being as Shelley would put it. There aremany rips in our lives. What do we do vis- à- vis them? It is really up to us to decide whether or not they are going to be mended. Or are they to be left unmended? It is up to us to mend these rips and walk through them to the light or remain forever in the dark. There is more enterprise in striving to repair some of the erroneous things in the world rather than to clench our hands over our foreheads and then foolishly shed tears over them. Let us make a terrestrial galaxy as the stars do in the sky. To put it, in short, and in as a few words as possible, let us create our secret world because the outside world is not doing very well. Why cannot we stop caring for the material and the sensual? Why cannot we stop caring for the things that will die? Let us feel for the spiritual. There is still much hope since, as I like to think and would like to put it, we have not learned enough despair so as not to hope. Despair and hope do not cause us to be ridiculous. To work arduously and then yearn for a better future is not to be found cloistered within the boundaries of idealism. It is altogether apparent the fact that our minds and hearts, for the time being, are not unfortunately set on the same arena of expectation. Our lives, to say perhaps the least, are shrouded in obscurity and by way of consequence not agood number of things are made clear.We are persistently catering for indeterminacy and eclecticism while being morceled and devoured by doubt or precisely nous sommes pris dans les supputations du doute as they say in french. Under the spell and delusion of amorality which contains a heavy dose of immorality we are celebrating the spirit of the age. Many are those who are coming in but few are those who feel like going out.

Look at how the world’s poor people are amazed At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,Infusing them with dreadful prophecies.

Should we thus draw up our breath at these sad signs, and sigh again and exclaim on death? When the spirit starts mattering again, few, indeed, are those who will understand. After all, we have no one to blame and reprimand for this except ourselves. There are things of importance left behind which must operate again as they had done in the remote passing days. It is Eros, we believe, and not Priapos, we still believe, who wanted to move no further after the objective he gave his life to. It is his “restless expansive tendency” towards love as Sigmund Freud had put it which comes into sharp contrast and opposition with the “generally conservative nature of the drives” causing it hence to be threatened all the time. But then, Eros is inaccessible to those who lack love as well as spiritual insight. He is inaccessible to the profanum vulgus. “ Only he who himself turns to the other human being and opens himself to him receives the world in him. Only the being whose otherness, accepted by my being, lives and faces me in the whole compression of existence, brings the radiance of eternity to me”. Martin Buber is ultimately clear enough to be understood. When Adonis lived, it is not the sun and the sharp air which lurked like two thieves to rob him of his fair as Shakespeare maintained. Adonis does not blame it for the destiny. He must be held responsible for the loss of Cytherea. She was all in love forlorn. Had he loved her with a love so over-powering as she did, no sun,no sharp air, no whatever would have deprived him of her. It is love, say mutual love or any other , which alone brings things together. It is that which,I must say again, brings people together and makes an extraordinary galaxy out of them. We must struggle for the sake of it and stand in no comformity with their vulgarism and disparaging gestures. Most of all, we must put under question and not merely cleave to the values established by tradition. Patterned thinking will lead almost nowhere. Only by straying afield of our selves and of tradition innovation and accuracy as regards our lives will become possible.This is to be evidenced not only in ourselves but equally in the kind of knowledge we unfailingly continue to receive and accept without checking or verification. Michel Foucault’s prolific work in sociology but then in philosophy would not find the means and ploys to open up new avenues of research and enquiry in history and the social sciences if it remained imprisoned by tradition and atavism. Foucault’s sociological and philosophical output, Steven Connor makes clear, refused to stay within the established and precomprehended territories of theory and thereby succeeded remarkeably in adding and contributing to the over all human knowledge. ‘After all, what would be the value of the passion of knowledge if it resulted in a certainamount of knowledgeableness, and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower’s straying afield of himself?’ Foucault would remind us in his essay on ‘ The use of pleasure’.‘The passion of knowledge’; It is interesting to see in it this astounding interaction and intermingling of both heart and mind. Passion with regard to knowledge. What offspring will there be if this passion of knowledge revamps into a love of knowledge? Let us think about love and feel it henceforth. To love means to act and not to just say empty words that would add more horror to life. Call it as you like but love is more than what people think. There is, this is it, more to love than what many people think. It is the most important thing in life. To love, J.Krishnamurti wrote, means to be sensitive. To be sensitive is to feel for people,for birds, for flowers, for trees_ not because they are ours, but just because we are awake to the extraordinary beauty of things. We are awake through love and knowledge and not through ignorance and fear.


Chokri Omri

The map of Makkah

“From whencesoever Thou startest forth, turn Thy face in the direction of the sacred Mosque; that is indeed the truth from the Lord. And Allah is not unmindful of what ye do” (Qur'an 2:149–150).

“Qibla (or qiblah; Arabic: قبلة‎) is an Arabic word for the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during Salah, the Islamic practice of formal prayer, usually performed five times a day. Since 622 AD, that direction has been towards Kaaba (The Cube), a cube-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which is the most sacred site in Islam. Muslim mosques are aligned with qibla, Muslims are buried with their faces in the direction of the qibla, and the fact that all Muslims pray towards the Kaaba is traditionally considered to be a symbol of the unity of all Muslims worldwide,” (Wikipedia, Qibla).

http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/projects/tobler/Qibla/sld001.htm

Meditations

love story-Beethoven

Hymns Of Life

I have once listened to hymns of life sung by birds of Freedom in sacred woods. So what? What I am trying to say is that such hymns sung by such birds, albeit few and rare, have been faithful to the promise they gave and now continue to hail. One of the hymns they celebrate is "Sapere aude" which basically means this: "have the courage to use your own understanding."

What reasons have we for hoping against emotionally atavistic stances ironically targeted towards the future? The idea is this: when the past calls for a meeting with the future in the province of the present, the future seems to be arrogant and boastful in character and looks at the past call, accordingly, with exaspiration.

The present, not able to understand what is happening because of politicians, nevertheless purports to reconciliate between them, moves back and forth, taps out insightful elements from the past, brings them up to theory and practice, studies the expediency, and imparts the results obtained thus far to the future.

The future refrains for a moment from its pride and prejiduce and gets to know how unity, not division, between past and present has managed to deliver a present perfect beyond the simple.

Now, by virtue of the present, the future changes and takes towards the past so modest, sincere and negotiated a stance. Unity, not division, will make the difference now towards a future perfect that will have obtained by the time unity becomes not a means to an end but a spirit persistently calling for a proper meeting of past, present and future in the making in the present progressive now safely geared towards the future.

Here, thus, are the questions:

What is Freedom?
What is Love?
In the questions
There is the answer.
But is it safe to say
they now belong to this part
of the world: TUNISIA?
But see, can Freedom come about
without Love?
Can Love obtain and entertain
without Freedom?
Can paths of Life cross again
without decoded signs of Love
encoded in signs of hatred?
Seekers of Truth,
The Freedom we seek to seize
is Freedom with Love.
Neither more nor less.
For never has darkness
concealed sparkling stars above.
And Flowers have never come
and gone without a promise of spring.
Brothers of Truth,
Enough is enough of fearing.
Enough is enough of tearing.
Keep the Love of Truth.
Keep the Freedom of souls.
Keep the beautiful Revolution
Of Hearts against the scams
of tamed minds and have
The courage to use your own
Understanding: "Sapere aude".

Chokri Omri

It is worth pointing out, by way of elucidation and explanation, that the dictum “Have the courage to use your own reason!”, used above, (in Latin sapere aude!), is the battle cry of the Enlightenment. It was articulated by Immanuel Kant in his famous article ‘What is Enlightenment?’ (1784). Obstacles that can stand in our way in achieving ‘maturity’, i.e. thinking for ourselves, are manifold and have to do with: the self, politics and society, as well as culture. These are problems that concern academics as much as anyone else: In a letter to his sovereign Kant declared freely that he believed Rousseau to be correct in saying that rulers only tolerate those intellectuals who are happy to simply “adorn our chains with flowers” – as many do. The greatest difficulty lies in motivating people to shake off immaturity: “It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if only I can pay – others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.” Immanuel Kant writes:
"Enlightenment is Man's emergence from self-imposed tutelage, that is to say, from the inability to use the intellect without guidance by another. It is self-imposed if its cause does not lie in a deficiency of the intellect but of the courage and determination to use it autonomously. Sapere aude! Have the courage to think!" (I. Kant, Was ist Aufklärung?).

I remember you

When I see happy lovers

When nothing in the sky covers

The golden moon, when the seagull hovers

Over the melancholic sea ,I remember you.



When I hear your favorite song

Or your name by a strange tongue

When I need someone to make me strong

I remember you.


When the pink gets mellow

And the vernal drought brings the merry swallow

To sow life and revive the withered pillow

I remember you.



When I get up in a good state

And breathe the cool breeze of the morning,

When I don’t fear my fate

Nay, with bated breath waiting for the coming

I remember you, I love you.

Rafik el Fehem.

Come Back

When you left, beauty stowed away in your heels

And joy slept with your ironed dresses

So what you left is somebody who kneels

May he find a hair of your tresses


I am sad like the jaundiced leaves of winter

And desperate like the ultimate quest,

Useless like the small splinter

When scattered from the rest.


I have no dreams by night but your seraphic countenance

Lethal darkness never hides your lit eyes

With love and tear, neither does long distance

Prevent my ear from hearing your heart‘s cries.


As the rain comes and quenches the avid lands

As survival rope is tossed to the drowner’s hands

As the convalescent child rejoins his friends

You should come so that the world stands



Rafik el Fehem.

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