Criticism of Adam’s books

Why wait until Christmas or Chanukah to treat yourself or someone you love to an unforgettable read?

“Under the Shirttails of Albert Russo” modernizes the concept of the biography away from Boswellian “every ladder rung is vital” structure, and straight to “the good and meaningful stuff — that defines who a person is … and why.”

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

With laser-like precision, Adam Donaldson Powell bores into Albert Russo’s psyche, while in parallel he analyzes the work of a lifetime. But more often than not, there is a process of cross-fertilization, whether it is clearly identified or on the sidelines. He interviews his subject, not always in a linear fashion, scanning the latter’s important stages of life: there is first Central, Eastern – the former Belgian Congo (now, DRCongo), Ruanda-Urundi (now, the two countries of Rwanda and Burundi) and Southern Africa – Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, where the author was raised, completing high school at the Interracial Athénée of Usumbura (now Bujumbura), studying with European, Congolese, Hutu, Tutsi, Asian and American classmates, both in French and in English (he also went to an all-boys’ school in Salisbury, now called Harare). We then find him in the Big Apple at the age of seventeen, attending New York University, after which, he pursues his studies in German at the Collegium Platinum in Heidelberg. The subject is asked very intimate questions about his private life, with which he is faced for the first time. And he reveals facts he never thought could one day be thrust into the open. But still, he complies, candidly. Mr. Powell illustrates with excerpts of the author’s novels, poems and short stories, which are all either clearly or subconsciously related to Albert Russo’s life, as well as photos, letters and book reviews from Albert Russo’s personal archives. Mentioned are his AFRICAN QUATUOR, the collected poems in the CROWDED WORLD OF SOLITUDE, volume two, his collected stories and essays in the CROWDED WORLD OF SOLITUDE, volume one, and finally, his GOSH ZAPINETTE! series, of which David Alexander writes: “… Be warned, Zapinette’s gems of insouciant wit tend to become infectious. This wise-child’s deceptively worldly innocence takes the entire gamut of human endeavor in its compass. Hardly anyone or anything escapes unscathed. Michael Jackson,Vittorio de Sica, Freddy Mercury, Mao Zedong, Bill and Hill, the Pope, Fidel Castro, and even Jesus of Nazareth all come under Zapinette’s delightfully zany fire as she “zaps” from topic to topic in an irrepressible flux. As the century of the double zeros is with us, we have seen the future and the future is sham. As a healthy dose of counter-sham, Zapinette should be on every brain-functional person’s reading list.” After America, the subject moves to Northern Italy where he will reside nine years, then to Brussels. He spends half of his life in Paris, France, before finally settling in Tel Aviv Israel. When asked what his roots are, he replies that he is a humanist born in Africa, with his virtual roots being the languages which he speaks: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, vernacular Swahili, as well as those he can only read: Portuguese and Dutch. He will soon add Hebrew. Those cherished languages are much more than forms of speech, they are his planet, from which he extracts much of the sap of his writing. So, don’t be shy. Get Under the Shirttails of Albert Russo. See order details HERE!

DO WATCH ‪”The Age of the Pearl”, extracted from my new biography “Under the Shirttails of Albert Russo”

READER COMMENTS … regarding UNDER THE SHIRTTAILS of ALBERT RUSSO:

UNDER THE SHIRTTAILS of ALBERT RUSSO ‘can perhaps be likened to skipping a small rock across a pond – creating ripples and reverberations which both reflect the greater omnipotence of the water and temporarily alter its periphery and identity.’ Such is Adam Donaldson Powell the master weaver behind the literary tapestry that is the life & times with a view into poems, novels and picture gallery of one brilliant international award-winning multilingual poet, novelist, essayist, historian and photographer – Albert Russo – a man with a claim to no country yet a citizen of many soils – in his sensitively scripted yet profoundly penetrating work unveiled as ‘an alternative biography’.

— Jeanette Skirvin

This biography crowns five decades of my father’s very prolific writing. Both my brother Alex and myself are immensely proud of our father’s literary achievement. From his very deep insights on the history of Africa, to the birth and struggles of the Israeli state, his poems and immensely entertaining short stories, humorous novels for teenagers, short stories covering the complexities of human nature, there isn’t one topic that my father hasn’t masterfully addressed in his writings.

— Tatiana Russo

We have the pleasure to see all the beauties of literature, poetry and photography of Albert Russo in Adam Donaldson Powell’s brilliant and memorable book “Under the Shirttails of Albert Russo”. Russo’s profound and well-ordered imagination helps him to create great works of literature. Russo never writes his great poems and novels according to any mechanic rule. He has perfected his writings due to “the existential qualm for which my heritage is responsible: Africa, Judaism and Italy. They exist and coexist in cycles, in a fashion so inchoate that I am never quite sure which will take the upper hand.” Powell, the immortal poet famous for his classic “Three-legged Waltz”, points out that Russo “began life as an outsider; the offspring of refugees to Africa from Nazi and fascist persecution then became an outcast via his self-proclaimed ‘gaytude’.” No doubt, this fact has provided the perfection of tone in all his creative endeavors, and this will certainly entice all readers. The true essence of Russo’s writings and photography is revealed by Powell in this unique book. Adam Donaldson Powell’s latest powerful book “Under the Shirttails of Albert Russo” is a tour de force in biography and literary criticism.

— Dr. Santosh Kumar, Editor, Cyberwit.net

​To avoid any doubts or confusion, this book by Adam Donaldson Powell is NOT just a biography of the life of Albert Russo, nor is it a synoptic overview of his massive and prolific collection of works of prose, poetry, and photography. This book is something far more than either of these literary vehicles could ever be. Through literally decades of conversations, correspondence, and collaboration between these two very talented authors/artists, Adam Powell gives us a glimpse into not only the very diverse heritage and globe-trotting life and experiences of Albert Russo, but also a glimpse into his very psyche and incredible intellect. In other words, this book lays bare for the world to see what makes Albert Russo one of the few true renaissance men of our times. Russo’s collection of works bridges gulfs of heritage, culture, philosophy, and more – often with more than a hint of his sometimes quirky and off-beat sense of humor. For anyone who has ever read and enjoyed ANY of Russo’s works, this book is a must-read to fully understand the man behind the true art of his words, ideas, and imagery.

​– J. Richard Davis, B.A., J.D.

 

Adam Donaldson Powell, author

 

 

Review of Adam Donaldson Powell’s book “Entre Nous et Eux”, by C. Richard Mathews, USA.

Adam Donaldson Powell’s new collection of works, Entre Nous et Eux, displays his multiple talents and concerns in a series of brilliant and engaging pieces. Powell is an activist, essayist, fiction writer, visual artist, poet, who writes in four languages, though English is the predominant one in this volume and an inability to read French, Norwegian or Spanish will not detract from a reader’s understanding and appreciation of any of the pieces.

The book is divided into four sections: poetry, a novella titled “Entre Nous”, a short story titled “Death Poem” and another, longer novella called “The Stalker”. While the works deal with many themes, the overriding one for this reader was the issue of how societal and political forces affect — often adversely — an individual’s development, sometimes to the point that she or he does not or cannot understand or accept who she/he is. A major factor in this, it is suggested, is the inability of others in her/his family and in greater society to respect and accept a person’s differences (the “other”).

The book begins with Powell’s great strength: his poetry. Interestingly, in the three works of fiction poems appear as well. In both the stand-alone poetry and the fiction, poems allow Powell to focus the reader’s attention immediately on his themes and concerns. The first group of poems involves children in a presumably Western European (Parisian?) context and their shock at how the world interacts with their innocence: a child playing hopscotch confronting a pedophile, a young girl taunted because she has “two mothers”, a young hijab-wearing Muslim girl also subject to jibes, problems for a child of “color”, a presumably Muslim boy’s trauma at the hands of police after talking of ISIS, the treatment of gypsies and their plight and ostracism, the shock of exploding bombs in an unnamed war zone.

Although much of the poetry deals with “social issues” in one sense or the other, there are purely lyrical moments as well, such as the poem “Jeux d’Eau”.

At a number of points the issue of suicide is introduced: the inability of the characters to accept themselves or others’ perceptions of them. Thus, in the first novella, “Entre Nous.”, a friend of one of the main characters dies of an overdose (deliberate?) days after they’ve had sex with each other. And the beautiful short story “Death Poem”, concerning two young Japanese men, involves the presumed suicide of a father over his son’s homosexuality, and the son’s own subsequent suicide himself. As noted above, the use of poetry, and references to poetry, permeate Powell’s fiction writing and in this moving story he introduces us to a specific Japanese form of poetry relevant to the taking of one’s life.

Both novellas involve casts of characters that are followed through some years of their lives. “Entre Nous.” is presented partially in an epistolary form. The story involves the interaction of several gay friends and various sexual escapades in a number of Western cities — Paris, London, New York — that the author is obviously familiar with. As in some of the poetry, especially the collection of interlocking erotic poems “tu sais je vais….t’enculer (love letters)”, the writing about sex is explicitly detailed, a means for the author to “épater la bourgeoisie” in the mode of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Genet and other French writers. Their cumulative effect is, ultimately, powerful and meaningful. These passages are part of his subtle analysis throughout of various types of love and physical and emotional attraction.

The second, longer novella, “The Stalker”, concerns a young woman and her lover, a transgender man who, at one point discovers that he may be “a lesbian in a man’s body” (294). The overriding theme is one of identity — despite society’s pressures, finding it or creating it and then having the flexibility to change it or allow it to modulate as circumstances and feelings may urge or dictate.

The reader should not miss the great amount of humor and wit, and pure literary pleasure, in Powell’s writing which, as in Proust, may be overlooked if one focuses merely on “the story line” or themes. Be ready for a wonderful turn-of-phrase, or the startling juxtaposition of images. For example, in “Une Lettre d’Une Prostitue…” the letter writer states, “J’aimerais parfois me mettre dans le peau de quelqun d’autre…” Or, “mots doux et traitres a la fois…” (37). Or: “lips part revealing your lizard tongue” (63). Or: “blood-red sugary tension of domestic rape” (55). Or: “the relentless fantasy is more than the sum of reality’s individual parts”. (78)

Especially delightful are the “echoes” one finds between different parts of the works through the use of literary devices similar to Wagner’s leitmotifs. Thus, there is a reference early in “Entre Nous.” to Donald O’Connor and Marilyn Monroe singing “a man chases a girl (until she catches him)” and then much later the reader comes upon a scene of Karol/Mariusz showing his poetry to a closeted priest in which he has written “I delight in chasing straight boys until they catch me” (172).

It should be noted that in both his poetry and fiction Powell’s writing style is clear and precise without being pedestrian or boring. It is a style that is able to draw in and engage the reader quietly and without showiness, leaving one with a sense of pleasure, even when the subjects at hand are very serious ones.

Powell’s book is highly recommended for its many pure literary pleasures but also for its profound insights into aspects of modern life that are often obfuscated or ignored by other writers and media in our contemporary world oversaturated with often meaningless written and visual distractions.

C. Richard Mathews
New York-based art historian, writer and attorney

Recension du recueil ‘Entre Nous et Eux’ de Adam Donaldson Powell,

Le nouveau recueil de Adam Donaldson Powell intitulé Entre Nous et Eux reflète les talents multiples de l’auteur et comprend une série de textes aussi brillants que jubilatoires. Powell, l’activiste, est à la fois écrivain, poète, essayiste, peintre et photographe.  En outre, il écrit en anglais, sa langue maternelle, mais également en français, en norvégien et en espagnol.  Le lecteur découvrira dans ce volume des textes dans ces quatre langues, ce qui, dans notre monde hyper-connecté est encore une rareté, mais en même temps une grande richesse.

Ce volume est divisé en quatre parties: Poésie, une nouvelle intitulée “Death Poem”, et deux courts romans portant les titres suivants: “Entre Nous” et “The Stalker”.

Alors que ces textes évoquent de nombreux thèmes, le fil conducteur est celui des effets de la société et de la politique sur le développement de l’individu, au point où celui-ci ne comprend plus ou n’accepte tout simplement pas qui il est ou ce qu’il risque de devenir.  L’auteur suggère que les autres, c’est-à-dire, sa famille ou la société dans laquelle il évolue, est inapte à respecter, voire à accepter sa différence.

Le livre a pour prémices la poésie de Powell, poésie dans laquelle il excelle. Ses textes de fiction sont eux aussi parsemés de poèmes, plus ou moins longs. Les premiers poèmes traitent de l’enfance ayant pour cadre une capitale européenne, qui pourrait être Paris.  Et des conséquences, insidieuses ou cruelles, que le monde alentour peut avoir sur eux. Voyez cette gosse jouant à la marelle et qui s’éloigne précautionneusement d’un pédophile, cette autre que l’on moque parce qu’elle a ‘deux mères’, ou cette jeune musulmane malmenée à cause du hijab qu’elle porte. Que dire aussi de ce garçon basané que la police menotte dès qu’il prononce le mot Daesch, du traitement odieux que subissent les gitans, de leur ostracisme. L’auteur évoque également le choc que produisent les bombes explosant dans des zones de guerre.

Tandis que nombreux sont les poèmes traitant de problèmes de société, ils possèdent tous cette touche lyrique si propre à Powell. ‘Jeux d’Eau’ en est un parfait exemple.

La problématique du suicide apparaît ci et là: certains personnages ont du mal à s’accepter, d’autant plus lorsque leur entourage les rejette.

Ainsi, dans le premier roman, ‘Entre Nous’, l’ami de l’un des protagonistes meurt à la suite d’une overdose (peut-être délibérément), quelques jours après que les deux ont fait l’amour ensemble.

Dans la magnifique nouvelle ‘Death Poem’, qui met en scène deux jeunes hommes japonais, le père de l’un d’eux se suicide, apparemment à cause de l’homosexualité de son fils, lequel à son tour met fin à ses jours. Que ce soit dans ses textes de fiction ou dans sa poésie, Powell évoque le suicide en utilisant des éléments particuliers de la poésie japonaise. Y percevrait-on l’ombre de Mishima ?

Les deux romans mettent en scène des protagonistes sur des tranches de vie. ‘Entre Nous’ est raconté en partie sous forme épistolaire. On y parle d’amis gays, de leur interaction, de leurs expériences sexuelles vécues dans certaines grandes villes occidentales, telles que Paris, Londres ou New York, villes que l’auteur connaît bien. Powell, n’ayant pas froid aux yeux, n’hésite pas à écrire des ‘lettres d’amour’ contenant des mots crus, comme par exemple: “tu sais je vais….t’enculer”. Et cela pour ‘épater la galerie’, à l’instar de Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine – qui, à l’époque écrivaient sous des pseudonymes -, Genet, ainsi que d’autres écrivains français. Mais là, il ne s’agit pas uniquement de subterfuges, ces vers érotiques, voire pornographiques, participent de l’analyse subtile de ce qui constitue l’amour pluriel, qu’il s’agisse de la simple attraction physique et/ou des émotions qui peuvent en découler.

Le second roman, ‘The Stalker’, qui est plus long que l’autre, est l’histoire d’une jeune femme et de son amant, un homme trans-genre, qui se demande s’il peut être “une lesbienne dans le corps d’un homme”. Le thème principal ici est celui de l’identité qui, envers et contre tout, tente de s’affirmer et de trouver un équilibre.

Malgré la gravité des sujets abordés, le lecteur pourra apprécier, tout au long du volume, la veine humoristique et spirituelle de l’auteur, à l’instar d’un Proust qui se ‘moque’ gentiment de certains de ses personnages. Powell joue avec les mots et s’amuse à juxtaposer des images, comme dans ‘La lettre d’une prostituée’, où l’auteur écrit: “J’aimerais parfois me mettre dans la peau de quelqu’un d’autre…”, ou encore, “mots doux et traitres à la fois…”. D’autres  exemples me viennent à l’esprit, tels que “lips part revealing your lizard tongue” , ”blood-red sugary tension of domestic rape”, ou encore, ”the relentless fantasy is more than the sum of reality’s individual parts”.

L’on trouve des passages particulièrement jouissifs tout au long de cette oeuvre si singulière, rappelant les leitmotifs de Wagner. L’un des personnages écoute un ancien vinyle de Donald O’Connor et de Marilyn Monroe chantant “a man chases a girl (until she catches him)”. Plus loin, il y a une scène dans laquelle Karol/Mariusz montre l’un de ses poèmes à un prêtre, où il écrit: “I delight in chasing straight boys until they catch me”.

Dans ce livre, qu’il s’agisse de poésie ou de prose, le style est clair, précis, et à la fois engageant, sans jamais être pompeux, même lorsque l’auteur traite de sujets graves.

Cette oeuvre mérite d’être lue pour diverses raisons. D’abord pour la belle phrase, un plaisir purement littéraire, ensuite parce que Powell aborde ici des thèmes de notre société contemporaine qui souvent sont, soit ignorés par d’autres écrivains et les média, soit négligés en raison de la quantité phénoménale de distractions vaines, aussi bien pseudo-littéraires que visuelles, que l’on nous bombarde quotidiennement.

C. Richard Mathews, historien de l’art, écrivain et avocat new yorkais

ORDER “ENTRE NOUS ET EUX” (PAPERBACK & EBOOK) HERE!

 

QUOTE:

“There is no doubt that Powell, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, and Delmore Schwartz are the most talented American poets of the modern age.” — Dr. Santosh Kumar, Allahabad University, 2010, from his book entitled: Adam Donaldson Powell: the making of a poet.

ABOVE QUOTE FROM A BOOK BY DR. SANTOSH KUMAR, INDIA:
“Adam Donaldson Powell: The Making of a Poet”, a critical analysis of the published works of Adam Donaldson Powell. Order the book from Cyberwit.net: NOW!

A FEW EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK:

CHAPTER ONE

The Cretan Myths in Collected Poems and Stories:
An Interpretation by Adam Donaldson Powell

Powell’s “Daedalus: an ancient epic for modern man” is “an epic reconstruction of the Cretan myths” (Powell 83). The question arises why Powell is employing the mythical mode in his poetry. Through symbolic means and Cretan myths Powell is trying to control “what is fearful and challenging within the self and the universe” (Feder 52). No doubt, the use of myth has therapeutic significance, as the use of myths by a poet has the “potential to contain violent and irrational forces that would otherwise be unleashed destructively” (Acheson 151). This shows that Powell is searching a new positive ideal to supply his spiritual needs. In the period of Romanticism, Daedalus came to denote the classic artist, a skilled mature craftsman, while Icarus symbolized the romantic artist, an undisputed prototype of the classic artist, whose impetuous, passionate and rebellious nature, as well as his defiance of formal aesthetic and social conventions, may ultimately prove to be self-destructive. Stephen Dedalus, in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man envisages his future artist-self “a hawklike man flying above the waves”.

Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, suggests that Daedalus constructed the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it (Quoted in Penelope 36). Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, who needed it to imprison his wife’s son the Minotaur. The story is told that Poseidon had given a white bull to Minos so that he might use it as a sacrifice. Instead, Minos kept it for himself; and in revenge, Poseidon made his wife Pasiphaë lust for the bull. For Pasiphaë, Daedalus also built a wooden cow in which the queen hid herself so she could mate with the bull. She is the emblem of grotesque bestiality and the shocking excesses of female sensuality and deceit:

The creature,
Though unstirred by the Beauty of her dark curls,
Flawless skin and painted eyes,
Is completely transformed
In disposition by
The bovine façade
Of his own illusion.
(Seduction of the Beast 97)

The sole motive of her god-given lust is “womanly revenge / Through bitterness and degradation” (Pasiphae 94).

Pound aptly says, “There ought to be an active literature for if its literature be not active, a nation will die at the top (4-5).” Like T. S. Eliot and Pound, Powell too feels that poetry now requires a new outlook. Edwin Muir observes: “To Eliot and Pound around 1910 poetry seemed to have come to a dead end, and intense thought had to be given to it” (16). Powell in his modern interpretation of the Cretan myths has done a great service to the cause of poetry. Icarus was guilty of what the Greeks called “hubris”, or pride. He forgot that he was a mortal man and felt like he was a god, because he could fly. He forgot himself so far, that he flew too high and close to the sun’s burning rays, and the wax melted from his wings, causing him to plunge to his death by drowning. This may be compared to the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the sun to give it to men. His punishment was to be chained to a rock and “to have vultures gnaw at his innards.” Once again, a mortal man had dared to aspire to the power of the gods, and suffered the consequences.
By request of King Minos, Daedalus built a labyrinth on Crete to contain a monster called the Minotaur, half bull and half man. Later, for displeasing the king, Daedalus and his son Icarus were both confined in this labyrinth, which was so complex that even its creator could not find his way out. Powell aptly states:

But, for every inspiration
Of genius there is an
Accompanying consequence of ignorance;
and so it is that
He who constructs a labyrinth
Must invariably suffer confinement
Within the limits of karmic mortality
(Prologue 2: Chorus 88)

It appears that for Powell labyrinth is a symbol of hard path to God, and a meditative state as we forget the external world while walking among the turnings and intricate maze. A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. The Labyrinth, “the intricate structure of / interconnecting passages” (Labyrinth 100) represents a journey to our own center to “suffer confinement”. Powell adds that the “confinement” or self-imposed exile of an artist should be “Within the limits of karmic mortality” so that the creative artist is again out into the world. Powell is perhaps reminding us that Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. We can walk it. It is a metaphor for life’s journey. It is a symbol that creates a sacred space and place and takes us out of our ego to “That Which Is Within.”

Instead, Daedalus fashioned wings of wax and feathers so that he and his son could escape. He tells his son Icarus that he “feared mediocrity / More than imbalance. / For us, challenge was but / The means of attaining individuality; / A space unto ourselves” (“Daedalus 3: Elegy” 117). The most significant thing is “Excellence through solitude” (IBID). When Icarus flew too high — too near the sun — in spite of his father”s warnings, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. His more cautious father flew to safety. By using this myth in his collection Collected Poems and Stories Powell reveals that Daedalus murdered his nephew Talus “in a fit of jealousy” (Powell 83). Daedalus’s soliloquy makes it clear: “You see, Talus- / I had no alternative but To do what I did” (“Murder at the Acropolis” 90).

Daedalus, the legendary artificer, has “cognizant, scientific mind” (“Daedalus 1: Escape from Athens” 91). Daedalus symbolizes classical artist different from his son Icarus, who represents romantic liberalism in art. With his wings of wax, Icarus tries to fly too high near the sun and pays the price, but a cautious Daedalus survives. Powel is suggesting that in the modern age all of us are caught in a maze, just as his Daedalus was. This is due to “foolish boasting of youth’ (“Rage: Daedalus” 89). The cultural institutions are a maze of corridors; postmodern writing is a maze of ‘no-man’s land’. A contemporary poet’s mind itself is a convoluted maze filled with ambition to achieve “the glory of invention” (“Prologue 2: Chorus” 88).

Life poses riddles at every turn for a creative artist with “inspiration of genius” (ibid). The only way out seems to be to soar above the “confinement”, as did Daedalus and his son. “Social acceptability and custom” (“Daedalus 1: Escape from Athens” 91) obstructs a creative artist, but he must fly high. “Pathetic empiricism” (“Ad Infinitum” 126), flight and fall seems to be the destiny of genius. Powell puts it most convincingly:

The carnage is reflected incessantly
Through the hall of mirrors that
We call history, for behind every
Great lust for significance lurks
A Daedalus
(Ad Infinitum 126)

Powell feels that an artist soars like Daedalus – “We soared like eagles” (“Daedalus 3 : Elegy” 117)- to escape restraints imposed by social and cultural institutions to find his own identity and spiritual awakening. No doubt, Powell provides a new interpretation to an ancient myth, which inspired Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The didactic character of the myth of Icarus is obvious: the recklessness and thoughtlessness of young men who ignore the advice and experience of their parents, and their elders and betters in general, may have catastrophic effects on their lives. There are rules and laws to be obeyed. Icarus was asked not to fly close to the sun. Powell is suggesting that he was guilty of “hubris” or pride, and therefore he lost his life. While flying close to the sun, wax melted from his wings causing his death. This may be compared with Prometheus myth. Prometheus stole fire to give it to man. He was chained to a rock. Powell’s interpretation is that one should respect one’s limits and act accordingly. Also, there must be measure and balance in all our lives. Neither too high near the sun, nor too low near the sea, Daedalus counselled, but Icarus paid no heed and his immoderation cost him his life.

Minotaur symbolizes hell or state repression. In the contemporary context, it is the symbol of fire and terrorism consuming all of us. Picasso felt that Minotaur is a symbol of contemporary decadence. Powell’s “Birth of the Minotaur” makes it clear that Minotaur’s birth is a manifestation of “a new Hell”:

Suddenly, the screams of one thousand
Sirens decry the final exodus of the
Monstrous incubus, and within the
Silence that ensues a new
Hell is borne
In the shape of the
Minotaur.
(98)

Powell’s wise interpretation is that Minotaur is nothing but our uncontrollable lusts. Seven youths for the monster to eat symbolize seven energy centres (Chakras) being eaten by our selfishness and egoism. The Minotaur is our inner adversary, our egoism eating our seven Chakras of vitality. We need Theseus, our own Guardian Angel to cleanse the maze and labyrinth of confusion wrought by our own egoism. In our contemporary world we need Theseus who “Embarks the waiting ship / Without once looking back” (103) to bring us into the light by killing Minotaur. Theseus “Kneeling in silent supplication / To the celestial guardians / Of love and beauty” (107) will certainly destroy Minotaur and escape alive. No doubt about this, as Theseus recovers the gold ring hurled by Minos into the ocean:

Tension was keen amongst the spectators
As all anxiously awaited the questionable
Resurgence of Theseus from the aqueous depths.
But doubt soon turned to astonishment as the
Beloved son of Poseidon defiantly resurfaced
Onto the starboard deck sporting a wry smile,
A golden ring and a gilded wreath of lilies
Bequeathed him by the fair mermaid Amphitrite.
(“Miracle 2: The Ring”, 106)

We can hope to be rescued from the Labyrinth only by Theseus- Christ. Jo Edkins’ interpretation of Labyrinth is remarkable: “Certainly many people have felt that a maze is a good symbol for life itself. A branching maze presents you with choices every so often. You can take a wrong turn, or there may be two paths which join up again, all of which mirror life itself. A unicursal maze also can represent life. We are born, we all die, and in between we travel the path of life which twists and turns, often in a bewildering way. We cannot see ahead, and the past is gone. When we reach the centre of our maze of life, we die.”

The Minotaur was a monster, half man, half bull, who ate men. He was born to the wife of King Minos of Crete. Minos told Daedalus, the inventor, to build a house that was so complicated that the Minotaur would never escape from it, so Daedalus built the Labyrinth. King Minos had a vast empire, and as a tribute he had people sent to feed to the Minotaur. They were driven into the Labyrinth, and wandered around, lost, until the Minotaur found them.

Part of King Minos’ empire was Athens, in Greece. The son of the king of Athens was Theseus, a hero. He was so angry that Athenian people were being killed in this way that he volunteered to go. Powell’s poem AEGEUS reveals the pathos inherent in the whole incident as Aegeus is quite despondent due to his only son’s departure:

The swollen eyes of
Both men rain a
Sprinkling of teardrops
In bidding of courage
And divine favor.
(103)

Anthony Stevens describes how Ariadne helped Theseus: “In Crete, Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, fell in love with Theseus, and told him how to find his way through the Labyrinth. She gave him a thread, with one end tied to the door of the Labyrinth. Theseus could unwind the thread as he tried to find the Minotaur. When he wished to return, he could follow the thread back again, rewinding it as he went. Ariadne also gave Theseus a sword. He went in, found the Minotaur and killed him. Then he returned, and fled from Crete with Ariadne and the rest of the Athenians” (Ariadne’s Clue: A Guide to the Symbols of Humankind, pp xii).

Fiona Ross aptly remarks that Theseus was hero enough to slay the Minotaur but without Ariadne’s thread to guide him he would never have found his way back through the labyrinth. In fact, we should find our own Ariadne and hence negotiate our own path through the labyrinth of the psychoid.

In more recent times, classical themes have been reinterpreted by dramatists Jean Anouilh, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Giraudoux in France, Eugene O’Neill in America, and T. S. Eliot in Britain and by novelists such as James Joyce and André Gide. Plato created his own allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the Republic), attacked the traditional tales of the gods’ tricks, thefts and adulteries as immoral, and objected to their central role in literature. Plato’s criticism was the first serious challenge to the Homeric mythological tradition, referring to the myths as “old wives’ chatter”.

The depth of Powell’s thought is visible in the following lines full of earnestness and sincerity:
There is no escape from Time or prophecy Except in the play of the mind.
And yet in denial of death
Lay forfeiture of Salvation.

Powell in the above lines is suggesting that the highest summit and perpetual light of “salvation” is possible only if we are not afraid of death. We must rather fix our eyes to converse with the divine and immortal “play of the mind.”

Apart from the poems based on the Cretan myths, Powell shows a tendency to an intellectual comment on the ills lurking within us. This device we find in his poem The Devil:
Yes. Beware Of darkness ..
And beware Of mirrors ..
But most of all
Beware
Of the devil
(24-25)

Maria Cristina Azcona rightly comments:
“The most beautiful piece, to my understanding, is “The Devil” in which the poet speaks to us, readers, he orders us, he calls our attention, he prevents us of that devil that exists, that is so dangerous sand terrifying. The poet frightens us with the Devil playing “To hide and to find” games, petrifying us with its threatening and unknown presence. Creates the climate of fear of a terror story. In a magisterial synthesis, gives an impressive end when he finally finds that devil in ourselves, shocking us and forcing us to recognize the wickedness that lives and hides in our human heart. Here the poet creates a personage, the Devil, that no longer is the famous one but is a real, present phantom, humanized, possible and burning, like the fire of malice in daily life. Originality is a constant in Powell’s poems, a surprising and multifaceted artist who amazes us with his music, his paintings, his poems, his humor and always with his genius. He communicates himself in so many ways and he revives in thousands of kaleidoscopic images…”
(A Guide to Find Peace 124-125)

The above comment is a sign of Maria’s critical insight. Lurking devil is within all of us. The Minotaur, half man with the head of a bull, appears briefly in Dante’s Inferno, Canto 12,11-15, where, picking their way among boulders dislodged on the slope and preparing to enter into the Seventh Circle, Dante and Virgil his guide encounter the beast first among those damned for their violent natures, the “men of blood”. Powell in his poem “Birth of the Minotaur” points out that Minotaur is “a new hell”, and we have to be aware of this Devil.

But “the romance of flesh” needs to be vanquished by “Half-dried ablutions”:

Frozen emotionless by
Half-dried ablutions is
The poetry of endings
Muting into beginnings.
“Rhythm and Tears” 70

Powell emphasizes that ablution is a prerequisite to approaching God and bringing a new beginning. “Thou art justified. Thou art illumined. Thou art sanctified. Thou art washed: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

In his poem “White Roses”, Powell hopes to shape “The lives of others I touch”. The poets are the prophets of God. It is through poetry that all men see the spiritual world. “The poet is the priest of the invisible” (Wallace Stevens).

Friends urge me to go on
With my life and speak of
The treasure of memories and
Shared experiences that have
Made me the unique human
Expression that I have become,
And which will further shape
The lives of others I touch
“White Roses” 82

Most of the poems in Collected Poems (2005) were written about two decades ago. What do these poems reveal? That the spiritual way is the only way to self-knowledge. In the section POETRY CYCLE 4: “Notes of a Madman”, we find Powell’s poems reach deeper. His visionary trances help him in encountering the inner and external realities:

I sally past the contingencies of reality
In pursuit of divine retribution,
And aspire toward that which
Must be accepted on faith alone.
My words warrant neither explanation
Nor restraint,
For the notes of a madman
Are understood by his own kind.
“Notes of a Madman” 127

The main theme of the above lines is Faith, approached from a philosophical point of view. Powell is striving for the essence of spontaneous spiritual process:

” … You will never know yourself until you
become indifferent to the search.”
The jeering laughter of the gull
Shatters my Revelation, triggering
My teeth to chatter in
The now-felt cold.
In vain, I retrace the shoreline
In search of my impressions, but
All existence has been cannibalized
By the froth of the moment.
Truly, my absurdities of perception
Are a source of refuge:
The complacency of the sage
Is the bane of the common man.
“Absurdities of Perception” 134

He has a deep sense of “the Unknown”;

Quite enraptured by my own image
In a mirror of Darkness,
I abandon both reflection and shadow
For a glimpse of the Unknown.
“Mirror of Darkness” 135

Powell is well aware of the predictions of French seer Nostradamus (1503-1566), who had predicted the collapse of the World Trade Centre during September 2001 terrorist attack:

A society of barren undines in
An Elysium of our own fabrication,
We flee the curse of Nostradamus
Through indulgence and invention.
Is it not written that
In the year of man’s redemption,
What were once vices
Will then be customs?
“Anno humanae salutis” 137

The “madman” in the following lines seems to be a Buddhist monk emphasizing the Middle Way and “Great Compassion”:

The vacant smile of the madman
Who finds solace
In the continuum
Of the Great Compassion?
“Agitations of the Heart” 138

Each day the Moon rises in the east and sets in the west as a result of the Earth’s rotation. “The movement of the moon” renews and revitalizes Powell, and it is a spiritual voyage for the poet:

I recede into solitude
Where I hold myself until the
Movement of the moon breaks my sleep,
And lubricates my outer Self anew
With tears of reunion.
“Void of Course” 140

Powell reminds us that without “meditations / Of the heart”, divinity is inconceivable:
It is through meditations
Of the heart that we encounter divinity
“IAO” 142

A soaring passion and ecstasy of intoxicated “darwish” is what the world needs today:
Lost in the assertion that There is no god but God, The drunken darwish is Rendered ecstatic by the Soma of perfection … “la ilaha illa Llah …
illa Llah … Allah!” …
“The Eye of the Triangle” 143

On the twelfth day of Bacchion,
The god of magical grace and rapture
Is summoned from the sea
By those willing to suffer to learn.
“The Coming” 144

In the above passages the moral pattern is quite clear as Powell prefers “faith” to maze and confusion in the brain.

CHAPTER FOUR

Powell and the Ideology of Rapture: endings of space and time

In the poems included in RAPTURE, Powell without any doubt shows the characteristic of universality. Albert Russo aptly comments in his Preface to Powell’s RAPTURE: endings of space and time:
As I have written before, elsewhere, I admire Powell the Renaissance man, Powell the Peace artist, the poet whose verse has a classical beauty which can never be out of fashion, inasmuch as it reflects our harsh and unstable world in which the clash of civilizations has become a terrifying reality, and yet in spite of the dangers, he continues to reach out and absorbs the riches and the variety he discovers in other cultures. In the present case he takes us to the heart of Nepal. His power of piercing to the hidden centres of evil in the globalised world is visible in the opening lines of The Tribulation:

The globalization of
indiscriminate violence
is multiplied to
the power of the sixes,
and the Antichrist
smiles broadly at
the cancerous spreading
of fear and perdition –
rationalized by armies of
self-proclaimed truth.
(19)

“Fear”, “perdition”. “armies of / self-proclaimed truth”-these evils are exposed by Powell with a flawless strength and truth, which raises him to immensely above most of the contemporary authors. The tragedy is that the world is indifferent towards dominantly repugnant decay of civilization:

a macabre procession
matched in passion
only by the
mega tsunamis and
super volcanic
eruptions cataclysmically
creating myriads of
Devil’s Throats
as the reddish-brown
water whirlpools
about the rubble of
once looming
skyscrapers.
Resolutely ..
I rock myself
to inner drunkenness,
quietly humming
Ravel’s Pavane pour
une Infante Défunte.
(20-21)

The music and sweeping speed of the above lines create “the music of a full orchestra”. Powell’s anguish reminds us of W. H Auden’s The Age of Anxiety where we notice according to Berryman’s review, decay of the modern soul, the seven ages of man’s life, the seven stages of some dream-quest, the possibilities of happiness, the alienations of men, the ennuis of America.

His poem “ARMAGEDDON” seems to be written in a state of trance. Especially the later part of the poem has the rapidity of musical lyrics of Shelley or Swinburne (1837-1909).

Whichner aptly comments about Emily Dickinson: “Her delight was to test all conceivable points of view in turn.” This is applicable to Powell’s poetry in Rapture. Like any major poet, Powell offers several view points to save us from the contemporary nightmare. The poem “Ascension” is a mystical response to the modern chaos. Powell evokes an image of “Great Compassion” creating “crystalline light” and “universal vibration”.

Dante’s Purgatorio (XXVI, 147-148) describes the poet’s “pain” in the following way:

‘sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor’.
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina.

Eliot provided this translation in his essay “Dante” (1929):

‘be mindful in due time of my pain’.
Then dived he back into that fire which refines them.

Powell too is well aware of “the wailing / and mutterings / of the insane” “a macabre procession” (ibid), “Devil’s Throats” (21). How can we keep and save our soul and ideals? Powell in the concluding lines affirms that by a kind of “inner drunkenness” we may hope to survive. His next poem “Requiem” too seems to be a Virgilian cry over the destruction of spiritual values by “eloquent predators” and “opportunists”.

The poet further laments “a now-barren / Landscape devoid of / Romanticism and / Common decency” reminding us of Yeats’ famous lines in THE SECOND COMING:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

We may remember that Yeats was not happy with excess of science and materialism; on the other hand Powell is dismayed by the dangers facing us due to avarice and greed brought by globalization. He pines “For a milder Age that ended / All-too-abruptly.” This is a wonderful poetic expression, philosophic and elegiac both..Yes, Powell is right. We have gone too far and beyond comprehension. Powell concludes his poem :”Requiem” with a note of hope:

Hope that there is more
Meaning to be grasped
For he who holds out
Beyond the bitter end
(22)

In Powell’s poetry we see haunting images of wandering and loss, an exiled poet’s sense of melancholy.. For him the ultimate satisfaction seems to be “Carefully wrapped in unencumbered / Dreams in the style of our ancestors” (“After the Rapture” 17), though there exist “surrealist struggles for survival” (ibid). In his next poem THE FOURTH HORSEMAN also, Powell is well aware of the “ravages of war”:

I have come to accept
the threat of the first horseman,
on his mighty white steed
(18)

The title of this poem THE FOURTH HORSEMAN refers to the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” chapter six of the Book of Revelation. The four horsemen are symbols of Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. They are part of an apocalyptic vision in which God summons and empowers them to wreak divine havoc on the world. The rider of the second horse is War, he will reap judgment in the name of God Himself. He is often taken to represent War. His horse’s color is fiery red. This color, as well as the rider’s possession of a large sword, suggests blood to be spilled on the battlefield (Mounce 140).

Powell fears most the fourth horseman, the symbol of death:

Ironically, I mostly dread
the thieving fourth horseman
who arrives each dawn
on his pale mare and
reclaims from my broken dreams
the yet unlived memories of our love.
(18)

“The color suggests the sickly pallor of a corpse” (Shirley Jackson). Powell seems to be in the midst of the fourth horseman. In fact, each of us is afraid of the fourth horseman that is Death. Shakespeare writes about Death:

The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

Measure to Measure Act III Scene 1

The poem REDEEMING SAVIOUR with its evocations of “Christ the Redeemer” moves into the world of prophecy:

Mesmerized by the
Anointing smile of
Christ the Redeemer,
I see a muse
Slow-dancing
With an angel
To the chanting
Of a monk’s choir;
A solemn moment’s
Reprieve from a
Raging sea of cynicism.
And I cling tightly to my
Dream-state while
Tears of joy and recognition
Rock me lovingly back to
True consciousness;
Reminiscent of
Life between lives –
A moment of bliss
Recaptured.
RAPTURE: endings of space and time p. 23

This poem can be comprehended at various levels: as a sacred poem affirming Powell’ faith:

Ironically, I mostly dread
the thieving fourth horseman
who arrives each dawn
on his pale mare and
reclaims from my broken dreams
the yet unlived memories of our love.

In his quest for inner peace, Powell goes first to Christ’s “anointing smile”. This will certainly compensate for the grim contemporary reality and “Raging sea of cynicism”. Some of Powell’s favourite phrases in this poem are “Christ the Redeemer”, “Slow-dancing / With an angel”, “a monk’s choir”, “Tears of joy” leading to “True consciousness” and “A moment of bliss”. Powell’s sacred insight manifests itself in his poem “Gloria”:

Gloria in excélsis Deo!
Alleluia … Alleluia …
Although our backs are broken,
And our wings are tattered;
Our hearts and souls
Will forever sing your praises.
There is only one God,
But the ways to You are many.
Alleluia … Alleluia …
Alleluia … Alleluia …
RAPTURE: endings of space and time p.24

The title with its praise of God, prepares us for a revelation. Powell’s imagination turns inwards and inspires him to utter these prophetic words:

There is only one God,
But the ways to You are many.

There is no difference between Mother Mary and Buddhist Nirvana. “Carrying our esoteric understanding of Mother Mary to a broader level, Mary’s womb is the primal womb, the womb of creation. The womb is the empty space in which life takes form. It is emptiness, formlessness, night, void, nirvana. Mary is all these things in Christian symbolism, just as are all world images of the Divine Feminine. Mary represents the formless void, which burst forth in “light” and form and manifestation” (Granger).

The poem concludes with the joyful praise of God:
Alleluia … Alleluia …
Alleluia … Alleluia …

The Latin title of the poem “Gloria in excelsis Deo” means “Glory to God in the highest”. In his sacred poems Powell reminds us of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and Ash Wednesday. There seems to be an error of perspective in the comments by Samuel Beckett and Paul Elmer More. Samuel Beckett suggests that Eliot’s work belongs in what the reverse of “T. Eliot” spells. In a 1935 letter to a mutual friend of theirs, Paul Elmer More, Lewis wrote that he considered the work of Eliot to be “a very great evil.” My point will become clear by comparing T. S. Eliot and Powell. The following lines are by T. S. Eliot:

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee
(Ash Wednesday)

Powell’s use of refrain “Alleluia” makes his religious integrity more convincing than Eliot’s spiritual ordeal in the last line “And let my cry come unto Thee”. It is helpful to remember an important characteristic of Powell as a poet. What Powell is doing in his poetry is to cheer himself whenever there is an uncomfortable experience. He has intimate knowledge of Greek myths, folklore and ancient legends. There is enough of Daedalus, Minnotaur, Thesus and Ariadne in his Collected Poems (2005) to suggest that Powell is in quest of some key to unlock obstinate questionings of life and death in his deepest psyche. In his poems included in RAPTURE (2007) he uses a great number of phrases and images suggesting his passion for spiritual rebirth: “True Will”, “New Order”, “eternal vibrations of the source”, “Great Compassion”, “crystalline Light”, “sacred Mantra”, “dreams in the style of our ancestors”; he dislikes “the thieving fourth horseman”, “the cancerous spreading / of fear and perdition”.

Powell does not use poetic masks , and this makes him quite different from T. S. Eliot who hides behind assumed voices of Prufrock, Gerontion and Tiresias.

RAPTURE also includes Powell’s poems about Nepal, Buddha and the temples. Nepal is a land of temples and stupas and in the valley alone we can find many world’s heritage temples. In India and Nepal both, this nine-day festival is regarded as very auspicious, symbol of prosperity. In his poems about Nepal, Powell has used several Sanskrit words: “Gauri Shankar”, “Durga”, “Vijaya Dashami”, “Namaste”, “Ghatasthapana”, “kalash”, “Tika”, “Fulpati”, “puja”, “Maha Asthami”, “Nawami”, “Dashami”, “Vishwa Karma”, “Laxmi”, “Kal Ratri”, and also two Buddhist Mantras “OM VAJRAPANI HUM..OM VAJRAPANI HUUM” (31), and another famous Buddhist Mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” (36) which means Jewel in the Lotus Hum. T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) too had working knowledge of Sanskrit (he already knew Latin, Greek, French and German). The Waste Land concludes with Sanskrit words:

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shanty

This creates obscurity in the poetry of both Powell and T. S. Eliot. Samuel Beckett too tried to resolve the obscurity in his absurd plays:

“In KRAP’S LAST TAPE …Becket makes use of the tape recorder to demonstrate the elusiveness of human personality….Beckett has found a graphic expression for the problem of the ever changing identity of the self , which he had already described in his essay on Proust. In KRAPP’S LAST TAPE, the self at one moment in time is confronted with it’s earlier incarnation only to find it utterly strange” (Martin).

Powell’s poem “At The Buddhist Temple” derives its direction from the “Great Compassion”. There is a close connection between self- realization and “Vajrayana”. I may add that Vajrayana Buddhism, or highest form of Tantrism, is a form of Buddhist thought that has flourished in northern India and particularly Tibet. Powell evokes image after image of Tibetan Buddhism:

And thus, we step beyond the world outside of worlds
where karma is but a balancing act together with
punya-making, chance, luck and physical laws;
and approach the inner reaches of devotion with
complete individual and collective unity – for
all else belongs to the world of maya.
The vajracarya in me receives the Lord as my
guest and personal extension, and together we
dance through barriers known as illusion.
Our devoted compassion together with the refraction
of the light of the candles activates our heart, throat
and crown chakras – thus creating the perfect
Adamantine vehicle for illumination known as the
Great Source and Center, and all mantras coalesce
into one as flames and thunderbolts consume our
delusion and transform our essence:
“OM VAJRAPAANI HUUM .. OM VAJRAPAANI HUUM ..” (31)

Powell’s thought seems to concentrate on the original sources of Tibetan Buddhism with its great emphasis on “Great Compassion” and “self-realization”. Soon after, he refers to the Vajrayana Mantra “OM VAJRAPANI HUM..OM VAJRAPANI HUUM” (31), and another famous Buddhist Mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” (36) which means Jewel in the Lotus Hum. The final depths of the poem “At the Buddhist Temple” are indicated as we “give birth to the God within” after reciting the Mantra. T. S. Eliot wrote that the great philosophers of India “make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys”(Eliot 40). He also studied Yoga-Sutras by Patanjali. There is no doubt that both T.S Eliot and Powell are influenced by orientalism. “Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lanman, and-a year in the mazes of Patanjali’s metaphysics under the guidance of James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification” (ibid). Eliot was also influenced by the Gita. “the Bhagavad-Gita … is the next greatest philosophical poem to the Divine Comedy within my experience” (Eliot, “Dante” 219). It is also well- known that Buddhism influenced great authors like Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Deussen.

It seems certain that Powell also is influenced by Buddhism. Albert Russo rightly comments about Powell, the poet, the photographer, the essayist, literary critic, extraordinary painter and musician:

As I have written before, elsewhere, I admire Powell the Renaissance man, Powell the Peace artist, the poet whose verse has a classical beauty which can never be out of fashion, inasmuch as it reflects our harsh and unstable world in which the clash of civilizations has become a terrifying reality, and yet in spite of the dangers, he continues to reach out and absorbs the riches and the variety he discovers in other cultures. In the present case he takes us to the heart of Nepal.

The visual and pictorial images in his poems about Nepal show that Powell is a great painter of words. The picturesque details prove that Powell is influenced by Pre-Raphaelite poets. Powell makes pictures out of words; Buddhist Temple provides him a highly paintable subject matter. The following images reveal that he is a great poet-painter like Blake, Keats and D. G. Rossetti: “a few tourists snapping photographs”, “the darkness of the darkest night”, “the awaited procession arrives”, “splendid palanquin carrying the royal kalash”, “Knee-deep in blood”, “gun salutes”, “slaughtered buffaloes”, “bustling pedestrians”, “taxis, rickshaws and bicycles”, a child selling “Coins, cigarette, milk or chocolate”. A pictorial version of his poems should be done by Powell himself or some other important painter. We may add that the translation of Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes” was done by the Pre-Raphaelites.

The analogy of poetry to painting is at least as old as Plato and Simonides. Michelangelo, Blake, Rossetti (pre-Raphaelite), Baudelaire- Cezanne, Mallarme/Zola, D.H. Lawrence were poet-painters. The Surrealists insisted on the fundamental relations between the arts. In his poems in Le Paradis also we find that Powell is a painter of words. Here is a list of some pictorial images and phrases from his collection Le Paradis: “cloudless azure skies”, “turquoise sea lines”, “The sun burns hot /on tattooed skin”, “crude, photo-snapping idiots”, “her ritual and ceremonial dances”, “Dusk sets quietly over / the lagoon at Bora Bora”, “the horseman / of the Apocalypse”. The reason behind Powell using so many pictorial phrases both in his early and later poetry is that he is creating an aesthetic fusion between different arts like poetry and painting. Moreover, Powell in his poetry is carrying his pictorial powers to spiritual realms.

This is evident in his quest for intense experience and eternal values in his 2014: the life and adventures of an incarnated angel. Powell’s 2014 creates a great impact on us by its original plot and invention, and has great appeal for all due to a universal fondness for the supernatural and extraterrestrial world. Powell describes the major players in the galaxy: the Galactic Confederation, and the Orion Empire. Fancies of the strange things and marvelous inventions, the Intervention Plan and Zeta Reticulians make Powell’s work very remarkable. Powell’s most impassioned thought is visible in Ga’s reflections about Lightworkers:

…ninety-nine global vortexes of the Golden Cities (Eternal cities of Universal Light), including ‘Kristiania’ (“Vibrations of Conscience”) – the Eternal City of Universal Light over Oslo, and information regarding the spiritual work of a group of Lightworkers who had been meeting on the outskirts of Oslo 1-2 times a week to cooperate on various projects directed at preparing for full activation of the Oslo-area vortex, and educating those ready to hear about the Earth’s movement into higher dimensions of consciousness. The activities of this group of Lightworkers included: meditation and prayer for guidance and healing, exploratory astral projection into the Oslo vortex, active work with Ascended Masters and angels on personal emotional and spiritual challenges, exhibitions of channelled art and poetry, channelling and distribution of symbols from the Universal Language of Light, angelic channelling by way of talking in tongues, the purifying of energy in Oslo-area churches in preparation for the increased influx of Christos energy and consciousness, and much talking with everyday people about the new state of things in God’s universes, and especially regarding the Earth’s challenges and destiny, as incarnates move forward into the higher dimensions. And finally, the entity then known as ‘Mikael’ urged the audience to join other dedicated Lightworkers who were working to clean out the many vortexes and tunnels across the globe, so that the Christos energy could flow freely … adding: ‘the more Lightworkers who work on this important activity, the faster both personal and Earth spiritual transformation will happen.’

CONCLUSION

I have tried in these pages to express my confidence that in the works of Powell we have a philosophy that can guide and sustain us. At least it seems to me that there can be no continued peace on earth unless we learn to follow the main forces of nature like OGUN and OBATALA as revealed by Powell in his 2014:

I would like to remind you that each person is born with one main Force of Nature, and that your dominant/main Force of Nature is Ogun. The qualities of Ogun are:

Force (an unfinished lesson for you)
Pure Justice
Initiative (unfinished lesson)
Pioneering
Truth (unfinished lesson)
Loyalty
Technology
(13)

The other Force of Nature that you have to work with is Obatala, whose qualities include:

Righteousness
Wisdom (unfinished)
Caretaker of Creation
Ethics
Morals (unfinished)
Humility
Cool (unfinished)
Calm (unfinished)
Purity of Intention (unfinished)
Objective
Clarity of Thought
Purity
Consciousness
Rational Thought
Head
Reality
Light
(13-14)

What is the essence of transcendentalism and mysticism in the works of Powell? His poem “The Universal Language of Light” is a fine attempt to unravel the esoteric philosophy and discover “blue white particles / of light energy”.

Powell clearly reveals his short spiritual messages for Lightworkers:

1) A call to Lightworkers: increasingly rapid and successive changes in our consciousness, dna structure, understanding of our galactic environment, the functions of our pineal gland, revelations about deceptions etc. necessitate a new understanding of and approach to psychology and psychiatry. We need to start educating experts in the medical field about spiritual developments now. There is much resistance but the pace of consciousness change and external influences will soon radically increase both the need for spiritually-developed and spiritually-aware medical practitioners, and make Lightworkers’ work in these areas easier. Many of you have been studying psychology, coaching, NLP, Reiki, aura reading and healing etc. for a long time. Listen to your guides for instructions.

2) We planetary citizens (in all our hybrid forms) continuously define our present and future with our thoughts, words and actions. How are you defining the reality you wish to embrace? Do you wallow in the doom and gloom prophecies, or do you take up your sword and your rose, and create “heaven on Earth”?

3) The long-awaited “Divine Intervention” is not merely an external intervention comprised of teams of higher beings, angels, aliens etc. but includes mostly humanoids. Humanoids must now understand that they themselves create reality (present and future) with their thoughts, words and actions. This cannot be stressed enough. Thoughts, light and sound are building blocks of creation. Life forms are created in other ways than mere biological Darwinian explanations. This means that: 1) humanoids have self- determination, and can at any point in time re-create a new and better reality and existence; 2) yes, we are ALL GOD, i.e. self-creating souls that are manifestations of divine energy, and that never “die” because energy and soul entities can not be destroyed but rather transformed; and 3) once we are able to collectively raise the thought consciousness level on this planet enough we will get the assistance we ask for from external forces, which are waiting with excitement to see if we can wake up from our dreams and see behind the various smoke screens that we are obsessed with. WE ARE THE DIVINE INTERVENTION! Please wake up humanoids. But even if you do not, your souls will continue to live and to evolve in other forms (as they do while you are now still in humanoid form).Learn to focus and direct your thoughts and energies. That will help your self-manifestation abilities. Adonai!

4) Terra is now at the gateway of the Fourth density, and the signs are appearing all over the globe. Do not be misled by charlatans or those who would attempt to promote fear. I say to you verily: Terra will NOT perish as a world. There will be some changes, but many will survive. Lightworkers have much to do in the years to come. Do not look upon 2012 as an ending, but as a beginning – the beginning of a brave new world with a new consciousness. Dear Lightworkers: there are many who will be confused and who will be in fear amidst the transitional changes underway, and which will be speeding up from now on. Show empathy and help them to understand that which seems “miraculous” and “impossible”. Meditate and ask for guidance. Your questions will be answered in all ways possible. Adonai and godspeed!

The central theme in his best works is the plight of contemporary generation. Image after image is evoked by Powell revealing esoteric, occult philosophy, prophecy and vision. Powell sings praises in honor of old traditions, the spirit of the righteousness. It is to Lemuria and the island of Bora Bora that Powell’s love is given:

We are born again …
on the island of Bora Bora –
the ‘first born’ paradise –
truly, a homage to the godliness in us all.
Le Paradis 25

This is the main centre of Powell’s passion. I am convinced that the underlying thought in Powell’s poetry is occultism and mysticism. Though he is aware of “our perpetual / State of existentialism and blues” (“Three-legged Waltz” 40), the dominant quality in his poetry is:

Light of God’s eternal love
And mercy,
Mirrored in a trillion smiles.
At that instant I rise
Out of my body, and
My chakras line up
MUSROOMPICKING IN THE KINGDOM, Three-Legged Waltz 43

The emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects of his personality are visible in the following lines:

You and he and they
In opposition to
My circle of One.
ZODIAC, Three-legged Waltz 46

“My circle of One” may be interpreted sacred spiritual light opposed by the world. What T.S. Eliot says of Dante’s Paradiso is truly applicable to Powell’s poetry: it is religious poetry which is not didactic. From Greek fables, Tibbetan Buddhism, Kathmandu temples, and old traditions of Lemuria Powell has made significant poems. These poems vividly manifest “the making of an inwardness from what is outside”.

The themes of his later poems are mostly mystical. The ugliness and the squalor of the contemporary life has its impact on the poet’s senses. The fears of the ecological disaster, cancers, quick money, “screams of the female victims of the inebriated” (Le Paradis 49), atomic destruction, “crude, photo-snapping idiots and / tattooed pseudo celebrities” (Le Paradis 27)-passing through such satirical insights Powell takes refuge in the Buddhist Mantra “OM VAJRAPANI HUUM” reciting it eight times in “At the Buddhist Temple” (RAPTURE 31) and “Maha Asthami” (RAPTURE 33). In EPILOGUE also he mumbles twice sacred Mantra “OM MANI PADME HUM” (RAPTURE 36). This may be described as Powell’s “awful daring of a moment’s surrender” (T. S. Eliot) towards Buddhism. This device of reiteration is often used by Shakespeare. For example, Shakespeare reaches “topmost peaks of poetry” (Bradley) by using the word ‘Never’ five times to describe Lear’s anguish. His Buddhist poems are contemplative in tone, and evoke the sacred.

Powell is describing the grave crisis faced by the Lightworkers. Titania’s own countrymen should not be slaves of the ‘white men’ and servants to the “god of materialism”, but the tragedy is that they have become slaves. They should never be “traitors to the old / traditions, the Old Way and the / religion of Lemuria” (LE PARADIS 48), but again the tragedy is that they have become traitors. Powell’s genius is concerned with this change. Powell’s “Third Eye” is attempting a rare thing- change in our soul. Powell is finding truth in Buddhist Mantra leaving him captive “to vision and hallucination” (RAPTURE 33). In fact, Buddhism fits Powell’s purpose in two ways: (1) quest for illumination and salvation, and (2) blending of European and Oriental sensibility.

Another interpretation is possible that Powell is writing “Confessional poetry” at its best, a remarkable characteristic of postmodern literature. Like Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, Powell is expressing intense personal experience without depending on myths and symbols to convey his themes in his later poetry. We notice two recurring themes in his later poetry: timelessness and quest for utopia. In fact, a new esoteric and transcendental religion can be founded from the affirmations of William Blake, P. B. Shelley and Powell. In his mysticism, Powell is nearest to Blake. Caroline F. E. Spurgeon aptly says:”William Blake is one of the great mystics of the world; and he is by far the greatest and most profound who has spoken in English. Like Henry More and Wordsworth, he lived in a world of glory, of spirit and of vision, which, for him, was the only real world. At the age of four he saw God looking in at the window, and from that time until he welcomed the approach of death by singing songs of joy which made the rafters ring, he lived in an atmosphere of divine illumination” (Mysticism in English Literature). The mood of Powell’s poetry is similar to Blake’s “divine illumination”, and his handling of Buddhism and Cretan myths are remarkably profound, without a trace of affectation.

Powell presents many traces of his most lofty speculation, mysticism and philosophical expression. This gift of moral sentiment and esoteric interest to apprehend the absolute, this hunger for eternity, his discontent with contemporary evils, a penetrative faith in transforming the world by a kind of divine alchemy inspired by the transcendental schools of Germany and America, his philosophical speculations-all these qualities we find in Powell’s works.

What I have said above could be expressed more accurately in another way. Powell’s poetry is “a battleground for the clash of opposites”. This will be clarified if we read his poems carefully. For example, Powell says that “godliness in yourselves” and greed, “our traditions and culture’ have been reduced to “perverse transgressions” (Le Paradis 50): “golden Age” and “Fourth Dimension’ contrasted by Powell with “separateness of consciousness” (Le Paradis 31; “AntiChrist” and “Soldiers of hatred” contrasted with “messengers of love and compassion” (RAPTURE 19): ‘surrealistic struggles for survival” with “Dreams in the style of our ancestors” (RAPTURE 17); “eloquent predators / And the opportunists” contrasted by Powell with “a milder Age that ended/ All-too-abruptly” (RAPTURE 22) in his quest for some system of belief. The presentation of such contrasting values by Powell makes it clear that the genius of the poet is searching and trying to find out how to change human action to create a better world. Powell as a poet is mainly concerned to preserve eternal values.

The fact is that from 1930 onward we notice a change in English literature. Ezra Pound had left England; D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce had died, and T.S. Eliot was now more concentrated in writing his poetic dramas. We notice a new cultural confluence of authors for example French-African writers, English- African poets. This is evident as we peruse Powell’s works, where the mother tongue is losing its sanctity. Prof. Moshé Liba also published his 59 books, and he writes in 6 languages (“Letter to Karunesh”). This is evident from the following lines in Moshé Liba’s poem “A Poem, a week”:

I read a poem
all this week.

Monday
I read a poem in Polish.
Tuesday
I read a poem in Polish,
the same,
translated into French.
Wednesday
I read a poem in French,
the same,
translated into German.
Thursday
I read a poem in German,
the same,
translated into English.
Friday
I read a poem in English,
the same,
translated into Hebrew.
Saturday
I read a poem in Hebrew,
the same,
translated into Dutch.
Sunday
I read a poem in Dutch,
the same,
translated into Polish.

And it was not
the same.
The Hague, 3-12-2007

The dual or multiple personality of the author has become a reality, as the main problem of the exiled writers like Powell is to find roots. Such writers seem to carry “their towns of origin in their minds”. Borders don’t exist for binational, bicultural and multilingual poets like Powell.

Powell’s world of poetry becomes bigger due to his trilingualism. His poems written in Norwegian, Spanish and English language build his identity and develop his poetic voice. There is a dignity and beauty in Powell’s poetry, for which all ardent lovers of literature may be grateful.

Like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats-two were Americans and one Irish- Powell has been successful in bringing English poetry in the mainstream of European culture and proper recognition in world literature. In fact, Powell’s attitude towards life is fairly clear in the following excerpt from his Letter # 1 written to me and published in June 2009 issue of Taj Mahal Review.

Powell is most interested in “… evoking memories of the delicious small pleasures of life on Terra: the smell of pine needles in the forest, the spray of the sea upon my face as I walk along the beach, the interplay of sunlight and shadows created by clouds and trees, simple perfection as seen in the faces of new-born children, elderly men and women, and in animals and leaves of grass, the feeling of inner peace experienced when listening to music inspired by soulful curiosity and exploration and which dances in ecstasy, whirling like a Dervish that is intoxicated by Divine revelation … well, you get the picture: those special “small” joys we often take for granted in the monotony of human materialism and self-absorption. The soul never dies but responsibility for the future of humanity and of Terra lies in our thoughts, words and actions.”

To conclude, I don’t hesitate to claim for Powell the position of a major English poet. The poems by Adam Donaldson Powell are marked by intense creative power, sincerity of emotion, an apt and vivid quality of imagination, an incomparable feeling for the vowel-music and the splendid poetic cadences. The significant question is whether these poems convey any moral purpose, or have they been written only for poetry’s sake? I. A. Richards in his Principles of Literary Criticism (1924) and (Practical Criticism (1929) tried to answer this problem of the relation between art and morality. He says, “What does the formula ‘Poetry for poetry’s sake tells us… First, this experience is an end in itself, is worth having on its own account, has an intrinsic value. Next, its poetic value is this intrinsic worth alone. Poetry may also have an ulterior value as a means to culture or religion; because it conveys instruction or softens the passions, or furthers a good cause, because it brings the poet a good fame, or money, or a quiet conscience. So much the better; let it be valued for these reasons too. But its ulterior worth neither is nor can directly determine its poetic worth as a satisfying imaginative experience; and this is to be judged entirely from within.”

The above wise observation made by I. A. Richards emphasizes the importance of ‘a satisfying imaginative experience’, which every great poem must produce. The raw material for the poet’s experience may be derived from ancient legends like Powell inspired by the Cretan myths, the contemporary life, frustrated love, quest for simplicity and reality. But, the poets writing during the postmodern time should follow Powell who does not believe in writing “nice poetry about nice people”, since poetry today should be written in hard, dry images, with the sharpness of outline and precision of form, creating new rhythms, and discarding old rhythms.

Powell’s poetry reveals “a fresh exploration of reality” (V. de S. Pinto, Crisis in English Poetry). T. S. Eliot aptly comments: “Real Poetry survives not only a change of popular opinion but the complete extinction of interest in the issues with which the poet was passionately interested” (On Poetry and Poets). This statement by T.S. Eliot is fully true about the poetry of Adam Donaldson Powell.

– Dr. Santosh Kumar, “Adam Donaldson Powell: the Making of a Poet”, 2010, Cyberwit.net, India.

From the Cyberwit.net website:

Dr. Santosh Kumar (b. 1946) is a poet, short-story writer and an editor from India; DPhil in English; Editor of Taj Mahal Review and Harvests of New Millennium Journals; several awards; member of World Poets Society (W.P.S.); member of World Haiku Association, Japan; presented papers in the seminar, interviews as special guest at international literary festival WORDS – one path to peace and understanding Oslo, Norway in September 2008; attended 20th Annual International Literary Festival Druskininkai Poetic Fall and 5th World Haiku Association Conference in Lithuania, Sept 30 to Oct 5, 2009; published poetry in Indian Verse by Young Poets (1980), World Poetry (1995 & 1996), The Fabric of A Vision (2001), The Still Horizon (2002), The Golden Wings (2002), Voyages (2003), Symphonies (2003), New Pegasus (2004), Explorers (2004), Dwan (USA), Promise (Purple Rose Publications, USA), World Haiku 2008 No. 4, World Haiku 2009 No. 5, Taj Mahal Review (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 & 2008). He has also edited sixteen World Poetry Anthologies, and four books of World’s Great Short Stories. He is also the author of a collection of poems entitled Helicon (Cyberwit, India, ISBN 81-901366-8-2), Haiku collection New Utopia (Rochak Publishing, India ISBN 978-81-903812-0-8), NO NUKES: Brave New World of Beauty, A Long Narrative Poem, Songs of Peace & Haiku (Rochak Publishing, India ISBN 978-81-903812-3-9), and Critical Essays in collaboration with Adam Donaldson Powell (Cyberwit, India, 978-81-8253-110-9). He has also edited The Poetic Achievement of Ban’ya Natsuishi (Cyberwit, India, ISBN: 978-81-8253-149-9).

(Above photo courtesy of BLIKK, NORWAY.)

1) Read Bhuwan Thapaliya’s review of my poetry at: A multilingual genius from Norway.

2) Review by Dr. Santosh Kumar, Allahabad, India (reprinted from Taj Mahal Review, June 2007 issue): “Rapture: endings of space and time” by Adam Donaldson Powell, Cyberwit.net, India, 2007, pp. 86 $ 15 Paperback, ISBN: 978-81-8253-082-9.

The publication of Adam Donaldson Powell’s Rapture: endings of space and time is remarkable for revealing his varied talents: poems, photography and literary criticism. Powell’s celestial inspiration concentrates itself on transmuting “physicality / into crystalline light” (“Ascension”), his passionate quest for “Great Compassion” will be accomplished only when the whole world experiences “vibration” and listens to the words of the poet. Powell is quite aware of the bitter reality of the contemporary world:

have sadly learned to expect
the relentless ravages of
war and emotional famine
brought on by the
rider on the red horse,
and the pestilence in the
saddlebags of the black steed.

(“The Fourth Horseman”, p. 18)

The globalisation of
indiscriminate violence
is multiplied to
the power of the sixes,
and the Antichrist
smiles broadly at
the cancerous spreading
of fear and perdition –

rationalized by armies of
self-proclaimed truth.

(“The Tribulation”, p. 19)

The modern turbulence and murderous frenzy will surely result in wild agony, if
“messengers / of love and compassion / no longer dare to / speak out”.

In his poems about Nepal, Powell’s mystical energies or wavebands are inspired by the Buddhist Mantra: “OM VAJRAPAANI HUUM .. OM VAJRAPAANI HUUM ..”. Powell actualizes the transformed soul of goodness faithfully:

“And finally we give birth to the God within ..
without reservation; and in generous libation.”

(“At the Buddhist Temple”, p. 31)

Powell knows very well like Blake that “the ruins of time build mansions in eternity.” His search of utopia takes him to Nepal for mystical exercises of oriental sects.
Such poems transport us as well as the poet to a dreamworld of “vision and hallucination”. They exercise a secret magnetism on our innermost soul extracting from Buddhism its most harmonious and subtle Mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”. “Buddha Trance” is a vivid comment on the Life in Nepal where the poet finds “The exoticism of spirituality / Blended with indigenous capitalism”.

Powell’s Rapture: endings of space and time also includes most lively, vivid photographs from Nepal, and critical essays on the poetry of Jan Oskar Hansen, Albert Russo and Fernando Rodríguez. Rapture: endings of space and time makes it apparent that Powell has been and is a major writer of this age.

– Reviewed by Santosh Kumar.

3) ENGLISH REVIEW BY MARÍA CRISTINA AZCONA, ARGENTINA:

Powell is a multifaceted creator whose poems are enriched not only by his capability in literary meanings, but also by his deep sensibility towards human problems, nowadays society illness, joined to his bright talent for visual arts. He has the privileged neuron that allows him to play with his own sense of aesthetics, as it was a child’s game. While reading his amusing poetry, we find ourselves observing reality from his point of view. These poems, from his book “Collected Poems and Stories”, which he is presenting to Argentine public for the first time, may be separated into two kinds or groups, to be analyzed and commented. The First group is conformed by poems that are similar to a modern, abstract painting, like he does in “Green” where a mystery hides under multiple images, colors and concepts. This mystery is revealed in the final verse. The second group, which includes among others, The Devil, Before the death of my love, Imagine and The Prudent Cognoscente, presents us, at first sight, with techniques coming from the Short Story like the abrupt and unexpected ending full of an omnipresent irony. In the second reading, both groups always present a philosophical content and customary social criticism whose depth leads us to philosophical thoughts about the meaning of existence. Powell’s work contains ironic humor, sharp criticism, the clear idea and at the same time the divertimento of a short story. The poetry manages, in its mischief, to capture the grotesque of this era, giving to our poetic palate a delicacy more than a simple aesthetic pleasure. The truth in an envelope of surprising originality: art, beauty that is nothing other than authentic poetry. It reminds me of Ezra Pound’s realistic style and, from Spain, Francisco de Quevedo´s conceptual poetry. The most beautiful piece, in my understanding, is “The Devil” in which the poet speaks to us, the readers: he orders us, he calls our attention, he presents us with the devil that exists, that is so dangerous and terrifying. The poet frightens us with the Devil playing “To hide and to find” games, petrifying us with its threatening and unknown presence. Powell creates a climate of fear normally found in a tale of horror. In a magisterial synthesis, he makes an impressive ending when he finally finds that devil in ourselves, shocking us and forcing us to recognize the wickedness that lives and hides in our human hearts. Here the poet creates a personage, the Devil, that no longer is the famous one but is a real, present phantom, humanized, possible and burning, like the fire of malice in daily life. Originality is a constant in Powell’s poems, a surprising and multifaceted artist who amazes us with his music, his paintings, his poems, his humor .. and always with his genius. He communicates of himself in so many ways and he revives in us thousands of kaleidoscopic images, then finally he gives himself the final luxury of creating a perfect and synthetic pearl of terror, humor, beauty, social criticism, universality and creativity in a pure state as he does magisterially in the DEVIL.

María Cristina Azcona has recently published a new collection of poems entitled Window to Heaven.

Spanish review by María Cristina Azcona, Argentina

4) Comentario de los poemas de Adam Powell que se presentaban en la sede de CADDAN, Buenos Aires, el 14 de Setiembre de 2005: Powell es un creador multifacético cuyos poemas son enriquecidos, no sólo por su brillante habilidad para elaborar significados literarios, sino también por su sensibilidad profunda hacia los problemas humanos y enfermedades de la sociedad actual, unido a su acabado talento en torno a las artes visuales. Él tiene la neurona privilegiada que le permite jugar con su propio sentido estético, como si fuera un niño. Al leer su entretenida poesía, nos encontramos a nosotros mismos observando la realidad desde su particular punto de vista. Estos poemas, de su libro “Colección de Poemas y Cuentos”, que él presenta al público argentino por vez primera, se pueden separar en dos clases o grupos, para ser analizados y para ser comentados. El Primer grupo está conformado por los poemas que son semejantes a una pintura abstracta, moderna, como él hace en “Verde” donde un misterio se esconde bajo imágenes múltiples, colores y conceptos. Este misterio se revela en el verso final. El segundo grupo, que incluye por ejemplo a El Diablo, Tal vez, Antes de la muerte de mi amor, Imagina, Mujer Araña y La Prudente Cognoscente, nos presenta en la primera lectura, un formato en base a técnicas propias del cuento breve, como el final brusco e inesperado no carente de ironía. En la segunda lectura, ambos grupos presentan siempre un contenido filosófico y de crítica social de costumbres a la luz de un humanismo idealista y casi utópico. La poesía de Powell es poesía social y, como tal, nos muestra la vida actual en toda su fea realidad, desde el humor irónico, la crítica aguda, la idea clara y el devenir de un cuento ameno. La astucia del poema logra englobar el hecho y capturar su imagen caricaturesca dándole a nuestro paladar poético un manjar que nos otorga ya no un puro placer estético sino la verdad en el mejor de los estuches: el arte, la belleza que no es otra cosa que auténtica poesía. El poema, a mi entender, más logrado es “El Diablo” en el cual el poeta nos habla a nosotros, los lectores, nos ordena, nos advierte, nos llama la atención, nos previene de ese demonio que existe, que es peligroso. El poeta nos asusta con el Diablo jugando a las escondidas, aterrorizándonos con su presencia ignota y amenazante. Crea el clima de terror de un cuento breve de ese género. En una síntesis magistral, da un final impresionante al detectar ese demonio en nosotros mismos, obligándonos a reconocer la maldad que se agita y se esconde en nuestro corazón humano. Aquí el poeta crea un personaje que ya no es el famoso demonio sino que es un diablo actual, real, humanizado, posible y candente, como el fuego de su maldad hecha realidad cotidiana. La originalidad es la constante en la poesía de Powell, un artista versátil y sorprendente capaz de maravillarnos hoy con su música, mañana con sus cuadros, ora con sus poemas, de pronto con su humor y siempre con su genialidad viva, que se comunica de mil formas y revive en miles de imágenes caleidoscópicas … Para darse el lujo final de crear una perla sintética y perfecta de terror, humor, belleza, fondo social, universalidad de valores y creatividad en estado puro como Diablo. (Por María Cristina Azcona, Buenos Aires.)

Review by Dr. Santosh Kumar, India

5) Adam Donaldson Powell’s Collected Poems and Stories contains a number of outstanding poems having “exquisite variety and varied exquisiteness”. In this collection, Powell reveals an incomparable craftsmanship proved by his classifying the poems into four different cycles: Poetry Cycle 1 where the poet discovers the Magical Tarot through verse, Poetry Cycle 2 is an admirable and genuine effort of composing short stories through verse, Poetry Cycle 3 is emphatically about the Cretan myths, and in the final Cycle 4 though subtitled “Notes of a Madman”, we find no trace of any kind of sensationalism. Powell’s poem “Adjustment” is very thoughtful and penetrative. The poet is well aware of “The impartial Lords of Karma”, and the path of virtue is not a bed of roses: Over the heads of the righteous Hovers the pendulous blade of The Daughter of the Flaming Sword (p. 17) “The Hanged Man” is characterized by a spiritual quest: But he who sublimates Himself to the Divine Plan Recycles the elements to the Accompaniment of Spirit. (p. 21) This yearning leads the poet to invoke “Energy of the Divine”, and the source of this energy is present only in “the gaseous, primal roots of \ The flaming triangle” (“Suit of Wands”). Powell calls “the wise journeyman” “to heed celestial warnings” (“Suit of Disks”). The poet is in quest of “divine light beamed from \ The eternal flames of the sun” (“The Sun”), “spiritual rebirth”, “the eternal vibrations of the Source” (“The Aeon”). He is aspiring “toward that which \ Must be accepted on faith alone” (Notes of a Madman”). The most notable element in Powell’s poetry is his passion and hunger for eternity. Even in those poems where he is reconstructing the Cretan myths, we find “the yearning of \ The soul for individual expression” (“Prologue1”). The poet emphasizes that “Treasures of Self-discovery” will be revealed only to the “passionate” souls. Powell’s “pursuit of divine retribution” is based on “faith alone” (“Notes of a Madman” ). The “glimpse of the Unknown” is made possible only by “discovery of self” (“Mirror of Darkness”). There is in Powell the keenest sense of uniting “the Serpent” “with the Regenerative Spirit” (“The Eye of the Triangle”). Powell’s poetry has a marvelous quality of submitting itself persistently and unflinchingly to the “Valley of Soul making”. Powell’s Collected Poems and Stories also includes two wonderful stories of horror-“Useless Occupation” and “What Jonny dug up”. The book is dedicated to the memory of Tor Vågli (1949-2004) and the countless Asian tsunami victims of 2004. (Review by Santosh Kumar. Dr. Santosh Kumar (b. 1946) is a poet, short-story writer and an editor from UP India; Head of the English Department in A.D. College, Allahabad; D.Phil in English; several awards; poems published in many anthologies; awarded for writing an epic The Fire and The Garden: An Exploration of Beauty in three volumes; Chief Editor of an international literary journal Taj Mahal Review. He has also edited twelve World Poetry Anthologies, and three books of World’s Great Short Stories. He is also the author of two new collections of poems entitled “Helicon” and “New Utopia”.

Albert Russo’s preface to “Rapture: endings of space and time.”

RAPTURE: endings of space and time.

Poetry, photography and literary criticism by Adam Donaldson Powell. 86 pages. Published by Cyberwit, India, 2007. ISBN 978-81-8253-083-6.

6) PREFACE: by Albert Russo, France.

(regarding “Rapture: endings of space and time.”)

In this book, you will be able to appreciate three of Adam Donaldson Powell’s many talents: that of the poet, the photographer and the essayist. Not only does Powell write beautifully in three languages, English, Spanish and Norwegian (this, I have been told, but here, I cannot judge, since I do not speak the language), but he is also an accomplished painter and a musician. As I have written before, elsewhere, I admire Powell the Renaissance man, Powell the Peace artist, the poet whose verse has a classical beauty which can never be out of fashion, inasmuch as it reflects our harsh and unstable world in which the clash of civilizations has become a terrifying reality, and yet in spite of the dangers, he continues to reach out and absorbs the riches and the variety he discovers in other cultures. In the present case he takes us to the heart of Nepal.

I would invite you to whisper these lines facing yourself in a looking glass:

There is nothing more beautiful
And yet so sorrowful as
A man’s tears over humiliation
And loss, cradled in the bosom
Of a woman.
Uncontrollable sobbing —

A torrential rainfall
Recalling a wilderness
Landscape unashamedly seeking
Refuge from gushing winds
And rapids, thunder and lightning
Against a purple, grey and orange
Sky – in betrayal of a lifetime of
Emotional constipation and
Affections of masculinity.

(this is from: PAVANE: un poème pour la fin des temps.)

then, read this, somewhat louder, in a chanting manner:

The words of the poet savant are forever imprinted
upon my palms, forehead and heart – as clearly as the
unmistakable image of the great bodhisattva Kuan Yin.
The secret of the veil behind the veil is encoded
in the diamond; for while there are many ways to

enlightenment the highest wisdom is attained through
the Great Compassion, and self-realization is the only
homecoming recognized by the disciples of Vajrayana.

(this is from the poem: AT THE BUDDHIST TEMPLE.)

Powell is a magnificent guide of the human soul. The voyage you embark on with him can be likened, metaphorically, that is, to Jules Verne’s ‘Voyage to the centre of the earth’, only here, it is to the centre of one’s being, that he brings us to.

His photos portray the Buddha and the temples dedicated to him in the most vivid and joyous colours. There are also breathtaking landscapes that remind us of how fragile we earth dwellers are and how humble and respectful we ought to be of our environment, instead of waging wars against our brethren and depleting our natural resources so shamelessly.

As for Powell’s essays – I’d be presumptuous to discuss his review of one of my books – they could adorn the literary pages of The New York Times.

‘Rapture: endings of space and time’ is a jewel of a book, which I invite you to savour in the quiet of your bedroom, or in front of the hearth, when everyone has gone to sleep. You will want to come back to it again and again.

– Albert Russo

Comments on “2014”, by Dr. Santosh Kumar

7) 2014: the life and adventures of an incarnated angel by Adam Donaldson Powell, reveals Powell’s creative power at its highest. It is full of a depth of philosophy and sublime vibrations of conscience, the irresistible desire for ‘Eternal cities of Universal light’. Like the wind purifying the woods, Powell in this extraordinary book persistently writes with spiritual and mystical gusto. Powell is a very great literary genius directed towards reviving our soul state.

— Santosh Kumar

REVIEWS OF GAYTUDE:

GAYTUDE IS THE 2009 NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNER FOR THE CATEGORY GAY/LESBIAN NONFICTION!

GAYTUDE: Critical Analysis by Dr. Santosh Kumar, India.

A review of “GAYTUDE: a poetic journey around the world / Tour du monde poétique”,
bilingual poetry by Albert Russo and Adam Donaldson Powell – Xlibris 2009, 335 pages.

Book orders – 888.795.4274 -Orders@xlibris.com

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4363-6395-2 – $22.99
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4363-6396-9 – $32.99

Library of Congress Number: 2008907964

Albert Russo and Adam Donaldson Powell’s Gaytude, a poetic journey around the world, makes it evident that the gay poems always have a distinctive voice, because a gay poet suffers from a sense of ostracism, of being excluded by others due to difference. The tradition of celebrating Platonic friendship with a boy has always been there in world poetry. Gay poetry from Sappho to Michelangelo has always idealized the homoerotic world. Catullus (ca. 84-54) loved sex with young men.

Shakespeare’s sonnets have been described as gay sonnets by several critics. It is well known that Derek Jarman’s film The Angelic Conversation (1985) shows gay elements in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Lord Alfred Douglas’s gay poems appeared in 1896 in English and French translations. In the twentieth century two great poets: W..H. Auden and Ginsberg wrote gay poems. The publication of The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse (1983) reveals its popularity and marketing needs. It is difficult to agree with the critics who condemn Whitman’s gay poetry. The Boston Intelligencer declared that Whitman deserved no better reward than the lash for vulgarity and violation of decency. “Both Whitman’s Leaves and Emerson’s laudation had a common origin in temporary insanity” (Bucke 201). “Walt Whitman is as unacquainted with art as a hog with mathematics” (Canby 327). One should never forget that according to several biographers Whitman did not engage in sexual relations with men.

It is true that a poet’s gay identity does not quite fit into the traditional morality of the world. This is the main reason behind vituperative hostility towards homoeroticism and gay-themed poems. But one may remember Nietzsche’s assertion that sexuality extends up to the very pinnacle of the soul. The queerness of Russo and Powell both to stand at a different angle to the universe, their desire for an outsider image, and a subversive quality enticing them to overthrow conventions makes Gaytude a classic. Taboo creates its own power and energy in a creative work like Gaytude. This is also true about other gay writers such as Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop and James Merrill. Russo is a great poet with a passionate impulse, and he expresses it with a natural intensity devoid of any kind of laborious artistry:

I shall spoil you as no lover
Ever has or will

(SURPRISE PARTY, 35).

As we made love
Our bodies were on fire
You were insatiable
I was submissive

(ONE-NIGHT STAND, 102)

Russo does not hanker after limited joy but rather for the illimitable in the loveliness of the human body. Due to his ardor, he bursts with joy:

Our bodies commingle
In a Pacific splash of ecstasy

(UNDERCURRENTS, 42).

Russo tries to forget the stern realities of life, and his idealized love seems to be the only permanent reality for him on the altar of passion, he has chosen to “fall off the cliff” although there are several obstructions:

There’s his age, you see
And there’s my career, too

Then there’s that awesome responsibility
Towards my class
Towards society
And I am highly respected by my peers
Yet, my attraction to him is gravitational
One of these days,
I shall fall off the cliff

NO TRESPASSING, 51

The above lines are a testimony to the fact that Russo arrives at the complexity by accumulating a number of concrete images interfering with his fantasy, and this fantasy is intensified in the last line revealing the utmost limits of passion, not obliterated by the terrestrial impediments. Russo’s poems in Gaytude are marked by a tremendous burst of creativity.

Adam Donaldson Powell’s poems reveal that the poet’s mind and imagination are fused with the white heat of ardor. He is obsessed with “two moths / Playing with fire” (BLADE, 24). In his poem IDENTITY, Powell expresses his desire “to be loved, and looked up to”. He seems to be in the quest for the sumum bonum of life, that immortal instant and great moment which will unravel his identity. With quiet determination, Powell declares:

I want a real lover …
Like Arthur Rimbaud…or Jean Genet
And I want him now

PUNK, 61

Powell shows such a deep and lofty feeling as to be “in love with love” (STILL HORNY, 153). This is the state of the lover as Powell depicts it. Apart from love, nothing else in life is significant. Such is the consecrated passion of the poet that he is able to write with such ecstatic outbursts:

Creamy overcast skies,
Thick as yoghurt,
Remind me of
You…and me …

CREAMY OVERCAST SKIES 154

Setting the ‘real’ world at nought, Powell decides to thrive on the diet of surrealism by

the technique of ‘transference’:
‘Real’ briefly becomes surreal,
Through transference

INSTANT RECALL 88

In another poem, Powell expresses his inner heart in reacting against monstrous mechanization. The present climate is not in favour of rich heritage. “Individual isolation in an / Out-of-control jungle” (149) is the sordid gift of modern heritage marked by “Wars, / Lies, /Plastic reality-show idols, Virus, / Global warming, /Uncertainty, /And all too easy access to drugs” (HERITAGE? RIGHT! 149).

The poems by Russo and Powell are marked by outsiderhood, the sense of being different from a fashionable or ‘straight’ mode of writing. Walter Pater aptly comments that in the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti the dream-land with its phantoms of the body, deftly coming and going on love’s service, is to him, in no mere fancy or figure of speech, a real country, a veritable expansion or addition to our waking life (Pater 223). This comment is fully applicable to the poems in Gaytude by Russo and Powell. Gaytude, bilingual poetry at its best, written, translated and adapted by Russo and Powell, also includes wonderful photographs by Russo. Several poems of Russo included in Gaytude were first published in the poet’s own French version in the collection Tour du monde de la poesie gay (2005). The poems in English, Italian and Spanish have been translated and adapted into French by Russo. The poems in French have been translated and adapted by both Russo and Powell.

Works Cited

Russo, Albert & Adam Donaldson Powell, Gaytude. Xlibris Corporation, 2009.
Pater, Walter. Appreciations. London: Macmillan, 1931.
Bucke, R. M. Walt Whitman, Philadelphia, McRay,1883.
Canby, H. S. Walt Whitman, N. Y. Literary Classics, 1943.

GAYTUDE: Review by Rainbow Reviews, 2009.

Rainbow Reviews (USA) has reviewed “GAYTUDE” on their website. Quotes from that review and a link to the review in its entirety follow:

QUOTES:

The authors are two very accomplished writers who tackle a wide variety of subjects and themes that affect gay men with surprising depth and meaning. These topics will hit home especially for like-minded individuals but anyone with compassion will understand the beauty and heartache these issues bring to mind.

Russo’s creativity is unquestionable as he spans numerous taboo subjects and makes no apologies for his desires or sensuality.

Blending well is Powell’s poetry, which has elegance to the words and gives weight to each one, seeming as if nothing is wasted. Not a thought, an idea or a desire is anything more than necessary as he speaks of a love he yearns for.

from: Rainbow Reviews, 2009.

Gaytude, a poetic journey around the world / Tour du monde poétique
a bilingual book by Albert Russo & Adam Donaldson Powell

Xlibris, 2009 – 334 pages

order website: Gaytude orders

Trade Paperback $19.54
Trade Hardback $ 29.69

ISBN: 1-4363-6395-0 (Trade Paperback 6×9)
ISBN13: 978-1-4363-6395-2 (Trade Paperback 6×9)
ISBN: 1-4363-6396-9 (Trade Hardback 6×9)
ISBN13: 978-1-4363-6396-9 (Trade Hardback 6×9)

WORLDWIDE REVIEWS OF “THE TUNNEL AT THE END OF TIME”.

The tunnel at the end of time, an extreme science fiction novel by Adam Donaldson Powell (Norway) and Rick Davis (USA), and with a poetic foreward by Azsacra Zarathustra and Adam Donaldson Powell, has been released by Cyberwit.net

Order your copy now from: CYBERWIT.NET!

You can also order the book from: Amazon.com

See Cyberwit’s main website page and TAJ MAHAL REVIEW for other exciting publications.

Both “The tunnel at the end of time” and “2014: the life and adventures of an incarnated angel” may be downloaded as Amazon ebooks as well.

Here are some of the international reviews of the book:

Review (in French) by Eric Tessier, France:

The Tunnel at the end of time. Adam D. Powell, Rick Davis, Azsacra Zarathustra.

La chose est étonnante : voici un roman de science fiction qui raconte l’affrontement entre deux conceptions du monde dont certains des protagonistes principaux sont des anges. Oui, des anges, des vrais avec des ailes – et même si ceux-là sont sexués, cela n’influe en rien sur leur condition. Bien sûr, ils sont du côté du Bien mais, bâtis sur le modèle de l’archange Saint-Michel terrassant le dragon, ce sont des guerriers, qui n’hésitent pas à recourir à la violence quand elle est nécessaire.

Rappelons que l’archange Saint-Michel est le prince des anges, chef de la milice céleste, défenseur de la foi. Le dragon, ici, s’appelle Niall, dit The One, qui cherche à rétablir la domination du Nouvel Ordre Mondial que la Fédération Intergalactique a neutralisé – un Nouvel Ordre Mondial fondé sur la cupidité, la confiscation des richesses au profit de quelques-uns, le contrôle des masses par tous les moyens possibles et dans chacun des aspects de leur vie quotidienne. Un ordre mondial qui ressemble furieusement à notre présent. Je n’en dévoilerai pas plus de l’histoire pour ne pas écorner le plaisir qu’il y a à lire ce livre où les rebondissements abondent.

L’une des réussites de ce roman tient à ce que, de bout en bout, on y croit. C’est un élément important en matière de littérature. La crédibilité est primordiale et n’a rien à voir avec le réalisme. C’est un équilibre délicat qui fait qu’un HP Lovecraft parvient à nous faire dresser les cheveux sur la tête de terreur, alors qu’on nage en plein onirisme. Au contraire de certains romans noirs qui, bien que censés décrire la banalité de tous les jours, ne nous font pas même lever un sourcil et nous semblent artificiels. Cet équilibre est ici présent et ce qui, chez le premier tâcheron venu, apparaîtrait comme farfelu, voire ridicule, fonctionne à merveille. Les anges sont des personnages dont l’existence n’a rien d’extraordinaire dans le monde où ils se meuvent. Pourquoi donc douter d’eux ? D’entrée de jeu, ils sont là, à la fois héroïques, dotés de pouvoirs extra humains (ils volent), et proches de nous (ils ont des sentiments, de l’humour et font l’amour).

Le style est incisif, rapide, prenant. On est happé par l’histoire qui ne vous lâche plus. On notera une très belle introduction (un rêve de Ga, le personnage principal), d’une grande force poétique. Et puis, ce qui ne gâche rien, l’humour est aussi présent tout au long du texte, par petites touches d’une grande finesse. Sans compter les clins d’oeil, comme celui aux Trois mousquetaires d’Alexandre Dumas : Un pour tous, tous pour un.

En résumé, un beau roman de SF et d’aventure très fortement recommandé.

Eric Tessier

(an English translation by Adam Donaldson Powell):

The Tunnel at the End of Time. Adam D. Powell, Rick Davis, AZsacra Zarathustra.

The amazing thing is: this is a science fiction novel that tells the confrontation between two world views of some key players are angels. Yes, angels, real ones with wings – even if these are gendered, this does not affect their condition. Of course they are on the side of good, but built on the model of the archangel St. Michael slaying the dragon, they are warriors, who do not hesitate to resort to violence when it is needed. Recall that the archangel St. Michael is the prince of angels, head of the heavenly host, defender of the faith.

The dragon here is called Niall says The One, which seeks to restore the dominance of the New World Order that the Intergalactic Federation offset – a new world order based on greed, the confiscation of wealth for the benefit of some , control the masses by all possible means and in every aspect of their daily lives. A world order that closely resembles our present. I did not unveil more of the story not to dent the pleasure it is to read this book where surprises abound.

One of the achievements of this novel is that, from beginning to end, they believe. This is important in literature. Credibility is paramount and has nothing to do with realism. It’s a delicate balance that makes a HP Lovecraft makes us draw the hair on the heads of terror, then we swam in the very dreamlike. Unlike some thrillers which, although intended to describe the banality of everyday, we do not even raise an eyebrow and we seem artificial. This balance is here and what in the first hack came, would appear far-fetched, even ridiculous, works perfectly. Angels are characters whose existence is nothing extraordinary in the world where they move. Why doubt them? From the outset, they are there, both heroic, with extra powers of humans (they fly), and close to us (they have feelings, humor and make love).

The style is incisive, fast taking. One is struck by the story that you let go. Note a very nice introduction (a dream of Ga, the main character), a great poetic force. And that does not spoil anything, the humor is also present throughout the text, with small touches of finesse. Besides the winks, like the Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: One for all and all for one.

In summary, a good SF novel of adventure and highly recommended.

Eric Tessier

Comments by Dr. Santosh Kumar regarding the poetic introduction to «The tunnel at the end of time».
These comments are excerpted from Dr. Santosh Kumar’s book:
Adam Donaldson Powell: the Making of a Poet,
Cyberwit.net, 2010

Powell’s great interest in spiritual alchemy and extra-sensory world inspired him to write THE TUNNEL AT THE END OF TIME (Feb. 2010) in collaboration with Rick Davis, the follow-up novella to “2014: the life and adventures of an incarnated angel”. The foreward, TRANSFORMA UND VREBATIMA is an epic poem, written by Azsacra Zarathustra (Russia) and Adam Donaldson Powell (Norway), primarily in English and Russian.

It explores tensions between the USA and Russia from a post-Apocalyptic perspective. Powell’s individuality is emphasized by the following lines.

Powell is right in pointing out that The End of Times or “The Armageddon” was inevitable. The moral earnestness of Powell and Azsacra is evident in pointing out the diseases of the society. Powell asks the Terrans “What have you done?” Perhaps the most extraordinary lines are the following:

Lost in meditations upon finances
and power, you lost sight of the
greatest wealth you owned.
And you crowded only a few

humanoids onto your hastily-built
arks when the floods and dis-ease
ravaged so mercilessly.
Some called it the work of
the antichrist, but the antichrist
was humanity itself: which
had been too long on the rampage
of greed and apathy and imbalance.
You raped and you raped;

and defiled both humanity and
nature.
(4-5)

This is no childish complaint; it is a balanced analysis, and a very important clue to what is wrong with the Terrans. I suppose it is true to say that the dominant idea of Powell and Azsacra Zarathustra is Man is a predator out-of-control; / a soul-virus and a threat .”After this line, image after image is evoked by Powell- Azsacra Zarathustra to reveal moments of amazed vision: death of The Fair Eagle of Severe Spirituality, new vision rising from the ashes,as the Phoenix, The Mystery of Creatures waking even God up, Buddha’s ejaculation into His own Skull!, yearning for bringing back the Age of the Guru and the Prophets, the elixir of Nothingness and meaning in the Nothingness, our personal gods like money, power, greed and the threat of missiles and sex, finding new enemies in outer space. What is the solution to this horrible phase of disintegration? Powell and Azsacra Zarathustra have reflected deeply
on this question. The answer to unparalleled contemporary brutality is not “divine intervention”. The key lies in the following most powerful poetry by Powell- Azsacra Zarathustra:

Stop waiting for Divine Intervention.
Become the Divine Intervention.
Let it be your zazen.
(32)

In other words, we ourself will have to be an instrument for Divine intervention. The unfailing conviction of Powell- Azsacra Zarathustra is that both Christ and anti-Christ are inside us:

I no longer believe in the messiah …
or in the antichrist.
I see both in my own reflection
in the mirror of darkness
(ibid)

As the poem moves into the prophetic arena, we find the superpowers deceiving the ignorant Earth:

distracting the masses from the real danger:
the sweet-sounding lies that soothe and abet.

No doubt, Transforma and Verbatima is a meditation on an utopia with rich and timeless. treasures. Both Powell and Azsacra with their transcendental vision show their aspiration to move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation, inspired by Dante’s Purgatorio.

“There is no doubt that Powell, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, and Delmore Schwartz are the most talented American poets of the modern age.” — Dr. Santosh Kumar, Allahabad University, 2010, from his upcoming book entitled: Adam Donaldson Powell: the making of a poet.

REVIEW BY DR. ISAGANI R. CRUZ, THE PHILIPPINES:

The Tunnel at the End of Time is a masterful symphony of languages, religions, cultures, and literary techniques, all journeying to one inevitable destination: the individual wrestling with self. Covering our most human to our most divine urges and activities, the poetic, science fictional, experimental, even cinematic book leads us through words to what is beyond or behind words: the inscrutable mystery of our own being or, more precisely since the book revels in Emptiness, our non-being. In the process of stripping away the several skins that we use to protect our inner selves and to keep us from exercising our freedom to live a full life, the book also comments on writing itself, turning itself inside out, so to speak, so that we are forced as readers to become the writers themselves, merging our selves with theirs without meaning to and without remembering the meaning that we wanted to find, finding ourselves apparently in the future but actually in the present, or even more precisely, in the past, as time stops for us. In the end, the future humans, aliens, and angels turn out to be really us today, as we find ourselves aliens within ourselves, alienated not from the world as lesser writers would have put it, but from ourselves, as only the truly alive realize, perhaps as only angels really know. For those less inclined towards philosophy, the book offers gripping suspense, continuous action, and provocative scenes; the narrative scaffolding, however, is there only to lead readers to deeper levels of reading. I recommend this book to everyone honest enough to admit that we do not know ourselves or that we are not just nothing, but perhaps even Nothingness itself. Have fun, but be warned!

– Isagani R. Cruz, Professor Emeritus, De La Salle University, Manila

VADIM FILATOV’S RUSSIAN REVIEW OF “THE TUNNEL AT THE END OF TIME”, reprinted from his blog

Воскрешение из живых

“Вырубите лес, а не только одно дерево. Из леса рождается страх. Вырубив лес, станете свободными.”

(“Дхаммапада”)

«Это – день, который я готовил в течение всей своей жизни. К полуночи сегодня вечером я буду управлять планетой», – тщеславно заявляет отрицательный герой романа «Туннель в Конце Времени». Однако мировые войны, землетрясения, массовые наводнения, пожары, цунами, падения астероидов, глобальные температурные изменения, энергетические кризисы, экономические крахи, власть над всей планетой и прочие страшилки – всё это всего лишь колыхание волосков на шелудивом хвосте у сфинкса «существования». Победа над страхом означает дерзость взглянуть сфинксу прямо в лицо и осознать, что человечеству нужна не тупиковая и бессмысленная борьба за «существование», а борьба за несуществование! В этой связи абсолютно бессмысленное стремление к безопасности, которое выражается в виде термина «разрядка напряжённости», раскрываает своё истинное значение: ведь разрядка — это эякуляция, ведущая либо к бесполезному расходованию энергии, либо, ещё хуже, к возникновению дополнительного «существования». “Избыточная осознанность мешает всякому делу (в том числе жизни). Слишком длинные рассуждения о сексуальности убивают её. Эротизм – этот бич разлагающихся обществ – есть посягательство на инстинкт, организованная импотенция. Оргазм никогда не был событием философским”, – писал в этой связи Эмиль Чоран. Единственная по настоящему необходимая и мощная разрядка ознаменует последнее содрогание стиснутого небытием человечества. Мистика пустоты – это воинственная метаэротика непрестанного наступления, всегда агрессивная сверхлюбовь и надненависть к пустоте.

Адам Дональдсон Пауэлл (Норвегия) — автор критических статей по литературе и художественной фотографии. Пишет на английском, испанском, французском и норвежском языках. Он издал множество книг (включая сборники поэзии, рассказов, новелл, эссе и критики) в США, Норвегии и Индии, участвовал в различных международных литературных альманахах, которые издаются на нескольких континентах. Кроме того, Пауэлл является драматургом, чьи пьесы много раз ставились на театральных сценах. Адам Дональдсон Пауэлл многократно читал свои стихотворения на литературных встречах, которые проходили в Нью-Йорке(США), Осло (Норвегия), Буэнос-Айресе (Аргентина) и в Катманду (Непал).

Недавно в индийском издательстве «Cyberwit» выщла в свет самая парадоксальная пророческая книга, предназначенная для новой эпохи мышления, свободного от страха. Само название книги “The Tunnel At The End Of Time” (“Туннель в Конце Времени”) указывает на грядущее вторжение некой ещё неизвестной Мощи Духа к Разрыву, которая неизбежно сокрушит все “виды человеческого правления”. Одним из авторов данного проекта-предсказания и является Адам Дональдсон Пауэлл (второй автор — Рик Дэвис, США).

Книга стала продолжением романа «2014: Жизнь и риск воплощённого ангела», возвестившего новую духовную войну и возможную гибель мира в 2014 году. В этом романе Адам Дональдсон Пауэлл продемонстрировал читателям всю мощь своих творческих возможностей. Произведение наполнено глубокими философскими размышлениями, мистической духовностью, а также непреодолимым стремлением выйти за пределы повседневности и проанализировать иллюзию мира в состоянии её разрыва. Это суровое пророчество провоцирует вдумчивого читателя на размышления о невозможном, которое одновременно является единственно – возможным. Захватывание невозможного происходит путём уничтожения возможного. Уничтожение побеждает любую печаль. Условием начала движения в направлении пустоты становится отказ от иллюзии наличия и разделённости: единое есть всё и ничто.

Роман-продолжение «Туннель» открывается обширным философско – поэтическим вступлением. Оно представляет собой спор правой и левой рук Бога. Соответственно, левая раука Бога — философ и поэт-мистик из России Азсакра Заратустра (Vrebatima), правая рука Бога – Адам Дональдсон Поуэлл (Transforma). В споре используются различные языки: Адам пишет по-английски и по-русски, Азсакра — по-английски, по-немецки и на латыни. Всё это – философия реинкaрнаций и проекция Небесных Ангелов для Окончательной Битвы. Война без “проигравших” и “победивших”.

Как и предыдущий роман «2014», роман-предвидение «Туннель» создан в жанре экстремальной фантастики, объединяющим элементы информативности и развлекательности. Он близок по содержанию к антиутопии. Cюжетная линия выстроена мастерски и заставляет читателя не отрываясь следить за приключениями героев и их взаимоотношениями в контексте предстоящей глобальной катастрофы. Характеры основных персонажей глубоко и достоверно отражаются в их поступках и диалогах. Философский смысл романа «Туннель» заключается в столкновении «Божественных интервентов» (Небесных Ангелов, местами вызывающих ассоциации с воинами путстоты) и всецело погружённых в материальное “человеческих форм жизни”, основанных на обожествлении денег, страхе перед любыми формами опасности и мягкогниении в трусливом гедонизме. «Недолго это тело проживёт на земле, отверженное, бесчувственное, бесполезное как чурбан», – предупреждал Будда. Животное, которое корчится на брачной кровати, заканчивает тем, что корчится на кровати больничной. Как следствие — перспектива неизбежной гибели такого финансово-физиологического мира.

В одной из глав романа авторы рассматривают технические аспекты архитектуры аэропорта Денвера (США), и как он, посредством определённых действий, может быть использован в качестве обширного концентрационного лагеря. Авторы-футурологи обсуждают многочисленные подуровни фундамента для построения, которые явно необычны для простого аэропорта. Геометрические формы строения аэропорта Денвера очень точно совпадают с изображением Свастики, что, по мнению авторов, совсем не случайно. “Может ли быть оптимистичным прогноз, в основу которого уже заранее заложено изображение свастики?” – задаёт вопрос Рик Девис. И действительно, свастика – это древнеиндийский знак плодородия. А плодородие подразумевает размножение, приумножение иллюзии «существования» и, следовательно, свастика должна быть безусловно уничтожена.

Человечество давно интересовали вопросы о том, есть ли у времени конец, является ли оно реальным или мнимым, способно ли образовать туннель в неизвестность (в никуда)? На самом деле время представляет собой ловушку, привязывающую несуществующих к иллюзии «существования». То, что когда-нибудь станет пустотой, уже сейчас является пустотой, но, благодаря иллюзии времени, «мы» этого не видим. Однако роман не столько об этом, сколько о социальных и нравственных аспектах предстоящего конца света. В этом плане большой интерес представляет философско-поэтическое вступление, в котором Transforma и Vrebatima раскрывают своё, во многом различное, видение причин, перспектив и последствий грядущего Армагедднона:

«Некоторые назвали это работой
антихриста, но антихристом

было само человечество.

Вы изнасиловали
и загрязнили человечество и
природу.
Бесплодная Земля вопит, но мы
не утешители, Vrebatima.
(поклон)
Мы – просто писцы

которые наблюдают и отмечают
преступления» (Обличает человечество Transforma)

«Только одна треть из ракет направлена
к Земле; остальные направлена
в космос.
Человек – неконтролируемый хищник;

вирус души и угроза

для целой вселенной». (Transforma)

Насколько реальны эти «угрозы» и являются ли они безусловным злом? Нужно сказать, что на Западе совершенно ложная идея «прогресса» сопровождается отождествлением высших ценностей человеческого «существования» с жизнью «как она есть», в её « текучей повседневности». Но в том-то и дело, что её («жизни») в метафизическом смысле нет. Поэтому понятно, почему мечта о жизненном благополучии заставляет человека метаться между иллюзией технического превосходства и культом чувственного наслаждения, порождая невроз и ощущения постоянной тревоги. Эта тревога прорывается в маниакальной заботе о безопасности — личной, государственной и даже глобальной. В действительности человечество нуждается именно в постоянной опасности, которая одна даёт ощутить всю полноту вкуса абсолютной пустоты. То есть, приобщиться к тому немногому, что пока ещё есть:

«Моя мать – Ничто, но ещё старее
и горестнее…

Мой отец – Никто, но ещё беспощаднее
и печальнее…

Смотри: моя дочь переходит из Пустоты
в Пустоту, чтобы убивать каждую слезу
до её рождения…

И теперь Отсутствие больше не плачет,
Пустота больше не тратит деньги
на похороны –

такова Истина Несуществования!» (Vrebatima)

С этим соглашается Transforma:

«Я скучаю по скользящим жутким подлецам
который когда-то поведали нам тайны
ночи. Они надолго ушли;
как белые медведи, киты,
крокодилы, пчелы и акулы.
Что Вы сделали, Земляне?
Что Вы надумали?

Потерянные в размышлениях о финансах

и власти, Вы потеряли из виду
самое большое богатство, которое Вам принадлежало» (Transforma).

В ответ свирепо и непримиримо обличает характерное для человечества мягкогниение в трусости Азсакра Заратустра:

«Пусть крысы
трахают их дочерей –

монетных кукол
от Доллара
рождённых –

на золоте отцов
в навозе
разъебённых –

пусть

крысы трахают

их дочерей!”

Власть!
Власть!

Власть одних цен –
Вознуленье ничтожного

мира:000000000000000!

Теперь ясно:

Бог не умер –

умерла

Воля!

Воля к Власти?

Nein! –

Ничто к Власти!

Пустота к Господству! » (Vrebatima).

Пустотные истины воистину ужасны. Надежда умирает первой

«…Где я, Vrebatima?
Я потерян в моем собственном преобразовании …
в зимнем моем собственном samadhi.

Разбудите меня от моих сновидений …

но позвольте мне держаться за мои иллюзии

и моё заблуждение.

Я нуждаюсь в спасении, я жажду препарат Майя
– героин для усталой души.

Я трахаюсь …

Я …
Я …
(всхлипывания)

Вы раздеваете моих богов бесстыдно,

Vrebatima!

Я жмусь и дрожу в тенях своей
собственной духовности.

Нет бога, но Бог…

и Я – Бог нагой
и незащищённый от своих собственных

и коллективных иллюзий и промахов.

Сообщите мне То, во что ещё можно верить…

покажите мне, как надо действовать.

Проведите меня назад –

в Тьму.

Темнота Вечной Матки…

эликсир Ничто» (Transforma)

Однако, суровый собеседник непримирим:

«Правая рука Бога должна
не только онанировать.

Хватит лить семя

и слёзы…

Будда сказал: не будет больше Бытия!

НИКОГДА БОЛЬШЕ НЕ БУДЕТ БЫТИЯ!!!!!!!

ex nihilo nihil fit.

Сатори?

Самадхи?

Шунья!» (Vrebatima)

Авторы романа «Туннель» подчёркивают, что грядущий Армагеддон будет всецело заслугой людей. Так это или нет, но уничтожение в любом случае неизбежно, несмотря на мнимую величину и протяжённость предназначенного к уничтожению: ибо едина лишь пустота, а состоящее из частей подлежит разрушению. Значение нового мирового порядка в том, что его утверждение означает выработанность всех интеллектуальных и, тем более, материальных ресурсов человечества, обеспечивавших эго-цепляние за несуществующее. Необходимо отбросить страх и перестать следовать фальшивым взглядам проповедующих безволие, трусость и мелочную жадность банкиров и политиков. Они ведут жалкую жизнь, поэтому и конец их будет жалким. Независимый интеллект радостно приветствует нигилистическую революцию, которая велит им: погибни!

Ежедневно просыпаясь, люди начинают готовиться к восприятию дневных галлюцинаций, составляющих наш мир. Но в одно прекрасное утро они с облегчением обнаружат, что туман рассеивается. Впечатляющую картину одного из вариантов крушения универсальной иллюзии нарисовал Сартр в своём философском романе “Тошнота”:

“Люди проснутся однажды утром и, открыв окна, удивятся какому-то жуткому смыслу, который внедрился в вещи и чего-то ждёт. Только и всего, но стоит этому хоть немного продлиться и люди сотнями начнут кончать с собой…И тогда я расхохочусь и крикну бегущим мимо: “Чего вы добились вашей наукой? Чего вы добились вашим гуманизмом? И где твоё достоинство, мыслящий тростник?”

Несомненно, авторское послание, обращённое к читателям романа — предвидения «Туннель» является крайне некомфортным, поскольку побуждает к непривычным для многих самостоятельным размышлениям. Кроме того, обыватель с трудом воспринимает слишком откровенные истины, чтобы убедиться в этом, достаточно вспомнить судьбу Кассандры. Массовый человек опасается выйти за пределы своего уютного мирка: именно поэтому он будет из него грубо выброшен. Еще не слишком поздно понять, что «наше» прошлое, настоящее и будущее, каждый момент времени, каждое произнесённое слово, каждая мысль, каждое действие или бездействие – словом, всё, что составляет основанную на мелком мыслетрусии человеческую культуру – всё это избыточно по отношению к гармонии абсолютного отсутствия.

И сказал Будда: “Вот моё последнее рождение, не будет больше бытия”.

THE TUNNEL AT THE END OF TIME

Review of Tunnel at the end of Time – Amitabh Mitra Poet/Artist/Orthopaedic Surgeon, South Africa

I met Adam at Oslo. A big bear of a person with the gentlest nature and a lovable personality, he remains one of my closest friends.

Yet time and again I have tried to understand him, understand the mind that seems to work overtime, the art of reproducing the images on canvas and words remains a perennial obsession. I have read his other poetry books and marvelled at this superlative mind.

To me, it always seems that he has been able to grasp the aura and time, a steady stream of images that is unstoppable, sometimes virulent yet simple in afterthoughts.

The Armageddon was inevitable…
We needed it, and so we created it.
But it is only illusion…

But what happens next

The Tunnel at the End of Time is a collection of “poems”, prose poems and story like poems by Adam Donaldson Powell and Richard Davis. The Foreword is jointly written by Adam and Azsacra Zarathustra. Azsacra is a well known Russian Mystic Poet and has been widely published.

Where am I, Vrebatima?

I am lost in my own transformation …
in the winter of my own samadhi.
Wake me up from my dreams …
but let me hold onto my illusions
and my delusions.

The eventual clash of illusions and delusions are inevitable, it with and within us at all times and strange enough nobody gives the thought of liberating it. The book starts with such ultimate sense of fulfilment but then the poetry and the eventual flow of plasmic willingness happens in multiple streams, multiple layers and multiple living thoughts.

The book reminded me of the movie, Matrix directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski which mentioned for the first time, a simulated reality. The DVD sold three million copies in the US in 1999.

The reader is caught in an iron clasp grasp and taken in strange speeds that seem to stay along with the mind. There are simulations of words and images in a three dimensional effect, sometimes even in reverse moving strata at the same moment when we are going ahead.

So what really is Tunnel at the end of Time, where does it start and where should it end? I as a medical doctor and a poet have often encountered such simulations which aptly brief, seemed to jolt me out of consciousness and that is where the eternal mystery lies. What seems as poetry and the poet a conjurer of words may not be so, they are mere pathways to reach collusion levels in an unsettled time.

I beg to differ from other reviewers who have compared Adam’s poetry to British Romantic Age Poetry and others who have tried to unveil his poems using crutches from modern literature. Contemporary Poetry has broken the realm of sensibilities, a huge dam that has finally enveloped aesthetic congruency in a highly developed notion of sheer flexible imagery.

Adam’s poetry remains unclassified, as it is a class in its own. I would portray him and his friends in cult dimensions in Europe, their poetry would be read and reread in times to come.

Book review by Irene Brodsky (USA):

“The Tunnel At The End of Time” written in English/Russian by Adam Donaldson Powell and Rick Davis, with foreward by Adam Donaldson Powell and Azsacra Zarathustra.

It is an honor to review this most eye-opening, very well written and beautifully expressed book of poetry & drama that was written in two languages; and also includes a 14 Act Play! The book appears to be a serious look into one’s self, soul, being, spirit, surroundings, thoughts, reactions, and can be seen as philosophical, religious, mystical, spiritual, anger, reaching out for an answer, telling it like it is, no holds barred. I recommend this outstanding book for adults, age 18 & over because there is some strong language to express one’s deep feelings.

This book would be an excellent addition to the libraries and I am giving my own personal copy of this book to the landmark Brooklyn Public Library Grand Army Plaza Central Branch. It is my recommendation that the library catalog this book, and place it on their shelf where it can be shared by many readers. In this way, Mr. Powell’s magnificent book will be automatically added to The World Catalog of Books which is the greatest honor a writer can ever have.

It was my pleasure to review Mr. Powell’s book and recommend it very highly.

Sincerely
Irene Brodsky, Faculty Member Brooklyn College City University of New York,
Teacher of Philosophy – adult education program

author of Poetry Unplugged
and The Adventures of Silly Kitty, Princess Jasmine and First Puppy

(Photo by Arne Walderhaug)

SOME OF MY OTHER BOOKS:

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