Neighborly love

Just had a knock on my door at 11.45 and it's the police! Now I don't have a problem with the police per-say... however I have known them to over step the mark and push back community relations years. Anyway, where I live their is a mosque across the road and although it's residents parking, because of the influx of people, residents sometimes find themselves parking two streets away. Inconvenient yes - but that's another story. So tonight I arrive home from a golf match (which I won) and there's nowhere to park. Five doors away there is a little drive for off street parking, sometimes it's used sometimes it isn't. A few days ago I parked there because something was going on in the mosque and left a note apologising for any inconvenience, leaving my door number, thinking if they need to leave before the people from the mosque do, then 15 steps up the road would not be a problem. Tonight however I'd un-wittingly moved the note. Can you believe my neighbor had phoned the police!

Now I'm not being funny but how often do you hear of public affrays where the police have been called and they don't arrive for ages? I've worked in youth clubs where the police have been called and they haven't arrived! But a car parked across a drive warrants a visit. To rub salt into this now open wound, the neighbor was at his door when I arrived to move said car and I tried to explain to him that it's obviously a problem parking when it's Ramadan and that I would have moved it before the morning which the police claimed was his problem. Do you know what this he said?

"Your not supposed to park there and I'd prefer if you didn't!"

Ha! So much for community cohesion.

What a prat!

Apologies...

It's been a long time since I've blogged. To be quite honest I've given every excuse for not doing it, however the problem with excuses is that's exactly what they are. So I've decided that I'm gonna have to do better...hands up all of the people reading this, that know they could be doing better. Uum exactly!

So, I've decided to do a weekly blog called 22 stories high. Each week I will post a story that leads to another story. Hopefully readers will give feedback on what they read. Also look out for competitions and slam ideas on this blog...

Raspect!

23/08/03 12.00 pm. Dx

Y do you look at me that way?
Is it the beauty of my skin that u despise, with lies and stereotypes that u create? Is it my hair so long, so strong and so carefree that you can’t stand to think of it as beautiful and as natural as the black skin with which I’m adorned?
The first skin of mankind. The first skin of scribes of kings and queens, teachers and professors, rulers of great continents. The first skin of the ultimate ruler Jesus Christ Our Lord Haile Selassie, Jah Rastafari!
Y do you look at me that way?
Is it because you fear that I do have the ability to rise up and take back what you took? My dignity, my pride? Is it because you realise that I do have the capability to rewind and see the bigger picture? To remind you that this society has thrived on the skin you now look to judge? Wrapped up in the institution that is racism. Covered over with every ism and schism that allows black skin to overcrowd your prisons, still raise your children and wait for anything that is handed down to us by u. I’m standing here tall and strong, trying to be and this is me and your all 2 ignorant 2 c. That what goes around, will come back around. Until it’s just u and me, naked as they day we were born. Ignorant 2 anything more separatist than the beauty of nature herself. The changing of the seasons the moon and stars. The fact that day turns to night. Until there is no rhyme or reason 4 u 2 look at me that way.

50 word stories (Mother Nature)

'Mother. Why do you cry? Is the day so long? Are you so weary that tears are your only re-course?’
‘I cry my child because I was once hailed as the backbone of life. I cry because the beauty it brings no longer fulfils my will to see it grow.’

DA MEO PATTACA!

Old, red brick.
Metal shackled.
Smoke fuelled.
Blood red wine.
A vision of beauty seated opposite, haloed by the dim light.
Fluent is the delivery of speech and action as a flurry of tradition moves swiftly between wood and chequered throws.
Like ballerinas in white tops and black waistcoats pirouetting betwixt tables, they fill glasses and play the theme tune from The Godfather on weathered guitars.
Satin black statues fill their own private space, while lit lanterns flank walls that depict paintings of wars and Christ and the second coming.
Like the anti pasta or the Melanzane a la Parmiggiana. Somehow it just feels right in a place like this.

50 word stories

BALLERINA

Slight and erect. Appealing to the eyes. Muscular limbs bow and bend.
The tips of her toes extend slowly, as if waking from nature's first raindrop.
As her arms lower like petals opening at the brush of a passing hummingbirds
Wings, she moves herself forward and curtsies.
Applause is imminent.

Learning How To Fly

Never-ending circles of start, stop, start and stop.

We take on values and beliefs that shape our souls like a stroke

of an artist's brush, or the sharp thrust of a fencer's blade. The

true value of self is to search, explore, break down the barriers and

find out who you really are. Meridians of life connect us to the

ether and blow pockets of air for those willing to search hard enough

to fly and breathe: breathe the connection of life.



We feel the earth beneath our feet like we never wore shoes and

realise that this is the way things were meant to be. You and me with

all around to see, like never ending cycles of start, stop, start and

stop... ...meridians sending messages to the earth beneath our feet,

allowing us to be who we really are, happy and free and what you see

is what you get!



Life is an amazing thing, if you look close enough and believe hard

enough we all connect in some way. When we truly live we find hope

where there is none; find shelter when all around is falling down,

trampled by the weight of life. Life is a miracle. Life is love and

love, well, love is knowing you're unstoppable. Love is, knowing

that whatever is placed in your way, you'll go over it, around it,

through it, together.

Love is being where you are today, standing here with a story to tell.

The story of how two people connected by the ether fell in love and

learnt how to fly.

Tony Dallas copyright 2005