Time Displaced Empires Conflict Expire
Byzantium Byzantine Empire survives;
to be time displaced Islam at greatest extent?
Arab Empire this region controlled 75%.
Europe dark Middle Ages slowly recovers;
Renaissance rebirth of 12th century leads
after centuries to European new aspirations?
Naval prowess of growing European powers?
Forced flexes muscles Ottoman Empire confronts
halts further rapid Ottoman Empire expansions?
European Catholic maritime states;
a coalition of southern Mediterranean
a Holy League fleet in 1571assembles?
Illustrious members were the Papal States;
Habsburg states of Spain Sicily Naples;
Republic of Venice Republic of Genoa mobilizes;
Grand Duchy of Tuscany the Duchies
of Savoy Parma Urbino pledged prepares;
Knights of Malta all will fight Ottomans?
50,000 infantry 200 galleys 100 other ships;
4,500 cavalry adequate artillery too late...
too late assembled defense Holy League fleet?
Venetian defenders of island Cyprus;
in July 1570 were attacked by Ottomans
invaded by conquering Ottoman forces?
Too late to aid Cyprus prevent island's;
capture by conquest Islamic Ottomans
Holy League waited too long perhaps?
Who failed to assemble which powerful allies?
Holy Roman Empire their truce with Istanbul kept?
France honoured anti-Spanish alliance with Ottomans?
Mighty Portugal could spare no forces;
in ongoing maritime confrontations...
was heavily engaged with rival Ottomans;
in both the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean;
proud Portugal had Reconquista fought...
539 years its Moroccan campaign now fights.
poem by Terence George Craddock

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The Battle Of Lepanto Ottomans Defeats
Holy League on 7 October 1571 attacks;
wins a crushing victory over Ottoman fleet
at the Battle of Lepanto Ottomans defeats;
off tide turning western Greek coast;
decisively defeated Ottoman mighty main fleet
of Ottoman Empire in fierce five hours;
of fighting on northern edge of Gulf of Patras;
off fate western Greece Ottoman invasion forces
were from naval station Lepanto sailing westwards;
engaged from Messina Holy League fleet;
quick sand history on this victory turns
Mediterranean Sea Holy League prevents;
becoming an open uncontested sea route;
for Muslim forces; from major Ottoman invasion
Italy protects; prevents conquest Ottomans;
advancing further into exposed southern;
flank of Europe victory Lepanto was the last
major naval battle in contest Mediterranean;
fought entirely between diced empire galleys;
great symbolic importance appropriately assigned
to an empires altering decisive naval defeat;
upon signing of peace treaty in 1573 fate turns;
victorious Holy League is incredibly disbanded
axed a short time after unity Pope Pius V died.
Extract from the poem ‘Mediterranean Colonisation Wars Left Legacy Seeds'.
poem by Terence George Craddock

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Kara Mustafa
Retreating from the gates of Wien,
capital of empire holy, Roman,
Kara Mustafa next was seen
in Belgrade. Like a woman
degendered by defeat he raised
no skirt to show his legs but beard,
exposing to the ones who gazed.
his throat. Though other men have feared
their executioners, Mustafa
presented to the silk garotte
his skin just like an orange Jaffa
ready to be peeled. The knot
was tied around his neck, he died,
and dying thus proved heroic
that in his life. Mustafa sighed,
but laughed, because he died a stoic,
to the executioner presenting
with ease, without complaint, a throat
that never wasted time lamenting
his fortune, though scaped like a goat.
Inspired by a review of “The Enemy at the Gate” by Andrew Wheatcroft, reviewed by Eric Ormsby in the NYT Book Review on June 14,2009 (“Empires in Collision: In the 17th century, Habsburgs and Ottomans clashed over the city of Vienna”) :
Wheatcroft, the author of several earlier books on both Habs¬burgs and Ottomans, states that he set out here to portray the Ottoman “face of battle, ” borrowing a phrase from the classic work by John Keegan, and in this he succeeds; his narrative is thrilling as well as thoughtful, a rare combination. Even so, a subtle imbalance prevails. The Ottomans inspired dread in their enemies; fear was part of their arsenal. But, as Wheatcroft repeatedly demonstrates, the Habsburgs were fearsome too, and perhaps even crueler than their opponents, engaging not only in full-scale massacres but in flayings, beheadings and impalements. Perhaps because Wheatcroft hasn’t drawn on Ottoman Turkish sources, his Ottomans, for all his skill at depicting them, appear oddly imperturbable. After Kara Mustafa’s debacle before the walls of Vienna, he retreated to Belgrade; there, on Christmas Day 1683, he greeted the sultan’s executioners, kneeling with “stoic Ottoman calm, ” and even courteously lifting his beard to expose his throat to the silk garrote. The story is legendary, and Wheatcroft recounts it well. Still, here as elsewhere, we’d like to hear the fierce heart beating beneath the legend.
6/17/09
poem by Gershon Hepner

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This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Armenia, Armenia
After the great flood Noah’s ark landed
on Mount Ararat, says the Bible.
Nowadays, the snow-capped summit
of the mountain soars over Yerevan.
Although the dormant volcanic cone
of Ararat lies south of the border,
in Turkish Anatolia,
the view of the mountain dominates
the skyline of the Armenian capital.
Most of the territory
that was once part of historic Armenia
belongs to Turkey today.
Under the yoke of the Muslim Ottomans,
the aspirations of the Christian Armenians
to obtain autonomy clashed
with the dreams of their rulers
to establish a pan-Turkish Empire.
In the 19th century the government
of the crumbling Ottoman Empire
started a campaign to wipe out
the Armenian population.
It perpetrated a genocide,
which reached its peak
during the First World War.
In 1908 an extremist wing
of the Union and Progress Party,
the Young Turks, came to power
in the Ottoman Empire.
They rejected demands for ethnic autonomy
and launched a systematic state organized attack
on the Armenian community.
It began on April 24,1915,
when the Ottoman authorities arrested
some 250 Armenian leaders in Istanbul
and murdered them.
Then armed Turks began uprooting men,
women and children from their homes.
Rape and murder became a commonplace.
Depriving them food and water, Turkish squads
forced Armenian communities to march
through the deserts of Syria where they died
of dehydration, starvation and exhaustion.
Hundreds of eyewitnesses
from all over the world recorded
and documented state-supported massacres.
In 1915, for example, Leslie Davis,
the American consul in Kharput, reported
that 10,000 bodies of murdered Armenians
had been discovered near Lake Göeljuk.
In the same year Giacomo Gorrini,
the Italian consul in Trabzon, testified:
“I saw thousands of innocent women
and children placed on boats,
which were capsized in the Black Sea”.
Armenians call the mass slaughter
of their people Metz Yeghérn, the calamity.
Historians estimate the number of those
who lost their lives
in the great Armenian tragedy at 1.5 million.
The government of Turkey, however,
refuses to admit that a state organized genocide
took place.
In the fall of 2001 Pope John Paul II
paid a visit to the former Soviet Republic
of Armenia. He laid a rose at the eternal flame
in the memorial of Yerevan
and prayed for the victims:
The lament that rises from this place,
The call of the dead from the depth of Metz Yeghérn,
The cry of innocent blood
That pleads like the blood of Abel,
Like Rachel weeping for her children
Because they are no more.
poem by Paul Hartal

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Geography
The earth is a place on which England is found,
And you find it however you twirl the globe round;
For the spots are all red and the rest is all grey,
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Gibraltar's a rock that you see very plain,
And attached to its base is the district of Spain.
And the island of Malta is marked further on,
Where some natives were known as the Knights of St. John.
Then Cyprus, and east to the Suez Canal,
That was conquered by Dizzy and Rothschild his pal
With the Sword of the Lord in the old English way:
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Our principal imports come far as Cape Horn;
For necessities, cocoa; for luxuries, corn;
Thus Brahmins are born for the rice-field, and thus,
The Gods made the Greeks to grow currants for us;
Of earth's other tributes are plenty to choose,
Tobacco and petrol and Jazzing and Jews:
The Jazzing will pass but the Jews they will stay;
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Our principle exports, all labelled and packed,
At the ends of the earth are delivered intact:
Our soap or our salmon can travel in tins
Between the two poles and as like as two pins;
So that Lancashire merchants whenever they like
Can water the beer of a man in Klondike
Or poison the meat of a man in Bombay;
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
The day of St. George is a musty affair
Which Russians and Greeks are permitted to share;
The day of Trafalgar is Spanish in name
And the Spaniards refuse to pronounce it the same;
But the day of the Empire from Canada came
With Morden and Borden and Beaverbrook's fame
And saintly seraphical souls such as they:
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from Songs of Education

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The first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States of America and France and Italy that there will be no competitive building up of fleets or armies between them.
quote by Arthur Henderson

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Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Adress to Congress (8 December 1941)

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Roman Empire Conquest Founded
Ancient power civilizations;
were located around key shores
control Mediterranean Sea?
Major influences on ancient cultures;
secure sea food; routes for trade fought
colonisation wars left legacy seeds?
Late comer Emperor Augustus;
Roman Empire conquest founded
renamed his Mediterranean Sea?
'Mare Nostrum' 'Our Sea' Romans;
ruled with military triremes iron legions
defeated Greek city states Phoenicians.
Roman Mediterranean rendered our lake is
an important symbolic link in conquest chains
spreading inroad iron willed fist by land seas.
poem by Terence George Craddock

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Various Turkish people invaded southwest Asia during the Middle Ages and carved an empire for themselves from lands occupied by the indigenous Semitic and Indo-European inhabitants.
quote by John Shimkus

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It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire - different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless.
quote by Robert D. Kaplan

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Alfred
You are like the untapped love with torns and,
I am like the unused paradise in chains;
But, what had to be done should be done on this love.
The future matters and i have you in mind,
But you shouldn't hide behind the walls of Yerusalem!
For the requirements on this case can never be told.
From the Ottoman Empire to the present Empire in Rome,
I am courageously motivated to love you forever;
But, what had to done should be done on this love.
Alfred, my love to you is alaborated into extrem positions;
And, with a crude periscope through the dark tunnel,
But i will live on this love with you alone.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

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Political Advisors Interpret Omen
Babylonian Empire
Egyptian Empire
Athenian Empire
Roman Empire
British Empire
American Empire
League of Nations
United Nations
World Governments
none endures
leadership abuses
splinter parties
when citizen rights
citizen freedoms
are political games
praises gods of gold
silver brass military iron
wood precious stone
'read the writing on the wall'
portent doom inevitable decline
political advisors interpret omen
bodiless hands
flaring brands
seize oil lands
MENE MENE TEKEL PERES
count days profits weigh abuses
divide ill gained spoils nations
arrogance blasphemy has rewards
measure accountability of names
God has numbered the very days
of all kingdoms governments
brings all things to their ends
found wanting weighed scales
divided are kingdoms empires
war conquest given to victors
Medes Persians.... power inherits
poem by Terence George Craddock

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All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.
quote by Donald Kagan

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So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It's an empire. There's no two ways about it. It's a huge empire. It's been extremely successful.
quote by John Perkins

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Here I Come-4
Holy holy is He
So merciful
Lion and King
Wonderful Counselor
Holy holy
Holy holy is He
Holy holy is He
Forever holy.
Most High God
Holy holy
Prince of Peace
Mighty Redeemer
King of Kings
Most High God
Holy holy
Holy holy is He
Holy holy is He
Forever holy.
Take my sins
As far as the east
Is from the west
Purge me
With your precious blood
Shelter me
From the storms
Cover me
With your glory
Holy holy
Holy holy is He
Holy holy is He
Forever holy.
You are so holy
You went to the cross
For me
So holy
You bled for me
So holy
You paid a price
I could not pay
Holy holy
Holy holy is He
Holy holy is He
Forever holy.
poem by Buxton Shippy

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Little Island
LITTLE ISLAND
Randy Newman
In two long wars, my country bled
To save the world for everyone
As through the years, the fight we've led
Too long, we stood alone, too long alone
And when at last, the battle won
We asked for no reward
An empire gone
Two generations turned to blood and dust
Only the best were lost
Only the best
And now the years have passed
The times have changed
The foe is risen up
He stands astride the world
His dreams of conquest all fulfilled
Little island, little island
Glory lost in the mists of time
They will pay for what was done
To those of us who died so young
They will pay for what was done
Little island, little island
Little island
song performed by by Randy Newman

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Leading You Astray
Bad people,
Power cuts!
Aspire,
Inspire,
Milk and honey,
Sugar and tea,
Survival of the fittest! !
Strength,
Change, challenge!
And, it took place in her room twice.
The 4th Empire was the Roman Empire!
The 4th Beast was the Roman Empire! !
Drones, thrones, stone;
Like the great sword with eyes all over it,
but, your uncontrolled lust is leading you astray.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

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The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.
quote by William Blake

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There Is A Legend Told
Once upon a time in a land of wishes,
Wishes that took ages to manifest,
Yet certainly coming true,
Supremacy, an empire emerged,
The King and Queen did stand,
So noble and highly honoured,
So marubic in her seat of honour,
Her highness viewed by the maltitude,
His majesty greatly honoured beyond,
Yes beyond the beyond of the beyond,
Such was the kingdom,
Such was their love like a kingdom
The vow to guard, and also to guide,
To distinguish a potatoe from an egg,
To separate a kiss from sex,
For love was the kingdom,
And sex became war unto them,
The priceless bravery of a kingdom,
To never seek out war,
But certainly to be ready for it,
Someone did show us,
Certainly how it looked like
It was beyond the thoughts of cowards,
A kingdom fighting a cause,
To defend their appluase,
Was it a plausible perfidy we saw,
Or maybe an indecent disire he had
For to love is like building an empire,
For to commit is like to stand still,
And for sex is like engaging in war,
So shall the empire never seek war,
Certainly, but, be prepared for it
The meanings hidden were unveiled,
The empire's parables were explained,
The poets did saw it coming,
Some fell and few stood still,
The legend of the empire
poem by Gaylord Munemo

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Transition In Building Worship Utilization
Aya Sophýa Istanbul
church built to honour our God
became prime model
for all mosques to honour Allah
Hagia Sophia Greek
Holy Wisdom
Sancta Sophia Latin
Sancta Sapientia Turkish
designed by the Greek
scientist Isidore of Miletus
who taught physics
in Alexandria Egypt
then Constantinople Bosporus
and Anthemius of Tralles
a Greek professor of Geometry
in Constantinople Byzantium
string construction of ellipse
conic sections elaborate vaulting
of Hagia Sophia incorporate theories
of famed Heron of Alexandria?
utilized to address challenges
presented by problematic building
an expansive dome over large spaces
designed by a physicist
and a mathematician
completed in 537AD rebuilt
by 563 after an earthquake
Aya Sofya an Orthodox
patriarchal basilica
from date of its dedication
in 360 until 1453
serving as cathedral
of Constantinople except
between 1204 and 1261
when it was converted
to a Roman Catholic cathedral
under powerful Latin Patriarch
of Constantinople as the Western
Crusader established Latin Empire
Aya Sofya a mosque
from 1453 until 1931
then secularized opened
as city museum in 1935
now a museum in Istanbul
Aya Sofya 1093 years
principal cathedral
of Constantinople
almost 500 years
principal mosque
of Turkish Istanbul
Hagia Sophia served
as a model for many
other Ottoman mosques
the Kılıç Ali Paşa Mosque
the Rüstem Pasha Mosque
the Şehzade Mosque
the Süleymaniye Mosque
the Sultan Ahmed Mosque
famous Blue Mosque of Istanbul
your vaulted dome planned
to surpass expansive spaces
mirror symbolic ascent into heaven
Aya Sofya famous massive dome
considered an amazing epitome
of surviving Byzantine architecture
changed concept history of architecture
largest cathedral in entire world
for over a thousand imposing years
until Catholic Seville Cathedral
Europe finally completed in 1506
1402-1506 a century in building
history abounds in massive building faith
building faith erected to honour God
transition in building worship utilization
poem by Terence George Craddock

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