We Are All Rather Small

and we are very slow home birds, compared
 with the speed and distance light travels the universe.  

In Space Nobody Collects Their Rubbish

Space could be like Heaven,
both are places where there is no gravity.
Because of this the bones of anyone
who stayed there very long would
go soft and leave their muscles weak
which is fine for heavenly inactivity.
Both will cost you your life to get to
and change forever your sense of time.
Nor will you won't know what either is like
before you get there. As destinations
go both are the prerogative of few.
Theoretically* in both our actions have
more consequence for us than for the places
involved. Last and far from least, so far
-fingers crossed-they have both resisted tourism.



*alas this is where the comparison weakens. Heaven
would be a perfect vacuum with no waste, and how we
got in would be a pleasing mystery to us. but there are
an estimated 19,000 objects, most of them no more
than a centimetre wide, orbiting the earth. They are bits
that have fallen from spacecraft and satellites which
were not retrieved as they fell away. They make
space travel more dangerous than it might otherwise be.

What Else Would You Paint On The Side Of A Slaughterhouse For Chickens?

And is it a surprise if that building tries to be anonymous?

With thanks to Banksy and Streetart

In The Beginning There Was Silence

There are now so many gurus and teachers in the world
that we can't do anything or go anywhere
without going against a message that one of them has left,
which contradicts another message from another guru.
Nor can we keep the law-modern law is written to please
governments and lawyers more than their subjects.
Our world is made of utterances such that no clear
and simple salty morality will preserve us.
The lights by which to live all seem rather dim.
The teacher I would follow if I could find them
would prove their truth through their message being silence.
Through the expanding ripples of their silences
we would all be quietened, from the inside out.
The only ambient sound would be the faint echo,
a murmur, of subdued shared laughter which never quite dies out,
which nobody can tell where it comes from.
Like the lilies of the field, which don't labour
because they do not misapprehend,
we would be returned to the full rest
from which we have been for so long departed.

The All Year Round Halloween Good Housekeeping Guide

Even flies have an 'eat by' date,
as anyone who leaves spiders webs
in their house alone for long enough will learn.
Any fly that is left in a web for too long
will most likely not be eaten,
but left, benignly neglected in a sticky bundle.
If you like your spiders, and want them to bless your house
with their weavings, then clean up after them
when they leave their meals too long.
For as much as life is life there is always more....

Dear Morrissey

...and the less it does for your muse, reputation, or peace of mind.

It Is A Truth

universally acknowledged that sticks are to dogs
what mobile phones are to humans;
a most engaging displacement activity
that invokes a sense of trust and engagement.
The more both are smitten by the object,
the less attentive either is to what surrounds them,
as their attention span shrinks around the focus of their delight.

The Oldest Sickness Of All Is How....

Because where it comes from is the so hard to learn about. 

When Zombies Attack.....

The Gadarene glaze in the eyes
of the debt ridden shoppers
who stalk the city's streets,
counting the shopping days
before Christmas makes me think
that there is a greater truth
than we would like to realise
in the retreat from materialism.

Nietzsche

died nearly a century before cancer, in all it's forms,
became the target of modern medicine, with the battle
financed by super rich western charities.
But if he saw how robustly cancer sufferers
had without thought adopted his line
'What does not kill me makes me stronger'
and how they have fought, and how vehemently
they still fight, to wear their illnesses out,
how surprised would he be?
I feel that he would have more empathy
for the cancer cells than their carriers.
Ultimately, he would have believed more
in the calm of acceptance, than the rigour of a life
defined by so deeply embeded a physical conflict.

Transports Of Delight

I don't drive, I never learnt. I am one of the few who never will.
My last instructor (whom I met through hitching a lift)
after testing my driving skills kindly said
'Hitching lifts is was what you are best at'.
I now have nearly fory years experience to prove this.
If I am waiting for along time for a car to stop
for me it is the exception that proves the rule.
Because my face fits my means of travel
it also fits my being asked by the homeless*
to give of my surplus. The little old ladies of foreign
extraction who sit on camp chairs by the entrances
of the larger shops of my nearest town, who sell
'The Big Issue', whilst demurely wearing head scarves.
Usually I give, after all what has got me to these ladies
but a driver offering me a surplus seat in their vehicle?




*I am sure that many of them have a roof over their head
at night, enough food,  and enough blankets to keep warm
in their beds, but have long known privation, and nonetheless
live in the poorest quality local lodgings permitted by housing law.

How Many Ways Are There of Making Sex Unfriendly?

The most popular and least obvious way
is through marraige and parenthood
-there the enmity between sex and friendship hides
in plain sight, through people making property
of each other. This has gone on since the earliest
of times. If the thirst for sex wins then the marraige
dies from within. But if the friendship wins the sex
declines, or slopes off to find mutuality elsewhere.

There is masturbation, with its elements of covert
self love and fantasy, both of which have a limited virtue,
within consent. Masturbation often involves pornography,
where after the image is created the active investment
is totally one-sided, and one handed, too. No brain required.
From experience I found such commitment is exhausting.

Next there is prostitution, sex exchanged for money-
something I have never experienced, where the contract
lasts the length of the act and whoever comes out of it
best is conditional on who has the most of themselves
to disown afterwards. But with the best of it the pretence
at the time is almost magic and nearly a temporary consubstantiation
in a very different kind of church. From ancient of times
onwards many a war has been accompanied
by banks of prostitutes within the base camp.
Where there were no women to serve and wait
behind the front line, there is always rape of the enemy's women
as revenge.This is war brought home from the front
that leaves marks on all sides that last forever.

Perhaps we have to be worn weary by war
to call a halt on our divisions, and instead combine
in the lighter more consensual side of sensuality-a cuddle.

Travel Broadens The Mind

which is why ideas move when and where they want to,
 and are never evicted-but find welcome where they are accepted.

Hypocrisy Is Us

'By this you may see who are the rude
and barbarous Indians: for verily there is
no savage nation under the cope of Heaven
that is more absurdly barbarous than
the Christian World. They that go naked
and drink water and live upon roots
are like Adam or Angels in comparison to us'
-The Rev Thomas Traherne (1636-74)

How To Get Yourself A Self Image

that will last:-follow the poet who will help you
see yourself the way they see their world-
from inside out and sideways on, that breathes
in quiet open spaces, who's writing you can follow.
Through the lenseof their poetic sensibility
they will reveal a different self to you than the one
you would find, unaided, for yourself, each time you ask.
Each time you ask, the answer will change.
Always resist doing as your family want,
find the self that fits you best and keeps on
changing-there is no substitute for that person.

Nothingness Is The Height Of Achievement

If soul exists at all in homo sapiens it a prism,
a transparent chamber that bends the original light
of all life. The more perfect the prism inside us.
The more perfectly bent is the light that it bends,
the clearer the soul is compared with the solid body-
the voracious appetite-that frames it and weighs it down.
The hungrier the appetite for success, fame, and power
over fellow homo sapiens, the more anchored in darkness
all life remains, because for all we think we are.......

...we are no more than co-substantial with the stars. 

A Sub Clause In The Law Of Unintended Consequences

Hypocrites always think they are right
to be keen as advisers and teachers,
there is nothing new in that,
except how their delusions are renewed on the unwary.
Nonetheless if anyone has the will to dig deep
enough as a pupil, and give their unworthy advisers
more time and attention than they deserve,
they might still find in themselves a consistency
of hope, where with hindsight they can generously
accept what was lacking in their instructor.
To do this it would be best if they too nurtured a seed of hope
beyond folly-that in turn the same seed will be offered to them.

Democracy Has Bad Taste

In this age of multi-platform mass media
democracy is the most widely celebrated
brand of kitch that is commonly available.
Elections are the most popular performance art
going with all their whistles and bells.
The more corporate the sponsor of each party
 /show the more tightly compressed
the slogans each party message becomes,
the better to disguise their corporate origins.
They all want to attract the largest mass of voters.
Whichever act wins, the public have to be
encouraged to misremember the last show
as quickly as possible afterwards, for the bump
and grind of government legislation to continue....

Where Art Stops.....

.....life starts. With thanks to streetart.

Beggars

are waiters who live on the tips from serving meals
made of nothing but air, offered to a public unaware
of what it means to live that lightly.
As un-waged waiters they are most creative of all of us
with the little they have even as the powers that be
 like reducing their terms and length of service.

The Quieter

the deed, the more genuine the thought
that spurs it. The greatest good of all
is the natural property of those who
don't need the credit for their altruism.

In These Recession Led Times

eating out has become a somewhat reduced experience.

Hold The Front Page

The British Public will know it's press
has found a sense of proportion about itself,
long gone for them being a license to print money
for telling lies, based on covert activity, when instead
of proclaiming press freedom should be the measure
of everyone's choice
the public can get the kernel of a story in two paragraphs.
Rather than have to dig deep, only to find it buried
in the small print on the fourteenth page, by which time
they have been so thoroughly distracted that they don't
notice that the headline is unrepentantly telling them
something completely different.

The Qualities Required For Employment

Because seeking employment does require overselling ourselves.

Spirituality

Every time I see parents with unruly children
causing public mayhem  I see an image of my former self,
and thank thee, O Lord, from the bottom my heart
that I was never like other men, and I thank Him
even more that I am longer obliged to pretend to be.

The Quiet Non-Life

The biggest conspiracy in the world
is also the quietest-how indifferent we are
to each other and all the life that supports us.

Practice Makes Imperfect

When Quentin Crisp prepared to export himself
to America for the rest of his natural life in 1981,
he was asked 'Are you a practising homosexual'.
With his usual gift for being quotable and evasive
he replied, 'I didn't need the practice, I was perfect'.
One of the bigger regrets of my life
is that in my imperfection I practised too much,
and nearly everything that I practised took me
further and further away from my perfection.

Choose Your Poison Carefully

Three arguments against the decriminalisation
of the possession of cannabis:-

1-Manufacturers will stamp their culture on something
that has a two generation old business model that works
in it's own terms of supply and demand. If supplier and user
pay no tax because they trade in contraband it should be seen
as part of the historic conservatism of a low tax economy,
which does not need tax law because it taxes very little.

Do we want cannabis cigarettes manufactured en masse
when that will increase the prospect of further corporate tax law
/corporate tax avoidance? I would rather lawyers and accountants
and the various governments departments who pay themselves well
to regulate everything did less, or found more urgent jobs to do.

2-Before the government permitted the corporatisation
of the image of cannabis, it would be medicalised for the few,
rendered safe for prescription, and controlled for the many
by it remaining pathologised. The public will always seek
the chemical contraband of their choice to combat the stress
of trying to be sociable. The problem of self medication,
and transgressive values, like alcohol itself, would remain.

3-Even if cannabis were permitted in liminal social spaces,
lightly policed for self medication, it will still be weighed down
by the instruction that nearly all medicine is supplied with
which every adult I know ignores, 'Do Not Take With Alcohol'.
I would rather my poison were tax free and outside the law
than misruled by government for the benefit of corporations.

Cannabis use among 15-64 yr olds by country

Where Do They Think From?

For many years I practiced being a secretive homosexual.
I know some who still practice
-though they do it more openly than did in my past.
What finally made me less active in my pursuit
was realising the lack of comensality of men
who would share their bodies and their bits,
but would withhold the gift of themselves.
All whilst imposing fantasies on others
-often with each partner unaware that mutual role play
was as far as as the exchange went.
But if they were asked instead to share a meal
and have a chat they would not give it the time,
and refuse for fear of how they felt divided
 and discomfort for this finally being revealed.  

Careers Advice

The best future anyone can have
is to plan from as early in life as you can to be a nobody
-rather then seek the self regard of making a platform
of how you esteem yourself.
For all their anonymity nobodies
have an intact voice -all the more intact
for them knowing most clearly that theirs
is a voice among many which is reduced
by how our recognition of each other is so limited.

Committees

are definitely an unnatural form of human life,
communities with no community in them.

An Oxymoron Too Far

From Oliver Cromwell to Al Shabaab
and the U.S. military abroad on secret missions
for renditions of everyone they believe did them harm,
the one thing that unites them that I refuse to understand
is that mix of pietism and violence, refined by advanced military
technology, which always puts enmity above integrity.

Protest Just Got More Tuneful

The takings from it, in altruism, will be worth far more than money. 

For A More Pleasant City Life

why don't the users of mobile phones
set their ring tones to bird song more often?
There is enough variety and choice in the idea
for everyone to be individual, and it would
make urban life more gentle and tuneful......

Signs Of Greater Age(22)

1-knowing when you talk to people
that you don't always find the best phrase,
when you want it, and recognising similar in others.
But no longer seeking to openly correct
or be corrected in speech for empathy
comes from quiet acceptance of what you meant.

2-not caring that you have to take pills
every day to keep yourself and your
relationships working-the good health
and relative autonomy they provide
means more than the need for the meds. 

The Weight Of Water

Once I would have measured the success
of an open air concert by the reported size
of the crowd who attended,
the decibel levels they absorbed,
and the volume at which they sang
the choruses back to the performers.
Now I calculate a musical event by the tonnage
of plastic bottles retrieved by the professional recyclers
who clean the site after the event.
Every plastic water bottle, often only half consumed
before being thoughtlessly tossed aside costs many times
more than the price of the processing it's contents,
and it is all sold far less than cost price to the planet.
Does adrenaline always create amnesia?

The All New Modern Individualism

where we all think other people think different to us, but we all think alike.

Good Intentions

I am going to start a new transparently profitable
100% tax deductible charity that will seem attractive
for all to put their spare money into.
It will be a gift, turned curse,
a Teflon lined non-stick handcart to Hell
to anyone who seeks to draw from it later,
in their belief that the best help anyone can have
is to seek help from others to become more self sufficient.
Ultimately my assistance will help nobody, not even me,
but this will only be learned on it's receipt.
What I plan has been done before,
but still please give generously,
even when you have known a selfishness
better disguised as charity in the past.
Post Modern Capitalism will be nothing
without the short-termism of these sort of schemes.

Identity Crisis

When as a blogger I commented on another bloggers entry,
the security message came up 'prove you are not a robot'.
At this point I was scared, nowadays even robots deny
being robots, and what sort of un-mechanised spontaneity
could I offer other than refuse to use the validating code?
My best shot would have been  to show how long
and how well I had survived without paid employment.