Scratch And Sniff

I have used the 'like' button on facebook
when it seemed fit, never on cheap adverts.
Nor on what seemed suspiciously like fishing sites,
though I took them as part of the nature of the 'net.
A place where nobody could never quite be sure, of anything.

But now I look more carefully and 'like' less,
and prefer to think that the if dogs ran facebook
then the 'like' sign would be a raised dog leg,
a dislike sign would be an icon of a cat
(since that was who the offering was fit for)
and the deepest approval would be shown
by the biggest and the blackest of twitching noses.... 

Thought For Good Friday

History is the meal
where we eat the baby
and drink the bathwater
which the baby arrived in,
all the while feeling
that the meal lacked flavour,
for us not separating the two.   

Art For The Spring to Come

'Twilight Moon'-Charlie Burchfield 1916

In Machine Party Poltics

The the only principle that outdoes
the vanity of the many party leaders
is the legal criminality of their fixers
in ensuring the credulity of their followers. 

X Marks The Spot

Crude majorities
produce flattened democracies,
where the media debate (such as it is)
is that nobody remembers anything
after the politicians decide everything
-particularly where the public put their X.

The Ultimate Phobia?

'Islamophobia' and 'Homophobia'
are two terms among many
whose very trendiness
I struggle to comprehend.

The ultimate phobia comes
from cursing someone as 'stupid',
and making an ineptly performed deed
the sum of of the person.

There we act out our fear
of rational argument by ignoring
the differences between people
which multiply the diversity of life.

To curse and do down the intelligence of another
is to reduce your own to brute insensitivity,
and to increase the burden the other carries
so that it includes your contempt.

Such contempt is a living death wish.

Some Headaches

will last longer than others,
and they will make you feel worse
than other unavoidable life-long conditions.

Great Marketing Failures of Our Time (1)

The artificial scent to sweeten the car
that smells of concentrated dog hair.
I'd regard such a smell as healthy,
but designing the advert where the dogs
are depicted with sufficient sentimentality
whilst exhibiting their natural smell
would be too difficult an assignment for advertising. 

Unsticky Bonds

Introverts are often said
to 'have difficulty' when meeting people,
but that is far from the case.

Many extroverts are quite good at meeting people once.
The difficulty comes in maintaining continuity.

Introverts rely on others
to keep in touch with them
much more than they ever try
keep up with others, or be popular.

Forming firm and durable bonds
will never be their major priority.

The Drugs Test

The attraction of drugs
is that they connect people
with their fantasies,
whether they be of Heaven
or the riches of the life of the flesh.

Mostly when I took drugs
cannabis, mushrooms,
the occasional acid trip,
wherever they took me
I rarely connected
though I enjoyed the ride.

My flights from reality to fantasy
were to be achieved by other means.

The Work Ethic Never Stops.... (3)

Because the language of business 
does not know where to stop either.  

Free Will?

Say 'No' to life,
and expressions you dislike,
all you want. Feel free
to express your dislikes openly.

The real crunch comes
when life says 'No' to you
and leaves you no negotiating space,
and denies even qualified affirmation.

Lonely Men

air their opinions quite often
and to whoever they are with
who might just be listening.

But they are rarely listened to
as attentively as they would like,
or imagine that they actually are.

Their loneliness reduces
how they hear all speech,
particularly their own.

So they never hear themselves
as others hear them, and never wish
for brighter conversations.   

Saying 'No' To The Future

I was flattered when a friend offered
to optimize me after the word appeared
on my computer screen and dare not click on it
-for not knowing what would happen.

I thanked my friend but told him
'No, I have a fear of optimism'. 

A Life

that has style
is less a lifestyle
and much more
a series of choices.

The Work Ethic Never Stops.... (2)

It is now over twenty years
since I last applied for a job,
and tried to make the process
of applying for jobs work for me.

After that I became so openly depressed
that I had to be excused being further pressed
into ever assuming that I might be wanted.

In that last application where I was meant
to 'sell myself' by recounting my best points
I addressed the employer and said to them;
'Naturally you will have more applicants
for the posts than you will have posts.
So if you want to reject me early on
in selecting who you want to accept,
then do-with my open consent.'.

I got a response from the employer,
the first I had got from any employer
'If you didn't want the job
then why did you apply for it?'.

It was the first proof I had in a decade
that employers read my applications,
and of course in trying to show them
some basic courtesy what I got back
meant in code 'Why are not more rude,
dishonest and aggressive? That is how we
have to be towards our competitors
and each other-without being seen to be so'.      

On The Failure Index

The more we try to make assets of ourselves
with people who we hope will esteem us
the deeper we trap ourselves in debt.

The Blinkers Of Choice

With the advent of mass digital media
coming at us, from us, and from all sides,
we are warned to be very careful
about where we get our news from,
lest the presentation be tainted
with bias or foreign money/power.

But such warnings were much rarer
when the media was so analogue
that nobody needed to call it that.

I remember the small grubby emporia
in which the underground press used to appear,
the anarchist book shops full of books
that were more-left-wing-than-Left-Wing-Politics.
The sort of read where where the ink
came off on my fingers as I read
of squatting, of angry feminism,
of drugs I could never find - much less take,
and other fantastical narratives
I was never ever going to live out
.
Many of these stories lit up my life.
These texts became the pin-pricks
with which I tried to deflate
a very dull every-day reality
from which I wanted to escape,
and each text worked, for a while.

Those books never came with warnings,
the censors never knew where to look.





       

My First Language

was a silence of being unborn,
my last language will be silent too.

In between there will be all the noise
that I can make, that makes any sense
to the few who try to understand me.
   

Are You Being Served?

Management is the art of faking sincerity
with those higher up the chain of command
who are dependent on them for their wealth
while those below require management skills
to serve them and to keep them from penury.

In both their neediness
makes seeing what is lacking
after the management have acted
a dangerous insight. 

Courage In The Face Of Adversity

can take many forms, some of which will seem 
more credible than others when they test our mettle. 

Selective Listening

Success is learning
that winning is not as important
as other people are fond of telling you it is. 

Women And Maths

The world's first electronic computer
was built with valves in Manchester
in 1942 or so, to speed up the Allies'
efforts at breaking Axis Power codes
during World War Two.
But that was far from the first use
of the word 'computer'.

Before that male scientists knew
that women were good at maths
and pooled them in rooms
where they were set to work on equations
that were too fiddly and awkward for men,
in their status, to have the patience to deal with.

The room that the women worked in
was known as the computer room,
and the women were not known as anything.

It is odd how we discredit human beings
the skills they self evidently have,
but we are happy to credit machinery.     

When You Are In Limbo

it is best to quietly do less,
only your slowness
will hasten your exit
to your next destination.

Competitiveness

always has many consequences
that nobody dares to mention,
but everybody has to endure.

Laughter For Us All

The possibility of universal communication
must surely be through the power of humour,
and it is never to be underestimated.

Though we won't know until it happens
how everyone would find the same joke funny.

Good Companions

In the best companionship
needs are lightly met
by first looking inwards
towards each other.

Then the needs having been met
each partner can look outward
towards new and old friendships
for the differences they bring,
to everything that is living.

Heaven Vs Earth

In Heaven God is always preaching to choir
who are always praising the unique theology
in his sermons,
when they can get a word in edge-ways.

If I did not hope for better
I'd say that such circular behavior
was the ultimate example
of The Stockholm Syndrome.

Meanwhile on earth
the churches have to learn
to not talk just to themselves,
but listen,
to learn to love their enemies,
and further find out
where and how to be useful. 

Inter-Dependence

means that even our kindest deeds
are shot through with impure intents,
and consequences over which
we can never have total control.

The Feint Hope Of Life Beyond Barbarism

The idea of defining people
by their preferred sexual activities
is at best sophistry and at worst barbaric.

But the alternative, covertly defining people
by their sexual habits via definitions
that are as inept as they are inaccurate is worse

      ...particularly when the baggage of ideas
about property and ownership weigh the labels down. 

Self Grooming

-dogs do it, cats do it too,
and if the planet did it properly
it would be the end of me and you.