The Hope of Peace

Nobody knows if there is a next life,
and if there is what it might be like.

But if there is a paradise, and I am invited,
I am stating now the terms on which
I expect it to work if I am to join it.

It has to be a place of infinite co-equality,
everyone with everybody else, species co-mingling.

It has to a place where there are no honours
no conspicuous military bravery,
nor even any militarism on display,
where the point of peace is proved
through the means by which it is achieved.

A Reminder Of Something I Should Know

Romantic Myth

always hides a shame
that is easily reinforced
through forgetfulness.

Great Turn-Offs Of Our Time (11)

When public figures are said to be
'Cautiously Optimistic' about some work,
or activity, that they are publicly linked with
then we know that they have nothing to say
and they are taking more time than is useful to say it.

The Art Of Escape

Is to make sure you are not be noticed as you leave.

Look Away Now

The more honest governments are
the more appalling they appear to be,
and the more they reflect electorates
where collectively and individually,
our minds don't want to know
the actions that they direct.

Absurdistan

Commercialism has become the process
of rendering everything it touches absurd
and justifying the absurdity in the name
of the choice of who makes the most money
 out of the public, for the least communal return.

The never-living, products like Coca-Cola
can withstand any amount of insanity
in how they are promoted to the public.

But the portrayal of the once-living
is where commerce hits the skids.

The less thoughtful the portrayal
of a once alive human being
the harder it is for us to suspend our doubt
as popular movies move rent reality asunder.

Saint's Day Cancelled

This St George's day
there are no dragons to slay,
and nothing to be saved from.

There are no more Turkish knights
and no oblivion to be rescued from
except what we are make for ourselves.

Smoking Warnings Taken To New Heights

And applied where they are least expected,
and when it is too late to change. 

The Hierarchy Of In/Sanity

Animals can be positively silly,
humans are sadly absurd
when words send them will nilly
to rampage the known world.

Easter Treat Sorted

And let faith betide anyone who puts their tongue
deep into the jammy bit before appreciating the rest of it-
like Doubting Thomas once insisted on doing.

Truth And Distance

If we want to make the world
a place without meaning then we can
-it is one of the many choices open to us.

On the upside, false ideas of  'progress' will decline.

But with a much reduced sense of purpose,
comes the loss of sense of 'community'
and the rise of an open collective misanthropy.

For our misanthropy to be sustainable
it would have to be even-handed,
so we not only mistrust our enemies
(a given, given any world we live in)
but we would have to make sure
that the more true our friendships
the more distant they are.   

Ritual Popularity

Popular culture always throws up pinnacles of popularity,
songs, plays, games, and longer pieces of music that get played,
replayed, and further repeated more than reason suggests it is sane to do.

To anyone with the slightest sensitivity towards cliches
it is obvious that such pieces misserve the culture
that they are integral to. But to those sensitive enough
to resist what has become cultural baggage
it does not occur to them lightly
that part of mass popularity is mass engagement.

Thus the plays of Shakespeare, Handel's 'Messiah'
and other choral works retain their hold on the culture
more because people like to perform them
than audiences feel they have anything to learn
through watching these works being performed.

Relationships

will suffer as disability and pain take their tithe
out of human hope and aspiration for eternity

Beware Of Signposts

Many a political and theological doctrine
points out the direction of a self-evident truth,
but it easily becomes the sign that blocks the path
for the people attempting to follow it as they journey.

When There Was No Right Way To learn

I learned to be quiet from the garrulous,
learned about toleration from the intolerant,
I learned about calm from the intemperate
and all the while struggled with gratitude
for having to learn about it from ungrateful.  

The Faint Hope Of Happiness

What delights or disappoints us as adults
is set out for us long before we get there,
back when choice not only seemed open,
but we had no idea what lay before us
or how it might have consequences. 

Distance

The good friend who is far away
will still be nearer to you
than the weak friend who is close at hand. 

When Silence Equals Emptiness

In 1965 Bob Dylan famously declaimed in 'Like A Rolling Stone'

'When you got nothing you go nothing to lose,
you are invisible, you got no secrets to conceal'

among many ringing phrases
he has repeated many times
in the 54 years since then.

What he did not say which would have been more telling
is that when you have nothing you will not only have no secrets
but end up with nothing to say beyond expressing the quiet hope
of receiving something to return your voice to what it was
when you had something, and something to say.     

The Test

The test of our maturity is whether,
when we are stuck in situations
that we can't escape from
except by going through them,
we go through them or not,
because we must.

The way we pass the test
is in how we create exits
for ourselves and others
that we never knew were there. 

Great Turn-Offs Of Our Time (10)

'Organic' is always a good selling line,
even when foods labelled look fresh enough
that they should walk off the shelves, unaided.

But who can taste the effects of a label?
When the goodness is not obvious
the label is the biggest assertion
of virtuous manufacture
and it might well be
the most 'organic' part of the product.
The second line of proof is that food
that is organic always costs more.
Sometimes double it's non-organic equivalent.

We don't have to buy into the label
and when we don't the shop ends up
selling the goods late, when they are as old and stale
as their non-organic equivalents were all along.

The Consensus Of Lies

Nobody has to heterosexual,
and part of the vast majority,
to to lie about sex and sexuality
to themselves and everybody else.

But it will help them no end if they are.  

Say It Again

William Burrough, who died aged 83 in 1997
and took methodone for half his life whilst claiming
to have cured himself of heroin addiction, is surely proof of the proposition.

Turn-Off's Of Our Time (20)

When we hear an adult
use the phrase 'The System'
when referring to one of the many policies
of just one government department among many,
as if that one policy stood for everything about the government,
then surely we are hearing the youth inside the adult.

In the phrase 'The System'
we are hearing the bitter memories
of a person who felt choice and wealth
turned against them, long after it happened.

Memories like these are more common than we like to think.

The Popularity Of 'Poor Taste'

The kitsch aesthetics of powerful rulers
is well known. What is less commented on
is how dictators use their inelegance
as if it were akin to 'having the common touch'
whilst it also highlights their wealth and power.

When analysts attempt to disassemble
the different signals that wealth confers
on the citizens who are subject to it
they get accused of 'undermining Democracy'
when, merely with it's own complexity,
Democracy undermines itself. 
     

Instant Living?

Clever people measure their cleverness
by how much their logic and reason
are better than everybody else's.

But I say that their cleverness
works by their ability to convince
those who need somebody to believe in,
to accept their superiority without question.

Since so many have to have something
to believe in and make life work,
and hierarchy comes with belief,
then there are lot of people seeking,
and well connected clever people
will offer them something to find.

This leaves the many one last choice
for making decisions-'gut instinct'.
With it we don't know causes us respond.
Life in that instant is all we have.

This leaves us with is a choice
of sequential inconsistencies,
none of which connect with each other.   

The Play is The Thing; 'Widower's Houses'-GBS

Do enjoy this youtube presentation of BBC Radio 3's presentation of the first published play by George Bernard Shaw, 'Widower's Houses' as found on youtube.

I do like it when other people speak more at length and with greater elequence than I can find in myself, indeed I rely on it.   

Picture Set Of The Month

In the centenary of birth of the Bauhaus movement

It seemed right to celebrate their design flare

By showing some of their designs for wallpaper

Though what sort of room would 'take' their designs is anyone's guess