Kinky Money

I usually like thrift and efficiency,
but when we tighten each other belts
too much it becomes an exercise
in mutual bondage-to poverty.

Punch/Pull

I am struck by the difference
between 'punching above your weight'
and 'pulling more than your own weight'.
Each has their own force of gravity.

In the former the projected aggression
blinds people to their own weaknesses
until they receive such a level of force
back at them that only their honesty
about how weak they now are
can renew their strength of character.

In the latter we give, and give more
than we feel that we have in store,
within us. But for having given
we are open to receive in return.
Gratitude, both spoken and undeclared,
are the means by which we are replenished.

The Vice Of Philosophy

This is a helpline I would definitely volunteer for.
Next thing the son will be quoting Slovenian
philosopher Slavo Zizek as if his life depended on it.....

Food And Violence

'A hand to mouth existence'
is a phrase that denotes a life
where there is never a surplus
and the financial moorings
of the masses are never as secure
as everyone says they wish they were.
But with a lot of grit, self discipline,
and enough luck the poor will survive.

Alas in the alcohol cultures
that many of the poor get trapped in
'hand to mouth' would also mean
the fear of being fed with a fist,
raised in spontaneous anger,
as much as the hope of getting by.

Putting The 'Tort' Into Torture

Laws and lies will refine gov't policies,
with lawyers 'fighting' on opposing sides,
both whilst being highly paid, as refugees take refuge
in ever colder and more distant nation states
who believe themselves to be immune
from all natural, human, and physical law
in their refined and alienating hysteria. 

One Dough, One Bread

And being the one dough
whatever our raising agent 
We all kneed each other
to be the one bread. 

The Currency Of Lies

It is hard to remember, but impossible to forget,
how much life with my family was under-written
by the verbal shorthand of jokes and catchphrases
that were repeated, l-o-n-g after
all the humour had been drained from them.

But worse than that verbal gracelessness
were the lies we traded every day,
often in the name of optimism
when compared with how we talked
there was little to be positive about.

Worst of all was how men lied about sex.
Our lies reached a level where it was
simultaneously exciting, forbidden
(outside of, and often inside, marriage)
and yet everywhere around us, all at once.

All men had to do was think of it,
and the possibility seemed close at hand.

When the local economy tanked
and men had less than the money
they had always expected to make
they made a currency out of cheap sex
outside of marriage, in public toilets.

Men gave themselves bonuses
in this new currency of sex procured by lies
when they were drunk whilst propositioning
other men, or youths, in public toilets
and those around them willingly obliged.

It was thought to be a profitable way
of filling in time after the pubs closed
and before having to go home to the wife.

Engineered Uninterest

Of all the things to get addicted to,
apart from safety itself,
boredom must be the safest.

The great advantage is in the choice;
there are as many ways
of losing interest in what you do
as there are activities to do
that can sustain themselves
whilst we are uninterested in them.

With such a wide field of play,
and active engagement the biggest temptation
the biggest light entertainers of the world
are always having to up their game
to passively capture your attention
to make sure that short of pornhub
they are what bores us to death the best. 

Abnormailty Is Us

When we witness insanity
in how other people behave
there is little that we can do.

We could join in and pretend
that we are not behaving as we are.
We can turn away from it,
knowing that it will still be there
when we choose to look back.

What we cannot do is stop it
and for our own sake,
and the benefit of others,
make the world we live in
stable without making
a false normality out it.

Some Adverts Just Don't Wash

particularly when the people in them pass on the soap so easily....

Whatever You Change, Change Nothing

I don't understand politics today,
as they are going on in my country.

I don't understand the point of my vote.

The older the party
the less effective their leader,
and still they expect
to command the respect
from 'the average voter'.

The newer the party
the smaller and less stable it is,
and the simpler the message.

Many small parties
are just small step up
from being a pressure group,
or a collection of lobbyists.

The smaller the party
the more their function
is less to see their policies enacted, intact,
and more to frighten the larger parties
into adopting weak versions
of the smaller parties radicalism,
which in reality will change nothing.

Is their life within green-wash?
gay-wash? and grey-wash?
And other pretend-inclusive policies?

I doubt it, but it is the mission
of democracy to test ideas to extinction.    

Putting The 'less' into Hope

The less we have to fear
the less we have to hope for
or be pushed into desiring,
beyond our great declining.

Vote For.....

Because the nobody candidate
represents the wants of the electorate
when they are at the most coherent and clear. 

Great Radio Turn-Offs Of Our Time (12)

Whenever I hear the word 'wrongdoing'
it is always in the news and it always precedes
another phrase 'Country X denies all...   '
and follows accounts of some heinous deed
that right minded people would have stopped,
given chance, before the idea was floated
before a bored and sated public.

I am put off by the how weak and lacking
of all conviction the word 'wrongdoing' is
and how easily it hides humbug.

I note that it is easier to use defensively
rather than as part of a confession
and as part of a change of direction
or process of absolution.

Governments and countries
should know what to be sorry for,
apart from having enemies
they have poor control over,
and accept the weakness
that they hide within themselves.
   

No Time To Learn

In school we were taught French.
The most I achieved back then
was how to ask the time in that language.

We were never taught,
and I have been unable to learn since,
was how to listen to the answer to my ask,
were I to put it to a Frenchman.

It was like that with most of what I learnt;
we were taught to be glad that we could ask
and that we would not understand the answer.

Such a half-education
has made me stumble
and left me to pick myself up
until my success was complete
when I learned to ask no more.

Sometimes The Air Miles Are Worth It

Because the distances covered and plants pollinated
give life to life much further down the line,
well beyond the honey that the bees live on....

When Honesty Is Required

then distance will be unavoidable,
and a false public persona is basic to life.

Immoral Superiority

There have been prostitutes
as far back in human history
as there was 'ritual uncleanness'
along with currency, clients for sex,
and the use of power to create poverty.

Throughout that time clients were male
and thought themselves powerful and moral.
for them it was rhetorical; they were male,
as opposed to fickle, weak, and female.

This hypocrisy reached a peak
with the declaration
'power without responsibility
has been the prerogative
of the harlot throughout the ages'
which was less about prostitutes
and more about how popular journalism
that also happened to be honest
might drag the wealthy through the dirt.

Comparing journalism to prostitution
was a false but effective analogy.
The jibe held up what was popular
was proven so by it being bought cheap.

That was not where the comparison ended.
Also both journalists and prostitutes
had to take on the powerful and secretive
to survive and both were very easily misused
by wealthy hypocrites, particularly press barons
who disguised where their real interests laid. 

The Bigger The Fish The Bigger The Prize

particularly when the prize is the smaller fish. 

Forgiveness Is A Given

and not just for Christians.

Millions of ordinary people
of many faiths and none
live in the hope of it.

They know that were it to utterly fail,
then there would nowhere on the earth
far enough from other ill-done to people
to retreat to for a sustainable peace.

Everywhere they were confronted
by their own misanthropy and amnesia.

Overly Sub-Standard

Everything 'superhuman'
is so much less than human,
in it's effect, and it dilutes humanity,
not that humanity has much to be proud of.  

The Self And Society

Families and marriages are artificial institutions
in which individuals throw themselves together
when neither knows how to allow each other
to be themselves, for being surrounded
by so many others in rather similar situations.

People are most themselves
when they are by themselves
for long periods of time
or when they offer each other
a shared and supportive silence.

The Past Sure Is Tense

'Agency' is life and choice as we know it;
the Here delivered in the Now.

Different pasts in other worlds
are agency as it was then, edited by the ages.

History is what we assume agency was
back whenever then was the present.

However much we retread the past
it is not a place for us to inhabit.

Many Authors

have pronounced on 'the death of the novel'
and yet writing is a form of art that still lives.

Publishers still pump books out,
promoting new works via websites
where in the depth of presentation
the public don't know who paid for what.

Authors are still interviewed on talk radio
where the looser their tongues
the better they can promote their new book
as if their future wealth depends on it.

And authors whose work is out copyright
still thrive when experts and biographers
speak up for the very long gone,
as if they were members of a pantheon.
  

Paradox Drive

Many men in same sex relationships
let each other stray for short distances.

They know that their eyes will wander
and find relief when they are accepted where the eyes go.
The heart and mind, and gonads, will surely follow,
but will look back and return
to where they started from
when they have had their fill.

But in matters of the errant heart
gay men are as prone as heterosexuals
to deceive themselves,
the better to deceive others,
that they can let each other wander
'as long as they are honest with each other'.

Gay men may seem 'more forgiving'
of each other than their hetero counterparts,
who for engaging with the nature of the opposite sex
misunderstand others as much as themselves.
.   
But lies are lies,
and when well told they are very popular.
Gay couples  are as prone to pride
as everyone else under the sun.

Nobody can be truly prepared
for the paradox of the lies that hide
inside when the license to roam
presents them with unforeseen choices.  

Bad News

and lies have always travelled fast
-much faster than truth.and positivity
This is true for the present and the past,
before the days of Twitter and electricity.

Unasked For Forgiveness

is often a surprise, and it can be a delight.

It can seem quite nice to be forgiven
-particularly for errors
that we never knew we had made.

But really I would rather that others didn't bother
with recovering the distance from wrong and right
purely on my account. 

Growing Pains

When what satisfies us keeps us immature
then Truth might well be far more healthy for us.

But it will leave us more bitter and distant from each other in the end.

Who's Laughing Now?

In the dim and distant past rulers were absolute.
History made the rulers' subjects
appear to be abject in their submission.

Rulers found light relief from decision making
through the  character of their jesters and fools,
and the many pets they kept as familiars.

Now, in the rich west, 'democracy'
has replaced the ancient autocracies.

Our leaders and representatives
are near enough to us for us to write to them,
and read lots about them in the popular press.
We can join the parties that produce these great leaders.

But there is little to be gained
from being just one small voice
among many in local party meetings.

In truth 99.9 % of us are are now more distant from power
than the clowns pets and jugglers were from the king's ear.
.


      

Putting The 'mental' Into Environmentalism

On my flight, as I prepared to leave,
I took the barely drunk from bottle of water
left behind by a fellow passenger.

I would never buy that sort of thing,
not least because of packaging
uses up three times more water
than I would be drinking.

It was packaged by Coca Cola
under the Northern Irish brand 'Deep River Rock'
as manufactured in Lisburn, Co Down.

The final absurdity-on-top-of-absurdity
was seeing that it had a 'best before' date,
as if such a figure was the best way
to measure the world and all it's resources.  

Picture Set Of The Month

Mohamed Melehi (born 1936) is one of the rarest of people

a modernist Moroccan painter 

who has scaled the heights of the international art world

with his 'wave abstracts' with their clean lines.
Read more about him here