Great Turn-Offs Of Our Time (15)

So much is being put 'Under Review'
at this present rate,
by the time that it is all properly reviewed
so much more reviewing will be deferred
that for many the future will be cancelled.  

A Trapped Man Writes

Everywhere man is free
but he enslaves himself,
and what remains of the planet,
through language.

Life On Mars

The new safe distance to keep from
getting other people's germs
is about six feet, and then some.

But in these contagious times
no distance could be safe enough
for us to safely deal with the most selfish
and self centred of individuals,
particularly those who are unaware
of how self centred they are.

When I can, I going to move to Mars.
I am told the atmosphere is welcoming
by comparison with some human beings. 

Welcome To The New Self Isolating Capitalism

Where most of the adverts are online
and on television, and rather like this blog
they can be removed at the press of a button. 

Fools Exist

to tempt wise men to hubris.

Putting The 'Plan' Into 'Explanation'

Between Utopia and Dystopia
lies Ustopia, where we have lived
were we but to recognise it for where it is.

If Dystopia is where we don't want to live
and Utopia is place that we recognise
for us never having been there
-a place we recognise from brochures-
then Ustopia is somewhere in between.

It is what we have built
based on where we have not lived
but we wish we did live there.

The best of man is still ruins
built from blueprints
he does never understood.

Down The Drain

In this time of emergencies and the questioning of every value
that we once held dear and close preserve the best of what we are
and leave the rest to go down the drain, where it was always going to go. 

Unimportantly Yours

I am not a nurse, not a postman,
nor any other vital profession
that requires special protection
and yet like many others
I will do what there is to do
in this present spontaneous quiet
to work out how to be neighbour
at the distance I have to be
from those around me. 

The Commonplace And The Valuable

When the words we have
to say what we mean
are all commonplace
that should not suggest
that what we mean
should be disregarded
in the longer term. 

However Far Apart We Must Be For Now

'The shortest distance between two people is a smile'-Victor Borge.
Though a wave, or an emoji by those online, might do at a push.....

This Blog Is Taking An Extended Break

What with all the inaccurate bad news
that is being told in over-grave tones
that there is being spread about
there is a need for less comment in the world
and for what should be recognised
to be more privately observed and shared.

Human Product

When a band of musicians
turn themselves in a brand
the better to sell their music
to the modern masses
in consumer cyber space
little do the grasp
how their being part of a brand
shrinks them into human product
that is unworthy of human curiosity.

How then can they create
any sense of care free excitement? 

Exposed

Weak leaders present themselves as 'Mr Smart'
with their penny pinching short cuts
which they think few people  notice,
as they move to remove the reserves
from the systems that everyone relies upon.

The press will always be praise Mr Smart
and his friends for their sense of economy
but we all know this will lead to us being exposed
when what we depend on is becomes full of holes.   

Ringing Out The Patriarchy

The history of the names of bells
in The Churches of England
is a small lesson in patriarchy, in itself.

Big Ben, Little John, and Great Peter
are among the many famous bells with names.
Find several more churches/named bells here.

When the first Christian Church bell
is christened with a female name
will it push the virus off the top of the headlines?
It should how patriarchy is nearly as old
as some of the oldest diseases,
and some might say nearly as toxic.


    

Is Your Worry Worth It?

We all cause each other to worry,
many of us cause more worries in others
than we can ever know about.

Only those who worry can know
whether their worries were worth it.  

The Far And Near Of Life

One of the less well made points
about the tides of history,
all the wars, health scares
and restructured economies,
is about how easily
the mass media hysteria
weakens our sense of reason
collapses our aspirations
and limits of our thought,
and after having exhausted us
with false news from far and near
then puts the 'me' into 'home'.  

A Humorous Toilet

I suppose that is 'right dress' then....

Present Laughter

'One evening, something took place that, unknown to me at the time, was to give an unusual purpose to my life. The headmaster announced that there was to be a school debate. What a debate was had to be explained to most of us. The motion before us was something to do with public transport. The debate began. Masters spoke. Boys droned on about this and that.

  Probably mishearing some debating point, or idiotically misunderstanding it, I got up and I said something or other, and everybody laughed, and laughed really quite loudly. I blushed. thinking I had been stupid but I was very far from being displeased.

  Golly what an agreeable sound, I thought, and I had, however unwittingly, caused it. I had suddenly become consciously aware of laughter and since that day always tried to go where the laughter was, to seek laughter out, to impede laughter as little as possible, to have as friends people who can make me laugh (they have been extremely kind), to read books that intentionally or otherwise promote laughter, to see plays intended to provide laughter.

  I am aware that as a major aim in life this has been frivolous and petty, and, maybe, rather contemptible and that I should have been worrying about the world, the human condition, and poverty and famine and misery. But I am afraid I haven't been and, I must confess, it's been great fun.'.

 - Arthur Marshall quoted from his essay 'A Crooked Bat' featured in the 1974 book of essays and book reviews by the author, titled 'Girls Will Be Girls'. It is a fast of innocent but great humour.     

Nineteen To One

This International Women's day
you should know about the number of women
vs the number of men who are named in The Bible.

In the Old and New Testaments combined
1770 different men are given their names
and often their deeds are copiously credited
whereas only 93 women's names are mentioned
and what they did often remained unknown.

The ratio of nineteen to one
would be less if we added to the list
the number of women who were mentioned
but left unnamed, as if their names
might bring shame on the holy men
that they secretly sought wisdom from. 

And lest we forget, all those men
who were credited as holy and patriarchs
in part had the reputations that they had
because they had mothers who cared for them,
teaching the men to care the world as they saw it.
   

  

Little Boxes

I understand well enough how on facebook
it's messaging service has come to replace
the telephone landline of old
and the slowness and 'bother'
of writing and posting letters.

Whilst I admire the efficiency
of it all, the loss of slowness
hides the shrinkage of open courtesy.   

Girls Will Be Girls

Particularly when it is National Book Day
and the above is what I am reading.
So much for testosterone.....

Building On The Achievements Of Others

The more we build
the more we miss
of what was there
before it was built on.

To get us to forget this
building firms that put up houses
name the estates that they put up
after the previous forest, glade
or other feature that fed nature.

Or as John Prescott, the politician
who was recent master of the malaprop,
even more than George W Bush, once put it

The Green Belt is a Labour achievement
 — and we mean to build on it.

and in the UK we have been building ever since,
to the point of turning land that was green belt,
reserved for trees and wildlife, into flood planes
on which home owners can't get insurance.... 

Strong And Sensitive

Every time I go on line
I go to places that warn me
that therein is 'strong language',
if it is Tumblr then it is 'sensitive media'.

The people who manage the sites
don't know how much they annoy me
with their euphemistic warnings.

These places seem not to know
that I access what I do
because it is that 'strong'
and because I am so 'sensitive'.

Some of us were made that way.

Picture Set Of The Month - March

'Cataract III'-Bridget Riley

'Cataract IV' painted in 1967 by Bridget Riley

'Cataract 1' painted in 1965 by Bridget Riley