Fair Exchange Needs No Apology

There are many in this world
whose policy is to 'never explain,
never apologise, not for anything.',
who live as if with every explanation
that gets given on their behalf
they need never forgive nor be forgiven.

But with every explanation given on their behalf
they are reminded of what they are missing;
the only folks who need to apologise less
are those who know when and why to say 'sorry';
They know that nobody is above exchanging apologies.

The present day unapologetic
are far from the first to be misled
into self belief, part of their reticence
is about denying the history of error
they perpetuate with every refused apology.

Fair exchange, even of apologies,
will never be a source of robbery.

Immurement

is much more than social isolation,
where the line out is the online life,
though to many
the online life can feel that way.

Immurement is also much more
that talking to yourself all day,
because you don't seek company.   

Immurement (from the Latin im- "in" and murus "wall";literally "walling in")
is imprisonment, usually until death,
where a person is placed
in an enclosed space that has no exits. 

This includes where people
have been enclosed
in extremely tight confinement,
such as within a coffin. 

In the days of religion immurement
used to be a form of ritual sacrifice.

Nowadays the most popular form of immurement
is solitary confinement in a maximum security prison
where those so detached are watched with cameras
and have none of the rights that 'ordinary' prisoners have.

Every country in the world has maximum security prisons,
Some prisons are medieval, others are hyper hi-tech.
The effect is the same whichever era the prisoners get.

This Non-Sporting Life

Every morning my buddy turns his radio on,
for literate company over toast and coffee.

When the station signals the next sports bulletin
he turns the volume down, preferring the silence
to pointless commentaries on competitiveness, 
to raise the volume when all talk of sport is over.

It is not that he is against certain styles
of human speech, sports commentators,
it is more that he is anti pointless statistics
where nobody asks where the lie went. 

The Gravity Of Showbiz and Other Irrationalities

Showbiz has always been unreliable,
such that one of the few reliable adages
it has given to the popular culture is
'Be nice to people on your way up,
you will meet them on your way down.'.

That phrase is like the acronym g.i.g.o.
which is derived from computers.
'Garbage in garbage out' points out
how binary and basic computer logic is.

All actions have consequences,
perhaps only humans believe
that when they set their will
to achieve their end irrationally,
the result will still be what they want
when the result is brought home to them. 

Popular Inattentiveness

'Background television' is very popular.
It is shown everywhere,
particularly in public places
where nobody cares who watches.
It fills the daytime schedules
and takes no effort to enjoy, or ignore.

What worries me about it
is how favourably it defines,
and implicitly encourages,
continuous partial attention;
a partial in/attentiveness
in which human beings
only ever partially give each other
their full attention, and deny
how diminished their attention span is. 

The Migrations Of Language Observed

In the smart new modern media
one phrase that stands out for me
is the phrase 'political playbook',
as used by news pundits
to describe the actions
of their politicians,
in particular the one,
the only, Donald J. Trump.

Of course, the word 'playbook'
is stolen from musical theatre,
where it describe the words
that are set to the tunes
that entertain the audience.

In the 1990's it was said that
'Politics is showbiz for ugly people',
though the phrase has older origins.
How predictable it is,
that one of the ugliest of them
should now be described
by the popular media he despises 
in terms of the showbiz tics
that he has knowingly stolen from.

Oh, that this chain
of words recycled and stolen,
was more reassuring.

Shema

You who live secure
in your warm houses,
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces.

         Consider whether this is a man
        Who labours in the mud
        Who knows no peace
        Who fights for a crust of bread
        Who dies at a yes or no
        Consider whether this is a woman
        With hair or name
        With no more strength to remember
        Eyes empty and womb cold
        As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
when you are in your house, when you are on your way,
when you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.

Written on the 10th Jan, 1946 by Primo Levi.
translated from the Italian by Ruth Feldman and Brian Stone.  

Blogger's note; Levi would have written this whilst lost, homeless, somewhere in mainland Europe after being set free from the Nazi death camps by Russian soldiers. He was released from the camp in which he saw so much wilful needless suffering in Summer 1945. He was left, like millions of others who were emotionally and physically burnt out survivors, to find his own way across a burnt out Europe back to what had been their homes. His destination was his home town of Turin, in Italy. The journey took him three years.          

The Nearly Man

One of the scripts that I am glad
has passed now passed out of my life
is that of being told how near I was
to so many chances that fizzled out
where my nearness to what I wanted
was what led to so many substitutions
where with hindsight the substitutes
were what I was meant to want all along.

This or that chance would be
waved in front of me only to disappear,
after which an excuse would be made
about where the idea had gone to hide
and how there was new hope
as long I accepted it had shrunk 
and was now in the hands of someone
I was forced to trust, in order
to be able to trust somebody.

I'd be told 'You nearly got (add item here)'
when the item was something I wanted
and I was deceived about the difference
between being teased and a genuine offer.

There is no teasing now, and less to want,
but the less I want the more I can have it.  

The Patron Saint Of Kitsch

Is a saint who is less called on nowadays,
his blessings are as dilute as they are diffuse.
They get sent into a world where images multiply
whilst information is merely meant to add up.

He does not so much distribute information
as disguise it through meaningless images 
via a media that multiplies and repeats itself,
as people are put at their ease with messages
that say less than intended, and less, and less.....

He is the saint who got lost
the more his message spread,
in his own circular selflessness. 

'Diplomacy, The American Way'

A 1986 poster designed by Soviet artist B. Yanin,
though when we examine the behaviours
of super-powers we can't tell them apart,
we can only know which side we are on
and therefore must give our flawed support,
hoping their support of us is stronger. 

 

How Far Away Are We From Wartime Paucity?

I worry about the worried well,
who say they are not hypochondriacs
whilst they are held in thrall
to the latest glossy adverts
for the latest glossy boosters to their health,
whilst in 'the developing world'
what that world develops is wars
and shortages where nobody dares to ask
'How far are we from wartime paucity?'  

Deceptive Listening

The distance between dyslexia
and an accidental pun is deceptive,
as many dyslexics has discovered
when they say something different
from what they heard in their head,
but their audience like what they said
sufficient that it would embarrass,
all concerned to hear the words
'I meant to say something else, instead.',
never mind the dyslexic then saying
what they originally meant to say
and simply losing the moment.

Tested For Isolation?

I have so far accepted the anti-social limits
that Covid, in all it's forms, has set me,
I have reluctantly embraced my isolation.

Now, though, I am being invited out,
to join the ranks of the worried well,
who manifest their worries
through frequent self administered, 
and officially registered, antigen tests.

I prefer the test of not going out
because mostly I have nowhere to go
and everybody has forgotten when I am.

If I could pass that test
I need never go out again.

Choice Wickedness

James, brother of Jesus,
was wrong when he wrote
'The tongue is the wickedest member'*
-though the tongue is good for gossip,
what gets the tongue gossiping most
is the wickedest, most proud, member.

The penis is what gives women
the greatest cause for self-doubt
and gives men the overconfidence
enough to help them deny responsibility,
or choice of refusal, for their worst actions.

*The epistle of James Chapter 3 Verse 6.  

Paint A Vulgar Picture

Because the picture of life for the poorest,
the easiest criminalised, and the least prepared
to defend themselves in any civil society
 will always look ugly. And it reads as
remarkably ugly in this 1971 pen portrait
of the down and outs and ne'er do wells
 of English society who lived in the Spike houses
of the day, and much much worse, as it would now. 

 

The Right Side Of Error

In my youth I was impetuous,
much to my parents disgust;
I joined an evangelical church
where the pastor always liked 
'to err on the side of caution'.

He thought caution the better error
when compared with wild abandon,
except when he ranted his sermons,
where his passion seemed safe to him.

I don't blame him for that
- everyone trusts appearances
when they should not,
and deceives themselves
more than they admit.

It took me long enough
to leave that church
and find an improved 
sense of self after.
To truly discover who I was
I had to leave the area.

After many trials and travails,
I err on the side of positivity;
that way I can believe in myself
even when I make my mistakes.
It has worked well for me so far.

The Marble Index

was the second solo album by Nico,
who was mentored by Jim Morrison 
to start writing her own songs and mine
her own life to find her own voice.
It worked, through the harmonium
being out of tune but in tune with her voice
and lyrics that nobody else could write
her voice and artistry remain as clear today
as it did when John Cale recorded her,
fifty three years ago this year.
Listen to the album here.  

 

A Diary Entry From A Well Lived Life

I had gone out chiefly to see old Dinny whose wife died early this morning. Mrs Leary, the fisherwoman, brought the news. Mary Dinny was a plain woman, with squinny eyes and snaggle teeth,; coming from the county Kildare, she was looked upon as a foreigner. Dinny and Mary loved one another very much but they were lonely for the four children who went very long abo to America. At first they wrote often and from time to time sent home little presents of money. They were "getting on fine; they were going to be married; they had babies; they were lucky to be in good places.". Then times were not so good. One by one they left off writing. Then perhaps a neighbour's son or daughter "out there" might send a word of news. After that, silence. I tried one way and another to trace them, but in vain. "If we c'd know how it is wid them ... if they be living or dead, or what way it is at all!".

The door was open, letting in a long beam of the westering sun. A turf fire smouldered on the hearth under the swinging kettle, a loaf' and a twist of sugar were on the table beside a battered tea-pot. The room was empty but for a couple of hens.

From the inner room came the sound of Dinny's voice. it was dim in there, for the pane of glass fixed into the wall, which did duty for a window, let in little light. The air was stale and acrid. Dinny sat on a box wedged between bed and wall; his gret head was on the pillow. Someone had shut his wife's squinny eyes and laid pennies on the lids; her arms, her toil-worn hands were lying stiffly either side of her. Her lips were drawn up showing the wolf-like fangs.

"Me darlin', me Darlin'," the old man was murmuring, "Me lovely one ... whatever'll happen me widout ye?". he looked up and saw me, "Here's the ladyship come to see us" he said to the white thing on the bed, getting up. Poor Dinny! Poor dazed Dinny! He squeezed along the wall and stood beside me at the foot of the bed; we looked at her together. "An" she  to be tuk from me that have the great need of her ... 'tis a quare thng," he said. "An' what will I do ... och! what will I do alone in the house wid meself?"

One of his neighbours has come in to make his tea; there is minced beef in a jar which James McCarthy brought from the well of his car, to be spread on his bread, or to be heated in the embers. Katie will comfort Dinny with her homely words better than I can. He comes out to the car with me, a dirty dishevelled old man, with fine manner for his race. "you'll forgive me for me being a bit moidhered , " he said as he put the rug over my knees. Then he looked up to the angry sky. "Get ye home, James McCarthy,", he said "For there is a great rain a comin' on the dark wind of night, a dark wind an' a great rain, an gloom all over the world. 

The above is practically a short story, but it is just one page from the diary of an Anglo/Irish country lady, published in 1998. It was edited by her grandson, the writer Jeremy Sandford. 'Mary Carberry's West Cork Journal 1898-1901' is a well respected book in Irish studies. It describes rural life, the ease with which pietism combines with wealth as easily as it works with poverty, and describes the gilded life of the landed classes with a gentleness that half makes the reader think we could go back there, and it would not be so bad for everyone, even though that life was for the few. It has compassion as it's underlying narrative even when oprobium might seem apt in describing certain characters.  

'And I Mean That Most Sincerely Folks..... '*

Please don't misunderstand me,
I will always be glad that the vote
has been given to so many,
and it is up to them to choose the few
who will go on to lead them,
along with choosing the remainder
who will be the opposition,
forever preparing themselves
to be the government of the future.

What nobody should do, though,
is conflate the universal franchise
with the idea of democracy itself. 

What is the difference?

When the right to vote is combined
with one candidate who forces others
to stand down, then that is autocracy,
ably supported by oligarchy or plutocracy,
often backed with arms. It is not democracy,
so the leader can be sincerely undemocratic.

When voters have a choice of parties
to vote for, and their policies are packaged
via a media that breaks down under pressure
then, at best, what the voter has compare
is the depth of  insincerity of each party.

*the catch phrase of one time television presenter
and would-be right wing demagogue Hughie Green,
for whom Opportunity did not just knock, but glue
it's finger to the doorbell, and press very hard,
long after it should have stopped doing so.   

Popular Mathematics

The more things change
the more they stay the same,
This is as true for Q Anon
as it is for every protest group
that is like them, through human history
who feel themselves to be impelled
to embrace a sense of disenfranchisement.

Whether the subject is statistics,
present day politics, religion/faith
or the grand sweep of recent history-
for them '2+2' will always '=5'
as they fail to decode mysteries
that are seemingly set up for them.

Roy Harper On David Bowie

 'When I first met David he was performing mime. In that respect he never changed. His life was one long brilliant mime. His various personas were the equal and musical equivalent of his favourite, Marcel Marceau.

He mimed many of his contemporaries without really ever copying them. His particular genius was to see an attitude, feel an inspiration, delivery or emotion in someone and be able to replicate and transgress that in an often superlative way of his own, which could not only give added insight to that source, but often lend it a satyrical edge, a playful touch or an irony.

Back in the day, he sold me a pair of Tibetan boots he’d got from a monk. He was more broke than me, and I gave him a ten bob note for them. He was gigging with just an ageing Grundig tape recorder at the time. The boots were really uncomfortable. The soles were made of wood and didn’t bend. They only lasted for a couple of years. Wish I still had them.

Wish we both still had those gigs to do.'.

written in 2016 and taken Roy Harper's facebook page.

New Year, New Status?

For refugees the concept of 'the birthday',
a day and date that they were born,
being a special day is beyond absurd.

Each day they survive poverty
whilst living under a threatening regime
is a trail by hardship that they have
to make special in it it's own way.

This hardship extends to the absence
of any official recognition
of births, marriages and deaths,
and denying all rites of passage.

But when a refugee reaches the wealthy West
they will always be asked for the date and year
on which they were born, as part of their new registration.

For most of them there can only be one date;
the date that they know defines a fresh start-January 1st.  

The Logic Of The Law

When I was taught to believe The Bible
I do wish my teachers had been clearer
about property law ancient and modern.
-how if something is on a person's land
and anyone goes to steal it,
by means that are legal or illegal,
then it is axiomatic that the thief
also commits trespass to complete the act
and when they defend the theft they will lie.

With the absoluteness of property
and the nature of the law, 
wanting what others have is jealousy,
taking is always more than theft
and we will always break more laws
by what we do than ever we expect it to.

Biblically, God has to be a jealous God
and we should fear jealousy in ourselves,
and our jealousy will never be like his,
and ontologically he is always right.   

On David Bowie's Birthday

I remember how his origins were as parochial
as everybody else's. He typed this letter to a fan
whilst he was touring all the small venues he could fill
with bands that changed members with a rapidity
that often surprised David, and left him bemused. 

 

The Ultimate 'Nudge' Gift....

For the smoker with a dark sense of humour
and some highly insensitive habits... 

 

Immoral Mathematics

Is it more sinful to lend money
at compound interest rates
than it is to lend the same money
at simple interest rates?

Or is the real sin in the borrower
who fails to resist the temptation
to live well beyond their means
because of the ease of appearance
that such impressions give? 

Wealth, Poverty, And Inequality

When Jesus talked about the poor
he knew that there were more of them
than could be fed and freed from debt.

He knew that government systems
would always recreate debt bondage
without seeming to. It is called economics.

But for those who hear his call,
feeding the poor is still worthwhile,
and they will always be out of fashion;
Prosperity Theology is not for them.

When the wealthy and powerful talk
of ending need, the need they most seek
to put an end to is the need to tax wealth,
and redistribute inheritance downwards.

Since wealth is such a blessing for elites,
such that it can't be divided, it can only divide
the elite from those they seek to represent
-the poor know that nothing could succeed
as well as wealth based hypocrisy.

Men, Women, And Lies

Gore Vidal used to to take instant dislikes
to many people he met, in his defence,
when queried about this he said 'It saves time'.
But aside from his acid talent for burning through
so many subjects, both in writing and with life,
there are good reasons for disliking some people.

We should not be surprised when a conman lies;
to the conman their lives depend on concealment
behind contradictory and evasive statements,
as much others need an internal consistency
for what they choose to say, to be believed.

That said the most difficult part we play,
as we seek consistency in behaviour,
is spotting the conman, and labelling him
before he ever tries to change our minds;
when we know his game we should know to not trust him*.

*yes there are con-women in the world,
often they exist in families where inheritances
are wrongly diverted and wills are contested.

Given the power imbalance that is a key part
of the patriarchal world, then women will lie,
If only to give themselves personal space
and get out from being directly underneath 
purely male-centred power structures.   

Check The Terms And Conditions

There is a vast difference between being happy
because you are in a child-like trance,
because without query you agreed to the way
somebody introduced themselves to you,
and being happy because you know
where the exits, entries, and limits are
with friendships you have.

In the former you are temporarily re-made,
unawares, to be child-like by A.N.Other
who wants you to be unable to use reason
when you want exit from being under their control.

In the latter you agreed to be with them 
in ways where you both know your exits,
and where and why they leave too, 
and with that you can be happy them.
Neither of you needs to use the exits yet..... 

People who want to misuse 'your inner child'
will never level with you about it,
they will work around what you say
and not meet your questions
when you need them to be direct and open. 

evasive people will always exist; let them,
and don't knowingly become one yourself,
little will you realise you are the first person
that you are lying to and dividing is yourself,
never mind how you misuse others after.... 

My Second New Year Card

Good Cheer can never be too late in arriving. 

 

Picture set Of The Month - The Record Sleeve Art of Souix And The Banshees

The record cover/sleeve art

of Souix and the Banshees

was never less than striking 

and surely more deserving of a celebration

than many other record sleeve designs of the 1980's. 

in a gallery of it's own; consider it done.