Of Rats And Men

In his youth Vladimir Putin
was part of the Leningrad gangs
who chased and tormented the city's rats.
With time being slack and money being tight,
and both youth and vermin being plentiful,
what came to matter most was fear and hierarchy.

The rats had the greater penchant
than the gangs for mutual grooming.

What the young Vlad Putin did not learn
was that under Communism even the vermin
have to be approved by the state to be allowed to live.
The party even had a membership process for it's furry friends.

Myth has it that he cornered, and released,
one particularly large and handsome rat.
What the myth failed to reveal since
was that he did not know that the rat
was there to recruit the young Vlad to the KGB.

He let the rat live, and it left him the RSVP.
The invitation was followed up many years later
as the Soviet Union was in retreat, but not yet defeated.

What I want to know
is where that KGB rat is now?
And what do his Ukrainian kin
think of the consequences of his actions?  

Porn, Sarcasm, and Accusations of Nazism

were predicted to become the staple fare
of the internet in 2010,
so how is each of them fairing 12 years on?

With porn, which is not just sexual images
but images of anything that can be rendered
into compulsive/obsessive viewing,
e.g. guns and food and video games,
much of it has now been regularised.

Copyright law has updated what internet providers
provide, so much of the secretive thrill
some obsessives used to get from their sources
being illicit is now gone, as they watch and read
material that it's producers now get paid properly for providing.

With sarcasm we should look at news and politics,
where observation gets fused with criticism
of this or point of view, and the media polarises
as built in bias divides how any people see each other.

With accusations of Nazism matter are even worse;
it used to be that most who were accused of Nazism
were right wing and anti-libertarian, but not Nazis.
They had no intention of becoming so.
But with the false ease of accusation
has come a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy;
the accusations has regularised opinion
to make being a Nazi seem relatively normal.

Dedicated To Irina Ratushinskaya

Blue cornflowers on the edge of a path
And fields roll away like the ocean
reveal to me cuckoo* reveal to me true
how much of my freedom is left to me?
And what of the combat with forces of dark,
And shall there be joy in my lifetime? -
I am ask you cuckoo please tell me, please tell....
But why are you still silent? -Elena Sannikova  

*There is a Russian tradition that when you hear
the cuckoo calling you as it 'How many years do I have?'
and you count the number of calls.

Uncomfortably Unimportant?

President Putin gave up peace for Lent
he gave it up well before Lent started, 
since then all normal news has been cancelled.

The news will not go back 
to the stock market indexes
being quoted at the end of every bulletin,
as if they are the financial weather, for a long time yet.

What we will get instead is the daily disarray
where the news is driven on
by pictures of tanks and bombs 
which as they trample over buildings
make redundant texts and reason,
and helped us rediscover 
how horribly photogenic
bombed buildings can be.

But enough about the abstract sculptures
in now uninhabitable spaces,
and latest deadly human statistics
that the war on Ukraine has created,
they are merely the outward signs
of the latest existential threat,
which is merely updates
all the threats that have gone before.

For now civilians in far off countries
are caught between wanting their troubles
to appear to be small and the reality
that is there for us all, of realising
that for our wanting small troubles
what we want is to become
uncomfortably unimportant.     

Friend Or Foe?

When I hear claims that WW3 is imminent
I am always unsure of how to respond.

My first thought is to check;
who is saying that it is coming?
This is more than a matter of semantics.

If the speaker is a despot
who I know seeks to divide
and to conquer all before him 
then I will surely disagree with them;
even if they might be right I will never accept
the divisive motive that lies behind their words.

And Now The Good News

It could only be better if you did not have
a job to go to that between the multiple chances 
of the end of the world as we know it
you knew was not going to last.

 

Complications

Given Facebook's tendency
towards distorting reality,
whilst simplifying so much,
it is rare that Facebook and life
are both right about the same thing,
but there is one thing they both agree on;
relationships are complicated. 

The Mouse Of Liberty

In the last month Art Spiegelman,
author of 'Maus' has endured his book
being banned in some American states,
banned from being taught in schools, 
as if it were 'dirty' to inform children
that The Holocaust was real,
and Holocaust denial is absurd.

All this happens as American Authoritarianism
denies The Holocaust in the name of denying
that it too is bullying and authoritarian;
such denial is becoming collective as it gathers pace.

Now the internet has re-legitimised Nazism,
through the accusation of it being the last way
to win a weak argument, and Russian bully politics
legitimise invading Ukraine on the back
of saying that the Ukrainian government
'had Nazis in it', I fear that the truthful art
of Art Spiegelman may yet lose it's place
in a world where bullying authoritarianism
legitimises itself by the lies it tells about it's enemies.  

The Three Fates

When I was a young homosexual,
I had no language for how to talk about it.
But if I tried to develop a conversation
around how I felt, then I could count
on getting any one of three responses,
though for all the technical differences
between them they amounted to one;
'We don't have to pay attention to you.'.

The first fate was invisibility,
my first experience of this
happened to me at age 11
after I was sexually assaulted.

You don't need the details for that,
but let me assure you; it happened.

The second response was
'sloppy conversion therapy',
where when I lead the conversation
in one direction, I am overwhelmed
by the insistence of who I am talking with,
such that I neglect my condition of 'being gay'
to make them feel better about
them not having any helpful answers.

The third fate was 'free invisibility',
where the phrase by St Augustine
'Love God and do as you like'
was adapted to secular purpose,
as if all means and every goal was noble.

I was free to do as I pleased
as long as I accepted
that there was no language
for the intimacies of my choice.

All that was left to be safe
was sex in public toilets
in some sort of sexual guerrilla action.

I write all this, it was a few short decades ago.
But recently I was reminded of the old choices again;
These choices are what Russia is offering Ukraine. 

War, Victims, And Tragic Mis-Communications

It is a little over a century,
a very violent century at that,
since the phrase was popularly coined
'When war is declared, the first victim is truth.'.
It was mis-attributed to U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson,
after the late entry of America
into the first world war.
Nowhere can it be found
in any papers he left behind.

That it is mis-attributed to him
is perhaps proof of the power of war,
about which Aeschylus knew more,
as the ancient Greek playwright
was the original author of the phrase
he knew about tragedy, he wrote them.

For anyone who wants to know
why the present war is happening
here is the background to it all,
you decide what might be true
and what might be lost forever. 

Reverse Victimologies

One of the better disguised
reverse victim-ologies when I was young
was being warned before I was punished
'This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you',
as if I was the one to instigate all the pain
when I was simply who it landed upon. 

Pseuds Corner Is A Serious Place

There is no room there for anyone
to let daylight in on pretension,
through the exercise of a humour
that reveals the folly of absurdity.

An Encouragement To Do Something New

and if you do it often enough
then you will get better at it,
and reward s will come to you.

 

Inequality Multiplied ?

We know now, how Covid 19 made the ultra-rich richer
and the poor poorer in the wealthiest countries in The West,
because of the way the virus limited basic low paid work,
whilst capital took flight to the most profitable climates. 

I wonder, how much the sanctions presently aimed at Russia
will not only hit the poor much harder than the rich there,
but they will also have the same effect as Covid did in The West;
they will make the obscenely wealthy to become even more obscene,
and further limit those on basic incomes from truly advancing?

The script will be 'commodity prices rising'
but what it will mean is 'human hopes shrinking',
as what keeps the rich richer makes for more poverty
from which there will be no exit for the rest of us.   

  

Between Ignorance and Innocence

There is certain space that is hard to define
-to any observer looking at it from outside
they both look, and both seem, the same.

The ignorant have no measure
for how little they know. 
This makes what they do know
and act upon to be dangerous.

Innocence is improved by reason,
so that what the innocent see divides
into what they will willingly accept
and what they know to refuse
through the arguments they learn
-anything else would be naivety. 

Friends Disunited

Covid 19 has killed relatively few people,
compared with the plagues of the past,
though we have yet to get the measure
of how many animals are going to suffer
from illness beyond their comprehension.
Nor will we know the effect of Covid 19
on the food chain for some time to come.

But just as war became a false excuse
to end so many strained relationships,
where the strains that were accepted in peace,
were sacrificed to meet the needs of the hour,
and give heft to the false patriotism required,
so Covid is also a chance to make changes
in relationships that were past their 'end-by' date.

I had one such relationship.

Before Covid we each struggled to connect,
and connected through our struggles with trust.
What we each actually thought was rarely discussed.
The attempted friendship started twenty years ago,
when we both had 'bad nerves', which we attempted
to calm in each other. With Covid  our nerves multiplied
driven by government 'propaganda, where we could not tell
what to trust and what mistrust, particularly in each other.

The reckoning came when he invited himself to see me,
did not wear a mask, and we exchanged strained silences,
as if we both missed something but it was not each other,
and neither of us knew what it was we were looking for.  

Hours after he left there was anger from him,
in it he fully played out the role of victim
for me not being and doing as he wanted.
I was past caring, I disbelieved him
beyond all ability to respond with hope.

In one hour I lost a friend I'd kept
as close as I could for twenty years,
but the letting go helped in the end;
When I stood up again I had stand
with better balance on my own two feet. 

The Height Of Over-Reaction

may not yet have been reached
in the now-former Ukraine,
though all civil life there is gone.

It has fled with the over 3,000,000 refugees
whose urge to escape arose in an instant,
leaving neighbouring countries to hastily
assemble places for Ukrainians to stay in,
and to work out their short term futures.

Oddly, as I write the internet still works in The Ukraine.
Perhaps the internet is harder to destroy than we think.
I can't imagine, though, who will be using it most
when the war is so against daily life which is so fragile. 

And in Russia millions who are uncomfortably poor
may yet be forced to return to a pre-internet life
as ease of Western technology Russians used to enjoy
goes West again, as the sanctions that most hurt the poor
'have to be applied' to loosen Putin's grip on his military.

One thing will be sure; blogging will seem unimportant.  

On Being A Non-Joiner

There are a lot of measures
by which to treasure
how much of an outsider you are,
but few come closer
than not joining book clubs
and yet still being well read
for simple satisfaction.

Being Alone Is More Common Than We Think

When a people live with open conflict
and are the minority/weaker party
they are quite right to feel afraid
at how they might be miscast
for their role in conflicts
they did not start and can't end. 

But, like faith, and like fear,
feeling as if you are in a minority is a fact of life. 

The scale of faith to fear is one of the many scales
on which we find ourselves tested,
particularly when we are a minority,
where only posterity shows the result.

Tacit Disagreement

is the most common way to agree
that most of us know, 
when what each of us says
is different to what we each of us thinks
and we consider it wise to not say so.   

Smiling Men With Bad Reputations

I don't know what it takes 
to like sport as entertainment,
any more than I know
how to enjoy being competitive.

No sporting activity
I was ever enrolled to lose in
ever involved mentoring.

I have no idea how it feels
to feel supported as you compete,
and regardless of the result,
simply 'keep in the game'.

I see sports speculation and news
as public relations exercises,
where a win by a given side
props up the status quo,
a loss represents instability,
possible insecurity and change;
whatever happens the speculators
continue with their speculations. 

From the 1936 Olympics onward,
states with democratic deficits
have enjoyed staging public sports events;
they are cheap way of improving
their reputations whilst avoiding
doing anything to address
why they got the bad rep in the first place.   

Great Turn Off's Of Our Time (28)

When war broke out in previous times
it used to be common, in a good way,
to say 'the first victim in war is truth'.
Part of the truth being the victim of war
was being unable to find where we thought
truth used to be, when we tried to trace it back,
or find out where the truth was presently hiding.

The wider point was about the capacity
of peacetime propaganda in our own country
to make all seem well abroad, whilst 'over there'
(you name the country you understand little of)
persecutions go on which eventually spread,
beyond the region, to threaten to everyone.  

The truth is that we rarely see transparency,
and not just because because it is see-thru,
but because with the human decency it exemplifies
we just don't realise, how much we take it for granted.
Until we realise; we read life through a glass darkly.     

Right Shoes, Wrong Life

When I was young the memory of WW2
was strong in the adults who were children
when the war raged over their heads,
and went well beyond their understanding.

The biggest sign of their reliving
what they could neither forgive nor forget
was the insistence that their offspring
always have shoes that were new
and that these shoes fitted well. 

So far, so fresh a start,
but after that the weight
of being grateful for the war
that meant I had to have new shoes
became something of a burden.

How much happier would I have been
with somewhat less well shod feet,
but sharing more equally with others?
Where none of us endured
a forced gratitude, because a war
had been won for our creature comforts?   

Armchair Calisthenics

Recently it has been discovered that children
who play video games (are there any that don't?)
have convinced themselves that such inactivity
is a form of exercise, there is nothing new in that.

Sixty years ago, when their grandparents,
bought their first black and white television sets,
Saturday afternoons became sacrosanct.
Both television channels recognised how men
liked sport-it was a gender cliche writ large.
not that the TV executives wanted men
to actually play sport, and engage with a mentor
who might get them properly fit and agile.

The TV execs wanted a passive audience for their output
that did not openly upset the family, which gave men
that life apart from family that they believed they deserved.

Who knows what the executives of the companies
that design and sell video games are thinking?
They are far too far away for their thoughts
to be sought, but I am sure that they hope
that inactivity can be made to be addictive.        

Middle Age

is like a pair of pyjama bottoms -both lose their former elasticity, particularly around the waistline.

Alas, in both some parts suffer greater wear and tear than others, and have greater need for repair than where the wear is less

Given the fitter competition replacement will become erasure, or recycling-better to go on, poorly clad as we are, than end of the adventure.

Ragged self repair is the best preparation for what comes next

The only way to face old age is seek acceptance with honesty, unashamed of the tattered remains we stand in, and seek to leave behind.

At The Lock In At The End of The World

in the never-ending-end-of-world-restaurant
the food and drink keep on being served,
but the diners always refuse their just deserts,
the better, in their view, to postpone new arrivals,
put off paying for the meal, keep the restaurant busy,
whilst they continue to refuse to accept their exit.... 

The Top Ten Myths

that Russia is spreading through state media and non-state Russian media in order to justify it's actions against The Ukraine, and lay the ground for the invasion of who knows how many more former Soviet satellite states;

1. 1-“Russian-speaking residents in the Donbas region of Ukraine have been subjected to genocide.” (The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has found no evidence of this).

2. 2-“Polish-speaking saboteurs attempted to bomb a chlorine plant in Donbas.” (There is a video of an attack on the Chlorine plant in the Donbas but it is “fake news”. The video was recorded  days before the alleged attack is said to have taken place.).

3. 3-“Ukrainian forces bombed a kindergarten in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, on 17 February 2022.” (The kindergarten was shelled, but the shelling came from Russian-separatist front-lines).

4. 4-“Russia did not target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine at the start of invasion.” (One day after the invasion, Amnesty International documented at least three Russian military attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine.).

5. 5-“Nazism is rampant in Ukrainian politics and society, supported by authorities in Kyiv.”. (Palpably false; The candidate for the far-right nationalist party, Svoboda, won 1.6% of the vote in the 2019 presidential election.).

6. 6-“The west staged a coup to overthrow the pro-Russia Ukrainian government in 2014.” (There is no evidence supporting the theory that the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine was a coup orchestrated by western countries.).

7. 7-“The US has a network of bio-weapons labs in eastern Europe.” These claims are based on a misrepresentation of the US Department of Defence’s Biological Threat Reduction Program.

8. 8-“Nato has a military base in Odesa, southern Ukraine.”. Foreign military bases are not permitted in Ukraine.

9. 9-“The Crimea joined Russia legally.” The UN Assembly declared a 2014 referendum that backed Crimea joining Russia was illegitimate.

10. 10-“Modern Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia.” The world's first Communist state was the Russian state, first set up 105 years ago. It was wound up as an empire a mere thirty years ago. Russia and The Ukraine share a heritage that dates back more than 1,000 years. The Ukraine has a history which goes back further than any Russian history.

Petition Fatigue

Is one of the common temptations of the online life. 

In the analogue past defensive householders
would have a notice next to their front door
that said 'No hawkers or religious callers. Thank you.'.
to which they could point and help them expel the caller
whilst bidding them 'Good day.'. With frosty disdain.

On their post box it would say 'Post, no bills.',
meaning no hand bills for products or causes
the householder has not given prior approval of. 

It is harder to make a similar defence with our emails.
through which we  receive the simulated sociability,
though various blocks and filters will hide from us
material we estimate that we don't want to see.

But when another petition for another good cause
lands in our inbox, having evaded the filters
then the petition meets the human filter,
'How many times have I read similar to this before?'
where the same subject has been through many courts
and has given many lawyers a renewed income
as commerce fights ethics for the millionth time,
and the audience know too little about the cause,
or the court case, to know with whom to side.   

Appetite Vs Engagement

In the dying days of the rich west
the wealthy have all the time
anyone could want; whatever
their technology does not do
their maids servants can do instead,
leaving them to plan infinity.

Urgency is conspicuously absent.
When the poorer folk live in similar ways
nobody should be surprised to see
how serial snacking leads to obesity.

Inattentively snacking on over-processed 'foods'
fits well around having a partial attention span,
where what we do and what we eat
merge into one slow but continuous
splurge of partial in/attentiveness
where we half get things done,
eat too much, and leave ourselves
more for to be finished off later.  

Picture set of The Month - March - Belfast In Bloom

 

Keeping Belfast in permanent bloom

is far easier than you might think

with so many art students with the skills
to be imitation gardeners

at the city's disposal who have
too much time on their hands. 

And besides they make a good distraction
from the cameras that watch, and 'keep the peace'.