Representative Democracy;

is fog and mirrors writ large on public life.
It is at best it is a circular motion.
Rather like pork barrel politics
where for having the vote
people exchange the passivity
of being kept for the active hope
of being listened to and material gain.

Any politician acting against the pressures
of their media advisers, their gate-keepers,
on a platform of reform will never last
without appeasing the old interests
that got them where they are now.
So what is the real hope of change?

Where Is This Candidate Standing For Election?

In Airports And Bars

across the world televisions
on mute broadcast 24 hour
international news, of trouble
far from anywhere it's passing,
passive, viewers ever expect to be.

Party Polticians mouth toothless
soundbites into these transitory
consumer spaces, where people
are somewhere, but aren't really
anywhere, for their constantly
thinking to be somewhere else.

Like the best acts of charity
Democracy starts with
listening, and in the home.

Education In Feudal Times

Was not limited to preparing male youths to rule or to serve.
It was about preparing 'the fairer sex' in running the household,
and being skilled in the softer arts, embroidery and playing music
and the many other skills without which, even in feudal times,
a home was not a home, was not civilised. 

That what many women knew and did
in feudal times is now lost,
except to researchers of obscurities,
is more to our loss more than theirs.

It is as true now as it was then
that for life to be fit for sharing
that life had to look beyond 
the pursuit of power through conflict.