Multiplying Pain

In the house that raised me
The Bible was quoted
but with none of pietist intent
that Biblical phrases
were meant to come with.

But phrases from the good book
did form part of our daily bread.

The phrase that got used most often
was 'Go forth and multiply',
which became the acceptable way
of saying 'Fuck off' to what or who
we wanted not to confound us,
in the moment the phrase was said.  

It was our way of getting around
the collective self censorship
of not being allowed to swear
and being disallowed our anger.
It was meant to be a way out of despair.

The house was like a prison cell;
it was too small a space
for the people it had to contain
to allow them to have a row,
and for the ensuing anger
to be disbursed fast enough
to restore the domestic calm
for the benefit of those
unconcerned by the matter. 

Little did I think back then
that in saying 'Go forth and multiply'
that what we were actually saying
in the moment to the causes of our ire
was 'Pain; multiply yourself somewhere else.'
as if the world was made to be place of pain.

But the unawareness of depression is like that.

Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair

I first read the dystopian classic '1984'
when I was an uneducated teenager.
I have forgotten much of the book,
beyond how the prose style suggested
a life that was dusty, tired, and over-processed.

One scene that was not in the book
was the live broadcast of an execution,
the type of thing which inspires mass numbness
and a fearful and painful public indifference.
But inspired by the book such an event
became a powerful fantasy for me,
a fixation a could neither rid myself of
nor share which was part of me for years.

Now I know my fantasy actually happened
and not only was the execution broadcast live
on local radio 'because it is a news story',
but the method of the execution travelled
and was much used. Please listen about it here.  

Courtesy And Attentiveness

When I was young and naive I was taught
when say 'please' and 'thank you', and how
to not get in the way, quietly. And I obeyed.
I learnt to not ask questions that nobody
wanted to answer, of which there were lots.
I am glad I learnt my manners.
In adulthood they help me hold the attention of other adults,
and I learned how be rude with sophistication.
But the older I got the more my naivety wore thin,
through more questions being allowed,
and even more-answered. But only with lies,
and the bigger the lie the more the truth mattered.
I was rhetoricaIly accused of 'being stupid',
by those those closest to me who previously bade me speak
only when spoken to. Since a dignified retreat
from the bad manners and paradoxes of  my accusers
was impossible I went from a child-like naivety to sullen inattention,
with no intervening period. In a culture of lies
(what other culture is there?) detachment is valid defense.