Revenge Is Best When Prepared Thoroughly

One aspect of Islam that has often foxed me
is how it's patriarchies define female honour
in terms of the needs of the patriarchies,
and seemingly solely for their own gain,
though one other effect is to further internalise
the competition between men for ownership.

The issue must be more than tribal,
though that would cover quite a lot masculine aggression
over the virtue (and suspected lack of same) in women.

If women as a matriarchy defined their honour
by and for themselves first, and for men second
would they be more forgiving than men are in defending it?
More consistent? And what gentler and more merciful
punishments might they judicially commit on male offenders
who besmirch women's self defined and autonomous honour?
The jury on those questions can only meet in secret at present
but in the meanwhile I will admire how the person
who photographed this cutting beheaded the word 'revenge'....    
 

Signs Of Greater Age (28)

1-when you leave the house the last two questions
you ask yourself are 'Which hat shall I wear today?'
and 'What bag do I need to take with me?'.
That is after it took ages to vouchsafe
for your list, house/car keys and purse/wallet.

2-admiring Morrissey for his media profile
rather more than the music he puts out-
he puts so much energy into being awkward
with the people he ought to want to help him
that he makes being maladaptive an art form.

 

Opinions

are like arseholes-we all have one.
It also takes some cheek
to share them with other people.

Like Cruelty

kindness is something we make
through our thoughts and actions.
It does not come out of a tap-
we are the source of both,
and we so easily turn off the kindness-
in favour of indifference.
Worse, we can come to think
that the good we do is not ours
to do, but for some other person
to tell to deliver on our behalf,
and still claim it as our kindness.
Worst of all is the belief we deserve
far more credit for our kindness
(or our cruelty) than we get.

Brotherly Love

In my parents fractured lives
there were two subjects above all others
which were banned from polite conversation.
Saying conversation should be polite was rhetorical
-there was no choice-all conversation had to be polite.
Talk of any other type occasionally crept in
but only when life really hurt. Pain had to be veiled
enough to be shared that the pain was deepened.
The listening was always just enough to make respite
appear possible but actually be impossible.
The two subjects utterly banned were homosexuality
and organised religion-the only sort of religion
they knew about, for being theologically illiterate.
It is odd to me how I have been enriched by my experiences
of both banned subjects, these two have initiated me
in a deep sense of loss, and (rarely) great elation.
Even now both subjects are mirrors of truth to me.
For my parents their biggest taboo was the pain
of disagreeing with each other, which they did rarely
and never civilly, which they deny they ever did at all.
In their avoidance they created their personal catch-22,
in which the more polite they were on the surface
the less they said to each other, and they meant less
by it, until they froze in the atmosphere between them.

The Appreciation Gap

The greatest luxury ever
is to live in a comfort
we affect to despise
but refuse to repudiate.

Note To Self

For when that self runs off the rails.
J. Lacan, The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, 34 (1969)