History Is A Palimpsest

of false divisions and distinctions
that different human beings
have written, randomly, over each other.

As one layer of writing succeeds another
it is no wonder
that we can't understand each other
or where we have come from. 

When Choice Changes Nothing What Is It Worth?

Changing our moods through medication
in lieu of changing the world has a long ignoble history,
from the earliest (assumed) use of psychotropics on;
In the 21st century we can't believe how brutal and inept
medical treatment was in even the very recent past.

Many treatments were prescribed by one person,
and forced upon others with no right of refusal.
In eugenics women were sterilized by  the thousand
because the intelligence tests devised for them
 approved of patriarchal hubris
more than permitted women intelligence.

Now, in the worlds richest countries
we have a commercial/medicated state
where the masses buy into the values
of an anti-depressants culture
rather than alter the depressive aspects
of the culture.

Only in their most private realms
can folks wonder why nothing ever changes...

Notes From Underground

Blaise Pascal and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referenced in one neat phrase.

My First Christmas Card of 2016

'The Thought Which  Sees' (1965)- Rene Magritte.

New Definitions

Democracy-the misrepresentation
of the great mass of the people
by the countries wealthiest citizens,
to publicly prove that nobody cares
about the decline in the quality
of the life for the poorest to nothing. 

Popular Malapropisms With Bertie Ahern.

Bertie Ahern was the Prime Minister/Taoiseach of Ireland
from 1997-2007 and has been involved politics since 1977.

His powers of speech had a unique way of leavening political debate,
by making people smile in spite of the serious matters
that he has had to deal with. 

Please accept the following as a sample....



"With hindsight, we all have 50-50 vision."

"We shouldn't upset the apple tart."

"We're not going to hang anyone on the guillotine."

"The cynics may point to the past but we live in the future."

"The grassroots or the rank and file are now made from Fibre optics."

"Charles J. Haughey wanted to transform Temple Bar into Ireland's West bank."

"I could certainly drink a fair few pints of Bass and be capable of driving."

"At present, I have my hand in whole lot of dykes, 
trying to keep them in and keep people together."

A Grief Observed

Twelve years to the week
since my canine spirit guide
left my best friend and I
we still seek out his traces
the better to make life seem fuller.

We were his third carers,
and he disappeared, probably died,
he was never apt to leave behind
anything as common as 'a body'.

Whatever we try to be
we are still only a fraction
of the person that he was.

Malcolm (left) , Oscar D. Tail (right) probably circa 2003.