Greedflation And War Profiteering

with wars presently between Russia and Ukraine,
and Israel and Palestine, and wars in many other places 
are surely the modus operandi of all the companies
shown at the centre of this map. 

Just as surely as each of the brands listed here
is the favourite of the state it is shown in
remains omnipresent in the lives
of the people of that state.

Where America leads, in consumerism,
it expects the world to follow. So big brands
around the world will institute greedflation
in all the countries that cannot stop themselves
from being exploited, whilst being reassured
by wall-to-wall international advertising. 
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Misplaced Gratitude

I remain happy to sign online petitions
for causes I believe should go further
though I never know how much my name
added to the list really furthers the cause,
or how much signing might further me.

What gets to me is the follow up email
where the organisers thank me, to invite me
to other actions in support of their cause.

They have no need to thank me.
When they do it reminds me of how
with nearly every interview I have heard
whilst I have been listening to my radio,
the interviewer thanks the guest,
and the guest thanks the interviewer
in a show of courtesy so synthetic
and showbiz-y it makes a mockery
of sincerely meant 'good manners'.

I wish they were mock-rude instead,
it would be more genuinely friendly.    

A Life Of Stillness

Here's to the lives of people's whose life
has stopped because they exist in communities
where the power of speech means accepting
not being listened to. The result is still a life,
even when their routines have the momentum 
of a stopped clock-what they do is right
twice a day, but nobody knows when.

Such limited cogence from thought to word
to action is all that is left open to them.

For all those whose lives are so highly structured
that by rote they turn a deaf ear when they sense
other people's need to be heard, you ignore
the stillness and the ache in the wait to be heard
by others at your peril. Being ignored will come
to you in good time; I hope you understand it then.

 

Hot Feet?

Is it more than muddling metaphors
to suggest that those who 'drag their feet'
in any particular area of their life,
and in the lives of others, 
should have said feet 'held to the fire'
to stop said feet dragging any further?

Low Times Pass Very Slowly

I have tried to fit myself in
around 'the season of goodwill',
but for all my adult life it has been
a square peg/round hole operation;
more and more I fail to recognise
who I am from the words I use,
with  every attempt at complying. 

My thoughts run dry against
the infinitude of false sentiment
the commercial culture generates
every December, and now much earlier.
Such that from November on, for safety
sake, I permit myself to talk to myself,
but I will not say anything personal
to anyone else, to them I accept
being a mute but agreeable nonentity.

It is better to avoid conflict in conversation.

The Potency Of Cheap Music

Forty five years ago I was a teenager
on reduced pocket money who propped up
the divisions my parents kept between them,
submerged in my mother's life, as her helper.
The only interest I could laid any claim to,
as mine alone was popular music in it's several forms,

the national pop music station
was the cheapest, all it required
a lot of time, and mine was cheap.

Then there was the thirty minutes
a week when T.O.T.P. was on television.

But music I could buy and play
by myself meant more to me.
This is where the local grocer came in.
For years they had a box to the right
of the wooden payment counter
that was regularly refilled
with ex-jukebox singles sold at my kind of price.

The grocers must have looked at me a lot
as I looked through the contents of the box
much more than other people did, combined,
as I slowly chose which single to buy that week.

Fast forward to small town life in Ulster,
far away from where I grew up.
Music  is still my major interest, only now
I find music made from the 60s to the 90s,
randomly on CD. I use it to learn about
music I was never exposed to in the past.

As an adult I remain the expert in cheapness
that I was apprenticed into as a child.
Unlike then, I no longer watch television.
Music scores over television every time.

Picture Set of The Month - December - The Abstract Paintings of Simon Hantai

'Blancs' one a series of 1974 paintings by
Hungarian born French painter Simon Hantai.

Hantai (1922-2008) started painting in Hungary,
but the art market proved to be a powerful draw
and a passport to the world. The centre of that world
was Paris. His first home became The Surrealists.

'Tabula' a 1976 painting by Simon Hantai, an artist
who went through many art movements, eventually
settling on creating his own names for his work.  

'Mariale m.a.' as painted in 1960 by Simon 
Hantai, a painting created just before
when the language of art criticism
changed, thus he was saved from
a lot of the false selling that was to come.   

'Mariale m.d.4' as painted in 1962 by 
Simon Hantai (1922-2008) a man who devised
the idea of pliage (creased) a kind of work
where the random creases makes meaningful
shapes of what would otherwise be uninteresting.
Here is more information about him.