Signs Of Greater Age (35)

1-Learning that isms don't work,
they are out-of-scale solutions.
It does not matter which ism
or cause it is, whatever is true
and worth following about it
there is a lot more that proves
even more worth forgetting.

2-Finding the politics
of politicians your own age
and younger rather immature.
Whatever party they stand for
what they say proves a triumph
for presentation, over content.

A Turkish Proverb

Good people are like candles;
they burn themselves up to give others light.

Not On my Watch?

For most of Christian History
the view from faith was 'I believe
that the world will end.
I really want that ending,
complete with all the suffering
which that entails, but....
  ...I don't want to be the agent-
I want it to happen through
my descendants in faith
and the obedient angels'.

Perhaps suffering is inevitable,
and we all know how pain
creates its own consequences.
But it seems to be an egotism
beyond belief to naturalize self  growth
into a pain that diminishes another,
particularly whilst denying the obverse,
zero-sum-logic, of how if we chose
we could live well on less
and reduce the discomfort of others.

More Light Than Heat

Most people prefer to be the sun
-there to lighten up everyone’s life,
but I'd like to be the moon,
to illumin the darkest hour
of whoever is around me.

A Good Idea

He was condemned for it, and survived, so may you.....

The Man Who Heard The Future

'Noise benumbs our ears and I truly believe that a few years from now we shall detect no differences except between large intervals. We shall lose sight of the semitone, and arrive at no longer perceiving anything but the third, then the fourth, finally the fifth.  Rhythmic shock increasingly plays the predominant role and no longer the sensual delight in melody. At the rate at which we are going, before the end of the century we shall have a very scanty and barbaric music, combining a rudimentary melody with brutally stressed rhythms – marvellously suited to the ears of the music lovers of the year 2000!' -written in 1951 by Arthur Honegger

The Fear Of Predictions

The conversation that annoys me most
is being told 'You are at a crossroads'.
It is as if my teller knows better than I
what is about to happen to me,
and is being firmly opaque about the detail.

Such talk is a cliche beyond belief.
Some roads will give us choices,
but they will never be obvious
before they are presented
-there is no point in being told.
Only scenes from a past
sufficiently beyond dispute
are fine to be described so-
but there what takes hold
is the art of telling a story.