For Black History Month

Major General Horatio Gordon Robley with his collection of tattooed Maori heads, 1895. For myself, I can't begin to imagine how the empire cast of mind ignored the death and destruction that the many empires left behind as they grew and competed with each other.  

 

Looking Back

One of the habits I fail to understand
is the apparent passivity in friendships
where we used to talk about making changes
in how we lived and what we lived with,
changes that each of us wanted to make,
but we never got beyond the chatter.

Now I am more alone and I am unpopular.
I remember those conversations with fondness;
now is the time to act on what we talked about then.
I am glad we had the chat, but wish I had acted earlier.   

'Orchard Road'

Right now Greenwash is multiplying at alarming rates, 

as corporations and politicians offer voters the earth,

as if it were theirs to return, half clean, to their constituents, 

or, better still, to claim for just themselves, 

in some new sham-show of 'democracy',

historically the least weakest system of government.

But even as we see the compromised promises multiply 

we should step back and see how far back greenwash goes.

With any and every city it has always been

that when they extended they built on the farm land

that used to serve the city. As a sop to the past,

developers name the roads, cresents and avenues

after the former use the land was put to, 

and the trees that helped the city breathe,

in the way that tombstones commemorate the dead.

That the people in these new houses

have the names of where they live

as a guide as to what used to be there

is no real help as they can't imagine the past

as they facehigh tech dead end futures.

The Principle Of Modern Government

No taxation without misrepresentation
of the voice and flawed ideals of the voters
via a press that flatter the government
to deceive the public as to who rules them
and how complete the misrule over them is.

The Art(ifice) Of Parties

I have not really enjoyed any party
that I have attended since my twenties,
which feels like a lifetime ago.
And even then the shared largess
that was intended was always tempered
by the knowledge of the tiredness
which would accompany the tidying up
along with the calming of ruffled feelings
of the  partygoers who unsettled each other
with their 'honesty' under the power
of alcohol and other substances the day after.

Since those times I have learned what is best;
modest amounts of alcohol taken with a meal,
where the meal absorbs the alcohol
and the time taken with the food defines
how long and how much should be drunk,
and slower is better for aiding the digestion. 

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.

The Limits Of Self Knowledge

The ultimate in absurdity
is knowing that you are absurd
and knowing that you accepted
but being unable to fathom
whether you are accepted
in spite of your absurdity or because of it,
or because of some half-reasoning in between.