Do you remember?

Do you remember when you were young:
When they sold us a future in which everyone
Would have more time for leisure and
Life’s simple pleasures?

I do.

I remember how ‘progress’ was sold as the shift
Toward treasured Modernity’s time-saving gifts.
I remember when ‘free time’ were not dirty words,
But the envy of those who knew it was absurd
To work hard for The Man, at the cost of your Soul;
To neglect your own senses to fit in a mould;
To conform to consensus and stick to the path
Laid out in perpetuity – however daft…

And yet,

Where does the time go and how is it spent,
But by serving The Man just to pay him more rent?
And while faster goes quicker and more becomes less
Of a joy than a measure of burden and stress,
We regress to Draconia’s cold, hostile age
As a new class of servants with masters who wage
On us their aspirations for their perfect nation.

Obnoxious concoctions and new imitations
Of outdated thinking, consigned long ago
To the scrapyard of ignorant, privileged foes.
Resurrected prescribers and makers of woe
Who would keep us distracted and chained by the nose
To a grindstone which cripples and overly loads
On our bodies and minds and the whole of our time
Is spent rushing and pushing and fleeing and fighting
To be the first one to the end of the line.

 

[First posted: March 2013]

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Life is paradox

Life is paradox:
it is while it is not.
Perfecting in its flaws…

Effect is stored inside its cause
but Man forgets his Cosmic Law.

Each Being,
its own Universe entire
yet a speck within the macrocosm
– All is One –

But every spirit’s fire is unique.
A human seeks to leave himself
to find himself
returned to place
to face his own remains
as though his eyes were new again.

And the less we try to run,
the more we grow.
And yet,
the more we learn,
the less we know.

Empiric fact is juxtaposed
and overlapped with supposition;
evidence with superstition…

Memory may be what wasn’t
and the only real that is.
A lie can be transparent
while the truth itself
be masking great deceit.

For confidence is weakened
by an overreach
and strength can speak in silence.
As a hatred can be loved and
road to Hell be unintended.

Even violence can look beautiful
and seeming beauty be mundane
– just as a duty may be free
or bought,
or sought and claimed as honour
or pretence in perfect slavery.

And Death is but a midwife
to the start of life
and every life is born to die.
Below is like above,
as is without akin to all within.

Where progress comes
by order out of chaos
as the darkest weight of shadows knows:
the Sun comes shining;
like a cloud creates a silver lining.

And as Fate and Will be dice of separate states,
they are the same
– just as the gravity of Being and of Doing form
the counters in Great Mystery’s old game.

The World is how you’ve chosen
to believe it is,
though Universal Rules remain.

There is no new
but wonders never cease
and increase is the sum of pieces
framed by peace
and conflict steals a Golden Fleece.

And yes: the more things change,
the more they stay the same.
But what is deemed impossible
is seeded with potential
by the want of an essential gain
and pure Imagination’s daring pain.

Ambivalence is not
a certain lack of vision,
nor an absence of discretion.
Ambiguity is not a merely mercenary prism –
thoughts and feelings can be held in opposition.
They’re a natural reflection
of a stimulated conscience
and an obvious response to
such a life of paradox
where all the complex world is locked
into a courtship dance of serious and nonsense.

 

Wishing you balance and perspective this Autumnal Equinox 🌦 xXx

 

[Originally posted, Jan 2014]

‘faith-based prep’ is what I was hearing

I don’t like this Momentum Kids thing. I’m all for extending and incorporating childcare, especially for single parents and for reasons that are not work related. But that is not the bit of this news that has caught my mind.

’The initiative will also aim to increase children’s involvement in Momentum and the labour movement by promoting political activity that is fun, engaging and child-friendly”… Momentum ‘will use the left-wing movement’s network of 150 local groups to help youngsters who want to get involved in politics.’

It’s the partisan political activist education being rolled out bit that makes me go cold. It’s naive, at best. I think organised religion is politics with added conviction and, as I read the piece, ‘faith-based prep’ is what I was hearing.

As you know, dear Reader, I don’t like faith-based schools. I believe organised, religious indoctrination, if it must still exist, is for the designated temple and that in the compulsory years of education, religious study should be facilitated by informed debate and explored under the wider umbrella of Philosophy. So, too, should Politics. Children often need a counterbalance to their parents’ religious/political beliefs. They don’t need them confirmed and cemented by another self-appointed authority.

Children, especially young children, soak up everything. How would this go down if it was a Brexit-teaching crèche? A Scientology-teaching crèche? What about UKIP? Or the TaxPayers’ Alliance?

Is this ethical greyness healthy? I don’t think it is. Nor is it necessary. We have schools already. We have a national curriculum. There is where the pressure for improved learning about civic engagement should be applied. Regardless of the problems we can all cite over the state of our compulsory education system, therein is still the safest objective space for children’s well-rounded, non-partisan education.

Last week, Corbyn was rightly ridiculed for suggesting Labour Organising Academies and people raised justifiable concerns about dogma and ideology in the context of Theresa May’s reinforced support for faith-based schools. Both instances just reaffirmed, for me, why I don’t put much store in Corbyn’s or his team’s judgement and why I am so often offended by May’s.

When there is destabilised society, groups and individuals come to the surface and paint themselves or get painted as saviours and champions of the people. Sometimes, they are. But how many times, throughout history and across the world, has a group or individual become the unlikely romanticized hero, only to distort or corrupt a community by means of brainwashing or bribery?

It feels like the capacity for selective memory and cognitive dissonance is ever-increasing. Left to right, from cynical to starry-eyed, the country seems determined to overlook how easily the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And, of course, most of us want to believe that our intentions are good.

John declared the Jezerendum was his finest conversion.

My mind wandered as I read ten minutes of inspired paranoia and vitriol pick ‘n’ mix that is Labour Twitter… I fantasized that we had a Jezerendum and that the country voted overwhelmingly in favour of giving Mr Corbyn one of our small islands. I don’t know which one it was, only that it required a ferry to access the mainland and that it was big enough for all his personal staff and every adventurous, ardent believer. The offer was extended to the rest of the Labour Party but all sides were affronted so that was quickly settled.

Through an excruciating but often hilarious week of hotly tweeted debate about whether this result was down to the magnanimity of a democratic, reason-minded nation, or another covert neoliberal plot by the Blairite BBC (peak purge, Matt noted, wryly), much of the grassroots came to the conclusion that it didn’t actually matter: the momentum was with them.

Jeremy called a rally. He told his congregation that he accepted the result as proof of faith in his will and a definitive mandate for his kinda politics. John declared the Jezerendum was his finest conversion. Jeremy waved his hat: “Jam for all! And bread-making academies! Come, comrades: we shall build ourselves a socialist allotment. Our momentum has just begun! From now on, you are in charge. Our rallies shall be our news, your placards our policies. Everyone has a right to Utopia!” He looked up from his notes, to drink of the rapturous crowd… “Seumas, I’m not sure this is a great idea…” The country held her breath and crossed her fingers.

And then, suddenly, they were off, the haunting sound of ‘The Reg Flag’ fading into the watery mist.

A collective wow… was exhaled throughout the mainland..: Maybe Brexit would fit on the Isle of Wight..?

Labour Twitter is right: Mr Corbyn does inspire. Or, at least, his grassroots do.

The Hordes’ Prayer

Ourselves, who art in flux,
Hollow be our game.
Our kingdom come.
Our will be done
In circuses as we are given.
Give us each day our daily threads.
And forgive us our tweets
As we forgive those who tweet against us.
And lead us not into correlation
But deliver us from weevils;
For ours is the kingdumb,
The sour and the poorly,
Forever [forever?]
Oh, man…

phfff to aah

The circus became the bread.
Numb to buzzing,
I cut strings and crossed a bridge
– razor, rainbow: I knew not –
I had passed beyond care.