Labi Siffre - Into The Light

What Violence Is

If you build your cities on my land
That is an act of violence

If you bar my family from return
But welcome yours with open arms
From wherever they were born, that
Is an act of violence

If you copyright the sinews, cells, the bones
The blood, the atoms of my body, that
Is an act of violence

If you copyright the food we’ve grown
For thousands of years of sweat and learning
Struggle and scrape, that
Is an act of violence

If you blame the raped
Say the fault is their's
That is an act of violence

If you condemn with God
With no evidence of
That is an act of violence

If you kill a child with a machete slash
Another with a blow from the butt of your gun
Then (your pockets bursting with grain)
You leave a third to starve to death
Which of these is not violence?

If you kill the river that feeds my land
My children's future history
That is an act of violence

If “innocent civilians” you call yourselves
Then vote democratic and free for any
Of these, that vote is an act of violence

To stop the war theism bequeaths and gives
To stop the war that greed loves and lives
To stop the testosterone initiative
To stop the killing of innocent kids
First, stop the denial of what violence is
Stop the denial of what violence is

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Breaching the coast

On newly acquired legs

Would they have acted

Differently had they suspected

The sand would bloom blood fed

With superstition and willful ignorance

Claimed as sacred

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Waiting for a Song

A British atheist advocate

Of the republican form of government

To sing I have no national anthem

Of meritocracy, but a paean

To smoke and mirrors celebrity

God    royalty    vacancy

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Theologians

Gather to interpret what

The perfect God they invented meant because

The perfect God they invented cannot write so good

As to be without ambiguity understood

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Evolution, hurry up!

Certain they're pleasing
That for which no evidence exists

They kill children of all ages
In the name of that
For which no evidence exists

As an encore, demanding respect
For their belief in that
For which no evidence exists

They kill more
Then more and more and more
And insanely often get it

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The chosen

By their fear of the universe, their abnegation

Of responsibility for their moral judgements

You shall know them

In their billions

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Wanker

Anders Behring Breivik sane; fatally
Stupid no revolutionary
Lacking in vision a dull recycler
Of a many failed past

Praised of course
By other losers; the easy way out
Has always brought honors
From slurried followers

In the pot of human progress remember
The invention of bread is more important
Than the invention of gunpowder will ever be

And the children of Utoya will forever have
More substance than the wanker who killed them

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19365616

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Language

I talk

To wild animals

They understand

Perfectly

I am

Human

They keep

Their distance

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Peter and me

Today

Our 48th

Anniversary

All

Together now

Aaaaaah :-)

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Humility could help theists to critical thinking

From “incurable” illness you recover
Self-evidently the illness was curable
The cure beyond comprehension
Beyond comprehension is no evidence of God

You “die” then return to life
Self-evidently you were not dead
Death is the permanent end
No celestial miracles here

Inability to explain is no evidence of God
It is evidence of ignorance; ignorance is no crime
(Unless it's willful) We don’t know everything
And never will:
That   does not   demean us

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This Fundamental of Theism Deserves No Respect

If you maintain "morality is absolute"
Handed down
By an omnipotent supernatural

A being who, to deserve existence,
We must obey   then
You reject/disavow/deny/abnegate
Responsibility for your moral judgements

That fundamental of theism deserves no respect
That fundamental of theism
Deserves contempt

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A judgement closer to home

I notice you are sad
I hug you
And give you a dish of your favourite dessert

Next day without warning
I beat you with a baseball bat inflicting
A fractured skull missing teeth broken bones
Severe bruising
I piss on your face and leave

As you lie in agony on the floor from where
Does your judgement of my actions as
Malign or benign, good or bad, right or wrong,
Aappropriate or inappropriate
Come?

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Theists

By definition

Deny responsibility

For their moral judgements

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The ism

It is the ace
Ninety percent embrace
Even down to the self-respectless
"There must be something"

Disappointing that such vacancy adheres
More effectively than facts
To neurons susceptible in their neutrality
No less to malignant infection than virginity is

To rape
An act theologically upheld
By four
Grinning righteously
Naked male apes

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The Price Of Brief Lifespans

Our present is the past recycled

Our disasters are second hand

Our fashions though louder are merely awesome

Only our adjectives change

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If It Ain't Got That Swing

The day doesn’t fall, we shove it
Over the hills and far gun shots
Scream; the street cries
Blood streams from bags of lies

More fall to their knees in prayer mode
(Brown nosing always sells) by the time
The cops come we’ve stripped the bodies
Of cash keys shoes phones

Spiritual things we respect
In this hood; tradition flowers
On all four corners of the crosses we wear
Bouquets of jacked justification

"To smell the next crash
You have to live" we sneer
At battered wives "why don't you leave?"
So why don't we, homie?

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(N)o (R)eality (A)pplies

Guns don't kill people

People kill people

Tragically there are so many people

With guns

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Birth of an Artist

The family visits The Tate

Through her burqa’ she sees

A reason to change

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The Tate

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Productivity

We’re decent people all

This war no more

Than a marketing glitch

Both sides working

To sell their vision

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In a World of Heroes Martyrs & Decency

To improvise relevance
When you’ve lost interest in, or faith in,
Or hope for your species

Self-named with no sense of irony
“Wise man”, Homo Sapiens is problematic
Except, today the news

News of the death of a precious fluorescence
In a dull spread opacity of near stagnant water
The death of Vaclav Havel, playwright,

Political prisoner constantly caused with kindness
To lead, of necessity not profession, no place-man,
In deed the right man in place

On the body politic there’s less
Than a hand space for such, and seconds only
Room for any to make a scratch; what good

To scratch water? Still, the memory of a hot bath
Mid hypothermic death is mockery and comfort
Besting mockery alone; screw that

Push hope aside; resolve to die standing
A living fluorescence
If only for the sense of it
The loss of it
The will of it

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The Public Interest

It's good to know
Journalists don't
Have affairs
Produce casually
Begotten Kids
Commit adultery
if they did
They'd report it
Surely
They'd report it

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In the pocket

The pews creak with the weight of adulterers

The pastor, gold plated, shoes squeaking in brotherhood, agrees

With Bill Clinton (more so with the bishop)

”It’s the economy, stupid” now let’s get the gays!

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Obsequies

Shoveling quicklime into mass graves

These vile bodies will be like His

Glorious body? No,

Theirs are worth more

Much more

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Relativity

He paints the room with a single hair

To complete it will take his life; time

Compared to human progress, well spent

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A comforting thought

Waiting for the bus; Casual
Remorseless violent death takes him

"Passing" theists say "he’s at rest"
That’s alright then

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The Pope & The Imam

Benedict XVI & Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb in a mock-up embrace for the Benetton UNHATE campaign (photo withdrawn after Vatican complaints). To my surprise, they look good together. Fondly brought to mind the Paul Simon song, "Bookends". I guess I am, after all, a romantic. Shame about the realities.

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