Labi Siffre - Into The Light

Diplomatic

We’re all decent people

This war no more

Than a marketing glitch

Both sides failing to sell their vision

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In a World of Heroes Martyrs & Decency

To improvise something relevant
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 I received news

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

Political prisoner, constant 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 minuscular fading 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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Don’t alienate your audience

The pews creak with the weight of adulterers

The pastor, his shoes squeaking in brotherhood,

Agrees with the bishop and Bill Clinton, ex

President: ”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

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Explosivity

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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Just One Step

Waiting for the bus. Casual,

Remorseless, violent death takes him

"Passing" theists say "he’s at rest"

So that’s alright

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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Benedict XVI & Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb in a mock-up embrace for the Benetton UNHATE campaign (photo withdrawn after Vatican complaints).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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Accountancy

All being defined, to be wrong is somewhere
Inevitable and contrary wise, there being
So many definers; all words

All concepts being political; right and light
By might be reasoned well; so what of evidence
What of our instruments

Of investigation; and what is what
And what is else
Meanwhile dry bones kill warm flesh

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The Confusion Marketing Scam

Given so much choice; so many

Cross referenced options they’re meant to be

Unable to see when two plus

Two equals thirty

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Knowing no answer is the answer

The dead gather

To watch the living win

The "unwittingly comic" award

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The Days Shorter The Years Longer

Another young woman murdered; were I
Politician, journalist, officer
Of the law I’d add “cruelly”
Or “callously” or some such more
To drag to attention how we’re feeling
Deeply about this murder of
Yet another young woman

Do we want this murder of yet
Another young woman, to razor in,
To burn as a bad - as a terrible -
Horrible happening shredding
Each of us shuddering crying
Raging grating like Islamic women

Bereaved screaming on camera their loss
To the sky; in the wake of another
Car and/or suicide bomb or
Casual shooting bullets raking mid

Havoc in everyday street town city
Everyday lives from one yet another
Young woman murdered turning and

View yet another hit movie
Opening with yet another young woman
Slain; the screenplay based on yet
Another best seller opening with yet
Another young female corpse who’d lived
In hope and yet didn't die, it’s hoped I believe, in vain

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Against malignancy

For change benign, give aid
To women not men; girls are women
Men are boys; women spend
On children: men on toys

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Thoughts About Art

The poem you read is not the poem I have written. The poem you read is your interpretation of the poem I have written. The Rembrandt you see is not the Rembrandt Rembrandt painted. The Rembrandt you see is your interpretation of the Rembrandt Rembrandt painted. By their interpretation each reader/viewer/listener completes each work of art. Art is reborn with each human acquaintence.

An inescapable function of art is that it makes the audient an artist. There are (relatively speaking) few good artists.

Art requires no frame, pedestal, room, gallery, label nor sanction to be what it is. 
Look in the mirror: you are viewing art. Speak, you are hearing music. 
Stockhausen was accurate (though precarious) in describing 9/11 as "art".
 That doesn’t diminish it nor stop it being horror and crime.

The art(work) is the artist's explanation of whatever exploration/problem/understanding/realisation the artist is addressing through the medium of their facility in art. It is erroneous (counter productive to the function of the work) and foolish/impertinent when insisted upon, to expect someone whose talent is paint or stone or assemblage, to do justice to that in words. To explain a poem in prose is to buy a dog and insist a tortoise wag the dog's tail.

Regarding written explanations accompanying art (often conceptual):
The explanation (the text) is itself art. Once read, the text becomes inescapably part of "the art". Regrettably, it is often of more substance than "the art"; in which case perhaps "the art" is merely an explanation/justification of the explanation.

To the audient:
Art speaks; with you. Observe the conversation.
If, when engaging with art, you hear yourself
thinking or saying, "what does it mean?"
                                  strike yourself soundly
about the face
with the wet, dead herring you have brought
specifically for that purpose as (in art)
the question is not, "What does it mean?"
The question is, "What does it do?"

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If artists explain

What is there

4 the audient

2 do ?

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Collective Responsibility

In a democracy only the not

Or de-enfranchised

Are innocent civilians
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The More You See The Worse It Looks

No economist

Crap at math but the more

I read of the global economy the more

It resembles a global

Pyramid scam

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From 9/11

To a trillion dollars plus spent

On a war against an Iraq innocent
Of 9/11 involvement

To a nearly bankrupt USA
Terror works in mysterious ways

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Swallows don’t fear electricity

Perched

On parallels of power they chat

About travel

Though not about immigration

Difficulties

They’re above all that

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Back to the Road Map ?

The Roadmap for Peace (the basis for a two state solution to the Isreali / Palestinian conflict) states that:

Palestinian "incitement must cease immediately and the Palestinian Authority will engage in genuine prevention of terror and violence".

                          but

the Israeli Cabinet Statement on the Road Map - (may  25th '03) states that:

"As in the other mutual frameworks, the Roadmap will not state that Israel must cease violence and incitement against the Palestinians".

In other words, you must stop hitting me, but I can keep on hitting you. Clearly the reaction of an Israeli administration enthusiastic for an even-handed & peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Please note: "... the other mutual frameworks ..." and ask yourself, how long has that arrangement been going on?

^{(Previously posted 05/13/2004)}

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An Unblemished Role Model for the 21st Century

^{(re: Rupert Murdoch / News International / NewsCorp / Corruption of Society)
1st published January 2000 in "Letters From An Alien" on my previous blog "Breaking the Bloody Glass":}

Pope John Paul II (beatified & en route to sainthood) is promoted as a man of morals, a moral arbiter whose opinions on ethics we are all encouraged to respect. In addition, a billion Catholics considered him to be God's representative on earth.

The Media Owner Rupert Murdoch made (and still makes) money by promoting racism, sexism, homophobia & the base instincts of the mob.

In 1998, Pope John Paul II & the Vatican awarded Murdoch a Papal Knighthood. The title is awarded to people of "unblemished character". So, according to Pope John Paul II, the Vatican & the current pope Benedict XVI, Rupert Murdoch, still a Knight of St. Gregory, has led a blameless life.

An "unblemished character" suggests a sin free soul. This is a serious, heaven or hell assessment with crucial implications as to how human beings should behave in the eyes of God. A Papal knighthood is not a courtesy title.The Pope is saying that Rupert Murdoch is the man your children should follow. After all, if you wish to please God ... who better to emulate than a man with an "unblemished character".

Perhaps Murdoch's $10 million contribution toward the construction of a Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles suggested to Pope John Paul II that Murdoch had lead a blameless life - or perhaps it is that Murdoch, as Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation and owner of Zondervan Publishing House, is the publisher of the New International Version of the Bible (NIV). Although the NIV copyright is held by the International Bible Society, Zondervan has exclusive publishing rights.

So, though you make your fortune by encouraging and preying upon base human instincts, through your ownership of Fox News & such UK publications as "The Sun" and the disgraced "News of The World" you can still have an "unblemished character".

In light of this assessment by popes & the vatican of what constitutes an “unblemished character” I suggest admirers re-examine some of their other pronouncements on moral issues such as condoms and HIV/AIDS, celibate priests, women priests, child abuse, the family and sexuality in general.

It's easy to call for world peace: entertainers and beauty queens do it all the time, and good luck to them. However, we and the media should expect more than that from a much promoted moral leader & institution with the political power of a billion followers.


© labi siffre

Fallen angels we are not

Neither are we risen apes

A branch of a branch of a branch are we

Of a four legged thing

With cunning for brains

Fear for feet

Hope in its stomach

Tears for eggs

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Age

Screams of dying men

Sounds he’d hoped his child

Would never learn as he had then

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Theism

The outsourcing of responsibility

To a fantasy

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And so farewell Susannah York

Some talk of honesty in acting

That’s how your work

Always seemed to be

To me

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Susannah York: BBC / Guardian

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