Labi Siffre - Into The Light

An atheist's view of Existence

I am inspired by and have
A sense of wonder
Amazement and joy
About the universe

To call that "spiritual"
Would be
To downgrade it

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SAIF = Superstition Arrogance Ignorance & Fear

This popular mindset now has a tag: #saif

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If Glenn Beck is correct

Yes "something is happening" but it's happened before and is not "beyond imagination". If Beck is correct the USA is turning to SAIF: Superstition, Arrogance, Ignorance & Fear - again.

Washington Rally / Tea party Strength

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A comforting score

As a force for good
Music “the international language”
From elevators to death camp gas chambers
An instrument not a cure
Has produced I think as little world peace
As poetry or religion, sorry, spirituality
re-branded as ‘religion lite’

Can sport athletics golf tennis football soccer
Fare better than guile politics diplomacy or is it us
Are we the answer the art of being human the key
Though that already seems a non-starter

I’ve wondered whether commerce will bring world peace
When there’s a conglomerate that owns everything
Employs everyone then at least we’ll be
All on the same side road

Though that’s been tried time and time with the usual
Effusions of blood, bricks, body parts, rapes, refugees
And poems, paintings, sculpture, music all soothing as
Religion, spirituality-show-biz, a slip of the note; meanwhile
Unwavering, rarely but sometimes realized, hope

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This

Dark clouds spilled rain

Rain flooded the village

People, children, the aged, the infirm,

The land, drowned;

Good harvests stemmed famine’s flow

We ate grief

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TV Reality

He hated that they wouldn’t show

The footage of him covered in blood

And pieces of his friend

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The Acid Real

Last night at the Cardiff Arts Institute I watched the first screening of “The Acid Real”, a short movie directed by the writer John Evans (who also supplied the text and narration). Filmed and edited by Hywel Griffith with music and soundscape by Mike Kennedy, it was an enjoyable and moving experience.

The trio managed a fine blend of spoken word, sound and images in a unity exploring South Wales urban and rural landscapes, “beauty, loss, light, love”, societal challenges and the fortitude of people just getting on with it.

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"Poetry is what gets lost in translation" ... Robert Frost

Dear Bob

Even in the same tongue

Peace-truth-justice-honour

Is what get’s lost in translation

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Vincent Willem van Gogh

Was a failure

Remember that

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Screw moving forward. It’s time to improve.

Gurus masters popes preachers say we’re divine

A circular brown nose pat on the back

A self aggrandizing waste of precious time.

Fact is we’re not divine

But we can hold hands

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Growing old disgracefully

In the midst of this domestic chaos

We're laughing between expletives

Surprisingly content; it seems

We're doing something right

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Dawn broke

It took most of the day

To fix

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Ever hopeful is not the same as optimistic

Overhead he writes seel in
Underfoot he writes flaw
Between each four walls he writes rheum
His house becomes a tome

Admonished by the zeitgeist to lighten up
He purchases a pack of candles
A conceptual man he cannot manage
The violence needed to unwrap them

Food is once a day beans emptied
From a freshly opened can. The cans
Are delivered Wednesdays at three
by Olafemi Mayakovsky

The black Armenian delivery man
Carries them along the passageway
Enters the sparse kitchen; places
The box of seven on the table

May God preserve you he said
On his third delivery
He already has came the reply
They never again exchanged pleasantries

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I also

“I have never considered painting as pleasure-giving art, a distraction; I have wanted, by drawing and by colour, since those are my weapons, to penetrate always further forward into the consciousness of the world and of men, so that this understanding may liberate us . . .” Pablo Picasso

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Sell. Ebb. Pretty.

The ugly parade before cameras
Under spotlights on red carpets

The beautiful are meat in grinders
The rest of us gnaw at their extremities

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We call for reconciliation

We will stop killing and/or degrading you
Ripping you off and force feeding you
Our excrement

You will be reconciled to being forever
Disadvantaged by social, political, health,
Educational and economic

Gaps our forefathers crimes blessed us with

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Between doings

Don’t have enough energy for suicide
Used to but
Now it seems dull and void

Besides there’s all this mowing
To be done and the lettuce to thin
And roses to trim

And the kids’ll be hungry ‘n home
Soon have to get their supper
Ready or not just have to get on

With things as they are you know
After Mam died we grew closer
Yet somehow more alone

But as long as my back holds up
‘N at ‘em is the word
Though it would be helpful

(With Dad being made redundant
And me taking two extra jobs
To get buy) if governments

Would get their act together you know
Seriously; cos with Robbie in hospital
Zena’s funeral on Thursday

And the laundry still to be done it’s
The national and international political situation
That really gets me down

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Four in the morning

Can we have less “common sense” please?
Cos like “the best we can” it ain't working

Can we have more pursuit of evidence?
Sorry, I forgot that hinders prejudice

Can we have more criticism of our selves?
"Why? Most of us have done nothing wrong"

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Alright mate?

As this green and pleasant land balms under a soft sky
Bandits (now pirates) in respectable suits brutalize sympathy
With easy smiles; our allies? The enemy of our enemy?

But our friend is painting our shoes with shit
And smiling as he does it; our shame and compassion
For his historic loss is meant to guarantee our silence

At what cost? Our good name? Do we have that?
But wait, remember their position in hostile terrain
Madmen surrounded by madmen

Stabbing each other with shards of God.
On the other hand their reprisals policy of a thousand
For less than ten is uncomfortably reminiscent

Plus their way of land appropriation: Bantustans
For the natives kept as pets who of course lack the ability
To appreciate civilized values ’n that, so

I took to piracy (yo ho ho) piracy and bang! bang!
She made me do it. She made me hit ‘er
With ‘er whining on and on

“Humanitarian Aid, Humanitarian Aid, Humanitarian
Bloody Aid!”
She did my ’ead in. Couldn’t stand it. So I boarded ’er
And shut ’er up!

I ’ad to; she provoked me.
You’re a man. You understand.
You’da done the same

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Le Paradis (Esquelbecq May 2010)

When the priest said (In commemoration)
“Do God’s Work”

It was absurdity, insult, spoiled goods

Blueprint in hand, his God, having seen
Dunkirk, before birthing the first star,

With a will set to

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Territorial gains

The way down is on the riser
They say skating up hill doesn’t
But it does

I saw an old woman build a tree
From the roots up; no one else
Believed she could achieve

But I’d seen my mother build a river
With nothing but a broken back
And a fire in her head

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Endoscopic

Within the wrong space (again); Zay wonders
At the pall of demographics; to have to categorize
Oneself! Over game, now we pay?

Days used to simple. Begin mysterious
Waggle tempting to be caught; fade with
Sudden realizations

Was it all after all so-so? No premises were made
None kept; it starts basementally. “These are the steps
You’re on your onus. Be sure to clean up

Before you go”

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To boast a lack of pretentiousness

He calls his work nothing serious

I lose interest

At its best is serious comedy

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Grim day

A glimpse
Of sunshine

On impulse she grabs
Holds it in her fist

Tonight in this dark
Her hand glows

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Clothes: everyone has something to hide

Conscience makes cowards immune to guilt

Those who live by quotation die

Money maketh man do almost anything

Theists fear “I don’t know”

The ends justify the usual excuses

A bad workman blames the fools

Clouds know everything humans can’t grasp

The last ending will be vague

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