Labi Siffre - Into The Light

On days without clear skies

I look through windows at the clouds
A practice worthy of no note were

It not that the clouds look back in

Itiating a sometimes heated debate
As to who has the better view

___

the latest research reveals

that several government departments are dedicated to the sanguine:

whenever, “Well, that’s all right then” is detected, it is the role of these agencies to initiate stock market collapses, fires in crowded

discotheques with locked escape ways, pandemics of disfiguring virulences, and mortality rates from the merely disturbing to the graphically tragic child

flies, milk white eyes, weeping ulcers, train, plane or holiday coach corpses, mangled, tanker wrecks with oil soaked baby seals and school yard massacres

in this way the populace is distracted from the felonies committed by clergy, royalty, parliamentary under secretaries and market researchers

while being kept on their toes in readiness for enemy attacks

Is this what it’s for ?

To display language ?
Parading it’s impotence ?

I want you to stop what you're
Doing go over to the windows
And brick them up

Or nail wood or metal or sheets
Of baking foil or stretched french
Letters anything across to block
Out the light

Now, can you see how that
Says more than all
Your dictionaries

debate : relativism

started by Oliver:

join it HERE

Territorial claims by natives

Are invariably
Viewed more sympathetically by agencies
Of the relevant authorities when submitted by
Residents; it being the case that history favours
Those wielding the correct spelling of primary
Co-ordinates
                    Failure to comply with such
Fundamentals of the furrow have I admit led
Me to the state you find me presently in for
Example I once asked to purchase a box of matches
When semtex was what I required on another
Occasion a  complaint to my doctor of “pain behind
My left knee” would have served me better had I
Realised the correct spelling was “pain when I pee”

on hot days

i see lovers walking hand in hand
i see children playing in the park
i see elephants at the zoo
hosing each other down stark naked

i see sexy fat men without shirts buying
shorts i see nuns smiling with mobile
phones i see old people on benches sliding
palms over each others thighs safe
in a knowledge the young so often shirk
or never find i see laundry laughing

on clothes lines; i see war planes
writing “i will always love you” in clear blue
skies i see birds ignoring pecking orders
and marching to the front of queues demanding
and winning acceptance of their aspirations

i see that the sun is here only to promote its auto
biography “the shining” and has to leave soon for an
interview on another channel i see that the sky
a recently developed polymer protective covering
is to be withdrawn when current stocks are exhausted
linked as it is with the release of carcinogens
lethal to those unable to masturbate to fruition
more than five times a day without lubricants
toys or pornographic aids i see smiles and blows
to the defenceless go unrepaid

i see terriers refusing to let go, grass between
paving stones persisting though doc martins are
once again a fashion imperative (albeit with a
clown shoe bobble on the toe) i see
frightened men posing as pious unable to say
“faith isn’t enough” i see babies who had
forgotten how to cry learning at least how to smile
hoping somewhen, someone will love them enough
to make the tears flow i see rainbows
authorised by the security services i see folks
with short memories calling that progress
i see me and my shoelaces are still undone

life has no meaning

but it
does have
a use

de mock race e123

da vote is yours don’t worry tone
you’ve nothing to fear one hundred
thousand inno-civi mesopotamian corpses
don’t grab our attention; like spam we’ve
learned to junk et

it’s the jingle
jangle in our pockets gets us riled so
say how you’ve made the sun shine while
frankie howerd’s fun as a lynching miss
pelled namesake points us at who to blame

‘n both of you tell us suckers (seeking succour
we withhold from deserving others) how much
more we’ll get for less ‘n we’ll mutter
under our shallow breaths and give voice to

what you want in proportion to our lack of demo
cratic choice ‘cos: we want it too, don’t want
a fuss and can’t be bothered or fear to turn
the whole thing over and start again

flying high

^{(the poet "wrestles with contro
versial issues without flinching")}

while killing in various ways
giovanni paulo would smile
or pray
leastwise close his eyes
and give each palm a chest high five

those shakes made pinochet seem
amateur    and wow to degrade us all
while being lauded ‘n praised almost daily
on global news was an arch proscenium
political PR triumph

enthroned in white as snow robes
grimaced face flushed with piety and
confirmed faith (though only in the gull
ibility of the human race); uncle joe
would’ve loathed being so sanctified

terror being honest and true compared
and in its way not craven as murder by
proxy, smoke and encyclical bull;
johannes paulus say

"i just the infallible con
duit the medium through whom
He speaks
it ain’t me crocheting lady chains
that in their turn make baby slaves
it ain’t me buying the bigot vote
by burning faggots i give you hope
it ain’t me the pusher at the school
gates selling fake prophylactics

no
it ain’t me
it be the undeniable truth of faith
‘n if you don’t share it you’ll just
haveta take it that mine is the true base

cos the only evidence i need to present
in order to prove my cred
(n. persuade control influence sway)
is you on your knees
oh my, such an endorphin high
this getting away with it
(they call me “papa” you know)"

and oh, how they want to believe
and cruel indeed to deny them
their fix  and what harm can it do
the cold word of an alleged
delivered to those who’ve banished   
reason from their heads

and as the sage points out
you can’t con an honest man
though we’ve redefined honest, innocent,
thief and civilian in our smart clusters of
fear-to-fear guile sharing downloadable ways

and here smartest of all and touching
with her goodness and grace she stands
one knee forward, a bouquet of roses as
the babe in her arms, the mitre on her head
with professional sincerity humbly she gushes
“world peace is what I wish for”

and the audience applaud oooh! and aaah!
‘n they praise her as the great peacemaker
‘n all she talk is beauty-queen talk
the snake-oil salesman touting for business
though now it’s called “reaching out”

as their fear banishes doubt he struts his
avuncular showbiz beatification bound
stuff on the purple catwalk; its a hit show
kin to those death cult mountain muffins
of washington kansas with their – ‘just say no
to sex, abstinence be the blessed
and best protection’ - juan paulo say

"it ain’t me spreading HIV but don’t don a condom
our research concludes that for various shades
of nigger they don’t work, would i lie to you?

i’m the vicar ‘n don’t forget
merely to question me is negativity
confirmed by my (sorry) His
divinely unprovable, therefore unassailable,
authority
which i wear so well
as i flap flap flap my invisible wings
     ‘n tell you to believe
          i’m as close to god now
               as i have ever been"

what harm can it do

oh
how they want to believe

and you deny them
how cruel

when just one lie
is all the fix they need

and after all
what harm can it do

he touched us all

At this time of mass psychosis, worse than that accompanying the death of St. Dianna Princess of Wales, it is worth commemorating a worthwhile life lived without hubris, without pomp and without the abuse of power.

It is worth remembering the actor Paul Eddington who, dying of cancer and requested to suggest his own epitaph said, he would like to be remembered as someone who "did very little harm": an epitaph Pope John Paul II, despite his opposition to tyranny in his own land, could lay claim to only with accustomed delusional dishonesty having, as Pope, promoted the evil twin destructive tyrannies of pride in ignorance, and self-aggrandizement through prejudice and denial.