Labi Siffre - Into The Light

so don’t expect an apology

avarice be the road to world peace
“yuk!” said the frog, “your breath stinks and
you haven’t shaved six days at least”
and there we have it - salvation in commerce
with potholes and occasional craters but
                                            relax friends
all things are alimentary all things will pass.
and though the saviour screamed in pain, a
third only suffered more than in a vid
game. be that enough to qualify?
                    or is this child closer to the truth
                                   with miles to go
muscles breaking, heart exploding, sandpaper
in her throat hinting at the state of Africa
(though the symphony for that was always
a sonata for spoons and washboard)

this thing we know to be true: in some
foreign field a lozenge, hairspray
or personal loan will save us every one
though we have no way to repay the sum
try to understand, or not
                  i don’t really give a damn;
before he loved me i was not    and now i am
and never able to forget the lack
which makes me saved but often morbid
it is the leech, the hagfish, the candiru
that spells confessed love mawkish

all the while here in the fair world
            the world’s fair
where everyone’s a winner so low
we’ve set our sights.
"belay that!" cried the neatly pressed
resolutely redefined "positive" man, "death
is a stupid word, meaningless and less
i will have none of it"

"very well", sayeth the sooth "cough please
while i hold these
tight"

quantification 2 (in 3 and 6)

by the ease with which religious feelings
sentiments are hurt measure
the absurdity of the religious beliefs

(also the believer’s suppressed
acknowledgement of that absurdity -
causing painful embarrassment
and a desperate lashing out, often lethal,
in their efforts to avoid confronting
the absurdity of those religious beliefs)

Despite the unreachable speed of hope

Last night I thought I saw you open

This morning having ticked
The clocks had quickened (more likely
I had slowed). In either bracket
I failed to keep abreast

Like in last week’s news it seemed none of us

Was here. This week it seems most of us have gone
We hear but cannot listen
Listen but cannot follow the song

Till recently that worked without embarrassment

Or hesitation. Days took hours twenty four to pass

Time, tidy, buried our damaged collateral; you’d think
By now, but I can never match that either

Always out of reach the future singing much

Much like the past

Take this morning; courage on my tongue I said

“                         ” and “                               ”

But you’d closed by then
Exhausting it can be how you believe me

Only when I lie and I admit, all of you I’ve tried

To hold and yes I know pursuing that

Is a heart mistake

But forgivable I hope in love with pure water

Attempting to drink the lake

It makes it difficult to type, awaiting forgiveness
Weighs big heavy on the fingers

So I keep the textuals in my head for safe keeping.

Yes you’re right, the good ones ripen, never fall
Nor spoil the taste of reasons-to-continue
But don’t dismiss (for all our sakes) gravity
And desert trees and cochlea sensitivity

And also none the less, and too little comfort
And still it hurts enough to be worthwhile

Now, after scribing, we retire to bed hoping
To be scanned at least, though some of us refuse
To sleep and try to keep the rest awake
With a hint of boasting (parental pride perhaps)
You and I my love we keep each other. In stead



I fail to understand why you
But gratitude weighs hardly any all

The while you hold me in your heart

And head

___

from both sides

in bed with my leit motif, the constant battle
between romance and despair, as always nailed
to the walls of my skull and two lines
of text (always the text) nesting attesting
“every morning you wake
                  is another day of life
                                                 for me”
and a wondering how after six thousand years
and me still loving you so much it hurts how i
could leave this bed for thankless work
                leave holding you this way
protecting you protecting me

with my head a-resting on your shoulder
my arm a curve around your chest my hand
holding your hand get up and dress and take
my gun and kiss goodbye and leave our home
walk out and kill a stranger then another and
another on and on and be not stunned
                          (experience no duh! moment)

to be so lacking in self-awareness of the absurdity
of my act. to not raise my eyes to the sky and slap
my gun butt calloused palm to my plank thick
forehead this … is this what it is to be a man?
our leaders and we sanctioned voters by
foot or ballot think it am. thus
                     from both sides we go
          shuffling away from the sun

on the strand

there are five shirts two suits
three pairs of jeans two dressing gowns
and a sweater on the metal rail that is
my wardrobe

last night at four o’clock the rabbit died
with much blood i will have to make a space
but last year i threw out all my spare hangers
having no intention of acquiring more items
of fashion

i stroke the rabbit then stroke my favourite
sweater they are different i had no warning
a rabbit could be cold and scary

but my sweater is soft and i don’t want
to wear it now wrecked on this shore
with no hope of rescue
coconuts we have found for food and drink
tomorrow we will try to catch fish

believing in you all ways ‘tis a pity you
cannot in me. tomorrow the sun
may decide to rise
or not

the forgotten

i take remembrance sunday seriously
i respect its emphasis on the memory
of our fighting dead betrayed serially
by forces hidden from them. saddened

my search informs me that in the wars
and violent conflicts for various causes
in the twenty-first and twentieth centuries
by far the most deaths from warfare were

civilian

and so i say there should be a day
of remembrance to honour the millions
children women men civilians all. lost.
their lives erased by our enduring need

Reduced

There is nothing more reductive
More simplistic more superficial
Than theism

It answers all with one
Lethal concept
God
___

tragedy

rolling you arrive
as we are savaged
by grief
                   and grieve us
while we search for new
beginnings you demand endless
                                endings
knowing the headline is not
the beginning but an end in itself

          you demand we tell the world
through your benevolent voice how
we feel    but we are searching
to discover whether we are who we were
and of course we are not and will never be
again or perhaps we’ll find we were other
                                         than we seemed
and are only now in truth revealed

                             and still with ever more
space to fill you demand of us
how we feel.
                very well: it is winter we are burning
it is summer - we are freezing
                               in this desert we are drowning
in the midst of endless rivers cool and clear
we are parched    beyond tears

our children are more precious to us now and more
mysterious than the depth of sky the width of time
we look for monsters to blame and find we are
the monsters. the monster is one of us.
part of us. the monster is    us
                    and as we cannot blame ourselves
we must recover by denial we must weave a truth
                                              by threading lies
our forte.
oh yes, we understand and accept the rightness
of your methodology; but give us time, please
             give us just a little more time
___

quantification 1

by the narrowness of the rules
measure the confidence
of the rulers

___

rain sun sky

on the day of his third divorce
he noted
              a welcome maturity within
                         when he found
himself thinking
the tragedy was that apart from
                                            love
they had very little in common

___

the work. only the work.

because the revolution

is constantly betrayed

___

Out Land Ish

first they killed the racists
         (though not for their racism)
and because i know what it is
to be subjected to racism
i said and did
nothing

then they killed the sexists
            (though not for their sexism)
and because i am a feminist, believing
women have the human right to equality with men,
i said nothing    i did nothing

then they killed the “homophobes”
(though not, of course, for their “homophobia”)
and because i am a homosexual (aware
from the age of four) and know what it is
to be subjected to “homophobia”
i said nothing    i did nothing

then (sparing only themselves and one other) they killed
all those remaining who dispense cruelty and injustice,
by commission or omission
immediate or distant no matter the justification
of religion or commerce
indifference tradition or whim
or the good of one’s children.
and because i know what it is to be treated
with cruelty, with injustice, again
i said and did nothing

now they are here to kill me
                              (because i am me)
and, because there is no one left to say
or do anything in my defence, i will die
as i have lived. i will die of silence.
i will die of self interest.
but i will not die outraged.
the out land ish behaviour has been mine
___