labi siffre - into the light

At my school

we had both the swat to the hand and the crap beaten out of us abuse.  As a child, whether receiving, or watching or hearing other children receiving, either of these treatments, I always felt it to be unjust.

The only justification for corporal punishment that I could glean from teachers and parents was an unspoken "I am hitting you because you disobeyed me and I'm bigger than you". But I disagreed with their view that the child's behavior, mine or that of other children, merited such punishment. I considered the adult's behavior to be unjust, disproportionate, hypocritical and bullying.  All it taught me was resentment and a hatred of their injustice.

I am weary of hearing clearly damaged individuals proudly declaring that as children they were thrashed and it never did them any harm.

I doubt I have more than a wishy-washy-wooly alternative to child discipline by violence but even a cursory glance at human "progress" suggests that disciplining children by violence is not working.

You don’t sell junk food by promoting a healthy diet. You don’t sell arms by promoting peace; And though on occasion when watching the news, I hear a small voice in my head saying “bring back the birch”, I suggest that you don’t grow well adjusted adults by hitting children.

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Music guaranteed to move me from Black Dog to Smile Inside

There are others but these never fail:

Frank Bridge : “Sally In Our Alley”
(Gentle beauty)

Igor Stravinsky : “The Firebird” / The finale
(Tears of hope & renewal)

Tchaikovsky : Symphony No 6 "The Pathétique" / 3rd movement
(Nothin’s gonna stop me now)

Steve Reich : "The Four Sections" / 4th Section - Full Orchestra
(If I’d written this I could die happy. I'm listening to it now.)

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When you happen so much dies

Is this the inevitability of sharks in banks?
In Miss Average invisibility mode

She navigates the gallery several times kneels
As if to adjust her laces leaves piles of goat poo

In neat intervals a trail of swappings

Polished wood for mounds of tiny black,
So fairly fresh, not liquorice drops; she disappears
I watch intrigued as users approach the realm,
See, then query the poo; I prefer it

I wander into déjà vu of Amsterdam
Those years ago at that white guy’s exhibition
You know, the white, art equivalent of Step ‘n Fetchit?
Though Lincoln had to do it ‘cause whitey
Wouldn’t let his kind do any else; anyway
The white clown’s stuff is a one trick pony

In which he gives ‘em nothing to think
So no one’s offended by having to work it
And he tells ‘em that what they’ve understood
Is, though they were bravely unpretentious
Enough not to see it . . . profound

He's so good you wonder, is it a simulacrum?
Big smile and it looks as though he's bowing
But he isn't; and he reels 'em in and tells 'em
That all that time, through the medium of his work,
They were being deeply profound
. . . Without Knowing It

Bigger smile, perfect teeth, eyes wide, and that means

They, the customers, are intelligent, gifted, creative,

Spiritual; and most of all . . . special.

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Do nothing and you're part of the crime

Email HERE & urge the Archbishop of Canterbury to condemn the abhorrent and lethal Ugandan legislation that will deny human rights to homosexuals.

This is what I sent:

There is a craven and misguided public silence from the Archbishop of Canterbury regarding the abhorrent & lethal Ugandan bill to deny human rights to homosexuals.

Perhaps he could point out that Jesus condemned adultery and never mentioned homosexuality. Strange how many Christians disagree with Jesus in this.

The archbishop might suggest, with serious humour, that any pogroms against homosexuals should be preceded by pogroms against adulterers. This would help to make Christian attacks (verbal, legislative or physical) on homosexuals and homosexuality seem less like cherry picking, bigoted hypocrisy.

That is if he has the courage to speak out against the Ugandan policy at all.

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The Brachiosaurus at the dining table

To promote belief in an omnipotent, omniscient supreme being creator, with free will, that has needs, but is responsible neither for its choices nor its actions, is to reject the principle of personal responsibility.

If God / Allah / Jehovah is not responsible for its choices and actions, why should anyone else bear such responsibility?

It is an impediment to human progress, harmful to society and hypocritical to teach children that they are responsible for their choices and actions yet promote a God / Allah / Jehovah that is not responsible for its choices and actions.

Theism remains the overwhelmingly dominant human belief system. By whatever name theism’s creator of the universe is called, the promotion of God’s lack of accountability and personal responsibility and the message that sends to children and adults alike, is of primary importance.

Related link: The Wall

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He doesn’t regret that he cannot pray

He’s grateful for the lack
Of that deception
In mirrored comfort filled
With and living that circular lie
They shoal in their own

Malodorous grace

He swims clumsily but well enough
And when that time comes
Will sink on and into the shade
Stinking of other things
Rot is rot; how you get there is
A matter of taste
A one to one’s self, engagement

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“For everything you have missed

You have gained something else

And for everything you gain
You lose something else”  . . . ^{_{Ralph Waldo Emerson}}

They missed love and gained
Each, a hole in the soul


An infinity of loss
Never to be filled

They gained scars, inside and out,

And lost their childhood

Exchanges fair though less profound

Than poets tend to make it sound

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At first glance the exoskeleton seemed affectation

Until the giant Nomura's jellyfish stepped onto the schooner
Orated the closing stanza of Eric Fried’s “Liberation
From Great Models” and shot the ventriloquist’s

Dummy between it’s painted eyes;
Waves lapped unconcerned
The balance had shifted

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In New Mexico he hugged a tree

In a starlit garden after checking

No one would see



Three months in LA without you cracked him

That and the lack of anything real; with everyone



In a movie: the fake embraced as truer than facts

It wasn’t you but it helped when the tree
Hugged him back

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Jesus condemned adulterers & never mentioned homosexuals

Strange how many Christians disagree with Jesus in this

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A Small Reminder

Funny how lack of self-
Esteem can lead to pre-
Eminence in office

Take El Presidente Dubya Bush
I’ll never forget that Paris, France, press call
Fall with Jacques Chirac 2002 when,
In what seemed an act of welcome

Respect, an American journalist
Asked the French President
A question in his native French language and
Received from Bush a curled lip nasty

Nya-na-na-na-na!
So we know some French … well yah
Boo sucks - its teacher's pet - what's
Wrong with good old American?!

Showing there and then exactly
What was wrong at the wrong
End of a good place at the top
Of the monkey puzzle tree

Boorish rude ungracious by extension
To Chirac his press-call partner and
Something more, the paranoid fear of being made
To look small, which wasn’t happening at all,

Till Dubya made his move; that old familiar
Playground call, and sang that bully boy song
That kills the lion and makes the hyena king
“Hey fellas! He’s different! … Let’s get him!!”

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They found his corpse

At the base of one
Of twenty book cases poetry filled
At the top of the house in a room bare
Of anything else but a wooden chair

Mid confirming death the doctor took
A book from a shelf and leafing through
To the end page found handwritten a poem
On the inside back cover still growing

It held him; then impulsively, he took another
Flipped directly to the end page found verse
In the same hand on the inside back cover
Almost expected; this one shorter and
More moving than the first

Book after book the regimen spread
Till in the twelfth volume the inside back
And both end papers were crammed with text
Poems jotted, scratched out, with bracketed
Revisions, alternatives and this quiet shout

“I suppose they’ll think I was inspired to write
In other people’s books of verse by their work
Truth is I’m more provoked by their lack of poke
‘Cept for a handful of bullish stubborn bastard
Stalwarts who rarely disappoint”

By then men had arrived to bear the corpse away
The doctor placed the book back on its shelf
Considered then dismissed the urge
To keep one for himself

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She doesn’t mien anything

That’s her default facial expression

You don’t disgust her; fact is she’s thinking

About five vegetable portions a day for good

Health; it’s just a coincidence you’re ugly
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World AIDS Day

Odd how many preach wrong


Is wrong; while believing “My country right


Or wrong” is right

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We’ve so long a way to go to catch up

And let’s be honest, we may never catch up
With sparrows, whales, worms, ants, guppies,
Trees and bonobos in their downright casual
Superior usefulness to the function, the running
Smooth of how the motor works

And let’s be honest again, we’re not so hot
On being told we’re wrong; yes I know but
We maybe need to face up to how we have
A tendency to lose it; who the hell do you
Think you are to tell me I don’t know
My business (when clearly we don’t)

I reckon that embarrassment is a big
Part of why the language of our assumed
Dominion over those sparrows, whales,
Worms, ants, guppies, trees, bonobos and others
of our dependents (and our dependents now
they are) is our fatal addiction to their extinction

Embarrassment? Yes, consider: We certainly
Have a history of killing what, just by being,
Reveals we’re not as we proudly, loudly
Righteously proclaim ourselves to be.
So there's little hope for the long term
Survival of mirrors

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The sign saying “heaven” is pointing up

But there's no escape in the ceiling
The roof is corrugated metal

Prayers the congregation send
End up naked, squirming on the floor

To be vacuumed, swept, bagged, tied
Refuse or, as Mum says, “Refuge”

Is collected here on Mondays;
We recycle every bite we can

Doing our daily best of course
Sufficient to this game of man

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Language is a dangerous thing

So, for protection, we find it's

Handy to cap it

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Dichotomy paradox

The fight conflict campaign war against
The Taliban and Al Qaeda is it also war against
Organized international crime protecting
Its horse supply line How much of their
Cash is in our banks and us earning revenue
From that lesson learned In a dishonourable
Time; has there been an other kind
An honourable peace a dishonourable slide
Crossing the line we fight on both sides
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Within days hours had become minutes

Minutes: seconds

Seconds: nanoseconds

Soon there was insufficient time

To oxygenate blood: only then

Did the combatants reconsider

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Get out the get out clause

Should we do the right thing
Even if it is to our disadvantage?
If it is to our disadvantage
Can it be the right thing?

As a nation we believe in equality
Of opportunity for all;  as individuals
We believe in giving our children advantages
Other children cannot have

But “It’s only natural” has never been
Our nation’s official slogan so
It’s OK to lie as a nation
As individuals honesty is king

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Though his children love him

He's always alone

Even when holding them, always alone
Perhaps that’s why the love

His holding them though he's always alone

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Art

Is inevitable

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Meaning

Is the responsibility

Of the audience

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That it makes no sense

Enables sense to be made

Of it

If it made sense

It would be, mere insanity

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