Labi Siffre - Into The Light

New York City, New York (or any other place on the planet).

It's mornings evenings nights like these
when taking the risk of taking
a sideways glance in a mirror
one can sometimes see how it could be
to be truthful with ourselves
it doesn't happen often
and one hazards discomforting consequences
still
perhaps
something good could come of it

 

___

STROLLING IN THE PARK

"The insignificant
For example
Putin
Trump
Farage
Pol Pot
Widdecombe
Wilders
Xi Jinping
Boris Johnson
Le Pen
Victor Orban
Kim Jong-un
Are of no account;
But their followers
Are of interest.”

“Why so?”

“Because after thousands
Of years they have
Learned
Nothing. That
Isn’t easy to do.”

 

___

BLAMELESS

Cos homo sapiens
Is a lazy
(intellectually)
Wilfully ignorant
Species
We look
For easy answers

And cos we want easy
Answers
We made, make and remake
God
(The easy answer to
and for
everything)

And cos we hate most
To be found
Guilty
Responsibility isn’t our bag
So what we make, we say we found
Cos what we find
Was left behind
By something or someone else:
God

So we
Can’t be
Responsible for it
Nor for what we say it says
Nor for what we say it does
Nor for what we say it demands
And thus we achieve our primary goal:
To be blameless

Best of all
On its behalf
As faithful servants
We can demand
Others behave
In the way we say
God demands

And on God’s behalf
We penalise those
Who disobey it/us
And still remain
Blameless

The perfect path to éminence grise
Political power
While we claim, as always,
To be merely
“Believers"

VINDICATED: An assessement of President Trump & his Godly base

Taught that if you smile the fools
Think you honest he learns
They don’t care that he lies
That he's a crook
As long as he gets them
What they want:
Revenge for not having
Been born
Like him:
Privileged

___

It’s A Wonderful Life

 

When folk declare they're compassionate

Claim to believe

In openness and honesty

I distrust them, immediately

 

Am I compassionate? I don’t know

Open?

Honest?

I don’t trust myself either;

Neither do I know I'm sincere

Till twenty years on, under fire, I find

I’ve stuck to my guns

(Though history makes it clear

Being sincere

Doesn’t mean I’m right)

 

In a world where parents, with passion say

“If I found my son was gay I’d kill him”

And they do

And discovering their daughter

"Fallen"

In love with a man of another faith

They feel

Justified killing her, righteous

 

And we’re all, all of us, compassionate, decent,

Ordinary, hard working

Men and women

And we’re all, all of us, intelligent and do

The best we can, the best tin can

From ashes to ashes

From dust to dust

And I don’t trust any of us

 

___

 

 

 

State of the Union

Americans are anguished
Societies divided, riven, in need
Of balm

To smooth troubled waters
Heal US communities and
Avoid mass employment
Of what so many Americans own:
Automatic weapons, bazookas, mortars,
I suggest

Beside each monument to the confederacy
Raise a monument to Malcolm X
or
Harriet Tubman
or
Martin Luther King

As democratically elected Potus Trump,
Limboing under the belly of a poisonous snake,
Would tweetingly sing, "Problem solved
… easy!’
Ring-a-ding-hoping for the emergence of
An alt-right, fourth Reich, blood soaked, Breitbart,
Final solution BLING!

Way to go! Way to go!
Way to go Trump!
Way to go Scotus hungry Republican party!
We got one black President
Just one
And in outraged, white manhood threatened response
You’ve made a killing

___

Trump, Statues and The State of A Black and White Nation

Enemies are an important part of our history
Should we commemorate them
With statues?
Of Adolf Hitler, for example?
Would that be socially, culturally, educationally helpful
Or harmful?

Robert E. Lee
Hero of the Confederacy
Was a Black people’s enemy
Should Americans oppose
Only statues of the enemies of white folks?
An intriguing sequel to the (updated
For the sake of inclusivity) declaration
That all people
Are "created equal"

___

The Children Of Brex Get It

And so in this the children
Wiser than their parents see
Their future blocked
By their elders' fears

The children denied a voice
By gerrymanderers offering scapegoats and
A good old days that cannot come;
That river they promise ... has moved on

___

I Wonder Why Austerity Doesn't Start At The Top

I wonder why austerity doesn't start at the top

written and read by Labi Siffre

___

 

Safe

 Safe

written and read by Labi SIffre

___

 

Focus

The narrower my view
The easier I can say
"This has nothing to do with ..." (whatever I choose)
Cos whatever I choose cannot be seen
From where I stand
If I narrow my view
So I narrow my view

I narrow my view cos
Parochialism pays dividends
(For me)
I declare things are simple, straightforward
With my narrow view, awkward complexity is banished,
Vanished, irrelevant, not true
So I narrow my view
But

Often wonderfully, too often tragically,
Anything human is complexity
Upon complexity, upon paradox on toast
Shadows have shadows
Ghosts have ghosts
So I narrow my view
Being careful not to tilt
So leave complexity to the few willing
To handle, at least a little, collective guilt

Another man of the people
I feel safer in and with the crowd
Fifty millennia proud and strong; I narrow my view,
Empirically it compounds the problems
But it makes me feel it’s easier to get on

___

 

Rome

Today
In the USA
Under Donald Trump
Plutocracy, masquerading
As democracy, is attempting
To hold its citizens hostage 
To fascism; and the people
Voted for this

___

The Kids Have Dreams

A new Video by Labi Siffre

 

 

___

Both Collocutors Disabled By Cloth

I tweeted this question
In twenty eleven
It got no response

Still the question remains
The answer clear and clearly terrifying
For those who impose the clothing

The question is:
Concerning the human race
What is the function of the human face?

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini…/english/collocutor

 

___

The Evening Of The Day Jo Cox Died

"Britain first"
"God is great"
Patriotism
Theism
Scoundrels
Refuge

Penultimate
Ultimate
Radical? No.
Old as a lack of
Courage

___

For The Orlando Dead - June 12th 2016

Fifty, yet, dead; a coward
Inspired by craven belief
Killed them; if
Angels exist they shit
In his mouth

___

Life Goes On

From far and wide
Concerned friends,
Family and healthcare
Professionals advised him
"Strychnine is lethal”
“Nonsense” he poo-pooed
“You’re scaremongering!
Threatening, bullying!
Don’t tell me what to do!
Cast aside project fear
Be positive, optimistic
I'm the fifth healthiest person
In the room!"

We didn’t go to his funeral
As far as we know no one did
Times were tough
They're tougher now
Especially for the kids

___

Muhammed Ali - Farewell

Farewell Muhammed Ali
You chose your name
And label

Despite white cowardice
You stung like a bee, and
Encouraged me
To be Me

Thank you
Muhammed Ali

___

Paris Attacks 13-11-15

The lie of killing for God
There is no evidence of God
No murderers no murdered go to heaven
Nor to hell
No martyrs, no heroes, only corpses.

‪___

A Small World

The young man shares

With us the sadness of his life

His story brings tears to my eyes

Dissimilar to mine it is the same

___

Jihad Jihad Bring Back Our Girls

And in the end
The great Jihad
Appears to be
Primarily about
The right to have
Women, as slaves,
By day
By night
___

From One Who Only Watches

Cleverly with illegal
Settlement building
Israel ethnically
Cleanses Palestine

We here watch
With less
Excuse
Than World War Two
Dachau Town residents

With our cynical joke
Calling for restraint
On both sides

We stink of death
Calling ourselves
The International Community
Of good guys

___

Another Word in the Lexicon of Avoidance

Men In gangs
Rape Girls
In a land awash
With ragas
And
"Spirituality"

I distrust that "must
Be OK then" word
Ever self-servingly
Caste

___

Falsely Claimed Moral Authority

Belief is
To
Religious Belief

As
A Scientific Theory is
To
A Theory

Or
A life
To
A “lifestyle”

___

"It's Old, Let It Go"

History looks at

And listens to

Those who say

"It's all in the past"

And laughs and laughs

And laughs and laughs

And laughs and laughs

And laughs

___