Collected Works

As well as writing in my spare time I also write poetry as a hobby of sorts. The frequency and quality of any work I produce is best described as sporadic and variable. As a result of this I usually leave it on the back of an envelope rather than on a blog. However, rooting around I have found a few that I thought might be quite fun to share.

Feel free to peruse at your leisure..

Religion/Philosophy

I have a keen interest in religion and different philosophical perspectives having held various different views in different points in my life I have generally settled on a sceptical, empirical stance, though I have as little time for rude atheists as 

I have a keen interest in religion and different philosophical perspectives having held various different views in different points in my life I have generally settled on a sceptical, empirical stance, though I have as little time for rude atheists as I do for religious fanatics. This set of poems reflects my general musings on the subject.

The Meaning Seekers

We are the meaning seekers, lost in eternity,

Hunting for salvation, in a never ending sea.

Beyond the horizon, we believe we see a shore.

Our trouble is our reason, via which we commit an act of treason,

For we are discovering that there is no reason, just eternal laws.

The cup of knowledge can be a poisoned chalice,

It depends if we treat those around us with love or with malice.

For this can be our prison or it can be our palace.

We are the meaning seekers, lost in eternity,

Hunting for salvation, in a never ending sea.

For we may never reach those far off beaches,

And be here for ever more, on our lonely shore.

For we feel we have to travel to far off beaches,

And fear that if we stay we shall cling, like leaches.

From whom nothing of beauty can escape,

A ragged halfling who in living is only able to take,

A nuisance parasite who lives only to break.

We are the meaning seekers, lost in eternity,

Hunting for salvation, in a never ending sea.

For the grass seems always greener, our neighbours always richer,

An endless seeking for a victor, some sort of final fixer,

But the grass there is all of ours, this wonderful human mixture.

We would find it less lonely, if we came to know our common humanity.

We are alone in the universe, that is near a certainty,

We are truly free but the price of this is maturity.

To Vilify?

I'm prepared to reconsider, to compromise,

Your prepared to stigmatise.

Every civilisation claims to lie at the centre of the universe,

A notion that some might call perverse.

We for ever seem to mythologise,

Hiding the true nature of things with our lies.

We cry, we lie, we dream to fly with every verse,

Some willingly whilst others are coerced.

False dichotomies, pathetic fallacies,

It haunts us, makes us enemies,

When at last we can recognise our common humanity.

We can lay to rest this bloody profanity.

A species at war with itself is doomed,

It may as well lay in its own tomb.

Pillaging the earth to increase our wealth, true insanity,

Commodifying life itself, an error of the utmost depravity.

For the earth herself will heal in eternity,

She follows ancient law written for posterity.

Natural law has no mercy,

It is only the law, how to act is up to humanity.

If we are to survive we must reclaim our democracy.

Achieve balance in our lives, end this hypocrisy.

For all that we try to say that we own the earth, and often to greed succumb.

We merely loan it from those yet to come.

Noise correction

Noise correction, spoil, protection,

Opposable thumb, appendix forensics,

Feeding reality, pleasing imagination.

Burning through the fog the truth shown,

The flaws in old logics elegantly displayed,

From tree we climbed, not angel flown.

The binding of our ethics,

From our history has grown,

Search not for the mythic,

Let natural elegance be shown.

Let us cleanse from our souls the mystic,

To show our own brilliance as we have grown,

Our skills they are truly prolific,

Yet our oneness is yet not our own.

Time

The time we have is but a temporary thing,

Life can be hard, a pulsating, raucous, at times noxious din,

It is the raging cacophony that all things in the cosmos sing.

It can be happy, it can be sad, but in spite of its flaws,

I thank thank any gods you may happen to believe in,

to be caught up in this glorious whirlwind.

Feminism

I don't consider regarding myself as a feminist as particularly newsworthy but the subject itself very much is. The general premise of equality seems to be a challenge to some people, though an unequal society sometimes very conveniently benefits those who don't want to hear about how we might alter it in positive ways!

There are of course complexities and nuances within feminist discourse, such as ensuring that all women are represented in the movement and getting well meaning but sometimes unhelpful people to know when to stop talking. Below is my own 10p's worth..

A Plea for our Full Flowering Potential

Delving into the decisively delicate demeanour of the less documented division of humanity.
A difficult and daring endeavour, denoting distinction from its other.

A binary position, an indelicate imposition, a patriarchal crushing of any other disposition.
Of course the feminine is a valid position, at the very least there is societal tragedy by its cultural omission.

Is it fear that leads to such idiotic reductivism?
Whatever the cause, patriarchy leads to a pariah’s prerogative;

Protest your plight with all your might,
Never placidly provide for those who ask for tithes!

The Journey

She climbed the stairs carved into the side of the mountain in trepidation, her hair getting caught in her eyes as a bead of sweat made its way down her forehead.

A strong hot wind blew as she climbed the steps, pulling at her clothes and making her lean forward close to the stair, scared she might fall.

She had often doubted whether she should make the journey to pay homage at the shrine.

Was it appropriate, did she even have the right to enter?

It had been a long road getting to where she was going and she wasn’t going to give up now because of a load of hot air!

Finally, as she turned around the last bend in the stair nearing the summit it came into view, the temple of the Goddess.

A great statue of her sat cross legged over a colonnade, her hair sweeping down over her flowing robes in golden coloured stone.

As she got to the top of the stair she came to a wide courtyard filled with figures standing guard at the entrance.

As she walked across the courtyard she could see they were in fact statues; Athena, Artemis, Boudicca and a great denizen of other goddesses and women of history.

As she came to the entrance she could see carved in the stone above;

“Only the true of heart should enter here”

She paused for a moment looking back across the courtyard and the long torturous path it had taken her to get to where she was.

Finally, she took a deep breath and entered..

Romanticism/conservation

I have always been interested in conservation and have rather romantic 

I have always been interested in conservation and have rather romantic sensibilities (articles which reflect this can be found earlier in my archive e.g.).

Below is an eclectic mix of these themes...

  

Whispering whims of whimsy

Whimsy, such an elemental cloud,
A cluster of sweet ideas,
A posy of purposeful prose with a preponderance for piety.

Wondering waifs, fanciful fruit of the imagination,
Flagrant fruits of fancy, wistful wonderings of the flowering mind.

From voluptuous Venusian to Martian masculinity and every grain in between,
The formation of ideas in the human mind is most likely the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

  

Orb

Orb is a wonderful word, our collective orb is a wonderful world. 

Seen from space it is an iridescent, gleaming, ‘pale blue dot’, spaceship earth, our only home. 

If we could all see with the eyes of a god this might give us a clearer view of our situation: We have, very recently, become more aware of our predicament, at least notionally. 

Unfortunately for most of recorded (and most likely unrecorded) history we have acted as if the world was a boundless plain, a flat earth of plenty with no horizon.

As close as this was to the experiential reality of our ancestors the physically limited domain that is our world has suffered the all to real effects of our myopia. 

Let us hope that we can learn to soar like an eagle with the eyes of a god, tempered by the wisdom not to fly too close to the sun.

  

A Longship Query

Oh mighty boat of the ocean waves,
A trireme would see you as but a knave,
Are you and your crew as Napoleon and his wicked brew?

Are you ‘Great Interlopers’? Knaves of the wave,
Monsters from the deep sent to crush the brave?

From where do you seek your courage?
To which gods are you true?

What ideas do you tie to your mast and do they fly true?

What is the nature of your wake?
Do you ask or take those you would have as your mates?

Is the furrow of your prow a clear azure blue,
Or is it as crimson as the bloodied swords of your crew?

From distant lands you have come and far shores you go to.
Is there any plan in your quest for all things new?

   

King Play

A powerful creature, king of beasts,

Yet sometimes he famines sometimes he feasts.

For nature though fair no mercy she shows,

Although known for her beauty only cruel logic she knows.

Man the inventor, a plucky bird-beast,

Not known for his courage but for his cunning at least.

Bird-beasts and kings though long had fought,

An uneasy sort of truce had wrought.

Though then came the colonialist, 

Arrogant and pale, newcomer to the East,

Only with greed and cruelty greets.

A plucky bird-beast,

Holding a lethal tree beak,

Picks his way past mires in the heat,

Rustling in khaki shorts he hunts,

For the king of beasts.

King stalks proud and sleek,

Winding his way through glades and reeds,

Eyes burning with intense heat.

He freezes, he stands, what is this he meets?

A bird-beast standing like a bull elephant,

To him, the king of beasts!

The tree beak of the bird beast spits and splits the air,

Crack, thud, red tears on red fur,

Kings eyes grow sharp, narrow with pain,

He roars, he charges, his foe to meet.

Crack, thud, red tears on red fur,

King falters to a lope, a stagger,

King sits, red tears from raw gums,

And roars at a decadent republic rising from the fall of a monarch.

Crack, thud, red tears on red fur,

With his last sight,

As bloodmist clouds day to night,

King sees a solitary tear,

Run down the bird-beast's cheek,

A hint of regret for killing the meek.

Like Pots That Gods Have Made

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to be able to go on holiday, not something I can afford to do very often! I travelled to near Bordeaux in France and managed to practice some wonderfully horrific French on the locals. It turned out that I was a little south of where I thought Bordeaux was on the map and I found that we were in the French part of the Basque country.

Aside from a rather nice local type of Basque pie on arrival and the symbol of the Basque country adorning most public buildings, doorways (and even the top of the pie!) there was not much sign of any sort of cultural friction that I could see. As part of this trip I also travelled down into the Spanish part of the Basque country, where, again, I could not see a great deal of surface level tension, though I did actually hear people speaking Basque and all signs and public signage were bilingual.

It turns out that there are approximately 500,000 Spanish Basque speakers as opposed to 50,000 or so in France.  France, as part of its development as a modern state, has developed the French language as being central to its national identity whereas Spain has a much more recent history of internal conflict and a highly federalised system of government to account for all of the linguistic and cultural diversity present in the country.

I should add at this point that this is not meant as a nuanced, culturally particular ethnography comparing different approaches to affirmation of cultural identity within the nation state between two countries. Such work exists and is highly valuable but I was just a tourist. My observations serve to illustrate general principles which at the current time appear to be rather important.

As part of my Spanish excursions I went to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, which though in itself is a fascinating artwork, houses some gorgeous exhibitions. One exhibit looked like giant broken pots, as if made by the hands of some great god and dropped. In the same way that many mountains look like the teeth from some immense beast long since deceased.

The museum also displayed an exhibition by Yoko Ono which showed a range of interesting work though two particular points stood out at me, one piece which emphasised the universality of water and its essential role in our survival and a quote of Yoko’s;

“We as viewers are thus assigned a much more important role than we are used to. We have to become active for the actual work only takes place when we start using our imagination”

The idea of the universality of water and its essential role in our lives and of becoming active in a work made me thing of the issues of resource distribution and political representation. We all have universal needs for basic resources that provide for human needs and we all need to consider how such resources are distributed so that we all have reasonable and equitable access to them.

‘Resources’ can be taken to mean a range of different things from obvious basic necessities such as food, air and water to things that we would very much like to have and, quite reasonably, treat as rights, such as various sorts of political and monetary resources, a pension when we retire, a right to political representation etc.

We live in an era of constraints on resources across the board from peak oil to peak water to peak population, and (some might argue) peak economic growth.  I have met plenty of people who contest different aspects of this; from neoliberal economists who don’t appear to understand the laws of basic physics (the second law of thermodynamics and a planet of finite size) to those on the left of the political spectrum who regard aspects of environmentalism as conservatism in a new blanket which is counterproductive to improving the lives of the majority.

I have sympathy with both points of view, the seductive idea of endless growth and progress from the point of view of your regular economist and utopian and the irritation that the hypocrisy of rich comfortable white people harping on about saving resources whilst flying on holiday as billions of people barely have enough to eat. 

I personally am an open minded sceptical type, I think that a range of ways of looking at something could be constructive but I would like to see your working and plenty of evidence!

I don’t think that it is impossible to raise the living standards of most of the human race to a comfortable level without destroying our habitat, nor do I think it is impossible for everyone to get along in a way that is truly democratic without the looming threat of social violence as a motivator. 

Heck, call me a utopian, I’ve not quite got as far as being a broken hearted idealist just yet.

In order to achieve such wonderful outcomes though there are certain ways of going about things that are much more conducive to success than others. For example, militarising the planet to calm your own paranoid fears of your own shadow are not going to make the world a better place. Nor is using up all of the world’s non-replenishible resources as quickly as possible to make your national bank balance look better temporarily.

Going back to my Spanish travels, I have visited the country once before, to the bottom of the country near Sierra Nevada. A number of things struck me, in addition to the warmth of the people. What I noticed was how parched the landscape was even relatively early in the year, though impressively there were large hydroelectric dams, part of Spain’s concerted push towards renewable electricity generation. I also got the general impression that more housing had been built than was strictly necessary!

None of these things have been exclusive to Spain, many European countries have made a strong push into the use of renewables and other countries such as Ireland have had large property bubbles.  These are all symptoms of the effects of the large scale political and economic trends that have been developing in Europe over the past decade or so. As are the recent spate of increased calls for economic decentralisation and independence movements that are taking root across the continent.

A very constructive and healthy pooling of common assets and economic integration in the wake of the mass insanity and retributions of the 20^th century developed in the form of the European Coal and Steel community, then the European Economic Community and now the European Union. This expanding organisation has developed cooperation and economic integration between once warring peoples across a continent and this is truly something to celebrate. However, I do worry that we have over the past few years entered potentially ruinous territory..

FEAR NOT… This is not where I then go off on some sort of paranoid rant about how Brussels is the antichrist and that immigrants are somehow responsible for the budget deficit, late trains and sleet.

What has occurred is that a common currency across a number of nations has forced a pooling of risk between very different economies and led to very large scale distortions in the amounts of money that people have been able to borrow and lend to each other. This has led to innumerable, briefly profitable, promises being made to other countries that cannot be kept. The results, so far, have been large scale housing booms and busts, rapidly rising levels of unemployment in southern Europe, spiraling national debts and rising social unrest. The whole thing went too far too fast and we are all now in a bind, there is not enough money on earth to bail out Europe, not that anyone will tell you that..

Other parts of the world such as China and the United States are having their own similar problems from over-leverage, kicking problems into the long grass and pretending everything is fine when it is clearly not. This is all part of a wider picture of reaching limits to resources, post WW2, and the mass industrialisation that it spawned we have undergone, as a planet, what has been termed ‘the great expansion’, a massive ramping up of usage of resources, population growth etc. Now after many decades, we are reaching the limits of what the earth can sustain ecologically on a range of fronts – this need not be an insurmountable problem.

Large scale political institutions and increasing centralisation of resource allocation does not appear to be the most constructive way to deal with such issues. They are currently wildly massive levels of inequality within and between countries. If the fundamental issue of the equitable sharing of resources, economic, political and environmental are not solved in a rational manner the end result,  if you are not careful, involves lamposts, rope and pitchforks. 

  

Decentralisation seems the most sane way to diffuse this potential bomb.

This where we come back to Spain, as well as the long term issue of the autonomy/independence of the Basque region there are other groups who would like to run their own affairs. The Catalan region is currently attempting to hold a referendum on independence, with increasingly authoritarian responses from the central government. Both groups have understandable points of view, the central government, after having got through the Spanish civil war, the despotism of Franco and now having a decentralised country want to keep everything together and try to focus on recovering the economy (however impossible that may be at the current time). The Catalans largely want to run their own affairs and be left be, don’t we all!

I currently reside in Scotland where we have recently been asked (and answered) the question as to whether we want to go our own way. That the vote did not lead to independence is not necessarily the only outcome of the vote to consider. Voter turnout was higher than it has been in any vote since just after the Second World War, 97% of the eligible populace registered to vote! The Scottish referendum seized the imagination of the nation as for once the electorate were actually allowed to become active and were assigned an important role.

In being allowed a voice, and an authorised platform in which to air their grievances, the people have been able to articulate their points of view and a more federal, decentralised structure for the entire UK is the likely outcome which can serve the interests of everyone well considering the wider context.

In the urge to consolidate political power and sustain the unsustainable political leaders such as Rajoy of Spain risk waking the monsters we left to sleep in the past and undoing the good work of recent decades.

Will our civilisation come to resemble those celestial pots, too large for their use, crashing to the ground in a thousand pieces, leaving their remains like broken teeth?

Let us hope that the ideals displayed at the Guggenheim shine through and that the populace are given the chance to engage with the piece before it falls apart under its own weight.