Month: Sep 2017
A Flag is just a Rag [poem]
Phonetically speaking…
it’s not too far to go from flag to rag.
But also in reality; for flags are rags
indeed, and only used to generate
the seed for war in this poor world’s
conditioned young, whose heroes true
and few and sane go every day unsung.
For rags is all these emblems are —
just signals from a dying age
upon a piece of colo(u)red cloth
about the way that countries
plunder one another’s goods,
behaving like no human being ever should.
Parading them in front of mindless armies
marching to their wasted deaths, just so
the ones who sent them reap their gold
disguising their exuberance behind
a mask of fulsome grieving so the parents
of the ones they sent unto their deaths
won’t lose their comfort (falsely bought)
from thinking that they didn’t die in vain.
(They did — but if those mums and dads
would understand that stark and icy fact
they could not tolerate the thought of such
futility & hopelessness in their parental pain).
Since when was Music an “Industry”? [poem]
Since when was music an “industry”?
Yes — oil, steel or pharmaceutery,
ship-building, hotels, textiles or military.
But music, as the food of love,
(the source of which is from above)
is not a money-grubbing tool
to line the dirty inside pockets
of those greedy 10%ing fools.
Music as an “industry” is so uncool!
The very term “to have a hit”
[or should I put an “s” in front of
that to make it what it really is?]
means dollar signs in greedy eyes
& ego-boosting of attention-whores
who masquerade as singers, artists,
f(art)ing out their billboard lies
while screwing influential folks who’ll
open all their once-were-bolted doors.
If you want to hang around with me [song lyrics]
If you want to hang around with me,
don’t take yourself so seriously.
Hang loose to what you think you own
and don’t regard this earth as home.
If you want to hang around with me,
Ensure your mind is honed and free.
Then be prepared to dance and sing
and don’t be triggered by a thing!
The Prosperity Trap
WHEN WE LEARN TO TREAD ONLY THOSE TRACKS WHICH ARE UNBEATEN, then life becomes a chain of fulfilling adventures rather than an inadequate series of accidents. When every road sign which says, “Obstruction ahead!”, makes you press your foot harder on the accelerator with anticipatory exhilaration, then an explosion of entropic ecstasy will scatter the colours of your soul across every flickering trace of darkness. Don’t take my word for it (or for anything). Try it yourself. It can only bring you good (which can come in many disguises, including those which look “bad” 😊). If you follow the untrodden road, epiphany after epiphany will spark in your mind until you almost want to beg for mercy from the avalanche of insights received and experiences gained! Hope and faith will grow within you like a snowball rolling parallel down a hill. Then you will begin to see everything as a gift, whether seemingly “good” or apparently “bad”. You will even see that your times of despair in the past were a gift too. For despair is a gift to keep us humble — to enable us more to appreciate the fullness of joy — for it brings a challenge from the Universe to change our ways and deepen.
Love vs Romance
I USED TO THINK IT WAS REALLY COOL TO BE ROMANTIC — or, should I say, “A Romantic”. After all, isn’t that what poets, or artists of any kind, are supposed to be? However, the older I’ve become and, maybe, also the wiser I’ve become, I’ve realised just how superficial all that romantic stuff really is. In fact, I came to realise that it is actually a cheap counterfeit of something which goes infinitely deeper — namely, Love. Romance has come to play such a huge part in affairs of the human heart for a number of reasons: Inadequate parenting or abuse as a child; inability to face up to the harsh reality of life in this dimension on earth; a failure to transition healthily from child to adult; superficiality and narcissism; and plain old wishful thinking. All of these aspects have — during the last century or so — been avidly exploited by Hollywood movies and Mills and Boon novels (currently 18,000 of them!).
So here are my reasons for abandoning romance in favour of what it counterfeits so insidiously:
There is no Autumn [sonnet]
There is no Autumn in my fertile heart,
where nothing falls but must ascend like heat.
My greensome coloured leaves do not depart
from twigs and branches. Summer’s not complete.
No frost can come my way to freeze the dew.
The crops sown in my fields no harvest need.
For melancholy moments now are few
and flowers in my soul won’t “go to seed”.
The Naked Troubadour 