If there was one word for this world of ours.
One word to summarise it all up.
That word would be cruelty, or on a good day hate.
For this is a world of misery, with lives spent crying;
Crying a whole river flood of tears.
And for what, what is all the anger for?
What is it that makes those furious wheels rotate?
Well there is fighting over dirty patches of ground,
That are now so battle scarred nobody really wants to call them home.
And then there are the wars fought
Between the thugs and the mad,
Over who has control of the holes in the fabric of the earth,
Because everybody wants to own the shiny rocks beneath.
Or the rampage to control the streets
So that chemists can create better ways To get a buzz on…
Now this song does not have a direct link to the above poem but it was playing while I was writing so I’ve included it because I can. And because it is about love and not hate. Which has to be a good thing.
Can you hear me?
Does this emotion make a sound.
If I drop a pebble in the ocean
Will it make my father proud?
Is this disconnectedness
Our common ground.
Is this losing streak
The change in luck we need.
Is this the seed, the beginning
Of the final act, my friend.
Will I get the signal through
The interference. Will the DJ play
My dedication across the dying ground today.
What if the perspective shifts
And what was hidden
Becomes plain to see,
And what was visible
Starts to disappear,
Drowning beneath the waves.
Rifle loaded, target acquired
In the crosshairs for a headshot again
And only those from the dead ground will be saved.
Can you hear me?
Does this emotion make a sound.
Is all that remains just shadow
And dust and memory. With every heartbeat counting…
The quality of mercy
Is a dispassionate beast.
To turn your head and see
The world through another’s eyes;
To offer your brother a hand up
Rather than place your boot
On his neck
And press down.
Why not mercy for all,
Not just mercy for some?
I wrote this poem awhile back, but I always felt I needed to put it into some context before posting it.
Maybe that’s just my way of saying my words don’t adequately express the emotion I’m trying to capture or simply as justification for the views expressed.
After all, I’m only human.
A little context
When you are looking for a calm space in this crazy modern world and some meaning in life, it is probably inevitable you go looking for meaning in the devine.
It is, I believe, fundamentally human to imagine we are part of something bigger.
The sense I get when I look at a representation of Jesus on the cross or Buddha sitting cross legged, is that the majority of artists who have tried to represent these individuals tried to show their serenity.
You could argue that it is this calmness and awareness of others that underpins the philosophies of these individuals. Maybe it is this stillness that has made humans through the ages seek to follow their examples. While all around vast swathes of the human race try their hardest to degrade their fellow men. It does appear that the only limitless thing in the universe is mankind’s inhumanity. It did make me wonder what if the higher powers of the universe did consider giving up on us.
Maybe because I grew up watching the films with the animation of Ray Harryhausen where the gods of Olympus gather round a break in the clouds to peer down at us from on high, I imagine them congregating together, discussing the human race – deciding whether to cut their losses.
Anyway that’s the background to this poem. So, with apologies to all Buddhists, Christians and others of faith. As well as Led Zeppelin and John Lennon.
Hats off to karma
While Jesus wept,
Buddha just sighed
For he’d seen it all before.
He said, “Don’t you cry there brother,
About them fucking it up
And wrecking it all.
Because if that instant karma don’t get them,
I know; my shotgun will.
I know it’s all down to the highly intellectually circles I hang around in but I’ve been asked “…if you were a superhero what would you want your super power to be?” quite a few times over the years.
I’ve always been overwhelmed by the possibilities to be able to choose just one. The ability to fly would be pretty cool, superhuman strength would be handy for taking the lids off of jars. Then there is invisibility, super-speed, the ability to shapeshift, the list goes on of superpowers I wouldn’t mind test driving for a couple of days.
At long last though, I think I have finally made a decision. The superpower I want is the ability to touch someone occasionally either through my words or by my actions. I think the ability to be able to add something positive to someone else’s life would be a wonderful superpower for any (super)human to claim as their own.
So everybody be nice to a neighbour, the stranger standing next to you in the supermarket or even to just your nearest and dearest.
photo credit: ssoosay A Riot Pin-up Model via photopin(license)
