Bitter and Twisted..
“Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.”
Bitter and Twisted!
Betrayal.
“Betrayed”.. Mathew Dorabiala.
A Betrayal.
It’s a terrible realisation, a sense of betrayal,
When someone special, in whom you had feelings,
Reveals to you their other face, and in disgrace,
You cannot but turn away, shamed that you once embraced,
To your heart..their heart, in encompassing compact,
In whom you whispered and shared sensitive secrets,
To then see them evolve into another person, who,
Now appears more inline with a group you eschew,
Being part of the swollen, swirling morass of “the mob view”.
“The mob view”..where nothing is sacred, save bigoted opinion,
Never to bestow on a lesser minion what is best kept,
As revered text and public view one’s own personal bias pet,
While the other side of argument is granted little respect,
And the whole swilling mass self-congratulates in cruel effect!
**
So you feel you have to leave the companionship behind,
Forsaking those memories that gentle sentiment reminds,
Surrender to fate, all feelings of cause for regret,
And move swiftly away from such dis-ease..lest it infect
*
Transgression.
(Adam Miller’s Emulation of Raphael)
Transgression.
Chapter one..
“The governance of the Julian House soon taught men
in a terrible form how far it was possible to hold fire and water in the same vessel..”
*
Time wrote the contract, in collusion with Nature,
It then co-signed with a mute hand,
Caring not a jot for action or consequence,
And Mother Nature..who was She to bother the loss of one specie,
When were legion of substitutes in the great spawning,
For could not a goldfish be as valued as man in such vast universe?
But WE…WE, the industrious plunderers of the world,
We cared..for the obvious consequences of such looting,
Is the loss of future opportunity to gather harvest.
But do we honour?….Do we honour when we have so readily transgressed,
Across so many moral boundaries that hold us in unity?
Did not those two original co-conspirators; Time and Nature,
Write the rules of engagement that confine all life?
Chapter two..
“Turning the pages of history, one sees the organic, habitual behaviour
of people today in similar situations..love, jealousy, greed alike”.
*
Social, natural, physical, mental, capable, actual, menial,
Not near satisfying enough for the inquisitive eye of humanity,
Always seeking the easy way out..the easy method,
Of making life easier..but did it, does it..make life easier?
Invention upon invention..laying one thing atop another,
Each one the object to reduce the burden of work,
Cunning being the modus operandi for achieved success,
Make US the supreme animal over all others,
Take some beasts from their natural environment,
Train them to work for us, make some pet creatures,
For our own amusement, for our own vanity..
Ah!..vanity…vanity..did we not discover THAT delight,
Sooner than most other useful aberrations,
Chapter three..
“History; she too is a bible, but cannot hinder the fool from
misunderstanding her or the Devil from misquoting her…”
*
Was it the admired reflection in a shallow pool of water,
Bestowed the name of beautiful, of handsome, on one,
To become a treasure, to be admired of the tribe?
Then came the hunger for wealth to match beauty,
For the unlucky and unfortunate were not to be denied,
In equal measure of value, perhaps more so..to BUY beauty!
For wealth became an exchangeable commodity,
But would make the living of life so much harder,
For wealth need be based on the value of a rare commodity,
That would demand hard work to seek and gather.
Not for those who could weave from nature and time,
Enough to get by, enough to survive with an ease,
Allowing time enough on quiet days to make as one pleased.
Chapter four..
“The infinite depth of human compassion contends
with the infinite depth of human misery.”
*
The skills of hunting, of weaving, of making of things,
Old companions, old compatriots, old habits,
The clustering of the clan around these small wants and needs.
It was soon seen by those seeking power that such people,
Must needs be destroyed, debased, denied, false crimes contrived,
Till want, poverty, and loss of opportunity for freedom,
Herds them into the waiting trap of dependence.
It first started with taking advantage of reason,
To seek advantage rather than reason for restraint,
Want can never restrain an inquisitive eye,
That sees advantage in inventing..say; a trap that would ease,
Time in hunting the traditional way,
So more game could be gathered with less effort,
Chapter five..
“The giddier the height to which riches rose, the deeper
the abyss of poverty yawned..”
*
But in doing so lose such accrued skills of the hunt,
In doing so let one person control the taking of food,
That soon morphed into one person..AND those favoured,
Taking control of means of produce, then the tribe itself,
For who are we to deny ourselves a certain luxury,
Of doing as least as possible for as high as possible reward,
Is that not the measure of personal achievement?
From the control of a trap to the trap of control,
Was but a moment in time..and time has no consideration,
For consequence..nor does Nature bother on the loss,
Of one specie when there is the great spawning.
But Nature does have rules for engagement of all species,
She has laid the blueprint for the basic foundation only,
Chapter six..
“The young fop–as with smooth chin, delicate voice, and mincing gait…
Might well have a horror of the unnatural world,
in which the sexes seemed as though they wished to change parts.”
*
There was but one clause built into the contract of life;
Reproduce in like species, in male and female conjunction.
But here it has gone astray also, turning a delight,
Of man laying with woman into a twisted perversion,
And couldn’t stop with just that one..our inquisitive eye,
Sought so many other pleasures by which to block out boredom,
For though the many gadgets that had been created,
With an inventive mind relieving the labour and the tedium,
The beast within was still fierce and wanting to be fed.
Habits, moods, desires, revulsions must be satiated,
Above all else, know we are still that ancient barbarian!
Know we are still that ferocious hunter,
Except now it is not food we stalk, nor of quarry we talk,
Chapter seven..
“As rivers glisten in different colours,
But a common sewer everywhere looks like itself…”
*
Now it is secrets, dark, dark secrets…and regrets..
For the future it is not enough to make life easier,
For the future it is turned into a game of fortune to be chased,
And with each step toward heightened pleasure become more base,
The last species to the staging-post, each one at a time we seek to erase,
Until alone with only our conscience we will convince ourselves,
We…….have won the race.
WE have transgressed beyond the boundaries of good reason,
WE..have become the quarry hunted in Time’s own good season.
Watch it!
Watch it!
Watch it!
Are you watching it?….for it is all ending.
[All quotes are from Theodore Mommsen’s “History of Rome.”]
*
Beauty or The Beast..
The Beauty or The Beast.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,. . .”
So Ginsberg wrote of his generation’s numbing anger,
A blinded generation with war and thunder,
Lost in the screaming soul of drug-filled madness..
But we..we of the boomer years climbed out of
That pit of despair and lifted our eyes away from
Their brutish glare..their military ideals lost in despair..
We broke the back of The Beast with an idea of love,
We looked toward a brighter horizon,
Threw off the cloak of sackcloth and ashes,
And with The Beast of foul duty firmly shackled,
We looked forward to an age of Aquarius tackled..
In doing, we neglected to put The Beast to death,
We ought to have taken from it, it’s last, foul breath.
Our own weakness was to let it lay..let it rest,
Till it again grew strong and we lost the will to resist,
For that Beast hath deep knowledge of human weakness,
And somewhere between our new society and eternity,
We failed to distinguish the line between ugly and,
That which is Beauty…between the ugly and Beauty,
You’d think there be no choice…to choose wrong be blind crazy!
Not withstanding, we chose the ugly because it being easy,
It filled our hunger for want and with greed did enthral,
(For that Beast hath deep knowledge of human weakness ),
Losing to us the sight of love..Beauty so despoiled,
Base madness now has returned to engulf us all,
Turning us into raving fools..forgetting the lesson of Babel,
Blind, hysterical madness returns..now The Beast..will lay us waste..as it is able.
*
Where to From Here?
“Middle-class feminism has a blind spot over female cleaners”: Eve Livingston.
What chance our lot;
When one woman with an apple could destroy God’s little paradise?
But it’s a metaphor, isn’t it : God, the garden and Utopia likewise,
When it’s really about The Corporation and the lesser population?
Because it was neither the apple, nor the woman,
That so tempted us that we threw our lot in with that Demon.
It was the goading of a “God” with his temptation of mammon,
That “Tree of Knowledge”…for knowledge is power, is wealth,
The apple became the symbolic, tradable commodity,
But with a rider attached as an enticing oddity,
Eve’s sexuality; the “sales pitch” selling promise of that wealth.
**
Cut to here and now, and we see just the same pitch, same how,
And why we have bought into the greatest swindle, cunning stealth,
Since Adam was conned into biting into that apple.
But this time it wasn’t a man who was targeted,
He was recovering from wars, long hours worked and low wages,
The Man was already burned out and milked in all those stages.
This time the Devils set their sights on working-class women,
Here was an untapped cheap-labour force there for the taking,
“Divide and rule” as old as time itself, reborn now in the making,
If only they followed the advice of their “finishing-school sisters”,
Became storm-troopers, cannon fodder so those same hucksters,
Could break THEIR “glass ceiling” and rise alongside their male “brothers”,
Using power and persuasion of numbers magnified by these “others”.
There was mention of “career” and “independence” for working-class women,
All one had to do was to forsake their natural inclinations,
Drop any idea of marriage, children..forget; “husband and wife”,
Reject family structure and lose that man in your life,
(What was he but a burden to your career enhancement!),
For he represented “The Patriarchy” that restricted such advancement,
Never mind that he was lower on the rung of “saleable commodities”,
For the middle-class promise of “Healthy, Wealthy and Happy”,
Pivoted centrally on the prostitution of female sexuality,
Third-world surrogate mothers bearing children for homosexual lovers,
Donated sperm “copulation” for lesbian couples via artificial insemination,
Womanhood debased by caricatured gender-alignment, drag-queen trannies,
Single gender parenting “normalised” as “Two blokes and a cocker-spannie’ “
But if such is “normal”, then society is gone insane since the age of our Grannies!
So tell me, you working-class poor..now that you have gained so much “liberty”..
How’re those low wages going for you..Still waiting there patiently?
Like the rest of the working-class…still busking for “Ko-fi” at that station,
Trusting the middle-class to fix the problem of their own creation…
Well…you’ll be waiting forever, like that promise of wealth satiated.
We’ve ALL been sold a ‘pup’ by the upper middle-class bastards,
Now we’re left here broke, “Woke” and homeless on the bones of our arses!
Working people:
Know your enemy..it’s NOT ALWAYS a gender issue, so much as opportunists from the elite, upper-middle-classes.
*
A Traded-off Life.
A traded-off life.
Would it be wiser to act the fool,
And be graced with effusive public “bravos!”,
Than to be a keeper of inherent knowledge,
And be shunned, scorned in the shadows?
For what benefits an actor who diligently practices his lines,
To be upstaged by a pretentious mummer ad-libbing atrocious strine?
The same for the exacting pedant, research wise,
Entangled by a buffoon practised in compromise.
And why mock the woman, choosing to stay in the home,
Seeking no confected career, but as mother to her bairns,
More than the unskilled female, labouring ,
Wasting her life in dreary, low-paid slaving,
To prove a point of “managed social-equality” in the making?
Or the young person choosing a skilled trade,
Over facile delusion of “E-Commerce”; a beggar-man made?
Perhaps we all have been taken for a ride,
By some low-brow, middle-class philosophic pap,
With that promise of “healthy, wealthy and happy”,
When all the while turning us into parasited patsies,
Thrown onto THEIR dole when they close THEIR factories.
Perhaps there IS only one “final solution”,
That is to enact a Chairman Mao-style “cultural revolution”,
Expel from governance all middle-class non-producing schemers,
To be replaced with skilled-trades educated workers,
And be rid of those opportunist, entrepreneurial fools,
To recreate a life full-lived by more equitable social rules!
*
The Drowning.
The Drowning.
The cry rings out from the horrified crowd on the shore,
“They’re drowning! They’re drowning!”
The pointing fingers, the despairing calls,
But no-one moves to go and help them,
Because there are none to lead the way.
“They’re drowning! They’re drowning!”
The frantic cries!
The desperate eyes!
The flaying arms as the river does rise,
Carrying all before its thundering ride…
But below the vision and noise of the horror,
A futile waving of ragged cloth, song of terror,
Final gesture of nationalist fervour, patriotic error,
Is an eerie silence that cuts through the sight,
As deep and clean as a sculptor’s knife,
Giving wry reason to this darkened night..
It is the silence of grotesque anticipation,
In vengeful delight and with such morbid elation,
The wanting, the witnessing, the pause of waiting,
On the suicide watch of that dying nation.
*
Post Armageddon..
(Pic ; “Holiday in Gaza”).
A cold night on the range.
Was the year after the blast that ended it all,
Not a whole room left standing..just rubble and sprawl,
And we were camp’d freezing amongst it all.
With nary a stick to burn to keep us warm,
But a box full of books packed in haste,
A box full of books found buried among waste.
So we lit a fire with those learned tomes,
Warmed our hands to the rhymes of poems,
And in jest to our plight using the fire we might
Read a line or two and laugh with vulgar delight!
“Here’s a good one”…Louise called out,
Holding the screed aloft in theatrical tout,
And with an exaggerated voice of stage,
Read those prescient words from the page;
“When first the tottering house begins to sink,
Thither goes all the weight by an instinct”.
A moody silence fell from those words,
A warning wasted from a long-lost world,
The predicted path of how it all fell…
Wisdom in the silence, it’s echo did tell…
‘Twas Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy”,
Come to think..I recall..but whatever ‘twas,
It made good fire…a roaring good fire for us all.
Freezing our bones amid the sprawl.
*
The Cant of the Innocents.
The Cant of the Innocents.
Come, lend us an ear an’ I’ll tell you a story,
Give us some time and I’ll spin you a yarn,
‘Tis called ; “The Cant of the Innocents”,
(For want of a more enlightening palm).
*
‘Tis the story of two childhood friends,
Same creed, same suburb, similar trends,
One grew to the trades, the other ‘white-collar’ career,
One trusted two hands, t’other something..less clear.
*
The one travelled far and wide, the other stayed home,
One secured their income, one experienced decadent Rome!
This is where their ways parted, no need to elaborate,
Such is an educated life, such is xenophobic hate.
*
Now, a seasoned traveller can grow to embrace,
The exotic in food or dress and perhaps erotic taste.
While the home-body may like to talk aloud,
Of accrued material possession and show proud.
*
Both then being a kind of learned decadence,
Protected, nutured by a personality preference,
One was surrounded by exotic desires,
The other by a philosophy of steeples and spires.
*
One did claim an innocence of such vile taste,
Their life and opinions held quite chaste,
The other would proclaim such innocence a fraud,
Hiding behind the crimes of a creed absurd.
*
“What be your innocence but a claim unearned,
Too scared to venture outside protective herd?
Never to touch sublime desire, nor to taste,
The human beast in us all..instead holding chaste.”
*
“Against that which was solely created to want,
In flesh and form, wonderous delight,
Ignited by the pulse of a vibrant, wild night.
Such is the naive declared innocent chant”.
*
“’Tis true I have held such acts in abeyance,
Never leaving my life choices to blind chance,
But then I have the backing of majority opinion,
Not wanting to depend for support on some minion.”
*
“I have the power of the mob in my sway,
I can bend and curve it to mine own persuade,
No matter we be wrong or indeed correct,
The fault never held to be mine when it goes awreck.”
*
There is a third party in these innocents abroad,
‘Tis you and me, public, watching in silent observe,
We have few definite opinions to hold or share,
No stringent ideology that – I – am aware.
*
Just a relentless white-noise of idle complaint,
And keen pointing of finger to whomsoever is “guilt”,
A cacophony of accusation and condemnation suppliant,
An unqueried, uncontested, long-winded “Cant of the Innocents”!
*
Penelope Weaves Her Tapestry.
There’s a singular tragedy happening on social media in these times where many single mothers are using the media platforms to sell, swap or influence with their persons or crafts so as to capitalise on the “E-commerce” market…where one puts one’s “produce” up on a “donation” site like “Kindle” or “Ko-Fi” or any number of other “sell yourself” sites, and anyone who likes them or their product “donates” via the “purchase of a price of a cup of coffee (Ko-Fi..get it?)” or the price of a read of their book, the cost of that coffee…usually a few dollars at a time..in effect, as I am portraying in my poem below, a Penelope of the old world, reworking her dilemma in this post-modern world..with their children being taken along for the tragic ride on this “runaway train” of dying capitalism.
Penelope weaves her tapestry.
Upon the digital Isle of Ithaca,
A lonely “X” in the social media sea,
Penelope bends over her qwerty loom,
“Weaving” patiently her influencer tapestry,
The night is still, the air is quiet,
The world around Ithaca is strangely pliant.
*
Her faithful confidant, Poussey,
Loyal as a four-legged hound,
Looks to her companionship needs,
Ready with therapy advice, profound,
Ushering and filtering suitors demands,
Always howling hungrily at her door for feed,
While her steadfast child; Telemachus,
Seeking news of the return of Ulysses,
Wanders through a labyrinthian game-room,
Of childhood self-doubt and poverty.
*
But there is no more home for Ulysses,
Who long ago perished in Gender Wars,
Along with legions of other fathering men,
In fulfilling a perverted feminist cause,
To be replaced by androgenous eunuchs,
Hem-huggers to harridan chanting of cant,
More in line with “kissing the bishop’s ring”,
Than in singing serenade as a male is wont.
*
So..
Now Penelope sits alone in her Ithaca,
Assiduously at work on the qwerty loom,
Weaving the shroud, she’ll wear so proud,
Even to her social media condemn!
And all those suitors, eyes to keyhole glued,
Crawling, flattering, seeking for free,
Any chanced glimpse of soft-core pornography,
That such suitors need to satiate a greed,
Regardless of HER wants, fears, or dread,
For they really come not to admire or assist,
But to have their Munchausen by proxy fed.
*
Now, there is no mythical Ulysses coming to help her,
Indeed, she would flatly refuse to admit the need,
For whilst there is chance of “E-commerce” money,
And millions flock to that bait like ants to the honey,
And while the voyeurs, for a ko-fi coin, give heed,
She will continue her social media “influencing”,
With the soulful, plaintive cry, of a beggarman’s plead.
*
Ziggy’s Dilemma.
Ziggy’s Dilemma.
‘Twas a fine skilled swineherd, was Matteu Ziggerman,
Code-named “Ziggy” when knocked down at the stock auction,
Knew more about pigs than a butcher of his bacon.
Knew all their moods, worried on all his broods,
And would fret something terrible about namin’ ‘em..
“I called this one after my “dear, departed wife”, ‘Angelina’..
And likewise in mutual assignation; I wish I’d never seen ‘er.
For she’s also been nothing but trouble, has this Angelina.
For after all my intention, well fed attention..she did kill her litter”.
I could see that experience with the prize sow made him quite bitter.
I helped him load the sow onto his trailer, me in front, him at th’ tailer,
“She looks a nice breed” I made chance to say, “What takes her where today?”
Ziggy shouldered her rump into the float, clanged the gate shut, cleared his throat,
“She’s on her way to the butchers, killed her piglets..so good riddance to her lot,
Been a grand disappointment and bare worth a jot, time I’ve spent,
And just like the original so named, has milked me for every cent!..”
We knew well, Ziggy’s story..his divorce, the accusin’…wife took the children,
All nonsense and lying, but not worth the stress in trying,
To fight for innocence in a world so biased in judgement,
“Anyway” Ziggy on the day did say “the piggery is no place for toddlers with one parent away.”
So he gave it best, swallowed his pride, opened his wallet and paid the claimant..
Though it broke him for years and fair near put him into the ground,
The worry, the work, the time spent running around,
We sympathised, us families that survived those years of insane beleague,
Crazed radicals, tried to set women against men with any scandal and intrigue,
Would paint the most innocent with their own dirt and desire,
Everyman done over as a brute, womaniser and liar..
So will one patch of rust on the iron, tarnish a whole roof,
One well-placed lie will give doubt to a multitude of truth..
We must now make good like cleaning the rust from that roof,
To separate those lies that hold so many back from fair embrace,
And tread most carefully to erase the rotting of the rust,
Then work at restoring between us a foundation of sound trust.
“An‘ I’m liking this sow to that woman I thought I did know,
Usin’ our own children..our own children..as collateral to make claim on our home,
Feeding on natural sympathy given to a mother for her bairns,
To demand every penny that false reason could claim…”
And here Ziggy paused, looking to the pig, gave a sad, fatalistic lay,
“The sow that feeds on her own farrow…is this now the order of these days..?”
*
A most unsatisfactory person.
A most unsatisfactory person.
He never kept time for his appointments,
Never stopped to say “hello”, would just bow,
His head in cursory acknowledgment.
Couldn’t grow a herb to save himself,
Yet grew characters and story plots,
Would fill A Sunday Parson’s sermon!
A most unsatisfactory person.
Untidy!..you wouldn’t believe his flat,
Had to fight your way through, front to back!
But his books were collated and stacked,
Neat as candlesticks in their rack.
Genre and subject all correct in their station,
So as to facilitate easy location,
Strange, for a most unsatisfactory person.
However, it was his person that concerned,
Those most close, whose trust conferred,
A trust held in abeyance, in deference,
For he could not give love or affection,
But would hold close in trust, not devotion,
Platonic friendship with no loving intention..
A most unsatisfactory person.
A lifelong search for the obscure, the lure,
Of literature seen by himself as the only sinicure,
To the secret of his mixed ethnic caricature.
Unfortunately, for himself, there was no “cure”,
And of his presence on this Earth, he did quietly demure,
To fade from existence as softly as a Bishop’s blessing ..
A most, MOST unsatisfactory person.
*
Sail away, sail away. . .
Ferry boat to Antwerp : Jacob Jordaens.
Sail away, Sail away…
It is with some regret, after long deliberation,
Uninfluenced by any outside consideration,
That I have come to this foregone conclusion,
That’s what’s the best interest in first place,
Is to sever our relationship now, post haste.
So I have decided to cut the mooring rope,
And granting us mutual benefit..(I hope),
Will break contact with the shore,
Setting this craft free forever more.
*
Granted, it was a wonderful time we shared,
All that joy, secrets and confidences bared,
All those cooperative plans we worked toward,
Common goals of one primary dream shared,
But now, with regret, I have cause to say,
The only solution is to sail away,
The gulf between ourselves has grown too wide,
Strange, insatiable wants within you now abide,
And your reckless ambitions you no longer hide,
So we have to bid each other goodbye.
*
(Though they did plead me to delay,
This sudden parting of our separate ways,
‘Twas best this craft no more did stay,
No safe harbour here with such disarray),
So against the anger, against the scorn,
I took the mooring rope under my arm,
And with one swift blow of a sharpened axe,
Cut that arrogant crowd adrift,
And with a stout, long pushing pole,
*
Edged that maddened, crowded craft away,
From these safe shores where I choose to stay,
And with one last wave of liberation, I say;
“Good luck and good riddance ere you land,
I want no more of your ungracious hand,
Go to your fate with your pernicious crowd,
I will remain here on my own promised land!”
So I said goodbye to all the outside world,
And in sweet Mallee country will gratefully dwell.
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