tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60360187483669518742024-03-08T16:46:37.145-08:00The Unarmed ManThe Unarmed Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18108119018918232325noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036018748366951874.post-81460785728080398282007-11-17T03:06:00.000-08:002007-11-17T03:12:12.996-08:00Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender BeThe day is coming<br />The end of money; of coins and notes<br />The end of worthless tokens and vouchers<br />The cheap metal and printed paper<br />That we value so highly<br /><br />Look and you will see evidence<br />Advertising: Cash is spent<br /><br />Listen and you will hear evidence<br />Radio 4: fingerprint scans for kid’s school dinners<br /><br />No more money – what will we do?<br /><br />Worry not,<br />About that anyway,<br />For we have a new system being introduced<br /><br />So if money is to be no more<br />What then is the score?<br /><br />Deeper into the belly of the beast we go<br />And the beast is a machine<br />And the machine is a beast<br /><br />There will be a future day<br />When you’ll use your finger to pay<br /><br />Your finger bones connected to your hand bone<br />Your hand bones connected to your wrist bone<br />Your wrist bones connected to your arm bone<br /><br />On and on:<br />All the way along to the head bone: the skull<br />And what resides these days inside the skull<br />A grey sponge full of myriad confusions<br />And unsatisfying desires<br /><br />And when you finger-scan yourself aboard<br />The New Titanic, for your luxury cruise to hell<br />Enjoy the splendour<br />The comfy furniture<br />The personal TV’s<br />The waiter service<br />Bringing you champagne & finely cooked flesh<br />But don’t look for the lifeboats or life-jackets<br />When the boat begins to sink:<br />They were left on shore<br /><br />The place we are moving away from;<br />The natural world<br />Togetherness<br />Humanity<br />Love:<br />The most precious thing we are losing<br /><br />Neither a borrower nor a lender be:<br /><br />Have we borrowed our modern values from demons?<br />Have we lent our sacred spirits to sinister con-men?<br /><br />Neither a borrower nor a lender be:<br /><br />What happened to giving?<br /><br />Selling or taking or taking or selling?<br /><br />Have we sold our souls to take our fill?<br />Have we borrowed our appetites for objects and flesh?<br />Our appetites for destruction?<br /><br />Are you going to borrow the means?<br />To keep buying what is sold?<br />To keep believing what you’re told?<br />By men with dark hearts,<br />And darker objectives?<br /><br />Are you going to lend your human sovereignty?<br />To take a seat on the boat?<br />To sail away past the horizon of humanity?<br />To sink deeper and deeper into the sickness?<br />Until you reach rock bottom<br /><br />Don’t be a haunted skeleton<br />Be a human<br />Don’t lock away the bounty<br />Of love and compassion<br />Inside your treasures chests<br /><br />Give it all away - that is the only way<br />Neither a borrower nor a lender be.The Unarmed Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18108119018918232325noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036018748366951874.post-19678740172141000762007-11-10T11:02:00.000-08:002007-11-10T13:17:00.975-08:00It Looks EvilA recent poem. Elements taken from humanity, history, the museum, McDonald's, history and Edgar Allen Poe:<br /><br />It Looks Evil<br /><br />The little boy pressed his nose against the glass<br />To closer examine the carved wooden figure before him<br />“It looks evil,” he observed to his mother<br />“It’s primitive, not evil,” replied his mother<br />The little boy remained, his nose pressed against the glass<br />Then he asked, “What’s primitive, mum?”<br />But she had drifted away - to another display - out of earshot:<br /><br />Later, after the examining ancient culture<br />The pair would sit and consume modern culture<br />The boy offering a chicken nugget to tomato sauce<br />Then lifting it to his mouth and pausing<br />To inspect the face of the clown on the wall opposite<br />“He looks evil,” said the boy to his mother<br />“He’s not evil, he’s happy,” replied his mother<br />“Why is he happy?” asked the boy<br />“Because he’s successful,” replied his mother:<br /><br />Earlier, much earlier; two hundred years and more<br />A member of the Haida tribe finished a carving<br />He placed it on the ground before him to examine it<br />His eyes looked down upon the wooden missionary<br />Hat, blank face, three-quarter-length jacket, trousers, shoes<br />A representation of the deliverer;<br />The deliverer of Christianity, smallpox, typhoid, measles<br />And syphilis;<br /><br />Later, the tribesman would apply lignite to the carving<br />A raven black substance to cover the hat, jacket, trousers and shoes<br />The raven, a central character within Haida mythology<br />The character that made the world by<br />Stealing, exchanging, redistributing; moving things around:<br /><br />Later – much later – back to the future<br />A cursed and tarnished cityscape, smog filled and litter covered<br />The little boy now a man walks through a grey city park<br />An almost empty bottle swinging in his hand<br />Through his drunken haze he spies a raven<br />Feeding on a discarded quarter-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">pounder</span><br />He whispers questions, but receives no answer<br />Then repeats them so much louder;<br />“Have we all become whores? Victims of our lustful mores?<br />When will this nation, this earth, receive salvation?”<br />The raven turns and squawks a single word<br />And that word is: nevermore.The Unarmed Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18108119018918232325noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036018748366951874.post-82667871202153648552007-11-10T10:47:00.000-08:002007-11-10T10:56:10.511-08:00Guy FawkedI thought that I knew what the gunpowder plot was all about. How wrong I was. It turns out that - according to Webster <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tarpley</span> & others - the plot had no chance of being realised. That the gunpowder wasn't even gun powder, it was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">cornpowder</span> - a much less combustible substance. That the king <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">et</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">al</span> where nowhere near the scene. That Guy had been well and truly stitched up by the Cecil's. He was surrounded by fanatics and double agents (well one agent either side of him).<br /><br />Remember, remember the fifth of November...in this context it reminds me of how little I actually know, and how important it is to do <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">proper</span> research, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">rigorous</span> research, if you actually want to understand something...or attempt a better - more thorough - understanding.The Unarmed Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18108119018918232325noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036018748366951874.post-20235725571700018442007-11-10T10:25:00.000-08:002007-11-10T10:39:48.371-08:00TV and £: the new religions<div align="justify">Some might say that they are better than Christianity or Islam, that is open to debate, but are they are both the work of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">satan</span>? Is the worship of TV and money the prevailing new religion? Is to be a celebrity or a millionaire/billionaire the new sainthood? Something is very wrong with the picture and the printout. I have a fragment of an idea of how much damage/harm/evil has been done in the name of religion. It is the cause of so much bloodshed I am <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">surprised</span> that the earth and the sea are not crimson, that earth doesn't look like mars from space. Who knows, the way we are heading, that will possibly be earth's fate. And how did this situation come about? How did TV and money become more important than basic humanity? Why and how did we allow ourselves to be ruled/controlled/suckered by that unholy combination? It sickens me. I say, 'death to the cathode ray, on the bonfire with currency.' Both take more than they give, and what they do give, we don't need - not really. </div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">Here's to flawed idealism and optimism. May we one day sacrifice these false gods on the alter of humanity, and banish them to the underworld for ever more.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">T.U.M.</div>The Unarmed Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18108119018918232325noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036018748366951874.post-20383644997393869662007-11-10T09:24:00.000-08:002007-11-10T09:53:21.050-08:00Tank Girl<div align="justify">I happened to see an ex-student of mine the other day. We exchanged small talk up to the point where I asked what she was thinking of doing with her life, career-wise. She informed me that she wanted to join the army...to drive a tank. And go to Iraq oR Afghanistan or wherever the fighting happened to be. I asked her if she knew why 'we' were engaged in combat in those regions. She didn't know. Sadam? WMD? Oil? They all seemed like news to her. This reminded me of an article I had heard on the wireless. One about the army's recruiting policy. About how they target schools in areas of social depravation; enlisting the cannon-fodder from the working-class or underclass. Basically, kids who haven't much of an idea why 'we' are over there. Nothing new there then? But this got me to thinking about the way they advertise the military services to kids. It all looks like so much fun, so exciting - like a wonderful adventure. This reminded me of an advert that I had seen, one that had been modified by a political subversive type. The copy read: EVER THOUGHT ABOUT A CAREER IN THE ARMY? THEN ASK A - here comes the modification - PARENT WHO HAS LOST A CHILD IN IRAQ. Brilliant. More of the same, please. This is the sort of war education that our children need. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Long live dissent.</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">T.U.M.</div>The Unarmed Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18108119018918232325noreply@blogger.com0