New Group.

I was listening to the Radio one day and the DJ said - "Here is a song by a new group called The Beatles" and he played this song.

Impassioned impatience.

Moriarty.

You are a Bastard
and I've decided to kill you
I've thought of many different ways
and from these I've chosen - Time
I'm going to kill you with time
and then you will be dead
as dead as Marlene Dietrich.

Impassioned impatience
is not my style, I'm a patient man
patient enough to kill you with time
and get off scot-free.
I can wait, I can while away the hours
sit out the days endure the years
until the last day, last hour, last second.

Until your time and my time
until the Reichenbach Falls
and there will be an end
an end to this life lived in this world
an end to all this life's reasons
for you being a Bastard
and for me killing you.

Beloved.

Beloved.

It's strange after all these years
to find myself thinking about you
It began about a month before I met you
in the Hotel lounge after the funeral

We stood in the middle of the room
making polite small talk
and the whole world receding around us

It was in your eyes
it was written all over your face
the spark the chemistry the attraction
whatever it is named
or indefinable without a name
that makes a man and a woman
want each other

It was you all along
it was you I've been drifting from
you were the one
My Dearly Beloved
and I never knew until this moment of clarity
thirty seconds watching thirty years
go down the Swanee

If I could go back
I would not walk across that bridge
I would not leave you standing there
so distraught and so alone
But I can't go back
and we can't go forward
there is nothing for us
there can be nothing between us
we met too soon and now too late
it's all perfectly fucked up

Only this mutual comprehension
of what could have been
can perhaps be counted as something
And all I'm left feeling
is that I'm walking
away from you again.

Appointment.

At the Doctor's

I'm afraid you have
a very difficult to pronounce illness
complicated by the fact
it is also very difficult to spell.
Because of this all I can do
is prescribe a medication
which is equally
difficult to pronounce and spell.
This may or may not
alleviate your symptoms.
We'll see how it goes.
I appreciate your confidence in my ability
to pronounce and spell these unfamiliar words.
And for your convenience
Medical knowledge of your condition
has been abbreviated to N.I.L.
and the name of your medication
has been abbreviated to C.R.A.P.

Osbourne.

Paranoid lyrics.

Finished with my woman
cause she couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane
because I am frowning all the time

All day long I think of things
but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind
if I don't find something to pacify

Can you help me, occupy my brain?
I need someone to show me
the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness,
I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh
and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
and love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words
telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could but it's too late.

BBC News.

Yesterday on the News.

A BBC reporter interviewed four students seated outside a bistro in Sheffield Hallam Nick Clegg's constituency. They were all asked the same question - What was their opinion of the Coalition austerity measures. The four of them in turn agreed that something had to be done to pay back the deficit and that they were in agreement with the public spending cutbacks.
I found this reassured me that these cutbacks are in fact a good thing.

Today on the News.

A BBC News story regarding Dr David Kelly has reported that someone found blood in the wood where he died. This is evidence that he did take his own life.
This report coupled with two short videos of Dr Kelly looking unhappy have convinced me that this must be the case.

So I commend the BBC for the integrity their impartial investigative journalism.

The Maze.

The Maze.

Too many variables to be very sure
Too many Doctors to find a cure

Too many Politicians mouthin' sound bites
Too many human beings denied human rights

Too many Millionaires applauding austerity
cheering the deepening entrenchment of poverty

Too many sociologists narrowing the gap
trammel through the maze into the mouse trap

Too many Priests going through the motions
reciting liturgical unfelt devotions

Too many Poets who have never been read
lost like pearls from a broken thread

Too many blind to worth - wanting to be rich
Masters of Life in designer kitsch

Too many deaf standing on the shore
there's a hurricane coming and they can't hear the roar

Too many refugees to calculate the cost
country and home and dignity lost

Too many smug regarding their future
counting the cost of a food voucher

Too many young men eager to be brave
learning to fight while learning to shave

Too many being taught in segregation
denied an interactive rounded education

Too many claiming the authority of God
twisting youthful ideals into innocent blood

Too many children cut down while they play
Too many hearts broken like clay

Too many fragments of shattered dreams
caught in the vortex of a Mother's screams

Too many standing in numbed disbelief
surveying the altered landscape of grief

Too many stumbling attempting to regain
a foothold in unfamiliar terrain

Too many walking the desolation
of their social isolation

Too many waiting for things to get better
until it finally doesn't matter

Too many on the outside looking in
on Churches barbed by subtle sin.

W. H.

I wrote this ages ago, this is what I remember of it.
I wrote it after reading a particularly flowery poem of Auden that had nothing to say, just an exercise in words that nobody speaks.

Bad poem on a Bad poem.

I'll never be aw dun wae Auden
I admit it's probably my fault
this image of walking through a desert
carrying a bottle of salt

I've accosted you in sobriety
I've even plied you with vino
at the last you have helped me with Shakespeare
because you make him read like the Beano

My dictionary is dog-eared
teasing out revised brocade
only to find the woven gold
serves to disguise the nothing said

Old Oxonian verbiage
with an empty page to fill
composed of so many darlings
you could not bring yourself to kill

I hold you in my work worn hands
and want to know you very much
but find I am a common man
and you don't have the common touch.

This poem by Auden has more to say.

NIGHT MAIL
by W H Auden

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Thro' sparse counties she rampages,
Her driver's eye upon the gauges.
Panting up past lonely farms
Fed by the fireman's restless arms.
Striding forward along the rails
Thro' southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,
Thro' the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

One Flew Over.

Bad Egg.

I don't want to hate you
it would be too easy
and if it wasn't you
it would be someone else

There is always someone
a Cuckoo of hatred
laying it's egg
in someone else's heart

Hatching and thriving
demanding and greedy
evicting nobler emotions
from their birthplace

I don't want to hate you
it would be too easy
and that is why
it's so difficult not to.

Stevie Smith.

Day Trip.

Enjoying the view
from a falling Cable Car
is an indication
of not knowing where you are.

Love your enemies.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect"
Jesus - Matthew 5.

Leviticus 18:21
'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

Lead kindly light.

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,--
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,--one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on:
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish days, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on;
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

John Henry Newman.

Viviane Reding.

Edinburgh U S Consulate Protest.

Something I thought of when watching this protest on the news was that the people protesting have no idea about how to get arrested. All they are doing is confusing the police. What you have to do is try your best to live a quiet life, attend to your own business, care for your family and be a Scottish Traveller - This has always worked for me.

"Precision Air Strike"

2 September 2010.

Afghan election campaign workers 'killed in air strike'

Ten election campaign workers have been killed in an air strike by Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, officials say.

The governor of the northern province of Takhar, Abduljabar Taqwa, told the BBC that two people were also wounded in the attack in the Rostaq district.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the incident, saying that "pro-democracy people should be distinguished from those who fight against democracy".

A Nato spokesman said a "precision air strike" had hit a militant's vehicle.

I find this report distressing. It seems the allied occupying forces in Afghanistan
can choose to kill anyone with impunity.
I also find Hamid Karzai's statement (if he did say this) to be chillingly inane.

Link to this news story.

"Beep Beep"

"Beep Beep"

I hope I don't die stupidly
for no apparent reason at all
by deciding to prune a tree
or crossing the road for a ball

I hope it's not like Luney Tunes
or a Laurel and Hardy flick
falling like Wile E Coyote
or met by a falling brick

I hope I'm not a victim
of some botched act of crime
or cut down by an illness
too ignorant to bide it's time

A man should die in age
with his family around his bed
and they should weep and hug each other
when the Doctor says - "He's dead"

They should bear him up like Joseph
solemnly to his resting place
and remember him joyfully
in a new born baby's face

This doesn't always happen
it isn't always allowed
some are dragged to execution
through the midst of a baying crowd.

Ten ways to die:

1. Illness
2. Accident
3. Medical Incompetence
4. Act of Violence
5. Victim of War
6. State Judicial Execution
7. Suicide
8. Old Age Health Decline
9. Natural Disaster
10. Giving Your Life to Save Someone

Harvest.

Harvest.

Autumn is here
and there is no harvest
The trees have leaves but no fruit
The wheat has ears but no grain
and if you should return
I wouldn't know
how to begin to explain

I would offer you a gift
but of all the things I own
all I have is my sin
all I have that's mine alone

Spare me - I pray
another year or two
if you will extend your hand
I will fill a harvest basket for you

I have laboured in these fields
among this bracken, broom and whin
and a lifetime to understand
all you wanted was my sin.

Moonstruck.

Debbie and Donna.

Debbie and Donna

I saw you at the bus stop
on my way back from the chip shop
You were wearing your
'Don't you want to go out with me dress'

You were going to meet your boyfriend
the one who works in the off licence
the one who left his wife and kids
And she was screaming and kicking your door
at two o'clock in the morning waking up half the street

A chance to stop and chat
mostly about last night's episode of Corry
I actually watch it so that I can chat to you about it

A dog pisses on the bus stop
"Marking it's territory" - you said
A girl is throwing two balls against a wall
making it look like an Olympic sport
"She never misses" - you said

Sitting at my coffee table
I unconsciously begin placing my chips
in little rows and shapes
in a kind of cold chip mathematical equation
I'm trying to figure out
how long it will take the Adonis from the off licence
to go back to his wife and kids
That'll be some rebound
and I fully intend to be there to catch you
to comfort and console you

The phone rings
it's Donna - I bumped into at the chippy
(We used to call her 'Marry Donna' she talked about marriage so much)
She asks me if I have the tv on
Jimmy White has levelled and it's nine frames each
"Thanks Donna" - I tell her
finding the remote under the chip paper
"I didn't know you were all that interested in snooker'
...Okay...see you in about five minutes"

She's on her way round and this place is a mess
It could do with a woman's touch and then again...so could I.

Angel Song

Angel Song

I hear the harmony
of their wings
resonating in the air
like the breeze on my face
I can feel they are there
They are rising in harmonics
turning like a flock of birds
in the choir of their wings
I can hear these words

'The poor man's wealth
is in his heart
collected treasures set aside
a lifetime of feeling and thought
of joys to share and grief to hide

The poor man's wealth
is in his soul
fashioned by a life of care
when there is nowhere to turn
calling out to God from his despair

The poor man's wealth
is in his hope
for heaven's pasture
and a camp to pitch
in the gift of God
who spares the poor
the poverty of dying rich

The poor man's wealth
is in his faith
upon this staff his burdens lean
and walking taps along the way
finding evidence of things not seen

The poor man's wealth
is in his need
though wealth and power
their virtues flaunt
the place where the God is found
is in the sigh of abject want'

Then gradually I became aware
of breathing again
there was less pressure in the air
and the sky just looked like rain
I called out and I listened
but I knew they were gone
so I sat beneath an oak tree
and wrote down their song.

I posted this in March, but you can always sing a song again.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

This is a post I happened upon by Mario Vittone.
There is a 'share' icon I clicked and it appeared here - magic.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Man is good by nature ?

Third verse of - "Why should we idly waste our prime"

Robert Burns -
The Golden Age we'll then revive:
Each man will be a brother;
In harmony we all shall live,
And share the earth together;
In Virtue train'd, enlighten'd Youth
Will love each fellow-creature;
And future years shall prove the truth
That Man is good by nature:
Then let us toast with three times three
The reign of Peace and Libertie!

Solomon -
There is not a righteous man on earth
who does what is right and never sins.
Ecclesiastes 7:20.

Jesus -
"What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean."
Mark 7:20-23.

Paul the Apostle -
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:28-32.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Paul - Romans 7:18.

It is better for ideals to die than people.
"The golden age" is a yellow brick road that can lead to an Auschwitz.

Stefin Spelbug.

Very Good.

I read your poem last night
it was very good.
Apart from the incongruous cocktail of metaphors,
the tortured crunching of words in the second stanza
and the indiscernible (or non existent) structure.
Apart from this it was very good.
Did you purposely write - 'Stefin Spelbug?'
Do you have any more or is this your first attempt?

Ps - Ammonium nitrate, which I assume you mean by - 'Aminaume netraite'
would not be generally considered the only cause of holes in latex.

The Express.

The Avonbridge Express

From the Forest of indifference
walled within the briers of distress
rest turns to sleep and sleep to dream
of the Avonbridge Express

The Engineer is in his glory
amid the toil the heat the mess
his heart is in his service
for the Avonbridge Express

Families and their loved ones
emerge from an ephemeral egress
they are gathered for the boarding
of the Avonbridge Express

The Guard surveys the platform
opens his watch with finesse
then announces "All aboard"
the Avonbridge Express

A phone is ringing in the Station
an increasing urgent duress
but this is the departure
of the Avonbridge Express

The Debutante delicately poised
at an angle to impress
gazes from the window
of the Avonbridge Express

The young man on the platform
has three choices to address
aboard beneath or wave farewell
to the Avonbridge Express

Bless me Father for I have sinned
and ashamedly confess
my every thought has ever been
of the Avonbridge Express

To Avonbridge
via Findo Gask
then on to Port Na Fane
Speeds the Avonbridge Express

never to return again
never to return again
never to return again

Forgive.

We see the light reflected
from the moon upon a pond
and reach to touch the circles
from an instinct to respond
and the grace to forgive
within the heart forgiven
reaches out beyond the stars
to touch the light of heaven.

Boy band.

The willow trees

Omagh

A day
can seem like a lifetime
a moment like a year
hopes and dreams
contained and lost
in one exploding tear

Caught
in the freeze frame
moving in slo-mo
another imagined
retrospective scenario

When those loved
more than life
do not survive
the deepest wound
is the hurt
of being alive
To stand beneath
the willow trees
and weep aloud
lost in grief
wander Market street
among the crowd

Caught
in the freeze frame
moving in slo-mo
another imagined
retrospective scenario.

Economy.

Change:

"Hierarchy"

Should read:

"Economy"

Change:

"Safeguards in hierarchical structure"

Should read:

"Fears of continued economic gloom"

Away.

When the seagulls sing.

I didn't know
where you came from
I didn't care
where you had been
no questions
no answers
imagined to be real
interpretations of the past
permitting us to feel

You accosted my life
You deconstructed my mind
You rearranged my heart

The first noticeable change of a spring day
an unheralded rush of light and warmth
throwing open windows and doors
expelling the chill from the air

Filling the emptiness with the joy of living
breaking the silence with the sound of laughter
sharing the magical gift of unconscious forgetfulness.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

But now memories amount to one
The fact that you are gone

Your beautiful body
away from me
Your beautiful body
away from me
Your beautiful body
away from me

It was like when the seagulls sing
it didn't mean a thing
like when the seagulls sing
it didn't mean a thing
when the seagulls sing
it doesn't mean a thing.

When I wrote this poem I was living in a second floor flat in Paisley.
After the last line I was sitting looking at it and I heard this squawking sound.
I looked out of the living room window, three seagulls were flying in a circle and squawking outside the window.

The Beach.

The Beach

We sat in the shade
and drank lemonade
and watched the sun going down
We talked until dawn
of hope and of fear
then walked to the beach
to watch the sunrise
We saw the Earth turn
on it's flight round the sun
and the glimmer of stars from space
We saw the sunrise
turn the sea into wine
and intoxicated
We played on the sand.

Andy

Rudy.

In a feeble attempt
to break the blues
I bought a new pair of shoes

Before walking out
I looked at the receipt

It said

The most beautiful dancers
have the ugliest feet

Larry Grayson.

Camouflage.

Camouflage is an important word and practice in the military.

Camouflage is also an important word and practice in politics.

To begin to understand War you must first begin to understand
who or what is ruling the world, who or what is in control.

The world is ruled and controlled by the faceless and unaccountable
Executives who sit on the boards of world corporations.

The Leaders who sit in these boardrooms have no concern for people,
they have no concern for justice, they have no concern for peace,
they have no concern for democracy and no concern for the environment.

What concerns them is the control of the world's resources
for the purpose of establishing and maintaining their power and wealth.

If killing people and destroying their property is peace then they bring peace
If imposing upon a people a puppet Dictator is democracy then they bring democracy.

When soldiers are in the theatre of conflict
it is no longer about why they are there. It is about their Regiment, their friends,
it is about watching each others back, about killing or being killed.
It is about surviving and coming home to their families.

When the bodies start to come home it becomes disrespectful to ask why.
Now it becomes about service and duty and honour.
People appear on the news saying - "That's what they wanted"
And families who do not say the right things don't get to appear on the news.
The reason for this is that the corporations also control the media.

Politicians are the mediators between the boardrooms and the public.

When they retire from politics they graduate to the boardrooms.

If any Leader in the Christian church in Scotland
would like to explain to me how our Wars of the past few years
is bringing freedom, peace and democracy to the Nations of conflict
then I would be willing to listen.

Dr Robert Ritter.

Robert Ritter's explanation of how the Gypsies came to be of "inferior blood" is a startling example of science driven by ideology. The Gypsies who left India in the 10th century, Ritter argued, were pure Aryans. However, as they migrated westward and intermingled with inferior races -- e.g., in Persia, Armenia, the Slavic countries -- they lost their pure Aryan characteristics. The inferior blood gave them racial characteristics which predispose them to a set of asocial and criminal tendencies. He recommended the segregation of all gypsies and the sterilization of those who were of obviously impure strains. Ritter's research came to the attention of Himmler and, by mid-summer, 1937, he called for a careful evaluation of the research on the Rom.

In September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich organized an official conference of racial policy. The conference was held in Berlin on September 21. While the primary concern of the meeting was to plan the systematic deportation of Jews to Poland, it was also decided relocate 30,000 German Gypsies. In preparation for that deportation, the conference called for the segregation of Gypsies in special camps. While the deportation of Gypsies took a back seat to the deportation of Jews and the desired 30,000 was not immediately achieved, several thousand were deported.

At this point it is important to remember that on September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland. Under Heydrich's command, the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units followed the regular Wehrmacht troops into Poland. Their assigned task was to eliminate political criminals, asocials, undesirables, communists -- anyone who posed a security threat to the Reich.

It is not known how many Gypsies were killed by the Einsatzgruppen charged with speedy extermination by shooting. For the sake of efficiency Gypsies were also shot naked, facing their pre-dug graves. According to the Nazi experts, shooting Jews was easier, they stood still, `while the Gypies cry out, howl, and move constantly, even when they are already standing on the shooting ground. Some of them even jumped into the ditch before the volley and pretended to be dead.'(Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961:439
According to Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide, 1979:

In 1939, resettlement of Gypsies was put under Eichmann's jurisdiction along with that of the Jews. Gypsies were forbidden to move freely and were concentrated in encampments with Germany in 1939, later (1941) transformed into fenced ghettos, from which they would be seized for transport by the criminal police (aided by dogs) and dispatched to Auschwitz in February 1943. During May 1940, about 3,100 were sent to Jewish ghettos in the Government-General: others may have been added to Jewish transports from Berlin, Vienna, and Prague to Nisko, Poland (the sight of an aborted reservation to which Jews were deported). These measures were taken against Gypsies who had no claim to exemption because of having an Aryan spouse or having been regularly employed for five years.

On December 16 1942, Himmler ordered the deportation of all Gypsies to Auschwitz. This is the official beginning of a "Final Solution" to the Gypsy Nuisance. At Auschwitz, the Gypsies were held in Camp B IIe. This is the designation for the larger Camp at Birkenau. Many were used in Joseph Mengele's medical experimentation, others were used in the German Air Force tests on reactions to extreme freezing temperatures, thousands were sent to the gas chambers. Similar fates for Gypsies are reported at Treblinka, Chelmo and other extermination centers.

Link here.

Eva Justin.

Eva Justin's dissertation was approved by the German ethnologist Richard Thurnwald. After the completion of her studies the 41 children used in the study were deported to the "Gypsy Camp" at Auschwitz on May 9, 1944. Soon after their arrival Josef Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Link here.

Dale Farm.

Link to video and story about Dale Farm.

Careless Words.

Careless Words.

They talk about them
like they are not there
they talk about them
like they do not hear
they talk about them
with a wink and a nod
as though everyone agrees
and everyone knows what they mean
when they say "traveller"

They make grandiose statements
career ending statements
hounded out of public office statements
if they made them about any other group
any other group in the world
apart from "travellers"

They would gladly load the cattle trucks
all that's lacking is a law
all that's lacking is the paper work
the corporate abdication of personal responsibility
and the police would obey the law
and the army would obey the law
they could muster an Einsatzgruppen in a day

And if you stand perfectly still
in this slip of the lip
you can feel humanity slip
you can feel the Earth slip
toward oblivion.

What is said about and the treatment of the marginalized
is the thin end of the wedge and people need to consider this.

"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
Matthew 12

Robert Burns.

Man Was Made To Mourn

When chill November's surly blast
Made fields and forests bare,
One ev'ning, as I wander'd forth
Along the banks of Ayr,
I spied a man, whose aged step
Seem'd weary, worn with care;
His face was furrow'd o'er with years,
And hoary was his hair.

"Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou?"
Began the rev'rend sage;
"Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain,
Or youthful pleasure's rage?
Or haply, prest with cares and woes,
Too soon thou hast began
To wander forth, with me to mourn
The miseries of man.

"The sun that overhangs yon moors,
Out-spreading far and wide,
Where hundreds labour to support
A haughty lordling's pride; -
I've seen yon weary winter-sun
Twice forty times return;
And ev'ry time has added proofs,
That man was made to mourn.

"O man! while in thy early years,
How prodigal of time!
Mis-spending all thy precious hours-
Thy glorious, youthful prime!
Alternate follies take the sway;
Licentious passions burn;
Which tenfold force gives Nature's law.
That man was made to mourn.

"Look not alone on youthful prime,
Or manhood's active might;
Man then is useful to his kind,
Supported in his right:
But see him on the edge of life,
With cares and sorrows worn;
Then Age and Want - oh! ill-match'd pair -
Shew man was made to mourn.

"A few seem favourites of fate,
In pleasure's lap carest;
Yet, think not all the rich and great
Are likewise truly blest:
But oh! what crowds in ev'ry land,
All wretched and forlorn,
Thro' weary life this lesson learn,
That man was made to mourn.

"Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves,
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

"See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight,
So abject, mean, and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil;
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife
And helpless offspring mourn.

"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,
By Nature's law design'd,
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty, or scorn?
Or why has man the will and pow'r
To make his fellow mourn?

"Yet, let not this too much, my son,
Disturb thy youthful breast:
This partial view of human-kind
Is surely not the last!
The poor, oppressed, honest man
Had never, sure, been born,
Had there not been some recompense
To comfort those that mourn!

"O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best!
Welcome the hour my aged limbs
Are laid with thee at rest!
The great, the wealthy fear thy blow
From pomp and pleasure torn;
But, oh! a blest relief for those
That weary-laden mourn!"