Month: August 2017

Why? What’s the point of hate?

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All these crazy jihadis running around and murdering innocent people are trying to prove what?  That they’re crazy? Well yes, they proved that but not much else.We all weep as the world bleeds once more.  Surely there are enough natural disasters without these sins of pure hatred.

What the world has is a bunch of fanatics who do not apparently fear death and take pleasure in killing random men, women, and children. It is beyond all our rational thinking. The world weeps for this deliberate sin, surely there are enough natural disasters to deal with without these needless acts of hatred.  How do we stop it?  How do we persuade these jihadis that what they do has no purpose what so ever?

I haven’t a clue.  Maybe it’s pulling out the West from the Middle East where all these nuts seem to come from, however in this modern world that would hardly be enough. Putting more foreign troops into Afghanistan seems self-defeating in that this place has been at civil war for about a hundred years and it’s not about to stop now, indeed more foreign intervention is likely to exacerbate further tribal response.

The West has long argued that its job in the global scheme of things is to export democracy which is intrinsically good. Well sadly for us that view is not universally shared.  We’ve been at this since at least the sixteenth century exporting our Christain values and beliefs many of which were of course really evil, i.e. inquisition and many other regimes.

Hate is also reappearing big time in the USA fanned by the POUSA Trump.  This is dangerous stuff and U.S. legislators need to wake up fast. Get rid of that vicious half wit.

What the good people of Boston have demonstrated, is that the majority of my American friends are just that, friends.  Good people who tolerate and embrace many faiths and ideas from all sorts of diverse backgrounds.

Who would I like most to embrace? An easy answer, The good folk of Boston.

Trump is proposing to increase the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, of two things I am sure, it will be the wrong idea and the wrong result. Many foreign troops will perish and we will call them heroes.  They will be brave young men and women sent to a hopeless war by a misguided leader.  All this is predictable.  More killing – more hate.  Where does the so-called free world stop?

 

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Cowardice no substitute for leadership.

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The President of the U.S.A. refusing to condemn right wing extremists after the foul altercations where peaceful counter-protesters were killed is a disgrace that the US does not deserve.  Surely now, this venomous clown is shown up for what he really is, an ignorant bully.

It is my fervent hope that all the US electorate see him for what he is.  By keeping him in office the GOP dishonour the United States and all it stands for. The Vice-president has spoken out in an attempt to lessen the ignominy, but brave as his gesture might have been it is too little too late.

Trump – Go you are a disgrace.

 

Addicted!

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Love’s a bind, love’s a burden

It’s like heroin, there’s no doubt

Each day we need our fix to live on,

Every day it’s agony – without.

 

         Our fix comes, not through the needle

         But through forgiveness or new giving grace,

          The shaking stops, withdrawal assuaged

          Make me warm in love’s embrace.

                   Love you then, as my good habit

we mustn’t fail to indulge and tame it

I must keep you always flying

Pray we don’t start love denying.

 

Like all those who are addicted,

it’s for ever, an eternal mix.

You and me, who’d have predicted?

We know no bounds to get our fix.

 

 

 

 

 

How close to throwing it all away.

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How close to throwing it all away,

How close to killing what keeps us alive

To closing down your shining eyes

To be deafened to your laughter chimes.

 

Love is blind but can be blinded

Locked out by selfish whim

But love is strong and fights her corner

Conquering even the blackest sin.

 

Let’s be thankful for what we share

Let’s enjoy each other’s gifts

Living and letting live

the spark that heals our rifts.

 

Touch me, let me feel you close to me

Stroke me and let my earthly heaven live on

Breathe with me and let me love you softly

Smile, light my days and warm my nights

 

Never mind the past, bad times

Just remember all the good;

The sweetest days, the tranquil nights

Your welcomes home; my harbor lights.

 

 

Keeping the faith.

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Having started writing a novel, the enormity of the commitment creeps up on you.  What have you done?  An idea is one thing but translating it into a novel is quite another.  The first chapter is hard enough, but in some ways is the easiest.  Your enthusiasm is high your belief in the dominant idea is strong – what can go wrong?

Lots actually. If you let it go wrong.  This is where the creative writer really earns his spurs.  Finding your way from the succinctness of a simple idea to the complexities of a story that fascinates, is a long and arduous journey.  It needs concentration, discipline and most of all courage (guts).

Sometimes the idea is easy to center in a plot that is coherent – if this happens early then ride it, write and write till your hands hurt.  However, more likely, it will be more difficult and you may have many changes of heart along the way. Even to the extent of rejecting the dominant idea.  Kick it out and start again.  Kick it out and give up.  Kick it out and, sod it, I’ll never even try again!  All these are degrees of response when the going gets tough.  Well in most cases it is going to get tough, some call it writers’ block, but I don’t think that’s an accurate description of the crisis that besets every writer no matter what the degree of his/her accomplishment.

It is a crisis of creativity or lack of it.  We all have to be courageous enough to untie the restrictions that tie us down.  This is remarkably hard to do, like walking on the edge of a cliff with a blindfold. Really scary!

Go there.  Go where you’ve never been before and always remember there are no limits to your imagination. There are no frontiers, so step off the edge and see where you land.

Forgiveness – the gift of love.

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Forgiving something small is easy,

excusing someone you hardly know;

but some one close, who fails you

that’s a wound, an open sore.

 

So when to mend the scars and how?

We need the answers now.

Lest the wounds we bear

fester, get angrier and grow.

 

Still, dark angers urge redress.

Surely there’s no sense in this.

Strike back and hurt, at least a bit.

as deeper gets the vengeful pit.

 

We need not vengeance here; but healing,

to find a balm for all the pain.

Easier far to repay in spite,

then hate wins, despite love’s might.

 

Turn back, turn back; from the abyss

where darkness rules the day.

Let light flood in to heal the wounds,

despite our instinctive way.

 

It is not easy, to wipe away the hurt,

of injuries that stick like stinking dirt.

We must forgive; for that’s the only way,

for love to linger longer, despite the price we pay.

 

Ready, steady, start again!

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Writing anything of worth we know takes real hard work.  Even more than that, we need to constantly develop ourselves as well as our skills and content.

On my latest project, which is in its infancy, I have already made some about-turns.  As any work/ novel progresses we must not be rigid about the initial idea being all consuming.  Sometimes this initial or dominant idea can become constricting and smother developing or better ideas.  Innovation and creativity rely on the discontinuous, the unexpected which in turn means reveling in the unplanned and listening to that part of us which the dominant idea tends to discount.

Chaos, I hear you say.  To an extent yes. It’s all a question of confidence to try new things, ideas and even vocabulary.  For example, most of us have a style which predetermines the words that fit.  What if we change that, and think more ardently about the things we know that come from outside this paradigm.  Do I swear a lot?  Answer; yes/No.  Do people swear a lot?  Answer; Yes they do.  Swearing is not my written style, how about listening on the street?  How about making the vernacular more strident? Is there enough lyricism in my writing, can I re-read out loud passages and enjoy them?  Do I find them engaging?  Why would my reader?

Of course, there comes a time in any work where the aim is set.  Even then, at rewrite stage, we have to keep an open mind.  You know what?  It might mean tearing the whole thing up and starting again.

 

The arrogance of learning.

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‘Sharing the capital of education.’

From across the pond, we hear of the chaotic White House, of Trump antics that never cease to amaze us, and we um and ah and ridicule this extraordinary man, the POTUS.  Not the sort of extraordinary that I would necessarily admire, but extraordinary for sure.  There is an attractiveness about the extraordinary, the renegade, the iconoclast that appeals to us all.  Robin Hood, Guy Fawkes, and Dick Turpin all live in our folklore and we still celebrate their lives disreputable though they were.

There’s something of Guy Fawkes about Trump, he wants to metaphorically at least, to blow up the establishment, he is clearly self-possessed and obsessed with the mission. He believes that he can create change in his own way and in his own image, and around 38% of Americans believe him.

They don’t believe him because he’s prescient or clever, they believe him because he’s potentially the man who may bring down the status quo.  They believe him because he speaks in generalities (some would say inanities) about making America great again, and creating hundreds and thousands of jobs.  No detail here, just clarion calls to the dispossessed. That 38% of the voting population believes him is a staggering fact, and it may be a low Presidential rating, but it’s a high electoral support bank.

The incidental background about immigration, Mexican walls, and phony trade wars is what the 38% want to hear.  That it is unlikely to make any difference whatsoever, is neither here or there, it’s Mr. Trump’s trumpet they want to hear, and the more he shouts the more they listen.  Any criticism from the traditional media is seen as part of the liberal elite’s perfidy, the denial of the blue collar rights. Let the great revolution come!

Are they right? Well, the educated liberals don’t believe they are, the question is what do they do about it?

Only the French would rally round the smooth Macron, an elitist with liberal visions. In so doing they have claimed the number one spot on the soft power stakes.  Trumpism, on the other hand, does the opposite, and smacks of isolationism and xenophobia. And yet the 38% of American voters are oblivious to the value of soft power or for that matter America’s place in the free world.

It is the arrogance of the educated classes that has alienated the blue collar right wing, capitalism has generated humumgous gaps between the rich and the poor.  The most dreadful gap is not all about money it’s about education and the sooner we all wake up about this the better.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump I fear is bound to flourish.

As times goes by.

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I remember all our yesterdays Summer, winter, sad and happy days lazy, sweet days of love and mingling Days of wanting more, Sometimes hurt by carelessness Sometimes raised by care. Counting all our yesterdays brings the years around, But yesterdays are meaningless For now, we’re safe and sound. Today’s the day that counts, it’s a […]