Belief is not feeling,

and none of us
leaves the world
undamaged.

We members of the comfortable bourgeoisie

barricade ourselves
(as Baudelaire said) into
"an oasis of horror
in a desert of ennui"
or, indeed, anomie.

"Non, je ne regrette rien."

How could anyone regret nothing ?
Not even a broken toy, or telephone
relationship, marriage,
broken health...or a sudden decision,
reaction, temptation, caprice ?

All the same,
regret is hostage to blame.
We blame both ourselves and others.
I blame my existence.

I regret my regrets.
Though they are few,
I would like to dump their slight drag,
their slightly depressing effect.

I don't want to push my regretting
out of proportion,
but I chiefly regret having been the result
of an unpleasant coupling
and an unsuccessful abortion.

We are not our faces

or names, or bodies, or souls -
just presences, briefly,
consumers, chiefly.

Incompetence.

When I was young
girls and women had to prove that they were not incompetent,
by becoming teachers or nurses or excellent secretaries.
Men and boys, on the other hand,
had to prove they were incompetent.
My mother must have been disappointed to discover
that I was incompetent at an early age,
compared with my mechanically-minded, mathematical
well-behaved cousins.

Like my mother,
I find that as I get older
and tireder
life gets colder.

In the past

 people asked each other
(and children) for permission to take a photograph.
Now, the endlessly-photographed
complain about lack of identity.

Capitalism, the global swindle,

depends on hierarchy,
which is much, much older.

There is no "app." for equality,
and those for "generosity"
are as self-serving as The Lord's Prayer.

Enterprise

is the degenerate state
of being prepared to junk all decent feeling
for the Greater Good of making money
or acquiring power.

The difference between French and Irish history

 is that the French collude to agree on a version as solid as a Gruyere cheese,
while no two Irishmen can agree on any version of any event in the island's past.

Somebody must already have said

that what makes us human is
our inhumanity.

Most of my life

I have felt, in the words
of the late, splendid Philip Kerr
"like a goldfish in a toilet-bowl"
- relatively safe from predators
if not from the onslaught of turds.

One of the least-mentioned of our many addictions

is Trading: buying and selling on
(usually) the same stuff, items,
commodities, information,
animals, people...
It is safer than gambling,
but for that very reason
'has reached epidemic proportions'.

Having only recently even heard of him,

my favourite hero is now
Benjamin Lay,
one of the few true followers of Diogenes
 - a man of conscience who ended up in the Pennsylvania colony
and is surely the 'greatest American' known
(but largely unknown) to History.
He hasn't even been celebrated with a postage-stamp,
much less a national holiday.

(read here his book condemning slavery)

My future

(if any)
lies not, I hope, in old
but in deep age,
the result of contextual
rather than linear thinking.

But even Old Age
is better than New Age:
now that really is mind-shrinking!

RELINQUISH

- such a beautiful
and difficult word !

Open-air Meeting.

But where is the greatest predator of all ?

Many people think

that they are warm and fluffy.
But their fluffiness comes not from wool
but from glass fibre.

Good strength

is silent
and invisible.

Two Distinguished Bearded Gentlemen.

photo by Siddarth Setia

America First!

was a slogan of the Ku Klux Klan
who tried to patent it
in the 1920s.

The American Dream
was not, originally, an aspiration
to unbridled wealth amidst immigrant poverty,
but the dream of democracy
triumphing over monopolist capitalism
- which resulted in anti-Trust legislation.

Thinking of the Saffron Crocus,

Social Stigma
is what keeps me going.

The neat thing about Zadkine's sculptures for churches

is that he manages subtly to lose the Christianity,
as in this Pietà:

and this Christ (either crucified or springing up to Heaven).

In celebration of International Doodle Day

My Canine Companion writes:

I am the Never-Never Dog,
who never gets a walk,
never gets fondled,
belly-rubbed or fed,
and never meets other dogs,
nor ever chases cats
and never gets to lie
on his cruel master's bed.

Fiona

Desire-addicts,

we love our possessions
for reasons of status, comfort
or even æsthetics,
but are forever proclaiming
greater concern for our
fellow-humans.

I think I am missing

the Take-Yourself-Seriously gene
which so many men have - in spades.

A society which has an army and police force

is not worth defending.

I have never 'visited' a prostitute,

nor 'had recourse'
to financially-agreed intercourse.
I never even considered it.

But when I was in a hotel in downtown Bangui
(Central African Republic, then ruled by Jean-Bedel Bokassa)
a beautiful, unpainted, small-breasted chambermaid
came to my room and hesitantly offered herself to me
(naming no price) under the ancient, rattling air-conditioner.

If I had been raised in Africa, or even Southern Europe,
I might never have ended up attracted almost entirely to bearded men,
because unpainted, small-breasted, dark-hued women
take my breath away. 
Perhaps if they had had beards or moustaches as well,
I would have floated up in ecstasy to Paradise
to sit at the right hand of the Hermaphrodite Polymorphously-perverse Creator.

The Gbaya chambermaid was somewhat disturbed
by my request for her to sit on me and receive my willy slowly,
from below,
while we massaged each other's nipples gently. 
It was, she was, beautiful for, to me. 
It was safe for her (since I had had a vasectomy).
I did not ejaculate.
I don't think she "experienced orgasm"
- but the encounter was tender and (for me) delicious,
financially-rewarding for her - and not to be repeated.
Neither of us was up too late.
Neither was regretfully depleted.

The essence of civilisation

is clamour, hubbub,
din and commotion,
discord and repression.
We'd all be better without it.

Je chante le cadavre électrique - a homage

to Google Translate.

As a result of the White Men's urge

to change régimes in other people's countries:

"Sold as sex slaves for a few hundred pounds
to Libyan brothels,
the Nigerian girls were raped several times a day
as payment for their future crossing to Europe..."

(The Times of London)

Just knowing that this is happening
should be enough to make us impotent -
or become Skoptsy.

He prefers war-zones, of course.

The reason why an old church is peaceful and calming
is that it is the last place where God is likely to be.