Inspiration, expressionism,
as slippery as an oiled rope
or an iced eel,
as elusive as an alien encounter
and
equally inexplicable,
febrile and fluctuating,
so that every attempt
to clutch and secure it for nourishment,
admonition,
or rescue
is nullified
and fluttering fingertips,
stroke only the merest hint of creativity
before encountering,
empty space…

Idealism, as ephemeral as a notion
held in the head of an opium poppy,
or couched in the eye
of an insurgent child,
paraded in the hopes and dreams
of proud patriots,
trampled beneath burgeoning immorality,
no more now,
than a momentary glimmer
of human possibility,
eroded by reality
and the benefit of experience,
clouded by daily misery
or a sense that
no one is listening any more,
any effort to bring it into the light
fracturing the fragile fabric of conviction
before converting it to doubt.

Socialism, a downtrodden concept
of community,
embracing consideration and communal responsibilty,
derided and long undervalued
by a first world that refuses to diet
even though it is dying of obesity.
Sullying a sytem of sharing
egalitarian values,
demonised for suggesting,
that what’s yours,
might also be mine…and everyone elses.
God Forbid!
From this we scatter fearful,
and all the useful definitions in between
become blurred to insignificance
as we sink into a sea of greed,
or an ocean of self servingness
in its abject rejection

Capitalism, an ever turning wheel of torturous dispossession
carving a rut
through the fettered fabric of humanity
disavowing our intent
to do good
leading us astray with devilish temptations
Promises of endless richesse
beyond our wildest dreams
yet,
with surgical precision,
whilst we look the other way,
slicing and dicing the herd
determining who floats and who falls
by counting the zeros on a ledger
and saying
not only
that Greed is Good
but
that Greed is All

Nihilism, a moment of insanity,
a seismic fracture, sinking through mental structure
and a need to be noticed,
no matter what
because all that might once have been of value
has become meaningless,
and democracy
has failed.
The cost?
Broken dreams and shattered expectations
flying into the sun,
blinked out in a blaze of inglory,
rolling a fiery ‘Ism through the clouds,
towards the source of a pain that will never end,
sinking angry teeth into a world
that does not care
Desperate to be heard,
dying silenced.

Burn the guns, diffuse the bombs
Turn them into useful things for those they have wronged,
metal legs for the dismembered
coffins for the dead.
Craft the bullets into
little metal hands
for the depleted uranium children born without,
for the hacked and blasted babies
whose fingers lie in the rubble of hatred,
alongside
their futures

Take the gunbelts and the marching boots
melt down the knives and the bayonets to create
wheelchairs for the broken,
shelters for the dispossessed.
Recalibrate the munitions machines, set them to sculpture
To the creation of beauty
so that we can enjoy a world uplifting
not this maelstrom of blood
and dust
and broken bones

Fabricate a reality free
from needless aggression and political posturing,
from the poisonous gases
and the biological threats
Turn minds
trained to kill
toward the art of reconstruction and atonement
towards enlightenment and hope
so we might
learn how to love each other
and all that lives upon this world.

Let go of War.
And then we can truly call ourselves
Civilised

Goodbye then, Steve Jobs,
Intemperate genius,
misunderstood visionary, magician,
unqualified brat.
You shaped our world with
exquisite imagination,
created landscapes of delight
for the children
you knew we always stayed.
That bicycle in my head
grew booster rockets and took off
years ago,
thanks to you,
and I’ll never forget how
I sat before that old Mackintosh
for the very first time at school,
breathless with excitement, fingers poised
knowing, somehow,
that I was about to enter
the rabbit hole
and never look back

Thanks for the joy you gave a world
so used to invention for distruction

whereas you
brought us invention
for pure joy,
tools with elegance
stunning innovation,
technology that was fun,
ripping up the military ideal
that computers
were only good for war.
You brought connectivity
to art,
and teched up work until our toil
became a pleasure.
Defied, disregarded, evicted
by money men too foolish to see
that computing
was about magic
not numbers
Were you the only one
who really got that?

So, farewell then, old friend,
You did so much more
than simply touch
our monotone, earthbound lives
with your galactic, iridescent foresight,
You upgraded history
and helped us capture it in digital hi-def.
You built a whole new world
with new words
and new possibilities
taking us in Star Trek directions
with your shiny new toys
for big people.
Be sure,
that you are not forgotten
but live in every little apple
alight on a lap,
or singing in a hand,
gifts you gave the world,
that keep you looping here
eternally,
forever hungry, forever foolish

RIP Steve Jobs 1955-2011
Keep your i-phone handy. We may need to call you.

There’s an old man out on my street
with bundled rags upon his feet
and a plastic bag of old tin cans,
but not a single thing to eat.

I can see him crouching there,
with his twenty-five yard stare,
with nothing to be hopeful for,
mutely daring me to care.

All the people pass him by,
but no one thinks to ask him why
he’s sitting out there in the rain
beneath a leaden, weeping sky.

I tried to show him that I see,
but he simply wouldn’t speak to me,
closed his face and closed his mind,
trapped in his insanity.

There’s a child crying raggedly,
a beaten, battered tragedy
of stolen hopes and secret fears,
that somehow only I can see.

A thousand babies died today
as I made my pointless way
along the path of my own life.
What am I supposed to say?

There are soldiers dying in a war,
who knows what they’re fighting for?
Oil or land, revenge or spite,
it doesn’t matter any more.

In a world I’ve come to hate,
starving people sit and wait,
forgotten in their poverty
as governments procrastinate.

We are the kings of greed and gain,
perched upon a world of pain,
obsessed by sheer prosperity,
convinced that we are not to blame.

One old man out on the road
with tattered mind and ragged clothes,
dying slowly in a world
where every, single door is closed

To stop this global travesty
we must first accept reality.
What right have I to feel content
when misery is all I see?

I am so utterly dismayed
that we choose to live this way,
and so, I ask you, please, just try
to think of someone else today.

]]> http://careylenehan.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/think-of-someone-else-today/feed/ 0 careylenehan http://careylenehan.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/to-be-a-terrorist/ http://careylenehan.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/to-be-a-terrorist/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:52:13 +0000 careylenehan http://careylenehan.wordpress.com/?p=391 ]]> by Carey Lenehan

Ask yourself,

What does it take to be a ‘Terrorist’
To put cities and nations, under the fist?
Steal a passenger plane, take a bomb on a train
Killing bystanders, enemies, one and the same
What does it take? Too much hate, too much pain?
Very brave? Very angry? Very stupid?
Mental strain?

Here’s another ask…

What can it feel like to be on that train
with a homemade bomb at the base of your brain
Sweating finger on the button
Of impersonal destruction
Just a man, just a woman,
following instructions?
Maybe think of the future, of waking tomorrow,
safe and unharmed, with no regime to follow

What faith does it take to obliterate
Yourself and all those in your personal space
Workers and shirkers, mothers and sons
Husbands and daughters,
The old and the young?
What hatred is needed to render deceded
Innocence, sucking it’s thumb?

consider this….

Maybe…
Someone coerced you, fed you a lie,
Convinced you of Glory, a place at God’s side
Taught you to hate, see non-believers as waste
To be wiped of the face of religious debate,
Oppressors, digressors, capitalist proffessors
Opposed to your opposite religious state
So you clench every muscle, use belief to placate
as the train nears a point
predetermined by fate

What thoughts clog your head?
‘Is it true, when I’m dead,
I’ll be safe? I’ll be saved? Do I believe, in my heart
All those things that they said?’
What strength does it take for your finger to move
Press the button and BOOM, end all thinking,
for good?
Smashing glass, rending iron, sending soft
bodies flying, twisting flames, faithful games
Good lives smashed into dying
for the Martyrdom gained and herewith applying.
Perhaps not ashamed, for there are
others to blame,

What does it take to be a terrorist?
My friends…
all it takes,
is anger,
fear
and Faith

I feel, therefore I love,

yet

what is love but a diverse melange of base ingredients,

clumsily blended by inept hearts,

left to prove, fatly risen, slowly roasted,

to create

a loaf of an entirely different texture?

I know that I feel, or rather,

I know that something feels,

but what are the essential elements, the ratios

and the cause of their cohesion?

Need, attachment, pleasure, security, happiness, dependence,

addiction,

even lust, of course lust… mostly lust,

and yet

none of these alone are love and any, at a moments notice,

on the spur of a thoughtless word,

pushed from the ledge of a selfish act,

can show the Janus face.

Resentment, isolation, pain, uncertainty, anger, freedom, aversion,

even,

repulsion.

So are these too, the raw ingredients of love?

Love is the ultimate souffle of all emotion,

finely blended, carefully prepped, just the right ambiance required,

baked to perfection by good chefs, so easily spoiled,

by ineptitude,

deflated by a moment of bad timing,

by the slightest misjudgement,

a change in altitude, a draught of the wrong air,

ready to collapse at any second, ruined,

by impatience,

all appeal lost in disappointment,

the delectable made

inedible.

We think we know what love is,

but by any other name, it would be the same,

a secret recipe, undefined, intransigent, ephemeral.

Love is the sum of us all,

we are the division of its parts.

A single poor calculation and love becomes

another invalid theorem,

a vague subtraction in the hearts of the old,

a burning multiplication in the loins of the young,

a desperate need for addition,

inclusion,

from the mouth of a child.

We cannot know if the love we feel,

is the same

as anyone else,

without tasting all, how can we tell the difference?

True love,

that relentless enigma,

like any great dish, attempted by all,

but achieved only by a few…

Simplicity negates conformity,
twisting shadows of eradication, bloating
Time, space, inner faces bend,
rocks round, and
solidity disappears
River runs, washing history before it
Satin depths unyielding, mottled.
As above, so below,
life blooms each way
Tolerantly
with relentless addiction
To procreation.

by Carey Lenehan

In the midst of these calm, temperate days,
there is peace in the still moments of absolute heat.
Summer thrown down like a wrestler to the mat,
sprawled flat,
fully exposed,
a do what you will attitude to the fore,
simple defeat not yet admitted,
bouncing back day after day,
knocked down only by night
and the occasional passing
Sumo cloud

Voices carry, from garden to yard,
from market square to church doors,
as people inside debate through open windows,
how hot will it be
today?
For Summer stays, with perspicacity,
yawning skies of blue and golden light prevail,
bronzed bodies parade with pride,
sunburned shoulders painfully displayed
with heat indulgent smiles and
rueful shrugs

Hustled purchases in the market place,
hurrying home before the heat builds,
whilst early finishing workment stop hastily loaded vans
with emphasis
by the bakers door.
Five baguettes in hand and home to lunch well,
to sleep the afternoon away, perchance to dream,
as Summer stays with complicity.
Dreamy heat haze rising, pressure building
Delightful, unbearable discomfort of utterly indulgent
Summer heat.

Farewell then Dominic Strauss-can’t
Silver haired smooth talker
With your ready wit
And the wealth of nations
Under your thumb
You just couldn’t resist
That enticing rump
One rump too far
You might say

So no more then,
Great dreams of Presidency
Vive La France
The silver haired super bitch
Will step into your spot
Which is quite possibly
What this was all about
In the first place
One might think

And if prison is not where you end up
It should have been
Because any man
Who thinks he’s a stallion
Should probably be stabled
For the safety of unwary mares
Who unwisely turn their behinds
Towards him
And raise their tails

Enjoy obscurity.