For you, Dad – I know you’d disagree,
but there was a part of you that wouldn’t
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Facing Up
We all have our cross
I have no cross, Mat; I have a Holocaust
Adam
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13.75 billion years
The Universe is estimated to be 13,750,000,000 years old. For many years I thought we were about 18 billion years old – this was according to Joseph Campbell – but I stumbled on to a programme around 2004 where Paul Davies, an eminent Australian scientist, was being interviewed. He explained the 13.7 billion years position.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe . Even though I did Physics in my HSC, I don’t pretend to comprehend much of this. However, I can envisage a Big Bang of Creation. From nothing, fire; and hence the beginning of time. For me, Genesis 1:1-5 fits this quite well:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth
was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;
and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
And God said: ’Let there be light.’ And there was light. And God saw
the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And
There was evening and there was morning, one day
Judaism is at the year 5771, Christianity the year 2011 and according to Islam it is the year 1432. Other religions/cultures have different times/years. Some of you may have noticed I fairly persistently use the year 13,700,000,025 in place of 2011, for example. Well I used to. Now I will be using 13,7
50,000,025. I know it is an approximation but it is the best we have. For now, and for convenience, I use the Gregorian calendar – the calendar of Rome. But who knows in the future? In the year 13,750,000,007 (1993) I decided that 1986 would be the year 18 billion - now 13,750,000,000. Try typing or writing that.
In essence, that’s about how old you are…
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Orphans
I see the orphans everywhere.
They have mums and dads,
Kid sisters and dishwashers.
They have Capitalism’s dreams
On their backs. They listen to
Their Dad’s stories as evening
Pushes through. School starts
Tomorrow. They’ll learn of
James Cook and Bradman. Be
Immersed in Western culture,
Western thought. They’ll play
Cricket at lunch, eat bruised ban-
Anas, drink Powerade or the like.
A new Mazda will pick them up
After mum finishes work. They
Are the government’s dream:
Bronzed Aussie kids. But they are
Orphaned from Sacred, they know
Not its heart. Atheist dad spends
A fortune on Christmas lights. No
One really knows why, except that
Next door does it. Orphaned from
Holy or Sensitivity or Peace, they
Are the soldiers of the future; not
Wide-eyed or exuberant, they are
Already lost, lost by their mother’s
Inability to love and her need to
Control. Lost to the sky and the
Mountain, to the Koori law and
Dance. Lost to the emu spirit, the
Song of the river, dusk. They see
Dad leave each morning, off to
Business, they digest the normalcy.
They understand money, they get
It as presents. Biko and Gandhi
And Luther King are not spoken
Of; it would upset the status quo.
They are orphans, so alone; so
Orphaned from themselves. Just
Towing someone else’s truth.
Just towing someone else.
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Something Optimistic
We are not near the end, only the beginning. We are coming together, not drifting apart. The key is G-d; how to hear Him, how to know Him in your own heart. You can appeal to Krishna or Abraham or Jesus or Mohammed, you can study all you like. But can you hear Him as you drive at night in February summer, the wind bearing down, doing 100 KPH on the open road? Can you hear Him when you watch a black bird flit around an old gum tree? Can you hear Him in the depths of a Saturday afternoon? Indeed, is He there when you stumble upon your woman at night’s end? You cannot marginalize it, decode it, dissect it, delineate it. You cannot ascertain crystal truth from Jungian dreamscape, an ancient Persian poem. For you were born with it - it resides within, it is already there. A child hears it, an illiterate man in his fifties in Tanzania hears it; so too will the whole entire world.
Not some day far off in the future, but soon. For a new day is imminent - a day where everyone eats, a day when no gun sounds again, a day where women are safe and respected and delight in their difference to men. Where children won’t fear hatred and violence and injustice anymore. Where men are decent. Where divorce is extinct. Where there is relevant ritual - ritual rich and sacred and common to every soul inhaling breath on our earth. Where dance comes to life; when we really pound our feet to the cosmic beat, when we gyrate to the universe’s rhythmic whir.
Do not worry, that hand-me-down ‘ancient Western code’ – its wars, its promises, its weaknesses - is doomed. But what will replace it? How to disassemble such a system steeped in a history designed purely for the rich to be in control? BP, The World Bank, The House of Windsor – how to demolish it all so young kids can go to school instead of hunting through rubbish tips in poverty stricken cities all over the world, instead of eating rats for dinner?
There is a way – and each of us knows it.
I write sad, dejected poems/prose because I’m sickened by the current state of affairs. Far from being proud of our institutions, our progress, we should hang our heads in shame. The truth is, ‘we asked for signs, the signs were sent, the birth betrayed, the marriage spent, the widowhood of every single government, signs for all to see’. But who sees it? We are so engaged, even seduced by Western materialism and its propaganda. It allows us; in fact it entices us, to turn a blind eye. However, deep in our hearts, most of us are aware of the inequality, the hopeless imbalance.
I know my shame because across the world there are people
dying I pretend I don’t know. This is that shame of looking
in a mirror at a face pretending it knows nothing of the dying
even as its honesty is killed - Christopher Gilbert
Until every Human being on this planet, every one, has opportunities akin to mine, I will never submit to ‘the economy game’ and as much as I can, I will debunk it as ‘rich-man’s poison’ and tell others that we just can’t go there, that we cannot continue on that path. And I will tell the thousand or so men who are in ‘absolute control’ of everything right now from their boardrooms, and palaces, and government houses, and religious institutions; that their end is in sight. That, very soon, the whole damned house is going to fall down.
Can you hear Him now?
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Confession
I’ve been hard and I’ve been hating
Like Mike Tyson emanating
But I’ve known about a truth some twenty years
It came to me one morning
Blue light it was a-dawning
I won’t tell you any more ‘cos you’re my peers
You would mock and you would laugh
Play a kookaburra’s part
You would think me bloody dippy, bloody mad
It was Christ I think he said
That a prophet won’t be fed
In his home town won’t be praised or won’t be had
So I remain this Boss
And I’m kind of at a loss
I’ve been seething, bad remarking to a few
But it isn’t really me
Won’t you listen, can’t you see
I’m a Christian and/or Muslim and/or Jew
But so much more than this
We are Human, we all piss
We’re connected to each other and the stars
And all of us have faults
Store our money in our vaults
Burn our fossil-fuels for power and for cars
I’ve often seemed aloof
So I offer up a truce
I’ll try to see ‘the bright side of the road’
But my life is hardly fun
Haven’t felt much cosy sun
A thundercloud can kill when it unloads
If you’re Imaginary or Mat
If you’re Lizzy or her cat
There’s something more to Boss than meets the eye
It’s in his ancient history
In deep prophetic mystery
It’s written in Salinger’s, ‘‘Catcher in the Rye’
I’m going on sabbatical
Of this I am fanatical
I have to break some wisdom into shape
I reckon I’ll be back soon
The next big juicy full moon
In my bag of tricks I bet there’ll be mistakes
So tell me, who’s a ‘ten’?
If you find him tell me when
I’ve been a liar and a cheat and such a fool
Still I’ll be giving it my darndest
While she sleeps there in her harness
At times she is as stubborn as a mule!
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Rich people suicide, too
In the end it is not mansion
pedigree or luck
It is happiness
And for that
you gotta love yourself
This is your birthright
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In peace,
Boss
