Piggy Belle Is Dead

Weather Pig sways lazily,

peering from the roof.

He stares at windy Wales

with teardrops in his eyes.

 

Of course he faces windward

as he does throughout the year,

but now his task is tearful.

Piggy Belle is dead.

 

Guard Pig lies at duty

by the front door, as he must.

His task to pee on Mormons,

bite balls off burglar thugs.

 

He is is lax about his duties,

though always at his post.

Today he glares with sadness,

for Piggy Belle is dead.

 

Piggy Ornamental

has no job to do at all.

She is just bronzed off with life today

and yesterday as well.

 

Her empty life is emptier,

so decorously sad,

Pigginess is lesser now,

‘cos Piggy Belle is dead.

 

All the piggy presences

in Malpoet’s grand estate,

grieve the porcine paucity,

end of the Belle Epoche.

 

For years she hung out prettily.

She called at dinner time.

If needed on the telephone,

she let me know in time.

 

The constant task was arduous

as was time and weather toll.

Poor Piggy Belle has fallen now

None more shall hear her call.

 

How sad I was when I was told,

she’d tolled her final toll.

The porky rites at last are said.

Piggy Belle is dead.

London Whale

 

The tears were for the whale, but the thoughts were for all those with mental health problems on the streets of London.

 

London Whale

 

I cried because the whale died,

Stranded, lost and helpless.

The open sea should be his home,

but he had come to London.

 

I cried because the whale died,

a mighty beast, and graceful.

In proper place with peace of mind,

he conquered all about him.

 

I cried because the whale died,

lost in the hands of helpers.

Thrashing out and twitching.

Communication lost to him.

 

I cried because the whale died,

out of place and voiceless.

He came because his mind was lost.

Compassion couldn’t find it.

Capitol Murder

There is a madman from Montana

in the Capitol today.

He has murdered two policemen

and scared debate away.

 

The seat of world democracy,

home of all that’s just and free,

is rattled by the rattle

of a crazy gunman’s spree.

 

High and mighty superpower,

frail in its deepest bower,

frozen by the manic glower,

as freedom’s price is paid.

 

Commentary

 

This was written some time ago, but the shooting in a university in Illinois near Chicago yesterday led me to post it again. It is one of the newsy pieces that I do. Gun use is a bit of a preoccupation of mine. The constitutional right to bear arms has always struck me as a bizarre ‘freedom’. I think that the British constraint on gun ownership is too intrusive on individuals, but to enshrine the ownership of guns into the constitution is odd in the context of the twenty first century.

 

I support written constitutions, but they are set in a particular historic time and that does present problems of how you entrench provisions to protect the constitution at the same time as having the flexibility to adapt to changing needs. The American right to bear arms was in the context of people’s militias and a newly emergent government whose writ did not run uniformly throughout the country.

 

I often have strong rhyme and rhythm in my poems, particularly with this type of subject matter. Although it probably smacks of Victorian melodrama, I think it is a useful way of gaining attention and it gives additional impact to the polemic.

 

I wasn’t sure about the changing rhyme scheme in the last stanza, but each time I come back to it the pace of the first three lines and then the sudden change for the value judgement at the end seems right so I have left it.

Bobbing and Peering

 

The street is lined with pretty girls,

in micro skirts and cheeky curls.

They look at every passing car.

Bobbing and peering.

 

Behind them lurk their pimping men.

Waiting ’til they’ve scored, and then,

seizing all their paltry gains.

Far from endearing.

 

Suited men in lavish cars,

cruise around by seedy bars.

Eying up each girl in turn.

Drooling and leering.

 

He cranes his head in semi dark.

Selecting one before the park.

Clipping kerb as he pulls up.

Rocking the steering.

 

They talk about the business deal.

What she’ll do, and how he’ll feel.

Happily they set the price.

Laughing and cheering.

 

Short journey to a lonely plot.

He pays, and strips her on the spot.

She rapidly begins the job.

Bucking and rearing.

 

It’s over, in a sudden flash.

He’s angry at his waste of cash,

and grabs her by the throat.

Cringing and fearing.

 

Blind with rage, he grabs his knife.

He screams that she wil lose her life,

and lunges viciously.

Cutting and searing.

 

In pain and choking, dripping blood,

he kicks her out onto the mud,

then drives away as she cries out.

Fading from hearing.

 

She’s found and then identified.

A few regret that she has died.

They come to say their last farewell.

Sadly revering.

 

The punter has his day in court,

regretting only that he’s caught.

Claims he’s blameless, not his fault.

Lying and sneering.

 

The judge who sends him down for life,

expresses sadness for his wife.

As crowds outside, bay for his blood.

Taunting and jeering.

 

The girls are still along the street,

standing at their usual beat.

Working as they always did.

Bobbing and peering.

Best

 

The Best there ever was

they said.

Good liver.

Bon viveur.

Great talent

on the football pitch.

 

Great lover,

great drinker,

great flirt.

Miss World,

mistakes,

misplaced love.

Missed.

 

United in glory.

Defeated in his cups.

Delivered to death.

It’s for the Best.

 

 

 

Died 13:00 hours GMT 25 November 2005

Sorry to those who have no idea what this is about. It is George Best. Genius footballer died of alcoholic lever disease.

Soldiers of Heaven Death Cult

 

An Iraqi based Shia Muslim group calling itself the Soldiers of Heaven has killed hundreds of people as well as suffering hundreds of losses of its own members attacking the Ashura gathering in Kerbala.

 

Many Muslims (mostly Shia) believe that the ‘hidden imam’ (Mahdi) will reappear and bring in a period of global justice before the end of the world and resurrection. The 12^th imam in the line of succession from Mohammed disappeared in the ninth century, but Mahdists believe he is still alive.

 

The Soldiers of Heaven are an armed extremist group who believe that they can hasten the reappearance of the hidden imam by destroying the mainstream Shia leadership and they seem to think that the fervour of Ashura is the right environment for them to operate.

 

President Ahmedinejad of Iran is a believer in the hidden imam although he has nothing to do with the Soldiers of Heaven. Like many messianic Christian cults, Mahdists believe that they are in the ‘end times’. Mahdists generally believe that the hidden imam and Jesus will together operate to create the conditions for the resurrection. Like Christian end timers, they welcome destruction and disorder because they see it as an indicator of the coming final conflict.

 

Since Mohammed, several people have claimed to be the Mahdi, just as many have claimed to be the second coming of Jesus. At least one claimed to be both the Mahdi and Jesus!

 

Almost all of the Soldiers of Heaven members are believed to be very poor, rural people, but when the cult’s compound in Najaf was raided a year ago, a swimming pool, beauty parlour and many luxuries being used by the leadership were found. Cult leading is pretty much the same in the Christian and Muslim worlds. The outcome can be death in both as well. The dreams of paradise will be unfulfilled.

 

 

The People’s Temple and the Jonestown Massacre

 

Jim Jones led the People’s Temple which was a Christian cult that also had socialist political objectives. Jones led a small group that started out as anti-communist, but then became left wing when it sensed that ability to tap into a leftist groundswell in California. It grew much larger when it managed to affiliate with a protestant group called The Disciples of Christ.

 

In the late 1970′s, Jones moved his followers to Guyana where he set up an agricultural commune called Jonestown. The People’s Temple members believed that they were going to create a paradise on earth, but the reality was poor food, hard work, sickness and torture in the form of Jones’ vicious system of discipline.

 

Congressman Ryan flew to Jonestown from the USA in 1978 to investigate complaints of abuse. After an unsatisfactory visit, Jones sent gunmen who shot Ryan and members of his party. Immediately after this, Jones initiated a mass murder and suicide event in which more than 900 People’s Temple members were killed.

 

In this group we see the typical ego centred, charismatic leader exerting absolute authority and the promises of paradise. In this there was to be a paradise on earth before the heavenly one and the religious imagery was merged with an extreme political ideology. There are similarities with the Heaven’s Gate cult which joined its religious mysticism with Ufology in order to tap into the popularity, at the time, of interest in extra terrestrial phenomena. Jones saw a popularity of communist ideology in California in the sixties and seventies and successfully tapped into that.

 

This was one of the worst examples of the dangers of following a persuasive, but deluded man to promises of paradise that end in misery.

David Koresh–Branch Davidians-76 Dead-Another False Prophet

 David Koresh was originally Vernon Wayne Howell and like Wayne Bent (Michael Travesser) he led a Seventh Day Adventist breakaway sect. Like many others he claimed to be the last prophet of God.

Also like Travesser, and many other cult leaders, Koresh was a sexual predator and child sex abuser. Koresh claimed that he could have any of the females in his compound as his own and he also claimed to have been anointed by God. All of these things echo claims by Travesser. The behaviour of Travesser in ‘dissolving’ the marriages of his followers, not only gave him the self justification to have sex with his daughter-in-law (contrary to Mosaic law in Leviticus), but also, like Koresh, undermined the traditional parent-child relationship and replaced it with a dependence upon a central figure, himself.

Koresh, like Travesser, progressively revealed what he claimed to be God’s plan. In both cases the plan provides for women followers to become wives of the leader and for female children to be socialised to desire to be chosen as a bride of the leader.

Just like the residents of Travesser’s Strong City, children and adults in the Waco compound explained clearly and repeatedly why they chose to remain of their own free will in the sect. The psychological domination by these cult leaders is complete.

In the case of Koresh at Waco 76 people lost their lives in a final confrontation with the FBI. Whoever caused that final loss of life, the deaths and the sex abuse were all the result of the manipulation by David Koresh and the neediness of those who fell into his control.

The Resurrection of Jesus

Jesus did not rise again after being dead for three days.

Jesus and Miracles

Jesus did not raise anybody from the dead, he did not change water into wine and he did not heal anybody miraculusly.