The Ballad of Belmore Gaol

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of silver by.

From The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Not exactly worthy of an updating of Oscar Wilde's iconic poem, but an attempt to release some impotent anger in these times of immense political injustice: The imminent extradition and eventual sentencing of Julian Assange to 175 years of prison.

The Ballad of Belmarsh Gaol

All the shitheads of the world

The nasty, measly minded, degenerate people who inhabit the corridors of power

Those we elect to rule in our name

The pompous politicians, presidents and prime ministers

in their White houses and streets of Down

Are conspiring today, with their high court judges in their ridiculous wigs

Applauded by the yellow vendors of news

To deprive us of truth, once and for all

What sad day is this that we have allowed to happen

What excuse do we have for silently accepting the denial of the one freedom that cannot be bought with money. The freedom to open our mouths and speak the truth

Why are we not angry? Raging? Rampaging?

Telling these pathetic, self-exalted cretins that the emperor has no clothes

Their moral nakedness is insulting our human integrity

Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote two centuries ago “The Mask of Anarchy”

The final line of this poetic condemnation of the predecessors of our current rulers reads:

“Ye are many—they are few”

Yes, we are many, they are few

So why are we not surrounding the High Court?

Surrounding Belmarsh prison?

Surrounding Parliament?

Surrounding The White House?

To “Rise, like lions after slumber” in Shelly’s words

We are allowing them to kill the messenger with hardly a whisper

To quote the reincarnated Phil Ochs; David Rovics:

“ We marched down the street

And left our cameras where they lay

‘Cause all the news that’s fit to mention

Is there is no news today”

And there will be no news tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after………

Bilder fra markering for Julian Assange 20. februar på Kunsthall 3, 14 med Sofie Marhaug, stortingsrepresentant fra Rødt, Gisle Selnes, en aktiv forkjemper for å skape bevissthet om Wikileaks-grunnleggeren Julian Assange. Terje Alnes fra Antikrigsinitiativet i Bergen, Gitte Sætre, debattredaktør ved Kunsthall 3,14, musikeren August Selnes og Naeem Searle vil lese dikt og en forelesning av den bergensbaserte kritikeren og professoren Frode Helmich Pedersen.

The Ballad of Belmarsh Gaol | Flickr

 

Dette er et dikt som ble inspirert av å se på Stortingets Muntlig spørretime forrige onsdag, der Utenriksminister Barth Eide skrytt om at Norge var blant de vestlige land som gjorde det meste, og var tydeligst, i forhold til det som skjer i Gaza. Men samtidig mente han at det var å gå for langt å kalle det som skjer for Folkemord. Mens Frps Christian Tybring-Gjedde forlangt at selv denne neddempet, liksom kritikk av Israel var feil fordi den førte til antisemittisme og mobbing av det jødiske samfunn i Norge. Derfor gir jeg dikt denne binære tittel:

 

Diplomacy: The Art of doing nothing at all – an anti-Semitic poem

 

We all want Peace,

Peace of mind,

Peace in our time,

Peace for the benefit of humankind.

At Peace with nature,

A beautiful Peace,

A peaceful life,

And a peaceful death.

 

Our elected leaders, also want Peace:

The Peace of the cemetery.

To be left in Peace to allow unhindered, the wind of murder that passes over Palestine.

To silently condone the oppression, the abuse, the exploitation, the crushing and repeated expulsion of the children and grandchildren of Nakba.

Silencing the coming generation to a noiseless death beneath the ruins of Gaza.

 

The stones are crying, their dust-stained tears trickling in small rivulets through the ruins of Gaza’s cities.

They reveal, the small, crippled hand of a dead child, encrusted in grey colourless dust, pointing aimlessly at the sky from beneath the ruble of Gaza City.

Like the carved stone hand of a renaissance statue waiting for a helping hand that came too late.

 

Barth Eide and Gahr Støre are worried.

Worried about the excessive civilian casualties,

Worried about the spread of the conflict throughout the Middle East,

Worried about terrorism coming to our Peace-loving land,

Diplomacy is their potent weapon.

 

“one must not shy away from criticizing countries, just because they are our allies” Says Barth Eide. And goes on to praise the USA for not vetoing a resolution that does not call for a ceasefire.

He feels, that “it is going too far to call Israels murder of over 22 000 civilians,

Forced relocation of 2 million Palestinians,

Cutting off supplies of water, food and energy, in a Medieval siege,

and raising all the cities of Gaza to the ground,

For a genocide.

 

Indeed, diplomacy is a potent weapon in such hypocritical hands as those of our esteemed Foreign Minister.

Tell us again, Barth Eide, how Norway is among the most vocal western countries in condemning, this “Non-Genocide.”

Tell us how you broke diplomatic relations with the “Non-Genocidal” Israeli government,

Tell how you openly condemned Stone-Face Biden for “Non-vetoing” a ceasefire,

Tell us how you loudly refused to participate in his Red Sea maritime force, to ensure that ships could continue supplying the cruel ongoing “Non-genocide”,

Tell us how you manipulatively sabotaged the recognition of a “Non-Palestinian” state,

Tell us how many children’s lives your “doing the most we can” has saved.

And then listen as your empty words echo and rebound across the Nordic granite mountains.

They do not go unheard:

 

In Adolf Fredrik's cemetery, the earth moves upon a grave, the wet soil erupts in a frenzied wave of torment, and a skeletal hand emerges, its muddied finger pointing to the sky.

And the trembling voice of the ghost of Olaf Palme rents the midnight air “J’Accuse!”

 

Biden/Blinken, Go to Hell!

Palestine will rise again.

Barth Eide/Gahr Støre, get off your arses, get off your knees!

Palestine will be free!

 A Poem of sorts, to the medieval warmongers who decieve their fellow citizens in the service of a foreign power!

THE RAIN POLISHED COBBLED STREETS OF BERGEN

I woke up this morning, and there were no mushroom clouds casting their ghastly shadows over the valleys and mountains of Laksevåg.

No killer rain pouring down and dissolving the skin of screaming children;

only the never ending grey, cold, Bergen drizzle, polishing the cobblestoned city streets.

Haakonsvern was no grotesque firework display, and Bryggen, no smouldering heap of rubble with the stench of burning flesh.

And Oslo? Berlin? Paris? Kiev?

They lied to us, AGAIN!

Our elected representatives. The European Vice-ministers for USAs foreign interests: “Rock Solid” Jens, Resolute Anniken, and Odd Roger the Dodger.

Painfully irresponsible, subservient echo-chambers for a dying imperial mad house.

Speaking the deceitful twinned language of the forked tongue; one reserved for insulting the intelligence of those they should serve, the other to reap kudos from the ones they really serve.

They took us to the brink, willing to tinker with the latches on the Gates of Hell, to please the Emperor Nero in his house of White.

But the emperor and his acolytes stand naked now, in their shameful, guilty embarrassment. Their lies revealed for all the world to see. We must never give them another chance!

The never ending grey, cold Bergen drizzle must continue to polish the cobblestoned city streets. For our children, and our children’s children.

RESIGN you regurgitated medieval mongers of war! elected mercenaries bereft of all integrity; your time has come! And GONE!

Still standing up, at Standing Rock

From the Napituca Massacre to Wounded Knee,
A history of lies, deceit and broken treaties,
500 years of war against the Indian nation,
This was the white man’s gift of civilization.

History re-written like some John Wayne Western movie,
The savages saved from their pagan destitution,
Their children re-educated, their culture defiled,
Their traditions commercialized or merely reviled.

Forced from their homelands on a Trail of Tears,
With wounded hearts on broken knees,
Still standing up, at Standing Rock,
Across the wide Missouri.

9 million Indian graves on the wind-swept plains,
No Declaration of Independence, No land of the free,
No American dream, or manifest destiny,
For the Sioux, Navaho, Apache and Cherokee.

Ethnic cleansing, extermination, assimilation, subjugation,
Stolen lands and stolen bison,
Reservations for cultural assassination,
Buffalo Warriors in a stolen nation.

Forced from their homelands on a Trail of Tears,
With wounded hearts on broken knees,
Still standing up, at Standing Rock,
Across the wide Missouri.

Now they come for their water, for their holy grounds,
Riot police with their gnashing hounds,
National Guard, rubber bullets, tear gas,
Against protectors of mother earth and their ancestral past.

From Bagdad to Benghazi, from Caracas to Kuwait,
The pipelines come first, the environment can wait,
People mean nothing when Oil is at stake,
From Amazonas to Dakota, Lofoten to Maracaibo lake.

Forced from their homelands on a Trail of Tears,
With wounded hearts on broken knees,
Still standing up, at Standing Rock,
Across the wide Missouri.       

Sweet Sixteen

This is a poem inspired by the recent massacre in Norway where I live. The Fremskrittparti I refer to in the closing verse is the political party that spreads race hate in this country, Siv Jensen is the leader.

Dave

Sweet Sixteen

The bullet sped through the air,
Already the sheer velocity and air resistance began to deform its shape
As it sped mercilessly on towards its victim,
In agonizing slow motion.
The fraction of a second that life is suspended
In a predetermined anticipation of its own termination.

The bullet struck the tender, oh so pretty, delicate white skin,
ripping it to shreds,
Tore through flesh and exploded with merciless design.
Tearing organs, shattering bone and giving such excruciating, shearing pain.
Fear, emptiness and oh, so all alone,
The victim felt her life ebbing slowly from her body.
Her warm blood soaking into the cold, wet earth of Utøya.

BASTARD BREIVIK!
BASTARD SIV JENSEN!!
BASTARD FREMSKRITTSPARTI!!
BASTARDS ALL THE MONGERS OF HATE AND DIVISION!!!!

An explanation of sorts:

Firstly I would like to say that the poem is directed personally to Anders Behring Breivik, the mass murderer. Although it seems to be written with one particular female victim in mind, it is meant to represent all 69 victims both male and female (it is still so difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the massacre, I cried while writing these lines). I would like him to ponder on every single bullet he fired and follow it’s heartless trajectory into the body of each beautiful living person and feel the pain of every impact, the fear and the lonely anticipation of approaching death.

As for forgetting, no, it is up to us to ensure that all those lives were not lost in vain. Europe and the US have been moving rapidly along a political path that legitimizes racist attitudes as acceptable. Extreme right wing populist parties, who base their ideology on racial discrimination and anti-immigration are growing at an alarming rate (in Norway gaining between 20 and 30% of voter intentions). These parties legitimize the attitudes of people like Breivik and those so called “responsible” politicians must accept their responsibility in this heinous act.

The sacrifice of these young kids has to function as an eye opener to the rest of the population. Societies cannot develope on hate and division, we need to lay the foundations for a better world so that our children can take over and build upon it. We must never repeat the failures of the 20th century!

The day my heart stopped beating

This week I lost a day of my life.

Gone, a whole day, not there, nonexistent.

No tunnel of light, no angels, no floating above looking down.

Just gone, not there.

Almost echoing Epicurus;

"So death, the most dreaded of evils, is nothing to us,

because when we exist, death is not present,

and when death is present, we do not exist."

.

But I returned, resurected....hardly!

Just came back, minus one day.

Patched together information,

Enough to partially fill the gap:

Two ambulances and a helicopter,

The heroic efforts of a car body repair workshop employee

to hold life in me.

The cardioshock treatment and the hospital emergency team.

.

Life hangs by a slender thread,

Luck, chance, situation; though hardly fate,

Decides the outcome.

I lost one day, it could have been all days.

Now I must cherish those remaining.

I’ve learned at least what not being there entails:

It entails not being there.

I’m here now, lets go on.......

19 February 2011

A short but true story from prehistoric times (Rotterdam 1976):

Luis builds a shrine to Marylyn Monroe

(or: “Every man walks his own way” Suriname Jensen)

In the beginning:

A crazy chase at the Spanish Pension.

Up and down the emergency stairway,

in and out of kitchens and rooms.

Jensen with a pistol, Luis with the look of death and pervasive feminine anguish.

A pink blur transmutated from the staircase, through my opened door and materialised on the edge of my bed, visibly shaking with fear.

“Save my life!” He screeched in his tinny effeminate Germanic English, “he's going to kill me!”

“I'll kill that pervert! That fucking Austrian homo!” roared Jensen, as he appeared pistol in hand at the top of the stairs.

“Is he in there?” he yelled, as his transfixed stare tried to penetrate me and take in the contents of my room.

A broom stood at the entrance, an impulse made me pick it up and place it diagonally across the door to bar the way.

Broom against gun, the foolishness of the gesture only began to sink in as he approached and stood directly in front of me, face contorted with anger, emotions in full flow and incapable of control.

Was I really risking my life for this whimsy, effeminate Austrian poof who revelled in stealing my pink pillowcases?

I couldn't believe it...........

I began to talk rapidly about Jensen’s favourite subject, philosophy. At least that is how he himself would describe it. He would write down what he considered great philosophical observations on bits of paper and pin them to the kitchen wall. His latest, and the one he considered probably the deepest observation of his life, read; "Every man walks his own way."

"Jensen", I said, tightening my grip on the broomstick and pressing it against his chest. "Remember, every man walks his own way. Even Luis. You must accept that other people have other ways of living their life."

This, I discovered, was the worst thing I could have said. As it so happened his piece of paper with these illuminating words, hanging on the wall over the kitchen table, had been given a slight, though as it would now seem, fatal addition. Someone had added a sentence. The philosophical text now read; "Every man walks his own way. Especially Luis!" alluding to the feminine way Luis wiggled his buttocks to ensure that nobody mistook his sexual preferences.

Jensen, it transpired, thought that Luis had defaced his words of wisdom.

It had in fact been me!

Jensen lunged forward, "Let me pass, I’ll teach him to take the piss out of me, I'll kill the bastard pervert!"

Luckily for both Luis, and me, the delaying tactic had worked. A siren sounded in the street outside, the screeching of brakes and thud of heavy boots on the stairs, announced the arrival of the police.

In the middle:

Not long after Luis joined a Christian sect. They had convinced him that they would (with the help of the Lord) cure him of his homosexuality. He insisted that I be with him to experience his newfound way of life and benefit from the Lords wisdom. I refused as insistently as his persistent pleading (my close familial experience with Jehovas Witnesses had thought me to steer clear of Christian sects).

But in the end, as it seemed the only way to be quit his persistent bickering, I consented to visit his sect.

*****

The sect leader greeted me, smiled a sickly born again smile, and staring intensely into my eyes began;

"My friend, you have such deep and understanding eyes. Surely you have met with the Lord at some stage in your life…….. I feel an intelligent and searching mind is with us today…….. I sense a little doubt also, am I right? Don't be afraid, open up. Share your doubts with us.........”

This is where the formula normally paid off. The victim, unsure, insecure, a little uncomfortable at being the object of everyone’s attention, and of course not a little flattered by the implications of the speakers apparently sincere observations, would soften. Standing defenceless, open to suggestion and sliding unperceivably into that glaze eyed, uncritical condition of true believer. Converted, confounded, confabulated or just plain conned!

"Bollocks!!" came the reply. The delicate bubble of anticipation burst, confusion entered the minds of the gathered throng.

I rose up, kicked my chair as hard as I could to the floor, and with the maximum aire of contempt that I could muster, stormed out of the room. Luis ran after me, hanging on to my shirtsleeve in a futile effort to hinder my departure. Pleading that I didn't understand, that they were sincere and that I must give them another chance. "Bollocks!" I repeated as I reached the door and walked rapidly into the street.

In the end:

There was a knock on the door. I opened it and Luis, looking emaciated and thoroughly unwell, entered the room. “Can you lend me some money,” he asked in his squeaky voice.

"Why? What’s up? You look really bad."

The story unfolded.......................

Luis had been given the job of cleaning the meeting rooms for the Christian sect. He had given up homosexuality, and would henceforth dedicate his life to following the Lord and converting as many lost souls as possible to joining him on the righteous path. (Though he had reluctantly given up on me after the sect leaders had instructed him that I was a lost cause).

But in the divine sphere of faith and redemption, the murky, soiled vices of earthly temptation are only thinly kept at bay. One evening, as Luis washed the dishes, the leader of the sect, who had stayed behind after the faithful had departed, approached him from behind. The devils hand was at work!

Tempted no doubt by the sensuous movement of Luis’s firm little buttocks as he scrubbed the cups and plates, the elder took a firm grip on his trousers and pulled them, underpants and all, with a jerking forceful movement, down to his knees. Unzipping his own trousers, he pressed the petrified Luis over the kitchen sink, and proceeded to press his penis between Luis’s tightening buttocks.

Luis went berserk, he chased the elder from the premises, and smashing everything his slight physique was capable of, left the place a half hour later looking like ground zero.

For Luis there was absolutely nothing left to live for! The next day he withdrew all his money from the bank, and after purchasing two pink candles and candlesticks, a bunch of red roses, a vase and some very strong sleeping tablets, donated the remainder to a non-Christian charity for orphaned children in the Third World.

Luis returned to the Spanish Pension, gathered together all his earthly belongings, minus a gold framed photograph of Marylyn Monroe, and gave them all to the local Seamen’s Mission. He then made his way to the University Hospital in Rotterdam, sneaked into the toilets and locked himself in a cubicle. He took down the toilet seat, sat himself down and proceeded to take out the contents of his carrier bag.

He laid a small rectangular silk cloth (pink) on the tiled floor, placed the two pink candles in their candlesticks at the two outermost corners of the cloth nearest him. Next he took out the vase, unlocked the cubicle door and listened intensely. When he was sure no one was in the vicinity, he sneaked noiselessly out, filled the vase at the sink and returned, locking the door rapidly behind him. He removed the paper from the roses, crumpled it up, lifted the seat and dropped it into the toilet bowl. He placed the flowers in the vase a little to the left of centre of the cloth. After arranging them tenderly he took the gold-framed photograph of Marylyn Monroe and placed it in the centre on the back edge of the cloth.

The shrine was complete, the ceremony could begin.

Luis pinned a note to his shirt donating his organs to medical science. He took a comb from his pocket and groomed his hair for the last time. He plucked up Marylyn’s photograph, kissed her tenderly on her ruby red lips, replaced her on the cloth, hesitated, then rearranged the roses in the vase. His eyes were wet with tears, soon, maybe, he would be together with her in a new world free from vice and betrayal. He unscrewed the top of the flask of sleeping pills and swallowed the lot in one gulp.

*****

A day and a half later Luis awoke and thought he was in Heaven. All around him was an effervescent brightness. Shining whiteness.

But as his eyes began to focus he recognised the white tiled walls of the hospital toilet. His head was heavy and dizzy and he felt a gnawing emptiness in this stomach. Hunger! He hadn’t eaten for nearly two days, and he’d given away all his money! This wasn’t Heaven, it was Hell!

He left the toilets and walked unsteadily along the corridor where he came across a nurse pushing a trolley. He couldn’t believe his eyes, the trolley was full of food, dinners for the patients. He continued to follow the nurse at a safe distance, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible (not an easy task for Luis the gay exhibitionist). The nurse took two plates and disappeared into a ward. Without thinking twice Luis lunged forward, took two plates himself and ran in panicked ecstasy back to his toilet refuge. There, witnessed only by a pouting Marylyn Monroe, he devoured the two meals so fast he almost didn’t taste their contents, fearful that the nurse would discover his criminal deed, find him and return the meals to their rightful owners.

And now here he was, on my doorstep, asking to borrow some money.

An Afterword:

Jensen was never released again, presumably deported back to Surinam. Nobody knew and nobody seemed to care.

Luis, after paying me back the money he borrowed, travelled back to Austria to try and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. People often asked after him, but nobody had any answers. Maybe he came out too soon, on the threshold of the “GayRevolution”, we can only hope that he survived long enough to enjoy the acceptance of his sexual predilection as a positive, not perverse way of living.

As for the Christian sect? Well, as long as there is pain in this world there will always be those who exploit it. May they rot in Hell!