AN AUTUMN POEM

 Inspired by an October journey through Hardanger:

Unlike the seasons with their yearly cyclus of change, we, human beings (if it is not presumptuous to call ourselves that), have but one cyclus.

From birth through the years of youthful discovery, our Primavera. We wander through a wonderland with the confidence of total knowledge based upon the ignorance of the unknown (or that that has yet to become known).

Then the long summer of love and hate, and growing mistrust of our fellow beings. And the discovery that the total knowledge of our youth was an illusion, and we really don't know very much at all.

Our Autumn of slow physical demise, whether the golden age of falling leaves and maturing beauty, or the anguish and foreboding of that that is to come, diluted by nostalgic memories of the richness that life once was, or brooding over lost opportunities and nurturing bitterness.

Then comes our final season; the icy cold winter of demise. Nostalgia torn to pieces and fragmented by dementia, the benevolent prison of the old age home, a friendless, lonely decay and THOSE GOD DAMNED HOSPITAL CLOWNS with their silly fluorescent red noses destroying the last vestiges of our dignity!

Bertie the Wild Rover

Bertie is a wild rover.

He puts on his tweed jacket with patched elbows, wraps a tartan scarf around his neck, and struts out the front door of his little suburban terraced house.

It’s Friday evening and his wild roving is about to begin.

That wonderful adventure in time and space that repeats itself every Friday evening.

A couple of hundred yards to the end of his street, a turn left, over the railway bridge, and another couple of hundred yards to the junction.

This wonderful journey of discovery has reached its final destination, the entrance to the public bar of Bertie’s old friend, The Horse and Groom.

He approaches the bar, “same as usual Bertie?”

Bertie takes his half pint and snuggles down in the dingy corner of the pub that he has occupied for over 50 years.

Soon another “Bertie” enters the pub, “same as usual?”. 

And eventually the pub is full of “Berties” all with their same as usual; a pint of bitter, a tepid brown ale or a frothy Guiness.

The bartender has a photographic memory, that can discern between every single identical “Bertie” and their desired beverage.

Conversations erupt, “How’s it going Bertie?”, Not to bad, it’s just these bloody immigrants, they’re taking over the country.”

Boats full, why can’t the Royal Navy torpedo them before they cross the Channel?”

“It would never have happened while Enoch was alive.” “I’ll be voting National Front this time, they’ll get the buggers out.”

As closing time approaches, and the bell rings for last orders, one of the “Berties” stands up, coughs to clear his throat, raises his half pint and makes a proposal; “What about a singalong?

Immediately, in torturous disharmony, a pub full of grumpy “Berties” break into song as beer glasses Klink together;

“And it’s no, nay, never, No nay never no more, will I play the wild rover, No never no more!”

And all the “Berties” agree; “They don’t make songs like that anymore.”

The wonderful journey in time and space has reached its nadir. The “Berties” return home slowly to their nice warm beds.

Somewhere in the English Channel on this dark cold night, a mother is desperately trying to keep her little child from drowning amongst the screams of terrified human beings clinging to a sinking rubber dinghy.

Good Night Bertie! See you next week for “the same as usual” and a good old “singalong”.

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 leste 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 Olof 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!