Here in the UK, recent elections and this Summer’s cataclysmic EU referendum have been opportunities for liars, demagogues and PR specialists to practice their skills on the population, in order to sway it to their will. The phenomenon is not unique to the UK, nor of course is it unprecedented.
But the pervasive dishonesty, recklessness and unseemliness of the proceedings we have just experienced in these times have been frightening and dangerous, far removed from due or safe process. The phrase “truth-free” has recently joined our currency. What connection does the modern election have with truth-telling, or decisions based on actual fact carefully considered ? Are we bovvered ?
And yet when the result comes through, reflecting to an unknown but considerable degree the electorate’s mere bewilderment and alienation, it is called the “People’s Will” – especially by those people whose own will has been served by this result, and whose lies and jingles have helped procure it.
Truth-telling is integral to any real democracy, to any healthy society. I have recently posted up several poems on truth-telling on this blog. But here I have brought them together as a series, and have included a new one composed a few days ago.
The reference in that latest poem to “honourable fool” comes from a speech by the UK Conservative MP Charles Walker, made on the last day of the Coalition Government in 2015. I found that speech redemptive in some way, one of the few good things to come out of the Coalition Government’s five years in power.
On the other hand, Walker refers in his speech to behaviour from close colleagues which is grubby, cheap and treacherous, worthy of a street-gang. Note the names of the perpetrators and conspirators – Gove as Chief Whip, Hague as Leader of the House (on his very last day in the House), Cameron as Prime Minister. The ability to behave in this way and get away wiv it ; the ability to lie as part of an election strategy and get away wiv it, threaten and demean us all. Here is a Youtube film of the relevant part of Walker’s speech – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyXWp_QhFbo
Here is a Daily Mail article on it – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3011690/Plot-oust-Bercow-William-Hague-use-day-MP-change-rules-make-easier-oust-Speaker-election.html
And here is the poem-series. I have set the different poems out below. The title of the whole series is above. For anyone preferring to read the poems on paper rather than on screen, click on this title Six Truth Works Three Tattoos for the pdf version. You can then print it out.
Earth Words
What are words for ?
If to connect us
they have to be pristine
carriageways for truth-telling.
We have to tend and train our words
to be as sound and life-giving
as the Earth.
For like God
words stand at our mercy.
They can be twisted
to the vicious will,
turned
into mirrors of the corrupted self.
And those who would smash Creation
and burn and dismember our children
speak words
of terrible skill.
October 2015
Air Threat
The space outside
grows too dangerous to tolerate,
too frightening to explore.
It has been poisoned.
There was a time when danger
threatened only across deep water,
but now no longer.
All the systems, the traceries,
the capillaries
are fracturing
right here on the doorstep,
a degeneration
working its way
into the mortar,
into the brain.
The air between us
is disintegrating.
Do you not see it breaking up ?
The door blows open.
The lie walks in.
October 2015
Street Safety
Our houses stand like a coast of sheer cliff
granite and immoveable.
But they are just targets
there to be hit.
It is words that will stand true
words that can’t
be blown away,
words charged
and pulsating
that will light our street.
November 2015
Aortal Bleeding
Perhaps our Creator lacks a mind
and therefore had no plan
for how yours and mine
would work. In which case
our lives and history
are just a continuous accident
like a river nosing downhill
chancing on points of give.
But it’s hard not to decipher
a certain deliberation
verging on cruelty
in our Creator’s gift to us
of the capacity to lie.
Lying is a declaration
of war on Otherness,
a blow for the unbridled self.
It is similar to our gift
for doing evil. Our lying and our evil
threaten all our Creator’s work.
If our Creator had a mind
perhaps He was thinking
that our god-given lust
for the lie
would teach us that truth
works better. For trust
is like blood and lies lead
to aortal bleeding. We are bleeding
our hope away. I have
no doubt that just
before it’s too late
we shall remember
to worship the truth
and shall punish
as enemies of Creation
all who lie.
November 2015
We have Government
We have government by massage
manipulation, lie.
It attacks the body politic.
We watch and we comply.
Power is its only purpose
deceit its only skill
the electorate just putty
for moulding to its will.
Our “leaders” claim the right to rule
through winning our consent
their means of winning foul
their ways of winning bent.
Some intentions they hide
others they pervert
an election just another way
to defraud the electorate.
They keep their small majority
through daily tricks and lies
and by stoking fear and fantasy
in a people they despise.
Some chose them for promises
they broke overnight
yet still they preen in power
as if by legal right.
Democracy is founded
upon honour at heart.
A state that cheats its people
is illegitimate.
The proper place is jail
for a leadership that lies ;
Not “Minister,” “criminal”
the title that applies.
The heart of our community
lies tortured in defeat.
Outlaws kick the corpse aside.
It is outlaws rule our street.
November 2015
Siren Sounds
When no one can be trusted
or believed,
when language becomes
just siren sounds
of ill intent,
the word “honour”
rises from the dust
and from the pools of blood.
An honourable fool
staggers
through the empty forum.
July 2016