Musings After Mern...

A week ago I returned home after a week-long song-writing retreat near a place called Mern, full of energy and musical inspiration from having spent time with a couple dozen talented musicians and song writers, not least including the host and instructor, Anette Bjergfeldt.

I was quite aware before leaving Mern that the down side to any retreat can be the fact that, returning to the normal everyday can lead to a certain sort of dryness when the flow of energy is no longer so abundant - but in this case it was more of a jolt because the everyday world had just emitted an incident of an unusually ugly shade.

I drove into my driveway at noon and, not having heard any news at all for a week, turned on the radio to let the midday news-cast run - and was stricken with the news of a double mass murder in Norway.

What to say? There are people who live with dreams and some who live with a nightmare. All too few try to live out their dreams and, although their number is not great, all too many live out the nightmare.

Here in the Happy Little Kingdom of Denmark within a week the thread of commentary one expects from the pundit class and political elites with easy access to mass media ran its course, from the insensitive, past the inane to ridiculous, nasty and down right ugly.

First was the question of the influence of hateful and violent rhetoric - which was denied and brushed aside. However, it is a fact, that hateful and violent rhetoric in my home country has taken its toll in murders, mutilations and beatings many, many times and will continue to do so in the futurre. Norway is no exception and neither is any other country to the effect of violent and hateful rhetoric.

Then came the question: why didn't the people overpower their executioner? This question has been asked about humans trapped in the Nazi charnel houses and industrial abbatoirs of the last century, and will be asked again and again - always by people who have no experience or knowledge of what they speak.

Finally, the question was raised about activists trying to block with civil disobedience the felling one of the last nearly pristine forests in this country - are they not on the same road that leads to atrocity such as that we have just seen in Oslo? When you hear such glorified ignorance as this, one doesn't know whether to cry or puke.

Listen close: What leads to violence is violence. Violence in word and deed, the glorifying of violence of weapons and their use. States do it, politicians do it, media empires do it, racists do, religious extremists do it. But citizens protecting trees with their naked bodies are not doing it.

I conclude this rant with a line from "The American Prophecies".

"All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!"

Sarin in Leather

An intelligent person would assume that for Sarah Sarin to make a bid to be the Repugnant Party's candidate for Supreme Hole of the United State of Arrogance was both ridiculous and doomed to failure. However, intelligent people generally continue to misunderstand both the game and the goal.

The fact is, running for the highest office of Arrogance in itself would make Sarin wealthy - more accurately, stinking, filthy rich and losing in the bid in itself would only make her support among the Pee Party fringe of the Repugnant Party more solid than ever. As the Terrible Times slouch closer, a single natural disaster of sufficient magnitude could change the rules of the games being played in the Third Galaxy and apparently worthless marbles could suddenly be valuable indeed.

This may seem like thought fluff, but everyone agrees Sarin is a knock-out in black leather on a motorcycle.

When Peace Came to the Third Galaxy - NOT!!!

When the news that Ahsawyah ben-Lately was dead, drowned, so to speak in a very, very wet operation - peace broke out like the popping of champagne bottles all over the Third Galaxy, especially of course in the United State of Arrogance.

Actually, what broke out was more like an aggravated rash, a rash of stupidity.

Of course, Bulimo Charisma, having personally ordered Operation "Kick Ass" enjoyed an immense rush of popularity. Bulimo had accomplished what Ronald Rexona had failed to do with wars in Farawaystan and Wud-a-wreck, costing thousands of dead Arrogant soldiers, millions of innocent Masher civilians and last, but not least, gibbery godzillions of good Arrogant dollars?

Less than a week after Ahsawyah's body had been dumped somewhere in the deep sea in a lead-box upgrade on the Mob's famous concrete boot, the Bankers of Illusion discovered that the Great War on Terra was not only not over but only now begun. Everyone, for the security of our our way of life and especially our freedom must continue to be very very afraid. More so now then before, anyone questioning the loss of habeas corpus and other civil rights to privacy and free-speech was showing a least a lack of pariotism or, even worse, treason.

Talking heads began to bobble and babble that that those who had protested Rexona's use of torture were lily-livered wimps: "Had not torture led to the snuff job on Ahsawyah?" Well, no, actually it had delayed finding the notorious terraist - and that by years. However, in the Third Galaxy, facts are abhorrent when they conflict in any way with the web spun by the Bankers of Illusion and that poor world wobbled closer towards the Terrible Times of global catastrophe and total endless war.

Why the World Did Not End on May 21

Many people were surprised when the world did not end on May 21 as predicted by Trash Camping. With 60 million listeners to his syndicated radio program, how he be could be wrong?

True, his earlier prediction years before had failed to bear fruit, but Trash Camping had explained that the reason for his earlier failure was due to the fact that he had not yet learned the intricacies of long division. That, and the fact that he had not understood some of the more difficult words in the Book of the Holy Idaho, i.e., words of three syllables or more.

To be fair, Trash had not predicted the end of the world - he had predicted the Great Rupture. This is the event where the skies open and the Holy Idaho reaches down and snatches all his chosen ones up to live with Him in the Colender in the Sky. From there they would have a real fine view of what would then happen on that poor world, which is that some really Class A shit would hit the fan followed by the actual end of the world six months later.

As we know, the Rupture did not take place and therefore the End Itself was apparently also postponed, that is if it had ever been on the agenda of the Great Potato.

The explanation was amazingly simple. And again, to be fair, how was Trash Camping and his listeners to know that the day before the Rupture, May 20, was Great Prayer Day in the Happy Little Kingdom of Denmark. True, most of the Danes use this holiday for a chance to have a long week and party a lot more than pray - still, it was enough to put a monkey wrench in Trash Camping's calculations.

On the other hand, it is quite possible that the Great Potato never reads the Book attributed to His authorship, let alone know anything about the calculations of fart-brains like Trash Camping and his ilk.

Yeah, that's a better explanation!

A Late Report from the Third Galaxy

Surprisingly, the final phase of the dismantling of the middle class in the United State of Arrogance began during the admin of Bulimo Charisma.

Surprising because, Bulimo came to power on a wave of hope - but then, that was not surprising. For all his visions, he was of necessity a politcal creature living with the political reality after Ronald Rexona.

The political reality was that the Repugnant Party was controlled by the monies of megacorps and their agents - "think" tanks, "grass root" organizations and, after the notorius court decision to put megacorps on a complete legal footing with real people, even in donations to politicians, the control became complete. With the dismantling of the unions as an effective force, the main source of alternative funding for politcal campaigns dried up.

Public Radio and Television, never well funded, became a shadow of its own pale self and the ordinary citizen was left to the propaganda news sources controlled by the megacorps. The alternative newssources on the Internet were slowly strangled by bandwidth priority measures in the name of "free market" and then censured in the name of Nat'l Security and the War on Terraism.

In short, as Peoples Republic of Tjaina became more like Arrogance and the other nations of Westworld, Arrogance became more like Tjaina.

And then came the Terrible Times.

Worth our Trust?

[As we know, the final stanza of a corona is simply the final lines of the preceding thirteen plus the opening line of the first sonnet - the Unknown Poet tweaks the lines in various degrees so that the confused result makes almost as much sense as the rest of his poetry.]

14. Worth Our Trust?

What in all of this was worth our trust
or the loss of our common humanity?

Falling down towards abysmal gates,
we think,
"Can there really be a being without a heart
that would crush the world under iron heels?"

If you squeeze your eyes you’ll see a bit of light,
however, when them snake eyes wink,
do you see something deeper that you’re afraid to mention?

The "Lord" such serve rules a kingdom of death,
but when the wounded heart reappears
from behind a pack of lies and flatulence,
will we hear the Fenris’ guttural cough?

Will War have become greater than Pestilence?
Will we wake up to the sound of dogs barking?

When All Is Dust

[Here, in the penultimate sonnet of this corona, the Unknown Poet of the Third Galaxy brings, as is his wont, the themes of despair, distrust and even anti-spirit around to a confirmation of a trust in Reality that sees beyond not only the Abyss, but even the Void and negation of All]

13. When All is Dust

With the loss of our common humanity,

we lose the thing we need to know the truth.

Can you see without eyes with which to see,?

Or bite an apple without a single tooth?

Similarly, within the secret heart

is that, the only that with which we can

KNOW,

which yearns to know the start:

"Know the beginning and you will know the end!",

the Master said, he who planted the tree...

He who walked the path to the bitter end!

He who reveals that our common humanity

is closer to us than our closest dearest friend!

"When all is said and done and gone to dust,

what in all of this was worth your trust?"

Our Common Humanity

[It seemed that in sonnet #11 the Unknown Poet made oblique reference to Milton's "Paradise Lost" - but here it becomes more obvious. Also note that the final lines echoes a theme from the sister corona, "Our Common Insanity]

12. Our Common Humanity

Falling down towards abysmal gates,

shooting stars, blinded by the light

of their own demise, heedless of the final state

of those who enter an atmosphere rife

with self-pity and mad conceit,

burn and burn and when they yearn to turn,

they cannot for none of those they meet

would lift a finger to help anyone but themselves...

It is said by some the way to hell is paved

with good intentions and that may be sometimes so,

and having heard the rants of those who rave

about "God" and "God's Will", I know,

I know for certain that insanity

begins when we lose our common humanity.

The Abysmal Gates

[What ever the truth if the matter, the Unknown Poet describes how a "being without a heart can occur - among other things it seems it is necessary to make a few rips in the fabric of Reality. How long such a state could last, it would seem that at most it would be unstable and fall through "Abysmal Gates".]

11. The Abysmal Gates

Can there really be a being without a heart?

In theory, "no", in practice, "it all depends".

If the fabric of time and space is torn apart

If any means is justified by the ends

If you think the unthinkable long enough

If you shed the last shreds of decency,

snuffle with pigs at the feeding trough

and sin against our common humanity

Why yes, I suppose it can be arranged!

There's always room for more in Madam's Fat Car,

among the entourage of the deranged.

Who knows? She may even pick you to be a star!

A star? A shooting star, with a dismal fate!

Falling, falling down to the abysmal gates!

A Being Without a Heart

[Indeed, it is a strange question the Unknown Poet asks here - of course he doesn't mean the physical heart which pumps blood, but the secret heart where the indwelling spirit dwells. What sort of rough beast would such a creature be? No slouch I'm sure, but could one call such a thing, a being?]

10. A Being Without a Heart

"She was chosen to crush the world under her heel,

to suck the world dry like a giant tick."

I hate to write words like that but feel

I have no real choice other than this:

To fearlessly speak the words I find on my tongue,

and spit them out with no regard for taste.

I hear a song demanding to be sung:

"Our living world is being laid waste!

"And for what!", is it not our right to ask?

A pile of dung? A hill of dried beans?

Look closely, see what hides behind the mask:

a slithering, slathering beast beyond obscene.

The mind boggles, belches and falls apart!

Can there really be a being without a heart?