Willow Walk

a list of the names

it does not matter that the guard is set

once past the gate you don't care what is there

since you are clean of the wretched affair

 

it is a factor of intense regret

that no one notices the changing air

it does not matter that the guard is set

 

so now you have no need left to forget

just who you were and so much time to spare

to do those things that no one else would dare

it does not matter that the guard is set

the just gentleman

there's no one here to pay the price of shame

so we must meet to argue the full toss

as if the whole adventure were a game

 

you'd think to come out here to some acclaim

expect to end the day as chief or boss

there's no one here to pay the price of shame

 

it seems to me the story's rather tame

we were sent out to bear a paltry cross

as if the whole adventure were a game

 

you are the victim of some sort of fame

who watched as gold turned into vulgar dross

there's no one here to pay the price of shame

 

in time we will find ways to spread the blame

and then apply a soothing sort of gloss

as if the whole adventure were a game

 

our final task is to put out the flame

and make quite sure that you absorb the loss

there's no one here to pay the price of shame

as if the whole adventure were a game

walking fifty miles

on melrose hill i count each single star

the night is heavy but i have the time

to think about my purpose on the climb

and wonder at the passing of each car

this morning distances did not seem far

and now i feel each little bit of grime

still looking up the moment is sublime

and nothing can this perfect journey mar

each mile has put its stamp into my feet

so much is obvious in the tropic dark

as i make game of what is still a test

my heart must wonder at what i will meet

the kind of future that i have to mark

and the long hours still left before i rest

past revision

if we mistake our wisdom for true fact
we end up in the soup and no mistake
that is the way to give all things a shake

you'd think that we would show a little tact
or give the ones who follow a fair break
if we mistake our wisdom for true fact

so much will ride on whether we have backed
our rapid action on something not fake
since nothing's left but to get on the make
if we mistake our wisdom for true fact

inside the meme

we lack a sense of truly human mode

voices are raised when silence ought to reign

there is no way for us to read the code

 

each wants to reap what other folk have sowed

without a pause for any to explain

we lack a sense of truly human mode

 

no one waits here at the most urgent node

the place where all the symbols stand out plain

there is no way for us to read the code

 

we've come too far along this narrow road

to discount all the moments of small gain

we lack a sense of truly human mode

 

it's far too easy to let time erode

the certainties for which you should campaign

there is no way for us to read the code

 

a grain of powder would make things explode

and halt at once the long-prevailing pain

we lack a sense of truly human mode

there is no way for us to read the code

recounting the tale

this is the deed that falls out of my hand

your heart is open now to all our care

a touch of autumn comes upon the air

there is so little that we could demand

we look at nature and think it all grand

but know that not a thing is ever fair

that simple action is more than we dare

and each of us is forced to take a stand

my thought is open to whatever makes

sense in the morning when we first arise

to see the world fullest impure glory

not caring about all the shocks and aches

that keep us from the truest golden prize

or so we seem to tell that final story

The Treachery of the Stewards

c

 

John Maxwell

The real function of the state is pretty simple: to protect and enhance the interests of its members -- the people; to keep them safe and allow them to be as happy as they can be by doing whatever they want to do without damaging the interests of their neighbours.

The state can never disappear in any reality, because there will always need to be a trustee whose duty it is to enforce or guarantee fair play and to defend the human rights and the property interests  of the society.

The idea of universal human rights is a comparatively recent invention and the concept is steadily being extended, to recognise for instance, the fact that the resources of the earth, from which all wealth is derived, must be apportioned equitably among people and among nations. We are, for instance, just beginning to acknowledge that clean air and water are essential human rights and that no one has any right to damage these properties in their private interest.

In Ecuador the people have recently gone so far as to award rights to ‘Nature’ meaning that any interference with the natural world must be specifically and fully justified in the Public Interest.

This stewardship is the reason the state is compelled to intervene in matters as disparate as climate change and in the threatened crash of the world financial systems.

In the United States, where the wide open spaces of the West gave birth to the idea of Manifest Destiny and in Europe, where Africa was thought to be another wide open space, nations and cultures interpreted their strength as licence to plunder rape and murder whole populations on the ground that they were not using their ’God-given’ endowment as profitably as they should be.

Plantation slavery and the Industrial Revolution it midwifed, seemed to allow the most ruthless exploitation of people and natural resources. Which is why places like the Congo, Angola, Niger, Bolivia, Brazil, and other places have been so ruthlessly exploited that their people remain miserably poor while the foreign investors and their armies so richly rewarded themselves. It is why the so-called ratings agencies in the US were able to believe that junk securities issued by mortgage consolidators were worth more than the bonds issued by starving developing countries. Not only were they worth more, they attracted much lower interest rates because of their presumed worth  Big US companies like Caterpillar are now aggrieved at having to pay ‘extortionate’ interest rates of 7% in the current credit squeeze while developing countries like Jamaica consider themselves lucky when they are asked for twice that.

so no abatement

this is beyond the bounds of normal place

you have not seen just where we have to go

but only how the motions are all slow

and no one wants to quicken up the pace

for any reason we have lost the race

to those who claim full knowledge of the glow

and have set forth in full and earnest flow

the masters and the captains of full grace

there is no haven left for your odd sort

who speak in sentences and will not judge

without the fullest sense of what is due

not only on the street but in the court

who are most honest and will never fudge

saying only those things that you know are true

at a simple line

we reach the limit of the clearly known

so many fools have seen this place before

and we are ready to pass the last door

 

it is so easy to say we condone

those things that both the sage and prude abhor

we reach the limits of the clearly known

 

there is no time even for angry groan

so long ago each of us learned the score

and found that fun swiftly became a chore

we reach the limits of the clearly known

so here's a tale

hidden at the sad centre of this maze

is something that we do not wish to find

the sort of truth we want to leave behind

to perish in the dark of fallen days

but what we know in all of time's delays

is that the march of pity is not kind

those things that are to memory consigned

will pop back up right into open gaze

visions are true though we may name them lies

and thrust the tale down into oubliette

before a word can honestly be said

we have the art of feigning true surprise

but not the one of counterfeit regret

for that alone we have to earn our bread