Thoughts on the Internet

So many people have said recently that using the internet has changed the way our brains work – that endless internal links make it impossible to follow a thought through without getting distracted…

 

I was thinking the other day –

What is a thought?

So – needless to say –

I looked it up

on the internet.

 

It said:

A single

single: being alone

Not being in any kind of relationship..

is that a relationship with a person?

One cannot help but be in a relationship with the world – it intrudes itself upon you-

holds your hand or shoves you down the steps

according to its mood –

the world, huh!

But you can choose not to have a relationship with a person.

You can be single. Alone.

Is that a good thing? I’m not sure.

I need to think about it.

A single act 

act: An act!

A thought is an act!

Does that make an actor a thinker?

Or a thinker an actor?

I think not.

A single act or

or:  implying choice..

If you decide not to think

Is that a thought?

It is impossible to think that you are not thinking.

Without being wrong, that is.

Although, just being wrong doesn’t mean that you don’t exist

Otherwise we wouldn’t have Brexit.

A single act or product of thinking

product of thinking: What kind of product could my thinking produce?

How could I make money out of thinking?

I could create an app which provided an instant thought if you found yourself unable to summon one up

but..

Would I be liable if it was a bad thought?

Which led to you throwing your grandmother down the stairs, for instance?

As in:

My grandmother always smells of peppermint.

I think I’ll throw her down the stairs.

And if it was a good thought,

which led to the invention of an instant and endlessly renewable energy source perhaps,

what would my legal position be?

Would I have to fight the person who downloaded it through the courts before I could rake it in?

 

A single act or product of thinking; an idea

an idea?

How can a thought be an idea?

I have no idea – that’s a thought.

And it contains no idea at all.

 

A single act or product of thinking; an idea or notion

notion?

In America, notions are sewing aids – buttons, tapes.

I guess the connection is that notions are trivial.. silly..

The kind of thoughts flighty women have while they gossip and sew buttons

onto their menfolks’ serious trousers.

to collect one’s thoughts

Some people put them in a box.

Shut the lid.

Others skewer them onto a board

like butterflies.

Some just let them free

to flutter into the world and start hurricanes.

 

I’m not sure, on reflection, that the internet is a useful tool in the process of hunting a thought to its conclusion..

You need a very strong mental sat nav that doesn’t let you stray off course..

Sat nav: Wouldn’t it be great to have a sat nav for life?

Proceed past the pub 300 metres and the library is on your right.

At the first available opportunity, take a u-turn from the bar  without spilling your beer on the large man next to you, proceed through the door and the library is 300 metres to your right.

Proceed past the welcoming blonde on the left then proceed through the door and the library is 300 metres to your right.

At the first available opportunity, replace your trousers….oh, what the hell..

 

 

 

 

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I see them

 

I see them.

Bent over their soggy bottoms in the Bake tent.

Sprawled on the sofa shrieking in delighted horror

Running up the stairs off the dance floor
Faces lit.

They are still there.

The bastards don’t get all the airtime.

Fire

For the want of alarms, the people slept.

For the want of sprinklers, the fire spread.

For the wanting of gentrification, so the rich people living nearby did not have to look at an eyesore,

despite the protests of the inhabitants,

the cladding went on, and, when the fire came, caught it and threw it joyfully upwards

to the floors above.

 

When smoke filled the corridors leading to the way down to the only exit,

the people who were awake waited, as they had been told to, in their flats,

behind their doors which were not fireproof, or smoke proof,

for the rescue that could not reach them

because of the fire.

 

For the want of care or responsibility or any kind of humanity, the company who ran the building did nothing to answer the warnings of the people that lived in the building.

For the want of care or responsibility or any kind of humanity, the council did nothing to answer the warnings of the people that lived in the building.

For the want of care or responsibility or any kind of humanity, the government did not bring in legislation to make the fitting of sprinklers mandatory which would have saved the people in the building.

For the want of care or responsibility or any kind of humanity, the government failed to give the go-ahead to a safety review for tower blocks which would have saved the people in the building..

For the wanting of money, did the council let the tower blocks degrade in order to make way for new luxury flats in their place?

This terrible thing did not happen because fire burns.

For the want of care the people were lost.

These flames will burn for eternity.

 

Economy of Scale

You do not need the whole sky
to know
sky.

In my window there are trees
and a lit space between
in which blue
and towering clouds
and drenching rain
and sunset delicacy of pink and gold
Day by day
Proclaim
sky.

Lament for the Vice

Once there was some artistry in evil;

Some finesse.
Some showmanship.

Once, we gave the devil a run for his money ..
Made him sweat for it.

Time was, vice would hide its face; would ‘smile and smile and be a villain’

Not now.
We live in a world unmasked.

Now, villains stalk the world bare.
They don’t care;
They are no longer actors.

Why go to all the trouble to disguise;
To mimic goodness;
To dissemble?

Why echo your victim’s voice,
Borrow his words, pretend to be friend,
Not fiend?
Lead him oh so gently down the primrose way
To the everlasting bonfire?

No need.

No need to deceive someone who doesn’t believe anything anyway.

Who knows it is all fake news.

We are all trained.

Trained to hear
And not hear.

Trained to believe that they care
And not care
that we know they don’t.

We bite their sounds
And accept that they crumble to dust
In our teeth
And leave our stomachs roaring.

I am a villain!
They say
I will destroy your world!
They say
I want it all for myself
And you can go to hell!
Vote for me!

Ok
We say.
Ok.

And we turn our robot heads to the front
And slide the shades down on our robot eyes
And march, obediently,
Headphones on
Until we tumble over the brink
And feel the fire

And know
That it is real.

A Cautionary Tale

Once upon a time

There was a mother eagle
Sitting on her nest
Bumpy with eggs,
Who dropped off.

As mothers do.

While she was asleep
A crafty cuckoo crept
under her broody feathers
And shoved and pushed
And elbowed
and crawled out again..

When her three eggs hatched,
two
Were bald and handsome,
But one had a bright yellow crest
Like a cuckoo..

Two chicks grew and left,
But the third..
Oh dear.
The third,
Sprawled in the nest, took up all the room, and wouldn’t budge.
It wanted food and attention and scratching behind the ears and if it didn’t get it
It tweeted.
A lot.

She learned to stroke it
And soothe it
And bite its worms up into little short pieces so it could digest them.

But one day, when the chick had worn her out,
She fell asleep again,
On the edge of the nest,
And dropped off.

And nothing ended happily ever after.

You’re fired!

Didn’t anyone watch The Apprentice?

Didn’t anyone notice what a perfect apprentice dictatorship it was?

Trump decided what they would do;
And they did.
Trump decided what they were worth;
And they were.
Trump decided who would go;
And they went.

And that is how he is ruling America.

Of course, there is more to come than Comey..

When you fire a man,
he doesn’t explode into a mushroom
cloud …

Macron

This one’s for Carole…

 

A vast sigh of relief
breathes
across Europe,
across the plains of western democracy,
sets the hope dancing.

Young face,
Burning eyes,
Bit short,
No matter.
Smooth skin,
Jut of jaw
Raised flag
En marche!

Deja vu.

Will this one too,
rebuild,
reboot,
unite Europe under his flag?
Or will they give him the Elba?

Ghost

 

A shifting in the air;
A sense of something
Someone
Unseen
Significant

But there is no time to pause
To look
To probe
the nature of that significance.

It is all too difficult.

And besides
There is no time.

Perhaps someone really was there.
Perhaps not.

But

I know I am here.
I feel my heart beat.
I feel my pain
My sadness.
My lack of a connection.

The desperate pressure
Of thought, passion, unsung songs,
Unspent energy, turning to dust in my hands as the clock ticks.

But the air shifts in the wind of your passing
And I cannot reach through it
To touch you.

The Great Game

 

The hand
Comes
Out of the dark
And plays
The hand.

Impossible to know
Who.
Or why.

Are they playing?

Or being played?

Against the dark wood of the table
Under the swinging lantern
Only the dim shape of the cards can be seen.
Their pattern blurred,
greasy from much playing.

What lies on the table?

Is it
A trump card?
A winning streak?
Or a busted flush?

What is the game?
What are they playing for?

We know nothing.
We are not even inside the hut.
We stand in the cold dawn
On the uneasy grass
And wait.

All we know is that the stakes are high
As we look up
Fearful
Into
An empty sky.