Countryside's revenge

Nights are drawing in. It's almost 7.30 and yet it's still dark outside. Frost covers roads, hedges and lawn.
An absence of birds-no trilling of thrush,
only the blackbird and crow now dominate the landscape
picking at the soil like death picking up souls. An absence of
mice, hedgehogs and squirrels now, only the
new dominance of foxes prowling through the
streets like tiny conquerors, new invaders
from the countryside, undeterred by human-presence,
despising our familiarity.
Cats tread warily around this triumphant rival, providing
merely food for thought.

Wills and sharia law

The attempt to have sharia law embedded into the British will system has failed. Rightly, as sharia law contradicts the equality/gender/justice concepts of Britain. In the latter, women cannot inherit nor can illegitimate or adopted children. It is MAN focused, all the rights devolving to the legitimate son or sons.  Is this really a concept from god?

While until recently Christianity often pursued similar unjust ends, the law, secular in nature, proved more powerful in Britain than bigotry.

Christianity, Islam, Judaism-the evil of book-religions.

I constantly hear from steadfast believers in the religions, in this instance Islam, Judaism, Christianity, that ethics and morality stem from these sources. Emphatically, I say they do not.

The first instance of an ethical system comes from ancient Egypt. "Do as you would be done by." A complex, if pragmatic, assertion. But this stems from ancient Egyptian scribes and administrators getting along with each other at court. In ancient Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, kings ruled through ethical standards-shepherds who looked after the welfare of their people, or flock. Nevertheless, the gods they worshiped were willful and indifferent to human suffering. A holy person merely kept rituals correctly and sacrifised in the ordained fashion. Rules were everything! In ancient Rome, the gods were fairly much the same.

The Hebrews developed god's commandments to cover the whole of life, but borrowed from secular or pagan sources. These were priest ridden societies, or the material they wrote, stories, laws, and rules, give that impression. It is possible that ancient Hebrew society was as flexible and life-loving as most other societies. Equally, there is evidence that the early Hebrews, up until the beginning of the Christian era, worshiped other gods as well. While people were commanded not to kill, breaking of taboos ensured they did. An adulterous woman was stoned to death. Sexual morality crept in, along with repugnance of both sexuality and the body. Such morality was, and is, negative and deadly, with destruction of the body not its celebration. A dark morality had emerged constituted upon unethical behaviour by those who were most moral. From here on, death was preferred to life. God, or gods, became a judge. 

Islam's original back-to basics notions, one god, without the philosophical concerns of 6th century Christianity, nor its hint of paganism, provided what appears to be a religion of negativity.

in love

How dark the night,
How bright the sun,
How warm the day!
A sheet of green
Covers hill and ridge,
Yellow fills the valley,
Red swamps the broad-headed trees,
Blue flavours pool and sea.
Strolling across the land-
Holding hands, we kiss and walk on.

gladiator-rome-by Stephen Francis

 

A Greater Man

I had held myself as a greater man,

A soldier aloof from the whims of life.

The only things I cared for were the gladius in my hand

The screams of my enemies

As their blood dripped from my blade

And they lay clawing at my feet.

I went whoring with the boys

Played with them games of dice

Laughed at their jokes.

It was all lip service.

I did not care for their ways,

The ways of lesser men.

I was a soldier whose only lust was for blood.

I was better.

The new recruits came

With their beardless faces.

They huddled together for comfort,

Some cried to their mothers

Others prayed.

Those simpering wrecks were of no interest

Except for one

Erasmos.

With the stature of a god

The confidence of a titan

He stood amongst his peers

As a man stands amongst children.

It was not long until we sparred.

As good soldiers there was no need for words.

We both knew what was obvious

What was as certain as life and death

We were brothers in arms

Of the same breed

We were as one.

The fight came.

Outnumbered ten to one

We fought

Until blood soaked our faces

Our enemies and our own

Until crimson flooded our eyes

Our noses

Our mouths.

Before night fell we were the only two left

Alone in a field full of ravenous beasts

Of coprses waiting for the crows

Left to rot in some far flung land.

Their gaping snouts salivated

Waiting for the chance to sink their blades into our flesh.

A new emotion filled my veins.

I was no longer fighting for myself

To satisfy my lust for death

But for my kin standing next to me

The god made flesh

It was as we stood back to back

As I felt him stand firm against Fortuna’s whims

That I knew I was finally what I claimed to be

For Erasmos

My love

Has made me a greater man.

Baby Jesus-ancient Egypt, Islam, Christianity, Judaism

In Jerusalem, Sebag-Montifiore's biography of the city, a crusader discusses religion with a Moslem philosopher. He asks the philosopher if he wants to see god as a baby. The philosopher is rightly disgusted by the very notion. The crusader shows the philosopher a picture of Mary and Christ, as a child in her arms. The philosopher writes of this event with scorn.

On one level, the pared down concepts of Islam are attractive. The Mary and Christ motif/image seems to have been taken from Egyptian religion-Isis and Horus. Of course for Christians it expresses the human nature of god, the deities deep interaction with his/her/its creation. Islam totally rejects the pagan past, or appears to, but instead elevates the written word. This position it acquired from the Talmud, -in the beginning the word was god- and also Christianity (Gospel According to Luke). But this position can also be traced back to ancient Egypt, Ptah-one of its earliest supreme gods-and Mesopotamian literature, in which words were often magical. Fundamentalist Islam, as with fundamentalist Christianity and Judaism, rejects image and symbol. Meaning must be evident, not subject to thought.

Fundamentalists are rarely, if ever, intellectuals.

Good/Evil-zoroaster/christianity/islam

Zoroaster, who introduced or devised the ancient religion of Iran, first also, it appears, introduced the concept of good and evil into the world. A fierce dichotomy picked up by the book religions with a vengeance. Early religions had a concept of foreboding, of demons and monsters that were part of a supernatural that shared the earth with humans, but not ideologies of good and evil. From the beginning, good and evil were largely subjective.

A foolish idea held by Jews, Moslems and Christians.

darkness

THE DARKNESS

The darkness hit him with the kind of blow normally expected in a boxing ring. The sort delivered by Tyson in his prime, before he became the victim of gangsters and women. It was that hard.  He reeled.

The lane was always dark, but that night its few streetlights had failed.  Unfortunately, he had no choice but to use the lane to get to the party in the village centre. For the past few days his car had been in the local garage getting repaired and walking was not his chosen method of getting around.

He stopped at the beginning of the lane before venturing in. A breeze was blowing, rustling the branches either side. He could only see the immediate area around him. Otherwise, it was like looking into a tunnel that met in a single point of intense black. With trepidation, feeling like a small boy, he stepped into the darkness. The solid response of the tarmac reassured him.

He quickly discovered that his sense of direction ceased functioning without light. He fully believed he was walking in a straight line, but after five minutes he tripped over clumps of weeds by the roadside. He half fell, did a bizarre pirouette, reached out grasping at the air, and regained his balance. Once steady, his hand locked onto a gate that led into the nearby field. He briefly massaged it, before taking his hand away, lingering for awhile on its rusting metal hinges. Try as he may, he could not see it. With his foot he searched for the tarmac, but only found soil. The darkness crowded down upon him.  He stumbled forward, finding it difficult to walk with any speed.

Sporadic birdsong, coming from the distance, soothed him. It was reassuringly ubiquitous. Persevering he rediscovered the tarmac and set off again in the direction of the village.

 The impression prevailed of increasing blackness. Nevertheless, he kept on walking. After half an hour he became anxious. Reason told him he should have reached the end long before. The lane was only about quarter of a mile, fairly straight, and easily walked through. It did not unnecessarily wind. 

By now, he mused, he should be sitting beside Gaynor, drink in hand, his arms around her shoulders not struggling in the dark down an inconspicuous country lane. The drumming music was in his ears, the beer coursing down his throat. By now, Josh would be handing out the cocaine. Then, the party would truly get going.

Again, he tripped and stumbled. He managed another equally clumsy pirouette. Reaching out with his hand he once more grasped the open gate.  He shook his head. Had he somehow walked in a circle? He felt the grain, gently massaging the wood. He recognised the series of knots on the top beam. He touched metal, once again feeling crumbling rust. He searched around with his foot, eventually, again, reaching tarmac.

The confusing thought struck him that he had walked in a circle. He furrowed his brow and scratched his head wondering how that was possible. The lane was simply neither long enough nor broad enough for such an outcome.   Perhaps he was wrong, and he was handling a different gate. But there was to his knowledge only one gate leading to the fields from the lane. Had he retraced his steps, become so disorientated that without realising it he had turned on his heels, walking back the way he had come? How else could he explain spending half an hour walking down the lane without arriving at its end?

He looked back, hoping to retrieve his steps and find another way to the village, or forgo the party and spend the night watching TV safely at home. Before him was the wall of black. It enveloped and imprisoned him. Now, he was uncertain which way to go.

Placing his feet on the tarmac he started walking again.

The birdsong had stopped. It had stopped minutes before he was conscious of its cessation.  He began to perceive how silent the night had become. The silence seemed to grow in volume, filling the emptiness. John became afraid. He hadn’t been really scared since he was a boy, from the time he’d entered a ghost house at the seaside taken in by his slightly older brother. At six, everything seemed real to John and the scraps of torn clothing floating from the ceiling, the papier-mâché faces leering from alongside the rail track, made him scream in terror. He’d experienced nightmares for months afterwards. Now his terror was even greater. The night’s peculiarity was not for the entertainment of small boys and impressionable adults. It was real.   

Perspiring profusely with anxiety and exertion, walking now required increasing effort on his part.  He felt as if he was pushing against something. If he could have seen his surroundings, known what was around him, he would have collapsed on the spot.  Curled himself up on the road until he was revived, and ready to begin again. But uncertainty caused him to continue walking. Determinedly, he placed one foot in front of another. After ten minutes he stopped and stretched out his arms. It felt as if they were entering water. There was resistance. He began to panic.

 The black weighed him down, pushing against his shoulders and forcing itself upon his chest. He was trapped in an incorporeal snare. He threw out his arms again, roared and darted forward screaming.

The night did not let him fall, but cradled his unconscious form. It lifted him up, carrying him along. His body slowly moved into an increasing blackness, an intense, infinite colourless void. At the centre was a swirling hole of an even deeper black. Slowly, he was fed into the centre feet first.

In the morning heated and lighted by the morning sun the lane looked the same as it always did. Trees glimmered green. Grass shone with the early dew. In a ditch, between the hedgerows, beneath stones the blackness lurked, waiting for another opportunity as it ingested last night’s meal.

dominus-stephen francis-peckham lad,

 

Dominus

Shadow crept into my life one dismal winter’s night

Perverting me with its touch.

They came from the shadows

Formless beings made of hatred,

Of greed.

Without a care they plucked me from my nest

My life

As if I were but a simple pebble from a beach

A memento for their wives.

I was not for their wives, however

But for those of a greater disposition.

Those of antiquated lineage

The founders of our way.

Those with jewels on their fingers,

Flowers in their hair

Perfume floating in the air.

Before long I was swept away

Into a new life of servitude,

One from which there was no escape,

No Sanctuary.

Shackles on my hands,

Lashes on my back

I did their bidding with a smile on my face

To distract me from my pain.

It was no use.

Months floated by

As if my life were but a dream.

The same routine.

Months became years

I was still theirs.

My face still belonged to the back of their hands,

My back to the clap of their whip,

My ribs to the force of their kicks.

No reprieve for a lowlife like me.

I came to accept my life in time.

It was my fault.

The woods were never a place for my kind

The son of a prefect,

The pretty little boy with slaves of his own

Who belonged to him.

Their bodies

Their souls.

Only now do I realise there was no luck involved

In fate’s betrayal of her child

I deserve this

This life of servitude.