Couldn't be any more relevant than now

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. (On the manipulation of language for political ends.) We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell (1903-1950), Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays (Edited by George Packer, 2008)
 

Passage to the island

Passage to the island

with a three-knot

north-north-western wind

the ferry remains on its toes

the seas in this part

is known to be treacherous

passengers pacing about

unsure of what to do

impatiently looking out

perhaps they realised

if a place is accessible only by the sea

then at the back of the mind

lies the possibility of stay

a subtle evasion, an uncharting

a rubbing oneself off the radars

a backward walk in the sand

to dupe the flies back inside the bell jar

when you landed you described the sea

as you would have the mind

fearless, unbounded, and quiet

knowing the next tempest

would exile you out

willingly, world-quarantined.

 

Taxomnesic Cognition Disorder

Back to the place which used to matter

nothing but the people has changed

only a handful few are left

to tend to vivid memories.

Some unease in me I cannot name.

The old grey yet older and there

its presence as telluric as the skerries.

Some who used to matter are now dead

but it's something else which bothers the peace.

Life was easier to handle back then,

it didn't have the nerve it has today.

It's hard to tell how much more

worn out the main square's cobblestones are

but they have to be, like most of us.

Suddenly what's amiss as I turn to leave –

they sawed off one of the ancient chestnuts

behind the campanile which forgot to ring.

I have to sit down on the steps to the common room

weak at the knees now I've come to realise.

The stump is hollow at the core

I understand it had been a necessary measure,

a huge gaping hole in a row of sailor teeth.

A power is waning out of memory

discarded with a half-done shrug

or a sideways nod of the head.

No warning could possibly have been issued

like this shot echoing starting the head skyward

pausing the hoe and the breath.

We might as well never have planted that tree

a hundred and fifty-four years ago.

“The growth isn't worth the end,

it was just waiting time, wasted effort,”

that's what some thought watching the crane operate.

Life goes on as it did when it stopped for me

eighteen years ago, unpickupable

for it was never dropped.

 

The park at night

The light falls slowly over the park

on the last joggers on their last round home

the obedient dog who was told he shouldn't bark

the traffic dying out in one final flash of chrome

So it is when most fall back to the safety of their home

that this here vagabond tramps back to the park

though he's tired of knowing that all paths lead to roam

he lends the benches and the grass to all until dark

Yet if someone loiters and paces, they don't deserve a snark

not even a throat cleared – who doesn't like to be alone –

he picks a discarded newspaper, watches the stars disembark

relishing the tingles in his neck as all his senses turn into gloam

He smiles at the prospects of the comfort of foam

he luckily excavated not two blocks from the park –

if the night is to be judged by its spangling dome

he knows his dreams will be as smooth as beech bark

Twenty years on the street and he hasn't lost the spark

some have gone mad, some have gone to feed the loam –

we all have an expiry date, as we all have a postmark

but he believes it better we forget about the metronome

Huffing on a stub he listens to the silence over the park

with enough booze and grub to outlast the night he calls home.