Solipsism

What more can I say, it is in the poem

SOLIPSISM

 

1.

You stick your head out and there’s lights blazing and people

talking and there you are in the middle of this world

which dances in infinity somewhere around the third planet out

from the sun and what are you supposed to make of it?

Are you going back in a Rolls Royce to some comfy castle

or are you going to roll around in a cardboard box crying, screaming

scared beyond sense waiting for the protector who might never come?

And that’s the beginning of life lying on your back crying

or staring up at faces, visions of who-knows-what

and knowing that a smile is kind and a frown is danger

and waiting to know who is a friend

and who is a stranger!

And all of this in the middle of someone else’s history.

Are you a Jew or an Arab a Christian a Hindu or Jain

a Moslem or Latter-Day Saint?

Whatever it is they’re telling you, shaping your life from day one;

here am I telling you, you ‘aint!

It’s a gamble how you’re treated because as a baby you’ve got no rights

you’re a blackboard in someone else’s classroom

where others choose whether its darkness or light.

George Bernard Shaw quips from the side, “the child is father to the man “

He should have told this to the girl who became the bride.

 

 

 

2.

 

Life is a gamble,  it is understood;

if you are lucky in your childhood

you might find yourself at school

all alone without control.

Are they being nice to you,

Do they care how you feel,

Are they reaching for the genius within you,

Or branding you as the fool?

And how is your body? Do you look normal?

Are the other children treating you with respect

or are you the one they laugh about

abandoned through neglect?

Are you the one that’s left out or the one that they protect?

The centre-of-attention getting all the love you need

Or wide-eyed alone and starving, wishing to be loved?

As a growing child you’re powerless at the whim of those who tower above,

But what are you going to do about it when you know that you are not loved?

When the teachers reject you, no parents or friends to protect you

what are you going to do and how do you know what to do?

Are you so wounded you want to hurt the ones who make you sad,

Or so mild that you can’t face them,

Or worse, you try to please them when they are bad.

What lessons are you getting, is some adult telling you there’s a God

Who sees everything you think and do, as this intrusion bears down on you

Do they tell you how you are going to survive

When all you want is to be loved?

Or are you the one who is loved and in a cocoon like the chosen in the Bhagavad Gita

Born of noble birth, a child of Yogins

Or is your mother crazy and your dad a boozing cheater?

Are you destined to win, or are you programmed to lose?

And in the midst of it all on this rock shooting through space

Can you learn to be a master of your face

Or are you so lonely and needing for love

That you want to be a master of your race,

Or glorying in the encirclement of a chosen race?

 

 

 

 

3.

There’s so many god-damned distractions

When the hormones come there’s so many god-damned attractions

And when are you going to get some?

Many thoughts and needs that circle around your head

And schoolwork and bookwork and religion

Some which want you living and some which want you dead.

Through the five portals pour the music and video and television and movies

And preachers and all around without restriction hypnotists, there’s no other word for them

Are fighting for your mind and attention and money, everybody’s fighting about it

While role models  let themselves and us all down

So your thinking gets confused as a million hucksters hawk their wares

Some dressed like bishops trying to sell you salvation like blue-chip shares.

They’re crooning and they’re shouting or they quietly pour it  in your ears

Think this way, and no-one confesses that what they’re trying to sell,

Has come out of someone else’s thinking,

Whether it’s  heaven or it is hell.

They have it packaged and blended and sweetened

So that you’ll be attracted and think it would be fine

But the ideas that they are peddling you can never say are mine!

And they’re not going to give you time to come out with your own ideas anyway

They just want you in their line.

But if for a thrill or too much time to kill, or a pain from someone  unkind,

Who crushed you when you could not fight back

If it’s not religion, a way to think or behave

Someone will offer you a joint, a pill for what you lack

And next thing you’re off one step forward and two steps back.

As the drug  seeps through your innocent heart,

You might feel better at the start against what was happening before

But then the chemical has a home now in your body and your brain

It is comfortable in there and it wants to remain

Looking out of your blank stare.

So your spirit is running along a steep trail and it is like nightmares sometimes

Grabbing hands reach for you in a flail to grab you and pull you down into the grime

Into the world of a junkie where a chemical steals years of your life.

But never gives you back your time.

 

4.

Whether the Holy Grail of your mind

Is filled with poison of the backyard kind,

Or shaking in your prayerful hand

On the road of  someone else’s ideas.

Like Paul on the road to  Damascus dressed like Colonel Sanders of early years,

Saying I think the folks will like this one franchising ideas and fears

Your mind was not meant for these snares.

But do you go into your closet  and pray in secret and alone become assured

because you know the  Lord has heard

Or are you down on the street corner rejoicing with the reward?

 

 

5.

Ok well you’re still standing after that struggle

And suddenly George Bernard, he is there

Introducing you to this adult person who is you

And you are coupled with someone and amazed

That on this third planet way out in space

Your heart beating inside you as you see another’s face

And you love them and you need them

And like Plato said in his Symposium

He said like flat-fish we people are

Only half of a whole and when you find

That other half you are in awe

It is then that you discover

You are completed by your lover;

And what power is released

For ever and ever and so be it that love

Has the power of a thousand suns

But can you be certain of emotions

Any more than the god above

Will  either of you betray for another’s love?

Who among us can be trusted

With this precious gift and power?

But take the plank from your own eye

Before taking the splinter from your lovers

It is morality’s hour.

How much fear runs your engine

when  you are left alone

Do you want to destroy

those who take what you love

Or can you forgive them when they’re gone.

When love’s denied does the door open to hate

Can you let others be if they don’t fill your needs

Or like a murderer do you wait?

When you are crossed by a good friend

Do you strike their mind until it bleeds,

What depth has your compassion

Is there understanding in the end?

Is there goodness within you,

Or does it come from up above,

Or have you found it deep inside,

From a deep abiding love?

Or are you a painted vessel

with a hollow nothing where you hide

What makes you real and what makes you feel.

It is you, who must decide.

 

6.

 

I believe that human love is political

So I’ve found as I did go,

Watching lovers punish transgressions

With little compassion on show.

In the middle of this turmoil

The humanity we share moves on in time,

William Blake with a mind complete,

Spoke of the w***e that goes from street to street

Weaving old England’s winding sheet

But  I see this great and mighty w***e

Shining holy evermore,

Thrusting humanity on through time

As Bill’s mortal coil inexorably unwinds.

There you are standing watching,

As each child’s name is called,

Or as the mother, wailing with pain

As your own little baby comes into this world.

If you are sane and happy,

Not suffering from too many wounds

You will see a new being staring up at your eyes

Crying to be loved cuddled and fed

Your love once political glows unalloyed

Your own child deserves no lies

As you cradle their sweet head,

Your excited heart feels more love than can be said

You bend over their crib and listen for the breath

Ensuring this loved one be kept from its death.

And so through this pattern which mankind pursues

With optimism life and knowledge renews.