BROWN MEN WITH iPhones
They have arrived in our small town, the men, yes men, for men they are, with darkling beards and shiny phones, yet without an ounce of human being. And our hairdressers are revolting. They come, unwanted, uncalled for and unkempt from far away, from places without names or nouns, to shake the walls and break the moulds. And our hairdressers are revolting. They come without the decency to ask, without their wives and kids, abandoned now for watery ways that risk the grave assumptions of the way. And our hairdressers are revolting. They come with beards and phones replete with unseen means to harm and we now need to cross the road to shun and then to shame with blame. And our hairdressers are revolting. And in the salons of our little town, we share the threat and stoke the fear and in the dark degenerated buzz of bile the borders of our time are now closed. And our hairdressers are revolting. And in the blindness of our being without the common decency of sight we tell ourselves we know it all blind to the otherness of them. And out hairdressers are revolting. And yet, behind the beards and phones the fear of drowning out the human soul bereft of being seen and left to sink alone while waters choke the gift of hope. Our hairdressers are revolting.
NAMING
It began with a mother’s gift, wrapped in hope and dreams selfless seeing what could not be seen, for in that gift, there is past living by those who bore it for themselves, shaped its resonance for now, this moment, this beginning opening yet untrod paths of what will be lived out in the gifting of your name. Then in the living time, the name was stretched, belonging less and feeling more that what was meant to be or not, was fuelled and fanned by baleful lessons taut with fearful knowing of the ways and means of your living. Then in the fleeing time, the name was foundered in the intensity of depth by deep despairing, severed from the gifting long ago, abandoned in the floating, free at last, and in the last the rite of passage overwhelmed the hope then ripped apart the destination of your fleeing. Then in the landing time, the name was othered in the press of cuttings rich with shame and blame, but still no name to shun the judgment of their ire that points the barrel of dark opinion, triggering and echoing still the frothing waves of bile, to drown the faceless invasion of your landing. Finally, in the banishing time, the name was smothered, ousted out of time and mind beyond the border lines of hopeless understanding, held vice like, fear gripped, preying now, and staring down past condemnation of the fallen, glittering still with doleful droplets of such weary waters of the baptismal banishing of your name. OTHERING
My name is…..
I will not understand your name
for it is too long and was too long in the making,
far from here, contriving to confuse and obfuscate
the essence of my here and now,
puzzling the origins of words unknown.
I will not understand your name.
My name is…..
I will not hear your name
for it does not heed the subtle stress
that shakes my world and fears my judging
differences of hearing out the trials
of indifference to utter helplessness.
I will not hear your name.
My name is…..
I will not speak your name
for I cannot yet articulate the strangeness
and the incongruity of lost hope,
and in its loss the deafness I inherit
to all but the proclamation of me.
I will not speak your name.
My name is…..
I will not know your name
for I will not, cannot fathom yet the depth
of all but still water shaping your knowing,
drowning out the knowledge of your now
in the confidence of my conviction of your guilt.
I will not know your name.
My name is…..
We will not recognise your past,
nor the story of your name,
for there is but one mind in the absence
held in the silence of our now
without the presence of sister or bother.
Your name is Other.
Flight of the dragonfly 