ODE TO THE IRAN WAR

 

Commentators are puzzled as to why Trump started this war

Which is not surprising as the Greatest War Leader himself was

Vague. Some think he wanted a war he could stop and thereby

Earn himself the Nobel Peace Prize. That’s a tempting answer, but I

Know better. Let’s just think clearly about the nature of Iran. Firstly

Its ruling elite are not responsible to anybody and do as they wish.

Complaints from citizens are treated with contempt. They promote

A national ethos of worship and obedience, imposed on all media

Of public information and protected by force, with a precise schema

Of good and bad. Opposition, especially from groups called woke,

From universities, artists, writers and the like, is destroyed by choking

Off their funding, bureaucratic interference, or if necessary, violence.

Critical assessment of government is mainly evident by its absence.

A detachment of fanatical thugs is always at the disposal of the elite

To threaten, beat up, torture or murder persons who are not wanted–

Immigrants, feminists, liberals, radicals – whose lives are haunted

By the threat of death. The state puts itself and its policies ahead

Of all other concerns, supporting killers in other states who shred

Any local policies that do not suit their masters. So, check:

Surely you can see that Trump could not allow such a mirror

Image of his USA to flaunt itself in the world. Hence the terror.

 

 

Eyes circled by dark fur on a fawn face you gaze confidently

Enough as you perch on a human wrist, when you are presented

To the camera. Now we can prove that The Ring-tailed Glider,

Tous Ayamaruensis, thought to have gone extinct the far side

Of the first Pharaoh, is alive and well in a Papuan forest,

Called by scientists a Lazarus Taxon, a back-from -the -dead

Being, although the indigenous people, for whom it is sacred,

Have lived with it thousands of years, while forbidden to utter

its name. You look the intruder in the eye, trusting that the shutter

of the camera is their only weapon. You were declared extinct

because your fossilised remains were found with no link

to any living creature. Well, no known link. Other lazarus

taxa have suffered the same human arrogance, plus

scientific astonishment when discovered to be alive.

None of our nonsense has stopped your quiet survival

Nesting in tree holes, eating nuts, and fruits and blossoms,

Guarded by people for whom the holy is a kind of possum.

You do not know us and will not be wise to trust us, now you

Have been addedto the list of contents of our planet. Few

Share your story but maybe Lazarus should be asked the question

If he truly enjoyed all the consequences of his resurrection.

 

He has worked in gardens most of his days honing

A physique capable of digging, planting, weeding, sowing

And lifting. hours at a time, with civilised breaks for food

And conversation, the latter deciding whether he would

Classify you as friend or merely customer. His talk revealed

That he was an educated man who had studied his field

In books, at courses, online media, and with fellow workers

Relishing facts and theories that were his ecological scriptures

Sacred but correctable that helped him comprehend

the landscapes on which he lived and worked. He knew I’d

been at university and therefore with learned terms he tried

me out, often proving the vagueness of my knowledge. Biome

I could manage but ecotone, no way. “Ah,” he says, spying

A chance to shine, “It’s the transition zone between different

Ecosystems. Like the tree line on mountains, with small bent

Trees and big shrubs, taking life from above and below. Or like

The lush vegetation by a watercourse” “Riparian” I reply,

Proud to remember the word. I had it easy, middle class

Posh school, Uni, and into a job I loved; he, stats

Call unusual, made his way from a housing scheme

Into skilled work which became a vocation. Even

Now he worries about funding his retirement. I’ve grown

To enjoy his visits here. For him and me, an ecotone.

 

 

When the trolley buses were voted a failure and abolished

I was allowed to take the train to school in the city. It hissed

Into Muirend station at 8-34am, the 2-6-4 steam engine pulling

at least five coaches, which let me reach the start of my school-day

in Elmbank Street by 9-15, a sad routine for eight years of my lifetime.

But I was an aficionado of trains long before that, since one north line

Took me to my granny in Aberdeen, another to our holidays

On Speyside, and the line to Uplawmoor bordered our estate

To the west. Parents forbade us to go there so of course we did,

To play in the surplus carriages parked in sidelines and shit

In their loos. Whenever I saw a train on track my imagination

Would be engaged, envisaging its journey and destination

Even if I knew nothing of it, and speculating on its travellers headed

Home from work or off to London, with eyes fixed on me spread-

Eagled on the embankment. As I hated school, these trains became

The promise that this was not all, there were other better places

for people that would be accessible. Still today, when my old

body does its interval training at the football pitch next the coastal

Line north, I pause if a train, local shuttle or Azuma Express, goes

By, telling me me that if frailty of muscles or of mind shows

a time is near that puts an end to all this bother

yet I can hope there will be a train, one way or the other.

 

 

 

 

 

“If I had hated,” you said, “I would have become an assassin.

But no, my revenge is love.” Goodness does not just endure, its passion

Is to fight evil, with humane weapons. You did this Marguerite,

In Burundi in the face of genocide where a squad of elite

Killers forced you to witness them killing seventy humans

Including a man you loved, so that, they declared, they might ruin

Your hope, but failed because in that place you made Maison

Shalom where ethnic designations were banned and the pleasant

Skills of children, women, and men nourished until a small

Refuge grew to include a hospital, restaurant, gym and theatre, all

Stolen by your own government when you had to flee its

Malevolence in 2015, since when you have seen the

Twa, the indigenous pygmy people of the African Lakes,

As the symbolic focus of your work for justice. Fake

Saints exist but millions of poor people declare you

Authentic.Amen. But to understand the care you

Have given, I had to read the story of the Rwandan

Genocide: the political designers of hate; the brutal

Propaganda; the interahamwe militia, the radio

Mix of music and murder. Just so. But your neighbour

Coming for you with a machete, your pastor watching

You raped five times a day, their way of snatching

Babies from your arms to slice them open, playing

Football with your husband’s head, happily flaying

The skin from captive soldiers -A ruthlessness only

Of homo sapiens, not seen elsewhere on the globe

Maybe not in the universe, justifying the terrible Christians

Who wrote of total corruption and the stink of Satan. Missions

Of love look vain in face of this evil, the bloodstains refuse

To wash out. Amor non vincit omnia. The sticky stuff chooses

To stay on Jesus’ hands and feet and side. Neither his love

Nor yours Marguerite redeems what was done here nor those

Who did it. Only love can foster life, it’s true, you are our teacher,

But does any sensible person want to foster the life of this creature?

 

 

 

When I got around to finding facts about you Graça

you had been one of my heroes for decades, but I was

amazed to know you were younger than me, just eighty!

I have taken 84 to do so much less. Your years are weighty

With achievements: taking the Mozambique Primary School

Attendance from 40% to over 90% in your political rule

As minister of Education; First Lady of Mozambique while

Your husband was alive; The UN asked you to compile

Out of your experience, “Children Involved in war” that deals

With kids made to kill; you helped to make women visible

As citizens, freeing them from marriage when children, setting

Up The Graça Machel Trust to continue your unfettering

Of children and women throughout Africa.And you endured

to become an Elder, bringing common sense to human

folly. Your years are hung with trophies and honours. But

what fixes you in my heart are the years of no mounted

memories when you were married to a man who found

that being a marxist ruler made enemies he was bound

to kill, to whom disloyalty meant death, whose state

fought child soldiers with child soldiers. It is too late

and disrespectful to ask questions about what you thought

and said and did then, but in the thinking of much wisdom,

the saying of much love and the doing of much goodness

you will have asked these questions with your own shrewdness

and learned your truth, which shines the brighter for having

a little shadow to set it off, for me at least. If only mine was as

small a shadow and as encompassing a light, my sister, Graça.

How to express my affection for you, as you speed

from your nest, a shallow dip in the rock, to scream

with other terns as you hover, twist and drop to catch

fish for your chick amidst waves, sun, wind and snatching

beaks and you”ll stick that red dagger into anyone

that threatens the chick, however large. Your feminine

powers are not limited to child-rearing but include

charting a track down Africa towards the fast-food

winter paradise of Antarctica where the sun shines

24/7 to help you hunt. In your 30 year lifetime

you’ll fly roughly 1.5 million miles, through all weathers

over every terrain, making you the most travelled

of all creatures and one of the toughest,although

also one of the most beautiful with your snow-

white tapered wings and tail. You challenge my

sorry-for-myself mood- I’m -not -sleeping, why-

am -I -depressed, my -wife’s not -well, I’m getting-

old- “Soft thing,” you tell me, “my first wetting

was the arctic sea at Spitzbergen, and I’ve flown the hot

edge of the Sahara. As for family, I’ve got

a mate back here in Spring, if he survives,

and young ones as they learn must risk their lives

each day. Last year I watched while one of mine

who made his first flight from the nest, looking to me, calling,

was taken by a peregrine. Only a feather in the air, falling.”

I was looking for organic oil online when I was given

argan oil, unknown to me but advertised as for the kitchen

so did a new search and found a challenging story. Akhsmou

a moroccan village, suffers persistent drought with few

days of rain and many of hot sunshine, meaning that 90%

of its water supply has gone and every crop that depends

on it, which has caused village people to leave for the cities

or abroad, but Fatima Ihihi,in her twenties, thought the fittest

use of her education was to start an employment project

for women in Akhsmou, that they should make oil from the fruit

of the Argan trees, which grew nearby in plenty. It should

have failed due to the reluctance of the women who were not

expected to take decisions or work outside the home, but it caught

on when a few tried it and found it fun. And received wages.

That’s all it took to subvert the religious culture of ages.

Women found it asked them to do things they were good at

gathering nuts, carrying nuts, separating kernels while sat

on rugs for hours, talking. Initially they used a big shed

shielded from the sun and the male gaze -as Fatima said

they became a team, proud of each other. And she was able

to get hold of an oil press, second hand at first; and so tasteful

was the oil, it earned them a loan from a large group

of cooperatives to buy the equipment they needed. Soon

they built their own workspace, with a nursery, a shop,

a pressing area, a bottling plant, establishing their co-op

which they called Toudarté, which means Life..Sometimes

they sing as they work, letting music rhythm and rhyme

express their joy in their creation of common wealth

and a future they continue to create. Almost by stealth

they have added literacy classes, paramedics teaching

health for women, and a fund for going to Mecca. unleashing

the hidden riches of community, not as entrepreneurs

but fellow workers with different gifts and one shared power.

If you don’t want to go doolally

better watch what you swally

I worry that the offers of brain-function tests I get online

Are because AI knows I’m over 80 and spend more time

On my pad because I’m slower than I was. I would like

The reassurance but I’m scared to try. What if it said: Mike,

See your Medical Practitioner? That sends me to all the sites

That tell me what to eat and drink, and what not, to stay bright

Until I die. (My wife does crosswords to prove her brain’s ok

which works for her, but as I’m bad at them, they’d prove me dopey)

if you don’t want to go doolally

better watch what you swally.

So for a start it says, “Not more that sixteen units of alcohol

A week” and I reckon on half a bottle three days out of a whole

Seven, but my wife laughs and reminds me it’s three glasses of red,

Preceded by a couple of white. “Well, that’s still only fifteen if you add

It up.” And the aperitif you often drink before the meal, it doesn’t count?

Not to mention that you think a unit is a glass whereas the true amount

Is one and a half maybe two glasses.” I decide that I won’t promise

Anything; “I’ll think about that” I say, hoping I can give it a miss.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally

Then there’s what I ought to eat and drink for brain health

Access to which will certainly depend on my wealth:

Clean Ginkgo Biloba Glycosides & Terpene Lactones.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Organic but beware of phonies.

Berries, beans, nuts, whole grains, oily fish and root

Veg, Cook everything, avoid nice ultra processed foods,

But all this only works as part of a mediterranean diet.

I hope a Domino Italian Pizza counts as at least I’ve tried it.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally

I’ve given a whole stanza to the drink that improves IQ

It brought me up to politician level so it may not help you.

Beetroot Juice is the magic potion especially for oldsters

for with its oxide mediated vasodilation it bolsters

cerebral blood flow improving cognitive functionality

increasing social confidence and beneficial pality.

And in case this honest enthusiasm leads you to mock me,

There is a drawback: It purples your urine and your jobby.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally

It does seem a lot of fuss to get your brain realigned

But mind is incarnate in body and body alive in mind.

A thought will move a finger, and a hand will feel a fact

so food is fuel for muscles and energy for synapses.

This partnership is the only intelligence we know

And AI less than half of it, however it may grow.

It’s also the only life we know-this spider hunts a fly-

And losing interest in food is when we start to die.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally.

 

 

Eh, you’re worse than me, son!” This from a skinny old woman

Dropping bottles in the bins at Tesco. She had five, but true and

Admit it, I had more than twenty. “Yeah, but you’re binning them

Once a week; me, once a month,” I said. “Leear, you bring them

every Sunday afternoon, just like me.” “Right enough, Grannie”

I confessed, “So what’s your tipple, Gin, is it?” “Gin my fanny”

She chuckled, “it’s sherry, Bristol Cream, two glasses a day, I canna

Take more. But look at you, bottles of wine, it’s a wonder you’re able

To drive.” “So, you’ll turn down a lift home if I offer? “Maybe aye, maybe

No. it’s a while since a man offered me a lift home.” “If you’re no’

Past it, I am, so you’re safe enough,” I said. “Pity.” She said, “Sure,

It is no fun living on your own.” “Your man?” I asked. “Deid these ten

Years. A fireman, he got that mesothelioma. Terrible.Back then,

they’d no protection. Their hoods an’ gloves an’ capes had asbestos

in them to stop them burning. When they were called out, they’d toss

a coin for first use of the breathing apparatus. He kept working until

retirement although he had the illness ’cause work never killed

anyone, but his mates didna like it, as if he could pass it on. Same

with our own friends. Right enough, the cough would drive him insane

and make him howl like a dog. I prayed for him to die. Fucksake God,

I’d say, do it now. By the time he died, I didna pray any more. Ach it’s not

Good me talking like this to a stranger. It must be your face.” “Yeah

But you’re not a stranger now. Come on, I’ll take you home.” On the way

We were silent, but at her gate, I asked if I could pick her up next

Sunday with her bottles and take her to Tesco. “Na,” she said,

“many thanks, and you’ll probably think this is very strange,

But I’ve been a lonely old bitch for years and I dinna want to change”