Insensitivity

OR to women?

Upon seeing three faiths collide.

You cover your women in cloth
or clothes meant to make invisible.
You hang a piece of metal around their necks
to make sure they remember their place.

You drape their hair with silk
to make them less appealing to you
You hide their beauty from the world
to guilt them into submission.

You flatten their breast and hide their bottoms
and take their self away
You burden them with the lust of men
and tell them to hide from life.

You fill their bellies with unbidden children
and cause them to ache in despair
You say they should pray for forgiveness
and it is you who took their children away.

You cover your head with a little piece of cloth
and drape your waist with material
and wind a piece of leather around
to remind you that you are chosen.

Show me how you can stand there naked
Side by side with another gender
without the lust, the distaste in your mouth
only clothed in the faith of your fathers

Under your naked muscles
Show me your differences now
show me how strong you really are
without the trappings of power.

All of you who rock and wail and pray
Self serving your soul to death
show me how your bodies are dust
instead of killing the other.

Expose yourselves to the sun and the rain
To your sisters and brothers beyond.
Expose the real reason for your hatred and fear
your littleness, your fear and your lust.

Imagine there's no religion.
No reason to hate and to kill.
Imagine there's no god
To push upon the weak and the ill.

No more cloths or cloaks or symbols
of division, derision or dependency
No more blame, no more hate
no more guilt or despair.

The World Is...

The world is poorer, less than, missing a part...because
today at 10.45 one of nature's true gentlemen, one of the world's great caring humans left today.

There is indeed one less person in the world to love because of the lovely Normie leaving.

Dear sweet man. Husband, lover, father, father-in-law, boxer, soldier, brick layer, helper, carer, visitor to the sick and a wonderful grandpa and great grandfather.

He was a friend to me and mine. An example of what a grandfather should be.
He was a rarity...he was a nice person.

I shall miss him.
I shall always love him.

Farewell.

Vale Norm -
1925 -2008

The Cat Has Landed

Teddy hid under the table on the dining room chairs..he knew something was up!

He was going home!

Back to Melbourne where the cold can eat your bones and the house is empty all day.

Poor poor Teddy.

The cat in the box has landed.

Six months I had him in my care and now he is gone.

I am not a cat person, but I would care for anything, anyone and any animal if asked.

Cheers.

Food for....????

Food for:
Oil,
Peace,
Thought!

Myanmar (Burma)!

Obviously there is no oil in Burma..remember, World, your behaviour to one country will be judge with your reaction to others.

Mother's Day

This burst of life, this rose
unfolding between battlements
This searing stinging scorching sense
that heralds a new dawn.

This rip, this tear, this slithering slide
Once into oblivion and into existence all
surrounding the smell, the sight, the sounds
Of life.

Coming in an explosion out of love
out of dark, out of safety
gut wrenching in its intensity and beauty
life changing, life altering, life giving life.

The bright lights dim, the sounds sharp and scoring
the hands grapple to grasp the squirming product
of love shared, received, reciprocated, reproduced
to hold to have to heave into the world.

Birds sound clear, the lights are lowered
In respect the world is smarter than before.
The private, the personal, the piquant passion
Is made manifest.

You who have not felt this love, this screeching squall
this warmth, this fullness, this emptiness, this time
You who are too busy to love, to light, to lick the skin
of new life
How sad!

You who think you are the centre
Were and are but only to me
You who think you know it all
Know nothing without this in your world
push as you might against the pricks.

and so I give to you me.

Grouchy Days - I'M ALLOWED at my age!!!!!

My favourite



The best come-back (pardon the pun) for men who are insulting freaks
And what I say most days............

Addendum to GetUp video: "What we Marched For"

The song is a re-working of "From Little Things Big Things
Grow" (Paul Kelly/Kev Carmody) which was first released during the
Whitlam years of the 1970's when that PM gave back some of the land
to the original owners.
So you can see how it has been a long time coming for our
indigenous brother's and sister's.

Here are the original words for you to read;
   From Little Things Big Things Grow 
 A Song By Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody ©1992

   Gather round people and I'll tell you a story
  An eight year long story of power and pride
   British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiari
   Were opposite men on opposite sides

  Vestey was fat with money and muscle
   Beef was his business, broad was his door
   Vincent was lean and spoke very little
   He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor

   From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow

   Gurindji were working for nothing but rations
   Where once they had gathered the wealth of the land
   Daily the pressure got tighter and tighter
   Gurindju decided they must make a stand

   They picked up their swags and started off walking
   At Wattie Creek they sat themselves down
  Now it don't sound like much but it sure got tongues talking
   Back at the homestead and then in the town

   From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow

   Vestey man said "I'll double your wages
   Eighteen quid a week you'll have in your hand"
   Vincent said "uhuh we're not talking about wages
  We're sitting right here till we get our land"

   Vestey man roared and Vestey man thundered
   "You don't stand the chance of a cinder in snow"
   Vince said "If we fall others are rising"

   From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow

   Then Vincent Lingiari boarded an aeroplane
   Landed in Sydney, big city of lights
   And daily he went round softly speaking his story
   To all kinds of men from all walks of life

   And Vincent sat down with big politicians
   "This affair" they told him "Is a matter of state
   Let us sort it out, your people are hungry"
   Vincent said "No thanks, we know how to wait"

   From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow

   Then Vincent Lingiari returned in an aeroplane
   Back to his country once more to sit down
   And he told his people "Let the stars keep on turning
   We have friends in the south, in the cities and towns"

   Eight years went by, eight long years of waiting
   Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land
   And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony
   And through Vincent's fingers poured a handful of sand

   From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow

   That was the story of Vincent Lingiari
   But this is the story of something much more
   How power and privilege can not move a people
   Who know where they stand and stand in the law

   From little things big things grow 
 From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow
   From little things big things grow

   Notes
   The eight year strike of Aboriginal stockmen and their families
at Lord Vestey's enormous Wave Hill Station in Australia's Northern
Territory began in 1966. Author Frank Hardy who wrote a book about
the strike, "The Unlucky Australians", was told: "We want them
Vestey mob all go away from here. Wave Hill Aboriginal people bin
called Gurindji. We bin here long time before them Vestey mob. This
is our country, all this bin Gurindji country. Wave Hill bin our
country. We want this land; we strike for that." 

For Vegetarians....who I am sooo over!

Doubling Up on posts...For the American readers

Thought this should be brought to the fore.
Great debate, important subject and interesting writer.



http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/22/disability_and_democracy/

"See This Gift I Have Brought.."

Many years ago when I was young and callow, my newfound boyfriend brought me a rose
cut from his own mother's garden.
He said;

"See this gift I have brought..."

It was one of many quotes he has given me over 35 years and more.

It was from "Far From the Madding Crowd".

Yesterday he called out;
"Could you find a poem for me. It starts like this..."

Here is his latest gift to me.

After all this years, after all this time, after all this water
Pouring from my eyes.
He says;
"This is how I feel about you".



Love Poem by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

What we marched for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7QV5cEDfYY

Thanks to Dooley's grinners

Lorenzo- something nice.

Lorenzo