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Welcome to Outside the Gates
Why 'Outside the Gates'? There are many gates isolating people from each other. 'Gated communities' being the most obvious, where the affluent try to segregate themselves from the poor.
The most insidious though are the gates within our minds which separate us from, make us
think we are different to, even better than the 'other'.
Yet we all experience the same emotions, feelings, wants and needs irrespective of gender, colour, race or creed.
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Thursday, 19 October 2006 |
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1
Somewhat lost,
I came searching,
chasing words.
Blundering through puberty and adolescence.
Shy then awkward,
then blunt, then abrasive.
Anxious in a time of turbulent emotion.
In ritual step with hormonal chaos
and the process of becoming.
I stretched an open palm towards experience,
finding friend and enemy
in the common democracy of mistakes.
Finger-sifting air, soil and street,
for dictionaries and love,
just once to touch
the elusive
unifying answer
to Why?
And linger there.
2
This was Spring.
The font of all our dreams.
Where time rooted trees
and exuberant daffodil,
chaliced crocus
and rainbows distilled in dew
unfurl their colour.
Where mischievous children,
lyrical gymnasts, smile dancers,
quartz dreamers
and curious unravellers
of startling mysteries
in pavements and people,
enthrall with their learning,
exuding
wonder!
Where young women chassé,
charting futures bold with intellect and ova.
Whose dance is fluorescent shadow,
which sows confusions amongst the boys,
- rippling pollen in mountain streams -
yet stirs in old men
long stowed cargoes of memory
and desire.
Who will nod in knowing recognition
at the rite,
- the perpetual waltz of love and lust -
and smile away their wintering years.
Where mothers grin,
expectant on full granaries,
as lush shoots dust the wheat fields green
hinting at lavish aromas,
ripe as camembert on warm bread,
and tables laden
with chattering, smiling faces.
3
I bent to grasp this antique soil,
to smell the mud,
inhale the lifeblood of our dawn;
have course through me
all the tongues, all the lore,
all the customs and the slog,
since out of Africa we grew
these two hundred thousand sapian Springs;
have start the visions at initiations
in the caves of Lascaux,
and fingers know
the dirt's alchemy of dyes,
then bring forth the print
of horse,
of bull,
of unicorn;
have my pulse
the rhythm of the mattock and it's geometric arc,
the ceremonial dance
and the sowing of chants,
condensed to earth by every soul
that ever clawed and tilled
and worked this sod;
have my bones ring iron,
sounding to the hammer and the smith,
industrial
as Jack - layer of railways,
Jack - moulder of engines,
and Jack - the forger of wheels,
now seared to dirt the colour of rust;
have synapses fire,
discern the chemical equation for clay,
the compass of minerals,
basalt's subterranean heart,
molecular alphabets,
the atom's mathematics,
Earth's genome sequenced in this soil.
4
I wanted all,
The totality of truth,
- the absolute -
from the Big Bang to the Singularity
and every nuance in between.
This maths teacher's window-watcher,
transfixed in an emerald flash
as Kingfishers spear
or with fibres quickening to a redhead's smile,
craved knowledge from spontaneity
and intuition.
Not as deferred gratification
with a spring-time of disciplined study
conforming to a 'Better’s' expectations,
as calculating
as emotions learned by rote.
Nothing in my hand remained
'cept the odour of decay
sagging dank with disappointment.
And as I raised my eyes
I met Complexity, empirical and real
spinning through the universe.
That single, simple line of formulae,
reducing, explaining all
and so beloved of theoretical physics
drawing to itself
the mythic grail,
the face of God
meta-physical and superstitious, the wished for Unified Field Theory
dissolved like the meadow's shrouding mist
on a summers morning.
Knowledge and science took on new meaning.
More than Newton,
more than machine and closed systems.
More even than Einstein.
Wider than all our imaginations.
Order.
Stability.
Equilibrium
fell away.
Irreversible and constant like change.
5
So, further still I had to trawl,
find experience to harvest,
truths to harness,
and so construct a history.
Hence to the cities for summer I came.
Hiking, hitching, hoping.
Sifting air and happenstance.
Cheek by jowl sat poverty and excess.
Grime with a blood-diamond sparkle.
Soaring spires of affluent conceit
while below,
promise lay stunted,
horizons foreshortened and choked.
Diversions, abundant as adverts,
dribble life-styles most pockets can't buy.
Sophisticated comedies of manners,
historical costume dramas,
sit-coms, sci-fi and war,
cartoons, thrillers, serials and gore;
formulaic eye-candy at the flicks and on TV.
Violence on the streets,
violence on the screen;
porn's gone mainstream.
Craven papers blare envy and hate,
facts jettisoned in favour of shite.
I read my Black next-door neighbour,
and the Asian corner-shop owner,
my daughter's single-mother,
the factory line co-worker, the coal miner,
my lover,
even the lowly road sweeper;
are dangerous
and bad for your welfare.
Demonised.
Made Other.
6.
So. I am become Other.
And all feeling spoke to me of words
in the pheromone
of skin to skin.
Manifold and diverse the skin I found,
or which found me clothing others
from amongst the urban multitude.
Tender,
affectionate skin offering up bliss.
Flighty skin light as gossamer wrapped in air.
Delicious skin, exquisite to the tongue,
and hot skin,
vernal with passion.
Glistening skin burnished red-black,
pink, translucent skin,
skin all the shades between
wet in sweat and exhausted from toil,
porous and giving,
palmed to me their histories.
Skin scared, emoting pain,
screaming
of two hundred thousand bleak winters.
Clenched skin,
taut with violence condoning my own.
Shallow skin made their visitations,
barrier's to conversation and knowing,
with no questions for my dreams
nor answers to my rhymes.
Semantic, perfidious skin
crossed my path with corrupted words
and alien class phrases.
"Extraordinary rendition";
whose birth-pangs
are in the abattoir
where flesh is rendered.
"Collateral damage";
the shards of Innocent's skulls
dripping brain,
lie strewn across Baghdad and Falluja
seeding hatred;
are dismissed,
as of no consequence,
with racist words.
"I am the Decider";
these are the words of Tyranny.
Words of torture,
the words that kill!
Many were the gentle skins I met,
many more than those which hurt
or yearned and brayed to murder.
Skin inexhaustible with caresses,
emollient,
spreading balm.
Normal skin. Everyday skin. Your skin.
7.
And of all those skins I've met,
surrounding other
- of character, spirit and passion -
the best, the most
brought the essence
that is now me.
Gave me the words and the voice to sing.
The common words,
complex simple words,
honest words of class
hard wired to our collective D N A,
defining us in who we are.
Intrinsic to us as the veins too a leaf,
yolk too egg,
Moon too Earth.
Cascading words
passed on by word of mouth
beneath the covers of beds and books.
Words with stories
like tumbling autumn leaves reprising histories,
releasing memories of shared action,
social and organic,
natural to how we got to where we are today;
mass participatory
non-violent
civil disobedience
in Selma, Alabama;
sacrifice and resistance
in Vietnam,
Palestine
and South Africa;
rebellions and revolutions
a la Touissant L'Overture,
La Marseillaise
y Bolivar.
8.
Open and generous.
Equal and compassionate.
Caring and supportive.
Reciprocity and solidarity.
Sorority and fraternity - humanity.
Dialogue and reason.
Resist and struggle and prevail.
Steadfast and thoughtful.
Sensitive and tolerant.
Wisdom and sympathy.
Unwavering and revolutionary.
Lenient and warm.
Cooperate and cohesion.
Construct and neighbourly.
Empathetic and accord.
Befriend and big-hearted.
Charitable and brave.
Determined and conscientious.
Patient and purposeful.
Unprejudiced and feisty.
Tenacious and considerate.
Enthusiastic and committed.
Kind and unshakable.
Logical and altruistic.
Encouraging and bold.
Amicable and ubiquitous.
Attentive and loyal.
Civil and international.
Audacious and comradely.
Gregarious and secular.
Assured and vivid.
Positive and vigorous.
Unequivocal and courteous.
Responsible and decisive.
Perceptive and explicit.
Sturdiness and integrity.
Dignified and supple.
Analytical and implacable.
Respectful and vigilant.
Conscientious and forceful.
Accommodating and direct.
Professional and charitable.
Clarity and abstraction.
Lush and fecundity.
Optimistic and humanitarian.
Elegant and powerful.
Black and white and grey.
Spontaneous and intuitive, complex and diverse
Inexhaustible words. Copyright: Les Skeates
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Gardening, Climate Change and Civil Society |
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Sunday, 01 October 2006 |
The suburban and small town English love their gardens so we're told and going by the amount of TV garden make-over programmes, we are told in no uncertain terms. There is a technique in gardening called 'forcing' where bulbs or branches from flowering shrubs can be made, by changing their micro-climate to bloom early in the dull cold of Jan/Feb to brighten inside the home. Some bulbs are even 'forced' in vast green-houses powered by oil and gas so as to be available as unseasonal Christmas gifts. Unseasonal hyacinths are not uncommon. Not so much now that large tracts of Africa have been turned over to the growing of flowers for the European and American markets at great destructive cost to the local environment, as well as at the expense of food crops. They are then flown to market at great damage to the whole Earth atmosphere. Such is modern, globalised horticulture as it tries to satisfy the West's conditional, Pavlovian desire to consume the natural beauty that surrounds us. Climate change brought on by human induced global warming is 'forcing' on a qualitatively different scale than mere pottering in a garden shed. This is the forcing of evolution and will probably require a mass extinction so as to start all over again going by the geological record. Any scientist or politician denying our dominant role in the present, unprecedented climatic upheaval is being mendacious, disingenuous and deceitful, in short lying. Graphs here and here , articles here , here and here .
We as a species were able to adapt to the changing environment at the end of the last Ice Age , a process of climatic upheaval between 15,000 and 12,000 years ago which lasted approximately 2,000 years. This was due to the consciousness of ourselves within our environment that we had been coming into since we started naming and numbering things, and long before writing. Adapt, not through evolution of our biological selves but through a revolution in social organisation and the mode of production. Crudely put, the change from hunter-gathers to farmers. Be first to comment this article | Quote this article on your site | Print | E-mail | Read more... |
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Syriana, Complexity&Diversity and Unity in Lebanon |
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Monday, 28 August 2006 |
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Complexity and diversity are the watchwords of anybody who claim allegiance with what is still, euphemistically termed the 'left' and which is diametrically opposed to the monolithic, one size fits all that is neo-conservatism's view of globalisation. But for the left this concept is tempered by the knowledge that the underlying conflict affecting the peoples and societies of this world is the bipolar one of class. Finding political unity in a class or a nation with all their diversity and complexity is quite a difficult concept to grasp, but there is a commonality in a smile between people irrespective of gender, race, colour or creed. (The next paragraph, concerning a film, may seem a strange follow-on to an introductionary paragraph about complexity and diversity but bare with it, all will be revealed.) I've had the opportunity to revisit the film Syriana now that it has been released on DVD. My want to write about it was confirmed after reading an interview with Ghassan Massoud by Robert Fisk in the Independent on 27.05.06. Ghassan Massoud is the Syrian actor who starred as Saladin in Ridley Scott's 'Kingdom of Heaven' . Massoud was interviewed for a part in Syriana that he turned down after a meeting with it's writer/director Stephen Gaghan. From the Fisk interview ; 'The thoughts and the anger bubble over as Massoud lights his third cigarette. You can see why he enjoyed playing the scourge of the Crusaders in Scott’s movie, insisting on riding his own horse in preference to a stuntman – Massoud comes from the rugged countryside around Tartous – and taking the role of Saladin only when he was satisfied the script would respect his own culture. It’s one reason why he turned down a part in the new film Syriana, a drama of oil, CIA skulduggery and Arab potentates.
"There are many attacks in the West against Islam these days. I met director Stephen Gaghan in Dubai to discuss Syriana. I asked him: ‘Why Syriana? It is one of the historic names of my country, why the CIA? Why oil?’ He said it was a point of view. I was frightened. When something frightens you, I say you shouldn’t do it. Our profession is very, very, very sensitive. You cannot make a film if you have suspicion in a script. But when I met Sir Ridley Scott, from the first meeting in Spain, I trusted this man. He was a noble man, a knightly man, so I yielded myself to his film."'
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Israel for War, Oil and Free Trade Zones |
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Monday, 31 July 2006 |
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“Everything is under control.”
Mowaffak al Rubaie – Iraq National Security Advisor on Six O'clock News BBC1 24.07.06.
“Don't panic! Don't panic!”
Corporal Jones. Dad's Army - BBC1 sitcom 1970s.
In Iraq chaos is order, war is peace, panic is calm and the rest of the whole wide world has passed through the looking glass if this is to be believed. Language become Orwellian - more each day as reaction tries to square reality to their fantasies and forever failing.
At least 100 people murdered each day by sectarian, mercenary and Black-ops death squads. Added to that total is the deaths from ongoing air and ground assaults on civilian neighbourhoods by the illegally occupying forces of America and Britain, collaterals who are never counted because Iraqis are less than human in the occupiers eyes.This land, where 'everything is under control', is a human abattoir, a charnel house where males of military age are habitually assassinated and the headless corpses of the abducted and tortured routinely turn up, every morning, on Baghdad garbage dumps. 6,000 dead in the months of May and June. A 14yr-old girl gang raped and murdered by lawless, brutalised American troops who then murder her family. The pride of American manhood has added Mahmudiya to their role of dishonour.
If this wasn't bad enough, Israel is degrading Lebanon from the air and calling up 3 divisions of reserves – between 36,000 and 45,000 troops - while saying they are not going to invade. “The Way of War is A Way of Deception”, says General Sun-Tzu. Excuses to implement Israel's already decided war plans are like buses - very rarely on time but one will come along eventually.
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On Time, Daughters and Landscape (Part 1) |
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Monday, 26 June 2006 |
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The daughter is pregnant. My Mum told me - I'm rather estranged from the daughter and thought more of as that distant, awkward strangeness who inhabits her past not her present and is best left alone with the MS. Taking on the role of Welsh Secretary of the CPGB and leaving London when she was ten, against her wishes, was the last of a series of 'political' decisions that strained an already fragile relationship. Being a weekend father from the day she was born didn't help. Loving her dearly from a distance wasn't enough to build and sustain a father/daughter relationship but I am better for having known her. Like all who have met her.
She sounded happy and confident when we spoke. I'm happy for her and hope that all goes well.
Her pregnancy got me thinking on time, as I did when she was born and as it must do for all who experience knowing something of them progresses long after they are dead. At this present time of geopolitical manoeuvring with nuclear weapons, that may no longer be the case.
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Tuesday, 13 June 2006 |
I want them to do well.
Like most people in Britain I want the English team to do well in the football World Cup. To play the game with verve and spirit, bring credit to themselves by the way they carry through their roles on the pitch, expose the decency of their character and have it reflected on England's citizens. It is a preferable way to being known from this land than having troops travel the world killing in the name of a lie. Football is a game where the arms are held down and hands never used.
Some people equate wanting England to do well with support for imperialism and will therefore cheer the opposition - no matter who they are. That is a mistake. With the football World Cup it is about the festival and people from all cultures coming together to celebrate the diversity and the commonality that makes for a global humanity. Take pride in who they are and its validation in the World's sporting community. A space where respect is learnt and earned.Be first to comment this article | Quote this article on your site | Print | E-mail | Read more... |
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Friday, 09 June 2006 |
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What a pickle I find myself in since my last posting. Over the last four years given information, and had suggestions made that do or do not stack up. 'Friends' confirmed in what I had thought they were for a while. Messengers fully compromised so could never back up original statements if names put to events and actions and suggestions. I feel like I've been pushed and pulled all over the place, even to the extent of having my thinking manipulated. Nasty stuff. A veteran, four year old, crash test dummy. Still not tested to destruction, but bruised. Badly. Physically and emotionly.
To use a cricketing metaphor - I've been made to follow on with three days play still to come. It usually means defeat or playing for, and occassionally achieving, a draw. The stoic straight bat fighting rearguard, back against the wall. An English thing. A win is never thought of in these circumstances when playing real cricket, but this is metaphorical cricket and who knows what the result is going to be if I can marshall my thoughts to the task in hand.
My last post was about Sun Tzu, or more precisely the using of Sun Tzu's teachings to have a go at the idiocies of Bush/blair and the complicities within their 'intelligence communities' in instigating an illegal war. And, in passing, to expose what I consider a devious Black-Ops campaign being conducted on British soil, with our leaders collusion, by the Americans. An article published in the August 2005 issue of PC Pro by Duncan Campbell about 'Operation Ore', which I linked to, was yanked from their web site the same day I posted. There is still a piece referring to it on their web site by Alun Williams which mentions 'false claims'. You will have to search the PC PRO site to find it. The Sun-Tzu piece was posted to http://outsidethegates.blogspot.com . I hadn't yet got my head fully around the process for posting to the new site and required a refresher tutorial from Bill the Webmaster. It is now posted below this piece.
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They Are Worse Than You Can Ever Imagine |
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Wednesday, 07 June 2006 |
I am starting to think that our political leaderships – specifically in Britain and America – are either ignorant of, or are deliberately ignoring some of the most important teachings from humanities glorious intellectual history.
Ignoring, even rubbishing Marx I can understand, after all Bush/blair are committed Capitalists, but the ideas from others leave me thinking they are in fact not only ignorant but consciously hypocritical. Their self-proclaimed belief in the two thousand year old teachings of Christ, being the most obvious example.
There is another though. Two and a half thousand years ago a Chinese General named Sun-Tzu wrote a short treatise on war – The Art of War – that has been the foundation stone of military theory since. Any career military officer or political leader serious about their profession or calling will have studied this work. I only came across the book 5 weeks ago, which goes to show the lack of serious thought I gave to my ‘career’ as a revolutionary during my membership, and leadership in the CPGB. Now, when it is basically too late to make much of a difference, I find the seriousness in further study to give expression to my political thoughts. My dreams even. Be first to comment this article | Quote this article on your site | Print | E-mail | Read more... |
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Tuesday, 02 May 2006 |
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I'll be away from the internet for approximately a week visiting some friends, so my replies to emails will be slightly delayed. Les Be first to comment this article | Quote this article on your site | Print | E-mail | Read more... |
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Free Malcolm Kendall-Smith |
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Monday, 01 May 2006 |
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I have just read and signed the online petition:
"Free Malcolm Kendall-Smith"
hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition
service, at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/MKSApril/
I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might
agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider
signing yourself.
Best wishes,
Les Skeates
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