Thursday 11 February 2016

THE END of HISTORY


A light poem this post.
As I seem to be saying about every poem lately, I don't think this is the final draft, but hey work in progress is good.

T.I.N.A.

It was the end of history.
An academic told him, just before
she punched the vice principal in the face,
shouting how it was her fault
that education had gone to the dogs.

He walked outside.

The sky was still the sky,
blue, as it happened that day.
A deep blue, vast and infinite.
The earth, though bruised,
offered up green shoots.
The air smelt of smoke,
possibly because the university was a flame.

He walked away,
                into the perpetual now.
T.I.N.A. is short for There is no alternative,  a popular excuse for the excesses of globalisation used by those neoliberals who would hoodwink us at every opportunity.
Trying to limit or define the world and humanity only highlights narrowness of our own mental processes.
I leave you with Father John Misty admitting he is Bored in the USA.

2 comments:

  1. Lovely poem Paul as usual. I almost want to see a short story about this girl who punched the principal in the face. There's definitely a story there!

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    Replies
    1. Once more thank you for your kind comments Msmariah.
      I wanted to leave the story ambiguous, but I was thinking that if history/ the world had ended [as right wing philosophers keep telling us] then at that point we make decide to take justice into our own hands/ or react to the frustrations that have built over time. One of these for me would be short sighted middle management who have no time for creativity but whose short sightedness makes us all so much less than we could be. Perhaps I am speaking for myself here!
      The poem came quickly but I put it away for a time and to be honest rewrote it. Not sure this is its final version.

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