I enjoyed Laura Routh’s poem “The Leaves Are Falling Down”, https://owlinthewood.com/blog/2018/5/19/first-poem-the-leaves-are-falling-down. For me, the poem isn’t merely about the forest ageing and the coming of Autumn, it also speaks of the harmful effect humans often have on the natural world.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution has recommended that paying for sex be criminalised (they argue that it is paying customers, mainly men, who are driving human trafficking and express concern regarding so-called “pop-up brothels”, where a property is rented for a short period then abandoned by the traffickers allowing them to stay one step ahead of the law.
This piece, by the Press association, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/21/sexual-exploitation-uk-women-pop-up-brothels-report) reminds me of my poem “Circles” in which I ponder upon this highly contentious subject, https://newauthoronline.com/2016/07/15/circles/.
There was a young lady called Louise
Who stole a set of keys.
On unlocking the bedroom door
Of a man named Moor
She found that he could tease …
—
An elderly poet called Jim
Married a young lady named Kim.
His verse was terse
And grew steadily worse
But the critics all loved Kim!
I go out
Before the multitude is about
And walk in the wood
Where the air is good
And there are no words
Save for the birds
Who’s song, though not for man
Can set him free
Of desire. So is it for me
As I simply be
Amongst bird and tree.
Then the din
Sets in.
Not of human shout,
Although there are houses here about
That skirt the wood. I here the cry
Of the young in search of homes to call their own.
It is contended that we must sacrifice some green spaces
To accommodate the young’s need for places
To live. But if the Green Belt is no longer sacrosanct
What scant
Greenery will stay
When the planners have had their way?
I doubt this wood will go
Though other spots of green
Now seen
Will turn black
Under tarmac
And some will notice the lack
When the rats race
Where there was once a green place.
Perhaps I am being unfair
For Darren and Claire
And there 2.5 kids need somewhere
To live.
But will their children give
Thanks to mum and dad when there
Is less green
To be seen
Than was previously the case
And nature’s face
Is converted into neat little garden rows.
Who knows?
Not I
But for now I have tree and sky.
There once was a poet called Prout
Who wrote a poem about a sprout.
His verse was so bad
That it drove people mad
And his wife, she threw him out!
When old acquaintances come back
Often we lack
The will to refuse.
Many a man has, in booze
Rekindled a former desire.
The fire
Burns, and he is lost
In the pleasure of pain.
He will splash
His cash
In a manner most rash
And go down the primrose path
With a bittersweet laugh.
He deletes her number
But she
Retains his.
Tis
Always the same
Though man may curse
He will continue to traverse
The well worn road of pleasure and pain.
In this place, half-urban and half-green
The owl is oft times seen.
Does he lament
The lives misspent
By men
Who
When
They hear
His too-wit too-woo
Are filled with the ancient fear
That so gripped Macbeth
Of death?
Who
On hearing the bird’s too-wit too-woo
Can deny
That they will die?
Not I.
Some, tis true
On harkening to
The owl’s too-wit too-woo
Think no such thought.
Perhaps I ought
Therefore to ponder
no more
Upon yonder
Cry.
Yet I
Know that I
Shall die.
You can dress it up as you will
But in the still
Of night,
Oft times out of sight
My friend’s erie cry
Reminds me that I
Shall die.
Flirts in skirts.
All is quiet
At night.
Save for the riot
Of dreams and nightmares.
He who dares
May Gain the prize
Of a girl’s come-on eyes.
But if she say “no”
Will he go
Down the path
Of nice guy or psychopath?
Flirtation
Is not an invitation
To remove a girl’s short dress
Unless
She explicitly says “yes”.
Recently the Centre for Policy Studies, a centre-right think tank based in London, hosted a discussion on the subject “Is The Internet Destroying Democracy”? Jamie Bartlett, the author of “The People VS Tech: How The Internet Is Killing Democracy” debated the impact of technological advancement with Robert Colvile of CapX, an offshoot of the CPS. The discussion is an interesting one and can be found here, https://capx.co/free-exchange-is-the-internet-destroying-democracy/
Yesterday (18 May) I read a thought provoking article by Henry Kissinger on the subject of artificial intelligence or AI. The gist of Kissinger’s article is that the enlightenment liberated humanity while we are in danger (by relying on AI) of becoming slaves to the emerging technology and loosing our ability to think critically. The below quote from Kissinger’s article strikes me as containing much wisdom, particularly his point about many technophiles taking refuge from solitude in technology:
“Users of the internet emphasize retrieving and manipulating information over contextualizing or conceptualizing its meaning. They rarely interrogate history or philosophy; as a rule, they demand information relevant to their immediate practical needs. In the process, search-engine algorithms acquire the capacity to predict the preferences of individual clients, enabling the algorithms to personalize results and make them available to other parties for political or commercial purposes. Truth becomes relative. Information threatens to overwhelm wisdom.
Inundated via social media with the opinions of multitudes, users are diverted from introspection; in truth many technophiles use the internet to avoid the solitude they dread. All of these pressures weaken the fortitude required to develop and sustain convictions that can be implemented only by traveling a lonely road, which is the essence of creativity”.
To read the article please visit https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/henry-kissinger-ai-could-mean-the-end-of-human-history/559124/.
K Morris - Poet 