Gnomonic Verses

GNOMONIC VERSES JEHOVAH’S Footprints & Other Poems

BRIAN TAYLOR 2

Other Publications: Blindness Kindness Worm’s Eye View Going Out There is No Other Coming Back There is No Trace Blondin and Other Poems Bamboo Leaves Oxford Poems Toi et Moi Vienna Vajras & Dorjes Basic Buddhism for a World in Trouble Dependent Origination (translation of Paţiccasamuppāda) What is Buddhism?

The Living Waters of Buddhism Buddhism and Drugs Basic Buddhist Meditation The Five Buddhist Precepts Saŋyojana (The Ten Fetters) Centre The Truth about Everything The Universal Octopus & Mr Tao Previous Lives & Astrals

COPYRIGHT © 2013 Brian F Taylor ISBN 978-1-326-35014-7 PUBLISHED in 2015

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Broken Promises - Gnome OPIATE: An unlocked door in the prison of identity. It leads into the jail yard.

Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Dictionary

Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?

Queen Elizabeth ll: This I promise to do.

Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz: Theodicy

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CONTENTS HERE (AND NOW) ........................................... 14 RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW ............................. 15 MINDFUL ....................................................... 15 EPICURUS: SEASON’S GREETINGS ................ 16 GALEN: HEAL THYSELF ................................. 17 FISHY ............................................................. 18 FREE CHOICE ................................................ 19 BLAME GAME ................................................ 19 WAVE MUSIC ................................................. 20 EGO EGO GOD OF THE JUNGLE ................... 20 SUNSET ......................................................... 21 ORATOR ......................................................... 21 BREATH ......................................................... 22 CURE ............................................................. 22 ILL WILL ......................................................... 23 VOYAGE ......................................................... 23 PROJECT ....................................................... 24 THE ECONOMY .............................................. 25 THE POET’S LAMENT ..................................... 27 CUPID AND AFTER ......................................... 27 OXFORD EASTER ........................................... 28 QUO VADIS? .................................................. 29 PIP PIP LEONARDO ........................................ 29 PEACEMAKER ................................................ 29 MIDDLEMEN .................................................. 30 THE THREE MONKS ....................................... 31 WISDOM OF SOLOMON .................................. 32 PAPA NOSTER ................................................ 33 BENEVOLENT GIANT...................................... 33 FOOL MOON .................................................. 33 MULTUM IN PARVO ........................................ 34 PORTKEYS ..................................................... 34 TIME MACHINE .............................................. 34 ASTRAL TRAVEL ............................................. 35 HELL .............................................................. 36 5

O SOLE MIO ................................................... 36 NEWTON ........................................................ 36 HOPE ............................................................. 37 ON THE ROAD ................................................ 37 LAW OF MOSES ............................................. 37 MISSION BELL/HELL ..................................... 38 CAVÉ ............................................................. 39 AMELIA .......................................................... 39 KNOTTING ...................................................... 39 PENNY CANDLES ........................................... 40 PRIORITIES .................................................... 42 WISDOM ........................................................ 42 HEAVEN ......................................................... 42 HOPE AND DESPAIR ...................................... 43 ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS ................................. 43 BAROMETER PAIR ......................................... 44 LINNET IN A CAGE ......................................... 45 IVY LEAGUE ................................................... 45 HORACRUX .................................................... 45 DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE ....................... 46 CANINE CONDITIONALS ................................. 46 GIVING HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE .................. 47 IMMORTALITY ................................................ 47 CATCHING UP ................................................ 47 ANNE ............................................................. 48 ALADDIN ........................................................ 49 BUILT FOR COMFORT NOT FOR SPEED ......... 49 MEMENTO ..................................................... 50 NOT DROWNING, JUST LOOKING .................. 50 QUESTION ..................................................... 50 CHE SERA ...................................................... 51 EXPENSIVE .................................................... 51 PENSÉES ....................................................... 51 GULLIVER ...................................................... 52 GATES OF HELL ............................................. 52 GUYS AND DOLLS .......................................... 53 SQUARING THE CIRCLE ................................. 53 6

THATCHER ..................................................... 54 SCALES OF JUSTICE ...................................... 54 YES (AND NO) ................................................. 55 AUDREY ......................................................... 55 PTOLEMY QUEEN .......................................... 55 THE PAINTED VEIL ........................................ 56 THE LIMITS OF JEHOVAH .............................. 57 YES ................................................................ 57 TALK OF THE DEVIL ...................................... 58 CHINESE WHISPERS ...................................... 59 TIME OUT ...................................................... 59 GENGHIS KHAN ............................................. 60 SLOW COACH ................................................ 60 GOD ............................................................... 60 L’AMOUR ........................................................ 60 TRUTH ........................................................... 61 COMPUTER TEMPLES .................................... 62 DEIST AND ATHEIST ...................................... 63 A SILENT WOMAN .......................................... 63 THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (PARIS MATCH) ...... 63 PRIMARY ETHICS ........................................... 64 EVIL ............................................................... 64 LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE ............................... 65 TREASURE ..................................................... 66 BABIES .......................................................... 66 NOWADAY’S WOMAN...................................... 66 SMALL FRUIT ................................................. 67 BUTTERFLY ................................................... 67 FEMINA AFRICANA ......................................... 68 MARY ............................................................. 68 PERFECT ACTION .......................................... 69 NOTOSHA....................................................... 69 APOTHEOSIS .................................................. 70 FIRST PRIZE ................................................... 70 DEAD CERT ................................................... 70 EXCUSES ....................................................... 71 RIGHT-ON CAT ............................................... 72 7

THE SUN ........................................................ 72 TIM’S PRAM .................................................... 72 PATER FAMILIAS ............................................ 73 LA BELLE DAME ............................................ 73 LORD GEORGE GORDON’S LAMENT .............. 74 MINE .............................................................. 74 DESIRE .......................................................... 74 TOI ET MOI .................................................... 75 FINIS .............................................................. 76 CHOOSING TO CAN’T ..................................... 76 EVERYMAN .................................................... 77 UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.................................. 77 CHOOSING TO MUST ..................................... 78 INHERITORS .................................................. 79 AND ASHES TO ASHES .................................. 79 ISLAM ............................................................ 80 PYRAMID REFLECTED IN THE NILE ............... 80 MIDDLE WAY ................................................. 81 LESSON IN DEMO CRAZY............................... 82 SPONTANEITY ................................................ 82 PIANO PLAYERS ............................................. 82 HEADS YOU WIN, TAILS YOU WIN .................. 83 ANSWERPHONE ............................................. 83 PASSENGER SEAT LADY ................................ 83 EMPTY LIBRARY ............................................. 84 CAN’T OR CAN ................................................ 84 WHERE ARE YOU NOW? ................................ 85 BYRON ........................................................... 87 THE UNIVERSAL OCTOPUS ............................ 87 THE GREATEST.............................................. 88 GETTYSBURG REVISITED .............................. 89 PAINTER (IN THE SCHOOL OF) ....................... 90 STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (TRAPDOOR TO HELL) ...................................................................... 91 FREEDOM ...................................................... 91 NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES ......................... 92 E = MC2 ......................................................... 94 8

KNOTTING AND TATTING ............................... 95 FRED ............................................................. 95 TRAVEL LOG .................................................. 96 IN WHICH THE POET LAMENTS ..................... 97 HERE IS NOW. ............................................... 99 GONE ........................................................... 101 ICHNEUMON PEOPLE .................................. 101 BIRDS OF A FEATHER .................................. 101 RUNAWAY TRAIN .......................................... 101 “THE POOR ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU” .......... 102 I’LL DO IT LATER .......................................... 102 TEMPUS MUTAT ........................................... 103 RICE STORY ................................................. 103 PEACE AND POWER ..................................... 104 BIAS ............................................................. 104 BEAUTY ....................................................... 105 MAKE MY BED SOON ................................... 105 EQUITES ...................................................... 105 WALKING BACKWARDS? .............................. 106 TWILIGHT OF THE GODS ............................. 106 INDIAN DEFENSE ......................................... 107 RUY LOPEZ .................................................. 107 BLACK MAGIC ………. ................................... 108 TAKING OFF ................................................. 109 THE NEW JERUSALEM ................................ 109 EVE .............................................................. 110 LINNET IN A CAGE ....................................... 110 CRYSTAL BALL ............................................. 111 BEGINNING THE END .................................. 111 PYTHAGORAS AT THE OLYMPICS ................. 112 MARIE ANTOINETTE .................................... 112 TRICOTEUSES ............................................. 112 AGEING EARLY (A SELF-DESTRUCT GUIDE TO BURN-OUT) .................................................. 113 YOUNG LOVE ............................................... 113 THEY ALSO SERVE… ................................... 114 TEACHER ..................................................... 114 9

SPIRIT .......................................................... 115 SANGSĀRĀ ................................................... 115 OH ROSE OF ALABAMA…............................. 116 OWN SEED, ONE SEED ................................ 117 PATIENCE .................................................... 118 St DOMINIQUE VENNER (died 2013) ............. 119 LOVE THOU THE ROSE BUT LEAVE IT ON ITS STEM ........................................................... 120 CAFE LES DEUX MAGOTS ........................... 121 LA PLACE DE LA CONCORDE ....................... 123 SOLDIER LEE RIGBY .................................... 124 I, ME, MINE .................................................. 125 MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL... ............... 125 FOUNDATION ............................................... 126 HOW TO BECOME A CONCERT PIANIST ....... 127 UNBORN ...................................................... 128 THE RUDDER ............................................... 129 PURIFY THE MIND ....................................... 130 SINGLENESS OF MIND ................................. 131 SERPENTS ................................................... 132 HE THAT EARS LET HIM HEAR .................... 133 THE BEGINNING .......................................... 134 SILENCE ...................................................... 135 WHICHEVER ................................................ 136 KARMA ......................................................... 136 POSSESSION ................................................ 137 LIVING WATERS ........................................... 138 TRUTH IN A NUTSHELL ................................ 138 MOVE ON ..................................................... 138 THE BREATH OF LIFE .................................. 139 WIND BLOWS ............................................... 140 “THE QUEEN MY LORD IS DEAD"................. 141 QUEEN MARY............................................... 143 MONITOR THE WIND .................................... 144 IT CAME TO MIND ........................................ 145 THE SCREEN ............................................... 146 THE MOUSE ................................................. 147 10

IN THE DEAD TREE, THE DRAGON SINGS ... 148 HEDGEROW FLOWERS ................................ 149 RAIN FALLS .................................................. 150 TEENAGER ................................................... 150 EQUATION ................................................... 150 WHAT IS WHAT? ........................................... 151 HEROES OF OUR TIME ................................ 152 BABIES AND BATH WATER .......................... 152 LEGISLATION ............................................... 153 JESUS’ CURSE (It could have been worse) ..... 154 BUTTERFLY’S EGG ....................................... 156 BREATH ....................................................... 157 JEHOVAH’S FOOTPRINTS............................. 158 AND THEN? .................................................. 166 BAIT FOR THE PRICE OF HOOK ................... 167 THE FOUR GOSPELS .................................... 168 IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE............................. 169 THE ARMISTICE DAY POEMS ....................... 170 ARMISTICE DAY 1993 .................................. 171 11TH HOUR, 11TH DAY, 11TH MONTH ......... 173 FLANDERS FIELD (11/11/12)....................... 174 ARMISTICE DAY 2014 .................................. 176 FILLING THE SPACE ..................................... 179 NO EXIT ....................................................... 179 G 20 SPEAKS. .............................................. 180 JESUS SAID ................................................. 181 JESUS SAID ................................................. 182 ST JUSTIN .................................................... 183 ST EDMUND ................................................. 185 THE LONG AND THE SHORT AND THE TALL 186 CENSORSHIP ............................................... 187 WAT POH ..................................................... 188 MAGNET ...................................................... 190 OZYMANDIAS REVISITED ............................. 191 ETERNITY .................................................... 192 IMAGES OF ETERNITY ................................. 193 IRISH BLATHER ........................................... 194 11

FELLOW TRAVELLERS ................................. 195 ADVENT ....................................................... 197 GNOME’S FIRST LAW OF ECONOMICS ......... 198 WAVES AND SPARROWS .............................. 201 TRAINING ROSES ......................................... 202 PARTINGS .................................................... 203 BOUNCERS .................................................. 205 MARY’S BOY CHILD ...................................... 205 IN PRAISE OF WORDSWORTH’S DAFFODILS 206 PARABLE OF THE TALENTS ......................... 207 OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS .................................................. 209 ISIS .............................................................. 210 THE LIGHT ................................................... 211 HUMANOIDS ................................................ 212 PHIL (ETHOS) ............................................... 213 KWAN ........................................................... 213 DENG ........................................................... 214 THE SAGE .................................................... 214 ART OF TOURISM ......................................... 215 GOD’S MIRROR ............................................ 216 POLITICIANS PAST AND PRESENT ................ 216 DIFFERENT SAMENESS ............................... 217 HYDRA ......................................................... 217 TV ................................................................ 217 DEMOCRACY ............................................... 218 CENSUS ....................................................... 218 MUTUAL RECOGNITION ............................... 218 REAL SUN .................................................... 219 HEAD AND HEART ....................................... 219 TAPEWORM .................................................. 220 HELLO GOODBYE ........................................ 222 MASTER MAGICIAN ...................................... 222 WHO’S SORRY, NOW? .................................. 224 HIS GENESIS ............................................... 224 PARIS MATCH .............................................. 225 STRAYING INTO THE GREEN ROOM............. 226 12

IS THAT SO? ................................................. 226 TAXMAN’S SWEETENER ............................... 226 PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH THE EGO ... 227 STEADY ON .................................................. 227 PARADISE LOST ........................................... 228 BACK ........................................................... 229 DIFFICULT ................................................... 229 THE BIRD OF CHANCE ................................. 230 TRUTH ......................................................... 232 HUNDERTWASSER ONE ............................... 233 HUNDERTWASSER TWO .............................. 233 KNOTS IN A PIECE OF STRING ..................... 234 DARKNESS (OR LIGHT) ................................ 234 AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER? .................... 234 VIRAL GOSSIP CHINESE WHISPERS ............ 235 FOOD CHAIN ................................................ 236 THREE TIMES .............................................. 237 GNOME’S CAREER OPPORTUNITIES TODAY 238 1. CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIEST ................ 238 2. PHARMACEUTICIST .................................. 240 3. POLITICIAN .............................................. 241 4. LUNATICK ................................................ 242 SOFT FASCISM ............................................. 245 THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE......................... 248 EGO ............................................................. 250 FINISH YOUR SUPPER .................................. 251 GAY RIGHTS FOR RABBITS .......................... 253 THE BEATLES’ AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY ... 255 SEPARATISM ................................................ 256 TETHER ....................................................... 257 POST ELECTION BLUESPRINTS ................... 257

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HERE (AND NOW) Clusters of English “unofficial� roses have climbed the fence to face the sun.

Each in its crimson finery supposes that it, alone, is the only one.

Honeysuckle tangles with its vagrance bramble and lavender, rose and gorse, fills the still air with its golden fragrance there where the steps run a wayward course.

Shamrock has camped with a fragile neatness just where the foxgloves have unfurled; the privet has flowered and its lemon sweetness hedges the edges of this living world.

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RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW Imagine you have an audience.

(Which you have).

And people are listening to everything you say.

(Which they are).

And everything you say is being written down.

(Which it is).

And may be used in evidence against you.

(Which it will be).

Don’t you wish you could be alone?

MINDFUL Mindful of I do and say.

Since I do and say will call on me one day!

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EPICURUS: SEASON’S GREETINGS

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Whence then is evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God? Epicurus 341 BC – 270 BC

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GALEN: HEAL THYSELF You can’t heal someone against his will.

(It is his will that makes it possible for him to be sick}.

I don’t believe in it! equals I don’t want it!

Ego would rather be proved right and not healed than be healed and proved wrong.

Take up thy bed and walk is for those who want to walk.

You look terrible you poor thing, you must be suffering, you should see a doctor.

I don’t need a doctor, I’m all right, I can cope.

You’re very brave, shouldn’t you just see the doctor?

I don’t believe in doctors, I can cope.

I know you can, but I can’t bear to see you like this, knowing how much you must be suffering.

Please. See the doctor for my sake.

All right. For your sake.

What did he say?

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He said there was nothing wrong with me and I should go home. The Bastard!

Not to be born is best. -- Sophocles.

FISHY I could dive before I could swim.

Then, I couldn’t even float.

Now I can’t sink.

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FREE CHOICE The waves come tumbling, hiss and roar, the southwest wind begins its blow.

The old grey fisherman on the shore stares at each billow and asks once more, “Tell me, which one’s Joe?” The lettuces stand in rows quite straight, crinkled and crisp and ready to eat.

The gardener’s wife comes with knife and plate, "I wonder which one’s Pete?”

The autumn gale is sharp but brief; strips the branches of the tree.

From each dancing, falling leaf, comes rustling whisper, “This one’s ME!”

BLAME GAME Compliment inflates.

Blame deflates.

Truth understates.

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WAVE MUSIC For the waves that chatter on and on, and the waves that “go with the flow�, the ocean is still there, deep and still to the very seabed.

Wave-Man is here all the time.

His dreams come and go, sometimes it seems frenetically.

What matters is, is he dreaming Now? Does he realise that E for Ego, who keeps creeping in and taking over, is not the other but You?

EGO EGO GOD OF THE JUNGLE Projected protected respected.

Mumble grumble.

Deselected.

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SUNSET Over and over, you and I sift the contents of our mind and try to find the people we think we might have been.

Try as we will, behind the painted curtain, one thing is certain; Nothing is ever seen.

ORATOR His chew can’t keep up with his bite, and when he speaks, you are showered with the feel of his latest undigested meal.

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BREATH Fine and insubstantial, separating the Living from the Dead.

The hairs on your head are numbered; so too the breaths.

Preserved or polluted or neglected, it drags us to our unintended goal; the destiny of all we have protected.

Disintegration of the whole.

CURE Waiting; the fires grow old waiting; fears grow bold waiting; the third eye brightens waiting; the old mind quietens.

Patiently, the patient heals himself.

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ILL WILL A spark neglected burns the house down.

Fires thus started soon engulf the town.

The town, centre of trade and education, is reduced to cinders in the conflagration.

A spark; fires of ill-will start a blaze within the darkness of the heart.

Tortured, it breeds flames it cannot smother, seeks ease in sharing suffering with another.

Soon all the world’s a furnace of confusion.

And here the matter rests - without conclusion.

VOYAGE Sailing through interstellar spaces, putting cosmic surf horses through their paces; clouds of astral dust following non-existent faces, looking for a rendez-vous in imaginary places.

Why does the mental traveller carry so much precious treasure?

Hoard it, hide it, fight for it (and repent it at his leisure).

Bury it and lose the map (and wonder where he hid it).

A voice blowing in the cosmic wilderness, crying out, “I did it!”

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PROJECT I Resting my shoe and my chin on the gate, I thought I knew how animals must suffer.

Jostling in the concrete slaughterhouse, their sweat their fear soaks me and the stench of their faeces chokes me and stifles my lungs.

II Thought-rain doesn’t wet.

Taught-pain cannot forget; (sinks in deeper than the brain.) lll Empty handed I come and lo! the blood is on my hands.

Why do I seek high and low for something else to strangle?

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THE ECONOMY is a Hose.

The Government collects water from the people pours it into the top of the hose to give it back to the people.

Near the top of the hose; a hole.

See! water leaks out here into a tank marked Government (which is always empty).

The rest flows down towards the people.

It leaks through other holes: Government Agencies Government buildings Government contingencies Government perks.

There are also holes for Lawyers Accountants Criminals.

(The Government is always trying to block these three).

Finally, what is left of the water reaches the people at the end of the hose.

The people fight over it (it is never enough).

When they get thirsty they start to throw stones at the government and threaten to sack them.

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The government then, reluctantly, pours more water into the top of the hose (which they get from the people).

Finally, when the people are very thirsty, under the leadership of the Lawyers Accountants and other Criminals, they attack the tank marked Government and break it open.

(It is always empty).

Many of the people die, (except for Lawyers, Accountants and other Criminals.)

The Survivors go off and dig a new well; drink as much as they are able, as quickly as they can, and wait for a new Government to find them.

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THE POET’S LAMENT This life which started out so fair, appears now much more like a snare.

What started out a lark, now shows a bite far worse than its bark.

CUPID AND AFTER It started off with Love.

It ended up with Bread.

As the Preacher said, There is a time for sowing and a time for reaping.

(And a time for losing your Head?)

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OXFORD EASTER Lebanese food (time added on as appetiser).

Worcester Lake (with incontinent geese).

Snakeshead fritillaries in Magdalen Park.

Two Prime Ministers and a Viceroy cheek by jowl in Balliol Hall.

Professor Jim overlooks the Nun’s Garden with its glass and steel Son of Florey.

He sits in his New Constantinople protected by a 200-year-thick book wall.

He is balanced between the German Enlightenment, with its newly (re)discovered Free Will, and the English Dissolution in its rapidly accelerating Free Fall.

Of this he can read the unexpurgated prophesy in his ever-up-to-date Decline and Fall.

Best of all; The newly hyper-sanitised Ashmolean!

This encases lifeless treasures in their mausoleum.

But from the basement staircase well rise balcony on balcony, higher and higher, crowded with a living audience clapping, tapping and applauding the unexpected blaze-up of Gypsy Fire!

Ben Holder out-Paganini-ing Nicolò, Stuart Carter-Smith outstrumming Django.

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QUO VADIS? The longer the journey, the more baggage you take.

(The more baggage you take, the longer the journey).

PIP PIP LEONARDO Sign your name on your picture and you exchange luminous creativity for a postage stamp of terminal mediocrity.

PEACEMAKER If you reconcile two of God’s creatures, you forge a link with God himself.

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MIDDLEMEN The antique fowling piece reveals the skills of the gunsmith and forges his link with the blood stained feathers.

Einstein’s equation (E = mc2) made the atomic bomb theoretically possible.

Szilárd’s fission using uranium, made a nuclear chain reaction possible.

“I never thought of that!” said Einstein.

Einstein signed the letter to Roosevelt.

This put the fowling piece in the Hunter’s hand.

“I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made;”

Note by Gnome: Szilárd explained how an explosive chain reaction could be produced in uranium layered with graphite by the neutrons released from nuclear fission: Those neutrons would split more nuclei, and so on. “I never thought of that!” interjected Einstein. He asked a few questions and quickly grasped the implications. A new type of bomb could result, Einstein urged the president to set up formal contact with physicists working on this topic.

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THE THREE MONKS Everything exists said one monk.

You are right, said Gnome.

No! Nothing exists! objected the second monk.

You are right, agreed Gnome.

Hang on a minute!

They can’t both be right! said the third monk.

It seems you are right, too, said Gnome.

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WISDOM OF SOLOMON Those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind.

The politicians, seeing nothing better to do, sow the wind.

Encourage the people to be dissatisfied (so that they can promise to satisfy them).

Encourage the people to envy the rich; (promise a fairer redistribution).

Tell the people: they have a right to be angry, they have a right to justice, they have a right to free sex changes.

The people are like blotting paper.

Soak it up eagerly.

Dissatisfaction, envy, anger, demands for justice (and sex changes) become a whirlwind, which hunts down the politicians.

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PAPA NOSTER A pope of all trades and master of nuns.

BENEVOLENT GIANT When the Giant Progress invented the wheel, he drove around running over everyone’s babies until they begged him to invent the road.

FOOL MOON Abolishing the moon by draining the pool is an occupation for the fool.

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MULTUM IN PARVO The elephant said to the flea “Don’t push!”

PORTKEYS Hold on to the tail.

It will not fail to take you to the teeth.

TIME MACHINE Behold, you Inheritors of Immortal Bliss!

Now is Here!

And This is ALL THERE IS.

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ASTRAL TRAVEL You can’t go through the ceiling?

You are holding onto the settee.

You can’t go through the Eye of the Needle?

You are a fully loaded camel.

You come to a fork in the road and cannot decide whether to go left or right?

Don’t.

You pull the cork out of a really shy young man?

You get a raving egomaniac.

“I once had an aunt who said she had chosen to can’t.

In the face of such logic I became melancholic.”

Punching someone on the jaw is a hostile act to the whole person.

Not just to an individual bone.

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HELL A hungry fire that devours your ghosts and your children.

O SOLE MIO It’s a sobering thought that the sun will go out.

Not like a spluttering candle leaving its smoky trail in a small corner of a cottage room.

But in a vast, terminal blaze-up; leaving huge clouds of smoke in a tiny corner of an infinite universe.

NEWTON How do we know about gravity?

Newton told us.

It’s a Law! Why do we need laws?

Why don’t we just stand under an apple tree in late September?

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HOPE Hopeless is better than Hopeful everywhere.

No lurking Disappointment there.

ON THE ROAD Hitch-hiking is fine.

Just don’t try backseat driving.

LAW OF MOSES Are Rules made for Men? Or are Men made for Rules?

Depends on the Ruler.

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MISSION BELL/HELL Honour the man with a cause.

But watch out for his claws.

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CAVÉ Hilary came with raspberry jam to mend a few fences and ask how I am.

AMELIA It’s hard to believe she’s only what she weighs, and knows only what she says.

She looks like the Ancient of Days.

KNOTTING Every time you shout or sing A knot is tied in the life-spun string.

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PENNY CANDLES The Children of Light mark out their stretch of beach and claim as much of everything as they can ever reach.

(See the white horses riding high where sea touches the sky.)

The Children play, the long, ever-day, under an always-smiling Sun, in Eternal Delight; which the Children of Light call “fun”.

(See the white horses riding high where sea touches the sky.)

They build them dens of sand and shingle, make new friends and shiver and tingle, hand in hand, in their own new Never (Forever) land.

(See the white horses riding high where sea touches the sky.)

And the green grey waters sidle by and the rock pools start to fill.

“Build the walls higher still to keep us safe and dry!”

This is the way all Empires begin; the Children of Light 40

keep the outside out and the inside safely in.

(See the white horses riding high where sea touches the sky.)

And the green grey waters sidle by and the rock pools start to fill.

“Build the walls higher, higher still to keep us safe and dry!”

Soon they have walled them in to keep out the sea (and the Light) have used up the last of their candles which kept everything (smokily) bright.

(See the white horses riding high where sea touches the sky.)

And the green grey waters sidle by and the rock pools start to fill.

“Build the walls higher.

Higher still to keep us!..”

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PRIORITIES The maggot in the apple pie is content to not wonder why.

It does not waste its breath on shout, is more intent on getting out in.

WISDOM If Ignorance is Bliss ‘tis Folly to be Wise.

If Bliss is Ignorance, it’s Wise to be a Fool.

If Bliss is Folly, is it Wise to be Ignorant?

HEAVEN When I was very young I desperately wanted to go to heaven.

It was years before I had already arrived.

Long ago.

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HOPE AND DESPAIR In the Present everything gets done here.

From the window of the mind, the Future is there where the consequences wait.

The mind invents this Future in order to see consequences there, not here, and move towards them.

If these consequences are seen as essential and realisable, the mind is Hope.

If they are seen as essential but unrealisable, the mind is Despair.

ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS Freedom from Poverty!

Freedom from Wealth?

Abolish Poverty!

Abolish Wealth?

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BAROMETER PAIR Barometer Pair silently stare, respond to “Damp” and “Dry”, pass each other by: repeat, occasionally meet, (briefly together in changeable weather).

The Seasons have their courses run, played their part except, perhaps, for one communal reading; have paid due homage to the one to whose dear heart they were always leading.

Orpheus has left the shadow of Pluto’s cave behind too; Eurydice may follow (if she has a mind to).

Pluto, lover of songs (those footprints where dust and spirit meet).

Pluto, god of patterns (collector of feet).

Why must Eurydice stray his way to build sandcastles in his monumental dust?

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LINNET IN A CAGE The mind is such a lonely, fragile thing, so easily afraid of what it can’t believe in.

Yet every time we make-believe, belief is where we grieve in.

IVY LEAGUE Inside every shrinking violet lurks a fat caterpillar eating its way out.

HORACRUX When you sell a part of yourself to the Devil, you receive the powers your payment warrants.

He takes part of yourself as a deposit.

You receive part of Himself as a witness.

Your part in Him is his hostage.

His part in you is your power.

From Him. 45

DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE Ethics is the highest science, concerning itself with survival, not merely knowall.

A man without Ethics, ever thinking never seeing, is already drowning; ever sinking ever lower in his diminishing sea of being.

CANINE CONDITIONALS If you do that again, I'm warning you, growled the bitch, I will bite you!

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GIVING HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE When Fortune comes at last to claim his Hostage and all the days and hours are counted and the fragile papers, envelopes and postage and all those in-between days are discounted; and Pluto has reclaimed Eurydice’s earthly portion and Thracian Maenads have left her Orpheus dismembered, what will be saved from all this carnage and distortion?

What living fragments will still then be remembered?

IMMORTALITY Walt Disney lies locked in a deep deep freeze like a packet of Smedley’s frozen peas.

We can heat our peas and eat our fill but when will poor old Walter collect his keys?

CATCHING UP The more they take and do not make an adequate contribution, the more what they owe shadows them as they go to inevitable retribution.

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ANNE The passing years are not tracked

by Gregory’s calendar of 1582 but by the arrival of a Christmas card from you and the subtle living contact it serves and preserves.

This year, February brings 30 degrees in the shade and a Christmas card picturing shepherds herding their sheep towards an Islamic settlement.

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ALADDIN Some come back for a cigarette, some come back for a girl.

Humankind comes back for what it can get.

Joe came back for peace and quiet and found he’d wandered into the wrong world.

BUILT FOR COMFORT NOT FOR SPEED There never yet was poet who was fat (or never while his flesh pressed down upon him).

Those who munch their way to oblivion to escape life’s tedium, whose aspiration is to sleep night and day, never find the inspiration to transcend this massy mesh that weighs upon them.

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MEMENTO You cannot protest, “I cannot remember”.

Merely, you chose to place it where at best you cannot face it and have chosen to let yourself forget.

And the shouting of not wanting to remember will not let you hear something’s gentle singing in your ear.

NOT DROWNING, JUST LOOKING Just because the Life Guards are paid to rescue me, why should I jump into the sea?

QUESTION Look at her!

Sitting like a Question Mark, halfway between please and no thank you.

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CHE SERA I asked my Mother, “What shall I be?

Will I be famous?

Will I be rich?”

Here’s what she said to me: “You will be a Big Issue Seller!

Just like your father before you!”

EXPENSIVE Life is short but it is dearly bought.

The more it’s cost, The more is lost.

PENSÉES Le coeur a ses raisons Que la raison ne connaît pas.

“Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point. On le sent en mille choses. C'est le cœur qui sent Dieu, et non la raison. ...” Blaise Pascal 1623-1662.

Le coeur a ses saisons Que la raison ne reconnaît pas.

Gnome 2005

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GULLIVER His body’s wracked with fever his mind enwrapped in thought.

His body one day will release him, but by his mind he’s caught.

No sky above, nor friendly earth beneath his feet.

Only the giants’ tower blocks and concrete to trap the heat.

GATES OF HELL In Tehran they groom you and prepare you and lock the gates behind you.

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GUYS AND DOLLS Simon is painfully shy and overbearing.

He sees Lynn as someone he can dominate into rebuilding his self-respect.

Lynn (Sukalin) sees Simon as a UK passport that will remain valid after a divorce.

They lunch everyday in the Library cafĂŠ.

He waves his arms.

She looks past his flashing eyes at a UK passport.

SQUARING THE CIRCLE How glad I am that I am here and not somewhere else.

(If I were somewhere else, I’d be here.)

No escape, then!

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THATCHER Ethics detached from intelligence (a dangerous thing in woman).

She abused her education by sunbathing her ego in every passing neon light.

Because of this, in later years she succumbed to a hoarse belligerence (a dangerous thing in woman).

This led to premature decline and loss of the key to her precious memories, which was all she had salvaged from her good years; before her sycophants turned against her in favour of a council estate boy.

SCALES OF JUSTICE It is and It is and

not not not not

easy to sympathise with the victim blame his oppressor. easy to sympathise with the oppressor say that the victim was asking for it.

If the inescapable future is seen, however, Verily I say unto you, they have their reward; there is only room for compassion.

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YES (AND NO) Look!

He’s swimming!

We call it showing affection.

AUDREY To a clean and polished rented room, Audrey invited me to tea; recommended Thomas à Kempis, De Imitatione Christi.

Since when, she has maintained a clean and polished distance that has lasted forty years.

PTOLEMY QUEEN The Ptolemy Queen has beautiful skin but how is her beautiful heart within?

Asses’ milk whitens her form without but those eyes are smouldering where her soul looks out.

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THE PAINTED VEIL Millions of bubbles; bubbles, bubbles. Bubbles.

Who could have thought so small would be curse of all, and source of all our troubles?

Microscopic seeds encasing nuclei of fire.

Each germinates and breeds subtle filaments of desire.

Desire slides in and overpowers, making our best intentions fail.

It weaves the painted veil which shrouds this world, this world, which is not ours.

Lift it?

It proliferates with every minute.

See it?

Our eyes are trapped within it.

The world?

The world’s a vast and empty machine.

Thunders on.

Blunders on.

Silent and unseen.

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THE LIMITS OF JEHOVAH

I AM is always subjected to I was and I will be.

It cannot therefore go beyond, to Perfect Peace and Happiness.

YES You don’t reach Here You bring Here with you.

You don’t wait for Now. Now waits for you.

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TALK OF THE DEVIL I have sat up late in rooms where there was talk of the Devil and the calling up of spirits.

I have felt the chill and seen doubt in the faces and heard fear in the voices.

That He might be listening.

That He might answer the call and come.

There has fallen the silence of minds unprotected by the comfort of thoughts; and fear in eyes peering into dark corners; and ears listening at door and window pane.

I have seen the dawning of realisation in my mind.

If He does come this time, it will not be bursting out of a cupboard or in the creaking of a door or as heavy footsteps in the stone passage.

But by taking possession of one of US. I have seen this realisation mirrored in each pair of eyes.

Not when? Not where?

But who?

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CHINESE WHISPERS When the Iron Birds are in the sky, The Dharma will go West.

Tibetan Prophesy Ajahn Farang has taken mouthfuls of Brain, mixed it with his own Saliva and is spewing his Ego all over us!

That’s nothing!

The Vatican has munched and crunched the Cross, Corpse and all, and defecated over our whole world!

TIME OUT A quarter to Now is far too late to escape the shadow of your Fate.

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GENGHIS KHAN Often the excessively meek and mild are those who tried aggressively to conquer the known world and failed.

They are now preparing for the replay by posing as underdogs.

SLOW COACH You cannot normally teach a boy tennis, however intelligent he is, however good a coach you are formally, if he has no arms.

GOD If you see yourself as the Centre of the Universe, this has unfortunate consequences.

It would be better to see the Centre of the Universe as you (after a bad day at the office).

L’AMOUR A kiss in time saves a climb.

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TRUTH Laws which conflict with Truth are ultimately unenforceable without the acquiescence of the victim who chooses to can’t through fear.

St Michael, St Margaret and St Catherine told Joan of Arc that she would not be burned.

And they were right.

The Duke of Bedford bought her body from the Burgundians for ten thousand francs and had it burned and its ashes thrown into the Seine.

Her spirit remained where it had always been.

With God. She chose to can.

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COMPUTER TEMPLES The Faith Homes of the World, Buddhist, Moslem, Christian, have acquired spiritual bolt-ons built by enterprising entrepreneurs whose Collection Boxes funnel the money into hands that have slipped in between the sheets.

Thou shalt not kill (but needst not strive officiously to keep alive.)

Thou shalt not eat animals which have warm blood.

(But it’s OK to drain the blood out first and then go on and eat until you’re fit to burst!)

Give all you have to the poor and follow me.

(But don’t take the risk it might fall into the wrong hands and be wasted.

Give it to priest or mullah.)

There was a time when the treasures in the Vatican would have cancelled the Third World Debt.

(But they're worth much more than that now; and we keep them safe with tight security, not for the benefit of the Just, but for the Future’s Moth and Rust.)

Cometh the Apocalypse which will revert to Default Settings and truly “he” shall have his just reward.

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DEIST AND ATHEIST Be careful when you stop believing in God. He may stop believing in you.

Then there will be a Weeping and a Gnashing of Teeth!

A SILENT WOMAN A Silent Woman is the Highest.

A Silent Woman is more than rubies in the desert.

A Silent Woman is rarer than hens’ teeth.

Why is a silent woman rarer than hens’ teeth?

Because hens don’t have teeth.

Why is a silent woman more than rubies in the desert?

Because there are no rubies in the desert.

Why is a silent woman the highest?

Because there are no silent women.

Sadhu!

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (PARIS MATCH) Better and Better, Stronger and Stronger.

(Older and Older, Wronger and Wronger).

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PRIMARY ETHICS Don’t do what you don’t want done.

To you.

EVIL The eyes reveal Evil that lurks within, trying to conceal itself beneath someone else's skin.

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LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Let sleeping dogs lie Let weeping babies cry Let peeping ladies pry Let dying fires die Let soldier sentries spy Let shopping trollies buy Let dolphins sigh Let those that cannot, try Let those who can, deny Let heliophiles fry Let all our washing dry Let piglets fly and pigs clean out their sty Let briar roses bry Let Fo Fum fee and fi Let matelots shout, “Aye, aye!”

Let Nora exclaim, “Oh, my!”

Let be the apple of my eye Let the Catcher stay in the rye Let Dee and Edward Kelley scry Let the End be really nigh Let God eat our humble pie.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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TREASURE A pleasure is a treasure and thieves break in and steal it take it from where you feel it leave you to resent it and repent it at your unwanted leisure.

BABIES Babies do not cry through choice.

It’s just their suffering giving voice; wishing to share it with someone like you who can bear it.

In Latin this someone is called mater.

Nowaday’s-English comes much later, and I cannot find a word to translate her.

NOWADAY’S WOMAN The Lady Driver telephoned her husband.

What’s wrong, dear?

I’m sitting in the car but it doesn‘t move!

Tell me when you get home.

Dear.

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SMALL FRUIT I am the apple of her eye, she says, and does not take it kindly when I tell her I prefer pears.

Am I the apple of your eye?

She asks playfully and does not take it kindly when I reply wistfully, "At first, I thought you were a mote, but now I wonder, are you, perhaps, a beam?"

BUTTERFLY A butterfly came to dinner.

All the other guests sat and emptied their bowls.

The butterfly flew from one flower to the next taking a measured sip from every bowl.

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FEMINA AFRICANA Primitive woman She sit on her haunches She WORK. Nowaday's Woman She TRY she grow BEARD She just SHIRK. Primitive woman She bring up her children Just RIGHT. Nowadays woman She send them to school Out of SPITE.

MARY She is: oil upon troubled waters, an ear that listens; helping hands, a heart that understands.

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PERFECT ACTION When the fires are raging, don’t add fuel and the two worlds (the inner and the outer) subside into their natural state.

When the dogs of dissension and desire are sleeping, don’t wake them and the world is already cool and quiet.

NOTOSHA She says, There is a mind in the crack, a word in the wind.

Does she mean there’s a crack in the mind a wind in the word?

She says, I usually sit and start writing or type one up free flowing whatever comes to mind.

I see her sitting there creating a mirror for herself, with her words, that don’t have to rhyme, so that she can see the reflection of her own true face.

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APOTHEOSIS Just because God is within you doesn't mean you are God. FIRST PRIZE Nobel invented the scientific equivalent of the banana skin.

Who has won the prize for cutting a hole in the tiger’s cage at the zoo For babies to crawl into?

DEAD CERT It’s no good complaining and showing remorse when you backed the wrong horse, seeking excuses for taking the wrong course.

Better see that the winner is not your kind of sinner, that the girl you kissed was the plane that you missed.

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EXCUSES In the pursuit of pleasure (or the relief of pain), they abuse their leisure and then return to work again.

In the pool when the water is clear a thousand activities appear; a network of looking, seeing, willing; of turning, diving, chasing, catching, killing.

Nowhere is there a place where one might hide when everywhere is bright and clear inside.

A wind blows and the surface now confuses, reflects the sky and "I" and "My" - opaque and deviant excuses; a wind of words.

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RIGHT-ON CAT Marie is late with his saucer today.

Jasper sulks. Walks away.

Ignores her.

Refuses to purr.

Marie says, Jasper! Are you upset with me? She blinks.

He continues to stare through the space where she had thought was her place.

THE SUN was bored created a mirror to contemplate himself in.

Was bored broke the mirror into a thousand pieces.

Each of which was a mirror, showing a thousand suns contemplating himself in.

Was bored Repeat ad infinitum (or longer).

TIM’S PRAM Talks to his feet when he wants to eat.

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PATER FAMILIAS He sits there with his monologue just outside the synagogue, blaming those who do not hear him for not listening.

And those who hear him for listening in.

LA BELLE DAME She filled herself up with roses on which she could depend and invited her boyfriends in; then opened the door at the other end and dropped them into the bin.

She shut herself up with her memories, neatly on a shelf, or scattered about wantonly in a gilded Victorian Self; then locked the door to keep me out and threw away the keys!

All the might-have-beens and could-have-beens and weren’ts come back to overcast and haunt her setting sun and join her sad unlearnts.

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LORD GEORGE GORDON’S LAMENT If there were God, I could not bear not to be God. Therefore, there is no God.

MINE All somethings are somewhere and belong to no-one.

DESIRE If Desire is strong enough, she would rather not try than risk failure.

Short wives from previous lives!

I can see that enough is at least a little of what you fancy.

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TOI ET MOI is the eternal dance where those who love find one another and, taking their chance, reach up to highest Heaven above and down to deepest Hell.

There is no higher happiness than loving true and well.

Toi et Moi sail their fragile boat with single eye from birth to death and, if they master Fate, from death to birth again, distilling bliss from joy and pain.

But once beyond the mortal coil they end like Ondines in Giraudoux’s play; memories erased, unrecognising faces, laughing with present joy, turning to have their sport in other places.

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FINIS The End of the World is not up to you.

CHOOSING TO CAN’T I I have decided it is not my decision.

I have chosen to can’t.

If I choose to can’t then of course I can’t.

So I inherit the consequences of didn't.

If I choose I can’t go higher then of course I don’t go higher.

So I ceiling out.

If I don’t go higher then I sink lower.

The purple spiral down to where I chose from.

II If I choose to can’t then I don’t; so I can’t fail to not lose!

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EVERYMAN Everyman’s rope is a lifeline stretched across Niagara.

Humps in the road make you slow down.

Barbed wire around Stonehenge keeps you out.

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE The Canadian brown bear tracked her (and her cub) for days.

Caught her, ate the cub, while she watched him, and mated her.

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CHOOSING TO MUST Choosing to must choosing to can't choosing to shall choosing to shan't choosing to lose choosing to find choosing to cruel choosing to kind choosing to wise choosing to fool choosing to see choosing to blind choosing to truth choosing to lie choosing to believe choosing to why? choosing to live choosing to die No! Choosing to NO! choosing to choosing to choosing to choosing to choosing to

YES

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die - Gnome born, choosing to die born, choosing to die born is choosing to die born IS choosing to die born IS choosing to die.

INHERITORS Oh ye Inheritors of Immortal Bliss what are You doing with This?

Oh ye winners of lottery first prizes what are your doings with your winnings?

(Oh ye sinners of unexpected surprises what are you trawling up with your sinnings?)

AND ASHES TO ASHES Mingled dust of privet and rose petals swept by the wind gathered into cracks and empty spaces along the bottom of the wall.

Mingled dust of hopes and memories swept by the mind gathered into cracks and empty spaces along the bottom of us all.

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ISLAM Although the Hells keep filling up, they have elastic-sided walls.

(Anyone can be a success, but not everyone a failure.)

PYRAMID REFLECTED IN THE NILE Earth > body > mind > spirit > god.

God > spirit > mind > body > earth.

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MIDDLE WAY Follow the Golden Mean.

Neither an Ascetic nor a Self-indulger be.

Not Not Not Not Not Not

too too too too too too

much little hard soft rich poor.

Avoid the extremes.

What about killing? – asks Gnome.

What about killing, my son?

Killing is one extreme. not killing is the other extreme.

That is easy, my son!

Killing no-one is one extreme.

Killing fifty is another extreme.

Follow the spirit of the middle Way! Twenty-five is about right, I should say.

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LESSON IN DEMO CRAZY Read them from Karl’s Holy Book; make their poor brains twist and squirm.

Then, not only will they swallow the hook, they’ll leave the worm!

SPONTANEITY The strive to alive.

There are some things which, though honest, are better left unsaid.

PIANO PLAYERS Viewpoints are piano players.

They press your keys.

They show you what you don’t like.

You hate.

Hate triggers energy.

Energy turns viewpoints into Action.

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HEADS YOU WIN, TAILS YOU WIN To make yourself stronger: either you can make yourself stronger or or you can make others weaker.

ANSWERPHONE The phone rings at the mind door.

No need to wonder who is it for.

PASSENGER SEAT LADY The bespoke red-head feels like a trophy blonde, born and bred in the great beyond.

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EMPTY LIBRARY The books have all gone to their long home and the mourners go about the streets.

CAN’T OR CAN Choose can’t choose must.

Must die (must born).

Choose can choose need not.

Need not die (need not born).

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WHERE ARE YOU NOW? It was different in the past.

Especially in the village.

Before you could read Before there were newspapers Before there was radio Before there were telephones Before there were films Before there was TV Before there were computers Before there were smartphones Before there was the endless whispering of global gossip, You lived mostly where you were: on the street in the room at the market in the church in the inn in the fields.

You lived mostly where you were, suffered face to face with yourself and your neighbours.

As you grew older, your Past lengthened and you began to live in it with that diminishing group of friends who lived there too.

Things are different today.

No matter where, untidily, you park your body or put it on auto-walk 85

auto-eat, auto-read, auto-talk, auto-computer, auto-TV, you are usually meandering the surfaces of the earth or plundering the mists of cyber-space and the mysteries of Imagination’s Daughters, Past, Present and Future.

Your suffering enshrouds you like the veil in a premature womb-tomb; and any way you look at this you fail!

“Hey, hey, hey? Mrs. Robinson?

Hey, hey, hey!”

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BYRON Excessive use of stimulants stopped him sleeping at night.

Instead of going mad, he used to write.

THE UNIVERSAL OCTOPUS Each tentacle that used to be anonymous is now by mutual consent autonomous.

At first they may behave a bit like fools but they’ll do better when they know the rules.

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THE GREATEST Mohammed Ali feet of Clay sits his hulk and whittles his time away within the comfort zone and care of a large and expensive wheel armchair; to suffer the discomfort of his soul that hides within a bulk he can no longer control.

He is watching film after film where he is seen shouting “I AM THE GREATEST!” from his television screen.

No longer does he “fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

He cannot lift his hands.

And when he stands to go to the toilet, other men’s shoulders support his armpits.

See where he sits watching an electronic transmission of pictures of black men punching each other into submission.

Incredulously, he says “I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT IS ME!” He needn’t worry.

It isn’t.

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GETTYSBURG REVISITED Abraham Lincoln, may his name be blessed, has risen from his place of rest fearing that America is sinking beneath the weight of Third World Debt and the moral obligation to prevent the precious sacrificial oil falling into the hands of the Ungodly. “Fellow AMERICANS! Hear the Word of the Lord!

Eleven score and seventeen years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Do not allow the world to interfere with your electoral campaigns when you come to elect a new President.

But be fair!

Do not allow yourselves to interfere with their electoral campaigns when they come to elect their new Leaders in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Respect cultural differences.

If you would have yours respected, then you must show respect.

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Lead by example.

They should respect your casting of votes. and your ballot box.

You must respect their casting of bombs.

Remember!

Of the people by the people for the people!

Ours not to reason why!

Ours but to Live (and let Die).�

PAINTER (IN THE SCHOOL OF) You sign your name on your pictures?

You turn up the chance to share in a cosmic dance of unbounded creativity, where each and every human mind basks in luminous anonymity.

You are selling postage stamps framed in terminal mediocrity.

Even these you will have to leave behind.

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STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (TRAPDOOR TO HELL) Invent a God. Give him a name.

Such as I AM. Write down everything you think he might have said.

Make everybody believe it.

(Punish them if they don’t).

Tax everybody.

(Call it tithe or donation).

Relax into permanent retirement from actual work. - Gnome

FREEDOM Freedom is peddled as though it were a path to Peace.

It isn’t.

Peace paddles in Freedom.

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NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES When the cosmic traveller arrives on the scene with the latest harvest of new wine, he begins his cosmic task of giving it away for free to the needy and poor, the oppressed and those without even a foot to put in the door.

Then the superstores and megastores in Jerusalem, Lambeth, Rome and Arabia, which have been peddling old wine in old bottles and practising smart theoconomics, fear for their pockets and their palaces.

They can’t offer discounts and three for the price of one if the opposition is giving the stuff away.

Especially if the old wine (or vinegar as it is called in the trade) increases the thirst instead of slaking it.

In the good old days of Free Trade, when the megastores were Free to take whatever measures they saw fit to protect their treasures, they would put into action a three point plan: 1: they would offer to buy him out; 2: they would rough him up a bit, piss in his wine and accuse him of peddling contaminated goods without a valid licence; 92

3: they would kill him painfully and in the city centre.

Nowadays, they have to be more circumspect.

You can’t just crucify any old Tom, Dick and Harry to protect a commercial monopoly in petroleum oil and new wine from the vine (except perhaps in Arabia).

Using an officially selected sample of the establishment sour old wine as a standard, they compare a glass of the new wine to it and announce that it doesn’t meet trading standards.

They confiscate as much as they can get their hands on.

They sell a large quantity to the established purveyors of old wine.

These mix it with their brew so that it tastes not better but less worse.

Then they make it ILLEGAL TO GIVE AWAY NEW WINE FOR FREE. The penalties are draconian, not tokens like those for beating up old ladies or armed robbery or murder or child abuse or perjury, but right up there with the worst perversions of the human will.

Like avoiding VAT and cheating the Income Tax man.

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E = MC2 C is the speed of Light Only Light can travel at C Nothing can travel faster than light along the motor ways and byroads of the brain with its electrochemical signs.

Electro-powered Thought is restrained by C. But, once freed from the shapings of the last vestige of subtle matter, it can escape the neurochemical chatter and travel instantaneously and free.

Parking up on the hard shoulder, you can get out and wander across the fields.

The speed cameras are unlikely to steal your image and if they do they cannot read your registration number.

Motorway Maintenance will deal with anything you leave behind.

Energy and Matter are different forms of the same thing.

Like ice and water.

Matter turns into Energy, Energy turns into Matter.

That is all ye know or need to know.

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KNOTTING AND TATTING The string of Being winds throughout a luminous universe.

Everything your hand reaches out to grasp is Adam’s curse and a knot appears within your mind.

Your original face is suddenly forgot, hid in your own entanglement.

FRED Retreats into his head.

But the Irrawaddy in his spinning, the constant clinging to me and mine, floods the neurons in his body.

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TRAVEL LOG When I was very young there was something called “Grownups”.

(Like dinosaurs they are now “extinct” – the stage after “endangered species”).

Occasionally, a Grownup would say, “I was miles away!”

We children would look at the Grownup with wonder.

How did he do it without being seen?

“We children” are now an “endangered species”.

The “stage after” is even further away than miles.

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IN WHICH THE POET LAMENTS THE MISSED OPPORTUNITIES OF A MISSPENT YOUTH. When I was a young man I couldn’t help noticing that when young dogs wanted to mate they spent little if any time on small talk and conserved their energy by getting down to business as directly and economically as possible.

My contemporaries on the other hand approached those activities which, we were taught in our biology lessons, were necessary for the prolongation of the species, obliquely; with preliminary conversation, which, if not checked, tended to become not only the preliminary but the main course as well.

When one opened one’s mouth, one discovered that girls tended to think that one was trying to be clever and to be avoided, or worse that one actually was clever and to be avoided, or one was really not clever, which was better 97

since, properly handled, one might be usefully employed in carrying things that needed carrying, or opening doors that needed opening, or closing doors which were already open and needed closing, or paying for things that were needed and needed paying for.

The playing fields in which all this prolixity took place were called dance halls where one went to .. er to practise the preliminaries of the prolongation of the species, that is to say, learn how to dance.

If, grasping the nettle like young dogs (so to speak), we spent little if any time on small talk and conserved our energy by getting down to business as directly and economically as possible, we were, as economically as possible, thrown out.

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HERE IS NOW. Here exists in Space Now exists in Time, so how can they be the same?

New York exists in America (space).

New York exists at five o’clock (time) (say the Americans) But you can’t say New York IS five o’clock or New York IS America! (unless you are a New Yorker).

In the beginning (said the Greeks) was CHAOS. In the beginning (said the Egyptians) was SKY and EARTH. In the beginning (said the Hindus) was sat-chit-ananda which means being-consciousness-bliss.

Time is just movement through Space.

So, if I don’t move, there is no Time. (says Gnome.)

Watching a small egg become a caterpillar.

Watching a caterpillar eating a leaf.

Watching a caterpillar become a pupa.

Watching a pupa burst open and a butterfly crawling out.

Movements in space.

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Memory can capture a facsimile of the caterpillar and the butterfly and retain them separately.

This does not invent Time, it’s just something that Memory can do.

They were never separate.

They are always a continuum through space.

Memory can capture a facsimile of a child and of an adult and retain them separately.

They were never separate.

They are always a continuum through space.

Feeling can prefer the facsimile of the child to that of the adult.

Preference makes Regret and Joy. She was such an angel.

What went wrong?

She didn’t stop, says Gnome.

She kept going. She invented Time.

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GONE Gone forever?

Ever is a long time to be gone for.

ICHNEUMON PEOPLE Offering old ladies a helping hand across the road in an effort to make things better, you can always make things worse.

Especially if you are well-meaning.

Watch them struggle back to the other side where they wanted to be all along.

Compassion without intelligence.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER Seeing the eagle soaring high with wing beats slow and regal, the dunnock thought he’d have a try and dropped like a pebble out of the sky.

RUNAWAY TRAIN If you can’t stop it, best jump off it!

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“THE POOR ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU” The poor man shares the decreasing that he hasn’t with all.

But, as he climbs the slippery ladder of material increasing, he becomes disinclined to share the increasing even with sundry.

I’LL DO IT LATER When I was very young I collected all my laters and kept them in a large box.

The box filled up with its emptinesses.

When, in the fullness of time, I opened it to see me through my declining years, I found the empty box filled with the shadows of the memories of all my laters.

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TEMPUS MUTAT People differ in awareness of Time.

Brazilian Indians have no word for tomorrow.

Time is the measure of things moving through space.

Where there is nothing moving, not even thoughts, there is no awareness of Time.

When a dog sees you after a gap of years, he does not remember you.

He re-cognises you immediately.

RICE STORY There’s not a lot of romance in rice farming.

Either you’re sowing it or you’re reaping it or you're threshing it or you’re storing it or you’re milling it or you’re eating it or you’re composting it!

There's not a lot of song and dance in rice farming, except perhaps the eating it.

103

PEACE AND POWER There are those who want Peace and Peace is attainable.

There are those who want Power and Power may, or may not, be attainable.

There are those who want Power in order to be peaceful.

That is not attainable.

Freedom from can be freedom from Freedom to But Freedom to cannot lead to Freedom from.

BIAS If you start your journey with bias, you will end up where bias leads you.

Your destination will be where you started from.

You will have to start a new journey (having first got rid of your old bias).

104

BEAUTY The beauty of not expecting is noticing.

The beauty of noticing is being right.

“When I remember,” says Ezra Pound, “when I was young; I am now surprised how right I was.

In fact I was more right than I realised."

MAKE MY BED SOON When you say you are tired of life I only think you are calling for your Old Home to call for you.

EQUITES Those two horses eat the same hay but one outruns the wind, the other drags a cart out of someone else’s mud.

105

WALKING BACKWARDS? “All roads lead to Rome�, they say; and travel on the struggles and tracks onwards to their long-lost Home.

But if they start with Rome at their backs? and their faces away from the Celestial City?

All roads lead away!

The further you go, the further astray.

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS The Gods are interlopers all.

They collect like a crust on the cooling radiance of the Centre.

Their time being up, they fall as fall they must, evaporating in the shining radiance of the Centre.

The Gods are historical figures.

Outside of History, they have no existence.

First there was Being, then Becoming for Becoming's sake.

Becoming was a bit of a mistake!

106

INDIAN DEFENSE If you put a cat in a cage and lock the door and it stretches and rolls over on its side and falls asleep, you have not yet succeeded in taking away its freedom.

RUY LOPEZ A quick thrust down the middle of the chequered board with his motley pawns.

On his right a knight with his sword; on his left a bishop with his bible.

Mate!

Stout Cortez hanged the Black King, among the disarray of his pawns, before he had a chance to castle.

107

BLACK MAGIC ………. ...A flowering of the human spirit in which Evil torments and exploits as much of Creation as it can reach. ...A development of Freedom To, when the corner stone of Ethics is discarded, that proliferates and insinuates to as near Absolute Power as it can reach.

--- Its latest and fashionable flowering, Materialism…. …Its fruiting, concentration camps and guards, farms and farmers, vivisection laboratories and Ph.D.’s. …Its High Priests and Thought Police, Bishops and Ayatollahs and MPs. -- All those who seek to corral the Living Spirit and embed it in dense shadowy stuff called Matter.

There, compressed by pain, it evaporates away to re-form eternally somewhere else again.

108

TAKING OFF The Jumper Man has jumped as far as he can: out of the frying and into the pan.

THE NEW JERUSALEM Here, we look into our Future and stare at the Nothing there.

Jesus said: Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said: Tax the Bankers!

How far have we got on our way to where from?

109

EVE She offered me a White Rose in a sparkling blue glass Poison Bottle and talked of battling armies.

Later she said, “The white rose from the heart got mixed up with the white flag of truce.�

LINNET IN A CAGE Take away the brain and the mind has nowhere to shape itself in.

It needs to find another somewhere.

Take away the mind and the brain is a runaway train without a driver to apply the brakes.

The brainless mind fades back into the fading of its own devices.

The mindless brain is left in the scrap yard of merely mechanical resources.

110

CRYSTAL BALL Who among you can bear to peer into the Eternal Not; to disappear into the Nowhere, the irretrievably and absolutely Forgot?

BEGINNING THE END Beginning is beginning the end.

The end begins with the first step.

There is no middle to this muddle.

Whatever is not thirsting up to escape is being dragged back down to expire.

111

PYTHAGORAS AT THE OLYMPICS Three classes of people attended the Games in honour of Zeus.

The lowest kind to buy and sell.

The middle to compete.

The highest to watch.

So it is with human society, - those Games in honour of power and wealth.

The highest are the true philosophers.

They do not do anything.

They just observe.

MARIE ANTOINETTE A woman who expected the birds to be grateful for their plateful of crumbs.

TRICOTEUSES Ungrateful Birds who never forgot and wanted the life of the Baker's Wife.

112

AGEING EARLY (A SELF-DESTRUCT GUIDE TO BURN-OUT) Behold the Politics of Despair!

From Madrid to Botus Fleming they have looked into the Future and seen the Nothing there.

They have joined up with the Lemmings and rush to pubs and clubs where they drink as much as they can’t manage and creep to bed at half past four.

Drink and sleep cannot repair their damage.

So they crawl back down to breakfast, parching for some more.

Whatsitmatterwhatitsfor?

YOUNG LOVE Boy sees girl.

What is your purpose, Mr Wittgenstein?

To show the fly, the way out of the fly bottle.

And who is your assistant there?

Percy Spider.

113

THEY ALSO SERVE‌ He was short and stern and talked and smoked incessantly.

His father was a real professor who had written the standard work on south-east Asia.

He was named after the Conqueror of Jericho.

In khaki civil servant uniform, he looked the archetypal explorer.

His wife was fat, pleasant and long-suffering.

One evening he confessed that every night he had to endure the ritual humiliation of satisfying her nocturnal lusts.

TEACHER I remember my old teachers, how they were older, solid, serious men.

I see them now and hear their serious, authoritative voices.

And then I realise that I am now much older than they were then!

114

SPIRIT Spirit is the substance of Happiness.

It cannot be perceived by Mind or Body.

It infuses them when there are no fences facing.

SANGSÄ€RÄ€ Sitting on the spokes, he cannot see the wheel clearly, being part of the movement.

And the grasshopper shall be a burden.

At the still point of the turning wheel, Desire fails and the axle pole becomes an observation post for the solitary soul.

And man goeth to his long home.

And the mourners are dragged around the wheel.

115

OH ROSE OF ALABAMA‌ Oh don't ask, Why? For, if, we don't find, the next whisky bar, I tell you, I tell you, I tell you, we must die!

Forgive the Past. - Gnome Why? If I forgive the Past, I will lose everything.

Yes. - Gnome So what will I gain?

Everything. - Gnome Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs IS the Kingdom of Heaven.

116

OWN SEED, ONE SEED Oh we are the Hermit Crabs.

We sow not neither do we spin.

We have inherited an earth we have not merited by birth.

We have driven you out of your God-given shelter, built with the pains of your merited birth, and we breed at the rate of exponential interest and, thus, we inherit the earth.

This Christmas Day, I said to Jesus when you were alive you healed the sick and cast out evil spirits.

Do you remember?

Can you do that now?

From where you are now?

He is silent. He feels in his mind.

He sees the ever spinning world.

Nowadays mammons are very powerful.

Everywhere.

Can you do that now from where you are now?

Yes. Can you appear directly?

Or through an agent? Or both?

Both.

117

PATIENCE The patience of the old woman: raveling and unraveling somebody’s memories like skeins of wool, to darn the tattered covering of an ever-fading life in which, according to somebody's memories, she was once a woman and a wife.

The patience of the sick: waiting for the stab of the hypodermic to bring oblivion, while the night nurse smothers a yawn, waiting for the day nurse to relieve her; and the dawn allows a little more greyness into the room.

The patience of Life itself: so patiently propelling a single breath.

Patience lost, evaporation at the merest suggestion of Death!

118

ST DOMINIQUE VENNER (DIED 2013) Via Viatores Quaerit. St Augustine (The Way seeks Travellers).

On Tuesday, Sanctus Dominique, May his Name be Blessed, despairing of that peace of mind men seek, awakened from the dream of his unrest, to find within the Vision of his Mental Disarray His Conscience clearing all the clouds away!

A suicide bomber dies to leave more innocents for dead.

Dominique saw that he must martyrise himself instead, and cause no harm to fifteen hundred of the Faithful gathered in Notre Dame.

He held a mirror to awaken sleeping minds to what they do not understand; the creeping poisons that blind and bind the soul and individual, destroy the anchors of family and fatherland.

"I have a strong belief my friends will transcend their grief with pride once they comprehend the reason why I died."

119

On Wednesday, Satan sent his youngest daughter to prostitute a human's body before Jehovah's altar.

Je suis la voie qui cherche les voyageurs.

LOVE THOU THE ROSE BUT LEAVE IT ON ITS STEM How odd that humans choose to hide their sex with clothes they have derived from plants and so disguise them.

And yet they cut from plants their sex (which they call flowers) and stick them in rose bowls and vases, put them on show and highly prize them!

120

CAFE LES DEUX MAGOTS The Cafe is famous.

The Coffee is expensive.

I sit on the self-same red and padded seats, the original brass rail behind my neck, the two Magots, ancient Chinese statues, hanging above my head.

Here, just here, Two ancient post war Intellectual Magots, Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, sat as part of their ritual living together.

The Chinese Magots hang there still above my head.

The Intellectual Magots float in the mists of temps perdu within my mind.

Jean-Paul says "At the moment of orgasm the illusion is ended and we return to ourselves."

He spent much time ensuring (with as many of everyone as he could get hold of) that scientific experiment would always confirm this theory of his.

Simone says "One is not born a woman, but becomes one" 121

She then invented herself to become someone who spent much time wanting sex with everyone of every sex especially children (but without having children.)

Together they reinvented Philosophy (the love of Wisdom) as Serial Orgasm; complete with a philosophistical justification.

The most famous of her beloved "everyones", Nelson Algren, says "J-P and S were bigger users of others than a prostitute and her pimp in their way."

J-P and S say " There is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it."

The Chinese Magots still hang in an eternal present.

The Intellectual Magots still fade in the unconsummated past they made.

Ghosts still seeking mutual consolation.

The Coffee is still expensive.

122

LA PLACE DE LA CONCORDE (Harmony Square) La Place de la Concorde near the H么tel Crillon.

In the Temps Perdu: Madame Lafarge (who never forgets) and the tricoteuses (who never forget) sit and knit and wait for Marie Antoinette.

"With my machine," Dr Guillotin tells the Assembl茅e Constituante, "I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it!"

In the Here and Now: a yellow granite obelisk from the Luxor Temple, a gift from an Ottoman Viceroy, rises seventy five feet above the centre of the square.

It, too, lost its cap in the sixth century BC. Unlike Marie Antoinette. it has been given a gold-leafed replacement.

In 2000, the French "Spiderman", no hard hat or safety net, just climbing shoes and hands quite bare, scaled the obelisk right to the top, to the astonishment of Harmony Square!

123

SOLDIER LEE RIGBY Lee Rigby was killed.

He was identified as a Defender of his Country.

His Killer will receive the full protection of that Country and its lawyers.

The Killer's religion will continue to receive the full protection due to an endangered species.

That Country's Prime Minister will continue the dismemberment of his Country's Church and Constitution, begun by his predecessors.

The Rich will continue to get richer.

The Poor will continue to get poorer.

Such is the country that he died to serve.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

(All of them...)

124

I, ME, MINE A flower does not think or see and cannot therefore feel itself as ‘me’.

Seeing tempts us out of being and what is seen provokes the question: “Who?” And hence the echoed answer: “You!”

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL...

The sinner in the mirror will reveal what you conceal.

(The place to correct what it reflects is the face).

125

FOUNDATION The great Foundation on which all things rest is soon lost sight of, soon forgot, fails to hold man’s interest as entanglements lead to great confusion (due to the power of the great Illusion); until he cannot see what is real and what is not.

A slight vibration in the ear Makes the whole wide world appear With laugh and shout, wind and rain, Grief and heartache, joy and pain Singing along a thin membrane.

Machines and sermons – all are here In the slight vibration of the human ear.

Disconnect the electronic train Which links it to the human brain.

A sudden silence fills the head.

The mind feeds on itself instead.

A thousand voices it can hear Can cause a myriad images appear.

Let go. Let go. Let go.

Let go what’s in and what’s outside And seek not for another place to hide.

The silent stillness waits like a drawn arrow To leap into the void and space.

A raindrop falls into the sea (Losing of moisture not a trace) But finding out at last how, finally, to Be.

126

HOW TO BECOME A CONCERT PIANIST You don’t get to ride a bicycle by studying the manual.

You don’t get the freedom of the Lion’s Den by claiming that your name is Daniel.

(You don’t get to be a concert pianist by listening to CDs.) And yet these things are easy.

Riding a bicycle is just a matter of not falling off.

Not being eaten by Lions just means not being edible.

And a concert pianist?

He trains his fingers to obey the music in his brain, Like the boy who whistles without wondering how he whistles.

It’s not so easy to set the mind free (Make the blind See).

How can we accomplish this by yawning for an hour?

(Most days).

127

UNBORN There! in the darkness, waiting.

The Unborn: looking for their opportunity in the Moist Earth.

Where they can flower, carried along on the stream of unfolding consciousness.

Only by constant vigilance is the Bind Weed kept in the Dreamtime.

Left abandoned in the stagnant backwater of Time; To become no more.

128

THE RUDDER A smoking cloud of thoughts blots out the sun; swirls in ever-changing imaginative shapes.

Vast and pervasive it billows through space.

What is this phantasmagoria?

Tiny specks of soot.

While this is still our daily bread from the ovens of our senses, we have not yet gone beyond.

Stumbling in this darkness; fuelled by earthly fires.

What rudder?

In whose hand?

Put out the fire; and then put out the fire that burns beneath our funeral pyre.

129

PURIFY THE MIND From Mt. Kailas, birthplace of Shiva, Lord of All, the snow slides down the Himalayas melting into pure water and becomes Ganga the holiest of rivers.

Absorbing the works of nature and of man, it flows past temples, villages, rice fields and factories, and Calcutta slums, - and comes, at last, to meet the sea in the Bay of Bengal.

On its way it purifies the faithful, accepts the bodies of the dead and funeral relics, washes elephants, infuses tea; and harbours cholera and an influx of chemicals and sewage.

As a carrier it is a vehicle of Life.

According to its contents, it sustains or kills!

130

SINGLENESS OF MIND Single-minded Sally woke up just before she died and, looking round the Faces, saw there was no place to hide.

Single-minded Sally knew she'd left it far too late and she could not think of any way to make the Faces wait.

And the way they all kept looking with their strange unblinking eyes made it absolutely certain she was in for a surprise.

Single-minded Sally took a long and lingering breath and explained, without much confidence, she wasn't ready for her death!

The Faces went on staring and their mouths began to grin and they clattered all their yellow teeth which made a fearful din.

Single-minded Sally fought for breath with all her might.

And all those yellow Faces blew and Sal went out just like a light!

131

SERPENTS The Serpents dance hypnotically filling the Void with Thought.

And in their game of wish-fulfilment the Sons of Man are caught.

Slaves to the Dream Creations, enflamed by its Hot Desires, craving ever-new sensations, singed by the Ancient Fires, they sink from brightness into embers from cinders into dust, with which they fashion ever new surrenders for their never cooling Lust.

In their high empyrean mansions, the Masters watch and pass down from Perfect Peace – living, trans-sangsaric ladders for the burning souls’ release.

132

HE THAT EARS LET HIM HEAR The buzzing in the Brain forms a screen so that what is really quite plain is hardly heard or seen - ubiquitous and trans-eternal Pain.

Voices drifting on the winds of space, leaves from the Tree of Time; telling the Seasons, warning of disasters to come, (or already here), of evil lapping at the threshold, of the omnipresent worm, of the spider spinning his web in the palaces of kings, of the need for mindfulness, and purity.

133

THE BEGINNING Trace it all back as far as you can from where it ends up to where it began: From knife to the hand, from hand to the eye; from footprints on sand to the sun in the sky.

Trace it back further to where it begins to the gateways and windows where all things get in.

How the scent is not the rose but the hairs that line the nose.

The seascape is the roving eye, the pancake the swelling tongue.

Mozart is what you hear and his place is in the ear.

And all the subtle sensations that impinge upon the skin flare their little on/off switches in the mind that shines within.

134

SILENCE Opiates heal, applying a chemical bellows to the Vital Heat, a golden silence.

At what cost!

Matchstick limbs out of Auschwitz Fever-bright eyes Such sweet poison!

Music heals.

Early music; Greek Olympian music.

Clusters of notes with open phrasing dancing on the surface of the Void and tumbling endlessly in.

Leaving no trace.

But the great unmatchable healer is Silence itself.

Into it everything subsides; half-formed phrases, the concatenation of thought and the sword-play of tongues.

They all vanish like snowflakes in a raging furnace, leaving no trace.

He who has tasted the healing wholeness of the Great Silence, which lies behind Sound, as the sky lies 135

behind planet and star and cosmic dust, he does not pursue the clatter of sound.

WHICHEVER Whichever path you follow you will always end up here; and never over there.

And here is always now; never yesterday or tomorrow.

KARMA When Karma stops It's time for the mops; They're an integral part of the process.

When the course is run And the mopping's done, We can, then, begin to progress.

136

POSSESSION There is the fire that consumes and the fire that illumines.

There is Desire and there is Love.

Those motivated by Desire see things they wish to possess, things they do not wish to possess, and other things of no interest whatsoever.

Those motivated by Love see Fellow Travellers in a thousand different forms; mirrors of one Fire.

They feel compassion and sympathetic joy and friendly interest.

Others again see transmutation everywhere; and pain.

Only a fool thinks to possess the moon reflected in a pool, or a sandcastle or an articulated puppet.

137

LIVING WATERS In the Living Waters of the Mind What you seek is what you find.

What you think is what you drink.

What you see is how you look.

What you get is what you took.

Purifying the mental plane Reduces the pain Of coming back again.

TRUTH IN A NUTSHELL Are you nut or shell?

Inner seed that germinates and grows into the Tree of Life?

Or outer shell, which, having fulfilled its purpose, is food for compost heap or fire?

MOVE ON If you don’t like it Here, Bring it closer.

138

THE BREATH OF LIFE It is not Atlas who carries on his shoulders the world with all its teeming life forms its cities and citizens its poets and fools.

It is the breath of life which fans the vital heat each time it cools.

Watching the breath you enter into that empty space between Life and Death.

139

WIND BLOWS Wind blows; a thousand drops of water fly out into space each drop a perfectly cohesive separateness.

Wind falls. Each drop sinks into the ocean.

Indistinguishable from the sea.

Christians and Moslems do not have individual souls.

Their separateness is leased from the Inseparable and Indivisible.

Even when, as angels, singing their Hosannas, they circle in ecstasy around the Holy of Holies.

Finally, when sated with the bitter sweetness of separateness, they surrender the lease and sink into the Inseparable.

Indistinguishable from the Whole.

140

“THE QUEEN MY LORD IS DEAD" From an egg the size of a pin head, it crawls out to join the living and the dead and finds its food beneath its feet and, in its genes, the insistent urge to eat.

It eats and eats both night and day as though to eat its tiny life away.

It grows and bursts its outer skin which can’t contain the ‘eatery’ within.

It grows and bursts and grows and bursts again.

For every new skin fulfils its role in vain.

Until one final layer the incessant eating rends.

And then it stops and all this eating ends.

It dries a final, fragile, inner sheath and stills the eating factory beneath.

Below this hardening glossy skin Transforms a brand new living being within; six legs, an abdomen, thorax, antennae, proboscis and multi-lensed, diamond eye.

And when this silent task is done, The casing splits and out Creation brings - a shiny, quivering something with folded wings, which stamps its fragile feet and struggles round and hangs this strange new being upside down.

141

Blood pumps into crumpled wings.

Expanded, they reveal the beauty that it brings.

There it hangs and waits for them to dry And then fulfils its destiny. To fly!

To fly. To float. Taste nectar from each flower.

Enjoy the bliss of its appointed hour.

Soak up the sun on some south sheltered wall, And sun and dream until the end of all!

“The Queen, my lord, is dead.”

“She should have died hereafter.”

142

QUEEN MARY She lays her head upon the block, awaits the executioner’s riposte.

The thin-spun life splits at the shock and Scotland, England, France are lost.

Empty phenomena rolling on.

Since there is no me, there is no responsibility.

But the pain is real.

143

MONITOR THE WIND Flaws upon a face; each indicates a place where pain and sorrow grew as each eddy of death-in-life flowed through.

Monitor the wind that scatters the leaves the storm destroyed.

Monitor the mind that blows its dead selves through the Void.

Each imperfection is a recollection of where unguarded thoughts drew near and left their mark; A clear reflection (in a dusty mirror) of deep and dazzling Dark.

144

IT CAME TO MIND “It came to mind,” She says.

Horse or Rider?

It came to mind.

A flower of the Void?

Or something that builds its web inside her?

At Troy the Gods took sides making the Trojans deaf to Cassandra’s warnings.

Wotan fought against his favourite son, killing Siegmund high above the clouds.

Who rides whom on earth and sky and in the labyrinth of society?

The one you meet on any street, who confronts you or speaks you fair – Is it with him you have to do?

Or is he a messenger for One not there?

“It came to mind.”

A flower of the Void?

Or something that builds its web inside her?

Horse or rider?

145

THE SCREEN Roll up the screen.

The painted Pageant is destroyed!

Cities reduced to dust; the dust itself to patterns in the Void.

Just the other side of seeing, all that’s been is everywhere trapped in the flowing grasp of Being.

A tap at the window A knock at the door A beckoning finger Who is it for?

How you respond depends on what is what it ends on.

146

THE MOUSE The Mouse that scuttles down the bank across the bricks and back again carries no wallet and all its baggage is in the simplicity of its brain.

The Bird that slides across the wind has left its briefcase in a former life together with its house its mortgage (and its wife).

The Beetle with antlers like a stag's needs no loans, pays no tax and lives inside its bones.

Only Man has spread his thought far and wide; is caught in its pulsating web, and grasping at every thread, is trapped inside.

147

IN THE DEAD TREE, THE DRAGON SINGS Which tree?

Which dragon?

A coffin is a dismembered, sawn up tree, undoubtedly dead.

The dragon inside could be you or me a winding sheet from heel to head.

Buried alive, unable to get out, I can't think we'd have much to sing about.

Merlin was trapped within a druidic oak by Vivien and is there still.

Yet there's no evidence that he's a dragon or that he sings.

Though Vivien both danced and sang in a triumphant frenzy at the surrender of his will.

Traditionally dragons lived in mountain caves with their spoils; breathing fire at would-be despoilers.

In India we meet the dragon of Kundalini with eyes, a metaphorical conceit for the powerfully wise, gnostic visionaries who realise that, 'I am ME!' Third eye opened to Eternal SEE. (But still, within the Sangsara, 148

not completely free).

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Not grasping after the Four.

Relinquishing the Five.

Whether for half an hour, while still alive, or, giving it all back free for all the rest of vast eternity; - the silent singing is still heard, a living language that does not need a word.

HEDGEROW FLOWERS The more I label the less I am able to see..

The more I see the less I am able to label.

149

RAIN FALLS Blackbird calls from the bottom of the lane.

Magpie came and raided nest, leaving blank maternal pain.

TEENAGER Although one feels for him compassion up to a degree, the reason he’s in prison is because he turned the key.

EQUATION If you love another then you trust him.

If you do not trust him then you cannot love him.

150

WHAT IS WHAT? A boat afloat on the stream of time.

On either bank the dream; a banquet for the senses.

A blaze of colour and livingness of music and messages to tempt and amaze; enticements and instant memories; the enchanting voice of the serpent.

Afloat on the stream from nowhere to nothing.

151

HEROES OF OUR TIME BABIES AND BATH WATER Timothy Leary said: Turn on Tune in Drop out!

John Lennon said: Love! Love! Love!

Bob Dylan said: I started out on Burgundy But soon hit the harder stuff.

Everybody said they’d stick around And help me when the game got rough.

But the Joke was on me There was nobody even there to bluff!

I’m going back to New York City I do believe I’ve had enough.

John Lennon said: We were like a hypodermic.

We got to the top and then started talking sex and drugs.

Timothy Leary absconded to Switzerland to an empty room with a mattress on the bare floor chanting, “I fuck the universe every day!”

Bob Dylan lost his precious talent and his spiritual life in a motor bike crash and was reinvented 152

as a walking corpse with a mechanical voice.

John Lennon sold out and had to pay back every single farthing he got for selling out.

Turned on. Tuned in. Dropped out. Sex and Drugs. Absconded. Lost. Sold out.

And Anthony Ginn?

LEGISLATION You cannot legislate morality you can only punish what you think is immorality.

You cannot teach good behaviour you can only encourage respect for self and others.

153

JESUS’ CURSE (IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE) Delivered from the Cross with all the authority of the Saviour of the World at the precise moment of his people’s rejection of Him. Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.

And within forty years it came to pass.

Their Temple had been destroyed.

Their Holy of Holies had been trampled by Titus.

Their sacred paraphernalia had been looted.

The consecrated foundations of their city had been ploughed over.

A million had been killed during the siege and 97,000 were captured and enslaved.

A Roman coin was minted showing a Jewish woman in chains under a palm tree.

When the Romans built a replacement city The Jews were forbidden entrance.

Homeless, they wandered the earth facing hard won prosperity followed by expulsion from every place they settled in.

Finally, 154

after two millennia of statelessness, after six million had died in a Final Solution, a plot of land was carved by force for them from the cosmopolitan humanity of Palestine and they were settled in the midst of their most ancient enemies.

Proud, but unrepentant, in fulfillment of their Saviour’s curse: Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.

And it could have been worse.

155

BUTTERFLY’S EGG Nature’s miniature opalescent crystal ball.

Explore it from outside-in and your finest scientific eyes are lost in its unimaginable vastness which opens onto the totality of the outer universe.

Nothing can be seen by blinded scientific eyes of the everything there.

For the would-be observer dissolves.

Explore it from the outside-out with your finest human eyes and its immensity emerges as the finest shred of cotton thread and proceeds to eat its way along the leaf its tiny footprints clasp and wander on with all its new companions.

They eat their vernal habitation, burst skins, yet never do their congregation give rise to thought or conversation as to their likely destination.

The universal Satnav impels them from within needing no map or entomological education.

And when at last they can eat no more and cast off one final unwanted skin there is no lingering backward glance or forward looking hesitation at the unknowability of their destination.

156

They hang, crumpled shrouds, upon the nearest twig and draw out from the vastness of their invisible Centre the tools and blueprints of their future metempsychosis as conquerors of the Air itself.

Wings and radar and ambulatory landing gear and a delicate coiled hose for refueling at the living floral filling stations.

BREATH The hand in the fire feeling the pain.

The head in the oven going insane.

The eyes at the window watching the rain.

The ears in the stalls, it's Mozart again.

The nose on the mongrel sniffing the drain.

Left goes thus, right goes thus, clearly conscious, without fuss.

Breathing in, breathing out, nothing to get stressed about.

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JEHOVAH’S FOOTPRINTS As recorded diligently by descendants of Adam in Hebrew and Aramaic & translated into English by 47 scholars between 1604 and 1611, Together With a Commentary and Questions by Gnome

How did it all begin?

GENESIS ONE: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And God saw every thing that he had made.

And behold, it was very good.

So, that’s alright then!

God created man in his own image.

Male and female created he them.

Perfect!

And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; 158

to you it shall be for food.

So, god invented veganism, then.

GENESIS THREE: Unto Adam and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

Where did he get those skins from, then?

GENESIS FOUR: And Abel was a keeper of sheep.

Why did he need to keep sheep, then?

And Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

What did God want with the fat thereof, then?

GENESIS EIGHT: And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And the Lord smelled a sweet savour.

So, god invented an alternative to veganism, then?

GENESIS NINE: 159

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them: The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; unto your hand are they delivered.

So, would the fear and dread be because they didn’t like being killed and hadn’t realised that god had said it was alright?

And God said: Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

Not by bread alone, then?

GENESIS SEVENTEEN: And God said; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

Similar to branding, then?

Must be the longest covenant in history.

They’re still doing it.

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Ishmael’s descendants do it to little girls, too!

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not thy seed.

So god invented trafficking in babies too, then?

GENESIS TWENTY TWO: And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him: 'Abraham'; and he said: 'Behold here I am.'

And he said: 'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'

“God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son!’

Abe said, ‘ Man, you must be putting me on!’”

Filicide?

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and a knife; and they went both of them together.

And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said: 'My father.'

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And he said: 'Here am I, my son.'

And he said: 'Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?'

That’s a fair question.

Will Abe speak true like a Just Man? And Abraham said: God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.

Clever! Like a Lawyer.

So they went both of them together.

And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.

And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

How far have the footsteps led us from the Garden of Eden?

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

HERE ENDETH THE FIRST LESSON

And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven and said: 'Abraham, Abraham.'

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And he said: 'Here am I.' And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest god, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.' And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, behind him, a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.

And who among you will intervene to save this ram?

And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.

Time for Another Covenant, then?

By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hath done this thing that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore.

And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.

I thought so!

And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Unless he changes his mind.

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Again.

HERE ENDETH THE SECOND LESSON.

How did he expect them to behave when they entered as strangers into another country?

What was the approved protocol or etiquette?

JOSHUA 6.21: And they utterly destroyed everything that was in Jericho, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and, sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

So Adolf didn’t invent genocide, then.

JOSHUA 6.24: And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.

God’s banker? Did they all go along with that?

JOSHUA: 7.20/21: And Achan answered Joshua.

When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent.

Tax evasion?

JOSHUA 7.24: And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the mantle and the wedge of gold, and his sons and his daughters, and his oxen and his 164

asses and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had.

Here it comes!

JOSHUA 7.25: And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day.

And all Israel stoned him with stones; then burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.

JOSHUA 7.26: And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from his burning anger.

Pour encourager les autres?

What sort of assistance did god give in the battles?

JOSHUA 10.11: And as they (the Amorites) fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Bethhorn, the Lord threw down great stones from heaven upon them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the men of Israel killed with the sword.

Not a level playing field, then?

EPILOGUE: GENESIS TWENTY-SEVEN GOD Created man in his own image.

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Or did WE Create GOD in OUR own image?

IAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIAMIA MIAMIAMIAMIAM

AM I?

AND THEN? Nietzsche said: God is dead !

God said: Nietzsche is dead.

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BAIT FOR THE PRICE OF HOOK (Special offer) Colin and Chris have bought a ticket for a pound.

In exchange for this, they have received a cheque for ÂŁ161,653,000.

They are, rightly, the envy and admiration of everyone in the world.

However, according to Gnome, they have exchanged a three bedroom underground Dungeon, overlooking the sea in Ayrshire, for a penthouse suite in the Universal Prison next door to the Beckhams.

However, according to Gnome, the upgrade in prison accommodation also means that their sentences have been extended; from life imprisonment to "indefinite incarceration".

However, asked how he felt about his change of circumstances, Colin replied, "Chuffed."

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THE FOUR GOSPELS The Gospel writers wrote in Greek.

Jesus spoke in Aramaic.

He who understands and knows can do.

He who has seen the doing can bear witness to what he sees.

He who cannot do the doing does not understand and know.

Jesus did not diagnose the lame, the lepers and the blind.

He healed them (and cast out their demons).

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IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE Your true Self plays tennis for joy for fun; like children dancing hand in hand on the sand in the foaming breakers.

Two fingers of the same hand drumming an improvised rhythm.

The Egoic Mind plays everything to win.

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THE ARMISTICE DAY POEMS What follows are three poems written on Armistice Day, November 11, covering a period of twenty one years.

The world has changed in a remarkable way during that time, as have its human inhabitants.

And it seems that the astral plane has changed, too, in a strange and misty kind of way.

Included among them, is the record of a piece of research done in November 2012, when we were using the methods of practical time-track travel, described in the book Centre, to explore and, in some cases verify, historical events. These have been published as Previous Lives and Astrals, Experiments using the Centre.

This seems to indicate also in the relationship its multitude of astral World War and their “inheritors”.

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that a change occurred of the astral world with “survivors” of the First human descendants or

ARMISTICE DAY 1993 “Died some pro patria non dulce non et decor.”

So Ezra Pound adapted Horace’s lines for those whose sufferings for their nation had bred a dull, dark, painful generation with gloria cauterised from their minds.

In the calendar their deaths are still recorded.

Poppies and medals and uniforms are worn.

Services are held and sacrifices lauded.

Public concern and private grief are borne.

On a cold November day.

In a cold November wind.

In Oxford 1993, in remembrance of their sufferings and trials, cars are towed untidily from St. Giles and scattered without symmetry in surrounding streets.

To protect old rememberers from new bombs.

This is the point where past and present meet.

Cadets march tidily down George Street, to run the gauntlet of upper windows, from which insults are scattered like intellectual litter: ‘What a lot! What do you look like?’

Hard and bitter.

This is the recompense the present shows, as they turn and turn about, from windows set in golden stone in upper storeys, 171

which had been saved, no doubt, pro patria (sed cum dolore) by those who fell in thousands, cast like human litter, broken and bitter, upon the dying fields of Flanders.

What they fell for then is out of fashion.

They too are not protected from jibes and slanders; and their spirits are blown down Broad Street, past Martyrs’ Memorial (which commemorates others who died for a faith which is also out of fashion).

Stripped of their glory, all like transcendental dust, seeking a refuge among the Just.

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11TH HOUR, 11TH DAY, 11TH MONTH November Rose.

Pink and white and mauve.

Solitary, still, among the rosemary and late autumnal gorse.

Sea winds have blown.

The first frosts have frozen the short grass.

Spring and summer are memories, midwinter an echo in reverse.

November Rose for the dying.

November Poppies for the dead, who cannot sleep but stream towards new birth; whose pain outlasts the bitter Flanders earth.

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FLANDERS FIELD (11/11/12) Enter the Heart Chakra. What can be seen? A meadow. An enormous meadow, stretching as far as can be seen in all directions. In the centre of it is a great tree.

"What is this great meadow?"

"It is Flanders Field."

"Let the astrals appear!"

After a long time, a trench appears stretching as far as the eye can see. It is full of soldiers with rifles and behind them great guns.

Opposite them, in the far distance and facing them is another similar trench, also full of soldiers holding rifles, with guns behind them.

This must be the enemy. All the time, the soldiers and the guns behind them are firing.

But nothing can be heard. It is all completely silent.

All the soldiers have Centres of varying colours, mostly gold but also dark blue and some green.

Make yourself visible to them. All of them.

They stop and are surprised.

Make their Centres brighter.

"It is all over! You can go home now!"

They stare, uncomprehending, in the silence.

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"It is all over! You can go home now!"

"It is all over! You can go home now!"

After the third time, realisation and understanding gradually appear in their faces.

"It is all over! You can go home now!"

Slowly they subside into their Centres. Their bodies shrivel and sink into the earth.

The great tree stands with the bare branches of winter.

The trenches disappear into grass.

"Let this place have fertile soil for five hundred years!"

The silence and peace are palpable. There is no sign that there were ever soldiers here.

There are small buds forming on the tree.

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ARMISTICE DAY 2014 What They died for has not survived their sacrifice.

The fabrics of communities that were theirs are pulled apart by rough fingers of their unappreciative heirs.

Their homes are bulldozed to feed the appetites of developers.

Their schools are surrendered to the Apostles of Materialism: Educational Factory Farming, where those who pay the pipers write the menus.

Their Churchmen dress themselves as antique Ecclesiastical Patricians.

But they have incarnated as back-door politicians.

Chosen to be Guardians of Morality, they have shaped it to their tastes and decided that sexual perversion is normality.

They lecture All and Sundry, that is the Government, on economic decisions, but pay no heed to giving unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.

God, the former Archbishop has declared, 176

is like an autistic child.

His successor, who made his living in Oil, before becoming a Man of the Cloth, was promoted by the Prime Minister, another back-door politician, to be Archbishop.

Since when, his most notable spiritual offering to the Hungry whom Jesus comforted in the Beatitudes, has been, "The other day I was praying as I was running and I ended up saying to God: 'Look, this is all very well, but isn't it about time, you did something – if you're there'.�

May they forgive us the ceramic poppies, the couple of minutes’ silence, the smart uniforms, which cannot disguise our failure to protect what they died to preserve.

These cannot hide the huge invading armies that come, unarmed, to dilute the integrity of our Nation and claim, as of right, the booty of our work placements and the treasure of social benefits.

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May they forgive us our ingratitude.

May they relinquish Suffering and Pride, May they relinquish Honour and Shame, to make room in their Hearts for the Immensity of all embracing Peace!

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FILLING THE SPACE Bring an ornament into your room And you make space to accommodate it.

Create a teeming universe out of nothing And simultaneously you must create space to accommodate it.

NO EXIT Even on this beach are found footprints of the Eternal.

Even on the wooden planks of this bridge to nowhere.

Think!

There is no escape from Freedom!

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G 20 SPEAKS. Go for growth say our Masters.

Globally! and Growbally! and not too Slowbally!

And the Rich grow richer (and the Poor grow poorer And not too slowbally, says Gnome.)

And the bombs fall thicker (on legitimate targets).

Go for Stability and Peace, say we!

Globally! as we are herded into the pens with the poorer.

And let not the bombs fall out of the sky on us!

And as our pens get more crowded, may we not become someone else’s legitimate targets.

Abolish Poverty say our Reformers!

(If you abolish Greed, says Gnome, Poverty will disappear by itself.)

Abolish Greed, scream the Reformers!

(Alas, says Gnome, Only the Greedy can abolish Greed.)

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JESUS SAID If thine eye be single thy whole body will be full of light.

Put the World to rights say the blind!

Remove the Murky darkness!

(Alas, says Gnome, If you were to take off your dark glasses, you would see the world does not need putting to rights.)

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JESUS SAID The sins of the fathers are visited on the children.

When the father goes bankrupt the children and grandchildren lose their inheritance and discover poverty.

When the Jews rejected Jesus they refused their inheritance and their children and grandchildren are still rejected two millennia later.

When the Tibetans took over Changthang from the Zhang Zhung, they left the door open for the Chinese.

Think!

You pay your taxes to your Masters and your Masters bomb Mesopotamia and your money helps to buy the bombs!

Think!

Suicide Bombers may deliver your morning post one day.

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ST JUSTIN My Lord Archbishop’s grandfather was a German Jewish immigrant, among those who have suffered the sufferings of his forefathers.

My Lord Archbishop was educated at Eton among those who have inherited the inheritances of their forefathers.

These included a Prime Minister who submitted My Lord Archbishop’s nomination to the Queen.

What was the job description for My Lord Archbishop’s exalted office?

If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

My Lord Archbishop studied Law at Cambridge University.

(This is the law of mankind, says Gnome: Statutory law, Millions of pages Millions of words and punishments imposed by men on men as part of the struggle of man against man for freedom, power and possessions.

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Divine law is different says Gnome: The Lord is One; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and love thy neighbour as thyself."

You don’t need a BA in Law, from Cambridge University says Gnome, to learn twenty-nine words.)

While waiting for Jesus to call, My Lord Archbishop worked in the Oil Industry.

My Lord Archbishop has not risen like a lotus from the mud, says Gnome, to open the door to the Kingdom of Heaven but like a financial executive from the industry which causes oil to rise from the mud.

Nor does he heal the sick by passing on the Holy Spirit with his hands, says Gnome.

“The other day I was praying over something as I was running and I ended up saying to God: ‘Look this is all very well but isn’t it about time 184

you did something – if you’re there.’”

Gnome says, As a member of the House of Lords, My Lord Archbishop sits on the panel of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards.

ST EDMUND (My Lord Archbishop’s predecessor) wore an iron corset, refrained from sleeping lying down, did not drink water.

This did not make him holier than our St Justin (he chose to preach the Crusade rather than to love his enemy); but it did make the monks of Canterbury take him seriously.

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THE LONG AND THE SHORT AND THE TALL Sultan Kosen is the tallest man in the world.

He is eight foot three inches tall.

Chandra Bahadur Dangi is the shortest.

He is one foot nine and a half inches small.

Sultan is 31. He is a farmer in Turkey.

Chandra is 75 from Nepal.

They met in London.

Sultan: When I look into Chandra’s eyes, I see he is a good man.

We have had similar struggles throughout our lives.

Chandra: I was confined to a small part of Nepal.

Now I am known in the world as the smallest man.

I am extremely humbled by the support I receive.

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CENSORSHIP Censorship is no substitute for Education.

This-you-must-not-do creates duality and ultimately opens the door to Force.

This-is-the-reason-why-you-should-not-do. allows unbiased information, maintains harmony and Unity.

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WAT POH Here in Rattanakosin by the Grand Palace is a Reclining Buddha forty-three metres long and fifteen metres high.

It is a symbol of the Waking Sleep of Parinibbana.

The physical body is stilled.

The waves of its magnetic field have sunk back into the Cosmic Ocean, surrendering their arrogated individuation.

Only the right arm supporting the head with its tight curls reveals the beyond-the-world serenity of pure seeing and nothing to be seen.

Today, it is inaccessible by road and you must reach it in boats which are jammed full, like carcases on their way to the slaughterhouse with the devout, the tourists and the curious.

Today, along the intersection of the oldest road in the City of Angels, 188

sailors, soldiers and airmen are marching.

They have been gathered from the rice fields and villages to march in celebration of the King’s Birth Day (which actually occurred eighty-seven years ago).

These youngsters have volunteered (or been conscripted).

Like iron filings they have been aligned or aligned themselves in the secular magnetic field which flows through the Military Dictatorship.

With all the neatness of a fully charged magnetic field, they will dress the same, march the same (with intermittent goose-steps and patriotic songs), and shoot the same, says Gnome.

Whose hand is on the Magnet?

Which magnet is in the Hand?

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MAGNET Magnet draws in free-flow iron filings and turns them into little magnets.

Like the arm reasserting its authority over free-flow fingers and making them play Chopin.

Magnet is made up of little magnets.

Is the arm made up of little fingers?

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OZYMANDIAS REVISITED I met a Traveller from that Antique Land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, where the ancestors of our Human Race opened their eyes to the opportunity to be outposts of Divine Consciousness and act as Guardians of Planet Earth in Eden.

Here, instead, they chose the misery and destructiveness of egoic indivualism and were herded beyond the Gates of Eden.

Here, Obama with his pale brown lips has sent his seraphims and fire-ships to shatter the twice-dead landscape with its own stones, to scatter the already scattered man-shapes with their own bones, to leave no growing thing no pleasant prospect, for future descendants of Adam to name.

At a cost of ÂŁ5.7 million a day.

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ETERNITY There is no time in Paradise!

Do not worry.

Do not hurry.

If the kettle is too small it will not spoil it to fill it twice and boil it.

There is no time in Paradise.

Until they count the footprints of the sun to distinguish what is no longer here from what has not yet begun.

That’s mine.

Because I had it yesterday!

You can have your yesterday but this is mine because I have it now.

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IMAGES OF ETERNITY (Dust for the Human DustBeen) The photographer has discovered How to change the Present into the Past just as fast as he can.

So that his facsimiles can replace The Present of the next man’s Now. Both the photographer and the next man waste the treasure of the absence of time, by trying to rush backwards to the Past in search of the vanished Present where they had been marked as Absent, and then race forward into the thought-created Future for some more.

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IRISH BLATHER Said George Bernard Shaw: “Those who can, do.

Those who can’t, teach.”

Says Gnome: Those who can’t do and can’t teach, WRITE. By George!

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FELLOW TRAVELLERS Dui and Iyuw are north-eastern Thais.

They are waitresses.

While they wait they shade themselves from the hot sun and dream.

Each dreamer bought a lottery ticket.

If they won, they said, they would be free from waiting.

Yewi is from a Karen hill tribe.

Although very small, she brings a large yoke and two heavy baskets of fruit by boat to the island walks the hot sand and tries to sell fruit to the deckchairs that sleep unresponsively under large canopies, advertising Walls ice-cream.

She bought a lottery ticket.

If she won, she told herself, she would make a gift to Morn of two bamboo trunks of glutinous rice, which had been cooked with coconut oil and sugar, by being buried under red-hot embers in a shallow trench.

Both lottery tickets of Dui and Iyew 195

had one number wrong.

Crestfallen, they got up early next morning and knelt in the sand to give alms to three monks to wash away their bad luck.

Yewi’s ticket won her two hundred baht! (three pounds and 84 pence).

She got up early next morning and knelt in the sand and offered her bamboo trunks to Morn.

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ADVENT Glory be to God! The Blessed Justin is amongst us.

His Advent was prophesied in the Good Book.

Having ears they hear not.

Having eyes they see not.

As prophesied in the Good Book, These Blessed Ones speak with Tongues.

They gather together dressed in their glad rags wherever there are rooms wherever there are radio stations wherever there are television screens wherever there are newspaper columns wherever there are large magnificent buildings that have happily survived from the Christian era.

And having thus gathered together, they speaketh with tongues.

They tell others what others should not do.

They tell others what others should do.

They tell others that they themselves are doing their humble best to tell others to put God’s World to rights.

Glory be to God! Gloria in excelsis Deo! As prophesied in the Good Book, Verily I say unto you, They have their reward!

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GNOME’S FIRST LAW OF ECONOMICS There are Poor because there are Rich.

If you don’t have enough you certainly don’t have too much.

If you have too much someone certainly has not enough.

To make the Poor less poor you certainly have to make the Rich less rich.

Therefore the Rich are the cause of the Poor.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum -- Gnome

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WAVES AND SPARROWS Even the smallest wave or ripple is supported by the whole ocean.

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?

And not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father.

If the waves would cease to wave (and leave their waving behind), they would lose nothing and gain Everything.

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TRAINING ROSES Train a rose up a snakes and ladders trellis and you end up with a rose.

Train an african up an islamic and christian trellis and you end up with an african.

Paint the rose blue And you end up with a rose (painted blue).

Paint the african white and you end up with an african (painted white).

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PARTINGS The fork in the road leads to different destinations and different people stand there.

Each looks across the space-time divide searching for the one left behind.

But the one left behind stayed with the fork in the road.

She stands eternally in the Past like a photograph or moves in the space between the start and end of an old video clip; breathing with the airlessness of the eternal life of the Eternally Dead.

Where can you find her?

What she has become, you never knew.

If you would know her now, it is not impossible; but you must never look back, otherwise, like Orpheus, you will lose her again.

Look across to the Retirement Home between the gentle, morning amphetamine (to wake them up) and the not so gentle evening barbiturate 203

(to bed them down).

Here, they sit too, fumbling old photographs of forks in the road, and see them fade in synchrony with their eyesight; until it is time for cutting and pasting into the mausoleum of the Obituary Column.

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BOUNCERS If you lift your head on the way up you may have to bang your chin on the way down.

MARY’S BOY CHILD Hark, now hear the angels sing A new King born today And man will live for evermore Because of Christmas day.

A child is born overprotected (then neglected) to drink cow’s milk and eat calves’ flesh and wait for Christmas for presents.

But certainly not to live for evermore.

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IN PRAISE OF WORDSWORTH’S DAFFODILS I wandered lonely with the crowd to dine by moonlight where the mermaid goes when, looking up, I saw a cloud of jostling dancing mosquitoes: above my head, above my seat spinning down hungrily for something to eat.

Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle brightly overhead, they stretched, an endless vertical line, upwards from just above my head.

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, sniffing my blood in sprightly dance.

The waves beside us danced; but these out-did the sparkling waves in glee.

A poet’s blood could not but freeze in such voracious company.

I gazed—and gazed—but knew full well what use they’d make of my blood’s smell.

And oft when on my bed at night, in vacant or in pensive mood, I feel the itching from their bite, which is the bane of solitude; and then my heart with outrage fills and I wish that they’d been daffodils.

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PARABLE OF THE TALENTS (Matthew 25:14-30) What are these talents?

Nuggets of consciousness.

How to make good use of them?

Bring consciousness to where you are.

Allow yourself to be a vehicle for Divine Consciousness.

Allow the Divine to see through you.

Give it your eyes to see its creation at work and play.

Thus do you acknowledge and accept and become its eyes and, if needed, give it your mouth and your hands to illumine the darkness of those who live in unconsciousness.

He who buried his nugget in the earth embalmed his consciousness within this mortal frame and called it “my body”; called the shard of consciousness “my mind”.

When the time of reckoning came, this man’s talent went back to its source and “own body” returned to the dust.

Those who invested the gift of Divine Consciousness in its own creation, 207

became one with Divine Consciousness.

They did not look back at their bodies returning to feed the Terrestrial Compost Heap in voluntary dissolution.

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

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OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS The pure cry of the uncomplicated child before it has been trained in the verbalisations of this world is the Voice of the Eternal.

Learn from it: that the way back to God lies backwards beyond naming and identifying blaming and mentifying; that the Tree of Knowledge shares the One Root with the Tree of Life but bears a very different fruit.

Taste the fruit of the Tree of Life: For except ye be converted and become as little children you can by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

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ISIS ISIS is evil.

It is the creation of the Devil.

But it exists by right, just so long as USIS still exists, which is the Great Satan.

Punishment is evil but necessary while crime still exists.

Bombs in the backpacks of those who give their lives and take the lives of others in suicides (whom Allah may forgive) are just as deadly as bombs in drones and missiles which have no lives to give (and no-one or nothing to forgive and be forgiven by).

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THE LIGHT Consciousness is Life is the Light that lighteth Everyman that cometh into the world.

Everyman is not that Light but can become a witness of that light; that, seeing it, others may believe may become children of that Light may dispel the Darkness of the Children of this World.

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HUMANOIDS Humans are so proud (and so abject) so talented (and so inept); so human.

In their evolution towards the Light they have ceilinged out at a level which condemns them to the visible Prison of the Human Body and the invisible Prison of the Human Mind.

Trapped in the illusion of Freedom to.

Unaware of the escape route Of Freedom from.

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PHIL (ETHOS) The worse things are for you, the more your upward cresting wave subsides (its energy expiring like the breath); the closer you are to total subsidence, a flat, flat sea of total all-embracing bliss (and not a bit like death!)

KWAN By night sleeps rough in the neglected Chinese graveyard with overgrown monuments off Silom Road.

(Of course I asked permission).

By day has a trolley.

On it are small mango trees Two or three years old.

He ties very good mangoes on these and sells them.

(Until someone comes to buy the trees).

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DENG By night sleeps rough in a neglected doorway off Silom Road (no need to ask permission).

At ten a.m. he faces the doorway pulls down his trousers and squats to fertilise the flower bed at the base of the tree.

Carefully, he washes his anus, with clear, clean water from a bottle.

THE SAGE Same tree roots (aging imperceptibly) Same plastic cup (for a trickle of coins) Same Silom pollution (renewing itself every day).

Same sudden smile of recognition.

I am now eighty-nine.

I cope.

With difficulty.

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ART OF TOURISM What comes first, the Chicken or the Egg? Surely, the Farmer? says Gnome.

Tired of the stresses pollution concrete jungles pesticides traffic rat-race tax burdens politicians pharmaceutical companies statistics propaganda indoctrination lies pornography advertising deforestation economic slavery, They seek out tropical islands and escape.

No electricity no internet no air conditioning no noise no raves.

Just sea and sand and palm trees and tropical fruits and peace and silence.

The chicken came with the egg in its stomach, says Gnome.

Gradually (average time nowadays about fifteen years) the egg unburdens itself and hatches: stresses pollution concrete jungles pesticides traffic rat-race tax burdens politicians pharmaceutical companies statistics propaganda indoctrination lies pornography advertising deforestation economic slavery.

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GOD’S MIRROR Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of us all?

When the face looks back, warts and all, cognition takes place.

This is me.

Look into Nature, red in tooth and claw and all.

When it feels your eyes, cognition takes place.

Epiphany.

POLITICIANS PAST AND PRESENT THEN Dear God, Please help me To help them To help us!

NOW Dear God, Please help me To help them To help ME!

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DIFFERENT SAMENESS If you can’t do whatever you want with something, it can’t be yours.

If it isn’t yours, treat it with respect or leave it alone.

HYDRA Every “one” that comes into existence comes as a result of two or more pushing up from below and now concealed.

Cut it off and its ancestors are revealed.

Hungry dogs go out and hunt; domestic dogs sleep by the fire.

Each pays its price for allowing itself to be born.

Did I have any choice?

Your choice was the price!

- says Gnome.

TV What’s the best TV channel?

Opportunity For Fun. Which one’s that?

OFF for short.

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DEMOCRACY Fish can’t climb trees as well as other animals.

Flood the forest!

CENSUS The world would be a better place without you.

How so?

More space.

MUTUAL RECOGNITION The very moment you discover God, God discovers you!

How come God Didn’t notice you before? - Gnome.

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REAL SUN The fiery sun burns down and leaves its reflection in every bucket of water and bathing pool.

The real sun has its place leaves no reflection in every heart of every living thing.

HEAD AND HEART If the Head leads, it breeds a web in which the ego lurks to catch its prey.

And the Heart pales away.

If the Heart rules, the sticky web transforms into a safety net through which the Ego shrivels into the Void.

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TAPEWORM God sees with the same eye you see with, says Meister Eckhart.

Do you live your life, Or does Life live through you?

Do you breathe to stay alive, Or does the Life-breath breathe you?

Life lives and blossoms through Nature and thus Nature can heal itself.

Man tries to live his life and opens wounds that even Nature struggles to heal.

Who lives man’s life and is it any more than what we have come to call the Ego? Is Ego any more than a bundle of thoughts and feelings spawned by an insatiable quest for more?

A pinpoint of Desire, smaller than a globule of blood, that has flooded into an ocean of craving and passion, which parches the tongues of those who drink from it.

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When you say “my life”, who is I and what is this life?

Is “I and my life” any more than an intruder that slipped in between the sheets?

A tapeworm fitting snugly between your food and you?

When I ask you how you are, your tapeworm answers, “Hungry!”

He has been answering on your behalf for so long that you take him for your true abiding Self.

See him for the interloper that he is.

Let him slide out as long ago his proglottid of eggs slid in, unnoticed and unremarked.

The ego slides in between your divine eye and what you see like the rose-tinted lens between your fleshy eye and your world.

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HELLO GOODBYE And so goodbye to all that; the end of the beginning, the place to leave not to arrive, for losing, not for winning.

When you become part of the dance you feel the minutest tremor and understand the minutest nothing.

MASTER MAGICIAN The Ego is so adept at adding things on to increase its dysfunctional self.

It is hard to be sure that a Man is truly acting without ego or whether he is acting the role of a man who is truly acting without ego.

Certainly, the religions of the World all came into existence to purify the world of ego yet have ended up as pyramids with super-egos sitting on top using the original teachings to consolidate their precarious positions and feed/gorge themselves and their allies.

Maybe, in the end, to gain the final purification from ego requires the giving up all distinctions of separateness, including the words which label their separateness.

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The Tao is forever undefined.

Small though it is in the unformed state, it cannot be grasped.

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.

But one must know when to stop.

Knowing when to stop averts trouble.

Tao, in the world, is like a river flowing home to the sea.

The Tao Khaos Voidness The Abyss.

That which gapes wide open, is vast and empty.....even of words.

Silence into which words‌‌the finest words disappear into Healing.

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WHO’S SORRY, NOW? When the prisoners escaped from the prison, the rats rushed out through the hole they had made.

In 1927 it was Bix and the King who did the digging.

In the 1960s it was Huxley and Beatles.

In both cases, the rats made for the state rooms and took over the Stock Exchange.

HIS GENESIS He is eight years old, sitting up the garden.

He has surrounded himself with a barricade of pieces of wood.

What are you doing?

I’m trying to figure out How to escape.

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PARIS MATCH Is a trade in which smaller hungry egos meet and feed upon bigger hungrier self-made egos.

Journalists can then decorate Me-and-my-story conversations with bigger them-and-their stories and bask in the reflected glory of artificial lamplight without the risk of getting sunburned.

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STRAYING INTO THE GREEN ROOM As soon as you play Hamlet, the Ghost appears.

Look around. You are being upstaged.

You must have come through the wrong door while your mind was otherwise engaged.

IS THAT SO? All you have to do is accept that what happened happened and move on from there; not whether you were wrong nor whether you were right.

Whenever the Truth arises in whatever place and guise, a thousand mouths will appear before long to claim it for their own, and argue and fight.

TAXMAN’S SWEETENER It is easier to take sugarcane from the Elephant’s mouth than to get a refund from the Taxman.

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PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH THE EGO Awareness is the Function: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.

Unconsciousness is the role: Look at me playing Hamlet at the Old Vic. Look at me playing cook in the old Kitchen.

While awareness is continuous, the Ego doesn’t get a chance to play its roles.

Consciousness alternates with unconsciousness.

The Ego and its roles come and go continuously.

Even when someone is agreeable to you, it can be the Ego playing its role.

Pleasant to be on the receiving end of agreeability so one accepts it willingly.

The agreeable Ego gets an agreeable meal.

Says Gnome: Try being disagreeable in return and see what response that elicits!

STEADY ON Don’t let thoughts feed feelings.

If you think fearful thoughts your body gets ready to flee or fight.

Says Gnome: It could be worse.

You could be hanging From the Eiffel Tower By your teeth!

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PARADISE LOST The Right Reverend Dean peddled his wares under the Tree of Knowledge in St Peter’s Graveyard adjacent to his College, setting his snares; showing us to seek flowers in Herrick, rather than in the tangled daisies and violets that pushed up among the stone records of lives long spent (or misspent); justifying the Ways of God to Man in Milton’s secondhand lines rather than in the firsthand words of Christ.

For this he received a handsome stipend, a seventeenth century set of rooms with free board and lodging and a male servant on Staircase Three in the shade of a firsthand ancient magnolia tree.

And a yearly influx of handpicked students.

Forgive him Lord, he knew not what he did.

Could the Right Rev have been on the wrong road after all?

After all? BEFORE all, says Gnome.

Forgive him NOT that he knew not what he hid!

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BACK Never go back!

If Back catches up with you, then it’s no longer Back, it’s Now and you’re both in it together and ready to go!

Let’s go before it’s gone again! says Gnome.

DIFFICULT It’s always difficult when you disagree with someone’s opinion of himself.

Unidentified ships Passing In the night.

Full steam ahead!

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THE BIRD OF CHANCE Ever since Ancient Times, when Sibyls plied their trade in fortune telling by setting up shop in caves and fissures in the earthly form of Mother Gaia, accurate prediction of the Future has been at a premium.

Not nowadays do they do as The Pythia did at Delphi, sitting on a tripod over a fissure in the earth breathing in the noxious and narcotic fumes that emanated from it.

Now they are more likely to be seen hanging over three computers at once at the Stock Exchange, where breathing in noxious and narcotic fumes has been banned; and, despite the overwhelming victory of political correctness, they are unlikely to answer to the name of Sybil.

Or calculating the odds of racehorses.

Or the likely results of football matches.

Ever since the final flowering of Science and its conquest of religion and astrology, in the form of Little Boy on August 6, 1945, * it has been realised that prediction depends on the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the data and the logical function of the organising mind.

But neither accuracy of data nor logic of mind 230

can form a basis for predicting a Chance Event.

Otherwise every one of the three coins in the Fountain would be blessed.

Which number will win the Lottery?

Even the purely mathematical odds against any number are purely decorative.

The whole structure of cause and effect which unfolds as the net of our physical universe is unable to catch the Bird of Chance in its micromesh.

To predict a chance event, all data and data-based logic is discarded and upstreamed to the level of being which still nevertheless operates within the realm of adequate causes.

Every chance event has a cause even if the human mind cannot foretell it, just as every material thing has an odour even if the human nose cannot smell it.

If you cannot predict the cause of an event, create the cause yourself.

Withdraw from the thinking mind to the level of creation.

This is upstream of even chance events but still within the realm of cause and effect.

If you want to predict the unpredictable you have to make it happen! *Says Gnome: “Little Boy� was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted

by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. 231

TRUTH If something is True, it undoubtedly is True until investigation shows that somewhere else it undoubtedly is not True.

Everything that is true is true on the level(s) that it is True on.

But never elsewhere!

For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Jesus brought them The Kingdom of Heaven and Eternal Life.

In exchange, they gave him a long and painful Death to accompany his dying breath.

The Truth is True (but only wherever it is true) - Gnome

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HUNDERTWASSER ONE He says: The straight line leads to the downfall of humanity.

Blake says: Progress makes straight roads but crooked roads, before they are made straight

by Progress, are works of genius.

Gnome says: It was humanity that invented the straight line!

HUNDERTWASSER TWO When we dream alone it is only a dream.

When we dream together, it is the beginning of a new reality. (or nightmare, says Gnome).

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KNOTS IN A PIECE OF STRING If you see an object in the middle of infinite space, how could you tell if it is big or small?

There is nothing either big or small but thinking makes it so.

DARKNESS (OR LIGHT) Does Darkness alternate with Light Or does Light alternate with darkness?

Gnome: You alternate with yourself.

AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER? Man does not forgive his Brother.

God does not forgive either.

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VIRAL GOSSIP CHINESE WHISPERS Meister Eckhart says: The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me.

My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.

Eckhart Tolle says: God is undifferentiated Consciousness.

Gnome says: When thinking stops while you are looking at the world, God is looking out through your eyes at your world.

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FOOD CHAIN Thoughts feed feelings.

Feelings activate the body.

It cannot tell the difference between a real snake and an imagined snake.

Fear stifles its breathing accelerates its heartbeat and makes it sweat.

The pretty girl in your imagination or pornographic video produce the same reaction as the pretty girl in real-time sunshine stretched out on the park bench.

The body prepares itself for action for the real snake and the imagined snake, for the video girl and the park bench girl.

It cannot tell the difference between the imagined and the real.

All demagogues (and advertisers) know this.

They pump you up with your imaginations through your thoughts via your ears and eyes.

These take over your body and send it out to fulfill its artificially created desires to riot or lynch or rape (or empty your credit in the shopping malls).

Books, music, viral gossip, propaganda, TV, which do you use to feed your thinking mind?

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Gnome says: When you stop thinking all your problems disappear.

Who can aspire to this ultimate wisdom?

THREE TIMES Adjusting the Present with Past and Future is like adjusting the Feet to fit the Shoes.

Any way you look at this you lose.

Don’t stop talking about tomorrow.

It wasn’t like this before the war.

I’ll get it right next time.

You owe me one.

It distorts both feet and shoes.

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GNOME’S CAREER OPPORTUNITIES TODAY 1. CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIEST (or female substitute) A man (or female substitute) who is unable or unwilling to support himself in a normal job.

Member of a very limited Company which is funded by the taxpayer and has assets of 5.6 billion pounds invested world-wide in banks, GlaxoSmithKline and Wonga and attempts to take money from anyone who comes through the door of his workplace (a magnificent Grade One building which originally belonged to its parent company, Papacy Inc).

COE Inc was founded in 1534 by a Welshman, Henry Tudor, so that he could divorce his Spanish wife and marry the Marquess of Pembroke who had declined to be his mistress.

When Anne bore him a daughter (instead of the son he had ordered), rather than divorcing her, he had one of his agents cut off her head.

Her head was buried with her body in an elm arrow chest in front of the High Altar, within the Chapel of St Peter in Chains.

He gave her family home to her successor.

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COE Inc has its equivalents (and their priests) all over the world most notably its former parent company, Papacy Inc, in Italy.

Before the rise of Mussolini, Papacy Inc was heavily into acquiring large areas of real estate in competition with the Emperors of Austria and the Kings of France and Prussia.

Now it occupies reduced premises, above the tomb of St Peter, where it houses the most valuable art collection in the world.

It still has major subsidiaries all over the world particularly in South America, Africa and the poorer nations where its tax-farmers (priests) collect as much money as they can in exchange for workplaces (churches) for the priests (tax-farmers) and indoctrination centres (schools) for small sinners (children).

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2. PHARMACEUTICIST A man (or massive multinational company) who trades in alternatives to the natural healers provided freely by God. Having learned from books or Herbalists or country people of plants and roots that have healing or prophylactic properties, they attempt to reproduce these as powders and concoctions in subsidised laboratories.

They then try to have the most effective natural plants and roots banned on the grounds that self-medication is bad for you, like masturbation, has undesirable side-effects - and is free.

They then market their powders and concoctions, Which have undesirable side-effects - and are expensive to suitably miseducated sufferers and, through their agents (“doctors”), on the NHS (the Nation’s Hell for Sufferers).

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3. POLITICIAN A man who fancies a 300 year old Grade One listed residence with 100 rooms in the City of Westminster, within easy reach of Buckingham Palace, which he cannot himself afford.

To this end he attempts to find out what his fellow citizens want and promises to give it (anything) to them if they will pay for a five year lease, in his name, on the des.res.

Once safely inside the front door, he explains that he cannot honour his promises right away because the previous tenant (unless he himself happens to be the previous tenant) has left the place in such a mess.

His first priority must be to clear it up.

However, by way of compensation, he tries to give them as many of the things that they don’t want as they can afford to pay for.

Here the matter rests (in comfort) until his fellow citizens can find a way of winkling him out of his des.res.

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4. LUNATICK (formerly Love’s Labours Lost) Today’s cutting edge of career opportunities - Gnome.

Historically, lunaticks were considered socially dysfunctional and incarcerated in protective institutions: “A Church of Our Lady is named Bedlam.

In that place be found many men that be fallen out of their wit.

And some be abiding therein for ever, for they be fallen so much out of themselves that it is incurable unto man”.

Righteous citizens would visit them out of compassion or to laugh at the Devil’s Jig (and sufferings) just as they would visit Tyburn Tree, where the hangings were public spectacles, attracting crowds of thousands, to watch highwaymen "dancing the Tyburn jig"; or patronise Fayres to see Bearded Ladies, fake unicorns, and Bears Fighting with English Mastiff dogs.

Times have changed in accordance with Gnome’s First Law of Human Rights: When there are enough of you, the Law will tilt in your favour.

Examples of this are: The French Revolution.

No need to bow down to the Bourbon aristocracy, 242

when you can cut off their heads instead.

Feminism.

No need to chain yourself to the railings at 10 Downing Street, when you can push out Edward Heath, fight each other in the Boxing Ring, play football at the Emirates and take the place of a man in the Registry Office.

Homosexuality: No need to submit to having your bottoms examined when the police catch you sharing a room in a railway hotel, when you can (legally) over-rule a Christian baker’s conscience and make him decorate your wedding cake with a pro-gay marriage campaign slogan.

When there are enough of you, the Law will tilt in your favour.

Which is itself a fine tuning of the up-to-date version of Darwin’s crude Survival of the Fittest, which gels with modern western civilisation and is best expressed as: Survival of the Mostest.

Now, since the ratio of lunaticks to sane has risen so dramatically, lunaticks are able to occupy many of the power-house positions in our society: 243

In order of importance and if not already monopolised

by Feminists and Homosexuals: Newspaper Proprietors, Premier League Footballers, Bankers (Bonkers), Scottish MPs, Presidents of the United States, the cloth cap colonels of UNITE. Lunaticks are in demand in the NHS to train on-site psychiatrists in Hospital Waiting Rooms.

Lunaticks should not procrastinate advises Gnome.

If the ratio of lunatics to sane comes to exceed 60%, the top jobs will become scarcer and Lunaticks may have to accept jobs that, normally, a Lunatick wouldn’t touch with a stanley knife.

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SOFT FASCISM is what we have inherited, are fed and bound by, have created, in which we breathe and have our being.

It encourages us to eat as much junk food as possible and be as fat and unhealthy as possible.

It is where, when the prisons are full, no more criminals are sent to prison (except for tax evasion).

It is officially known as our Democracy.

It forbids us: To smoke (in order to help the pharmaceutical companies in their Crusades against self-medication so that they can make a profit out of the synthetic substitutes they concoct in their laboratories); To beat our children, unless we are recent immigrants with approved cultural differences; To ride a motorcycle without a crash helmet, unless we are immigrants of long standing (but not indigenous) who have approved cultural differences regarding the sacredness of our hair; To decline politely when we are summoned to put on uniforms and go and kill 245

people we have no issue with and have never met; To decline to give our money (called pay taxes from the verb “to take�) when it is used in ways that are against our consciences: such as the manufacture and sale of arms; the protection of laboratories which exist for the torture and abuse of animals; the maintenance of educational indoctrination centres to enforce and imbed political correctness in the minds of our children, unless we are immigrants with approved cultural differences; the protection of certain groups of activists, called trade unions, who have approved cultural rights to bully and blackmail us, including the right to strike and hold us to ransom until they get the extra money from our taxes they are requesting; To decline to register the birth of our children and thereby enter into a contract with the government which signs away our parental rights.

This makes our children wards of the state, so that they can be taken away from us at any time when the authorities disagree with the way we are bringing our children up, and the medical and spiritual guidance we are giving them.

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It also reduces, on an approved annual basis, the size and efficiency of the armed forces which are supposed to be protecting us and uses the money thus saved as our rulers please; such as extra salaries and expenses which they can vote for themselves.

It also allows and encourages women to play football and behave like men in any way they please, without being under any obligation to fulfil their natural, biological functions and roles.

How does this differ from Hard Fascism?

Under Hard Fascism, says Gnome, you can smoke yourself to death, the streets are cleaner, the trains run on time, strikes are illegal, there is always a powerful army to protect the country, only the team captain is allowed to speak to the referee.

There are always plenty of prisons and, if they should ever be full, there are other ways of eliminating criminals.

You can beat your children or the government will do it for you.

Aren’t we blessed and happy and free in our democracy?

Yes? 247

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE The History of man since Genesis 3: 1-10 ANCIENT UNSOLVED PROBLEM MANFRED: But grief should be the instructor of the wise; Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

FINAL PRACTICAL SOLUTION GNOME: To cleanse yourself of Theft, you must, at the very least, give up the stolen item, in its entirety.

How many of the “Wise, instructed by Grief”, have ever achieved this “in its entirety”?

Give up all your knowledge “in its entirety” including this knowledge “in its entirety”, while still alive.

Since sorrow is knowledge, this is the end of sorrow.

The Tree of Life is then seen, 248

invitingly close, just inside the gates of the New Garden of Eden.

No Cherubims or “flaming sword which turned every way�.

Just an ancient discarded snakeskin hanging on the gate as you stroll in.

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EGO is the child of the marriage of self and body; is the awareness of separateness where none exists; is the delighting in separateness, its fearfulness and competitiveness.

It is as though each of your fingers claimed autonomy as of right; an individual name, a social security number, an index-linked pension, an unalienable option to a thumb transplant; and refused to play the piano in unison and harmony unless they were granted an equal entitlement of notes and an equal share of calorific nourishment.

And the shop stewards, the hands, encouraged them in this madness and deducted a percentage of their calories at source.

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FINISH YOUR SUPPER Doing something is the State of Being in motion, Should be, echoes Gnome allowing an eternal moment to expand into a continuum of prayer, a chorus of obscenities, choruses Gnome a symphony of joy, an orchestra that has crucified its conductor and can no longer progress beyond a discordant tuning of instruments, says Gnome.

Life membership of a team that always wins in a game without opponents, if there are no opponents, they can cheat and fight among themselves and appoint a referee to martyrise, says Gnome.

Doing something loses its sacredness and spiritual satisfaction, the moment when you think to do it in order to get it done, to travel to arrive, to go to work to come back home, 251

to begin to finish, to work to retire.

Your walk through the ἀλήθεια of the Elysian fields then becomes a competitive time trial to see who gets to the exit First, and tumbles First, into the teeming Sangsāra of Lethe and Forgetfulness.

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GAY RIGHTS FOR RABBITS Nature, being homogenous, balances and rectifies unbalance. – Gnome.

For years we have been plagued with rabbits who come to eat our vegetables and even the flowers in the pots on the bricks.

This year, without warning, they are gone.

No sign of myxomatosis, Man’s attempt to weight the balance of nature to his advantage by using it as a population control agent.

Instead, a sudden influx of stoats in cream and grey.

Just now there are four kits playing on the bricks and chasing each other in and out of the bird bath.

Rabbits are affectionate and prolific breeders.

In this they are like humans, not in affection, but as breeders.

Recently, man’s population control agents, large scale internecine global wars and attendant epidemics and famines, have been less effective than of yore, and most of our would-be predators are safely locked up in our zoos.

But nature has been trying a new tack with man; Gay Rights, whereby the breeding stock declines 253

and ultimately the birthrate adjusts downwards.

Since part of gays’ rights includes adoption and the opportunity to induct a whole new generation into the twilight mysteries of non-procreation, the population ratios could, Nature intends, adjust along exponential lines.

If successful, Nature might try the same solution on the excessive lapin enthusiasm for multiplication, thereby freeing up its mustelid warriors for more demanding duties elsewhere.

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THE BEATLES’ AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY John: I was a genius.

George: I was a genius.

Ringo: I was (also) a genius.

Paul: I am a genius.

Chorus: We made the world a better place.

Gnome would like to thank the Boys for their pains taking co operation in pro duc ing this their first and only author ised biography and for the trouble they took in checking it through for accuracy.

Amen!

I-I-ME-MINE I-ME-MINE I-ME-MINE I-ME-MINE

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SEPARATISM This flowering of the Human Spirit is a reaching out into the empty wasteland of the egoic mind in search of the lost gardens of Eden.

This fruitless endeavour to fill its wasteland with memories of its past (My was) and thoughts of its future (My will be) is stitched together with the voice in the head (about me) and my videos (about me); all projected upon the long forgotten and unseen background of Here and Now. This wasteland is as insatiably hungry and eternally empty as the ever-present Eden is eternally full and overflowing with more than enough for a million universes.

Switch off the Projector labelled “Thought�

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and let the gentle light shine through; and feel the gentle Peace arising, eternally forgiving, and unsought.

TETHER I am at the end of my tether!

Yes. What will happen?

The tether will break.

Oh, thank God! And what about Me? You are the tether.

POST ELECTION BLUESPRINTS The windows are broken, sir.

PM Yes, of course, but that was done yesterday!

But, sir, there is glass all over the carpet, today.

PM Yes, of course, but that will be fixed tomorrow!

And it’s raining!

PM Yes, of course, but the Chancellor is issuing discount vouchers for selected umbrellas.

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